In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and Dean open with a riff on the strange new logic of secrecy in the internet age, where the best way to protect an idea may be to share it widely. Dan's story about a platform speaker who borrowed his Free Days, Focus Days, and Buffer Days framework without credit turns into a sharp point: the internet has made intellectual property both more fragile and more defensible at the same time. Dean connects this to his Nine Word Email and the way naming an idea is often the most durable form of ownership.

Dean then pulls out journal number one, dated April 1996, thirty years ago this week, and the conversation becomes a time capsule. He walks through his early real estate licensing business, Toronto and Beyond, and how the same playbook he used then to generate leads in Halton Hills is still running today in Winter Haven, Florida. Dan reflects on his own 25-year journaling project that began after a difficult 1978, and shares that his massage therapist of 34 years recently confirmed his physical condition hasn't changed since they started.

The episode closes on a larger canvas: real estate as a measure of civilization, the Louisiana Purchase at 50 cents an acre, Canadian politics, AI-driven job creation, and the quiet argument that the best protection against an uncertain future is a system that has already worked across three decades.

Dean Jackson:
Welcome to Cloudlandia. Mr. Sullivan.
Dan Sullivan:
Yes. And AI will know about this call. Probably never.
Dean Jackson:
Probably
Dan Sullivan:
Never. It'll be scandalized. It'll be confused.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. This is the closest to analog. It's like, how did those spies meet in the trip down to our bathing suits neck deep in the ocean, having no wires, nobody listening. That's what
Dan Sullivan:
We're
Dean Jackson:
Having right now.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. There's a great story about Reagan, President Reagan. And when he got in, there was a particular situation where it was very clear that the Russians, the Soviets at that time,
Dean Jackson:
Were
Dan Sullivan:
Stealing American secrets.
Dean Jackson:
Very sneaky.
Dan Sullivan:
And Reagan had an interesting response to it. He said, "You know what we ought to do? Every so often, maybe every six months, we should collect every single secret in the United States and put them in 747s, cargo planes, 747 cargo planes, and fly them all to Moscow and dump them on the runway and fly off. And every six months we just dump all our secrets on the runway." He said, "The sheer confusion that that will cause will destroy the Soviet Union in a matter of a couple of years."
Dean Jackson:
That's funny, isn't it? Yeah. There's something interesting. Yeah. It's so funny, right? The things that we want to keep secret seem to be more desirable than the things we're willing to share. It's so-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Just share everything. The way to destroy them. Actually, Seth Godin had a great line. He said, "Before the internet, the way to keep a secret secret was to keep it secret."
Dean Jackson:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
He says, "The way after the internet to protect your secrets is tell everybody your secret."
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Oh, Dan, I can't tell you. So how many times the ... I created this thing called the nine word email. And the best thing I did was name it. And it's become known everywhere. And everybody who tries to present that idea as an original or as a, "Hey, here's this thing I've been working on. " Every single time in the comments is, "Oh, that's Dean Jackson's idea or that. " But predominantly, most people start out with the, "Here's an idea I learned from Dean Jackson." And then they talk about the nine word email.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, I had a similar experience with the entrepreneurial time system, which is free focus and buffer days. So
There was a very famous platform speaker. This is probably 1995 and he's in, I think it's somewhere in Texas, I think San Antonio, and he's giving a talk and it's to financial advisors. It's to mainly real estate and financial advisors, couple thousand in the audience. And he said, "I want to tell you about my time system. I've created this new time system." And he says, "It's called Free Days Focus Days and Buffer Days." And the words were not even out of his mouth and about 10 hands come up and people stand up and said, "That's not your time system, that's Dan Sullivan's time system." So I have spies in the audience and we immediately get phone calls afterwards telling us about this event, this situation. And about a week later, I get a phone call from the speaker himself and he said, "Boy, you have a bunch of pit bulls for clients." And he tells me the whole story and I don't let on that I know the story.
I don't let on at all. I just say, "Oh, that's interesting." And I said, so he tells me about it and he says, "Who knows where ideas come from?" And I says, "Well, I'll give you a phone number. It's my IP lawyer and he'll tell you where this idea comes from." Yeah,
Dean Jackson:
I'll tell you
Dan Sullivan:
Where
Dean Jackson:
This one comes from.
Dan Sullivan:
Exactly. I don't know about other God origin ideas, but I can tell you where this one comes from. And he says, "Well, I'm really sorry about this. " He said, "I don't want to be in your bad books." And I said, "Well, you're not ... " I said, "Well, you're not in my bad books, but let me ask you a question. How did the rest of the speech go?
Dean Jackson:
" Exactly. Yeah, that's funny. Threw him off his game for sure.
Dan Sullivan:
And I said, "If there's 2000 people in the audience, those 2000 people are going to tell, each of them is going to tell 50 other people about what just happened." So I said, "I don't know what your marketing strategy was here, but I said, I don't think it's going in the direction you wanted it to.
Dean Jackson:
" Right. That's so funny. And now it's really ... It is interesting that everything now is kind of, we have this public record of the internet, like when somebody talks about something on a podcast that's timestamped or posts about it or publishes something and now on the blockchain even, like what Carrie Oberbrunner is doing with the instant-
Dan Sullivan:
Instant
Dean Jackson:
IP of just putting something up and at least, I don't know whether it's been tested or held up. But you look at it either way, it's certainly, it's a level of protection that has not been available. Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
And the whole thing is that all IP law is based on timing who did it first. It's not who created it first, it's who applied for intellectual property first.
Dean Jackson:
Yes, exactly. Stick their claim to it. And that's where, kudos to Carrie for thinking that through and using a new technology of the blockchain to be able to instantly ... I mean, it's the digital equivalent or a much improved thing of mailing something to yourself with a registered letter and not opening it. That's a really ...
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, that actually works. Yeah. That actually works. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, I said that here's the thing, you got an idea, make a copy of it, put it in a letter, go to the post office and register the letter and have it sent to yourself and don't open it, don't open it. I mean, you can write on the outside of the letter what it relates to so you know which one. And if you present this in a legal situation, it will be accepted as timestamp proof.
Dean Jackson:
Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's pretty great. Now that's where we're headed there. I had something very interesting.
Dan Sullivan:
Can I mention something? Sure. If you're willing and we'll receive a communication, Kathy Davis, of Strategic Coach, would like to talk to you about actually being the chairperson for a panel at CoachCon.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, okay, perfect. I love it. That would be
Dan Sullivan:
Fantastic. Yeah. So I'll tell her this, I'm looking at my watch right here, it's 11:09 and on Easter Sunday that I actually passed on the word that you will receive a communication tomorrow
Dean Jackson:
From
Dan Sullivan:
Kathy Davis. And I just want to establish this proof that I actually passed out the message.
Dean Jackson:
Okay. Yeah, there we go. Timestamped. 11:10.
Dan Sullivan:
Timestamped.
Dean Jackson:
11:10 AM, Eastern Daylight Time. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. So if you get a communication from her, when you get beyond noon tomorrow, you will know what it's all about.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's coming up less than 60 days, right? Till Coach Kong. That's exciting. So I was looking, Dan, today, April 5th, yesterday was the date of the first entry in journal number one of what I would call the recorded era of perpetual journaling for Dean. I'm holding journal number one, 1996, and something very interesting came ... You remember I've told you the intro that I had to Strategic Coach was through my friend Alan Kerns. And so Alan, this was when I went to meet Alan at the Strategic Coach offices if we were going out- 30 years ago. For dinner 30 years ago. April-
Dan Sullivan:
Today.
Dean Jackson:
... 1996. Not today. This week. Not
Dan Sullivan:
Today, but April. This week too.
Dean Jackson:
Yep. Yeah. Isn't that wild? I mean, 30 years, it's a really interesting-
Dan Sullivan:
We had fewer square feet. We had fewer square
Dean Jackson:
Feet. Well, we had the one workshop room, which I recall was ... I mean, it was in the same place, but I don't believe-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, when we moved in, everything- Cafe
Dean Jackson:
Was there.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Everything was in 2000 square feet because that was the deal of the landlords. They broke everything into 2000 square foot units and now we have 44,000 square feet.
Dean Jackson:
Isn't that wild? Yeah,
Dan Sullivan:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
You've grown 20 times plus in-
Dan Sullivan:
22 times. 22 times.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
In
Dean Jackson:
Both revenue and square footage. Yeah. And people
Dan Sullivan:
Count.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, quite a bit more revenue than square feet.
Dean Jackson:
Right. Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
That's awesome. That's really exciting. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
But
Dean Jackson:
I thought that was really ... I think I'm amazed actually at how ... I look back at some of these journals here and I'm going to go through them, especially these first few just to kind of calibrate. It's very
Dan Sullivan:
Interesting. Yeah. These are time capsules.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah. Which is really ... It's pretty amazing, right? I'm looking in the pages like I've had ... I was recounting this at the time, I was working ... I was a real estate agent still in Georgetown. I had created a company called Toronto and Beyond, and I was licensing the system that I had developed for Halton Hills. I had created a guide to Halton Hills real estate prices because if you remember, like 1996, there was no internet, the public had no access to real estate information. If you wanted to get real estate information, you really had to go to a real estate office or you pick up one of the real estate publications to see the houses that were on the market. And I realized that there was a demand that people had curiosity about Halton Hills, I mean, because it was kind of an area where people would work in the city and live out in the suburbs and have ... I think if you hadn't been to Georgetown, you'd have no idea what was there or what you're
Dan Sullivan:
Getting into. Well, it's like in London, London and England, there are what are called the home counties. And so home counties are the six counties that surround London, but they're not part of London. And Georgetown and Halton Hills are what you would call home counties of Toronto.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. They're in the GTA, but they're
Dan Sullivan:
Not
Dean Jackson:
In the central part. And so what I had done was I created a guide to Halton Hills real estate prices and I took pictures of all of the different styles of homes. I took a snapshot to kind of represent what you could get in Halton Hills.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, hadn't you actually done it ... You came up with a brilliant idea of having a single home buyer over the course of their life of what would they buy in their 20s? What would they buy in their 30s and with changes in life? Didn't you also differentiate it that
Dean Jackson:
Way? Yeah. So I had done that. You're exactly right. And I had done that for my market in Halton Hills. And then 1996 was when I created Toronto and Beyond, and I started licensing that system that I had created for me to 40 different realtors. I created a guide called Toronto and Beyond, 40 Great Places to Live within an hour of the city. And we took the entire semicircle from Hamilton to pickering to Berry kind of thing. And I had one realtor in each of those areas. And it's so funny because-
Dan Sullivan:
Dean, you know what this is like? It's your acknowledgement of ... It's like a land acknowledgement.
Dean Jackson:
Right. Exactly. The Louisiana purchasing.
Dan Sullivan:
You can't get a public speech now without somebody saying, "I just want to acknowledge that this is the land that we are standing on right now." Oh, that's so funny. You just took it in the other direction.
Dean Jackson:
Yes, exactly. I claimed it. I claimed it. Foot boundaries and
Dan Sullivan:
Gave exclusive license. Yeah, it's really great. Yeah. It's really great. Yeah. We have a street just not too far from it. It's a couple miles from it and it's Coxwell. You know where Coxwell is? Coxwell comes in. But they've given it this very, very weird sort of eight syllable
Dean Jackson:
An Aboriginal
Dan Sullivan:
Name that nobody can name. And one of the reasons why that tribe is passed out of existence because they couldn't even say their own name because it was eight syllables and- Oh
Dean Jackson:
My
Dan Sullivan:
Goodness. It's everything like that. And it's just reached stage ... It's almost like Monty Python-ish now we've gotten into a Monty Python age with certain ideas. They're so absurd that they're a comedy now.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. That's so funny.
Dan Sullivan:
But I thought it was brilliant because you're sort of like Sasha Kersmer. Sasha Kersmer is the number one state surveyor in the Metro Toronto, the GTA. And according to him, there are 3.5 million land boundaries in GTA. So in other words, where your border is, and he owns 3000, he owns three million of them because he's bought out 29 other companies. And when you buy a land survey company, you get their surveys and that's property. So you're kind of in a similar territory, except you did it in a different way.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. But it's really interesting because our ... I don't know if you've heard of Brad Lamb who is ... Okay, so- Yeah,
Dan Sullivan:
I've seen the signs. I've seen his signs.
Dean Jackson:
Absolutely.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. His main office is on King Street West.
Dean Jackson:
That's right. That's right. Well, he was a young man. He's not much older than me, but when we started Toronto and Beyond, he was a condo. All he sold was condos- Condo man. Yeah, downtown. And I thought that was a brilliant strategic focus, which he has maintained for 35 years now, and he's become synonymous with condos, rising to be a developer of condos. But at the time, he was part of Toronto and beyond, but the downtown, the Toronto condo guy, and I was seeing in here that our first ad in the globe and mail ran, because of course there was no internet, but I remember I had a note here about our first ad in the globe and mail offering the condo guide for downtown. And that's funny. So it's kind of ... We did a couple of things similar to that with lofts and the condos downtown.
But it's interesting to see that right now, 30 years later, I'm still running the exact ... Like that exact playbook still works in that we're running here in Winter Haven. In Winter Haven, the most desirable thing is lakefront homes. And so we're running a guide to lakefront house prices on Facebook
And get ... But I mean, it's so ... We have people all over the country doing the same thing.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, the state of Florida has proof that God loves real estate. Yes, exactly. Because you have one, two, three, four coastlines in Florida. Yes, exactly. Most places only have ... I mean, a lot of places don't even have one, but Florida has four.
Dean Jackson:
There's six because there's both sides of the
Dan Sullivan:
Barriers. Then there's lakes on the inside.
Dean Jackson:
Exactly. Yes. That is exactly right.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. We were driving, Babson and I were driving, and we were driving from ... I think we were driving from Orlando to St. Augustine, which is a bit of a bit of a drive. Yeah. And I was looking at the real estate that we were passing. We were right on the ocean road and we were driving. We weren't on the freeway. We were on the ocean. We drove sort of the ocean rate. And I said, "I bet the real estate that we've just passed is greater than the gross domestic product of the country of Russia."
Dean Jackson:
Oh, I bet you're right. Listen, that's what they say about between San Diego and Orange County, there's Camp Pendleton, which is 17 miles of Pacific Oceanfront, undeveloped, untouched. Just think about what that 17 ... And it goes back like five miles or something, like how much they own of that swath of the coastline there.
Dan Sullivan:
It would pay for the entire-
Dean Jackson:
National
Dan Sullivan:
Debt. Well, it would pay for the defense budget. Yeah. Well, it would be like Trump often says that when he drives up the east side of New York, he passes the UN building and their surrounding buildings says 29 acres on the east side of Manhattan. He says, "Boy, what we could do with those ."
Dean Jackson:
That's great.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. You could pay off the national debt with those 29 acres. Yeah. Interesting world, interesting world.
Dean Jackson:
This is- I'm
Dan Sullivan:
Going to- What people aspire to and what they're willing to pay for is an interesting thought.
Dean Jackson:
I heard an interesting ... Thought somebody mentioned they had a five year journal that had five little entries per page kind of thing, one page for each day of the year. And the idea is you just write a summary of the day kind of thing, right? And then you get to look as it goes, you get to see when you come back around to it, what happened last year on this time. And so I'm having that kind of a fun thing when I look at ... I'm taking 10 year swaths of this, like what was happening in 96, in 2006, in 2016 and 2026 to see the things. It's pretty amazing. Of course, I'm looking for things that haven't changed, and my handwriting has not changed. I still have the same handwriting. I still have the same sort of thoughts. And I realized sitting in quiet with my journal and a pen is like my through line happy place for 30 plus years of being ... And I realized that's not going to ... I don't think that's going to change in the next 30 years.
And that's kind of an interesting thing when you really embrace ... The big chunks are unchanging.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. It's interesting. I've recounted this to many individuals, but when I was divorced and bankrupt in 1978, that was in August, August 15th of 78, divorced in the morning, bankrupted in the afternoon, which meant that I got to keep my credit card to have a really great lunch.
Anyway, and then before the end of the year, I decided that I'd gotten two really bad report cards, divorce and bankruptcy, really constitute two bad report cards. And I said, "The reason is I'm not telling myself what I want and therefore I'm going to do a 25 year project journaling where every day I have to write at least one sentence about what I really want and I'm going to do this every day for 25 years." So that's me to the end of 2003, 70 to 2003. And it's 9,131 days, including leap years, leap days, and except for 12 days I did it for 9,131 times. So that's 2003, it's 23 years ago. And I would say the life I live now is totally a function of what I did in that journaling over 25 years.
Dean Jackson:
Do you still journal? Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
I do it in a different way. I do it in a different way. I do it in a different way. Yeah. And actually I started a new one. I started a new one in 2023. I started a new one and I've done it every day and it's when I went to Argentina and I started doing stem cell treatment and I had a feeling that when I was in Argentina, and this is really a clinic that's doing revolutionary work, where it can essentially repair everything that might be going wrong in your physical system, I said, "I'm just going to use this as the beginning of something new." So in November, I'll be three years, but I've done it every day for three years and And it has to do with the fact that I have a central belief that if you do proper testing and you do proper repair, that the only thing that would encourage you to die would be you don't have any reason to keep living.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. And I think that's even based on what we know so far. That's not even including the things that are coming and things that ... You are certainly in the very beginning of this.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
And I'm in sort of a really good show off age because I'm in my 80s now. I mean, to make all sorts of claims about how you're going to be in the future when you're in your 40s or 50s, well, that's one thing. But if you start talking about this when you're in 80s. On Sunday mornings, I have a massage therapist that we've had. She's Vietnamese and we started working with her in 1992. And it's been constant for 34 years. And she said, "You know, I just got finished about an hour ago. I did the massage therapy about an hour ago." And she said, "You know, I have a great memory of how people felt." And she says, "You are no different now in 2026 than you were when we first started."
Dean Jackson:
Wow. Well, because every week, right?
Dan Sullivan:
Well, not every week, but I would say like half the weeks of the year, half the weeks of the year. Yeah. So 25, 26 times a year and everything. But it's a nice measurement because she's literally, Dean, she's literally hands-on.
Dean Jackson:
You can't digitize. You can't digitize a massage.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. That's analog. And massages are analog. They're not digital. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
So I wonder you're so relaxed on these Sunday mornings then. Did you have a massage today?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. If I'm in Toronto and I'm talking to you on Sunday morning, I'd had a massage before we started. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
That's great. I'm going to institute that actually.
Dan Sullivan:
I'm
Dean Jackson:
A good student. So I'm going
Dan Sullivan:
To- Yeah. Well, sometimes she's away, but it works out. It works out. But she is a boat person, the famous boat people from Vietnam who escaped from during the '70s. And she and her youngest sister escaped and very dangerous circumstances. And she got out and she ended up in ... Where'd she end up? I think she ended up in the Philippines on a boat where they had a refugee camp and then through series of connections, she ends up in Canada. And the Canadians are really interesting about this. For some reason, if you come from really hot areas like Vietnam, it's like on the equator almost. And the people who are born in really hot regions, you always end up in Toronto in February.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. Just
Dan Sullivan:
As
Dean Jackson:
A counterbalance.
Dan Sullivan:
Just to let you know that you've moved to a different place.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Well, that's ... I always loved ... Gary Halbert used to say that God gave us a sign by planting palm trees in all the places that were suitable for human habitation.
Dan Sullivan:
Well-
Dean Jackson:
If you wake up
Dan Sullivan:
And you don't
Dean Jackson:
See any palm trees, keep
Dan Sullivan:
Going. I don't know if you know this, but that would
Dean Jackson:
Include
Dan Sullivan:
The southwest corner of England and Ireland. They have palm trees.
Dean Jackson:
Is that right?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Oh, wow. Because the Gulf Stream comes up from Central America, comes up from Central America, and that's where it essentially runs out of steam that runs out of steam right when it hits. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
Very interesting.
Dan Sullivan:
But in Devon and then the southwest corner of Ireland, they actually have palm trees there.
Dean Jackson:
I've never been to Ireland. I was just on a Zoom this week. I was doing a Zoom for a gentleman that has a mastermind group in entrepreneurs all over the UK and Ireland. And yeah, that was-
Dan Sullivan:
I've just been to Dublin once. I've been to Dublin once. And I was very, very impressed because the Irish speak English. Nobody speaks English better than the Irish.
Dean Jackson:
I
Dan Sullivan:
Think
Dean Jackson:
You're right. I think that of all the accents, it's certainly most pleasing, entertaining, lyrical
Dan Sullivan:
Sort
Dean Jackson:
Of accent. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And what they say isn't equal to their ability to say it.
Dean Jackson:
Right, right, right, right.
Dan Sullivan:
And you're sitting there and you're just almost ecstatic about what you're listening to. And then afterwards, you realize that nothing actually got said.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, exactly. That's so funny. But you could listen all day.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh, you could listen all day. Well, and you could have many drinks to accompany your enjoyment.
Dean Jackson:
That's right.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. But I understand doubling that.
Dean Jackson:
Stone.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I've had several strategic coach clients' children who have gone to Trinity University in Dublin, and they have one of the most amazing libraries at that university. It's called the Trinity University Library. It's one of the great 10 great libraries of the world. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
Wow.
Dan Sullivan:
Just spectacular. Yeah. And then there's Guinness. Guinness, the makers of Stout, but one of the great land deals in the history of the world, because he had a block where he had his brewery, and this was 1700s, I think, maybe. It might be earlier. And he did a thousand year lease with the city of Dublin for like a hundred pounds, and it still applies. He's got that block.
Dean Jackson:
Dublins,
Dan Sullivan:
Right. Yeah, he applies that. Yeah. One of the great real estate deals of all time.
Dean Jackson:
I'm fascinated by
Dan Sullivan:
Also- Not equal to the Louisiana purchase though. Do you know the Louisiana purchase? Yes,
Dean Jackson:
Of course.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, it goes from the New Orleans all the way to the Canadian border, sort of in a northwesternly direction. 17 American states. The contract, the lease was ... Or the purchase was established in 1803 in Paris. Napoleon, Emperor Napoleon, conducted this with two American diplomats for $10 million, 10 million American dollars.
Dean Jackson:
Wow. Wow.
Dan Sullivan:
And even in today's prices, it's still 50 cents an acre.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, wow. That's amazing. That's a really interesting ... Would that have included Oklahoma? Was that in the Louisiana purchase?
Dan Sullivan:
I don't know. It follows a general direction, but it goes all the way to the Canadian border around Idaho. It kind of ends up in Idaho.
Dean Jackson:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
Everything
Dean Jackson:
Kind of east of the Rockies, right? That's the area kind of up along that
Dan Sullivan:
Way,
Dean Jackson:
Which probably included.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. 17 states, if you consider it 17 American states. And the reason why he did it, he says, "I can sell it to them or they'll take it.
Dean Jackson:
" I could sell it to them or they'll take it either way. That's exactly right. They're going to end up with it. And
Dan Sullivan:
He needed the money. It was completely illegal. There was no basis for it. No American diplomats can do this. Legally, you can't do it. And they came back and they told President Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, and they told him what they had done. And he says, "We'll make it
Dean Jackson:
Work." We'll make it work. That's the best. Yeah. So the Louisiana purchase eventually became all or part of 15 US states, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Oklahoma. North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. So the reason I brought up Oklahoma was, as we were talking about Ireland, one of my favorite movies was the Tom Cruise Nicole Kidman movie Far and Away. And
Dan Sullivan:
It
Dean Jackson:
Was about that a young Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman getting this flyer of them giving away land in
Dan Sullivan:
America,
Dean Jackson:
And they thought what a life we could build in America. And the whole thing of the Oklahoma ... And the reason I found out they call Oklahoma sooners is because some people snuck across
Dan Sullivan:
And take their claim- Before the date.
Dean Jackson:
Before the gunshot,
Dan Sullivan:
Starting off the
Dean Jackson:
Race. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You named the 15 states and except for one, they're all red states, the only one that's not as New Mexico.
Dean Jackson:
Very interesting.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. The only state, there's 14 red states there. That's a lot of electoral votes. A lot of
Dean Jackson:
Electoral college votes. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a contract. It was signed. It was a lease. But I think his intuition was correct. I can either get some money now or get no money tomorrow.
Dean Jackson:
By the way, I just heard Pierre Poliev is on the Diary of a CEO podcast this week and was recently on Joe Rogan.
Dan Sullivan:
Yep. He did a good job on Joe Rogan.
Dean Jackson:
Very smart, strategic thinking on his ... He refuses to speak poorly of Mark Carney, which I think is a really interesting move.
Dan Sullivan:
He had nothing but contempt for Trudeau.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I mean, he was like the Mongoose to Justin Trudeau's Cobra.
Dean Jackson:
But I think the distinction he made was outside of Canada. I think his whole job is to be the opposition to Mark Carney when he's in Canada, but across when he's globally, that's a pretty ... I don't know. There's something I
Dan Sullivan:
Thought
Dean Jackson:
That was a very-
Dan Sullivan:
Well, I think the reason is he knows time is on his hands because the NDP just had their convention last weekend last week
And the winner was a guy named Avi Lewis, Avi Lewis. And you might remember him because his father was Steven Lewis, who was the head of the NDP in Ontario. And his grandfather was David Lewis, who was the head of the NDP in Canada when the Canada ... He was the national. So for the listeners, there's three major parties in Canada. There's the liberals who are usually the dominant party. Then there's the conservative party who are usually the oppositional party. And then there's the new Democrats who are the collecting point for every weird behavior. In Canada, they put it in- Every
Dean Jackson:
Weird behavior. That's
Dan Sullivan:
The
Dean Jackson:
Best.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. They're the Mondami party of Canada. The mayor of New York, everything you can think about, weird behavior, weird mindset, weird aspiration. You put it in that thing. But the big thing is that traditionally there are about 10 to 20% of the vote. The NDP will get that much. They've never become the government, but they ... When you have a three party system, then you can have ... Nobody gets the majority. You can have what's called a minority government. Well, right now they have 6% and they haven't had very much over the last 10 years. They've been a weak party. But my sense is if they get back to 20%, the conservatives will be the government. And Pauly Abnosis, so he can be nice as possible to Kearney. He can be really nice and say really nice things about him because the next general election, probably a lot of the votes that have been going to the liberals will go to the NDP and the conservatives will become the lead party.
I met him. I had breakfast. I had breakfast just polyethylene me about 10 years ago, about 10 years ago. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wow. Very smart. Very smart.
Dean Jackson:
He seems like. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, very smart.
Dean Jackson:
So that's all scheduled. That'd be 2029? Is that the 2029?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, 29.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, it can happen anytime because the prime minister can call an election anytime he wants, but probably 29. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
So you mentioned for the listeners for a minute there, I didn't know who you were talking about. I keep forgetting there are listeners.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, there are listeners. I've met Americans who are aware that there's another country north of them.
Dean Jackson:
Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
They're not sure exactly what that country is, but they're aware that there's another country there. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
My favorite, there was a comedian, I wish I could remember who it was, was talking about Canada and it was a US comedian saying our friendly neighbors to the north. And he was saying how it's going to be one day, it's all friendly now, but one day it's going to be, "Hey, Canada, we're out of wood. Get out.
Dan Sullivan:
"
Dean Jackson:
And they said, "Let's be honest, we could send our Salvation Army up to kick their
Dan Sullivan:
Bus." Well, it's been interesting because I'm a real passionate follower of war history. I really spent a lot of time First World War, Second World War. And the truth is that in those two wars, Canada as a Dominion, because they weren't really ... They're still kind of hitched to the British up until the early '70s. They were kind of a Dominion. It was called the Dominion of Canada. And the Queens picture, the King's picture was on the currency. So it's not quite the declaration of independence. They weren't independent in the way the US was. If you read the history of the First World War and the Second World War, the Canadians fought way above their weight class. I mean, the battles they were in and the price that they paid, the casualties that they had was way, way above. I mean, just a major, major player in those two world wars, but once you get into the 1960s and you get all the sort of the weird anti-military, anti-war thinking of the 1960s, Canada just went way to the left.
And I mean, as you say, the Salvation Army would be the dominant ... That'd be like the sunding the seals.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, exactly. That's so
Dan Sullivan:
Funny.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they've just ... Just to seal the deal, they nationalize marijuana.
Dean Jackson:
Right. Exactly. Oh my
Dan Sullivan:
Goodness. I always tell people, the US really doesn't worry about defending the country because on the east, they have a 3,000 mile moat that takes them all the way to Europe. And then on the west, they have a 5,000 mile moat that takes them all the way to Asia. And then on the south, they've got what used to be called the Gulf of Mexico, now the Gulf of America. And then Mexico itself is just mountains and deserts for the first couple hundred miles. And then on the north, you just have pot smoking Canadians.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, that's so funny. I was just looking at the top 10 quality of life countries because it always struck me that Canada
Dan Sullivan:
Had always been- Iceland. Iceland.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Iceland is
Dean Jackson:
Indian.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, what's true about this? Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, that's true, right? There they are. So the top 10-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, I think they're in the top eight, I think in the top eight, the five Canadians.
Dean Jackson:
Netherlands, Netherlands.
Dan Sullivan:
Netherlands, of course. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Denmark, Luxembourg, Oman, that was surprising.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Oman is number four. Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Germany. So it's interesting that Canada is not on this list.
Dan Sullivan:
You're looking at visual capitalists probably, right? I
Dean Jackson:
Don't know. No, I'm looking at ... This was a perplexity list based on ...
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. There's a great site. There's a great internet site called Visual Capitalist. And all they do is take economic information and turn it into diagrams, diagrams. Oh, I love that. So that you can see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But none of the countries that they list would you really depend on if you were in a fight.
Dean Jackson:
Right. Exactly. That's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And little Israel, you could depend on if you were in a fight, but I don't think they're in that list. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Again, I'm out of the loop voluntarily, but any ... Iran, it's still going?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. This has been one of the most remarkable victories in military history. I mean, they've just completely neutralized the other side. It's just that the other side will never say we give up, that we give up. It's just the nature of the people that ... So what people are saying, well, they didn't surrender. And I said, "Well, they never will surrender, just like you never surrendered when that real estate developer became president." But the big thing, I actually wrote a perplexity article today on how
Much this war has been a jump for the US, Israel too. I mean, Israel too, this is a real jump, but the big thing is the most important thing to develop a great military is you have to have a lot of actual combat experience and this is really amazing combat experience that they're having. And so they have people say, "Well, it's so costly what's happening." And I say, "Well, actually they're just using stuff that was paid for over the last 25 or 30 years." I mean, this isn't being paid for now. This was paid for all the bombs, all the planes, all the other equipment, that got paid for a lot of time in the past. They're just getting to use it. And now, with all the shelves clear, they'll be able to create all sorts of new stuff. And the biggest thing is that it's a demonstration to China that all the stuff that they have created in the last 30 years doesn't work because Iran was equipped to the gills with Chinese military technology and none of it worked.
And that's the lesson that this war really sends to the rest of the world
That the Chinese who are making all sorts of claims about themselves and making all sorts of threats, none of their stuff works.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. That's ... Yeah. Boy, what interesting
Dan Sullivan:
Times.You couldn't write movies about this and have them be believable.
Dean Jackson:
That's exactly right. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. By the way, I read through the Coaches Always Upstream from AI report that US sent me, which is very insightful.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I've written a couple. I'll send another one to you. One of them is that my estimation is that for every job, let's say for the next 15 years, for every job in the ... I'm just talking America here, the United States, for every job that is eliminated by AI and robotics, roughly two more jobs will be created.
Dean Jackson:
I bet you're right. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
And you know where all the new jobs will come?
Dean Jackson:
Tell me.
Dan Sullivan:
The opposition to AI and Robowitz. Oh
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Ah, right, right, right. Well, I-
Dan Sullivan:
Can you imagine the legal industry, just the sheer number of jobs in the legal
Dean Jackson:
Industry? I mean, yeah, it's absolutely true. Well, there was just recently a decision against ... Or a settlement, I guess, with open AI in
Dan Sullivan:
The
Dean Jackson:
Case of a child who committed suicide
Dan Sullivan:
On
Dean Jackson:
The prompting of interacting with AI.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. So- Pretty
Dan Sullivan:
Amazing.
Dean Jackson:
It'll never
Dan Sullivan:
Become- Public. Yeah. Yeah. And I was talking about ... I did another article on universal basic income. This has been the famous thing. In the future, humans will just receive-
Dean Jackson:
Universal
Dan Sullivan:
Basically, free money. Yeah. And what I analyzed it from, I said the moment that you as an individual American asked for and receive universal basic income, you're automatically a third class citizen. You're considered a worthless parasitic individual. You don't have a job, you're not contributing anything, you're not productive, you're not creating any new value, you're a third class citizen.
Dean Jackson:
I've been ... This last few days on YouTube, I have stumbled into this world of people in China sharing a day in the life of their ... What is it like to live as a 50 year old woman in rural China on a dollar a day, basically, is what it costs her to live. And it's fascinating to watch what the life is. She's a peace worker in a factory that makes leather ... She makes the components for leather shoes, and she basically stitches things together all day, but it's a pretty interesting view lens into life that you'd never see. And there's other ones that are sharing what it's like to live in Shenzhen and in other Big country, big cities kind of thing. I'm fascinated by it.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, it just shows you that conditions are not equal around the world.
Dean Jackson:
That's true.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
There was a study that was done with a border town between Arizona and Mexico that it's actually two towns. It has the same name, but south of the border, it's the same town and north of the border, same town, but the border actually separates them. And they were taking an individual who had essentially the same qualifications, educational qualifications, occupational qualifications, who lived a mile south of the border in Mexico. And an individual lived a mile north, both Mexican, by the way, both Mexican, but one of them a US citizen, the other one a Mexican citizen. And it showed that the net worth, the income, the future of the one north of the border was eight times the one who lived two miles away.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Wild, right?
Dan Sullivan:
Just because of the system that's surrounded each of them.
Dean Jackson:
Crazy.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. It's kind of like an American living in Toronto, making most of this money in the United States.
Dean Jackson:
And a Canadian living in Florida. That's right. How we can join in Cloudlandia without borders. So great.
Dan Sullivan:
1:39 this morning. I'm feeling good.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, that's awesome. There you go.
Dan Sullivan:
All right.
Dean Jackson:
Okay, Dan.
Dan Sullivan:
Next week I will be in Chicago talking to you from Chicago.
Dean Jackson:
I like that.
Dan Sullivan:
If you get a communication from Kathy Davis tomorrow, she would be pleased if you would answer.
Dean Jackson:
I would love to. Excited about it. Okay. All right. I'll be back here. I'll talk to you next week. Same time.
Dan Sullivan:
Okay. Thank you.
Dean Jackson:
Thanks, Dan. Bye.
Dan Sullivan:
Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we follow Dean’s hundred-day phone fasting experiment locking his phone away from 10 AM to noon and what it revealed about the power of inevitability. Dean calls this his most consistently productive stretch ever, and Dan predicts that by the one-year mark, at least 20 other habits will have quietly shifted as a side effect. The big lesson: willpower is unnecessary when you design a system that removes the other options entirely.

Dan shares that he’s now at day 116 of his ‘Creating Great Yesterdays’ practice and is finishing a new quarterly book, Yesterday Creates Tomorrow. He also makes a sharp case for proactive health investment twice-yearly full bloodwork, AI-assisted cancer detection, and taking personal ownership of your body rather than waiting for the system to catch something at stage four. The conversation moves into the language of regret, where Dan breaks down why ‘should,’ ‘would,’ and ‘could’ are manipulation words and how reframing your past experience as a source of lessons removes its power over you.

The episode closes with a great business story from a Free Zone client: while every gas station in Washington State started charging for bathroom access, he went the other way, free bathrooms for everyone and created lineups of grateful customers who paid double out of sheer relief. It’s the kind of counterintuitive move that’s easy to describe and hard to execute, which is what makes it worth hearing about. This one’s got a few moments you’ll want to replay.

• Dean’s 100-day phone fasting experiment, locking his device away from 10 AM to noon, produced what he calls the most productive stretch of his entire life.
• Dan’s prediction: by the one-year mark, at least 20 other habits will have changed as a quiet side effect of the phone fasting discipline.
• The willpower myth, debunked: Dean’s biggest transferable lesson is that the system does the work when you engineer inevitability and remove all other options.
• A Free Zone client turned Washington State’s ‘pay $20 before you can use the bathroom’ rule into a competitive advantage, by being the only gas station that didn’t charge.
• Dan on why ‘should,’ ‘would,’ and ‘could’ aren’t grammar, they’re manipulation tools used to distort your relationship with the past.
• AI is now detecting cancer predisposition three years before convergence happens. Dan’s case for twice-yearly blood panels: 20 extra healthy years for anyone willing to pay attention.

Dean Jackson:
Welcome to Cloudlandia. Mr. Sullivan.
Dan Sullivan:
Good morning.
Dean Jackson:
Welcome to Cloudlandia.
Dan Sullivan:
Yes. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling the impact of Cloudlandia.
Dean Jackson:
I love that. There's always a home for us here in Cloudlanvia.
Dan Sullivan:
Yes. It's
Dean Jackson:
Our third
Dan Sullivan:
Space. Yeah. Well, yeah. And it's custom designed.
Dean Jackson:
That's exactly right.
Dan Sullivan:
It's custom design.
Dean Jackson:
You know when I say that, that's a really interesting thing, our third place, because that's how Starbucks, that was the intention of Starbucks when they got started as a third place between work and home, somewhere where you go to meet people and have great conversation. It's so funny because they've completely moved away from that. Now with the drive-throughs and the ... I described the interior spaces of the new coffee places as prison cafeteria style. It's like get your stuff and move along. Don't see them.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, they went through a period, I think it's trying to think about a 10-year period where they were preaching to you, trying to make you a better person. And that didn't work. Don't have a goal in selling any product of transforming human nature. It's one of my- Observable. It's one of my firm foundational stones. Humans are going to do what humans are going to do and don't try to create a better human being. Just give them a little caffeine jolt and some sugar and they're okay.
Dean Jackson:
Observable life lessons. That's
Dan Sullivan:
Exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
It's so funny.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I think that's really the big thing now because this was actually ... I read an interesting book and it's called The Progressive Era in American History. And it starts kind of, I would say probably right after the Civil War. And it was a middle class. It was like people who lived in nice neighborhoods and they had nice things. And they made it their goal that their responsibility in life was to look at anywhere in America that didn't look like their neighborhood, didn't have their mindsets. And they were going to transform everyone else. And there were two presidents in particular who actually bought into this and were advocates. One was Teddy Roosevelt and the other one was Woodrow Wilson. And he was probably the biggest that I don't like human beings the way they are. I'm going to create a world where we have better human beings.
And it didn't work. It didn't work. That's what got rid of alcohol. One of the things they went after was alcohol. Prohibition.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Prohibition. And they created sort of this whole concept of the American way of life. And it was virtuous. It was moral. You cared for your neighbors, you were charitable, and you were comfortable, but you weren't lavish. And we're going to make the whole world like this. And we're going to watch everybody scrutinize everybody's behavior and give them little nudges and perhaps even bring in laws to regulate their behavior.
Dean Jackson:
Little nudges to get them in the
Dan Sullivan:
Right direction.
Dean Jackson:
I
Dan Sullivan:
Mean, we think we're going through it now, but it was nothing compared with the beginning of the 20th century. It was really a profound, profound movement. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Traditional values, right? I guess labeled under all those things.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Made up traditional values.
Dean Jackson:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Labels. That's
Dan Sullivan:
Funny.
Hollywood was the one that really created the American way of life. This was in the 30s and there was this whole series of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney films. And the father was usually a judge. He was a judge and they had beautiful ... They had beautifully kept lawns and there was everything. And that was a pure creation of Hollywood. And the phrase, the American way of life actually doesn't date too prior to the 1930s. I mean, it wasn't there when the founders did it in the 1700s. It wasn't there in the 19th century through the 1800s. It didn't really arise until the 1930s.
Dean Jackson:
Isn't that interesting? When you think about the ... But that's when that was the multiplier of spreading a common vision,
Dan Sullivan:
Where
Dean Jackson:
You first got to see something that you could plant in the minds of many, many people asynchronously at a distance. Yeah, radioism. Yeah, because otherwise you would have had to go to a play or go to see something live to spread that out. It's very interesting. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. But
Dean Jackson:
It's so funny.
Dan Sullivan:
It was something that people aspired to because they weren't actually living ... They didn't have that lifestyle. So it was an aspirational like that. It wasn't really supported by too many people who actually did that, but they had certain controls over the media.
Dean Jackson:
And that's a really good extension of what's happening now is that everybody has access to spread those visions. I've been ... Two things over the last little while, probably since last time we talked is I've consciously sort of opted out of paying attention to anything news related in any way, really. No, I'm the least aware of what's going on, just vaguely on the periphery of the things that are happening, but I'm also realizing-
Dan Sullivan:
It's good that you have me in your life so that I can give you a full report if you need
Dean Jackson:
To. Exactly. But even you, I don't get the sense that ... I mean, I don't know. Is that a part of your ... I mean, you're going to your real clear ...
Dan Sullivan:
Politics. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. So you are kind of keeping on top of the daily briefings or whatever. Is that an important-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's some big issues which are ... It's mostly an American-centric world, like the war in Iran and of course the removal of illegal immigrants in the United States and making it difficult for people to use airports because they closed down the funding for TSA. I mean, I keep track of the latest storms and floods and everything like that. So yeah, I keep track of it, but I have sort of a contextual approach to it. I mean, it's kind of like, which way do things seem to be moving? And yeah, so there's some big shifts going, but there's always big shifts going on. If you checked in once a month, that would be sufficient.
Dean Jackson:
That's the way I'm feeling that it's ... Yeah, when you realize how little of it actually affects my day to day, it's something. And I've been ... Now this is ... I'm coming up on, I would say over a hundred days now of phone fasting of the 10 till- That's
Dan Sullivan:
Terrific.
Dean Jackson:
... till noon. Yeah. And I would say that 80%, there's certain days where there are certain exceptions like today where we talk right before noon, so it's a
Dan Sullivan:
Little
Dean Jackson:
Bit earlier. And then when I have events going on or whatever, those are outlier days. But on the days that I am in control of the things, the standard day, that's the standard routine, is the phone goes in at 10 and it comes out at noon. And it's been a game changer. I was just texting with Tim Ferris yesterday about the ... I saw a video that he had put up about this thing and I was telling him my experiment in phone fasting and what a different ... It's just like, I see it when you think about that, that 14% or 14 hours of my day are screen free, which is a ... Mind you, eight of them, I'm sleeping, but still the main ... I sleep better even without the first thing that I do when I wake up reaching for the phone. What I've noticed, very interesting because I wear my aura ring for sleeping.
And I noticed that there's a different level of attachment to when I check my score, the first time I see my sleep score is after noon and there's no kind of attachment to ... There's no cortisol hit or no
Thing of if my sleep score wasn't great. It's
Dan Sullivan:
Funny. It's very, very interesting. I would predict, just based on my own experience here, that when you reach the one year mark, like you've been made for one year, you will see that not only did your use of the phone change, but I bet 20 other significant things have changed because that's a central habit. Those 14 hours, that's a really major central habit, but you'll notice that it influences all sorts of other activities and especially other ways that you schedule your daily life will be profoundly affected by this one habit.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I mean, I realize how much of our life is really rhythmic, that there's a rhythm, and I realize that me setting the rhythm and the pace by thinking in terms of zones of my day, it's great. I just find I recognize that from ... Up until noon is my creative time. So the two main things I'm doing is I'm spending the first period of the time reading and thinking, and then I spend two hours doing, create with an output, like writing my emails or working on whatever I'm working on.
Dan Sullivan:
Would you say these hundred days are the single period of time in your entire life where you've been most consistently productive?
Dean Jackson:
Yes, absolutely. 100%.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great.
Dean Jackson:
What I have to get ... And that's probably, I would say that my next level of this though is being more intentional on what it is that I'm going to do
Dan Sullivan:
In
Dean Jackson:
Those times, like making the decisions and allocating those times to the best specific outcomes. And it's
Dan Sullivan:
Really
Dean Jackson:
Funny because I've been working on ... I mean, I best describe it as kind of working on a thinking tool that ... I think I mentioned to you the idea of choosing your regret. And I've been thinking about the interplay between ... When we look back that regret is framed in three primary ways that it's, we look back and realize that we could have done something or we would have done
Dan Sullivan:
Something- Or we
Dean Jackson:
Should have. ... or we should have done something. Exactly. But each of them has a different flavor. There's not much emotion attached to
Dan Sullivan:
Could.
Dean Jackson:
It's like, I could have gone for sushi or I could have gone for steak or I could have whatever. And there's not much consequence of the outcome of that. And should, on the other hand, is there's regret in that, in its. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Should is the real guilt, should is the biggest guilt word. You should have done that. You should have done that. And yeah, I was just thinking of previous conversations that we've had. I mean, going right back to the beginning when it was about procrastination, but the big thing that I said, just because a word is in the English language, it doesn't mean it's a good word. It might be a bad word. It's just a word, but should, would, and could are manipulation words. They're only used to manipulate your understanding of the past. And it goes along with another word, and this relates to what your teacher said to you, and that is potential that Dean is so talented, but he's not really living up to his potential, which I know because which I, of course, as his teacher know what his potential is. I know what that is.
And I've got a vision in my mind of what he's really capable of, what he's really capable of achieving, but he's not doing it.
Dean Jackson:
That's interesting, right? It's somebody else's ... Yeah, there's that level of someone else choosing your stakeholder or whatever, or an influencer, or somebody
Dan Sullivan:
Trying
Dean Jackson:
To tell you what you should do, but it comes down to the ... It has the regret attached to it, that I should have done this. It feels like you knew better or you knew, but you didn't do something. It was in your power and you knew that this was the right course, but you didn't take that action. And would, interestingly, as I think about it, is a blame shifter that I would have if ... It's almost like there's some sort of external block-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, I was interfered with, I was interfered with.
Dean Jackson:
I was either interfered with
Dan Sullivan:
Or- Or I was prevented. ... relieving yourself from ...
Dean Jackson:
I
Dan Sullivan:
Didn't know. I was prevented from ... I was prevented from ... Yeah. It's
Dean Jackson:
Either that there was something blocking you that was an obstacle that you could overcome, or that you would have, meaning if I had known, I would have, but there's a really ... It's an interesting thing and it fits so perfectly with your guessing and betting certainty and uncertainty. And I think that there's ... So as I'm imagining this thinking tool of choosing your regret of looking at ... It's always attached to ... When you think about your guessing and betting, it's always about the allocation of resource towards a future outcome. So we're looking, when you and I are thinking about the concept of creating a better past, that's only done in the moment in today is the only time. And so we are wagering, betting our resource of time, energy, attention, and maybe money on a future outcome that hopefully is certain. I mean, that's where you're-
Dan Sullivan:
Well, the big thing here I think is really is that you're the only one that knows what your experience is. Okay. So right off the bat, there's just one person on the planet that knows what's happened to you. And from the sense that you actually experienced this, other people may be aware of it, they may have observed it, but they didn't actually have the experience. You're the only one who has had the experience. And I said, "If you take ownership of that, then you can do anything you want with that experience." You can reformulate it, you can say, "Here's five lessons from this bad experience." And the moment you do this, you remove the negativity from the experience because you've created something useful, you've actually created something useful.
Yeah. I mean, you can go back when you ended up in the ER, which you've talked about and said, "If I had been doing my phone fasting, would I have ended up in PR?" And I don't know what your answer is, but I do know is that you say, "I now have a capability that I didn't have in the past. If I had this capability in the past, how might that have turned out differently?" Well, I can't relive the past, but now that I've got the lesson, then I've got something I can say, "I've got this knowledge and skill and capability now, so why is my future going to be different from my
Dean Jackson:
Past?" My greatest learning about that, Dan, my transferable learning about the phone fasting is the value of inevitability, that the removal of any other option, that's really a thing that there's no willpower required when you've set up a system that makes something inevitable. So I look at those things and it's like any of the outcomes are pretty amazing. So very interesting thing. So you know our good friend, Ilko Dubois
Dan Sullivan:
From
Dean Jackson:
Amsterdam. So Ilko has just hired someone who travels everywhere they go, and his whole role is to create a healthy environment for Yoko, meaning he arranges and prepares and does all the food and does all the training, personal training with Ilko. So he enforces and makes the healthy choices inevitable, and that's a really-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, he's like a head butler.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. But as a physical trainer, that's essentially what this guy is, and he owns some gyms in Amsterdam, but the business kind of runs itself. And now he travels wherever Ilko and the family goes, he's there and ensuring he's created that infrastructure, that scaffolding that makes the choices more
Dan Sullivan:
There.
Dean Jackson:
It's so funny, I think about those things, like if you think about the measurable outcome, health conditions are essentially future, they're bets, and there's a lot of, would have, should haves involved in health. I think what you're doing, all the choices that you're making with your health, with everything, is coming from a framework of intending to live to 156, and that you're not, in order to do that, your joints and your mobility and at a cellular level is going to have to be fit for the task. And that's why you're willing to go to Buenos Aires 11 times to ensure that outcome.
Dan Sullivan:
And Nashville too. Nashville. Nashville. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, with David Housey. Well, the big thing is that we were talking about ... Yeah, who was I talking about this? I have a really great new, he's within the past year, physical therapist,
He's right here in Toronto and he's been in the program. He's not in the program right now, but he's been four years in the program and was in 10 times, but he's really, really quite prominent in that world. He worked with Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. He's been consultant to several National Football League teams. So he has really quite a bit of experience at high level of performance. People are high performance. And we were talking about it and we were talking about everything has to be paid for. The big thing, people say, "Well, healthcare should be free." And I said, "That doesn't work because it wouldn't make you more healthy because you would blame everything on the system that is supporting you because you don't have a perception of paying for it, this has to be paid for. " And my sense is that people, right off the bat, if they would do two things every day, and that's a complete top to bottom health check at a very reputable clinic where they do full blood tests.
If you did that, it would just doing that twice a year and paying for it would guarantee you probably another 20 healthy years, anybody in HU, you could do that. But they think that should be given to us, those people, especially Canadians. Canadians believe that
Healthcare should be given to you. I don't think Americans do because America, you do have to pay for it and everything like that. But the testing is so good these days, and especially since AI has come into the picture now, like cancer, they can now identify your predisposition to almost any cancer at zero degrees. Yeah,
Dean Jackson:
Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
You die at the fourth level, fourth level of cancer. That's when you die, but now they can see from blood tests that about 10 things are converging to a point where you're going to develop some sort of cancer in your body, and that can be picked up three years before the The convergence actually happens and they can alter your diet, they can alter your behavior and everything like that. But you got to take ownership for it. This is the big thing. If you don't take ownership, it doesn't happen.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I remember hearing Craig Venter talk about that when we met him at Abundance A360 years ago. That was the big aha breakthrough in my mind was his thing saying it's not going to be about cancer treatment. It's going to be about cancer detection. That's the big win. And I think that that's absolutely true now. There's no reason for somebody to show up with stage four.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh yeah. Yeah. There was just a US senator, a former US senator and he got fourth level pancreatic cancer. And pancreatic is the one that moves the fastest of all the cancers, it moves the fastest. But if you do it, you get a complete checkup every six months. It has predispositions that get picked up on, so you could actually interfere with that. And yeah, we're going through quite a thing here in Canada with medically assisted suicide. Have you been ... 100,000 Canadians have been assisted to commit suicide in the last- Yeah, I
Dean Jackson:
Have
Dan Sullivan:
A- Four or five years. It was a Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, this was a great idea of his. Let's help people commit suicide. Because of you.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, I had a good friend whose grandfather elected assisted suicide last year.
Dan Sullivan:
And
Dean Jackson:
So I got to observe it kind of ...
Dan Sullivan:
One degree of separation.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yes, exactly. And my observation, like at first, everybody was sort of upset, but grandpa had a terminal disease that was slowly killing him. His quality of life was really going down. It was becoming a burden on his wife who was his caregiver. And so he made the choice to do this. And it was about a month or so away before when he did it. And everybody initially was sort of shocked and sad and there's a lot of emotion around it. And then it was going to happen on a Monday and the whole family from everywhere came in and spent the weekend with him in the hospital. And he was surrounded by everybody that loved him and he loved. And then they got to have that last weekend with him. And then on Monday morning, they did the ... I guess it's an injection, I don't know, an IV or however they do
Dan Sullivan:
It. It's a couple things. It's a couple things they do. Yeah. But
Dean Jackson:
Their injections- And then he was gone. And so I thought on reflection, I thought about the other ... There's a certainty. He was going to die at an unknown time in the future where he would be completely diminished. And then it would be a surprise in the moment when it actually happened. And it would be grandpa died and then everybody would gather and have their commiseration and morning and stuff with the family, but without grandpa. And I realized there's a ... I don't know what's better. It was the first time I really kind of thought about that as a ... Comparing. "What's your thought?"
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I've never had the thought, so there's been nothing in my life. And
The other thing is, I know people who've done it and I have no understanding whatsoever of what was going on with them when they did it. So it's kind of an empty ... It's an empty event. That's what I've discovered about is that when someone just dies as a natural course, it actually pulls people together. And what I've discovered from people who've had this happen and they've been knowledgeable and involved with it is it separates people. Each person sort of retreats into themselves, and so that's what I've noticed. And it's like Robin ... The other thing is, you can have an enormous lifetime of achievement. If you commit suicide, what people remember most about you is that you committed suicide. Robin Williams being a great example. People say, "What an amazing comedian." I said, "Yeah, but he committed suicide." Committed suicide. Yeah. Who was that?
Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Remember that actor? Yes. Tremendous actor.
Dean Jackson:
Of
Dan Sullivan:
Course. Yeah. Yeah. He committed suicide. And I said, "So my sense is that it's a mindset predisposition. It's not a physiological predisposition, that there's a series of mindsets that line up together. There's sort of a mindset stack, and it's the mindset stack that predisposes you to commit suicide. It's not a physiological predisposition. It's a mindset, predisposit. You were thinking suicidal thoughts 20 years before you actually committed suicide.That's my take on it. I mean, everybody's got their own take.
Dean Jackson:
I mean, is it in Canada, can anybody just go and say, Hey, I don't want to live anymore? Or is it out of ... I thought about that as more of a compassionate type of relief from an inevitability kind of thing.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Is it something that-
Dan Sullivan:
Well, I think it's complex. I think it's complex. I don't think there's any one contributing factor, but there was a major story in the weekly newspaper, the national poster, about a woman who was 84 and she had severe back pain. And she was having a particularly painful week, and she checked herself into the hospital because she needed medication to pain relief. And the first doctor said, "Do you want to commit suicide?" And she said, "Commit suicide?" "No, I want some pain relief from my back. "And she says," Well, we offer medically assisted suicide here. "And this was about a year ago, and it made her so angry that she went through a big physiotherapy thing, and now she's climbing mountains a year later, and she said," It woke me up. "She said," I was stupid. I was being stupid about my back. What I need to do is do some work.
"She did. And this is the first time I've seen an article where somebody was approached by the official medical system," Hey, you want to commit suicide? "We can do this for you. Yeah. Yeah. My sense is that fundamentally there's something wrong with the culture that it makes this something that they suggest. And my sense is that the healthcare system in Canada is so bad right now that they're just trying to cut costs. And if we can get somebody off the healthcare system by committing suicide, that'll be a good thing. We'll cut some costs here.
And I'm not saying that's the only dimension you think about, but my sense is if you start going in this direction, other participants join the parade as you're going towards it.
Dean Jackson:
Join the parade. Oh my goodness. Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
Pretty soon it'll be entertainment. You'll do it on stage and a hundred people will pay $50, which goes to charity and they can watch you die.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Oh my
Dan Sullivan:
Goodness. I know how the world goes.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Plot, plop.
Dan Sullivan:
Everybody wants to join.
Dean Jackson:
Whatever relief it is.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, man.
Dan Sullivan:
I just saw a movie. I don't know if you've seen the movie, the project, Hail Mary. Have you seen that? I
Dean Jackson:
Did. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think of that?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I thought it was well done because Babs had read the whole book and we went together. Shannon Waller and Bruce Green, we went to it. And those who had read the book or listened to the book felt that they did a good job of catching ... Missed a lot of the valleys, but they caught most of the mountaintops. Yeah, I thought it was good. I found it very engaging. It was very engrossing. And I thought Ryan, what's his name? Ryan-
Dean Jackson:
Gosley.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Huh? Ryan Gosley.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I thought he was the perfect actor for that role.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Because it's essentially like a one ... It's a one man show really for most of it.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I walked out. I didn't think about it. I said," God, it's nice that Hollywood can still produce a good film because they haven't been recently. "First of all, this violates almost every rule of woke philosophy. You like the woman who runs the whole project to save the planet. She's a hard nosed bitch. She's a Strat. I think her name was Strat. And she manipulates him. She actually drugs him and puts him on board Chip to do it. But I thought it was just well done. The CGI was fantastic because they couldn't have done that with CGI. But I just thought the actor was, he was the perfect actor for it because he had no hero instincts whatsoever. He had no bravery instincts, but he ends up being a hero and he turns out being brave in spite of himself.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I was very ... When I do my Breakthrough Blueprint events, we go, one of the traditions on Monday evening, we go to the dine-in movies at the ... There's a place here called Studio Movie Grill, and they bring food to you and you so you have dinner and watch the movie.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure.
Dean Jackson:
And that was the choice. Very rarely is there a movie that is both critically an audience acclaimed in Rotten Tomatoes, as an example. This was in the high 90s on both sides.
Dan Sullivan:
This one was. This one was? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, the neat thing about it, they just got into the movie. They didn't do anything, no credits or anything. They just started the movie and I like that.
Dean Jackson:
I do too. I do too. Yeah. Yeah, it was really good. How often do you go to the movies?
Dan Sullivan:
That was number four since the year 2020.
Dean Jackson:
Okay. Oh, that's
Dan Sullivan:
Cool. I went to see the green book. And I went to see Barbie.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, did you? Okay.
Dan Sullivan:
And I went to see F1. Okay.
Dean Jackson:
There you go.
Dan Sullivan:
F1 is
Dean Jackson:
Really good too.
Dan Sullivan:
I love that. I thought Brad Pitt, best movie ever for Brad Pitt.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. And well, Ryan Gossip was in Barbie King. I was just
Dean Jackson:
Going to say that 50% of your movies involve Ryan Gosley.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, and he's good. I mean, I think he was just really ... He's got sort of a sympathetic personality. He's not trying to be anything. He's just going through life and things happen to him. I think
Dean Jackson:
That he's Canadian, actually.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, he is. Yep.
Dean Jackson:
Okay.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah,
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Still there.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And like many successful Canadians lives in the United States. Yes. Below the border. He's below the border Canadian.
Dean Jackson:
Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
Still
Dean Jackson:
Claim.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Still claiming.
Dan Sullivan:
I mean, the author, Andy Weir, who he did The Martian. I think The Martian was his movie. And I mean, he creates some scientifically implausible situations to create the plot. How does a thing like this actually hop from solar system to solar system? I mean, any explanation how this thing ... It's a star eater, a star eater. And I said- Yeah. So he's got to create then he's got the coma gene, the coma gene that you can only be on that chip if you're resistant to dying from the coma. And so there's only 7,000 people on the planet who have resilience to that. But it's okay. I said, "He's creating the game and these are the rules of the game and let's just play inside Pearls." But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Dean Jackson:
I think that's awesome. Yeah. I got a great appetite for movies like that. I wonder now how long away we are from AI movies that are fully built out like that. It's amazing to see what's happening with music.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, you know what I mean? We've had that for a hundred years with cartoon movies. Cartoon movies are ... Yeah. I mean, starting with the Walt Disney film. So we're used to created characters, but when it's very, very close to human, I think it's a different game.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. But I think, I mean, that level-
Dan Sullivan:
I don't really care. I mean, I mean, if it's a good movie, it's a good movie.That's my attitude toward it.
Dean Jackson:
I agree with you 100%. And it's kind of funny, like the whole ... Everybody's up in arms over the music and visual imagery stuff that everybody is jockeying for compensation for their work being used to train the model, but it's very funny that every single ... That's how every single original artist was trained by observing and taking in examples from their observation of life kind of thing, their experience, their inspiration. So it really is that AI is replicating what humans do is they
Dan Sullivan:
Observe
Dean Jackson:
And they filter and they output.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, I mean, we had also the great example 20 years ago with the Lord of the Rings and the character of Golan. So that was Andy Circus, Andy Circus. And he made him so believably they did. He provided the motion and the voice, but the CGI people really created that. He was a totally credible character. I mean, he's one of the three central characters of that entire series and everything like that. I mean, aren't actors pretending to be somebody else?
Dean Jackson:
That's exactly it. That's what I mean.
Dan Sullivan:
Isn't that the skill of that particular profession that you can pretend to be someone else?
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah? Yeah. That's why I never enjoy Julia Roberts because Julia Roberts is just pretending to be Julia Roberts. I mean, it doesn't matter what film she's in, it's Julia Roberts. Yeah,
Dean Jackson:
That's right. She's not ... And there are some ... I heard Jason Bateman talk about the same thing that he's not playing characters. He's not acting to be something else. He's just doing his interpretation of something, but basically being himself. Same thing with George Clooney, same thing with ...
Dan Sullivan:
Oh yeah.
Dean Jackson:
There's a lot of actors that are just themselves.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. And going back to the golden age of Hollywood, I mean, Clark Gable was Clark Giebel, Marilyn Monroe was Marilyn McGraw. So there's a section of the acting profession where you have ... The fan base has such an attachment to you that they actually want to just see you in the role. But then you have other actors, the current probably best is Gary Oldham. And Gary Oldham just becomes a completely different creature.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. I think you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. There's a difference
Dan Sullivan:
Between that. Alleghenis in the old days, Alleghenis, you'd have to check the credits to see who the actor was because he so completely immerses himself, but it's all part of the entertainment.
Dean Jackson:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, which you were
Dan Sullivan:
Just
Dean Jackson:
Talking about, he
Dan Sullivan:
Was
Dean Jackson:
One of
Dan Sullivan:
Those
Dean Jackson:
Disappeared into roles.
Dan Sullivan:
I think the biggest fear is I used to get paid for this and I'm not going to get paid for it in the future. I think that's the biggest fear. Right. I think the biggest fear that everybody shares is, how am I going to get paid to exist in the future?
Dean Jackson:
Right. Yeah. I mean, but it's very ... I think the most creative of them is still going to position themselves up above ... You said that that always precedes like a human always is upstream of an AI. And so the smartest people, rather than staying where you are and lamenting that this AI is doing your job is get on top of it and
Dan Sullivan:
Write
Dean Jackson:
It to do your job better than with superpowers. Because just knowing it can do everything you can do accept your unique fingerprint, your unique thought, insight.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And besides that, nobody cares how you're feeling anyway.
Dean Jackson:
Right. That's exactly
Dan Sullivan:
Right. Yeah. I mean, you can download it. It's by Bloomberg, Bloomberg, and it was the end of Hollywood. It's about 13 minutes. It's just a series of interviews with some of the stars, some of them are ... George Clooney is interviewed, Tom Hanks is interviewed. I think those are the two big ones. And then just a lot of backstage people, writers and everything else. And they're all having a hissy fit, that this is crucial. Hollywood is crucial and everything like that. And what the series, whoever put this 13 minute film together, they said, "Your big problem is you're not interesting anymore. Your biggest problem is that movie going, fans just aren't interested in you anymore. They're not interested in your political views. They're not interested in your theological views. We're just not interested in what you're talking about or what you're trying to get us to do it.
" And I said, "Yeah." I mean, one of the key boxes you have to check in the entertainment world is that you have to be entertaining.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. I think that's the big thing, right? If you look at, if we go all the way back to what people are objecting to is the mechanism that they used to do. I imagine that the scribes back in the day who were doing the hand transferring of manuscripts into volumes, right, into books, that they were ... It was just mechanizing the process that they did, but the content of the books is what was the real human thing. And I imagine the same thing before photography, they depended on portrait artists to capture with paint and skill, what they saw.
Dan Sullivan:
Engravers, the engravers. Yeah. They had almost reached ... Just before photography, the quality of engraving had almost become photographic. The people were so good at it. And then it became technological, you could do it same way. Yeah. Well, it's interesting, but once ... I think what happened is they became politicized and we're not interested in mixing entertainment with politics. Most people aren't.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
And I thought that's why one of the reasons I enjoyed the project Hail Mary so much is that they just had a really good plot and they had really good characters and really good dialogue and that's it. They weren't trying ... It was Sam Goldwyn of MGM. He was one of the names, Metro ...
Dean Jackson:
Metro
Dan Sullivan:
Mayor. Goldwin Mayor. Mayor. Yeah. He was the G. And they complained to him that his movies didn't have a message and he said, "If I want to send a message, I'll go to a Western Union and send a message." He said, "I'm producing entertainment."
Dean Jackson:
That's the best. Oh, what a great statement.
Dan Sullivan:
I'm not sending messages.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
I'm entertaining people. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's got to be a message. I said, "I'm not sending messages."
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Oh, that's the best. Dan, I'm curious what your next ... Your full quarter now on creating a better past, what's the next evolution of that going into a new quarter?
Dan Sullivan:
116 and really solidified the best four months. I mean, I'm just within four days of having a complete month and it's going to be the next quarterly book. It's called Yesterday Creates Tomorrow. That's the
Name of the book. And I start that. I'm just finishing up the current book, which is called Who We're Looking For. And this is the first time we're saying, "This is the type of person that we're looking for in Strategic Coach." And we just describe that person at their best and then we say, "In Strategic Coach, we have a community that supports you in being your best." You already have the experience of being your best, but it's a lot of work to keep it all together and we'll help with keeping your different aspects of your best behavior together. So that'll come out first week of June. It goes to the printer for a month. We'll have it in about two weeks. Anyway, but yeah, it's really great. And by far, it's just like your phone fest. These have been absolutely the best four months productive voice of my ... Yeah, so it's been great.
Yeah. And I'm talking to people about it, usually not in the workshop, but I talked to them at breaks and lunchtime and I said, "I've got this thing I'm working on, would you be interested in hearing it? " And then I take them through it and just about everybody gets the concept.
Dean Jackson:
Well, that's exciting. I mean, I think it's really ... I think there's something there.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, I do too, but it feels good. I mean, the one thing is that my getting emotionally attached to the future is just not there anymore. I'm just not getting captured by some future possibility.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. You know what I love about these conversations, Dan, is just the experimenting that it's just kind of a ... I don't know that this is a natural or frequent conversation topic anywhere else on the planet than right here in Cloudland. Yeah. But people talking about the experimenting of creating a better future or a better past is it's something.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. I was describing, because this is public where it's recorded, but I was just describing in one of the workshops with free zone clients, what you're doing with the phone box and the lockdown, your lockdown box. Anyway, and people said, "Yeah, but what if you really need to get in touch with him?" I says, "Make sure it's afternoon. Make sure it's between what you should learn from my description of what he's doing is don't try to get in touch with him at 10 o'clock."
Dean Jackson:
Oh my goodness. That's so funny.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
That's true, right? I mean, it's so ... Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a you problem.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. The rule is you can get in contact with anyone anytime you want. And I says, "Well, he's putting some rules. He's putting some boundaries up there." Yeah,
Dean Jackson:
Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. We have a client who just joined Coach Free Zone and he was talking about that his family ran sort of gas stations that had stores, like the early thing. And Washington state, not British Columbia, but Washington State, is that all of a sudden the entire industry of gas station stores adapted a rule that you couldn't use the bathrooms unless you spend at least $20 on-
Dean Jackson:
Oh my goodness.
Dan Sullivan:
... on gas. He said, "I'm a marketing genius because I said, yeah, you don't have to pay for the
Dean Jackson:
Pee." Right.
Dan Sullivan:
And people came in. And there's a certain amount of urgency related to- Yeah, of course. Yeah. And he'd come in and he said, and they were so thankful they'd buy twice as much just to be thankful. I mean, if you were in danger of not being able to get to the bathroom, but they let you do it, you'd pay almost anything. I think you're
Dean Jackson:
Absolutely right.
Dan Sullivan:
Out of gratitude. We were just talking about how you create competition free zones. So I said, "There's a competition free zone." Yeah. Yeah. I said the word went around that this was the only gas station that didn't charge him. He had lineups. He had lineups coming in. And everybody paid, everybody paid because they didn't have to pay.
Dean Jackson:
That's amazing, right? There's a chain of stores in the Southeast called Bucky's, and that's one of their-
Dan Sullivan:
Are you talking Stuckey's or Duckies?
Dean Jackson:
No, Bucky's, B-U-C.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh, Buckies.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, Buc-ees. And it's become ... They pride themselves. They pay super salaries to people who are in charge of making the bathrooms sparkle at all
Dan Sullivan:
Times. Oh
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.That's a big thing. And they have more gas pumps per square foot than anywhere else, like super number of gas. So you're always going to get a pump and you're always going to have a-
Dan Sullivan:
A dump.
Dean Jackson:
Get a pump.
Dan Sullivan:
Pump and dump.
Dean Jackson:
Who's the marketing genius now?
Dan Sullivan:
Who can compete with that? Pump and dump.
Dean Jackson:
There we go. I think we've said it all, Dan. I think we should leave it on a high note with that.
Dan Sullivan:
Okay. All right.
Dean Jackson:
That's perfect. I'll
Dan Sullivan:
Talk to you next week.
Dean Jackson:
Bye.
Dan Sullivan:
Okay, great. Bye.

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.

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.

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.

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.