Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Giovanni Marsico, founder of Archangel, and second-time More Cheese Less Whiskers guest!
Now, if you're reading this & listening to the episode in the week the show drops, before midnight on Sunday, July 27th, you can go and watch Giovanni's new movie, Dreamer, for free during the premiere week.
I want to make sure that, even if you don't get a chance to listen to the episode all the way through, you at least know you can do that by going to dreamer.movie or dreamerdocumentary.com.
So, go watch the movie, come back, and all the things we're talking about in this episode will make more sense, because we're talking about how do you turn this fascinating movie, and everything that's happening along with it, into a movement.
You're going to really enjoy this episode and the movie.
Show Links:
Dreamer.movie | DreamerDocumentary.com
ProfitActivatorScore.com
BreakthroughDNA.com
EmailMastery.com
Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link on the left & I'll be in touch.
Download a free copy of the Breakthrough DNA book all about the 8 Profit Activators we talk about here on More Cheese, Less Whiskers...
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 192
Dean: Giovanni!
Giovanni: Dean!
Dean: Well. Ciao, ciao, ciao. Here we are.
Giovanni: I love you.
Dean: This is the best. I'm very excited. So just so we can set the context, this is your second time on More Cheese, Less Whiskers, I believe. Right?
Giovanni: It is.
Dean: Yes. And so here's what I'm excited about, is whenever you call, or whenever we chat, or whenever we talk or text, you have amazing things going on, almost at all times. And so I always like to observe and be part of it, in the periphery, and so having the chance to kind of brainstorm and scheme about what you've got going on is always welcome, in my mind.
Giovanni: That is the biggest honor, thank you.
Dean: I'm happy that you're here. So right now, you would be full in ... I should be in Toronto, we should be sitting at the Hazleton having coffees and talking about your big upcoming September extravaganza event, the Archangel event, and alas nothing this year. But you've got something big coming, and I'm very excited about it, so let's start there.
Giovanni: Yeah, so I'll give you the origin story of the project. I think two years ago, our mutual friend Nick Manton, who is an Emmy award winning director and producer-
Dean: Many, many times-
Giovanni: Yeah-
Dean: Many, many Emmy's.
Giovanni: He had done a really big film that was used to raise money for human trafficking, in terms of charity and stuff, and he said "Listen I know you have a big community, would you be interested in doing a similar project where we make the film and then maybe raise money for charity?" And I said absolutely. But I'm not a fan of something dramatic, if we do anything it needs to be positive, uplifting, motivational, inspirational, and we came up with the idea of producing a film called Dreamer, where we showcased amazing humans who were ordinary, became extraordinary because they chased their dreams and they believed in their dreams, and they actually executed. Even despite the odds, despite all the setbacks, to actually do something really, really big and change the lives of thousands, and sometimes millions of people.
And the intention was how do we showcase stories that will show people what's possible? Because I think part of the challenge for most people is that their environment sets them back, or they're told for whatever reason to stop dreaming or get their head out of the clouds, or stop doing the things that they love doing, and they feel like there's no outlet. In my life, I'm super grateful that I've been around people like you, and people like Glen in the film, and so many people in our community and network, who dream really big, and that's part of why we can do what we do, because we're surrounded by big dreamers who actually do things.
So I thought let's create something amazing that would inspire a lot of people to dream bigger and to do something with it.
Dean: I saw a big ... as an aside, about get your head out of the clouds kind of thing, I saw a meme that was old school, was the kids in school with the teacher saying "Giovanni, get your head out of the clouds". And then the new school, is the kid at home, playing video games or whatever, and the teacher saying "Gio, get your head back in the cloud". Because they're based in clouds, school. Pretty funny, right?
But you are right. We know a lot of amazing people, who've done some pretty amazing things, and I think that being surrounded by people like that, being in proximity to it, extraordinary things kind of become possible things. Who would have know that you would fill the Sony Center with a group of entrepreneurs who are woke, let's say. And have that as an outcome, when you were growing up. It's kind of a you never think to even think that thought, right?
Giovanni: Right.
Dean: Now, most people-
Giovanni: There's not even a seed for that thought, although looking back I could connect the dots looking backwards, but you can't ... it's hard to do it moving forward.
Dean: Yeah. When you go back, I know a little bit about your history of club promoting and things like that, where was the ... was there a seed of this in that? That kind of thinking? Tell me how that connects.
Giovanni: Yeah, from the beginning?
Dean: Yeah.
Giovanni: So I'll give you a bit of the origin story, because it's really fun. When my best friend and I were in high school, around 15 years old, we started going to these parties that in Toronto, Canada, where I'm from, they're called all ages dance parties, where if you're under 18 which is the legal drinking age, you can still go. There's DJ's, there's a dance party, it's for teens.
And we thought we can do this. So a year later we produced our first event. We were 16 years old, I don't know how we got away with half the stuff we did, we signed a deal with an Italian wedding banquet hall to let us do the event, and we had a thousand people show up to that first event. And it was-
Dean: Wow-
Giovanni: Already a dream come true, and I was DJing at the time, and I was always fond of music, and it felt like realizing what I'm here to do, to bring people together. Now at the time, it was joyous and it was fun and it was amazing. And we kept doing it. By the way, the venue was called Lunar Ballroom. Lunar means moon, and our second event was called Trip to the Moon, and [-
The first event was a giant dance party, the second event we had production and we had a stage show and we had ... this is hilarious. Around the time, it was called Apollo 13, the movie with Tom Hanks had come out. And I wanted ... so what I did was we took two VCR's, one of them had a recordable VHS tape, and I actually ... to try to explain, it's hilarious, but I took the rocket launch sequence and I dubbed it onto the new tape, and I took out all the actors, so all you saw was the countdown and then the rocket taking off. And this is when I'm 17 years old, and then in the event we had a giant screen and we had the rocket launch sequence with fireworks and smoke bombs to just create a show element, and it started when I was 17. And I was still doing that - so it's always been there.
To not only bring people together, but to create a spectacle, and a show, and an experience.
Dean: Yeah. It's amazing, I've been amazed by the openings of your ... the big Archangel events, the summits have been amazing. So that's funny to go all the way back to that. Look at you, going hardcore two, with two VCR's, trying to copy the one. How easy is it now to do stuff like that, compared? Crazy.
Giovanni: I've also been a fan of storytelling, and I'm as big a movie nerd as you are. I do the same things you do. Pre all this stuff right now, I used to go to the theater every week to watch movies, and I want people at my events to feel like they're in the story, to feel like they're in a movie, and I've done that since I was 17. And now I think secretly my dream was to produce a movie, and now it's come full circle and here we are.
Dean: And here it is. And that's the thing, the great news is that being connected to Nick is this great thing, Nick is so talented and the team that he's put together and the process for doing it. They just have it so dialed in. So that's awesome. Nick's movies just keep getting better and better, and I'm so excited about watching this one.
They did Jo Polish's movie, and Dan Sullivan's movie, so if people listening have seen either of those, same we can expect here. And even bigger. He keeps getting better at it, so what was the ...so tell me the kind of intention for the movie? Now, what you're hoping to do, and what we're going to see in the movie?
Giovanni: The intention is to spark something in people to realize what's possible, to dream bigger, and then actually take action and then we're inventing a niche, because that's how I roll, I always have to do something different, and I realized I'm really good at experience design and I'm really good at bringing people together and storytelling, so what we're going to do now moving forward every year, is create a story and a film like this, and then connect it to a live experience.
But not only one live experience, actually create live experiences around the filming of the movie. Half the fun is the interviews, and what we started doing this year is we brought producers on board, people to help cover the cost, because we wanted this to be a giant fundraiser, so we thought okay what do we do? And we have people in our network who helped produce the film, and then as part of being a producer, we created experiences where they can come watch the filming and then make mini events that lead up to the big event.
So as an example, Dean Kamen is in the film, and Dean is a billionaire inventor who's like a modern day Thomas Edison, and he's invented Segway and a bunch of other things, and we filmed at his house. So the producers came with us, and his house is I think 30000 square feet. He's literally a real life Iron Man-
Dean: On the island?
Giovanni: And to be ... yeah, and to be at his place was insane, and then we filmed at - and we filmed -, the CEO of - and it's just been a fun adventure and we can now create bucket list experiences for our producers, and then we're also going to now do an event called Dreamer Festival in the fall, which is a giant online experience with the intention of over 10000 people. So it's like you've watched the movie, you've seen the people in the film, you've been inspired by them, but now you can actually learn from them and watch them live so they can teach you how to do the thing in the movie. So it's all kind of inter-connected.
Dean: Wow. Well this is very exciting. Let's scheme some ways of getting this out there, because I'm board with that. That's pretty exciting. So I love your Facebook post today, that was about our conversation yesterday. Things move fast in our world, right? I think that's pretty great, that we were able to ... let's do this right away.
It was something that was interesting to me, that you posted on your Facebook, that was ... because I asked you, in our conversation, what would be your dream come true, and it's an interesting question, because that's the question that I always like to start with with people. Let's set the intention, and set what would be ... let's start from there, and if we can just make that happen, that would be fantastic, right?
So it's amazing to think that way. So your dream come true was that everybody would send an email to their list, to subscribers, to social media, to let everybody know, spread the word about the movie. Because today's the day. We're recording this on Monday July ... what's the date today?
Giovanni: 20th.
Dean:
20th. So Monday July 20th, we're recording this right now. Hopefully you're listening to it today on July 20th because I was able to pull some levers and get stuff to happen quickly, and that you've got time to come and watch the premiere of the movie along with us. So let's start with that, because what we want to do ... certainly, let's start with everybody listening, and everybody that I'm going to send this email announcement to. The one thing that we want them to do is to go to ... what's the website that they go to to be able to watch the movie for free today?
Giovanni: Dreamer.movie, or dreamerdocumentary.com. They both go to the same place.
Dean: Okay. I love the dot movie-
Giovanni: Yeah, me too-
Dean: That's a domain name now. So dreamer.movie, or dreamerdocumentary.com. And when they go there, they'll be able to watch the movie ... how is it going to happen? Is it streamed or-
Giovanni: Streamed-
Dean: At a live time, or streamed-
Giovanni: No, no-
Dean: At any time? Tell me what.
Giovanni: They can register to be a part of this premiere week, and then at 8pm on the 20th, that's when everything goes live, and they'll be emailed a link to watch the movie from home, and that link will be live until Sunday July 27th at 11.59pm Eastern. And then that's the end of the premiere week.
Dean: Okay great. So if you move quickly, you can watch the movie, for free, online, right now, until Sunday, next Sunday, at midnight. And I really like that. It's a great way to get the word out, and when you say register, really all that means, they just need their name and email address, nothing too crazy-
Giovanni: Correct-
Dean: And yeah, this is ... and what happens after that? Just so we get the big picture of this. Will people be able to then ... will the movie be on Amazon, or iTunes?
Giovanni: Yeah. We'll stop the premiere week, and then the movie will launch again in the fall. We have our event, Dreamer Festival, September 26th, and after that it'll be available to purchase on Amazon, iTunes, all those places.
Dean: Yes. I love it. Okay, and so that's all very doable, I think. It's certainly ... I'm excited about watching it, when you watch the trailer it's so well done, and even so ... Nick and his team are so great now at setting the tone for something. It feels inspirational, just watching the trailer-
Giovanni: Unbelievable-
Dean: Yeah. They really are.
Giovanni: To take 10 hours of footage and break it down into a one hour movie, that is riveting, and engaging. You and I, we're movie nerds, it couldn't be a typical documentary it had to be edge of your seat kind of stuff, and different storylines, and engaging, and the music. They went above and beyond. I was shocked at how good it was.
Dean: That's amazing. That's so great. Now, and then what ... what'd be great is if people could share the ... to go and watch it to, to share for everybody that they know, to post and make it, as they say, go viral if we can. That'd be super, right? We're not going to break the internet, I'm sure, so that's good news. Don't be afraid to spread it around, because we're not going to hurt anything. We've got plenty of capacity set aside for you.
Giovanni: Right.
Dean: I like it. Okay, so, you've got everybody that you know is going to help spread the word here. What else is on the plan here for the big picture? Because when we look at the real big picture is going forward into September, right, that we'll have an experience for people?
Giovanni: After this week, we're going to announce the event, and who's speaking and we have some of the people who are in the movie who are already signed up to speak. We also have a couple people who aren't in the movie, who are super duper awesome, who are going to speak for our Dreamer Festival event. And then the promotion kicks in for the event after premiere week.
We'll probably also ... if people have a big enough audience or community, we can do a private screening over the next two months, something along those lines. Where they can showcase the film to their communities and audiences, and then keep the momentum going.
Dean: Wow. Yeah, that would be great. This is something that ... and it's so cross, doesn't matter what industry or niche or business people are in, this is something that's at the core, so everybody can benefit from this. And I bet your hope too is that they watch it with their kids, and really get that, because if you can get somebody ignited at a young age about this, all the possibilities right now ...
Giovanni: We originally created the film for ... the idea around it for people like us, for entrepreneurs, for visionaries, for change makers, and then when I saw the final version, I actually started crying and I was like this is not only going to affect adults, it's going to be massive for kids, especially kids of people like us who don't fit in, who maybe were bullied, who are misfits, who are ... the people who eventually grow up to be the change makers and the entrepreneurs because we suck at fitting in.
As a test, we did a private screening at my house for a couple people, and I asked them to bring their kids, because I thought that would be the ultimate test with this movie-
Dean: Would they sit through it?
Giovanni: Yeah. And they not only sat through it, they loved it. So I was like-
Dean: He likes it! He likes it! Mikey doesn't like anything. Right? That's funny. Well, that's great. What were the ages of the kids?
Giovanni: 9, 13, 15.
Dean: Wow. I think your right on track there, right? Especially with the 13 and 15 year olds, as they're just kind of making their way into okay there's a real world out here now. Starting that awareness, and their ability to have an impact on that world. - it's amazing how when we're growing up, you're putting artificial bafflers on your ambition, based on where you are or what you think is possible in your circumstances.
Giovanni: Exactly. So imagine if we could help younger people skip through all that stuff, and just keep dreaming at a high level and realizing there is no obstacle, there's no limitation, there's nothing in your way other than what people have told you you can't do.
Dean: Yeah. I think that's very cool. So are you doing any ... I think that's going to be a great spread. Everybody, and this is something that is completely spreadable, because it's just nothing but good is going to come from that, of inspiring people to dream, and to see evidence of people who are ordinary people achieving extraordinary things.
Giovanni: Right. I feel like once people see it, and they'll get it, and then my real hope is once you've seen it, that you would share it everywhere, because it's one of those things that ... especially with everything happening, there's so much negativity right now, there's so much fear in the media, there's so much division, there's all this stuff happening, and I want people to hope again, and I want them to dream again, and I want them to feel positive again, especially if they've felt they're in this dark place.
That would be my dream. It's like let's help a lot of people feel the hope again.
Dean: So how can we get ... how can we encourage the people who ... wouldn't it be great if the Sunday night, next Sunday night, is the biggest night yet of the event? Wouldn't it be great if with all of this that we're doing right now, all this that everybody in your world is sharing and doing everything we can to get the word out, and then what if everybody was encouraged then that the next night to invite everybody they know and so on? Then it becomes, then it builds, that Sunday, instead of the premiere night being the big night, that trickles down, what can we do to make it build so that there's even more people at the end than in the beginning?
That would be a pretty fun-
Giovanni: Yeah, that's exactly what my hope is, where every day the viewership actually doubles from the day before kind of thing, because people are loving the movie and then spreading the word and literally telling your friends you have to watch this.
Dean: So I wonder, if we're going to ... there's almost an element of creating an environment, or creating a community around a place where people can, or a hashtag where people can share their dream, or that would be a call to action ... telling a story-
Giovanni: I love it-
Dean: Telling something about ... that your dream would be a pretty cool thing.
Giovanni: I love that. So the hashtag is #dreamermovie, and I would love ... the idea of people sharing their dream is epic.
Dean: Yes. I think that's good. Right, so have you set up the accounts for Dreamer movie? Like @dreamermovie?
Giovanni: No.
Dean: Okay. I just wonder where is it posted from, like who's posting the social media stuff?
Giovanni: Right now it's all coming from my account.
Dean: Okay. So I wonder if it might make sense to also have the Dreamer movie, where ... and part of what I'm thinking is to create a platform for sharing peoples inspirations from this. I imagine that people are going to watch the movie and realize that there's been a dream that they've put on hold, or that they abandoned years ago. It feels like it's going to be the kind of thing that awakens stuff in people. And I haven't even seen the movie yet. I've got to talk to Nick about that, normally I get to see free things, but ...
Giovanni: First of all, I love this, because the idea is genius, and we're recording an interview and I'm taking notes. Thank you Dean.
Dean: Well, that's part of it right? That's the thing. I just wonder, what would be ... because how can we create something that would be shareable, like to make it a verb - Steve Simms when Steve did his blue fishing book, we were brainstorming ways and had ... created the verb hashtag of blue fishing as telling the stories of the things that they were doing, #blue fishing as the verb around it.
And so I wonder where this idea, like along with the #dreamermovie is a thing, it's a noun hashtag. I wonder if mixed in with that, for the community, certainly we want people to share that, but now the people who have seen it and are part of this community that we want to sort of encourage, it's almost like the #dreamermovie is the before unit, right? Of getting everybody into ... so it's building the awareness and getting the word out like that, but this now ongoing community where it creates the movement, you're not going to build a movement around Dreamer movie, of the hashtag, right?
Giovanni: Right.
Dean: So I wonder what the ... almost needs a rallying cry. Or some brainstorming, but do you feel that, or what's the thought?
Giovanni: Yes. And I'll come up with something, at some point today, because this is brilliant. And then it gives people the chance to state-
Dean: Because you want to keep - yeah, the hope is with any kind of movie like this, that it's a catalyst movie, right? That there's before I saw the Dreamer documentary, and after I saw the Dreamer documentary. It's one of those things, it's like ... a lot of people who before they saw Forks over Knives, and after they saw Forks over Knives, and those kind of things where it makes a difference. You're not the same person on the other side of it, as you were when you went in.
Giovanni: I love it.
Dean: If it's doing it's job right, right?
Giovanni: Right.
Dean: Which I suspect it will. 100% confident. So now we want to keep people excited about two things, about their new journey and getting other people involved in the journey. Spreading that.
Giovanni: Oh man, this is so good.
Dean: I think that's really the thing, right? So now this is kind of like you've got an opportunity, I look at the movie as the ... a lot of times all these production things and all these big promotion ideas that you see are all full core press, full core press, go see the movie, go see the movie, go see the movie, and then all the attention is about that, and then as soon as everybody's seen the movie, then there's really nothing, or buy the book, buy the book, get the book, buy my album or whatever.
All of that promotion just about the event, about the front side of it, but then no engagement after. And if you're looking at this as the first hour of your new life as a dreamer, unleashed as a dreamer, how do you nurture that spark that we're going to ignite? And fan that flame? You're really about the experience it's got to start with the movie, but it's got to now be nurtured and expanded.
Giovanni: Right. I love it.
Dean: And that can be through what kind of things are ... and I love that there's this event in September, that one of the things that is a really interesting thing is I wonder if there would be a way for you too ... well, I know there is a way, let's brainstorm the way, for you to create some early experiences that people could get on board with to lead up to the event, we're talking what day is the event?
Giovanni: September 26th.
Dean: So we've got basically two months, 60 days, from the time that your ... the premiere week ends, and the event. September 26th. So I wonder if there's a way to get and engage the early ... the people who are most excited about this. If you were to think about the possible outcomes of somebody watching this movie, right? That there's going to be ... that they're going to be so excited and emotional and freed, and inspired, and awakened and all these things that they had in them all along and this is going to reignite that for them.
That's going to be one element of the people. I don't know what percentage it'll be but it will be the peak experience people. There's no doubt that that's going to happen. And then there's going to be people who are inspired, that haven't really considered themselves dreamers, or they haven't ever really been felt like they've been holding themselves back or whatever, but maybe they realize okay I've got a dream, I never knew I had a dream, but I really do now. And that could be a catalyst for that kind of thinking.
Then there's going to be people who just watch the movie and go "That was great, what time does the game start?". After the movie, "Yeah that was good, saw that, that was great". And then there might be people who it's just not for them, and that's okay, but it's probably unlikely, but a very small minority of them. But the ones that are going to drive all of this are really the ones that are awakened after it, and so I think ...
Giovanni: Let me let you in on a surprise, or a secret.
Dean: Okay, okay.
Giovanni: I haven't even told you the best part. We are kicking off a program that starts next week called Dream Circle, and-
Dean: Like it-
Giovanni: Dream Circle is a nine week program that I'm leading live to help people dream bigger and realize what their calling is, what their gifts are, what their vision is, what their - all these kinds of things, but connected to the dream, and then spending that time making the dream come true, so that by the time the event comes, they've realized the dream and the event becomes the celebration of the thing happening.
Dean: Oh that's great. That's exactly what I was going to say to you, you've studied me well.
Giovanni: Yep. You remember our second summit event in 2017, we did the moon shot competition, where anyone who had a ticket could submit what their big idea was in terms of how they were going to change the world, and we picked finalists and all of them spoke on stage, and the audience chose the winner and then the winner received $60000 from us, we're actually going to do the same thing over again.
So anyone who's in the Dream Circle program, we're going the help them develop their dream, make it come true, and then they can submit a video sharing what their dream is, we'll pick finalists and we'll have them played during our Dreamer Festival event, and then the audience again will vote and choose who gets the $50000 prize which is a gift to put towards making the dream come true, so that it can impact the most people.
Dean: Oh this is great. This is great. That's exactly what I would have recommended. That's so good-
Giovanni: We're like telepathic.
Dean: Yeah, exactly. I like that a lot. So that's a big thing then? That's going to be ... I'm glad you've got that, because that's a really great way to lead people into coming for the event. I like that.
Yes. So I wonder, have you done ... what about for kids? For the teens or whatever? Is that ... are you ...?
Giovanni: I'm not there yet, and I would actually love help on this, because I feel like they're the ones who would have the most impact, and I often speak at universities and let me tell you this story, you'll love this. The first time I ever did, I'm always brought in to speak on entrepreneurship, and it's usually MBA students or entrepreneurial business students and the first time I did it, I had this whole presentation, I was so excited. Halfway through, I realized I'd lost ... they weren't engaged. And I thought what, what is happening? And I just stopped and I scrapped my entire thing, and we started talking about anxiety, we started talking about depression and how I went through a lot of these things when I was their age, and I had a 100% engagement-
Dean: Oh really-
Giovanni: And then I realized they are at this place where they're there because probably for a lot of them they were told to be there, from their parents, their guidance counselors, their teachers, who have the best meaning for them, but it's not always aligned with who they are. That was what happened to me, and that's when my anxiety started, and I figured if we can help them at that point to feel connected to their truth again, and to not feel depression and maybe things that are worse, like potentially suicidal thoughts or that kind of crazy anxiety level that a lot of these kids feel, that's where I really want to make the most impact.
Dean: Yeah. I mean wow, that would be great. Are you going to have any, or thought of any specific programming for that, for the teens, or .. it's kind of sensitive isn't it? How do you make it so they want to participate in it? Joe Polish has been doing the young geniuses at some of the events, where they'll have teens who can come alongside the events, and it's a neat thing. Because parents who are dreamers, you want that for your kids too, right? You want to free their things.
I wonder what that ... what are the characteristics that you're really trying to awaken in the teens, if they're not thinking world changing things, what would be way for them to think?
Giovanni: I think a lot of it has to do with connection to their truth. The pattern I kind of see is we're all born perfectly aligned with who we are, there's no filter. And our first ten years, we are are ourselves, and we're often getting in trouble for being ourselves because we stand out, and then we're taught to fit in. So we're taught to stop doing the thing that makes us stand out, and then we almost have to act like everybody else, try and fit in, try to appease the adults, maybe we're too loud. For me it was like "get your head out of the clouds".
It's like okay, but that's my thing. So for a lot of these kids, they're told to stop being themselves, so that they can fit in. And that's where I think the challenge starts, where there's the shift between who they actually are, and who they're told to be, and who they can possibly become, and if they can stay in that alignment with who they are and uncover what their gifts are, and deepen those gifts, then they would make a tremendous impact on society. Even if it means impacting one person, that's still a thousand times better, because how many people .... look at the adults today, how many people are in a job they hate or in a relationship they're not a fan of, or maybe even running a business.
This is what happened to me, I was in my real estate days and I know you have a lot of people in that space, I did really, really well but I secretly hated it because it wasn't aligned with me. Not that there's anything wrong with real estate it just wasn't my thing. I did it because I needed to make money, and then I got trapped with a reputation of being good at this thing, but I didn't want to-
Dean: Right. That's a good way of putting it. It is.
Giovanni: So that's how I want to help these kids.
Dean: Is realizing you still have to - go down the path just because it seems like the normal thing.
Giovanni: Right.
Dean: Well I like that a lot. - the event in September.
Giovanni: I missed the first half of that.
Dean: How many people do you expect ... I was just wondering, I was thinking out loud about the scope of ...
Giovanni: The dream for the September event is over 10000 people.
Dean: You're on track, each year's getting bigger and bigger with the live events, right? People coming in from all over. I think that's a cool thing. One of the things Dan and I've been talking about, Dan Sullivan, we transitioned our joy of procrastination podcast to a ... oh you know, a podcast now called "Welcome to Cloudlandia", so we recorded the first episode this past weekend, and one of the things in this transition to cloudlandia is the mainland is becoming less and less relevant.
I don't have as much of a sense of geography as I had when I was growing up. Growing up in - and being in Ontario, Toronto, Canada, world ... everything, my lens on the world was sort of filtered through the experience of getting my input through Canadian television, Canadian radio, Canadian newspapers and that's really where we are physically. And so I wonder, these whole things of ... I think that the opportunity to create the opportunities for dreamers to be together with other dreamers, locally even, could be a very interesting way to grow. We had that with the I Love Marketing meetups.
Giovanni: I remember going to one of the first I Love Marketing Toronto meetups, I think in 2013 or 2014-
Dean: Yes. At some point for all the world, there were over 100 different I Love Marketing meetup groups that were meeting and some of them got to be pretty big sized.
Giovanni: I remember it was a big opportunity then.
Dean: I wonder, especially if your dream is impact people somewhere, I'm talking about anybody who watches the movie and listens and ignites a dream to help people, more often than not that's going to be impacting people in one place.
Giovanni: Yeah, and there's something around building the safety of community to be around other dreamers to help make your dream come true. For a lot of people, sharing what their dream is or what their vision is can often be shut down, or they're told they're crazy or stupid or whatever the language is. It's so dangerous talking to you, and I mean that from a good place.
Dean: That's part of thing is we're dreaming. We're dreaming. -
Giovanni: Every time I tell my team that I've talked to you, it's like "uh-oh".
Dean: Uh-oh, let me get a pen. Let me get a pen. Exactly. That's funny.
Giovanni: I love it.
Dean: Well this, I'm encouraged too, and that's big picture stuff, but I'm encouraged that you had thought through the experience to bridge the movie to the event. And that's really going to be about some email engagements and the way you present that to people. Every situation, what we're always looking for out of any group, are the five star prospects and by that I mean people who are willing to engage in a dialog, they're friendly and cooperative, they know what they want, they are ready to get it, and they'd like us to help them.
That would be ... if we could wave a magic wand and everybody that came, that registered to watch the movie, gets labeled or stamped as a five star prospect, that would be super duper, right?
Giovanni: Totally.
Dean: And so part of that is that if somebody's willing to engage, I think that's a good thing. Do you have a dreamer scorecard, or anything like that? Any sort of interactive thing that people could do?
Giovanni: Well now I do.
Dean: Hey! Okay!
Giovanni: I love that.
Dean: And I've used those a lot, scorecards are a fantastic way to engage with people in a meaningful way, because it gives you a track to run on. It gives where they need help, and so maybe if you are able to identify the eight characteristics of a dreamer-
Giovanni: Right. And then where do you rank all that? -
Dean: Or seven, if you make dreamer an acronym.
Giovanni: If you could, that'd be great, right? -
Dean: Imagine if you had, maybe make it eight with an S, dreamers. Here's who dreamers are, dreamers are D, whatever. R, whatever. And have the ... you're familiar with the way that we've done the scorecards, how Dan Sullivan has done them with the four columns?
Giovanni: No.
Dean: So it's the most brilliant way that I've seen to quantify qualitative things. And what I mean by that is if you take the eight characteristics of dreamers and you say this is characteristic number one, and you put four statements that would be ... if somebody's failing at that one, what that would say, if they're frustrated about that one, what that would say, if they're winning at that one, conventionally winning, that they're doing okay, what they would consider okay with that one. And then the fourth column is transforming, if they were fully realized in the first element of dreamers, and each column has a rating system between ... you can rate yourself from one to 12, so you'd be a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
So you could be solidly in the second column with a ... if you were a five, or you could be barely into it or almost to the next one, so it gives you a sense of saying where within that you are. It's a progression. You can do - activator score card. But you essentially put in two scores, you put the score you are now and the score where you want to be. -
Giovanni: I actually have a thing exactly like this for our entrepreneurial class, and it's an assessment we created where we created a nine phase formula, and then for every phase we have three columns, and it's a score of one, two and three. Because what I'd realized is people want a metric, they want a measuring yardstick to say here's where I am right now, here's where I want to be. But if it's not connected to something easily measurable it's hard for people to see that.
Let's say it's health. I want my health to go from where to where? How do you connect that up? So by creating your own framework and then creating a scoring system based on the framework, now you actually give people a measurable result and then three months later you can say well back then you were here, and now you're here, you've actually created a transformation.
Dean: Exactly right.
Giovanni: And I love that.
Dean: That creates mindsets, right? Because that's how you can measure mindsets. That's what I meant by putting a quantitative measure on a qualitative thing.
Giovanni: Right. I love it.
Dean: And so it creates the conversation of where you jump off in the conversation with people.
Giovanni: - to that for this though, I've never connected those dots, so thank you. It's brilliant.
Dean: It can be cool, right? That way it starts the conversations. I love this, I think you're going to have a big hit with this, and I'm excited about everything, seeing it all unfold. I'm going to spread the word far and wide.
Giovanni: Thank you.
Dean: For sure. So we'll get this up and out as fast as I can today, and I'll encourage anybody listening right now to go to dreamer.movie or go to dreamer .. what is it called?
Giovanni: Dreamerdocumentary.com.
Dean: Dreamerdocumentary.com. And watch the movie tonight, if you can, or sometime before Sunday and spread the word. I think I'm going to do a movie review tonight, after I've watched the movie. I've been craving to do some movie reviews because we haven't had any occasion to go to the movies, so I'll do that and get that up on Facebook tonight. And I just think man, if we could get the word out as much as we can, imagine a world where everybody's free to dream. That's pretty exciting.
Giovanni: It is.
Dean: What do you think, what's your recap here?
Giovanni: I'm just thrilled at the idea of you reviewing this movie.
Dean: It's going to be great, yeah.
Giovanni: Monday night at the movies with Dean.
Dean: That's right. Yeah, I'm super excited about it so watch your Facebook.
Giovanni: Thank you. I feel really proud with all of this, I'm just really excited for people to see the movie.
Dean: - watching at 8?
Giovanni: Yeah 8pm Eastern is the first opportunity for people to see it. So when you sign up for the premiere, at 8pm you'll receive a link, or anytime after that. If it's after 8pm as soon as you sign up, you'll be able to watch the movie.
Dean: - right away. Be able to -.
Giovanni: Brilliant, I can't wait for that.
Dean: Yeah. How long is the movie, about an hour?
Giovanni: Yeah, an hour and 11 minutes.
Dean: One hour - hour and 11 minutes and 20 seconds. That would be perfect. - as soon as the creditors roll, and I would encourage everybody to do the same. Go register tonight, watch the movie and then post your own movie review to spread the word on your social media and let everybody know. I'm excited-
Giovanni: Use the hashtag so I can track all of you-
Dean: There we go. #dreamermovie.
Giovanni: Perfect.
Dean: Okay. I love it, Giovanni it's always delightful.
Giovanni: Thank you Dean.
Dean: I always get excited when we get to brainstorm. I do miss having coffee at the Hazleton right now, we should be doing that, but we're not. Soon.
Giovanni: When you are able to come to hang out, maybe I'll rent a movie theater and we'll watch it on the big screen.
Dean: At the Hazleton, we could do that. Remember I got the Hazleton screening room and we watched the Cambridge Analytica movie there, but you were so sleepy, you may not even remember that you were there-
Giovanni: I was so tired that day.
Dean: That would be super. That's what we'll do, we'll have a screening at the Hazleton, it'll be awesome.
Giovanni: Done.
Dean: Okay. Well give Stephanie a hug from me, and tell her to get back to work, she's got deadlines.
Giovanni: Can I just say I love the connection between me being told to get my head out of the clouds, and you starting a show called Welcome to Cloudlandia. I just feel-
Dean: Exactly. Come on back in. That's exactly right. I love it. Okay Gio, I'm excited, I'll talk to you soon.
Giovanni: Thank you.
Dean: Thanks. Bye.
Giovanni: All right.
Dean: And there we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, want to go deeper in how the profit activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com, and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book, and you can listen to the back episodes of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes.
Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process, and you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at breakthroughdna.com. And that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing a business. That's really the way we think about breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there.
So that's it for this week, have a great week and we'll be back next time with another episode of More Cheese, Less Whiskers.