Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells and this is the
leadership lessons from the great books podcast, episode number
123. And this episode
today, we will cover a massive book
in the science fiction genre. It's a
book that is so expansive, story that is so expansive that for some
people, including the 2 people that we have here today to talk about
the book, it sets the standard for world building and
for understanding politics, economics, history, ecology, and even
that hoary old subject that keeps rearing its ugly head in
even our postmodern time, religion.
Now this book was not on my radar or even our radar initially
as a book to cover on the podcast. However, when I talked
with one of our cohosts today as a result of a random networking
outreach conversation last year, his enthusiasm, his
overwhelming enthusiasm for this book today and his knowledge of the underlying
applications to leadership convinced me that it was worth
consideration for all of you, and I
was not disappointed. And in the interest of full
disclosure, I was exposed to this book for the first time at 9 years old
and was not necessarily impressed by the content, and I moved on to
Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub.
And arguably, this was probably because the version that I was
reading and that I was initially exposed to was printed in
tiny 9 point font type, which, of course,
makes it intimidating for any 9 year old.
Today, we will be covering a book that is the basis for 2 recent
films released in 2021 and 2023, respectively,
and a film version that would rather be forgotten by
most casual readers of the book or even hardcore fans
released in 1984 and written and directed
by, David Lynch.
Today, we will be pulling leadership lessons
from Dune by Frank Herbert.
Leaders, there are deserts everywhere from the
deepest inner mind all the way to the outer
limits, and the most arid desert in need of water
is probably the one right between your ears.
Now today, we will be joined in our conversation by the man who pitched Frank
Herbert's epic novel to me, the past VP of sales at
Into Growth, a global leader in executive search and leadership development, and
the current chief philanthropy officer at the Food Bank of
Alaska, direct from deep in the wilds of the largest state in the
union. And, yes, I am in Texas, and even we must bow to Alaska,
Dan Dan I'm sorry. Daniel, Bentholt.
And of course, we will also be joined today by a longtime friend of the
show coming back from episode number 110, where we covered
night by Eli Weisel with Libby Unger,
Ryan j stout. Hello, and welcome to the
podcast, Dan, and welcome back, Ryan. How y'all doing today? Fantastic.
Thank you. And yourself? I'm spectacular. I'm I'm always
good. How are you doing, Dan? Incredible. It's, it's good to
reconnect. It's hard to been hard hard to believe, Jason. It was a year ago.
I know. I know. We were just saying that before we hit, before we hit
record. So I remember glowing after that, discussion on Dune for,
like, the next 24 hours. So I'm someone who
who who could who could see it. So Well, it's
it's it definitely is. You definitely and that's, I mean,
what I said there in the opening, you definitely convinced me that it was worth
my time to consider this book and to kinda overcome
my my 9 year old angst about it that I'm carrying around in my
forties. And, you know, it it
turned out that, and we'll talk about the structure of the book and the content
and all that kind of stuff coming up here. I only have one major complaint
about book, honestly, and then that's it. Like
everything else, I was I was fine with it. And then I went and I
looked a little bit at Frank Herbert's life. We'll talk about literary life of Frank
Herbert here in a little bit, as we often do on the podcast.
We have some grounding for the author as well. But
in reading the book, I was fascinated by,
just how just the depth of everything that was built into it,
exactly what you exactly what you what you talked about when when you and I
had the, the initial conversation. So yeah. It's dense. It's
dense. But in your defense, Jassonne, I think I would still be
intimidated with 9.5.
Yeah. Yeah. I would open it and be like, oh, man. Yeah. We're
we're down here. Yeah. And, Ryan, I you know, it's been a
while. Had you had you even read Dune before? I we have never
even talked about it. I got Dune. Someone gave it to me when I was
out in Portland, Oregon. I was I was,
just working on a coffee shop. And this guy came in, and he's
carrying a copy of Dune. And I said, I never got around to that.
He said, this is the best book I've ever read. This is my 3rd time
reading it. In fact, I have, like, 3 copies. You can
have this copy. And
so it just so do you know when you see,
like, astrophysicist just show, like, a
taught sheet to explain
the fabric of space time. And they push down on it, and
that's what this book reminds me of. It's, like, pushing down on the
center, and the gravity gravity of it is so much
that you can't not put a
reader feel like your world is also being pulled in because it
is so relatable, because of the archetypal characters.
And so it automatically almost forces the
reader to be immersed into it. And it's written in a way,
and and the language that's used is accessible enough
and with the dictionary and a glossary and all that. So, I mean, it's a
commitment. You know? Yeah.
But, well worth it. The well and I
I liked the I'll be honest. I liked the structure of
it. Like, once I sort of gotten past my own, like, NUE or
angst or whatever about it, I like the structure of
the book. But now the version that I have, is structured in a particular
way. It is the, let's see.
I just have to get credit where credit is due.
It is the ace
Penguin Random House version, of this book
and the the paperback version. And
the way they put this together
was in August of 2005. So I guess this came out, you know, in anticipation.
Well, not necessarily anticipation of the movie, but rereleased for another generation.
The way it was put together, there's appendies that are in the back of it.
So there's, like, 20 pages of appendices, in
addition to the core the core elements of the book. There's
terminology. There's cartographic notes. There's a map, and then there's
an afterward by Frank Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, which I have not had the chance
to read yet. But that's the basic structure. And then it sort of
opens up with, you know, a quote, from the
manual of Muadhib, by the princess Irulan.
And and so it's set up in a way, and you'll you'll need to know
this if you're gonna read the book as a leader. It's set up as in
a way to to Ryan's point to sort of draw you
in to a world immediately. And
it's not weirdly enough, it's not Star Wars. Like, that's what I
expected. Like, it's not a Star Wars kind of epic. It's something even a Star
Trek kind of epic. It's something totally it's something totally different.
So, I like the structure of the book. I like the way things are put
together. I like the way that, that everything was collected together
sort of to kind of make it easily accessible, at least in my version,
which again was more accessible than the one that that I initially ran into all
those all those years ago. Alright. I know this isn't the subject
here, Jason, but you both talked about how accessible it is.
Mhmm. And those who are familiar with Frank
Herbert's, books in the series, what I'm told
is that they become increasingly less accessible as you go
on. Yeah. Especially for the average reader.
I stopped after book 3. It's pretty
weird. Okay. Is is it almost like reading a
I don't know, like, a thesaurus or something? Does it go like, is, you know,
is it like reading more of a, like,
is it written prose wise?
I what what, what what I what
I gather, makes it far less accessible
is even something I think the the most recent director,
I always butcher his his, surname, but Denis
Villeneuve, who, who directed
the the last two films that Jason referenced had had just
talked about how esoteric they become after book 3. And
just kind of just how out there the
concepts are and just, you know, what kinda happens to some of the characters
and time jump. It gets very sci
fi. So I think that's They just wanna go on.
Yeah. Yeah. So Well, let's, Topic
for another time. Just a topic for another time. Let's, let's open up with Dune.
And, as usual with books that are a little
bit more recent, I'm going to, pick a particular quote. I'm going to focus on
that. And then we're going to jump into, the literary life of
Frank Herbert. We're going to talk a little bit with, with both Dan and Ryan
about sort of the meaning of this book, and
what we have to look forward to here. So Dune opens with
book 1, which is called, you know, Dune. And
we open up with 2 characters,
actually, 3 characters, Jessica, reverend
mother, and Paul Atreides.
Now, the relationship between
Paul and his mother, Jessica, is critical
to the moving forward of the plot of Dune,
as well as the nuances of the relationship between,
Paul's father and the duke, Duke Leto. And
so we can we're gonna talk about that and address that, but I'd like
to focus on this just at the beginning. The reverend mother,
Gaius Helen Mohiam, sat in a tapestry chair watching mother and
son approach. Windows on each side of her overlooks a curving southern bend of the
river and the green farmlands of the Atreides family holding, but the reverend mother ignored
the view. She was feeling her age this morning more than a little petulant. She
blamed it on space travel and association with that abominable spacing
guilt and its secretive ways. But here was a mission
that required personal attention from a with the site.
Even the potashaw emperor's truth sayer couldn't evade that responsibility when
the duty call came. Damn that Jessica, the Reverend mother thought
if only she'd born us a girl as she was ordered to do.
Jessica stopped 3 paces from the chair, dropped a small curtsy, a gentle flick of
the left hand along the line of her skirt. Paul gave the short bow his
dancing master had taught the one used quote, when it doubt of another station,
unquote. The nuances of Paul's greeting are not lost on the Reverend
mother. She said he's a cautious one, Jessica. Jessica's hand
went to Paul's shoulder tightened there for a heartbeat, fear pulse through her palm. As
she had herself under control. Thus, he has been taught your reverence.
What does she fear? Paul wondered the old woman study Paul in
one Gestaltin flicker. I love that term, by the way, face oval
like Jessica's, but strong bones, hair, the Duke's black
black with brow line of the maternal grandfather who cannot be named
and that thin disdainful nose shape of directly staring green
eyes like the old duke, the paternal grandfather who is dead.
Now there was a man who appreciated the power of bravura even in death, the
Reverend mother thought. And so this is the setup
that brings us into this idea of
Paul being tested, right,
of Paul being trained. Well, not really being
trained. It comes at the end of his training, right, the beginning of his testing,
time. Right? And this sets up the
some of the other challenges that are going
to rise through the book, particularly challenges around
spoiler alert, the the death of the duke,
the, the challenges of of Jessica and Paul,
going to a, going to a new world, which is not like the world
that they just left, and ultimately the challenges
of being human. And there's a there's a touch
of I don't know if it's commentary or thought process in this
book, about evolution, which I wanna ask Dan about.
But that's how we open Duke. We're literally tossed into
the fray, right away. And this kind
of goes along with, I think, how Frank Herbert
was was as a human being. Right? How he structured
his own life. And so, Franklin Patrick
Herbert junior was born October 8, 1920 and died February
11, 1986. He was an American science fiction author who
wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, a photographer, a book
reviewer, an ecological consultant, and a lecturer.
He was fascinated by books as a young man and could read much of the
newspaper before the age of 5, had an excellent memory, and learned quickly.
Probably a little bit didactic as well as being a
little bit, having a little bit photographic memory.
Due to an impoverished home environment largely due to the Great Depression, Herbert left home
in 1938 to live with an aunt and uncle in Salem, Oregon. During
1942, after the US entry into World War 2, he served in the US Navy
Seabees for 6 months as a photographer, but suffered a head injury and was given
a medical discharge. He never graduated from college. According
to his son, Brian, he wanted to study only what interested him. And so did
not complete the required curriculum. Now we're on a, we're on a
month of, we're on a month of science fiction books. And that's why we're talking
about dune. And we talked about Ray Bradbury,
Fahrenheit 4 51, Ray Bradbury also during the depression did not
go to college. And part of the reason why Fahrenheit 4
51 is the way that it is. We talked about this in that episode, episode
number 122. He,
he said, Bradbury did, and I quote, it was a depression. Everyone
was poor. No one could afford to go to college. We all just went to
the library. And, and, Frank Herbert,
definitely did that as well. Herbert's first science fiction
story looking for something was published in the April 1952 issue of startling
stories. And he began researching Dune in 1959,
and it was published in 1965, which of course spearheaded the
Dune franchise. By the way, Dune is the best selling science fiction
novel of all time, and the Dune saga set in the distant future and taking
place over a millennia explores complex themes, such as the long term survival
of the human species, human evolution, planetary science and ecology, and
the intersection of religion, politics, economics, facts, and power in a
future where humanity has long since developed interstellar travel and
colonized many thousands of worlds.
He later told many years after Dune was published,
and this is of particular interest, I think, to
Ryan. He later told Willis e McNelly that the
novel originated when he was assigned to write a magazine article about sand dunes in
the Oregon dunes near Florence, Oregon. But another possible
source of inspiration for doing was Herbert's reported experiences with
psilocybin mushrooms. According to the Michael
myecologist, Paul Stamets account, which describes Herbert's
hobby of cultivating chanterellis, which are those like
weird little mushrooms that have like the ruffled edges. And they they
make you trip. They send you all kinds of different places.
That's a little bit about the literary life of Frank Herbert and a little bit
about Dune. Dan brought us Dune, so I'd like to give him
first crack at this. Talk to us about the importance of Dune,
on you and your life and your creativity and your leadership.
And then, Ryan, I want you to talk with us a little bit about the
challenges of reading it. What does that look like? So,
Dan, lay it on us. Ghassan, thank you. Yeah. It
was, it was fun to think back on this. I think I I
think I read it when I was, just about 14 years old for the first
I've read it a few times. It was, probably
freshman or sophomore in college, found it on a list
of, like, 28, 40 books or something like that could choose
from. And, it was a tome. So, yes, it
was it was intimidating, as you
said. But I like the cover. It looked interesting. And
I've always loved the smell of old books. And it was an old, you know,
old books and coffee, 2 favorite smells. In fact, this book talks about
coffee and the important coffee service, you know, in a relationship too, which is
also super cool. But it was just dense. I mean, it
was layers, as you said, commentary on
politics, religion, ecology.
It planted the seed of an interest in just overall environmental environmental
sustainability for me, which I spent a portion of my career within.
But initially, it was just the the adventure and the world building
that kinda drew me in. I mean, I I was 14 years old and could,
you know, immediately see the clear influence that it had had on pop
culture and the ways that it had been influenced by other other works.
But, yeah, it was certainly, probably the second or
third time when I became of reading it, when I
came to a more maybe conscious appreciation of the importance of
some leadership lessons that were kind of woven through.
You know, I think I remember reading somewhere recently that I think it was Tim
Ferris or or someone who was quoted in saying that anything,
critical you need to know about leadership, you can learn by reading
DIM or or something to that effect, which, I think is
probably a bit of a stretch. But it is it
is, certainly interesting to have seen that. I've I've seen it on
different lists from, you know, I think, Elon Musk to
others who've who've referenced it. But there
there were certainly I do remember, there being specific points
when reading into some of the dialogue, especially in the
relationship between, the protagonist
Paul and his father, the duke. Just some of the the ways in which he
talked about how his father led and what he was learning from him, in his
position of leadership, that certainly got my wheels turning at a very
young age. You know, I think there's even a quote
where, Duke Leto talks about, you know, what
it means to be a leader. I think he says, you know, what is important
for a leader is that which makes him a leader, the needs of his people.
Which, you know, 14 year old kid kinda reading that and understand thinking through all
of what what are the what are the factors
and context that requires a leader to emerge in
in how they lead, which is important. But, you know, even things like,
give as few orders as possible, I think what it says. Right?
Once you've given orders on a subject, you will always be required to give orders
on that subject or something to not affect, you know, which just speaks to the
importance of keeping it simple for those involved in a mission. Right? Not
micromanaging even at at the furthest end of that and
ensuring that sort of the key message, the
mission is paramount in people's minds and they never forget it, and
trust them to get the job done. How are them to do so? Which certainly
wasn't thinking about it at that depth. Again, the first time I read it, but
certainly, certainly had an impact upon me. In fact,
I'm in a new office here, and getting set up, and I have very little
on the walls. Mhmm. But thing I actually did put up on the wall right
behind me is a gift from my baby sister who I just saw in Portland,
Oregon last weekend, Brian. And it is the litany
against fear, which I have, framed up there. And that is the only thing
aside from, the whiteboard on the other side of the room that is on
the wall so far. So That's awesome. Just for you, sir. Just
for you. I can I'll grab your
address from HeySign. I'll mail you something to put on the wall. Thank you.
I appreciate that. I'm a minimalist by nature, although my wife
would probably, not agree with that statement. Well, you know,
there's always there's always 2 partners in or not 2
partners. There's 2 kinds of people in a relationship. There's there's a person
who's the minimalist, and then there's the person who's maybe a little bit left or
right depending upon your perspective of the minimalist who's always considered by that
minimalist to be a maximalist. Also depends on the
context you're talking about. Right? In what area of life? That that's correct. That's
right. That's right. You said a bunch of different
stuff there, Dan, and I took a bunch of notes. I wanna jump into a
few things there. But first, Ryan, I
know, you know, you told us the story about how you, you know, you've kind
of structured not how you how you ran into Dune and how you
got your copy and how you thought about it.
You know, for me, you know, reading it and
I've already mentioned this already. Reading it at 45,
you know, significantly different obviously than trying to touch on it at 9 or even
to Dan's point 14. Right? Or as a freshman in, as a freshman in
college. You're reading with all the kinds of experiences that
you've had, you know, underneath your belt. That's what you're bringing to the game.
What did you find in, in Dune?
It is. Age is huge. Experience is huge.
As I've gotten older, instead of getting bobbed out of details,
it's more like the abstractions of things.
And, you know, the the the challenge I think the biggest challenge is what, you
know, Dan and maybe he signed. I don't think yours is intimidated
by it. But 900 pages is like a lot. It's pretty it's a
and and going into it knowing that that it's going to be really dense material.
Mhmm. That the number of characters,
the names of the characters, how to keep the characters
in their houses, which houses represent what.
And so this all starts to compile without
some, like, note taking or references to other
material in a short period of time, it just becomes way too quickly overwhelming.
The the the I
think the challenge, there there was, like, parts of
or or either of you familiar with the show House, MB?
With with House. The show House with with, House. Yeah. House.
Yeah. K. And so a lot of that
show is a couple seasons go on. It's built
upon, like, layering stratagems.
In order to, like, have people reveal
something. And it seems like there's a lot of that
dialogue. So they're going to think this if I do this. So I'm going to
do this, so they'll think this. Therefore, it will, you know, it will
it will, you know, mend or take care
of or address this particular issue. So there's a lot of, like,
just abstract thinking that goes on within
within the book and how, and, and how the
Duke kind of restructuring,
his his, responsibilities. And,
like, there was there was one I think a challenge too is, like, the
the environment in a way. Maybe it's because the dialogue, maybe
it's because people when they, thousands of years in the
future evolve, don't have as, it didn't
seem to be it's like there was a a less
focus on, say, like, it'd be emotional responses.
So it was not a lot of, like, reactions. And I guess I could also
say to, like, the the Duke's
leadership skill of of kind of remaining calm.
Mhmm. Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. That that
that's a good point. Yeah. I didn't I would not have known how to articulate
that, but I did pick up on that, as well. And I
think I think that goes partially
to, obviously, Robert is as a writer or was as a writer.
Those were the things that he focused on. Right? Because he's gonna write, you know,
what he's gonna write, right, from from that particular perspective because he's creating this
thing. But Frank Herbert also, weirdly enough
I mean, you know, reading a little bit more into him,
he was he seemed to be a person who
was very and and and, you know, I'm sure people, you know, have
all kinds of different, obviously, not not knowledge, but people have all
different kinds of experiences during the course of their life. Right? He seemed to be
a person who was very intentional,
about some of the things that he did. And I don't know if that was
because of the head injury that discharged him in World War 2 from the Seavies.
I don't know if that's just because of the path that he went down in
the particular way that he was raised, but he seems to have or seemed
to have in the course of his life a lot of intentionality behind
who he was as a person. And then the creative
part of him that came out in science fiction
seemed to be unlocked by other things that
he was doing, like the psilocybin mushrooms and, you know, the the
the the sort of the that sort of messing around with that a little bit.
Now again, you know, I've known plenty of people who are
more more, maybe more conservative in their temperament. I don't
mean politically conservative. Just conservative in their temperament
that do need that other thing to be unlocked inside of them so
they can access a whole bunch of stuff. But once they go behind that door,
they kinda get spooked sometimes to your point about emotion,
Ryan. They kinda get spooked by the strength of whatever that thing is back there,
and they slam that door shut real quick. And I I looked at
Dune as his
attempt to put that into its appropriate bucket, right, wherever it came
from, but to put that thing in its appropriate bucket and channel it in a
particular in a particular direction. And it's interesting, Dan. We were
talking before we hit record that, and you mentioned this,
that subsequent books become more esoteric and
become more it's like he got hate to
say it this way, but it's like Frank Herbert got high on his own supply,
you know, and sort of went down that rabbit hole a little bit deeper.
Maybe so. Maybe so. It's certainly,
it, what I've heard, and I think the the level
of or at least on kind of the overall
accessibility, the first three books are sort of that trilogy,
are the only that have been adapted so far into anything outside of the
novels. Right? And I think that that kinda speaks to kinda
what's gonna sell. But also, I think it's,
and we can make sure get into this a little bit as well, but
the first two books, really seem to be the full
arc of the primary protagonist and the message
around, the purported message of Frank Herbert's
around the danger of following overly charismatic leaders.
And that being, you know, really sort of the rise and fall of an
empire and that sort of contained peace and
then the rest of it.
Yeah, there's certainly an audience for that, but maybe
a little bit different one than the general populace, had an appetite
for. Right. How much of the book do you think is null and void if
the Harkonnage just, like, left really good machinery?
And then he just carried on as usual. It'd be like a show it would
be a it would be a it would be a short story of, like, 12
pages. They left us this wonderful machinery.
We we harvested the spice without a hitch.
We're not. So
it's like be kind, rewind. That's maybe that's where that came
from. Yeah. They all just the Harker really just needed to open up a blockbuster
franchise. That's really all they needed to do. It's just, like, back in the day.
Well, I'm sure you're, I'm sure you're both, you know, read it read into this.
I don't know that I fully appreciated, you know, this and and reading through the
machinations, of the houses when I first read it at 14.
Mhmm. Of course, that was their the Harkonnen's first step. Their
intentional first step in laying the trap. Mhmm. But,
yeah, if they hadn't if they would have all just been kind to one another
and and, and there was no animosity, I don't think we'd
have any great stories, You know? Well, and we're gonna we're gonna
talk about this in the next section of kinda wanna hold my hold my powder,
give my powder dry a little bit here. And I will say
that we talk about the houses. I immediately
thought of and and, of course, it was the environment too.
I immediately thought of Lawrence of Arabia. Matter of fact, I I actually wanted to
go get my copy of TE Lawrence's 7 pillars of wisdom and kind of
read it alongside Dune just to see,
you know, was Herbert was Herbert reading TE Lawrence's
mail. As they say these days, was he collection receipts on TE Lawrence?
Because the, and we've covered several pillars, seven pillars of wisdom on this
podcast. There are remarkable parallels
between the observations that TE Lawrence has, particularly in the first
couple of, I'd say the first 3, 4, 3, 2,
200 pages of 7 pillars of wisdom that
are reflected in some of the behavior that the houses get up
to, and that Leto and Atreides, get
into, and that the, you know, are
involved in. There's there's some there's some interesting parallels there. And I know that
Herbert was widely read, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was an
influence there. And that's why I sort of I I came up with and we'll
talk about this into my second second turn here. But
this t e Lawrence idea of and I loved it the
way he put it in, 7 pillars of wisdom, never outstay a
climax, which is a hugely
important lesson for leaders, and one
that I think Lawrence out of out of
many, many leaders, I would say maybe George Washington was maybe the other one,
kind of actually understood this and knew exactly when to
leave. And most leaders have no clue when to
leave. That's true. And then they wind up like Leto, and they fall into it.
They fall into the trap of their enemies. So, so,
like, how scarce? Well, you know, I mean, yeah,
making yourself scarce. I mean, well well, the and this gets into
succession and a whole bunch of yeah. Let me let me ask you this. Follow-up
question for this, and then we'll we'll move on. Follow-up question on this. So you
mentioned Tim Ferris and Elon Musk reading this book.
Obviously, for our listeners, if it's good enough for Elon Musk, it's good enough for
you. So go go grab a copy of Dune. Even if you don't read the
rest of them, you don't have to read children of Dune or Dune
on Mars or whatever. The other one starts to don't worry about it. Just get
the first letter. This
idea of not
micromanaging, building trust, give us few orders as possible,
This idea of emergent leadership, right, that we see in Dune.
If I am a charismatic leader, what's the
warning here for me in this
book? Yeah. If you are that
charismatic leader. Right. You
know, let me touch on that really quickly, but I also wanna
maybe just rewind before I lose this thought, on the T. E. Lawrence front, if
I may. Just Mhmm. Yeah. There's a really, really great and I'll just
put a plug for this because I received this as a Christmas gift this last,
this last Christmas was a coffee table book. See the
coffee just coming back to coffee. Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Bring it back. And
and, and and it even touches on it in this this coffee table book on
sort of the worlds of Dune, the cultures, and
the, places and historical figures that
inspired the book, by Tom Huddleston. And it
is just a phenomenal kind of just fun kind of read to look at
and touches heavily upon, the 7 pillars of wisdom,
and T. E. Lawrence as well. But back to your question on sort of
what's what's the warning, if you are a charismatic
leader here. I think there's certainly a,
a warning against, ambition,
for the sake of ambition.
Just the message, the age old message that,
power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mhmm.
You know, the certainly a
pretty, pretty clear message of the book is one that I
didn't necessarily get as a 14 year old, which was, you know,
Paul, you know, he he
ultimately succumbs and becomes the dictator that he overthrows. Mhmm.
You know, ego affects all of us. Pride affects all
of us. And it clouds our judgment.
And, and there's that's why you just can't
you cannot, speak enough about or or
just examine self examine enough
on just ensuring you're maintaining a healthy dose of
humility, and, relying on
others around you and setting up the right
systems and structures, from a, a
leadership perspective to, govern effectively.
What is the what is the Bene Gesserit ax axiom in there around, you know,
religion and politics in the same cart and, of course, we don't do that. But
just sort of some of those concepts introduced,
or reintroduced or really emphasized for me at a young age Yeah.
Were certainly very important. So, you know, revenge and,
manipulation do play a heavy part in the book even on the on
behalf of the protagonist. And that I think just
also speaks to, you know, I'll take a
maybe more spiritual or religious stance on that that, you know, we live in a
fallen world, and that's part of our baser nature as humans.
Revenge is a natural inclination. We wanna see others
experience the pain that they've caused us and which is a major driver for the
protagonist, Paul, in the story and much more and highlighted
much more directly in the 2 recent films that came out.
And you see even in the choice, you know, not to get too much into
that, but even some of them from a pacing and
sort of length of story standpoint, some of the edits that had to be made
and sort of decisions or actions that some characters took that
were taken by others in the book. There's to highlight
Paul's key motivation, being revenge in that and what it
ultimately did to him. Yeah. And, of course, we
we see that message reflected in other things that, Dune had some
influence on, including, Star Wars and the teachings of Yoda.
Right? Leads down a dark path.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, back to the book, back to Dune. I'm gonna
pick up a little bit here.
So Paul and Jessica and the Duke
leave their green planet. Right? And they go
to a desert, a desert
with worms and spice and betrayal,
a desert with a desert
with corrupt commerce. Right?
And, not even theocratically
driven. That's not even a monarkly driven people.
A desert with rebels and people who have
no business being in a desert but are. Right? And this is,
by the way, one of the other things about Dune that I wanna put up
just right up front. There's no there's
no there's very little appeal to to speak of Star Wars for just
a minute or even Star Trek the next generation of which I'm a gigantic fan.
There's very little appeal to this idea of multiple races
across multiple worlds. We're dealing with human beings,
and, you know, it's it's human beings that look like the kind of human beings
that you can see on the video of this podcast today. Right? You
know, 2 eyes, a nose, a mouth. We're not dealing
with, you know, Klingons or
Jedi. We're not dealing with anything that's fantastical in terms
of the actual human experience inside of Doom. We're
dealing with people who have, yes, to a certain degree evolved,
but they would still be recognizably human
from our perspective if they came, quote, unquote, back to our
time. And Herbert did that on purpose.
And so we pick up here, in the middle of book on or
towards actually closer towards the end. And, it starts with
this. My
father, the Paducia emperor took me by the hand one day, and I sensed in
the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He let me down
the hall of portraits to the ego likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.
I marked the strong resemblance between them, my father and this man in the portrait,
both with thin elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold
eyes. Princess daughter, my father said, I would that you'd
been older when it came time for this man to choose a woman.
My father was 71 at the time and looking no older than the man portrait,
and I was but 14. Yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father
secretly wished the duke had been his son and disliked the political necessities
that made them enemies. From in my father's
house by the princess Irulan. And so that's kind of a
quote that opens up the chapters, right,
in my version of, of Dune. Your version, your
mileage may vary. Then we jump into the
text. His first encounter with the people that he'd been ordered to betray left doctor
Kines shaken. He potted himself on being a scientist to whom legends
were merely interesting clues pointing towards cultural roots.
Yet the boy fitted the ancient prophecy. So precisely he had that
questing eyes and the air of reserve candor.
Of course, the prophecy left certain latitude as to whether the mother goddess would bring
the Messiah with her or produce him on the scene. Still, there was this odd
correspondence between prediction and persons. They met
in midmorning outside the Eric and landing fields,
administration building and unmarked, orinthopter
squatting nearby, humming softly on standby like a synomulant
insect. And Atreides guards stood beside it with Baird's sword and the
faint air distortion of a shield around him. Kind sneered at
the shield pattern thinking Eraqus has a surprise for them there.
The planetologist raised a hand, signaled for his Freeman guard to fall back. He
strode on ahead towards the building's entrance, the dark hole of the plastic coated rock.
So exposed that the monolithic building he thought so much less suitable than a
cave. Movement within the entrance caught his attention. He
stopped taking the moment to adjust his robe and the set of his stillsuit
at the left shoulder. Now pause. You got fantastical elements in here, but
it's with technology. That's also the genius of of what Herbert's doing
here. Back to the book. The entrance doors swung
wide. Atreides guards emerged swiftly, all of them heavily armed, slow pellet stunners,
sword, and shields. Behind them came a tall man, hawk face, dark of skin and
hair. You are a jubicle cloak with a tradies crest on the breast and wore
it in a way that betrayed his unfamiliarity with the garment.
It clung to the legs of his still suit. On one side, it lacked the
free swinging, striding rhythm beside the man walked
a youth with the same dark hair, but rounder in the face that you've seen
small for the 15 years kinds knew him to have, but the young body carried
a sense of command, a poised assurance as though he saw a new things all
around him that were not visible to others. And he wore the same style
cloak as his father yet with a casual ease, it made one think the boy
had always worn such clothing. The Mahdi will be
aware of things others cannot see with the prophecy.
Hain shook his head telling himself they're just people. With the
2, garb like them for the desert came a man recognized,
Gurney Halleck. Hines took a deep breath. Still, his resentment against Halleck who
had briefed him on how to behave with the duke and the ducal heir.
You may call the duke my lord or sire. Noble born is also correct, but
usually reserved for more formal occasions. The sun may be addressed as young master
or my lord. The duke is a man of much leniency, but looks little familiarity.
And Kain's thought as he watched the group approach, they'll learn soon enough whose master
on Eraqus. Order me questioned half the night by that Mentat, will
they? Expect me to guide them to an inspection of spice mining, do they?
The import of Howitt's questions had not escaped Kynes. They wanted the imperial
bases, and it was obvious they learned to do the bases from Idaho. I will
have Stilgar send Idaho's head to this duke,
Kynes told himself.
The reason I read that is because
Kynes is the planetologist, and he's our entry point
into Arrakis. He's our entry point into this
seemingly dead planet that has all kinds of other things going on in
it. It is a planet that is a desert. It's a planet that is being
mined for its spice. I
got to admit, I'm still not really clear on what spice does. I just know
it's valuable. And maybe it's in future
books. I I I have some idea maybe that it
has some hallucinogenic properties, but I'm also it also seems to be like
an actual food. I'm not really clear. Point is,
it's a resource like oil or water
or sand. It's a resource that
is that is prevalent, on Arrakis,
and it is also a resource that is apparently worth fighting
and dying over. The planetologist
kind who doesn't make it to the end, spoiler alert,
Kind of understands and is beginning to understand
that the point of planet, Arrakis, is
not the spice. The point is freeing people,
particularly the freemen to interestingly enough, read,
freeing them from the desert, turning the desert into
a garden. This goes
to the never ending challenge, which I think Herbert was very focused on
of building a new world, even after humans long since left planet Earth and
moved on to different planets and galaxies. Herbert's
vision of human troubles, desires, lusts, wars, and killings that seem to
haunt human beings' best efforts at building a new world mirror the
insights of t e Lawrence, that he had as a result of
experiencing the aftermath of the Arab revolt during World War 1.
One of the leaders, one of the ideas that a leader must know is when
to leave the stage, as I already mentioned. And the biggest curse of the characters
in Dune is that they all aren't in tune with the zeitgeist of when to
leave the stage due to the depth and breadth of
their egos. We already mentioned
revenge, Dan. So I'm gonna switch this to in here for this
opening part of this segment. Why is it important to leave on a high note,
Ryan? You're you're a performer. You you matter of fact, years ago, on another
project that we were involved in because we've been friends for a long, long time,
You told me, always leave on a high note. Always leave them
always leave them, you know, leave them clapping. And and Jerry Seinfeld also mentioned this
to to George years ago on that show. And George, you
know, was twirling and left on a high note. Right?
And I've sort of tried to do that in my career. We've on a
high note, but it's sometimes hard to figure out where that high note is. So
let's open it up with with you. Why is it important to leave on a
high note? So I so you've met cousin
Johnny, and I've talked to cousin Johnny. Yeah. I've met cousin Johnny anytime.
So You should you should tell Dan who cousin Johnny is. Because Dan Cousin Johnny
is a
good time fellow who's a frequenter
of the bars and establishments and has worked in
restaurants for a long time, likes to gamble, travels, you know,
kinda gets out there. And, but he always has, like, a
short wired, or or like a hardwired,
like, access to the shortcuts in his
brain, you know, where he can put things in very take
complex things and put it into simple terms, but he will
openly admit that he can barely read. Mhmm. So it's like
his ability to process information is is really high. And so he's
on the phone with someone, and I was like, who was that? And he told
me he's some girl. And I was like, that was what was that conversation
about? He's just like, always keep them wanting more. And
I was like and we're sitting at a bar at a TGI Fridays. This is,
you know, this whole scenario and it's like, but if you just take
that line, that and it
has great value. And that that's just
first thing I thought of when it was, like, leading on a high note. It
was like, you're galvanizing the troops. Mhmm. You
know, you want to, like, you want the reaction
of that and be, like, yes. I'm fully invested
and whatever we're doing is the only thing that is the
one thing we gotta do. And, you know,
I think that's, that would be a primary, you know.
Goal of the leaders to have all the people you're leading
get along as some sort of familial
unit because there's strength in community. And when everyone's on the same page
working towards a common goal, it almost doesn't feel like
work. Right. So, you know, leaving on a high note is
is kind of like the the the the path that the the red
carpet into into that.
Actualizing of the yeah. Yeah. Actualizing of the, yeah, of the leaving on a high
note. Dan, what do we do with those people, though, like Kines
or Harkins, as Ryan already mentioned. What do we do with those people
that just don't wanna go along or they or they have
just, you know and I always ask this almost on every podcast.
Right? Because leaders invariably are going to run into conflict.
Invariably. Matter of fact, I will tell leaders in the course of my leadership development
work or training work or coaching and consulting work that I've done in this space
for a long time now. I will tell them if you are not
experiencing conflict, you're probably not leading. Yeah.
You're probably doing it badly. Or because people aren't bringing you things that
you need to hear or your ego is so
massive that you can't brook even positive conflict.
And so everybody is doing another variation of this. Everybody's walking
around on you walking around you on eggshells,
and you're actually in the process of losing your team. You're lose you won't be
able to leave on a high note. You're you're gonna get carded out the back.
You know? So what do leaders do?
How do leaders respond to the kinds of the world? You know?
How do they respond to those kinds of folks who have other agendas?
No. Yeah. It's it's
that's, so quickly before jumping in there, it's interesting.
Kynes in the book, eventually does kind of become a
believer. He does. And so he he he comes along.
And I think there's there's a lesson in that too, which
is, you know, there's there's a variety of ways to deal
with with those, and that's always contextual in situation. Right?
Leadership is. And everyone needs to be
led differently. And a really great leader will be able to switch
gears well enough to be able to lead, at a group and or individual
level, lead people the way that they need to be led,
which is just part of the one of the bigger challenges
of of leadership and why it is certainly a craft, to
be to be learned. But I think some of that does come
back to and I think maybe to some degree in the case of of
Kynes that if
you're cultivating a familial environment to Ryan's point
and building a new culture, that,
that is is working for the larger majority,
eventually, people will self select in or self select out.
Mhmm. And, you know, it kinda calls back to,
you know, some of the the great works on getting the right people on the
bus and getting the wrong people off. Sometimes that those have to be
more direct actions to get them off. Sometimes they will jump off,
and and that'll just come by very nature of seeing a new
direction forming. And, people will
know when to exit or they or they won't, and you'll have to,
unfortunately, exit exit them yourself. Right. And those
are the that's that's the conflict I come back to. Right? Sometimes that
requires some difficult decisions to remove an
obstacle, for the team there, as well.
So certainly, you know, a challenging a challenging
instance. But, I did wanna circle back to your point about I I
had not pulled this out before, Dasanu and Ryan. So I wanna appreciate
I do wanna appreciate the note on the importance
of leaving on a high note or knowing when to exit
stage, because I do think that's so important.
And it's you know, I have been I've observed I've been in my career long
enough to have observed this play out positively, negatively,
you know, over time. But I do think it also,
on on the kind of flip side, if you will,
internally, it speaks to the importance of being to some
degree, not always present, you know, to some degree, like
there's there's a distance between you as as a leader and and and your
team. Mhmm. And you can't be too familial. Mhmm.
There does have to be some measure of sort
of parental, you know, position to be able
to, to lead and to to hold authority and
and to make the difficult decisions required of you in that position.
And so not being overly present, cultivating an
an, an air of scarcity,
scarcity, is important. And I think even
some of my favorite, readings from
graduate school, like the 1st 90 days, for example, you know, speaks to this and
the importance of kind of establishing Mhmm. Your
expectations with the team of being being accessible and maintaining an open door policy,
but at the same time, not being too accessible. That there
is a fine line as there is with everything. So, and I hadn't
necessarily pulled that out of Dune, before.
And that's that's a really that's a really, really, good
piece, especially as it relates back to, to ET Lawrence,
I think, as you said, Jason. Yeah. Well and I think that that's actually
why Duke Leto at tradies winds up in the spot that he winds up there.
And it took me it was sort of one of those things that it took
me a little bit to click to, because I was trying to figure out
and and we'll talk about the Baron Vladimir
Harkin in here in just a moment. We're we're gonna talk about villains in a
minute, but including that scuzzy little
nephew of his. Anyway,
you know, the the kind of background I have and and
Ryan knows a little bit about my background and then knows a little bit about
where I came from. Like, guys like that get clapped, like, quick. Like, they do
a lot of damage, but they get clapped quick. Like and we all, like, figure
it out and, like, move on. But in polite society, I I think as you
go up up the hierarchy, it gets a little bit harder to sort of reach
out to those people and and, as my mother would say, snatch them bald headed.
It becomes a little bit more of a challenge. But we'll talk about that in
just a second, because they have all these protectors around them, and they
have these walls around them. There's certain things you can't do because of propriety and
and all that. Although, I think a lot of that's has changed and is continuing
to change. But this idea
of and, again, I think that
it it kinda struck me. And it wasn't just a combination of it wasn't just
never outstay a climax, which is another variation saying leave on a high note. It
was also this idea, and I've been talking a lot about this lately.
William Shakespeare writes in the great play Julius Caesar.
There's a great scene. I think it's in act 3 of Julius Caesar
where Caesar's talking to Calpurnia. Right? And Calpurnia, his
wife, is trying to get him to not go to the Senate because she senses
that something is going to happen to him. And he says he says this
great line. I love it. He goes everywhere always I am Caesar.
Like, why wouldn't and and and then there's just dead silence there. And and Shakespeare
leaves that line just hanging there. He puts a period at the end of it,
and he just leaves the line hanging there. Right? He doesn't put a comma. He
doesn't leave anything else. Just everywhere always I am Caesar.
And I think in our attempts
to become more familiar with each other
and social media has done a piece of this, the Internet has done a piece
of this. I mean, Dan, you and I connected because of the Internet. We connected
because of LinkedIn, right? Because of a social media platform on the Internet.
We're all of a certain age. I'm in my mid forties now where
we saw the Internet come into fruition. We aren't we aren't we aren't
that generation that the one that's like a couple of generations behind us. We aren't
the ones that were born into it. And it was just here. We saw it
develop. Right? And so we've gone from my dad,
who would have been in his seventies if he were still alive. My
father would have no interest in the Internet beyond just, like,
yeah. I mean, that's cool, but, like, why do I wanna talk to somebody in
Australia? Now we we've leapfrogged in 20 years
to, no, we can't get away we can't get away without this connection.
But what this does is it brings a feeling of familiarity. And so
when a leader is operating inside of this
space, the tension is, am I familiar?
Am I friends with my am I friends with my people on Facebook? Or
do I need that distance? And people look at that distance, bless you,
Ryan. People look at that distance as rejection
even though in reality, it is an idea, like you're talking
about that certain distance. Once you have that
distance, then you know when to leave, I think, or you
know when to stay. Now Julius Caesar, of course, dies in the senate. Duke
Leto gets, of course, betrayed and dies, you know,
himself. And I think the sin of
Leto and the sin of Caesar are the same, just on different sides of the
coin. You know? It's this idea that I overstayed my climax.
I I I maybe shouldn't have gone to Arrakis. Maybe I should have just
sent Paul. Maybe that would have been good enough. Now Paul's
15, obviously. You know, you're gonna send a 15 year old to do a man's
job. Well, maybe maybe then he
avoids the messiah nonsense that happens later on in, in the
3rd part of, in the 3rd part of doom. Or maybe maybe he still runs
into it, but just in a different kind of way. You know, that's a nice
little counterfactual there. I I don't know. But I think of these kinds of things
when I when I touch on this, when I touch on this material.
Yeah. There's a there's a lot there. There's a lot
there. There's a lot there. It's always a it's a it's a difficult one.
And frankly, on a on a personal level, I've always struggled with that. Mhmm.
Sort of, you know, just the desire to be, you
know, close with and kind of friends with and just just the,
the familial atmosphere you wanna maintain with a
cultivate with a team and that buy in at the
same time maintaining a certain distance. Right. Or does just how
we're wired, how we're raised, our personalities, you
know, and and that's why I think some personalities are better suited for leadership than
others. So, it just kinda comes back to that. So,
you know, there's a there on a, on the importance of knowing when to
exit the stage, you asked an earlier question, Hassan, around,
you know, what is what is the warning for overly charismatic leaders too?
Mhmm. I think there's a a related warning here,
you know, around exiting the stage
that that, you know, it's reflected in one of my
favorite lines from, The Dark Knight. It's Christopher Nolan. Right? It's like
you die a hero where you live long enough to see
yourself become the villain. Right. Which I I think it it
resonates with us because, you know, that's,
again, been in my career long enough to have seen, like, almost any
leader regardless of how great they were. Once
they're out of a role, you got a new leader coming in, you know, people
are comparing them and you kind of forget about the great things they did,
dependent upon, you know, etcetera. And there's, you know, people tend to
vilify, their leaders. So, you know, knowing when
to exit the stage and when you've done enough, you know, you mentioned
George Washington. I'm watching a phenomenal documentary on him right now. And just, like, again,
that's one of the greatest things,
One of the reasons he's so well remembered, he knew when to exit the stage.
Yeah. He knew when to put down power. He knew when to get out. Us
all. And it's like a ball. Right? Future generations. You know?
Yeah. So, it's a it's an important one for the
longer. Ryan, let's talk about the
Barron. Let's talk about Barron Harkonen for a little bit.
You've you've had experiences in your life where people have just not liked
your face. Currently going through several of those,
relationships.
What but no villain to go back to the dark night, honestly.
Right? The villain of the dark night, the joker didn't think he was the
villain. He he thought he was just well, even said, I'm a
dog. And by the way, it's one of my favorite movies too. I'm a dog
chasing a car, or I wouldn't know what to do with it if I caught
it. I'm just it was chaos. I just do things. Right?
The the, yeah, the the the baron. Right? The
baron doesn't view himself as a villain.
He views himself as protecting and, yes, he is
a venal weasel. Let's just be very clear. But he views himself
as protecting the spice, protecting the trade,
protecting what makes his house valuable.
And, of course, if there's a side benefit to crushing a different another house, he's
gonna take that as well. Like, isn't there's no way he's not gonna take that
extra off the table. He does not view himself as a
villain. Ryan, what do we do when we don't
view ourselves as a villain? How how do we switch our brains on
that?
I keep going back to how much of
groups of people or just people in this book rely on the
lure of their position or character. The Betty Jesser, it's
great. When she asked, what is this?
And she says, it's a she's going to say it's a maker of death, but
it's a maker and it's the Chris knife. And it's, like, a misunderstanding that
keeps Paul as the messiah
in it keeps that alive. Mhmm.
Restate it again. So, you know, when you're a
villain or or if you you don't see yourself as the villain, how do
you looking at the baron and looking at
his motivations? Right? Like, how does he how can he can he
reset himself? And I I think Well, I think so the reason
so, butt it up again, say,
Leto, where it's like trying to establish trust
Mhmm. And that building, you know, even if, you know, that he is the
leader and and, the harkening, it's it's like,
no. This is he's stating fact and the confidence is very sure.
Mhmm. Whereas, I don't know. I think it's
so revealing when when Jessica says
when she just throws out as an anchor. And so
you're seeing someone sort of rely on deception,
and we're harkening. It it's like he's like, it'd be
like, oh, I'm going to deceive you. Don't take any you know what I mean?
Like, it's very clear. He's not he's not he's not,
trying to fool anybody about what or who he is. Right.
Yeah. And and and whereas,
from the other end, it seems like coming into this new environment, figuring
out how to so
it's it's it's, I think, a level of trust that needs
I mean, is anyone in the Harkonen would you see an
an upheaval to go against?
No. But I think his nephew definitely wants to overthrow him.
I I I think that I think the nephew but the nephews wants to
overthrow him because that's just what you do. Like, it's it's not like
it's not as if his nephew has ever questioned.
I I think of a line in the departed when Leonardo DiCaprio,
his mother die yeah. His mother dies. And,
the the brother, I think his uncle shows up at his funeral. This is a
deep cut, but shows up at the funeral and starts talking to him about
lecturing about his life or whatever. And Leo goes,
as the, as the sun goes, you know, and I'm gonna butcher this because
it's been a while since I've seen the departed. But he says,
maybe you should be thinking about how, like, all the things you did and all
the decisions that you made led to your children being screwed up. Maybe you
should not be coming down here and telling me how I'm screwed up. Maybe you
should go fix your own house and stop trying to give me a lecture. Right?
And and the baron's nephew
understands that things are screwed up, but that's he's a fish
in the water. He's not gonna question the water. Well, that's what I'm
trying to say. There's there's not a link between. There's not someone in
between to make that. Whereas the uncle is, like,
the surrogate message. You know? Like, hey.
You know? Or or Leonardo. Like, that that relationship where
they can be direct and honest with each other. Right. Everything
else is strategy because there are so many other people involved. So I
think having, like, a right hand man is really valid or a right
hand person is really valid because then you have someone to bounce ideas
off of and there's, like, another,
there's another fail stop before kind of, you know,
following through with whatever. It it because it could be things could
be a reaction to something. Mhmm. And I don't know. It just
it just seems, I
don't know, more palatable to to to
have a larger network rather than being the godhead. Well, it's interesting that
you bring this up because Duke Leto was surrounded by a bunch of different
advisers, all of whom were giving him different information.
The baron, on the other hand, seems to seems seems
to be lacking in a good number 2. And, you know,
and he doesn't want a good number 2, by the
way. He's fine with himself. He's he's cool. He's
cool with like how all this is working out. Right? Because it's working out to
benefit him. And you see this in
when he betrays the Duke later. And we're gonna talk about this in just a
minute or not. He he the the conspiracy
unfolds right against Duke later. And we'll talk about this in a minute, as
we go into the back end of our conversation here today. But he
he he kidnaps sort of the when I kidnaps, he takes the,
the the basically the male mental manipulator, the mentant.
Mental. Yeah. And sort of tries to turn him. Right? Or or
thinks he has successfully turned him. And that guy could have been
a really good number 2 for you, but you just wanted to
manipulate him. You don't want a good number 2. Right? And
one of the things in my career that I've sort
of in every entrepreneurial kind of,
adventure that I've ever gone on. And I've been an entrepreneur for a long time.
Dan, I haven't had a regular job in a long long time. 15 years. I
haven't had a regular job. Right? I'm trying to try and keep that streak going.
You know, and some days it's a little bit more close run than others.
But, but one of the things that I've noticed as an
entrepreneur, as a starter, as a person who does projects is
you either have to have a good number 2
or you have to be a good number 2. And
you kind of have to figure that out, like right there. Like you kind
of have to figure out where you're sitting in the hierarchy sort of immediately.
If you don't, then you wind up wandering around with a lot of confusion,
you know, and you wind up wandering around and maybe you're the villain, maybe
you're the hero, but, you know, the project will move forward at a certain
point underneath its own inertia, whatever it is. But to have a
good adviser or be a good adviser is is is critical, and you gotta figure
that out quite quickly. And, you know, a a wonderful
example is, in in the show, The Walking Dead,
where Norman Reedus' character is clearly on the
one team, but he's always sort of hovering around. Right.
You know? So it's like the autonomy of the individual, yet he's
contributing to the larger The larger group. Yeah.
Back to the book. Back to Dune.
We're going to talk a little bit about hierarchy
and monarchy. And if you're gonna overthrow a
government, what's the best way to do
that? What's the best way to stage a rebellion if you're going to if you're
gonna indeed do that? And so, so back to the book, back to
Dune. Jessica awoke in the dark, feeling
premonition in the stillness around her. She could not understand why her mind and body
felt so sluggish. Skin raspings of fear
ran along her nerves. She thought of sitting up and turning on a
light, but something stayed the decision. Her mouth felt strange.
Lump, lump, lump. It was a dull sound directionless in the dark somewhere. The waiting
moment was packed with time with rustling needle stick movements. She began to
feel her body grew aware of bindings on wrists and ankles, a gag in her
mouth. She was on her side, hands tied behind her. She tested the bindings, realized
they were crims scroll. Crims scale fiber would only caught tighter
as she pulled it. Now she remembered. There
had been movement in the darkness of her bedroom, something wet and pungent slapping against
her face, filling her mouth, hands grasping for her. Chia
gaps 1 in drawn breath, sensing the narcotic in the
wetness consciousness had receded, sinking her into a black bin
of terror. It has come, she
thought how simple it was to subdue the Ben Casaire. All it took was treachery.
Hawat was right. She forced herself not to pull on her
bindings. This is not my bedroom. She thought they've taken me someplace else. Slowly, she
marshaled the inner calmness. Do you go aware of the smell of her
own stale sweat with this chemical infusion of fear? Where is Paul? She asked herself,
my son, what have they done to my hand? What have they done to him?
Calmness. She forced herself to it using the ancient
routines, but the terror remained so near. Leto, where are you, Leto?
She sensed the diminishing the dark. It began with shadows. Dimension separated
became new thorns of awareness, white aligned under a door. I'm
on the floor. People walking. She sensed it through the floor.
Jessica squeezed back the memory of terror. I must remain calm, alert, and prepared. I
make it only one chance. Again, she forced the inner calmness.
The ungainly thumping of her heartbeat even shaping out over time. She counted
back. I was unconscious about an hour. She closed her eyes, focused her awareness into
onto the approaching footsteps where people she counted the differences
in their steps. I must pretend I'm still unconscious. She relaxed against the cold
floor, testing her body's readiness, heard a door open, sensed increased life through
her eyelids. Feet approached someone standing over her. You
are awake, rumbled a basso voice. Do not pretend.
She opened her eyes. The Baron
Vladimir Harkonnen stood over her. Around them, she recognized the cellar
room where Paul had slept, saw his caught in one side empty. Dispenser lamps were
brought in by guards, distributed near the open door. There was a glare of light
in the hallway beyond that hurt her eyes. She looked up at the baron. He
wore a yellow cape that bulged for his portable suspensors. The
fat cheeks were 2 cherubic mounds beneath spider black eyes. The
drug was timed. He rumbled. We knew to the minute when you'd be coming out
of it. How could that be? She wondered to have to know my exact
weight, my metabolism, my such a pity. You must remain
gagged. The Baron said we could have had such interesting conversation. You,
it's the only one it could be. She thought how The baron glanced at
him, glanced behind him at the door. Come in, Peter.
She never before seen the man who entered stand beside the baron, but the face
was known in the man. Peter, the men had assassin.
She studied him. Hawk features, blue ink eyes that suggested he was
a native of Arrakis, but subtleties of movement and stance told her he was
not. And his flesh was too well firmed with water. He was tall, though,
slender, and something about him suggested effeminacy.
I'm gonna stop there because
that's the first indication we have that something's about to go
radically, ridiculously sideways,
that there was another plot, a foot. I'm a
big fan of the show, The Wire, way back in the day. I'm a huge
fan of that show, and, Omar had a great line in The
Wire. He said, if you come with the king, you best not
miss. And that is absolutely
the truth and the Baron or all of his
internalized knowledge missed.
He missed the thing that he was supposed to hit.
He thought he hit the target, but he didn't.
Now what is set up in Dune is a monarchal
structure. It's a it's a monarchy. There's barons, there's
kings, there's dukes. There's all these kinds of indicators of a monarchal
structure, not a democratic one. And we are uncomfortable with monarchy.
But the fact is we are at the end of a managerial culture,
I believe, fundamentally in America. That doesn't mean there won't be managers in the
future. There will always be managers or always have been. But we are reshuffling
around the kind of ways in which we think about how all of
this goes together. And I don't know what the solution is.
But Dune proposes 1, interstellar
colonization. But such a large scale project requires the
deploying of critical human resources, including human will that we
current can currently cannot fathom accomplishing.
And probably the only system that puts that will out there
in a focused way is quite frankly, a hierarchical
monarchy. But we're uncomfortable with
that. There's also the issue of cycles rearing their ugly
head as you bring every element of being human to the table.
There's a challenge that's presented in Dune, and it starts
with the way in which Duke Leto goes to Arrakis, the
way in which he reacts to the spice trade. Right? The
decisions he decides he's going to make to Ryan's point earlier
about these characters deciding things that other characters deciding things in this
play is is is moves forward.
It starts there with the duke, but it it continues even through the duke's betrayal
and through the rise of Paul Atreides as this mythical messiah.
By the way, when you call a 15 year old a messiah, you're
gonna have a problem. Just a pro tip. Just pro tip for
someone who knows. It's gonna be a real problem.
And so the challenge of the system being
the system being designed to do what it does, right, or to be what it
is, is presented to us in Dune. And
it is a challenge that arises in every generation, either at the individual
level or at the state level. And so as we turn our corner on our
conversation here with Dan, I wanna get his thoughts on this.
How can leaders avoid being thoughtless
bureaucrats, whether they're in a hierarchical, monarchical system or an
egalitarian democratic one, because it seems to be a
drift. And that is the drift, I think, partially also that got Duke Leto to
the spot where he was at. He didn't seem to be able to
stop bureaucratic drift. How do we do that as leaders?
Yeah. That's certainly a tough one.
Organizational structures are critical. Put you farther and
farther away from the people in your market. The larger the organization gets,
the larger your enterprise gets.
And, and so it's a tough challenge. You
know, I I certainly don't have the answer. But,
you know, the we all become frustrated with
bureaucrats. Right? The definition of somebody who's a little bit more concerned with procedure
policy than than people.
And, you know, one of the things that I think there's a couple of things.
1, both of which kinda connect back to 1 previous theme that we were
touching on and then 2, maybe even a lesson that I took away from
from Dune. The first one, you know, back to earlier,
the conversation around having a series of good advisors around us.
Right? People who are in touch with with people who are in touch with
the market and who can objectively advise us as leaders. You know, I've
always liked the person the concept of the sort of personal board of
directors for you and your life, your your,
your career being your enterprise, that you're leading and and
having advisers that you can bounce things off of to stay
on course, to check yourself, to
avoid becoming the villain, to to kinda come back to that earlier piece.
I think the other is, you know, staying in touch with with your
market, with your people, requires constant,
movement. Right? Constant innovation. And
we, as again, coming back to our face or nature
as humans, which we talked about before, we wanna be comfortable,
some more than others. And so it's natural to just become like, let's just go
with bureaucratic flow. But there's a line in the
book I think that says, you know,
he, Paul, referencing Paul, fought the temptation
to choose a clear and safe path
warning. And I'm, again, don't know exactly on point here
warning that that that leads ever down into the into stagnation. Mhmm.
Which we know. Right? So, I think the implication there being that,
you know, especially as an entrepreneur, you know, this well,
Hassan, the constant,
energy, action, innovation keeps you sharp, keeps you
keeps you in touch with your market, keeps you up to date on what's happening,
and and and hopefully ahead of and seeing what's coming next.
And also speaks to the importance of especially as a leader, as an entrepreneur,
your willingness and the importance of stretching yourself intellectually,
even physically is is what's
necessary to maintain your professional success.
And sometimes that that requires, blowing up the
ship, if you will. And by that, I mean, moving on to the next thing
and exiting the stage. Right. So it's time for the for the for the next
chapter and knowing when that is. Right?
Which, you know, again, this is a podcast on films and pop culture.
I I always appreciate it. I think it was the actor who played Captain
America talked about that too. Oh, yes. Mhmm. But this was the right moment. I
don't wanna come back to this character. Like, we left it on such a high
note. Like, that was the right moment. Leave before they ask
you to. So Never never never never
ever stay at climax back to back to the t, Lawrence. Never
do that. Yeah. Okay. That's
all I got. I I don't I don't have I don't have the answer right.
You don't have the answer yet. I don't think anybody does. I think it's I
think it's I think it's it's a challenge
that quite frankly, I mean, and we we
cover the, state papers of the United States on this podcast, in
the month of July. So we talk about the declaration of independence, the
Federalist arguments for the Constitution, the Anti Federalist
arguments against the Constitution. And typically we will focus on a
particular amendment or a Supreme Court decision. Usually
those are released in June. That impacts the way we think
about the Constitution. And, you know, when you look at the state
papers of the United States and you look at the level of thought that those
men put into those the creation of of
those documents that laid the laid the keel, for the United
States of America that we all kinda just take for granted.
You look at the intentionality that they put into that, and even they
didn't have you know, I'm just a schmuck hosted a book
podcast. Like, you know, I, you know, I'm not trying to create a country here.
They were trying to create a country and even they didn't have an answer to
that question. Right. With all of their intentionality and everything that they brought
to the game. And so,
I admire the effort to go to it. And we'll talk about solutions
to problems here in a minute. I admire, you know, the
effort of talking about a solution versus just continually
masticating a horror problem. And we have to
put something out there. Right? I mean, we can't just just we can't just keep
talking about the problem. Ryan,
one of the interesting things about Dune is that it
is a epic tale, but it's an epic tale about human
beings, marshaling their resources. It's like, it's as if all of
the descendants of Elon Musk, all of a sudden got together.
All 14 of his kids that he's got all got together. And like a
1000 years from now, we're all just gonna be descendants of Elon Musk. Right. You're
gonna wipe out the people that don't have the ability to marshal the human resources.
And we're just gonna go. Okay. Thanks. And you get that sense from doing that
all these people. In particular, by the way, and I haven't talked about the
religious elements, Dan, but, like, they're talk I love it how they talk
about the OC translation of the bible, and I'm like, what is what is he
even talking about here?
But it's interesting because I have said repeatedly
on this show that the Bible is the one book
that resists the algorithm. It resists
the machinations and the manipulations of
people, and it instead changes. It's the one
one one of maybe 2 or 3 books on the planet that actually changes you.
You don't change it. It actually changes you. And it's interesting that that's the
book that's going to or some variation of it that's going to make it
to the stars in Herbert's, you know, in Herbert's world.
I say all that to say this. My question for Ryan is this.
How can we what what should leaders be focused on? Should they be focused on
marshaling their resources, controlling human willpower? Like, where should
leaders place their focus first? It depends on the
size of the community they're leading, I would think. It
is enormous. I mean, are you talking about a family unit? Are you
talking about a community? You know, and and in this case, we're talking about,
like, worlds. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about interstellar
interstellar And so when you bring into that
scale. Yeah. There's 0. I
mean I think there's an episode of Transformers
from the eighties that deals with it when one of the Transformers is an entire
planet, but I don't know if that's applicable here.
A lot of the, so what else I've written down
is Paul's decision to do the difficult thing would make David Goggins
proud, you know. And Who's gonna carry the
boats? Who's gonna carry the logs? And so a
couple of things. The bureaucratic things, like, they can some of my sister
said to me a while back was, like, you make your decisions
based on, like, a moral model that you're not which is you're
talking about the bible. Mhmm. You're making decisions on a moral model, so I
don't have to tease through. I mean, if there's something that I
disagree with, this does not line up with my, you know, kind
of like my spiritual center, then it kinda makes some decisions for
me. But we're not talking about in this book
relocating jobs because it's not a good fit. We're talking
about the leader, marshaling
resources and allies.
No. Well, if
that's not their responsibility on some level, at least
some variation of because I don't wanna be
as, so as absolute as, controlling
human willpower. That's a
but what, I mean, what is a leader's
responsibility if not securing the
area that you're occupying. Mhmm.
Well, that's a great question. What is a leader's responsibility? And and that is
I mean, that's the depth of the pool that we're we're
in right now. I mean, I'm we're I mean, I think we're 300
episodes total into this podcast over the last two and a half years.
We're like a 100 and we go at a 150 or a 100 60 shorts
episodes right now. We got a 123. This is episode over a 123.
And I still don't I still don't know what the answer to that question is.
What is the leader's responsibility? You know? Well, it's I mean, the and, just to
keep it to, like, the restaurant industry is, like, set up whoever you're working with
or for success. So just to set up the person for success.
Right. Now there but there's so many different, channels
that this can go I mean, what is success for
someone in the world of doom?
Right. Yeah. Well well, the baron. Right? What was success
for him versus what was success for his, his nephew
versus what was success for Paul versus what was success for the
Freeman, what was success for Duke Leto.
Jessica, we we haven't even talked about the Ben Casarek because that's we haven't even
gone there. That's a whole podcast episode in and of itself, but that's a whole
conversation that can be had about feminism, female leadership,
female followership, like the shift that happens between,
the second book and the third book where she realizes that she has to take
a backseat to her own son and she intentionally does so.
I know that there are women who do that,
and I Is there a comment on charlatanism as well?
Well, okay. Frame frame that out for us. What what what do you mean? What
do you mean about charlatanism? Because I keep going back to
the Chris Knife scene. Okay. Yeah. It's pure
chance, and it's off of the lure of the
messiah Mhmm. And the Bene Gesserit
feeding into it. Right. Yeah. And not necessarily even, you
know, believing it. It's just willing it to
happen. Right. Will willing it into existence. Yeah. Yes.
Well and then you see sort of Paul's relation to the freeman when he
finally escapes the betrayal and and finally
escapes, you know, being assassinated, winds up out in the desert, and
now he's with to go back to t, Lawrence, for just a minute, he's with
these he's with these he's with the interstellar
version of nomadic Arabs, which is the image I had
in my head. And Herbert doesn't describe
horses, but you can definitely like, you can see them, like, they're
just they're just massive unorganized, and and
that's that's probable not
probably. That's not accurate. But the image you have in your head is this massive
unorganized people who just need a leader, and they'll follow
behind this guy because he's gonna bring them to the promised land.
And that then cycles back into the whole idea of to your point about
misunderstanding, is he really the guy, or was he just the guy that
was just standing there or the kid that was just standing there? Could
it have been anybody? Lot of
different complicated things inside of Doom, which is what makes it
worthwhile to read and which is why it's been read for the last, gosh, well
over 50 years now. And it has, like I
said, laid the keel for, for world building.
Alright. Rounding the corner here. Can I jump on? You know, just
to, Ryan, I don't know if you've seen the, the more
recent film, but one of the things that film
does pretty good job of is drawing attention
to the manipulation that that was taking place with
the with the Bene Gesserit and all of that, which is a whole, yeah, whole
other commentary on on sort of, you know, it's
prophecy. Was this real? You know, what what is the role of
prophecy and all of that? But back to the earlier,
Hassane, your question around, you know, the the the role of a leader, the
purpose of a leader. You know, I do I think that I'd
be remiss if if we didn't call out and underscore
just, I think, one of the most, you know, then bring it back to the
book, bring about some of the more blatant lessons of the book or
statements at least to the book. You know, that,
again, it maybe feel like an over an oversimplification, but I think the most important
things are the what is important for a leader is that which makes him
a leader. Right? His people. And so to Ryan's point and your analogy
about the restaurant industry. Right? Setting someone else up for success,
doing your best by them to ensure that they are successful.
I really like that, Ryan. Like, that is a great little
analogous capture of the role of a leader on a one to one
individual level is to best take care of the
person beside you. And if you can do that on a on a group
scale, on a, on a nation scale, as, you
know, our protagonist does or at least,
is perceived to be doing, by the people,
then those are those are the leaders that are gonna be remembered.
Because, again, they're living out some of the most important axioms, which
come back to the book that that survived at least
in some way, shape, or form 10000 years into the future. Right?
Right. Orange Catholic Bible as it's referred to. The orange the
OC Bible. Yeah. Which by the way, when he fur when I
first read that, when it when it first, like, dropped into the narrative, I thought,
wait. What? I guess I can read it again.
Kinda it kinda caught me by, kinda caught me by surprise.
Okay. Right in the corner here, solutions to problems. Right?
So we live in a time,
and this is one of the things that I've been talking about on this podcast
this year, Dan. This is the theme of this year,
driven by the and the theme well, the theme of the podcast this year has
been, let's focus on solutions to problems, because we spend
a lot of time talking about problems. We are in the midst, I
fundamentally believe of the 4th turning. If you know
about that, that generational theory model,
from William Strauss and Neil Howe, there are
4 cycles in history, that that
coincide with the seasons of life. Right? So you have
spring, summer, fall, and winter. And you have generations that
are inside of each one of those seasons over the course of an 80 year
cycle who experience all these things roughly together.
And so, currently in our
world, and you can research this theory, but currently in our world,
we have the baby boomers. We have gen xers. We
have the millennials, and we have gen zers. Right? Those are the 4 that
are going through the the current secular cycle,
which, according to Strauss and Howe in their theory
of cycle in history and of generations in history,
that that cyclical end is either coming
up by the end of 20 by beginning
of 2030 or, by the end of
2040. Just depends sort of where the where we're at with that.
And I look at the experiences that I've had in
my career, and I I look at the chaos that has occurred
ever since September 11th in our country, moral chaos,
financial chaos. We we we as of this recording,
there's a hurricane that's hitting Florida. Right? Because
hurricane in a long, long time. Right? And I'm not quite
sure that we are going to have the competency
at the federal government level that we would have had 25 or 30 years ago
to address that issue. And there's always crises
of competencies when you're on the back end of a historical cycle, when you're
in a historical winter, which I think is what America is in now.
I, so I say all that to say this
winter always turns into spring. And then my concern, and one of the
reasons why I do this podcast is that if you've been in winter for so
long and you've just been in survival mode when spring shows up, a, you don't
believe it and b, you wreck it. So,
I have I one of the things we've we've really focused on this year has
been how do these books set us up for the
springtime that is coming? I do believe we are at the end of a
winter chaos cycle in America in particular and in the West in
general. I do believe things are coalescing and reshaping,
politically, socially, morally, ethically.
The core things that make us human aren't being reshaped. It's just how we
react and respond to them that is being reshaped and the tools that we're using.
But spring is coming. It invariably always
does. There is a high time coming. It's not just all
low. And I look at a book like Dune. Now
this is where this ties in. I look at a book like Dune and a
messiah character or a messiah concept is always a
time is a concept for a high time rather than a chaotic time.
A messiah can come out of chaos, but invariably, a messiah has to exist in
the spring, maybe a summer. Fall is usually a time of
unraveling. This is why,
and you can see this actually, the great show back in the day that was
on ABC, NYPD Blue. I'm actually, like, walk wandering through
that right now and watching all those seasons, and it is the perfect unraveling
show. It's perfect. We're, like, in America where
we spent 25 years trying to figure out why we were
unraveling, and now we're unraveled and we're we're trying to figure out how to get
it all back together. But a messiah doesn't come along in a fall. A
messiah usually comes along in a in a winter, a chaotic period, or an
insurgent, right, does.
But then they build in the spring, and then they become a gatekeeper, and then
they unravel. Institutions unravel. People unravel. The whole thing falls
apart, and then you're back to where you back to where you started.
And we're there right on time, I think, socially and and morally and ethically.
Insurgents take over the board, right, when they create new
systems. Right? And I'm seeing a bunch of insurgents floating around these
days in our time. Politics is the biggest place where we see this. You
know, RFK Junior would be an insurgent. Right?
Or Chelsea Gabbard would be an insurgent. Right? By the way, those
are 2 people that if their party had picked them to run for presidency
in our time, I think they probably would have beaten Donald Trump. I think
that's a ticket that beats Donald Trump. But because the Democrat Party is
unraveling, they can't pick that person. They they can't pick those
people. Right? And so you are not
unraveling. It's in chaos. It's an internal chaos. It long since unraveled, but it's an
internal chaos. By the way, just like the Republican party internal chaos.
Right? My point in saying all this is
this, I
started off this podcast by saying that there's deserts everywhere, even in your
head. And deserts are a place, weirdly enough, of heat and
light, but they are also a place of winter. They are arid.
There's nothing there. In thinking about Dune
and in thinking about leadership, How can leaders take
lessons? This is a question for both of you. How can leaders take questions or
take inspiration and take understanding from doing to
build towards the next
second spring? What are the solutions to the
problems that leadership is having right now that we'll be able to
build on on the other side of, you know, 2030,
right, which is again and that's when I think it's gonna be over. Like, on
the other side of 2030 or even further out on the other side of 2040.
What do leaders need to do? What do they need to take from doing to
start building solutions to problems?
I look at, you say, insurgents. I I look
at, the
how immigration has played out, especially in England and United States.
And if I just
if you have something that is desirable and people want,
they're probably going to keep coming to try and
get it until they're forced to stop.
Seems to be what kind of the situation is in
in in that context I just mentioned of immigration. So
Mhmm. I mean, yeah, it's there's a target
on your back if you're at the top of the mountain. That's it. Yeah.
Hasan, I think it I think at a meta level
Mhmm. With respect to Dune, I think it does come back
to, the most important
lesson from the book or at least the author's intended most important lesson
from the book and one that I didn't necessarily take from it when I heard
Schwed it at 14, which the, which is
the danger of following overly charismatic leaders, which I think
we've got a lot of people right now, not to get overly political in this
country, following someone that is at least considered by some
to be charismatic, and mindlessly doing so.
And, I'll leave that there. Mhmm. Yeah. Leave
that. Put a pin in there. But but I do think
it also reflects back to the importance of thinking for
ourselves and keeping ourselves sharp. And again, we talked
about, you know, not
choosing kind of the safe, clear path of doing nothing and just kind of following
calling following the flow, but but keeping our edge as leaders.
But also, continuing to think for
ourselves and
and challenge the current thinking that's out there, which as cliche as
that sounds and as often as as it is said,
of course, it's it's not done and we're all guilty of of of getting
too comfortable and, and just kinda throwing our hands up
and and, like, I'm not even gonna engage.
You know, bringing it back to the book. One of the things that
is probably one of the reasons Elon Musk liked the book apparently, or at least
I'm sold is that, there's a line that says something
to the effect of, You could say that Waddib,
Paul, learned quickly because
his first teaching or learning was in the act of
learning. And I, of course, I think the
lesson there is that leadership requires effective thinking, which
requires the effective,
consuming of knowledge and distillation of it very quickly. And
coming from a business school environment, which is where I'm coming from, having gone to
business school and then taught in business school, that's like, that's the whole thing in
business school. It's like, you know, reading a business case, sifting through all the
crap, and quickly getting to the bottom line.
But it's, also reinforces the common
phrase, which we we as parents try to have tried to instill in our daughters,
which is, you know, leaders are readers. Mhmm. And and
the importance there is you're learning to think for yourself, consume information. Yes.
And then think for yourself, on that. And
that is also, if done
frequently, constantly, effectively,
keep us, you know, on track with respect to the
important lessons that we learned from the past seasons.
So it's not to hopefully, repeat
them, as well, which is why I've
continued to come back to and wish that I had studied history as a
major in undergrad, which has of as in as helpful as anything that
would be and as practical, a,
a subject area, more so than a
lot. Yeah. Yeah. One more thing to add
to my, not offering any solution with their target on your back,
is yeah. For I mean, foresight, the thing that you say,
Hassan, when people are like, we have to tear it down, tear it down. Well,
what do you gotta put in its place? Mhmm. What is the solution
to the, you know, to the to the issue that you're having? You
know? Mhmm. Yeah. There there has to be
You can't just solve chaos with chaos. Correct. Right.
Exactly. And sowing
chaos or oh, I'm gonna use religious
language here. Sowing chaos for the remission of sins,
past sins, doesn't actually build for your
future. It doesn't actually build for the next
thing. Not unless
well, not unless you're a messiah that can sort of give out
absolute absolution. Are you living in the
past otherwise? Right. Exactly. You're just living in the past with us, which is which
is why I don't want you and I have talked about this before, Ryan, but,
like, I I don't want things torn down. I want things to stay up. Let's
build on top of them. Right? Let's let's,
let's use those those things, those concepts, those ideas.
They are saving those statues in those buildings to build
the next thing, to go in the
next space. But again, that's springtime thinking.
And I do believe that. Well, as I said before,
my long run up to my question, I do believe spring is coming. And I
think it's time, long past time for us to stop talking about the problems
and to begin to at least propose, even if they
are radical sounding, propose some solutions
to whatever the problems are we believe we are having.
All right. That is a high note. It is a high note. And I'm gonna
go out on it. Much much more much more,
catchy than Game of Thrones winter is coming.
I like that spring is coming. And also bring you back to the dark night.
Mhmm. Night is darkest just before the dawn. Spring is coming. Right? So
that's I like that. So optimistic. I feel
great. Oh, I'm I'm I'm pragmatically optimistic. Absolutely.
I would like to thank both Dan Bental and Ryan Stout
for joining me today on the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books
podcast. And with that, well,
we're out. Have a beautiful day. Thank you so
much, Jason. Brian? Dan, pleasure.