Blaze Your Own Trail - Episode 14: An Entrepreneurs Journey With Jesse Todisco

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

In this episode Jesse & I discuss: His upbringing in Boston How he has had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. Some trials he went through How he got into finance And what he’s up to now. Connect with Jesse: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessetee/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesse_tee/ Website: https://46and2wealthpartners.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHVlX9V5wzTQCZl1QXEw16w/videos?view_as=subscriber Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. First off, I want to say I hope everyone that's listening is safe. It's so crazy what's going on with the COVID-19 virus. So I wish you and your family is the best. Make sure you're washing your hands. Make sure that you're distancing yourself from other people because it definitely would be a terrible thing if it just kept spreading and spreading. So again, just want to wish everybody the best before we get started here. This episode, is with Jesse T. He's an entrepreneur and really started in entrepreneurship at a young age and has really built a good business for himself. So I'm excited to share his journey and his story with you. So I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think. Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. And I've got a very special guest today. His name is Jesse T. And Jesse, if you can, just go ahead and give the audience a little bit of info about you. Hey, everybody.

My name is Jesse T. I am an entrepreneur at heart, been one since I was a kid, which I'm sure we'll cover. I'm a podcast host and a collector of experiences. Awesome. We'll appreciate that. So as you said, we're going to kind of dive into how you were as a kid. So, you know, been an entrepreneur at heart from being a kid. So can you give us a little bit of more like depth about it?

that. So where did it start? Was this, you know, action figures and baseball cards or, you know, where'd your love of the hustle come from? Yeah, pretty much, right? So it's funny that you hit that on the head. I think we've talked about this before, but it started with my love for comic books, my love for action figures, you know, from Thundercats, He-Man, Marvel, D.C. Action figures. I was big into it. Baseball cards, any kind of sports cards. And what I would do is I would buy, sell, and trade those things when I was a kid. My friend Paul growing up, his grandfather, had a store, kind of like a retail shop in Boston called the rookie store, the rookie shop, if I remember correctly. And we used to hang out there all the time and see how the business of like trading, buying,

and selling those things was handled. So it caught my attention for something that I loved. And it seemed pretty fun to do. So from an early age was into that. And then a couple other things, took advantage of my surroundings growing up in Boston. A lot of snow up there throughout the year. would use to shovel snow for money and, you know, sometimes get jipped and have hot chocolate for payment instead of money. So there was a, there was the work ethic there. And then the other piece I'll leave that part with is growing up in front of Logan Airport, my front yard was pretty much Boston Harbor, Logan Airport. We would take the train couple stops over to Boston or Logan Airport and we would get out. And there was these little smart carts that were just strewn all about the terminals. And it was basically what people used to use to

carry their luggage. And I still think they're still around, but basically you would take those smart cards and returning to the stall, a quarter would pop up. And so whatever we could do growing up to find, you know, an extra buck to pay for more comic books, more baseball cards, more action figures, or even some just candy, just being kids, but we did it. So I love that, man. Yeah. And I was I was a hustler at that age as well. You know, we didn't get as much snow out in Oregon, but the fall, man, was there a lot of leaves, right? So, I mean, I would do the same thing. I'd go door to door and be like, hey, 20 bucks, I'll rake up your leaves. And everyone's like, I don't want to do that.

Of course. Here's a 20 kid, you know. And in Oregon, another thing that was big when I was a kid is I would actually go door to door and collect cans because you got a nickel for each can. And it was like, hey, I get five cans. I got a quarter. I could go buy some candy, you know. So I definitely feel you on the entrepreneurial spirit at a young age.

So super cool. So when it comes to comic books. book, you know, you're a big collector of comic book. So what was the one comic book you remember getting as a kid that kind of was like, all right, like, I really, really, really need to start collecting these at scale. So was there one that kind of sticks out? It was, it was most likely Spider-Man at that time because the Spider-Man cartoon that we're heavy into watching now on Disney Plus. Thank you, Disney Plus. My sons and I, my son's five and a half. My oldest one and my youngest one is three and a half, and they have the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon.

So these marathon seasons of 40, 50 episodes for one season, you know, just being tied into, you know, the kind of the society at that time with Spider-Man being really big. And then also X-Men in the early 90s were really huge, too. So between Spider-Man and X-Men, specifically Wolverine, you know, huge fan of both Spider-Man and Wolverine growing up, and then my taste changed. But those were the two, I would say, characters more than anything. it got me really plugged into the whole mythology of it all. Okay. And moving on to baseball cards. So was there one card that you got as a kid that maybe you either sold or maybe that you still have and you're glad that you didn't get rid of?

You know, no, I didn't keep the baseball card. So just to give you some context and I'll answer that question in a moment, I have about 10,000 comic books to this day in hundreds of action figures. A lot of them still on the boxes. And the idea there was two things. My buddy was selling his collection at a ridiculously low price. So I jumped on the opportunity. But then also I figured through my sons, I could teach them how to run a business, whether it's like an online thing or whatever, through something they love to do.

So that's kind of where that came from. But for the baseball cards or the sports cards, you know, I'm still a huge Michael Jordan fan. And I know you grew up, you know, as a Trailblazers fan. So Clyde the Glyde and Jordan used to go at it back in the day. but, you know, anything with Jordan on it was a huge card for me. And there was even some other cards that we were into. Like there was like comic book based cards as well.

And you would try to find like the special cards there. And so we were just all over the map. Whatever was cool, whatever was hot, whoever the new rookies were from Shaquille O'Neill to Penny Hardaway, all the way, you know, wherever we could find different players. We were over the whole thing. Whatever, whatever was going to be sold or revered at the time. It was definitely in our collection and our purview for sure.

that's awesome man and uh you know when i was a kid i went to a movie this is in north portland oregon and after the movie you know you're you're walking through the aisles and like my foot hit something and it was a wallet there's nothing in there no idea no nothing there was like 11 bucks and i was like man it'd be awesome to get some burgerville so i took that 11 dollars i went to burgerville i got a happy meal and in the happy meal was a base ball card and I got a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. Very nice. I mean, it was like, you know, this magical money, like, got this meal and then it happens to be the kid, you know? So as a kid in the 90s, like, that was such an awesome

card to get. I ended up selling it. I don't mean remember how much I ended up selling it for. And then years later, I went and got that card again because it really meant a lot, you know. And that's what's so cool about comics and action figures and baseball cards. It's, it's super nostalgic and it's amazing. So what are your thoughts on a lot of these things, you know, coming back with like a lot of the live action movies and then, you know, baseball cards and basketball cards, now the value is starting to increase in the market. So whatever your thoughts have been on seeing all that, kind of coming back into reality here. It's like everything else with, you know, the investment in stock market, real estate market, everything is cyclical. It always comes back around. And even

with fashion. There's, there's fashion that was big in the late 80s, early 90s that's huge right now with colors and patterns and this. So I don't, I don't see it as surprising. And I love it. I think it's great because it's helping me, like you said, relive my childhood. And, you know, I never grew up out of that. I've been a big kid at heart. So, you know, seeing the quality, like, especially with, like, what's talked like the movies, like MCU and what they've been able to do, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's incredible. Like, I remember watching movies as a kid being an Ammer. with like how horrible the technology was like just to see some of these heroes on screen from spider man to the hulk tv show to you know there's there's some thor and old captain america stuff

running around like you look at those movies now and they look atrocious like they just look really bad but you look at the ones from today and they're so good with their storytelling and they're weaving of different characters it's i'm like a kid in a candy store every single time there's a new marvel movie i'm at the movie theater seeing it and you know now you have uh batman coming back around with Robert Pattinson. So it's going to be interesting to see how he portrays the character. But I'm excited about it, man. Awesome, awesome.

And so tell me what it was like growing up in Boston, right? So you grew up in, I think you had mentioned in a previous conversation. Was it East or was it East Boston? Okay, so how was it growing up there as a kid? Yeah, growing up at, you know, we call it Easty. You know, Boston's famous for Southie, which is like the Irish part of town. But Easty at one point was more like the Italian part of town. growing up playing in high school football, we would always have a game towards the end of the year

right around Thanksgiving against Southie. And if, you know, regardless, if we made it past the regular season or not, that was kind of like our Super Bowl. And we would, the night before, we would have, like, almost like this little kind of quasi-southy doll with selfie colors on it. And we'd, like, burn it and, like, drink and get drunk, whatever. We'd have all sorts of fun. But, you know, growing up in Boston, it's a very, it's a very tough town. There's a lot of, kind of like who's the toughest person. So there was a lot of fights. There was a lot of towns fighting each other.

And I actually grew up, you know, in a very tumultuous situation. My dad was a 40-year heroin addict. So I had to kind of see what that looked like firsthand. Grew up, you know, in a nicer part of East Boston. We had right in front of the water, but still like right down the street from us was one set of projects, Orient Heights projects. And like further down the road, there was the Maverick project. So there was a lot of negative things happening in the town.

And so, you know, I've seen a lot. I've seen, you know, people that are through their, through their lives away. And I actually almost did the same thing, too. I got caught up in the grind and the hustle. So that entrepreneurial spirit took me from when I was a kid to selling drugs and then eventually doing drugs and eventually not doing drugs. So I've seen a lot of life in a short amount of time. And so what was that experience like, you know, I mean, now, of course, like on the outside

looking in. when when you were in that space of, you know, deciding to start to sell these products and then, you know, becoming a user of the product. So what was it? Like, was there a pivotal moment where you kind of looked in the mirror and you just said, you know what? Like, what are you doing? You know, like there's so many more things you can be doing with the talents and abilities that you have because, I mean, let's face it, if you're, whatever you're selling, whether it's good or bad, like, you've got to be good at it. Right. So was there a pivotal moment for you? Like, what was it that kind of made you say, you know what, enough's enough. Let me see how I can do something

a little bit different. You know, for me, it was just never my path. I grew up playing sports and kind of walking that straight and narrow path, but, you know, putting myself in a tough situation and being surrounded by people that were doing a lot of the same things. Like I saw a lot of my friends that had no jobs that were buying brand new cars, motorcycles going clubbing during the week, you know, chasing that kind of lifestyle. It attracted me because I grew up with no money. and so I wanted to enjoy some of those things. And I saw that my friends were doing some of these things. And so I started off, you know, selling weed.

And that was no big deal. Like nowadays, it's pretty much legal in most places. But back then it wasn't. And so the entrepreneurial hustle there was I had people that would actually sell for me and they would either get paid in weed or they would take a few bucks and I would take the money. So that kind of, you know, almost like a not nearly as, I would say kind of like taboo kind of. you know, drug at the time, but then I moved pretty quickly into a super heavy drug, which is oxycontin. And oxycontin was basically heroin and a pill. And there was tons of money

to be made there and tons of taboo and stigma around that. And eventually I started doing that and that led to, you know, two years of a drug use. But to answer your question, just kind of giving that context, for me it was I would always wake up or, you know, the way that I look at it, like So I would wake up from a day of doing drugs, like the next day I'd wake up. And I would have a dream of basically like being out of that lifestyle, but I would wake up to my nightmare. And so when I left that behind and I moved to Georgia, it was I would have nightmares of being back in my old life and like wake up to my dream. So that was kind of like the whole kind of like the coming through it all. But I would say the biggest thing for me was I just never felt like that.

was my role and I felt like there was greater things to do. So I had enough was enough. You took the words out of my mouth. After two years of doing it, I did my last, you know, drug, so to speak, in 2006, got high one last time. And I had a sister living here in Georgia who basically allowed me to come live with her for a few months. And it completely saved my life. And so after, you know, a 30-hour bus ride down from Boston on a Greyhound to Atlanta, Georgia, that was the last time ever did drug. So it's from 2006 till now. that's awesome and so uh i'm sure sure you love your sister for that invite right and being able to really you know get into a different environment so um all right so let's fast forward a little bit so

did some hustling did some hustling on the other end and so what what made you get into the current field that you're in you know you do you're involved in wealth management so What was it that kind of stuck out where you said, you know what, this might be an industry that I think I could be good at, but it could also be lucrative for my family? Yeah. So just for some context. So that entrepreneurial spirit that I've had since a kid, you know, through doing doing good things and bad things, you know, never left me. And so there was an industry that you were a part of as well years ago where it was an outside sales organization. There was a residential side. There was a business. to business side and we were basically like selling Groupon door to door like discounts on sporting events, restaurants, hotels, golf courses. And so that's what got me back into being an entrepreneur because I got into that business, this management training program where if you could learn how to sell, train people on how to sell, you could open up an office and essentially the sky was the limit.

You can continue to open up offices. So basically when I moved down from 2006 to 2000 and almost 10, I ran that business and I became what they call an owner, which is like a franchisee. and I put out five other offices outside of mine. So I was a promoting owner around the southeast. And so I was back on that track of doing the right entrepreneurial things. But at about right around 2000 and this was 2009, my wife and I, we actually had a daughter that passed away after seven days. She came out injured delivery.

And, you know, after seven days, we had to let her go. And so that just changed our whole mindset on what we were doing in life. So instead of focusing on working 80, 90, 100 hours. a week at the business, we decided to go back to work part-time with less responsibility, which meant shut down the business and go get a job and work for somebody else. And so when we did that, and right around 2010, 2011, that transition happened. We moved back to Georgia. We were in Charlotte, North Carolina, where we were running the office. And when we got back to Georgia, I got into finance. And that financial career has been going ever since from 2011 until present day.

And so where that came from was when I was younger up until a certain age, you know, I up without a lot of money. And so there was always that need to learn about the wisdom of wealth and learn about how to make money and how to grow money. And so I went on this entrepreneurial endeavor with the business, but I also still wanted to learn about finances. So when I moved back to Georgia, I started working for a bank, got into banking, became a branch manager, became a vice president, which basically means nothing nowadays. It's just a title. And I was able to connect with more business owners as kind of quasi business banker where I would help people on the business side with their business banking needs and it still kept me on that same kind of playing field of entrepreneurship.

And so from one iteration of another was in banking for a few years. I did a stint as a state farm agent because I wanted to basically get back into being a business owner. They offered me the opportunity to be a financial planner within their four walls. Also, they have a banking portion of their business. So it made sense. But I hated it. It was somebody else's business.

It wasn't truly my business. And so I did that for about a year and a half. and then I finally moved from State Farm to going independent as a financial planner. And I've been doing independent financial planning work since February 2017. And it's been the best thing I could ever say that like I basically feel like I know what I wanted to do when I grew up as a kid. That's awesome, man. Appreciate you sharing that. And first off, you know, so sorry to hear about the loss of a child, man.

You know, as a father, you know, I can't even imagine, you know, what that was like. So condolences to you and your wife and your family because I'm sure that had to be tough. But as far as what you went into and the business side, right, we both work for similar organizations. And so for the audience, it doesn't know. And we've had a separate conversation about this. But what would you say the experience of going out and hearing about 90 knows every single day over the course of several months to years? what do you think that is really done for you as an entrepreneur? Without that experience, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Hands down. So the things that that teaches you, immediately it teaches you work ethic because you've got to go out and see 100 people a day, 100 brand new faces a day. And like you said, a lot of averages in that business was one out of 10 people will tell you, yes, that could happen in the first part of the day. It could happen throughout the day or it could happen at the end of the day. And a lot of times if it happened at the end of the day, that business taught you how to keep a great attitude.

People don't realize that keeping a great positive attitude as an entrepreneur, as a salesperson in life is absolutely the game. Because if you don't have a great attitude and someone gives you some rejection or something doesn't go your way, you're more apt to quit. Right. And so these fundamentals that are so basic, it's like sports, right? It's like boxing out or learning how to dribble with both hands or, you know, all these things. things that kind of aren't the sexiest things, but they're the things that make you a great player, if that makes sense, right? And so without those experiences and without learning how to have a great work ethic, how to see a ton of people, how to relate. Because now you, when you see 100 people a day, you have to learn how to relate to 100 people a day. And you have to learn

how to identify buying signs, non-buying signs. You have to learn how to, you know, in that industry, it's more of like an entertainment kind of industry. So you have to learn how to impulse people on their factors of impulse, like their, you know, their, their need for getting a good deal or their need, whatever their factors of impulse are, you have to read those buying signs as you're going through your sales process. So everything that I do to this day, I completely attribute it to that experience. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without it. That's awesome, my friend. And, you know, the picture behind you says everything. Mindset is everything, right? So for the audience that can't see this, you know, he's got a picture of a poster of a goldfish with a shark fin, right? What a,

perfect depiction, right? Because it is so true. It doesn't matter if it's life. It doesn't matter if it's business. It doesn't matter if it's sports. If you've got the wrong mindset, you're not going to be successful, you know? And it's so funny because I have salespeople all the time that I work with and they're like, well, you know, I had three people tell me no today. I'm like, listen, like, that's okay. You know, you're going to need to hear a lot more no's than that, you know, and if you look at no as, you know, next opportunity versus like it's the end of the world, then you're definitely going to be a lot more successful, you know. And I remember one of the acronyms that they used to teach us. It was PMA equals OPM. And that stood for a positive

mental attitude equals other people's money. And I mean, it is so true. right, like in life and in business, if you have a positive attitude, more people are going to want to do business with you than if you have a negative attitude. Yep. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about your show, right? Fellow podcast hosts, I'm really the rookie. You've been doing a lot longer than I have.

So what was it that made you say, you know what? I want to start my own show. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, for me, it is one of those things where I'm a lifelong learner and student. and the way that I learn is a lot through podcast and things like audiobooks. And there's a lot of thought leaders that I'm into that have their own podcast that essentially, you know, they're interviewing people that have a great story to share.

And so for me, in my industry, as a wealth manager, I ask a ton of questions and listen as much as possible. So it's it's the whole two ears, one mouth thing where I'm always listening and I'm always like discovering and learning and uncovering things. And so for a living, I did this as a trade. but also I realized that there's a lot of people that I have connections with a great network that have great stories to tell. So from entrepreneurs, thought leaders, creators, and athletes, people that I wanted to shine a light on them or make their light a little bit brighter if possible and let them share their journey, things they've overcome, things they've accomplished. You know, so for the people that are listening to the podcast or watching the podcast, because it's on YouTube as well, they're growth minded.

They want to level up in relationships. They want to level up in health and wellness. they want to level up in business. They want to level up in life. And so the people that come on the show, they share their journey and give practical ideas back to people on how to actually do that. So it was just a way for me to connect with amazing people, share their story. And the really cool thing about it is, you know, we're into it. We're dropping episode 53 this week. We've been doing it for a little over a year. And, you know, it's been an amazing way to meet great people. And it's actually turned into a really cool way to introduce people to my wealth management business because a lot of times the

guests that I bring on the show, they're great potential clients for my wealth management business and or know people that would be. So it's turned into this great marketing armor of my business, which has been huge. Man, I love that. Yeah. And as you know, my show is framed up very similar, right? I'm interested in people's stories and journeys so that they can share them and impact other people to maybe do something differently, think about something differently, maybe even take action because they've got this little push to kind of get them over that proverbial hump, if you will. And so you're in Atlanta and you've got an office, you got an office in the Atlanta area.

So, you know, what was it that made you? Because, you know, as you can see a lot of the trends in business now, it's less offices. It's more of like, you know, home offices and things like that. So why was it important to you to actually set up an actual? like brick and mortar space. Yeah. So, so I've had experience with both sides. So, you know, with my first business venture that we talked about in that same business that we were in together, I ran that for three years and had an office, had overhead and, you know, experienced that, but, you know, we did pretty well, so we didn't feel it. As far as the next iteration with State Farm,

State Farm was a brick and mortar, and that was super expensive. And it just didn't make sense. And so after State Farm and after the JLT marketing, which was the first business, I just decided that, you know, the next business was going to be a home-based business or like co-working, co-sharing kind of thing. And so when I moved from State Farm to Tidisco Financial, which was my independent financial planning firm, the first one, you know, I was basically working from home and I was sharing an office with, you know, a center of influence, a local realtor. And I realized that after a while, I just didn't want to meet people at my house.

and I didn't want to meet people that, you know, didn't have like a certain spot to go. And so I told myself, like, get to a certain checkpoint with my business, with revenue, being practical, and go get an office that made sense. And so what I ended up doing is there's a location here in Atlanta, Georgia. It's the Cumberland area. So my office overlooks the battery. I can see where the Braves play, essentially. And the way that I did it was I'm in a business, a building where it's kind of co-working space. It's called Regis where there's other businesses.

there's other offices that are in here, but I have my own designated office. And for me, a couple things. You know, in my industry and wealth management, you know, people want to make sure that you're legit. And so, you know, it kind of takes that worry out of someone's mind if they're meeting you in your home office versus like your office office. That's a good thing. And then really cool, like the office that I have here, I use it for my podcasts. And the background is like a view of the city, which is super cool. So it was dual purpose. It was for the podcast. It was. It was for the podcast. It was. for the business and it makes a ton of sense. And it's a great location centrally for all my clients and like my relationships with like centers of influence. It's perfect. Awesome. Awesome.

And so for those folks that are listening that, you know, maybe they're thinking about, you know, hiring a financial planner. So what would you, what could you give to the audience just some value centered around maybe the five like top tips for, for selecting a financial planner to work with? Yeah, the biggest one, and it really, I'll give more value at after the first one, but the biggest one is find out how a financial planner gets paid because that's kind of how they get a client's going to be affected the most. So when choosing a financial advisor, you want to make sure that you understand what their incentives are.

And the way to do that is, are they a fiduciary or not a fiduciary? That's the question. And a fiduciary is someone who is a financial advisor that has to keep their client's best interest at heart. And they win when their clients win. And you feel like being in business, that's like a standard status quo. But the crazy thing is that out of 380,000 financial professionals in the U.S. alone, 95% of them are not fiduciaries, which is nuts.

They go by the suitability standard, which basically means the recommendations they make are suitable for you. But the level above that is the fiduciary standard. And only 5% of financial advisors are fiduciaries. And so I would say first and foremost, whenever a client's looking for a financial planner, make sure they're a fiduciary because they only do well when you do well. And by law, they have to take care of your account essentially. The other things I teach my clients or teach them what to look for is how to keep more of their money. It's the biggest thing for business owners, for individuals, for families, for executives. They're making money. They're going out and putting in the work,

whether they're trading time for money or whether they're building a business to make money. They need to know how to actually keep more of their money. And so, you know, a couple different ways to do that are pay yourself first depending on your budget and your personal what's called a profit and loss statement you can have one for your business for your personal your home essentially you got to make sure that that hard work and effort isn't going to waste right so you got to make sure you're keeping some money up front you know there's a lot of detail that I can go into on specific things but I won't bore people another thing is leveraging debt and making sure that debt doesn't consume people and you can actually use as a business owner you can leverage debt in a

very beneficial way. Another way is to leverage a corporation structure for business owners. If you're an LLC and S-Corp, there's a lot of benefits that you can get tax-wise to where you're buying things for your business. You're putting expenses through your business. And they're just, they're right. But you can use those a lot as write-offs at the end of the year. And you know, you can really save a ton of money that way too. So just just being smart about how you choose your financial planner, keeping more of your money and making sure that you're not overpaying in taxes are a few key points I would recommend to people. Awesome, awesome.

And so for everyone listening, those are some fantastic tips. And, you know, after the episode, you'll be able to find all of Jesse T's details. I'll make sure that they are down there in the show notes. So last question I've got for you is, you know, who has been the most influential person in your life to date? That's a great question. Oh man. I got a few. First and foremost, my dad, even though he was a 40-year heroin addict, you know, because I went through a couple of years of doing the same thing,

I really got to understand my dad and see where he was coming from. And in this really weird way, we bonded through that pain and suffering, so to speak. And then when he was able to put down the drugs, he became an amazing dad, he became an amazing grandfather to my children for the last 12 years of his life. So to see that turnaround, to see someone go from complete and utter despair to, you know, in my mind winning, that was huge for me. Because if he can do it, anyone can do it, so to speak. Anyone in the world can do it. If I can do it, anyone can do it. So I think that was a huge, huge linchpin in my mindset to kind of see what was possible.

Recently, it's been David Goggins. David Goggins has a book called Can't Hurt Me. And in his book, he talks about a few things. he talks about how to create a mindset through callousing your mind. So doing difficult things. And I'm all about doing difficult things. On Sunday, I just went into a Wim Hof retreat, which is learning how to do a breathing, but also taking a two-minute ice bath, which wasn't comfortable. But these things teach you how to be stronger mentally. So I'm all about facing those things. David Gagins also talks about how to share your journey. And there's a big push over the last

couple of years, like people like Bray Brown talk about being authentic and genuine. Gagin's does it through example. And for people who don't know who David Goggins is, get out there and get his book, can't hurt me. He's someone who went from, you know, having a really crap life to excelling as a Navy Seal, an Army Ranger, special forces with the Air Force. And he even almost qualified for Delta force selection in the military, which is completely insane for him to say all that, right? He's a ultra-marathon runner. And so his mindset is insane, but he teaches you in the book how to, can't hurt me how to go through the 10 steps to calish your mind along with sharing your truth. And so the way that I equate that for me is, you know, I've had a lot of amazing experiences in life.

I've had a lot of crazy experiences in life. And there's certain things that, you know, I've been through that some people would probably think is not okay to share or, you know, would be afraid to do so. But in sharing your full story, the way I kind of related is if anyone's ever seen that movie with Eminem 8 Mile many years ago this movie came out. As a rapper, he was trying to come up and make it. He was going up against this other guy that just kept kicking his ass left and right, like just couldn't beat him. And the reason why it's because this guy was just dogging him out. Like he was calling him out for all these bad things and like whatever. So at the end of the movie, he comes up and he starts talking about this is where I am and this is like, I'm not doing

good here and I suck at this. And like he takes away all the guy's ammunition. And then he goes on the offensive and he completely decimates the rapper, right? And for me, I've learned how to do that, you know, through my podcast and through just kind of, my like getting my brand out there where my story is my journey. It's happened for a reason. And it's actually helped a lot of people sharing those things that I've been through. And so learn that from David Goggins how to share that truth and completely be free. And then the last person I would say is my mentor and coach Patrick Tucker, who is an investment advisor who lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He's about 20 years down the road of where I am. And so it's super important to find someone to, if they're

going to mentor you, they've done exactly what you want to do at a super high level. So go to someone in your industry that you admire, that you trust, that you want to be around, and reach out to that person and just say, hey, you know, I'm looking to accomplish this, this and this. If you can bring value in one way, that's great. And then if they can help you kind of get to where you want to be, that's what I would recommend. So between my dad, Gagons, my mentor, Patrick Tucker, those are the three people that have made the hugest impacts on me in recent years. Awesome, awesome. I definitely appreciate you sharing those folks. And for really, for sharing your journey and your story with us, I know,

that this is going to impact a lot of the listeners out there. So thank you so much for sharing. And it's been a pleasure having you on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Jesse T. Again, all of his info will be in the show notes. Make sure you check out his podcast as well. Jesse, thanks again, my friend. Hey, Jordan, thanks so much. I appreciate you for having me on the show. And thank you to the Blaz Your Own Trail podcast listeners. I appreciate you. Thank you. Man, what a great episode with Jesse T. Thanks so much for listening. please subscribe to the podcast if you're not already subscribed and don't be afraid to tell your friends about it. The goal is really to reach as many people as possible.

So thank you so much for listening and I can't wait to chat on the next episode.