Blaze Your Own Trail - S2:E21- The Journey to Cloud Nine with Jordan Gross

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

Jordan is a Northwestern and Kellogg School of Management graduate, a startup founder, a 2x TEDx speaker, and a #1 best-selling author. His new book, The Journey to Cloud Nine, provides a new approach to the personal development world by using fictional storytelling to reveal some of life's most meaningful principles. Jordan has been blazing new trails for people around the world, and he cannot wait to share this with all of you! In this episode we discuss: Jordan's upbringing The Sports he played Where he went to school A pivotal moment How Jordan helps people through coaching What the Cloud Nine Life is all about Connect with Jordan: Website: https://www.journeytocloudnine.com/journey-to-cloud-nine-free-chapters Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordangross9/ Medium Articles: https://medium.com/@jordan.c.gross2016 Enjoying the show? Join our Facebook community to interact with fans and guests of the show! https://www.facebook.com/groups/blazeyourowntrailmastermind/ Follow us on Instagram for more content! https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ 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. I hope you are doing well. So excited for you to check out this episode with Jordan Gross. First off, because he's got the best name on the planet spelled the same way as mine. But no, in all seriousness, he's a great guy. He's a writer. He's a speaker. He's an author. He's written a book called The Journey to Cloud 9, confront the past, and redefine the future. So tune in. Let me know what you think. And I will chat with you. after the episode. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza, and I'm your host, and I've got a very special guest today. His name is Jordan Gross, and I'm going to have him give a quick intro about who he is and what he does. Hey, Jordan. We got the double Jordan's on today, so thank you so much for having me on. Quick intro.

Okay, let's see, quick intro. What I'm doing now is I'm helping people redefine the way that they look at their personal development. And I'm using really fun, creative and entertaining stories in order for them to really, like the theme of this show, blaze their own trails for whatever is next in their lives. Right. So it's a little bit of coaching, a little bit of speaking, a little bit of writing. And I integrate all those tools together to provide people with the stories that they need to hear so that they can you know apply them to their own lives i love that i love that um so i'm sure

you haven't been doing that forever right so we're going to we're going to get some uh context for the audience so uh where were you born and raised and i think i may know the answer to this first part of it but where were you born and raised just for the audience that doesn't know and then let's give us some insights into what type of kid were you were you did you go more down the athletic route or were you more into academics how were you good yeah great question i love it um so i was born on long island in new york um i'm in my childhood home right now as we chat uh may 12th 2020 so yeah i was i was born uh wonderful parents i've one brother um i was i was a student athlete i played all the sports you could possibly imagine um my big one ended up being

So in my early days, it was soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, flag football. My mom never let me play tackle. And then it sort of slowly but surely got down to just soccer. And I was a goalie in soccer. So I think from a very young age, I was kind of always trying to stand out a little bit. I was trying to have my own set of rules, my own, you know, path that I was taking because, you know, as a goal I could use my hands. I was directing everybody. So I do attribute that, you know, the position of goalie to sort of the path that I'm on now.

But I was going through the motions for my childhood, honestly, Jordan. I was basically on this path, right? And it was going on the hamster wheel just, okay, you have to get good grades. And then you have to come home from school. And then you have soccer practice four days a week from five to eight. And then you have to come home, finish your homework. eat, go to bed, wake up, do it all again, right? So that was pretty much my childhood. And it was an amazing childhood. I loved every single bit of it. I had amazing teachers, amazing coaches,

amazing friends. But in regard to the path that I was taking for my own life, it was very much outlined for me. I never took a step to the side and said, is this what I really want to be doing? is this really making me happy. I was just, you know, I was doing what everybody else was doing. Okay. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. And so what was it then that really helped you define that path that you wanted to go on, right? Because prior to whenever this moment happened, everybody else pretty much set everything out and dictated your journey.

So was there a pivotal moment? was there a conversation? Was there a mentor? Or was it you were just sitting around one day and I was like, man, like maybe I should be doing this. I'm very curious to find out. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit of all the above, right?

And I actually believe that my aha moment, that pivotal moment you mentioned, was sort of this realization that I didn't need an aha moment to take control of my life, to blaze my own trail. Right. So going forward, you know, after high school, I went to. college. I played soccer. I got good grades. I realized that being a professional soccer player was no longer in the card. So then it was like, what do I do next? And I asked other people again and people sort of drew out my next step. So it was keep getting good grades, study economics and business and finance and go get good internships. And then once you have good internships, you'll get a good job, right? So I did that. I kept, you know, going on that hamster wheel. And I would say that the

The series of events that led me to start thinking differently and embrace, you know, thinking differently was when I got back from studying abroad, my junior year of college, I studied abroad in Prague, and it was like a four-month Euro trip with some of my closest friends. I did way less studying than I did, you know, experiencing the world and partying and having a great time. And when I got back to the States, I kind of said, okay, now is my time to be a contributing member to society, it's my time to, you know, maybe start reading and listening to some personal development podcasts and, you know, really understanding what I want to do with my life. And then I just fully dove into that world. I remember reading, you know, how to win friends

and influence people. And I remember reading four-hour work week. And I remember listening to Jordan Harbinger's podcast. And I remember listening to Hal Elrod's podcast. And every time I heard somebody speak about how they deviated from the norm, how they wrote a book, how they were able to just go against the grain and impact the world because that's what they felt they were meant to do, that lit me up so much. And I kind of just said, okay, it's time for me to follow my passion. It's time for me to imagine the life of my dreams. And then it's, it's, you know, I got to go live it. I can't just keep doing what everybody else is telling me and expecting me to do. that's awesome that's awesome that you know had that epiphany and then you know you went all in right

it's it's a very it's a very clear track record that I've noticed right from the beginning somebody said this is the way you go and you went all in that direction and now now go this way and you went all in that direction yeah like finally right you were impacted by people's experiences and this is probably I'm assuming where the storytelling started to get injected, but because we learn through stories, right? We learned through other people's ups that they've experienced and also the downs. And we take that information. And when you were able to really put it into how we're wired and to our own personality,

man, there's amazing things that can happen. Oh, I love it. Absolutely true. It was all the stories that I was hearing, right? The story, you know, I'd see which ones I resonated with the most and which ones I wanted to stay away from, right? I loved the stories where the entrepreneur had to go through seven different challenges and seven different failed startups before finally something clicked, right? And I wanted to stay away from the stories where a 40, 50, 60 year old person came on and said, I regret not having

done this earlier, right? So that's when it clicked for me that I could start writing my own story earlier and just go ahead dive right into to what I wanted to do, which was really, you know, in some way, shape, or form just help other people. And then as I started to help other people, I realized that I wanted to do it through a creative means through this, this lens of trailblazing for others. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned the all in piece. It's like I always say that, you know, I'm not just going to have, it's either I'm going to eat a whole box of pizza or I'm not going to have any pizza at all, right? Like, that's just what I, that's the, the way that my personality, um, that's that, yeah, that's how I've always been. Uh, so I try, yeah, I just fully immerse

myself in the direction that I'm going in and it's, I see where it takes me. That's awesome. And so thinking about like back to the start of this journey, I know you mentioned, you know, you consumed a lot of content, podcasts. I'm sure you probably watch some TED Talks. And, you're not, you're probably watch some Ted talks and I'm very curious. Did you take an introspective look at yourself through any assessments that are out there? You know, I mean, there's a million, you know, you've got MBTI, you've got this, you've got the Enneagram. So I'm very curious to see, you know, did you dive into some of those assessments, you know, strengths finder, emotional intelligence to really get a baseline of self-awareness for who you are, right? Because I think, and you can kind of tell me your take on this, but

self-awareness is everything, right? That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the foundation. It's a foundation for really not only helping our own selves out, but when we know who we are, it's very, it really puts us at an advantageous place to help understand who other people are. It gives us an advantage. Yeah. So I did, the only one I've actually sat down and taken is the Myers-Briggs. And I am INFJ. I switched between E and I, sort of like the ambivert, but I was always the person, Jordan, where I remember there was a story where we actually, I did a one year master's program after school before I pursued this path.

And it was a management studies program. So we had an executive coach come in and do the Myers-Briggs assessment with us. And I remember after we were discussing all of our results, and I raised my hand, and I raised my hand, and I, I asked the question to the instructor, this is great, and I really appreciate all the insights, but don't you think that we could be answering these questions based off of who we want to be as opposed to who we actually are? Right. So isn't there a little bit of bias when we do these personality assessments? He basically kind of shrugged off the question, didn't want to get into it too much, but afterward he came up to me and he said if that's the way that you think i think that you would

love this this methodology called stakeholder centered coaching or you know getting a 360 feedback assessment for who you are right um so that's what i did after that i i instead of doing the myers break i just asked people you know very very open questions about who they thought i was what they thought i excelled that what they thought i needed to improve upon So I kind of took like this qualitative approach where I just did these interviews in order to understand a little bit more about myself. Because I do think with a lot of those tests, as great as they are, sometimes I think we can be skewing the results based off of like who we actually are versus who we think we are versus who we want to be. So yeah, I was just thinking in a different way and it led me to that stakeholder centered model. That's good, yeah. And yeah, that really is a basis. And that's something that should be communicated prior to take in any assessment.

You've got to be in a neutral headspace, right? If you've just gotten an argument, don't take the assessment. Exactly. You're not going to be in the right headspace to skew the results, right? And so, and then also like, yeah, don't think about it of what other people view you as. You've got to think about it, like, if I had to choose, right? Because MBTI, it's all based on preferences. Right. And because, let's face it, you and I, whether you're an introvert or extrovert, you do both. Right. Exactly. We just don't do both with equal ease. Right. Uh-huh. That's where the things like the Myers-Briggs come from. But no, I 100% agree with the 360. I've, I've had, I've done that 360. And it's really, really good feedback that you get because there are areas that I thought I was stronger in, but the perception from the outside world was like, no. you're definitely not there yet, right? And so when you can get that context about yourself from your peers, yeah, it means a world. It really does. And, and, you know, it's funny too, it's like everybody tells us, you know, never talk about people behind their backs, right? But 360s give us that one opportunity where you actually are encouraged to talk about somebody behind their backs, right, in an encouraging way. So I do love that assessment. I think it gives an opportunity to both work on receiving feedback as well as.

is providing feedback for others. Absolutely. All right. So what happened next on this journey, right? So you went into this journey of professional development. You know, you've taken an assessment. You've looked at a pool that really gave you kind of a bird's eye look into who you are based on their thoughts and opinion.

So what were really the next steps? Where did you go from here? And when was it like, I need to, it's business time. Like this is happening. Yeah. I said, it was during my master's program. So this was 2017, like the beginning of 2017. The program itself wasn't extremely academically rigorous. So I had a lot of extra time to explore. So I dipped my toes into, I was in Chicago. So I dipped my toes into various startup companies in the

Chicago area. I started realizing what I liked about, you know, growing something from the ground up and being a part of something that was, you know, new and fun and exciting. I started my own startup company for a little bit. And then when school ended, I had to decide on what I was going to pursue next. And here's a little deviation from my story. I actually went into the restaurant industry. So after this program, I did a rotational leadership and management program with a restaurant group. And because I thought restaurants were going to be my passion.

And I chose this route because, again, I wanted to be different than everybody else. That's always been a key theme is how can I stand out? How do I be extraordinary among other people, right? How do I take a different path? So I went into the restaurant world with the idea that, you know, it didn't matter that I was passing up on consulting and investment banking and none of my peers and my classmates were going into this world. I thought that I was going to be this 23-year-old kid who got into the restaurant world,

learned all the ins and outs and worked my way up and was owning restaurants, you know, within the next 10 years. right and creating new restaurant concepts i love that innovation and creativity um but four months into this program i realized that sometimes you have to learn the hard way through experience that passion doesn't necessarily equate to purpose and passion doesn't necessarily have to equate to career what you do with your life right so i ended up quitting the restaurant world about four months in and that's when I took the deep dive into just helping other people adding value to the world and that's when I self-published my first book about happiness and optimism and overcoming

stress and anxiety. Yeah. And what I really enjoy about that story is to me that's a strength. You know, being able to change your mind like that four months in and realize that this was not your purpose. Like that's a big strength. And there are some people out there that'll say, well, that's dumb. That's a dumb decision. Why would you do that, right? But again, you doing that aligns exactly with going against the grain, right? Because what should have happened is you should have went on that journey,

that four months should have turned into four years. And then you probably would have turned into burnout, right? And so you knew there's some type of alarm system that your body was had for you that was like, no, this didn't feel right. And so you shifted direction. again, you know. Right. And then, you know, and it makes sense that you would want to help other people because, you know, you spend a lot of time helping yourself, right? Like getting to know yourself and how you operate and how you like to do things. Yeah. You're spot on. And that alarm system,

by the way, just for people listening to me, that alarm system is energy, right? It's not necessarily happiness. It's not necessarily positivity. It's not optimism because I was those things. even in this experience I knew that I wasn't supposed to be doing. It was just the energy I brought to work. And it was forced positive energy. It was like I had to make a very conscious effort to be optimistic and upbeat in this, you know, hectic restaurant position that I was in.

Whereas when I was, you know, doing things on the side, you know, like building a little side business or chatting with my friends on off days or writing articles on off days, that was not forced positive energy. That was energy. That was natural. That was something I truly wanted to be doing, wanted to wake up in the morning and start doing as opposed to wake up and go to this, you know, this job. That's it, right? And, you know, the quote that most people listening have probably heard is, you know, when you're doing something that you love, you never work a day of your life, right? Exactly. And when you were getting that feeling, well, really when it was in the kind of side hustle phase.

You're like, man, like, this is way better than being over here, right? And you could, you know, start to see yourself, like envisioning yourself doing that for the long haul. So can you remember your very first client? And I know normally when you're starting things up, it's usually a friend or a colleague or, you know, or someone like that. I want you to think back to that, you know, that very first client, who you got a win, with and a win could be you know they just had more confidence or yeah the information that you

told them and they sold something right like when you got that first small victory think back to that time and how did that feel just i would love to give the audience some context of how it really made you feel of course so this is a funny story so my first i by the way jordan i wrote i self-published this book with no business, I wouldn't recommend this to anybody, with no business model, no plan, I didn't know how I was going to make money, but just like we keep saying, I just dove into the world of what do you do after you write a book, right? And I was all in. So that's when coaching came, speaking, podcasting, writing articles, writing more books, right? And the coaching bit, the idea came because in the back of my first book, I put my phone number in it.

And I remember I was taking a run. I had my headphones in along the East River in New York City. And I got a phone call from a random number. And they said, is this Jordan Gross? And I said, yes, who's this? And she said her name. And I said, okay, how do you, how did you get this number? And she said, I can't believe that you would put your phone number in the back of a book.

I just don't understand. And I was like, yeah, oh, I'm so glad that you read the book and made it to the end. thank you so much for calling. And she said, well, you know, I would love to talk more about the book. And I would love to see if you can help me with some of the things that you mentioned in the book. So the book itself is called Getting Comfort, Your Morning Guide to Daily Happiness. And I shared my morning routine that allowed me to be positive and upbeat and optimistic, even when I didn't necessarily want to be in that restaurant job.

Right. So what I did with my first client, client, right? I put in quotes if you're, you can't see us right now. But we just worked on how she could wake up in the morning and create her own morning routine that made her have some fun, focus on her self-care, focus on being happy, focus on overcoming stress, and really have this experience where no matter what happened the rest of the day, she could look back and say, wow, I had an unbelievably fantastic morning.

So when we worked through that and she called me the next week after, you know, I wanted her to do a week straight of this morning routine. And she said, you know what? I have felt more energized at work. I have felt like, you know, my relationship with my boyfriend is extremely, you know, positive right now. I have made calls to my parents more often than I had. And in regard to how that made me feel, it was, you know,

I don't often try to seek external validation, but that's what it was. It was like, okay, I can do something that is true. beneficial to other people. And I don't have an exact methodology. I don't have a one size fits all answer, but I think that's supporting and believing in other people and providing them with stories and tools for them to, you know, create their own habits and routines and, you know, life of their dreams moving forward, right? There's an opportunity there. And I can keep pursuing coaching and writing and speaking to do this for more people because it feels pretty amazing to do it for one and, you know, the next one's going to feel much better and the one after that's

going to feel even better. So it's just like you said, appreciating that first client, you know, is so, so worthwhile, it's so rewarding. I love that, you know, and I love that, you know, like if you really put that into context, if you could just help one person a day, that's 365 people a year. Yeah. I mean, and like, that would be a major impact because if you, you start compounding that year over year over year and you can reach you know hundreds and hundreds of people but really when you have a platform and you and you really grow that at scale like you've been doing right with books and podcasts and being active on social right now you're able to reach tens of thousands and possibly millions of people you know so it's just amazing to see um you know but it only takes one right it just takes that first

one, that first person to say that now, because of the information you've given them, now they're looking through life with a different lens, right? It's changing people's perspective. Yeah. And sometimes that's all it takes for us as humans is we just need that. We don't need that much. We just need this slight shift and amazing things can just happen. I love that, man. And, you know, it reminds me of a phrase. I don't even know where this is from, but I know my brother wrote it in his personal statement to get into med school. And, you know, you can't change the whole world at one time, right? But you can change a whole lot of worlds one at a time. Right. And the more world you can change that just like you said, that compounding effect, you change it in the

world for somebody else. You have no idea what that person is going to do for the rest of the world, right? You could be changing the world of somebody who becomes the next, who knows, right? So that's why you take your best self into every single conversation, coaching engagement, podcast conversation that you have. Because you truly never know what's going to happen. You know, you never know what's going to happen next. So just why not give it your best? Awesome, man.

Let's talk about current state. I know we started out with that. But I would love to give the audience because there's going to be people that listen to this. They listen back and they say, man, I really love Jordan's approach to this. I really love how. there, how there isn't a one size fits all approach. And to me, when you're coaching, there can't be because we're all humans, we're all wired differently. You know, we'll have different circumstances. So what can you share with the audience? Just kind of give them some context. Is it, like, are you more

of a long-term partner for them? Do you offer group coaching? You know, just give some context. I would love to share this with folks. So if they want to get in touch with you, they've got the baseline there. Yeah, well, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. So the only thing I don't do is group coaching. I really value one-on-one interaction. And I also only like to offer and create things that I would consume myself. So I've tried it all. I've tried the group coaching. I've tried the courses. But for me, I got the most value when I did a one-on-one engagement with one other person. So that's what I want to offer to other people. So it's it's one to one. We could do a month. We could do three months. We could do six months a year. That doesn't matter to me. What's important to me is that, you know,

like I said, there is no one size fits all answer, but we're always using what I call imagativitation to build the life of your dreams, right? So imaginativitation stands for imagination, interpretation, creativity, and then implementation, right? So first you imagine this life that, you know, you made a change and you imagine yourself way at the end of the road looking back and saying, oh my goodness, look at this life that I lived, right? And then you interpret why. So you ask yourself questions.

Why is this the person I want to be like? Why are these the experiences I want to have? Why is this the impact I want to make on the world? Right. And then after that, you start to use your creativity. to make a plan. You know, maybe you reverse engineer it and you like to work backwards so you put the milestones in reverse order.

Or maybe you just have to come up with a unique way in order to get that job you want or to get that relationship you want, right? So that's using your creativity and creating a plan. And then finally, the implementation piece is you're going out and you're doing it, right? You're writing articles. You're giving TED Talks. You are going on podcasts, right? These are things that I did in order to, you know, work my way to my imagined state.

which is just somebody who makes a difference for people all over the world through, you know, writing and speaking and coaching. So those are the big pillars. And then it's just, you know, a lot of conversations about how to create that life that you want to, you know, the person you want to be. I love that. And so for the audience, can you, again, share the name of the book and then the best place to find it? Do you have a direct website link or is it Amazon? You know, we're the best places to grab a copy.

copy of your book. Yeah. So this, this current book is called The Journey to Cloud 9. And it's a fictional story about living the life of your dreams, right? And it's basically the protagonist, or his name is Jerry. He was going through the motions just like I was in my life. And you get to see in his life if he kept going through the motions, how that would make him feel and what kind of life that would have led to, but also what you get to see is if he changed, right? And that's when he starts living his cloud nine life. So when he starts to live his cloud nine life, you get to see that things are more based on his heart and his gut and his intuition. This leads to more of the life that he wanted to live. So that book's called The Journey to Cloud 9. It's available on Amazon.

And it's also available on my website, Journey to Cloud9.com. And that's all spelled out, journey, T, T, O, Cloud, N-A-N-E.com. And then the last thing, Jordan is that I give away free chapters. So you know, you can get the first three chapters for free. And that's also on the website. Perfect. Well, I know that we originally, I think, connected on LinkedIn. So I know you're active on social media. So the best places to find you is, is that your number one platform? Or are you on Instagram? What other platforms can people reach you at? Yeah. So LinkedIn is number one for me. I love being on LinkedIn. And it's Jordan Gross on

LinkedIn and then the only other platform that I spent a lot of time on is medium. So I'm a I think writing for me is my my true you know passion. That's that's what I truly love to do. So I write a bunch of articles on medium probably you know anywhere three to five a week. Um so that's a good place to find me and it's just Jordan Gross on there as well. Okay perfect. Well I really really appreciate you taking the time today. It's been great learning about your journey. I know the audience is going to get a lot of value out of this. So I'm sure people will be reaching out. I'll make sure that all your info is down in the show notes for them.

But thank you so much, Jordan. And I hope you have a great rest of your week. Thank you, Jordan. I really appreciate it. And you too. Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to that episode with Jordan Gross. Make sure to pick up the book, The Journey to Cloud 9.

That link will be in the show notes. And go ahead and reach out to Jordan. If you've got any questions about the type of coaching that he does, make sure to reach out. I'll make sure that those links are available as well. Please as well, if you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe to the show and tell your friends about it. You know, our goal is to reach an impact as many people as possible through other people's journeys and stories to success. So if you can subscribe, that'd be great. Go to iTunes, make sure you rate and review us.

Only five stars. If you think it's less, then reach out to me and we'll, figure out ways that we can make the show even better for you. I hope you all have an amazing rest of your day wherever you are, and I'll talk to you on the next episode.