Blaze Your Own Trail - S3:E10- Create Your Own Life with Jeremy Ryan Slate

Starting point is 00:00:07 Hey, everyone. I hope you are doing well. I want to give a big shout out to our new sponsor, View Arcade. They have an amazing app launching on the iOS and Android stores called View Me. If you want to grow your YouTube, TikTok, SoundCloud, Twitch, and more. Make sure to check out View Me when it drops on the app store very soon. Are you ready to find out how to blaze your own trail? Welcome to the Blaze Her Own Trail podcast. your host, Jordan Mendoza. In this podcast, Jordan interviews people from around the world to find out about their journey to success. If you're looking for valuable content with actionable advice,

Starting point is 00:00:53 you've come to the right place. And now your host, Jordan Mendoza. 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 Jeremy Slate. And I'm going to give him just a second to tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. Yeah, so I am the host of a Top 100 podcast called Create Your Own Life. And I run a PR agency called Command Your Brand, where 2020 has actually been a really good year for us. We've actually more than doubled the amount of people on our team this year. Revenue is up big time from last year.

Starting point is 00:01:39 I'm also a husband of five years, a father of one and one more on the way. and then we have a big animal family in my house. We have two dogs, one's a rescue, and then we also have a miniature pig. Awesome, man. Hey, thanks for sharing that context. And congrats on the business success and, you know, more importantly,

Starting point is 00:01:59 the success of having another human about to join your family, man. That's exciting, you know. I'll have to learn how to manage that, man. I know you see, you have five, so like, yeah, yeah. I don't even know how you do that. Listen, I will tell you exactly how I do it.

Starting point is 00:02:13 I really believe my wife is superwoman. Yeah. Because like somehow she's able to manage and do all of those things that I'm so terrible at. And I'm very self-aware of that, that she kind of runs the show. So we'll give Natalie Mendoza a shout out here on this episode. All right. So, Jeremy, one of my favorite things in the show, man, is, you know, and congrats again on the success this year. You know, I've been telling people a lot lately, there's two people that are going to come out of the pandemic.

Starting point is 00:02:40 It's the ones that say, man, I had some. so much extra time and I really applied myself and I came out of this thing a better human. And there's going to be the ones that wonder what happened to the year. And you, my friend, are one of those trailblazers. That's why you're on the show, you know. There's also a third group in the middle, which I feel bad for. And that's a lot of our restaurants and people like that have been told they can't, they can't run their business.

Starting point is 00:03:02 So I think at the same time, there's those people I worry about too. Oh, 100%. Yeah. It's terrible, especially with the service facing, all of the service facing industries are are facing challenges, you know, and, you know, this show, I think the reason why I created is I want to encourage people, right? I want to encourage people where they are. Whatever, whatever one of those three groups they fall in, we want to encourage them and say, listen, there is a chance to make something and to create something of your own, regardless of your circumstance and

Starting point is 00:03:32 your situation. So, so let's rewind, man. So where were you born and raised? Let's really start at kind of adolescent years, you know, elementary up to high school. Yeah, so I was born in a small town called Hamburg, New Jersey. Nothing happens there. It's five-eighths of my own size. Like, literally nothing happens there, which later in life helped me because then anything I did in the news, they'd cover, which is kind of cool. But, you know, it was an area where, like, you know, college was kind of a big deal because not a lot of people had it. So, like, you know, if you could get that, like, it was supposed to be like that leg up. I found out later in life it wasn't. But for me, you know, my dad was somebody that had, you know, tried his hand at professional baseball,

Starting point is 00:04:12 had some injuries early on in his career and he ended up being, you know, somebody working in the machine shop at a factory, worked his butt off for 40 years to get himself up to upper management in that company. But, you know, with, without college or without any of those things. So like, I really admire a lot of what he's done. My mom was a hairdresser that, you know, really had to help raise her brother coming out of school after her father passed away of cancer, her senior year high school. So I come from two really, really, really hardworking, like, blue-collar people that I've learned a ton from. And, you know, they always expected me to be, you know, working hard. And so honestly, I had my first job at 11.

Starting point is 00:04:49 I was a newspaper carrier from the time I was 11 until the time I was 19. And I started out with about 80 newspapers and I finished with 285 by the time I gave it up. So I had really like expanded that and done a lot. And let me tell you, Christmas was good when you're delivering newspapers. People are very, very generous. So, you know, I'd be 15 years old and getting $5,000 for Christmas every year, which is very, very cool. So, you know, that was kind of my experience of being an entrepreneur early on. But then I kind of was like, all right, I'm just going to continue to be a student, right? So I went to school for a double major in Catholic theology and then also Old Testament. And then I studied literature at New College, Oxford, and got my master's in ancient history. So it was kind of like I

Starting point is 00:05:33 had this entrepreneurial side, but I was the ultimate nerd at the other point. And I actually went into teaching high school in a private school. So it wasn't like this, you know, I wanted to be an entrepreneur early on. I kind of had these inklings. But I ended up in a totally different space of life. Wow. Yeah. And there's definitely, you know, there's a ton to unpackage there, right? You know, 11 years old with with the newspaper hustle, you know, there's probably going to be people that are listening that know that word, right? There might be. be some that they aren't too familiar because as we know news has changed. Everything's at the swipe of a finger versus this actual thing that people are reading.

Starting point is 00:06:12 It's funny you mentioned that because we're kindred spirits. My first job at 14 was going to sell newspaper subscriptions door to door. We did that too. They called it crewing and I don't know why they called it. That's what they called it. Yeah, I was on the crew and they would go buy us Burger King and we would go with our clipboards and go to each house And man, when I tell you, bro, like, that was such a great experience. And that's where I learned the hustle.

Starting point is 00:06:38 I hold all the New Jersey records for that, surprisingly. That's amazing. And I don't know why they call it that. I still don't. But like, you'd go door to the door and you convince people to buy the newspaper, man. Yep. And it would be like, do you want the daily, the Sunday, or do you want both, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:52 Like, that was like the kicker to get the higher commission. Oh, yeah. So, man, that's super cool. So you did that. Can I just answer to that too? like like and I don't know if people anybody out there like had a newspaper root too like as that root grows you want it to grow but at the same time you hate it because you start with one bag sling over your shoulder next thing you have them crossed over and you're on a bicycle and you're trying not to like go too far side to

Starting point is 00:07:14 side so you don't fall over so like it's definitely a different kind of hustle that's right hey and you might actually be able to try out for the circus or you know it's one of the balancing acts too so learn some additional bonus skills right yeah that's awesome so you mentioned that that kind of like the beginning of your you know entrepreneurial spirit but it kind of tapered off a little bit right yeah because you had this it seems like you just want to you want to learn you know you're just you're one of those lifelong learners that you're just like searching for information um and so you finish school you go to college and then you become a high school teacher yeah was that was that even in your purview like when you were a kid or you like one day i want to be a high school teacher like was that even a thought

Starting point is 00:07:59 of where, because I'm thinking when we get further in this journey, like where you are now, when you were the teacher, you probably didn't think you would be here as well. So, left some context there. Well, you know what the interesting part is I wanted to be a college professor. So like becoming a high school teacher was almost like a participation trophy or something like that. Like I didn't like, I didn't get the thing that I wanted, but I also didn't try very hard for it, right?

Starting point is 00:08:21 Because in order to kind of get into like that professor world, like you have to either have a teaching assistant job, meaning that you're kind of working towards a PhD in a program or already have your PhD, which is really interesting as well. So like I applied to one PhD program, which is NYU. I didn't get in and I didn't apply to any more schools. So it's kind of like I couldn't have wanted it that bad, right? And I think I keep looking to like teaching was interesting and it seemed like the next logical step because I guess what else do you do? But it wasn't really my dream. You know what I mean? I think if something's your dream, you go for it, you push for it. You don't take no for an answer. you find a way to make it happen. I just, I didn't have that, right? So when I came out of school,

Starting point is 00:09:03 I actually, it was in 2011, which is a horrible economy to like get a job, especially like being in that position because having a master's degree, you're overqualified for everything, but then you're underqualified for everything you actually want. So nobody will give you a job. So you're kind of in this, in this weird context. So I was painting houses during the day when I came out of came out of grad school, which was crazy to think of. And at night, I was managing a gym. And I did that for like, I had managed the gym for eight years, but I was doing that particular way of doing things for a year. So I would work from 6.30 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. I'd grab some food and then I'd work from the gym until 6 at night until 11 at night. So that was kind of like my day every day for a year. You know what I mean? And it's like when I work with a painter too, he was like super old school. He was in his 70s. So like what you would do is you do everything by hand. You'd hand scrape a house. You'd use a 4 inch brush. Like sprayers were not.

Starting point is 00:09:57 a thing you didn't do that so that was it was like backbreaking hard work for a full year um you did a year of karate kid training man yeah it was like it was i didn't get to snatch the fly from his hand though man i didn't get to do it um you let's snatch the fly from my hand um it wasn't like that at all but like then i actually ran into a friend of my family it's like hey you know the private school that i used to be the principal at is like looking for somebody to fill a position um we'd love to have them talk to you so i did i ended up teaching at private school because in order to teach at public school where you actually make money, you have to have a teaching degree, right? And like I said, I have a master's in history. So it doesn't really qualify you to do anything. So I ended up

Starting point is 00:10:34 teaching in private school where you don't make a ton of money, you work a ton of hours. And I didn't really have any formal training around how to teach, right? So it was like they throw you in the room with 40 kids. They say make some lesson plans, which you don't know how to do. And you say, good luck. So I did that for about two years, man. I was just like crazy burnt out very, very quickly. And I blame it all on the smartphone, which did not exist when I was in school. Because like they try to like get you upset every day and then get you on youtube that was my day what a what a day to look forward to right you're like all right which tictock video am i gonna see myself on well there wasn't a tic-tok yeah okay okay so which uh maybe which uh vine or which

Starting point is 00:11:14 youtube video whatever it was at myself on right that's yeah and then and now yeah you fast forward to today just think about if you were a teacher now i mean you know you almost i almost it was You would have to like, it's like, you know, I can't beat him, so join them. So you'd probably end up being doing a bunch of TikToks. Well, I can't even imagine. You mentioned your kids are going, like a couple of your kids are going to virtual school, too. Like, how do you even like manage that as a teacher, right? Like the kids could just say, screw you and go do something else because you can't actually, like physically be in the same place with them.

Starting point is 00:11:44 Yeah. One, it's funny seeing how creative kids are getting, you know, creating a cardboard cut out of them that looks like they're awake and then they're asleep behind it. Like, you know, making their things say disconnect. but they typed it as their name like i mean listen all the things that we used to do when we were in school like throw like it's like virtual spit wads but it's a whole lot different now you know they're they're they're a lot more creative i think than uh some of the things that we used to do probably absolutely absolutely all right so so you're doing the the gym thing and painting houses so and then you get the job as a teacher so you get burned out so so here where you are you're burned

Starting point is 00:12:22 out so what was your next step man and and and what made you like decide to do the next thing. So, so here's the weird part. When I was 19, I was playing football and I played corner and I was in my five-yard back paddle. I turned the run of the receiver. I step in a drain.

Starting point is 00:12:39 My body keeps turning. I tear every major ligament in my left knee. I had, I had what was supposed to be a very easy surgery because they do like cadaver ligaments. They take the ligaments out of people that already passed on. They put them in your knee and it is what it is. You recover in, you know, six months.

Starting point is 00:12:54 The anesthesia didn't go well. actually and I ended up getting last rights because they couldn't keep my blood oxygen level up. And the crazy thing about that at 19, nothing changed my life, right? I just kind of went back to what I was doing. It was just part of this whole thing. When I was 24 and teaching, my mom ended up having a really bad stroke in 2013. And she's still quite disabled to this day. She hasn't been able to speak in, you know, almost nine years now. So like it's, it was a very difficult situation for me it made me look at a lot of what I'm doing, right? Like I'm miserable. I'm getting up early every day, going to bed, late every night. Like what's kind of the point of this? And it made me start to look at

Starting point is 00:13:34 like what else am I going to do here, right? Like it made me kind of look at like, you know, if my life ended, how much would this matter? Right. And it took me like almost a full year to actually act on that. And I think I think a lot of people when they kind of tell the story about like what happened to them, they take, they make the change right away and like the skies open up and they know it. But life isn't like that, right? It's not like that a lot of times. You have to kind of go through this process of realizing that, you know, you're going to go somewhere else of this or do something else with this. So my wife was presented a network marketing opportunity, which I didn't know what that was. So I'm like, oh, two people, millionaire next week, game time.

Starting point is 00:14:08 It did not work like that. I worked my butt off for a couple years, made very little money, alienated a lot of my friends, and, you know, was kind of like this isn't for me. And I did it full time. I quit my teaching job and just went for it. And I went from there to then, to sell life insurance, which I was good at. I just hated being like, okay, so you're going to die. You should probably buy this. Like, it's a morbid way to go through the day, but I was making good money doing it. It's a dark conversation.

Starting point is 00:14:36 Yeah, it's like dark conversations every day. Like, don't make your life outside of that very pleasant. So I did that for, you know, a little bit and I made some good money, but I just, I couldn't keep myself to do it. So I had listened to a podcast and I had heard someone talk about like buying products from China and selling them on Amazon. Like, oh, that sounds like a great. idea. So I bought 250 products, got them ready to go. And one of the things you do when you launch them is you sell them for a dollar to kind of like get a move and get some reviews, all that kind of stuff.

Starting point is 00:15:03 I left the promo code on my listing. So I lost all of my products in about 20 minutes to the same address in Maryland. Somebody's like, cool, great deal. Buy them all. And that was the end of my like Amazon business. So I kind of like had tried each one of these things and I just kept failing, man. Like I just kept wasn't working. So I taught myself to build websites from watching YouTube videos and reading blogs. I learned how to write HTML and CSS. So I was like doing this at a friend's web design firm to just make money. And as a hobby, I started the podcast, which kind of led to, you know, really everything we're doing now. Wow, man. Wow. Yeah. And so you've done a ton of dabbling. And it's so interesting. Like, you know, we both did the newspaper thing and, uh, and I've done

Starting point is 00:15:45 network marketing and, you know, tempted that. It was, I think, AM what, you know, I've tried all these things and, and none of them work for me either. But like, none of them, those things. For ken your spirits, man. Yeah, none of them work for me either. But, you know, and, you know, it's so funny. Like, I think we have to do that as humans. Like, you've got to fumble through and fail and see what you like and when you don't like, right?

Starting point is 00:16:09 Because when you can finally start to recognize where your actual strengths are and what brings you happiness and what your purpose is for being on this planet. Yeah. And that's an unlock. And it doesn't mean that you've unlocked everything. but it means that at least you're starting to dwindle this big, big thing down and narrow it down. No, absolutely. And I think that's one of the biggest problems I think with how education works now, right? Like somebody goes for a degree, they come out and try to get a job in that area.

Starting point is 00:16:38 They usually don't. They end up doing something they don't want to do. And I think one of the things missing is kind of like an area in between where you have an apprenticeship, or you work in a company for a period of time and you figure things out. Like you have to kind of see what you like and what you don't like and what kind of aligns with your skill sets and your purpose. So on this journey that you've had, what else have you done from a professional development standpoint, right?

Starting point is 00:17:03 Because I know you're an avid learner. I know you want to learn. So are there any, you know, assessments that you've taken to take a deeper dive into who you are? Are there, you know, courses that you've taken or books that you've read? Just resources, right? Let's educate the audience of things that you've done and because it might add value to them as well. So I've read a lot of different books.

Starting point is 00:17:25 I'm just, I like to say I'm a rabid reader, not an avid reader. Like I just, I read a lot. Um, so like I've read a lot of Grant Cardone. I've read a lot of like sales oriented books.

Starting point is 00:17:34 But honestly, um, a book that's helped me a ton and help me understand of who more of who I really am. Uh, it's a book called Dionetics by El Ron Hubbard. And it taught me a lot about, you know, how I am as a spiritual being and how I am as a person.

Starting point is 00:17:47 And it's been a game changer, man. It's, it's really helped me. become more the person who I really am. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, and I think it's so important that we do take that, you know, introspective look at ourselves, you know, figure out how we're wired, right? Because when you can understand yourself, when you have that self-awareness, it really helps you understand other people. Yeah, absolutely. Not just for business, but like in your marriage, like your relationships

Starting point is 00:18:13 start to change, right? Because you start to look at things through a different lens. Well, I think that's the really, really important part, right? I think a lot of times we look at our relationships of people like, oh my God, I got to fix that. Or we look at how we're doing something like, oh my God, we got to fix that. And when you actually realize a lot of it starts with you and it starts with how you're doing, how you're feeling and how you're treating things, you'll find that when you handle yourself, a lot of those things that you didn't like about others that you didn't like in your life, they resolve, which is pretty incredible. Yeah. No, that's 100% true. So tell the audience a little bit about the show, right?

Starting point is 00:18:47 So you start this, you start this podcast. Like, why did you start it? Like, did you have this, you know, end goal of what you wanted to do? Or did you just say, you know, like you've done so many other times that you've mentioned, you're just like, well, I want to do this now, right? So how did that work? And then, of course, you know, congrats on the success you've had with it. But I want to, I want to kind of see the weeds and the falling and, you know, the not having

Starting point is 00:19:13 the right equipment. Like all of those things. Yeah. I think are important context for people. to know because, listen, I have a show and it's not easy, right? And I don't have a team. So I do everything on my own. So I would love to hear kind of how that's evolved as well from you doing and running everything to now you've got this team that's been able to grow in a pandemic, folks, right, being able to scale a team in a pandemic. So I'd love to just hear some insights on that.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Well, so here's the thing too. I think too often people talk about their successes and not their failures. My first attempt at a podcast was called Rock Your Life. It was, was horrible. It tried to be like this life coachy person and which I am the furthest thing from because I like totally lack empathy. What do you mean you can't do? Just do it. So like, you know what I mean? So it just it wasn't me at all. And at the same time like it was me on this like old Ibook G4 by the way. If anybody out there's a Mac fan. So it was like not very good audio. It was there was no micing. I recorded episodes like the night before and it was just like this like it wasn't very good. So like we had about 100 downloads in three months. And. And,

Starting point is 00:20:17 And I ended up quitting it. And that was back in 2014. And finally in 2015, I finally reached this point where I'm like, I love podcasts. You know, I want to do this. But like I need to approach this more like a professional. And that was kind of how I changed my approach and putting together, create your own life. I made a list of the top 100 people I most admired. I reached out to a lot of them.

Starting point is 00:20:37 I had a lot of knows, but I had enough success to kind of keep it going. And we had 10,000 listens in our first 30 days. You know, we very quickly hit a million downloads. and we were able to kind of make a huge, huge impact. But like, you know, I started out with a basic mic. I got a better mic as I went along. Like, you know what I mean? I feel like people feel like they have to have the ideal version of everything,

Starting point is 00:20:57 but you don't. But the difference in that first one, the second one was approaching things as a professional and not a deal with time. And professionalism is a mindset. It's not, I'm going to do this to make money or I'm going to do this to build a business around it. A professionalism is how you carry yourself. And that was the biggest difference from the first version

Starting point is 00:21:13 to the second version that actually made an impact. I love that, man. And my first one failed, too. Recorded two whole episodes that nobody's probably ever heard of my podcast. And the reason why mine failed, very similar to yours, is I didn't have any clarity. I didn't know why I was doing it. I was just like, I'm going to do a podcast. And I just recorded a couple of things.

Starting point is 00:21:33 And I listened back to him, like, what are you rambling about? You know what I'm saying? Dude, like, I've done some of those. And I'm just like, I can't listen to them after. I'm like, oh, God, really. And so that's why that one failed. But, you know, the second attempt, similar to Orris, I had clarity. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:50 I knew that my name had a dual purpose. I'm a big Trailblazers fan, and I love just the thought of people that blaze their own trails. And so I was able to combine those two. So right off the bat, I had my purpose that I wanted to, you know, really impact people and inspire them to blaze their own trails in life, you know. One day with a goal of having Brandon Roy on the show now. Hey, listen, that would be an amazing guess. Brandon Roy would come on. It would be awesome. A lot of ex-blazers, I would love.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Rashid Wallace, I mean, that'd be an amazing. No, Greg Oden. I just don't think you need any Greg Oden in their life. Yeah, we will not talk about that on the air here. So cool, man. Yeah, so I love the shift, right? You mentioned the shift in your perspective. You wanted to be a professional. Things were probably, there was probably a system you had in place.

Starting point is 00:22:42 Like all of those things, like that's it. Yeah. Right. And it's always like this little tweak. We don't know how, how close we are. You got a Ferrari in the driveway. The keys are in the ignition, but you don't know how to put the gas in. Yeah. You know, it's always like some small thing like that. Correct. So go ahead. Tell me a little bit more about, you know, the business and how you've been able to scale and what that's look like for you and your team. So we honestly started out like with the podcast first. You know, as I said, I was working part time for a friend's company and the podcast. was just a hobby. And, you know, I started getting a lot of people saying, hey, can you do this for me? So the first version we did was called Slate Media Productions. And we did like a done for you, like podcast model where, you know, we were doing everything. Like we built your website. We did your editing. We put together the interviews. We scheduled your guests. We scheduled your

Starting point is 00:23:33 interview format. We did your social media. Like it was insane like what we were doing. And I was making like one 20th of what I needed to make to like eat ramen. So like it wasn't like a really great product. And what I found through doing that is our clients started saying, hey, this podcast is great. I'm connecting with some cool people. But the podcast that you've been putting me on as a guest to promote my new show, have been like kind of the best thing, the best thing about what we've been doing. So then we said, okay, well, we're not going to do all the other stuff because we're not making any money doing it. Let's just focus on really doing a great job with putting you on the right podcast. And I can't take a ton of credit for this because my wife has been in the PR world for, gosh,

Starting point is 00:24:07 about 11 or 12 years now. So she's very brilliant in what she does. So we took my podcast knowledge and her PR knowledge. And we started really focusing on helping clients with the right PR strategy appear on the right podcast. So we coached them like some media training around how to be a great guest. We talked about like, you know, the right call to action. We really worked on positioning for people and helping them book them on the right shows. And, you know, that was in 2016. We had another business partner in the beginning. So it kind of deteriorated after about nine months there. We did six figures in our first nine months and it deteriorated quickly. Or we then had to kind of figure out how to keep this thing going with just the two of us and a new brand name. And in 2017, we launched

Starting point is 00:24:48 Command Your Brand. And it's been incredible ever since. Like, we've had an incredible growth year this year. We've grown like 120% this year from last year. We had five staff last year. We have 14 this year. So it's, you know, we've really been trying to help our clients in a great way. I love that, man. I love that you, you know, saw that the model wasn't working, right? And listen, there's a lot of people listening. They're going to say, wait a minute, you made, six figures of nine months what what like what about that didn't work right but to have the the forethought to say that and see that you know maybe we're not focusing on the right thing right right like and again kudos to your wife for you know bring that up to you because that's that's incredible and then taking

Starting point is 00:25:31 your skill set and hers and marrying them together to build this complete package and i say complete package because it's it's three years right and most businesses don't last that long and you have gone up 120 percent so you found you found a formula yeah that works right and then now you're consistent with it so so that's amazing and so let me let me know this actually i think this would be interesting for people to hear how what percentage of your workforce is remote so there's remote and there's also like what would be considered virtual assistance so like all of our workforce is remote um we have two team members in florida we have three in new york state we have uh one that's Sometimes in Utah, sometimes in California.

Starting point is 00:26:16 It depends on where he is that particular week. We have four, five here in New Jersey. And then we have four, like, virtual people in the Philippines. So it's like kind of like, we have everybody in our company is virtual, but there's also like, you know, the virtual assistant side of things. We also have like team members in the Philippines as well. Awesome. Awesome. We never actually had an office.

Starting point is 00:26:37 Like we had like a we did like a we work thing for a while, but I kind of realized nobody was more productive or less productive. And, you know, I didn't build a business to. mute, so we ended up letting it go. And I can tell you that you were right. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, you were right, my friend. You're like, man, this is cool.

Starting point is 00:26:55 Everyone's remote. And like now everyone is remote. Like everybody's at home. And you're like, we already had that model. Like that's so old. That's old news, you know? You know, it's crazy because I remember like anybody in New Jersey will understand this.

Starting point is 00:27:07 Like we were like 20 minutes from the office space we had rented from where we live. And like every day we'd like, every day we'd like. leave at four o'clock to like try and beat the traffic, but I'd still get stuck on the garden-stake parkway and it'd take me like an hour and 45 minutes to get home. Like, God, I didn't start a business to like take longer than it used to take to get me to work when I was teaching. Like, what the heck? Yeah, man. And so that four hours, like, that's huge. That's every day. A lot of time in your life. Like, you know, I think about that and like, that's what I've really gained is like four hours

Starting point is 00:27:35 a day. Yeah, absolutely. To the earlier part of the conversation, it's like, what are we going to do with that time? Correct. You know, because we all have that. We all have that choice. We all have the same amount of time in a day, the same amount of time in a year. It's just all about like where are we putting our energy when it comes to that time. Yeah, no, absolutely, man. Because what you put your attention on is what you get more of. So that's what you've got to think about.

Starting point is 00:27:59 100% man. And so I think you mentioned a book as well. Yeah, so the 10x rule is like a really big, really big one for me. But also Dianetics was a really crazy book because it just taught me more about like how the mind. No, I meant you. I did you have a book that you're writing? I thought you were, I thought you were rehashing, which you asked me like 10 minutes ago. I apologize. No, so. But for anyone that wants to know, let's let's, let's, we're going to make sure those books will put those links to those too.

Starting point is 00:28:25 I apologize. I thought you were kind of echoing what we were talking about. So like the book I'm currently working on, it's we're almost done on it. It's called extraordinary. It's based on the six principles that I've learned from the almost 800 guests we've had from the former director of the CIA to, you know, rock and roll hall of famers, NBA Hall of Famers. And like I found that they all have six things in common. So we're currently, you know, working on that now. One of the biggest ones out of those is adversity. You know, we've been talking about that here. Like, adversity is a really big tool to grow. So we have that coming out in the first quarter of next year. So I'm really, really stoked for that. Awesome. Awesome. First quarter to so,

Starting point is 00:28:58 do you have like a waiting list or anything set up for that? We have a pre-order, but it just ended yesterday. So now everybody's got to wait until April. Okay. Well, we missed our shot. It's all good. They'll still be able to get the book, right? Yes, absolutely. Make sure you guys have enough copies. All right. So cool, man. Well, this has been phenomenal learning about your story and your journey. And, you know, the one thing that I can say that you have is, for one, you're a trailblazer because you've blazed your own trail and so many different senses of, you know, of that wording.

Starting point is 00:29:31 And also, you've got tenacity, man. You don't give up. You know, it seems like there's no obstacle that sends you so far down that you can't pick yourself up to get to the. next place. And that's something that is learned, right? Like learn from doing. It's not just something that we're all typically ingrained with. But kudos to your parents, though, for setting that example for you. You know, sorry to hear about your mom and what's going on with her. That, you know, my mom got sick, you know, in 2011 and passed in early 2012. And when I tell you, man, like, that's such a tough experience when someone gets sick and especially that means that much to you, you know,

Starting point is 00:30:11 so I'm sorry you're going through that. Well, I can appreciate being called the Trailblazer, um, especially like being associated with a like a good NBA team as well. Like, um, as you mentioned, I'm persistent. I'm persistent in a lot of things and even being a Knicks fan. So I don't like to tell people in the wrong company I am because, dude, they judge you like, dude, you've been losing since 2004 when Alan Houston was there. Like, so I don't like to tell people that in the wrong company, man.

Starting point is 00:30:34 It's all good, man. It's all good. But hey, listen, at least we know you're dedicated. You know what I'm saying? you're dedicated because like you said a lot of people wouldn't uh wouldn't mention it so no but hey this has been great man i appreciate you taking the time and i know that 2021 21's going to be amazing for you just like 2020 was and we'll definitely stay connected so thanks for coming on the show absolutely thank you so much for having me man i really appreciate this

Blaze Your Own Trail - S3:E10- Create Your Own Life with Jeremy Ryan Slate

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