Habits and Hustle - Episode 137 – Jason Harris – Co-founder of the Award-Winning Agency Mekanism and Best Selling Author

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Jason Harris is the Co-founder & CEO of the Award-Winning Advertising Agency Mekanism, Best Selling Author, and Speaker. Recently named CEO of the year, Jason isn’t shy about how he got there. From studying the companies he worked for until he and some friends built up enough connections and know-how to head out on their own. When and why to work for free, sharing secrets with competitors, giving everyone access to your best connections. All the things they tell you not to do, Jason does, and he’s CEO of the year for it. What else don’t you know that Jason’s ready to share? Find out in this episode. Youtube Link to This Episode Jason Harris’ Instagram Jason Harris’ Book ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got his Tony Robbins you're listening to Habitson Housle, fresh it. Today on Habitson Housle we have Jason Harris. Jason is the CEO of the award winning creative agency mechanism. He's also the co-founder of the creative alliance and the author of the National Best Cellar, the Soulful Art of Persuasion. The book highlights the 11 habits you need to become more authentically or soulfully persuasive

and how to become a master influencer. Harris works closely with brands such as Peloton, Pepsi, United Nations, and HBO, just to name a few. And under his leadership, mechanism was named, Pepsi, United Nations and HBO, just to name a few. And under his leadership, mechanism was named, add agencies, agencies, a list, and twice to the best places to work. Harris has also been named in the top 10

most influential social impact leaders, as well as he's been on the list of 100 people who make advertising great. His methods are studied in cases at Harvard Business School. Please listen to this podcast and learn some of those 11 habits to become much more persuasive. Enjoy. By the way, Jason, okay, first of all, how I run, this is so coincidental. You're coming on the podcast today, and lo and behold, was the first thing

that came up on my feed today was you won CEO of the year. I did, yes. I can't believe that. That's why we have to redo the podcast. Exactly, that's why we're really redoing it for all of those people who won't know. I can't believe, that's amazing. Yeah, I was pretty psyched.

So what you want to see over the year for mechanism, but who was the person, what was the name of the, I guess, the outlet or whoever did it? It was like for advertising. You know, you have your fitness trade magazines or websites. There's four for advertising, there's adage ad week, the drum and campaign. And so this was for the drum, which was really, it's really like started in the UK. It's big, it's like the biggest one in Europe, but they also have one in the US. That's amazing.

So how does that happen? Do you get nominated or what's the process? Yeah, I got a lot. You get nominated and then they have like? Yeah, I got. You get nominated. And then they have like five finalists and then they have industry judges who vote on vote on it basically. That's amazing. So this is a great way to start the podcast actually, right? I mean, I was I was thrilled. But I'm also, you know, a little, I'm a little humble. Like

it's not something I like when other people mention it, but it's Also, you know, I'm a little humble. It's not something I like when other people mention it, but it's a weird thing to mention. Hey, I know. I know. It sounds like super cocky. It doesn't really, though. I mean, considering the fact that, I mean,

in your space, what you do for a living, you'd want people to know and you'd want to tell people because that's more business on your part, right? Like that's how you're gonna get more clients, that's how you're gonna get more businesses and brands to work with you'd want to tell people because that's more business on your part, right? Like that's how you're going to get more clients. That's how you're going to get more businesses and brands to work with you guys, which is absolutely. Right? So this is a great segue into this podcast.

I mean, so, you know, this, I'm talking to Jason Harris, who is now the CEO of the year, according to the run, who is also, well, who is the CEO? I wonder if does that last one year, and then he expires. You know, that's a really good question. He's always say that. He's always say that. Well, I'm gonna tell you something that whenever I make a list of some kind, like, women entrepreneurs or like fitness people,

like you make, I think it's like evergreen. Like, I mean, my last fitness list that I was on was like, I don't know, six years ago, five years ago, and people still talk about it, like when I'm on interviews, I'm like, oh yeah, like if she's at the top 100 of fitness entrepreneurs, and blah, blah, blah, and I think to myself, yeah, but that was like, you know,

in 2004, but I don't say anything, so I think it's evergreen. I think you just added to your bio. Yeah. You added to your bio. And I think it's super impressive. I mean, you're a bio in itself is super impressive, nevertheless.

I mean, it's really amazing. What does, can you tell us what mechanism even is? What you guys do? Sure. Yeah, we're a creative advertising agency. So I started the company, I co-founded it 16 years ago. Can you believe that? I don't know. Yes, 16 years ago. You must have liked 14. No, I was not. But I always knew I wanted to, you know,

what it's like to have that entrepreneur or jeet you're always You're trying to figure out an angle to get your own thing going right and you're always trying to figure out How to do it and then you're worried if you lose your if you leave your job and start something How are you gonna make ends meet until the company starts making money. And so I worked a lot of different agencies. I always knew this is what I wanted to do. This was my path. A lot of people find their path or they pivot in their career. But I always knew I wanted to go and advertise since I was a kid, which is really weird,

I know. Wow. Well, why was that? What was your forte or specialty or passion? I really love the idea of branding. I've really always been into design and logos and identity. And really, I always love storytelling and I'm a big music fan and I always loved how music fan and I always loved how bands kind of branded themselves with their names and their logos and you know what they wore and so I was sort of part of it and then as I watched TV as a kid this is obviously before streaming, way before streaming. I would watch ads on TV and I would really respond to them or think about what they were

selling or the angle they took and why, and now my kids do it with me when we watch ads on, for watching sports and we watch ads, we always play dicec the ad. Of course. And I don't know, I just always did that. I was always excited around Super Bowl time when the ads were coming out. And we had a Super Bowl party at my house. And I tell everyone to keep it down. So I could watch the ads.

I've just always really been into that. And I thought it was a great intersection of art, loosely, and commerce. And so I just thought, was like, OK, as soon as I get out of college, I'm going to try to find a job in the field. And I sort of, I did promotions, like field promotions for a while. I did like inflatable Miller genuine draft cans. You know, if you see those, those were big for a while. So I started the field, then I worked at design job, then I worked at a lot of big name agencies that I got jobs at. Now, I would always sort of keep a notebook on what I liked about the culture or how someone

was a leader. I was sort of studying it, knowing at one point I want to break out and start my own thing. And the opportunity came when there was, I was in San Francisco at the time I'm in New York now, but there was a group of friends in the industry and one guy was a tech guy. Someone else was a designer, someone else was a film production person and I had the agency experience and it was like the super friends coming together with our different backgrounds. And that's how we started the company.

And we had, you know, we would do stuff for free. This is something I always talk about. I'm not sure if we talk about this prior, but we would, we spent like a year pitching brands and doing, you know, creative work for them, really just to produce it and make it without charging them so that we could quickly on our website have big brands and big logos. And so we sort of took a mulligan the first year of making money and our investment was, we were like blowing through what, what we had saved. And barely making any kind of payroll.

We had like maybe two employees. And we would just do work and produce stuff to say that we worked with Microsoft or, you know, some other big brand. And whether they used it or not or ran it or not, we could say that, hey, we did a job with this brand, which allowed us to have work and case studies to then get pain gigs. And so I came that conclusion pretty quickly, even though we all had different experiences

from our backgrounds, unless someone says, hey, what have you done or point me to your work? Or are you, you know, whatever the 100 most influential, you know, health and fitness guru, you don't have any credibility on your own. And so we really spent, you know, period of time just building that up before we went out and competitively pitched against other agencies

and tried to get the real money. So that's sort of our approach. No, I like that. I always tell that to people. You know, that you have to do a lot actually in the, I guess, in the front end that is for free. You've got to actually prove yourself, unfortunately. You know, a lot of people are like, I don't want to do.

I know my value, but a lot of times you may know your value, but someone else has no idea what your value is. And to leverage that is really important, those names. I did a lot of that myself, so I understand that. How would you even do that? Would you approach a company and say, I will do this campaign for you for free, or what was the process even to get to that point

to even suggest and offer your services for free, or what was the process even to get to that point to even suggest and offer your services for free? So you know, we all had some contacts from working in other places. And for a long time, we would study a brand like, I don't know, we did work for MTV and say, Microsoft, and we would sort of try to find what their pain point was or something that we thought they needed to talk about or bring to the market more. So we were kind of strategized and studied that.

And then we would come up with like three ideas and present it. And we would make a meeting by saying, you know, sometimes we would just reach out and say, Hey, we have a bunch of ideas. No commitment. I just want, you know, we've been studying your business and we want to present them to you. And we get some friend hook up or connection to somebody. And then we come in with these ideas, and I'd say three out of 10 times we did that, we would land something, and then we would go make it. But it was a lot of work and a lot of guess work. And we also send emails where we have a bunch of ideas and if they didn't respond, we wouldn't come up with ideas.

And then if they said, all right, I have a half hour on Tuesday, we We'd like frantically try to come up with some concepts that we could go pitch. Yeah, and so we actually the biggest one We did this was when we were a little more established, but we went to Pepsi and I sat down with the the CML that I got introduced to at the CML at the time and I said, what's your biggest pain point? And he said, we have the Super Bowl halftime show, but we don't have, this was the first time they sponsored the halftime show and it was with Beyonce. And we don't have an idea to run during the halftime show.

We are lacking a concept. And this is probably like in October and the Super Bowl is in February. And so in that case, I sort of put the ideas that I had that had nothing to do with Super Bowl. I'd never showed them. And I said, all right, I'll be back in a week with some ideas.

And then I went back to the kitchen and came back with ideas and there you know we landed one that he loved where we did a user-generated ad we're introducing Beyonce when she was about to perform where people would send in submissions and we stitched together this Super Bowl ad and that got us hit at Pepsi and we started doing a ton of brands, but we came up with a concept for free and he paid us to make it ultimately, but yeah, so that's the kind of also we did when we were starting out. And then you build up a name, we've been out of for a long time now, but after a number of years you get a reputation and your clients recommend

you and you build up a name. We pay, we have a marketing people on staff and we have a PR firm that we pay. And so that PR really is great sort of pull strategy because it pulls clients because they hear about you. Like with awards, speaking, podcasts, you know, that type of exposure really gets you, your company known and then, then it's more of a pull versus push marketing strategy

where you're not knocking on doors where you're trying to figure out which calls you wanna, you wanna take on and which clients you wanna go after. So, yeah. But it takes time. Takes time. I have a couple of questions that you just said. I'm what you just said. First of all, I wanted to say that.

So that's so interesting. So beyond say Pepsi half time show, that was how many years ago? Maybe seven. Seven years ago? Maybe longer, maybe eight. I think that is a great case study for people to hear and listen to, because the fact that that is the biggest marketing experiential experience or platform in the world. And you, as a company, did that one for free as a concept.

I think that's like, you would think that Pepsi would have paid you guys millions of dollars to come up with that concept. And that was free to get the business, which I think was, I mean, yes, they paid you for the actual production. Yeah, but the actual concept, you would, yes, they paid you for the actual production. Yeah, but the actual concept, you would think that you guys would be in the room for a year, like for a year prior, trying to figure that out.

That to me is unbelievable. Yeah, sometimes when people, you know, this is like a great sales strategy is trying to figure out what whatever business you're in, what your clients' pain points are, and that's where they really need the most help. And then you take that in and listen and then you come back with a solution that can apply to any business that you're in. So did Pepsi from that point become one of your big clients in terms of all their different marketing or experiential events or. Yeah, so then we started doing, we started doing,

I think we did like the next four, so we were all half times for them, and then they became an agency record, and then we started doing other Pepsi brands from that so it turned into millions of millions of dollars and then I moved to New York because we were working with Pepsi so much that I had to be closer to them and open up New York office and Yeah, that was a that was the deal so so then I'm gonna grab this year because bothering me. No, go ahead. I'm curious I think really glad that you're here because it's bothering me. No, I'm curious.

I think it had to be, I have a bad sense of time. Well, I think it was about seven years ago. I think it was right. It was 2013, so that was. Eight years ago, okay. Eight years ago, yes, so it's eight years ago, yes. So as a company, would you guys even profitable by that point? Or?

Yeah, we were profitable. Probably we were profitable about two years in a year and a half into the business and we've grown organically. We've never taken any investment money. But what happened was we really started as a digital production company. And then we moved into, we'd kind of did viral marketing for a long time when it was easy to put content online

and if it was good, it would get millions of views, you know, before YouTube was so inundated with everything. So we kind of pivoted the company several times. And in 2010, we went from really a digital production company, then a viral marketing company, and then we became a full service agency. So we had to hire account management people, strategy people. So we had to really grow. And the reason why we did that was I had about, I don't know, 40 employees at the time. And when you're doing production work, you're kind of going project to project to project.

And when you're in the agency world, as an advertising agency, clients typically will hire you on retainer, so you'll get paid every month for your staff. And so you can count on the money. It's much more consistent. And so I wanted to move to that model versus the sort of hand-to-mouth model. And so that's really what made us make that change. And so at that point when we pitched out super well idea where we're, you know, as an advertising agency, we were only a couple years old. And every time you pivot, you sort of have to rebuild your reputation as doing this other thing. Right.

And everyone still thinks of you as the other thing you did, especially if you're not changing your name, you know, doing a name change or rebranding. So it takes, then you kind of have to reset and build up the credibility in the in the other space. Well, you know, my question is going to be, uh, now is, how do you do that? Well, how does somebody really pivot and then gain a reputation for doing something that's different than what they were doing before when they're moving and evolving in their career. How did you, how did you do it? Well, we sort of, I've always believed in taking, you know, whether it's smart or not. I always believe in taking, doing big changes and big moves all at once, and not sort of dipping your toe in.

And when we started the company, it was like, your job started this company. When we changed and pivoted, one day we had a website that said we were a production company. And then literally, we built a new website, and then we hit go. And the next day, we said we were something else. And we didn't do it.

I'm not saying that's right for everyone, but we didn't take baby steps. We just made bold, a bold move. Even before we had the staff to pull off this sort of new role. And we just said, well, we built it. They will come and we'll figure it out. And so it happened to work out for us.

I think transitioning slowly might be better for some people or morphing into it. But I kind of firmly believe when you're toggling between two or three worlds, you're not putting all your eggs where they need to go and you're not doing it with enough sort of force and commitment. And so I always believe in when you change, you just got to change and people will catch up on your team and you just got to say this is what we do now.

So that's my philosophy. on your team and you just got to say this is what we do now. So that's my philosophy. Also, I will say at the time, I, you know, when early on in the company, when we started, I wasn't, you know, married and have a family and have, you know, it's easier to start out when you don't have all those commitments and, you know, when you don't have a those commitments and you know when you don't have

a mortgage and all that stuff to worry about. So when we started the original company we were you know not we weren't so we were a little freer to eat ramen and not make money. Right. In the case that when we pivoted the company we could do that because we had you know years and years of experience and profit and we had money in the bank saved up in the company so it was easier to go down. I think we lost 50% of our revenue when we made that transition and then in the second year we were higher than we were before. So we did dip down to get two steps, whatever two steps backwards. Right, one step forward.

Yeah. Right, exactly. What is, you said to me also about the pull and push strategy. So what is that exactly? I like that, you were saying. So I just, I always believed also in business that when you're starting and you're building something, you're doing a lot more of networking and knocking on doors and co-calling and doing favors

and just trying to build your network and build those connections and keep that network going and doing a lot of favors and you know meetings for free and ideas for free and then you get to a point where you sort of build a base and then you invest when you have some money you invest in PR you invest in marketing on behalf of the company you invest in getting your name out there and spending energy speaking and flying to events and just really trying to get people to say mechanism, mechanism, mechanism, and know the name. And, you know, if you're doing habits and hustle,

it's the same thing, right? It's, it's, then you get to a place where you are, your name is, is out there and you're getting, you're speaking on television or writing an article on entrepreneur or whatever you might be doing, but it gets your company's name out there. And so that, to me, is the pull strategy where over a period of time, instead of knocking on doors, people are knocking on your door. And then you can really determine who you want to work with and you have a little more choice in the matter. And so there's that transition sort of happens over time,

but you have to invest, instead of investing in case studies or your business or cold calling, you're investing in getting branding and putting your name out there to get those calls to come in. So that's like push for the push transitioning into the poll strategy for your business. I love that. By the way, so is Pepsi not a client anymore of yours? Well, we were working with them for a while, then we went and worked with Coke, and you

know, you can't master services agreement, you can't, and master services agreement, you can't work with both. And then we won Quaker, which is Quaker Oats, Hobbs, you know, Chewy bars, you know, there's a lot of brands under Quaker. And that's part of the Pepsi family, so we couldn't work with Coke anymore. And now we're back at Pepsi under, but working with Prager. Oh my gosh, wow. So how did you even get the Coke business when you were working with Pepsi anyway under it? Like how did that kind of, I'm sure Pepsi wasn't very

happy about that. I'm surprised. But the Pepsi business had slowed down for us. And then we got invited to pick something at Coke. And then when we wanted, we had to sever our ties with, you know, you had to write ourselves a contract that, you know, we can't work together anymore to sign the Coke contract. So, the Coke business we were working on sort of didn't, didn't work.

The product didn't work that we launched and then- What was the product didn't work that we launched. And then- What was the product? Well, it was, it's still around, but it's called PST. What is it called? With PST? No, I don't remember. I never heard of it. It's got like a P-Sign on it. Yeah.

Was that one of the, you know, failures? I mean, there's probably, there's, I was gonna ask you eight later on anyway. Like, some brands that kind of were really hard to launch and the, like, the winners and the losers, so to speak, with the peace TV on the loser side. No, because it really, it was just small, and it never, it's still around, it just never blew up, you know, never like really cut off. What would you say, like, for a company of your stature and like when you're dealing with companies like Hoek

and Pepsi that are like, you know, fortune 50 companies obviously, what would be like the retainer? Like give me a price point, like give me a range. Yeah, the kind of like ballpark range that we're talking for like a brand. a range of the kind of yeah the kind of like ballpark range that we're talking or like for any kind of an agency fee retainer would be between and you know other agencies that maybe have a car account would be you know way bigger than this but most of ours are in the like one million to five million annual retainer. Annual. Okay, so that's not okay. So that's annually, depending on that.

That's annually. And then on top of that, you would get paid to produce work. That's really just for the staff. And then you get paid to make the ads on television. Right. And expenses basically. Yeah. Yeah. So that really pays for your people. Right. And then would you say you would be considered, are you more of a strategy person or an idea person? I, yeah, I would follow more on the strategy side, the business strategy side. The business strategy side. Yeah, not on the idea of side, but I sort of I like to dabble in everything. Right. Yeah, I'd be I'm more of the marketing of networking, getting the clients in the door, you know, I do I am involved in pitching the work to land a client.

Right. But I'm more on the business relationship and strategy side of the business. Right. And then you also, we didn't even, I didn't even mention it yet properly, but you've wrote a book called The Soulful Art of Persuasion, The 11 Habits that Will Make Anyone a Master Influencer. make anyone a master influencer. It's a full title.

It's a very full title, and I like it a lot. And, number, while we start with this, since it is in the title, you say there are 11 habits that will make you a master influencer. And also, the title is the Sofil Art of Persuasion, what would you say the best tactic would be to persuade somebody? Well, I don't think there's one specific tactic, although I can list off a bunch, but as you know, there's 11 of them, but they're sort of centered around four major principles. And so those, you want me to just kind of... Oh, I can talk about that too. So you have more key principles, right? So the first...

Let's go with that then, okay? So you have four key principles. The first one is original, right? What does that mean? Yeah, I mean essentially it's the idea of leaning into your true self, being yourself because everyone else is already taken and it's the power of understanding who you are, the power of understanding who you are, what your belief system is, and who your role models are, how you respond to people, stories that make you unique,

what's defined you as a person, and just really wearing your idiosyncrasies on your sleeve, being who you are, that is sort of a major principle for being persuasive. And there's a lot in selling that people believe it's sort of like the mirror and matching idea of being like the person on the other side of the table or trying to find those similarities.

And that's sort of part of it, but it's much more about standing out and being yourself and being memorable. And that is a technique that works really well for persuasion and for selling. And being who you are. And I think that allows other people to be comfortable being themselves and being vulnerable, and that forms the relationship. Not that you have so many things that are similar, but that you're, the similarity is that you're both vulnerable enough to talk about who you are, what you care about. And you sort of have conversations that are a level beyond surface conversations. And that's essentially what original is.

So yeah. And then this idea of, and then the other three are, Wait, before you get to the other three, no, no, no, no, no, no, I really like that. I'm a big believer in that myself. But you said something within that key principle of persuasion, which is storytelling, you know, I find that to be a very difficult thing to do myself. And I know a lot of people probably do also at that's like where a lot of anxiety comes. Like that's why even the social media, right?

Like I get really anxious because I'm like shoot, like content creation, telling a story, being vulnerable like that, or even pulling from your own experiences, and then extrapolating in a way that resonates with people. That's a talent. How does someone get better at storytelling? Because I do agree with you.

I think that's something that makes somebody, their stories about them, that builds on their uniqueness. And that's how you develop these connections. And or that's what is necessary when you're trying to build your own brand, the authenticity of it. How do you do that if you're not necessarily naturally good at it? Well, anyone, you know, anything in the book are habits that you can learn.

And so when you do something enough over time, it becomes in your consciousness and it becomes habitual. And so I believe that anyone can be a good storyteller. And sort of part of that is taking the time to really think about stories you want to talk about, things that have defined you, things that have happened in your life, and the lesson learned from them. And it doesn't have a notebook and spend some time writing those stories down.

But the best stories that we tell are events that have happened to us in our life and why what's the sort of outcome, but trying to really practice knowing those stories and being able to tell them when you're connecting with someone. The other thing is, why do you love movies or music? What connects you with those movies or music? Or a book that you love.

It doesn't have to be stories only you need to yourself. It could be well-known stories that people can identify with. But you're looking to pull out for you what was important about that song or album or artist or book or movie and why, not just it's my favorite movie, why? Why is it your favorite movie? What is it connect to within you that can tell someone about yourself? So that's another area of storytelling.

It doesn't just have to be stories or events or drama that happened in your life. It can also be pop culture things that connect with you. It's more about going deeper into why does it connect with you versus I like this, I like that, I like this. So yeah, that, and anyone can be a good storyteller. If you really just take the time to think about it and tell those stories Right and practice because over time it becomes much more natural if you do practice is really important and

Sometimes even and it sounds contrived, but it's it's really not sometimes you you think about a Story and you practice telling it and you really want to remember a story and you practice telling it and you really want to remember the way the story starts and then like sort of the caper at the end and then the rest you can kind of, it's like telling a good joke, the rest you can kind of massage but you got to like really stick the landing, remember the intro and stick the landing. But like anything, you know some some few people might come out of the womb as like great storytellers, but that's few and far between most people that are good storytellers. It's practice. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I think that's I, yeah, I mean, it's just I guess it gets very like when you when people me included when I know I'm not good at something, right? And then I feel like, oh God, here I go again, I go try this again, it gets so daunting and anxiety-ridden, especially that, that you don't want to do it, right? So like, maybe start small by, like you said, not focusing on yourself so much, but focus on something that's more like a connecting point with other people where you can share with them. Yeah, absolutely. Or if it's if it's working out or you know, uh, like boxing, right? Why do I love boxing?

You know, Jason, I know more than just working out. I'm just letting you know, you don't have to use that as an example, okay? All right, fine. There's just those treadmills right behind you. Yeah. All right. Why do you love the role of those? How about that?

Well, yeah, exactly. I used to be in the music business. That's why. Well, I used to work for record labels before I transitioned into the health and fitness business. What's the best record label you work for? Well, it depends on what level, right? So I worked for BMG music in Canada, then I moved to, or, I then I did a mortal here in LA where I am, which is Bar Sony. I liked

Immortals super cool coming from Canada, and then I moved from Canada to LA. My office was on the beach, and I can ride my bike to, you my bike to work. And the people were super cool. And this guy, happy Walters, who was the founder of Immortal, had like a gym. He also had like a gym at that time, back then, having a gym in your office was very, very, very luxurious. Very luxurious.

And also just like, it was just something that no one did. It was super unique. And so that was one. So, yeah, I would say that. But then when I went into training for record labels, I kind of like left as a marketing person and then went back as a trainer, a personal trainer. That's awesome. Yeah, I like MCA Universal because of the people like my boss or the head of that label

I really really had a good relationship with so the truth is not about what the band were It was more about the people I saw who were involved. It's all about the corporate culture the community of people around you that always for me Anyway, make all the difference surrounding yourself. It's always true. I always wondered how were you working there when labels were just like making tons of money? Tons of money. And so what happened was when they had huge budgets for crazy stuff. And I left when all the music stuff actually was not about music is much

more about like technology so like when the dot com whole thing the whole dot com business happened everything was about like I tuned Napster and mice you know whatever my space were like it was a long time ago we're like talking that's how I started my entire professional career right right? So. How do labels make money now? I mean, we'll switch back to my stuff too. Oh, yeah, I did wonder like, how is streaming just like the way they make money now? I think what happens is they make money through,

they sign, you sign a lot of people and you hope for one huge hit, one huge person, to really kind of like drive at home, right? So most people are not making any money. Like most of the talent or the artist on the roster don't do anything. When I was with them, we signed so many people and a funny story actually, a girl I used to work with,

her name is Mikel. And now she goes by Mickey Geiton. Do you know who she is? No. She was one of these girls. There's girls. People look, I mean, she was one of my favorites. When I was working with her, it was more on the fitness side,

right? It wasn't, I didn't have anything to do with her signing, but the guy who hired me at MCA signed her. And she was like, I had a voice of an angel. She sounded like Whitney Houston. There were, they thought that she was going to be the next Whitney Houston. She was young.

She was stunningly beautiful, extraordinarily talented. And you know, they put effort into her to a certain degree. And then what happens is you get dropped for many, many reasons. Or it's just not happening. She got resigned by baby face. She was hired and she was basically signed and resigned by tons of labels.

Next thing you know, this was now, she was like 15 years old at the time, 16, 17, 18, nothing, nothing, nothing. This is a girl who was super talented. And then one day I'm watching the Today Show, like two weeks ago. And it's like, she decided, actually, what happened was she decided to leave LA. And she's like, you know what? I'm going to go to Nashville and become a country singer.

So she said to me. And I'm like, what country? What are you talking about? You do totally like soul, R&B, you're like, then she's like, no, I'm like, what country? What are you talking about? Like you do totally like soul, R&B, like that. And she's like, no, I'm going to do this. And she went and she became like she should want like new art. This is now like she left 10 years ago. Anyway, she I'm watching the today's show. Next thing you know, she comes up there like in you know on the, we do have may have those things every Friday at the today show they do their

Concert series. Yeah, she was head she was headlighting the concerts. They're like Mickey guidance artists of the year and Grammy nominated and did I was like oh my god, so of course I like reach out to her point being that was she changed her whole Epidemic hard That was- And so she changed her whole image. She pivoted hard. Yeah. And you know, she became, now she's super, like she's doing extraordinarily well as a country singer. But this is a good, this is a great example of, like, people who are, takes 10 years to be an overnight success or sometimes 15 years to be an overnight success, right?

This girl was working at it, working at it, working at it, and since she was like 15, 14 years old, and now she's hitting her stride, she's what, 37 now, or she was already doing fairly well, I believe, like a few years ago. I don't really know all this, like all the new. That is commitment. She caught that, I mean, I love that.

So you just told a killer story, right, from your career. Yeah. Because we're talking about storytelling. Yeah. But that's like, you know, what I take away from that is, first of all, the ability to adapt, right? Because she changed from different styles. But also this idea of endurance, like stamina.

She was like, I am not interested in this. Perseverance. Perseverance. Perseverance. Nothing's gonna deter me from this goal, and I'm gonna just do it, and I'll keep figuring out a way in until it happens. Absolutely, and I wanna say,

I'm gonna give her a shout out, I wanna tell her to listen to this episode because no one deserves it more than that girl. She is quality through and through. She is a very, her inside never changed with all the back and forth and the resilience that it takes to get up to get to basically fall and get right back up again and then not

that not change. The core of who you are is so so commendable. So I mean, I all, you know, I just think yeah, she's a great, she's a great girl and hi Mickey. So she changed from my Kelton Mickey. Yeah, I'll forgive her. All right, Mickey. Yeah. You know, the actor John Hamm was sort of like. Yes. He, he like just kept going, kept going, and then he landed, you know, the madman, because I was advertising. He landed that role and, you know, his career, you know, he's in his 40s then. Yeah.

And his career took off, but he persevered and didn't let anything to term. Absolutely. I remember that actually, the perseverance. I mean, I really do believe not to sound like kind of like corny, but I do believe anybody's dream is possible. If you kind of stay, if you're very, if you have the perseverance, if you have the resilience and the tenacity, right? Like, you have to just stay on that path because the truth of the matter is most people give up, most people quit.

And it are those, it's the people who don't let that kind of, like that falling down, that failure stop here from continuing, right? It's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, down, that failure stopped from continuing, right? It's about how you adapt to failure. And also, if that's your dream, you just sort of outlast a lot of other people, too. Yeah, it's attrition. Right? Yeah, attrition, and then you're there. And then you're there. No, 100%.

But since this is about you, not Mickey or John Ham, which by the way, I love those stories though. So I love them. I want to hear about the second key principle of being persuasive and being a master influencer. And that will get us to generous. Yeah, so generous is really this idea about trying to have the philosophy or the idea that when you cross pass with someone,

you make them a little bit better than you were before, you cross pass with them. And it's about giving, sort of being generous by nature, by spirit. And that is, this one is a counter to, I mean, that's how I am now as a person, but I had to develop into this one. Sort of the original concept was easier for me. I was, I kind of came out myself and leaned into it. But generous, I was in generous. When I started my business, I would sort of hoard contacts, right? And I would think that was the name of the game that, these are my connections.

And why would I serve them up to, you know, people in my the game, these are my connections. And why would I serve them up to people in my network because these are my connections? And then you sort of evolve and you mature and you realize that you can all times rise all boats and you can give things away like your connections. You can give advice to competitors in your same space. You can mentor people and find time to mentor and counsel people.

You can just have this generosity of spirit that comes back to you in ways you are kind of immeasurable. When you have that spirit, you're sort of looked at in a different way and people are more willing to connect, make recommendations for your company or for you and it's this idea of like, I'm gonna just, when I cross pass with someone

or someone asks me for something, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna deliver, not because it's quit pro quo, like I expect something back from that person or they owe me a favor. But it's sort of like this universal idea of this generous spirit will come back to me in generous ways. And so that's the second principle of being persuasive. That's makes you a persuasive person.

And there's some other fine notes underneath that, like practicing positivity, which is an obvious one, but cultivating this idea of gratitude in your life. I think it's also recognizing that anything can turn into something great, even if, you know, I pitch a client and I don't win the business. I've invested in that relationship and I've made that connection and that's now someone in my network that I can reach out to and it doesn't mean the relationship has to end. And so whenever I hear a no, I know this sounds like super cheesy, but it's true. Whenever I hear a no, we don't win something. I always think like, oh, it's just the no for right now

That's right. I knew you're gonna say that I know I could tell why you're bilingual. It's like here. Yeah, here are comments like this one me for no Yeah, but I actually agree and even if it is a no for good a lot of times And I tell this to people a ton is that a lot of times it's you You get your opportunities from the places you least expect. Like the people that you least expect to help you or those things that you were rejected by.

Like a lot of times, to your point, I never got a lot of different business deals or things that I thought were like a shoe in and then something else happened and I never got it. But maintaining a relationship with those people ended up helping me in something down the road that I never even knew existed, right? So I agree and I also think that the idea of being generous, like the idea of abundance versus scarcity, right? Like there's so many people in everybody's,

I think in every industry where people hold really close to their chest, their contacts and everything like that. But like I never, I never did that either. I was kind of very much open like that. And a lot of times quite frankly, those people never really sometimes hand out. Like they never, if I asked them, and I never really got anything in return.

Right, that happens a lot, but you can't let that worry you. 100%. I feel like because I have a certain mindset of like being giving like that, it will kind of pay itself back somewhere else where I never even figured out, you know what I mean? It does. It comes back with compound address, but you can never pinpoint because I did that this thing. You know, it's not. Right. it's not direct connections, but it's having that mindset and just believing that it will, it will come back in some way.

And it's not about giving things away and expecting something, but it's about doing it for the sake of doing it. And, you know, I used to, if people would ask me for advice or someone starting their own company, then they'd reach out. I would just sort of brush them off or ignore them. And then I realized, there's people that helped me along my way and I have to pay it back. And I'm going to mentor other people in the same way.

And people that I barely know will reach out to me and say, do you have 10 minutes? I'm working on this X, Y, and Z thing. I need some, I need some counseling and I'll do it. And I always try to find time for people, um, even with a lack of what I don't have as an abundance of time, but I always try to find time, uh, to pay it forward. And that generous idea, that generous spirit is good for business. And by the way, it's not short-term transactional thinking. It's more of playing the long game

when you're a generous person. I know it'll come back down the road. Yeah. It's all a long game. It's not sale to sale to sale to sale. Totally, totally. I love the third key principle is empathy or empathetic, which can you kind of just explain what exactly you mean by that? Yeah, it's really the idea of developing a natural curiosity for other people and trying

to understand their point of view and where they're coming from. And it's also having a collaborative nature. And it's much more of a wee mindset than a wee mindset. And I find that when you're empathetic and you see, you know, it really starts with a mindset of looking for commonalities, not differences. And we, today, I think we all tend to think of, if people don't agree with the way we think. Their idiots are morons are wrong. And I think politics has had a lot to do with that.

You know, vaccines has had a lot to do with that. Yeah. And I think that you should always come from the point of, we're all in this world and we're all similar. We all we're all going through the human experience We're all made up of you know the same amount of DNA and we are humans and we All want the same things even if our views don't align and I think that is the hallmark of Starting to understand

how you can be empathetic towards other people versus sort of bifurcated and in our own little world. Yeah, I think that, especially in now, the times we're in right now, everything's very divided. Either if you don't think how I think or you don't agree with me, people just like cut you off. There's no such thing as like dialogue or conversation now. It's super divided and divisive.

And I don't know. It's I think it's worse than it's ever been. I don't know. How do you think this is going to continue? Like, what do you think is going to be? How do you really integrate empathy or into some, like, how do you teach empathy or how do you, like, I mean, it's, it's a little disheartening where we are right now because it feels like there's a complete lack of empathy

in the world. And then there's always the next thing When you think it's gonna get better. There's like the next thing that can divide people, but I I think we can all kind of I mean, it just it's about looking at yourself and starting there and trying to become developed the idea of and trying to become, develop the idea of empathy and understanding that the commonalities between us and not seeing the differences and taking that step to dig deeper and why someone believes what they believe

and not just keeping it at the surface. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of like timing, this is, that's a great thing to people to start really kind of try to integrate and kind of think about, it all starts with yourself, right? Like at the end of the day, I can't control you, but I can't control myself. And if I'm self aware enough to know that I'm doing this,

try to kind of make it better. Or change. Yeah, or the way you communicate with people, you know, my aunt's in India because she won't get a vaccine. You know, and just leave it at that. Like, I'm not going to talk to her again. Or she voted for someone that I don't believe in or she's against immigration or abortion or whatever it might be. I think you're gonna have your own belief system and you need to keep that belief system, but you can have a conversation without it being, you know, without throwing daggers.

And you can find out what is behind that person's belief so I can at least not agree with them but I can understand where they're coming from and that just shows a level of respect and the ability to communicate. So I tell the story of a wealthy friend of mine who was so against immigration. And I could not understand, you know, we're all immigrants in this country. Maybe you can have regulations on it, I get that, but this guy was like, you know, really, almost a nice solution is to about how we should view our country.

And I wanted to sort of dig in and understand why, and it turns out that when he was growing up, he was, you know, he lived with his dad, it was just him and his dad. And his dad would lose jobs. He was like a field, like a field worker, agricultural field worker, and he would lose his job. And they would sleep in the car for weeks until they could find another job. And he would lose it because some immigrants were coming in and taking his job for less

money. And he was a field hand and kept kind of like not getting paid what he was valued. And so that was ingrained as a kid in his belief system. And so when you understand that, there's events that happen in people's lives that make them hold the beliefs that they have. But at least I understand him versus shouting at each other and not understanding it. So it's taking that one extra step to understand why someone would feel the way that they do. And you might not understand it and you might not agree or you might not agree with it rather, but you understand where they're coming from when that shows Respect and empathy even if it doesn't show agreement right now. I think that's exactly it

I think empathy comes from really trying to put yourself also in other people's Jews and Understanding where they're where they are or how they are where they got those ideas from because you're right a lot of time to cap is because of their own life experiences that we know nothing about, unless we take the time and effort to kind of dig deeper into why it is that way. And that goes into persuasion and business because when you're running a business or you're, you know, whatever, you're working in a company and you have, we all have clients of some sort trying to understand what makes them tick and why they

would feel the way they do or what their needs are. Right. That helps us be successful. No, I agree. You can do it on a macro level and then we can do it in our day-to-day work. On a micro level, yeah. Exactly. And the fourth key principle is soulful.

And you talk about the importance of skill hunting. What is that? What is that? What's skill hunting? So skill hunting, I know you know what skill hunting is. But skill hunting is. I might know, but other people don't know. You know what your folks don't know.

But really, it's about this idea of every two or three years, something that I've implemented, is trying to learn a new skill because I think we all go through life and as we get older, we're like, other so many things that I wanted to be good at or wanted to accomplish that I'm never going to. And for your folks listening, there might be younger. They might not feel that way, but believe me, you know. Yes, it will happen to them too. Father time is undefeated. And we all have a shelf life.

And this idea of skillful and skill hunting is every two or three years that thing that you wanted to be proficient at. Write it down and that's your extra thing you're gonna spend time on for that period and then you kind of move on. And it doesn't mean you have to master all of these ideas, but it means if I'm into photography,

you've never really taken it seriously or given it a shot. Okay, my next skill hunting for the next two years is I'm going to really work at photography. And then if it's something that I implement into my daily life, that's great, or if it's just something that I crack for two years and I have a proficient skill at, that's great too. I'm doing it with chess now, which is something I always want to get good at, and I'm a proficient skill at, that's great too. I'm doing it with chess now, which is something I always want to get good at, and I'm playing it with my 13-year-old, trying to really learn the moves and the techniques,

and I'm really bad at it, but that was my thing. It was boxing like five years ago, and that's something that stayed with me and I incorporate that into my life. But when I first started, I had no idea how to do it. You know, it could be running a marathon, it could be learning a language, whatever it is,

it could be cooking. I kind of started doing a little bit of that during the pandemic, but it's really just taking one thing at a time, not trying to boil the ocean, and every couple years learning something new, and you go through that period of really sucking at it, and that's the failure thing that you kind of alluded to, and that is always that there's always learning and discomfort, and when you suck at something, you have to push through it to get to the other side to get

proficient at it and that there's always so much learning and going through that process over and over again. So that's one part of it and then the other part of of sofulness is trying to be inspirational. You know part of it is through skill hunting and always learning new skills and being proficient proficient and more and more things. But it's also giving back in some way and trying to make the world a little bit better of a place than when you found it. And it's giving your time and energy in whatever skill you have.

It's applying that skill to something good. Mornings are coming on strong with dark and bold from community coffee. I feel like bustle loose, bustle loose, come on! Get, get, get, get, get on up! Get, get, get on up! Bustle loose when you wanna say, bustle loose baby do your thing! Talk about bustle loose! I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say,asive overall, basically, right? Because we're persuading not just in business, but in everyday life, right? I mean, persuading you to come to lunch,

go to my favorite place for lunch. You know, I'm trying to like convince you. I'm not only being alive on your show. Right, to be on the treadmill behind me with me. Coming to New York, check out my gym here. Exactly, that's what I'm talking about. Not just like zooming all the time, but no, I love that.

I think this is great. And so just again, the book is called The Soulful Art of Persuasion. 11 Habits, it will make you make anyone a master influencer. How's the book doing, by the way? It's been out for a little bit, right? Yeah, it's doing, it's doing well. It was, it was a Yeah, it's doing well. It was LA Times, it was on the LA Times bestseller list and the Wall Street Journal bestseller list early in its early days. And now it's just sort of consistent. I think the book business, the analogy is similar to the music business where you have like my publisher did Obama's book, right? So it's like, you need one massive hit that kind of carries everything else. And I'd say I'm in the, I'm not in the, you know,

mid-tier, successful, wrong. And then there's like hundreds of thousands of books that, you know, no one, no one hears about or knows knows about but I think it's the same game as the music business You make so many bets and you hope that you know A couple a dozen pay off and they carry everything else. Oh, yeah, it's not really well. I mean, I can't complain It's it's done incredibly well for me. That's incredible. Who's your publisher? Publish sure is Random House.

Oh, Random House. Oh, we got it. OK. I'm actually writing a book right now. My publisher is a sh**. So yeah. How's it going? It's very stressful.

I mean, it's a lot of work. And like you said, the publishing world has changed and shifted a lot. But yeah, but I, it's stressful because you have like deadlines and I want to make sure like you write a book now. It doesn't come out for like a year and a half, you know? Sometimes it will be easier. I've done my book took me three years because I worked on it, it was my first book,

I worked on the proposal for a year, and then it was now a year and a half of working on it, writing it, and then it came out like a year after that. Right, like year. It's a very, like years later when nobody cares about your message anymore. Yeah, it's like, okay. Yeah, exactly. 11, you know, 11 other books have come out since with the same title. Yeah, it's it's it's five. It's worthwhile for sure.

Oh, absolutely. Well, Jason, this is amazing. How do people find more about you? Give us some information about where to find you or your book and accept your book. Yeah, my book info is at desoffelard.com. My company is mechanism, M-E-K-A-N-I-S-M. .com, so it's mechanism decay. And I'm just on the socials at Jason underscore Harris. Well, you've been amazing. Thank you for doing this.

Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. The habits and hustle podcasts, power by happiness