The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks

Episode Date: April 10, 2015

Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks   I love discussing how we can all better ourselves by becoming improving our connecting skills.  This was a phenomenal episode. Jayson shares that the best way to connect with others is to first look to help them.  I think it is one of most life-changing and important skills we can master.   “To me, at the end of the day, it’s not how many friends you can count, it’s how many friends you can count on.” – Jayson Gaignard   That’s just one reason I had an awesome time interviewing today’s guest on The Learning Leader Show.   Welcome to Episode 001 with the connecting genius, Jayson Gaignard Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio.   The Learning Leader Show   “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” – John Wooden   Some Questions I Ask: What big moments led Jayson to this point in his life? Why did he intentionally run his first business in to the ground? At what specific moment did Jayson know he had created something meaningful? What made him pay Tim Ferriss $84,000 to speak at his first event while he was $250,000 in debt? What specific things can people do to get outside of their comfort zone?   “Investing in myself and investing in my relationships is the greatest investment I can make.”  - Jayson Gaignard   In This Episode, You Will Learn: How to create your own MasterMind talk The benefits of utilizing James Altucher’s 10 Ideas a Day approach to life Specific Goal Setting Practices The importance of loyalty to others How regular people can do what Jayson has done How to become a better public speaker Why making 22 times the national average did not help him become 22 times happier than the national average How he’s made a very quick ascent to get to where he is   “We over estimate what we can accomplish in a day, but we under estimate what we can accomplish in a year” – Jayson Gaignard   Continue Learning Go to Jayson's Website Read Seth Godin Follow Jason on Twitter @JaysonGaignard   You may also like these episodes: Episode 002: How to take over and set bigger goals with Chris Brogan Episode 009: The Creative Leader’s Guide to making money by thinking outside of the Box with Jason Zook (SurfrApp)   Did you enjoy the podcast? I love discussing how we can all better ourselves at connecting with others through helping them.  Jayson has mastered this vital skill.  I loved this episode.  Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show!   Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio: Building connections and building relationships are how you bring real value to the world around you.   Jayson Gaignard is a super-connector.   Broke and $250,000 in debt, Jayson thought about an idea that nobody else was doing after getting a free ticket to hear Seth Godin speak, connecting entrepreneurs over an intimate dinner.   He paid for this himself by going even further into debt with no expectations of ever making money on these. Mastermind Dinners launched and Jayson’s new venture was off and running.  Hear Jayson discuss how he scraped together $84,000 in order to pay for Tim Ferriss to speak at his first event.  Incredible!   Entrepreneurship often takes an unyielding belief in yourself, and Jayson definitely believes.   Listen today to hear the story of someone who bet everything he had on an idea.   His new book, MasterMind Dinners: Build Lifelong Relationship by Connecting Experts, Influencers,and Linchpins  is a phenomenal read and he hosts a podcast, Mastermind Talks.  I highly recommend that you subscribe to it.      

To me at the end of the day, and I think my story is a great example of this. It's not how many friends you can count. It matters how many friends you can count on. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, guys, welcome to The Learning Leaders Show.

again, I'm Ryan Hawk, an awesome guest today. Jason Gainert, a founder of Mastermind Talks. He connects some of literally the best leaders in the world. Also host the Mastermind Talks podcast, which is an absolute must listen, highly, highly recommend it, and wrote a book called Mastermind Dinners, Build Lifelong Relationships by connecting experts, influencers, and lynch pins. This talk was awesome, man. Talked a lot about leaping out of your comfort zone and how that can benefit you. We talk about how much money he had to spend on his first mastermind's event to get Tim Ferriss to speak, as well as discovering and discussing the power of revisiting dormant ties

from Adam Grant's book, Give and Take. Guys, without further ado, here is Jason Gainerd. Here we go, I'm with now Jason Gainard. I'm obviously a huge fan. I've read a lot about you and know a lot, but I wanted for you to share your message with the crew here listening at the Learning Leader Show, and so welcome, Jason. Well, thank you for having me.

I'm a huge fan of you and your football career. I appreciate the fake compliment. No, but no, for those you don't know, Jason, obviously, is the founder of Mastermind Talks. Connect some of the best leaders in the country. I've watched a lot of them. If you haven't watched them, you know, check them out online. Just go to Google, check out Mastermind Talks with Jason. But first, you know, introduce yourself a little bit more and talk a little bit about what you're currently doing.

Yes. I mean, Mastermind Talks pretty much takes up the majority of my time, especially as of late. Our next event is 68 days away. So I kind of lived my life one mastermind talks event at a time. I also have a podcast and a book to accompany that podcast that came out recently. But yeah, I mean, somewhat kind of fell into the event space. Never thought I would be in events or put on events. But as I tell people oftentimes, ignorance and confidence could go a long way when you're an entrepreneur.

And I just had an opportunity that kind of fell in my lap and decide to take advantage of it and just do one event. Thankfully, the first event turned out to be such a big success. We did decide to do a second to prove that the first one wasn't a flu. And now we're on a third event. So between that and my three-year-old daughter, that pretty much takes up the majority of my time. That's awesome, man. I love it. And we're going to get into how you got to this.

But first, I'd have to just give a quick plug for the podcast. I literally look forward to car rides or long walks. So I have a reason to listen to Jason's podcast. I can say it's just very, very honest, transparent. And then also you post some of the better speeches in their entirety. on Mastermind's Talks podcast. So I really, really appreciate all that that you do. Well, I mean, thank you for investing your time to listen. I mean, that means a lot. Absolutely, man. No, it's great. So let's talk a little bit about the moments that led up to this.

So you briefly touched on it. And I know some of your fans already know your story with your original business and how you started it. And then kind of intentionally, I don't know if I want to say ran it into the ground, but it, you know, intentionally made it so. it wasn't as good. So please, please share a little bit of your backstory that that has led you to this moment. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it was intentional, but I wasn't in the right headspace at the time. And it's one thing a lot of entrepreneurs deal with. I mean, we all deal with self-sabotage on some level. And when you have a business that can simply be amplified if you're not in the right headspace. So it doesn't take long to burn a $7 million business into the ground. And it took me

a few months, but I was able to do it successfully. As far as my story, it dropped out of high school, I started a service-based business. I realized the service-based businesses are hard to scale. I pivoted into an online product business, which I grew to about $6, $7 million a year, over four years. And I was living my model of success. I was traveling in the world. I was making a ton of money. But with all that money and all that free time, you start oftentimes asking yourself questions like, why am I here? Will it be remembered? Do I matter? And I just wasn't happy with the answers I was giving myself. And around that time, also, I realized I was making 22 times a national average income. And in most, business circles, you know, people will be high-fiving you, but to me, it was bothersome

because I wasn't 22 times happier in the average male. It wasn't 22 times healthier. Two years prior at the age of 23, I had kidney complications because of stress. So consciously, at that point in time, I decided to sell my company. Subconsciously, I started to remove myself from it and sabotage it on some level, like I kind of touched on, and was completely comfortable with landing, having a soft landing at zero. because I'm like, if I land at zero, I'll have some money in the bank, I can start something else up. And for me, as long as I had a plan B, which was a business that took care of all my wants and needs financially, I never fall through with plan A, which was to create a business that would truly light me up.

So to me, the only way out at that point in time was to scale down and get out and was doing that towards the bottom. Unfortunately, two things happened there beyond my control of the land to be a quarter million dollars in cash debt. And that was August of 2012. I was quote unquote my rock bottom to date. Wow. So it's not that long ago. And if you look back now, that's incredible the quick assent, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, my life is financially.

It's not where it needs to be per se. I mean, I could have chosen different career paths that, you know, financially would have been more rewarding. But I've never felt wealthier. There's no two ways about it. And on top of that, my life has improved on every level from relationships with, you know, friends and relationship with my spouse and my health. And oftentimes we overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, but we underestimate what we can

accomplish in a year. And it has only been, you know, two and a half years now. And, you know, we're already three mastermind talks in events in. You know, our next event is sold out four months in advance at $6,000 a person. So I think we're from a business perspective now things are starting to pick up. But yeah, I'm in a fantastic space. I love it. And the story about one of the first events you're putting together, specifically the one

about Tim Ferriss. I would love to hear you tell the listeners here that story and really the chance you took from getting a loan from friends for the money to get Tim. It's funny because looking back now, you look at the success of Master My Talks. You're like, oh, it wasn't that big of risk. But at the time, I probably wasn't in the right head space to take advantage of that opportunity, but did it regardless. And what happened was, yeah, at that point in time, quarter million dollars in debt,

I had no business, no cash flow, which was terrifying for the first time in eight years. I didn't have money coming in. And I had a six-month-old daughter. And I was getting married to my wife the following month. And it was 72 pounds overweight. I was just in a really tough spot. One thing was somebody gave me a ticket to go see Seth Godin in New York. And I've always been a huge fan of Seth, but I've never had actually an opportunity to kind of see him speak in person.

So decided to take advantage of that opportunity and go to it and didn't know what it was about. but the theme of the event when I got there was a connection economy and how there's huge value connecting like, like, minded individuals. And at the time, I'm like, there's no group is disconnected, at least in my eyes, as entrepreneurs because everybody's working in their own little businesses and stuff like that. So I decided to do these dinners when I came back to Toronto is where I'm from. So when I came back to Toronto, I started doing these dinners where I'd invite six to eight entrepreneurs who didn't know each other and would try to help facilitate connecting them over dinner. Truth be told, the first one I did, I almost canceled two hours prior

because I was like, nobody's going to see value in this. You think I wasted their time. But it was two hours out from the dinner. And I'm like, dude, I can't cancel. It's just out of integrity. These people are, like, driving in for this dinner. I can't cancel now. So ended up doing it, got some great clarity that during that dinner that connecting entrepreneurs was something I want to do to some capacity.

Not necessarily as a business because I wasn't monetizing these dinners. It was adding to my existing debt. But I was also considering bankruptcy at the time. I didn't know what my rock bottom was. So I'm like, the bank could take my car. They could take whatever means the assets I have left. But they can't take my relationships. That's really the safest thing.

investing in myself and investing my relationships were really the two safest investments I could make. A few months later, I had an opportunity to do an event with Tim and how that happened was I've known Tim now, I guess, four years. He had a book coming out called The Four Hour Chef. Three weeks before he launched the book, Barnes & Noble decided to ban his book from all bookstores. You know, that's 1100 book stores. And when you're an author like Tim, you have two, you know, big New York Times bestselling books. The expectation is that third one's going to be a New York Times bestselling book as well, right? So there's huge pressure on him to deliver, especially with the publisher and stuff like that.

So what Tim decided to do was these book bundles. And if you bought, you know, five books, you'd get these additional bonuses. If you bought 50 books, maybe he'd do a webinar with you. He had this Hail Mary package that if you bought 4,000 books, he'd do two speaking engagements. And it was $4,000, sorry, $84,000 for the 4,000 books. At the time, I was waking up at like 4 in the morning at the time. and I was one of the first people to see this post soon as he posted it. And I thought of a friend of mine who puts on these huge events in Canada,

these big entrepreneur events with 1,500, 2,000 people. I'm like, this is an easy way for him to move the books. Tim's never spoken to Canada, and he doesn't speak that often, period. So I sent him an email. The minute I click send, I'm like, you know, this is a great opportunity for anybody. Maybe I'll just see if I can do something with it, right? Because I didn't know what his speaker fee was at the time, but I'm like $42,000 a speaker fee or whatever.

I could probably, in the worst case scenario, try to sell it off, sell the package off to somebody else or something. Plus, I have the books, so maybe I could sell a few books and get some of the money back that way. So I decided, I emailed Tim directly and I said, hey, I'll take the package. And he was pretty surprised. He didn't know. He didn't think anybody could take a package. That's how I got in the event space. I basically, that morning I had to raise $84,000, which is something I've never done before.

My last business, I built it purely on credit cards. So I reached out to three people who were friends of mine. The first one said he wanted to talk about numbers because he was just a number driven guy, but didn't turn me down. We just wanted to see the numbers. And I didn't have time to come up with numbers. So I was like, I'll get back to you. And then the next guy said he was definitely interested, but wanted to start a business together.

And I'm like, okay, that's cool. We'll talk about it. And then the third person I reached out to just lent me the money straight out. Wow. To me, looking back, I mean, I was, I was, again, a quarter million dollars in debt. I was in survival mode, that kind of stuff. Like, it's pretty, it still shocks me to this day that he lent me the money. but I've asked him before, like, why he did it.

And he said, I wasn't investing in the business. I wasn't investing in you. And to me, that really kind of solidified the importance of kind of never tarnishing your word, like being somebody of high integrity and always investing in your network. So that's how, yeah, that's what kind of kick started my first event. It's an incredible story to me. And I don't know who the third person was who ended up lending you the money, but it feels like you've done an incredible job of investing and being.

a great friend. As simplistic as that sounds, that's what it feels like. And so from what I gathered, you have a very diverse group of friends, you know, and so obviously you do a great job in playing a meaningful part in their lives. What is it that makes you a great friend to these guys? Is this something you consciously are thinking about daily? And this is how somebody would give you, you know, $84,000 just from an email or a phone call? You know, I don't know. I wasn't super focused on relationships. I mean, now it's like my job. I mean, like, this is what I do for a living, is connecting people and putting on events and putting on experiences and that kind of stuff.

Right. I mean, at that point in time, I wasn't, I don't know what the hell they saw me in all honesty, but yeah, I wasn't super focused on relationships. I guess they just, you know, the friends I had enjoyed my company and my network now or my relationships now look nothing like they did three, four years ago. I mean, just have amazing people that I've, you know, my heart of hearts know that if I were to, you know, hit Skid Row again, that I'd be able to, about. balance back because there's just so many opportunities that come my way. So now, again, I'm much more

conscious of building relationships and supporting people and becoming people's like biggest fan and all that kind of stuff. But I don't know if it's something I've always been conscious of. I just maybe, I don't know, maybe I was lucky just building relationships with the right people at the right time. Yeah. In your book, you quote John Wooden when he says, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And I absolutely love that quote. I firmly believe in it. But from that, you know, you've probably grown up with friends or you have others who, might be going in different directions from you. Have you had to, you know, as you've made this ascent and you've met a lot of great, great

people and surrounding yourself with others, have you had to let some friends go? Have you had to say, you know what? They're not on the same path I'm on and I don't want to be hanging around those guys. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, that's the only reason my relationships are so good and I have such good relationships. I'm very conscious as to where I allocate my time. So every six, like I do this unconsciously, but also every six months I kind of revisit

everybody in my kind of network to some degree and will put people on the backburner or on maintenance mode, I guess, to some degree if they don't serve me or I can't serve them. Right. So when you're born into this world and you go to school, you just kind of thrown in that. You didn't choose these relationships. they're just, you kind of just adopted them to some degree, right? And then when you go through, you know, college and all that kind of stuff, it's like one of those things, like when people leave college,

up until that point, they were kind of handheld to grow. And anything after that, it's like a muscle, right? You have to kind of work at it and continue to stretch yourself and grow after college and continue education and that kind of stuff. And I'm very much a growth mindset of person. So people around me who I was, you know, when I was younger, who didn't have a growth mindset and weren't kind of pursuing something. I didn't necessarily, again, burn any bridges, but I was very conscious as to where I

allocated my time. And I'm like, you know, if I only have 24 hours in one day, I'm going to focus it on a relationship that really matters or, you know, with somebody who really matters. And I'm in a position right now where I talk about it pretty publicly. Like I have no desire to have more friends. Yeah. Right. Like I'm all about like depth over like breath right now.

So I already have amazing people in my, in my network. So I just want to go deeper. with those relationships. And, you know, some people will come my way. But that's the one thing that, I guess, the common kind of misconception in the networking spaces is always more. How do I get more contacts? How do I go more, you know, how do I go to this networking event and capitalize and all that kind of stuff? And to me at the end of the day, and I think my story is a great example. This is not how many friends you can count. It matters how many friends you can count on. Yeah. So that's kind of the position I'm in right now. And there's something called Dunbar's number that says from an evolutionary perspective,

we can't hold more than 150 relationships because that's like the old kind of tribes mentality. So, yeah, I mean, every once in a while, just again, consciously, unconsciously, I really kind of assess my network and get a good idea where I am and where I want to go and who I can serve and who I can help and kind of, I guess, weed out people that way. But again, misconception is you don't have to burn a bridge. You don't have to phone call somebody and be like, hey, you know, the next six months, I'm not going to be paying too much attention to you. You just put them on a backburn. And there's something called Adam Grant, talked about this book, Give and Take, about Dormant Ties, right? And the importance of rekindling dormant ties.

So, you know, if you're 35 years old and you reach out to somebody who you went to high school with, if you meet up and catch up over a few minutes, I mean, you didn't lose that trust. You didn't lose that depth of the relationship. So there's nothing to go, nothing bad about going back on relationships and just to kind of touch base every once in a while. But, yeah, I've definitely had a few instances in my life where I had to, I don't know, a few occasions I had to completely remove somebody from my life, but it's a very rare occurrence. Yeah, you brought up Adam Grant, so I'll go there.

And it's one of my all-time favorite books, literally. And I know it's not, it's not an old book. It's relatively new. I encourage anyone who hasn't read it to read it. I've already talked about this on this podcast before. But how do you utilize the tools that he puts in that book for your life? Because it feels to me, you know, like I said, I'm getting to know you. And I've obviously know you from peripheral from listening to your podcast and reading your book.

but how do you focus on one being a giver but two really only allowing givers or maybe some matchers in your network? I just follow my gut oftentimes and I am the type of person that just gives and gives and gives at the same time if it's not appreciated there's this kind of there's this line and I don't know where it is but I know in the past I'll do things for people and I don't use it as like I'm counting the things. But after a while, you start to realize if this stuff is appreciated or not. And if it's not, then, you know, then I just, again, don't kind of violently remove them

from my network, but I'll just not keep on focusing on delivering value to them. I think, yeah, I think the most powerful concept out of Adam Grant's book, and I emailed them about this was around dormant ties. For me, that was one of the biggest things. Because sometimes the best network is the one you already have. Because, again, everybody's focusing on more friends and meeting new. people and all this kind of stuff. And sometimes, again, you just go deep with the relationships you have and you'll just

unlock a whole new, I guess, level of depth that you didn't think was possibly there. What did Adam say to the email? I know he's pretty famous for responding to everything. And he obviously respond to you, but what did he say about that? So I totally screwed up. What happened was I read his book and I read Jonah Berger's book, Contagious at the same time. They're both friends. They both work at the same university.

every once in a while I'll do these gratitude videos to people that either I know in my you know that I'm just really grateful for or somebody I don't know but you know as an author you know you put a book out there you put a ton of work into a book you put it out to the world you get some animos on reviews and stuff like that but you never really get any kind of profound feedback or you know thanks to some degree so I just filmed both of them a video individually and said, hey, you know, Adam, I loved your book. This is what I took away from your book. It fundamentally is going to change how I, you know, look at relationships and my current relationships and stuff like that. Thank you so much. I did the same thing for Jonah. And I accidentally sent Jonah's video to Adam. And then Adam got back to me and he's like, oh, he's like, thanks, but I think this is for

Jonah. So I sent it to Jonah. I'm like, oh, my God, now he knows that I said to the wrong person. And I remember driving and like pulling over and I'm like, what the hell did I just do? But yeah, we've talked since then, and he's definitely, he's a great guy. So, yeah, but I screwed up that interaction. He's great. He's actually going to be a guest a little bit later on. And I'm very lucky you sent him a cold email. And he, like I said, I felt pretty special.

I'm like, wow, this is cool. He has no idea who I am. And he just responded. And he actually gave great feedback. I don't know how he does it because it's funny. There was an article about him. I don't know where it was now, New York Times or something about him being like the yes man, like saying yes to like all these requests.

Yep. And my buddy, Jordan Harbinger, interviewed him. And he's like, that's not true at all. He's like, I say no or whatever. Like, everybody thought that they could just pitch all these requests to him and he'll give a yes every time. But, yeah, I mean, he's definitely a unique guy and a great book. And it's interesting, even like guys like Seth Godin, you know, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk,

you email these guys, they'll answer. They'll answer with one or two words, but they'll answer. And Gary Vaynerchuk's approach is just, you know, it's all about, you know, scalable relationships and all that kind of stuff. And then you just wonder, you know, if you email somebody at, you know, 10 o'clock at night on a Saturday and he gets back to you right away, you just wonder, how's his personal life, right? Where do you draw that line? So, I mean, we all have different approaches to that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I've actually emailed them and they've, they've all responded. Interesting. The one thing that I have noticed, though, and I think you've talked about this before, but people who are always, like, incredibly busy and don't take. take time to live in that leadership quadrant of important but not urgent, meaning you have time to think, time to grow, time to learn. That's what this whole show is all about. I found that the best people, while, yeah, they're certainly busy and they have a lot going on, the most successful leaders seem to spend time in that quadrant, in that quadrant of not urgent,

but important. So they're not always busy. I think Tim Ferriss says that being busy is a form of laziness and I fully agree and I feel like you've lived some of those things as well. In the entrepreneur community, to say you're busy, it's like this badge of honor, right? And also you have no, I've had no sleep or something. Again, people wear that on their sleeve. Like, it's a good thing. You know, at this point in time of my life, like, I realize a lot of that is, is BS. And oftentimes, entrepreneurs, they make themselves busy. They're, they're scared of just sitting with themselves and oftentimes they're running from something. For me, I'm busier than I want. I'm very busy with master my talks right now, but I'm not happy about it.

I wish I was not this busy to some degree. So, yeah, and it's one of those things. I mean, it's, there's a great philosophy or saying that if you want to know what somebody truly values, look at their schedule, right? For the longest time, I used to say, you know, I value my family. Most people, like most entrepreneurs will always kind of default and be like, yeah, I'll put my family first, that kind of stuff. Well, show me your schedule over the last two, three weeks.

And I'll tell you how much you value your family. Right. And I was like that or, you know, say I value my health or going to the gym and take a look at your schedule. I mean, that's where you allocate your time. And where you allocate your time lies your deepest desires, whether you want to admit it or not, right? Whether they be conscious desires or unconscious, that's the truth. So it's one of those things. I wish I could fit more kind of growth and learning in my life right now through reading and that kind of stuff.

But the truth matters, I simply, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't make the time. And I could. I could. So I'm calling myself out on your podcast. I got you. Good. I appreciate it. You know, I was listening to your podcast earlier today.

Actually, episode number five, I believe. I think it's titled Access as being the ultimate asset. It was really, really well done. And you gave a lot of good nuggets about reaching out some of the things we're talking about right now. And I'm curious, it's probably a little bit different for you now because you, you know, you have social proof. You've done these things so it's easier to get people to respond. I'm sure pretty much anybody would.

But talk about how that was. was at the beginning of your time. I mean, we, we know about the, you know, having to essentially buy Tim for, for 84 grand and get a loan. But how was that access being the ultimate asset played a role in your, in your career? Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, well, I mean, to, I guess, buy Tim to some degree to have my master my talks, that enabled me to fill up the event with other amazing people. Because he was, it's like that, the philosophy is called anchor tenant. It's used in real estate. So if you have a flailing mall or plaza, you'll make concessions for an Apple store because you know if an Apple store is there,

maybe a Nordstrom will come and maybe, you know, other great businesses will come. So that was kind of my philosophy around securing Tim and the byproduct, all this kind of stuff is that, you know, because Tim comes to our events, because Mark Echo comes, Ryan Holiday, James Altrich, all these amazing people, some of their credibility rubs off on me because I'm found in the same circles, right? So now it's significantly easier for me to reach out to somebody because they know I'm connected to Tim or they know I'm connected with James and these people are not super generous worth their time to some degree. So it's yeah, it's significantly easier now, but I definitely don't

kind of shy away from the fact that at the beginning it was very, very difficult. Like when I was doing these dinners, I was reaching out to entrepreneurs cold and I was lucky if I got like a 5% response rate. And when I did get 5% of people saying, yeah, I'll come to dinner. I'd still get, you know, some cancellations and stuff like that because there was no relationship there. Now, it's significantly easier. And I talk about it in the book, I did a dinner in New York. When was it in September? And I invited 33 people.

32 showed up. And it was guys like James and A.J. Jacobs and all these TED speakers and all these amazing people. And it's really, it's a testament to just putting in the work. I've done a lot of these dinners now and now built up that social proof. And after you start having dinners with a few big names, then it gets significantly easier. The same thing with Mastermind talks as far as getting speakers, getting it attendees, nobody wants to be the first in any of these scenarios, right? So sometimes you'll have to,

you know, kind of sweeten the deal just to get that social proof. My goal with master my talks the first year, this is actually a good example. My goal was simply to break even and to have an incredible experience for the attendees and capture that on camera because I knew if I could capture that, I'd never have to sell the event ever again. And, you know, we're in our third event now and it's sold out four months in advance. So, you know, I look at these, these things. And then that was the, first of it and now we're starting to become very, very profitable. But, you know, being willing to kind of start small is probably and just putting in the work because none of this stuff is going to happen overnight. Even though, you know, I've changed my life in three years, there's been

900 days in the last three years that I've made some kind of action towards where I am today. Where does that come from? Do you have, do you have morning rituals or things like that to get you going? Or where does that come from? So I used to talk a lot about morning rituals because they were really powerful for me. One of the type of people, I guess I do a lot of testing on myself. I never just take somebody's advice for, you know, for what it is and just, you know, if Tim Ferriss does this in the morning, I'm going to do this in the morning, right? So I try to kind of test on myself. I did morning rituals, pretty strict morning rituals for about 18 months where I woke up at 4 in the morning. I had, you know, 10 things I had to do one, you know, back to back, did cold showers

and all this kind of stuff. Right now at this point in time of my life, I'm trying to, like now I wake up with no alarm. So I sleep as long as my body needs. And so that's something. I'm doing now. I have a little more of a relaxed kind of schedule. So I, and I'm just testing it out. Maybe I'll go back to like full-fledged morning rituals again because, you know, I again, I'll bounce back and forth to see which one serves me at different times of my life. But currently I don't have super strict morning rituals. Yeah, it's always an interesting thing. One more thing about comfort zones. And I got to imagine a guy in your position and what you've done. You've got to find ways and find times to always leap outside of that comfort zone. You talk to me a little bit about.

you know how you specifically try to do that and why it's important yeah I mean well so the whole thing with Tim Ferriss that for 84,000 books or sorry 84,000 dollars four thousand books I mean that was a huge. That was a Hail Mary like I do you know I mean I never was in the event space I never that I had no clue what the hell I was doing but I knew I always worked best with my back against the wall and even like the first few months truth be told I procrastinated I bought the books and I knew I had him for two speaking engagements and I probably sat on my hands for like two, three months because I'm like, I was scared to announce it to the public. I had everything lined up and it took me two weeks longer than it was supposed to or should

have to like to post it on Facebook because I'm afraid. I was afraid that like what happens if I post this and then the event doesn't happen. Then I look like a jerk or, you know, that kind of stuff. And I still always have that fear. But eventually one of the, I think how you build confidence is through progress and small daily steps ideally and yeah I mean eventually you just become comfortable with the uncomfortable and you know that's where you're going to make those those deep strides and now with that said I mean I have a conscious approach to it as well in the sense that like I'm a firm believer that if you don't stretch yourself in

life life and business will find a way to stretch you you know I do things that are outside my comfort zone in the sense like I'm terrified of heights so I went skydiving last year I am a decent physical shape, not, I'm no Adonis, but I'm doing a Navy SEAL seal fit program in November. Because I know if I could do things that I don't believe in my heart or hearts I can actually do. And I do accomplish them. It shatters, it just changes my whole kind of belief system of like what else is possible, right? If I never thought I could do a tough mutter and I do a tough mutter, well, then what else is possible in my business and my personal life and my relationship? If I think I, you know, I'm scared to stand on the ladder, but then I go skydiving 12,000 feet,

you know, what else, what else is possible that I may be putting it a limiter on to some degree. So I oftentimes look for opportunities to kind of really kind of stretch myself. And it's tough. It's terrifying, but you got to do it. Yeah, I love it, man. And Jason, hey, I really want to be respectful of your time. I really appreciate everything you've offered up. I'd love to do this again at some point in the future.

And just wanted to give you the opportunity to discuss anything else and pub anything you got going on outside. side of. I know we're 68 days away from your mastermind's event, but feel free at this time. Yeah, I mean, I have, I had, I didn't come on with any motives. I just came on to really support you. So I have nothing in particular. If anybody finds anything I said of interest, they can check out specific episodes of the podcast and see if, you know, some of that stuff resonates because I do some solo episodes, as you know, and stuff like that. I'm just, I'm excited for you to, to watch this podcast and see where it goes. Thank you very much. And I, again, I got a highly, highly recommend his podcast. I'm excited to find downtime when I can listen. It's that good. I really,

really is. It's so hard to do solo shows as well, and those shows are just as good as the ones when you have great guests on who are you're talking with, or they're just giving a speech. So I highly, highly recommend it. But Jason, hey, I really appreciate it. You've invested your time in this, especially with how busy you are. And thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you again soon. Maybe this time next year, I won't be as busy. Perfect, man. All right, buddy. We'll talk. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, brother.

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