The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 009: Jason Zook (SurfrApp) The Creative Leader's Guide To Making Money By Thinking Outside Of The Box

Episode Date: May 1, 2015

009: The Creative Leader’s Guide To Making Money By Thinking Outside Of The Box With Jason Zook (SurfrApp) I love discussing how we can all better ourselves using the creative portion of our brain.�� Jason has mastered this vital skill.  I loved this episode.  I’m proud to say that Jason has become a great friend!  I think it is one of most life-changing and important skills we can master. That’s just one reason I had an awesome time interviewing today’s guest on The Learning Leader Show. Jason Zook (SurfrApp) was tired of living a life that felt prescribed to him by society, so he used his out-of-the-box thinking and ingenuity to create multiple profitable Internet-based businesses And in his new book “Creativity For Sale”, he faces head on the belief that a creative mindset is always the best one. We go over everything from Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow,” to how to become a great public speaker. We talk about building a “trust circle” and how that can help each and every one of us. Welcome to Episode 009 with the creative genius, Jason Zook (SurfrApp) 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 in Jason’s life made him who he is today? How to view adversity as an opportunity? How did you turn wearing t-shirts into a million dollar business? At what specific moment did Jason know he had created something meaningful? Why he sold his name? What specific things can people do to get outside of their comfort zone? In This Episode, You Will Learn: How to create a business from a passion of yours The benefits of utilizing James Altucher’s 10 Ideas a Day approach to life Specific Goal Setting Practices The importance of loyalty How regular people can do what Jason has done How to become a better public speaker How high performers use fear instead of getting rid of it How To Stop Failing at “To Do Lists” “Build a Trust Circle.”  Continue Learning Go to Jason's Website Read Smartcuts by Shane Snow Follow Jason on Twitter @IWearYourShirt You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 002: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals With Chris Brogan Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Did you enjoy the podcast? I love discussing how we can all better ourselves using the creative portion of our brain.  Jason has mastered this vital skill.  I loved this episode.  I’m proud to say that Jason has become a great friend!  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: Jason Zook (formerly Jason SurfrApp, Headsetdotcom & Jason Sadler) is an unconventional marketer and entrepreneur. He created IWearYourShirt, a company that used sponsored t-shirts to promote businesses on social media and in 2012 and 2013, he auctioned off his last name to the highest bidders. Jason recently wrote a book about his entrepreneurial journey, but in a very unique way. Frustrated by the confusing landscape of book publishers and book agents, Jason self-published and raised over $75,000 through sponsorships in his book Creativity For Sale before a single word was written or a single copy of the book sold.   Tired of living a life that felt prescribed to him by society, Jason SurfrApp used his out-of-the-box thinking and ingenuity to create multiple profitable Internet-based businesses. Jason is a public speaker, an entrepreneur at heart, lives a life of intention, and continues to strive to make a living doing what he loves.

You know, I think one of the biggest things that people have in their lives, two things are, three things are fear, resistance, and change. And those are things that we all deal with. Every single one of us deals with them. I deal with them. I've dealt with them. You know, I definitely wrestled with all those things when I started ivory or shirt or when I sold my last name. Or even when I was sitting down to write a book, I mean, I'd never written anything before.

How am I going to be an author? You know, those thoughts just raged through my mind. But the thing that I tell myself as it relates to any, of those three things, fear resistance or change, is that I want the thing more that I'm trying to get, then I'm going to let those things hold me back from it. 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. I am Ryan Hawk. Really, really excited about this guest, Jason Zook. This is a phenomenal creative type. An entrepreneur, a really unconventional marketer. He actually had a seven-figure business wearing t-shirts.

We'll get into it, you'll see. Really talks about how you smart cut to being a better public speaker. Talk about Seth Godin's Purple Cowell. Certainly if I get into not being average and Jason's motivation to not be average and also the first big moment in his life when he realized, wow, I've done something really cool. Guys, without further ado, here is Jason Zuck. I hope people really understand that authors are people who, you know, you put this work out into the world. And a lot of times, yeah, you get some reviews or whatever. Maybe you become a bestseller. But does that stuff

really mean anything to other authors? I don't know. I mean, I've talked to other authors that I know, and they say the same thing. They say, oh, that stuff doesn't matter because most of it's a game anyway. what matters is the people, you know, like yourself, who email in and say, this was impactful. And this is, this is changing my course. This is having me do something. And that, to me, is a win. Like, I, you know, drop the mic. I leave the room.

Like, we're done. Like, I feel great about that. So when you got started on really Jason does stuff or whatever you want to, you're branded as as right now, were you working a nine to five and kind of had a side hustle going as, as, as that's currently what I'm doing right now. and I actually do enjoy my day job, but I'm a big believer in having a side hustle, something that you're really passionate about doing. And for me, it's learning from who I call people who I call leaders.

And that's certainly you. So did you have a side hustle going for a while? Or did you just say, you know what? I'm done. I'm going to go do something on my own right now. Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm not one of those entrepreneurs that did a lot of entrepreneurial things. And I think it goes back to that kind of that story that I just mentioned about.

you know, people kind of putting me in this box and trying to stay average so that I didn't stand out. And so anytime I had any curiosities, I kind of just didn't do anything with them. And, you know, when the internet came, you know, when it landed on my lap when I was 14 years old, and my mom got a gateway desktop computer that came in the cow box that we all remember. And I signed on the AOL for the first time after shoving those 14 floppy disks in it. You got mail and all that. Exactly. Like the first time that I got into that world, that opened my eyes.

And that was like, whoa, you know, this is crazy. Like I can do other things. I can create and I can, you know, and it's not just in the sense of art like we've always seen. And there's a lot of other things that can be done. So that was kind of where it started for me. But to specifically answer your question, you know, when I decided that moment to change my course, you know, at that 9 to 5 job, I had nothing on the side. I didn't, you know, I had done some maybe some freelance design. projects because my background is graphic design. But I mean, it was incredibly limited. I mean,

maybe one or two in a year, just very small. But I made the decision, you know, when I said, okay, enough's enough. I want to be a purple cow. I want to be different. I want to be unique. I want to start my own thing. Then I just set a course. And I said, okay, how do I make this happen? You know, what are the next steps? And I wrote them down. And it wasn't like the write down your dreams and put them up on the wall thing. I mean, I think that's fine. That works for some people. but for me it was like, what are the small, actionable steps that I can do to get out of this nine to five job? And I didn't even know what I was doing. I just, you know, I was just like, all right, here's the things I think I can do. And that's what I took to build a process to

eventually build my own design company with a friend who also hated his job. Six months after we had kind of met up to talk about that. We both left our jobs, had a design company, and that's kind of where things went for me. So was the next step in that of the projects you were doing, I wear your shirt? I'll let you describe. to everybody for those who don't know exactly what I wear your shirt was all about. But did that come next or were there other things in between? Yeah. So just to set the time frame for everybody, this was basically 2007.

I left my 9 to 5 job. You know, I read that book in like 2005, 2006-ish. And then 2008, you know, we had been a design company for a year and a half working with some great clients. We were a quarter of a million dollar design company with three people. So definitely doing well. And at that time, I was wearing fleece pants, sitting on my couch, answering some emails and going to the beach all day. Like that was my, it was pretty good gig. But when our clients

kept coming to us and kept asking a very similar question, and it was, what's social media? And should we be on it? And we were a design company. We weren't an agency, we weren't a marketing company. We were, you know, three designers, basically. And I was more doing marketing and sales. And so they kept coming to me and asking. And I looked at these platforms. I wasn't on Twitter. I had a Facebook account, but only because my college roommate had set it up for me. So I think he could meet girls because his college didn't have it yet. Yeah. So that tells you when we're on Facebook.

And, you know, what's YouTube? You know, YouTube at that point was only like two years old, but there was really nothing on it. So these platforms were also new. These companies wanted to be there. So I started looking at them and I said, wow, this is really interesting. There's a lot of people in these little communities, these different websites, and there's businesses that want to talk to these people.

You know, there's a disconnect here. There's something in the middle where I think that there's an opportunity. And, you know, being in the design world, being kind of starting to talk about marketing and learning from all these companies and what they were doing, there were our clients. I was like, oh, this is interesting to me. I like the advertising side of it. I like promoting. I like, you know, having people see these things. And so the concept of I wear your shirt evolved from that.

And then one day, me getting up and standing in my closet going, what shirt am I going to wear today? Oh, this is a big decision. Because I don't care. Like, it doesn't matter what, you know, I work for myself. I was trying to find a funny shirt, basically. And it kind of just hit me like a bolt of lightning in my closet. Like, whoa, I'm paying money to wear all these brand shirts. Like, what if I could get a brand to give me their shirt and then I would promote them through these social media channels?

And then one thing kind of led to another and that spiraled into a real business that started in January 1st of 2009. And that kind of became really my first side hustle. That was really my first because we kept going to the design company and I did IRA a shirt at the same time. Wow, okay. So just for those, again, who don't know, I wear your shirt, you were able to make roughly more than a million dollars over the course of a couple years from that business, right? Yeah, which is insane to say that I made over a million dollars wearing T-shirts for a living. But it's true. I mean, the business the first year made $66,795. And I know that number perfectly because I had a unique pricing structure that kind of I sold my daily shirt wearing with. And so, was a dollar on the first day, $2 in the second day, $3 on the third day, and it increased to $365 at the end of the year. So I basically said, I want to work with 365 companies this year. You know, here's an interesting way to price this. I worked that out with a friend of my name

Chris, and, you know, that's how much money it made. So it was a decent amount of money. And I just knew that it would get people on board early because the price was nothing. I mean, the 13th day was $13. You know, who's going to be like, well, you know, who cares what he does? I was like, let's just try this and see what happens. And so that, we doubled the price in the second year, and then 5x the price in the third year, 5x again in the fourth year. And then the fifth year of Irish shirt, which is 2013, is actually when I closed the doors of the company and stopped doing it. And there's a lot kind of behind the scenes on that.

But it had a great run. I mean, I think I really captured a moment in time where, you know, social media was just starting to grow. And these companies wanted to get on it. and they didn't have a way to do it themselves, and I was kind of the conduit to make it happen. And you were featured then on, like, Today's show and a number of different platforms throughout that time, correct? Yeah, it was really crazy. I mean, when I first got started, you know, I always talk about it.

You know, when I launched the I Wear Your Shirt website in September or October of 2008, it was like putting up a billboard in the desert. I mean, it just like no one showed up, you know, there were 12 visitors on the first day. No one bought a single thing. And I realized at that moment that, like, you can't just put a website up and think people are going to go to it. Like, you have to promote your stuff. you have to market it, even if it's a unique idea like that.

And so I started to just reach out to friends via email, and I found that my contact list was the best place to start because I had context with these people. I had trust built with them, and I could just reach out and say, hey, well, you share this with some friends? Like, I don't want you to buy, but do you know anybody who thinks this crazy idea might work? And a lot of them are like, go away, no. But a few passed it along. And, you know, one thing led to another, and I met a New York Times reporter before the site

had launched. And so I was able to do this New York Times interview, which I talked about. about in the book, which actually became more a point of leveraging that interview than the actual interview did for me, because I could just say that I had been interviewed by the New York Times, so then I went back to everybody, you know, who was cautious about spending money on me wearing their t-shirt, rightfully so. I totally understand. But I was able to say, like, hey, the New York Times thinks this is interesting. And, you know, then that was a point of leverage. And so from there, after the first year sold out, the last day sold out in August of 2009 for the first calendar year,

I was on everything. CBS Evening News, I was on Reuters, I was on the Australian Good Morning Show. I mean, it was just kind of a worldwide phenomenon that I was able to sell this year of shirt wearing. And then things kind of, you know, that was really the tipping point for the business. So let's say I'm a company and I see that you're doing this. Now, just from an outsider you're seeing, well, he's wearing the t-shirt of, you know, Coca-Cola. Wow, we have a lot of people who do that. what value were you bringing specifically to these companies for them to say,

wow, I've got to pay Jason $700 for one day and maybe the second year of this to wear a t-shirt with my company aim on. What value specifically were you doing for them? Yeah, you know, I, early on, it was kind of a harder sell because early on I was like, listen, you know, I've got this website. I'm going to make a video for you. I'm going to take photos.

But, you know, who was going to see it, right? I mean, there was really no one there. But as I kept doing it, which is just, I mean, I mean, a point in itself, the consistency is so important when doing anything, you know, whether you have your own podcast, your own business, or whatever. You know, it just stuck to it. And, you know, early on, there were not a lot of people who came to look at. I mean, you know, my mom and my grandmother were my biggest fans every day.

But I knew and believed that if I could just do something interesting and use my personality or, you know, whatever was unique to me and just put that out there that I would attract people who found that, you know, fun. And, you know, I leverage these platforms on one side. So, you know, YouTube has organic search. So I would, you know, title it and tag it with different things that were going on in the world or talk about those things. You know, Ustream was a live video platform. Luckily, I met them.

They actually reached out to me to use their platform and we kind of brokered a deal that they wouldn't pay for anything. But they would put me on the front page of their site, which put me in front of a lot of different people. And they were young and I was young, so it was a good fit. You know, and then the other side of leverage, I had a different company every day that I could say, hey, when was last time you paid somebody to wear a t-shirt for you? And all of them would say no. And I'd be like, well, go tell your friends on Facebook. Go tell your email list, you know, whatever.

So I just, I had all these factors kind of funneling people to the IREA shirt website. Yeah. And it got up to like, you know, 10,000 unique viewers a day. It was something like 3 million unique visitors in the first year, which is crazy because it started with 12. Wow. So, you know, it gives you, you know, the understanding that these things don't just blow up overnight.

You know, it didn't happen like that. There was no overnight success for me. There was a lot of hard work, a lot of consistency, you know, a lot of just believing in what I was doing was interesting. And then, you know, a company like Coca-Cola, you know, while those big companies were great, and I definitely worked with a bunch of them, they don't make or break your business. You know, it's a lot of the people who fill in the gaps that make the business. And so you have to treat everybody the same way. You know, I can't just give preferential treatment because, you know, this company has a million dollar budget and they don't care about 700 bucks. You know, the mom and pop granola company in Michigan that paid me $7, to wear a shirt, like I've got to give them the same amount of exposure and love that I would, you know, some bigger company. And I think that just resonated with people as they came to the site. It's just such an awesome story, man. But I want to go back to the middle of that time, maybe, or maybe it's not the middle, but at the beginning. I like to think of big moments, you know, a big moment in each of our lives, right? There had to be a moment in the middle of that part of you, you know, doing I wear your shirt to where you said, wow, I've really, I'm doing something that's incredibly cool and it's working. It's, you know, creating income for me, for the people you care

about and take care of, I'm sure. What was that specific moment? Was it a specific day? Even did you wake up one morning and say, I can't believe I've done this? Or maybe you close like a big deal or something and said, this is really, really neat what I've accomplished. Man, there are a ton of moments. And I think that's the great thing is that there are so many more than just one moment and that, you know, that built the success of the business. But I'll give you one that I'll give you one that I distinctly remember. And it was the end of January 2009. I was wearing shirts every day for different companies.

And this ad agency called Red Square Agency, I'll never forget. I think they're in Alabama. I remember their name, so that's good. But they came to me and they said, hey, Jason, we see you have like 18 days left in the month of March on your calendar. We want to buy all of them. And we have, you know, we're going to give them to all of our clients and you can do something different with all of our clients.

And, you know, that doesn't sound incredible right now. But at the time when I had only been making like $14, $15, you know, and the first month only adds up to like $400 bucks. So, you know, no one's going home rich with that money. But when this company comes and says, you know, hey, we want 18 days, you know, I think that equated to like $3,200 or something. That was my first big win. And that was when I saw, whoa, this is interesting. You know, this company wants to leverage what I'm doing for all of their, you know, their brands that they're working with. That's really interesting.

So that was a big one. You know, that one really, I remember going and celebrating. I remember, you know, enjoying that moment and saying, you know, hey, this is a small idea that I had in my closet that could turn into something much bigger if other agencies like this one, you know, catch on and do this type of thing. And then many did over the years. I think the feeling of creating something from literally nothing has to be one of the coolest feelings there is, you know. And it's kind of, you know, I'm trying to do here and why I'm reaching out to smart, creative guys like you.

And so that's why I was going to ask you about celebrating. And I really hope that you did because what an accomplishment to, like I said, take nothing and create something to where you have an agency calling you and asking to buy, you know, almost three weeks worth of, you know, I wear your shirt. And that had to be just an incredible feeling. Yeah. And you have to celebrate the small victories, right? And whatever you're working on, I think that, you know, we all want the today show. We all want the big article that talks about how great our businesses. I mean, I'll be 100% honest with you.

None of the big media things ever were the big successes for me. Being able to leverage that and say that. I mean, I've said the word leverage like 100 times, but it's such a powerful thing that you have to do if you're promoting and marketing yourself. Being able to reuse that content and their name, that helped me for sure. But being on the Today Show, I mean, that was a blip on the radar for like my traffic, for my sales. I mean, in the book I wrote about this and I'm not sure if you remember,

but, you know, the Today Show brought in like 3,000 unique visitors to my website on the day, and I think two sales, two. That was it. But the week, like, before that, I was on a local news channel. That local Jacksonville, Florida News channel that, like, you know, no one watches, syndicated out to 27 other networks across the U.S. And ended up bringing in, I mean, you know, quadruple the sales, let alone the amount of traffic that it probably brought in that I couldn't equate, but, you know, I definitely saw the spike.

And so, you know, it's really interesting that we want to only focus on the big things, but you have to embrace the small victories. You have to, you know, when you achieve those, say that's great, can I, you know, can I leverage this again? Can I, you know, scale this in any way? Is there other things that I can do with this? Are there other things I can do with this to make it more valuable for me? You know, and maybe for that network as well, because I know I've been written about by CNBC.com probably 15 times. And it's because every time they would write about it, I would share it. And they would see like a blip from it. They'd be like, whoa, this article is like the highest viewed article today. Because, you know, like the Warren Buffets of the world, they write about, they don't care.

They're not going to share the article. But I was like this little internet, you know, person that had an audience that could say, hey, I just got written about in this article. And then they'd be like, oh, hey, there's a whole bunch of people who are now reading our other stuff. Right. Exactly. So obviously you faced adversity from a number of different angles, whether it was loathing the corporate ladder or, you know, other things that come about. So as you look at adversity, I've heard you on another podcast and obviously read a lot of what you've written, both book and articles you've written. And I've heard you talk a lot about how you view adversity as an opportunity.

And we've heard things like that before. But I'm curious to get your specific thoughts around when you hear that phrase, adversity as an opportunity. Because a lot of people say it, it's one thing to say it. But it's a completely another thing to actually do it. You know, I think one of the biggest things that people have in their lives, two things are three things, are fear, resistance, and change. And those are things that we all deal with. Every single one of us deals with them. I deal with them.

I've dealt with them. You know, I definitely wrestled with all those things when I started ivory or shirt or when I sold my last name or even when I was sitting down to write a book. I mean, I never written anything before. How am I going to be an author? You know, those thoughts just raged through my mind. But the thing that I tell myself, as it relates to any of those three things, fear resistance or change, is that I want the thing more that I'm trying to get than I'm going to let those things hold me back from it. And that's it. Like that is my metric for getting through those things in any piece of adversity that comes my way and any roadblock that either jumps in front of me or that I set up for myself.

Because I think that there's so many people out there that they get in their own way and they think that's other people getting in their way. but it's not. You know, they're setting up all these things for themselves that they can't get over and that if they just said, like, do I really want this thing that I'm going for? Because if you're putting up a lot of roadblocks, then maybe you don't want that thing that badly. You know, maybe your brain is trying to tell yourself like, hey, man, like, we don't really want this. Let's do something else. So if you can kind of be self-worry about that, but yeah, I just, I really, when I put things out into the world and when things come up,

I just say, like, yeah, this is going to be hard or this is going to be a difficult time. but I want the outcome of this more than I'm worried about how this is going to affect me. Yeah, and I would imagine along the way that the people that you surround yourself with, as you know, are everything. I was just reading actually Jason Gaynor's book, who's also going to be a guest on here. And one of the quotes in the beginning of that book, he's in charge of masterminds. Obviously a great, you've probably heard of them. But there's two different quotes.

One of them, you are the average of your five closest friends. And then the John Wooden portion is, show me your friends. and I'll show you your future. A really powerful statement that it made me think a lot. When you hear those, what are you thinking? I wholeheartedly believe them. I mean, I just, I have my own podcast and recorded an episode recently about quitting. And one of the things that we talked about was that, you know, quitting is not really

necessarily seen when it comes to friendships. But a lot of times you need to quit your bad friends. You know, you need to get the people out of your life who are. not supporting the things that you actually want and who don't align with your values. And I think that for me, I, you know, it goes back to that thing of like being average and wanting to fit in and wanting to make everybody happy. And I finally decided, you know, I want the things that are going to come out of running this business, this crazy weird business, more than I want to go drinking on a Friday night with my friends. I don't even really want to do that, you know, that I have to

work Saturday and Sunday. Like, you don't have to. You have your crappy job you hate and you can just sleep in. I got to get up and film a video. You know, I got to, like, put in eight hours of work, you know, filming, editing, uploading, all that stuff. And so I just started to really realize that Jim Rohn quote, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I mean, it really hit me just square in the mouth. I mean, I just said, wow, this is so true. You know, I'm just hanging out with people who hate their jobs, who just want to drink every weekend. And no offense to those people. They mean well, that's fine. But we don't align anymore. And I just, I stopped hanging out with them. And I stopped prioritizing them in my life. And I started

prioritizing other things that mattered. And that was huge. And now, you know, I think that John Wooden quote is great because so many people are just blind to who they spend their time with. And they don't even reflect on it. And they just think that, you know, friendships by proximity are, you know, are what you're supposed to, you know, care about. Those are the people that you're supposed to really invest your time in.

And I've found that, you know, meeting people like you through my inbox, through writing a book, like, I probably have a deeper connection with you just over five emails that I do with that I went to college with and I've been around for six years because we don't have the same values. We don't have the same core beliefs. We don't have things that really resonate with us. And so I think that's really interesting how that's all changing. But it's tough for people. I mean, I'd be lying if I said that it's easy for you just to be like, oh, see you later, crappy friends.

You know, I know that that stuff can be really hard. But if you're intentional about it and you really, you want to have more with your life, then you need to find people who have what you want and figure out how you can either weasel your way in as a friend or learn from them and grow with them. I've always found that one of the most interesting elements of friendship is tension. And, you know, so on one hand, you have loyalty and history with friends. On the other hand, though, you have personal growth, you mature. And sometimes your friends and you are moving in completely different directions.

It's always interesting to me when I look at other people who are very, very successful. And some of them do a great job of staying loyal to those people in time. but I also noticed that they are surrounded, at least their closest group of friends, those five people, so to speak, by very like-minded people. And it seems that's in common with every, one of the things I want to do throughout this podcast,

the purpose behind it is really, really dig deep and understand why people are successful. What is it that leads it? And I'm a firm believer that one of those things is specifically around surrounding yourself with really, really like-minded, intelligent, forward-thinking, creative people. And that's what's been really cool for me, Jason, just to tell you, sending cold emails out

to people, whether it's Seth Godin and people like him, and getting responses has been one of the coolest parts that I wasn't thinking. All I was thinking about was, I'd like to have great conversations and record them and then share them with people, and maybe I can grow a little bit and learn something. And hopefully the listeners can too. but just seeing the generosity of people has been really, really, really neat as well, and almost developing these friendships just through a few emails, and now the conversations has been really, really cool.

Yeah, I like what you brought up there about tension, and I think that I look at that on the same vein is challenging you. And I think if your friends aren't challenging you in the things that you're doing, and that's not necessarily like, you know, budding heads with you. That's saying, you're like, why are you doing this? What are you going to get out of this? you know, does this really matter? You know, is this something you should be doing?

You know, hey, is this a dishonest way to make money? You know, not that any of us are doing that. But you need those people who are around you who are not just going to pat you on the back and cheerlead you every step along the way because you'll never grow. You'll never get any better. And it's uncomfortable. You know, when you have people who are doing better than you, it's uncomfortable to compare yourself to them.

It's uncomfortable to present them with your ideas. And if they, you know, say, hey, that's not a good idea. Probably because they've been through it before or they've experienced something like that. it's uncomfortable to deal with that, but that uncomfortability leads to new things and getting new places. And so, yeah, I totally dig the way that you're going about this. I think more people should follow in your footsteps of just taking action, doing stuff, you know, setting out a goal for yourself or, you know, whatever you're doing, some tasks. And if you learn something along the way, that's really cool. Keep doing that thing, try and learn and do more. If something,

you know, if you get punched in the mouth somewhere along the way, what did you learn from that, right? How can you take that bad experience? whatever it is and go, okay, how do I not replicate this? Because I don't want to feel this way again. But how can I apply this and move myself forward? Yeah, it's funny. Peter Thiel, I listen to a lot of what he says to. He says, people say you get better from failure.

And he said, that's not completely true. You have to understand first why you failed. And once you got, that's really, really important. Because a lot of times people might be doing, they might have failed. They did five things wrong. And they know of one of them. Well, they still have four other things they did wrong. So it's critical to have those people close to you to say, yes, you did do this wrong, but you also

did this, this, and this wrong. And not to really, you know, I'm not trying to punch you down, but I'm trying to help you and help you grow and get better. And I found that, like I said, being able to reach out to people who are smarter than me and have done things, bigger things than me is only going to help in getting there. It makes me think a little bit. So I'm obviously like a lot of books, but one of my favorites of all time was by Adam Grant called G.

give and take. Have you by chance to read that book? I haven't. Okay. I'll put it on my reading list. Yeah. I promise, promise you'll love it. And so I'm fascinated by it because he talks about, Adam talks about, and I'm lucky because he's going to come on here as well. But he talks a lot about how giving leads to long-term success and really the marathon of life. And I don't want to do the book injustice, but it does not try to blow you up too much either, but it does what you've done for me as far as the responses and helping both with, let's say, a designer for my website, an editor to help me become a better writer, all those things. It's pure, pure giving on your part because you're probably

not going to receive anything valuable in return from me, but you're just purely being a giver, and I really, really appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting that you say in that way, because I think the way that you look at it as, like, I've given you a bunch of advice or, you know, connections or whatever. And I actually, you know, I'd like to just put this out there. If there's anybody that you want a connection to, I'd love to try and help that happen. But also, I just learned about this site called conspire.com. They actually emailed me about it and said, like, hey, you should check this out.

It's really cool. You can put in anybody's name who's well known. And you can see if you have any connections in your, like, Google contacts to those people. I think you have to be on Gmail for it to work. Wow. But it's a really cool tool. Like, you know, I actually looked up like Mark Cuban and Eli, Musk and, you know, people that I look up to it. And I'm like one connection away. And I never

would have thought that. So I think that's really just an interesting little side and a little tidbit for you. Getting back to what you said, you know, I, I am happy to give you some value. But it's like I mentioned at the very beginning of this. Like you gave me so much value just than the fact that you appreciated my book and that it motivated you to do something. And to watch you actually like do that thing. I mean, that to me is, it's amazing because so many people are like, hey, great book, you know, pat on the back, and then they do nothing with their lives. And it's the people who say like you, like, I don't want to do something now. You know, I'm inspired.

Like I like my job. That's fine. I'm going to keep doing that. But I want a side hustle. I want something that I can, you know, meet, you know, cool people and surround myself with some interesting folks. So you have given me a ton of value, my friend. I am glad that the people that I've recommended to you are working out.

And I think that people listening to this should definitely just take a note of like how much you've invested in yourself for this project. And that comes in a monetary fact. and that you're paying a designer, you know, because that's a weakness of yours. You're not a designer. You're paying an editor because that's a weakness of yours. You're not a professional editor. And these are the same principles that I've used over the years and that I think a lot of

very, very, very successful people use this. They outsource their weaknesses. You know, you know that about yourself. So why would you try and like make it happen or make it work and then you don't put out a high quality product when instead you can invest a little bit of money and then have someone else who that's their specialty, do that. And then it's just everything you do then looks so much better and bigger. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely, I have, I wish to have an understanding of the things that I don't know and designing and websites. I want it to be to be great. And so that's why I've leaned on on people who've done it before that have great, great things out there like you. And it's been a big help. So I appreciate that. You know, it made me think back to the people that have helped me and I've been very, very lucky to have a number of different people that I go to for, it depends on really the, maybe I should say the problem or the issue at hand.

And there's some issues that come up that there's some of those people I wouldn't call. And then other things come up and I'm saying, you know what, he's or he's a perfect or she's the perfect person for what I'm going through. So in a way, it's like having that core little group of people. And sometimes it changes too, you know. Like I said, you're already a guy that I'm able to shoot a note and get something back within like 10 minutes. And you're like, hey, you know, contact this guy. He'll help you out. And that's huge.

I have to have been meaning to bring this up because I was, you know, going through your book last night. and it's chapter 22. If you don't mind, I like to read one small part of your book. Oh, let's do it. I've probably already forgotten I wrote it. Okay. You'll remember this. Okay, it's chapter 22.

And you said when you graduated from high school, you had three goals in your life. And I like to read them. So goal number one, own a Ferrari by the time you're 30. Goal number two, be worth $1 million by the time you're 30. And goal number three was to retire at age 35. talk to me about what your mindset was when you graduated high school and wrote those three goals. I feel so embarrassed that those were my goals. But listen, that was high school.

I know you changed them later. I read the next page too. Yeah, yeah. Well, and talk about the time of MTV Cribs, really. My life was so influenced by that. But, you know, I grew up with not a lot. You know, I had a single mom. You know, I probably had like one pair of shoes every year or two.

I always wanted, you know, more stuff, but we couldn't afford stuff. And now I know that like stuff doesn't matter. But when you don't have stuff when you're growing up, it becomes something that you want and that you think is success is to have these things. And so I really started to like break these goals down later on in life because, you know, two years ago, 2013, I hit a pretty low point. I mean, I wear your shirt had had kind of fizzled out. I could have kept going, but it felt like I was just like, you know, dragging a dead body behind me. It's a really morbid scene. But like that's what it felt like.

It didn't feel like I had like this amazingly happy thing that I was, you know, pulling behind me that was my business. It was like just dragging this thing and it was miserable. And I had to deal with a lot of those feelings and a lot of, you know, what that meant for me because I was irureure. You know, this was a business, but it was also me. I mean, that was my face next to that thing. And that I ultimately felt like a failure. You know, I felt like I built this business. Everyone thought it was going to be like this next crazy thing.

And then it didn't turn out that way. And I thought that was going to define me forever. And so, you know, I went to this conference in North Dakota of all places called Misfitcon and put on with these two amazing people, AJ and Melissa Leon. And I talk about this in the book as well. You know, they brought me there to speak about the success of I were your shirt. And I felt like I was at the point. I'd done a bunch of public speaking before. And I just said, you know what?

I'm not going to lie to all these people. I'm not going to tell them all that, like, I'm perfect and everything's going well and look how cool this all is. I'm just going to be honest. And I completely blacked out for the 45 minutes that I was doing Q&A with someone on stage. I have really, honestly, I have no clue what I had talked about. But I know that I got a standing ovation afterwards. People were hugging me afterwards. I think I shed one tier, which hadn't happened in like 20 years.

But it was really, it was huge for me. I mean, this weight had been lifted. And then, you know, my girlfriend and I, we flew back home. You know, we talked about a lot of stuff on the flight because she was, you know, she was there with me. And she worked for me at the time. So she was going through this stuff too. And so we really started to work through this. And then I just started to look at everything.

I just started to say, like, what am I doing with my life? You know, what am I trying to build? You know, what makes me happy? And I looked at these goals and, you know, I'd kind of forgotten about them, but I brought him back up and I just laughed because it's like a Ferrari. Okay, I'm six foot five. I'm not going to fit in a Ferrari, number one. Number two, I live in like a beach town.

Like the speed limits like 40 miles an hour everywhere. What am I going to, like, that's ridiculous. So like scratch that one off. That's done. The million dollars. The million dollars is silly because what does that even mean? You know, at that point, I reassured it had become a million. dollar revenue generating business, but that wasn't gross profit, let alone net profit.

You know, that was just the number that like everyone wanted to define me by, which is okay because it's now I look back and I'm like, that is a very, like, I'm very happy with that number because it's a successful metric. But I don't, going forward, like, that doesn't matter. Like, what I needed to do is say, how much money do I need to live? Like, what are just the basic things that I need? What can I cut out of my life? That's just a lot of extra stuff that I just, I think that I need that I really don't.

and how can I just get like really minimal with my lifestyle and say, okay, what really makes me happy? You know, and for me, that's that's travel, that's flexibility, that's control, that's, you know, not having to answer to everyone's back and call, which is unfortunately all I was doing, you know, when I was working with a different client every day. And so, you know, I really realized this number was like way lower. Like I didn't need to make a million dollars, you know, and not even that that mattered. Like, what time frame was that even going to be? Like, I just had so many unanswered questions about my own goals that I wanted to ask my 18 year old self. But yeah, and then the retirement thing came up, and that's one that I've written about a couple times now. And, you know, I think retirement is something that you do from a job you hate.

People who love what they do, they don't retire from it. You know, I just heard it was really interesting. I was listening to an Ask Gary Vee video. I love watching his videos. He had Casey Nystad on. And Casey's, he's a filmmaker. He's a really successful YouTuber, but it's not really all he does. But he was talking about his great, I think it was great grandmother or his grandmother.

or his grandmother and that she was like 89 years old or something like that. And on Friday, she taught, you know, a tap dance class because that's what she did all the way up until she was like 89. And then she died on Monday, you know, and she literally was doing it up until the day she lived. And that's what I want to be doing. Like, I get why people retire from their crappy jobs. I really do because it's, you don't want to be doing it for rest of your life. But I don't need to retire from what I'm doing. I just need to build a lifestyle that says, I'll work hard this month.

You know, maybe I'll work hard for a week and then take a week off. I have like little mini retirements basically. And then I come back and I do different things. So super long-winded answer again. But, you know, we're getting into the deep, deep archives of Jason Zook. So that's where we go. I love it. Speaking of archives, you seem to be a guy who's very good at finding ways to get outside of your comfort zone,

whether it's putting yourselves in awkward situations or going up on stage and speaking, which I don't think even the most experienced speakers ever fully feel. feel at least not nervous. What are some things that you do that maybe others could mimic to get outside of your comfort zone that these conscious thoughts that say, you know what, I need to do this because it's going to help me grow and not just be comfortable? Yeah, I think this started for me when I was in high school, I decided I wanted to play basketball and met some friends and they played basketball.

So I was like, okay, I want to fit in with these friends. and my junior year was the first time I picked up a basketball to play. I mean, literally, first time. And I was horrible. I mean, like, couldn't make a layup bad. And I was like six foot one. Like I hadn't hit my gross spurt yet. And I was so upset with how things went that year.

And I sat the bench as a junior. I was on the JV team as a junior in high school. Like, that's embarrassing. And I realized, like, I'm not going to get better just by sitting around. Like, I have to put in some uncomfortable work, some long hours, to get better and to hone this craft. And I spent that summer between junior and senior year, six to eight hours a day, pretty much by myself.

I mean, again, like, I get stubborn with this stuff and I do it on my own. But, you know, I shot like 500,000,000 shots a day. I made sure I could make a layup with both hands, so I would never have the embarrassing thing of that happening again. But, you know, I worked myself into a starting spot. I broke the records for rebounds and blocks for the four-year season of anybody in high school. In one year, I broke it at this high school.

Wow. And yeah, I ended up getting a couple Division 2, Division 3, and one or two Division One scholarships to play basketball in college. And I'll remind you that a year and a half before that time, I'd never shot a basketball at a hoop. So I have this kind of this uncanny ability to put my mind to something and then go through whatever it takes to get it done. And I know that a lot of people don't have that.

And so I think when you're being honest with yourself about kind of, you know, your own superpowers, if you will, if you want to call them that, I know that I have this ability to push through the uncomfortable times and to put in whatever amount of work it takes to get either good enough or get great enough at something so that I can feel like I'm getting, you know, out of it what I want. And, you know, you bring out public speaking. You know, I didn't ever dream that I would become this public speaker and do a lot of it. And in 2011, I ended up doing, I think, 34 talks.

And in 2012, I think I did probably around the same number. And if you would have asked me when I started every short, like, do you think you're going I'd be talking about this, I would have been like, no, I'm too scared to get on stage, you know, just like everybody else that makes me sweaty and nervous. But I started doing live video every single day. And I will tell you, nothing prepared me better for live, for public speaking than sitting in front of my laptop on my couch with a camera pointed at me and no human feedback from anything that I ever said.

Like, I had a chat room where people talked, but you don't understand, like, when you tell a joke and you can't hear people laugh or you can't see their faces, it's a really weird. an uncomfortable feeling and you have to you have to like be okay with that with yourself so for the when the first time i got up on stage i probably had seven or eight hundred days of uncomfortable live video under my belt you know almost a thousand hours probably i was so comfortable like people were laughing at jokes you know i could i could move around i didn't have to sit in front of a camera you know it was like this whole world opened up to me and you know i don't i probably didn't deliver a very great talk as far as like a memorable talk but i wasn't nervous at all i mean it felt

it felt so natural to me. And I think that's, so going back to the reason I brought out the basketball thing, you know, my senior year playing basketball, it felt natural to me because I'd put in all these hours of preparation and I'd put in all this effort. And I think anybody who's ever done anything athletically can relate to that. You know, when you get in the game, you don't rely on like, you know, your natural skill. You rely on like the hours that you've put in doing something. And so I think that if anybody wants to get good at anything or wants to get past

in uncomfortability, invest the time, invest the hours. invest the hours, invest the energy to learn how to get through that thing, hone that skill, and it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be hard, there's going to be long days, but eventually you'll get to a point if you want that thing bad enough again, you know, bring that up. If you want it more than you're going to resist doing it, you'll eventually get there. You just have to keep putting in the time. It feels to me like that time in front of the camera, those days, also those days by yourself getting up so many shots, was almost your way to smart cut as Shane Snow,

would say, smart cut your way to being better at basketball, to being more comfortable when you get on stage, which is a place, like I said, most people are not comfortable. So you almost did the super, super drive of the 10,000 hours, so to speak, to get prepared for both of those things. You know, I think that the term overnight success gets thrown around so much. And I think that, you know, another word is luck. And, you know, I forget who said it. It was some basketball coach, but it was luck is the residue of design. No, it was a baseball coach because I hate baseball. That's why I can remember it.

Luck is the residue of design. And it's true. You know, people think that they are lucky or that they have something that happens to them. It's luck in the world. I mean, unless you're winning the lottery, the first ticket you've ever purchased in your life, you're not lucky.

It's not luck. It's hard work. It's effort. You can always trace it back to other things to go on. And I don't say that because I don't want people to say like, oh, well, you know, this Jason guy doesn't think, you know, there's any luck to life. He got lucky doing things.

I don't think I did. I think I put in so much work in so many hours and I wasn't willing to take no for an answer on so many occasions that I earned what I received. And, you know, when I was on the front page of the New York Times business section, that was not luck. That was five years of building a business, a year and a half of selling my last name to then getting the attention of this paper that wanted to put me on the cover. And that's how it happened. You know, it just, I built up the story that was worth telling for that. So, you know, I think as it relates to, you know, I think as it relates to, like you said, these shortcuts or whatever it is. Smart cuts. Smart cuts, yeah. It's so true. And everybody has to find their own way of doing that that makes sense to them. And you don't have to follow someone else's path to this, right? I think that's the other thing people get really caught up and they see somebody do something a certain way.

And they go, okay, I got to go to this thing. I have to read this book. I have to start doing this. And then I'm going to have a successful business. It's not going to work out. I mean, I can just tell you from experience. I've tried copying people. It doesn't work.

to find your own path. You have to find your own smart cuts, great term, to get yourself to these things. And what works with you? You know, you as a person being self-aware and saying, who am I? What am I willing to do? Like, am I the Jason Zook of the world where I'm going to work six to eight hours a day to become better at basketball? No, I'm not. You know, and I know that about myself. So instead, you know, I'm not going to have to get better in six months. I'm going to set up a two-year plan and I'm going to work one hour per day or I'm going to work 30 minutes per day. But I'm okay with that because I'm self-aware enough to know that this is who I am, this is how I work. This is my version of of a smart cutter of 10,000 hours, and I'm going to get this thing done. You know a great story

that I learned over the last year. Gary LaVox, he's the lead singer for Rascal Flats. Yeah. Gary had a, he lives, he's from Ohio. That's why I know this. He had a regular job for like 10 years, you know, working a 9 to 5. And what Gary would do multiple times per week is he would go to local bars and they had karaoke competitions. And I don't know, rather you're a fan of Rascal Flats or not, I think it's impossible not to say that Gary has an incredible voice. I mean, just a set of pipes on him and is able to sing, well, he honed his craft, literally doing karaoke for 10 years.

Yeah. Until finally someone said, I think it was his cousin Jay said, hey, dude, we got it. Let's go down to Nashville. I think we got a shot to do something here. And so, yeah, it became, did they get a lucky break at a bar in Nashville? I'm sure there's some of that happened along the way. But the guy was singing in bars doing karaoke competitions for 10 years, multiple times a week while working a regular 9 to 5 like everybody else.

Incredible stuff. Yeah, I love that. And, you know, it's funny because it comes up for me a lot for people who send in emails and say, hey, Jason, like your book got sponsored. And for those of you listening who don't know, I had 204 sponsors that I sold. in my book, you know, kind of akin to I were your shirt into selling my last name. And I sold these little spots and I made $75,000 before writing a single page or word of the book and before selling a copy. Like I basically pre-sold this, this basically book advance for myself. And so people

email me all the time and they go, oh, how can I get sponsors for my book? And at first I wrote back these different ways. And I was like, oh, well, here's what you need to do, blah, blah, blah. And I found out that people just wanted the shortcut. You know, they wanted to know the thing. So now I write back one sentence. You can send 5,000 emails to a bunch of different people saying that you're doing this. And if you put in that time, I guarantee you it will get a sponsored book. And I'm perfectly okay sending this email to people because I know they're not going to put in the time. I know that they weren't going to put in the time when they email me about it. Maybe, maybe one person might, you know, been the off chance trying to do this down the road. And for that person, I'm willing to spend the time to do it. But for the people who, like, immediately say, like, oh,

I'm not willing to spend 5,000 emails. Okay, then you don't want it badly enough. Like, you just see it as a gimmick or a way to get you to do something that'll make you money. But maybe there's another Jason upcoming, a Jason Surfer app, you know, who's coming up that wants to do this in a unique way. And I'll send him and email and say, you've got to send 5,000 emails. He goes, okay, where do I start? I'm like, oh, all right, well, this is a whole different conversation. Now, like, I'll give you all the strategies and tips and tricks and places to find, you know, people, you know, let's start talking about it. But people don't want to put in the work. No, it's absolutely true. And hey, Jason, I do want to be respectful of your time. And I really, really appreciate. I did

want to give you a minute here to talk a little bit about, before we go, talk a little bit about your current projects and things you're working on that you want to pub a little bit. Yeah, I've really kind of changed my stance on things. I mean, in the past couple of years, I've always had kind of one big project, the project that I'm working on. So I would kind of say, like, oh, go check out this thing. And now I'm really working on probably like seven different things at a time. And, you know, I'm a big proponent of focus.

I'm a big proponent of doing one thing really well and staying focused on that task. But I've done that over the years, and now I'm kind of trying to see what it's like to do multiple things. So the easiest way for anybody to find out if you're interested is just to go to jason does stuff.com. That is my catch-all website. You can see all my projects. And the thing that I'm really passionate about, Ryan, is I send out a weekly email every Monday. You know, we talked about a lot of the topics that I talk about in that email. It's real-life entrepreneurship stuff.

It's real-life business stuff. It's crazy weird thoughts or ideas that I turn into. products or businesses and I put them up for sale, you know, if the fit is right for my list. And that's what I'm really passionate about. So, you know, Jason does stuff.com. I've got the Action Army. You know, I'm trying to help people get inspired to do their own things. And I think that your proof that it works. I'm one of them, man. I'm a lot of the many on your list. And I, yeah, I appreciate it. And I'm just, I'm constantly trying to give back because I've asked for so much stuff over the years and all these different businesses. And now I just want to, I want to create

some stuff that I feel great about that I know someone's going to get something out of. So yeah, Jason does stuff.com is the best place to find out what I'm working on and just get in touch if you want to. Awesome, man. Well, like I said, I want to be respectful of your time. I know you have a lot going on. And thank you so much, seriously, for being on with me. I know, I hope everyone gets as much value out of this as I did.

But I really learned a lot. Took a lot of notes. And just really, really appreciate it. I probably would like to have you on again here at some point in the near future. We can let the audience decide. If they want a part two, we can definitely do a part two. I'm happy to make that happen. But if they're like, oh, this sucked.

Don't bring that guy back. Then we'll be like, nope, no, no deal. But yeah, no, man, it's awesome. I wish you the best of luck with this. You know, definitely encourage your readers to leave some ratings and reviews on iTunes because that stuff really helps. And you guys should go and do that if you're enjoying the show, not just this interview. If you're enjoying Ryan's show, you know, definitely give it some love wherever you find it

and give them some feedback on it because I know how good that feels when I get positive feedback on things. So yeah, good good stuff man. Keep going. Absolutely, man. Well, thank you so much and we'll talk again soon. Okay, take care. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Learning Leader Show. I absolutely love doing this show, as I hope you can tell by the passion that I bring to it on a daily basis. If you enjoy this episode, I'd like to ask one thing of you. You could go to Ryanhawk.net. It will launch the show in iTunes. iTunes is the best way to go. grow the show organically and a couple things that you need to do once you're in iTunes. It's to subscribe to it.

Just simply click on the subscribe button. To rate the show, obviously five stars are the best. And to write a review. I promise I will read every single review. I will listen to your coaching and feedback and I will implement that into the show to make it even better. Thank you so much for being a friend of the Learning Leader Show. I greatly appreciate each and every one of you, and I cannot wait for the next one.