The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 326: Jason Zook - Why You Should Own Your Weird

Episode Date: September 1, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk #326: Jason Zook TEXT: LEARNERS to 44222 For full shownotes, go to www.LearningLeader.com Jason Zook is an unconventional entrepreneur. Tired of living a life that felt prescribed to him by society, Jason used his out-of-the-box thinking and ingenuity to create multiple profitable Internet-based businesses.  His most-notable business was IWearYourShirt, a company that generated over $1,000,000 by wearing sponsored t-shirts to promote over 1,600 businesses on social media from 2008-2013 before "influencer" was a mainstream term. If that wasn't weird enough, from 2012 and 2013, Jason auctioned off his last name to the highest bidders and made nearly $100,000 doing it. Jason's second book is titled "Own Your Weird." Jason has been featured by The Today Show, CBS Evening News, USA Today, and The New York Times. Notes:  The importance of reviewing previous work... And why it should embarrass you.  That is growth. "Don't compare your starting line to someone else's finish line."  We all started somewhere.  It is a progression. It's important to understand context. Leaders who sustain excellence = They test all of their assumptions on a regular basis They don't accept things as they are... Always trying something new They are extremely curious Have an experimenters mindset They are validated internally -- They don't seek the validation externally.  They are fulfilled from the inside. How to create a mindset to not worry about hitting a best-seller list? Set a low goal (getting the book published) and a high goal (selling 10K copies).  Understand that there is so much out of your control and celebrate hitting the goals that are within your control (writing and publishing the book).  You can't control how many people choose to buy it. The emails received from fans/listeners are the fuel that keeps you going.  The feedback from people you're positively impacting. Properly define success for yourself: You spend a third of your life working.  Make it count. Figure out a way to be see as excellent, out of the box thinker Have a mindset of, "How can I make this better?" Present your plan to your boss/leaders in the company: "Here's my plan, here is how we will do it..." Be proactive.  Make your boss's life easier.  Help them succeed. Rejection:  "When someone says no to you, it doesn't mean you're a bad person.  It's not a reflection of who you are as a person." Understand that "No" means "not yet" most of the time. "Choose Adventure" Not wanting to live the same life that others have lived Example: Moving to a sweet house in Southern California with another couple Challenge assumptions: You don't have to do it the way it's always been done Experiment -- Test --> Reflect, analyze.  Understand what worked, what didn't, and why? Working to live, not living to work How do you schedule your days? Start with living Define what really fills you up --> Prioritize that first.  Put it on your calendar first. Every six months, sit down and prioritize what's important to you. Constraints can be a powerful force.  Parkinson's Law. Set your "enough goals."  -->  "Getting to this number will be enough." "There's always more.  What about enough?" "We don't need to grow our business for growth's sake." "$33,000/month is our enough goal." -- "It's clearly defined.  It's right for us." The process of writing a book live -- Jason learned a lot about himself writing while others were watching. The end of the podcast club:  Email us ([e-mail]) -- When was the last time you truly showed up as yourself?

When someone is saying no to you, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. And this is something I had to learn early on when I was asking for people to sponsor stuff, buy stuff. Like, you know, I've dealt with thousands of rejections. I counted it up and I think I put it in the book and it was like over 5,000 times I've been told no since 2009, which is a lot, right? Like I'm competing with you on the amount of times, which is not a game that neither of us really want to be the winner of. But it's one of those things where you just have to understand it's part of the process. before we get started, I want to let you know that we have opened up tickets for our once a year personal excellence workshop.

We did this last year and got fantastic reviews, so we wanted to do it again this year, yet make it even better. In addition to the topics that I personally teach, I have reached out to some in my network who are experts in their particular domain to come and teach in person at this workshop. The workshop is ideal for you if you want to interact with intellectually curious and interesting people. If you want to accelerate your personal and professional growth, if you have an open mind and are not afraid to be challenged, and if you are currently leading a team or you desire to at some point, would love to see you in person at our personal excellence workshop. Go to Ryanhawk.me for more details.

Go to Ryanhawk.com. dot me. This event is intentionally kept small so the experience is intimate, engaging, and interactive. Go to Ryanhawk. dot me for more details. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie

and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive Mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, watching, thinking about, and writing.

give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team text learners to 4422. Now on to tonight's featured leader. It's with my friend creative entrepreneur Jason Zuck. He's had some crazy yet successful schemes. He's made over a million dollars by having more than 1,600 companies pay him to wear their t-shirt. Later he auctioned off his last name twice, making six figures. years to do it. He then self-publish his first book, Creativity for Sale, selling sponsors and generating $75,000 in revenue. Now his latest book is titled, Own Your Weird, an oddly effective way for finding happiness and work, life, and love. A few of the topics we got into, the importance of regularly testing your assumptions. Then how to get comfortable with rejection and why that's such a

useful skill to develop. And then defining the terms of your success and setting your enough goal. Ladies and gentlemen, it's so good with Jason Zuck. All right. We have to welcome back, my friend Jason Zuck. Man, the last time we talked, it was, well, at least it was published. It was May 1st, 2015. We recorded over four and a half years ago, episode number nine.

And I would urge people to not go. back and listen because I do, I sound just awful. I re-listened a part of it today and I couldn't even finish it, man. You were great, but it's great to have you back, man. Welcome back to the learning leader show, Jason. Oh, man, I can so sympathize with that feeling because that's what I tell people about my YouTube channel that I started in 2009, where I filmed a different video, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, but I filmed a different video every day for years. And I go back and watch the first couple and I just, oh, it's awful. It's so hard to watch. And so, you know, I just think that's the right of passage for all of us. You know, anybody who makes anything or builds anything or

starts anything, if you're not embarrassed by the beginning, we've all heard it before. You know, it's just like you're not doing it if you're not embarrassed at the start. So it's just what we all have to deal with, my friend. It's good to be back. Yeah. Well, it's actually a good point. I wasn't going to go there now, but, but you brought it up. Isn't it, in a way, it's pretty cool to be able to have this published work, even if it is hard to watch. But the reason that I think it can be useful for all of us is because we can literally hear and or see, if it's YouTube, the growth, the difference between what you were a few years ago to what you are today.

And so I think there's a lot of benefit in doing that for all people. Oh, and the great thing about it, too, 100% agree. The other part that's really the people need to understand, because that actually may stop people from starting, right? Right. People will go, oh, it's going to be crappy, and I know it's going to be crappy. And, you know, Casey Nistad is so amazing. And, like, you know, the verge has such a great website.

And it's like, you know, you compare yourself to all these different things, whatever it is that you want to make. And what you have to understand is that no one judges where you are where you started. Everyone judges you where you are in the present. So they look at what they can see. And they may go look at some of those things. But no one listens to your show, goes all the way back to May 1, 2015, and listens it goes, oh, I'm not subscribing to this show because they know how much better you are,

you know, and they can catch all of the new stuff that you've done. They can hear how much more you're improved. And if anything, I actually think it adds a whole layer of context that you can't get anywhere else with anything that you're doing without having that backlog or that initial start. So while it is 100% embarrassing, like, I'm not going to lie, it is embarrassing. It's also not a big deal. Like it doesn't slow anybody down from purchasing from you, subscribing to you, believing in you doing those things. It just kind of adds to the whole story. Yeah, there's a few people I'm

helping create and launch their podcast. And through it, through a few of the kind of coaching sessions we've gone through, they have made comments thinking, well, I just listened to yours, and then I listened to one of my first recording, and I just don't know if I can publish this. I don't know if I can release this. And I say, don't listen to the current episode and then make that comparison. Compare it to May, and then come back to me and it's a completely different story. Like you said, don't compare your current state versus somebody else's, do it at the same time.

I think it can be very useful. And in general, don't compare yourself to other people anyway. Compare yourself to your previous self so that you can track and measure progress and improvement, not how do I compare to any other person on the internet, doing a podcast, doing a YouTube show. Oh, you're right. And the thing my wife and I say all the time, and I give my wife Caroline credit for coming up with this, which is don't compare your starting line to someone else's finish line. And it's just, you know, if your podcast, you know, folks that you're coaching, those people, they should, like you said, compare themselves to that version of you in 2015 or probably even before that.

Like, I'm sure you have other stuff that they could find before that. And that's what you need to do because then as the person who's creating and is worried about these comparison traps, you go, oh, well, I can do better than Ryan 2015, you know, like I can, because I know and I can learn from you and you get the shortcuts that do actually work and you can get better equipment and, you know, you just know those different things. That I think is actually really helpful. So you just have to have that mindset of like, okay, my starting line, I can't measure that against someone else from where they are now? I have to measure it where they started and great. Okay, can I be better than that? Awesome. Now I need to move forward. exactly well jason it is good to have you back uh i am curious uh over the the the years now you've spent a great portion of your life your working life collaborating with other really high performers some of them have been guest on on my show and when you take a step back and analyze those people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time what have you found to be the qualities that those people have in common?

Yeah, a couple of things come to mind. I think one is, we'll probably talk more about this, which is testing all of your assumptions. And I think people who really do succeed or do perform at a high level, they're not willing to accept things as they are. They want to push the limits. They want to push their own personal limits. They want to push their own physical limits. They want to push their mental limits.

They're creative limits. And I think with that as well comes being curious. I think all of the people that we look up to that we think of as excellent or we think of as interesting or unique, they all are curious. They're always trying and just doing different things and what we kind of think of as an experimenter's mindset. Like that's what we use on a daily basis to just go, okay, what is out there? What can we do?

And I think that's really what leads to what people see as success or excellence or any of these terms. And I think the other thing that comes to mind is the people who are, doing those things constantly, I think what they really strive to do is be validated internally and understand that whatever it is that they're doing, creating, working at spending time on, if it fulfills them personally first, then everything else will happen around them and they don't have to worry about it. But if they're seeking the external validation first and doing it just for that, that's the people who crash and burn because it's a treadmill. It's that hedonic

treadmill we all know about and I've heard about. So, if you actually go within and you go, I just want to do this the best that I can do it for me, and that makes me feel really good, then great. Everything else that happens, I can't control. And I think that that's where people tend to really excel is when they're doing it for themselves first and everything else kind of happens around them. So let's relate that second point, Jason, because I think we all struggle, and I definitely have had this thought.

You have a new book out called Own Your Weird, an oddly effective way for finding happiness and work, life, and love. And so let's think about books for a second. My first book's coming out in January 2020. It's done, but now we're in the stages of, you know, all the publisher stuff that you do to get it all put together. So I would be a liar if I would say that it wouldn't, I wouldn't feel some sort of joy, at least temporarily,

from hitting a list, hitting a bestseller's list. And now that you're a multiple time author and you realize how that game is played and sometimes it is a game to get on one of those lists. There's various things you could do that we could talk about for an hour. But like I said, I'd be a liar and my publisher and I talk about this and she's saying, well, you know, we're doing this, this, this, this and this. You're doing this, this, this, this and this. You have all these things in place, a launch team. We've worked on this for a long time. Yeah, I think we got a shot. I think we got a shot. And then I take a step back and remember all of my friends, you being one

of them saying, that is so stupid. You shouldn't even be thinking about that. That's not the point. So when it comes to external validation with something like that where some arbitrary list puts you on it to say you have a bestseller, how do you build the mindset to not worry about that, to not think about that, to not care about that? Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a tough thing as a human being to go through these mindset things and the spiraling thoughts that happen. because they just happen to all of us, regardless of if you're publishing your first book or your 20th book. I think we all have had or heard the stories of people who, you know, continue to succeed. And what we don't hear is behind the scenes, like, are they truly happy?

You know, like, what do we really know? So all we really know is is what we know ourselves. And so for me, what's helped me over the years, especially because, you know, I've done a bunch of projects that have had a lot of notoriety. I've done a bunch of products that have had no notoriety. You know, my first book was self-published, so, you know, there's no chance of getting on a bestseller list when you're self-published, which I think is a joke, right? Because it doesn't make the book any better just because a publisher published it. I think we've seen some of the best books have come from people who've just self-published first and then they get picked up by publishers. That's neither here nor there.

The point for me and what I've learned is if you can set a low goal and a high goal for any project you work on, So whether it's a book or a software product you're making or a podcast you're starting or a side hustle you're working on, if you establish a logo that you know is very attainable. So it's something that you just, with all of your own effort, can achieve and that happens, then it's a success. You have to be able to admit and be willing to go, yes, that's a success. Now, of course, you're going to have the bestseller list goals in your mind. So define those, right? Like, what does a bestseller goal look like for you?

And by having the two goals, what I've found, and I talk about this in a whole chapter in the book, is when you have those defined, it removes the pressure to only hit the high goals. Because then you have this low goal where you go, well, I can achieve that. You know, like, I know I can do that. So let me go out and knock that out of the park and see what happens afterward, you know, things that are out of my control. And publishing a book, putting a book in the hands of, you know, the world of publishing and people buying books and everything that goes along with it, there's so much out of your control. Like you just have no control over what happens. You can do all the right things.

I've had a bunch of friends who big publisher, they got a big advance. They did 100 podcast interviews and other things. They did all the things you're supposed to do on launch day. Got all the bulk orders, all the stuff, didn't even come close to hitting the best seller list. And it's like,

what happened? You know, like what's the difference between them and someone else who made it? And it's just, it's the stuff that you don't see behind the scenes that you have no control over it. It's the algorithms. It's all that stuff.

So what I try to do with all of these things is hit the low goal. 100% of the time hit the low goal and I'm happy. I feel great. I feel awesome. Sure, if I miss the high goal, yeah, I'll be a little letdown. Let's just be honest with each other. Like if your book doesn't hit a bestseller list, you will probably be sad for a little while. But you know when you're going to stop being sad is when you get an email like you sent me back in 2015 when I wrote my crappy first book.

because it is crappy. If I go back and read it, it's like your first podcast interview with me. It's like my first YouTube video. It's not great. But it's also because I'd never written anything before. However, it impacted you. It made a difference for you. You reached out to me. And that email, I remember that email often because I got emails like it from people. They just said, hey, this book like caught me right at the right time, at the right place. Like, I'm going to go do my own thing. I'm going to go figure out my own place in the world. And it's not at a nine five job. It's not for someone else. And so, you know, for you, if you don't hit that high goal, and I certainly hope you do, because I think it'll make you feel good about all the work you've put

into it. But if you don't, as soon as you start to get those emails and those messages, you're going to be lit up every single day. And the thing about a bestseller list, the other thing I'll say, because I've seen it with, you know, friends and other people. I've never been on it, so I don't, you know, I don't know. But it's ephemeral, right? Like, there's a new bestseller tomorrow. And then there's a new bestseller the day after tomorrow. And your book as quickly as it gets to the top drops from the top and you can't do anything about it. So it's very fleeting as opposed to continuing to get feedback from people and positive messages from people and reviews and just the impact that the book has. That's the important thing.

So if you establish that and that continues to be a goal that gets hit constantly, you know, the not hitting the high goal is okay and it makes it a lot easier to deal with. I've always said mainly the people listening to the show because this is where the bulk of my feedback comes from me. listening to a podcast that I've published or being in the crowd of a speech where I've given is the feedback is fuel, man. It is the fuel. And when you have the feeling of positively impacting someone else's life by the work that you've taken the time to put together and publish and be judged, potentially be criticized and it impacts somebody and it changes their life for the better, I don't know if there is a better. feeling professionally than when that happens. And to have it happen on a regular basis, like you're talking about is really a cool thing to experience. Yeah. And you can resonate with the same

thing that I can resonate with a lot of people who never will do public speaking or won't do it. But I think I can speak for you and you can correct me if I'm wrong. My absolute favorite part of public speaking when I was doing, because I don't do it anymore, but when I was doing it constantly and I did like 50 events a year was when my talk ended and I walked off stage and there was a line of people waiting to say thank you that touched me that impacted me that line of people man that's the fuel right like that's exactly what you're talking like I get chills just now thinking about how amazing yeah it's how amazing though and even if it's just eight people like it doesn't need to be a line out the door like you're you know you're some incredibly popular speaker like

Seth Godin or whatever. It's just a couple people that come up to you afterwards, man, that is like a natural high that you can't get with anything else. And again, so that's what you have to really see as the things that you measure your success against are those things that you can really control and not have super high expectations for, but that can be things that you know will happen because you're delivering a great product and whatever that kind of medium is that you're doing that. Let's talk a little bit more about that low goal and high goal. So you can choose any project, whether it's the book or something else. How have you kind of tactically put this in place for yourself, whether it's like a project in the past or one in the future to say,

this is really the measurable low goal and this is the measurable high goal and this is why I've set them? Yeah, well, let me give one for this new book because this has been just a whole new adventure for me. I've never been traditionally published. I never worked with a book agent. I worked with a book editor on my first book, but it was in a very different environment. So my low goal for Own Here Weird is just that it gets published because as you know, it's a process. Yeah. So it is a process. It's multiple editors, multiple copy editors. I mean, it's just like so many things that you have to go through to actually get the thing out there. And then you have to wait. Like you're waiting now for months. And this thing's been done for however long it's been done. So truthfully and

honestly, my low goal is the book is done. It's out into the world. I'm good to go. My high goal for the book, I haven't even really thought about it. Like, I don't, I don't even care about a bestseller list because I've had the fortunate, you know, success in other projects that have been on every news outlet, the front of papers, talked about in magazines, talked about on talk shows. Like, I've had those crazy ideas validated externally that, like, my bucket for that stuff is so filled up. But I also know that, again, like I said earlier, it's so ephemeral. You know, it's just going to come and go. And if I rely on that to feel good about something, I know, because I used to rely on it. So that's how I know and why I have these low and high goals.

So I don't even have a high goal for the book. You know, like I guess if it hit a bestseller list, that'd be cool. But I'm not even thinking about it that way. Honestly, my high goal would be if I could just get a bunch of emails every month from people who really love the book, I'm set. You know, that's super happy for me. So that's how you would define, guys, chapter 19 is defining the terms of your success. So I assume this is, this is, and let's relate this now to the person who's listening. And I know, Jason, you, and we've talked about this, you are not the prototypical guest.

You're, as you call it, you're weird. You're different. And I think that's why I was so excited to talk with you again is because it's good to have fresh eyes, someone who views things a little bit differently because the avatar of the emailer that I receive is someone who is someone who, is typically working at a big company in some sort of mid-level management role. So whether they're a frontline manager or an SVP, usually not the CEOs, but sometimes. But in that kind of range, and they're trying to build a great team, they're trying to innovate, they're trying to grow, they're ambitious, they want to get promoted. And so given the fact that that's not really your world at all, it never really has been, and I don't think you ever desire for it to be,

but using your kind of fresh eyes and defining success, if you were talking to somebody like that and they'd say, Jason, this is really refreshing, man. I want to hear your viewpoint other than saying, wow, I would never do that. And you may say that, you may say that. But if you're giving them advice, what are some things you would talk to them about when it comes to defining success? Yeah, you know, it's crazy, right? We spend a third or more of our lives, our entire lives working.

So you have to find a way for that third of your life not to be miserable. So whatever role that you're in, it's about trying to find the happiness in that role. And that's not to say that everyone is going to roll out of bed, go to work and love their job. I get it. You know, there are days I work for myself and I hate myself as my own boss. I'm just like, why did I get myself into this? You know, why am I doing this thing? Like, why did this website break and now I have to deal with all the customers for it?

And we all run into the good and the bad of the work that we do. But I would say to these folks, I mean, you guys and gals who are listening to this, who you just want to figure out a way where you can be seen in your job as someone who is excellent, like you mentioned. You can be seen as someone who is out of the box thinker and brings fresh ideas to your company and moves the needle, right, as we all proverbially want to do in whatever work we're doing. And so I think for those folks listening, it's really just about sitting down and establishing what matters to them in their job. Like what would make them truly feel fulfilled?

And I think there are two ways you can go with this. If you feel like you're in a job where you will just never, ever get that personal fulfillment, then you already know you've got to build your get out of jail plan. Like you got to break out and you have got to figure out how do you get to a different place? And I really do believe, I know I haven't been in the nine to five in like the normal job world in a long time, but great people, really hungry, hardworking people can always get a job, always. Because there are so many people who are lazy who just submit applications or just fill out the job board inquiry or whatever. And they're never going to follow up. They're never going to try and stand out. But if you're really willing to stand out from everybody else, you can get a better job.

You really can. It's about opening your eyes and putting yourself out there. Now, if you like where you work and maybe it's just not as good as you want it to be, like you're not charged up every day, then I think it's really about you taking the onus to say, how can I make this situation better? You know, what problems do I need to solve? And how can I measure those things as being solved using low and high goals? You know, like what every day could make my life better? And what is a very low goal for that? You know, is it just making sure that your work gets done maybe faster than you've normally been doing it? Okay, well, how can you remove? distractions or how can you talk to your boss about streamlining your workflows or your productivity or moving meetings around so that meetings are always in the afternoon so you can get more work done earlier in the day. And then if you have setting a high goal for yourself and for your team or whatever it is that you're doing, I think it's really about looking at it from your perspective as the person who knows what will be successful in that position. And then the people

who are above you that may make the decisions for those things to happen is to present your case and actually say, hey, I want our team to succeed. I want this business to succeed. And here is the path that I see to make that happen. Give me the tools, the resources, the money, you know, the budget, like, whatever it is to do that. And here's my plan. Like, I think that's where a lot of people in the corporate world tend to want to move up or they want to make things happen. And what they don't do is they don't present a plan. And I know as someone who owns multiple businesses that works with multiple people, when people present a plan to me, I am so willing to say yes because I don't have to think about it. No bosses, no owners, no managers above other managers want to have to think.

They've got all their own things they have to deal with. So presenting a plan to those people of how the success can possibly happen, that makes it so much easier to say yes to. So it's kind of like how I would think about positioning that to the folks who are hopefully listening and thinking, okay, cool. Like now I have some ideas of what I can do. Yeah, I think it's one of the key piece of advice that I'd share is if you can, as a manager, as a leader within a business, I think your first priority is obviously serving the people who report to you, serving the people that you lead. But a close second is if you can make your boss's life easier, that's just the reality of the way the world works. If you could find a way to make it so that your boss doesn't have to worry about you. In fact, they know for certain that you're going to get it done.

And then you're going to come to them with another idea and a plan, a way to actually do it. They will love you forever. You will always have a job. You'll always be, that person will try to take you with them if they go somewhere else. I've seen this. I've personally done this. I've taken people with me from place to place in the corporate world because of of that exact fact because I knew for certain that they had a plan, they had a good attitude

about it, and they were going to get it done. They made my life easier because, you know, for certain, when you're in a leadership position, there are going to be problems and issues. If you have a few people that are going to do the opposite of that, you are extremely valuable. And so that's maybe underrated for people in that role. I want to get back to a few of the things that you've written about in Own Your Weird. And one of them is I think we both can relate to this.

My first job after I got done playing football after college and playing a little bit professionally was I was an inside telephonic sales rep. Low-based salary, but very high variable compensation component if we were able to do well. So I loved it, man, because the harder I work and the more success I had, the more money I made and I had a chance for a promotion. But one of the things I had to deal with very quickly in that role, when we were smiling, and dial and making 60 to 80 phone calls a day was we got rejected constantly. And I mean, some days, 80 straight times, some weeks, 80 times five, do the math, right? So you've written about in chapter four is getting comfortable with rejection. Why is this so important for people, regardless of what you're going to do? Why is it important that you're able to get comfortable

with rejection. Yeah, the big thing that I've learned over the years is that I want the goal more than I fear the reality of what it takes to get there. So I understand that if I want Project X that I'm working on to get $100,000 in sponsorships from people, I am going to hear no from a lot of people. But I want that project to succeed so badly that I'm going to drudge through the no. and keep working until I hear yeses. And I think that if you're someone who is working on something

where you're dealing with a lot of rejection and you don't believe in the thing you're trying to get, or at least the outcome from getting yeses, you've got to change what you're doing. You have to change jobs. You have to change the company. You have to change whatever. That's not to say that you're going to find a job

that doesn't deal with rejection if that is part of what you're doing. So the core thing is you have to really believe and want the goal of what you're trying to, seek out. The second thing is really just to come to terms with the fact that when someone is saying no to you, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. And this is something I had to learn early on when I was asking for people to sponsor stuff, buy stuff. Like, you know, I've dealt with thousands of projections. I counted it up and I think I put it in the book and it was like over 5,000 times I've been told no since 2009, which is a lot, right? Like I'm competing with you on the amount of times,

which is not a game that neither of us really want to be the winner of. But it's one of those things where you just have to understand it's part of the process. And for me, hearing a no now, man, it slides right off my back. Like it just is like, oh, okay, on to the next thing. But 10 years ago, me, it hurt. It absolutely did not feel good. And it only takes hearing no multiple times over and over again until probably like you at this job, you know, first day in, that third or fourth no, it sucks. It feels like, uh-oh, I'm never going to get a yes.

But guess what? You know, maybe 100 nose in, you get a yes. Oh, interesting. This feels different. This feels really good. It's that fuel that you talked about earlier when it comes to, you know, speaking. So then you keep going through the nose. You have this kind of built up energy that, yeah, the nose are going to reduce it down,

but then you get another yes and it builds back up. And that's just part of the process. And if you come to terms with that early on and you understand why someone is saying no, and it's not that you're a bad person. It's the timing isn't right. They don't have the budget. They've tried something like this before and it hasn't worked out.

All of those things are not a reflection of who you are as a person. So it becomes much easier to internalize the know and go, oh, okay, not the right fit for them. Let me move on to my next call that I have to make or my next email I have to send. And I've just found that that makes it so much easier to deal with this stuff.

The longer I'm in it, the longer I ask for things, even sending out requests for doing podcast interviews about this book. I got a bunch of people, friends even who have a podcast that said, no, this is not a good fit or, or, you know, no, I'm busy. But none of it was, no, Jason, you're a bad person. I don't want to have you on my show. It was just one of those different scenarios that I can't control. So it just slid right off my back and I just move on to the next person that I was trying to reach out to.

Yeah, a couple things I've learned from no is in some cases, no, in my mind means not yet. So there's a chance that it's going to happen at some point. This has happened with keynote speaking engagements. I've potentially held firm on a rate and they chose someone else who was more cost efficient for them. And they emailed me back seven months later and said, all right, we're planning for next years. We're willing to come to that rate. And that's that's a not yet situation. And also, every no I've always felt like is just one step closer to a yes, which people who've done the kind of roles that I've done have, they've heard both of those things. But that's, that's part,

I think of a mindset shift that it doesn't, it helps you not really get too worried about it. And just have a good follow up system in place for those not yets, right? Which I think is important to be organized. And I've tried to do a good job with that so that you can kind of touch again later in order to try to get that not yet to a yes. So there's a, there's a number of different topics from your book that I really wanted to talk about. Another one is choosing adventure. And this is a little bit differently. but I've, I had the person you write about in the book, Clay, Abert, he's been on the show a few times.

And can you briefly kind of share, one, your mindset and that story about you and Clay and maybe a few too many drinks that created an idea, create an idea to do something that I think most people our age would not do? Yeah, for sure. So I was at a conference with Clay and his girlfriend at the time, Julia, and my girlfriend at the time, Caroline, who's now my wife. And we were sitting around a lunch. I think there was one other person there too. And, you know, just a couple margaritas later, a couple tacos later. We just started chatting about, you know, where we all were wanting to live or what we were kind of getting into the next couple of years. And it came up that Clay and Julia were like, ah, we don't want to live in New York anymore, kind of just getting run down by it. and Caroline and I were like, we don't want to live in Florida anymore. It's Florida, so we just want to get out.

And we'd both, you know, we lived in Florida for a long time. So we'd put in our time. And I just blurted out. And again, this is probably like the, you know, the power of tequila. I was like, what if we just like move in together somewhere? And they were like, oh, you know,

I think Claire was like, that could be interesting. Like we're, you know, where were you thinking? And I was like, oh, we've been looking at San Diego, Portland, Austin. They're like, oh, we're looking at San Diego, Portland, Austin, too. And Clay was like, I've lived in San Diego. and the more we talked about it, the more it just sounded like a really good transition into like beautiful weather. You know, we don't really love rain and cold, so it kind of seemed like Portland was a no-go.

And then Austin just seemed like we'd be back in the hot summers that we dealt with in Florida. So, yeah, a couple more drinks later, you know, we really got talking about it. And from there, we went back home to our respective homes in Florida, New York, and had a couple Skype calls. We flew out to San Diego State at some Airbnbs, found an awesome place and decided to live together. And we lived together for a year as mid-30s adults cohabitating and dealing with all of the weirdness that you can imagine happened. But we had a really cool setup.

You know, the house was basically set up for two different sets of people. It's kind of like a V shape if you want to visualize it. And so we met in the kitchen in the living room, the dining room in the middle. And our office was in the middle too. But then, you know, off to the sides were our bedrooms. So we really did have our own space, which was really nice. But it was also really cool because you got to see how other people live. you got to have a constant feedback system, you know, besides just your spouse or a family member.

And it was really interesting. And, you know, we, as we moved to San Diego, you know, we got rid of all of our stuff in Florida. And, you know, we would run into people along the drive out or when we were first moving into our place or even months later and we were meeting people for lunch or coffee or at events, you'd be like, oh, why did you move from Florida to California? Was it a job or something? And I would just smile and look at Caroline and just say, nope, adventure. It was just our choice of not wanting to live the same life we had always lived, not wanting to stay stuck in the circumstances that maybe had presented themselves easily for us. Kind of what I call comfort zones being quicksand is definitely what I felt like we had gotten into

in Florida. It was just like this incredibly comfortable suburban life. And instead, we just wanted something new. We wanted something that could just be different. And we had the ability to do that because we work for ourselves and we weren't location dependent for a job. And it was just a ton of fun. And we've, we've really tried to use that lens of choosing adventure for a lot of different decisions, whether it's businesses to start, places to visit, things to do in life and just, you know, I'm not going to go jump out of hot air balloons anytime soon, but it's about like what adventure means to us and how that can kind of fuel our lives. How could somebody who, let's say they are married with a few children, a couple of cars, a mortgage, how,

what advice would you give to them to live a life of choosing adventure where there isn't potentially as much flexibility to up and move? Are there ways to do this on a perhaps a smaller level so they still can get some of the benefit of having this adventure mindset yet not as drastic as what you've done? What I love about the time that we live in now is we have YouTube. So you can find anybody with your exact set of circumstances living an entirely different life. And so that person with that family, you can find a van life family that, you know, they have like a sprinter van and they have two kids and a dog and they live out of their van and they travel around the country. And you can actually see that that can work for people. And that person's story is probably that, you know, the mom and dad left their nine to five jobs in the corporate world.

and they, you know, kind of scrounged up all their savings and just said, we're just going to do this and see what happens. Now, again, that may be skydiving out of a hot air balloon for someone listening to this, right? Like, they're not going to go to that extreme, which I totally empathize with. Like, I probably would not make that decision either if I had all the things that you listed, all the dependencies, if you will in life. But I would also challenge the assumption that, again, I talk about this at the very beginning of the book as well, which is the way things have always been done is not the way things have to be done. So you don't have to keep your mortgage. You don't have to keep your cars. You don't have to keep your job. You can find other ways to make money. I mean, the internet has afforded all of us the opportunities that never existed before. And you can spin something up so

quickly. You can start a side hustle. You know, you can, if you're passionate about, let's say, like, home brewing beer, you could start a home brewing blog. If you want to just learn code on the side and start picking up some part-time work, you can go learn code. code for free and then you can go on Upwork and start getting some work in your off hours. So there are ways to change your circumstances. I think to answer your other question is if you're someone in this position and be like, you know what? Man, I see these like van lifers.

I'm just sticking with that one. I see these van lifers on YouTube. Maybe we should try that. Go rent a van. Pack your family in it. Don't sell any of your stuff. Do it for a week. You know, take your weeks paid vacation or two weeks vacation and live that life and see if that's

for you. I had a really good friend who he and, he and. his wife wanted to travel around the world for like a year or two. They got three months into it and they hated it. And they were in some of the most beautiful, picturesque places I've ever seen. And they were just like, this is not for us. You know, like we, we probably should have tested this with some travel beforehand because we sold all of our stuff and now we have to like go back and start over. But just doing a test of those assumptions and of what adventure could look like for you, I think is really important. But it's also just really important, like I said,

at the beginning of this long-winded answer is find the people who are in your same circumstances because I guarantee you someone has been right where you are, has chosen adventure, and it has worked out just fine for them. And all of the fears and the worries and the concerns you have will fizzle away when you see that someone else in your shoes has done it. That feels like maybe working to live, not living to work. How would you define, how do you define that? for any person of having a mindset of because I think Jason is really easy and time starts going by really fast because you have a job and then your kids play sports and you're kind of you're you and your wife from I'm just kind of talking about myself here you and your wife are having

to split up to take one to volleyball and the other one to soccer and and that's a lot of people have that that's what they do and before you know it's like whoa it's been two years and we've been kind of working every day and then, you know, going to practice at night and that's what we've done. And not saying that, you know, I mean, that's, that happens. That's, that's kind of the way life is. That's what my parents did for me and my brothers when we were growing up. But what's your kind of thought process and framework around working to live, not living to work? Yeah. My wife and I, you know, a couple years ago, we kind of realized we'd fallen into our own habits and routines, right? Like, we don't have kids, so, you know, we're not dealing with those

things. But we were dealing with the same things where like we were working nine to 10 hours a day. We were stressed out. You know, we were kind of concerned where money was coming from. And we were just dealing with all these kind of like normal things that everyone deals with. But yet we were working for ourselves. And it felt really odd and incongruent to why we had started working for ourselves. And we actually sat down and we looked at like, how are we scheduling our days? And what we realized was work was always first. So it was like get up in in the morning and it's like check your email, check your things, do this, you know, always in reaction mode, as opposed to, well, what if we actually started our days with living and did some stuff for ourselves? And I know that

for a lot of people who are listening to this, you may be having the like immediate like, what? Like, I can't do that. Like, that's impossible. And the thing that I would, you know, posit to people and that we have for many years is your version of working to live is going to be different from ours because you have a different job. You have a different life. You have a different things. But just like for you and your wife is to sit down and define what are the things in life that really fill you up? Like what are the things that you love doing? And prioritize those first. And that doesn't mean that it's like six hours out of your day has to go to hot yoga and, you know, making fresh smoothies all day long. Like sure, that'd be great. But that's going to get

tiring very quickly. But maybe it's just, you know what, in the morning, I need 30 minutes for myself to do a little bit of yoga, do a little bit of meditation, you know, make some tea, you know, whatever that is, whatever a routine is for you. And for your spouse, maybe that's completely different. And explaining those things of what really matters to you and then actually looking at a schedule. Like, what does a week look like for you in normal life? And where can you start to move things around and go, you know what? Yeah, I do want to prioritize my morning 30 minute routine. And maybe your wife goes, cool, while you're doing that, I can kind of take care of the kids and get them going and whatever. When I finish with that, can you then do X, Y, and Z so that I can have

my time to do my thing. And what you do is you start to break all the bad habits that we all fall into so quickly. And we find this is just being brutally honest, as much as I want to pretend to say that we have built all these amazing habits and stuck with them, no, it's every six months. We fall into terrible habits and terrible routines, and we have to sit down and go, okay, we slipped again, how do we get back to the things that actually matter to us? What are we doing that is just getting us stuck in these same patterns and systems? And how can we get back to living first and then putting everything else around that? And I know that it can sound a little like shiny and dreamy, but it's not because it's not about just living this like perfect best life that we all see on

Instagram. It's about just prioritizing a couple things every day in your daily life that really fill you up and make you feel good, then fit work around that. And we all know this too. Constraints are so powerful. So when you only have two hours to work, you're going to get your work done. Even if you work at a 9 to 5 job or you work for yourself, there's a thing called Parkinson's Law where it's it's that when you have the time, you will fill the time. It's why 9 to 5 work days, most of the day is not spent working. It's because we all know that there are 8 hours that can be spent working. So we're just going to stretch everything out into those hours. But realistically, you could probably get all the work done in one to two hours. It's just the nature of how the

system is set up. So if you can learn these things and then also start to sit down and prioritize your life and figure out how you can make it work with your specific situation, this is how we have found that working to live is a framework that continues to work for everybody. And it also, we talk a lot about in this too, which is setting some enough goals. So financial goals, happiness goals, and then bridging the gap if you're not there yet. Because a lot of us aren't at the financial place we want to be. We're not at the happiness place we want to be. So it's about defining what that looks like for you, not based on any number you see in society, and going, okay, what do I need to do to get to that point? What sacrifices have to be made? What extra work

has to be done? What work has to be taken away because I'm working too much. That's when that stuff really starts to help you figure out a life that matters to you. And like I said, I just want to repeat this. You're probably going to have to redo this every six months because you will fall into bad habits. I think that that point is really key is that you and Caroline are intentional and thoughtful about that because you know what happened. And that's the difference. When I'm asked the common allies among people who sustain excellence question, which happens a lot of keynotes, things like that, are the two words that come top of mind every time. Very thoughtful people and extremely intentional with what they choose to do, choose to say, choose to act, how they behave. They've thought

about it and they have a reason for what they're doing. They don't just haphazardly just wander along. As funny as I know that's your wondering aimfully. But you know what I mean by that is that you guys have this intention behind what you do. And that's what I found to be a commonality is that people put great thought into it. And then there's a reason behind what they do. And that's what I think working to live, not living to work really means. You said the phrase, enough goals. And I know you guys have kind of published this when it comes to revenue.

And kind of the number of subscribers and monthly revenue you need, that is your enough goal. Can you define first what enough goals are for people in general and how they could implement this for themselves? And then for you guys and how you've done this. and your path to hitting that enough goal. Yeah, you know, like many people who are listening to this, I would say that you, if I asked you, like, how much money do you want to make? And you would probably have to think about it for a little bit.

And then you would just say some large number, and that number is pulled out of a hat. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It actually has no meaning on your life whatsoever. And it's really sad that it's not sad that people think that way. It's sad that our society is set up in a way where we don't. help each other define what actually matters to us and what we actually need. And so I remember for me, you know, when I was younger, I wanted a million dollars in my bank account. And it was just like, everything I thought about was like, how can I get a million dollars in my bank account? But there was

no reason to have it. Like I didn't have bills that added up to that. I wasn't trying to buy anything that I didn't need anything that required that much money. Sure, having a million dollars in savings is really great. But I didn't actually need that amount of money. And what we found over the years is is that when you're on that constant arbitrary goal treadmill, again, another treadmill, unfortunately, and I hate treadmills. But when you're on that, you just, you get to it and guess what? The treadmill can go a little bit longer. You know, there's more money you can get.

There's more money you can get. There's always more. There's more customers you can get more growth. we want to define what amount of money we actually want to make that's realistic for our life. Sure, Ryan, I would love to make a million dollars every month. I would love to do it. That would be great. I would love to have that money.

But you know what? I know what it takes to make that much money. And I have zero interest in the employees, the work hours, the stress, the expenses, all of the mo money, more problems, things that the people who make that amount of money know it takes to make that. So instead, Caroline and I sat down and we actually went through, okay, what are our average expenses for the past six months? And we went through and looked at like all of our rent and groceries and like all this stuff, all the things I buy on Amazon that I shouldn't buy on Amazon. And we said, okay, here's that. Tesla payment. Yeah, exactly. Like here are the actual numbers. Here's what we spend every month. Oh, crap. It's higher than we thought. Oops. Okay, let's, you know, we'll budget later. Let's fix that later. That's our expenses. Okay. How much do we want to donate to change?

every month. Okay, here's a number for that. All right, we should probably pay taxes. Okay, here's a number for that. How much do we want to save every month? Well, let's start with this number. That makes sense. And the number that we came up with ended up right around and then profit. We want to have some profit. So the number we came up to $33,000, which is a lot of money every month. Maybe some people listen to this. That's a drop in the hat. You guys are awesome. Congratulations to you. I hope you're happy. But for us, that number, number one felt achievable. Yes, it felt high. making $33,000 a month felt like a good amount of money, but it didn't feel like what I said earlier, which is like, oh, I'll just make like a million dollars a month, you know, or like even, you know,

$100,000 a month to make a million dollars a year. That feels unachievable to me because I don't want to do all the things that it would take to get there. I know that Caroline and I working for ourselves with no one else's help can make that amount of money because we've, we've done it before in small spurts. We've done it for, you know, one year. We had a project that did really well and we made that amount of money. but we actually sat down and defined that. And so now we don't have this moving target in our lives of how much money we want to make. We know, or of how much money we can make, we know how much we want to make. And we know what the life is that that will give us.

And that is the life that we ultimately feel would just be perfect for us. And defining those things, all of the different parts of that have been so helpful because we, you know, we have a, well, I'm saying you know, we have a membership community. It's under our wandering aimfully business. And we're a third of the way to hitting that goal. We make about $10,000 recurring revenue just through that business. So we're a third of the way just with that one business. So I also have a software product that makes just shy of about $10,000 a month. Okay, now we're two thirds of the way. So now it becomes a game of how can we fill that gap? And then some things are going to drop off here and there. But for me, it's all about defining that enough number, it gives us an achievable goal that doesn't feel too high, but also feels right

for us. And that's the thing that I think so few people do. And it's why a lot of us, and I was this way before, we're not happy and content with the money that we're making or the job that we're working or the things we're working on or toward because we have not defined what matters to us. And when you define that enough number, when you set that upper limit that you are comfortable with hitting, and not having to go over it, it all becomes a game that's much easier to play and you don't feel like you're constantly stressed. You feel more like, oh, how can I get here?

You know, what creative thing can I do or add to this or tweak can I make that can get me to this goal? That feels fun. And so that's a journey we've been on for the past year. I only discovered this 10 years into my entrepreneurial career, but I've never felt more empowered by a financial goal because I know that it's something I can hit and I don't have to hit it right now.

it's just I'm working toward that goal. I recently recorded with Scott Galloway. I don't know if you've seen his work. He wrote a book called The Algebra of Happiness. And he had a YouTube video that went, I guess, kind of viral. And he defined the difference between rich and poor and said it has almost close to very little to do with how much you actually make per month. It's what is your burn versus what do you make? So his dad, who with everything added up, makes like,

let's like around $50,000 a year. But his burn is far below that. So he's rich in his mind. He's rich. But he has friends who make $5 million a year and their burn is more than that. And those guys are stressed beyond miserable. I mean, suicidal in some cases. And really, really bad.

And outwardly, they look rich. Because, I mean, $5 million a year is it. That's how you define it. But that's, that's, that's because you're defining it wrong. And I thought of Scott's story when you just told me that that you've, again, we're very thoughtful and intentional. And I assume, like, if you guys have kids or things change, may move or may not. Maybe you've already built in for something like that. No, it'll change. It all changes, right? Like, that's part of it, too, is you define it for now. And then like I said, it's almost on the working. Look, every six months, you redefine it because it's going to change. I didn't mean to cut you off. But yeah, it's very true. You're right. You're right. So one other part that I wanted to cover when it comes to your writing process, and this is top of mind given what I've been working on, with your book, you were doing part of it. I remember, and I don't remember the exact time frame, but I actually watched you do this,

where you were writing live online. And so I assume part of that got into this book, right? You were writing some of this live where we could literally watch you, go to a website, and watch you write this book. What was your thought process around that experimentation and what made you want to do it? Yeah, I was sitting at dinner. This is the end of 2016. So it tells you how long it takes to get a book written as everyone hears the stories.

Like, how can it take two or three years? I mean, it just, it does. It just ends up happening. I'm sitting at dinner with Caroline. And it just, I'm like mid bite. And I was telling us like, I think I'm ready to write my second book. But also, I think I want to write it live for anyone to watch. and she's like, okay.

You know, at this point, I've had my eye wear your shirt idea. I sold my last name twice. I sold my future. I had my first book where I got a bunch of sponsors. Like, she's not, you know, weirded out by any of these ideas, these crazy ideas I come up with. And she was like, okay, well, what would this look like? Are you just going to do a Google Doc or something?

And everyone can just like, you know, I was like, no, that's boring. Like, anyone can do that. I was like, what if I actually had someone build like a little writing app for me? Just a super simple thing I could just type in. and then people on the front end of the site could just see it happening real time. And she was like, oh, yeah, that seems kind of interesting.

And so I started looking around. Of course, there was nothing that allowed you to do this, because why would any author want people to see their first draft? And I started telling people about the idea. And the feedback that I got was twofold. One, from my friends who were writers, they're like, oh, I would never do that. My first drafts are awful.

And I was like, well, I know my first draft's going to be awful, but that's part of the fun. It goes back to the very beginning of this podcast where we talk about the beginning of our work. No one is going to read Own Your Weird and then think back if they watched it writing live. Like even you if you saw it and go, oh man, this book's

going to be terrible because I watched him write this first draft. No, you're going to go interesting the way this came together. Like this is much more well written than I thought Jason might do. Thank you editors for that happening. But yeah, so I built this app and I had a friend build it. I can't build things. I just come up with ideas.

I can design them and kind of think about the experience but I always have a limitation of the technical side, which I think is good, you know, just thing for people to understand of you can always get stuff built. You know, thankfully things like Upwork and other things exist that it's easy to get things built. So I had the site built and for two weeks, I wrote every single day for five hours. I had a time constraint as I just talked about, the power of that and sat down and just typed. And when I would hit mental roadblocks, it was really fun because I could come out of the writing

app, go to the actual site itself that people were sitting on from around the world and just asked them a question. There was a little chat that we set up. And I was like, hey, I'm kind of stuck. Does anybody have any questions or ideas? And even if there were five people at the time, someone would say something and it would spur an idea. So it actually, like, I kind of hacked to this system of the writer's block and seeing the blank cursor. I tore through that first draft. I mean, it was really helpful to get it done. Now, that first draft went through a structural editor. And they're like, well, this is garbage. You know, like, we got to move a whole bunch of stuff around. And then it went to the actual editor at the publisher. And she was like, okay, like,

there's no theme here. Like, we need to work something through. And the thing that she found was this idea of owning your weird. And so everything that I've done, all these businesses I've run, these ideas like working to live and enough. And all this stuff is kind of weird. And so she kind of threaded this whole story through. And so it was really interesting, this evolution of the very beginning of this project in December of 2016, where I wrote the first draft live for anyone to see.

And now, you know, almost three years later, the book is going to come out and it's polished and it's great. but it did have to go through all those iterations to get to where it is. And it was fun. I genuinely enjoyed sharing my really crappy first draft because I knew that that wasn't going to be the thing that hit pages and was actually published. I did watch it for a few of the days because I wanted to see it, you know, being someone in this similar process, I wanted to kind of see, it made me feel better. I don't remember exact parts you wrote now that it's been a few years, but it did make me feel better like, oh, this is really hard for everybody, even really good writers. So I think that was good. The other thing, too, that I wanted to highlight real quick for anyone who maybe is an idea generation mode is sometimes the Q&A at the end of a talk or a prompt that is set up by someone else, that can be such a useful tool for what people view you as being, I guess, I don't like using word expert.

But you know what? Think of a better word than expert. But that can be an area where others view you as someone who is perhaps more knowledgeable than others is when you get prompts or questions. And so I am a very, I'm a prompt-driven writer. So I would work with a writing coach and we would sit in a room and he would prompt me and then I would write all my prompts down. Then I would go off by myself and I would write and then share it back. with him and then I did the same thing with my editor. My books through McGraw-Hill. And those prompts and those questions really kind of created the work. And so I think that's for anyone, it doesn't

be a writing of book. I mean, it's certainly one one way. But if for anything, kind of getting people you trust and you think could be helpful to offer up ideas or thoughts or questions, that can be a useful way to get something to not really be staring at that blank page. Yeah. My hack for this too was, so if you're, say, you're starting a side hustle or you have a project that you're working on and you have an email list that you're building around it and everyone should own, you don't have an email list because as great as social media is, you don't own it and everyone can pick up their ball and, you know, close down the playground and

you can't play there anymore, as my friend Paul Jarvis says. But with your email list, you know, you own it. You have those emails. You can reach out to those people. But the thing that I love to do, speaking to your writing prompts thing, is I was not immune to the same thing. Or like, what am I going to write about? What am I going to publish on my blog?

Or what am I going to send to my email list? So I just had a question in the welcome email that just asked people, what are you struggling with? Hit reply and just tell me what you're struggling with. And I've used this mechanism in a couple different ways. Like my software company, it's like, what's the number one thing that is slowing you down from getting your course started or whatever? And so I've used this in different ways.

And that provides the prompts and the fodder and the ideas because it's real people who are coming to you for the thing that they signed up for. And they want to hear these things. And when you can start to see patterns is when you really see a theme that people are looking for or constant problems that need some sort of solution, whether that solution is a course or a piece of software or a website or just a blog or whatever it is. So I love that little hack. Like, if you're starting an email list, ask a question related to what it is that you're doing. And then feel free to change that question, too. Like, this is also the experimentation mindset that we have testing assumptions is tweak that. See what works and what really resonates with people because I've asked some questions in email lists and no one has written back.

But then I'll find like the one question that's really hitting people and I get a lot of replies. And I go, okay, these are the people that are being attracted to me. Cool, let me help and serve them in a way that really makes sense for what they need. Well, why don't we do that right now? Let's experiment in real time. I know I didn't bring this up. But I've, my friend Neil Pezrecha created the end of the podcast club when he was a guest on the show.

And I've done it a few times since. Not every episode, but let's create Jason our end of the podcast club. So I will tell anyone listening, email. My email is Ryan at learning leader.com. Jason, I don't know. Do you want to share your email or? Oh, yeah. Okay.

Sure, sure. Mine's easy. It's just hello at jasonzook.com. My name, so jasonzook.com. Hello at jasonzook. So hello at jasonzook.com and Ryan at learning leader.com. And do you want to have a question, Jason, or should the question be, what are you struggling with? What do you think for the podcast club?

I like the, I like the what are you struggling with. The other thing that I would throw out there kind of related to my book, and it's a question that I kind of am excited to ask and get answers from people. is when was the last time you truly showed up as yourself? So like you you embraced your weird, you embraced what made you unique. And maybe you can't do that in your everyday life because it just doesn't, you know, it just doesn't fit. But like, when was the last time? Maybe it was when you were five? You know, maybe it was when you were 12. Maybe it was a week ago. I love, I want to hear these stories from people because I think they're going to be so fun. So yeah, what are you struggling with? And I think part two would be when was the last time you truly showed up as your core self, like what you really believe?

is you. Love it. So into the podcast club, hit us up. When was the last time you truly showed up as yourself? Jason, as always, man, I could talk with you for hours. I really appreciate your time. I'm excited for this book to come out. Where would you send, in addition to writing us an email, where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Yeah, they can go to wandering aimfully.com. It's a site I run with my wife. We combined our businesses because we are extremely weird people. You can find the book on the website. It'll be really easy to spot somewhere on the site. You can also find it where books are sold if you want to grab Own Your Weird and kind of learn about all these weird ways that I look at life. Yeah. And I truly appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And I guess in four years, we'll do this again. Let's make sure the gap in our recording is a lot less than four years next time. But it's cool that we have continued our dialogue as we both progress. And I'd like to continue to do so, man. Yeah, absolutely. You have to get better at podcasting that, so it's going to probably take four more years. No, I'm kidding. It's been a blast one, man. It's always good to chat with you.

All right, man. Thanks so much. It is always good to talk with my friend Jason Zuck. I reached out to him long before I even had a podcast. And as we got to talking, I asked him to be a guest. And that's how episode number nine came about, May 1, 2015. four and a half plus years ago. Jason is such a giving, kind, smart person. I'm very grateful for him. A few of the things that we talked about that I really found valuable.

Getting comfortable with rejection. I mentioned my first job, making so many cold calls and getting hung up on or people saying no, but then eventually getting a yes here and there and how each one led to confidence and created momentum for me. And I found that to be a useful skill

to develop. Choosing Adventure, moving to San Diego with Clay, living in your 30s with another couple I found that fascinating, but it just illustrated his mindset towards his and Caroline's mindset towards choosing adventure, working to live, not living to work. We all, I think, need to think about this a little bit more. And then defining your terms of success. Thoughtful and intentional. Jason certainly is that. And again, I think we all could benefit from being more thoughtful. and intentional in the way that we operate. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. If so, I would love it if you would tell a friend,

perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leader show and say this one with Jason Zook could be very useful for you. Thank you so much for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. For that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you next week. Can't wait. We have opened up tickets for,

our once a year personal excellence workshop. We did this last year and got fantastic reviews, so we wanted to do it again this year, yet make it even better. In addition to the topics that I personally teach, I have reached out to some in my network who are experts in their particular domain to come and teach in person at this workshop.

The workshop is ideal for you if you want to interact with intellectually curious and interesting people. If you want to accelerate your personal and professional growth, if you have an open mind and are not afraid to be challenged, and if you are currently leading a team or you desire to at some point, would love to see you in person at our personal excellence workshop. Go to Ryanhawk.me for more details.

Go to Ryanhawk.com. This event is intentionally kept small, so the experience is intimate, engaging, and interactive. Go to Ryanhawk.me for more details.