Trading Secrets - 327. Thirty Minute Thursday: Just Jason

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

David the Curious Canadian may have overdone it on the beers and hot dogs, leaving Jason Tartick with no choice but to host this week’s Trading Secrets 30-Minute Thursday solo. Jason takes over the mic, covers the biggest pop-culture stories of the week, and shares what’s coming next for him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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light.com slash secrets. Go to my skylight.com slash secrets for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. That is, N-Y-S-K-Y-L-G-H-T dot com slash secrets. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. This is 30-minute Thursday's edition. This is an addition like no other, and not for the could. We had so many hiccups this Thursday. And here's some of the why behind it. Well, you got to love when we could rattle David's cage a little bit. Well, David let me know yesterday that he's doing, he's doing some team bonding with his coaching staff, as you guys know, for his job. And so he had 15 staff members and they went to a baseball game and they decided to do the nine-inning challenge, which is one hot dog and one beer, one light beer per inning. And to see who can make

it, of the 15, four made it. And David was one of those four. Needless to say, 30-minute Thursdays with my man co-hosting David Ardoin is not intact today. So we pivoted last minute, actually. And so what we did, he did give us a warning. He told us last night. He's like, it's just not going to work tomorrow. So he gave us the warning. And then on social media, we actually did something that you guys have been talking about for a while now.

We put up a post and we said, hey, if you have a cool career story, come on the podcast. And we want to hear about it because you guys have actually sent us reviews, emails, DMs, saying, hey, we love your guests. We love who you guys have on the podcast, learning from all different industries, but also it'd be really cool to just learn from the people that listen. Like, clearly the people that are listening find this entertaining and educational. And I'm sure they have a cool story or two. So we did that. And Taylor Frazier and I were just recording, honestly, about 15, 30 minutes ago. And she is a teacher nine years. She is an accountant by degree, then went into special education teacher. She'd been doing that for nine years,

and then started a cold press juice company. And she is an accountant for her brother's farm. So we were in the midst of great conversation, the money behind what she does, what it costs to start the juice company, how the farm and agricultural business is. And because I am actually in the Hamptons right now, so let's sidebar Taylor Frazier for a second. I was in New York City. And then a podcasted yesterday. A podcast with Jared Freed. Very interesting episode. That's going to come out.

Very good. And now I'm in the Hampton. So I think you guys know this. If you don't know this, you know that Catherine is the co-founder of Wags and Wags and Wags in Wax, Nashville, right? And so both Wags and Wags and Warks, L.A. and Wags and Wocks Nashville have a Hampton's chapter as one. And there are so many dogs that are.

at shelters that are overcrowded. So there's so much overcrowding at shelters in the South. And so those dogs, of course, are euthanized due to overcrowding. Very healthy, great, kind, sweethearted dogs are just euthanized for no fault of their own just because of overcrowding. And it's really sad. So what they have done is every summer, they bring as many dogs as they can, given their operation.

from these overcrowded shelters up to the Hamptons to get these dogs rescued. And they put on all different events and pop-ups. And right now I'm in a house with a bunch of the employees of wags and walks. And there's five dogs in here here and barking right now. And we have their big Hamptons year end wrap up party in which they get donors and contributors to come to this big event to raise more money for the non-for-profit. it. So we're here. I'm in a house of like, I think there's 10 people in this house and my Wi-Fi is shoddy. Going back to Taylor Frazier, we're in the middle of podcasting and my Wi-Fi goes completely out. So then I had to jump back on. Then I jump back on. My computer won't work.

Then her Wi-Fi goes out and we're going to re-record and have her on next week. So we're going to do more of this. If this is something that you think would be beneficial, it's something that you're interested in just learning from those that listen to us, that'd be great. I was walking, this is so critical. I'm walking with Catherine down the street today. And I run into this guy. He's like, Joe, Jason Tarnick. I'm like, what's up, man?

How you doing? Nice to meet you. He's like, I just love a podcast. I listen to literally every single episode. So we were walking for a blocker to. So I'm like, thanks, man. I appreciate. You got any feedback?

He's like, no, honestly, you're killing it. I go, all right, well, what do you do? He's like, well, I work for a startup tech company. I was like, what's the startup tech company? and it's called flex. And I was like, okay, what do you guys do? And they help with your rental payments. So they can like flex. You can flex your rental payments. So you don't have to pay all of your rental payments up front like in one month. You can essentially, my understanding, I have to do more research on it. But you can essentially like finance your like, say you're having cash flow issues for

one month. You can like extend or pay a portion of your rent. Um, for that month. If it's a tougher month or cash flow is tighter. And it's called flex. So like that's awesome. And like just That concept right there. Me, walking, meeting a guy in New York City, hearing about his business, Taylor Frazier, who I was just recording with, that technology blew up. And now I'm literally recording this, guys, I am recording, if people, for anyone out there that says they can't do it, you can't start a podcast, I am sitting in bed right now. I don't have headphones. I don't have a mic.

I don't have any of my usually $1,000 plus of equipment. I have my notes app, my audio notes app. That is how I'm recording this right now. I mean, anyone could do it at any time. But that's, to me, it's just, that's the cool stuff. That's the beauty of the podcasting space. And I can't wait to get more of you on. And if this is something you want, please give me reviews, five stars, if you could.

And just let me know if this is something you'd want to do. Sometimes in this space of social media, you kind of get lost a little bit. And, you know, you're connecting with your audience and you're producing content, coming up with things and sharing stories. and you just forget how powerful the network is. And I shared the story this past week about having two epidurals, not work. And, you know, I was going through the process of scheduling a surgery. And then I saw that there were some issues with the pharmacy in the hospital that I was going to get the surgery in.

And they mislabeled, I guess, in anesthesia and there's too much potassium. And I know I'm going to screw this up because bio and science was not my forte. And there were four people impacted by the hospital. one person left paralyzed. And anyway, I shared that story of Instagram and just the power of the network, the amount of surgeons and doctors and administrators and hospital managers and CEOs and just the list was and nurse practitioners of people that have reached out trying to help and educating on the topic and things to know and places you can go reviews.

It's just social media can be so ugly at times. But my God, there's so much beauty and so much. impact and networking community at times too, which is pretty cool. What else is going on in my life? Let's talk a little bit about, let's just do a little overall update. Big news, I guess. I am not renewing my lease in New York City. It's big news in my life, at least.

You know, I always, always wanted to live in New York. It was a dream of mine. It was like, you gotta live in New York and then life happened. And you start following the corporate track and the corporate track and the corporate track brings you on the road that they want you on, not the road you want to be on. And then life and relationships and all the different moving parts of my 37 year old journey, Jesus, it's going to be 38 soon. Oh my God, I got a 20 year high school reunion invite the other day. Oh my God, that was nauseating 20 years. But back to what I was saying is you kind of lose sight of some

of your dreams. Some of those things you always wanted in life. And New York was always at for me. When I got the apartment last September, Catherine, I just started dating. And I was just like, I'm going to get this big backyard for Teddy and I. You know, we'll see where things go with Catherine and I. But like, I want to check this box off because I always, always wanted to live in New York. And then when Catherine and I started dating, I mean, the second we started dating, it was just like all in. It was like this, like, oh my God, I'm marrying this person. No questions asked.

and I was already come into the lease and it kind of got away from me. Like I didn't spend the time I thought I was going to in New York. Now I spent a good amount of time, just not enough time to really justify it. What is cool, though, is the place has been able to be used by a lot of colleagues, by a lot of clients of ours. We've hosted events there, but I definitely did not get the return on New York. And I made the decision. The lease ends on September.

22nd it ends and I'm not going to renew it and we'll see there might be a place in where I get another you know maybe New York studio because it was really effective with work and stuff but for right now it's time to to say goodbye to this chapter it was a year chapter I do feel like I checked the box but I didn't I don't know I'm so thankful I did it honestly but I also I still you know there's a part of me that one I'm there I'm like oh I don't want to I still kind of want to know have a place there but maybe one day i just love the city so much i love it so much i'm so grateful that i had the chance to live that out and have a place there but for right now just the economics and just where i see my life like getting married and hopefully having kids right after if we're so lucky i just

don't i think things are going to change a lot and the availability and the luxury of just being able to you know jump on a plane whenever and go up to new york um you know for the next little bit of bit. I don't think it's going to be there as often as I'd like it to be. And that's okay, because this chapter, the other priorities to me are going to be so much more important. And there's something that really hit me today. On the agency, we have an EVP. Her name's Megan. And she's just an absolute rock star. I think I've got to have Megan on as a guest, honestly. The cool thing about Megan has started her career at Enterprise, like selling rental cars, and then worked in hospitality and events.

And she started working with me at ReWired at the agency at a part-time basis. At an hourly rate, I don't want to share her information, but I'm going to just say at a very low hourly rate just to get a few wet in a new space. Several years later, she's an EVP of the company. She is without doubt, without question, the most important asset of our company. and she has profit sharing and she is a stakeholder and she's an amazing person, an amazing leader. And I think her story is just so, so cool about how she was able to jump into a space at such a fast speed and do things that I've never seen anyone do from competitors or in our organization. She's just amazing.

Well, she's on maternity leave. I was just talking to her today. And the way she was describing this time with her baby boy was just like one of the most special ways I've ever heard a human describe happiness. She's like, I just can't even, I can't put words into how full I feel. Like how I'm at a level of happiness and gratitude and appreciation for life. And I'm looking at my baby boy just thinking, this is everything and anything. anything I could dream of and I couldn't even have dreamt of the way that I feel right now.

And the which was describing it to me, it's like that right there. It's not about how much success you have or how many deals that Megan has done or the leadership and that. It's like that right there, that is the cream of the crop. And that is what I so can't wait for in my life. And with those things comes a lot of change. And Even in talking to Megan, like her, you know, of course we will be like will be fluid and working with this new chapter with her because of course her priorities will shift and, you know, how she'll work and when she'll work. We'll have to customize that accordingly to what's best for her, given her priority. And of course, always working from home and us taking some stuff out in the field. But that's the beauty of life.

And when I look at the next chapters of my life, that's what it feels like is. is coming and things like always jumping on a plane are, you know, going to be put to rest for a little bit. Why was it so hard for me to say? I'm like, no, they're not. It's what they are, but they are. And it's just like really focusing in on what is the priority in that moment and how is time spent in the right way.

What's crazy at the agency right now is we have two of our most important assets, our most important people on maternity leave, Blake and Megan. And they are very close friends. And Blake runs our whole entire operation. And she's been with us for so many years. And she's just so rock solid. It's such a great foundation to what the agency does. And you can only imagine you guys at this point, you know me, right?

I got a hundred things going on. My head's always spinning. And I'm taking a meeting with Blake. I'm taking meeting with Megan. And I find out they're both going on maternity leave. They're due literally at the same time. I'm like, you got to be shitting me. How are we going to exist without you?

you too. And we're doing it. We're thankful for, I'm Catherine. So we're there. Just saying hi through the window, but thankful for the way that they trained our team and got everyone up to speed. And now even my mom has stepped in. So my mom is working in her background as an accounting and auditing. And she's retired, but she's helping us on the back end with payments and bookkeeping. And yeah, it's life is wild. The agency's been fun though. We have several new agents. We have several new campaign coordinators. We have an unbelievable social media. strategy team podcast division. We're doing media events and coverage. The deals at which we're doing right now are coming in at such significant levels that the game is just changing so much. We've

signed so many exciting, exciting new exclusive talent that we'll be sharing on the rewired page and the agency is just cooking. Acuse it busy. There's just so much going on between the agency podcast, the content creating space, speaking, which I'm doing a lot of speaking, consulting, and then all the other areas that kind of touch all of those. So it's just a fun space to be in right now and there's just so much going on. Because the New York City apartment is up on September 22nd, I think, I mean, I might make one quick trip back to Nashville, but I think I'm going to pretty much be in New York until then, which is wild. So what my schedule looks like upcoming here is this week I'm in the Hamptons. And then I'm going back, I'm going to the U.S. Open with

pure protein. And U.S. Open's probably my favorite live sporting event to go to. And you're seeing this a lot now. A lot of these live sporting events, what happening is why you're seeing so many creators, influencers, and in public figures there is because the brands are recognizing. recognizing that the creators want to go to these events to get solid content. And so sometimes it's paid, sometimes it's not paid, but the brand will certainly have their video team and photography team and they'll be getting content for themselves with these creators. And that's the return for them, that they'll be able to use the content on their pages with creators and talent in them in exchange for trade. But sometimes a lot of these are paid. Like I'm going back to the

US Open September 3rd and 4th for a paid opportunity with an energy drink company. So those structures change all the time. It's another thing I always wonder about is how much, how interested our listening audience might be in like what the structures that these deals look like, like how much you've paid, what are the deliverables, how do you negotiate them, what are the different line items within the contracts that bring up the value or decrease the value? I don't know. So if you guys want to shoot me an email at trading secrets at jasontarget.com, give us five stars

or let me know if that's something you're ever interested in, but I'd be curious if you are. And then we're actually going to, I don't know if I can share yet where, but we are going to a location outside the United States, and we are going to check out six or seven wedding venues. We do have our planner fully locked in. I'll share some more information on our planner here shortly. I'd love to have her on the podcast. And now it's just full speed to find a venue. So we are looking at possibly doing it in Nashville or there's other or a couple other locations outside of the United States.

So we should probably have that decision locked in in the next three weeks. And that's an exciting time. Now, after that, coming back to New York City for the U.S. Open and we'll be rooting on Jesse Pagula. So the Players Box podcast, we help produce it. And that's with Des Krawcheck, Jenny Brady, Madison Keyes, and Jesse Pagula, the Players Box. such a great podcast, but we'll be watching three of the four of them playing in the U.S. Open and a bunch of our Buffalo buddies come up for that and it's going to be an absolute blast. And then September 11th, I'm actually spending September 11th, picking up phones trying to

raise money for the Cantor-Fitchgerald 9-11 charity event. So I'll be doing that, which I'm really excited about. And then stay in in the city. and then the next weekend we're going to to Fire Island my brother and his husband have a place out in Fire Island and doing a family trip speaking on a panel the 21st of September out the 22nd locking the keys and saying goodbye I don't know what it is about moving but there's always something that's like emotional with it there's always something that's like a deep breath of of sigh of reflection there's just something about moving that's that's always something that's like a deep breath of sigh of reflection there's just something about moving that that's different. That kind of hits you in weird places. And so on September 22nd, I'll be closing the doors to our New York City apartment and closing that chapter. Now, I talk about priorities two weeks later, back in New York, but it's such a great opportunity. Speaking at Adweek, and we have three panels we're doing, one with Remney Bader, one with Carl Radke and another with Melissa

Gorga. And those are going to be three incredible episodes. They will be on Trading Secrets, and we will be speaking on panels. And at AdWweek, it's a lot of like CMOs and employees of different agencies and companies. It's one of the largest advertising conventions and in the world, honestly. So looking forward to that. But yeah, there's just a lot of action here. A lot of action. I'm really excited about it.

I feel overwhelmed because there's just so much to do in such a short period of time. But overwhelms not a bad feeling either. It's just a lot lately. I feel like there's just so much, so much out of play right now. But I feel like I'm juggling it with a really healthy mindset, a balanced mindset. Last therapy session I had, it was a big discussion about waking up and like putting your arm around. Like doing a little, doing a little breathing meditation and locking in and really just dialing in that. throughout the day, especially with my work and life, there's a lot of people, I'm just pulled a lot,

pulled a lot of directions in this idea that you have to put your armor on and protect yourself. Energy's not created, energy is transferred, and the importance of protecting your energy, protecting your time, and in making sure that the battery you do have in your tank is spent in the right ways that can serve you and what's most important. and those most important to you in your life. And without those check-ins on priorities, how quickly some of those things can get spread. In the last week, a whole lot of shit's happened.

There has been all kind of madness. One of the big things I look at is Dali Parton. Absolute, unbelievable queen. She built an estimated $650 million fortune throughout her career. Her catalogued of 3,000 plus songs is valued at $120 million, while her stake in Dollywood is estimated at $165 million. She was also so focused on philanthropy, rather than chasing the big B, the big billionaire status. She gave to millions, millions, millions of dollars towards education, health care, disaster, relief, and much more.

And so RIP, Valley Parton, age of 80, in a battle of. cancer, which is just so, so sad. But it's been amazing to watch everyone rally around her. And even in New York at 930, I think there's no, 925. They took the Empire State Building and they blew it up, beautiful and thanked for Dolly Park, which I think was so cool. On the opposite side of the spectrum, not so cool. I don't know if you guys saw it, but the Callaway good good commercial, what a fucking joke. I mean, someone who's in marketing, someone who has seen thousands and thousands and thousands of deals. Someone who's who myself, this is my ninth year. Ninth year of being in digital marketing. Ninth year. I myself have probably executed over a

thousand campaigns. That was the worst, despicable, embarrassing, stupid, abysmal, idiotic. I can't think of enough words. I send in my social media ad I've ever seen. If you haven't seen it, Essentially, there's a new driver out, right? And Calloway is the golf club maker behind the driver. And it's in sponsorship with Good Good, which is a golf brand, and they created a driver. And this girl goes to pull out the driver and this guy run full speed and chucks her and says, like, don't touch my stuff. Like, what are we doing here? Even if your goal was some form of, of comedy. What the fuck kind of comedy is that? Like even if you're like, oh no, people are being too sensitive. There's just nothing funny about it. There's there's like nothing at all cool,

funny, smooth style. It's the most idiotic form of marketing I think I've ever seen in my life. And I said it on a post, I think, I don't know, I think it was CNN or some national news network posted about it. And I commented him. every single person that touched this should be fired. And I know that was the founder of Good Good on the commercial and they can't fire the founder. Well, there should be a board that should not come out as a founder because that is just absolutely pathetic. And it's just like, it's awful. It's awful. And then awful, awful, awful form of marketing done poorly by Good Good and Callaway this past week. There's just been so much action in all areas. I feel like weeks are now months with how much

shit's just going on. And maybe it's the speed of information that we're receiving. Another big news article out there this past week is that U.S. home buyers are pulling back. Sellers now outnumber buyers by 51%. So there's roughly around 1.5 million sellers with active buyers at a record low around 1 million. So roughly 80% of major U.S. metros are buyers markets, adding pressure to home prices. Now it depends on what market you're in. It depends on what price point you're in. And there's also an interesting stalemate going on. Like, even though there's more homes now for sale and less buyers, there's people that are still holding their price points. And they're sitting at 120 days on market, 180 days on market, 200 plus days on market,

and they're just not selling. And so there will be really interesting to see what happens in the housing market. It would be really interesting to see what happens in areas of life in the next 18 months. There is so much action between the midterms, what's going on in the Middle East, what's going on at home, what's going on with our neighbors in Canada and these tariff wars. I mean, there is so much happening at a global and domestic level when we look at every aspect of life. And the next 18 months are the most unpredictable 18 months, I think we'll see in a while. and the speed at which technology is advancing and AI is advancing, it is enough to drive someone nuts. So everyone's day, cool, comment collected out there.

Another real cool thing we did this week was, I asked you guys what you make, what you do, what you make, and where you live. And over 2,000 people responded. And I put that list together and I shared it. And over 3,000 people commented asking for it. I'm going to start doing more stuff like that. I think together as a community, if we could help each other with sharing, you know what we spend where we earn where we save resources we can all benefit from that so i want to find

a way to get this community those listening right here right now tighter to help one another because i just told you the next 18 months there's just so much going on now i don't care where you live or where you're from you know there are no terror for wars and trade secrets this is a collective group of humans from anywhere and everywhere that can help one another get better in a world of what just seems like absolute mayhem. And on a positive note, I mean, there's another news article we talked about this past week, Rick Sanko. He was literally flat broke, dead broke single dad.

And he built a $6.5 million business per year buying used clothing at flea markets, reselling it online. He now moves up to 5,000 pieces of clothing a day with roughly 50% margins per item. I'll tell you what, Facebook, ever since we moved into a high, just the I mean the margins on furniture and goods for your home are so high in retail stores. But on Facebook Marketplace, I'm telling you, that is the place to go. One of the other things I just can't stop. I am down the rabbit hole right now is this Lindsay Clancy case.

This is one of the craziest cases I've ever seen. And we are literally minutes from seeing what happens. And my God, her attorney, redneck. is an absolute legend. More to come on that. We'll break it down. We'll make sure that we get Taylor Frazier back on the podcast and many of you on the podcast.

I can't believe I just did a solo episode for 30 minutes long on 30 minute Thursday. Well, my beauty, David Hardo, is popping down more hot dogs than I've had the last nine years and nine innings. Thank you for tuning into another episode, Shagings, here's hopefully one from a bed and my phone that you couldn't afford

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