Trading Secrets - Vanderpump Rules’ Jax Taylor thinks rock bottom is required. Life as a model before social media, becoming a massive reality TV star with only $500 in his account, overcoming debt, and the numbers along the way!

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

This week, Jason is joined by reality TV personality, model, actor, and podcast host, Jax Taylor! Many of you know Jax from his role on Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules, where he earned a recurring role after working as part of Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant staff back in 2013. After eight seasons on the show, Jax and his now wife Brittany decided to leave the show and focus on their personal lives. Prior to life on reality TV, Jax spent many years traveling the world as a paid model and occasionally landing acting gigs on shows such as Desperate Housewives and Dexter. More recently, Jax joined a cast full of reality TV personalities on a new reality competition show, House of Villains, which aired this past fall on E! However, the biggest news with Jax is about his dramatic return to Vanderpump Rules for Season 11 in 2024.  Jax gives insight to why he changed his name, how he broke away from the midwestern career track, what modeling was like prior to social media, how he went from overdrafting his account in order to be in certain spaces, how he was going to leave LA when Lisa Vanderpump called with the idea for Vanderpump Rules, his advice for getting out of credit card debt, and when he felt like he was financially made it. Jax also reveals how the show impacted his mental health, how he felt about leaving the show, what made him want to come back, how he has generated revenue, what someone needs to be prepared for when coming to LA to work in entertainment, how the conversation started about coming back to reality TV, and why he blocks people. What was the most outrageous thing he purchased during his time on Vanderpump Rules? What is his secret to digging himself out of rock bottom? What job did he almost leave LA for? Jax reveals all that and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!  Bullseye Event Group's Players Tailgate Tickets: CLICK HERE for 10 % off your ticket to the #1 Event of Super Bowl Weekend in Las Vegas on Sunday, February 11th Abilitie: Use code TRADINGSECRETS for $200 off your tuition. abilitie.com/12weekmba Monarch Money  is the top-rated, all-in-one personal finance app. It gives you a comprehensive view of all your accounts, investments, transactions and more. Create custom budgets, set goals, and collaborate with your partner. And now get an extended thirty day free trial when you go to monarchmoney.com/secrets Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: Declan O’Connell Guest: Jax Taylor Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Abilitie has published The 12-Week MBA, a mini MBA curriculum for aspiring and rising business leaders. Buy the book and enroll in the 12-week program using code TRADINGSECRETS for $200 off your tuition.  https://www.abilitie.com/12weekmba

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. I'm your host, Jason Tardick, and welcome to the pre-market trading segment, where I tell you a little bit about our guests, an update from the market from the market and something going on in my personal life. First and foremost, this episode is like no other, because we have the raw, the unfiltered, the sometimes even unhinged, but it makes him who he is, and we love that for him, Jack's Taylor. Now, Jack's Taylor is no stranger to the spotlight. He's been in the spotlight for years, decades, and he has been through it all. He has seen the lowest of lows.

He has seen the highest of highs. He's been in a spot where he had his car packed up, ready to leave L.A., before he got the one phone call that changed the entirety of his life. He's had financial struggles, financial successes, he has had personal setbacks, personal material achievements. When you think about someone who's endured it all from financial, social, personal, and professional, highest of highs and lows, jacks Taylor is the guy. What I love about Jacks is through each one of his steps, he talks today about where he fucked up royally. But what he learned from those fuckups to make him who he is, how he got back on his feet no matter how many times the guy was kicked down,

even if it was self-inflicted. So I think this episode, you are going to have so much to take away from it. And I know in last episode with baked by Melissa, it was unbelievable. It was exciting and informative. but we did get some feedback we wanted more numbers let me tell you what on this episode you're going to get some really really good numbers you'll be blown away by jacks taylor and also make sure you subscribe to the show go follow us on youtube and on instagram because the lineup of guests we have and the numbers that have been dropped lately are absolutely out of control and i always think

it's interesting to watch the youtube because there's so much you could miss only listening to the audio. So do both for us. Now, a little update from something you need to know about the market. Well, what's happening in the world this week? It's Super Bowl Sunday. I will be there. Our agency actually has a house we're doing with another sports agency. So we bought the house. We have brand sponsoring the house and we will have athletes and creators in the house. Additionally, we have different activations going on for different talent. And I too have an activation myself. so I will be down there Thursday to Monday. Can I also give you a little behind the scenes right now?

I've never done this before. But right now, right here, I am recording this intro in an Uber on my way to Beaver Creek with Worth Campbell and the boys to have a little fun. That's more of a personal update. But let's get back to Super Bowl. There's some wild stats out there. The estimated total Super Bowl related consumer spending was at $17.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. an increase of nearly a billion U.S. dollars compared to the previous year.

Now, this is a massive weekend for the city of Vegas. So think about this. Take a guess right now. How much do you think Super Bowl 58 is expected to bring to the city of Vegas just for a weekend of one football game? Mind you, one football game that's 60 minutes on the clock at least, four quarters, $500 to a billion. That's the estimation.

On average, 300,000 people will celebrate the Super Bowl in Las Vegas in any given year. This year, that number is expected to jump to 450,000. So there is a whole lot of action this year. The numbers are booming, and the numbers aren't just moving in the economics of the city and or the people attending. But the numbers are booming in the ticket prices. Ticketmaster is selling nosebleeds now for upwards of $10,000 in the 65,000 seat Allegiant Stadium.

This is going to be just something that is just a remarkable event that blows out every single dollar amount. But why wouldn't it? It's in Las Vegas, the city of sin. I'm sure next week I will have some updates and stories for you guys while I'm there. But according to ad age, CBS is charging $7 million for a 30 second commercial slot during the 2024 Super Bowl. Now last year we did a full episode on the Super Bowl because there was so much to talk about.

So maybe this year we will do just that. Now, a little update for my personal life. Not only is this an update, this is a bit of a plug. So I'm going to be at the Players' tailgate party there. So if this year you're in Vegas, you know, ditch the store-bought burgers, the average tailgate fair, and dive into what will be mouth-watering dishes. There will be 17 Michelin and world-renowned chefs at the Bullseye event group's Players' tailgate.

The event is conveniently located, just a short walk from the Allegiance. stadium on Las Vegas Boulevard. They will take your Super Bowl Sunday to the next level. There's exclusive access to dining, to drinking, and dancing. There will be over 50 NFL players there to celebrate with chefs and individuals of all different backgrounds. I'm even going to be podcasting there. The Bullseye event groups players tailgate is the number one event to attend on Super Bowl

Sunday. And you don't need a ticket to Super Bowl Sunday to attend the event. So, for the 10th straight year, this VIP tailgate guarantees an all-inclusive program filled with food and drink, music, interviews, games, and prizes. And it's hosted by the one and only Bobby Fleigh. So what do you got to do in our show notes? Like, if you go to Apple and you see your show notes here, you can get tickets there. Or, or go to Trading Secrets podcast page on Instagram, and you can enter to win tickets

with the link in bio. I'll also have a story up on my personal Instagram, Jason underscore Tarduk, give me a follow, and you can enter to win tickets, you and a friend, to come to what will be the most epic Super Bowl party. In another little update, it's been a crazy week. I was in Carmel with IHeart. We did some podcasts. So good to see everyone.

Chris Harrison, Wells Adams, Dean, Ben Higgins, we got to see Andrew Firestone. Who else was there? Bob Guinea, Caitlin, Sarah Hyland. I got to, I got, I had such an honor that after we all went out, Sarah Highland and Kaylin invited me to Girls' Night. Me, Sarah, and Kalyn, bottle of champagne, just hanging out with the girls. Had the best time ever, and now I'm in Beaver Creek.

Once a year, every year, Worth Campbell, does a guy's trip to Beaver Creek. He's got his son with him. And even though my schedule is a little messed up going from Carmel to Tampa Bay to celebrate Megan, our VP of Business Development's wedding, I knew I had to get here. So I got here for two, three days,

back to Nashville, and then going in hot to the Super Bowl in Vegas. tell you after that, I think I'm just going to pack it in and sleep for a month. But enough of me, enough of my travel schedule. Let's ring in the bell with the one and only an episode. Let me tell you, you can't afford to miss a second of this with Jacks Taylor. And stay tuned to the end. There's a little twist with this recap, a recap like we've never done before with The Curious Canadian. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined by reality TV personality, model, actor, and podcast host, Jacks Taylor.

Many of you know Jacks from his role on Bravo's Vanderpump Rules, where he earned a reoccurring role after working as part of Lisa Vanderpump's restaurant staff back in 2013. After eight seasons on the show, Jacks and his now wife, Brittany, decided to leave the show and focus on their personal lives. Are they coming back? We'll talk about it. Prior to the life on reality TV, Jack spent many years traveling the world as a paid model and occasionally landing acting gigs on shows such as Desperate Housewives and Dexter.

More recently, Jacks joined a cast full of reality TV personalities on the new reality competition show House of Villains, which aired this past fall on E. The biggest news with Jacks, however, is all about his dramatic return to Vanderpump rules for season 11 here in 2024. Today we're going to talk about Jackson's perspective on life and Vanderpump, how the world works, how his life has changed for the better, maybe worse since leaving the show and on the show and where he sees his career going from here.

Jacks, thank you so much for being on Trading Secrets. It's a hell of an introduction. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. How are you doing? I'm doing good, man. I'm doing good. And for everyone listening back home,

if you want to check us out on YouTube, check us on YouTube. Because if you do, you would know it. To my left, I have his talent manager, Ryan Revel. And I mean,

we could do a whole episode just with you, Ryan, but Ryan, thanks for being here. No problem. Thanks for having us. So anything Jack screws up or gets wrong, you're here to correct it. I think a lot of everything that I've gone through in life,

he can kind of help talk about too because a lot pertains to my management too. Absolutely. And Ryan, I'll say this from what you've done in the space. It truly is an inspiration. So congrats on all your success, too. And then we'll do, you know what?

Let's also do a shout out to Lori Krebs. She helps us book this too. That's right. Thank you, Lori, a little, how do you do? All right, here's why I want to start this. Well, I saw I was doing some research on you, Jacks. My name, Jason Michael Tardick,

your actual name, Jason Michael Couchy is my understanding, and you changed it to Jacks Taylor. So I got to say, as a Jason Michael guy, I got to ask, why did you change it? Was it a branding strategy? For exactly this reason, Jason Michael, how common is that? You know, it's a super common name. No, so I changed my name in 1999, not legally, was never legally changed. Taylor is my mother's maiden name.

And Jacks was just, I just took the ass out of Jason and put an X in there. it was just the girlfriend at the time kind of said why don't you use that i was modeling at the time i was with an agency in miami and they're like you know your name's just too common and nobody can pronounce your last name but nobody can pronounce it what's your mother's main name they had an idea at the agency they're like okay this is what we do we kind of just to make it easier for the clients to say your name and it's easy to remember okay so that's why i did that do you think so like obviously we see in the holly ladenie brad pit we see all these fake names for johnny depy yeah johnny debt do you think the whole jacks taylor branding business thing paid off if you had to go back would

would you have done it again yeah i would i think it's just easy it rolls off the tongue a little easier it's like it's not nothing against you know jason michael couch it's a great name it's like my god given name you know for my parents i just think for what i do for the entertainment industry just worked out for me i love it now we're going to get into some of your career track where you are today but i want to take a step back i saw a interview you did and you said that your dad had said to you I feel like you cheated the system because you're making more money than all the engineers at Michigan State.

We almost didn't believe you and you mentioned you had to even show him the pace of. So this is basically when I started on the show. So we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit. But my dad is an old school, old school guy, very conservative, work real hard, pay your bills, take care of your family. Just do things the right way, make right choices.

Don't skip corners and all that stuff. And I didn't listen to any of that. obviously I was just like I don't I saw how hard my dad worked I saw how hard all my family members worked and they all do very well but they just worked so hard you know I'm like well if I can work half as hard and make more money can I figure out a way I need to figure out a way to do that and that's kind of why I decided to leave college and go figure it out for myself the entertainment world and people I think that are born and raised Midwest and Michigan yeah entertainment world's not around you 24-7 no it's not and it's not it's not even like it's not frowned upon it's just

Midwest people, you know, we go to school, we get jobs, we start families. That's just what we do. And, you know, I'm from Michigan. You either go to college, you work for the big three. So that was, it was one of the other. So like Hollywood is to movies, Michigan is to the automotive industry. So everybody in my family worked for General Motors for one of them. So you can either get grandfathered into that.

That's the only way you can get into those companies. If your father or your grandfather worked there, worked on the line. And a lot of guys did that. They would leave high school, go right and work because it was a great living. You made a lot of money, you had a good pension, you had good benefits, and you could start a family right away. And that's what people in Michigan do. They start families right away. Or you can go to college. That's a lot of people do. And then most people head over to Chicago and get a job in finance or something like that. So that was kind of the options. And I didn't like

either of those options. Yeah. It wasn't a fan. I tried it. I definitely tried it. I went to college. But I just would stare off in the, you know, in the skies, the teacher was talking. And I'm just like, what am I doing here? Like I'm wasting my parents money. I'm just sitting here. I'm miserable. You know, I'm listening to some guy talk. I'm at a community college. I'm just miserable. I'm just miserable. My friends are all away at school. It's, you know, I just was just, I was just unhappy. And I'm like, even if I finished school, what am I going to do? Like, I'm still going to be miserable. Exactly. So, you know, I just, I'm one of the unusual people in my family. Everybody else went to the University of Michigan, went to Michigan State, all got, you know,

big degrees and got started families. It just wasn't in my cards. And I, I just told my dad, listen, I'm sorry. I know you want this for me. I know you want me to go and do A, B, and C, but I just can't. I just can't. I got to leave. Yeah. Well, fast forwarding, this was then, right?

We fast forward to 2024 and we know we could see headlines. One of the most popular reality stars of all time. One of the most highly compensated from Bravo, et cetera. That is in 2024, we could say that. But you took a shot when everyone said, what the hell are you doing? So before you caught your big break on Vanderpump in 2013, before that, did you have any big, big wins financially from a career perspective where your family was like, oh, shit, Jacks is doing it right? Or did it take until Vanderpump for the family to say, wait,

what's going on? Yeah, it definitely took until Vanderpump. Now, before that, I was doing modeling, you know, it was, I was making money. It wasn't definitely not becoming rich from it, but I was just getting by. But yeah, Vanderpump was, yeah, that was my. Tell me about that. So a lot of people that listen to this show, we hear modeling. We don't know what the fuck this industry is. Like, what does that be? To be honestly, I don't even know what it is anymore. I've been out of the game since I was 30. I'm now 44. So the game was a lot different. I was in

modeling before social media, before internet, really, before any of that, where you had a portfolio and you would go to auditions and you show people your book and you'd have to go in the cold weather, whether I was in Milan, in the freezing cold or I was in New York or whatever. You go to these auditions, you show them your book and you get your picture taken and you whatever. It's a different world now.

now there's social media and there's the internet and all that i don't know how the industry works anymore but that's how i started so if you want to go back i got into the modeling this is kind of when i was having a hard time with school in michigan i just wasn't sure where i fit in i didn't know what i wanted to do i got approached by a woman she approached me and my my mother actually and she said hey would your son be interested in taking some pictures i was working at a fruit market at the time you know i was making i don't know this is i would say maybe three hundred dollars a week something like that. And I, you know, this woman approached me, hey, Jacks, would you be interesting in the pictures? I think you look good for this. And I really, I was like, no, I'm not doing that.

This is not for me. No, no, no, no. Anyway, so my mom was like, the Oriol work on him. I didn't know that. She talked to the woman on the side. She worked on me after a while. And then the woman again approached you, hey, listen, we want to offer you X amount of dollars. And at the time it was for Kmart. And it was like, $5 or $600. And I was like, that's a lot of money. because I was only making $300 a week and you're going to give me $500 for three hours of my time to do the weekly Kmart ads that come out in the newspaper. So I was like, okay, let me try that. So I tried it, you know, and then I was getting booked again, again, and then other companies,

coals and all these other companies. I'm like, this is great. So I did as much as I could do in Michigan, kind of just, you know, bled that state dry, and I decided to go on to the next state, which was Chicago. So basically modeling was kind of like, I was explaining this earlier. It's kind of like baseball. You got to go through the A, AA, AAA, AAA before you get to the pros.

So these states, Chicago, is kind of like AA ball. Then you go to Miami. That's AA. Then you go to New York, which is, New York is like the pros. But you've got to hit all these other places first before you go to New York to build your book. Now, today's a little different, you know, because of social media and because things are just

a lot quicker now. But in those days, you had to go do ads in different countries and different places to build a good portfolio before you went to the mecca, which was New York City. So you get to New York City, you hit the mecca. Let me ask you this. Your worst year,

from a financial standpoint modeling your best year. What do those numbers look like? Man, the worst year, I mean, I wasn't really making a lot. And in those days, too, there's no union in modeling at all. So, and they take, you know, depending where you go, they can take up to 40% of your money. The agencies. The agencies.

And they can pay you whenever they want. It's not like you get paid every Friday. They can take up to 90 days, 120 days to pay you. So was I making a lot of money? Absolutely. But I was never getting paid, so I was always behind. So, yeah, I would do a job, for instance, It's maybe a job for $1,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 or whatever.

But they would take up to six months to a year to pay me. So I was always behind on my bills because I was waiting for checks all the time. So I was never really ahead of the game. Yeah. I remember, I have like, I think about where I am now. I had that one moment where I was in a financial situation for the first time ever. I was able to like put my card down and pay for the tab. When you think about this time in your life based on where you are today, do you have any

memories of either like, holy shit, if I pay for this. I'm going to have no money left. I would say every day up until I got on Vanderpumper rules. You were paycheck to paycheck. Oh, yeah. I wasn't, I was over-draft king, man. I was just like, I just prayed in my mailbox that I didn't overdraft. And sure enough, I mean, the amount of times I over drafted and knew I was at a bar or restaurant

knowing I was going to overdraft, but you felt stupid if you didn't put your card down, you know, and I was going out places and knowing that I couldn't afford it. But I didn't have a choice. If I needed to be in this crowd, I had to be out. I had to do this. And at those times, there were different times, you know, so you had to do what you had to do to be around certain places. And, yeah, if I didn't have the money, I had to figure out how to get it and I'll just figure it out later, you know, and later was the overdraft notices, which you'd have

to pay double if you remember how those worked. Oh, yeah. But yeah, it was a struggle. It was mainly a struggle. And, you know, L.A. is a type where you just, you have to hustle here. You have to have your hands in 10 different pots. You still do just to make it here because, you know, it's so expensive, you know, and you can't have a normal job here if you're in the entertainment industry because normal jobs are 9 to 5. Well, my auditions were 9 to 5. So what am I going to do? I can't work a retail store. I can't work a real job. I have to get a bartending job. I start off actually with Ryan's wife. She has a company called 200 proof, which she would have, you know, guys and girls going to different events, parties, Paramount, Sony, whatever. She would hire, she would staff parties.

It was a staffing agency. So I would work that because it worked out where I can work the nights in that way to save my days for auditions okay what year was that 2004 because i was her second employee she's a huge company now she has hundreds of people now she's been around forever but i was there when she started the company me and my other buddy alan joban who's now a ufc commentator we were her first two employees okay so i asked and tom sandevall and tom schwartz too they were all we all worked with moni oh holy shit i had no idea that's a full circle moment that's how i met them that's how you met in 2004 yes i didn't i knew mony but was my girlfriend at the time Yeah.

He started in 2010. That's what I met Jackson, the whole crew. And they had all been working then for your now wife. Well, what happened was, yes, we were all working for Moni. And then Ryan, obviously, manager, Moni was like, listen, I know you guys are all about to get on this show. I'm jumping ahead a little bit. You're going to need some management.

So she's like, hey, why don't you meet my, was a boyfriend at time? Yeah, boyfriend. So we all met, I think Ryan, we all met you at Belmont, I want to say. Coachella in 2010. Oh, yeah, Coachella. It was all different times. But anyway, his wife, because we were working for her, brought introduced us to Ryan. and that's how it all we got it i want to ask you this modeling give me a high level do you think in

this time frame but for vanderpump you ever made over a hundred k oh total maybe in my whole modeling career oh okay no i think totally i've done it i did it for i want to say strong for 10 years and then when i did it you i remember you know you didn't have to make that much money to live like now it's different you know so 10 000 dollars lasted me a long time because it was a different time you know I think overall, not that much. I would say maybe between the 10 years, maybe between 2 and 300,000, not much at all. Enough to live, enough to survive, enough to travel, enough to live a great life. But again, because I was always behind and there was no structured payment in modeling,

there was no union. I was always behind. So I always had to have other income coming in to pay for my bills until I got my other checks. But I don't regret it at all. I was with the best agency in the world, the number one modeling agency in the world. So I was with Ford. and you can't get any better than that. And in the modeling industry for guys,

I mean, there's maybe five to ten guys in the world that are making millions of dollars, maybe five to ten. There was the Marcus Schenkenberg at the time, Tyson Beckford. There was, like those were the top two, like when I was. That was it. Male modeling wasn't, there wasn't,

it wasn't a full industry like the females were. Females was a, every girl was making a ton. Guys were always just the backdrop. We're always the guy holding the hand or whatever in those days. So there was not like every model that I know, even the big ones always had other jobs. Yeah.

You couldn't solely do it unless you were the Marcus Schenkeberger or the Tyson backfords, really. Okay, here's the interesting thing when I think about career navigation. We've had people come on this podcast that are billionaires. We've had people, sharks from Shark Tank, we've had all different people. They all have a story similar to yours where they did something that most people in their life told them not to do. Yeah. What I'm going to tell you that's much different is they did that for about a year, two years. Maybe Ryan Sirhan for a million dollar listing, did it for three and went broke.

You were doing this for 10 years plus before you made it. Yeah. And you got dad knocking on your door saying, what are you doing? Did you ever at any point say to yourself, enough's enough? Yeah. I probably need to go back to Michigan and start working for the car factory. It's a funny story. So I'll get into that.

So I kind of went through right before Vanderpump. I want to say two or three months before Vanderpump started. I said enough's enough. I packed up my truck. My dad actually called me. He's like, are you done jerking off? You done? Like, when are you going to come home?

When are you going to get a job? You know, that's the time where I was bartending. I wasn't, I was shifting again. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I didn't really want a model anymore. I was done. I was bartending at Sir. That's how I started Sir because I was dating Stasi at the time.

But I didn't know what I wanted to do. So in the meantime, until I figured it out, I got a job at Sir. I was dating Stasi. She's like, why don't you pick up some shifts here until you figure out what you want to do? So I started doing that. And then my dad was just like, why don't you come home? I go, dad, listen, I got no money to my name. He said, listen, I'll give you $1,000, pack up your truck, get your ass home.

I said, okay, I'll do that. So I'm going to probably skip some things here, but I did that. I did what he said. As soon as I packed up the car, like soon as I packed up my truck and all this stuff, I get a phone call from Lisa Vanderpump. Literally, my truck's packed, mind you. My GMC pickup truck with, I think I had $500 in my bank account at the time, something like that.

I'm heading back to Florida. So you're done. I'm done. I'm going to, I'm like, you know what? I really want to be a firefighter. That's what I'm going to do. So I'm going to go to Florida. I had some family and friends that were in the fire figuring that were kind of got,

we're going to get me in. I'm a very hands-on guy. I'm not a pencil pusher. I'm not a suit and tie guy. I like to work. So I thought this would be a good job. I can do the school. I'm athletic.

I can, you know. So anyway, that was my plan. Lisa Vanderpump gives me a call. We have this idea for a show. All you and your friends there at work at Sir, there's something there. There's a dynamic there. There's a lot of chaos there.

There's a soap opera there. I have this idea of filming you guys and your dramatics. I'm not quite sure, but we want to put you on film and see where it goes. Now, I've been promised everything under the sun up to this point. I was, you know, commercials, yeah, you got this, you got this, letdown, let down. It's just constant letdown. 95% of everything you do out here is a letdown, you know, you get very few things. So it's constant rejection out here.

Just rejection, it's rejection. And I had enough. I just, I really had enough of rejection. And so again, when I heard this, I was like, God, I've heard this too. I'm like, oh, here we go. The truck's all packed up. Someone's offered me a job. I'm like, here we go.

I'm like, okay, I'll see it through. I'm going to see it through. Even though I promised my dad, I would be on the road by Thursday. This pilot shot was for Friday. I'm like, fuck, I'm going to have to lie to my dad. I'm like, okay, I'll make it work. What day did Lisa call you? It was like a Monday.

It was a Monday. And I was planning on leaving on a Thursday. The pilot we were shooting, I had to go to Burbank for this in the studio. Like, hey, we want to put you on film was Friday. And I was like, fuck, I was my dad already. I'm like, okay, I'll figure it out. I'll get around it. I go, what's one more?

I'm not going to get it anyway. Whatever. Let's just do one more. Thank God I did. And, well, the rest is really history after that. The rest is history, but you got your bags packed. You're ready to- Trucks packed.

Trucks packed. I mean, the timing there. It's unbelievable. Timing, like coincidence, fate. I don't, I mean, when you- If I would have left a week earlier, a month sooner, or, I mean, there's so many things that could have happened. But I like to think somebody upstairs saw the freaking hell I've been through for 10 years of

grinding and grinding and grinding and, you know, two steps forward. 10 steps back. I like to say that someone saw something up there and said, you know what, we're going to give Jacks's break here. Someone upstairs said something. I just feel like it because the timing and how that worked out was, I mean, it's almost, it's just crazy. It's crazy. It's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine. You're talking about 500 plus weeks in the industry. You're talking about 3,500 plus days in the industry. Your borderline broke. Dad says come home. And literally within three days, all this comes together. You shoot the pilot. it, though. From a business perspective, you don't know what's going to happen. So are you still

floating? And so you almost go back again before you actually got the deal? Because that's a long turnaround. It is long turnaround. But I totally, so listen, I have my bags packed. I'm ready to go. And she's like, no, you can't. I promise you this. What can I do to make you stay? Or what can I do? Or how give you, you know, you can make more money here? What can I do? I just, she was just very, she knew that the show was going to hit. I didn't know anything about that. I was just kind of like she's just, I'm just staying here extra long. I'm going to piss off my dad. I made a promise to my dad. I'm not on the road yet.

I'm still here. I'm still lying to him and saying, Dad, I couldn't go because of this and whatever reasons. I was lying to my dad. Like, I can't leave yet.

I have some loose ends. I have to tie up still. Meanwhile, I was just trying to prolong the finger out when this pilot got picked up. So then the pilot gets picked up. And then I was like, oh my God,

okay, this is, this is going to happen. Mind you, I'm in severe debt at this point. Like severe. I mean, I was bleeding with my credit cards.

We're bleeding. I was living paycheck to paycheck. My Stasianized relationship was just ending. So, like, it was just, mind me, my truck's packed. I got nowhere to live. I'm couch surfing. My credit cards are bleeding.

I'm told that I'm going to get this show by Lisa. She's swearing it this is going to happen, but it's not for sure. I'm like, what the fuck do I do? I don't know what to do here. And I'm just like, I just got to go with my gut. I'm just going to wing it out. It's couch surf for a couple more weeks. And, yeah, so the show gets picked up.

Like I said, I'm broke as hell. All in the first year, I would say the first. first season, all my money went just to pay off my debt. I had a lot of it. How long did it take you to get on your feet and to make more in 10 years of modeling just within social media and everything after the show premieres? Like a few years, a couple years, is it immediate? Remember, there was no social media. There was no social media. Good point. There was no brand deals. So you make money, and we're going to be very careful with what we talk about money on Vanderpump, just so you know, and everybody from Bravo's listening. But the only way to mom,

monetize then is, of course, the show. Right. And then what? Appearances? Yeah. Well, those were very few and far between two because now, again, appearances were new thing too as well. It's obviously a big thing now.

But when the show started, we're like, how can we monetize this? How can we make more money? Because the first season of Vanderpub, I'm going to tell you right now, we didn't make a ton of money. Yeah. We didn't. You know? And like I said, every check that I made went to my credit cards, went to pay off shit.

I was just trying to pay off, pay off because I had creditors calling me, blowing up my phone every day. You know, I don't know if you know what it's like. when you're down and everybody's calling you for their money, right? So I just wanted to get them off my back. So we had other ways we had to make money. So appearances, we would go to Vegas and then we would, you know, they would fly us all in and give us like $1,000.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. He's right. We had to get ourselves there. They would, you know, and then give us a $1,000 like a per cast member, which is nothing now. But at the time, $1,000, we're like, great.

So I had to like do that. We would have to do appearances and then whatever social, like, Social media was just starting to come. It was just starting. But it wasn't on analytics. It was on your followers. So no matter, they just saw you had a ton of followers and be like, okay, here's X amount of dollars.

Here you go. Now it's a little different. Yeah. Ryan, maybe you could speak to this too. At that time, like once social media was adopted, we talk a lot on this show about what people think on social media. It doesn't have to be Jack specifically, but were rates higher, lower? Like, what were people paid back when social media just started for like a post when

they're on a relevant show? It just depended on your following. Okay. They didn't look deep into the analytics. They basically said you have 150,000 followers. Here's the rate. Okay. Got it.

And there was no, you know, there was no proof of. But was it big money or was it like, no, we're just entering. Here's a thousand bucks. A couple thousand. Okay. So it was much smaller than it was. Because it was a new thing too. Everybody was going towards the social media route now to market.

They were not doing the other things now. They were putting all their money into social media. But they couldn't figure out until what? The last, I would probably have four years. four years was the analytics the formula part of it well they need the their ROI yeah right at that point they was just throwing money out and see who would stick and a lot of these brands went out of business because they were overpaying just overpaying but they didn't know they just were thought okay this guy's got X amount of followers he's probably seen this much traffic they would just dump that much

money they didn't know you know okay my heart wants to go right into van der pump my head wants to think about our listeners back home you were in a shit ton of credit card debt I can't pass this Do you have a trading secret for anyone back home that's listening this? They might be in credit card debt. They're stuck. Any advice of maybe how to get out of it or thoughts on just the overall idea of credit card debt? Now, if you can't pay your credit card off every month, then I don't use your credit card.

I try to pay cash for everything. You know, I'm fortunate now where I can pay my credit card off now, so it's benefits to me because I like my points and my things like that. So I use my credit card now for everything. I don't even ever use cash because I do pay it off every month. So I'm winning. I'm beating the credit card system. but I'm getting my points.

I'm getting my miles. I'm getting all that stuff. But I suggest if you're starting out, stay away from credit cards. If you can't pay cash for things, again, I'm old school. My dad paid cash for everything. My grandfather paid cash for everything. We were old school mentality. But if I don't know, the young generation now, I don't know if I think getting in debt

is just a normal thing. Yeah. I mean, everybody's in debt when they come out here. I mean, you see it all. I mean, we're going to talk a little about social media and your business behind that, but we see it on social media, like keeping up with the Joneses, everyone's spending money. You have to.

Like, if you want to put yourself in certain circles, you're going to have to spend. Right. And then you'll figure it out later. That's the mentality out here is like, I need to get to that party. The only way I'm going to get to that party is if I have a $1,000 suit on this, I got to drive this car, whatever. I'll make it happen. We'll figure it out later. That's their mentality out here.

But then by the time you figure it out later, you're so behind. And then the interest rates are so damn high. You're just, you're swimming. Okay. Let me bring it back to you. That's the mentality. Spend and you'll be in the right places here. You did that.

When you ended up with Stasi and working at Sir, do you think it was that approach? Was it you had to spend to finally meet Stasi to then get the Sir? Or was it not that case at all? No, no. In those days, it didn't matter because I was already dating her and I was at the time. So before then, I would just, no, because I was doing the modeling thing. So I got invited to certain parties and the ones I didn't get in it, I was sneaking. Yeah.

Yeah. I was sneaking. I would steal people's drinks because I couldn't afford drinks. Yeah. So I'd wait until whatever, go to a table and just lift a drink. or whatever like that. And that's what I would do. I do whatever I can to fit into these parties.

If I had to sneak in, if I had to pretend I was an employee, if I had to, you know, grab a drink off a table that wasn't mine, whatever you had to do. That's why I ask, because I think that when we spend and people at home,

they think they have to spend for a certain reason. You had mentioned you thought you had to spend to get in certain places, but really it was like the grit and grind that got you into those places that ended up making you are what you are now. And I think for people back home,

if you think you have to spend and you're in a tough position to do it, don't do it. Let's go back to Vanderpump. You start in 2013, eight seasons, 165 episodes. What year was it for you and your life that you're like, holy shit, financially, I did it. I did it. For me, I think it was like season three.

Three started season two. Yeah, the end of season two and three, beginning of three. Okay. From then on, I was like, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. But within that time frame, season three on and even early on, you had massive. setbacks, you had lefts, you had rights, you had all these things happening in your

personal world. How did those things impact actual monetization of things and in your business world? Well, I didn't really, I didn't really get into the business world until after I left the show, to be honest. Interesting. At the beginning, I was just kind of riding the train, riding the wave, riding whatever it is. We were so busy with the show. And those days, too, when those beginning days, we were shooting 20-something episodes. We were constantly filming. And when we weren't filming, we needed the downtime for just my mental health. you know because there was just so much going on the show was so popular so fast we were very new of that kind of reality show was the very first one of that time now there's tons of shows on bravo but

at that time we were a very new show where there's nothing like ours so we were very popular very fast so yeah the money was coming in and because we were getting more episodes they were paying us more but it was it was it was grueling it was you know there was a lot of stuff going you got to remember too i was like a kid in a candy store you got remember i was grinding my whole time in california and then all of a sudden Here's the lottery ticket. Now, make sure you keep your head on straight, but I've been keeping my head on straight for so long and grinding and trying to figure out things that I finally could be like, I can kick back a little bit.

I can spend a little bit more here. I can spend a little bit more here. And, you know, I definitely got myself into some trouble here and there. But, you know, it's just normal at the time. I was a lot younger, a lot naive. I didn't really care. I didn't really think about the repercussions of certain things, you know, untouchable a little bit, you can say.

Yeah. What do you think like the most outrageous things? that you purchased was in this time of like I went from nothing to something. I got all this money. I'm going to live. I had six sports cars. Did you go back into debt? I just, no, I didn't go back into debt. I was fine. Yeah. No, I was just like, I was paying cash for all of them. It was just, yeah. I lived in an apartment with two parking spaces and I had to rent out all the other parking space. Like I was buying other people's parking. It's stupid. Just stupid. Unbelievable. I love it. I mean, it's interesting to hear all that.

Let's go back to some of your rock bottom moments, though. No, sorry, not six. I had four and a golf cart. Sorry, I don't know why I said six. All right. You're doing the back down. Sorry, five and a golf cart. Give me the numbers show a little bit.

Five and a golf cart. What do you think the total value of those cars were? I don't know. Take a shot. Half million? Yeah. Yeah. That's probably right.

Yeah. From paying off credit card to a half million and paying off. That is a beautiful turnaround. I want to talk about another. So what's interesting, Jacks, is you lived life of it feels like a roller coaster like you're in the rock pits of like packing up and going home and then boom bander pump and then you get this opportunity you're making all this money five cars and then we've seen some of the the setbacks you've had you've hit rock bottom again yeah what's your

secret for digging yourself out of rock bottom how do you do it got i have a strong partner i have a good wife i think my wife is the one who bailed me out i mean as as you're talking about after i left the show or even during the show. Oh. And stuff. Like, oh, there are so many points in your life, you hit rock bottom. Yeah.

But you bounce back up. Most people don't bounce back up. And I'm wondering, what is it about Jack's Taylor? That not only can you bounce back up, but you use it as like a cannibal. I just don't allow myself. I get, I get upset. I'll get depressed for a little while. And then I'll say, you know what?

Enough. And stop feeling sorry for yourself. You need to bounce back. I can be resilient. And I, and that's just what I did. I know I can fix these problems. I get into a hole sometimes. I'll get to a hole mentally, physically, emotionally.

And then I'll just realize, listen, you got to get yourself out of it. You got yourself into this. We'll make this work. We'll fix it. We live in a world where you do something bad. People forget about it in a couple weeks. So that's just what I was going through. I'm like, well, if I mess up, and people forget about it a couple weeks.

I just got to stay quiet. But it was tough because everything I was doing was under a microscope. So I would get nailed for certain things here and there. And I'd be like, damn it, damn it, you know? Like, it was tough. It was tough. There was times where I was just like, I'm just over this all. I can't, like, so tired of like people just watch.

every little move that I do and every little move that I make and people are sitting outside my apartment waiting not only paparazzi but fans would figure out where I live and they would just sit outside it was just getting a lot it was getting a lot it was just he was driving my mental health crazy and you know there was times where I needed help I had to ask you know Ryan like there's not many people I could trust at that time either you can't trust anybody out here so there's very few my publicist my manager my wife you know maybe a handful of my friends maybe but that's it Yeah, that's it. And everybody's coming for you at this time, mind you. Like, as I'm on top of the world here, I'm on one of the biggest rich shows, if not the biggest show at that time, making tons of money. Everybody wants a PCU, you know, four years earlier, nobody wanted to even look at me except for the credit card companies. Now credit card companies, hey, we want you back. And here's this and here's that. And here's, you know, we'll offer you this. Oh, now everybody wants to be my friend again. So it goes to the highs and then the lows where nobody wants to talk to you again, like where I get in a hole where nobody wants to be around you. So as far as you, you your mental health goes, it's, it's crazy. A lot of ups and a lot of downs. Yeah, I think one thing

I'm taking away, too, is I think about your story. You relied on Ryan and the people you trusted. When you really turn things around with Brittany, it was Britney. So it feels to me as though the big takeaway there is one, ask for help. And two, the people that come into your life that are a light, like hold on to those people as hard as you can because those are the people that are going to bring you to the top. Like, to me, that's a big takeaway. I do want to ask you, though business perspective. L.A. is everything you've said it is. And of course it has its upside. But you also see from a business perspective, a lot of people will cling on to you when you're up. Right. A lot of people will drop your ass when you're down. Were there any like business

stories, relationships, things you think about that when you were on your down, some of the business partners or people that you thought were in your corner totally left you and what's your learning lesson from that. Now, when I left the show, there was a lot of confusion on on how I departed from the show. Whether was I canceled, was I fired, did I go on my own? People were really unsure. And at that time, it was a very scary time for the whole world. We were going through lots of changes. We had COVID. We had just a gigantic movement. There was, you know, just a lot going on. And, you know, people were diving into, I was kind of in the same circle as a couple other cast members that were canceled. And there was no, it was a very

foggy situation for a certain people. They were like, was he canceled? Was he not? So I was looped in. So I was shunned. And at that time, I don't remember, everybody that was getting in trouble, there was people getting fired left and right all over the world. Companies wanted nothing to do with certain people. I mean, you could, if you cross the street without looking, you got fired. It was just a very, very scary time. Well, I was looped into that. And, you know, I went from having it all to losing a lot. I lost a lot of clients. I lost a lot of business deals because nobody wanted to come near me because I was looped into that circle of that cancel culture circle. Now, was I canceled?

No, I was not. But I was looped in. So, you know, just like, I don't want to say, well, yeah, that's pretty much what I want to say about that. I think that's the best way to put it. And it's the best way to clear it up. And like I said, and I don't blame anybody, it was a scary time. We were going, the whole country, the whole world was going through a really, really scary time. Yeah.

not just me so i'm not trying to be selfish or anybody everybody was going through it but it was tough it was tough not only did i you know i lost my job my wife was pregnant i had a mortgage you know there was just everything was coming down like how am i going to fix this what am i going to do at the same time though when i did leave the show i was happy i was happy for a while for like the first two months i was like you know what i'm glad i needed this break i was very fortunate to be on that show for as long as i was but mentally i think physically and emotionally i needed a break I think, oh, like towards the end of the last two seasons, the last two seasons I filmed,

I was just getting exhausted mentally. And I feel like I was just, I was always kind of like the scapegoat on that show a lot. Like I was the guy that they always came after. I kind of, yeah, I was the old, I overshadowed everybody else's flaws. So no matter what they all did, it would always come back on me for some reason.

Yeah. And I was always the one that they can just go to and be like, oh, we'll just blame it on Jacks or we'll just go after Jackson. So it took a toll on me for a while. No matter what anybody else did, no matter. And they all did the same exact things that I did, believe it or not. Nobody realizes that. Everybody in the show is cheated. Everybody on the show has done something stupid. But for some reason, we're just going to hone in on what Jacks does. Jack, you know, the world's a blessing

of the curse. The world's a better place when I'm on TV. Exactly. It is. And I'm happy to say that now. But I definitely needed that break. And I think, again, I look upstairs. I think my dad was looking down on me and saying, you know what, he needs this break. He needs to humble himself a little bit, take a piece of humble pie because I definitely needed it. My ego was getting in the way. big time and I needed just to set back a little bit yeah and kind of just reflect and regroup hit rock bottom I strongly think you need to hit rock bottom before you can make your rise to the top because you need to know what that's like to be at the bottom so you never get there again well it's interesting point is in I think it was 2021 I believe you did an interview with Joe buck I listened to

one of the quotes you said was I'm very fortunate to be on the show like the show made me but it took a toll on my mental health when I see that quote and I hear what you're saying now and I know it's and we're going to see you back on those big screens from a business perspective and strategy like what made you want to come back. I missed it. I just, I'm not good at a lot of things. Being on reality TV is one of them. And I enjoy it. I'm just good at it. I'm good at it. And I really enjoy it. But I just think that I was just, and like anything else, you just after doing something for so long, it was almost a decade of my life. You know, I needed a little bit of a break. I just needed a pause. And I think I wish the pause could have

been a little bit different, different the way it came out, but it was what it was. But I think after, you know, stepping back for two years and just missing it a little bit and realizing, you know what, I want to come back, but I want to do it differently. I want to humble myself a little bit. I want to take a different perspective. I want to look at this through a different perspective. I want to, I want to come at it a different way now. The old guy doesn't exist anymore. The old Jacks is not around. I got a new guy here that I want to put back on TV that I think that people will enjoy, that people want to see where I've been for the last couple years, what I've been up to. I got married. I had a baby. You know, my son's two and a half now.

There's just a lot going on. And I have a different group of friends now that we're all in the same, same boat. And I just think there's a story to tell there. Yeah. Personally, things have changed for you dramatically. It's amazing to see what a father and partner you are today. It's unbelievable. I want to talk about those four years, though. You've been off the show. You had said it yourself, business stuff came after the show. So obviously your top revenue generator for you was the show when you're not. When you're off, I'm off. I've heard you talk about some things. Like, I've even heard you say things about, like, you crush it on cameo and stuff like that.

Yeah. Let's just talk. Like, what were other sources of revenue that you were able to get going during this time period? And, I mean, I already said cameo. So, like, how on cameo did you do? Could you make a couple bucks? Can I talk about that? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm around the $400,000. Just off cameos, eh? That's, like, top up there. How much do you charge per video? 100 bucks. Damn. So you're pumping out a lot of those.

thing. All right. So KMEL 400K, that's great. What are other ways that you could generate revenue? Social media content. You know, the brands were starting to come back. You know, they saw that like, you know, that I hit my rock bottom, that I was apologetic and there was that sincerity there and, you know, that I wanted to change my life around and that people see me, that I am a good father, that I am a good person, that I just made a mistake. You know, I was hanging around the wrong people. People make mistakes, you know, but everybody likes a good comeback story. And that's what I wanted. And I just, like I said, I'm a different person than I used to be.

You know, I'm a lot. I think, just like I took a piece of humble pie after all that. So I just, I'm a little appreciative of things. I'm happy to be where I'm at right now. I think I'm at, I'm back to where I want to be. Like I started this project mine a couple years ago and I'm back now where I want to be. I got my accounts back to where they need to be. My life is where it needs to be.

I got great relationships with not only my friends, my family, with other businesses. It took some time to get to this point, but I had to hit the rock bottom. And I think it's, it's really important for people to hit that, that low point. You know, they can hit low point, but you got to hit the rock bottom. You got to get to the point where you're like, I don't think I can get any lower. And then it's like, and then it's a goal to get to the top again. And then to stay at the top. Yeah.

It's a lot easier to get there, but then you've got to stay there. Yeah. And that's hard. Especially for people like myself and the other cast members on the show, we are looked at under a microscope. Whatever we do, anything we do. If I go to the gas station and, you know, I get. caught. I just always have to be very, very aware of everything that I'm doing because people just love to bring you down. People at the top, they want to come after you. When people ask me about

my show and they say, give me the one common denominator, whether it's Gary V, Arod, Gronk, Sergio, athletes, McLemore, any of these people, the one common denominator. And it's consistent. Every one of them fucked up. Every one of them hit the lowest of lows. But they just found ways to either implement like change everything and either create a business from their low uses a launch pad where i think most people in this world hit the low and they can't get out of it we're all human beings okay we all fuck up we all make mistakes the only differences is that we are on television on radio whatever so we're under a microscope everybody everything that we've done so is half the whole world the world's everyone's messed up nobody in this world's perfect again we are under

a microscope so you know and then you're out especially living in hollywood and you're You got fame and, you know, you're trying to be perfect, but there's temptation, you know, and you slip up. It happens. It happens. As long as you're aware of it, you apologize for making those mistakes and you move on and you learn from it. Now, if you keep repeating these, then, well, you deserve it.

Then you deserve it. You got to learn from it. You're someone that did. I want to ask you a little bit about this. You had said there's this famous and Vanderpump, famous, like, scene where you said to Tom, I'm the number one guy in the group, right? I'm sure you remember that. Right. Like we're both the guys. I'm the number one guy.

Right. When you think about your success, do you think there's anything that connects to that scene, like either with your confidence, determination, or just even having the chops to be like, I'm the guy that's got you to where you are? And do you think people back home need to have that. Yeah. If you're going to come out here, you do. You'll get eaten alive, spit out here. It's just like the song, blinded by the light.

Like you really, really have, if you're going to come out here, Is that, it's that you're asking, like, if you're going to come out here and you're going to be in the entertainment world, you better have a bank account, first of all. You better have some money in the bank. And you've got to have some grit. You've got to be able to take a beating. I mean, when I say a beating, if you're coming out here to L.A. and getting the entertainment industry, you've got to be prepared to take a serious, serious beating.

It's just the way it is. And, you know, I've done that. I've taken many, many beatings. But I learn from them. You're going to have to learn with them. It's just, yeah, it's just the way this way, this way, works. It's a shitty industry, man. It's a tough industry. It's a hard industry. It can be fun. It can be fun, but it can be also very, very scary. Do you think you made most of your money during the show,

you took the time off to find yourself in this industry? Going back to TV, do you think now the businesses and the social media revenue you're generating will be more than you'll make on TV since all the change you've made? Or do you think TV money will be more than what you've been able to create? It depends. Alternative revenues. the goal to pay for everything. Yeah. You know, bank your, bank your show money and your bills and your overhead on the alternative revenue.

That's the goal. And I've learned my lesson because I've never wanted to get to where I was couch surfing ever again. So now I have a plan A, B, and C, and I don't touch certain accounts. And I'm very, very, very frugal with my money. I don't have any debt other than my mortgage. You know, I make sure everything I pay off. And I have a son now.

So I'm not just responsible for myself and my wife. I'm responsible for my child. We got private school. We got health insurance. We got all kinds of stuff, especially living out in California, you know it's not cheap. Now it's tough for me just to go out and spend because now I'm responsible for so many people. But I strongly suggest if you were going to come out here, man, just save your money. Save your money.

It's like because as soon as you land at that airport, man, they got you. Yeah. They got you. I think in 2024 it's a lot different than when they started. Yeah, it's a different. It is. So many ways to monetize your celebrity today. Right.

First then. I mean, you guys were really gritting it out. I wish I could live somewhere else and do what I do. I wish. I want to be out of California so bad. Think about it. You couldn't start a podcast 10 years ago. Sure. You couldn't start a birch line. You couldn't really invest in companies because you didn't have the capital or the access to do it. Yeah. And you have to this day. Like I have to have a merch line. I have to have a bar. I have to have a book coming out. I have to have a podcast. I have to have a show because like I said, they don't make it easy here in California. They they almost try to make it. it impossible for you to start a business or be successful. It's like California doesn't want you to be happy. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's the whole, yeah, the way it's set up is a very

big challenge in California. That's why we've seen a lot of people. Bounce. But you, you did stay here. You did start a business here. I want to give you an opportunity. Tell people if they come to visit L.A. a little bit about your restaurant. Well, I have a bar called Jackson's and Studio City, which I was very fortunate enough to get. It's, I got great partners. My partner's own bars called Rockos, which are a bunch of them all over the city. So I'm their partner. We have a restaurant that sits next to one of the Rockos venues in Studio City. And yeah, they came to a buddy of mine, my buddy Dave, and they approached him. They're like, hey, would Jacks be, we have this space. We have an open space here. We want to do something here. We own the land, which is awesome,

by the way. I have a partners that own the land. I don't have to pay rent, which is really nice. They said, we have this space. We don't know what to do with it. We love Jacks. Would he be interested in maybe opening a bar with us and you know they came to me Dave came to me and I'm like this is a dream. This is what guy doesn't want to own a sports bar. Yeah. You know like so we had a couple meetings and you know through some numbers together and it just made sense. It was almost just almost too easy. I was like I was almost looking like where's the camera. This is a joke because this is like you're coming to me offering me this and I don't have to put any of my own money in and it was just the power of your brand man. The power of the brand. And it just and it saw. And it saw.

and it made me feel good like, okay, I'm doing the right thing because I thought in other aspects of my life, if I keep doing the right thing, things will come. Things will come. You know, I was doing good, just being a good father, just doing the, making good choices. Like I have it on my arm. I know. My dad used to say this all the time to me, no matter what, I did make good choices. My grandfather used to say it. My day used to sign Christmas cards, make good choices to me and my sister. So just, I was just making the choices that I needed that were good, everything in my life, doing the right thing. And I'm like, if I just keep doing the right thing, because I was, I was the guy who cut corners, always cut corners. like worm on rounders. I was just, I'd always look for the edge. I was just, I'd always look for the edge.

Yeah. Always looking for the edge. How can I beat the system? How can I, you know, scam? I mean, look at, I didn't go to college in this. I was always looking to beat the system. Not just do the right thing and do. I was always looking for a cheat. And you've seen more financial and business success since you got away with that strategy. 100%. Doing the right thing. I'm finally listening to my father after all these years. And now it's become beneficial to me. I love you. You know, because people will cheat. And you will get away with it a couple times. But you're going to burned more times than not. I always say dead bodies float to the surface. The truth always surfaces. Let me ask you this too. Things are moving in your direction in all ways. Your family,

you'll be back on Vanderpump. You got the restaurant. Another thing that we now know, because when this podcast was released, it just came out. You got another show coming on. Yeah. So how this came about was a couple years ago. This is kind of when I was off the show and this is when I'm starting to get the itch. And I'm like, you know what? I miss being on TV. I'm seeing that, you know, COVID was ending. Banner Pump was going back on the the air. I'm like, there's something to be told here. Like, I, I have a huge fan base. People are still reaching out to me. We want you back. We want you back. I'm like, there's something here. So it was a rainy cold night. We got on a Friday night. And I called up a guy who runs evolution.

Mr. Baskin. I say, hey, listen, I got an idea. Can I meet you? He's like, sure. Yeah, let's meet at a hotel. It was like I said, it was a cold, wintry night around this time a couple years ago. So I sat down. We sat in the lobby hotel and I go, I have an idea. I go, I'm ready to come back to TV first. I'm ready to come back. I think there's a lot. I think there's a place for me. I think that I just think that there's something there. And he agreed. He agreed right. I go, you know, I have a huge fan base that's followed me for the last decade. I got married and I had a kid and no one's seen any of that. And people are saying, what's going on? And people love following me on social media. And I just thought, this is a good time. I think enough time has

passed. I think wounds have healed. I think we've all grown. We've all learned. We've all taken a piece of like humble pie. And I think I can come back to TV and be a better person than what I was before and hopefully, you know, make it entertaining as well. Okay. I was going to say, though, usually you're like, you know, you know what your place is on TV. How will this be different? What can we expect with the show? I mean, obviously that villain is always still on my shoulder. He's always going to be there. You know, I have to work very, very hard in life to keep that guy quiet. It's just the way it is. It's just the way it's always been. It's easier for me to, like I said, cut corners than it is to make the right choices. But I have to work hard on that.

And I'm aware of that. And I'm okay with that. But I do things a lot different now. life changed for me when my son was born. It changed a lot for me when I got married, but I think the real kicker was when my son was born. And like, now I cannot F up. Before I was like, I get away with this. I get away with this. Now I can't. And I will never make, you know, any poor decisions again because I have a son. And I just know one day he's going to look back and he's already going to see a lot of flaws in his father. He's already going to see a ton because of the internet, because of whatever, he's going to see a lot of flaws. But he's going to see from as soon as he was born on that I was a good person. I love everything about that.

It's a testament to your entire story, the testament to your career and financial success. And it seems as though as you continue to make these adjustments, you learn faster than the adjustments you have to make. And it has just served you in a huge way. I just have a couple quick rapid fire questions for you. When you look back at 2023, Jackson, can you think of one big financial win, one big financial loss when you look at your year? Oh, my win is that probably being back on the show or I'm sorry back to reality TV it's my big financial win okay my big financial loss probably paying back back taxes maybe that's a good what you know you know what's really nice though is I'm I'm finally after the last two years just ahead of the game with the IRS

I got those bastards off my back it was grueling because there was some times where you know work was tough and times were tough and I just you know I was behind on certain things but it's finally I got those assholes off my back creditors are off your ass, IRS is back, off your ass, no one on your ass anymore. No one's on my ass anymore. And yeah, things are, like I said, just making good choices. I can't stress enough. Do not try to cheat the systems out here because it will, it will get caught and it will haunt you. And you might get away with a couple hands. You might, but in the long run, it will hurt you. I was going to ask you rapid fire the best asset or thing that you ever bought, but I'm going to take a guess at what

it is. I heard on another interview that you had bought your dad a Corvette. Sevent 73. And that was one of the most rewarding purchases. Other than my home, you're right, I thought about that. Yeah, just because just to see, it was one of those things like I just wanted to show my dad that I've done it. You know, I just want to show my dad. Like, what can I do? Because he doesn't see. He doesn't come out here. He's very concerned. He doesn't know what I do. He just assumes that I'm fine. But like, how can I show my dad that like, dad, I don't need you. I got this. And so I bought my dad his favorite car, the one that he had to give up when he found out that he was going to have me. So my dad had to sell his 73 stingray when my mom said he was pregnant. So I found the car. I bought it. And I bought

him a golf car. That's so damn cool. My parents lived in Florida at the time. My father's no longer with us. But at the time, yeah. Yeah, well, that, I mean, good for you. That's amazing. He's looking down on you. And you'll always have his saying tattooed on your arm. Quick rapid fire. Who's better at business? You or Brittany? That's a Ryan question. I take the fifth on that. Financially or? I could. All right. We'll take the fifth on that. Last one I got for. I know that Brittany's mother is a bachelor fan. And this is kind of a two-part question. I know that you're the block guy. That's like your merch line. Like you block people. One, what dictates when and if you block someone? And two, this is just fun for my bachelor audience. Brittany's mother, Bachelor fan favorites,

Bachelor villains. Who would you say they are? Let's first start with blocking. Why do you block people? I just, I don't have patience for people who come after me who don't know who I am who hide behind a keyboard. keyboard warriors just like to come out and they want to be heard so i shut them down and run at the get-go you have just boom block and again it's like you have no idea who i am you're listening to outsources of little things people get tidbits off of these these not even like big medias they're getting things off of just like the bottom of the barrel medias and they're just putting things together and saying something you have no idea they hide behind these eggs or these people with two followers and just to get a little bite so i just it pisses me off i just angry mad so i just block right

off the bat. I don't even mute. I block. Don't deal with trolls. Just mute them. I know other batch. She's a huge bachelor fan. And I know I think she's, gosh, who is she a fan of? That's, she's really into the voice now. She's really big into all those singing shows. She's huge into that. I can't remember the last bachelor that she watched. I think she wasn't in, I don't think she was into the one with the older gentleman. I don't think she got into it. Interesting. But I wish I can answer that for you. But I don't, I don't know. But I know she's a huge fan of it. You're right. I can't keep up with, with there's so many bachelor people. A lot of action. A lot of. action. There's a whole lot of us. Let's end with this. We've got to get a trading secret from

you, Jax, and Ryan, I'm getting one from you. It is a lesson that people can't learn from a professor, a classroom, a TikTok tutorial. They can only learn from your business, financial, and career success. So one trading secret, Jax, what can you leave? I just do your research, do your homework, talk to people, find out what your niche is, you know, figure out what the world needs. Don't just do something just to do it. Do something you enjoy, do something you love. Because at the end of the day, you'll never work a day in your life if you do what you love. But definitely do your research, especially if you're coming to move out here. You're going to move to California. You're like, I got this idea. Save your money. Save, save, save, and be careful who you trust out here.

It's worse now than even when I got here. Everybody's out to get you out here. Everybody. When I say everybody, I mean everybody. Everybody wants a piece of the pie. And then when you do get to that point, they want you even more. So just be careful who you trust. Keep a good solid friend group, you know keep your enemies close you know and they say you what is the saying on that i'll butcher friends close friends close your enemies close that's 100% true because like like i said so just like i said just do your homework and just be passionate about what you do and don't listen to other people stay off so i i stay off social media i just started this year i stay off all that said everybody's muted i only follow a couple things that i enjoy personally but i don't read comments anymore i don't read

any of that because it's all bullshit yeah i like that and then you'll edit yourself to be something you're not i love that right trading secret what could he leave us with i'm going to say no matter what position you are in the entertainment industry whether it's a actor reality star writer producer talent representative you have to have patience it's going to take time there's really rarely overnight successes yeah that's a big one he's tells he tells me this all the time like when i started the new show when i pitched this new show he's like it's going to take time you need patience and patience i can't tell you how many times in the last two years i call him stressed out what am i going to do what am I going to do? He's, first thing you know, I say, patience, patience. And he's right.

It takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. It does not. I love it. Sharing secrets I'm taking away here. Patience. I think, uh, Jack's for you, perseverance. I think not cutting corners, keeping your guard up. And when people are at their lowest lows, like kind of live in it and know that it's going to be a trajectory for what you know. And you never know what people are going through, man. You never know who you're going to run into this town. You never know. So just, you know, be a good person. Be nice to people. you know you'll feel better about yourself i used to be such an asshole to people i was selfish i didn't give a shit about anybody but now you just just be nice to everybody you never know who you're going to and you never know what someone else is going through especially out here it's tough out here it's a

small town too if you're like no one wants to work with an asshole yeah get away with it for a little while but you know people talk and if you're an asshole and you're mean to people you can get pretty blacklisted and even l.a has made jack's taller say go be the nice guy guy. You're the nice guy. Have a little grit, but be a nice guy. But be a nice guy. It'd still be yourself. All right, Jacks, where can everyone find everything you have going on? Well, I'm on Instagram at Mr. Jacks Taylor. Come and check out my bar. Jacks is in Studio City. It's officially open. You can add it to your Vander Crawl. I like to say the Vander Crawl. You can go to Tom's place and you can go to Lisa's and then you save the best for last to go to my bar. We got a children's

book coming out. We got a great podcast. When Reality Hits with Jackson and Brittany out every week. It's doing very well. We have a lot of fun there. and yeah a couple other projects in the works too but yeah that's about it for now absolutely killing it from rock bottom almost heading back to michigan to now absolutely destroying it right where could people find you if they have any question about the industry you want to reach out i am private but i am at revel nine r e veel nine ryan ravell nine guys go check them out jacks thank you so much for being here and honestly i think your story of restarts resurrection to where you are today happily married with a kid and on your way to achieve things you never

have it's fucking awesome so you're an inspiration and thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. Ding, ding, ding, ding. If you've been listening to Trading Secrets before, you know that that's not the normal ding, ding, ding, ding to bring in the recap, it's usually done by the one, the only,

Jason Tardick. But we're doing things a little bit differently today. Not out of by choice, mostly by necessity, and we're going to get into it. Of course, I'm the Curious Canadian, the voice of the viewer coming to you live on every recap for every episode. But we've talked a lot about the podcast for 2024.

We've talked about the year, of being a lot of firsts. And I think we've accomplished a lot of those things. Already, in February, we've done two episodes a week. We've done merch. We have merch live popping up. We got live shows coming at you in the spring. One thing that, you know, maybe wasn't on our bingo card was solo recaps by the Curious

Canadian. And that's just where we are today. Now, we've talked before on JTA about the benefit of when we switch podcast networks to audio boom. And one of those things was flexibility in our recording schedule. We didn't have to get the recaps. or the episodes in by Thursday. We could stretch it out to Sunday, which is where we're at today.

Well, our buddy Jay, he had a wedding this weekend. He was in Lauderdale. He's flying back. He's having some flight issues, and we can't wait any longer. So as any good friend would do, we have each other's back. And so for the first time in Trading Secrets History, the Curious Canadian, the Voice of the Viewer, will be solo recapping the Jack Taylor episode. So bear with me here.

Be nice in the comments. Always rake five stars, no matter how we do today. and we're just going to rip it here. So normally I have Jay's, you know, face to look at. We can, you know, banter off each other. We can work off each other. And I can ask him questions and get his advice. Well, he's not here today.

So I can't get his advice. I can't ask him questions. In fact, I'm sitting in my living room right now, staring on my computer screen. I can't ask anybody questions. So here's what we're going to do today. The recap is just going to be a reflection. I'm always curious.

I listen to the episodes just like, like our viewers, and I say, what am I going to take out of this? What resonates with me? So I'm going to summarize some of the numbers things because we are a numbers podcast. And I love to kind of summarize the numbers that we hear from our guests because I know that's what the people want. I'll give my two cents on that. And then I'm going to really hit on two parts of the episode that really impacted me.

And I hope you listening at home impacted you. So without further ado, we are going to get into the recap of the Jack's Taylor episode. And one of the areas that he talked about in terms of his career that I thought was really interesting that we haven't really had an expert on is the modeling field. And a couple of things that really shocked me were when he talked about, obviously, some of the struggles that he had in his modeling profession before was really just, and sometimes I like thinking about life pre-social media, pre-internet. And it must have been the Wild Wild West in a lot of industries, especially the modeling industry. and to know that his agency was taking up the 40% of all his deals absolutely blew my mind. You know, he talked about how payments took six months to a year to get paid. And he's not working for any rinky dinky modeling.

And she's, like he said, he's working for the top. He's working for the Ford models. So one of those misconceptions, and I would love to know how it is now with some of these, he talked about not being in union. He talked about really being at bay of the agency who booked his gigs. You know, he was able to amass 200 to 300k in his 10 year modeling. career but that also kind of resonated with me too now that we have social media and now we have the internet and we have you know e-commerce and access to so many things i know inflation's gone up a lot

but living with two to three hundred thousand over a decade was possible pre-internet and it's not now an inflation aside i think that that can come from just access to information access to purchasing you know we see everyone doing everything and we want to do everything and we want to do everything that we can because social media brings that into our lives. So, you know, being the curious person myself, I would love to see 200 to 300k when I was, you know, 15 years ago, would I be able to live off that? I definitely think I could now, 200 to 300k now. It'd be harder just because of the means of the lifestyle that we've created for

ourselves, the things we buy, the things we wear, the things we've been accustomed to doing, the Starbucks orders and the, you know, Netflix and the streaming and all those things that really weren't available to us. back in the day are available to us now, which really curb our spending. One of the craziest money statistics that I took away from the show was just how cameo is still a thing.

I've never received a cameo. I wonder what would excite me or who would excite me if I were to receive a cameo from. Maybe Jason Tarticle sent me a cameo on my birthday in next week. I don't know. We'll see. But I think of like, you know,

someone may be like a Justin Bieber or maybe, you know, someone like that would really shock me. But the fact that he's out here, Jacks Taylor slinging 400K on cameo at 100 bucks a cameo, quick math. I don't want to put myself in the hot seat, but is that 4,000 cameos that he's doing per year? He's been off TV for a while,

but he's still hot in the streets with a lot of people wanting cameos. So, you know, it just fascinates me that cameo is able to provide such a big income. He's making more on cameo in one year than he was in a decade for Ford models. Um, you know, he talked about a lot of people on social media buying into his comeback story, which is something that, you know, I want to talk a little bit about in my summary. And one of the things that I felt was a reoccurring theme in this episode was the whole idea of, you know, Jason quoted it and Jacks quoted it. We've had a lot of people on the podcast who have come on who are successful by doing

something that they were told that they shouldn't do. And that just kind of hit me and made me reflect on my own life, right? And if you're listening at home, has there ever been something that has happened really good in your life? Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's career, maybe it's a spontaneous trip that when you think about memories of your life that you've had with your friends, did it start from something where someone in your life said, you shouldn't do this? Could have been a friend, a family member, a coworker? Because we're starting to see so many times on the podcast that happening.

And I can only think of my own life and I'm going to really reflect on Jason's life too. I think of Jason and our experiences together. And I'm like, if I were to kick this to Jason in a recap, what would he say? And I think that he would talk all the time about him getting to his breaking point of, you know, needing to go out and try something. And when he moved to Seattle, there were a lot of people telling him that was the wrong move. Similarly, he had no family in Seattle. He had no friends in Seattle.

He got an opportunity through work that he went for. And going to Seattle led him to a place to have a little bit of independence and a little bit of ownership and what he was going to do and to be honest it led him to a little bit of rock bottom and that experience of him going against what people said and saying no and you shouldn't do this and why you're doing this jay you have a good life here in rochester you shouldn't go out to seattle that led him to this opportunity to be on the show which at the end of the day was his big break so change can be good doing something just because people say that you shouldn't do it sometimes can be good having to get up from rock bottom should be good i mean jack staler

Switched his name from Jason Michael to Jacks Taylor, which if he doesn't make that switch, does he have a modeling career? Like, just little things like that really, really stuck out to me in this episode of, and as you think about this, is there something that you can accredit good in your life to something that maybe people said you shouldn't do? At the end of the day, we make our choices. Life ain't slowing down any time for us. We kind of have to figure out what's important to us.

What do we want in it? If we're not happy in certain areas of our life, or the things that we need to find to kickstart to trigger that to get to where we want to be that's my that's the curious canadian recap we're three years into this just as i was getting comfortable talking to mike to 50,000 of you listening to every episode it is a little easier with your best friend on the other end so this this uh this monologue was definitely new for me i appreciate if you stuck around this long uh for listening to me as always five stars be nice in the in the in the reviews when you're recapping this always smash this to subscribe

button on YouTube. Keep leaving reviews. Like I said, we do truly read all of them if you have any ideas of guests, segments, things you want to see from trading secrets. You got to let us know. Jay, if you're listening to this, I hope you're proud of me. I can't wait to get on the ones and twos and recap with you again next week because next week we're going back to a show that I used to watch religiously. I'm proud to say it even though, you know, I can't believe they're still on our TV. We're going to the Jersey Shore. We got Angelina from what Jay has told me, this is a fiery episode. She brings the energy. She brings the heat. I can't wait for it. I can't wait for 24. We're already doing two episodes a week. We got a live show. We got merch. I'm doing solo

recaps. Pets heads are falling off. I don't know what's going on here, but I'm here for it. So tune in next week for another episode you can't afford to miss. Money. Pay on me. Making that money. Making that money. Living that dream.