From Misguided Youth to Business Guru w/ Jason Skeesick

And I think the difference between those people that either sweep it under the rug or end up not pulling it back out from underneath the rug, it's like how far on the scale are you like not able to keep yourself from taking action on your vision? And so what I say is start small, you get a tiny little win, and then you do that every single day. You do whatever you can control, you get up and you take action towards the thing that you want to build every single day, and you just never stop and eventually you look back and you have a hell of a lot more wins than you have losses. It's just growing monumentally.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendez.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Walk to Wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do yourself a favor and give us a follow, because you're not going to want to miss the amazing guests I have lined up all this year. We haven't missed so far yet and we're not planning on missing anytime soon. Let's get right into this episode. Jason, you're someone that I've been really looking forward to interviewing because you so far helped my 2023 trajectory change a ton. Just from me hopping on your show. You've been helping me grow and a lot of things that you're doing with your memberships and everything in Masterminds. I was super excited to have you on my show because when we connected on your show, it was a great conversation. We just had a great conversation. Before hitting the record, let me stop on the ramble. Let me get to introduce you, jason, for anyone that doesn't have the opportunity to get to know you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

John, first of all, thank you so much for having me on man, I've been looking forward to this all week. You're one of my favorite younger entrepreneurs that I've ever worked with, honestly, and currently especially, my name is Jason Skisik, and I help coaches, consultants and solopreneurs scale from six figures a year to six figures a month without hitting a wall. Do. What that means is I help people with the operating system of their business, everything from how we regularly market and acquire new leads, how we convert them into sales, how do we fulfill for them in scalable ways that are super valuable to their clients, and how do we retain them and build long-lasting, valuable businesses.

All right, jason, take us back to the time machine a little bit. I got to hear your story a little bit from the cause, but what was Little Jason doing? What was he planning? What were his aspirations when you were growing up?

Man, I was a bad little kid buddy. I grew up with entrepreneurs' disease. If your listeners haven't heard of that before, they probably have it. Knowing your listeners, it's called ADD. In first grade I was a terrible student. I was always so interested in learning but I couldn't sit still, I couldn't stay focused and I couldn't not ask why. I think back and I'm like if I was a teacher and I was 25, I would have hated me too. When I was in first grade I was actually removed and put into a private BD school, for it was year-round and it was an hour away from my house. Every single day, five days a week. We were going an hour away and I was in a school that was for behavior disorder kids, but it was K through 12. Here I am, this little first grade kid, and I'm going to a school with 40 kids and some of them are having smoke breaks. My school had smoke breaks. That was me as a kid man. They used to call me demon child. I was building ornate system traps in the backyard and stuff like that. You'd walk outside and my dad would do more in the lawn and the lawnmower would go into a hole that I was covered in pews or something. I was a wild child for sure, See.

so when did the entrepreneur about kick in and went from building traps to building businesses and scaling your income?

Yeah, that's an interesting question, man. I would say that I always was an entrepreneur. I just never really identified it until I was a little later in life. I was born with I say it call it entrepreneurs disease. I also it's one of my core values, the spirit of the puppy I was born with that I'm high energy. I get super into the things that I love. When I was a kid, I liked clothes. I worked at the mall. I liked cars. I worked at the shop. I liked snowboarding. I worked at the snowboarding hill. I always was doing professionally. I got into poker and pool when I was a young man All those things I was trying to do for a living, the things that I most loved the poker and pool led me to happen to go to the army to reset and find some discipline, which is where I picked up my second core value, which is military mindset. That's where I finally learned how to stay focused, how to keep my word to myself and to others, how to always lead from the front and take responsibility. It was the combination of those two things that ultimately led me to understanding that I'd want to be an entrepreneur.

Yeah, let's go a little bit deeper on the spirit of a puppy, because you're the first person that actually heard use like worded like that. And I've come to the realization from talking to a bunch of other podcasters in this space that I think we're all entrepreneurs. It's some people. I think we fit into one of three categories. There's a people who were born entrepreneurs and they had a family that helped cultivate that and they pretty much from a young age it's cultivated and they just become an entrepreneur of life. Then we have and what I think the majority of entrepreneurs are is they're born entrepreneurs. Then somewhere along the way, life happens whether it's a family issue, whether it's scarce parents, whatever it may be, and it kind of gets swept under the rug and they have to rediscover it somewhere along their way, somewhere along the journey, have that epiphany. And then there's some people the last category I feel that are born entrepreneurs. As I said, life happens and then they never rediscovered that entrepreneur after the last and I came to the realization that there's no real difference between a kid and an entrepreneur, aside from the fact that an entrepreneur knows how to run a business. We're both super passionate dreams, have massive aspiration that most people look at us sideways when they hear. So the spirit of the puppy. Can you talk to us a little bit more and tell us what does that look like? So if someone's listening right now and they may have a lot of those traits they could identify with themselves.

Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for teaming that up, man. For about 13 years I owned a CrossFit gym in Chicago, and the best the way that I would explain it is if you were to walk in the front of my big warehouse CrossFit gyms like 6,000 square feet at the time and I was way in the back working out you were going to see a big 240 pound man, probably with his shirt off, arms up hey how you doing and probably my two dogs right there with me, coming up to greet you ahead on door. And so that visual is probably the easiest way to convey it, but essentially it means like look, man, I love people, I love meeting new people, I love helping people, I like trying new things, ventures, I am default positive. It gives me energy to help people and to see others succeed, and I think that and I'm a very abundant thinker, I'm not scarce, I don't hide things, I'm very forward with you, man, I'll reach out to you and be like hey, I got more free stuff I want to tell you about. Like on text. That's been multiple times like let's just get on a call because I just want to see you do well and I know that you will right, and so that's to me what Spirit of the Puppy is. And then the person you're describing I just want to point this out the person you're describing, I like to say that, like visionary entrepreneurs, are those people who see the world as it could be and they just can't help but take action. And so that's me, that's you. It's like I see this thing that I could do. Maybe it's divergent from what everybody else is saying or doing, but I could do it because I know that I can. I just can't help but go do it. And I think the difference between those people that either sweep it under the rug or end up not pulling it back out from underneath the rug, it's like how far on the scale are you like not able to keep yourself from taking action on your vision? You know what I mean.

Yeah, and it's one of those things, man. I'm still searching for an answer. No matter how many people I come across and try to talk to, I still can't quite formulate one. It's that bug that just drives you, that keeps you going, and I would say I was always very competitive, even when I came back to like. So a little bit about me, like when I was in gym class back in high school and let's say, we're playing a pick up basketball, it's my life is on the line if I lose this game. My entire reputation will crumble. If we lose this pick up basketball game, that has no sector on our actual outcome of our life. But that's just how I was always. It's like super competitive and the things that I genuinely enjoyed and loved doing, but I was nothing was geared towards like making any impact or making any change. It wasn't until I had my own epiphany where it's like, oh, there's another way of viewing the world out there, and it's like now. It's like, for example, fedex If you look, between the, the E and the X, there's an arrow. I can't unsee it, man. I can't unsee the E. Every time I see a FedEx logo, I see the arrow pointing right and now it's like the same thing when, like entrepreneurship, it's like I can't unsee the way that I view the world now than before, like before, I had that epiphany. So let me ask you what was that point for you? That was like man, I can't go back to the way I was doing things. What was that point for you? What was the scenery? What was that time in your life like, yeah, it's probably not what you might guess.

It was probably when I was in the army and I was deployed to Iraq for my second deployment, probably, and it was when, you know, here we were. It's the opposite of entrepreneurship, john. That's the interesting thing. I didn't. I never thought about it this way till you just asked that, but it's kind of the opposite. Where I was on essentially a, it was like 18 of us that were tasked out of this larger group to go to this base and our job was to dig holes, put in pipe and pull cable. And so we were out there seven days a week, 12 hours a day, digging holes, pulling laying pipe and pulling cable and some other stuff as well. But basically I was on a team of people doing a job I didn't pick that I couldn't quit with people that I didn't choose, and we didn't all get along that well, especially at first. And so, and if you break a drill bit here, you just go to America. Right, I'm saying you go to Home Depot, but there you break a drill bit and that's the only one you have. It might be weeks before you have that drill bit Meanwhile. I need to put a hole in the wall right now. So we're grabbing a chisel or whatever, right. And so it was that that was the thing where I found out that number one I could accomplish things, especially as a part of a group, as a tight tribe, right Like I could accomplish things that you would never even try to do at home because you wouldn't have to. There's these things that make it easier or doable, or whatever, or you could hire somebody, and so it was that thing where I found in my own self worth and also the worth of my team that I was working with as peer never a leader in the military. I found that I could overcome these astoundingly difficult things on their face. And then so when I got back, honestly, jonathan, I remember I was standing on the corner at Broadway and Oakdale in Chicago and I'm looking down Broadway, which is like kind of a cool, popular, trendy street, and I'm like behind every one of these doors somebody owns that business and I can't imagine that they're all smarter than me or more capable at solving problems. So from the military experience, I just knew that I could build things and I could overcome problems and I could bring people together, even if it was just to work together as like a peer and ultimately that's led to more. But that's probably when it was.

No, that's an amazing story, and I wanted to ask you a little bit about the military. Literally, I still work at the restaurant, as you know one of the guys that I actually grew up with as a food runner. Yeah, we're coming soon, man, it's coming soon. It's coming soon and when the guys that I'm working with, by the time this drop, he's going to be deploying about two or three weeks from the time we're recording this. So A lot of people are age well, at least my age. They want to go to the military. They don't really know what they want to do in life. They want some direction and they think that the military will provide that For anyone that's trying to figure themselves out right now. This is an age where a lot of people are like you know, we're about to graduate college. We don't really know what we want to do, but we got to degree here. Maybe they might have not gone to college at all and it's like they might have been in jail to see in high school and it's like all right. I guess the next progression from here is just to go actually into the military or the army, whatever it may be. So it's like starting that journey off. How long did it take for you to already find your gruel and find your step of in that?

Yeah, it's funny, I gained 50 pounds after basic training, so I actually had never been fat in my whole life and I have a picture of about a year into the military where I look like McGillagrilla holding a banana and I'm like 275 and just I shaved my head because we were going to war and I looked just like a complete, just balloon version of myself, right? And I think the truth is, is you never like what I left? The military was with discipline, but the military didn't provide me with discipline. It demonstrated for me that if I was disciplined, that it was worth it to me. And I think this is the nuance is I actually don't think discipline comes first. I think you need to believe the discipline that you do, those things that you're doing that you would call discipline. You need to believe that those are an investment and that you're worth it enough to where that's going to be worth returns. Does that make sense If you can find your own self worth? What I found was I had to go through basic training and from that I got this really great thing. I got this really great result, and then from there it was just like, okay, well, I'll keep depositing money in that bank and so I became a better and better and better soldier. And so when I left I just described it as I left the military and I'm in Chicago, a place notoriously where people at New York, chicago, these places where people notoriously are not like making eye contact, and I'm like looking for eye contact everywhere I go. And it's because I had. I was clean. I was clean, I had worked my ass off, I had educated myself, I had bettered myself, I had saved up some money and now I was here and this is where we're going to make our mark, on this street right now, this corner, and so that thing. I've always been pursuing that and I usually have some version of it, but I've never had it that pure where I'm just like I'm walking through the world, just like talk to me. I have, I have nothing but good things to say and I want to hear what you have to say. I have nothing to hide. And I think that was the biggest transformation that I got from the military. But it took me understanding, because I know I can introduce you to dozens of people that I met in the military, that are wonderful people and they didn't get the transformation and they didn't find success after the military and I think ultimately it's because they never found and I'm not putting words into anybody's mouth or lives, but I believe that a lot of times it's because they never found the self worth to understand how the discipline would pay back huge ROI over time.

Yeah, and my closest, I guess, experience in my life to what you experience is with football, man, because the football is a grind the spring conditioning, the summer training and then the actual practices, all leading up to our first season opener. It's like months and months and months of like, hey, I just have to beat myself up, I just want to play a game. I just want to go on a football field with 10 other guys and face 11 other guys. You see, like made the best man win and that's what I wanted to do. But it's like you have to do the spring training and then, from the spring training, you have like a couple of weeks and then we start summer conditioning and then, from the summer conditioning, you have a month of like training camp and then finally you get to play your first season opener. And it's like damn, I'm doing all this stuff, but, as you said, it is knowing that in the future it's all for something better and, honestly, how to go back and doing it again just to play one game, one more game, is something that I genuinely love. So let me ask you so you came back from the military. Now you got this transformation. You're looking at all these other business owners on this on down Broadway and it's like, man, these guys can't be that much better than me and in most cases they aren't. What was it like when you actually figured it out? Because, of course, it's one thing to have the belief, but like what was that point that made you like I was right out along? Because usually there's a big gap it's when you have the initial belief that causes you to start something, and then when you actually have something to actually justify that, the belief that you believe that so many other people may have thought you were crazy for, but it's finally actually there's evidence to support now that it's true.

Yeah, I wish I could tell you that, like I stood on that street, I saw all these doors and then I launched a business and I made a million dollars my first year, but that's just not what happened, man. I'll be honest with you, my actions. I look back on this time and I envy you because you see it so much younger than I did. But at this time I thought of myself. I had spent the entire military career gearing myself up to go to college, to get a degree in finance and to become a captain of financial industry. And so the actions I was taking, my interest, my focus, my attention was going towards a small business. So I did two things right when I got out of the military within a year or so, but right at the same time, I went to school for finance, to become a banker, which I ultimately did. And then, at the same time, me and two other veterans started this dusty CrossFit gym on the fourth floor of this old, mostly abandoned building. And we're like dropping weights and we had a rock climbing wall too. But we're like on the fourth floor and these poor guys are under us and it feels like the whole building's going to fall down on top of their head. It was just the most ridiculous business ever, but it was great. But at the time, what I would tell you is I'm a banker, I'm a banker, I'm a banker, I'm a financial analyst, I'm this, I'm this. But really all I could think about was this small little tribe that I was developing, and it wasn't until, honestly, seven years in where I actually really made that. My focus was to be an entrepreneur. And so for seven years, john, I'm walking through life trying to be somebody I'm not and doing a pretty good impression and at the same time, all I can think about, all I can focus on, is the community, the tribe, the babies that were being had because their parents met in our gym, like this type of stuff, right. And so now, if I feel like, if I can give back something like that to somebody like you and say, hey man, I know, I know your mom said to go to college, but you should probably do this thing that you're super passionate about and never get tired of doing and like all that other stuff, like man, I was driving two and a half hours a day of commute and I'm like training, like a, like a training athlete, like a competitive athlete and doing coaching classes and never ran out of energy. I never coached a class and left that class with less energy than when it started. And I'm the same way now on podcasting. I'm the same way now when I work with clients like you and so to me. I can't believe how long it took me to realize that I could plug into that unlimited battery of energy just by focusing on this little business, you know.

Yeah, it's sort of those things, man, and this is why it's so hard to explain, because it's like, where does it come from? Like, for example, for me, I think last night, this past night, we were recording. They maybe slept like four hours or something like that, and it's like you wouldn't be able to talk. I genuinely enjoy doing this, man. I've been up and I've been ready to go and it's like because I know Tuesdays for me and Thursdays I want to have a court interviews, it's like I say I I know I got some good interviews lined up today. It's like off of four hours, most people say let me get a couple extra hours to sleep. I mean, I slept in a little bit for me sleeping in, I was, you know, in bed to like 8 30, but that's a late start to my day, that's super late start to my day. But it's like I got you know up and about by like 9 o'clock and I was already getting into things. And it's now it's like I got some interviews lined up today. It's like, man, it's you can tap into this thing that's so much granted you so much bigger, and it's like this, almost like. It's like, for example, like with cameras by Sony camera, at least you can plug in the battery to charge it and then you could use a camera, of course. But there's also have battery packs that are like literally charging as you're using it, so like you could pretty much just use it forever, essentially and it's like that's the best and metaphor actually used to describe it it's like you just happen to this, this higher state of you, say man, you don't know where it is, where it's coming from. For me it's god, but it's like, it's like you could just tap into this and just go and just drive. What was that like for you experiencing that? For me, I finally realized it took me about a year or so to figure out what it was that I do. It's also the strike through the real estate and the restaurant, and then I was trying to do the social media thing. Before I was trying to do the content creation side, which I realized I hated. Now I'm not coming at it from a whole new angle, which is super fun because I love the teaching aspect of it, but it wasn't until like around December of this past year when I Decided I figured it out and that was like oh my goodness, and this snowball started rolling. What was that experience for you? When you realized, like you don't have to run on your own gas tank, you can tap into something that you didn't.

You yeah, that's a good question. So what I would say is spirit of the puppy man. So for me, I I'm happy to be here. I would call my mom for my rack and and be like I'm having the time of my life. I'm meeting all these great people, I'm getting in great shape. We built this amazing thing that it shouldn't I'm. I'm staying in in a hole, hey, using a hundred pound jackhammer, fucking sideways dude like and I could, I would just think about that. I'm in a hole in 120 degree weather and I'm getting a workout, so I'm pulling like this for a while and then I turn around and I'll pull him. This way, I'm pulling and I'm like, just happy to be here. And so part of the thing for me is like and I wish it was a different answer that I could like pass this on to somebody is I've just always been, I'm default positive, I try to seek pleasure, but also like I'm happy to be here, man, like I'm happy to be here with you today. We could be talking about taxes and I'd be like man, it's great to see you again. I can't wait to meet you in person one day. That type of stuff, you know. And so I was blessed with that from my mother and, I believe, from my grandfather and my maybe my dad, but uh, yeah, so for me, you know, I don't know if I lost the question or not, but to me it was. You know, here the other thing I would say is, like it does, it does take a minute, and so I will tell you also that, like when you first start a business, there's gonna be struggle and you're gonna feel you're gonna reach that, you know, valley of despair. Everybody talks about this valley of despair or chasm of despair or whatever, and and you are gonna hit that and I can tell you now I'm fifth, almost 15 years, into entrepreneurship, like with LLC type entrepreneurship, and and I hit the biggest Despair that I've ever hit in the middle of setting up this business, and so it's one of those things where you also have to. You have to. You can't always run on energy and fuel. Sometimes you got to remember that. You've heard that story before a million times, and who do you hear it from? You hear it from the fucking Beatles, elon Musk, steve Jobs. You hear about these people that went through the valley to spare, and I've just heard the ends of those stories. Enough to keep going, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, it's. It's one of those things where it's like I Mean I can't describe it either because I'm also default like hyper optimist. I took a big five personality test a while ago, like last year. I was like in like the 99% out of something or the top 1% on time, like my optimism score. I'm like insanely optimism, optimistic. I was watching literally a show yesterday. I rarely ever watch any shows. I try to tune out any form of television, but there's like a new Netflix series everyone's in a while my girlfriend recommends and I was watching it and but like episode one, she knew all the bad guys who was gonna twist and like for me it takes me all the way to episode like the season finale to finally get because it's like I Mean it almost in a bad way to my like. Might be naive of me a little bit, but it's like man, I just I Tries like so hard not to view the world in a negative way. Man, I try so actively. Yeah, who black out anything that may you know this orient my view on the having like a positive outlook on life.

Maybe that's you being present, though, right, like like when you're watching the TV show, if you're like guessing who did this and guessing who did that, you're like your this anxiety, you're thinking about the future instead of like just being present, being like, wow, this is a great story and so you know, maybe there's something in there for for how you should look at the journey to you know, I don't know no, no, that's definitely a good point.

I want to circle back a little bit to about the, the valley of the spear, because that's where I've kind of been, like hanging out after a Little while and it's I'm honestly, I'm having a blast, it's figuring this stuff out, like I mean, everything around me is kind of like crumbling and it's like, yeah, and I'm having, as he said, like the time of my life, yeah, figuring out, because I'm knowing like I'm inching forward. And it always Reminds me. One of the stories I love sharing is like this one guy I think he was on the deployment and his whole team ended up getting killed, and I think he was like laying in the sand and he just like drew like a line next to him and so I just got across this and then he would cross the line and he drew another line. They actually got across this. He ended up doing that for like 10 miles, I believe. No, thinking wow, and ended up getting to the next, the safest, the next city nearby, which he didn't know whether or not was going to be an enemy or an ally city, and Pretty much, he ended up getting lucky and it was actually good people that ended up. He ended up getting rescued, but like he's literally his whole team. He just went in this, yeah, you know, get Casual to eat and then he is there, pretty much almost like I forget if he was injured or bleeding out or I don't know what he was doing, I just know he was severely injured and he just started crawling and he just kept crawling and he ended up making it to safety. But like, well, that inching forward is like, and, as you said, like hearing enough of these people that have made it to the other side, it's like alright, I just got to stick with it. And knowing all the stats, to like knowing that most business video, knowing that most Podcasters don't make a past episode seven, it's like, okay, which stat line do you want to be a part of? The part of who didn't? Or, despite that, you know that skew the the chart to the other way, right, being the part of people that didn't? Just, and one of the things that Hormuzi talks about is like just sticking with it long enough. And he talks about like thinking of things like a Hundred year of time horizons, which is like insane to think about because most people even lives at 100, but like he just looks at things with such as like big perspective, big point of view, and then he like zooms in when he needs to and it's like happens, kind of like that similar mindset. It's like, alright, right now If I was to be entirely present, I would be so focused on everything crumbling that I would have want to move forward anymore, but it's like knowing that the future is brighter ahead. And so what was like? Are you mentioned? You've been through a ton of like hasms. What were some of the things that you did to get through it? Because, of course, wishing for a better tomorrow Is it a strategy? To succeed in business, you have to get through the valley somehow. So, like what were some of the things? The schools that you may pick up, business skills, mindset, skills that you have made a picked up when you're in the valley of the chasm, so that you can get through it.

So the one I'll give you is two parts, and, and one is to do with me, and I wouldn't normally even evoke the name, but the other is to do with Alex. You talked about Alex Hormuzi, and so at the same time I was about seven years in on my business and my two partners came to me and they were like hey, this has been fun We've. We did all the cool things. You know, we had a hundred or so people which were across the gym, is like very middle of the road. We were never missing rent, but we weren't making that much money either and we all had jobs. And they came to me and they were like hey, man, we're 32, 33, whatever that at the time. And they're like we're ready to, we got it. We're men, we have women, we're gonna marry and go have children, and we got it once going into real estate. The other one is, you know, committing to moving across the country with his beautiful and lovely wife. And they came to me and they're like it's time this thing's done. It's not a business, it's a hobby. And I just I remember thinking like, all right, I'm gonna go to sleep and if I can wake up and think about a world that it didn't exist, then I'll close it. And I just couldn't and so I bought them both out alone with no money. Then I hired Alex Hormozzi for $16,000 that I didn't have and then I made about a million dollars in the next 12 months because I learned how to do the moves. I stopped drowning and I started swimming. And he wasn't Alex Hormozzi then. He was just a guy. I was his seventh client or something and shout out to him and he's awesome. But that decision to keep moving and burn the boats and to draw the line and move forward was everything. It could have been somebody else, but it was Alex. But just deciding that we were going to burn the boats and we were going to fight our way out of the foxhole changed my life forever.

Yeah, I mean, that's super touching and burning the boats is something that I mentioned jobs and things like that, and a lot of times those are things that people cling on to and of course, it's always like you have to make ends meet, of course you have to pay bills somehow, but it's also like when you're backs against a wall. It really puts you to the test and not everyone makes it out alive because they realize that, hey, this might have been more than I could chew and this might have been more than I was prepped to go up against, and you were able to make it, knowing that you have to burn out the bridge. And a lot of people think that money isn't of abundance because their bank account may not currently reflect it. What advice would you give to those entrepreneurs, because a lot of times we're starting off, we don't have a lot of money when we have to, for example, like I'll be fully transparent. I'm not sure if I shared this with you, but I believe I have. I was super on defense about joining your group $400 a month, that's more than what I pay for my car and my insurance, and then I want everybody listening to this know that it's a lot more than that.

now Go ahead, Drift Pup.

Yeah, but when I started, when I started, right, and so I was like man, this is like I don't know if I could do this, man, I was on defense. Money's already tight. This kind of cards are pretty much already getting run and like ran up until it's like man, I don't know if I could do it. And it was like a week or two after joining the course I mean, you're joining the mastermind I made like I think like $4,000 off of the chat GPT course that you did. I spun it off and, instead of using a chat GPT course to create a course, I did a how to teach a class on social media for realtors. And then I used pretty much I watched the video of what you did and just brought it into my world of what I had currently going on. And then it's like boom, and that without that, honestly, I would have been behind a couple of credit card payments, honestly, and so it's like that helped me out. And then it's like all right, now it's like fast forward a little bit. All right, so that's behind me. Now it's like I'm doing this, building up this course, and I'm using the framework, kind of that I got from you a little bit and putting my own spin on it from what I've experienced, what I've learned, and then from there I ended up creating my webinar. And then boom, then I get like six students enrolled in the course at 497. It was just like all right, man, time and time again it's been proving it's worth it. But, as I said, when me and you first talked about it and then that test drove the mastermind, I was just like man, I know this is going to come down to price. It always comes down to price, man. And it's like do I do it, do I not? And I was really on the fence and, honestly, for me, I was just tired of playing on the fence and that's what held me back a lot last year. That and trying to do everything at once. It was like my main two things that held me back. It was like, as I said, stay on the fence. I was just like man, I don't want to play in the gray space anymore. Man, I want to go all in. I don't want to be in the middle of the road. It's like that's saying that you have to go out and go spend all your money on a mastermind or a course or whatever. Maybe it's like for me. I've seen an opportunity that knew would benefit me, but I was hesitant because of the price. And then, after I got over that, within two weeks, I was like that just justified and reinforced the decision that I made and I was like, all right, I'm on the right step and never became a question after that. So, honestly, I lost where I was going with the question. I think I was going to ask you about getting Got you.

Can I react, though? Yeah, what I would say to that is this First of all, you just can't lose if you keep playing. I mean, I don't think America is sending people to debtor's prison anymore, and so I'm not recommending that you go on credit cards or that you take actions that you shouldn't take, or you have to always play the game like you're trying to win, but the truth is, you just have to always play the game. I've been negative in my account a thousand times in my life before, and I'll tell you right now for me to expect to make a million dollars, I certainly don't want to lose a million dollars, but I need to be willing to lose a million dollars, because, ultimately, at the end of the day, like if I'm not 100% committed to what I'm doing, how the hell am I supposed to push through when there's brick walls? How the hell am I supposed to grow to fill this new, bigger vessel? Because, honestly, the only way you're ever going to grow is by putting yourself in demanding situations that challenge you to grow bigger than you currently are, and so, to me, it's like I mean, one day, the book will tell you everything, and I'm not going to do that now. But honestly, man, you've got to be willing to lose everything in order to gain what you really want, because there's just, it's just and you can get lucky and you can be great and you can do what you do and people take it right away and you make a million dollars, whatever Great. But if that doesn't happen, you need to be willing to continue to keep going, because in my life, the biggest growth that I've ever had was growing into the new shell that I wasn't yet big enough to fill. You know what I mean.

Yeah, and, as you mentioned, I'm willing to risk it all and lose it all. It's one of those things that I had to realize. This road is entrepreneurship thing there is no certainties, there's no guarantees, there's nothing. Despite that, I would have picked this road 10 times out of 10, every freaking time, man, every freaking time, because I know what it looks like when you get down to the other side. I've seen it. I've know people. When my life was done, I've interviewed people who have gone to the other side and it's like I just got to figure it out. And having that curiosity and that love for learning and their willingness to take action is what's kind of just been driving me, because for me, it's like, man, I could lose everything. I believe in something bigger than me. It's like I can't fail. I literally cannot fail. I'm not designed to fail. There's no failure. So many people fix it on the day to day like, oh, I took an L or a A, for example. My summit, my summit flopped, that's just the L. You learned how to put on a summit yeah, exactly. And I learned how to not put on a summit as well, which seemed more important for the next time around. But so many people yeah, so many people will see that and just be like, oh man, I suck and just beat themself up because we tend to be our worst critic. Let me ask you, in terms of being a critic on ourselves, how does one overcome that? Because a lot of times in entrepreneurship, especially when starting off one, you probably don't have a lot of people that you could come to anyways that would understand you. So you tend to get in your own head because you don't really have much other people to talk to about this stuff. When figuring out, especially when you're not coming from an entrepreneurial background or an abundant background, it's like how does one kind of get over that and we mentioned it, as I said, being in the red, being negative, being in a valley, like when these times start getting dark, like how do we not get it in our own way?

You know, for starters, this is the same thing that I would teach somebody when they were at my gym years ago is like, look, man, if you've never been an entrepreneur or if you've never been fit, and every time you try to do something it's failed right away. You know, it just hasn't been easy for you, you failed. Well, you sit on a little mountain of wind or of losers, of losses, and you're a loser. And so what I say is start small, you get a tiny little wind, and then you do that every single day. You do whatever you can control, you get up and you take action towards the thing that you wanna build every single day, and you just never stop. And eventually you look back and you have a hell of a lot more winds than you have losses and your confidence and your ability and your skills and your reputation and your ability to sniff out deals or make rain or all these other buzzwords it's just growing monumentally. I think that's really the biggest thing. And then the other thing is you've never heard a good story that went the way it was supposed to. No good story has ever happened. That was the way it was supposed to be. And so you can't do both things. You can't hold both ideas at the same time. You can't bless the struggle. Every Thanksgiving which I do I say this year I'm thankful for the struggle. I can't say that and then not mean it when it's time to struggle. You know what I mean. You have to actually realize that the struggle is the thing that makes you grow to what you weren't before. So if you can do that and then not take things personally, another little point that's a little different is like with people like you and the other people in the group. We've only launched in November and so I'm still trying to poke as many holes as I can, because I'd rather be undeniable than have some sort of narcissistic tie to my greatness or something. Fuck that. I'd rather be undeniably good, which means I need to take in the negative feedback, which means I need to hear the haters and I need to be able the man or woman that it takes to go like okay, that's based in reality, I'm gonna change something. That guy's an asshole. I need to be able to do those things, otherwise what are we doing? And so you know people will tell you if you don't have haters, it's because nobody's listening and you're probably not doing anything, and if you do have haters, you need to like know how to sort through. Hey, that's based in reality. I need to accept that. And then I need to not take it personally when it's just somebody that's upset about their own place of the world.

Yeah, and Danny Kennedy quoted once on if you haven't offended anybody by noon, is you're not marketing hard enough?

I'm probably guilty of that. I don't like offending people, but yeah, you're right about that.

Yeah, and it's funny because I was literally working on one of my modules. It talks about like storytelling, and from Extra Secrets I was reading like the polarity scale and there's like there's mainstream, which you get absolutely no money. Then there's like prolific right, your little polar. And then there's like crazy, which is like all right, you're too far down on one side or the other and it's like if you could find that part where you're polar. Of course you're gonna offend people, you're not gonna like people, but, as I said, there's nothing that good that comes with being in a gray and anyone great is either loved or hated, for better or for worse. You know that's neither here nor there, but it's like love and hate are strong emotions. Like and dislike are very casual. Right, there's a quote like casual needs to casual tease or something like that. There's a quote it's like you gotta know that what you're doing, hopefully it's for a good cause, so that you can be loved, but of course there's always gonna be someone that's trying to poke holes in a boat and try to sink you down. Jason, you dropped a ton of amazing nuggets this podcast. Where could we connect with you? Where could we find you? Where could we find out about this massive mind that we're in, where we meet up every Friday. You know how could we join and get more people in this family that we got going on.

Thank you so much. First of all, if you're still listening to this, it's because you love John and his podcast. So please do this as an opportunity to like, subscribe and share this with a friend, Because I'll tell you right now John Mendez is going places that I don't have time to get. So I can't wait to see what you build, brother, and I hope these folks are there for the journey as well. If you still have any energy left over and you wanna hear more about what I do, you can go to my free Facebook group, which is called Dynasty Builders. You can find me on there. You get a free chat, GPTAI course that John made $4,000 in a week using Actually no, it's 2.0, it's better than that and it includes the first one. And then, if you just if you hate Facebook like I do and you don't wanna be on there, find me at spearandclovercom and we can connect that way.

Amazing Jason. Now it's time for our famous five questions, where we wrap up every single podcast episode. Question number one what is the most impactful lesson you've learned in life? Burn the boats, commit. What is the most admirable trait a person can have?

I like when people are proactive about showing love and support. I like people who reach out, who connect, who don't just hand you a business card and then ask you for money. I like people that connect authentically and proactively, because I'm that way and I love giving that love, and it feels really good to have your belly rub too. Yeah, yeah.

What is if you had to change someone's life for one book? Which book would you recommend Built to Sell?

By who I don't know. Built to Sell is awesome. The reason I say that book anytime anybody asks me is because it's not one of the books that everybody always says and it actually will help you building, especially if you're in any kind of service business. It'll help you to understand value in a way that I had to go to become a banker to learn, so it was very good about building assets and value when you are your brand or when your services are your brand, because otherwise your business is worth nothing. It's worth the assets that you have sitting around, like your phones and shipweights or whatever.

And what is the legacy that you're trying to leave behind?

I want my daughter to love me until I'm dead and if I have any other kids, I want the people that are important to me in my life to want to be around me until I'm dead. I don't care if people remember me after. I don't care if this business. I mean I do, but it's not the legacy. I mean if this business, if this logo, if the brand or whatever that we're building helps a lot of people, that's amazing. That's what I do with my life, but I live my life for the people that I know and I care about, and if they want to be around me when I'm wealthy, when I'm poor, when I'm sick, when I'm shit, then I'm happy.

That's amazing. And final question what is the first step someone should take? Ted and Mark on the Walk to Wealth today?

Hire me. You've now finished taking the first step. Now let us help you take the next one. Subscribe to our newsletter at walktowealthcom. That's Walk the Number 2, Wealthcom, so we can keep you moving on your journey. We'll see you on the next episode of Walk to Wealth with John Mendes.