#220: The Journey Of Success: Elevate Other People And Achieve True Greatness With Jake Kelfer

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof. Hey

everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I am feeling good and grateful today. It feels great to say that, actually. Somebody says, how are you? How you doing? I'm from New York originally, and so that whole how you doing thing is kind of a funny little exchange that I'm used to since the time I'm a kid. And yet, well, for me, as I've gotten older, when somebody asks me that question, I really want to give them an honest answer. Growing up in New York, the standard answer was great. Fine. How you doing? You know, it's like you didn't even answer the question. Somebody says, "How you doing?" He said, "Hey, how you doing?" Right? Nobody even answered the question, as I recall. But you know, last several years, you know, people ask me that. I really want to be honest about my answer to them. And not every day do we feel, you know, great. Not every day does our body feel great. Not every day do we mentally feel really fit or at our best. Maybe financially, we don't feel great every day, etc. And there's a lot of shit going on in the world right now that can. Feel less than great. But when I started to say this a couple of days ago, I just started to notice how it felt for me to say, you know, I'm good and I'm grateful. And both of those things felt true. You know, if I'm great, I don't mind saying I'm great for sure. But good is, uh, yeah, I feel good and grateful together. And that means that— well, you know what, I won't even say what it means because I got a great guest today that we're gonna kind of dive into some of this this Juicy Bits together, and his name is Jake Kelfer. And he and I are gonna chat about a number of things today, and maybe we're gonna track that. We'll see. It's usually no accident that those things kind of comes through at the beginning of a show. So Jake is a lifestyle entrepreneur, a life elevator, which we can talk about too, and a coach to ambitious entrepreneurs and freedom seekers, helping people create incredibly impactful and profitable businesses. He is a bestselling author of Elevate Beyond and Elevate Your Network, a high-energy motivational speaker, and the founder of the Professional Basketball Combine, which helps NBA draft prospects turn their dreams of playing pro basketball into their reality. There's a lot to unpack there. I'm looking forward to that. He and his work have been featured on Forbes, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and many other major media outlets. I'm looking forward to this conversation so much, Jake. Thanks so much for being a guest on the show today.

I appreciate you. I'm pumped to be here. I'm feeling good and grateful, and let's do this thing.

Nice. Are you a basketball player yourself?

I consider myself a basketball player. Just now it's recreational, not legitimized, but no one's taking that away from me ever.

That's good. With that definition in place, I'm a basketball player too.

There we go.

I grew up playing schoolyard basketball. I never got my dad's height. He was a really good basketball player. I love the sport. And, and, you know, it's kind of an interesting thing because that ESPN special about— I think it's called The Last Dance, right? Was the documentary about the last season when Michael Jordan was playing with the Bulls, as well as Scottie Pippen and, you know, the rest of that dynasty team playing together. Did you see that series, Jake?

Oh, of course. I'm a basketball nut. So a show like that comes out, I'm glued to the TV. And for me, I'm a young dude, I'm 27, so I grew up with Kobe. And as a Lakers fan, a Southern California kid, I grew up with Kobe. And this plays a huge role in my story. But I had always heard that Michael was the GOAT, right? The greatest. But I didn't get to witness it really because I was 6, 7 when they won in the '90s. And so being able to see that documentary for me was like eye-opening because you've got to see really who Michael Jordan was outside of just the stories or the old clips. I mean, that was so cool for me to see that.

It really is epic, even in like watching it so many years later, to see some of what they were able to accomplish, right?

And even like outside of basketball, how great it was that they were filming that back then. And now you're seeing it coming to light here in 2020, 2021, whenever someone's listening to this, like such an amazing piece that really shows, you know, what a champion looks like. And what you got to be willing to do to make things happen and adjust when things don't go our ways. And so I dug it. I loved the whole thing.

Yeah, that's so great you brought that up, the idea that there are lessons to unpack, lessons about obviously professional basketball and success in that arena, but also a lot of other areas. So I'm just going to put you— throw this one right at you. What's something that you learned from that documentary that you're still thinking about or that you've been applying You know, since seeing it?

The thing that stands out, and there's a lot of things, I even like wrote a little bit about this and did a bunch of stories on it, like, 'cause I was fired up about it, but here's one thing that is the biggest truth from there. No matter how great we are as an individual, we can never achieve true greatness without other people. And that is the thing for me that I base my entire life on, is I wouldn't have had the success I've had up to this point if there weren't other people involved. I wouldn't get to the places I wanna go if I don't include other people on that journey. And the more you include the right people, the more fun the process becomes anyways. And so that was like, for me, just a huge takeaway because everyone's like, Michael, Michael, Michael, but without his coach, right, he doesn't achieve what he does. Without his role players, without the Steve Kerrs, right, without Scottie Pippen, who's great, Dennis Rodman, he doesn't achieve some of those things. For me, that's by far the biggest takeaway is that no matter how great we are, And no matter how great other people think we are, we need others to get to where we want to go.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created The resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. It's so interesting 'cause Phil Jackson was the coach at that time. Obviously, you being a Southern California boy, you know, he comes to the Lakers and creates his magic there with Kobe, right? But he first did it with the Bulls. And before that, he was actually on a championship basketball team. He played for my home team, the New York Knicks. It's a sad thing, but that's the last time they won a world championship, was actually with Phil Jackson, playing with guys like Willis Reed and Earl Monroe and, you know, whoever else was on that team back then. But Phil Jackson coming to that team, it's remarkable because first of all, he wasn't the head coach of any team to that point. He was just an assistant, maybe been an assistant for a couple of years with Chicago. And Michael Jordan was obviously, he was the star. He was the marquee, everything. He was all-world, winning MVPs, scoring titles, you name it. And the first thing that he does when he comes into the role of head coach, he says, listen, it can't be just about you, Mel. I mean, so he's telling a franchise Hall of Fame, you know, future Hall of Famer that something's got to change now in order for them to go from being good to great. So this is funny that we're going to come to this, but to go from that place where they were a good team, but were a team that was getting stopped at some point every year. It was the Pistons were kind of their arch nemesis at that point, but they had been stopped every time and Michael had no ring. And Phil Jackson comes in and says something, hey, we got to go to this triangle offense and we're going to try something new and you're not going to be involved. the only guy touching the ball. And what I found personally remarkable was that even with a very healthy ego that Michael Jordan obviously had and has, he had to make a decision whether or not he was going to buy into that system and put the team ahead of himself personally in order to win. And to be coachable, I think, is one of those things that you don't hear a lot spoken about Michael Jordan as a guy who was coachable, but he was certainly coachable, don't you think?

For sure. And I think Related to that, right, is like we have to be coachable just as humans. I look at it with our event that we run, the Professional Basketball Combine. It focuses a lot on guys who are right in that second tier, who want to get into the G League, get on the last roster spot of the NBA, right? They're right on that fringe. One of the key separators for those guys is how coachable are they and how much of a team player are they? Because the franchises look and see, is this person going to add to our organization even if they're not playing on the court in the games? And we look at Michael right there, super important that he's coachable to go from his level of individual Hall of Fame to team Hall of Fame. You look at guys at the level that I work with to get from overseas contract to an NBA contract, it's, are you coachable and do you bring something to the organization, right? And then we look in business and in life and it's like, are you coachable if you want to separate yourself from everyone else who makes X amount of money to make this amount of money, right? Or to get No customers to getting a stream of customers, right? Coachability is one of those things that I think is so pivotal in all aspects of our life.

Exactly. So you're a young guy. First of all, are you coachable?

I'm 100% coachable. 100% coachable. Awesome. Because I know how important it is right now. I've learned quickly.

Well, I mean, it's one thing to recognize that coachability is important and look at other people and go, you know, it's important that they're coachable, but it's another thing to be coachable yourself. Where did you learn to be coachable?

So I'll preface this by saying, like, maybe growing up my mom wouldn't have said I was always coachable because I'd always snap back and get defensive with her, right? Yeah. And then someone else would tell me and I'd come back to my mom and be like, Mom, I just learned this. And she would be like, Jake, I've been telling you that for the last 6 months. You just never wanted to listen, right? But I believe that, like, my willingness to be coachable has stemmed from my parents. I'm very blessed to have 2 incredible parents in my life that growing up, they were my rocks and They really taught me about this, whether it was in sports or whether it was in academics. And they were always like, you know, when a teacher gives you feedback, see it as a chance to improve, to get to that next level. When a coach gives you feedback, it means that there's a chance to be better, right? And I'm internally wired to want to be great. I just have this desire that I always want to keep leveling up and bring people along with me. So the more that I'm coachable, the more I'm able to then coach other people. And bring them with me on this ride. And so the credit, a lot of it goes to my parents for putting me and giving me the opportunity to put myself in situations where I would have that opportunity, whether it was in sports or academics.

I have a bit of a theory about coachability as well, which is that often coachability is something that we learn out of adversity, out of our own personal frustration or making mistakes, making sometimes the same mistakes again, or kind of hitting, hitting the wall that we can't break through. And I'm curious to get your thoughts I'd love to get your thoughts on that because to me, one of the great things that I could also associate with that word coachability is humility. And again, to look at someone like a Michael Jordan and say there's humility there, you'd think, well, you can't be as strong as he is. You can't be able to trash talk people and literally will yourself to victory at the same time that you maintain a humbleness. But again, I think from Michael's standpoint, with all his success, like you said, individual Hall of Famer at the time when Phil Jackson takes over that team, He goes from individual Hall of Fame with no rings and no championships to team Hall of Fame with 6 titles, 2 groups of 3, which is utterly remarkable at that time, kind of an unheard of thing. Has there been a time in your life when you were humbled and it was that humbling experience, whether it was in business or in something personal, that helped you to see the value in being coached or develop that humility to be able to listen to people?

I think throughout my life, there have been a lot of key moments where I've had to check myself. When I say that, it's not even in like this super negative thing where I thought I was unbelievable and needed to like really check, but it was, I needed to check myself to see if I was in alignment, right? I needed to get focused on just because I want to achieve something and I want to get to that next phase, am I going there for the right reasons? Am I taking the action steps that are going to get me there for the right reasons? You know, when I think about some of the things that I've done, whether it was writing my first book, you know, I was this 23-year-old who was writing a career development book. Now, internally, you have all these doubts of who's going to read a career development book by a 23-year-old. On the other side, I have all this excitement of like, I'm 23 and I got my first book coming out, like, let's go, like, we're separating ourselves from the pack. But I had to take a step back and realize that from the coaches and the people that were in my life is that No matter what happens, it is most important for you to keep going. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times when we get to this point, whether we think we're really remarkable and something doesn't go our way, or whether we're hesitant and we're hopeful that it does go our way, we stop because we're afraid of what's on the other side of that action. And for me, there have been a lot of those moments in different initiatives and endeavors that I've pursued where I've had to really say, hold up. What am I willing to do here? And am I doing it for myself or for the greater good, something bigger than just myself? And those moments have always forced me to come to a place of humility while also still maintaining that competitive edge to be great.

That's really well said, Jake. Part of what our business does is we help people to craft talks that are fit for a big stage, you know, like keynote speaking, often TEDx or TED speaking. And Ellis Wims is a guy who played for several teams, but he won a Super Bowl as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And one of the things that Ellis has shared with us, his process of going from a kind of a guy who wasn't going to be recruited, wasn't a scholarship player in college, ultimately did play, and in his senior year was a starter and all that kind of thing. And then in the 6th round, doesn't even think he's going to be a draft pick, you know, and all that kind of thing. But he did the NFL Combine, and that's where he was seen. And then ultimately gets picked up by— I think Tony Dungy was the coach of the Bucs at the time. So, I hadn't heard about that. Yeah. An NBA Combine. Is that something that you got involved with at its inception? Were you one of the co-founders of that? It's just something I hadn't heard of until I actually read your intro.

So the NBA, which I believe is the greatest sports organization out there, they have their NBA Combine just like the NFL has their Combine, right? The NBA Combine features the top players that are likely to get drafted, just like the NFL Combine ideally puts players that are going to be drafted. The only difference There's a ton more players that get drafted in the NFL versus the 60 that get drafted in the NBA. A couple years ago, the NBA announced that there was going to be a new contract. This was called a 2-way contract, where basically every team was going to have 2 additional roster spots where they would be able to send this player down to the G League to develop themselves, but also they could bring them up if an injury happened, and this contract would pay 9 to 10 times what the player gets in the G League system. So when that was announced, I immediately realized, well, where are the teams going to find these prospects? Where is the event that's going to host all of these prospects? Well, there wasn't any event outside of the NBA Combine. And so myself, and along with a couple other people, we started talking about this idea, and I ended up creating a secondary NBA Draft Combine to help that next tier sign those contracts, to get noticed by the G League, so that every team could come to one location, So they didn't have to fly these guys in and spend more budget, but the agents could do things for their players. The players would get more exposure and everybody would, would benefit because of this event. And that's essentially what became the Pro Basketball Combine. And over the 3 years that we've hosted it, we've helped over 70 guys get noticed and signed in what's now 30 countries across the globe.

So is yours the actual NBA Combine now? That's what you call it?

We call it the Professional Basketball Combine. And so we have our event and then the NBA has their NBA Combine the week before our event typically. They have their players that attend, and then we go, we have our players, and teams will fly out, send scouts, regional guys, executives, assistant GMs, whoever, depending on the talent that they really want to see and evaluate. That's how we run it. And then hopefully our guys funnel into the NBA pipeline, and we've had some incredible success stories. But I think there's something important that I want to note here, which is we talked about Michael Jordan, right? We talked about Phil never being a coach before becoming the head coach. A lot of times in our lives, we just need that one opportunity.

Yes.

Right? We need somebody to give us a chance that isn't expected or guaranteed. Something where we've worked hard. All these players that come to our event have worked their ass off. And now it's time where they're like, you know what? They're right there. They can taste it, right? And so our event has given players an opportunity to say, I do belong in the NBA. I do belong here. in the organization. And we've had guys go on to win the G League Rookie of the Year. We've had over 10 of those 2-way contract spots filled. We've had guys who were mid-major players in college end up getting G League contracts. We had a D2 guy who no one heard of. We took a risk on him, gave him the opportunity, and he's been in the G League ever since. And so that one opportunity is sometimes all we need to take somebody from good and turn them into somebody that's great.

Yeah.

Because a lot of times we have it inside. We just need that chance.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why My team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken, and all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com. Has COVID impacted your ability to do the Combine this year?

COVID played quite a big role for us, and so we actually didn't— weren't able to host it this year.

It was in the bubble. That's what— the way they were conducting their league, in the bubble.

Yeah, so the NBA did their league in Disney in Florida. It was a completely different season, out of whack. So the regular NBA Draft, the draft process, Everything has changed. And we're approaching, as of the time of recording, the 2020 NBA Draft. But the way it worked out is there was no big events or anything like that. We just, we weren't able to do it. So one of the things that we did for our players, because we still wanted to give guys a platform—

I wanted you to tell us how it was that you were able to pivot. The show is in many ways about pivoting. And so here, your one big event you're planning for all year long isn't going to happen. Obviously, it's disappointing. But you did something about it. So that's where you're at, which is perfect.

Exactly. I'm going to get into that. And so it's really interesting because I want to go 2 ways with this, okay? The first way is related to this big event. Now, we have a small team, and this big event kind of was like, shoot, are we going to be able to do it? Are we not going to be able to do it? Obviously now we've realized we aren't able to do it. What we did instead was knowing that our whole mission is to get players an opportunity, to give them a chance to turn their dreams into their reality, right? That's what it is that we provide these players. Well, we wanted to use our platform as a chance for players to be heard and seen. So our director of scouting started doing virtual film rooms, virtual draft rooms, where he'd break down film, we'd get a bunch of prospects who we would have invited or who would have been on our radar and allow them to almost pitch themselves through their knowledge of film and their game and distribute that to team personnel. We were also able to do a PBC honoree list. So we announced players who would have been invited or would have been there as another way to boost their credibility and boost their stock moving forward, whether it be in the NBA or overseas, depending on what happens. And I think the thing for us related to this specifically is there's so much unknown, and we are so reliant on and focused on what the NBA does, Because it goes hand in hand, right? If the NBA doesn't have it, we don't have it. And it's really important for us to understand that even in the midst of all this, we, we can only control what we can control.

Exactly.

And if we focus on the things that we can control and we create the opportunities out of that to the best of our ability, we're gonna be all right and we're gonna set ourselves up for the future and continue to do the things that made us what the event is today.

Is it fair to say that you're focusing on just what you can control is how you leverage uncertainty?

Yes, 100%. That is how we've been able to pivot and navigate through this time.

Part of the conversation on this show is always around the topic of resilience. So I'd love to just get your beat on that. How do you define it? Where has it shown up or not been there for you in either your personal life or in connection with the business?

This is one of those words where I feel like there's so many interpretations and meanings of it, and it can be applied to us in so many ways, similar to greatness, success, right? But when I think of resilience, I think of, in my own life and for the people that we work with or that we see, is the ability to keep going in the face of adversity and the ability to not only keep going but to enjoy the challenges that come up through that adversity. And so when I think of this situation, for me, it was not just in the basketball world but as a motivational speaker who's doing a bunch of gigs a year all over the country. Right? Like, you know what that's like. Those events were canceled, those contracts. And so I had to really evaluate and go back to my roots. Why am I doing what I'm doing? What is the way that I can make the greatest impact for myself, my family, and the people that I care about? And how can I continue to change the world even though I'm not able to control everything about what I want to control? I want to control more, right? Like we all do. We want to have more—

I'm a control freak. I mean, I'll just say it.

Like, we want it. And so I think when it comes to resiliency and being resilient, it's about understanding that there's always going to be things that we have no control over, right? It's always going to be that we're going to get knocked down, but it's what we do in that situation that separates us from everybody else. That's resilience for me.

So I'm not sure how large or what size of your team is, but I have a theory that when we work with organizations, when we either speak to them or we work with people senior leaders and those folks, we say you've got to model resilience. I mean, that's the only way an organization is resilient is because the individual people that work in that company are resilient. Not everybody has a blueprint for what it looks like or what it takes to develop their own resilience, so it really requires a great deal of leadership. So do you have sort of things that you're doing currently in the organization to encourage people to be able to take better care of themselves, for example? What does that look like within your group?

I think that's exactly it. And again, our organization is not big, right? It's mostly me and our director of scouting within the Combine. And then we have freelancers and contractors and everything. But the biggest thing that I focused on with him specifically was just giving him certainty that I still believed in him and what we're doing and leading by that example of—

Just stop. If you don't mind, Jake, I want to stop you right there because I think you just dropped a big, wonderful bomb right there. That part of what you did was to give that guy— because there's a lot of people that are part of this community have large organizations, and some that are just solopreneurs or starting up with a few people and then have outsourced solutions and all that. But in this time of great uncertainty, what you did is you told this guy, you reminded him that you are certain that you can succeed, that your certainty includes him, that you have faith in him and his value. to the organization and that even in the midst of whatever's going on, as a company, as a team, you guys can succeed. Did I paraphrase that correctly?

Yeah, 100%. I want him to know that I believe in him, I have faith in him, and I have faith in what we're trying to do. And even if we can't control what's going to happen right now, we can control how we set ourselves up for the next one. We can control how we continue to stay mentally strong, how we can continue to find unique ways to be innovative and creative. I mean, that's one of the blessings typically that comes out of a terrible situation, whether it's personal or on a global scale, is we're forced to innovate and we're forced to make these adjustments. We're forced to pivot, right? We're forced to see what really matters. And when we have those people who tell us it's gonna be okay, who believe in us and tell us that we're gonna come out greater and stronger because of this, You feel that it's possible. And that's why I think connection— and when I said at the very beginning, the greatest lesson I learned from The Last Dance is that no matter how great we are as individuals, whether you're the CEO, whether you're a mid-manager, whether you're a contractor, the most important thing that we can do to achieve greatness within ourselves is to tell somebody else, to bring someone else along the way for the journey. And that's how I make it a big priority for me with everyone that I work with at any point in time. is that I want you to know that we're in this together and we're on the same ship.

Right. I believe in you and I believe in our ability to succeed. What's happened there is you kind of Aikido'd the whole thing because you go right in the middle of great uncertainty, you're creating certainty. Nobody has a crystal ball. That certainty doesn't exist even for, again, recovering control freaks like myself. The landscape ahead, what are you guys thinking in terms of how far ahead you're looking and what you're doing to plan for that?

It's a really interesting question. Again, we are reliant a lot on what the NBA does. And in some ways that's a blessing, and in a lot of ways it's not. Because we're dependent on somebody else to dictate potentially the future of where we go.

That's the challenge and the opportunity all at the same time.

Exactly. And we've done an incredible job at navigating it up till this point. And I think now more than ever is we are being proactive to react. If that makes sense. We are anticipating what we think could happen and laying out the scenarios, but we are also waiting for information to make the best decision of how to proceed. Does that make sense?

We often talk about disruption and the fact that we are disrupted, and obviously, so many areas of so many different models were disrupted this year. And sometimes we talk in terms of how it is you manage disruption, and I think one of the ways that you do that is that you self-disrupt. that you positively interrupt the status quo. So yes, right now you're pivoting because you kind of were forced to do that. But I think when you're looking ahead, you're looking at what's the landscape that you can create. Is there sort of a scenario that involves being sort of riding in the coattails of the NBA? Because there's a great model that already exists for that. And then what would it look like to not do that, or to do something that wasn't necessarily competitive to it but was collateral benefit to doing something that wasn't Strictly tied to the strategy and the planning of an entity that you have no control over.

With both of us, myself and our director of scouting, he's got another job and I'm a business coach as well. So we've been able to build up the Combine in a way we have that flexibility, right? When I said talking about how we've changed with the Combine and how we've had to pivot and do certain things, well, it's also allowed both of us to look into our own lives. He just had a kid. Okay, what does that look like and how am I supposed to, as a leader, give him that certainty moving forward that he should spend more time with his family because there's gonna be a time where we're gonna need to jump back in and go all in? And same thing for me. How can I reinvest this time that maybe I wouldn't have had? How can I reinvest this into my well-being, into our coaching clients, into our programming? What new things can we provide? Because what's happening is that by the next year, Right, within 6 months from now, there's going to be exponentially more growth as an individual on my end, and I'll speak for myself here. There's exponentially more growth for me because I've been able to understand true priorities. I've been able to get more efficient. I've been able to build something that's going to last longer and create a larger legacy. And when I think about the entire scope of why I do anything that I do, it's to Literally, I mean, it's to change the world, but it's to elevate the world to be able to achieve their greatest definition of success. And all of this, everything that we're talking about, the resiliencies, the humility, the life of what the events are, all of it has boiled down to, is this going to get me closer to my mission of elevating people and to personal fulfillment and freedom and happiness? That's all it is that we're all trying to seek. And so if this is giving us that opportunity to reflect, then I need to take advantage of that opportunity, even though it may have been disguised initially as one of the worst things that could have happened to our combine and to myself as a speaker, right?

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, It's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits That will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Let's just for a moment talk about the public speaking piece because we have a lot of people as well that are in that arena in our community. So the gigs stopped. You know, COVID happens, everything you had on the books is now put on hold or canceled, and no new gigs are on the horizon at that moment. What was your pivot, or what did you do to improvise? Because improvisation is one of those skills we are getting to work on so much now. What became part of your best practice to respond to what was going on?

As a speaker, I work with a lot of high school, colleges, leadership groups, and some organizations, probably about a 70/30 split. For me, one of the first things that I did was anyone that I had an existing contract that got shut down, I let them know, similar to what we talked about with my employees, hey, I completely understand what's going on. I'm here for you. We'll work this out. I know it's going to be a tough time. Let's just communicate and go back and forth. Like, I wanted to let them know that I'm not going to apply pressure. I'm not going to come collecting their paycheck, trying to claim the half of the fee, because everybody was panicked and that wasn't the way I wanted to handle it. And so I let them know that I was there for them and worked with them. The second thing that I really tried to do in the beginning was build relationships with new potential clients by offering to do little gigs. In the high school space, in the college space, in the leadership groups, I reached out to a bunch of people that maybe I met once or twice and was like, hey, I'm sure everything got canceled, I'm sure everyone's freaking out, I'd love to do a 15, 20-minute thing for your seniors as a little send-off for them. That's easy. It allowed me to, one, practice my virtual skills, it allowed me to practice my virtual presentation, But also build incredible rapport with the decision makers who now are gonna be like, well, look at what he did in a time when we needed him the most. Now if they're deciding between me and someone else, guess who they're picking? And I've seen gigs come in for 2021 purely off of that intentional strategy. And again, it wasn't to get more gigs per se, it was to create impact and give people what they needed right now. But it benefits all of us. That's when we're winning, is when everybody's becoming better because of us and growing because of what we do and our actions. So those are a few of the things that I've done. And then now really tried to leverage different types of virtual stages, summits, podcasts, virtual conferences, and leveraging all these different avenues. But in the beginning, those were the 2 pieces and pieces that I still think are always applicable. But sometimes we don't think about those things as the natural plan of attack.

Absolutely. And I have a theory that it's very difficult for us to give anyone else anything that we don't possess ourselves. So to be there for other people, to be at our best for others, it interferes with that process if we don't take care of ourselves personally. I'm not talking about selfishly, but we actually recognize that to take care of ourselves is actually a benefit to others around us. So my question to you is, as we wind down this discussion, What's one thing that you do on a ritual basis to take care of yourself, to maintain that resilience?

One thing, and this is something that's played a role in every pivot I've ever made, is the practice of gratitude. That is something that I never fully appreciated. And as someone like me who's always go, go, go, gratitude was never something that I thought I needed to practice because I thought it slowed me down. I thought it took me out of this pursuit. And away from the speed. And in reality, the practice of gratitude has been a force of comfort. It's been a source of happiness. It's been a source of connection, and it's been a source of growth for me every day and in everything that I do because it always allows me to stay present. And I think that's like one thing that I really like because of my change in stance on how I thought about it. Sure. Did I always know gratitude's important? Yes. Right? Did I ever go on a gratitude walk? No, I laughed at that. But now, I go out and I walk and I look at the leaves on the trees. I see the leaves change colors and those things, there's power in that. There's power in noticing things and being fully present. And to give a specific example is you can walk down the same block in your neighborhood every single day. If you start to notice it, you will find something new that you never noticed, even on things you've walked by 100 times. And that's when you're present. And so gratitude has been that one thing that if I had to pick, would be something that I highly recommend for everybody to do.

Well, now I know fully why it was that we were connected for this podcast. So yeah, gratitude is— it's like an unsung hero in so many respects. And I love what you just shared, Jake, about a gratitude walk. I've not heard it termed that way before. And of course, it's no wonder that we started with that concept of what it means to be good and grateful. And I'm good and grateful for you today, buddy. And for all that you just shared with our community. I have a ritual that I remind myself of at the start of every day. It's a ritual that has helped me to reset. I think that's the thing about gratitude is it's such a reset and it can take no time at all. I mean, it could be 10 seconds. You can create a reset for yourself in the midst of a day that might be going sideways for any number of reasons. We just hit the wall or something, you know, comes outta nowhere. We get surprised or energetically we're not at our best. And you go, well, what do I do about that? Well, you can hit the reset button, and gratitude is one of those things you can do it— you can use to do it. So for me, there's 3 steps to my waking ritual. So the first step is to wake up. So I already know the answer to this question, Jake, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. Did you wake up today?

I did wake up today.

You are fully awake, buddy. And it's true too that as awake as we are, maybe we're amped up because it's a good day or whatever it might be. The process of awakening is a process. It's not a thing that it's done. Because today you feel good, you got to do it again tomorrow, a little bit more tomorrow, hopefully, than today. That's a life. To me, that's a fully encapsulated life, is that every day you wake up just a little bit more than the day before. So that's the first step in this. The second piece you've already spoken about, which is gratitude. So when I wake up in the morning, I take that 10-second reset for myself. And sometimes it's more than 10 seconds. Sometimes it's a couple of minutes. I just lie in bed or I sit with my feet on the floor and I just feel What it feels like to experience gratitude throughout my body. And that's the second step, and you spoke to that. And the third step is I really believe that our words have power. This is one of those things that a lot of people don't really get as fully as I think we can get it, that our words have power. They have this divine power to them. There's this opportunity to do something miraculous with our words. Each day. So what you say matters. And a lot of us just throw away a lot of words. And man, if we— if any of us were to listen to a recording of all the stuff that came out of our mouth in a particular day, it would probably horrify us. So to carefully select our words, it's not that easy for an entire day. But at the beginning of the day, I set that intention by curating a specific thing I say when I put my feet on the floor. It's 4 Simple words, but 4 words that have changed my life and I think have helped a lot of people as well. And those words are, I love my life. So I wake up, I feel gratitude, I put my feet on the floor and I say, I love my life. So those of you out there that are contemplating a morning ritual or a waking ritual, you could try this out for yourself. Obviously wake up, we're all going to do that, right? Hopefully, no guarantee. So, you know, if you're searching for something to feel grateful for, the fact that you're alive and breathing in that moment, you don't have to really look further than that. And then you could pick something to say. So, Jake, I'm just putting you on the spot right now, man, but like, you're gonna wake up tomorrow, you're gonna feel gratitude. What's something that you could say out loud in that moment?

I love my life.

Oh, buddy.

We could do that. We could do, today's gonna be a great day. I'm grateful for water, shelter, a bed, or we could do something, you know, very personal. I'm grateful for the opportunity to choose happiness, to choose gratitude, to choose the people I surround myself with.

Well done and beautiful. Jake, thank you so much for being on the show today. Absolutely awesome. Everybody else, we'd love to hear from you. It's so great to hear from our community. So you can go to adamarkel.com/podcast, leave a comment there. Obviously, if you haven't subscribed, feel free to do that and recommend the episode to somebody else that you think could really just, maybe somebody that's not living in gratitude or wants to get some really great insight around pivots, the ones that Jake was speaking about. I think now is a great time to share something like this with people and give them a hand. And we all need a hand. I'm always looking for inspiration. So without saying any more than that, I'll just say ciao. And thanks so much for everybody. Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights To build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.