Ep. 1- You Winning Life with Jason Wasser, LMFT

This is the You Winning Life Podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights, and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique conditioner and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to the first You Winning Life podcast. My goal is to help you minimize your stressors and maximize your potential. My name is Jason Wasser, licensed marriage and family therapist, and I'm the owner of the Family Room Wellness Associates here in Fort Lauderdale. So what's the purpose of yet another podcast about life, success, and motivation? The answer lies in my own backstory of barely graduating high school and having no clue what I would be doing in my life as I went on to build a successful therapy, alternative medicine, and coaching practice. None of this happened overnight. None of this happened alone. And none of this happened without the right influences. And for sure, without a doubt, moments along the way, I was scared, I was freaking out, and there was definitely a lot of major, major, major risks. So here's where it all begins. 1996, I graduated high school with a 1.8 GPA. Yeah, I barely, barely passed. I had no clue what college I was attending following graduation. And my parents were in the middle of a crazy, crazy divorce. Although that was happening and that was dominating a lot of things that were going on in my life, a lot of fear, a lot of worry of what was going to come next for me, I did have a lot of positive things that were going on as well. I was incredibly involved in my synagogue youth group where I was empowered by my youth director Joel to be a student leader and on its programming board, and then later on my senior year as chapter president. I was surrounded by supportive spiritual community of friends, of advisors, clergy, all who were invested in my well-being. I also loved music. I was learning to play guitar at that time, and I always had grunge, alternative, and classic rock always playing in my room. After I graduated, it ended up that I spent 2 years living overseas in Israel, studying at a yeshiva, a Talmudic and rabbinic training program, or seminary, as it might be called. And I was able to surround myself, living in the land, surrounded by biblical stories that happened there thousands of years ago, and also start my journey on personal and spiritual development. So although I was living in Israel for 2 years, trying to fit in, trying to figure out my identity, trying to figure out what the next step was for me in life, I knew it was also going to be time to go back home. Get a degree. So I headed back to New York, ended up in school, applying to a program where I was going to school at night and working during the day. My first major job was at a group home for teenage boys who were abused, and they ended up being in foster care and now living in this group home in Brooklyn, New York. Later on, I transitioned into more informal education, going back into the youth group world, teaching religious school at synagogues, running events for high school, middle school, and elementary school kids. And then as that evolved, that eventually led me to working at Princeton University running the programming for the Hillel Jewish Student Union on campus. And it was on that campus where I started to really see how hungry I was for greater knowledge than I thought I was even capable of, and that I knew that there was much more for me. That could have been happening in my life than I actually gave myself credit for. So that entire year I was there, I had some really wild experiences. I met a lot of incredible guest speakers that would come in to campus and give lectures and workshops. And near the end of my contract, one of my students who I was close with asked me what I was planning to do the next year, of which I really wasn't sure. I could have stayed in New Jersey. I was thinking about maybe moving back to Fort Lauderdale, going back to Israel. There was a lot of things that I wasn't sure about, but I knew that at the end of the day, there was something further ahead waiting for me. So near the end of my time on campus, and I knew that I wasn't going to be continuing working there, I really wasn't sure if part of me wanted to continue on in this field. Part of me also knew that it was time for me to evolve to a different thing. But the one thing that I did know is that I was really passionate about having deep, meaningful conversations with every single person that I've met along the way, especially during my time on campus. These conversations ranged from their hopes and dreams to their past and present struggles to their spiritual journey and to their relationships. In essence, I was already playing the job as a therapist and a coach. I just didn't have the formal training, degree, and license to go all in to do that. So in fact, this student really helped me find a program doing this conversation with me that would lead me to the program of family therapy at Nova Southeastern in Fort Lauderdale. The most incredible thing about this program for me was not only did it have a philosophy and an approach in which I really enjoyed, but it also didn't require the GRE exam in order for me to get in. So that was it. I was convinced this program was the one that I was going to go to. I knew that there was no way that I would be doing anything else. And I knew that without a doubt I'd be a therapist. And this is the type of therapist I wanted to be because a while back before that, I saw someone who asked me the type of questions that no other therapist has ever asked me before. And I remembered that that person was a marriage and family therapist. So 2 months later, that was it. I was starting graduate school at night, working a job at a synagogue, being their youth director and doing adult education and programming during the day on the path to getting my master's degree, something that I never thought was possible for me. 2 years later, I graduate, finish up my programming job, and jump full-time into the world of therapy. But here's the deal. I absolutely hated my first job. I loved my boss, but I hated what I was doing. And it's not that the clients were bad. It just was the first time where I realized I wasn't working with a population that I was passionate about. Of course, these clients deserved high-quality therapeutic services, but for me, it just wasn't something of an area of a niche that I connected with. Although every day I would drive all over South Florida, sometimes a half hour, 45 minutes in a car between clients to make sure that I would show up and do what I needed to do in order for them to get what they needed. But at the end of the day, I was longing to work with teens young adults in college, emerging adults, young professionals. And meanwhile, the clients I was working with were unfortunately very low-functioning adults with significant developmental disabilities. So the positive side of working for this job was that it gave me the freedom at night to join a group practice and to start building a caseload of couples, of kids, of families that eventually over the many years turned into this practice in which you see me sitting in right now. Family Room Wellness Associates. This practice now specializes in cutting-edge, clinically researched mind-body modalities such as Neuro-Emotional Technique , coupled with strategic therapy and coaching. I also have an incredible team of healers, including a chiropractor and a nutritionist, and we do functional medicine and nutrition. And I know that every day the conversations with my clients are filled with powerful insights that we're in partnership together to help each of them create the personal and professional lives that they desire and always wanted. I help them remove emotional allergies, self-limiting beliefs, anxiety, despair, and other day-to-day challenges so they can be winning life. So this podcast is the distillation of the wisdom I've gained from my friends, from my mentors, clients, spiritual leaders, coaches, role models, books, YouTube videos, conference all the time, effort, money, challenges, sweat, love that I've put into myself over the last many years. And all of my passions can really be put into 4 major verticals of which I'm going to be sharing with you along with my guests throughout this podcast. It's going to be around the worlds of psychology, spirituality, alternative medicine and wellness, and entrepreneurship. My hope is that in each episode I will bring you a tremendous amount of value, both from myself and from my guests. I will strive to bring you the successful process of others that are dominating in their life so that you can have practical applications that you can replicate in your life in a very simple way. I believe you don't have to recreate the wheel to be successful. We just need to surround ourselves with other like-minded individuals who are succeeding in the areas of life we personally want to develop greater skills in. This podcast is for those who want to be empowered and give up victimhood. It's for those who know that gaining more knowledge and practically applying it will get them to the next level. It's also for those who know the greatest investment is you can ever do. It's also for those who know that the greatest investment that you can ever make is in yourself. It is through this journey that you, along with everybody else that will hopefully be part of this Community, will be winning life. I hope you decide to join me on this journey as we create a powerful, motivated, and inspiring Community of Lifers. So, as we go on this really amazing time, I hope you decide to join me on this journey as we create a powerful, motivated, and inspiring Community of Lifers So please hit subscribe on your podcast platform and reach out to me and connect with me on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. And I look forward to seeing you as we all together start winning life.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at You Winning Life.