Justin Ross Lee: Hacking His Way To Platinum Status And Bending Rules ‘Til They Break

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week, our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

All right, welcome back to the show or in some cases, welcome to your very first episode. Congratulations. I give you a virtual high five if this is our first time meeting. My name is Brad Costanzo. I'm your host, obviously, but I'm also an investor, entrepreneur, business owner, consultant and advisor who uses this platform as a way to gain access to influential people that I'm curious about what they're doing, how they're doing it and looking to pick their brains so that I can learn more. And I share this with you. I allow you to eavesdrop on the conversations that I'm having in hopes that you get as much value as I do out of these conversations that I would rather have. Anyway, I mentioned this is how I get access to influence. And I think that's a very important thing to think about in your business and in your life and even during the rest of this show because we're going to talk about the importance of gaining access to your audience, gaining access to the people who can open the doors of opportunity for you. Now today's guest is very controversial. He is equally loved and hated by everybody who comes across him. His name is Justin Ross Lee. He goes by the initials JRL and he is a self created self aware asshole. In fact, his new book now available on Amazon is called don't you know who I think I am so confessions of a first class asshole. This self awareness is one of the things that really drew me to him. I first came across Justin on a video that I watched on Facebook about a year ago. It was a viral video talking about his unique brand of travel hacking with an immense amount of attitude and as he'll call it, chutzpah and he calls it Jew jetting. Now he is Jewish, so this is not anti Semitic, but his unique form of travel hacking, Jew jetting, allows him to not only get everything from first class upgrades and special treatment in airlines, but also hotels, nightclubs, and really anywhere he goes, you'll hear him discuss how he uses celebrities as currency and how this brand that he's created for himself at a very young age has been very deliberate and there's a big difference between the douchebags and assholes that you see out in the world who just annoy the hell out of you and the ones who, you know, have built this brand intentionally. And that's why I invited Justin to be on the show, especially after I read his book, which, as I mentioned, was just released. Now, this book and this interview is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. Justin is definitely a personality that is going to rub some people the wrong way. And as he'll tell you that if you're offended, then this is what you need to see. You need to take life a little bit less seriously. And you need to understand that there's a purpose behind everything you hear. I invited Justin on because he's doing some pretty crazy and cool stuff and I knew it'd be an entertaining interview. I've already done the interview, so I am privy to it. I guarantee you're going to want to listen to the whole thing. We go deep into stuff. And if you have heard some of Justin's interviews before, which is just surface level jrl, then you might really enjoy this because I ask some questions that probe a little bit deeper into the intention behind the personality and also some of the tactics and strategies that you can go out and use. So without any further ado, let us welcome the notorious ego that attacked New York. The Jew Jetter himself, also known as jrl, the haberdasher of pretentious pocket. Justin Ross Lee. How are you? Justin?

What's going on? Brad? How are you? Good morning.

Well, yeah, exactly. It's morning here. It's nighttime for you. Tell everybody where you're at.

A little part of Thailand, possibly the most beautiful place you've. You've ever seen. Close your eyes and imagine what paradise I've got. Looks nothing as good as this island does. I'm on an island called Koh Samui and it makes Phuket look like Rikers Island. It is just the most beautiful place I've ever been. So I'm hanging out here for a little while.

I think you should go to Koh Samui's, like their tourist office and started an entire campaign, just them battling Phuket. We make Phuket look like Rikers Island.

I think that. Well, trust me, trust me, they've already approached. They know I'm here. They know I'm here. Listen, it's not that large an island and I came from Manhattan. I've definitely made my statement after reading your book.

Now I'm trying to imagine you like on an island like yeah. Is there anybody there who doesn't know who you are except for the tourists who just get there? And I'm sure by the time they leave, they've probably had a side. Exciting.

You know, tourism's a driving force.

Yep.

I've been here a little while. I'm still traveling around Southeast Asia. I'm back and forth. I'm flying all over this. You know, being based here for now doesn't slow me down. It just speeds me up. I'm in such close proximity to places on my bucket list. Kathmandu, Nepal, where Obama was just there yesterday. Otherwise, I would have been there as well. You know, it's. It's just a great corner of the world to be based out of. And, you know, people always ask me why Asia, and I don't understand Americans discomfort. Everyone goes to Europe. Everyone seems uncomfortable with traveling to Asia. But, Brad, there's nothing wrong with being the tallest guy in the room.

Hey, as a five, nine.

Sorry.

As a five nine guy myself. You're speaking my language.

Yeah, I'm five. I'm five, nine. But I ball like I'm six, eight. Yeah, player hating is a bit straight. So listen, if you haven't been paying attention, Asia is taking over the world, and it's so culturally so different. So look at these assholes. I look at these schmucks from New York and they're flying down to Miami and they're, oh, yeah, I'm in St. Bart. Okay, why don't you get outside your fucking comfort zone, okay? And why don't you take another week off vacation? Why don't you go somewhere you haven't been before and stop bragging that you're hanging out, you know, poolside at Delano? That doesn't impress anyone anymore. It's. Frankly, it's. It's. It's been. It's been done. Do something that hasn't been done. Plant a flag somewhere and then talk to me.

You're absolutely right. I mean, my wife and I are this year, either this year or, like early next year. Our next trip is quite literally Thailand, Asia. There's multiple places I want to go. We're probably going to go for three or four weeks and potentially even jujut around and explore JRL style as much as we can.

So I want to back up a little bit or zoom out. I talked a little bit about this in the introduction, but kind of where I first heard about you and all of your notorious shenanigans was that. I guess it was that Esquire video piece that was done on you, the five or six minute video. And I'll link to it in the show notes here. Really just kind of explaining who you are, what you've been up to from the travel hacking, or as you call it, Ju Jetting. We can definitely want to chat about that. And I just remember seeing it thinking, you know, just how brilliant of a piece it was. First of all, both from a personal branding standpoint, from obviously, I'm sure Pretentious Pocket, which is your company, got some stuff out of it. But what I loved about by the way, I was really looking forward to the book and I was paying close attention to when that came out because I love it when I see people doing things a little bit differently, or actually in your case, a lot differently. You said something at the very end of the book that I thought was really profound and I really, really liked and it actually made me respect you very much so. And you talked about, I mean, you're notorious for being an asshole. I mean, that's part of the title of your book, you know, Confessions of a First Class Asshole. But you also talk about how you're a self aware, self created asshole who does this with intention on purpose. And I thought that was actually very, very profound because you, this Persona that you've created that a lot of people, like you said, half the people hate you, the other people love you. There's a big difference between just being a douchebag, being an asshole that is unaware, and being someone who's crafted their entire life about this. And you go into a lot of detail of that in the book and kind of your entire backstory. But for those of the listeners who aren't totally familiar with who you are, what you're about.

Go into a little bit of a backstory, just about where JRL the Persona, came about. And then I want to dive into some of the, you know, some of the cooler, more fun aspects of bending the rules, getting access, building influence, and kind of hacking the system the way you've done it.

Well, I want to speak to your first question. And it's one thing to wear masks as a personality, but it's quite another when it's you who's hiding behind the curtain of your life. And I think that's an important tenet that you should take from the book. We all represent ourselves differently, Brad. You're no different. When you went on your first date with your wife, that wasn't you. You weren't able to be the same you that, that you would have been if it weren't your first date. Everyone wears masks. Everyone is a different version of themselves. What's a date? A job interview, right. With the ultimate goal is getting hired. That means, means you might get laid that night. So everyone does it. I'm just a little more self aware of how and by what means I do it. And there's nothing wrong with being honest. There's nothing wrong with being honest to yourself. And that's the difference between.

Being an absolute psychopath and being, being an asshole but a good guy. Meantime, right. Women happen to like. It's the ones that are sociopaths that they tend to have a problem with.

Yep, yep. And you, you, you went to great lengths. You realized this early in life it looked like, I mean, you had a, you know, probably a problem with authority, much like I had growing up, like to bend the rules and see what you can get away with. And I think part of it was a big challenge. And you, you talked about all the little challenges that you, you saw it as you were growing up.

I think that what you just said is also profound because it's the people who are unaware, the people who are name dropping and doing all this stuff just because they think they're.

Special, but they don't even see how the rest of the world sees them.

This is a business related show and personal branding is a very big topic. And there's a lot of entrepreneurs and business people and just focus on folks in general who either ignore their personal brand or do a lot to create it. When did this whole concept of creating this JRL personality of I don't care what people think, I don't care if they think I'm an asshole. When did that kind of really come about?

You know, it's tough. I speak about a specific instance when in the book, in one of the first chapters, when I realized that social crimes beget another. And it was at that moment that I realized that I did something. And I reached down and I felt what, what most people would think are their balls and maybe mine were a little bit bigger than the guys standing next to me. But I did something because I just didn't fucking care anymore. And I wanted, I wanted a seat and I didn't have a reservation. And I didn't know how to break that chain, right? And so the authority standing in front of me was this, this French maitre day. And so what did I do? My first social crime in Manhattan trying to make a name for myself was what did I do? I caused a distraction. I purposefully knocked a glass off the table so that they would show me their. Their whole card. So what was their hold card? The whole card was the reservation book. So after I knocked the glass off the table to cause distraction, I introduced myself as Mr. Papa Giorgio, or whatever name.

Because they had shown me their. They showed me their bottom card and realized after temporarily getting away with that, that the rush I felt, while not a crime in and of itself, was enough to. To. To. To make me realize that. When you close your eyes and picture the most influential people in the world, are any of them waiting in line? No, of course not. Waiting in line is for schmucks and assholes. And if there were one reason to read my book, it's that the next time you're faced with waiting in a long line, you'll thank me.

And there's a huge difference. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. Because there's a huge difference between not waiting in line and then just being the other type of person who got some money, like, well, I'll just pay the 20, 50, 100 bucks to the doorman, whatever, to get in, and I'll just pay to skip it. What? The genius part about what you've done is you've socially engineered and you've. You've done some things that, like, listen, I'm. I'm not going to wait in line, but I'm also not just going to buy my way through it. I'm going to.

Be a little more.

Creative than that because you'll never be able to come. You can never compete, right? So in Manhattan, you're never going to be the wealthiest guy in town. So if you want to be. If you want to be the big swinging dick in your small, shitty town, awesome. Congratulations. But once you're swinging with the big leagues, and once. Once you're. Once you're. Once you're batting for the major leagues, it's very different. Manhattan's major league. So I have a chapter in my book called Konica, how to Get Away with Anything. And Konica speaks to that very social condition you mentioned. It's how to get away with absolutely anything. Right?

And you make a big distinction between bending rules, bending laws, skirting them, and just walking the fine line. Listen, I'm not going illegal. I'm not going criminal in most cases. But.

I don't look great in orange. Okay? Orange is not my color. So we're staying away from the color orange. But everything else is fair game, right?

Well. And you even mentioned in the book about bending the rules until they change them. They can change the loopholes at any time. You're just an expert at finding them and exploiting them.

Right. And so if I went to law school, what would that make me? An attorney? How often are people completely sued by the fact that they don't think they can do something? And, and really, my, my entire movement has been about, you know, you, you miss, you miss every single flight. You don't try and board. So I've never in my life had greater successes with more people telling me that it's impossible or you can't do it. And, you know, you're not on the phone with Tony Robbins here. Okay. And I don't buy into all that bullshit, but I also believe a lot of, a lot of, a lot of your own personal gratification can be achieved by changing the stigma associated with the word no. I don't believe in no. When someone tells me no, for me that's just an opening offer. And so that's why I think if you had to be asked me, what is your book and what's the, what's the impetus behind the book? I would say the onus behind it is it's the four hour work week meets. Catch me if you can.

By the way, one of my favorite.

There's a lot of sex. Yes, there is.

You want to ask if you've read this book, and if not, I highly recommend it. But have you, have you read the book? Start with no by Jim Camp? Is that familiar at all?

No, but it's interesting. When we were doing marketing analysis with my amazing publisher, Ink Shares, it was a book that came up and so I haven't. But I've skimmed through it, so I know what you're talking about. So many people, Brad, are afraid to just ask the question. And that's that. That's day one. Ask the question. Ask the questions. And people are afraid to ask for the upgrades. People are afraid to schmooze, you know, and for me, it's really, here's my litmus test.

Are you any worse than you would have been had you have not asked said question? And the answer 99% of the time is no, you know?

Yeah.

Don't ever be afraid to ask anyone any question. When I asked my rabbi if cocaine was kosher, responded, yeah. When I asked my rabbi if cocaine was kosher, he responded, well, what did you pay? So, you know, there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of, A lot of fear that we all have, whether or not we realize it, whether or not we articulate it or not. To ourselves. It's. People have a fear, typically, of asking the right questions. Right. One of the worst things you could do in a job interview is not be the lead. You're either the top or a bottom in the job interview. If you're not leading the discussion, you're just going to be in a pile of resume paperwork. It's bullshit. It's all bullshit. You need it. You're either leading or you're following. And I just decided early in life I wasn't going to follow.

That's a very, very strong.

Insight. So early. It also reminds me, just since I mentioned a book, there's another book that really just kind of came up in my mind while I was reading yours. That's a book by Robert Ringer called Winning through Intimidation. I don't know if you've come across that one as well, but in the book back in the 70s, he talked about leapfrog theory. And I pulled the one sentence quote where he describes what leapfrog theory is, where he says, no one has an obligation, moral, legal or otherwise, to, quote, work his way up through the ranks. Every human being possesses an inalienable right to make a unilateral decision to redirect his career and begin operating on a higher level at any time that he, and he alone believes he is ready. And he goes on to describe.

Beautifully articulated. Beautifully articulated.

Isn't that great?

You mentioned that, you know, early in life you were too nice, Brad. Listen, nice guys finish last. Smart guys, come on. The prom queen's face. You decide which guy you want to be.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. So, I mean, that book, if you haven't read it, it's also totally. While I was reading your book, I was thinking Winning through Intimidation. And it really is. It's a business classic. You also talk in the book about using celebrities as your currency. Was that the. Either the chapter title or the concept?

Yes, celebrities are currency, and unfortunately for them, they're held to a much higher standard, not just legally. Yeah, but. So let. Let me give you an example. And I'm not suggesting anyone do this, okay? But if you were to pick a feud with a celebrity and you have any type of a following.

Name a celebrity that you. That you. First one pops in your head.

Oh, for Robert Downey Jr. I just saw some. I just saw a picture of him online.

Okay, Right, right, right. Okay. So imagine Robert Downey Jr. And I start. I start saying, Robert Downey Jr. Was staring at my girlfriend's tits when we were at Nello. Well, Robert Downey Jr. Gonna get that message. It's going to come across. And he could do one of two things, right? He can ignore it, which means, well, I'm the only one saying he did this, and he can't refute it because then he's. Then he's taking the bait, right? So celebrities can either take the bait or they can ignore it. If they ignore it, I'm the only ones preaching. If they refute it. Now. Now Robert Downey Jr. Is down on my level.

You couldn't have picked a worse celebrity. I mean, a fucking roller coaster of a career, but let's pretend it's that someone else. Now he's down on my level. And so the point is, when it comes to celebrities, they, you know, you either rise to them or they're gonna. They're gonna go down to your level, depending on your level of fame and notoriety. And typically, what you find is the stupider celebrities, they take the bait. You know, I had feuds with Star Jones. She took the bait. She didn't need to.

You explained a little bit of that in the book.

Respond. She didn't need to retaliate.

Remind. Remind the. Or go into a little bit more detail on the Star Jones thing, because you talked about that in the book. But I thought it was pretty brilliant.

You know, I mean, it was so many years ago. We're at Hampton's Polo, and we had had a bit of a feud because I took a F with her and I photoshopped it and, you know, you know, maybe it was a bit of a childish joke. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I shopped something a little. And she was so outraged that she demanded and went to the Polo. The people that had run Hampton's Polo at the time and said, you better not have that, Justin Ross, please show up next week. And lo and behold, she had me banned from Polo. But for me, that was just the beginning because I had more fun with it. You know, Us Weekly, Star Magazine, the New York Post. Everyone had so much fun with this story. So Hampton's Polo.

But. But the story. Like, did you. Are you the one who kind of leaked the story to these. To these sites, or had they already gotten them?

That's another thing. That's another thing, Brett. Well, you have to always be your own publicist. You know, I'm not a Donald Trump fan. I'm not a Donald Trump supporter, but I have to say, one of. One of the. One of the most interesting things he did. If you heard that recording of him in the 90s pretending to be his own publicist. It's the funniest thing I've ever heard. And he's in complete denial. Oh, that's not my voice. It must be someone else. I haven't heard that recording. Lots of people sound like me. It's unequivocally him. It's completely Donald Trump. I've heard he's playing his own publicist. And this is Donald Trump with, you know, millions and millions of dollars in the bank, hundreds of millions of bucks in the 90s.

Me a break.

He is, he is the biggest self promoter, you know, of all time.

Like, yeah, but to a fall. But the difference is he's drink, he's drinking his own Kool Aid, right? When you surround yourself with yes men, eventually you turn, you turn into Kim jong UN.

Or Dr. Evil or Donald Trump and you start drinking your own Kool Aid and all of a sudden the emperor has no clothes. Right?

Well, and it goes back to what I said in the beginning and what you said in the book about the whole concept of being self aware and intentional and understanding that, listen, we're all playing a game. We're all shaping. We're either being shaped by society or we're shaping it. And you just happen to say, look, I'm going to shape it too, to what I want. And this is the, you know, the, you know, kind of the way I'm going to do it. And you take a lot of, you take a lot of shit from people from the press, like, but that you feed on this, right? You talked about, was it the Howard Stern principle that he talked about in his book? Look, half the people love me, half the people hate me. Even the people who hate me are paying attention, right?

Well, the money's made on the, on the 1%, right? So I don't believe in bad press. Unless you hate Jews or like to fuck little kids, right? Fortunately for me, I hate little kids and I happen to be Jewish. So if you think there's any bad press I can encounter, I encourage you to get creative. Because I don't believe in it.

Right.

Simply don't believe in it.

How can people use this if they're not always surrounded by, you know, celebrity? They're not in New York, Louisiana. And places where celebrities are crawling around them and things like that? How can they kind of utilize these, these concepts in their own life if they're not in the metropolises that you seem to frequent?

Okay, fair enough. Question. So you know, every, there are different levels, right? And so Wherever you live, I don't care if you live in Scottsdale, Arizona. There's local celebrities there. So, you know, it's easy to feud with people larger than you. Right. You're never going to be the biggest fish in your pond. And if you are, you're in too. You're in too small a pond. Yeah. And so anyone that would try and. Or would be the slightest bit interested in practicing some of my techniques probably isn't the guy who wants to stay in his town of 3,000. So I think that would be a very isolated situation. But. And listen, I'm not saying go out and pick fucking fights with every celebrity. You have to have some kind of motivation and larger purpose in mind. If it's for you promoting a business, all power to you. Like, frankly, I do not feel bad for any celebrity surrounded by paparazzi saying, okay, can I just have my privacy back? No, you can't have your privacy back because you're repped by ICM and because, you know, you drive a half a million dollar car and because you have a house in the Hollywood Hills and this is what you signed up for. And if you don't want it, I'm sure someone else would be happy in two minutes to trade their privacy for yours, Justin Bieber. Give me a break.

Right, well, and I'm sure that a lot of the publicity that they feel the same, that no publicity is necessarily bad publicity because it keeps people talking about them. It keeps them relevant, even if you're the one doing it and they're not having fun with it. You know, staying in, staying relevant is.

I mean, you look at some of the most famous actors in the world, they don't talk to tmz. Most actors I happen to. I happen to actually know, most actors call TMZ on themselves whenever they haven't had a movie gig in the past six months or whenever they've been dropping off the. Off. Off the face of the earth. So, you know, people like Brad Pitt, who I know he's never called TMZ on himself. He doesn't need to. His movie quotes are high enough. The guy actually wants his privacy. He's not starving for attention. He could. He could not do a movie for five years and still be as relevant.

No, you're absolutely spot on. One of the things we were talking about that made me think of, have you heard of the book or the author, Ryan Holiday, who wrote, trust me.

I'm lying.

I've heard of him. I haven't read the book, though. Yes.

So trust Me, I'm lying. I think it's like Confessions of a Media Manipulator. This would also be right, you know, right down the pipe for you. One of the things that he did, he was Tucker Max's publicist. He was a publicist or he was the head of marketing for American Apparel. And he's like in his early 20s.

You know, it's interesting. I'm connected with this guy on Facebook. I didn't even understand we're friends on Facebook. Ryan Holiday. Yes. Trust me, I'm lying.

Yeah.

And one other of a media manipulator. Right.

So, yeah, this will be, you know, intellectual porn for you as you're reading it. And he talks about not only the way that the entire news cycle, the blogosphere and everything else works and how big publications feed on little store like little publications, and they curate and aggregate news. So if he wants to get a story out about one of his clients, about somebody else, he may feed a quote unquote, exclusive, salacious, sometimes even false story to a smaller blog and then contact the bigger news agencies and say, how come you aren't reporting on this, knowing that they will. So he's able to insert his stories into the mainstream press. One of the things he did, and he details this when he was promoting Tucker's, who was a former guest on the podcast. If anybody doesn't know who that is, you can listen. I think it was his movie, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. He got a big billboard in Los Angeles and then he hired somebody to go put graffiti on it. And then he contacted the National Organization for Women and he said, these guys, hey, people are. This male chauvinist movie is coming out, blah, blah, blah. We should organize a picket. So he had them organize a picket and then he contacted them, the LA Times, and told them about the National Organization for Women picketing the movie and defacing the. The billboards.

He's creating his. He's creating his own. His own story. He's creating his own controversy. And that's done more often than you've. You could possibly imagine. And I see a lot of what goes on behind. Behind the curtain, behind closed doors. And there's a lot of that going on. Just goes to speak to the social condition of audiences in general. So people will click on whatever it is. That's a catchy headline. And news organizations aren't the news organizations of our. Of our parents. Okay, no, there's been a systemic. There's been such a systemic shift in what is and what is not news. So, like, because.

News is now valued based on clicks, right? Page clicks, and it never used to be that way. And so the.

It's a huge concern in terms of ethics, but it leaves huge opportunity for mindful people trying to get their name out there and trying to be self promoters and try to promote a cause business, a philosophy, a book gives them an opportunity to create the hype and be the architects of their own success.

Yeah, it's kind of like seeing you're.

Not capitalizing off of that. You're an idiot.

Like seeing the matrix, you understand how it works. You can operate outside of it. You can kind of structure it to, you know, to what you want to do, you know, to what you want to experience, what you want to create. And we never actually had that ability throughout history as we do now. So, you know, like everything, there's the positive aspects and negative aspects, and then there's, you know, how you, how you shape it.

You talk, you talk a lot about, you know, your lifestyle, your. And one of the, one of the things you mentioned in there that I highlighted in the Kindle version that I purchased was something about overachieving is underrated. You want to be a. What is an over underachiever?

Right?

I love that line. I want to be an over underachiever. Explain what it.

Yeah, What I mean by that is if you're, if you're an overachiever or an underachiever, you're probably playing by somebody else's rules and somebody else's metrics. Who the fuck gets to decide whether or not you're over or under? It's a ridiculous, ridiculous pretense, right? So you make the rules, right? You decide whether or not you're up for promotion. Be your own boss. And that doesn't mean you can't work for a company. It means be your own boss. Wherever you are, within the organizational structure, if you do work for a company, be your own boss.

Yeah, I, I talk a lot. Go ahead.

People need to realize, right.

Life is not so dissimilar than, you know, prison, right? So what, what, what is any person? What's. What's the stigma associated with going to jail? Well, the first thing you need to do on the first day is you either need to become someone's bitch or you need someone to become your bitch. Life's not so dissimilar, right? In 2016, we all have electronic reputations. Everyone is interconnected. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're on Twitter, we're on LinkedIn. And your reputation is going to precede you. It's a smaller world than it's ever been before, and you have to decide whether or not you're going to play boss or if you're going to roll over and be someone's bitch in every aspect of your life. I'm not suggesting that any, any of my methods, methodologies are going to work in prison. This is not a prison read.

Don't wear a Pretentious Pocket in prison. Speaking of that, probably not.

I've, you know, I've shipped to what, 40 or 30, 38 or 39 countries, but I've never shipped to an institution. I've never shipped to a penitentiary.

Yeah, I don't think those would go over too well.

No, I think, I think they're contraband. I think they're considered contraband. Way, way too colorful.

It could be what I want to touch a little bit about on that business. So you've got pretentious pocket.com for anybody who wants to see it. And you. I was really curious about this, by the way, when I first watched the video that came out on your, that you had done with Esquire. And I thought, this is a genius way, this whole personality to promote Pretentious Pocket. And I thought having that was my first exposure to you, was that the JRL Persona was created in order to market Pretentious Pocket. But it sounds like from the book, it was quite the opposite, that Pretentious Pocket sprang out of JRL and the lifestyle that you created.

Absolutely. So, Brad, Pretentious Pocket was kind of a manifestation of jrl. Right. So it was me a brand. And so what does it represent? Well, it's, it's vibrant. Right. So I don't walk into the room. I open the door and punch it in the face. And it's, it's a conversations piece. And I believe in any room you're in, you're either part of the discussion or you need to find a smaller room. And so I found a product. I flew all around the world and with nothing other than a passport, an Hermes scarf, and I flew around to lots of, lots of countries. And I wanted to find silk that felt as good or as close to the silk in the $180 Hermes scarf. And I knew I was going to make something different. I knew I was going to put my personality, my brand ethos behind it. And that's exactly what I did. And it's been great. It's been really successful. It's a business that runs itself. I don't have to be at a desk. It's passive and active income and it's frankly an awesome product.

It is possibly the finest silk you could possibly find because I flew all around the world and this is the best I found.

That's genius. And for those of you, because this is obviously an audio pretentious pocket, they are beautiful silk ornate pocket squares that. Now do you, do you only sell pocket squares? Do you sell things for women as well or is this only for pocket squares for men?

No, no, I don't say, look, it's for the modern day narcissist. Not unlike my book, right? So it's, it's 100% fuck you silk. Says right, right there on the label. 100% fuck you silk. Made in Manhattan. But I sourced the material from, from all over the Orient except for China. I want to business with China because their silk sucks. Right?

So this is a, this is a point I want to kind of get to some of the more fun things. I know that my listeners and you know will be really interested in this. When I told some friends who are familiar with you that I was going to be interviewing you, everybody's dying to hear some of the cool secrets about ju jetting, travel hacking and you know, just some of the ways that they can also engineer some of the experiences that you've gotten. And in the book you detail, you know, a handful of the things that you've done. I'll give an example because then you said that they've since changed the rules. So you mentioned that in the past you would buy in order to get upgrades to first class from coach. You would buy multiple seats or buy out the entire first class tickets with refundable fares, refund them at the last minute and then ask for an upgrade. All of a sudden, voila, they have availability. So I was laughing my ass off when I read that. But then you started to say things have changed, people have changed the rules. They get wise to what you're doing. First of all, is that still, is that a rule that is still in play?

I mean technically, if you wanted to still do it, it would absolutely work. I'd suggest you use a VPN and have a very high credit line. But there's nothing illegal about going into the gap and saying, I'd like to buy all your socks, what's your return policy? And then on the 29th day bringing back all the stocks and returning them. So there's nothing wrong or illegal about that. Would an airline say it violates the contract of carriage, try and ban You. Absolutely. Have I been banned from an airline? Sure, absolutely. Are there other airlines, Are there other airlines that are aware of me who you might not know I'm doing an ad for, but I'm actually doing an ad for? Absolutely. So don't think that everything you see online.

It means I'm not being compensed for it in some way or another. I love that.

I love that. What are some of the JIU jetting, travel hacking, things that really do still work now that people can kind of go out and do for themselves. Obviously, when you look at travel hacking, most travel hackers, especially if you Google it and you read some of this is just all just playing the points game and credit cards and points and nothing else, and yours seems to go much deeper than that.

Yeah, I mean, listen, that's kind of like a passive way to do it, right. That's not injecting any personality into the game. You know, there's so many people, they generate spend and on credit cards and this, you know, and they sign up, sign up for credit cards, they cancel them, sign up again and have credit cards in their dog's name. And I'm not saying I haven't done all that. Of course, course I have. But, you know, sometimes it's great to also be a little more creative. And so I've. I've Most recently shared 5 of my travel hacks with the New York Post. We can go through some of those. Those are the latest that I'm willing to reveal. But there's, there's a lot up my sleeve. One of the questions I get all the time is just, you wrote this book. What are you going to do now that all these loopholes close? First of all, you know, I'm no Houdini, but you don't know all my tricks.

Yeah, they're not all.

Remember, I'm. I'm telling you what I know strategically, right. So I'm telling you with purpose what I know. There are some things that, if you were. You and I were having drinks and weren't recording, I'd probably let you in on. But there's some things that, you know, I selfishly want for myself. There's nothing wrong with that. Can't blame you.

So what are a couple of the ones that kind of are out there that you're willing to reveal?

Especially this New York Post article, because they phrased it so, so eloquently.

And obviously, I know on, especially on airlines, the big thing is, you know, getting up, upgraded to business in first, you know, more often as opposed to just, you know, hoping or waiting and paying.

As well as. Yeah, just some of the stuff that.

I'm not even aware of. No, I mean, look, yes, yes and no. I'll tell you what, the, the industry is completely changed. The past three, six months.

Yeah.

Gap between business class and coach fares has slimmed. So much so that oftentimes if you're checking luggage, it makes sense to book the business class or first class fare. And most people don't even realize that. You mean for an extra $30 or $40 each way, I could be traveling up front. People don't realize that it's become more and more affordable. You know, I've seen round trip tickets from Colombo, Sri Lanka to the States in business class on a five star airline for eleven hundred dollars round trip. You know what the price of a Coach ticket was? 1100 dollars round trip. Wow. So people are often making the, the mistake thinking that they can't afford it. The prices drop dramatically.

Okay.

Compared to several years ago.

Paying attention to that.

Right. So, you know, never pay for wi fi in 2016. Internet's a right. And you should never have to pay for WI fi. So what I do is I'll call the front desk and I'll ask her phone number for Internet technical support.

Oh, this is at a hotel.

And I'll tell them, listen, I'm having trouble connecting. And they'll either give you a code or register your IP address in the system. And the point is, the charges will never end up on your bill. I mean, even if they do now, you have a record of. Well, I had to call technical support, so I had an issue. And remember the lingo. Right. So you have an issue, that's a service failure. That's not an issue. An issue is something that you have. A service failure is something that a hotel has. And what does a service failure mean? It means that you're entitled to a service recovery. And when you use this industry lingo that I mentioned in the book, you'll learn that hotels wisen up pretty quickly, that they're dealing with a pro and they're speaking the same hospitality lingo that they studied. Another thing is, you know, if you wanted, let's say one person in your party has access to a lounge, but the rest don't print more boarding passes. You know, when I come and go out of a, out of a business first class lounge, especially when it's busy, all they want to see is the green light when they scan your boarding pass. So I've used this. I'VE been in lounges before where they've caught on and it's the funniest thing in the world because they've realized suddenly they have eight or nine Justin Ross and like, will the real JRL please stand up?

Do they catch on after everybody's in there enjoying themselves or while they're checking you in?

Yeah, after they realize all of a sudden everyone that walked in alone seems to, seems to be pretty friendly ever. Everyone seems to know each other and there's no more champagne left. I mean that's the ultimate gratification. You know. Another thing is make yourself known. There's nothing wrong with asking, but if you're asking as a nobody, you're no longer known. So what I do is I call any hotel. If I didn't have status with the property, I would call a hotel three days before my arrival and I'd ask to speak with the rooms director and I would introduce myself and I'd say, hi, my name is Justin Ross Lee. I'm a, I'm a diamond member at XYZ Hotel at a competing chain. And I said, look, you know, I'm, I want to know about your room categories. I have an upcoming stay and I want to know if you're able to give me a space available upgrade. Tell me what room you would want to stay in if you were me as a diamond member at XYZ chain. And then I sent a follow up email documenting the call. And so now they realize that they've spent time with me, I've spent time with them, we have a dialogue, there's a relationship there. And 90% of the time you're going to end up with something spectacular. And if you don't, it's just the beginning of the negotiations because then what you do is you go to the front desk and tell them you've already corresponded with the room's director, insert their name and that you're dissatisfied with the present offerings. So now what you've done, Brad, is you've established both credibility and leverage. No one wants to argue with a guest. And you're going to be moved into a much more palatable room and probably a suite. Just as so long as you know the lingo.

Yeah, that's, that's important because they.

Brings up something you talked about way back earlier in your book. When it talks, when you're talking about working with celebrities, the familiarization technique, letting them know that you're kind of on the inside in one way or another.

Absolutely. And there's no better way than to have someone become putty in your hand, even if you're getting horrible service by saying, listen, I'm really, I'm really pleased with the service you've been providing. I'll never forget it. I was on a, I was on a Delta flight and the flight attendant was being just an absolute cunt. And I, you know, I think she knew it because you have to. Everyone's a little bit self aware and like all the first class passengers looking around and they're like, what's up with her? What's up with this flight attendant? She have bad layover? What's going on? So I pressed the call button and you know, Dusty Debbie comes over and she says, yes sir, what do you want? And I said, I just want to tell you that I'm enjoying my flight so much and I want to thank you so much for providing such excellent service. And if you don't mind, I'd love to fill out a comment card because I know those are important for quarterly reviews and I'd love to give back what you've given to all of us. And so you have to say it with a straight face. And sometimes I feel like I should earn a SAG award, some of the acting skills I've done. But you'll see the attitude change pretty quickly and the words gonna spread that you're not a passive customer, you're an active customer, which means they're not in charge of your service. You're in charge of your service right now.

Do you do that early in the flight, midway through when you're at like.

I set the precedent. I think if you do it within the first quarter of the flight, I mean, I don't do it as soon as I sit down, but if you do it within the first quarter of the flight, you're going to have a much, much better experience.

Right?

And I do, I do regardless. Like, what does it take? It takes three minutes for me to fill out a comment card.

The dividends that pays.

And more times, more times than not, I'll end up with a beautiful bottle of wine being discreetly handed to me towards the end of a flight. It happens more than you would ever imagine. You have to differentiate yourself, even as a passenger, even as a guest, even as a guy at a nightclub trying to get laid. If you're, you know, even as, as a, a job seeker, you want your resume paper to be an inch or two longer than everyone else's so you stand out at. Otherwise you're going to be that asshole, that schmuck Just waiting in line like every, every other sheep that you're competing with. And what did I say about nice guys finishing last? Right?

Well, the, the other thing that this also brings up, and you, you mention it very deliberately. You know, the people at the bottom of the, I guess you could call it social ladder, work, work ladder, whatever. You treat them, you charm them, you, they become your best friends. From, what was it like taxi drivers to doormen to bathroom attendants to the people on the ground floor, you, you treat like.

Well, they're the guys with access, right? They're the guys with access. No one gives a shit about middle management. You want the people in the bottom and the people on top. Those are the people who are going to make your stay or your trip or whatever it is you're trying to get. Those are the people that are going to make it happen. The people in the bottom are so impressed that you're even paying attention to them, right? And the people on the top don't want to be bothered by you.

Aim higher, aim low. In the middle, forget about it, right?

Those are the ones you just punch through with the attitude.

And it's no different. It's no different than saying, I rather have the. I would rather.

The worst thing in the world is having an okay employee, right? So you want horrible employees or amazing employees. When you have amazing employees, it goes pretty quickly. They're recognized, right? And they get promoted and they're your shining star and you use them as models for your business and for your, for the ethos of your brand or your company. When you have shitty employees, they're the easiest to fire. It's the people that trek along doing exactly what they're supposed to do, but no more. Those are the people that will cripple your brand, cripple your business, cripple your mentality as a leader in any, in any industry, right? It's mediocrity that makes you who you are. So by ironing out and getting rid of all the mediocrity in your life, you're going to have a tremendous advantage on all your competitors.

Yeah, I agree with that completely. The one of the other questions I have is.

Right now, I mean, at least the way you paint it, you live a pretty decadent lifestyle. You travel first class, beautiful hotels, you get upgraded all the time, beautiful women, et cetera. It's a very, at least painted as a decadent, hedonistic, enjoyable lifestyle. Is there any, you know, what's kind of next, what's the next big thing? Are there any big challenges that you actually are wanting to take on. Whether it's, you know, whether it has to do with business, social, experiential. Is there anything out there that kind of, you know, JRL is wanting to tackle?

I mean, Frank, what, what don't you want to tackle? Come on.

Right, but you know what I'm saying, right? Like too much of a good thing, all of a sudden it becomes.

Is there anything specifically that I, that I can't tackle that I'd like to.

Yeah. I'm in the process of getting my private pilot's license and I wish I had a little more time. I wish there was a shortcut to do that. But that would probably make me a horrible pilot. So I need more. Yeah. And I wouldn't want to share the skies with me if I were a shitty pilot. So, you know, I want my ppl. I want my instrument rating. I want to, you know, my very. Had my first solo landing went awesome. You know, any, any landing you could walk away from in my opinion is a fucking success. And I want my multi engine. I mean, listen, I. There's the only thing holding me back is time. It's really time consuming to get your private pilot's license.

What do you spend most of your time on these days? Obviously, I mean you travel, you don't. Pretentious pocket kind of runs itself as you said. You don't spend a whole lot of time on that. You're obviously promoting, you know, your personal brand. But what. Where do you spend most of your time when not just relaxing or enjoying?

Well, I think a misconception is that I just fuck around and don't work. Well, you know, that's obviously part of the brand. It's. It's part of my identity. But you'd be surprised how exhausting not working can be when you've got so many moving pieces, when you're, when you're booking so many different flights and when you travel 200 days a year, 250 days a year, not working becomes a lot of work. So I, there's few days where I'm actually saying, all right, it, I'll just go and hang out on the beach. But you know, everything I do is, is pretty, it's pretty purpose driven. Right. So I'm working on hacking another industry.

And I can't give you any more clues of what industry that is, but totally, it's totally separate from hospitality. It's totally separate from ju jetting or, or you know, hotel upgrades or anything like that. Yeah. And when I do, it's gonna. It's gonna turn the industry on its ass.

And the mo. The moment I can tell you, I'd be happy to let you know.

That's great. So. Okay. And that's exactly what I mean. So there are things out there because that. It's not just decadence. It's because you have fun with this. This is kind of a job. It's the challenge, which I can tell that you really get off on of. Can I do this and how can I do this? And that's, you know, using your creative skills. Now, you also allude in the book several times to listen, if I. If I were a airline exec, I would instantly hire me as a consultant. And if you were working for an airline, not assuming that you're not right now, but you kind of alluded that you might. There might be a little bit of.

A. I may be working as a 1099 for an airline.

There you go. So do you help them close the holes? Do you help them make the. Or if you did. If an airline hires you as a consultant, Justin, how can you help us? Are you. Would you be there to close the holes, or would you be.

Two things I'm an expert on. One is finding the Swiss cheese that is their loyalty programs or their policies. Right. And helping them fill the hole in that Swiss cheese. And the other is just.

Product and services. Right? So I happen to know, if you put me in the hotel room, I can tell you in two seconds what's wrong. And a lot of these hotels and a lot of these airlines have become so desensitized and so myopic because they invest so much in their products and services and all those. And they miss the simplest shutter. They miss the simplest things that make road warriors pissed off. And when you spend as much time traveling as I do, it's little things that are so often overlooked that drive loyalty. It's the intangibles. It's not, oh, do you have a pillow menu? It's the attention to detail. And if I had to give one global brand that kicks ass at attention to detail, it would have to be Hyatt. Hyatt's in America are nothing like they are overseas. Hyatt's overseas rival, especially in Asia, rival of Four Seasons. Wow. Rival. Ritz Carlton rival. Le Meridian rival. Some of the Conrad rival. The best of breed brands, and they do with such flawless execution that it blows my mind. And I think most of it must be systems based, but holy shit. Do they. Can they make anyone feel important?

Why do you Think it's different overseas versus the US The Hyatt's are nice. I say it's nice. They're nice. But they're. Yeah, they don't. They don't ring of.

But if. All right, if in New York, would you rather stay at a Hyatt or would you rather stay to Four Seasons? You choose Four Seasons. Well, would you rather stay at the Four Seasons in Sydney or the Hyatt in Sydney? Guess. Guess what costs more? The Park Hyatt in Sydney costs hundreds of dollars more than the Four Seasons because they can demand that price point because it's that much more excellent a property.

So what do you think is the reason behind that divergence?

Well, they have the nicest location overlooking the Opera House. I mean, that doesn't hurt, but it's also because of their service, and they get it. And I went to boarding school with one of the Pritzkers, and look, it's such a brilliant brand and it drives my loyalty and some other brands really just don't get it. And it's difficult understanding who your customers are. And I think that's what hospitality misses the mark on so often. They're so interested in, oh, here's my new celebrity chef. No one gives a shit about your celebrity chef. The person serving it has a fucking ugly look on her face. If you're being served a celebrity chef meal by a woman who hasn't had a break in three hours and has, you know, eyeliner dripping down her face, no one gives a shit. No one cares about your celebrity meal. So they miss the mark most of the time. And American Airlines specific, not American Airlines, but airlines, that of America specifically, are just epitomized myopic thinking in almost everything they do. And so they might hire Deloitte, they might hire McKinsey. And these, all these consultants go in, they say, well, you should do this, you should do that. What they haven't done is they haven't hired anyone that's actually beaten them at their own game. And so that's. I speak a little bit about that in the book. And so that's what's. That's what I identify as my Frank Abagnale behavior. But there's nothing wrong with being an expert at you. Right? And so, no, no brand is going to be an expert at you, but they need to be if they want to have your loyalty. And, you know, it's such a competitive market space. It's so competitive right now, and I think they just don't get it. Yeah, the look, when you look at J.D. power and Associates, when you look at passenger satisfaction, they just get it right.

And it is that micro attention to detail makes such a huge difference in brand and customer loyalty. And I mean, it's one of the reasons Apple won out over PC. They just cared about the consumer experience. Much more so on a granular level at every, you know, at every side.

I can see they weren't competing on price. Apple never competed on price.

Nope. You know, we've got. One of the things about. I didn't tell you about this myself. Myself, my wife is the owner of the business, but helped her launch. It is a premium coffee brand called Stiletto Coffee. It's beautifully marketed. If I pat myself on the back and say, so, product, it's the branding, everything, the packaging, the experiences for women. Actually, one of our taglines is unapologetically premium. And we do. We find the best beans, they're roasted to perfection, and we charge more than a lot of people, but we try to give people a better experience getting their coffee in the mail. This is not a coffee shop. It's a national brand that we sell. But it's exactly along those lines. We're always thinking about, well, what is the experience when the person gets this, when it's delivered, when they're opening the bag, when they're looking at it, when they're going through all of it. That attention to detail is so critical. I could see how. I could see how hospitality companies would be. They might hate hiring you, but I could see how it would be very beneficial to their bottom line.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That. You know, swallowing your pride is a tough thing to do, but nobody knows.

How customers or passengers feel better than passengers. And the problem is airlines and hotels, what do they do? Oh, we have a focus group. We focus group this. Focus groups are full of shit because what are you doing? You're paying people to tell. You're paying someone to tell you you look good in the mirror. Yeah, they should. They should be surprised that that doesn't work. Okay, let me give you money and then you tell me what I'm doing wrong. No. Okay, that's not the way it works because you're not going to give it honest feedback. Surveys don't work either because the only people are filling them out are either elated or pissed off. You're not getting real feedback. So everyone's just. Everyone's just jerking off into the wind as far as I'm concerned. Let's talk about the complaining. People don't know how to complain. Right and so that's not an airline's fault, that's certainly not the hotel's fault, it's the consumer's fault. So you have to learn how to complain. The best way to do it is in writing, right? So if you ever have an issue at a hotel, what you want to do is you want to find out who to complain to. And typically it's not the GM because GMs are usually figureheads. So you want to find.

The director of operations, and if you can't find the director of operations, you want to find the front office manager or the duty manager. And the best way to get their contact information and their email address is to press 0. You ask the operator, the operators will give you anything and you'll ask for the name of the director of operations, front office manager. And then you fire up an email. And the email lists very succinctly states who you are, why you're there, and how you felt wronged by said property. And you could CC whoever you want. And let me tell you something, it's so much more effective than picking up the phone and saying, I don't like my room, put me in a bigger room. That doesn't work. They hear that shit all the time. When you've articulated yourself in an email. And an email requires a response, right? You tell them, inform them about the service failure. What does this service failure always beget? Begets a service recovery. These are tactics that I wish I had a book to read to explain to me. I had to learn this shit the hard way. And just a decade of traveling, you learn a few things.

This is critically effective. Critically effective.

Yeah, I can see that. I used to work way back when, right after I graduated college, I worked for Disney down in Florida for a few months. And that was so key to them, the word service recovery was everything. I mean, if you see anything going on, that customer showing any dissatisfaction, you have a ton of authority to do service recovery. So for instance, if I saw a little child crying or unhappy, I could go grab a Mickey Mouse doll out of the, out of the gift store and just say, put this on service recovery. And I go give it to them. Like they empowered their people to do that. So understanding more companies do, yeah, absolutely. And you know, they're one of the smartest when it comes to the customer's experience.

I could see an entire either book about that or, or a consulting agency running. That's as one of the, one of the places I was going like, do you ever really want to start like a consulting company that is just kind of doing this.

I do consulting on the side but it's only for huge brands. And part of my arrangement with these, some of them are Fortune 1000 companies are that I can never admit that I work for them.

I can totally see why.

I have to respect that NDA because, you know, they want all. They want all the secret sauce but they don't want to admit that they're guzzling it down. So there's. There's nothing wrong with that. I think what you. What you failed to mention was managing expectations. And that applies throughout almost every aspect of the service industry. When you set the bar and say I'm sorry but you haven't properly managed my expectations as a customer. That's all of the rhetoric. That's all the doublespeak. That's all Hospitality 101. Anyone who's ever had a job in hospitality knows managing expectations.

You have to use their own lingo against them.

The very sentimental.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's genius. So are. Have you got any. Have you got any other books kind of in mind in the next couple years or whatever? Is there anything else kind of that you. That you feel as though you'd love to expound on even more interestingly?

Yes. I'm currently writing some doing some research for my next book and I have an awesome publisher and I hope to continue the relationship with Inkshares. That's just been an amazing partner and in putting my id, my ideology.

Into printed word. And the book's doing great. It's on Amazon. I believe it's sold out or was sold out there. It's no longer in back order. It's just one or two days behind but the demand has been huge. And thank you so much for the kind words. I had a feeling that. That you would like it but how long did it take you to get through my book?

Like a day. I. I think it was on Saturday. I think it was this past Saturday. I got it on Kindle. I'm a fast reader. Is. It is. But I couldn't put it down. I was having too much fun reading it and kind of going through laughing half the time as I said jaw on the floor the other. The other half. And yeah, I don't. I. If you're, you know, if you're highly or easily offended, it's going to definitely offend you. But it's also going to enlighten good.

I hope. I hope it offends everyone, honestly. And you know what? These are the same people in line who take life too seriously. So agree. If there's anything that could come from my book, if it helps you as an uptight prick, stop taking yourself so seriously. Yeah, hate me, send me hate mail. I don't give a what you do. I've done my duty to society because now there's one, one less prick taking himself so seriously. Right. You know, no one gets off this earth alive, right? Unless you're an astronaut or Scientologist.

Awesome. Are you able to.

Give any hint on what the next book might be about at all? Or is that still kind of under wraps?

If I gave you a hint, I'd be spoiling the final act. But.

The inspiration behind it happens to be Southeast Asia. But it's not. A book on how to do jet to Southeast Asia has nothing to do with the travel industry. And we could play 20 questions, you'd never guess.

Ah, cool. Well, no, that's. That's exciting though.

Do you listen? It's great to get outside of your comfort zone. I've already mastered this game and it's time to encourage myself to do something totally radical, totally different. That's what I'm doing right now.

Well, that's. That's fantastic. And I look forward to paying attention to, you know, what you're doing and seeing the, seeing the evolution of JRL and see, you know, all the kind of cool things you're up to.

So for all the folks out there who want more of you, obviously the number one thing that you can do is go to Amazon, buy the book. You can also link to. There's a link to that directly on.

Is it justinrosslee.com go to justinross Lee.com, go to Facebook, justinrossley Instagram.

There will be a link in the show notes.

If you can't find. If you can't find a link to buy my book, you're probably not smart enough to figure it out in the first place. So anyone that's inclined to read it.

You know they'll find it. Don't you know who I think I am? Confessions of a First Class Asshole. And it's the number one new release in its category on Amazon, so it's doing remarkably well. And I couldn't be happy.

Nice.

Yeah.

And there'll be a. There'll be a release. I'm sorry, a link in the show notes of whether you're listening on. On the podcast. If you're listening to the blog or stitcher or anywhere else, I'll make sure. And I link to that. And man, I can tell you how much fun, Brad?

If you think you know someone that might be offended by the book, buy it for them. Better person. If I don't offend you, there's something wrong with you.

You know, there's a. You just gave me a. You just reminded me of it. This is a strategy I've had my clients do. So I've published eight best selling books for my clients, not for myself. So I got a little bit of experience in the publishing industry.

So you're a ghostwriter then?

Not a ghostwriter, no. I published. I published and managed the marketing campaign for it. So I helped them utilize a book, I helped them get it written. I actually did. Okay, I take this back. I ghost wrote one book, but for the most part I either took what they wrote and then engineered the marketing campaign around it. But then I also have helped them capitalize on the book, using this to further new opportunities. And one of the things, one of the fun little strategies and you could absolutely do this, this would actually be pretty fun, especially when it comes to the big hospitality bigwigs is, you know, the bigger you are, the bigger your gatekeeper is in your, you know, in the, you know, the gatekeeper, the executive assistant, etc. It's harder to get to the bigger they are. But Amazon always gets delivered, always gets through. So what I've had some of my clients do as well was buy your book on Amazon as a gift and it can be gift wrapped. Amazon gift wrap it and you send that. You find out where the person that you want to reach works and you just send it to the corporate office, take care of John Smith, CEO or whatever. So it's an Amazon box and it's gift wrapped. That will always get through. It'll almost never even be unwrapped by the executive assistant. They open it up in there. You can also insert a gift card via Amazon.

Exactly. Brilliant technique. I've done something very similar before. Haven't used Amazon, but that's, that's Eureka.

Right? Isn't that cool?

Brilliant.

Yeah. So now what? You can even. Go ahead.

No, go on.

No, I was gonna. What you can do is on that gift card you can either say there's an idea or there's something you should read on page 48, right. That I think you'll like. And you can make it really specific. So you're not just sending them your book, you're directing them to a specific page. Maybe it's something about how to close the loopholes or you know, the way you exploit these. And hey, if you're, you know, if you're an airline, you should be hiring me. But it's kind of a really interesting way to kind of snipe the person you want to talk to and get your message in front of them. I could see you actually doing that.

That's a great corporate life hack, right?

Exactly. Thank you. Well, I encourage every single listener out there to go to justinrosslead.com and then click over, grab the book, read it. As I say, you're gonna either love it or hate it, but either way, you're going to get a lot of stuff out of it. And Justin, I can't tell you this has been a, this has been a real pleasure and a fun way to start my morning talking to you and hear a little bit, just a bit more from the horse's mouth about, you know, the lifestyle of JRL and how you've been able to kind of bend the rules to create the lifestyle that, you know best suits you.

Brad, it's been my pleasure. Make sure to follow me on Instagram. You know, the book is brilliant, but at the same time, I never, never stop. So if you want currently what I'm, what I'm up to.

Follow on Instagram, follow on Facebook, and you'll never miss a beat.

Absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for tuning in to another episode. I hope you have enjoyed this fun little conversation that let you eavesdrop upon and hope you've taken a lot of notes because there's a lot of fun things that you can learn. Until next time, keep listening to the show, share it with your friends, tag me on it, and if you have any questions whatsoever, whether it's about your business, about your life, about just anything that's kind of on your mind, you can always ask me at askbradaconwrappedbusiness.com and I look forward to hearing you on the next episode.