Brave Biz Labs 2024 10 11

Hello. Hello. How's it going? Good. Good. I hate that Zoom. No matter how many times I say keep me signed in, it just signs me out, like, while I'm in a call, and then I have to log back in before my next all. Hello. You shaved, Jason. Well, I mean, Monica, I don't know if you shaved, but, Jason, it looks like you shaved.

Yeah, I did.

Awesome. All right, Happy Friday, everyone.

Happy Friday. You have a Fathom note taker.

I do. I do. I'm realizing I'm on the Fathom boat now because it. It creates notes and takeaways from the call that I'm like, oh, you know.

Zoom does that natively.

Does it? Well, I'm already on the Fathom bandwagon, so there we go. You celebrating today?

And it's Friday.

It's Friday. Yes. And jason.

I. I kept the LinkedIn posting going after the challenge ended.

Yes. That's huge. I love. I love a little bonus going for it. Yeah. Awesome. So I wanted to start off today by teaching you guys a very complicated, intensive technology that'll help you get more sales. And it's this thing where you take a piece of paper and you pick how many, like, new sales you need to have or sales calls you need to have. And so say you want to have, like, five sales calls. And so you take this piece of paper and you draw five boxes representing the calls, and then you cross them off as you book them. It's very complicated. It's very intensive technology. Took them decades to develop this.

I'll need to find paper.

Yeah. And then. And then honestly, like, tape it. Or if you do it on a post it note, like, have it on your computer. Have it somewhere where you're looking at it all the time. How I used to use this. And I forget this until someone asked me, like, how do you get yourself to, like, hit your goals? When I worked in sales, I knew that I'd have to have a certain amount of sales conversations to get a client or to. To make a sale, right? And so, like, my closing ratio when I worked at Equinox, for instance, was 50%, right? So I knew that if I needed four clients, I needed to talk to eight people, right? And so I would do my eight boxes, and as I set up appointments with people, I would cross them out, right? And then I would. I would start doing the same for my sales. Like, I need four sales. Okay, cool. And then as I would make the sale, I would cross out the box.

It's.

It sounds stupid. It sounds like completely asinine like, won't help. It's amazing how it gets you to focus in on the activities that you need to do to reach that goal, right? Because oftentimes we can, like, and I just got off the phone with a client, like, you know, oftentimes we can get so stepped into, I need to post to LinkedIn, I need to do this, I need to do this. Like, the whole goal becomes about that and not about, like, what is, what is the goal of this, right? This is just one of the actions I need to take to get to that bigger goal, right? When we're posting to LinkedIn just to be visible and just to, like, get followers and to get engagement, like, that becomes the activity, it becomes about that goal. It becomes about that objective versus I'm doing this action to get to that goal, right? It, it shifts your energy, but it also shifts how you show up. It also shifts like the words you use and, and the calls to action you're using. And it just keeps you focused on that prize. So as I share this, what comes up.

I like this shift in mindset because that's, I've been kind of feeling like, oh, my God, I have to post again on LinkedIn. And that's like, what is my focus is like, getting the post on LinkedIn done. And then I'm like, okay, I did that. And then I'm like, done for the day mentally. And then it's just like, now what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's a combination. You know, you're all in the stage of business where it's not just one thing that's going to potentially get you clients. You know, it's, it's figuring out like, well, what, what are the five experiments I'm running? Right? Posting to LinkedIn is one. Speaking at events can be a second one, maybe doing some networking calls. That can absolutely be it. Let's see, the fourth one could be hosting some kind of Q and A webinar kind of thing. And then number five could be asking for referrals, you know, and then of course, like, if you want to stand on a street corner, if you want to go knocking door to door, like, whatever, whatever else you feel like would be a worthwhile experiment for you to get in front of your ideal clients. Go for it. Maybe it's, it's continuing your research, right? And really like saying, okay, cool, here are the five things that I could be doing every single day to get in touch with my ideal clients. What are the three I'm going to really focus on Right. So something that, you know, I invite you to set a goal for is set a goal for how many sales conversations you want to have each month. Right. Because that's going to shift, like how you're doing the work, how you're creating the content, what you're talking about, make a goal for how many networking calls you're going to do each month. Right?

About the networking calls.

Yeah. So I mean, a networking call is like you connect with someone on LinkedIn, you reach out and say, hey, it's so great to connect with you. I see we have these people in common, you know, would you want to hop on a 15 minute coffee chat just to get to know each other? No. No. Nothing. Say, I'm not trying to sell anything, you know, and then you have a call with them. This, this kills a few birds. For one, once you talk to someone on the phone or via Zoom, they're going to feel like they're your buddy. Right? They're going to feel like they know you. If and if there's some way in which you can be helpful to them, you might be able to give them some feedback on something, might be able to make a recommendation. You know, people like reciprocity, right? If you introduce them to someone in your network and help them in some way, they're far more likely to want to connect you. Right. So, and who knows, like, they may know someone who has the exact problem that you help. Right. And who knows, they could be your ideal client. You have, you have no idea. But at the least, you're going to get someone who's active on LinkedIn, right? Who you're connected with, who, like, may be more likely to comment on your stuff and promote your stuff to their network. Right. And especially, I mean, Jason, I know you're looking for a job right now too. I mean, you could, you could kill four birds with one stone.

Yeah. So that feels a little bit more controllable.

Yeah.

Because. Yeah, like, I've. I felt almost a little bit like. Having a difficult time figuring out how I'm going to control, like, getting to X number of, say, sales conversations.

Because.

Because so much of the focus has been on LinkedIn and that challenge and there hasn't been. There was a few people that popped into my DMs, like, early, but then that sort of stopped. So.

Yeah.

And actually my engagement actually really took a dive the last week.

Everyone's dead. The algorithm, everyone.

Okay.

It's not just you. The algorithm tanked for so many people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

You said something really Interesting. And I just want to spend some time on that. And is that, like, having control? If, if your goal in starting a business is to have control, yes. But also, no. Like, this is never going to be about what you can control, especially for the stage that you're in. Right. The stage that you're in is throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. There's no way to control what sticks. Right, right. So, like, this is not about having control. This is about saying, I want to get five sales calls and I'm going to do as much as I can do to make that happen. This is more of a personal challenge to see. Okay, well, what are all the different ways that I can do this? Okay, no worries, Monica. Right.

It's more spaghetti at the wall.

Yeah, but it's like, it's. It's giving yourself. Like, here's what I want more than anything. What can I do to do it? Right. Because when. When we feel powerless. I did a whole live on, like, powerlessness and how we actually communicate to the universe that we're powerless when we set ourselves up to be in a situation where, like, we feel like we have no control over the outcome. You know, like LinkedIn. Like, I don't have any power here. And when we're thinking about it as if, like, okay, well, I should be able to get five, but I'm not, so I don't have any power here. We stop taking action. Right. It becomes more discouraging than invigorating. Yeah, Right. Versus, like, I'm just going to try to do as much as I possibly can to reach this goal I have for myself. Right. It gets your imagination going because you're thinking, okay, well, I've posted a LinkedIn today, you know, oh, I, like, I don't have time to go to a networking call, But I can DM, you know, five to 10 people, in essence, they want to do a networking coffee chat with me. That's 15 minutes, you know. Cool. Now I've done that. Now, like, what else can I do? Oh, I can reach out to, like, 10 people that I talked to last year and ask them if they know anyone who needs coaching, you know, ask for a referral. Right. Okay, cool. So you've done three things that helps you get closer to your goal. Right, right. And then you just continue to do those three things. It's all an experiment at this point. Right. There's no one strategy that works for absolutely everyone. Right. We're all going to discover what's the one thing that has the biggest Return on investment for us. How.

How do, like you mentioned, and sorry, my voice is gone. You mentioned speaking. That's something that I've been curious about. How have your clients, like, gone about getting their first few opportunities to. To do that in their sort of zone of genius?

Yeah. So, I mean, the strategy is very simple, right? It's. You identify the events that you could potentially pitch yourself to. Right? And I, I just recommend looking up, like, what industries you like working within and look for conferences or events in. Enter city name, right? Any city that's local to you, cities that you want to go to, whatever, you know, cities that maybe you have family and you're. You'd have somewhere to stay. Like, you can choose the criteria. And what you're going to do is you're going to create a list of these events, right? The dates, their website. And if on their website they have a name and a contact person for like speakers or organizing the event, you're going to have that. If they just have like a general contact, you're gonna, you're gonna put that person in the form and you're gonna send them a very simple email. And the subject line is gonna say, quick question, okay. And then the, the body of the email is gonna say, hey, name. You know, I saw you have an event coming up in X amount of time. Do you ever accept external speakers? Right? Yes or no question. So easy for them to respond and get this out of their inbox, you know, thanks for your time, Jason. Right. If they respond, yes, your next email is going to be like, awesome. What's the process to apply to speak? Right? Because at that point, like, they're already in conversation with you. It's weird for them to not respond again. And if they are accepting external speakers, they probably need speakers for something, right? And here you are just knocking on their door. And the cool thing about being a coach is that basically you can, you can pitch about talking about anything and make it relevant, right? That also challenge is like, it creates, it causes, you know, it forces. You need a little more creativity, right? If you want to be a specialist, say, like, you know, you could say you coach salespeople to be able to get through slumps, you know, that's really valuable for different organizations to have at their events, right? And then, like, once you get into that process, then you come back and we talk through what makes sense for you to pitch. Like, what kind of talk would make sense, you know, who's the audience? Because, like, what's the talk that we can design together? That Will a be really valuable to the audience and valuable to the event in general and also position you as someone they need to like seek out after the talk and either book a call with or like catch you by the bar or like, you know, at the networking function afterwards, like whatever. Right, right. But like, you know, you can absolutely start cold emailing people from different events and different conferences that are coming up and just ask them that simple yes or no question, you know? You know, do you accept external speakers? Right. Because once you have that answer, you're able to do the deep dive on the organization, on the event, on their audience, like what they did last year and the year before and then you can make a pitch that's super valuable to them.

Right.

Right. Now once you start getting speaking events and getting booked and you're there and you're speaking, your question for the organizers is, do you have any other events that you're looking for speakers for? Right. And if it's yes, then you say awesome, like you know, I can talk on this and this and this. What do you think would be valuable to those audiences? And you book the call so that you can organize it. Okay, right. I will say this is a time intensive activity. It can take up a ton of your time. What I would do if I were you in this stage is like if you have a free couple hours, you know, on like a Monday or Tuesday or on any day of the week, I would schedule these emails to go out on a Monday or Tuesday and then I would block off a half hour on Thursday to go through and respond if they respond or to follow up. And if people don't respond to say, you know, respond to the email you already sent and say, hey, just want to make sure you didn't miss this. You know, just curious, do you ever accept external speakers? You know, and let me know if, if you don't want to be emailed and I won't email you again. Yeah, right. You know, it's. Speaking is an incredibly powerful way to get in front of a big audience and get clients. It is also a barrier. Right. Because in order to get in front of that audience, you have to get accepted as a speaker. To get accepted as a speaker, there's a ton of leg or footwork that you have to do. Legwork? Yeah, legwork. Why am I overthinking that saying? You know, I would rather like there's going to be not scalable activities that you have to do in the beginning, like doing one on one networking calls. That's going to get you that base amount of clients, you're not going to need to do that forever, and it's not scalable for you to do it forever. But the stuff that is getting you directly in front of people is going to be your fastest path to cash to start. Right. And also, you know, just. I started saying this and I veered off on another topic. You're busy right now. You know, you're looking to jump ship from your job into another ship. You're looking to get clients like, this is a big project. I want you doing it, but you also don't have to put it on yourself to do it right now. Right, Right.

Yeah. The networking calls feel something like something I could add in.

Yeah, yeah. You know, and like, you get to. You get to adjust your approach depending on who you're talking to. You know, if you're talking to someone who works for a company that sounds really cool, that, like, the culture's awesome and they just so happen to be hiring, and you can say, hey, you know, I'm actually looking to leave my current role. Do you guys have any positions open? And if so, would you mind referring me in? You know, that's like, one of the best things about networking for a new job is people get bonuses for referring in, you know, talent, you know, like, it doesn't hurt them if they refer you in and you don't get the job. Right?

Right.

Yeah, this. You know, we have a lot of perfectionists in this community, and we want to do things the right way, right? And so, like, when we think, okay, well, here's the goal, what's the right way to do it? We can. We can know, like, what's the most, like, potentially effective way to do it, but there's no right way, right? The right ways. You act and you act again, and you act again and you act again, and you're just continuously taking action until you figure out, like, what is most effective for you. When you say this thing, that tends to get people's interest more than when you say this other thing. Right? It's a grand experiment, right? When you go into, like, a big experiment and you're determined to only find, like, this one thing being correct, you're missing out on so much data, right? You know, if your goal is to, I don't know, see a bird, see a very specific kind of bird, and you, like, like, take a little pile of. Of bird seed and you put it on a little plate in the middle of your yard, and you just stand there, you stare at the plate and the Bird seed. And you're, like, waiting for the bird. Like, the bird could be right behind you. Right. It could be, like, behind you talking to, like, 17 other of its friends that are the same species, and you're missing it. Any questions on this? So what's the goal you want to set yourself? And if you're spiraling about what's the right goal to set, I want you to stop yourself and just pick one.

I want to pick the easy one.

What do you, what do you identify as the easy one?

The networking calls. Because I literally do it all the time.

Yeah.

Cool.

So. So you know what? There's nothing wrong with going for the easy goal. Right. Like, let's start there. Let's push yourself to do more than you think you can. Right. Because once you push yourself and you see you can do it, you're going to feel more confident going for something that's a little harder. So what's a stretch goal for networking calls?

Doing it with auditors or the VP folks that aren't responding to any of my messages.

Yeah, yeah. So doing it with that. That population. But how many do you want to do per month?

One would be fantastic with how the trend is going right now.

So if they're not responding, they might not even be on LinkedIn. Yeah. So. So networking call. So I want you to broaden it to not just the type of person. Right. Because you never know who. Who they're married to. You never know who their best friend is. Right. When you get that targeted with networking calls, like, there, there will come a point where you can get that targeted. But also they're going to be suspicious that you're trying to sell them something. Okay, right.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Like with networking, it's about growing your circle of influence. Right. And it doesn't necessarily mean growing your client list. Right. It means growing, like, the genuine connections you have with other human beings. Right. Because you never know who they know that they could refer to you. Right. And at the least, they're more likely to comment on your stuff on. On LinkedIn and push your stuff to their network.

Yeah.

Right. So how many, how many networking talks do you want or calls do you want to do?

I mean, if that's the case, Four seems high enough to want to strive for.

Per week?

Month.

How about six? Okay, six. Okay. Six networking calls. Okay. Beautiful. Now, Jason, what about you?

I guess I would star that. That seems like it makes sense for me, but. I think what's top of mind is I want to. I want to book, like, at Least a single sales conversation.

Huh?

Like that, that would be maybe like a good goal for October is to say, like, can I. Can I, through hooker by crook, have a single sales conversation?

Water. By what?

By hooker, by crooked.

I've never heard that before. No, no.

Oh, maybe it's. My wife tells me that sometimes, every now and again, like an old timey saying comes out of me.

Oh, that's so.

I think, I think that's one. One of them.

Oh, that's so funny. Okay, so by hook or by crook.

Yeah. I'd like to have a single, like at least a single sales conversation to, to. To prove to myself that by throwing spaghetti at the wall, that will lead to having conversations.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yep. Yep. Um, I'm just trying to see. I think it's impossible for me to do this now, to look this up, but when, when I was just starting out and when I was going after corporate clients, I did on average between 10 to 15 Networking calls a week. And like, most of them were garbage. Most of them were not my clients. But it's how I got my first corporate contract. I think I might have had like a hundred calls before I got to that point. Right. And it was interesting because the guy I talked to, like, and I started off doing it for dating, coaching. So he. But for some reason, he was like, you know, I have this female employee who is having these problems. I think she could really benefit from working with you. And so he brought me in to coach one of his employees, one of his leaders. And then after we'd worked together for a few months, he's like, what you're doing with her is incredible. Can you work with the rest of the leaders of the, of the team of the company? Right. So like, it may not have clear returns right off the bat, but you never know. You absolutely never know. One guy sent me medual dates from Saudi Arabia. His family owned a medjool date farm. Like a box of 200. It's very weird, but like, you never know. You just, it's. It's a. The more people you talk to, the more people who understand what you do and who you're useful to, the more chances you're going to have at getting business.

Do you position it in a way where it doesn't feel like a bait and switch?

You make it not a bait and switch. Right. What's a networking call? A networking call is getting to know someone. Right. What are you up to? What's. What's your work like? You know, what kinds of like Resources or help are you looking for right now? You know, is there anyone I can introduce you to? You know, can I open up my network to you? You know, maybe you're trying to learn a specific skill. I know someone who teaches that skill. Or maybe you're looking for a new role. Oh, okay. Well, I know people in these companies. Do you want me to introduce you? So you could do like an informational interview? You know, like whatever you're, you're paying it forward and you're, and you're genuinely saying, okay, who are you and what are you about and how are you useful to me? Oh, generally people will ask the same thing back. You know, what do you do and who do you help and is there anything that I can do to support you and your goals? Okay, right. And it could just be like, maybe they want to get some opportunities speaking, you can say, oh, you know, I'm actually actively working on that for myself as well. If I hear of anything, do you want me to let you know, if there's anything that like, isn't a fit for me, then I can absolutely send it your way.

And when you send the dm, would you just say something like, hey, John, you know, would love to connect for a brief networking call, learn a little bit more about each other and make this LinkedIn connection feel more real.

Like, say that, yeah, I would say something. I would make it really super conversational. You know, I might say, hey, I just saw your post about this, thought it was hysterical. We've never talked but like, would love to do like a quick 15 minute coffee chat just to get to know you better. Not selling anything, you know, if you want to do that, here's a link to my calendar, you know, or, you know, we've been connected for a while and I keep seeing you show up in the comments section where I am. Would love to do a networking call with you. Not selling anything. You want to make it clear you're not selling anything. Not selling anything. But would love to, you know, get to know you and like, what you're about and all that stuff. You know, here's the link to do it and just leave the link. You know, if you connect with someone fresh, you know, and say you see their content, you connect with them, you know, again, just send them a message and say, hey, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't ask everyone this that I connect with, but like, you seem really interesting and I'm trying to make friends on LinkedIn and you know, would you want to do a quick, like coffee chat. 15 minutes on the phone. Here's a link to do it.

Do you use your acuity for that?

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. There's an element to this where it's like, it, it teaches you how to be more social and how to make friends easier. You know, when you're comfortable, go like going up to an absolute stranger on the interwebs and asking them to like, do a 15 minute chat just to become friends. Like, when I moved to Philadelphia, I went to the dog park and I kind of make up conversation with, with whoever was nearby if their dog was playing with Luna. And then after a while, if I liked them, I'd be like, hey, so I just moved here. Do you want to be my friend? And that's how I made all my friends. You know, it works socially and it also works for business. Yeah. And I would do it phone call or Zoom. I think it's easier for people to remember if you're just calling them because, you know, some people kind of, you know, are space cadets and they forgot they set up a zoom appointment with someone. Any other questions?

You said that when you first started out getting corporate clients, you had like the 10 calls a week.

Did you have.

Were you going for a particular population or who would you be reaching out to?

I. So back when I did it, there was a app called Shaper, Shaper without an E. And it was basically like Tinder but for LinkedIn. So you got to set your criteria and then you got to swipe through a bunch of people to like match. And I think you would only match with like 30 people a day. Right. And so basically I would just swipe, right, I would swipe whatever, like yes on everyone. And then I would just send them like a copy and paste message just saying, hey, so great to connect with you here. I'm going over and it was connected with LinkedIn. So you could also go and connect with them on LinkedIn. Connecting with you on LinkedIn. But would love to do a networking chat. Here's a link to book a call. I did it with reckless abandonment. You know, unless they were a coach. Also, I, I would do it with everyone. And I'm not saying that's the correct way to do it. You can do it a little more targeted. But like, you know, I, I was doing trial and error at that point in my business. Right. Shaper. I don't think it exists anymore. And if it does, it's probably not very useful because the world has changed so much. But I mean, I would Honestly, like make a point of connecting with 20 people a day. Right. And then send them all the same message, you know, and it, and you know, saw your comment on Katie's post. So funny. You know, I'm, I'm a client of hers, would love to connect. You know, I saw you posted something funny on Rubes post today about how people who say fry, fry, suck.

You.

Know, would love to get, you know, to do a networking chat. If you're down for it, here's a link to book. What I would do time wise is I would set up a separate calendar in acuity for this so you don't have like networking chats taking over your whole life. Right. I would have like a block of time three days a week that's maybe like, I don't know, three to five and have that be your networking time because otherwise like I don't know about you guys, but when I have a call at 1pm and I have nothing else before then, my whole day is because I'm just in waiting mode.

Yeah.

You know, you could even just do it in the mornings. You could, you could say I go for a walk every single morning from 7 to 8 and I love talking to people while I'm on my walk.

There is something that sounds similar to what you used is called lunch club. I don't know if you that one.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely an option. I actually did that as well a couple times. And the only problem with that is like you like other, you require other people to be part of a lunch club also, you know, versus we're all just on the social media platform. Right. Okay. Any other questions on this? No. One more thing to add. If you're in a networking event or you're speak, you're at a like a conference or something, you can also also invite people to connect with you this way, you know, if you're having a quick little chat with someone, you're like oh my God, this sounds so interesting. I know, it's like crazy here. Would you want to just set up a quick time to like get like to do a networking chat after this, you know, and then you just book them in on your calendar. Yeah. Okay, cool. What other questions do we have today?

Not a question. Maybe a question. I got a congratulation email from you which I thought was for the calendar content event, but it was just Lorem Ipsum.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's by me.

Okay. I was like, I don't know if she knows that she sent that, but.

Okay, no, no, I got an email From Yvonne, who was like. I was giggling getting this and I was, yeah. Because I set up a bunch of things and I was like, I'm going to go and edit them. But then I changed my plan and then I forgot to. I got all of them except for one. So, Yeah, thankfully it only went to the people in the challenge. So there you go. Yeah.

Did you get my content calendar?

Let me check.

I. I sent it over yesterday, I think.

Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, I haven't checked my email again today. Since yesterday. Since yesterday morning. But I will go through. I've been getting them in waves and just doing them one batch and then one batch. So I will send you your link as soon as we hang up here. What other questions do we have?

Okay. So I've been stuck in. In action for a while, and that makes me feel lazy. And, like, I'm actually sick. And I find, like, I'm just in this, like, repetitive cycle now where more days than I, like, are passing without me doing the work. And I think if I'm just being honest right now, I'm not doing the work. And I don't know why, because I thought. I thought that I wanted this, and I feel like if I did want it, I would be doing the work, but I'm not, so I just. I would love some coaching around that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, for one, when we start judging ourselves for being lazy, we rob ourselves of dopamine, which actually makes it harder for us to get up and do the work. Like, dopamine literally impacts the part of your brain that signals stand up. Like, standing up requires dopamine. Right, Right. So if you're robbing yourself of dopamine because you're like, I'm lazy, and nothing you do matters because you're already so behind, like, it becomes that much harder for you to do it. What's your. Why. Why do. You.

I want this because I don't want to have to work for someone else anymore. I really don't. And. And honestly, like, maybe my bigger why is I don't want to be scared anymore.

What are you scared of?

Like, I've had an aggressively mediocre career, and I've had hard time even feeling, like, on track since COVID I never. I never got. Some people got into this thing and, like, went at it, and it really affected me at that time in my life. And. And I never really found my groove after that again. Not really.

And.

I think, like, I just wanted to be good at something that I could control that nobody could take away. And and like, I see other people on the interwebs doing big things and making big money and I don't want to have to worry about like, am I going to be able to pay my mortgage and that kind of stuff. I think ultimately, like, that's, that's, that's the, the fear based. Why?

Mm, cool. What's the impact based?

When I went through the coaching class, I didn't even know if I was going to like coaching, let alone if I was going to be good at it. But the feedback that I got from my peers in the class was that sessions that we had was impactful and then it was helpful and that they really appreciated my coaching style. And I like the idea of the work that I'm doing making somebody's life better in some way.

Yeah.

Because for a lot of my life I made a lot of mistakes and I caused a lot of pain in the first part of my life. Like, you would not have allowed me on your calls before. I wouldn't have fit your community. It's 100 true. And so there's something about me that wants to take the second act of my life and make other people's lives better because I was in it in some way.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So after explaining that, what do you feel in your body?

I feel relief. Because it's honest.

Yeah. Yeah. Now here's an odd question. Were both your parents human?

Yeah.

Were their parents human?

Assumedly so, yeah.

Were there any robot genetics at any point in your ancestry?

I don't think so.

Okay, cool. So what do we know about humans versus robots? Like what makes them different?

Robots don't have feelings.

They don't have feelings. Yeah. Great. What else?

Robots don't get tired.

Yeah. As long as they have a power source, they just keep going, going, going, going. Right.

Robots don't have a soul.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Robots can't get tripped up by their own up belief systems. They can't, they can't get paused by like, oh God, this is really hard. I need to like recover. Right. So in this like, you know, question that you're having about like, I'm not taking action, does that mean I don't want it? Right. If you were a robot. Yeah, probably. If you, if you have never ending energy, if you don't have emotions, if you don't have a soul, if you don't have like doubts and fears and all that jazz and you're just not doing it, like there's probably not anything in there that makes you want to do it.

Right.

Right. As A human. However, what can happen to humans in the process of going after their dreams? Like, what's happening to you right now in this moment that's making your voice weird?

They can get sick.

Yeah.

They can get hurt. They can be surprised.

Yep.

They can change their mind.

Yep. They can have drains on their energy. They can get tired. They can get burnt out. They can have a fear from their childhood just randomly get triggered that causes them to doubt themselves. Yeah. You know, they can start overthinking things. They can start spiraling. So do you want to answer your own question about why you're not taking action? Like, if it means what it means about you?

I think it means I'm tired.

Yeah. And what happens when you're tired? What do you need? Rest. Yeah. Yeah. And what does rest mean?

I don't know. I don't know.

Okay. Rest means not taking action. Rest means stopping. Rest means resting. Rest means not doing anything. Right. It's that it feels painful when you have this big dream. You're like, I want it now. Right. And you're going and you're going, and all of a sudden you're. You're stopped because you're exhausted. You can't even think about what to do next. Right. And you can't get yourself to do the next little thing because you just feel you're too tired for it, which will help you move forward faster. Trying to force yourself to do it and fail and then feel like you're further and further behind or just stopping and giving yourself a rest and cutting yourself some fucking slack and revisiting the action when you have recouped some energy. This is a leading question.

No, no, I know. It's the second one.

Yeah, yeah. Our brains are meaning making machines, right? Like Monica. Data, Right. There's so much data all over the place. Right? We can take data and make it mean anything. We. Right? We can take data that we wave to someone and they didn't wave back, so they must fucking hate us for that one time we made that joke that didn't land with them. Right. The data would support that, but the data would also support that they just had their eyes dilated at the eye doctor and they didn't see you because everything's blurry, right? Like, we. We make meaning out of everything. It's one of the most beautiful things about humans, right? We make meaning. We turn into poetry, right? We write beautiful novels. We create these stories that have symbolism. We. We paint, we make songs. We. We take meaning and we assign it to things and it it becomes like this expression of our spirit, and it also can royally us up. Right. Because we take. Oh, I'm not taking action. This means I don't want it, which means I'm. So here's. Here's my question for you, Jason. What's the data telling you?

I mean, the data is telling me that I need to push pause.

Yeah, Yeah. It. It's. Sometimes you need to give yourself a rest, take the weekend off. You know, sometimes it's not acting in the business because right now you're tired. You're kind of, you know, spent with the stuff that's going on at work. You know, it doesn't mean you can't still, like, mentally work in the business, like, understand what is it that you're going to need to do when you're not paused. Right. Doesn't mean you can't still be doing the learning in this program. It doesn't mean you can't still be asking the questions. But what I want you to do is I want you to ask the question so you can create an action plan for a week from now.

Okay.

Right. I don't want you. Action plan that you're going to say, I need to do this today. Right? Yeah. I want you to say, cool. Katie just talked me through exactly how I can reach out to events. Great. I'm gonna. I'm gonna make a little outline, a quick little outline, so I have that stored somewhere. I'm going to tell myself to mentally be on the lookout for different events. If I notice something naturally, then great, and I'm going to go ahead and block off time on my calendar for like a week and a half from now where I'm going to go and research events. Right. You're still making progress because you're creating the space and the activity to go and do that thing.

Right.

Right. Where you're kind of writing, like, checks that aren't going to cash is where you're like, I need to do this now. Yeah. Does that help? So, yeah. It's an exhausting time right now, and it's for all different kinds of reasons. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. The election and all the things that are happening in the world. It's really easy for your energy to, like, leak and get overextended. But here's the thing, like, the fact that your energy is leaking. Getting you overextended doesn't change what your goals are. It doesn't change what you want to do for yourself and for your community and for your clients. Okay? It also doesn't mean that like the fact that you're not taking all the actions you think you should be doing, that you're gonna fail. Right. I mean, you said it yourself. Like, I love how you said that you've had a very profoundly mediocre career. Right. But you've had, you've had well paying jobs. Yeah, right. Like that's, that's been fine.

Yeah.

You know, like it is, it has absolutely checked the boxes.

It has.

You know, did you have to be absolutely perfect to land your beautiful wife?

Definitely not.

Yeah. So you got to be like regular Jason, right, Who doesn't do everything he says and like, you know, kind of half asses some stuff. Right. You got to be a human. You, you're going to be able to do your business being the same Jason.

Right?

Right. How many times have you up with your wife?

I can't count.

Yeah.

Cool. Your business is going to be the.

Thank you.

This goes for, for both of you. I was going to say everyone but Monica. Yeah. You know, like, if we're designing businesses that can withstand us being human, if we're designing a business that requires us to be per. A perfect robot all the time, the business is not going to last. You guys got an email from me that said, lorem Ipsum, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Did that make you want to fire me or be like, this lady doesn't know what she's doing. She fucked up with her email. God, how many times have I made that mistake, you know? How you feeling, Jason?

I feel grateful, like, because I've, I've always kind of believed that, like whatever you want to call it, God, universe, whatever spirit puts people in your path for a reason, for time. And like, I'm just really grateful that I was able to have this conversation. I really needed it.

Well, I'm here anytime you need it. Okay. You know, part, part of the work of starting a business is like the shadow work of what your expectations are for yourself. Right. It's like, it's one of the reasons why if someone's like really going through like the mental ringer on some kind of like trauma or whatever, starting a business is the worst thing for them. Right? In, in the heat of it, like as they're coming out. Yes. But like it's just gonna magnify all the trauma that they haven't healed in themselves already. Right. And we have this expectation of ourselves that like, we start it and it's just going to gradually get better. Better, better, better, better. What it actually is, is right and then it circles back. Sometimes we have to start off her, you know, if every time it, like the progress stops or drops off a little bit, you're like, oh, my God, well, it's over, then you're never going to make it. There's. I have to remember the book. There's a book. I'll remember the, the title. I'm sure as soon as we hang up. They talk about how, like, math scores, like, top math scores don't actually equal people being good at math long term, right? The students who get A's in all their math exams are the ones who are most likely to forget it later. The students who get like a C minus, C plus, you know, really struggle. Like, they really have to work hard to understand and they don't get it right. And then they. They get the low grade and just kind of squeak by. They're the ones who remember it. They're the ones who can, like, be more effective engineers later, right? We don't learn by being perfect at stuff. We don't get better at stuff by being perfect at it. We actually learn by it, about it and, and retain it by struggling, right? Yet we're raised to think, okay, well, you're only good if you're perfect at it first. It's so far from the truth, right? Like, you're struggling right now. Think about how incredible you're going to be after this struggle, right? Think about the grit you're developing right now. Think about how you're learning how to manage yourself, which, honestly, we are all going to always be our worst employees. I say that to my team all the time. I am my worst employee. I'm the hardest to manage, right? But by struggling with it, you learn to do it better. And I'll remember the book. It's really good. I recommend you listen to it. All right, we're at time. Want to do main takeaways? Who wants to go first?

I'll go back to the beginning of the call when we were talking about posting on LinkedIn and how that in itself is just the action. That's not the goal that you should be focusing on.

Thank you.

Break.

Take a break. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hereby approve of the break. Go for it. It's going to make you better to be in your business later. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Have an amazing weekend. You know where to find me. I'm going to be sending you your congratulations link to. To book your calls because, congratulations, you did it. And you know where to find me if you have any questions. Okay.

All right, bye.

Guys.