Cutco Sales to Aptive Pest Golden Door: Jackson Ricks’ Door to Door Story

Sit across like this.

Yeah, the war room.

This is the real war room.

Yeah, this is the war room. Oh no, don't get mad at us. Uh, well, welcome to a podcast that we're doing. Uh, there's no name for this podcast, it's just Amaze Yourself Training. This can be dope episode, episode for a lot of people on YouTube. Uh, you live in Cartersville, like right up the road from me. This is too long. Yeah. Yeah, so this is Jackson Ricks. He's a Golden Door winner from Aptiv, but more importantly, just a solid dude. I met you— met you in person the first year you hit your Golden Door at Door-to-Door Con, and I'm like, holy crap, this guy's freaking tall. I don't know if you've ever gotten that before.

Yeah, well, that's what— when I met Drew Hansen, not throwing a shot at you, but I didn't expect him to be so short. Yeah, you almost have like these friendships with people outside of like on social media, you have like these, you build these friendships, it's almost like you know them, but you've never seen them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I followed your stuff when it was like bad day to be a bug. Yeah. And I still see hats all over the place.

Yeah.

Bad day to be a bug. But I messaged you 2 days ago or 2 or 3 days ago.

Mm-hmm.

And I live in Winder, Georgia. You live in Cartersville.

I think a couple hours away, yeah.

Yeah. And you didn't mind driving this beautiful car down there.

Not at all.

So this is our makeshift like podcast room we did. I got a couple lights up here. I thought it'd be fun to show the hardware. So it's cool to live— door-to-door has just blessed my life a ton. We've talked about it already for you. One of the reasons why I was like so down to have you on Major Sales Training, like I'm really neutral in the pest control world, but you're just a really easygoing, easy-to-approach guy, and I appreciate that. So I followed you over the last little bit. Give us a little— if there's anything I missed, Let me know more about you.

Yeah, so I was born in Kentucky. Do you want me to look at the camera?

I don't know, we can do whatever we want. Let's just, I mean, yeah, let's, we can look at the camera.

So I was born in Kentucky, lived there for like 18 months, so I was, I'm not really from Kentucky, but all of my family's from Kentucky. And we ended up moving to Georgia because this was the only place that we knew people in. So my parents had kids very early, so they struggled a lot. But my aunt lived in Georgia. She lived in Alpharetta, Georgia, so they decided to move down to Georgia because it was close to family. And then this is just where we planted since. My family's not a big, like, moving type of family. They've never been out of the country. Like, my parents have only been on cruises out of the country. So once they, once they stick somewhere, they kind of stay there. But amazing place to be. Like, what Austin's seen, since you're not from from here. When did you move here?

We moved here 5 years ago.

Okay, so fairly new.

Yeah, but we'll never— we're never gonna leave. As far as I know right now, we're here.

Yeah, there's a bunch of places to be, but I'll always have a house in Georgia, um, because I don't think my parents want to leave. But that's just a little bit about where I came from. I had sold Cutco kitchen knives for 3 and a half years, ran 2 branch offices for them in Douglasville and Augusta, Georgia. When I was in college and then found door-to-door when I finally, when I finally decided to not drink the Kool-Aid of the Cutco stuff. And I watched actually a YouTube video, kind of like what Austin's trying to make right now, but the YouTube video was basically a day in the life of a door-to-door salesman. Everything that I've been told was, you know, everything that I've been told about the industry Through that video, I was like proved to be a myth. So that's when I decided to just, you know, basically— and I'm sorry, Ben Jackson, I love you— but I basically like just stopped talking to my manager at Cutco.

Is that his name?

Yeah, and we were friends.

Okay, okay.

And I took the leap and decided to go into door-to-door and really just bet more on myself because in Cutco it's more about recruitment. We were recruiting like 15 to 25 guys a week, and there would be a lot of turnover and stuff like that. So wasn't very, wasn't very, um, wasn't very fun because you're always losing people. It's like you build relationships and you lose them, you build and you lose them. So I just decided to do something completely selfish that was completely solo and just go out and personal sell. And now we're here.

That's, that's a unique recruiting. I feel like it'd probably be similar in life insurance or What are the other stuff? Like home insurance. I don't know what I like, these, these remote closing. I've never gotten into it, so I'm not gonna like say anything that I don't know. Yeah, but I think you recruit and then it's like, yeah, go talk to your mom and go sell to your mom and your brother and your sisters and your cousins, right? And that's like your clientele that you're selling to. Now, when door-to-door, you recruit somebody over to Aptiv or Grid or Fox, you're going to recruit those people, but the actual product that you're selling is to like Randos.

Exactly.

We're talking about the people up in Michigan. Dude.

Weird.

Weird people. And people in Atlanta, southern hospitality. California, straightforward to the point. Hawaii, ho! I loved it.

Gold mine?

Oh dude, it was the— I call it PR land.

Really?

So I have a picture of me holding a goat with sunglasses in Hawaii. And I just put, that was one of my posts early on when I started this thing. I went out with Vantage for like a week. Yeah. And so—

Aloha Pest Control.

Yeah, that's a fun little gig. Tyler does all those blitzes. But like Hawaii was dope. Pacific Northwest. Pacific Northwest reminded me of Atlanta a lot. Weird. Like the market kind of felt like Atlanta. A lot of new development. You need to sell here, dude. It's so fun. 'Cause you live in Cartersville.

Yeah. I've never sold in Georgia.

You'd like it. It's out here, it's fun, people are really easygoing. But yeah, like, what did— how do we get on this Michigan stuff? Oh yeah, people up in Michigan, they're just weird because they have to spend half their life inside of the house.

Yeah, then yeah, winters. So Georgia, you get a little bit of a mix of both. I like cold weather personally, um, like I like when the air is feeling crisp and like it's like a crisp apple. I enjoy that. I love like— I'll put the windows down in my car in 30-degree weather with a hoodie on and put the hoodie on and just feel the wind just beat my face. Um, it's just something I enjoy. So you get a little bit of both, but you can't have a car like this in Michigan because you only get to drive for like 4 months out of the year. Um, so I'll never move to the north.

Tell me about— we're on the car stuff, um, just because if you're on— if I look at your social media, I know that you're a super cool dude, super high energy, and you have a dope car. I had no idea what that car was until I followed your page. Um, tell me the story about getting it what it felt like building towards it, like just the excitement that went into it. Yeah, so I got a lot of those. 'Cause it's not for show, like. No. I wanna make sure that's known for everybody, like it's your dream car.

Right, so yeah, I mean it's a typical stereotype when someone gets a nice car and they start posting it on Instagram, it's like, okay, you just want everyone to know that you have a cool car, or oh, you're trying to impress girls, or you're trying to impress your friends, so I got a lot of that.

Cybertruck did not impress my wife, by the way.

Yeah, I saw the video, she didn't like it.

It was bad. She was not happy.

I'm sure not, but I mean, it's here.

Yeah, it's here.

Um, so yeah, I was just, uh, when I originally— I mean, to throw it way back, um, ever since I was a kid, I've loved cars. I've loved Lamborghinis, Porsches, uh, just like all the exotics that you think about when you think about like a cool car. Um, I would always like look up cars, look up reviews. Um, Doug DeMuro, shout out, he has a YouTube channel. Huge YouTube channel where he reviews like every single car in America. So I watched almost every single one of his videos just to like almost imagine myself, um, like picking out my car before it happened, you know, like making sure I'm making the right decision. I have decision fatigue for sure. Um, so that was just like earlier on, like I've always wanted a supercar, not necessarily this car specifically. Um, I've always liked the old NSX, but I never really liked the new NSX. Until I sold this one. But my goal of selling the Golden Door, none of that had to do with the car. I didn't think that I was gonna get the car. I didn't think that I could afford the car yet. So I was just in a place where I was like, man, I want it. I have this money, should I invest it in the car? Will it bring me a return on investment? Just trying to think about like, to make it more logical in my mind. And so I, I hit up Aiden Parent on Instagram because he just bought a McLaren and he was like at the same level as me. So I was like, yo, like, how did you afford the McLaren? He was like, dude, it's like $2K a month, $2,500 a month. I freaking love it. And yeah, it's like if you do the math, like offseason, we have like 6 months off. So $2K a month for 6 months when you're not working is $12,000. $12,000 like to drive a supercar. Fantastic, I'll do it. So that was like when I first started thinking, okay, I can do it, it's possible. And I remember it like it was yesterday, I went to a Kentucky game and I was with my friends at this bar after the Kentucky game, we were just hanging out. And I looked at myself in the mirror at the bar and I said, I'm gonna buy a supercar when I get home. And that's all I said, I had no idea what car it was gonna be, I didn't do any research on the cars that were available. I just knew right when I got home I was gonna buy the car. Second day when I got home, I bought this car. I actually went in to look at a different car. It was a Porsche, and the guy bought it off the lot right before I got there, or right when I got there, and I was really upset about that. They brought me into the warehouse. This hadn't even been posted yet. It was like almost like a mystery vehicle. So I looked at it and I was like, "Yeah, I want that." So then we bought it.

I want that one.

Just like that. I was like, "I want that one." And that was a huge thing for me because I've always, like, my goal in life is to, you know, live life in a way where I don't have to think about money. I just want to, like, enjoy what I want to enjoy in the moment and live very present because I'm not going to die with any of my money. Like, it's not going to be buried with me. So where was I going with that?

Your money missions, goals in life.

What was the question right before that?

Uh, you said I want that one.

Yeah, oh yeah, so it was always like a goal for me to buy a Louis Vuitton bag, like a duffel bag, but I just didn't want to look at the price, I wanted to go and buy it. And I did that, and then that felt really good. So I was like, I'm gonna keep making decisions like this. I'm just gonna go and if I want something, I'm just gonna go and buy it. And that just is what it is because I have the opportunity to do it and that feels really cool.

I think there's a, if you're making good money in sales, the just buy stuff and don't look at the price tag. When you go to the grocery store, that should definitely be true. Yeah, like, oh, I want this healthy food. The first thought shouldn't be like, how much does it cost? It's like, no, what's it worth? Ed Mylett does a thing on that, like, what does it cost is a lot different than what's it worth, right? And so a car is definitely worth more than just like, it's a point— yeah, point A to point B is really good. But also like just enjoying life along the way. Like, if— yeah, that's the whole analogy for life. Like, you can go point A, like birth to death, that's great, but you can also do a lot more fun too.

Yeah, so you're driving for like half of your life. I think there's a statistic about it. Yeah, you're driving for probably half of your life if you do enjoy driving. So if I'm going to be in something for half of my life, make it fun.

I would—

I want it to be fun. So it's just like your mattress. Like, a lot of people will go cheap on a mattress and get a $200 mattress off Amazon It's like you are sleeping on that mattress every single day. It is directly impacting your success. It's directly impacting your energy. Like Drake said, Drake has like a $200,000 bed because he can afford it, but also it's important. Like sleep's important and he has the best bed.

What bed is that?

I don't know what bed it is, but it's some like designer bed and it's apparently like the best bed in the world. You can get one for like 10 grand.

Alright, Norman, figure out what bed it is. We're gonna have Norman edit this. Okay, cool. Well, the cars, we're on cars, stuff like that. Oh dude, cars are fun. When I was at Anthem, and I'll still sell for Anthem when I'm in town, right? When I was at Anthem, the 1,000 accounts meant, hey, we'll buy you a car, right? But I think in life we chase feelings, right? Like we just chase what things do for us. It's not so much about getting the thing, it's like how it makes us feel. We can dive into that with the Golden Door stuff too, 'cause we've both done one and then it feels good. But it does, like the pursuit of things is what's really fun. But yeah, Anthem, they bought me a Kia, they gave me like a $35,000 check. Kia Stinger? Everybody thought it was a Stinger, it was a K5. Super dope, like red seats and had a panoramic sunroof. It was the GT line, so it kind of souped up a little bit faster. I just drove one for a rental the other day. It is not fast. Now I know what, what speed is. Yeah, but I, I loved it. It was great. And before I did my Golindor, I was driving a Honda Civic. And the Honda Civic had— at one time I left the keys in it, so the guy had to put like an air bladder in there to, to puff it up to be able to get the keys out, and it ruined the left door. Well, every single time it rained, I was getting poured on. So when I started my Golden Door Summer, 1,000 Account Summer, I was getting rained on, like my left arm was always wet. And there was one day I'm like, dude, I'm gonna win this thing, like why am I still driving this piece of trash? And it wasn't anything bad, it was like, listen, I'm going to get it, why don't I just go get the car now, and then they just cut me a check later, I'll pay it off. That's exactly what I did. I was so convinced, and I think, That was like been the difference of like when I did hit a Golden Door and the years where I told myself after, I'm gonna go do it, I'm gonna go do it. And then even this last year, I'm gonna go try to do a Golden Door and run a coaching business. I never did it again. There was just a different level of, there were a lot of F-bombs that year. Like, I was like, I'm gonna fucking do it. I'm gonna get it done. It was a different level of like— Intensity. Yeah, it was psycho.

Yeah, 100% psycho.

Yeah.

You have to be crazy.

And I loved it. I think I'm psycho now for different things. But the impact now for me has been like every year we go up to the pumpkin patch in Dawsonville.

Have you ever—

have you gone to Burt's?

I've probably been there. We used to do something with my football team every year when I was younger. We'd go to a pumpkin patch.

I go up to Burt's Pumpkin Patch up in Dawsonville, like 30 minutes outside of Silver City, every year with my family. And every year I go up there, I like reflect on the last year. It's been really cool. Like every year in door-to-door, it's at the close of the selling season. This was the first year where I went up there and I'm like, oh cool, like I actually helped other people. Whereas before it was all about me, me, me. So the car stuff, back on the car stuff, like this was like the first, the Cybertruck thing was like, okay, how can I grow the business? How can I grow the brand? And one of my best friends in the world, I won't say his name on here just 'cause I, the point of it isn't like, hey, look at what I did. It's like, hey, like what impact can you make with what you're doing in life? I had my buddy drive me to the Tesla dealership to pick up the Cybertruck after I ordered it impulsively in front of my wife. I like pulled the phone out and I'm like, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. And I hit order and she just let it happen. So we drove up there and I'm like, hey dude, like, take the keys. And I don't care what he does with the car. He can keep it, he can sell it. But like, gave him a car. 'Cause I think like door-to-door has made me realize like money is—

You gave him the stinger?

Yeah, the K5. Yeah, take it.

But that's like, that's huge. Like, um, last year I, I bought my mom a Louis Vuitton purse for Christmas, um, because I don't know, she's not like super materialistic. She's totally fine with her like Coach purse or something, but I know in the back of her head she's like always wanted one. And not like my dad couldn't afford to get her one, but she's not the type to like ask for it or make it obvious that's something that she wants, like a really expensive purse. So I just went out and bought it for her. And when I gave it to her, it was a cool moment because she wasn't expecting it at all. And it's something that she's always wanted but couldn't validate spending the money on. And it was just cool to have the opportunity to be able to do that. And then also think in my head, like, I'm not screwed right now. You know, like when you gave away the car, it's like, I can do this. I can give away this car and I'm totally fine.

Yeah, we were good.

Financially. I mean, and I just bought a $100,000 Cybertruck.

Yeah, so dude, look, that was— did you feel scared when you got yours? I was like, I was sitting in the Tesla dealership.

Oh yeah, I was scared to drive it. Yeah.

Oh dude, don't mind the airplane. I don't know if you're picking— if it's picking up on the, on the thing, but we're like, we live by an airport.

Helicopter.

Oh, helicopter. Um, but yeah, I think I was like, is this irresponsible? I'm like, a little bit. A little bit. Yeah, I like it. But yeah, when you did the math and everything, it's like, oh, payment, it's like, well, how many pest control accounts do I need to sell for this to make sense? It's like, it's good. Now also that way of thinking can get really dangerous.

For sure.

Because I just met Maddie Snyzek, was in like CG2 with you.

Yeah.

She just started the financial stuff, so I like sat down with her last week. I think everybody should do that.

Oh yeah.

Like sit down with somebody who can like give you a financial audit to figure out where you're at. She's not a tax person, she's just like, hey, 'What's your monthly income? What are your expenses?' Like, it was actually really helpful because I just want to put my head in the sand. I don't know if you've experienced this with like finances and stuff, but I'm like, if I just work really, really hard, it doesn't matter.

I could spend—

yeah, yeah. But then I—

so what I did is I, I added up all of my expenses and everything that I would need minus food and water is like $54,000 or something. So I'm like, a year?

A year.

So like paying for my house, my 2 cars, like everything that I own.

Including that car.

Including that car is like $54K in the year. Since I'm single, I don't have kids or a wife. Like obviously you have 2 kids and a wife, so it's totally different.

Yeah.

But I thought in my head, I'm like, I've made $54 grand in 2 weeks before.

Uh-huh.

So realistically, my lifestyle is not too expensive because I can make it in 2 weeks. And then everything extra is just extra money that I can throw away. So a lot of people be like, like, don't be irresponsible with your money, buy houses, do investments. I'm doing all that stuff still, but then I'm also just having this. And maybe I'm like not investing as much as I could, but I know that next year I'm just gonna go out and crush it again. Like, I'm not in a scarcity mindset to where I think that, you know, this is gonna be the rest of my money forever. Yeah, you know, and I'm not very attached to dollars, not at all, because at the end of the day, it's really just a digital number on your phone. That you're borrowing for now. You know, it's just borrowing. You're borrowing money, you give to someone else, they borrow it for a little bit, they give to someone else, they sell something, give it to someone else. Everyone's just trading here. Yeah, you know, I feel like I'm really good at like trading, and I feel like I can like afford it.

I don't know, it's fun. Well, it's cool. It was cool to see you pull up in that Lambo. This is cool because when I started following your stuff, it was like bad day to be a bug. Saw the car, that was really exciting. Seeing you hit your golden door. Really, really cool. I think in— I think a lot of young guys, like, maybe there are guys— dude, I just started this YouTube channel. I've got 200 subscribers, so whoever's watching it, great. But like, maybe there are young guys that watch this video. I think there's a lot to be said for like what matters most. And me and you both did the collective group with Corey. What matters most is like who you're becoming. Exactly. In this process of doing sales and And dude, like, you did Cutco for a bit. I'm sure it was hard. Like, the universal handle, it goes all the way to the blade.

Especially when you're young too. Like, I was extremely young and in like a very professional spot, you know. I was 17 or 18, 19 years old running my own branch office, recruiting my own people. So like, most of the people are older than me, and I'm like running 6 interviews a day. Like, that's just not something that's— that a typical 19, 18, 19-year-old is going to do. Um, but I fell in love with the process of doing it because it made me a good— it made me a better person.

I've—

a lot of people know this about me, but I was— I've been extremely socially anxious since I was little. Still, still, for sure. Like, I'm really good at masking it and kind of gaming it in a way when I'm knocking. Um, but even like just Just conversations sometimes with new people makes me extremely nervous. And so that was like a kind of like a, just a key, a ticket for me to break out of that and figure out how to live a different life with the feelings that I already have. 'Cause these feelings are never gonna go away regardless of how confident I am. I know that I'm gonna feel them eventually. So I've just kind of dove into them and figured out how to live my life through them. And that's like what Cutco allowed me to do. So Cutco was completely out of my comfort zone. I worked at Chick-fil-A before that. Here's a little backstory.

Dude, you'd be a great Chick-fil-A worker.

Yeah, well, they put me in the back. So my first job was Chick-fil-A. I did my interview. After the interview, she said, you know, you just don't have really like great communication skills.

No way.

So I think it would be better if we just put you in the back. Basically what she said. And so I looked at her, I was like, okay. Like, that sucks. And I— but I knew that about me too, so I was kind of like, valid, that's kind of valid too. So I didn't really hate her for it. But I worked in the back for like 3 months, hated my life because everyone in the front would always treat you like shit if you were in the back. I don't know, it's like, you're my servant basically, like, clean these dishes.

I'm like, so the mask— but how, how Chick-fil-A workers really are is they tell you my pleasure to your face and then they're screaming at the guy washing dishes.

Yeah. Getting angry. So, and we're bumping like rap music in the back of this Chick-fil-A. I mean, it was fun, but I felt discouraged after that because I felt like the public, you know, people outside my family didn't believe that I could be successful. So after that, I worked at a Chinese restaurant. I said, screw this, I'm gonna go make more money. Worked at a Chinese restaurant for like a month, and then after that, I saw one of my friends made like $800 in a week. His first 10 days working for Cutco. And I was like checking my paychecks and getting like $300 every 2 weeks. I'm sitting here going like, this is terrible. He made $800 in his first week, I'm gonna go do that. My parents told me not to do it. They like, they were like, you're not going to the training. I was like, no, I am going to the training. I'm going to this interview, I'm going to the training. Little did I know when I went to the interview, Cutco hires everybody, right? Everybody, if you're high school, you go to a good school, like whatever, like you're getting the job because there's not much risk. And so I went in there and I was super scared, super nervous, but the interviewer, his name's Noah Reeves, and he comments on my Instagram a lot. He's like, you know, like, he keeps saying like the, like basically saying that I've become the master of sales and like he was the master before, but I've become the master of sales. But it was funny because when I was talking to him in the interview, I was so nervous, didn't think I was gonna get the job at all. And he looked at me and like he had all these like plaques all around the room. They were Ben Jackson's plaques, by the way, and they were not his. He was just an assistant manager, and I found out later on like what that role was, and you basically just read a script and accept the people that are in good high schools. But I was so nervous the whole time, and then he was like, you know, I believe in you. He's like, I think that you would crush. He said something like that. He's like, I think that you would do really well at this job. I believe in you. Like, I'm gonna give you the job even though I know you're not 17 yet. Because I was turning 17 in like 2 weeks. You have to be 17 to work for Cutco. So I left that interview on top of the world, thinking that I just accomplished like this massive feat. And I took that into my training, and I became the number 1 rep out of my training. No one else, I don't think, I think 1 person stuck out of that training seminar. There was like 15 people in there. I didn't realize that there was so much turnover, or what turnover was. I was just like, I'm given this opportunity by this guy, this stud. I need to take it and run with it. And then I ended up selling like, I made $1,000 in my first week doing it. And it wasn't just because I was selling to my family members, we were getting recommendations. It was super uncomfortable, like even doing a phone call with my parents was uncomfortable because of just my social anxiety. But that's what kickstarted it and allowed me to think, okay, I can be successful within this anxiety. And I'm not anxiety, I just feel anxiety. Feeling something that you can shift, right? So that's what, that's what got me into Cutco. And then from then on, like, I've just realized that sales is not necessarily a social thing. It's a transfer of energy, and it's a business. It's a business conversation. You're making a transaction, you know, when you're talking to them. So that's how I kind of numb my mind to the social anxiety. And then that even, like, for my golden door, let's throw it all out because I was in Brazil when I talked to Corey about joining his calls. It was just the 12 calls. It was a big investment for me because it was like $2,500. It's like, I don't know if I want to do this or not.

By the way, he doesn't charge that anymore.

No.

And by the way, that's like, that's like, that's a killer deal. Yeah, when he first started out, I remember that stuff.

Like, and but even then I was like, $2,500, like, isn't that crazy? A lot of money. And but I would have paid 10 grand for that.

Oh no.

Like now that I'm looking back at it. But I knew that like I needed to tap in like to a different part of myself so that way I could become the best at something. I've never been the best at something. Didn't make my high school baseball team. My brother was always better than me at everything. My dad's even better than me in most things. So I wanted to be the best at something and I chose to, you know, pay for it to so that way I keep myself more accountable like we were talking about before. And right after I paid for it, I went into Jason's room. Love you, Jason. We still work together. Jason's awesome. But I looked at him and I said, I'm gonna hit a golden door next year. I had sold $281K the year before in 3 months. And I just told him, I'm gonna hit a golden door next year. He did $500K. And he didn't think that he could do it. So he told me, he's like, how are you gonna do that? Like, how are you gonna get better at sales? Like, there's no way you can do that. Just doubting me, doubting me, doubting me. And then when I got home from the Brazil trip, I'm like training, trying to like go for it. Love you, Dad. But my dad was like, like, you're not doing these things, you know, like, he was like basically thinking that I was just kind of like screwing off, not working hard or anything. But in reality, like, I was so busy because I was trying to become the best version of myself and also train my reps and ensure that they have a good experience as well. So he didn't really see the big picture, but I took that as fuel and I went out and I just ripped.

I ripped.

I had two back-to-back $130K months. Something that I had never done before. And probably 3 months into it, I started to realize that none of that was fueling me anymore. And it was all just a facade of like me just like thinking that like I'm like, you know, the underdog, you know. And that's probably what you felt your first year when you're in the Civic getting rained on. You're going there summer, you're like, I'm the underdog, I'm the underdog.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I feel like that's what I'm talking about right now, but I feel like that's transferred over into Now the reason why I don't care about it as much is because I was going for that looking to become this type of person, and I thought when I hit it that I was going to be that type of person. And then I hit it and I was still Jackson Rich with social anxiety, you know? Really? Yeah, just nothing changed, you know? It was just something that I had accomplished, and I now view it way differently.

I actually saw this clip from Kalani Sitake. He's the BYU football head coach. Talked about— and I'll tie this back in— but he talked about an interview that he was going to have with Tom Holmoe, the previous athletic director at BYU. They asked him to come in for the BYU coaching position, and he looked at his wife and he's like, "Why are they hiring me? Like, why are they wanting to even interview me? They're just interviewing me to say they interviewed me." And his wife was like, "No, you're going to go in and get this freaking job. This is what you're going to say." And he followed his wife's advice and he got the job. But there was a guy named Kony Dole that was at Anthem, and I really wanted to— I just looked up to him. I'm like, I looked at him like he was just this non-human person, right?

Which, which people probably think the same thing of you right now and the same thing of me.

We're dudes.

My reps think that too. They're like, this guy's not human, this guy's not human, until I'm like vulnerable with them though.

Yeah. Oh yeah, this guy's got stuff.

Yeah.

I like, I always tell people just to help people chill out when I do role plays with them. Like, I'm just a bald dude. Come on. But I used to look at Kony like he was— and I still, I still think he's an incredible man. But I used to be like, oh yeah, whatever he's doing is just— I don't know, he just must be doing something crazy, or he's just different than me. And my wife, I think I said something along the lines of like, oh, I want to, I want to try to sell like that one day. And she's like, go beat him, go do it. It was the first time I think someone had said like, oh, you can go do that. And then that kind of started me wanting to compete against him. And I always felt like the underdog because there were a lot of people within Anthem when I was selling there that thought that other people were gonna sell more than me, right? And I— that, that did help for a bit. And then, yeah, looking back on the Anthem stuff, I had like an arch-nemesis in Kony, and we weren't, we weren't homies. Now we are, but that fueled me a ton, like the competitive side, like Dude, competing is fun.

It is.

Yeah, I loved it. And so that fueled a lot of me kind of improving and having my record-breaking stuff. Like on my Instagram page, I have like all my stats. All of those weeks came because I was up against Kony. So I think there's something to be said for competition. But then again, you can't always— there's more to life than just beating people. Yeah, right. It's like, okay, how am I going to become better? How am I going to give back. It starts— I feel like that's where it started for me, was like winning, winning, winning, winning, winning. And yeah, like, they're really incredible people. Like Kobe Bryant, win, win, win. The Tim Grover stuff, like, when all the Tim Grover quotes about winning, that's awesome. And then there's other ways to win in life too.

Like, think about like Michael, Michael Jordan is a great example of this. He won all those rings, he went and played baseball came back and he played for the Wizards only to donate his whole entire salary to something.

Oh really?

He donated everything, but everyone hated on him because he went to the Wizards and he wasn't with the Bulls. You know, everyone's like, why is Michael Jordan playing for the Wizards? You know, that makes no sense, he should be playing for the Bulls. Like, Michael Jordan's never going to be the same. Like, oh, but questioning Michael Jordan's legacy when in reality he had just won so many times that he just finally learned to just give everything away.

That's cool.

It didn't even matter.

That's what— that's— I can't say that I've— I did one Golden Door, and the other day I think I texted you. I'm like, yeah, my first one. I'm like, I don't know why I say first. I'm like, leave the door open.

Exactly.

Yeah. But I'm gonna turn 30 this year. I've got 2 daughters, and we want to have more kids. And winning for me now looks a lot different than, than just getting awards and accolades. Like going to your PESTiZ event and for the Aptiv thing was cool for me because I walked into this event and I'm doing this to try to like build my brand. Like, I wore a Maser shirt with a blazer. Kaya's like, you need to wear this, it'll look really good. And I'm walking around there and like people walk up to me and they're like, Austin, thanks for your course. I'm like, who are you? Because I only know people from their name and like a tiny profile picture. And some guys nowadays, their profile picture is like, you know, like they don't even show their face. So I know them from voice memos and from messages. So winning this year for me is cool because I finally am like stepping into that mantle of like a coach. And I'll still knock next year because I think it's fun. It's easy money. Like, it's so much fun, dude. And yeah, I just hop in the truck and then go knock and come home.

The test was the perfect knock and go.

It is. It's fun, like, and it's also really awkward too, like parking it in front of someone's house. Oh yeah. It's like always first door, hey, that's my car. Just letting you know why there's a Batmobile in front of your house. Anyways, you have a company yet or not yet? So I think for me it's like winning is so much more than— and you're doing this, I'd like for you to speak on this a little bit, but winning is so much more than the trophies. Me and you have both gotten them. And my turning point for me was when I realized— I mean, my daughter— I took my daughter to my dad's tombstone and I realized, oh my gosh, like, life's gonna end one day. And then my priorities started to shift. And for a long time I held on to this idea of I'm gonna do a Golden Door, Golden Door, Golden Door for 3 years. And now I'm to the point where I'm like, I actually can comfortably Someone can walk up to me and they'll be like, "Are you doing a Golden Earth show?" I'm like, "Yeah, no, I'm not. I'm gonna run my coaching business." It feels really good not to have to feel like pressure. I have to do it for other people. And I think, yeah, it's just being able to find wins other places and find my worth and like things that truly matter is what's been big for me. Yeah, I don't know if you've experienced anything similar, but I want to hear about finding joy within the grind and the thing that's in your building, because this is your thing recently and I've been following it. I love it.

Yeah, so I made the— I started that series off a whim, honestly, because like towards the end of the summer I was going through a lot of decision fatigue on if I should stay and grind it out because I told everyone that I was gonna do it. I was gonna at least do a Golden Door. I ended up at $509K, so I was like 240-something away, 241 away. I could easily, I could have easily done that and completed the Golden Door by the end of the year. But I started to ask myself, and what me and Corey would talk about, because I didn't want the conversation to go into like, are you gonna leave? I didn't even want that to be an option. I told even my managers like, I want to win at something this year. I want to win at something. I have to earn something. There's no way I did all this for nothing. In reality, I'm doing it for something, of course. Of course, but like, my mind was so stuck on that Golden Door, the award, or like Golden Goat at least. You know, I want to be a Golden Goat, at least I need the jacket.

Did they have that last year?

Golden Goat was Golden Door last year, but the Golden Goat now is like 550 PCT.

Okay.

So I told myself like, I want to at least do the 550 PCT, or I want to at least do like the Golden Door. I just kept like lowering my goal to like make myself feel better about it. And then I thought to myself like, if I really do this, what am I going to be benefiting from? Like how much money would I make? I did it, I did the whole analysis of it, exactly how much money I would make extra if I did it. I had like, okay, maybe what am I gonna buy? What type of trips am I gonna take? Like, would this be worth it in the grand scheme of things? And what I came to the conclusion of is that, you know, the next 2 months could be life-changing for me in 2 different ways. Either the next 3 months I grind for 3 months and hate my life and like I was hating my life this past summer, just a lot of things not going my way. So I grind for 3 months, hate my life for 3 more months, or I make a life-changing shift in my perspective on life. And I chose to go home and make a life-changing shift in the perspective of my life, and that's when I started The Joy Within the Grind. The Joy Within the Grind is a lot bigger than just like posting. I really don't care how many views I get. And we didn't talk much about this earlier. I do like engagement. I want people to find value in it. But where it originated is the year before, I made a bunch of traveling videos. Like before my Golden Door season, I made so many traveling videos. And sometimes I found myself like even on the toilet, like just scrolling through my own reels, watching them and just seeing like how happy I was and like how much like I enjoyed that time. And then I could feel like what it felt like to be present in that moment. And the previous year, like going into my next year, I was so caught up on like, I should hit a million for sure, like I don't really need to change anything to get there, that I didn't travel as much. I wasn't posting as much content. I wasn't posting the bad day to be a bug stuff. I wasn't selling as many hats. I wasn't doing things that I enjoyed. And then Kevin asked me, he was like, he's like, have you done anything that you enjoy recently? Like, are you going to the gym? You know, are you like enjoying things? And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to the gym, but like like, what do I enjoy? I don't know.

That's a hard— that's a really scary spot to be in.

Yeah, and then it's like I've been chasing money for so long that that's what I was enjoying, things I was getting for money, that I stopped and like had to realize that like, what do I like? Who am I? Like, it was almost like an ego death because I didn't— I really could not answer what I found joy in. I could not answer it. And so the goal from doing this is that by the end of the journey, which is right when I start next summer, I'll have 200 new things that I find joy in. And I will go and look back at the videos, but I'm, I'm kind of subconsciously training my mind to find joy in my surroundings and find joy in just things that are around all the time, so that way when I am working and I'm going through a neighborhood, like, little sparks of happiness come from everything rather than me, like, not paying attention to it.

Probably, it's probably a way to help out with, like, the social anxiety too.

Yeah, because it's just, it, it's, and also, like, I'm constantly looking for new things that I, that I find joy in.

I think it surprised me when I heard that Corbin Hansen had anxiety attacks. I'm like, oh, there's no way, you're the GOAT. It's like No, like he also has anxiety. So I think for people listening to this, like if you deal with anxiety, cool, you can still do a lot with your life. The whole like being tied up in money is really, really scary because like not finding joy in other things. This was the summer before I had done a Golden Door, the 1,000 accounts. We had a townhome right down the road being built. My wife had just, we'd just given birth to, we, my wife had just given birth to Georgia. You got to meet her earlier. My name Georgia, I sell cookies, how many you want? So, and then my backend check had hit and it was like 100 G's. Like, oh cool, this is awesome. But what was really scary for me is I had put, I tied up so much of my worth into selling and it's all that mattered to me. And I was selling really, really well. Like, I was selling like double digits all the time towards the end of my second year. And so I felt like I was the man while I was selling. And then when the selling season went away, I actually struggled. And a lot of door-to-door guys probably struggle with this. It's like, where's my purpose? What am I doing? Because during the summertime, it gets so hard. It's such a grind. And you're like, I just want to be done with this. Well then, okay, cool, be done with it. And now Now I don't know what to find my worth in.

Yeah.

And so I wouldn't say— and I've talked to some of my close friends about this— but I wouldn't say that I was suicidal at that time. But sure, if there was a time where it was like, this could go pretty south, like, it was that time.

And a couple things changed. Yeah, it could have.

Yeah. And what a weird thing. Like, everybody dreams of making $100 grand. That's like the numbers. Like, if you can make how much in a year? $100 grand. Like that's like, for some reason we romanticize, you know, a 1 and a bunch of zeros. Yeah, that's success.

100 grand is like success, yeah.

Weird that a number is success, right? It's more internal.

But then you tie your value into making more money because if you do better, become a better person, you get a raise. So then it's like, okay, my worth is money. If I make $300K a year, that means I'm a better person than someone who makes $80K a year, which is not reality.

Dude, some of the coolest people I ever met in my life are making way less than me. And like, that's fine. I— it was crazy. So I had to actually work with a chick named Lindsay Thien Phu. She didn't even advertise herself as a coach, but I heard about her through somebody else. Did a lot of internal work, like working through the death of my dad, like getting a better relationship with everybody in my family, because like with divorce, with death, it was kind of messy. And I worked on my relationship with my stepmom, figured that out, right? Like, a lot of things I was able to iron out to get me in a better state of mind. But dude, since, like, since not doing a second Golden Door, like, I just have realized that there's a lot more to win in than just that award that was invented by Sam Taggart. Like, it's not like this is divine thing. It's like just a— it's a benchmark that's created that we all romanticized. Whereas— oh, that's what I want to talk about. The second year I sold, I sold really well. I did the first year, I did 1,067 accounts, hit $550 grand. The second year I did like 770 accounts, hit around $550K in revenue. I made the same amount of money.

Yeah.

In less accounts, less stress. I felt like a failure. Yeah, dude. I had somebody talk to me, they're like, some people would get their left nut to sell $520K. Yeah, like, so my perspective was totally wonky. Like, I thought because I didn't do 1,000 accounts or because I didn't hit $650K, that was that year, because I didn't hit that $650K, I was like failure. And so I think that's one of the dark sides of like high performance is when you fall a little bit short, you're like, oh yeah, I'm a failure. And I had to remember, like, I have a lot more things in my life that are amazing. And I started to try to do this whole thing where I'm living life by design. We're planning trips, we're building a dream house. Like, this is not our dream house, but I just— this was a very spontaneous purchase. I was like, cool, nice garage, nice garage, has windows for a gym, buy it. Yeah, but basement unfinished, let's buy it. And it's, it's an old people house. Like, it's a one-story home. We're the only young couple in this neighborhood that's got this house.

One story is better anyway.

Dude, one story is great. You have a one story.

Yeah.

It's a hidden— it's a cheat code.

I don't like the stairs. Basement stairs are fine.

Yeah.

You're going down and then when you're going up it's like whatever, but stairs every day, no.

One story homes are great.

Yeah. I want a massive one story home. Long, super long.

I feel like there's a lot of those. We're gonna run into a lot of those in—

California.

Cali, because they have—

that's what it is, the doors that open up. I just want like the whole wall to be windows that open all the way up to backyard. That's—

yeah, Cali was like majority one-story homes.

It was weird to see two-story homes in California and also Oklahoma because of the tornadoes. Okay, yeah, so they have basements, one-story homes mostly.

That's cool.

Yeah, sick house though.

Well, I think there's a lot of lessons to take from you, dude, like, and I, I think it's like And one of the things that I'm learning from you is that you enjoy your life thoroughly. Like, you have fun, you're finding joy in the little things, and you're also just a solid dude. Like, I think there's a— I think we, for me and you doing The Collective, we've realized that like people are not bad guys. Just because you sell Aptiv and I am doing something else doesn't mean that like, yeah, we can't talk. Yeah, we can't be homies.

But before it was that you couldn't talk. You know, if you were friends with someone from a different company, you always had in the back of your mind that I could probably get him over here. Yeah, yeah, you know, whatever. It's like just more of like transactional relationship where we were kind of forced into a space where we couldn't be transactional. And it was like impossible to be transactional because you cared so much about being in the group.

Yeah, well, and I, I went in the same group as you and I'm like, oh cool, we're homies. Yeah, I can be real with this guy.

Yeah, so it's almost like, it's almost like a like a plat— like a, what is it, like a stage or like a level. It's like once you pass this level, then like we all understand each other. And that's what Corey's doing really cool. Shout out to Corey, the Sales Serapis. He's doing a really cool thing with X where like everyone's past that level of the retreat, so everyone's like super vulnerable and like, you know, willing to express. And now there's just a big group of everyone who's like kind of on the same level.

Yeah, I went to that retreat. It was cool. Like I flew in for that, just for that. And then I flew back home to pick up my family and then flew back out for the Holy War. Like, I flew out for the retreat, came home, picked up my girls and my wife, and then we went right back out for BYU versus Utah.

Yeah, I saw that you were like back and forth.

I was like, dude, I think there's like top 5 best days of my life.

And the BYU— yes, but it's a very Utah, a Utah battle.

Oh dude, yes. And I was a BYU cheerleader. Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. That meant a lot. And I sat next to Ute fans and I'm like, don't worry, I used to be you.

Yeah, I freaking hate you.

Yeah, well, they were like so upset.

The signs were hilarious, like, "Frick you," or something.

There was ones like within the LDS Church, there's like, there's a talk called "Be Peacemakers." So "be a peacemaker" was like one of the phrases in General Conference a couple years ago. So they had one kid holding "be a peacemaker" and then the other guy above it was like, "I hate you," with a U. So we laughed at that, but others like Kalani has a massive cougar tail was one of them. Just like hilarious signs.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, we're trying to live our life by design right now and just like we have fun goals and I think that's what life's about is just building a— that's what I'm glad you got to see my kiddos too because that's my biggest joy in life is family.

Yeah.

So I think whenever you get the opportunity to do that, it's dope.

Yeah.

God willing, right? Like, whenever that time is, I think you're gonna make a good, a really good husband and father. Like, just getting to know you, you're a solid dude.

I appreciate that. Yeah, so that's something I do question a lot, for sure. I think it's really scary at first, and then it's just scary getting to this point in my life right now where I'm 24 and like, I don't really like know exactly what's gonna happen. I know I'm destined for greatness, and that's a good feeling.

Yeah.

Because I know that whatever I end up making the decision on, I'm gonna do well, I feel like. But I don't know, I'm just in a spot where it's just like success is there, but it's just like, what do I do with it? You know, what— like, I feel like I'm almost missing out by just like being selfish and selling. And that's why I was talking to you about like what I could possibly do in the future to like experience a lot more fulfillment in my job and like even do alongside of like knocking doors. But yeah, I just want to like— I've gotten to the point where like success is gonna happen regardless, so I might as well do something that I like thoroughly enjoy, or like what you're doing, the impact. Like you could definitely go out next summer and sell a Golden Door. You have the ability to do it for sure. And maybe, I don't know how the business is going specifically, but like if you were to go out sell $800K, like the commission on that's insane. Yeah, like for why? You know, like, what are you gonna do with that money that's like, that actually means something to like your future other than buy stuff?

I mean, there's arguments of like, oh, I could pay off all the houses, all the, and be like done. But I'm like, I actually like working. Yeah, I actually like doing my coaching. I like selling.

And so it's not like you have a time limit on like, you're not gonna be done working in like the next year.

No, I think I talked to Austin Maser the other day, like, I'm like, how, when could I be done? Because I could you know, I could be done as long as I paid off my house here, the rent, and the two rentals. I could technically just retire. Yeah, float around and do whatever. But that's not my goal in life.

I think it'd be good to do, like, don't get me wrong, like, you would be doing a disservice to everybody if you did that because you have so much value to give.

Yeah, I, I, so I actually really, I really am hesitant where people are like, oh, I'm just going to do this and then I'll never have to work again a day in my life again, or like really careful when I see it in door-to-door of like managers that are like, yeah, I'm done with the doors, I'm done, I'm done, I don't want to be on doors anymore. I'm like, dude, like, opportunity, why would I want to work with you? You know, like, that's like, and that's just like, there are some guys that are like trying to build a business, that's okay, that's fine, but I just think that it's, it's good to love what you do. And then because that, that kind of trickles down, but Yeah, we've thought about the one, the one thing that's like itching at me, it's like it comes up occasionally, is starting something here in Georgia. But like literally just chill, like me selling my own accounts and no recruiting. If there's someone in Georgia that wants to, like some deacon and like church kid that wants to sell accounts, yeah, let them, let them go look at Mazer Sales Training and have at it. But I never liked managing, dude. And that's one of the things that I never liked managing, so I just did training and training and then selling. And so I've realized those are my strengths. I love training. I like seeing it click for kids. When I train them now, they have a little AirPod in their ear and I like just listen to them sell. And I'm like in the house cleaning dishes and I'm like, close! Ask for the phone number now! So that's one of my favorite things to do is AirPod shadowing for the one-on-one clients. And then they all have access to the course. So like Dude, whatever you end up doing, it's worth building something for you. Even where you're at right now, you can build something for you. Yeah. And like, your Bad Day to Be a Bug stuff is dope.

Yeah, that's my brand for sure.

Keep rocking with that at least. I saw someone wearing your hat the other day.

Really? Yeah. Like when you were in Utah?

Yeah, I don't know who it was. I think it was at a Collective retreat. But I don't even think he worked with— like, I don't know.

I sold like 70 of them, so.

That's sick. Yeah. You still sell them?

I still have them, yeah. I have like 10 more. I haven't ordered new ones.

You have them in the car?

I should have brought you one.

I will wear it.

I'll bring you one. Yeah, because I want to work on new designs and stuff. But yeah, the Bad Day to Be a Bug stuff, it's— yeah, that, that was really cool because that was like my first, um, the first time that I was like considered as like a, I don't know, like public, almost like a public figure. Yeah, my company, which is really cool, like to experience like people hitting you up all the time asking for advice and I always give advice. Like, if anyone wants to hit me up, hit me up. I'll give you advice. I'll hop on like an hour phone call with you for free. I don't care because like, I feel like, like I was telling you, like you're almost doing a disservice if you don't give it to them. And that's the biggest thing that kind of tears me, and I'm sure that was like kind of hard for you as well when you start charging for things, especially with people that you know.

Is that like— Oh, I still, I still actually struggle with like a homie.

Yeah.

I got a homie Talon from Moxie. And he's like, well, how much you gonna charge me for this? I'm like, bro, I'm driving home. I've got a 2-hour drive. Let's roleplay right now. But like, that's like the one guy. But people that I don't know that have come into my business, I'm like, you want coaching? Okay, cool. I just sent you an invoice. Yeah.

But yeah, people that I know, it's still kind of weird where it's like you feel like you should charge them too. Like when you're—

they want to pay me.

Exactly. But, and also like, I would still do that for, you know, I give people people free advice and stuff. But like, I want to break into something where it's like, okay, you know, like, that's what the shift I want to make is like going into something that like I can, I can make a living off of, but that gives me like a bunch of worth. And yeah, but I'm like kind of scared of like charging people because, to give you a great example, like Aubert, he charges people, Jake West charges people, and there are— they bring a lot of value, and the people that train with them, they do really well. But then there's also the other side of things, which they might not even know. Probably be good for them to know anyways, is that a lot of people are like, "Oh, Aubert is charging for training." But it's like, no, he's gonna give you advice that's definitely worth more than whatever he's charging. Or Jake West, everyone's like, "Oh, his training's so expensive." But if you talk to Ryan Smith, who did the million, had a really good retention rate, he trained with Jake West. You know, it's like, okay, how good do you want to be? Like, where do you want to invest this money?

Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm kind of torn there to where like I wish I could give it away all for free. And I'm sure that like in a perfect world, I feel like that like if you could give it away for free and impact as many people as possible without having to charge, maybe that would be like an ideal lifestyle.

I'm okay, like my freemium when people hit me up is the script. So if you're listening to this and you want the script, DM me on Instagram, script, and I give you like a 15-page thing. And it's like, yes, that's free. Implementation's hard though. Like, coaches are so necessary. That's why if you ever did want to step into a role of mentorship for people, it's like, dude, like, that coaching world is so abundant. Yeah, so that's what I was telling you earlier. Like, if you need help, let me know. Like, it's— there's people that you can impact that I can't, and there's people that I can impact that you can't. Like, it's just— or that we won't— like, we won't vibe, we won't, we won't transfer. So it's just like, yeah, like, there's— it's, it's just There's not enough coaches, I think. So if there's something you can pour into somebody or just like, I've had different coaches every year of my career and I think they're so important. So I think if you are in door-to-door and you don't have a coach, you're missing out big time. It's not expensive. I think for the results I've given the kids I've coached, like girls that have, like girl Maddie, I coached her, like she went from the best summer 150 accounts to 300, 50 accounts. Okay, well, the jump there is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Yeah, the coaching was only like— it's $1,200 a month to do one-on-one mentorship. That's cheap compared to the amount of return you get. So I think—

and then also future return too.

Oh yeah, once you learn the stuff, you learn the stuff. Like, that's like the sales course and everything. Like, kids asking me for discounts for a course that's $100 a month, I'm like, bro, Like, major 20, that's all you get.

I remember when you were offering it for when you first started. I think you were offering it for way too cheap.

Oh yeah, it's too little. We don't talk about that anymore.

But you start somewhere.

Yeah, well, I had to get people to bite, and a lot of times, like, some of those people are still subscribed. If they cancel and they're like, oh, I'm gonna up it back up next season, I'm like, cool, you're gonna pay $100 a month.

Yeah.

Like, I still am trying to think if I should get away from the monthly model. Because the values, like, I've had kids use it and they're like, "Oh, I just had my PR week." Cool, you made like an extra like $3,000 this week. And then they use the course for like 6 months and they cancel. I'm like, "Wait, this blew up your summer and you don't wanna use it anymore?" I think the training's so important to just use daily. That's why we're in like, at Door-to-Door Con I'll have a booth and it's gonna be a gym setting like, training and training your muscles because sales training doesn't stop. We do, I do a roleplay group every day with kids and Monday through Friday at 9:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, 45 minutes, we just roleplay. And that's like just keeping kids going so that on the offseason they have number one, some structure, but number two, practice. Yeah, because if they don't have practice, then how can you expect, like when you did your Golden Door, you trained a lot. Not really. No?

I trained a lot mentally. Yeah. The math that I did in my head was if I double and doubled the time, if I work 6 months, then I'll almost be there. You know, I sold 281, so like I'll almost be there.

Okay.

I almost be at 650. I ended at 672, and there's a story about that too. But, or 676. But basically, I knew that there's areas in my life that I was lacking. And I did the math on it, I was closing at a 1 in 4.

That's, that's crazy.

1 in 4. The next year, in my golden door year, I closed at a 1 in 10. This past year I closed at a 1 in 12. I feel like I'm just getting better at qualifying, leaving customers or leaving people. But I was closing 1 in 4, so I'm thinking about, okay, this is how many people I've talked to, this is how much I worked. If I just double everything, then I should be able to do it. I was talking to like 25, 26 people a day. You know, it's like nothing. So I ended up going to the next year just trying to focus on just being as fast as possible. And that's when I was hitting like 70 DMs a day. We do DMs at Aptiv for those that don't know, decision makers, people you talk to.

Bro, one of the things with coaching Aptiv guys is I had to learn all your guys' acronyms. You guys are worse than the military.

PCT, DM, subscriber.

Oh gosh, there were like 8 Gosh, there was a lot.

Yeah, ROR, I mean you know that one probably.

Yeah, but you guys have an acronym for everything.

Oh, we do, yeah, for sure. So, but I was hitting a lot of DMs, 75 DMs a day. Like for those of you that knock, that's a lot of DMs. I wasn't taking lunch, I was willing to sacrifice that. Haven't really taken lunch since that year, just work all day. But that's also another thing, we're gonna make a shirt, it's gonna have my car on it, it's gonna say all gas, no brakes. But it's not going to be breaks with an A, like how you spell car brakes. It's going to be breaks, as in like no lunch break.

That's fun.

Yeah, it's gonna be cool. So you guys can definitely see that on my story. But where was I going with that? Um, t-shirt. I was— I got thrown off by the t-shirt. What was I saying?

No, I was excited about the shirt and I lost your thought.

Um, subscriber paid DMs. So yeah, I was getting 75 DMs a day. I'm trying to maximize my inputs So that way everything else should have just happened, and it did. And then the next year I was looking at my stats again, and I was kind of getting a little nervous because I was closing 1 in 10 and also worked 6 months, and now I wanted to increase to a million. So I knew I had to get better sales-wise, but I thought it was just expected I was gonna do it. I now know that if I want to ever hit a million, I 100% have to get better in sales. Yeah, I have to get better at closing, I have to get better at selling. Because I've like almost mastered like the other side of things when it comes to like the day-to-day.

Yeah.

Which with management is totally different though.

I've mastered the day-to-day sales.

I have not mastered the day-to-day management yet.

Okay.

So that's something that I'm gonna master this year and now I have both.

Where are you selling this year?

I don't know yet. We don't get to know until like January.

Okay. You can come just sell in Atlanta. Yeah, you guys need to take the Chattanooga office from Kenzie and them and then just live right next to your house. Yeah, I mean, I don't live far from Chattanooga.

No, not too far. I mean, like an hour and a half.

Okay, hour. Yeah.

Yeah, you pretty much get anywhere in Georgia in a couple hours.

Dude, it's such a great place to live. Yeah, that's one thing, like, and I guess I don't know if we want to wrap this up, but like living out here is cool because this kind of ties into what we talked about the whole time. Nobody knows what we do and it's just like this weird foreign thing. And so you don't, I don't feel like I'm ever being compared out here. It's like, oh yeah, Austin does door-to-door pest control. He sold 2 accounts, dude, that's awesome. Yeah, and so it's not using it as a crutch, but definitely like when I went, when I got to Utah, I always felt, and I still feel, when I go out there, it's for work. It's only for work. Like, relationships to like connect to them for— it's like this, the podcast space. Yeah, it's like the door-to-door MacGyver looking for people wearing different hats. Yeah. And, and out here it's like I can go anywhere and no one knows who I am out here, and it's kind of dope.

Yeah, it's super dope. I went into the Bass Pro Shops yesterday, um, because I got my— I got one of my backends yesterday, so I was like, let's go do something, you know, let's go see if it's something. So I wanted a gun So I ended up getting this really cool like black Ren. It's like, it looks like a Stormtrooper gun. It's like super sick. But when I went in there, like the guy looks at me and kind of just like looks at me like, like, because I kind of look young, and he's just like, oh, this guy's probably just coming here to look at guns or whatever, just not buy them. So he asked me, he's like, are you 21? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, and you have a current address? Yeah. And he starts like interrogating me about all of these things, and I'm like, dude, I'm totally I'm set with buying a gun. And he's like, do you have a price range? I'm like, not really, I just want— if I like it, I'll buy it. And he's like, okay. And so I don't— like, he's looking at me because I have tattoos and stuff, and like, um, he's definitely looking at my tattoos and going like, hmm, I don't know about this guy. I get on the phone and I'm like talking to one of my recruits, and I'm telling them about like, yeah, I guess send this over, we'll get a contract sent over to you, tell them about the experience that I had the previous year and like we talked about numbers as far as like monthly income, like what's possible. And he looks over at me, he's like, what do you do? He's like, what do you do, you own a business or something? I was like, no, I just door-to-door pest control. He's like, no fucking way. Yeah. So you door-to-door pest control? I'm like, yeah. And I've had so many people like that. Like the guy who transported my NSX, he was just like just baffled that this business even exists because he has family members that run pest control companies and they don't make that much money. Yeah, so it is super foreign for out of Utah and out of like Arizona. If you're like in Utah, Arizona, it's very normal, but outside of Utah and Arizona, people think this is like the craziest thing in the world. Yes, which also makes me really appreciate it too. It's like, wow, I really do have a sick opportunity. You know, this guy's running a transport company, he's crushing it, does really well for himself, but he's also like 47 years old and has been doing this for like 20 years now and he's like just crushing it. So yeah, definitely like have made me in that moment like appreciate everything that I've done living in Georgia and being like an anomaly almost. Yeah, like people think that I'm like Daddy's money or something like that. I get that comment all the time. I love it.

It's perfect.

My dad didn't buy me this car. Yeah, I bought this car for myself.

Yeah, I love it. Well, it's cool to know you're like 2 hours down the road.

So next time you have to take the trip, yeah, I'll go up to your house.

I, I actually might be able to make it there and back if I charge all the way, but I think you live close to a Buc-ee's. No, you don't. Maybe Calhoun. Calhoun, Georgia is a Buc-ee's.

Where else? I'll just probably hire you out to train my guys or something, dude.

Yeah, if you need that, let me know because I, I would love to. And then you know, they could get on the course. And so it's turned into an app now, which is dope. But yeah, it's so cool to meet you. I think everybody should buy your hats. I want one.

I'll get you one. And I'm gonna make them with this. This is going to be the hat.

Okay.

It's like very similar. Like, this is my favorite hat ever.

Okay.

Like, it's just the— it's like, it's perfect.

Who makes it?

I don't know. Okay, so this style of hat, it's like It's a fluffy-ass color surf hat. It's a surfing hat. Okay. Surfing hats are my favorite hats, so you guys are gonna see a hat with a really new, a really sick new design.

For Bad Day?

For Bad Day to Be a Bug. And then also we're gonna make a Good Day hat because I feel like, um, a lot of people over the summer when they would read my hat, it'd be like, it's a bad day, subconsciously. Like, they're like, why is it a bad day? No, no, it's a bad day to be a bug.

Because I think To Be a Bug was smaller, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, so can you imagine just like, yeah, today sucks.

Listener, bad name.

Yeah, dude, I love that. Well, um, everybody follow— what's your Instagram handle?

Um, it's @thejacksonricks. Okay, um, no, no underscores or anything, just @thejacksonricks.

Thanks for sharing, dude. I appreciate it.

100%.

That's it. Cool, cool.

I don't know how long that was.