Lessons from Tom Bilyeau and Jordan B. Peterson at D2D Con 6 | Ep. 1

All right, welcome everybody to the Rising Tribe. I'm Jared.

And I'm Austin Maser.

And our goal is to inspire young men to build strong families and discover their potential as men, husbands, and fathers.

And we'll do this by having authentic conversations about faith, family, health, and business as we strive to level up our lives and the lives around us.

Okay, Austin, today we're talking about Door to Door Con because you were at the Door to Door convention this week. So tell us a little bit about what Door to Door is and what this big convention was.

All right. So door-to-door sales, I'm happy to kind of introduce this if you've not ever heard of it or had a guy knock on your door before to try to sell you something. Door-to-door sales is just where we literally go into neighborhoods. And we sell products ranging from pest control, alarms, solar panels, roofs, there's— you can literally sell anything door-to-door. And I think when most people think of door-to-door salesmen, they think of the Kirby vacuum cleaners. That's kind of where a lot of this kind of started, right? Yeah. It's crazy. There's a whole convention that is run by a man named Sam Taggart, who just wanted to unify and uplevel and just bring integrity to the door-to-door space because there was so— there's such a stigma around door-to-door sales. And he wanted to just unify everybody as a tribe. Kind of funny, we are just— our podcast is a rising tribe. Well, Sam Taggart had this vision to make that door-to-door space a tribe, and so that everybody could learn together and grow together and just bring integrity to this industry. So I do the door-to-door pest control, and I was asked to speak on a pest panel this last week and participate in the convention, which was super exciting.

So this convention has been running for— this was the 6th year of this convention, right?

Yeah, this was the 6th year. My first time ever going to it was when they did Door to Door Con 3 and had no idea what door-to-door sales was. I just, I went and I saw these guys getting these Golden Door Awards and I looked over at my buddy who was taking me at the time and I said, I'm going to get one of those. I had no idea what it meant to get a Golden Door. I just thought it'd be really cool to get one, and I was asked to speak at the conference this last week because I finally accomplished that after 3 years. So it was exciting, dude.

Oh my goodness. Okay, so for, for the Golden Door— well, let's back up first. So yeah, door-to-door sales, uh, no knock to people, to all the Kirby salesmen out there because Kirby vacuums are like the gold standard when it comes to vacuums. Like, I know my in-laws have a Kirby that they've had for like 100 years, and it— that thing is like a car that cleans your back. I mean, it is, it is heavy. Exactly. And it does the job better than any other vacuum out there, like hands down. Um, and I think the biggest, the biggest reason, you know, a lot of people are— they're upset with like door-to-door people in general is just they don't like people coming and knocking on their door. There's something about like, this is like the privacy of my home, like please don't come. But as you're talking about, so Sam Taggart, he's brought together all— he's like brought together, you know, everyone in all different parts of door-to-door to help bring— to help unify the people that do the job, as well as to help inspire people to, to sell with integrity, right? To, to reach out or to like to go to people and tell them, hey, I have this thing that could radically change your life, that could radically improve the quality of your life. And if You'll give me a second. I can explain to you how that's going to work. And you'll see for yourself that you really want this. Because it's crazy because there's so many things that we want out of life. We just don't want to be sold. We just, we don't because we think that someone's like manipulating us and that they're like changing what we would have done if they hadn't been there. And I mean, to an extent they are because you wouldn't have done anything, right? But you're just trying to help them make decisions, right?

Especially in door-to-door sales, right? These people are sitting in their houses, watching TV, having family dinner, working, and you are literally interrupting their day. And yeah, so, so Sam Taggart's dad has actually started out in Kirby Vacuums. And their sales pitch is incredible. They're very, very good salesmen. But, but to that point, yes, you are, you are going to somebody in the middle of their day unexpected. And your, your aim is to make the quality of their life better, whether you're selling bug spray like I do, or whether you're selling a solar panel to help them, you know, have their own energy alarm systems and smart homes to automate the home. The goal of, the goal of a great salesman is to serve the people they come in contact with. If you're not a high-performing salesman, you probably think a lot about your commissions, you probably think about what is it in, what is in it for me. But the highest level of sales is service, in my opinion. And so if you were to ask me, you know, what is a salesman? I believe that they're just professional problem solvers that just make people's life better. And I'm glad you pointed that out. So the idea with sales is that if I can take away, if I can take away pain, or if I can bring something in your life that you like, then we can have a transaction where I help you. So it's either taking away something that somebody doesn't like, like I do, I take away their bugs, or I add something in their life that they do want. And that is sales just for dummies, right? You're making someone's life more simpler. You're making someone's life more simple. Yeah.

So, so kind of what was the, what was kind of like the out or kind of the layout for this door-to-door convention? Like, what do you do?

Yeah, so you'll show up and it's kind of like a hoorah kind of start, you know, high energy, lots of music. And the whole purpose is to get to set your intentions right for the, for the 2-day conference. It gets you excited. They get you to think, hey, what do I want to get out of this? Which is so important because if you don't have intention, behind the things you're doing, then you're not going to get much out of it. And so at the very beginning of each conference, they, you know, kind of get people hyped up, they invite people to set a goal for what they want to learn from it. And then the first day, we had main stage speakers, such as Tom Bilyeu, David Meltzer, great speakers, and I learned a ton from them. And then the second half of the day, we had workshops where we would go and speak we'd go and listen to people speak about, you know, their sales skills, real estate investing, tax advantages, stuff like that, where you can learn tactical pieces of information and apply them into your business. So that was day 1. Day 2, we started out in the workshops, and we went to these panels of experts that are doing incredible things in their fields. And then we ended with speakers like Sam Taggart spoke, Natasha Graziano spoke, and then the keynote speaker was Jordan Peterson. And I got to hear him speak as well. But it was super exciting. I got to speak on one of the panels for the pest control sales for the guys that got the Golden Doors, which a Golden Door is simply a metric that if you hit, you receive this thing called the Golden Door. So in the pest control world, if you sell 1,000 accounts, or if you generate $650,000 in revenue, you qualify for a Golden Door. So there's a lot of award ceremonies there. They've got an after-party after the whole thing is over. It's just a fun conference to celebrate what door-to-door sales is and just celebrate what it's done for everybody in that industry because it's changed a lot of lives.

So a question I have about this conference, right? You talked about it starting off like kind of high energy, get everyone like motivated and set their, you know, put their heads on straight so they can go into this in the right frame of mind. What, what kind of people are there at the conference? And I guess maybe kind of like, what kind of people are there just in the door-to-door world?

Okay, this is, this is awesome. So generally, if you are at a door-to-door conference, you're the type of person that wants to learn. And when everybody gets there, you know, you're, you're in a room full of Type A personalities. And quite frankly, there's a lot of pride and a lot of ego. And so one of the things that I like that Sam Taggart did at the very beginning of the conference, he just, the very beginning of the convention, he just said, look, guys, like, I want you to get a little freaky here. Like, like, loosen up, have a little bit of fun. So he literally made people dance. And to the people sitting down with their arms crossed, he was like, I see you. You think you're cool? You're not, dude.

Come on.

Like, take the fake, you know, take the mask off.

Yeah.

And with, with a room full of Type A, majority male, a lot of times we can kind of think, I don't want to be that guy that's weird, or I don't want to be that guy that's different. But it was really cool to be in a space where you're invited to make, you know, you're invited to look silly, right? You're— there's, there's, there's no judgment there. Everybody's there to learn. And there is a lot of high energy there because people want to— people want to be a part of the celebration for door-to-door sales. But yeah, so I'd say a lot of Type A personalities, a lot of people that are driven to hit goals. And you got to remember, a lot of these people paid, you know, like $700 to get into this conference. So they're people that are willing to invest in themselves. And that's another key thing is it's one thing to read a book in the morning. It's another thing to kind of put skin in the game and actually pay for a ticket to go to this conference, which a lot of people, you know, a lot of people look at what I do still, and they kind of poke fun at me, you know, are you going to the door-to-door conference? And And I just say, yeah, it's super exciting.

You know, it sounds like a super nerdy thing to do. Like you go to the door-to-door conference.

Yeah, it's nerdy. And everyone's taking notes there. And it is a, it is a really cool place to be. Because, and I'll touch on one of the things that David Meltzer talked about, is you're going there to learn from people that have already done what you want to do. And in life, we really need to be going to people that have already done what we want to do, because they help shorten the learning curve. Now, in life, if we give too much mind to people that haven't done what we want to do, and have no intention of going where we want to go, and we give too much, we give too much importance to their opinion, we'll never go to where we want to go. So David Meltzer talks about the mountaineers and how you have to go to certain base camps when you climb Everest. Base camp 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Well, if you're at base camp 2 and you want to learn how to get to base camp 7, you shouldn't listen to people that are at base camp 1 or have never even started climbing the mountain. And so there are people at these conferences that have done incredible things that are at Base Camp 8, and they're inspiring people and encouraging them and giving them tactical skills to get higher up in their life and to advance. And you'll never hear somebody at Base Camp 8 talking down on somebody who's at Base Camp 2. You'll always hear them encouraging and inspiring and giving direction. However, A lot of times in life, when we're at base camp 5 and we want to get to base camp 8, we'll hear a lot of chitter chatter from people that haven't gotten where we want to go. Just kind of how we work as humans. A lot of times we can get jealous of people that are ahead of us. So to wrap this all back into what type of people are at that conference, I believe the people at that conference are the type of people that when they're at base camp 1 and they see somebody at base camp 3, they're inspired to work harder, and they want to learn from those people ahead of them. So those are the types of people I saw there. Huge growth mindset at a conference.

Yeah, I just want to add a couple things based on what you were saying. So Jordan Peterson, um, who you got to listen to there at the conference, which is awesome, one of the things that he talks about a lot in his, um, his books and in his lectures is that in order to— or I think the way he phrases it is that the fool is the precursor to the savior. I think that's the, that's the phrase that he uses. And what he means by that, um, is that in order to become the hero and to become everything that you could be, you have to be willing to be foolish first, because you have to be— you have to stumble around and figure it out. You have no idea what it's like. You You have no idea, and so you have to learn, and you're gonna stumble and fall, and you're gonna look like a fool, and you're gonna be embarrassed, and you're gonna have to get up, and you're gonna have to keep trying, and you're gonna have all these people from all over the place telling you that you look dumb, that you're a nerd for going to a door-to-door conference. You're gonna get all these voices. Everyone's gonna be making fun of you. But that is the necessary path to becoming the savior. That is the necessary path to achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve. And I also kind of, what you were talking about with, Everyone, whoever's at Base Camp 8, you're never going to hear them talking down to people at Base Camp 1. Um, yeah, I think it might be possible that you might hear somebody who seems to have all this success talking down on people who aren't at the same level as them, but we just don't listen to those people because we don't want those results. We don't want to be that kind of person. I don't know anyone who wants to be the kind of person who has all this success and then looks down on everybody else. Like, I don't think anyone aspires to be that. And I think it's, uh, it's Alan Donegan over at the Rebel Entrepreneur Podcast. He talks a ton about mimicking the results or mimicking people whose results we want to imitate. And you can have someone who is a fantastic and wonderful person in your life, but maybe in one area of their life they have results that you don't want. What that means for you, what you should take away from that is that you shouldn't imitate the actions that they do with respect to that one area of life. So if— excuse me, sorry for all the, all the coughing here, I got something in my throat. But, um, if— so let's say, you know, you've got a family member or a friend who you love and adore, and they're the kindest human on the planet, uh, but maybe they're not good with money. You should do what you can to imitate their kindness and their love and their generosity and all of that, but you probably shouldn't imitate what they do with their money if you want to build wealth. Because in terms of like the wealth side of life, they're not doing so great. But that doesn't mean that they're a terrible human. It doesn't mean you need to look down on them. It just means that if you want to move in the direction of your goals, you've got to find people who have results that you want and then do what they're doing, read what they read, um, put yourself out there and, and, and move in that direction if you want to imitate those results.

Yeah, 100%. And I think in each of the areas of my life, I have people that I try to emulate, whether that's fitness, finance, how I am as a father and how I am as a husband. There's certain individuals in my life where I look at and I'm like, well, you got a lot of that stuff figured out. I'm going to follow you for a lot of things. But there, you've got to take the good and what from what you've got to take the good that you see in people and like you said, emulate it and do what they're doing to get those results. I have never taken any advice from somebody who has not done what I want to do. And, you know, I think when we do start taking the advice from people that, you know, profess that they know better than us, that's when we start feeling that we're getting swayed by all the opinions, and we start caring about what other people think. I really do believe, like you said, the only people we should be taking advice from are the people that have done what we want to do. And yeah, I think you mentioned something really, really cool here is the people that have been incredibly successful and talk down on others. You don't want to be that in life. And me and you were texting about this the other day. But the quote, if you want to soar with the eagles, you can't roost with the turkeys. It's great and all, and it makes a lot of sense. You're, you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. But I do struggle with the idea of looking at other people as turkeys. It's like, no, if you want to be an eagle, you're not concerned about putting other people down and labeling them as a turkey. No, you just want to be your best. And, you know, if you're, if you're on this journey to improve yourself, you're not worried about what other people are doing with their lives, and you're not criticizing other people as well. It's, it's wasted energy. You know, the energy that you could be spending criticizing others, well, put that back into yourself. So just, just a, just a thought. Do also realize everybody listening that you are the sum average of who you spend your time with, you know, show me your friends, and I'll show you who you are. So one other thing, Jared, is you mentioned Jordan Peterson, and in order to be the savior, you have to be the fool. So yes, everybody at the conference wants to be better. But I do have a kind of fun story. I showed up at this door-to-door conference 3 years ago, and there's this guy named Lenny Gray who was like the GOAT of pest control sales at the time. He had done 1,000+ accounts in a summer. And I listened to this guy. I'm like, how in the world is he this good? Well, he invited us to come up. He invited a crowd of like several hundred people. He said, hey, somebody come up here and show me their pitch. At the time I was doing alarms and I raised my hand, just shot up at the back of the conference room, and I just ran to the front. And the two guys I was with just looked at each other like, oh my gosh, this, this kid is, this kid is either really, really weird or he'll end up being pretty good at this.

But I went out— how much, how much time had you spent selling alarms at this point? Zero.

At that point, I had never done anything.

I hadn't even knocked any doors yet.

You never knocked the door to sell alarms with some people.

Awesome. Okay.

And I had an idea of what a pitch was. And I go up there with Lenny Gray and I knock on the imaginary door and I say, hey, you know, you want an alarm? You know, just a terrible intro. And he goes, oh, my wife. I say, well, I'm here to lower your bill. I'm sure you're paying around $100 a month, right? And I just, you know, had no idea what I'm doing. And the guy just goes, I have no idea. My wife takes care of it. And I go— and I just look like a complete idiot. Well, the beauty of this is there's people in the conference room laughing at me. And so yes, everybody at the conference wants to be better, but there's still your— there's still a ton of ego and pride there. I just didn't care. Right. But I kind of use that video now and I'm like, well, I was the fool, you know, I was the fool for quite a while. But the difference was I just didn't care what people thought. I just wanted to learn. And I was in one of the breakout rooms when I did this role play with Lenny Gray. And I mentioned in my panel that I was speaking at, I said, guys, like, there's never a stupid question. There's never, like, don't be afraid to fail in this job because you will fail. That's just how it is. And I said, 3 years ago, I got made fun of in one of these breakout rooms. And now I'm speaking to you guys and you're listening to what I have to say. Like it's kind of crazy.

That's so cool.

Yeah, it was a cool experience. So it was an incredible experience to be able to share that knowledge and share that experience that, hey, don't be afraid to mess up. But yeah.

Oh my gosh, man. So many things. We have more questions. So let's jump to the next question because we could sit and just talk about that specifically all day long. So these people, like these people here at the conference, and I think the reason I have so many questions about the kind of people that are here at the conference with you is, is it's because of that, that idea that we are who, like, the people around us are. We're kind of the average of all of those people.

Yeah.

What kind of perspective do these people take in life?

Okay, I love this question. So a lot of the people that are doing well at these conferences, their perspective or their view on the world is, it's optimistic, I would say, you know, they, they look for growth, they look for opportunities. And so anybody that I have known, and the people at these conferences, they don't view failure as a negative thing. They really treat setbacks and failure as data. And that's how I've ran my entire door-to-door career as well. Any setback is simply an opportunity to learn what you did well and what you could have done better. When I'm coaching guys, I'm never telling them, hey, you did this terribly. No, it was, hey, you did these things really, really well, because you need to point out the small wins. And you also need to point out, hey, this is what you can do better moving forward. So that way, it's, it's a positive, it's an action-based mindset of, hey, I'm going to work towards improving.

But a very specific feedback of— exactly. When you said this, this is what the homeowner responded with. They were immediately turned off because you use the wrong words, because you, you're, you look like you're angry, or whatever it is, things that they can then take as feedback, like, Oh, okay, then that means I need to change this. I need to use different words. I need to carry myself differently, et cetera.

100%. And you're, and you know, without going too deep down the rabbit hole of salesmanship, you're talking about wordsmithing, right? Different words have different connotations and they literally invoke different feelings and those feelings determine the direction of a sale, right? So when you're selling, And incredible speakers do this too. They use their words very— they choose their words very carefully.

Now, words matter.

Oh, they do. But as far as how these people view the world, Tom Bilyeu, he spoke the first day. And this guy, he created Quest Nutrition Bars. These are the sugar-free protein bars, and it grew to be like a billion-dollar company. But the way he, the way he talked about how he got to where the company was worth $1 billion was the— was it the Physics of Success? And there are literally laws behind success where he, he would just look at a failure as data to improve moving forward. And so he didn't ever let failure stop him from achieving his vision, which he wanted to create this protein bar that didn't have sugar. And one of the stories he shared with us was he brought his recipe to this factory and the factory said, hey, we can't do that. The machines won't be able to produce that protein bar without us adding high fructose corn syrup. And he said, no, I'm not doing it. I'm going to find a different way to do it because this doesn't align with my vision. There were tons of other people at the time that wanted to create protein bars that were sugar-free, but they all stopped where the factory said, hey, we can't create that. And so all he did was at one point they created a machine that would create their protein bar how they needed it, right? They found somebody, they found something that would get it done. But my favorite thing about Tom Bilyeu, and we could, you know, going off on a tangent here a little bit, but he talks about money. And a lot of guys get into door-to-door because they want to get rich, you know, whereas money is, I believe it is an amplifier of who you already are. And it's not like when you create, when you make a certain amount of money, and I know you've talked about this on your finance podcast, it's not like when you make a certain amount of money, you change as a person. You know, if you want to make $1 million and you finally get that extra dollar to hit $1 million, you don't become a different person. It's the pursuit of and who you become while hitting those goals, while chasing those goals that matters. And so after Tom Bilyeu sold his company, you know, at the time he was dirt poor, the, well, he wasn't dirt poor, but at the time he didn't have a lot of money. But the business was valued at like $1 billion. But he was still driving a beater car to work every day. When he sold the business and he had all this money, his wife said, what are you going to do now? And he goes, I'm going to go to work because he had fallen in love with the process and who he became while he was building his vision. Right. And that's— that is the perspective of these people at these conference and conferences and how they've been able to be successful because they don't view failure as something negative. They just view it as part of the process.

I think that's so powerful. So, so powerful because I think we— well, when, when we hit that first roadblock and we sit down and we look at the roadblock, we're like, that is the reason that I am where I am right now. You know, that obstacle right there is the reason that I am sitting right here. And the truth is, that's— it's not the reason you're sitting right there, right? It's like, that obstacle is there and it's not going anywhere. So what are you going to do about it? Like, you, you could choose to sit there or you could choose to find a way around the obstacle. And obstacles then become a sort of a filter for the people who really want to make it, um, the people who are going to do well. Like, you— it's going to filter out most people. Like you're saying, most of those companies stopped at the, well, there's no machinery out there to manufacture manufacture, um, you know, protein bars without sugar. So looks like we're just gonna have to add sugar. We're gonna have to change— either change our vision or our values or stop. And that's— well, like, that's, that's not the way that I want to look at the world. I don't want to sit here and say, well, woe is me because the world has chosen my fate for me, because I was born into this kind of a family, because I don't have both of my parents at home, because my dad's a drug addict, because this, because that, because this— I didn't get the school, because I didn't get the job, because I didn't get the raise, because the girl dumped me, whatever. Like, we, we take all these things and we just shut down, and we're just, the world sucks and everything's out to get me. And I just think that's, that's such a, such a sad, sad way to look at the world. And I know Ed Mylett's talked a ton about it, but asking yourself, like, look, like, you've got— we've all got victimhood stories, we've all got tragedies that occur in your life. And if you haven't had a tragedy yet, it's going to happen. It will come eventually. But you've got to look at these things and ask yourself, the beliefs that you took away from these lessons, from these data points, the beliefs that you take away from these, are they serving you? Like, are they serving you at all? Are they trying— are they helping you get from where you are to where you want to become, or are they holding you back? And we have to let go of some of those things if we want to get to where we want to go. Kind of like, you know, in, uh, in the third Batman when he has to like jump up onto that ledge when he's like down in that giant pit, um, and he like wears the rope the whole time and he goes to jump and every time he jumps he misses, he doesn't reach the ledge because he's like still got the rope tied around him, it's holding him back. But the guy tells him he needs to get rid of the rope and he needs to let his fear like push him forward and make him jump farther, and then he lets go of the rope, he jumps, he gets out, and he's Batman. Like Da da da. But like, that's so true. Like, there's a reason that these hero stories resonate so much with us, and that is because you have these people who have seen 101 billion obstacles in their lives, but what they chose to do was to not let the obstacles prevent them from getting to where they want to be. Instead, it helps them become creative to overcome solutions to then become what it is that they want to become.

Yeah, I love that. And you know, you talked about victim mentality. And I think that everybody could say that, you know, we, like you said, everybody has something in their life that has been hard. And like you said, if you haven't had anything yet, it's coming. And there's no sense in comparing, well, my hard was harder than your hard, like, it's everybody has got something. Even people that are born into great wealthy families have got something that is their struggle in their life, right? But I really believe when you have a victim mentality, you give up your ability to choose. And so what, like you mentioned, Ed Mylett, he talks a lot about what meaning we give to the things that have happened in our life. And you can literally change the— you can change your life by changing the meaning of what— the meaning behind the things that— you can change your life if you just change the meaning that you've put on certain things that have happened. And you'll just change your outlook and your perspective. So last week, we talked about, you know, how your dad has had a, you know, your dad is in a really tough spot and you know, he's addicted to drugs and all this stuff. And my dad passed away while we were out on our, on, on our mission. And we— my, my dad always said that everything happens for a reason. And so one of the things that I'm super excited about us doing this podcast is, hey, we're going to put a reason to the things that have happened in our lives, and we're going to talk about them. And so instead of having a victim mentality about the things that have happened, no, we're going to we're going to use that to make our lives better, to make the lives of the people who we speak with better as well. But I love that you brought that up. And like I said, the victim mentality robs you of your ability to act and to change and to, to progress, I believe.

Yeah, uh, James Wedmore runs the podcast Mind Your Business, and it's a, it's a business podcast about mindset, and that's almost like word for word what he talks about with when, when we adopt that victim mentality, we are giving up our power to another person or to some, to some concept, some idea. And we're saying that I cannot be happy until you change. I cannot have what I want in life until you change, or until you change, and until you change, until the government changes, until my friends change, until my ex changes, whatever. And when you put it in those terms, dude, like, what worse way to live is there than saying that my current state of being is entirely dependent on everybody else, and everybody else must cater to what I want so that I can be happy, so I could feel fulfilled, so I can have the money, so I can have the dreams, the car, the whatever? Like, such a— just like a when I talk about it, it just makes me feel heavy inside. It makes me feel like weighed down because we, all of us, have been given this, the ability to choose. And everyone's been given terrible cards and great cards, and it's up to us to play them, right? You can win, you can win a game of poker with like any cards. It's just a matter of like how you're playing the game. And you can lose if you're holding great cards if you play them poorly, or if you don't play them at all, or if you fold. Like You, it just, it just, it gets me, man. It really gets me when I see people just complaining about the world, complaining about the circumstances, saying that, well, I'm here now in this cruddy situation because 5 years ago somebody made this decision that ruined my life forever. And now this is where I am. And it's not that it's not true. It's just what, like, what are you taking away from that except for just like dragging the weights around with you, just slowing you down today. Like, why are you— like, why are you impairing yourself now when you could be freeing yourself now and either just leaving those things behind or giving a new meaning? Like you're saying, giving those things a new meaning that actually propels you forward, that helps you move from where you are to where you want to be going.

100%. And I think it's worth mentioning too All right, how do I meet that person who is struggling and help them, you know, see the meaning in their, their struggles. And I had to work with a life coach a ton last year to work through a lot of the stuff that I experienced as a kid, you know, parents were divorced, my dad passing away., you know, feeling torn between parents and all of this stuff that a lot of kids experience with divorce. One of the— so in these panels, right, the PEST CEO panel, one of the books that was recommended was The Power of Now. Incredible book.

But sorry, just to clarify, this was a panel at the conference where— yes, you had a panel of like CEOs of different industries, like panels of solar company CEOs and whatnot talking, right?

Yes, yes. So the— and one of these CEOs shared the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I hope I said his name right. And I read it last year as I was working with my life coach. And the reason we read it is because a lot of the meaning that I put, that I had given to a lot of things that have happened with my parents' divorce and some of the conflicts that have happened through, you know, stepfamily and all of this, and my dad passing away and everything that's happened since then, it wasn't serving me. And so the power of now really invites you to just accept it is what it is, right? And specifically in that conference that I went to, a lot of times people are waiting to be happy when they when they get the car, when they get the house, when they hit a Golden Door, right? Like, people are literally waiting to be happy for something that is external and out of their control, right? And we run into this a lot in the door-to-door sales world where guys are starting out and they're tying their happiness to a sales number. And if they don't hit the sales number, they feel terrible. And that's, it's just not a sustainable way to live. And so the power of now just invites us to be happy where we're at, to accept things as they are, and to move forward, giving, giving those things meaning that serves us. And so I, I share this because I have had to shift the meaning that I've given to certain stories and situations in my life. And the inspiration or the hope in listening to this is, hey, I can change my life by changing my perspective. And it's possible. Jared and I have both done it. You know, we've both been in spots where we've struggled with our current situation, but we're doing our best to change that meaning too, you know. It's not an overnight thing as well. You know, that's a process that can take some time. But I just share that with you guys because this was, you know, somebody who's been incredibly successful. They share this Power of Now book as a recommendation to do well in business. And if you read it, it kind of sounds like a bunch of hoopla, right? Like a bunch of soul searching and, you know, like meditation stuff. But that tho— like, finding internal peace allows you to do way better in your business and your marriage, uh, and your pursuit of being a good father. So thought that'd be worth sharing.

I love that. Thank you. Um, and something I was thinking about, just an example since we're on the topic of door-to-door. So, uh, for everyone listening, I did one summer of door-to-door sales a couple years ago, and I really struggled with it after the fact. I mean, it was, it was tough in during, right? It was, it was tough learning about knocking doors and the process of like building a pitch and overcoming objections at the door and everything. And I was hoping to knock doors. Well, okay, so rewind. At the time I was, um, I was in a graduate school program, uh, for the military. The military was paying for me to go to a civilian school to do graduate school for like 18 months. And during the summer, one of those summers, I, I was trying to take certain— well, I didn't have any classes for the program that I was in, and I wasn't doing any field research because of the program I was doing didn't require any field research. So I kind of had some time off, and I thought, well, maybe I can take some classes, just like elective classes. Maybe I can audit some classes, um, in these other departments and just spend my time learning, because, you know, that's what I'm here to do, is I'm here to learn. And The departments that I spoke to were like, we really look down on auditing. You can't audit this class. We don't want you to audit. You have to sign up for the class. You're not in the right program. We won't have you. I was like, what on earth? Who out here is like saying that they don't want some student who is eager enough to say, hey, can I audit your class because I want to learn from you? Like, and all these people are like, no, sorry, we don't want you. You know, you're probably more motivated than all the kids that'll take this class, but no, we don't want you. And I was like, okay, fine, whatever. You don't want me, that's fine. Figure it out. So I reach out, try to get things going, and nothing pans out. And so then I thought, okay, well, I'm trying to do my job and I can't, so I'm going to do something for myself. What if I go out and do some door-to-door sales? So do some direct sales, something where the only money that you make is a commission based on what you actually— like, your actual results. I don't, I don't want to get paid an hourly wage to go be out on the doors because maybe the incentives aren't quite aligned. Like, I want to try and learn how to sell. And I, you know, selling, you're selling everything all the time. You're selling yourself, you're selling your ideas. Every time you talk to anybody, you're selling. Like, it's, it's not just physically transacting, you know, money for things or money for services. Like, you're always selling, um, ideas, group work, teamwork, all that. So I was like, I really want to learn these skills. So I reached out to a couple companies. You actually referred me to, uh, was it, it was like your, I think it was like one of your manager's friends who does, um, who turned out to be like my manager here, or back in San Diego, I think. And I talked to him on the phone, super wonderful guy. And I was like, yeah, like, I'll show up. Let's, you know, let's learn. And so showed up to the first meeting. And what you're talking about, all these guys and girls at the Door-to-Door Con, that's how I felt when I walked through the door of this company. And I was like, dude, these guys all want to see me succeed. I don't know any of them. I can't remember any of their names. And they all want me to succeed. It was like invigorating, dude. I just, I just felt so alive and so energized and got some, you know, got some great mentors and started knocking doors. And I ended up having to, I ended up deciding to, um, to stop selling sooner than expected. And I, when I first showed up, I knew nothing, but I was like, I want to make a million dollars. That's what I want to make this year. And I want to sell 200 accounts and I want all these things. And I'm like, but I'm, I've been, I've been working on mindset. I've been working on myself. I've been listening to the podcast and reading the books. Like, I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna blow everyone out of the water and it's gonna be amazing. And it was so much harder than I thought it was gonna be, like so much harder. And I didn't realize that, like how much it was gonna show me about myself, how much I was gonna learn about what I was made of and who I am and maybe some of the struggles that I face, you know, personally. It really did all of those things for me. And I struggled with it. And I struggled with myself, with my confidence, with like, who am I to— like, why was I so foolish to come in guns blazing with these grandiose goals? I like put some faith in some of these guys there in the office. They all ended up getting fired over doing some illegal fraudulent stuff, signing accounts for people that didn't want to count. It was like all these things going on. And I was like, I'm like, what the heck? So I leave, I end up leaving, um, and going back to school full-time. And I, for months, dude, I struggled with it so badly because I wanted to succeed and I felt like I had failed. I had sold— I'll be transparent with numbers— I think I sold a total of like 6 accounts that finally got signed. I think only like 5 of them actually got installed. And once you took like, you know, my mentor took, um, part of the commission, I took the other part of the commission, I walked away with like $12,000, I think. After everything was said and done. And like, one account took like 9 months to get installed because it was this whole ordeal with the company that we went with— was a company we trusted, and then that company ended up having all these issues. The company I worked with ended up not working with that company anymore, but this customer I had got caught up in the transition. It was this whole ugly ordeal. Customer kind of— he ended up getting his solar panels, but it was a— it really was a big mess. And then in the end, I walked away with like a $500 commission, and I was like, I've spent like 30 hours on the phone. That was not worth my time, you know? So the whole thing played out and I was like, oh, defeated. Like, this sucked, dude. Here I was. I wanted to make $1 million. I literally told a couple of my close friends, I was like, I want to sell 200 accounts. The average commission is $5,000. I want to make a million. Like, I want, I want to be that. I want to help 200 families. That was even the way I framed it. And I walked away having signed 5 accounts or signing 6 accounts, installing 5 accounts.. And I felt like a piece of garbage for a very, very, very long time. And I was actually embarrassed to talk to you about it because you were super successful in door-to-door in pest control and you were learning and growing. And it was like every day, every week you were like breaking through your lids, breaking through your ceilings, like achieving new goals. And I was like, dude, Austin is incredible at this. And I, stunk, dude. That— and this, this is what I was telling myself, dude. I stunk at it. And I— yeah, I helped a couple people save some money on their bills, and we genuinely did. They saved a bunch of money on their bills. But dude, I suck at this. And now I'm like walking away defeated, like I just lost a game, and now I'm never gonna go back and play that game again because now I'm back in the Air Force. Now I'm back in here doing like my actual job. And for such a long time, it just ate at me and it ate at me.

Yeah.

And finally, I can't remember when, but you and I finally hopped on a phone call call, and you told me to reframe what had happened. He said, you told me to tell you, to repeat back to you what had happened. Yeah, completely objective terms with no emotion at all. Yeah, yeah, because we were having weekly phone calls, like, yeah, uh, and then we like stopped having phone calls for a little while because our schedules weren't lining up. And you said, tell me, like, tell me what happened, like, tell me kind of the shortened story, but tell me the story.

Zero.

Yeah, zero emotions.

Say what happened.

And I, you know, I said something to the effect of, I wanted to learn about sales. I signed up to do direct sales with this company. It was a commission-only job. And I went out and knocked a bunch of doors. I helped 6 people sign up for solar panels. I saved, you know, I saved this this little old lady a bunch of money every month, you know, like $8, like $150 a month on her electric bill for the rest of her life. Um, and this other guy and this other guy and this, you know, all these people. And I walked away after 4 months with, uh, $12,000 in commissions. And, and like, and I remember the first time I said it, you know, I said all those things out, I was like, well, I think you asked me like So how does that feel? Like, how do you feel about that? And I was like, ah, it doesn't look that bad. And not kidding, like less than a week later, I'm on the phone with a buddy of mine who was in the exact same program I was in, but at a different school. So he was also in the Air Force. He was also on a scholarship to grad school, but he was in LA. I was in San Diego. And I told him a little bit about this and he was like, dude, that's awesome.

That's cool.

I told him in objective terms and he was like, dude, you, Like, that's so cool. You like went out, you got this job, you made a bunch of money and like you learned a whole bunch. That's so awesome. And I was like, I've for months I've been telling myself I'm a big fat failure because I couldn't figure this crap out. And he was like, dude, that's so cool. Like, congrats, man. Huge accomplishment. And yeah, I realized like, yo, like, like it's all in here. Like it's all just going on in my head.

Yeah. What meaning are you putting behind it? That's, that's so cool. I'm glad you recalled that story. Because there's so many things in life where, you know, taking the it is what it is approach and just saying like, this is what happened. It just— and we were sick, you know, in your situation, just get rid of the old meaning you had and just say what happened so that you can even give yourself a chance to, to have new meaning, you know, for that. And yeah, that's such a cool thing. And I think, Jared, I think one of the coolest things about that is that you just pivoted, right? A lot of times people allow these— and this will resonate with a lot of people in like the self-help world. A lot of times people haunt themselves with the vision of who they could have become. And, you know, you hear the story of, you know, you're lying on your deathbed and all your dreams are yelling at you, why? And it's like this fear-based way of like attacking your goals. And it's terrible. So here's the thing is, there are like, what is the math word where like there's so many, there's an exponential amount of Jared Mattaitussis that you can become. And there's not a— there's not just one person that it's like, if you don't hit your potential and become this version of Jared, then you have missed the mark. No, there's— and Jordan Peterson talks about this. Take all of your gifts and then take all of your— take all of your gifts and write out who you would become if you chased all of those gifts and you magnified all of your gifts and then write out who you would become if you succumbed to all of your vices. And now you have this huge spectrum of the person that you could become. Now, you could become like a million different types of person, you know, Jared's, but there's not a, there's not a, obviously there could be better decisions that you can make in your life, but you simply pivoted. And that's not a bad thing. Because ultimately, you know, there was a vision you have in your life and doing solar, literally, like for doing solar longer in your life didn't even align with your vision with moving your family to Italy. So it's so cool, because, you know, you just change the meaning that you put behind that, and you walked away with a a ton of knowledge from that experience. Not too many people are willing to even try. Not too many people are willing to even fail. And so I— it just goes to show, failure is not a bad thing. So thanks for sharing that, dude. It's— I'm glad you reminded me of that. I, I— and I, during that time, I was reading a lot of 'it is what it is' kind of themed books, so I, I'm glad that that resonated It really did.

And you know, one of them— I've been, I've been thinking about this story, um, just a couple weeks ago, and I realized— I was telling my wife about this— I was like, you know, something I didn't think about until just now, right? This is like a year and a half after I left the, um, that company. I now know more millionaires and a few extremely high-quality individuals I, I now know more millionaires and more extremely high-quality individuals than I did before signing up to sell door-to-door. Um, and like, some of the guys that I met in that, at that company are just remarkable, remarkable individuals who I really look up to in a lot of different, uh, aspects of life— financially, with respect to being fathers, uh, to being great leaders. And I learned so much from them. And like, a couple of them reached out just, just a few days ago, and I was like, hey, like, so good to see you. Hey, I see that you guys are doing this thing. Like, I'm so happy for you. I'm so excited for you guys, for the company, everything that's going on. And like, these guys still want to see me succeed. These guys who, like, a couple of them, they actually made a million dollars last year, over a million dollars in, um, in commissions and everything. And like, yeah, that's insane. That is absolutely insane. And 2 years ago, I did not know anybody. I don't think I knew anybody who had a net worth of $1 million, let alone who made $1 million in 12 months. And, and I know this is like kind of focusing on money, and money isn't the end-all be-all, right? We were talking about it being an amplifier of who you are, but, um, just kind of as like a proxy or as an analog for like the somebody who's at a different level than you are, somebody who's playing at a higher level than you are in this game of life. I now know some better people. I now have some better influences on me now than I did before. And I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful to have some connections to some like high quality people because not to say that my life was full of low quality individuals before, but I also didn't even know like how you, how I didn't know anyone who was like a couple steps ahead of me, you know, like I didn't, I didn't know anyone that's out there. And so how are you supposed to imitate people?, whose results you want in your life. Yeah, if you don't even know it exists, dude, you don't know what you don't know until you do. And then you see some people out there playing a totally different game than you are, and you're like, whoa, okay, maybe I don't need the watches, maybe I don't need the supercars, but there are some things in there that I do really want. So maybe what can I do to be like that? What can I do to close the gap between here and there?

Yeah, I— and, and here's something cool, is that those guys that are reaching out to you right now, dude, they don't they're not reaching out to you to recruit you to make more money. Like, they've got plenty of money, right? It just shows that the people that, the people that you surround yourself with really just care about you. And I think that's the goal in life is I have a couple, I have a mentor of mine that's just, I met in door-to-door, I never ended up selling with him. His name's Jeremy Davis. But we're still best friends to this day. We still talk to each other over the phone. And he's given me so much advice in marriage, in my sales career, and a lot of different— just, he's referred me to a lot of— he referred me to my sales coach last year who helped me have a lot of big breakthroughs. But he's always wanted my— he's always had my best interests in mind, and he's never made a penny off of me. And it's— I think sometimes it's hard to find those individuals in your life that want to just help you and want nothing in return. So when you find somebody that just wants the best for you and isn't asking for, you know, in the sales world, we call them overrides. You know, they're not trying to get— they're not trying to make a ripoff of you and commissions, or they don't have any ulterior motives. They just want to see you do well. Keep those people close because those are the people that you want to keep in your corner. So I'm glad, I'm glad that you have those individuals in your life now. So what a cool thing to take away from your experience in Door to Door. I think one of the things I wanted to talk about, you mentioned kind of like a setback or obstacles, and we've touched on this, you know, what meaning do we give to the obstacles in our lives? But one of the favorite things, one of my favorite things at the conference was, hey, how do you overcome a slump? You know, they're referring to sales slumps. However, you can experience slumps anywhere in your life, and you don't have to be in sales. You could feel— you could be experiencing a slump because you haven't gotten out of bed past 9 o'clock in the past, you know, week. And so it's like, oh, I'm in a slump. Well, when these top performers and these really high achievers were asked about slumps, everybody there, said, I don't get in slumps, right? And when I'm selling, I think the same thing. A slump is a mental— it's something going on in your mind. It's the, the past doesn't predicate what's happening in the future. Uh, sometimes we think because this happened yesterday, it's going to happen again, and that's not true. Things reset. So if you think that the past is going to affect the future, you take away your power and ability to change today. So when you experience a setback or you feel like you're in a slump, you need to reset your intentions. And this is one of the things I took away from the conference. You need to reset your intentions. Pause. You can literally take a step back, like— so this is giving you guys tactical things that you can do. You can literally take a step back change your physiology, you know, roll your shoulders back, get your head up, take some deep breaths so you actually feed your brain with that oxygen, and then set an intention moving forward. This could happen at 12 o'clock, you know, at noon, or it could happen at 5 o'clock, but you have the ability to change how you're going about your day at any time. And so if you feel like you're in a slump at all, take a step back, literally, or sit down on a curb, or, you know, in my job, I sit down on a curb and I just breathe. And I set an intention and I'll actually talk out loud. And I'll say, okay, moving forward, this is what I'm going to do. And I probably look crazy because I'm talking out loud. But it's a very good way to set an intention moving forward. So, you know, Jared and I don't know where you're at in life right now. But use those little tools and see if they help you get some momentum Because a lot of things just require a little bit of momentum, a little small win, and I think it'll get you headed in the right direction. So some great, awesome, great thoughts from this conference, and I learned a lot, man.

I'm, I'm so excited, and I'm, uh, very jealous. Not just slightly jealous, very jealous that, uh, that you got to be there surrounded by such, um, just such a high— a group of high-quality individuals, um, and getting to listen to some of these incredible speakers. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm so excited that you got to go. Um, so something we didn't talk about before we started recording was if we wanted to throw out a challenge. So one of the things that we talked about doing is having like a challenge with every episode, um, that comes out. And well, I don't, I don't know, we, we can edit this out if we don't have anything, but do you have any thoughts on like a specific challenge or anything that crosses your mind?

So the biggest thing is, you know, I would invite you to invest in yourself. And in, you know, anybody listening to this, I invite you to invest in yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to go drop $700 to go to a door-to-door con, right? Investing in yourself means setting aside time to create, right? Whether that is reading, whether that is journaling, or whether it's, I mean, exercising. You're doing something, you're, you're making deposits into yourself. Specifically this week, I mean, there's so many different things you can do to invest in yourself, but this week with the theme of Door to Door and, you know, this how difficult it is, with it being so mental, I would just invite you to invest 20 to 30 minutes a day in reading something that elevates your mind. The Power of Now is an incredible book. You know, there's a lot of other self-help books out there that you can read and, you know, they can get you headed in the right direction. I know Ed Mylett's The Power of One More, incredible book. If you have any questions, you can message Jared and I directly on Instagram on books that you could read, but start filling your mind with, with material that inspires you. And that doesn't necessarily need to be a book for 20 minutes. You could be listening to a podcast in your car. But I think we just invite all of you guys to set aside at least 20 to 30 minutes a day to fill your mind with something that moves the needle just a little bit. So that would be my invitation to everybody for this month.

Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to double down on that, maybe make specified even a little bit more for us. So the book that I am reading, I have it right here. So I'm reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. That's a book that I'm reading every morning. So I have it built into my day to read. 10 to 30 minutes, uh, depending on the day. So I'm gonna keep reading that. And, um, as you know, like, I also listen to like a billion podcasts. So to— but if anyone's listening and they don't have— if they don't know what to listen to, they're like, okay, I have some time, I commute home, or I'm at the gym, and I'm willing to listen to a podcast.

What—

who do I listen to? Uh, I would highly recommend the Ed Mylett Show. Um, as, as, as a starting point. I feel like he is incredibly engaging and he interviews some really, really cool people. Um, one of the most impactful episodes I think I've ever listened to him, um, to on his show is actually Tom Bilyeu's wife, Lisa Bilyeu. She goes on to Ed Mylett's show. I know, I know Tom's been on the show a few times, but this was— yeah, ah, geez, this is probably like 6 months ago, so you probably have to dig in the archives of his of his show, but Ed Mylett and Lisa Bilyeu, that's a really, really great episode. I think it's called the No BS Guide to Self-Confidence.

Great. Yeah. Well, in that case, you know, I say listen, if you don't know where to start, listen to that podcast, you know, and, and, and I'll make sure to listen to it again. It's been a while since I have, but we can, we can kind of bounce some ideas off when we talk again. From that. But take some time and do it for yourself. You know, take that time to invest in yourself. And we can have some more dialed-in challenges as we move forward. Hopefully this week, you leave this, you know, you leave this podcast, having a good idea what this Door to Door conference was about. And you've decided to start feeding your mind positive things. You know, there's so many there's so many things you could be feeding your mind with on social media. But just take some time and be intentional about what you're feeding your, your mind. So yeah, we're really grateful for you guys listening to our podcast, The Rising Tribe, where literally, if you can, if you can rise, if you can rise in certain areas in your life, you'll see a huge impact everywhere else. So we look forward to having you on our show and, and listening. And thanks for being here. Please share with friends and, and family and whoever you think could benefit from this podcast so we can get this, this good message out.