has gone to a stage where it knows what you need.
And anytime you try to limit the audience down,
you're blocking off a section of your audience
that you can't anticipate
because you're not smarter than the robots.
Right, right.
No, it's impossible.
Oh, it's a beautiful transition
for ultimately limit the middleman,
to where your middleman has to actually be valuable
to make sense.
Right, right, that makes sense.
So exploring wisdom to unlock your true life's calling,
I'm super excited to dive in with you on this.
I don't know, what takeaway should I be most excited about?
I think the title says it all, you know,
how do we basically work towards being able to unlock
our true life's calling?
Cause I do believe that every single one of us
has a true life's calling.
It's just that most of us are either scared or we're-
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
And we'll see you next time.
Bye.
Another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
I'm so excited to bring Drazen Alcazar on today.
He and I hit it off super well in our first alignment call.
One, we both speak Spanish and that's always fun,
but more importantly, like there's just this like,
you know that brother from another feeling you get
when you meet somebody and you're just like,
man, this makes sense.
Well, he just got a class act personality.
And when it comes to establishing our life's callings
and passions, anybody who listens to this regularly
knows I'm all about that.
And I can tell that he is too.
And so that's gonna be a lot of fun to bring him on.
Before I bring Drazen on,
I also wanna make sure to point out our sponsors
and cause opportunities.
These are important for you.
I wouldn't do it if it wasn't.
These aren't paid for by the way,
but we will have paid for someday.
We've had one too, but in this case,
these are companies that I believe in or I utilize.
And I know they're important for visionaries
who are out there.
So ColdClick.
ColdClick is how we do our LinkedIn automation.
It's probably how we met Drazen by the way.
And what it does is it gets us in front of
a bunch of like-minded people
that we would probably want to work with,
but we don't have to force the issue
of contacting people one at a time.
The distribution at the top of your funnel.
If you're a visionary and you're trying to expand your vision
and share it with people,
yes, you can go and talk to people one at a time,
but it would also be helpful if you had something
that allowed you to get in front of hundreds of people
per week and filter through the ones
that are ready to talk to you now.
Because not everybody is in a position
where they can start a relationship.
Two, we've also got Simply Fast websites up there.
And Simply Fast websites is the resource
that I would have loved to have
when I was first launching my website, JCal Digital.
That brand still exists by the way.
You're welcome to go to it.
jcaldigital.com and see where firstclassbusiness.io
came from and kind of the evolution.
When I launched that website by the way,
the header was done.
The rest of it said, Laura Mipsum,
header one, header two, header three.
I got my first clients.
My first five clients were the website
that wasn't even finished.
And I was helping brands launch their websites.
Granted, I had a portfolio that I could talk about,
but it gave me a really important realization
that you don't need to be perfect to launch businesses.
You need to get out there and showcase your skills,
your principles and just go after it.
So Simply Fast, I spent tons of hours
and way too much time trying to build that myself
because I didn't have $179 option to turn to.
And yes, I could do Square, Wix, WordSpace,
WordPress, my bad, et cetera,
in order to launch a website.
But again, it was taking me time.
I didn't have the knowledge.
So when I saw that Shane Michael had built
Simply Fast websites the way he did,
I was like, wow, this is a game changer
for people who are just getting started out.
It's pretty cool to have, to know right away
who you could talk to about web design and web development
and kind of conquer both those.
I really wish him the best.
I hope he crushes it and continues to succeed.
Then there's the Water Project.
The Water Project is a fantastic opportunity to give back.
We're all, anybody who has something like this
within 20 yards from themselves,
we have life made for us in many ways.
There are people out there who do not have access
to clean drinking water.
My hope is to inspire you to either share the reality
that there's a project called the Water Project
where you can give back to these communities
or if you're in a position to be able to financially donate
to this and give, please do.
You're talking about the opportunity
to be able to see the transformation too.
And I would say, challenge yourself to pay attention.
Don't just give the money and run.
Take a look and see what happens
because they're gonna show you what the community's like,
what they're building,
and you get to see the fulfillment of the process
and kind of, there's nothing stopping you
from building a relationship with those real life people
just like you do with any book that you read
or any movie that you watch,
but in this case, something actually took place
and that's something to be excited about.
So with all that said, again, I'm excited to host Drazen.
Let me pull up real quick his story
so you guys can see this and you can pause,
you can pause and read this.
So you learn more about him as a veteran,
more about why he's become a serial entrepreneur
and how he's done that.
I'm not gonna dive into the dynamics of that too much
because I wanna take full advantage of our time together
and bring him on stage.
So I'll send the,
Cynthia, if you can share this screen for me.
Gracias.
In the meantime, Drazen, welcome to the show, man.
Thank you, Jackson.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
I'm honored.
I'm just, one, I was already honored,
but I'm like super honored today because it's Friday
and it's five o'clock.
It's my last meeting.
I love it.
And I get to be with you.
We get to end this thing together.
Going to my weekend on a super high.
Absolutely, me too.
I feel the same way.
Yeah, man, it's awesome.
So bromance is going strong.
Yeah.
I know we've made some people leave because of it.
That's all right.
You guys can learn to forgive us later.
But with that said, all right,
who should be listening, Drazen,
to what we're gonna talk about today
and why should they listen to you?
I think anyone who's looking to grow, right?
Who's looking to basically figure out,
okay, how do I get to the next level of being able to,
again, really unlock my true life's calling
is what I like to call it.
I think everybody's looking for that, right?
I mean, this is one of those things that,
so many times people will tell you,
experts will tell you, don't generalize, niche down,
but it's one of those things that every single person
should be looking for the true life's calling.
I mean, literally everybody needs that.
And it's not that I have the answer exactly.
I'm still in the process of essentially
figuring it all out myself.
But what I have found is that
through all the people that I've spoken with,
through all the mentors that I've had in my life,
I've been able to figure out and uncover,
or unlock, if you will,
an even bigger part of the process.
And what I do, it's almost like immediately,
as soon as I'm able to learn something new
and then process it and understand it,
I turn right back around and I pay it forward.
I'm able to just pass that knowledge
and that information on to the other people
because I want people to be able to understand that.
I want people to realize that
there's really so much more waiting ahead of us
than what's behind us.
I love it.
And you talked about the niching down, man.
I speak against that so often
because lots of people talk about it
and it's a good thing to do.
But at the same time, like how niche is Google?
How niche is Disney?
How niche is Amazon?
How niche is the Bible?
We can go a lot of different ways with this.
But a lot of the best resources in the world,
don't worry about that.
And when it comes to principles of life,
a lot of us, I think we're all connected.
And I think most of us have a general sense
that we are connected,
especially those who are listening to the podcast.
So I think that's totally fair to talk about.
I also think that it's important to quantify
some of your accolades.
So I'm gonna ask you about your vision
for those that you serve.
And we'll dive a little deeper into what you just said.
Tell me about your background.
Who are you, Drayson?
What got you to the point where you've kind of uncovered
this process of unlocking Life's True Calling?
So I would say that the primary place
where it all began was in the military for me.
I got out of a school, went into the military.
I went into the Marines at a very young age.
So I was 17 at the time.
And that really gave me the foundation
of where I was going to be headed in life.
And the reason why I say that is because
if there was anything to be extracted
from my time in the military service
is one small phrase that they taught me
that basically was able to push me forward
in everything that I did, which was adapt and overcome.
I was gonna be embrace the suck, but I got you.
Adapt and overcome.
It's one of those simple things
that if you just remember that,
it just makes life so much easier
because then anytime you encounter an obstacle,
anytime that you come across something
that you feel has no solution or that you can't get over,
well, take some time, sure, process it,
adapt to it and then overcome it.
And then the more you overcome it,
the more comfortable you feel with overcoming other obstacles.
And before you know it, you can look back
and you've overcome a ton of different obstacles
and you realize that, you know what?
I can overcome this next obstacle
that's in front of me at the same time.
And so it's kind of like that mentality
that allowed me to then transition into entrepreneurship.
And from every single entrepreneur that I've spoken with,
it's not one of those things you necessarily say,
I'm gonna become an entrepreneur when I grow up.
Most people just kind of fall into it
from just different things, different conversations,
the people that you meet along the way.
And so as I began to dive in deeper into entrepreneurship
and I ended up creating relationships,
the thing that kind of came out of it was that
we're all looking for the same thing,
how to be able to make the world that we live in better
and how to basically unlock our true life's purpose,
our calling, if you will, right?
Every single entrepreneur,
but then every single person ultimately is looking for that.
Like, how do I feel more fulfilled at the end of the day
with the thing that I'm doing
and not just potentially just do something
just for the sake of a paycheck?
And so it was that essentially mentality
that led me to be in all kinds of different industries,
from again, finance to venture capital,
private equity, biometrics, federal business intelligence
at one point, I mean, you name it.
I've gotten a chance to do a lot of these things altogether.
And it's really through that combination of skills
that I've acquired over the years
that I'm able to now kind of look at problems
from a whole different perspective
and then be able to solve them, if you will,
or help people solve them
when it comes to whatever they may be going through,
just because I'm able to bring the experience,
the knowledge, and ultimately the wisdom, right?
That's been acquired over a number of years
to help people out, because that's all I wanna do.
I love that.
Thank you for sharing all that.
It makes me think about really meditate
on the audience at hand.
Most of you that are listening in,
you have achieved extreme success.
And a lot of you haven't owned that.
And you may struggle to recognize the fact
that of how successful you actually are
and how much you've accomplished,
and you haven't hit what you want to, perhaps.
But when we're looking at people who are extremely successful,
I also know people who are extremely successful,
a lot of them, that still haven't found that life's calling.
That's right.
That's a scary reality for people to address
in order to think about.
If you're there, you don't really want somebody
to push you on it, especially on stage.
Or when you're in, I don't know, a new relationship,
you don't actually wanna talk about that, people.
This is a podcast, safe environment.
You're by yourself, think through this.
If you haven't found your true life's calling,
Briar, you feel like you may not have,
how do we get there, Jason?
What's the vision to move there?
And what does it feel like to go from being ultra successful
to knowing that you have your life's calling?
Let's talk about that.
There's a feeling that comes over you
that's indescribable, right?
There's something that can't be filled
with just about anything you can imagine,
whether it's an accolade or numbers on a chart,
numbers on a bank account, et cetera.
It's just one of those things that you feel
like you're online, finally.
You feel like you're on fire, like I'm on now.
And there's something about that feeling
that then begins to actually attract other people to you
because of that.
Because one of those things that's like energy attracts
energy, much like how you and I became friends right away
from the very first time we had a conversation.
And so the things that you begin to uncover
and be able to attract to you become the very things
you were looking for it to begin with.
When it comes to being able to attract better friendships,
better relationships, better partnerships, et cetera,
it all comes to you just based on the fact that it's you
who is basically being that.
There is a saying that I love that talks about the flower,
all it has to do is just bloom and it attracts the bee
to be able to come and polarize it, right?
So it's the same exact thing.
Oh, I love that.
It's all we're doing.
We just have to essentially work on ourselves
to then fully bloom.
And when you bloom, you're going to attract all the people
that are meant to be in your life at that point.
And a flower, if it could go search for the bees would die.
Exactly.
That's, oh man, that's cool.
That's a really powerful reality.
And I've seen that too.
That's ultimately, I spent, I spent,
I'm not gonna say I have all of the answers
to life's callings.
I'm also a big believer we have multiple callings to life.
I'm very happy with the calling that I have right now,
which is the bridge, the economic gap
between North America and South America.
That's my grand calling.
And to be the best father I can to the four kids that I have,
I am married to that responsibility at this point.
So there's layers of that.
But I spent years trying to figure that out too.
What does my life calling look like?
How does that work?
And it's, when I started to watch people,
other people who are being successful
and seem to have their life callings,
I started to notice exactly what you just said.
They were just like that flower.
They just blossomed.
They just focused on being their best self.
The biggest challenge we come across a lot of times
is that, we live in a society now where so many people
want you to be able to become stronger at the things
that you're potentially weak at, right?
Rather than actually become stronger
at the things that you're strongest at.
And so that's something that is, I think,
essentially taught in school a lot of times,
which again, there's obviously things you can do
when you finally leave school or throughout education
that say, okay, well, what am I really good at?
What are my strengths?
And then because we've been so conditioned essentially
to feel like, okay, well, those strengths are just
what I have and that's what comes naturally to me.
But I was always told that I needed to be better
at this other thing.
And so there's so much time spent on the other thing
rather than basically becoming your strengths
that then it's really that much harder
than be able to find your true life's calling
just based on that alone.
The fact that you're constantly at odds with yourself
because you know what you want to do.
You know what you're really good at.
You know what you love to do.
You know what makes you come alive.
And yet you're not doing it simply
because that's not what you were essentially told.
You were told to do something else.
Right, your instructions manual, how do you work?
And you know, it's funny, I can feel the weight
of the stress on my body remembering all the years
that I spent working on what other people felt
I wasn't good at.
You know, and Strengths Finder 2.0
changed my perspective in that.
That book by Connor.
I love that.
I was 22 when we took that test, my wife and I at the time.
And it was our favorite date night.
Like for the next several years.
We were laughing, we were laughing hysterically
at how much we learned about each other
by having taken that.
And we both had the exact same first number one trait
which was learner, but hers was completely opposite of mine.
And how we went about how we learn.
And nobody ever validated my learning style growing up.
I was always a distraction in class,
but I learned through communicating with people,
which hence why I probably have the black.
And look at the kind of relationship
that you have because of it.
I mean, think about that, that just a sentence alone,
the fact that you both chose to do that with each other,
I mean, speaks volumes of not only the relationship
that you have, but again, the relationships that we can have
if we choose to basically focus on,
okay, what are our strengths?
And then how do we basically use that
for the relationship that we wanna build?
I would agree.
I think we had a pretty phenomenal relationship
at the time.
And sometimes you think the grass is greener
in order things happen.
So there's that, but it doesn't deny the good that existed.
And I think that a lot of people who go through divorce
or go through challenges in relationships,
we live in a society where we wanna polarize the situation
and we don't end up honoring the goodness of said person
and we should.
And that's my responsibility in the equation.
So let's-
Every experience ends up becoming a stepping stone
to ultimately where we're meant to be anyway, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I wanna pick on chat GBT for a minute in this regard.
So we've got, and everybody's listening in again,
this is all about comprehension analysis, by the way,
this exploring wisdom to unlock your true life's calling.
We can get caught in semantics games,
but I'm gonna specifically share something that we did
with Drazen is we're trying to figure out on our end,
how do we represent fully this massive vision
that you have?
And in doing so, we'll use chat GBT
to help us figure out headlines for the show.
And it's interesting.
And the reason why I bring this up guys
is because you can be two degrees off course
and completely ruin your life.
You can run right into a mountain
if you were off course in a plane, for instance,
by just two degrees.
These lines that chat GBT was trying to give us,
unleash purpose, guides to heartfelt expression,
discover essence, right?
Insights of life's true purpose, live with purpose,
advice for heart's desires.
There's nothing wrong with these.
These are great headlines for CNN and Fox
and major plays of heartfelt living,
tips for living for life's true purpose,
unlock potential wisdom on life's true calling.
Well, I'm sorry, but that takes the assumption
that the person has that figured out
for everybody who's going to that article.
And I take issue with hyperbole like that.
And we as human beings, we sometimes,
and so notice the difference.
If you're watching this and you wanna go back
and listen to those again,
exploring wisdom to unlock your true life's calling
with Drazen Arcos here.
He's not here to be your muse and force that upon you.
And he's not here to tell you what it is.
That's something that you gotta figure out.
So we chose this title very purposely
to say unlock your true life's calling
and we're exploring wisdom to do that.
We're not the definitive oracle to make that happen.
And I would love your thoughts on that Drazen.
Like we live in a world where we get boxed in often.
And if people don't box you in, they kinda,
some people are like, well,
they're very wishy washy with how they do things.
I think there's a harmony in there somewhere,
but what's your take on that?
If you learn to live authentically
or the most authentic version of yourself that you can be,
then you will find that over time,
maybe not right away, right?
Maybe not overnight, maybe not even after a little bit
of time or a significant amount of time,
but over time, what's gonna happen is that
you will begin to surround yourself with people that just,
again, not only make you come alive,
but at the same time support you
in everything that you're trying to do.
So there is power in that because again,
you're trying to essentially, your goal,
meaning my goal, your goal, everyone's goal
should always be like,
how do I become the most authentic version of myself?
Because that's what's going to take away the people
that think potentially are wishy washy
or even with you, right?
The people that you may be surrounded with right now,
and you think that they're like solid as a rock,
but then as, but that's only because that's maybe
up to the purpose that you've been living so far.
But if you were to completely change your mind
and do something totally different,
then all of a sudden this person who was always there
and always was very supportive of everything you were doing,
they may not be supportive of that anymore
just because they don't understand
or that's not what they believe that you should be doing.
So then all of a sudden they do that to you, right?
And it's one of those things that you will find the people
that are meant to be part of your circle.
And I think that's the scariest part,
when it comes to being able to take this leap of faith,
if you will, and being able to unlock that,
that every single person is just so comfortable
in this box, if you will, of like, okay, well,
I have my support system, I have the,
where I live, where I work, what I'm doing.
I don't really know if I want to leave this
because it's doing everything it should,
not realizing that essentially they're giving up
so much more for just that little bit of a slice,
if you will, of life that we're receiving at that time.
And that was the hardest thing that I had to do
time and time again, right?
Figure out that, okay, there is more out there.
There are people that want to support me,
that want to love me, that want to be a part of my life.
So I have to go and search for them
because they're searching for me too.
Yeah, absolutely, man.
That was a very good use of the word,
always in my opinion,
is always be striving to live our best life.
And that's one of the hyperboles that I'm okay with.
Rather than the, again, and it's,
what I hope people realize is that
the pattern recognition of communication
is often labeled as a semantics issue.
When in reality, if we're more careful about our word choice
and more intentional with how we choose to see things,
we end up on track with our life's purpose.
And again, I see that come out a lot
in the way that you're so inclusive
in how you communicate with people.
Dre, what's your vision for you?
What do you see for yourself in the future?
You know, one of the things that I've learned,
especially like I think in the last,
this has been pretty incredible for a year for me,
kind of like rediscovery and figuring that out.
And I think that's also important
when it comes to being able to be on this path, right?
There's always going to be a realigning, if you will,
of like, where am I going?
Or where am I supposed to be going?
And so for me, it wasn't about
necessarily attaining a certain title.
It wasn't necessarily about, you know,
attaining a certain goal or crushing a certain goal.
It was about who do I wanna become, right?
Who do I wanna be for people and for myself?
And the answer to that was actually, I am an encourager.
And I love being able to be an encourager,
meaning that anybody that comes across, you know,
my day, anybody that comes across,
whether it's through a text, through a phone call,
through this podcast that we're doing,
how can I leave people better off encouraged, right?
Rather than like when they first began.
And I've learned that again, as I try my best
to be able to live more authentically like that,
that it does happen, right?
People come back to me afterwards and they tell me like,
it's like touching a battery.
Like, I feel so charged, you know, I love your energy.
And I'm like, well, it's only because
I'm doing what I want to be doing.
I'm doing what I believe I was made to do, right?
So now I want you to be able to explore that as well.
And it's not gonna happen overnight.
And it may not even happen, you know,
right away when you first think about it,
but it takes intentionality
to be able to essentially discover that.
It does a lot.
Encourager, man, like that's one of those elements
that sometimes according to our strengths
and talents, gifts, responsibilities,
we can feel envious of other people's callings too.
And in this case I am, you know, it's one of those where,
and I can practice that sometimes, but I am a healer.
Oh, I love that.
That's me man, I'm a healer.
And you have a healing voice.
What was that?
I said, you have a healing voice.
I believe that.
And I'm a protector as well.
So prior to being an encourager,
it doesn't make my calling better than yours or vice versa.
It just is.
And that means that I, it's like the water project.
I know a lot of people who have told me like,
Jackson, like that's too dark, it's too deep.
You know, like, don't go into that.
And I get it.
Like they're in that, they're in the enthusiasm category.
They like to celebrate and think about all sunshine roses.
That's fine.
But I mean, I am willing to mourn of those who mourn.
I mean, oh, and I'm also as a protector,
like, you know, I'm kind of my sword if I need to.
Oh, absolutely.
I will protect people from situations.
And that's, so this encourager factor,
I'm glad you put it on my radar because it's something that
as a healer and protector,
sometimes I find myself forgetting
that I'm also supposed to be encouraging people.
I mean, I don't, I'm not here to scare people
in order to box them in.
I'm not doing a good job of protecting
or helping people heal.
If I don't remember how important encouragement is.
That's right.
Enthusiasm, et cetera.
And the thing about, again, you know,
even what you mentioned right now, for example,
being a protector and a healer, right?
It's one of those things that will continue to evolve
as you evolve, as you continue to grow.
So I love what you said, you know, right now, right?
That's such an important thing to add at the end of it
because you can be a protector in one season of your life,
but then the next, let's say, after you've continued to,
you know, grow and evolve and learn new things,
now all of a sudden you are something else and that's okay.
You're continually, you know,
essentially supposed to be growing.
You're supposed to be evolving
into the next version of yourself.
Dude, you said earlier, you said, where are you going?
Right?
That is something that plays into that effect.
I always say as well, begin with the vision in mind, right?
And so if you begin with that in mind,
what you can see once you get there, like, you know,
it evolves.
And so last night I was walking,
listening to an audio tape outside and it was super dark
because of the change in times and all that.
Right.
And then I was walking somewhere I'm going to go.
And then I remembered the snake I stepped on
because I live in a wildlife preserve.
And I'm like, I should go to the treadmill.
You know, I should go to the gym instead
because who knows what's around that dark corner right now.
And my vision changed my perspective.
And the same thing happens at times in life too.
And sometimes we're caught off guard by it.
And then, you know, enjoy the journey.
That would be my invitation is like,
know that you're in good hands, you'll be fine.
Let's figure it out.
But let's dive to that darker side for a minute.
What has been your worst business
or leadership experience ever?
The worst business experience actually,
it almost took me out of the game of entrepreneurship
altogether.
Right.
I mean, again, I mean, obviously again,
as you begin to live your life more authentically
and you want to be able to expand your potential reach
or the kind of like the vision that you have becomes grander
and you need help along the way.
Right.
And collaboration is so important.
So I love the fact that obviously, you know,
I have you in my corner and there's always, you know,
tons of room to collaborate on all kinds
of different things available.
So collaboration becomes a really important aspect
for things, because just like what you said earlier,
you have certain gifts, I have certain gifts, right?
And being able to share those gifts is what makes a lot
of these visions come to life.
And so collaboration, what ended up happening was that
being able to get the people in my corner essentially
at that time, I didn't really know what that could look like.
And so that's another really important aspect
of being able to collaborate.
Figure out what kind of people you want to be able
to be in your corner, not just potentially look at, again,
the skills that they bring or potentially the capital
that they have or the accolades that they've collected,
like look at their character, right?
Look at their integrity.
And so at that time, you know,
when this business opportunity just went south
and the partners essentially ended up fighting
amongst themselves, it was one of those things
that it was so bad that it almost like left such a bad taste
in my mouth and I said, you know,
I don't even know if I want to be able to still essentially,
you know, be an entrepreneur.
I want to be able to essentially just put my head down now
and do something else that's going to take up a lot
of my time and I don't know if this is worth it.
And I think at some point,
every single person has been there where, you know what?
You almost call it quits, but then something inside you says,
no, it's not time yet, you know, and you shouldn't do it.
And thankfully, again, I was surrounded
by another whole community of people
that supported me, thankfully, right?
So even though there was people that were not good,
there was plenty of other people that were good for my life.
And because of that, they essentially said, no, you know,
this is only one of those things that happens in life.
It can happen sometimes multiple times, but that's not,
that doesn't mean that it's going to take you out
and you shouldn't let it take you out.
So just adapt and overcome, follow your own advice
and basically continue moving forward.
And so it was one of those things that gave me a whole lot
of insight as to, you know, what kind of people I want
surrounding me and not to pay attention
to the external details that normally most people pay
attention to.
And so to start looking within essentially,
not only within myself, but also with the people
that I ended up working with again,
because that becomes more important than anything else.
Ultimately, your character and your integrity
are going to say a lot more about you
and the person that you are than anything else
you may have available at that point.
Dude, if somebody's listening, if you're,
sorry, I keep saying dude, that's just kind of my thing.
I love it.
The, those who are listening in,
if you're listening to this,
it's because you have an extreme passion in your heart.
You're different than people in the world.
You want relationships at a bigger level
than most people do.
There's great relationship advice out there
that you just reminded me of.
And that's that if you want to have no conflict
in your relationships, don't talk about politics.
Don't talk about religion, you know,
and don't talk about sports, you know,
and that's a great way to protect your relationship.
But it's also a great way to make sure you limit
your relationship completely, right?
The same is true with entrepreneurship.
Divorces and businesses going bad,
they are very, very similar realities
and they hurt, they're painful, right?
But in order to accept great rewards,
you have to be willing to take great risks.
And sometimes it's a seasonal reality too.
So I appreciate you bringing that up.
It may knock you out of the game for a little bit.
You may have to take a season to recover from an experience,
but you'll be the one who knows that.
And just know that you're not weird, you know,
or alone in that reality.
There are plenty of people out there
who are striving to create those types of relationships.
But if you're looking to create exceptional relationships,
you have to look for people who are also looking
for exceptional results in their life.
Absolutely.
Let's talk about the best then.
Let's go there.
So what do the best experiences in business look like for you?
What's one tangible one that you've passed through already?
Complete alignment.
I mean, just being able to, you know,
find that alignment with someone else
that makes it feel like, okay,
this person finally sees me, right?
They finally communicate the way I like to communicate.
They finally understand the things that I'm talking about.
They finally feel like we're making progress
without even trying, right?
There's something that happens when you finally find
this kind of individual in your life
to be able to do business with that,
and ultimately life with, right?
I mean, just being able to do that.
But alignment is such an important thing.
And by alignment, I say like,
it's a number of multiple things that happens,
but ultimately comes down to like,
how good are we communicating with each other, right?
How are we able to do life together better than apart?
And so by being able to have that, you know,
in my life was such a blessing, right?
Being able to finally experience what it feels like
to find alignment in my life,
which again, opened up the door
to a whole lot of other opportunities,
opened up the door to a whole lot of other relationships
that I was able to form,
because it was one of those things that,
like I said earlier in the conversation,
energetically, when you come online,
you start attracting other people
that are essentially online,
because it's almost like you enter a next level
of where you want to be.
And at this new level,
you begin talking to the people that are at that
and have been at that level,
just like, you know, that's just kind of how we are.
You know, we're just kind of there.
We get to the next level and we find other people
that are there and they're the goddess, you know,
to see how we can get to the next level after that.
Absolutely.
Okay, so you talked about alignment.
Who do you have this alignment with?
Well, so I would say the last business partner
that I was with in this last company,
when I was in venture capital and private equity, right?
I think the primary reason why there was so much alignment
was not only in the way that we communicated,
you know, our belief system, our core,
again, our integrity, our attitude,
but also the fact that he also served in the Marine Corps
like I did.
So we immediately had like a, you know,
a bond from the start, because again,
that's one of the things that I love about, you know,
the military, especially the Marines,
when it comes to my branch,
just simply because you have a foundation
that you get started, like you get started from this.
And we know, I mean, in the Marine Corps, for example,
we have this thing called core values.
What are your core values, right?
And in the Marine Corps, we say honor, courage, commitment.
So immediately you start off with those three core values
if, you know, you're calling yourself a Marine.
And so by being able to essentially live out
those core values, you know where somebody stands.
And by being able to have an idea
of what these core values are,
it made the relationship that much better.
And so because of that, I mean,
we were able to develop not only an incredible friendship
over the years, but, you know, again,
the number of opportunities that were unlocked
because of it, the different projects
that we got a chance to work on, you know,
the different places that I got to see
and people that I got to meet.
It was all just really incredible.
And it all unlocked a new version of myself
along with new skills, new opportunities,
especially in the, again, in the raising capital industry.
Well said, man.
The, when it comes to the wisdom
of unlocking a true life's calling,
I would have never unlocked it
if I had been focused on me.
If I had been focused on my needs, my wants,
my selfish desires.
I'm a big believer that our true life calling comes
when we began to look at how can we assist?
How can we be able to help others in this world?
And that alignment that you gained with that individual,
it did, it came about because of a lot of the foundation
was the fact that you already shared a foundation
of core values that you both had committed to and understood
and were practicing.
In life, one of my greatest,
I would say unfair advantages,
and this can be for anybody who's listening,
is my ability to adapt to the core values
of the individual with which I'm serving with
by respecting them enough to learn about what those are.
So for instance, I'm gonna have a harder time
initially connecting in a deep level
with somebody who practices Taoism.
Because I don't know any, I don't remember that class.
I went to religion, a world religion class.
I don't remember it, right?
But if I'm gonna work with that person well,
in the capacity of, I don't know, LinkedIn automation,
something simple, right?
We're not gonna have a depth to our communication
and our commitment to each other unless I take the time
to get to know their core values.
And I can do that by then studying up,
refreshing my memory on Taoism,
and going several hours into it,
or keeping it surface level.
Whatever depth I go to though,
is pretty much going to navigate and dictate
how well my portion of committing myself
to that relationship is.
They also have to be willing to reciprocate
in order for that relationship to gain a super depth,
which then allows us to fulfill a deeper calling together.
There definitely has to be a sense of mutual respect, right?
I mean, that's what it comes down to.
Yeah, respect and understanding.
I mean, if you're gonna be working together.
So that you can drive that without those.
But what I found is I can't work very well
with people who don't have core values clearly established.
So if they don't have that shared background,
I can't find it, then I have to be much more careful
with that relationship because I don't know
what's important to them.
That's a hard place to be.
So if you find yourself there
not sharing your core values openly,
know that it may be creating some constraints
around your ability to connect
and see how you can serve and help others.
That would be my powerful lesson for the day.
I love it.
I wanna know yours.
If this was the last thing you could share with us
right now, ever, what's the lesson you would share
with visionaries who can learn from your experience?
You said something really important earlier
that I wanna be able to kind of expand a little bit more.
And this would be my ultimate message, right?
You talked about, you don't have to be jealous of,
let's say, my calling or my strengths or anything
that I have as my gifts.
And I think so many people forget that.
One of the things that I've learned time and time again
and it's now, I think, more solidified in my mind
and my heart than ever before,
is that this life that we're experiencing
is meant to be very personal.
It's meant to be a very personal journey,
which means that, yeah, we can look for potentially
motivation or inspiration to other people,
but never in a sense of jealousy or desire
to have what they have because, you know,
because you have your very own gifts,
you have your very own strengths.
You just have to look, you know, to see what they are
and live your journey personally,
meaning that this came to me, you know,
it was kind of like, again, reminded, if you will,
or realigned with me not too long ago as I was climbing,
I was hiking up a mountain.
And as I was looking back,
I saw that there were a lot of people
that were kind of behind me.
And as I was looking forward,
I saw a lot of people that were in front of me.
And then as I was looking to myself, I said, you know,
I could very much want to be that person
that's all the way at the top almost, right?
Reaching the top, meaning they've trained hard,
maybe they've done this a lot of times,
or maybe they're just stronger than I am, right?
Or I could look back and say, okay,
look at all these people that are kind of falling behind,
like, you know, they haven't trained at all,
or maybe they're weaker or whatever other thoughts
one can have when it comes to that.
But instead, you know, I chose to say,
I'm exactly where I need to be, you know,
and those people are exactly where they need to be.
And that's life, you know,
some people are gonna be ahead of you,
some people are gonna be quote unquote behind you, right?
Which nobody really is, again,
we're all living our life
the way we're supposed to be living.
And so that's the thing that I want everybody to remember
or understand that we're exactly where we need to be.
And this life that we have, this journey that we're living,
it's meant to be a very personal journey.
And so we have to live it like that
and just be able to get inspiration
from the people around us.
In my life's darkest moment, Drazen,
that was the exact advice that I needed.
And you reminded me of it today.
That's, it's huge.
So if you're going through dark times or great times,
either one, this is an opportunity
to really frame around that concept
and just try to burn that into your memory,
that you're exactly where you need to be,
as scary or painful as that might be,
which is the case of where I was at that time.
But I also then had that revelation and knowledge
that that's where I needed to be and I was okay.
And it was perfect.
And I was in the hands of the being who takes care of me.
So very powerful.
I gotta breathe a little bit to not cry.
Variables, one of the things that we do as,
we do as humans,
we love to know that we know all the variables.
Right?
We love to know.
So, oh man, this is what I was supposed to learn
in that scenario.
Or, this is why it didn't work out for you.
That would be one of the pieces of wisdom too,
that's come since that realization is like,
nah, I don't understand all the variables.
I understand some and I think,
and those helped me move forward with more confidence,
but I have an ultimate confidence in knowing that
I don't control all the variables.
I'm just part of the experience.
And we get to have the experience to learn from.
So with that said, all right,
exploring wisdom to unlock your true life's calling.
What else do you wanna talk about?
We got five, 10 minutes, somewhere in between there.
I'd love to just give you the microphone and say,
the show is yours, where do you wanna go with this?
Hmm, there's so many things that,
there's so many things that I love talking about,
but I think in the last five minutes,
the main thing that I would say is,
the greatest asset that I've had in my life
when it comes to being able to become who I am today
and gain the insight or knowledge or wisdom ultimately
that got me to where I am, is find mentorship.
Find people that want to be able to share with you
their life and their wisdom and their knowledge.
There is an unlimited resource available
when it comes to that.
All that we need to be is the open and willing receptacle
of that knowledge and wisdom.
And that's the thing that most mentors are looking for.
There's tons of people that wanna be able to mentor you
as an individual, except there isn't enough people
that want to be mentored.
And the people that do say they wanna be mentored,
they usually fail at the follow through
when it comes to being able to get mentored.
And that's one of those things that it hurts to know,
but so many people are doing it, right?
I mean, so many people say that,
I love to be able to get mentorship.
I wanna be able to find the people that can help me out.
Well, become that person that can be helped
by the people that want to help you out.
And so that's one of those things that I've learned
that mentorship has shaped my life in ways
that I can't even begin to comprehend.
And I don't think that I ever really will be able to,
but I've gotten to a point where I value the mentors
that I've had in my life and I've had many
and I still have many at this point.
And I think that's like one of the best things
that I could have ever done and continue to do.
Just cultivate relationships, find mentorship,
find people that wanna be able to essentially
share their wisdom with you, and then just be open to it.
But also be somebody that follows through with your word,
meaning it's not hard to be a mentee.
If you say you're gonna do something, do it,
and then do it as quickly as possible, right?
If you said you're gonna be on time, be on time.
I mean, it's literally something so simple sometimes
that can make an impact in your life
that can make the difference.
I'll add, or own it if you don't.
That's right.
Don't run and hide from it.
No, no excuses.
We all fail.
Exactly.
Stop letting that defeat you
because you're then imposing your own progress.
I love it.
This could be viewed as one of the most discouraging
statements of all time for the encourager.
But I think this is one of the most encouraging statements
of all time.
The one you said that there aren't enough people
who want to be mentored is a call to arms.
That's a call to action of, well, if that's you,
if you've put that vibe up,
Drazen, they're not the first person he's ever talked to,
nor me.
I've talked to thousands and thousands
and thousands of people, and there's so much truth
in what you said.
There aren't.
And you say you want it, but then you don't do it.
And then later on, when somebody follows up to find out,
hey, you're doing okay, that you do well,
and you freak out and panic and get mad at them,
they're the ones who caused the problem.
You've basically shown that you are a person
who does not want to be mentored,
who's not willing to take it.
That's right.
Difficult, difficult truth to sometimes deal with,
but I appreciate you said that, not me.
Now, I'll quote you often though,
because I'll say I stand with Drazen on this.
You know what I mean?
Well said, man, that's awesome.
So let's see here.
There was something else,
oh, there's something else that you sparked,
and it was about those business partnerships.
And I wanted to circle back to it
because it just reminded me
of some extremely powerful relationships.
And again, if you're going through partnerships,
and your life's calling has tied you to somebody,
it's one of the best feelings in the world,
and it becomes one of the greatest heartaches
when it doesn't work out, two at times,
whether it's a marriage or a business partnership.
And I wanna highlight a couple of ones
that mean so much to me right now.
If you're okay with that, it's your show.
I don't wanna steal a mic,
but it just really, really hit me hard.
One is Cynthia, who's helping us
with the backgrounds on the show.
She has been so good about supporting me and helping me
and being there for me
during our ups and downs of business,
and understanding, being willing to understand who I am
and understand how hard it is,
what we go through to build what we're building.
Two is Dr. Todd Snyder,
who's one of our silent investors
who started this business with me
as a 50-50 business partner.
And when we came to that conclusion to work together
and decided to move forward,
we had met each other in person,
we had crossed all of our T's out of our eyes.
He's extremely thorough with what he does.
I'm extremely thorough in what I do,
and I think he's extremely thorough in what he does.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I feel like, my goodness.
Oh, man, it was awesome.
And it was fun because we were going back and forth
on our negotiations.
And I've never not worn somebody out with that process.
Every single time, we've got a finish line
and they're like dragging.
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Again, we're not done with this yet.
We had such a brotherhood build over that
that his final statement to me was,
Jackson, if we're gonna do this,
we're gonna do this as brothers.
Do you understand that?
Do you get that?
And I was like, man, that's the way he told me.
He said, do I understand that?
Do I get that, Jackson?
And I was like, yes, dude.
I was like, that's exactly what I want.
That's exactly what I'm looking for.
When it came time to make some adjustments
for the company's sake, for his life,
he ended up giving me back the company.
Well, giving it to me.
And then I said, no, like, you know,
like you at least need to keep 5% of this.
You know, like you helped me build this.
And that's fine if you're busy,
you got other things that you need to focus on right now.
I get that.
But the honor that existed between our relationship is so,
we just caught up last week.
You know, again, we're always there for each other
if we need each other and we don't need each other.
But we have this bond that I don't think
is ever going to be broken.
It could be, but I don't think it will be.
Then there's Dean Forbes.
And he's the last one I'll mention on this.
Dean Forbes then came in later as a 50-50 partner.
And oh man, we had such a disaster
of an experience together.
And Dean would tell you the same thing.
And we went through one of the roughest patches
and we had so many things come against us in this process.
But when we decided it was time like, hey,
we know let's move on from this.
Once again, he gave me back the equity in my company,
I gave him back the equity in his company.
He is a brother and will be for life.
We have no association with each other's brands,
but I can speak wholeheartedly to the ethics of the man
and to what he's able to accomplish
from a professional setting.
Yes, I know his weaknesses too.
Yes, he knows my weaknesses too.
But we have absolute confidence
that we will always share that with 100% honor.
And I would have never found relationships like that
if I hadn't done what you said
and given myself to figuring this out and stuck to it.
So I'm really glad you stuck to it too, Drayson.
And I hope that everybody who's listening right now
has the opportunity to exercise
the same tenacious persistence
and go after what they're meant to go after in this life,
their life's call.
Absolutely, and a couple last things for you here, Jackson.
Hit it.
That I got from what you said, right?
You definitely are doing what you're meant to be doing
with what you're talking about.
And I love how you described both partnerships,
one that was amazing and one that wasn't so amazing.
Again, based on everything that happened, right?
It was amazing and the adversities were far more amazing.
But the lesson there,
and this is something that I've learned time and time again
is that as humans, much like you talked about control earlier,
the other thing that we want
is to only experience the good times,
to only experience the good things
without realizing that a lot of times
it's those bad things that end up teaching us the most.
That's correct.
So we have to go through those times as well
to be able to learn and grow.
And they usually catapult us to the next level
of where we're meant to be if we learn from it,
if we learn from it, right?
Because there is something really important
that I learned a long time ago from a sermon that I watched.
And it was, all these obstacles that we find,
they either become your prison or your,
they become your prison or they become your,
what was the other part?
Springboard.
Oh, there you go, springboard.
Yeah, so essentially you can either be stuck where you are
or it's gonna catapult you to the next level
of where you're meant to be, right?
And then the last thing was gonna be that
the master shows up when the student's ready.
So just be ready.
That was Dr. Todd Snyder, by the way, showing up on time
when I needed him.
And these, and you mentioned the adversities.
I will love both those men forever.
I have a very strong conviction for our relationships
because of the adversities that we went through
and that we supported each other through.
And it is what often strengthens relationships the most.
So Drazen, this was an absolute pleasure.
Vision Pros for listening in,
if they wanna connect with you.
LinkedIn, elsewhere, where's the best place to go?
LinkedIn always works for me.
I mean, I think you have the links on there
from my social media, my website.
I mean, I'm fairly available.
People can just Google my name and find me
in some ways to perform.
Awesome. I like to connect.
We'll have those in the landing pages, you heard it.
And feel free to reach out to Drazen anytime.
Everybody have a phenomenal Friday.
As great of a Friday night as Drazen and I are having,
we hope you're having the same.
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don't hesitate to drop those in the comments.
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Thank you everybody.
Have a good weekend.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in
to Vision Pros Live.
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as these episodes continue to move forward.
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