Yeah.
Yup.
That's very common too for, for Uruguay.
They, they, uh, they learned British English.
Um, so it makes sense as well.
Um, all right.
Impact over attention.
I love the subject and topic.
We got to dive in kind of hot and heavy on that fast.
So, um, how, how did you come to this conclusion in such an attention seeking
world?
Gosh.
Okay.
So I'll give you, there's two angles that this comes from.
Uh, first is I'll start out with the kernel, if we will, is I was an ad agency
and all we did was chase attention for clients and, and that is young man's work.
It is exhausting.
Uh, it's fun.
Um, and there's a lot of cool stuff, but I just got exhausted by, by literally
the second you figure something out and the second you get attention, it's over
and you got to do it again.
Uh, and so I just kind of was on that wheel for awhile.
And that's what started this process for me.
Um, and then, uh, surprise COVID gave me some time to think.
And I just, um, my pastor, I did his, uh, like his way to call it when he's in
graduate school, like his senior thesis sort of thing on solitude and was talking
about it.
And I was like, I'm going to try this out and see what that's all about.
And, um, what ended up happening is I got a lot of time alone on purpose.
And then I started making huge leaps in my faith, not on purpose.
Um, and it all came together on my, oh, okay.
So we were made for community with God, which just only requires me and him.
Uh, and so that's, that was the seed for the idea that it's not kind of
grown into something that's more action oriented and getting other people
involved with it.
Dude, that's, that's massive.
Um, I came to that same conclusion.
However, uh, I was curled up in fetal position, bawling my eyes out in a
closet at 30 something years old.
Um, when I, I came to that exact same realization.
Um, so it's interesting how we have different paths to, to come to, uh, that,
uh, to come to know what's important for us in life, but that sense of belonging,
um, and that belonging with God trumps all.
Um, it really does.
For those of you who may not feel or see that, um, you know, bear with us, um,
you know, bear with us on our, on our, uh, quest for God while also recognizing
that we're going to be talking about this secret weapon to weapon of solitude,
which is what Jake Jordan has brought to the table.
I'm just here to color comment and excited about the concept because it
resonates so well with me.
So we'll be right back.
All right.
Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are
building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody.
Welcome into another episode of vision pros live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of first-class business.
I am really excited to bring on stage.
My brother Jake Jordan.
Um, and when I say brother, you know, that, that, that term means
something so deep to me that is, it's hard to quantify from several angles.
And I think it's very important.
Those who are listening and understand that.
Um, so when it comes to my religious faith and background, we call
each other brothers and sisters.
In addition to that, I come from a family of 15 half and step brothers and sisters.
Um, what most people don't know is I'm probably the best in the world
that that game two truths and a lie.
Um, because two of my truths are one, I'm an only child and two, I have 15 half
and step brothers and sisters, how can that be true?
Um, yet they both are.
Um, so again, it's an, it's a pretty easy game for me to win.
Um, nonetheless, when you grow up in a yours, mine and ours household, um, and
you are also raised by a single mom of six, you find yourself in other households,
um, with other families, uh, becomes pretty easy to start calling other people mom.
Um, and also other people, your brothers and sisters.
It doesn't mean that I don't have a strong, uh, value for the word.
I would say I have a very enhanced value of the word and can see and feel
that above and beyond what, what a nuclear family, um, is, is, is.
Um, I don't know if I'm a nuclear family, um, may, may be able to, I don't know.
I don't have a nuclear family, so, uh, feel free to challenge that if you, if you do.
Um, that said, when I, when I, again, when I call somebody a brother, um,
it's because I believe we're all brothers and sisters in this world.
And I just want you to know where I come from so you can, you can leverage, you
know, the, the types of, of, uh, words that you, so you can understand where I'm coming from.
You know, it's really important.
If you're going to be listening to me, you might as well know what my point of view is.
On the sponsorship side, another brother of mine, Sean and Julian Lechuga have
the wellness shop 365 and I love their approach to health and wellness because
it goes far beyond, um, just making sure that you have the right exercise plan,
the right nutrition, the right supplements, this integrative approach to wellness.
They've centered around a wheel that's called the 365, um, wheel of life.
And this wheel goes into how's your joy?
How's your spirituality? How's your creativity?
Uh, what about your education, your health?
Of course, there's physical activity, the home cooking, but also your relationships.
And as I saw the depth of this wheel, um, I was like, man, this thing, if we could
turn, if we could turn this wheel into something that was designed for 2024 and
help people understand the value of assessing these different categories of
their life, then bam, you know, just, I think you get where I'm going with that.
So I'm really excited to see Julianne and Sean both continue to develop this
process and help people find balance far beyond the diet, um, far beyond the
exercise. Then there's Melissa Gray and the, the lawspot.com.
Uh, Melissa Gray, fantastic individual.
I hosted her on my show and her nurturing nature is what stood out to me most as
an attorney. Um, when it comes to my clients, as I hosted her and I'm just
thinking in the background, man, I've got this attorney on, uh, on my show and
she's got this wonderful personality and she's got this depth of wisdom too.
She's able to break down complex, uh, processes into, uh, a simple language
that I can understand.
And as I thought about my clients and all of the hundreds of entrepreneurs
that I've worked in the back thousands, including the restaurants that I've
worked with, um, I would bet less than 5% of them have a retained legal counsel.
Meaning that if they got into a legal issue, they would know exactly who to go to.
Now out of those 5%, I bet most of them, I would bet more than 50% of those are
overcharged for the retainers that they, that they have with, with said lawyer.
Um, and they probably didn't go through the most, uh, sophisticated due diligence
process to hiring that counsel.
Maybe it was somebody who was referred by a family friend.
Um, and now again, the only, my real point with this is if we're going to be wise
stewards of the visions that we're building, and we're going to make sure to
delegate these, uh, these, I don't know, I guess our risks to somebody else, we
probably should know who it is where we're going to be, uh, contracting.
We should probably learn more about those systems in order to better
protect ourselves and our visions.
And I just, I can't be more honored to have the lawspot.com, um, as one of our
sponsors and, uh, to be involved as well and helping Melissa establish her vision
of, of simplifying legal, um, legal realities for business owners.
Then there's the water project and the water project is near and dear to my heart.
This is an opportunity for us to help the millions of people in the world gain
access to clean drinking water who don't have access to this.
Um, we get to take clean drinking water for granted.
Um, and those of us who are listening to this podcast, most of us have access
to that probably within 10 yards of, of where we're sitting, um, these individuals,
th th their kids have to leave school to go get water for their communities
during the middle of their education.
Moms and dads have to go get water instead of work.
Um, the ability for us to impact generations and change lives is no more
than a click of a button and a few dollars.
Um, if you're in a position to give back, then I highly recommend taking a look at
these projects, seeing what it is you're giving to learning about the outcome
that's going to be achieved.
And what's really cool about the water project is actually show you the outcome,
the updates for the community.
As the project goes along, you get to see the fruits of your labor, um, come to
fruition and this picture that was just on the screen, these kids are celebrating
water like it's Christmas day.
Um, it fills my heart.
It breaks my heart simultaneously.
Um, but the, the way that the water project is going about, uh, impacting
these lives, uh, means, means seriously, it means so much to me.
And if you have a cause that you'd like to see us highlight, support, discuss,
just drop that cause in the comments.
Um, this isn't a competition of, you know, oh, we can only talk about this.
This is the only thing that matters.
If there's something else out there that you'd like to see us put our attention on,
then don't hesitate to share it because you never know how impactful your share
will be if you decide to share.
Uh, what, you know, what needs are out there.
We have 8 billion people to help on this in this world, and we're going to do a
better job of that by coming together and bringing great ideas together.
So without further ado, uh, Jake Jordan is here to increase our profits.
I like how he says this is a bold statement on his LinkedIn.
He says, increase your profits without losing your soul.
Um, now I don't, I don't think a lot of you are losing your soul, so I will,
I will share that, but I can appreciate the hyperbole on this because maybe there
are some people who do sacrifice their soul in the process of striving to gain
attention.
I also love his mic drop moment where he said attention once you have it is kind
of gone versus impact.
I'm leading him, uh, leading him a little bit with this, but impact is something
that once you make an impact, that's profound.
People usually don't forget what you've done.
So, um, and he's got on here finding 100,000 in profit in under five minutes.
Um, we're going to, we're going to push the limits.
Of, uh, of what Jake's knowledge is based on some of these opportunities, but,
um, this aspect of solitude as well, we're going to dive deep into that.
Um, cause him and I are both believers in the value of solitude.
So Jake, thank you, Jake, thank you so much for being on my show.
This is awesome.
Yeah, absolutely, man.
I really appreciate the invite and the atmosphere and gosh, you got some good
sponsors there too.
That's it's not that often that you hop on and go, I want to know about more
about the sponsor.
Yeah, good.
I'm glad to hear that.
Thanks for honoring us with that.
And, uh, let's, let's dive in.
Um, so my first question for you, um, is what is your vision for those that you serve?
Yeah.
So he's like, so we're going to go right at it.
Um, my goal in life is to glorify God with the gifts that he's given me.
And my vision is to spark those into action that want to use God's vision for
their life in a bigger way than they are today.
It just so happens it's my business as well.
Absolutely.
Well, very good.
And it sounds like you've, you've aligned those principles, philosophies with your
ability, your ability to provide for yourself and your loved ones.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
It's, and it's fortunate because not everyone is able to do that ever.
Sometimes.
Um, I actually really like Mike Rose take on this, the dirty jobs guy where he
talks about, don't chase your passion, bring your passion with you.
Uh, and so when you do that, uh, there's a lot better chance that you're working
from a place of, you know, genuine nature of who you are.
Uh, so yeah, that's, I love being aligned.
It's actually one of the major things I help my clients do is congruency is a
word that's just not fun to market.
But I mean, gosh, at the end of the day, I'm helping people be aligned and
congruent with what heck their business is doing, which is why I can say I can
find you a hundred K in five minutes.
Cause there's so many incongruencies out there in the world today that we
all can just look at.
See, I love that.
Um, I love the philosophy George Wheeler and I were just talking about that in
the last podcast about leadership and how we sometimes get sucked into, um,
and to the common conversations that are out there.
And, and we were talking about that in terms of, you know, the ideal client.
That's the shift I took on it.
Um, and I think it's going to apply more to this show than to the hits and that
we oftentimes find ourselves communicating so often with the common client.
And we start to sell to the common client versus staying congruency and
focus on our ideal client and the needs that when the ideal client comes along,
you're no longer talking about what the ideal client solution is because you've
fallen into this trap.
Um, and so what I, what I would share with you is even though there's less of
an audience for congruency, the right audience is often looking for it.
And that may be one out of a hundred and maybe one out of 10.
What's been your experience like that?
What, how many, what percentage of people out of a hundred, um, in your normal
day to day world, um, are, are here.
You talk about congruency, go like this.
Tell me more.
Yeah, that's, that's less than one in a hundred.
Uh, like I said, that word is not something people like, uh, or maybe they
shouldn't resonate with particularly around their business.
So I actually use other ways to do it.
That's why I talk about, uh, solitude.
That's something most Christians can think about and vibe with.
And that's why I talk about my buyer's journeys or market, you know, market
and sales terminology, or people go, oh yeah, yeah, like my, my bar's journey
is broken or my, my funnel isn't working or whatever terminology we're using.
This week.
Right.
I got you.
Well, let's dive into that five.
We've got five minutes.
So let's dive into this hundred thousand dollars in five minutes.
Um, uh, opportunity theory formula framework.
I don't want to, I don't want to disrespect it.
Um, so teach us, just I'll shut up.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well, so here's the idea is if you were just to go get an MBA at any sort of
school, uh, and learn, uh, particularly around business and profit levers
and things like that, things that some people may find boring, but they
want to make more money.
There's like five big buckets that every business works in, whether they know
it or not, and then in each of those five buckets, there's 10 to 12 to 15
little things you can do in each.
There are many levers, if you will, inside the buckets.
Um, and so this is not any sort of special sauce.
This is nothing that's mine.
I can't show you exactly where to go find it on the internet.
Uh, it's just that we don't always know where to look to find like the
highest leverage points, and we don't necessarily have a team or an intention
to work on something specific for an amount of time.
And I'll give you an example.
Uh, so you, you run a podcast, right?
And I know you were, you were in several podcasts, uh, and I know you're
in the commercial real estate side.
Uh, and I know that you in particular, you are, aren't you?
So I'm good.
No, that's okay.
I had, I hosted a guy who hopefully one day he'll, he'll say Jackson
be my 50 50 partner on this.
And I thought you had a commercial off state podcast as well.
No, I, I, no, I know.
Do you have another one?
I have one called the power take.
Um, and it's about business news.
Okay.
Cool.
All good.
I know, dude, you, every visionary that's on this show is happy right now.
I'm going, Oh, I'm not the only one who, you know, we got, you got so many
opportunities coming your way.
I get it.
And you have a podcast of your own though.
Right?
I do.
I see.
I just learned that like, I don't know, 10 minutes ago.
Okay.
So what's the podcast?
You tell me mine's called, uh, the simple profits podcast.
So, uh, I'm not sure.
It's called the simple profits podcast.
So it's, it's out of interview people.
I do.
Okay.
Well, you owe me.
I get to go.
I do.
There we are.
It's done.
So see how we can, we can manipulate people into with coercion, into, to
getting what we want guys.
No, that's not, that's not what we teach on.
Um, all right, Jordan, go ahead.
Okay.
So Jake, Jordan got it.
See now you have to be on Naomi.
So I do know you.
Okay.
Well, the, the idea is like, you have a model, right?
So you have to be on the podcast and it creates attention, which is a good thing.
There's nothing wrong with creating attention.
It gets you engaged with interesting people, um, maybe potential partners, potential clients.
Um, it's, it's a great way to, to gain, uh, notoriety around people that you want to talk to.
That is one thing inside of one big bucket inside of about 60 things you can do in a day to create more profit for your business.
Right.
So I don't know which of the other 59 to work on and I would ask you that.
Hi Jackson, how do you know?
Yes.
That's thanks for the segue.
Those non podcasters.
For the ones who aren't listening.
I pointed up to, uh, the heavens.
Go ahead.
That's right.
And that, that's where we start for sure.
Um, and, but you know, like strategically you gotta go, what stage of business am I at?
How much money am I making right now?
What's my biggest profit center today?
an ongoing one or is it a stagnant one or stagnant, you know, just a one-time purchase?
There's just a lot of questions we just overlook. And so I would say, you know, sponsorship,
I'm guessing that you can make money off a sponsorship off this podcast. That's one way
you can make money off of one activity you're doing. But whether it's really hard, it's taking
up 20 hours of your week just to get that one sponsor in the door. Is that the best
use of your time? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. So what we do is we go through and spend about
really about 45 minutes together and I ask you a whole bunch of questions about your business.
And then we go, we'll look at these two or three areas that you're already doing pretty well.
But if we just added a couple hours and took away from these others, by the end of the year, you'd
add 10, 100, $500,000, just depending on the size of your business. Yeah, so it's, it's math.
It's math. There you go. But you got an assessment available to help people through
the five minute exercise, correct? I do. I do. And if I were watching, you know, and you're like,
well, I don't know about this guy or not. Take the five minute assessment, you know, and then,
and then judge him. That's what I would say. Like, it's like, what do you lose? Five minutes?
And then you have the chance to see, is this the critical thinker that I need by my side?
Right. Is he heading in the right direction to help me think about things from a critical angle
to help me assess and see, are these the points of leverage that will help me move my life forward?
And a lot of times that's what we're missing. You know, is that, is that person to help us think
through things beyond our own capacity to see, even if, you know, we're turning to God for,
for help, a lot of times he wants us to turn back towards our peers and see who around us is able
to support the visions. So, yeah, you have another thought on that before we move? Go ahead. Yeah,
I'll just say, to piggyback on that, I, you know, God does put people around you to counsel you.
And I definitely think you should have experts in your life and coaches and different things like
that, if it makes sense for you. But to go back to kind of where the title of the episode is,
is if we're not spending some time sitting with God each day, then we're not tapping into the best
source of knowledge and wisdom that we have. And then we actually don't even know what to bring
to our peers. That makes the most sense. So that's where that kind of rolls back to the solitude.
You know, when I was younger, and in, you know, I grew up going to church and stuff and
against my will most of the time, I mean, my mom was so good about making sure we were in the right
place. And so you kind of grew up a little bit of a chip on your shoulder and sometimes a little bit
of a, you know, against this type of stuff. And one of the things that bothered me because I sucked
at it was pray always, right? There's a scripture that says pray always. And it's like, how the heck
can I pray always? And wow, like, I feel like such a failure when I'm, you know, I don't really not
pray always. It's like a week later and I'm like, oh yeah, I haven't prayed in a week. You know,
that's how I grew up, kind of resistant to the path and very lazy with the disciplines that were
given to me that I saw as being forced upon me, right? And really the profound nature, like the
shift that I've made in my life to gravitate towards that has, you know, even as a missionary
at 19, I was still struggling with this concept, even though we were praying about a hundred times
a day, you know, coming back to the real world, living life, running a family and all that.
I can, I would agree wholeheartedly with you. My absolute secret weapon. I'm curious what the shift
was in your thinking that, cause to me it was just a switch that happened. There wasn't some sort of
circumstances where I went, I did this and this and did this. And like all of a sudden I figured out
how to pray continually. It's like God just flipped that switch for me one day after he decided. So I
don't know if it happened that way for you or. That's amazing. No, no, no. I'm a much more
difficult learner. I take the path that's hard most of the time. And so, and that's not necessarily
even a choice. It's just kind of part of my identity. I guess, and there's a choice in it,
but for those of you who are out there who are a little bit more stubborn in life and struggle to
pick up what's easily placed in front of you, I'm that guy too. And so it was a progression.
It's always been a progression, a steady progression and incline. And here's what,
here's one of the biggest turning points. One of my mission, my mission president,
you know, he, I was complaining about something again. And he's like, Jackson, he called me elder
Callum, you know, did you realize you were the luckiest person on earth? And he meant that,
like he meant that for me specifically. And he told me as part of his story, he told me,
part of his starting five on his mission. And I was held to deal with when it came to, I didn't
want to babysit other missionaries. If you got in my way, like get out of the way. I got people to
go serve. You know, I did not have a love for those I was serving with. I had a love for the people
that I needed to find. And he, and when he was explaining to me about how lucky I was, he talked
about the trajectory of growth and how the experiences that I had had in life, you know,
yes, I might start out here down here while other people have started up here. But a lot of people
that started up here in life, he didn't say they were complacent, but their trajectory of growth
might be kind of linear, might be kind of flat and horizontal. Your trajectory of growth is like this,
dude. He's like, I know you're not here right now, but with the, with the path that you're on for,
for personal development, for moving your life forward, it's like, imagine where you'll be
decades from now. And that's, you know, that, that insight, once I learned that that was my case too,
now I had more control as well over choosing to be that way and honoring the fact that I'm not behind.
And I just have a different sphere that I'm learning from a different perspective that I came from.
So, you know, if you have this life switch thing, awesome. And you're probably on the same
trajectory. I'm not here to say your trajectory is better than mine, mine's better than yours,
et cetera. But the, it has very much been a calculated progression of what more can I do
to lock into my best self and my best powers? And then am I willing to go to bed at night
happy and at peace in my progress? Because I was my best self today. And can I maximize my forgiveness
towards myself as well when I fall short? That's also been one of those key components is being
able to forgive myself and others, but being, again, primarily myself so that I can unlock my
ability to serve everybody that I can to my max capacity. Does that help?
Yeah, that's great. That's great.
I have a script on me on this show.
Yeah. Well, and it's, it's a famous thing. It's you versus you. It's, it's not you versus
anybody else. And that's a big lesson too, for a lot of people to learn that just to understand,
there is nobody else. There's just you and your path. And sure, we can observe and see some cool
stuff and learn. And to piggyback on what you were saying there, for me, what I found helped was when
I understood and actually truly believed that, like really, really God's plan was better than mine,
it allowed me to submit more to Him. And because of that, I wanted to talk to Him more. And so
that's how the prayer continually kind of started picking up for me, not because I'm a great prayer,
because I'm going, I need help all the time. I'm like, okay, help, help, help, help, help,
help. And then, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you. Like, so it's, it's just an output of
your beliefs. And you can tell what people truly believe by their actions.
Yes, I love that. All right. So let's dive a little bit deeper in this. So your secret power
of solitude, secret weapon of solitude and prayer, what does prayer look like for you?
Well, there's different types of prayer, according to the Bible. But there's two or three main ways
that I think about it. Number one is like intentional sit down, structured prayer,
where I'm going to go through and I'm going to try and make sure I'm doing things that are deepening
my relationships with Christ, with God, with the Holy Spirit. And that's the solitude I'm talking
about. That's what I teach or share what God has told me about solitude. It's structured, you sit
down, you have some things to do. So that's the first way I look at it. Then the second way,
and this happens once you get in solitude, is then there's just a response sort of prayer. It's that
you're quiet, and now you've sat for a while and your soul is quiet. And if you've never experienced
that, it's the best thing there is. But you're just sitting there, just peaceful, just quiet,
and you're okay with that. And then, however you see your relationship with God, he speaks to your
heart, your mind, whatever, and it becomes a responsive conversation where you're hearing
from God. That's another type of prayer. And then the third type I've heard called aero prayers,
which is really just kind of like going, hey, I need some help. Hey, thanks for that. Just one
second, one second. And to me, that's prayer continually. All day long, I'm thinking about
God, I'll say something quick and passing. And that's where you get tied into really being in
the spirit, as they say, because you're constantly just relying on that. That's three ways that I've
heard it explained to me. Nice. I'll color commentate on this part. I would call those
traditional methods of prayer as well, especially that first one. And I'm not diagnosed ADHD,
but there's almost no way that I'm not. It'd be very strange if I wasn't ADHD, plus anything
like caffeine pills slows me down tremendously. I can't do that. Nonetheless, I have found,
and it took me a while to embrace because it's like kneel down, stay focused and pray. Nah, dude,
like I need to walk. I need to walk. And when I walk, I talk to God. That's one of my best
solutions and connection points. And also the scriptures were such a, it was so hard to write,
how they used to write, whether it was like chisel on a rock, it takes forever to probably
get your thoughts across. It's not like texting or voice to text even better. Hey, write the Bible
for me. That would have been way easier to do. Could have had more context and depth perhaps,
but there's a lot of talks about them going up into the mountains. And you can see that
you just think like, okay, cool. He ended up on a mountain. Like we ever climbed a mountain?
As much as you go for several days, now you're talking about wilderness survival
in addition to that. And there's these, they're like tearing their clothes. They're like yelling
and screaming at God or with God or whatever that looks like. There's all these different dynamics
and that are far more colorful than that kneel and pray thing. And again, I don't mean to
make something sacred as casual. I don't mean to demean it. They're important aspects of my
prayers too. Again, I'd be remiss though, not to say that my greatest opportunities to connect are
usually when I'm doing the dishes and talking to God. I'm thinking about meditating on my life
and his purpose for me, or again, going on that walk, unplugging and doing exercises that something
like Alex Huberman talks about. And he talks about looking at your hand while you're meditating and
then looking at an object that's 10 yards away and looking at one that's like 50 yards away,
then a hundred yards away. And then thinking internally about yourself and going through
this repeat exercise. And it's like a methodology behind it, almost like certain steps. I'm not a
certain steps guy. Now I'm like, give me the damn bike. Let me ride the bike. I'll invent things
maybe that you don't and that's cool and okay, but your steps are great and mechanical and there's
value to it. However, I just need to ride the bike, man. I just need to get on and go. So I think
there's a lot of people out there that are searching for faith, that are searching for guidance,
that want to connect with God. And those are kind of the people I'm drawn to myself and saying like,
I don't care what you don't care if you call God a banana. I'm like, you know, you can call
them whatever you want. You can call them the universe, but don't lose sight of the opportunity
connect with that higher power just because, you know, there's different cultures who box us in
based on their own safety nets. And so thank you again for honoring my opportunity to talk about
that. Jake, I'd love to dive into your vision for you. So, so far up to this point in your life,
what's your vision for you moving forward? You know, it's so I'm about to be 46 here in a
couple of weeks and you look so much younger. That's not fair. I look 46. You are 46. Okay.
Well, so you get to this point and it's, this is why sacred steps. I have come to honor more
and I'm very much outside the box type of guy, a hundred percent like you. I just want to give me
the bike, right? You get on there, let's go. But there are foundations for a reason. And it's like,
while we all still quote Zig Ziglar, right? Cause he knew something that's an eternal truth. And so
as I get older and get to see more of these eternal truths across multiple areas of people's lives,
like the banana versus the God, as long as you're honoring and seeking God rewards that he'll meet
you there, right? As long as you're asking. And so my, my vision moving forward is to do a whole lot
more with God wants me to do. And it sounds kind of trite, but like I've just reached this point
now in my life where I got past my midlife crisis and you know, bought my sports car and did all the
things and went, still didn't help. And it came back to God once again in a new refreshed way.
And I'm just so happy about that. So what that translates to is helping other people get
nearer, just one step closer to God so that they can hear him a little better.
And then turn around and doing something with it. Because when it comes to my Gallup, my
strength finders, if you've ever taken that, it's a great assessment. Activator,
what was your first strategy? Strategy. Okay. Came across as cheap. I was like, no, that's not it.
Yeah. Strategy. Number one, activator. Number two, connectedness. Number three,
input. Number four, individualization. Number five. So I have a pretty unique setup. But that said,
activator is number two. So I don't want to just give you strategy. I want to give you strategy.
And then I want us to go right now. Let's go. Let's act on it today. So I want to get people
into action around going and connecting with God and whatever way that is, whether it's a book or
sitting by the lake for two hours or going up to the mountains for four days, whatever works for
you, just go do it and let me help you get there. So I just like spark people into action and
particularly around bigger picture stuff. That's amazing. Those are strengths that I have,
a lot of those I haven't heard in somebody before. Not that I'm testing everybody for their
strengths finder, but I've talked to a few dozen people about their strengths and what they found
in that same test. So very cool. Very cool quiz. If you've never done the strengths finder test,
it's one of my absolute favorites. What's your worst leadership experience ever? What does that
look like? Oh, gosh. You know, I think my answer has changed. I think before it was like, I had
a bad boss, but like we all have bad bosses sometimes. I actually had a worse situation
where the leader was good and made some bad decisions. And it became a thing where we all
got really apathetic. And I'm a big fan of just being genuine and out there. And I'll let you
know where you stand is just let me know where I stand. Let's just work on it and figure it out.
And we had this good leader with these good intentions and he screwed up and got embarrassed.
And then just kind of went back into a shell. And then the whole team just kind of just didn't want
to touch the subject because, you know, we didn't want to bring it back up, but it was really a
vision for the future of the company that just got dropped and we went back to business as usual.
And so, you know, every leadership problem is not the same. And they almost always come back to how
people feel. Not if we all agree on the same direction, because we can talk strategy and
tactics and bring in case studies and decide we're going to do this. But if the people involved
don't feel good about it, things won't get done. So that was probably seven years ago now. And it
still stands out as one of my least favorite times to be working around people. And it wasn't like
this, you know, red alarm light going out. Oh, crap. It was just kind of subtle and just grew and.
I love that. Thank you for honoring that. The reality that, you know, to me, it reminds me
of the quote, good is the enemy of great. You know, and when we fall into that complacent reality,
no, it's not going to make the news. You know, it's not going to be people's favorite drama story.
Right. But it can be very easy to fall into that situation. It reminds me a lot of how to me,
life is a lot like a river. You know, we're paddling upstream, you know, and if we're not
paddling upstream fast enough, eventually we may find ourselves falling off a waterfall,
you know, and versus if we paddle upstream the right amount, we might find ourselves at a
destination that is more enjoyable than the current flow of the river that we're on. And,
you know, if you look at some of the, I don't know, I guess you'd have to look and compare like what
type of success do you want in life? And is that is the way that they're living while they still
have certain problems because they're human beings as well, but as the outcome of their life, one
which you want those same types of outcomes, whether that's, hey, I want to be like Martin
Luther King, you know, honoring him this week, we dream week, or I want to be like Elon Musk or Mark
Zuckerberg, you know, and have all this money and this influence too. We all have the choice
to choose the type of paths that we want and we can usually get the types of outcomes we want,
granted that we're in a first world country or granted that we stay super true to the
realities that we want, like the boy who harnessed the wind, great book, a kid coming out of Africa
and going to MIT. We have more control than we realize. And even if that's escaping a mediocre
situation, you know, or escaping a horrible, horrible nightmare of a situation, what's your
best leadership experience? So I'm not a name dropper, so I'm not going to, but I worked with
a big guru guy for about 18 months and he taught me a world-class communication framework that
changed my life. And it's because it was based on listening well and asking questions that are
reflective of what you hear and giving people space to be more loquacious, to have more words,
to be able to explain what they mean because you're asking better questions. And that helps
in so many different areas of your life. And the leadership part of that was he modeled it. That's
how we learned it. We just role played and role played and role played and role played. And he
even shared really personal experiences so that we could connect with it and not just feel like it
was just some sort of training class. And so if you DM me, if you want to hear about who it is and
some more about it, I'm happy to share that way, but I just want to know what you think.
I'm not a big, hey, look who I know sort of guy. So.
Yeah. No, I don't think it'd be much of that. I think it'd be more just a reference. But yes,
you can, you can, well, we'll honor the fact that the other, we'll honor the opportunity the way you
want to. He's got a book coming out about it. So I might as well, this way I'm honoring him.
His name's Marcus Sheridan. Who is it? Marcus Sheridan. And he wrote a New York Times bestseller
called They Ask You Answer. It's a content marketing book. Joe Paluzzi said it's the best
content marketing book ever written. So, and he runs content marketing world. So I tend to,
you know, think he knows what he's talking about. So anyway, he's got a new book called
Question First, I believe coming out anytime now. And it's this framework that I was one of the
guinea pigs for. That's awesome. Thank you for the resource and the resource beyond the resource,
a fountain, if you will. That's awesome. So vision pros, make sure to take the opportunity to write
that down as I just did and consider checking that out. We'll move into another subject,
see what else we can extract from your well. So for this question, let's pretend this is the
last opportunity that you have to create influence with visionaries. What powerful lesson can you
share with other visionaries that they can learn from your experience? That's so hard to pick one,
isn't it? I'm gonna put two in one here, by the way I presented it. But there's nothing new under
the sun. That's Ecclesiastes. And there's nothing that isn't out there that you can't grab a hold
of. It's what you do with it. And so for visionaries in particular, and I'm a huge recovering
visionary, so I've waged many ideas and I like too many things and I do too many tasks,
is give yourself permission to slow down and act all out, burn the ships on an idea that you feel
you're being called to, going back to that solitude, hearing from God, submitting to the ways he has,
and I'll give you an example. And go all in on that and shut everything else down. Make know your
word. Because when you're able to concentrate and ask for accountability around ideas that God has
put in front of you, he does all the big heavy lifting when you obey that. And so that's such
a lesson I think I'll learn for the rest of my life, just in different seasons based on where I'm
at. Because I heard that lesson when I was 15, but I'm hearing it completely different way now.
And so an example is this solitude for CEOs. And so I rebooted my advisory setup for my business.
I don't call myself a business coach anymore because there's so many different ways people
talk about coaches. Are you a life coach? Are you a marketing coach? I'm just a pure business advisor.
I'm just going to help you find some money. And what I found was as I was setting up my marketing
plan at the end of Q4, like you do, you sit down, you're taking your strategies, I'm going to go
forward with this stuff this next year, I'm going to get these people involved. I just kept hearing
God on my walks in the morning, kept hearing God say, stop with your plans. I have a plan.
Just stop and listen to me. And it got me back on this solitude for CEOs is I just want you to
show CEOs, business owners, how to hear me. And I will create the relationships out of that you need
to move your business forward this year. Don't overthink it. That's what I'm asking you to do.
And so I went through about 45 days of that and just almost every day telling me that.
So I'm with you there, man. I'm a slow learner. I'm very, very stubborn.
But I now have heard it and accept it and understand it and go, okay, I'm going to honor
that to the best I can today.
I love that. That's, I want to dive deeper into that. So the secret weapon of solitude,
you'd also mentioned the word loneliness and on how loneliness and solitude can go hand in hand.
There's different ways these words can of course be utilized in different contexts. But from your
contextual standpoint, let's talk about people who are suffering with the negative feeling of
loneliness. What are your thoughts on their behalf?
To come to mind, I'll give the more religious answer first is there was a study by Barna that
came out just recently, maybe two weeks ago, that said people that read their Bible four days a
week, I'll actually back up. They said people that read their Bible one day a week don't really show
much improvement across just the measures of mental health. Twice a week, not really, three a
little bit. But there's this magic number between three and four, or if you read your Bible four
days a week, doesn't matter how long, five, 10 minutes is fine. The markers for mental health go
up 40 to 80% across the board, just depending on what you're talking about. Loneliness,
connectedness, intimacy with your partner, all these things. It's incredible. I tend to think
because there's seven days in a week, if you spend four more, the majority with God, then not.
I don't know, just seems like it's not a coincidence.
That's interesting. It reminds me of again, another lesson my mission president used to teach,
which was actually, it's more of an going all in back to your concept of giving people a
permission to go all in through your visions. He talked about how if you were one degree off
of boiling water, the water's not going to boil. Yet, once it reaches its boiling point and it
becomes steam, that steam expands to 4,000%, the, I don't remember what it was, capacity, the mass,
whatever it was, expands that 4,000% point. He was talking about how the same thing happens when we
choose to be 100% obedient versus 99% obedient. I would take that study and say, if I can apply
this to my life, if I can move towards where I've got four days a week versus three days, well,
what would happen if I did seven days a week? What would happen for my mental health?
Yeah. What would happen for my mental health and my life?
We're not talking about sacrificing every single minute and hour of your day. We're talking about
taking a little bit of time. Maybe it's one verse per day with where you're at. Maybe it's one
chapter per day. Maybe it's an audio of listening versus reading. There's a lot of different ways
that one can go about applying this. Much like a physical exercise, if you take 10,000 steps per
day and you haven't been doing that, again, maybe you need to start with 100 steps. But as you pay
attention to your body and your mind and what you need with where you're at, the gains will come
as you honor the process consistently or as Jake said, as you create congruency with the virtues
or the exercises that you put in your life. Loneliness, again, back to that. What are some
symptoms of loneliness that people may be overlooking? Well, and this will actually feed
into the second thing I was talking about. The religious answer is to just read the Bible more
and your soul will open up and you will feel less lonely. But the second part is,
I have found over the years that if you can find one or two people that you can be openly
super candid with, meaning I share things that I don't share with other people,
it offers up an opportunity. And I saw what Amanda Bell said in the comments over there on Facebook
about gratitude is that you become more grateful when you have people that will just listen to you
because you feel like you're able to be yourself. And all of a sudden it's like it switches
something in you to go, okay, life's not actually that bad. I'm actually grateful for these trees
on my walk today. It starts something as simple as that. And so to answer your question about
symptoms, it's just a lack of feeling of belonging in my head. That's how I think of loneliness. I
just don't belong anywhere. Or I don't belong enough. Like, okay, my family loves me, but I'm
still lonely. It means you're lacking in something. And of course, as a Christian, I would say you're
lacking in a relationship with God, which is where the solitude comes from. And then I also think it
just means a lack of effort on your part sometimes. Obviously there's lots of conditions and I have
special needs sister. I have a family that's medicated in different ways. So I understand
there's conditions. There's also free will. And on your part, when you're in a relationship,
you have to do it well. And on your part, when you can, your goal should be to become intimate
and to take that first step. Because that reciprocity will come back with the right people.
Absolutely. To honor the memory of a man who had amazing influence on customer satisfaction
and appreciation, Tony Shea, you know, who from what I understood, committed suicide,
took his own life and was internally suffering from a position of loneliness.
He represents a demographic of alpha leaders in terms of entrepreneurs who go through one
of the loneliest journeys that there is.
I love your advice to try to, you got to seek and find those one to two people.
Maybe you don't have them.
Maybe they weren't gifted to you in the form of family.
Some of us were blessed with that.
My mom is one of my two people.
I also got great siblings, but I have two sisters in particular who are part of that.
I can go to them for anything.
I got a step brother who is technically an ex step brother.
It's a weird concept.
He is one of my absolute best friends and mentors to go to.
I got Cynthia on my team who's been with me for a couple of years now, but we've known
each other for about eight.
I'm very grateful for the tribe of people who, some of them again being given to me,
some of them being new, some of them like my mom and I went for years of oh my gosh,
we couldn't seem to talk without there being an argument or a fight of some kind.
We had to wrestle through those.
We got to wrestle through those opportunities.
We made it to the other side of realizing okay, this is how you communicate, this is
how I communicate.
There's a given pull.
A give and take aspect of that relationship until we, I feel like we've gotten to this
point now to where it's like I love you for you and she loves me for me.
We just get each other beyond what we've ever had.
I think Amanda Ball's right.
It has a lot to do with being super grateful and not losing sight of why we should be grateful
for ourselves, our realities, those people who are around us for the goods, the little
things that they might do, the big things.
That word gratitude is one of the most powerful gifts that we have in this life.
I want to turn the time back to you.
We got a little bit of time left.
Well, we'll make a little bit of time.
We don't have a little bit of time left, but I just feel called to do this, Jake.
Jake, do you have any final invitations?
Any words of wisdom you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap up?
Yeah, I feel like I should say that we are spirits in these mechanisms called bodies.
We're not bodies.
They're just here to serve us while we're here.
What you need to do is feed your soul because that's actually who you really are.
You're tethered to a bigger soul that made us.
Just by seeking that, every aspect of your life gets better, even if you're not very
good at it.
Just by making the effort daily to tether yourself to the spirit, the soul that made
you, most of life's problems become small and gratitude becomes easy and your vision
becomes bigger because it's been given to you.
You're not chasing all the time.
I would encourage anyone who has never tried solitude or has tried before and failed, just
go spend five minutes alone away from all the distractions.
Actually collect phones when we get together, spend five minutes with your eyes closed,
breathing and just saying, show me what you got, God.
I'm ready.
That is something that will absolutely change your life.
It changed mine.
I love that.
Show me what you got, God.
I love the simplicity, the directness, the modernization of the phrase as well.
Of course, however your soul feels inclined to whatever word choice you prefer on the
matter, the idea of opening up honestly, vulnerably with God is it very much can have a phenomenal
impact on the way you see things, the direction that your life's headed, the results that
you'll end up getting out of those experiences.
Something that while we love to pretend that we understand the metrics, we understand the
outcomes according to the seeds that we plant, we don't know which seed is going to grow.
You can't predict how many trees are going to come out of the seeds that you plant, but
you can predict that if you follow that law of the harvest, that law of cultivation, that
you will reap what you sow.
This meditation experience is one that I'd like to honor.
I'd also like to share that if anything we shared from a religious standpoint is not
aligned with your own religious theology, that's okay.
I don't think Jake's saying you have to believe what it is that we're putting down.
I'm certainly not saying that.
It's an invitation to check it out.
My other invitation in relation to the soul concept is to also consider that maybe the
body and the spirit are a combination for the soul.
Some people believe that the body is not part of the soul, that it is just a mere vessel
here.
I don't think that it's an interconnected piece that accompanies the soul without limitations,
even though, again, some people see it as a limitation.
That's for you to discover with God.
As are all of these concepts, that's what make these opportunities beautiful.
Jake, as a business advisor, man, I appreciate you.
As a brother, I appreciate you.
Those of you who are listening in, we will have a landing page dedicated to some of Jake's
courses, so you can follow up and check those out.
If you're in a position where you're feeling called to share your vision on our channel,
we'd love to have you.
Go to the Be Our Guest button, take a look at the process, get booked, and we'll see
on the other side.
Thanks for joining us today, and we'll see you on the next episode.
Take care, everybody.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show, and thank you for giving us your time
and attention.
Have an excellent time.