[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Tenacity with Sonya C. The podcast for founders, entrepreneurs, dreamers, and leaders navigating the journey of growth.
[SPEAKER_01]: In each episode, we get into the setbacks, the rebuilds, the pivots, and the lessons learned along the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are honest conversations with leaders who face challenges head-on and found success in business and in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Sonya, and let's get started.
[SPEAKER_01]: My guest today is Jason Vendivir.
[SPEAKER_01]: He made an unconventional decision to turn down the opportunity to take over his family's multi-million dollar auto dealership group in order to build a business of his own from scratch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Starting with Little Money and a planner, he designed in his basement, Jason built a seven-figure product business, grew a community to over 40,000 customers, a author to the book Dream
[SPEAKER_01]: and assembled a 35-unit real estate portfolio.
[SPEAKER_01]: His conversation matters because many founders inherit expectations from family, industry, or legacy, and very few are willing to walk away from certainty to pursue something unproven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're going to talk about identity, pressure, risk tolerance, and what it actually takes to build something without a safety net.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for having me on Sonia.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I appreciate having you on and I'm excited to get into this conversation with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our audience already knows all about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's get right into the questions and make the best use of our time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my first question for you is, when you turn down taking over your family's business, what was at stake personally for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: sick personally.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was leaving that business because I didn't enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it seemed like if I left it that it would be really embarrassing to ever go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was kind of like burned the bridge that was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then probably my life savings, I assumed I would spend those on whatever I was going to try next.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably the biggest thing I was putting at risk was just my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: pride or ego, I didn't want to turn down a great opportunity that my family gave me and then go fail, and then I probably wouldn't go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I would, if I would have gone into that situation, but mostly it was the fear of what my ego and pride would do if I tried something and failed publicly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you know, so many people get into family business because that sort of like the expectation.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was it that what led you to not want to be part of this business?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So strangely enough, he was watching how much my dad liked the business.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, his family business, my dad was there every day and you can just see he loves working in the car business.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loves being at the dealership.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you show up at one of the van of your locations, you'll know if my dad is there because you'll hear him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just loves his work.
[SPEAKER_00]: So growing up and even working there, I saw that and I knew that's what I wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want a business that lights a fire inside of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an extension of myself and after a few years of working there,
[SPEAKER_00]: I just realized that's not what I was going to get and it was hard to come to that because I was good at it and a lot of way me and my dad are very similar people skill sets personality traits.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it was hard for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was even hard for me like why aren't I enjoying this like he does?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing well with it, but I just hated showing up to work every day and it was kind of like I
[SPEAKER_00]: if it was not our family business it would have been so clear like just leaving a different job but i was doing well my name was on the building everybody just assumed you're Jason van DeVirio you're gonna you know the owner son you're gonna work at van DeVirio auto the the car dealership so yeah i think that gave me the clarity to leave um
[SPEAKER_00]: But then also that brought me clarity was I bought my first rental property when I was still working there and I just loved that process of it still now today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've continued to buy rental properties over the years, but if I meet somebody who has rental properties, I feel like I can just talk to them for hours about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like you're in the club, you're, I'm curious how are you finding your deals, how are you finding tenants, how are you structuring things versus if I met somebody else who worked in the car business.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew how to talk to him because I was raised in that environment, but it didn't connect to an actual passion of mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like between one, seeing my dad had that passion, and then for me to experience it for myself and another industry, I realized, all right, I want to find something else that I enjoy more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So did that decision change your relationship with your family?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, especially your dad?
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, no, it was a hard conversation to have that I was afraid of having.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been an extremely supportive of me now that I've left in, uh, through the process of watching you start my own business.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, still in some ways it does indirectly when I'm,
[SPEAKER_00]: working at the family business.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot more time with my dad, which could be good and could be bad, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's my dad, but then he was also my boss when I was working there, which was good and bad in a relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that maybe I physically see them less because I'm not at the dealership, but
[SPEAKER_01]: That might be a good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be better.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just with my, yeah, I don't want to put heads with him, and there is someone strange when it's your own dad telling you what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like rather than like your boss, it's like, okay, you got to suck it up and do it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you signed up for.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's your dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes I would want it to argue with them more, but it's like, okay, you're not just my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the owner of the company.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still an employee learning this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's been good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You started with a planner in your basement and little capital.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you understand early?
[SPEAKER_01]: That most new founders miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not understand very much to be a Frank, I think probably what helped me the most and maybe what most entrepreneurs miss is I had clarity on what I wanted to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that made everything all easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if I were to left my job and it's like I don't really know what business I want to start.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it would have been hard because even though I did know what business I want to start starting a business is hard and you've probably kind of experienced that with your own entrepreneurial journeys.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes a lot of pushing to get something going.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was so clear on this is what I want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I want to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That clarity gave me the confidence they won.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to turn down a very straight trajectory to
[SPEAKER_00]: to take over a very large, successful business to go start with nothing, but then it came to the clarity of what I was going to work for.
[SPEAKER_00]: If things were challenging, it's my desire was so much bigger than the challenge, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If your desire is bigger than the challenge, you'll put in the work.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's the other way, you have a little desire because you don't have very much clarity, then if you run into a challenge, you just kind of jump-ship and go look for another easier business opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, did you, at that point, see yourself in your dad because earlier you were describing to me that, you know, you loved his passion and the fact that he loved what he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in that process, did you start seeing yourself as what you had seen your dad as?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it probably took, I would say yes to know my dad loved his business and still does and I did get that very quickly, but he had a successful business and it took me a couple of years to really get my business to the point where it was consistently turning profits and and I was also satisfied with the results my business was giving.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll say it came, but that wasn't as immediate as I was expecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: it to be in white.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I like needed to go through this season of struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew so much from that, and I mean, I like I wouldn't want to go through it again, but if I had the opportunity to change that I wouldn't, because that's what I needed to go through to learn how to actually run a business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, the reality is like when you first start out, it's not all fun and games, but before your business worked, what moment tested your belief the most?
[SPEAKER_00]: What tested me the most was I had done a focus group with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I launched this planner, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I designed this planner and first I had spent months interviewing, successful people figuring out how they set their goals, track their goals to make the content for this planner.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the mentors recommended me to host a focus group, to have people try it out and see if it worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it was a silly idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I know my planar idea is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get's gonna work, but out of respect for my host of this focus group.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had six people, it was supposed to be an hour and we're gonna go through these little booklet to the planar design that he printed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we ended up being there for three hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't even make it through the whole design.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just tons of negative feedback that I was getting.
[SPEAKER_00]: People were telling me this doesn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is too much writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is repetitive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get what I'm supposed to do here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, at this point, I left my job for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told everybody what I was doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I showed people this planer that I had been working on for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they basically told me it sucked, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I went back to my car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was crushed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: But then something shifted where it was kind of like I realized that now I had a list of here's all the problems wrong with this plan or design.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I fix them, all the better plan or design.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I realized I'm so grateful that I got that feedback now when it's easy for me to change it rather than after I launch it and I get tons of negative reviews.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: That was probably the the point that tested me the most because it was it would have been the most these logical places like I give up I made I made the plan design it didn't work well I give up but I didn't I ended up hosting seven focus groups and each one got better and better until like the last two it just worked like people went through it they loved it they tried it out they were getting crazy results that they were proud of and it was like all right it's time to launch this business so I'm I'm glad I made it through that try and learn
[SPEAKER_01]: I love, love, love what you just said, because this is something that I think is so important for founders at those early stages.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always meet people that are like in the early stages, but they believe so so much in their idea and their product that they're not willing to take that kind of feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then by the time they discover that their product sucks or needs modification or the market's not going to accept it, it's too late because they've already spent all this money building it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what you just said is like, it's so great, early on, do the work, get the feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes you know what, our ideas are not that great and they're not for everyone, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, it doesn't mean you have a bad idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just means that you need to like make it better, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, I mean, it's just hard getting negative feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, people were going to be like, I want it to argue with them to be like, you're wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, but good thing like that's not the environment that was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted their feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it would have been not appropriate for me to tell them they were wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, they helped me get what I wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I wanted a phenomenal planner designed to help myself, but to then be able to help other
[SPEAKER_00]: the process of making that that just was the process of making it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if they told me to like completely change business ideas that might have been a different situation, but it was like nope, there's still a lines with my vision of what I really want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just a painful necessary way, it helped me create it better than I could have on my own.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you weren't stubborn.
[SPEAKER_01]: You took the constructive criticism, which I think is really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You teach the triple L framework.
[SPEAKER_01]: What problem does that framework actually solve for founders?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the triple L framework would help you if you have a bunch of business ideas to figure out which one you actually want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've used a step-in validation.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's validating with the market like does my product work, will people pay profitable prices, but I would say like even though we can get into those and how to do them, but step before that is, is this the right business idea for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what those, and I'll take you through the framework, but what it's helping somebody,
[SPEAKER_00]: Understand or maybe quantify is is the desire big enough like we were talking about earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this desire big enough to say I'm going to push through challenges and is this actually what I want to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So And if people need help coming up with what are your list of business ideas we can get into that and I'll share a strategy for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once you have your list of business ideas, you're going to go through these three else and the first is is this business idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I have a longing to make it happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I write how big is the desire and tell somebody clarify that they have the business idea to pass the first alarm test, which is basically are you going to get out of your bed on your first alarm to go start working on your business?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you're not, you need to find a better business idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: One that you're more excited about because you will absolutely want to challenge as much harder than getting out of your bed on your first alarm.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second is, is this business idea lifting?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I mean by that is we'll lift you to a better version of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like, whenever I'm starting a new business or a new business venture, it's like, I want that goal of starting the business to be such a big goal that it's outside of what I'm currently capable of.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost too big for the level I met, that way the only way I can accomplish that goal, the only way I can start that business is if I force myself to improve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you follow Tony Robbins, but one of the things that says I really like is it's not about the goal, it's about growing to become the person who can achieve the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: This business idea, it should force a better version of you to break free and live.
[SPEAKER_00]: After you set this business idea, you should start thinking like, what skills am I going to have to learn at?
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I going to have to get better at?
[SPEAKER_00]: What fears am I going to have to overcome?
[SPEAKER_00]: because in a lot of ways that's that's why you're doing this is it's kind of help form you in a much better into a much better version of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you already knew exactly how to start the business, I would tell you, look, that's not really a great business idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not even a goal in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it's doless.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't go get a done, but if it's a goal, it should be stretching.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should help you grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to have longing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to be lifting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to make you better version of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the third thing
[SPEAKER_00]: this is a little bit more just intrinsic, the idea of starting this business as if you a light or does it feel heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Typically entrepreneurs can actually answer this pretty quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know for myself when I was at the dealership, the idea of working there,
[SPEAKER_00]: felt really heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I was on a straight path towards success, so I had to do basically a smile and keep the same last name and I was going to be a cardiovascular with 400 employees and multiple locations and it was straight path to success.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea was so heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, to go start my own business where I know clue what I was doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was starting with nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to work a ton of hours, it was highly risky.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that light, it just felt fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when somebody has these business ideas, I want to have those three else, and that tells me, okay, there's a big enough fire inside of you to say this is what you actually want to do with your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you can move on to the next parts of validation, which realistically, validating a business, it's hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like I talked about when I did those focus groups.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need that first thing you need to make sure that you have enough desire and you otherwise you're going to quit during validation and you're going to jump ship to another business idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens when someone goes in with the intention?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I do think intention is important as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I meet people like this all the time, where they go into a business idea with the intention that it's just a big money.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not necessarily something they're passionate about.
[SPEAKER_01]: They sort of have this dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: They see people online becoming famous and doing really well creating content.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, I want to build a six, seven figure business in like a year and then exit and get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's the wrong approach for business in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so let me tell you, I view there's like two methods to discover your perfect business idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the one is what I call the easy money approach, which is basically what you described.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the root of this approach, the entrepreneur is trying to answer the question, what business is the easiest to start and will earn me the most amount of money, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they search the market for this perfect product or service to sell.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem with that is
[SPEAKER_00]: that starting a business is hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: We already talked about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since easy money is the foundation of that business idea, if either the easy part or the money part disappear, which is likely to happen at some point, they're gonna jump and look for another easy money business idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the second approach to entrepreneurship and finding your perfect business idea is what I call the dreams river approach, where at the root of this quote, at the root of this approach, the entrepreneurs trying to answer the question, what do you wanna do with your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do with your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: And once you can clarify that answer to that question, then you can create the business that will be the means.
[SPEAKER_00]: to make it happen and and just like I brought up earlier when I left the dealership I knew what I wanted to do with my life if it was hard if I was struggling if I wasn't turning a profit right away it's like this is what I want to do with my life and even though it was hard I enjoyed it it felt light I was still living out my dream every day so I think if somebody's gonna take these money route it's like yes I want you to have a highly profitable business that makes you money I don't want to say that I don't but
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're missing out on such a deeper journey of figuring out what do you want to do with your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do you want to become and and once you clarify that then you can get the business that will be the means to make it happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so where do you see people getting stuck the most?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, the easy money approach is relevant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people almost feel guilty asking themselves what I really, like even asking themselves, what do I want to do with my life?
[SPEAKER_00]: They just avoid that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: And strangely, this is connected to even my planner business.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like so many times I'll have customers who they jump from planner to planner to planner or hoping that this perfect planner design will solve their entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when it's like, look, you don't,
[SPEAKER_00]: you don't need another plan or I mean I have a bias opinion I think my plan is the best, but it's because it helps somebody with this key question.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's you don't need another plan or to make everything fit into your life, it's you need to answer the question, what do you want to do with your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because once you get clarity to that then it's easy to say okay I'm going to say yes to this and I'm going to say no to all this other stuff and it's so much easier to manage your your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: for somebody who's struggling with, okay, that's a deep question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you answer the question?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do with your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the source of that is going to be your dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to define what I mean by dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to compare that to goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people who listen as are probably from both the concept of goals, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: When you set a goal, something you actually plan on doing, it's specific, it's realistic, it's time bound, you know, the whole smart goals thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dreams on the other hand, when we're dreaming, we're just asking our heart, what would I love to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What would I love to experience?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you let your heart speak to without limits.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have to be realistic, there are things you may or may not actually do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just dreaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is really important for your goals because once you have dreams,
[SPEAKER_00]: then you can set goals that are aimed at making those dreams happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It actually gives your goals meaning because they're working towards something bigger than themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have any dreams, you can still set goals, but they're not aiming at anything, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore, they lack meaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when your goals lack meaning, you end up in this place that I call survival mode, where you're just working to survive, you're just trying to stay afloat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an easy way to fix that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you start dreaming, then you have meaningful goals and then you fill your life with purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one of the problems with goals is that you can set a goal to do anything, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you could set a goal today to go write a pop-up book about penguins, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could make a plan and do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if that wasn't connected to dream of yours, I'll tell you, well that's a complete waste of time, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So once you have your dreams, then you can clarify here's the life that I want, now my goals have meaning it's now I am filled with purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for the people who they have no clue what they want to do, start dreaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you need to make that intentional activity to start dreaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll ask people, what do you dream of doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll say, well, how often do you dream?
[SPEAKER_00]: Never.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, okay, there's your problem, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I take intentional
[SPEAKER_00]: but on my headphones, I'll turn on some inspiring music and I'll just pace around for 10 minutes in dream of the type of life that I want to live and it gets me so clear on what I want to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to give me clarity because of some dreams that come up and I'll dream about them for a few days and then it kind of gets old and it passes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have other dreams that I can dream about again and again and again and it just lights a fire in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it gives me clarity on, okay, this is what I actually want to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, it gives me tons of motivation to go do it because it's so clear in my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just need to go do it at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So long answered your question.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're stuck on the, I don't know a business idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you need to figure out what you want to do with your life and do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to let your heart speak to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what you need, what do you want to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens when you have that idea and you go out and you do it and you start it and you build that company and it's going great until it's not until it becomes a burden on you just like your other job was right because that can happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Burnout can happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: you become bored or it's no longer interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that dream and that idea now becomes a burden on your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you see that happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it does, how can someone change it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I see that happen all the time with entrepreneurs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is, uh, well, two things here.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because you start your business doesn't mean you can stop dreaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of those entrepreneurs they had the dream of starting a business then they did it and then they stopped dreaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stopped asking themselves, what else do I want?
[SPEAKER_00]: My experience and when somebody does dream, once you get that business, it will spark new dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you accomplish that business, what's next on your horizon?
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you stop asking yourself, what do I want to do with my life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you're not going to get what you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: You even admit to yourself what you want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the whole dreamy activity that's not just for people looking for their business ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you currently have a business in you, aren't you enjoying it anymore?
[SPEAKER_00]: I bet if you're honest with yourself, you stopped dreaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I mean, this is all come back to other like practical things, but like your dreams will define your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you dream about going out and getting drunk with your friends every night, your life is going to look like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you dream about growing a big business, you're going to put yourself on that trajectory.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't dream about anything, it's still going to define your life because you end up in survival mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of them that's where these entrepreneurs are after they created their business.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing I think is important for entrepreneurs to remember is your business should be the means not the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your business should be the means not the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I mean by that is the life style.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the end goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should clarify what's the end lifestyle that I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I want to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: What impacts do I want to be making?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I want to be helping others?
[SPEAKER_00]: How much money do I want to earn?
[SPEAKER_00]: How many hours a week do I want?
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I clarify that lifestyle, then I can make my business that will be the means to create it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you flip those though, if you make your business the end, then business owners often succeed, and their business completely overtakes their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, I don't know, I need you to dream about what's the lifestyle that you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going to like the fire inside of you, how does this fit into your the ideal life?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that'll help re-spark the excitement around it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What misconception do people have about work-life balance as an entrepreneur in your opinion?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it'll actually make you more successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, one, the work-life balance or your lifestyle should be the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's highly achievable for entrepreneurs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe for me, having a wife, we have three kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to have our fourth and my wife and kids have what's made me more successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, they're not in distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: They definitely don't slow me down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, because I have wife and kids, I need to have firm boundaries of my time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm done working at 445 p.m. every afternoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I have a time that goes off.
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife needs me to be walking out of my office to go help her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says at home with her kids all day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but it's like because of those firm boundaries,
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lifestyle that we want.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only have a certain number of hours to work and because I, the sole supporter of our family, I have to perform.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to earn a higher amount of money, but it's forced me to get laser focused on my goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have the luxury of being able to work on eight goals at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have the time because I'm spending a lot of it with my wife and kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have to force myself to say, I'm not gonna focus on eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to figure out what's the most impactful goal to focus on and I will only do one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a privilege.
[SPEAKER_00]: That level of focus will I think ultimately making more successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this stage of success, what internal pressure still shows up for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably just to keep showing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like I'm always working on the next thing for my business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just to keep performing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be somebody who was used to accomplished.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be in a compilisher.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to keep accomplishing things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, Jason did some cool stuff when he was younger and then he just plateaued and stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's continuing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to assume that you're you're really good at keeping yourself motivated or motivating yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what happens when you sort of like maybe get stuck and you can't be your own motivator.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who do you go to or what do you do to get that motivation back?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, if most of the time, if I'm not having motivation, it's because I stopped dreaming every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like that's one of the biggest things for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do enjoy like I will read every day for a little bit meet with other entrepreneurs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I got to keep digging the well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, those books, meeting with other people who are doing cool things, they sparked my mind for new dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: have new things to aim at.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think some specific behaviors, reading about other entrepreneurs, or personal development books, but connecting with other entrepreneurs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to like the habits I've been in ever since I left, we'll even before I left my job, but I'll go to one conference per year with entrepreneurs that are similar to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just so powerful because it's
[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to get complacent, where it's like, oh, you're pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can support ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to not be happy with where you're at.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you go there and you meet somebody else who's 10 years younger than anyone has a business that's three times a size.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, oh, wow, they think completely different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they're going after way bigger goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's helping me realize not that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been complacent, but that my thinking's been too small.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like I could, I could be putting in just as much effort in getting way higher results, making a much bigger impact if I just thought more similar to these people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's where I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, surround yourself with people who dream a little bit bigger than you in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, we're coming up on time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But before we wrap up, I have one last question for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone is standing at the edge of a big decision that could disappoint others, what should they evaluate before they jump?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, disappointing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Others, if this is what you want to do with your life, somebody's going to be disappointed with you, no matter what.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the world we live in, you can go say hello and somebody's going to be offended.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the world we live in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would make my decision based off of it or disappoint others.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were people who are disappointed when I left the dealership and started another business.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the nature of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would come back to you, is this what you want to do with your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this thing, someone's always,
[SPEAKER_00]: people will be disappointed with you and maybe that's negative, but I wouldn't want to be disappointed with myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll tell you when I left the dealership, there was these certain number of people that I was terrified of seeing afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought they would just judge me for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would give me a really hard time or think, oh, that was a stupid idea, and I avoided them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In one by one years later, I'd seen them at, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reunion or somewhere where I'd see these people and it's crazy all of those people came and they like wanted to talk to me and told me Hey, I saw what you've been doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always dreamed of doing something similar I would love to connect with you and hear how you did it and it's in my head for some reason I thought those would be the people that'd be the most judgmental of my decision and maybe they would have it first I don't know but years later they
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they actually gave me confidence once I got to talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you might not be disappointing people as like you think you might actually be inspiring them because they they see you go push through it, it inspires them to push through their own stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Jason, thank you so much for joining me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate your time today.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a lovely conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed it as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to thank Jason for joining me today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a leadership principle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Legacy is not ownership over someone else's success.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the courage to build something aligned with your convictions.
[SPEAKER_01]: As founders, we cannot outsource our decisions to expectations.
[SPEAKER_01]: The cost of misalignment compounds over time, financially and emotionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Real leadership is choosing responsibility over comfort.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are facing a decision that feels heavy, write down what's staying will cost you in five years, and what leaving would require you to become then choose deliberately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then that's a wrap.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining me on this journey of learning and growth.
[SPEAKER_01]: If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who's building through a challenge right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also connect with us on social media and be part of the community that believes resilience is the real advantage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, growth isn't linear, success isn't guaranteed, and setbacks are part of the process.
[SPEAKER_01]: What matters is how you execute.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Sanya, signing off, but as always keep chasing your dreams with tenacity.