[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to From Caving In to Crushing, It, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Deraney and I'm your host. Jason. It's great to see you.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Hey there, Drew. Sue, nice to see you. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. So there are times when you don't know somebody for long and you click or you know somebody for a long time and you don't click as well as somebody you just met recently. And that's what I enjoy about doing what I'm doing because I get to meet people who I've never met my entire life. And you and I have had maybe I think it was one face to face on zoom conversation that we clicked. And I go to your gem networking group and it's just there's something about you and your story and I wanted to have you on because there are people out there who are struggling and I know that they'll pick up something from you that's going to help them get unstuck. And so that's why I wanted you on. So thanks for being you and thanks for coming on. I appreciate that.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah, wonderful. I'm looking forward to it.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: So we know that life is not linear, even though when we were growing up, people tell us, if you do ABC and D, you're going to get e, and ultimately we might get e. It's just not going to be that straight line. There are things that come into our path that we either try to avoid, run around or run through. Your story is powerful, and I'd like the audience to get to know the essence of Jason Van Orden. And if you could kind of reach back to wherever you want to start and find that defining moment that kind of woke you up and where you said, you know what? There's a better way to live, and I'm going to find it.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah, there's been quite a few of them, but certainly there's one that I would say really started what might have been a cascading effect over the next couple of decades of shifting into a more true version of myself.
But the first one that comes to mind had to do when I started realizing I was not going to be happy as a nine to five employee for the rest of my life. I had gone to university to get a degree in engineering, electrical engineering, and thought that I was going to be an engineer for life and do the whole you work until you retire and you get your four hundred and one K and there you go.
And I even got what felt like it might be a dream engineering job because at the same time I was a guitarist and a musician and I was actually pretty serious trying to make it as a musician in a band. So this is like in the late 90s, early two thousand s.
And the company that I worked for designed gear for guitarists. So I was playing my guitar, work on a daily basis, writing software, and seems pretty cool. And it was until it wasn't.
I graduated and started that job in the year 2000.
And about a year and a half later, we all know that 911 happened.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: And that was a very jarring experience for many people. And I can remember several a few months later sitting there and working, and one of my best friends worked in HR, and suddenly we would text back and forth. I think it was on AOL Messenger at the time. I don't know, we use different things, but there was no Facebook messenger or any of those yet. Right. So anyway, he suddenly messaged me and said, I can't talk much about it, but I've just been let go, I'll call you later and we can chat. And I was just like, what happened? And then the phone next to me rang and I heard my friend pick it up.
And then he got up, said, I've just been called into HR. And I'm like, oh my goodness, what is happening here? And then shortly there he came back with a cardboard box, fill it with his stuff, and the phones around me kept ringing, and I started preparing myself to get that phone call. Now I just happened to have the most seniority of the most junior guys because I had worked there for a couple of summers as an intern. And that might be, I don't know, maybe that's what saved me. I didn't get laid off that day, but I was already in a position of like, I'm not sure I can see myself fulfilled doing this for a while. And then that was this wake up call of like, you know what, employment is not actually the security that we think it is.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Right? Absolutely.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: And I had already been kind of thinking about what are some other things I might be able to do in life. I'd started reading books like Rich Dad, Poor dad, actually, for a little while, I thought about going to get my MBA. I thought about being a professor. I went through all these things, and in the end, those are just going to put me back into a bureaucracy that I'm not going to enjoy or a corporate environment. But I'd been listening. I had this, like, 1988 Buick Olds mobile that I bought off my grandma.
Awesome car, bench seats, velvety bench seats, and a tape player. So I had a tape player and the adapter with my CD player, and the whole back seat was just scattered with books and tapes and things about entrepreneurship and real estate investing and just investing in general. I was just trying to fill my brain with like, what else could I potentially do here?
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Now I won't draw the story out any longer. I still was in that job for about another year and a half. But after another year and a half and by then, I'd started meeting other people who were also looking for a different way in life. We'd get together and talk, and at one point, I got to where I woke up one morning, hit my snooze button three or four times in a row, and just realized, I am depressed.
I am not enjoying my life. And I sat down and thought, okay, well, why don't I just quit my job? Of course, the first thing was like, well, I'm not sure what I would do, but I had been learning a lot about real estate investing and had met somebody who can be a mentor. So that was on my mind.
And I wrote down a list of nine fears. I think it ended up being nine fears. I was like, what are the things I'm afraid of? Okay, what if I don't have insurance? What if this, what if that? And just started going down through them one on one, one by one, and thinking, okay, well, is this fear actually true? What's the evidence for what's an alternate way of looking at it? What might I do if that fear comes true? What's the likelihood of that fear coming true? Different things like that.
And I managed to pretty much, I wouldn't say totally eliminate, but definitely lessen those fears enough to the point that on August 17, 2003, I went into my boss and said, I'm leaving. I am going. And of course, he's like, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm going to be a real estate investor. He's like, Why do you want to get your real estate license? I said, no, I want to be a real estate anyway. As I went around and started telling people, a lot of them didn't understand. They're like, scratching their heads and starting to say their excuses of like, I could never do that. And it was very interesting to see people's responses to me quitting right now. There's a whole other story that happens after that, a cascade of breadcrumbs and things that have led to entrepreneurship, because at that time, podcasting hadn't shown up. That's been a huge part of my story since 2005. I had no idea I'd end up a business coach or a marketing coach. I had no idea I'd end up working with experts to grow a business. But it all started from quitting that, going into real estate investing, bumping into my mentor there, meeting other people that led to this idea, that led to that idea. Then I experimenting, and I started bumping into things. And here we go. Fast forward now two decades, and I've been working for myself for 20 years ever since, and have had a very successful business or two in that time as well. Continue to grow my current business, loving what I do every day and that's the moment that it all started. One of first, the first of many.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, the fact that you did a few things scared, which is impressive because a lot of people again, that you have that fear and you actually started to look inside yourself to determine why you had those feelings. Not many people are able to do that when they're in the thick of a big decision. So I commend you for that and to realize that the fears were created and made up in your head that they weren't necessarily reality. And so when you took that first step of being an entrepreneur, tell me what were some of the fears you had about entrepreneurship and how'd you tackle them?
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, like I mentioned, the one quick one, I think that comes to a lot of people's minds, unfortunately is health insurance. Right? Just our medical system is a mess. We don't need to go into that. Right? And it was already a mess back then too. And so that's one simple one, it's like, well, what if I get sick? What about and I'll tell you, I exchanged some risks for others. And so I was young at the time, I was in my twenty s. And I did make a decision for a little while, like, I'm going to go without health insurance for a couple of years while I try to get this going.
How am I going to have the money to get a business going if I need to invest in mentors or other things to get it going? It's like, well, I'm going to get a business credit card and I did get a couple of loans to get things going. And I just made that decision of like, well, I'm making a calculated risk in terms of betting on myself. I believe that I'm going to be able to make something work, so I'm going to go ahead. And of course there's a lot of everybody has their different tolerance for debt and what feels like justified debt versus not and so forth, but lots and lots of people take on debt to get a business going. So that was the second one as well. What are my parents going to think? That was one that I was like in the end, I remembered my dad actually had a pretty entrepreneurial spirit and actually one time I reminded myself he actually quit his job at one point, moved us back to Alaska, was trying to get this new job going. Unfortunately it didn't work out for them time like my sister got really sick. Ironically, maybe this is why the health insurance thing was and he needed health insurance because she was going to need a lot of surgery. So he went back to the teaching job that he had been in prior. But I was so look, like my dad, he's always been an adventurous spirit. He's had his own times of trying to go his own way. I think in the end, maybe they'll worry for a little while, but with time, hopefully they'll see. And they definitely did and really ended up being quite supportive and not nearly as bothered by the idea of me quitting my job as I thought they would be. So that's at least three of them. I remember there were nine. I wonder if I have in a journal somewhere the list of all nine of them.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: That'd be a great thing to share with people because I'm sure everybody had those nine fears. I love the calculated risk you talk about, and many people are afraid of taking risks, but they don't break it down to calculated versus non strategic. And you had the forethought to take calculated risks, and what you said is, you bet on yourself. Investing in yourself is probably the best risk you're going to take. And for you to be able to determine that at that time is pretty incredible. And again, I commend you on that. So once you overcame those fears, because instead of inaction, you actually took action, what happened then?
[00:11:54] Speaker B: So I dove right into real estate investing because that's what I had been reading most in these different books, like Rich Dad, Poor dad. I had found a mentor to help me get started, got involved in a local real estate investing club or association. I felt like I had a good support system, so I was like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy and rehab houses. Or I was learning all the different ways. I was just again digesting the CDs and cassette tapes right now. It turns out that real estate investing wasn't in the long term the right fit for me.
I understand now, having gone through lots of other and learned lots of other things, and finding where do I align really well with my strengths, my desires of the lifestyle I want, et cetera, where can I create the greatest value in the world? And so forth. But one thing that did come out of real estate investing is that my mentor, who was teaching me real estate investing had also just started teaching other people, like doing one or two day seminars, teaching others how to do what he did.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Seeing him teach those seminars, I actually started helping him with that piece as well. Suddenly a light bulb went off. Well, a couple of light bulbs went off, so that wasn't stuck. I'm like, this is really interesting. He's making a lot of money doing real estate investing, but he also wants his other income stream teaching others. So that stuck in my brain. The other thing that stuck in my brain was that I actually knew some things about marketing. And I realized a lot of real estate investors wanted some help with their marketing, how to find buyers, how to find sellers to put their deals together. And I, as a musician in my band had studied a bunch of marketing to figure out how do I sell my CDs, how do I get people to my shows, how do I build an email list. And I started teaching the stuff I knew to real estate investors. Now they started asking me for some consulting, and then I put two and two or one on one whatever together and thought, what if I do a seminar like Jeff for a day? I'm not experienced at the deals, but I can teach them a lot about marketing. So I said, that's what I'm going to do. So it was 2004, so about a year later and I had a mailing list of 83 people from that association I was a part of. I made agreement with them that I would share some of the profits with them. I put together a three part mailer.
I'd learned from direct marketing people how to do and this is through snail mail at the time, not even email.
And I did a little campaign and I ended up getting 25 people filling the room. And when all was said and done, I made like $8,000 that day.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: And a big light bulb went off. I had done a real estate deal by then and made $17,000 on that. But I'm like, I made right.
But it was so much easier and so much in alignment with like I loved teaching. Like I said, I thought about being a professor, but I just didn't want to get stuck in a bureaucracy absolutely. Of universities. But like, wow, I get to teach on my own terms. And I actually really enjoy marketing and business and entrepreneurship in general. I was absorbing a lot there. Anyway, so I recorded that seminar. I had a product, I had CDs, I was burning CDs. I had a manual, which is all the slides and worksheets and things that I'd handed out at the seminar. Started selling that locally because I only had so much room to invite people in. I didn't want to have to do the thing live all the time and eventually needed more people to sell to. So I went online. And that's when I first started early on in 2005, end of 2004. Looking into online marketing, which then led me to other business ideas, eventually led me to podcasting as a marketing channel. And that took me down a whole other path. Turns out that even that real estate investing course, while I did make money off it for a little while, that wasn't where I settled. Then I ended up going all in on podcasting in 2005 when that showed up on my radar because I had this feeling there's something here. And the musician in me understood the audio, the marketer in me understood the business potential, and the teacher in me understood and the engineer in me understood the technical aspects. So it was like, this is a good fit for me. So eventually I did end up with a podcast that took off, became a top ten business podcast, and that led to a whole other business. But that's what I did immediately after quitting my job was dove into real estate investing, started experimenting, and then within a couple of years, I saw on another path, but it was only in jumping in and doing. There's no way I ever would have sitting in my job come to the conclusion of I should teach seminars about marketing.
I might not have even bumped into podcasting early enough to have been one of the first business podcasters. Right. So it all kind of one thing led to another and that journey continues today.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: That's wonderful. Well, each decision for you was a stepping stone to another decision you were to make that you didn't even know it was coming up. And I think that's the message you're giving to the audience is that we don't know what we don't know. And unless we take that first step, that first scary step, we're not going to give ourselves that opportunity to connect the dots. You've connected a lot of dots based on previous wisdom and experience that has brought you to where you are now. Now you are building on strengths, strengths upon strengths, which brings you to where we are today with you now. I know I attend one of your networking groups. I do want you to talk about that. I want you to promote that because it's phenomenal. And I want to know a little about what you are doing now with all those lessons you learned from the different strengths, whether you wanted to go into engineering or not, or if that was just the path that was given to you and you did it, you learned something from it. So what are you doing now? And how did you pull or what did you pull from all those other things you experienced to make you who you are now so you can provide what you're providing?
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So that business podcast that took off called Internet Business Mastery, was the first podcast ever about online marketing and online business. And within a couple of years, it really took off. We had an audience who started asking us for help. Hey, love your show. Do you have courses? Do you have coaching? And this was with a friend of mine. He was selling stuff on ebay, so he too had quit his corporate job as a video editor and struck out of Zone. So we're just two guys saying, hey, here's our story. We're in the same place that you are four years ago, in jobs we didn't like and we're just on the journey sharing it with do. Anyway, for the next decade, that bit by bit, turned into a full blown educational company for beginning entrepreneurs also looking to get out of their job and strike out on their own. So I learned a lot through creating content and running a podcast for ten years now. Content is a huge part. What do I do? I found a voice. Continue developing it. But I feel like I found my own voice and what I want to say in the world. I learned a lot about finding an audience that you can really uniquely serve in some way that resonates with who you are. Not just that you have a skill or expertise that's relevant to a top need or concern or interest goal that they have, but also that something about you and how you show up, how you make them feel or think, or just the values and shared meaning that they see between you. I mean, I think, incidentally, attract a lot of engineers because I talk about having been an engineer, we would attract some musicians. Because I talk about being musicians, we attract others who are parents. It was just like these little things like, you attract audience because they find themselves in you. And that was a big lesson for me.
I launched tons of courses over that time, so learned a lot about teaching online and how to be a good coach.
Now, after ten years of doing that, something was missing for me. It was time for a change. Again, it's just like having that restlessness as an employee. I'm like, it's time for something else. And what I realized was, number one, I did just need to kind of change it up. Number two, I wanted to get out of that you can make money online market, because by 2015, it was starting to get very noisy, very crowded, very obnoxious. Everyone like, just saying, yeah, you two can. I'm like, I'm not going to be that person. I'm not going to market like that. So I shifted. And as I thought back, I was like, well, one of the things I loved most about being in Internet business mastery is when we would have students that would show up to learn from us, not just because they wanted to quit their job. I mean, I found it incredibly fulfilling to help people strike out in another way in their life, right?
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: But I also loved it. There are a lot that showed up, and they're like, I have a story, I have a message, I have something I feel compelled to share with the world. And that was incredibly fulfilling for me to help those people in particular. So I thought, what if I shift to working with established experts, like coaches, consultants, speakers, authors? Amazing message to share. Really good at what they do, know how to get results for people.
They need strategic help. Like, I had learned a lot about my unique strengths in strategy and teaching, and there are people out there who they need those strengths to complement their own strengths, to make happen their goal. And so I started working with those established coaches and consultants, which I still do to this day and over the last several years have developed courses and frameworks and tools and content to help visionary people with awesome ideas and messages to reach more of the people that they are uniquely equipped to serve in the world. So I carried a lot of those things forward and continue to find ways to discover things about myself and align my business or my life pursuits with those things as much as I can for my own growth and fulfillment as well as for my impact in the world.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: What's going on with the music? When did that is still going on?
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Great question.
It went to the wayside for a while, sadly, because business just really took over and starting out as an entrepreneur takes so much time and energy. But I am happy to say that more recently I have got my guitars out of storage last year, bought my first amp in like 15 years last year and started playing on a much more regular basis and developing my skills again. And it's incredibly fulfilling. It's nice to have a creative outlet and an identity again outside of me as an entrepreneur and me as a parent because those are the two things that really dominate my life and that's fine but you want those other things for you. That's creative fuel, it's a creative outlet. It's another thing where I can see myself improve and even if I feel like I'm messing it up as a parent at a particular time or as an entrepreneur, I can still feel good about my grab the guitar and they feed each other too, I find.
And my girlfriend now, she's also been learning guitar and so we actually jam together on a regular basis.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: I love that, I love that.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: It's been good.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: That's wonderful. All right, so any podcasting now?
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Yes, I did start another podcast. I haven't been as regular as with the last one because I've been experimenting with a lot of other things. I did a season of that podcast and then COVID hit and I don't have to tell you, like podcasting, it takes time and energy and I hadn't quite got all my systems together for that podcast. In my last business, we had a whole team, we had a whole system. It was all down. I just showed up, recorded and out it went and all taken care of and so COVID hit and suddenly I'm a home teacher as well as all these home school teacher and I'm like okay, something's got. And that was one of the things that slid off because I didn't have the systems in place yet to keep it going seamlessly with that time crunch on it. But I've just started re recording interviews. Really excited to bring that back again and I love it. Podcasting obviously has changed my life. I love listening to podcasts, I love coming on podcasts.
So yes, the podcast is called Impact and it's all about growing your coaching or consulting business to have a bigger impact in the world and the kind of lifestyle you're looking for.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Love that.
And tell me about your coaching practice now. How's that going?
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Yeah, so I work with coaches and consultants who again, they're really good at what they do, but they've reached like a ceiling in their income and their growth and their impact and they're not quite sure. They're feeling overwhelmed by needing to sell and market and serve clients and are kind of being pulled between all three of those things. It always feels like one of those three is suffering and they're not quite sure what to shift or change to bring the overwhelm down and unlock a new level of impact and income. And so I help them with their marketing systems, I help them with their sales process, and I help them most of all, I help them take their expertise and turn it into a system that they can deliver through like group coaching and things like that, so they can serve. Because one of the things with being a coach is if you're only working with people one on one, you hit a limit as to how much time of your time and energy you can sell. So I help them make that switch to where they can serve 3510 times as many people and still deliver amazing results by organizing their expertise and dialing in their marketing and sales systems. I'm really good at looking like, oh, you have all these great things going on and if we just make these few shifts, put these things or here's the one missing piece, or if we hit on this lever over here, that's going to really open up an opportunity for you. So I do a little bit of one on one.
I run a program that goes for three months where over three months I take a group of people from scratch to launching their first group program or online course and filling it with people. And then I also have a program where I work with coaches and consultants over a year. And what we do is we optimize all the pieces of their business to get more growth. So over that year we're zooming in on all the little like, we find again, that next leverage point to create that new growth.
I have tools and systems and training and I strategize with them on the phone. It's also a group program. I love bringing people together in group programs because they learn so much from each other.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: And so that's my program for helping them double their income and get into those consistent five figure a month paydays.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: All right.
Recommendation. So if you have a new coach coming to you, do you usually recommend that they learn some one on one coaching first to get that under the belt, get the confidence and then expand to the group? Or would you. Do the opposite group?
[00:26:21] Speaker B: No. I think it's a good idea to work one on one, often a coach or consultant, and we've had a lot of them come into the market over the last few years because of COVID and people examining what they want and leaving corporate anyway. A good place to start is like, you hang your shingle, you're out there, you're like, hey, I'm an expert who wants to work with me. And usually at first you're working with a variety of people and kind of trying to figure out who you enjoy working with most. It's like, here's the ideal person I tend to really who really resonates with me, that I do my best work with, that I enjoy most, who is ready to get the most from what I teach. At some level, you zero that in, and then over time, you need to get to where, oh, now I see. Here's my system for getting that kind of person to these results that they want. So now you know your ideal client profile and what I call your signature system for delivering results. Once you've figured out like, okay, I know how to dependably deliver results, that's when I tell people, it's like, okay, now let's turn that into a group program where you could serve more people at a time and not sacrifice the results that you're delivering. So I do think it's good you got to do some of that experimentation. And I did the same when I left Internet business Mastery. I did spend a couple of years doing one on one and kind of figuring out where I wanted to focus and developing the programs and frameworks and things that I teach now. So that would be my recommendation.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: It's a great recommendation. I could talk to you for a long time. One last thing. I want to ask about what you're doing now. Tell us about the networking group that I'm familiar with.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So about that time that I left Internet Business Mastery, I was examining, what have I not done well that I could do better? And one of the things that came to my mind was like, I've not been that great at networking. And I was kind of fortunate in that the podcast made me visible. And I had kind of a reputation where I kind of got away without having to be an active networker because people knew at least enough people knew who I was.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: But I knew that in starting something, I was going to need to be more deliberate about that. But as a natural introvert, it was hard for me even to reach out to people who were already business friends and colleagues and say, hey, you want to hop on the call on a call and catch up? I felt like, oh, I don't want to bother anyone, or, that's so much energy or whatever. And so I really set myself to working on that finding a way for me that feels good in networking. Anyway, what eventually that led to is, okay, I'm going to try to now. And I did. My one to one skills got better. I started building my network out more, and then I decided to challenge myself further and say, well, can I make myself one of these super connectors that people see as like, oh, you're somebody who's connected to people, can connect me to people because that opens up all kinds of things. So I started this group with a friend. It was shortly after COVID started because we were like, well, people need other ways to connect, so let's give this a go. And so now we run them monthly. It's for coaches and consultants, bringing them together with content creators. And our goal we just want people to make great business contacts, friends, collaborators, whatever. But the main premise is come together, content creators and experts, and we want to hook you for podcast interviews and content collaborations and things like that.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: What's the name of the group?
[00:29:30] Speaker B: It's called Generous Entrepreneurs and Media. Or Gem.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Generous Entrepreneur.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Love the so Generousentrepreneursandmedia.com takes you to the free sign up page. We meet once a month and it just continues to grow and it's been a lot of fun and it has brought so many benefits to my business. But then also I just see the impact it's making in others. So here we are three years later. Keep on doing it, love it.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: And your friend's name, who you're partnering in this?
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah, michael Roderick.
He works with thought leaders and experts. He also has a podcast, too, so he'd be a good person. Have you met Michael?
[00:30:07] Speaker A: I only met him through just being in the big zoom box in the big zoom room.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Right, okay, well, I'll have to connect you sometime. He's a great guy. I think you guys have great conversation.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Wonderful. Wonderful. All right, got a couple of questions while we wrap up. So I'm going to give you an opportunity to talk to your younger self. So you're sitting down with young seven to ten year old Jason and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him? Yeah.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: I think one of the most important things that I've had to learn in my adulthood is what self compassion means and how to be nice to myself and calm the inner critic.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: And that's all stuff that's been wired year after year throughout my life and that I'm continuing to unwind. Right.
I think I would share something about in whatever terms I thought eight or 910 year old me could understand being kind to yourself and maybe starting with listening to the things you say out loud or in your mind. And sometimes they're even subtle things and you don't realize how you are throwing yourself under the bus or you're not giving yourself the most generous feedback or story. Right.
And like, a simple thing I do right now is I'll ask myself sometimes when I say something and I go, oh, wait, okay. Would I ever say something like that to my daughter? Yes. And if the answer is no, then, okay, then maybe I should not be saying it to or about myself.
So I think that's what I would say.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: That's wonderful. Yeah. Kindness to yourself leads to kindness to others.
Absolutely. So that's great advice for young Jason. All right. Different hat. And now you're sitting with young Jason, the upcoming businessman, entrepreneur, and you want to give him some good business advice. What are you going to tell him?
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the most important things I've learned there is to figure out what your unique strengths or abilities are. There's some really great resources out there. I mean, some of the things that help me with most dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach and his team have a process called unique ability. And there's a book, and it's amazing. And essentially it's kind of the thing, where do I create the greatest value in the world? Where do I get my most fulfillment from? And it's not necessarily it's like, OOH, I'm a dancer or a lawyer. No, it's like it's broader than that. You could apply it to different things. But I've found in my life, it's like when I've zeroed in on that, my confidence goes up because I see what I have to offer. My fulfillment goes up because I'm focusing more and more of my activities on those things.
And the things I offer and put out there in the world are being received and sold better because I'm really offering those things where I have something extra to offer above what other. We all have our own unique strengths. So Strengths Finder 2.0 is another great assessment that you can take. I'll give one more colby the Colby A assessment. So Strengths Finder Colby A and unique ability, but then it's also just experimenting and noticing and asking for feedback. And the more you dial in and understand that, whether this is in a corporate job or as an entrepreneur, as a parent, any of it, it's such an amazing concept to understand and rely on and improve your strengths rather than always focusing on your weaknesses.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: I love that improving strengths is almost as important as improving your weaknesses.
All right, so the audience has gotten an opportunity to get to know the essence of Jason Van Orden. And they're going to want to get in touch with you, my friend. Make it easy for them. How do they do that?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So you can find me
[email protected]. The last name is Vanorden.com.
I'm on LinkedIn is a place I hang out probably the most in terms of social media. I'm not on Facebook and stuff like that much these days. So if you happen to be a LinkedIn person, love to connect with you over there as well.
And if you are a coach or a consultant looking to connect with others in this field, check out generousentrepreneursandmedia.com.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, Jason, thank you very much. And I just want to say I'm grateful that you're in my to. I have a spreadsheet that tells me how I met it. Unless you remember off the top of your head how we met. Was it Daniel?
[00:34:22] Speaker B: I believe Daniel did. Yeah. Somebody connect us? I believe it was Daniel, yeah.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Because I like to give them credit. So let me see. There we go. Van Orden. Yeah, I believe it was Daniel Anders. So it was Daniel Anders. So we'll give Daniel Anders kudos for introducing the two of us.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: All right, well, Jason, thanks again. I appreciate you for coming on. And keep doing what you're doing. You're a special guy, and you're providing a lot of awesome services for people who need it. So keep doing what you're doing.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Thank you, Drew. Appreciate it.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: All right, take care.
Be well, everybody.
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