For Creatives Who Hate Selling with Jason Zook

Kathleen Shannon 0:04
Get your business together, get yourself into what you do and see it through

Emily Thompson 0:10
being bosses hard. Lending work in life is messy. Making a dream job of your own isn't easy,

Kathleen Shannon 0:17
but getting paid for it, becoming known for it. And finding purpose in it is so doable if you do the work. being bossed is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs. Brought to you by Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon.

Emily Thompson 0:32
Hi, I'm Emily and I own indie typography, where I help passionate entrepreneurs establish and grow their business online. By helping them build brands that attract and websites that sell. I help my clients launch their business so they can do more of what they love, and make money doing it.

Kathleen Shannon 0:50
And I'm Kathleen, I'm the CO owner of brave creative where I specialize in branding and business visioning for creative entrepreneurs who want to blend who they are with what they do narrow in on their core genius and shape their content so they can position themselves as experts to attract more dream clients.

Emily Thompson 1:09
And being boss as a podcast where we're talking shop, giving you a peek behind the scenes of what it takes to build a business, interviewing other working creatives and figuring it out as we go right there with you. Check out

Kathleen Shannon 1:21
our archives at loving boss calm.

Emily Thompson 1:25
Welcome to being boss, episode number 38. This episode is brought to you buy

Kathleen Shannon 1:30
fresh books cloud accounting. On today's episode, we're chatting with a very prolific and interesting creative entrepreneur Jason Zook. Stay tuned. freshbooks is the easy to use invoicing software designed to help creative entrepreneurs get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. Later in this episode, we're talking to Jason about how oftentimes creatives feel like they didn't get into business to do all the hard business e stuff like accounting, but freshbooks makes it so super easy and intuitive. It's so easy to use force magazine in fact calls freshbooks incredibly user friendly, and you'll also save time billing freshbooks customers spend less time on their paperwork, freeing up to two days a month to focus on the work they love. So imagine what you could get done in two days. It will also help you grow your business and just look legit. Alright, you guys build like a boss and try fresh books for free for 30 days go to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear about us section when you sign up? We promise you will get so much out of it. All right, I'm so excited. Emily and I are both really looking forward to chatting with Jason Zook. Today, you all might know Jason from one of our favorite podcasts, invisible office hours with our boss boyfriend, Paul Jarvis. And Jason seems to always have a new and kind of intense project up his sleeve. I just read somewhere that Jason has made over a million dollars by essentially selling advertising space on his body with T shirts, and had sold his last name twice. And Jason has also this is the most impressive to me. I mean a million dollars, whatever. But Jason has also written almost a million words in the last two years. So I'm really excited to tap his brain there. So Jason is so good to have you on the show. Welcome.

Jason Zook 3:31
Thank you boss, ladies, I appreciate it. I feel like since Paul's the boss boyfriend, I'm like the boss like third will third we'll just trailing behind like Guys, can I come to the movies too? And you're like, fine. But that's okay. That's okay.

Kathleen Shannon 3:48
And I think we're planning for the four of us to do a fun little project together at some point.

Jason Zook 3:54
Yeah, that'll be really exciting. I think that I cuz I told two people that I was gonna be on the show. They're like, Oh my gosh, I love it. Cuz Paul was on the shows. Now, you guys. So I think there's a nice little circle of love going on and us just all telling me like it is which makes me excited. So

Kathleen Shannon 4:08
I love you guys. Alright, so Jason, and I feel like I keep on almost calling you Paul.

Unknown Speaker 4:14
Oh, hey, that's

Jason Zook 4:18
no, it's fine. If it's if it slips and you call me, Paul, it just is. That's Paul's third appearance now on the show. He just has an invisible presence. You know from our podcast. He's just here with us.

Unknown Speaker 4:29
Yes, always.

Kathleen Shannon 4:31
Jason, tell us a little bit. So I gave a little bit of a snapshot. But tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you're up to what you're known for and what you're doing right now.

Jason Zook 4:42
Yeah, I'm most known for being the crazy guy who got paid to wear t shirts for a living for five years and made over a million dollars doing it. I wrote a book about that called creativity for sale. And also in that book is the story of how I sold my last name twice, which a lot of people when they first hear that they're like, Oh, this guy ultimate sell out. selling his last name. I've had six last names now. So for me like I'm not someone who gets their sense of identity or their livelihood or their story from who their last name is and their heritage. So yeah, it was a really interesting thing for me during the Irish shirt business to my mom had a third divorce, unfortunately. And how do you deal with that? You know, how do you pick a name? I had a name I didn't want anymore. It was terrible circumstances. And so yeah, let me just tell you my last name. And then once people kind of hear that they're like, oh, and I had so many people come out of the woodwork. They were like, I can relate. Like I had this last name, I went through a divorce, or I don't like my family, or whatever. And it was so funny to meet all these kindred spirits that hated their last names or didn't want their last names. And then I had a lot of people ask me to sell their last name. So I felt like I almost became a last name pimp for a while. I was like, really close to just like auctioning off people's last names for them. But I did not. I did not I couldn't bring myself to do that. So yeah, I wrote this book. It's the, I think the first fully sponsored book ever 204 sponsors that basically crowdsource The, the my kind of initial payment to me for the book, and it was 75,000 books, there are $35,000 that I raised before selling a single copy of the book. So that's the stuff that I'm most known for. And then right now, as of this thing going live, I am selling my future, which we will talk about, I'm sure, which is just ridiculous. But you're right, I do these kind of big, intense, crazy, weird projects, because I just don't fit in. And I know that I don't. So I just, I let myself just do whatever I'm going to do.

Kathleen Shannon 6:28
Wait, tell me more about that. not fitting in. Because that's something I've always I was actually just telling a friend of mine this the other day, we were talking about creative entrepreneurship and kind of using your weaknesses as a superpower. And I've always been voted most. nonconformist, through middle school in high school, and always just kind of felt like a little bit of an outcast. And now I feel like that's a little bit of my superpower whenever it comes to helping encourage other creatives to be who they are 100% of the time and work and life. So I'm curious to hear you whenever you said that. What do you mean by that? What does that mean for you?

Jason Zook 7:06
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you ladies felt the same way. But when I was growing up, like, I felt that there was something different within me, like I, even if I was weird, or if I was bullied or whatever, I still felt like that was unique. That was interesting. That was, that was like you said, your superpower. You mean, when you're a kid, it doesn't feel like a superpower at all, because you feel so alienated. But I just I, you know, I kind of resisted it for so long. And so I never was the entrepreneurial kid, I never started my own business. I didn't do any of that stuff, which surprises people, because I've done so many weird things in the past nine years. But I got out of college, I did the college thing like everyone else. And I got a normal job working nine to five. And I sat there every day, for three and a half years, just thinking to myself, This is not my world, I should not be here. And the only thing that was sitting in front of me that I could look up to was a corporate ladder, right like this, I hate normal ladders. So I'm staring at this, oh, I can become this marketing director. And then I can become this, you know, cmo and like all this stuff. And I'm like, really, that's, that's, that's it. For me. That is the path that I can have in front of myself. And I read Seth Gordon's book, The purple cow. And that was really the first nonfiction book that I had read, the only book I'd read before that that I remembered was James in the Giant Peach. So that tells you the gap in time to which I picked up a book and read a book. But I read this book, and it almost gave me permission to just embrace my own purple cow to embrace my own weirdness. And that was the moment when I basically said, This is enough. I'm gonna try and go down this other path. I don't have any responsibilities. I wasn't married, I don't have any kids. I don't have any dependent. Nothing depends on me. So why not take a big risk now leave this comfortable world, and really, like dig into that feeling inside me and see what happens. And so I did. And that's, that's what's led me and that's what continues to drive me You know, every time I start to do something that's a little bit similar to other people. I feel so uncomfortable. I do. I just, it's it's within my nature, I think just to be different and to embrace that. And I've just, you know, I've seen the rewards of it financially. I've seen the rewards out of people who follow along, because they feel the same way. And I think there's so many people out there who fight their inner urges and their inner gut feelings, and we should embrace those, you know, we should, like you said, turn those into our superpower. What is it that makes me so different from you to awesome, ladies? Well, I should use that to my benefit in everything that I do. Because that's what makes me stand out. So yeah, that's I've thought so much about that stuff. You know, I wrote about it in my book. And, and that was very cathartic. And you mentioned the almost a million words written in two years. That in itself was very helpful for me to give myself permission to say, this is who I am. And this if you're if you're not okay with it by if you are okay with it, join me on the ride and let's have fun and let's do all these weird things that I want to do.

Emily Thompson 9:44
I want to Amen. All. Just so everyone knows, everyone take like eight shots.

Kathleen Shannon 9:49
I know, right? Eight, eight shots eight amens and I really loved hearing all of that and it's a good reminder because even On the path of creative entrepreneurship, it's easy to see what other people are doing, even if it is out of the box. So for example, someone could see what you're doing Jason and say, I want to sell my last name, and then kind of still following someone else's path. And I'm curious to hear about, it sounds like a lot of the stuff that you've done have maybe been passion projects, that's a word that we use to describe something that you're, you follow? Because you're curious, and maybe not so much because it's money making endeavor? Or maybe it is, I think you could frame up a passion project in a few different ways. But I want to I'm curious about and how you kind of give create parameters around passion projects and experiments and new ideas? Because it sounds like you're trying lots of things and lots of things are kind of out of the box. So how do you set that up for yourself?

Jason Zook 10:50
Yeah, I, I go through a lot of different phases when it comes to ID, ideation and creation and launching things. And I think the first thing that I've really learned about myself is that I get so excited about new ideas. And I think all creative entrepreneurs can relate right? shiny object syndrome is through the roof with me, a new idea comes and I'm like, everything else I'm doing, just throw it away. And let's go do this cool, new thing. And so what I've started to do is I said, Okay, I got to pump the brakes, because that's not a sustainable business. It's not a sustainable lifestyle. I need to sit here and I need to say, is this something I should really be doing? And so I basically, with every idea that I have, I write them down just because I like tangibly writing things down, but then I make sure I give it a week. So I will, I will step away from an idea no matter how amazing I think it is, or how much I want to do it. And if I still want to do it in a week, if I still can't stop thinking about it, then I take next steps going forward. And that moment of pause really creates a nice sense of understanding for me of is this something that just was exciting? Or is this something that I'm actually like passionate about or curious about? Or that I want to do? And the next step from there is to really find out, is this thing going to solve a problem for somebody else? Or is it just something for me? That's interesting. And I think both are okay, you know, I've done projects that have been for other people. And for other businesses, I'm pretty sure it was very much. It wasn't like a passion project for me. I mean, I liked t shirts, but I didn't love talking about a company every day, and you know, kind of schlepping their logo. But I found that it was a unique moment in time for social media to like, create advertising and marketing on that platform. But when I think about other projects that I'm working on, like bump sale is a perfect example. That is totally a passion project. You know, that is an incremental pricing structure thing where you can create a little button and it you know, Paul, and I use it to sell a bunch stuff. It's how I sell a lot of my things.

Kathleen Shannon 12:34
Wait, did you invent that?

Jason Zook 12:36
Basically? Yeah, I mean,

Kathleen Shannon 12:39
yeah, I was I first heard that structure on your guys's podcast.

Jason Zook 12:42
Yeah. So that's how I read your shirt launched. That was I use that pricing structure for the calendar. So the whole 2009 calendar was for sale, and it was $1 on the first day, $2 on the second day, three on the third, and just increment it. And then so I turn that into a product. Finally, I mean, you want to talk about waiting too long to do something. Eight years later, like, I did that eight years ago until I and then I finally realized, okay, this is a product like we're talking about exactly here. I can't stop thinking about turning this into something that other people can use. Because it is interesting, it is different. And, and I think that, you know, Paul, and I have a whole episode on our podcast about side projects. So I'm not going to go down the diatribe of all that. But I do believe that side projects are so important for for creative entrepreneurs, especially because it can become an outlet, it can become inspiration for other things. And we focus on our work so much, you know, a lot of us have one thing that we do for money that drives most of the hours of our day. But that doesn't really creatively motivate you, it doesn't stretch you it doesn't make you uncomfortable. As for some people, maybe it does, but I think most of us need extra things on the side to kind of keep us going.

Emily Thompson 13:43
Yeah, I super believe in like the evolution of people's interest. And it's something that I've been thinking of a whole lot lately, where you know, I think in like traditional like career paths, like you're supposed to change careers every like eight years or something like that, like that's, that's a normal cycle for career change. And I think for those of us who find ourselves in like this creative entrepreneur realm, where we kind of get to decide what we want to do on any given day, like there's a natural evolution to what it is that we want to do. And whether it is, you know, focusing on creating a single product for three years or offering the service for two years, or whatever it is, like, I think a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs go into this thinking that the decision that I make today for what I'm going to do for my future is what I'm going to have to live with for the next you know, 10 years of my life. Whereas that's not the case at all, like you do it for a year or two or until you're tired of it and then you find your next thing I think there's so much power in giving, giving yourself and everyone the permission to explore passion projects, and to have those side hustles and to see and like really see where they're going to go. I know being balls for Kathleen and I was totally just a thing. We're like, hey, let's just sort of start this podcast and now we spend more and more time on it and put more and more energy on it or into it because it feeds us So much for if it's me more than my one on one projects these days, like, the thing that I've been building for the past five years is something that I feel is sort of slipping into the back of my mind, I think that's really powerful that idea of, of giving yourself permission to do passion projects, dreaming up whatever it is that you want to do, and totally exploring any and all of them, especially if they sort of test or they pass that week long test of is this just a funny idea? Or is it something that can actually help myself or others? I think I'm pursuing things like that is exactly what we have to do, to keep interested in what we do to learn new things. Because, you know, five years ago, I was learning how to code websites. I don't want to learn how to code websites anymore. Like I want to learn how to make gluten free muffins tastes amazing. That's what I want to learn right now. I think that that makes you more a more interesting person, like weird or not, it simply makes you more interesting. I'm so good. I'm glad that you do that.

Jason Zook 15:59
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with, we grew up with this idea, and this gets forced into you in school is you're going to have one career for your life. Bullshit, like, No, you know, I remember those things when I was growing up, where I'm like, Are you kidding me? I'm gonna have to do one thing for 30 to 50 years, and I'm not allowed to do anything else. No, like that. I don't subscribe to that. I'm not I don't believe in that. And so I think that you're you're very right. And that these things, they help stretch you they help you grow, like we've been talking about. And I think the one thing so as we talk about new ideas, and this is something that I've learned a lot recently, is that feedback is very dangerous when it comes to these new ideas. Because, you know, we all as creators will have lots of ideas, we'll put lots of things out there. And unsolicited or solicited, people will give you feedback. And a lot of times it comes from close friends, it comes from family, and they'll say something that might derail a project or an idea. And I think we've all been there. I mean, everybody listening, this has had some idea that someone has told them, this isn't going to work. And even if 100 people say yes, or they give you money for it, or whatever, that one person is the one that stands out in your mind. And so what I've really learned because I've done some crazy stuff, I've done some weird stuff on the internet, which sounds like porn, but it's not. But I've done I've done a lot of weird stuff that people close to me that you know, whatever have given me, you know, feedback on it, saying like, you shouldn't do this, or this isn't going to work. And now what I do is I look at that through a microscope, and I go, who is this person? What are they doing in their life? Are they actually happy in their career? And are they just projecting their fears on me, and most of the time, 99.9% of the time, it is the truth, that person has no, their their feedback has no bearing on what I should be doing. Because they're afraid they don't want to do that thing. And so I've just learned over the years that when I'm doing these things, and I think any creative entrepreneur where you're doing anything, even if you're making gluten free muffins, and someone tells you this muffin sucks, has that person ever made a gluten free muffin? Has that? Does that person love muffins? They muffins all the time? like are they a muffin connoisseur? Because if they're not, then you just go Okay, well, I'm gonna take your feedback with a grain of salt. I'm going to go back and maybe work on this and see if there's some things I can change. But I'm not going to hinge my entire success of my muffin business on this one person's feedback. And I think a lot of us do that in the creative entrepreneur space, because we get that feedback so regularly. And it comes to us so quickly. And, and people are so quick to send us an email or tweet or whatever. And we read them because they come to us. So yeah, I've just learned that when it comes to ideation and creating big projects and big things, you have to be really careful when you're getting feedback and knowing who it's from and how to take that feedback.

Kathleen Shannon 18:27
I want to talk for a second about feedback also, because I think it goes both ways. So we've talked a lot, especially on the being boss Facebook group about kind of drowning out the haters, or even whenever it's well meaning feedback that's a little less than positive. It usually comes from that place of fear. But I also want to talk about how On the flip side, getting the 99% positive feedback like yes, do this thing that actually shouldn't feel you either. Because if you're constantly looking for feedback from outside sources, eventually, you're you have no foundation, it's going to crumble. And so you need to be doing the things that you want to do, regardless of whether or not other people support it or don't. So for example, I've been thinking recently about turning off the comments on my personal blog, which I don't really even update that often anymore. Because a lot of them I do get mostly positive comments, I would say 99% positive comments. But I don't, I guess I don't need that feedback anymore, either, like I once did. And so I would say be careful about everyone telling you that you should do something to and just do it on your own merits for your own reasons.

Jason Zook 19:41
Yeah, I mean that that happened for me with this by my future project where I asked for feedback from certain people. So I built I have a trust circle. And so I talked about this in my book I talk about this often is you should build a trust circle of people who aren't going to cheerlead, who aren't going to give you the positive feedback. There are people like you know, for me, that's Paul, like, I'll send Paul an idea and while Paul and I Really like each other, he will be brutally honest with me, and he will say this idea, I don't like it, I don't think it's gonna work. And I need that. Because if I just get the positive feedback, then I'm never going to grow. I'm never gonna, you know, increase, you know, value of my projects or whatever. But with this by my future project, I was asking people for feedback. And then I got to a point where I had reached peak feedback, you know, I had I had had enough like you've had with your blog comments, right? You don't necessarily need them anymore for you to create great content for you to put things out into the world. And for me, it was the same thing I didn't, I don't need any more feedback, like I have everything I need. I've done a lot of testing. I've talked to a lot of people, I'm good to go. And so you kind of have to make that determination in your mind as the creator of whatever it is you're working on and say, okay, now's the time I draw the line in the sand. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. But I have to move forward. Because if you don't, then you're just gonna constantly be like, kind of thinking, Oh, wait, but what are people thinking? What should I be doing? What should I be changing? Instead of going back to what we first talked about, trust your gut, like you're the one who's creating this thing, you're the one who has the, the superpower, the intelligence, the skill, put that out into the world and trust yourself. And if it's different, if it's a unique thing, it's hard. I mean, let's be honest, this is we live in a space that is, is not well understood, that's not well documented, there's no blueprint for what we do. But that's also what makes it beautiful, because it's challenging, like, I get chills thinking about how hard some of the things that I that I'm working on are, but I also feel so great when I put them out into the world. And so I think that's just such a unique thing that we can all relate to. And you just have to understand that you know, for you turn the comments off, right? And if you feel like a week later, or two weeks later, like, Oh, I'm really missing the comments, or people are really complaining, you could flip them back on, there's no rule, you're not gonna get in trouble. The comment police aren't gonna be like, Oh, sorry, we're gonna take your blog down because it turned the comments off and put it back on.

Kathleen Shannon 21:43
That's one thing Emily and I are constantly saying is that nothing is permanent. You can always and Emily, what do you say refine and tweak as you go? testing, change, test and change? Maybe refine and tweak, sorry. Okay, so I want to I want to come around to buy my future. But I want to ask you about the writing project, particularly because I have fallen out of the habit of writing. And I would love to get back into it. And so I this is maybe well, I have a few questions. But one, how did you decide to start? Like, tell us a little bit about the writing project to that thing about changing your mind along the way? How do you commit to a side project? And then what do you do if you change your mind? Like, what if 200,000 words and you're like, you know what? Nevermind. Yeah, like, tell us a little bit about that, like how you structured the parameters of that project.

Jason Zook 22:33
So the beautiful thing about this, this as I wrote that article on my site, and it's Jason does stuff comm slash words, I believe, is that I had written at that point, 800,000 words, and I looked back, and I realized how many I've been writing per day. But what's funny is I didn't start out saying, I want to write a million words, because that's basically what I'm up to. Now, I want to write in other words, I'd never established that goal. I never established that as a milestone, I just started writing and said, I want to write consistently every day, and see how long I can go and see what that you know what that looks like. And part of that was because I knew that writing articles and sending newsletters and stuff was was something that was interesting to me. And then I'd seen a lot of people do and I was getting value from so I was like, Oh, I think I have some experience, I can share some things. So I would just sit down every day. First thing I wouldn't, I wouldn't look at social media, I wouldn't look at anything, you know, I'd have my coffee. And for a lot of people that part of their day is like a zombie, right? Like, you just don't feel like you can get anything done. But I feel like that's actually a good thing. Because that forces you to get it done at the hardest part of your day, which is only going to make it easier going forward. Because you're going to start to like, you know, it's when you're working at something you're really bad at, well, if you keep working at it, you're gonna get incrementally better, right? 1% better every day, or whatever the inspirational quote would be. But so I just started doing this. And I just told myself 500 words per day, let's see what happens. You don't have to write about anything specific. And maybe some good stuff will come of it. And there were days when I sat and I used to have a yoga ball that I sat on. And I would just write about the yoga ball. Like I had nothing else to write about. But I told myself, no blank cursor, no writer's block, just start typing. Like I have to start hitting keys. And sometimes I would have documents that were just random, like words, just random things. And then I start describing the yoga bell. Oh, the yoga bomb sitting on it. What is the yoga ball? What is yoga? Where do yoga come from? Can I do yoga? Could I do downward dog for like an hour? Well, that's a weird thought. Has anybody done like a world record? And you let your brain go, but you just you capture it, right? Because then all the sudden, two or 300 words in, I now have like a Oh wait, how I could apply, you know the, how difficult Yoga is to running my business. Let me write about that. And all of a sudden, I'm writing an article about that that's two or 3000 words long, and it never would have happened had I not just started. So I did. I just kind of kept that process going every day. And I deleted about 90% of the stuff that I wrote, because I would look at it and I would go this is just me writing about a yoga ball. So that's garbage. But this is you know, there's some good nuggets in here that I can pull out and I would kind of save them in different places. And so as I got through The kind of to the, I guess the finish line, right where I just now I write, it's so easy for me to write because I have done it so much that it is like, if you sit down, you're like, Jason, please write an article on, you know, yoga, whatever. I'm like, Okay, good. I'll be back to you in like an hour. And I'll have probably 2000 words written. And it's not gonna be a struggle for me, because I've built a habit over the years that now that becomes like a skill that I've honed and that I've worked on. So that was basically how it started, how it kept going. And so I don't do it anymore. So your second question was like, how do we work on like, changing whatever, you know, I think it's okay to quit these things. I think it's okay to stop doing things. There's a there's a negative connotation to stopping doing something because it's like you give up or it's like, you fail. No, I'm intentionally not doing something anymore. Because I want to create space for something else. Or because I got the value, I wanted that thing. And I'm moving forward, or because it wasn't serving me. And sometimes if people forced themselves to do something that they aren't really good at, or that they don't shouldn't be doing. Maybe it can be harmful, you know, it can take away from the overall health of you and your business. And so yeah, I have stopped doing a lot of things. You know, over the years, I've given up on some projects, given up on some habits, I think we all give up on diets and workouts like left and right. But you have to find the one that works for you. And for me, writing has just, I didn't, I never thought that I would be a writer ever. And I just started doing it. And all of a sudden, now I'm a writer. And I can say that, and that's cool. And everybody can be a writer, all you have to do is just write

Emily Thompson 26:25
Oh, agreed, I love the idea. Like we were just talking about giving yourself permission to start things to create passion projects. But the flip side of that being giving yourself permission to quit. Because that's just as huge I think with this, like evolution of going forward and you know, creating whatever it is that you're going to create in the future. It does involve quitting things like you can't do all the things. There's not enough brain space or time before any of those things. So giving yourself permission to quit things is is huge for doing I think what we do, especially in the realm of online business, because the internet changes constantly. And something that I feel like I'm saying more and more these days, because it's it's having faster even like you have to be changing. You have to be adding things and you have to be giving things up as well. Yeah, there's

Jason Zook 27:15
a there's a really interesting push and pull there of like, how badly do you want to be working on something, you know, when someone says like, I have this dream of building this business, but then after three months, they they quit. It's like, Okay, I have to I have to like call you on that one. Because if that's your dream, and you want to build that business, it's going to take longer than three months, it's going to take longer than whatever amount of time it's going to take. So there is and so I'm totally in agreement with you, you have to stop if things aren't serving you. But I think it's also one of those things where Yeah, the internet is so fast. Everything comes so quick. We have instant gratification for every single thing that we do. And like, do you remember what I don't know if you guys remember, like getting an email a couple days later used to be amazing. You'd be like, Oh, they responded. Now if you don't respond in like seven minutes, I'm like, What do Kathleen and Emily hate me? Like, what's going on? Why haven't they written me back? Like I see them both on Twitter, they're tweeting, I know that they're on Instagram, I can see they're they're posting Instagram, like, in you know, it's this weird thing where now everything is so instant that we relate that to business too. Or it's like, well, I should have 1000 customers now, you know, I should have 1000 true fans, I should have you know, all this money on recurring revenue every month, everything should be working. No, it doesn't work that way it becomes finding your own path and creating your own space and, and then, you know, doing things along the way that serve your business and learning. Should I keep doing this should I not. And I think failure is one of the things that it gets talked about a lot, but you don't if you don't learn from your failure, then you're not you're never gonna grow. And if you don't embrace the failure, like for me, I looked at the end of our rear shirt as a failure, because the business didn't continue. But you both kind of turn your head Well, I made a million dollars doing it. Yeah, but I didn't have a million dollars. When I ended. I actually was in debt when I ended. So I looked at that, right? Because the business for me like had a crazy arc of it was me. And then it was two people in the second year, then five in the third year. And I got to eight in the fourth year. And it was at that time when social media got super crowded. And there were a lot of businesses, a lot of people and I was spending like 25 $30,000 a month in payroll and expenses to keep the business going. But then all of a sudden, if one client didn't pay their bill, I had to leverage debt to be able to pay for that. And I had no clue what I was doing. I had never done this before. So I was leveraging debt and then all sudden, a big chunk of money would come in, oh, I would pay my people I wouldn't pay off the debt. And then it just kind of it never got resolved. And so I looked at that as a failure when it ended, right. And I held on to that. And now we look back at it on probably one of the best thing that's ever happened to me because I learned so much from that experience that I never want to be in debt again. I never want to have that type of type of cash flow going out again, I never want to manage people. I'm not a good manager of people. I also don't want to manage money. Like if there was a way that we could as entrepreneurs just be like please take my money and make it work for me and then just make sure I have enough to pay my bills. I want that service, I will pay for that service every month

Emily Thompson 30:02
needed David.

Kathleen Shannon 30:05
I told Emily yesterday, I was like, I need to go deposit some checks for being boss. And I don't know how to do that, like I've set it up in my life, so that other people do these things.

Emily Thompson 30:17
I know and I couldn't help her because I'm the same way like I was, you take it to the bank, and you hand it to them and say, put it where it go.

Kathleen Shannon 30:26
Do I need to write on the back?

Jason Zook 30:28
These are the things that like, I think business people would laugh at us, right? Like, oh, you know, creatives, like you don't live in the real world. It's like, No, we just don't think that way. You know, like, we think in the creative way, I think in the way of like, coming up with these crazy ideas. I don't think about oh, I need to make sure that like my payroll taxes are paid. What like, that doesn't make sense. Like, it's so hard for me to do that. So yeah, there's just, there's so many things, as we're talking about, like building a business and growing a business and changing and quitting and failure and all this stuff that you just don't learn. And I think that one of the best things that you can do is invest in yourself. And we touched on that a little bit earlier. But that side projects, that's taking a free course on accounting on Lynda or Skillshare, or whatever, and learning like in our time, right, and I know that freshbooks has worked with you guys in the past, and like they have resources too, that you can dig into. And people think like, Oh, I don't, you know, I don't want to dig and learn that. Yeah, you should, because it's gonna help you in the long run. And I learned the hard way I you know, I kind of wish I could go back and learn that stuff. But I wouldn't change it because I learned a lesson that I won't repeat. And now I'll be stronger as a person moving forward.

Kathleen Shannon 31:32
Well, and one thing that I want to say too, is that it's pretty easy. Everything has been set up to become easier and easier. So for example, freshbooks, our sponsor for being boss. And whenever you sign up, it's it kind of intuitively takes you through it, you don't have to have a degree in accounting. And now Hey, I don't have to do a separate freshbooks ad about it now. But it is true, you set it up, and you automatically categorize your expenses. And hey, you give that to your accountant, and then they figure it out for you. So it's actually pretty intuitive. But there are other things like that, too. For example, I hosted my first webinar recently. And I was like, well, shoot, I don't know how to do that. Well, crowdcast, who's not sponsoring this podcast, it makes it so easy, where you just have a Google Hangout, and you click the crowdcast button and bam, you have a webinar. So that's just to say, I think that just like technology, the technology boom in the 50s, where we're getting things like toasters and washing machines and dishwashers, the same thing is happening now. As far as apps, and the internet goes, as far as making everything easier to run your own business,

Emily Thompson 32:45
yet we're having a system boom. Everything is being systemized it's so much easier in technology The internet has made that made that easy for us, but it's also just like, I think that there are enough human beings there enough human brains in the world these days to make any sort of process like that, that would usually be super painful, much much easier. Like it is it is such a beautiful time to be an entrepreneur, like especially an online one, where things like accounting or webinars or whatever is so systemized and easy. And just click a button and do it like there's, there are no excuses, guys, for everyone not to try that passion project right

Kathleen Shannon 33:28
now. Okay, I have a question. Because one of the things that we preach at braid is to kind of narrow in on your niche and get really specific about what you do and who you do it for. So I'm curious. Um, and a lot of sometimes the thing that we tell people is to just stay on the bus like to stay on your path and see it through. So how do you address kind of the tension between wanting to see something through, even if it's not really serving you? Or if you feel like you're, you're even not enjoying it, versus giving up or trying something new or getting distracted by the next shiny object? Like, how do you kind of manage that?

Jason Zook 34:12
Yeah, I mean, I think it boils down to how badly do you want that thing. And if if sitting on the bus makes you so uncomfortable, and drives you to an unhealthy life and you know, your relationships are falling apart and just everything is not going right, then I think it's time to move away. I think it's time to get off the bus, it's time to, you know, pull the emergency cord and say, I gotta get off this thing. But I think if you sit there and you go, Okay, I see some hurdles, I see some some speed bumps, let's just keep the metaphors going. I see some stop signs, and you know, up ahead, and I don't know which way this thing's going to go. But I want this thing more than I'm afraid of all the things that lie ahead of me. And that's how I've looked at every one of my crazy businesses is that Yeah, they're big and they're scary and I'm putting myself out there way further than most people would. And a lot of times without a niche without a without a specific order. And that's scary. I mean, I totally agree with you, anybody starting a business, find a niche established what you do. And that can change, right? That that can change next week that can change one month from now, if it's not serving you, and it's not working, you know, figure out a way that you can change it. But as long as you really feel like this is the thing I should be doing. And this is the thing that it brings brings me a lot of value. And I'm creating a great value exchange, which is usually like, here's the thing I do give me money for that. Okay, now you get a benefit. That cycle works, well then keep doing it and keep growing. And so yeah, I think that there's there's a lot to be said for Joshua fields Milburn, when the minimalist says us drudging, through the drudgery, there will always be downtime, there will always be slow times there will always be tough moments, there will always be things. Another thing I recommend the obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday, such a good book, it frames all these tough things that you go through in business in a way that actually makes it seem like okay, these are bad, but they're leading to good. And if I look at it through that lens of like, Oh my gosh, the server's crashed or whatever, well, maybe this is an opportunity for us to like pick a better hosting company. You know, Oh, my gosh, like no one bought this product? Oh, well, maybe this is a chance for me to reach out to people who I think would have bought it and ask them why they didn't and learn, oh, I wrote bad sales copy. Or it wasn't clear what I was telling, you know, you can learn from all these things. So yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for that. And I just have seen that in spades as I've launched all these different things.

Kathleen Shannon 36:21
You know, I want to rewind a little bit to something that you said as far as people saying, It's my dream to do this thing. And then they quit three months later, I want to I just wanted to point out that a lot of the things I've created and have done in my life, were never a dream of mine. So this podcast, for example, is like Emily said, it's one of the things that brings me the most joy, it's the thing that I don't want to quit. I really love doing it. And it was never a dream of mine to start a podcast. It was a decision that happened in a day. So I just wanted to point out that sometimes that's how a project gets started is that it is a decision that happens in a day or maybe you know, I probably should have paused and waited a week before saying yes.

Unknown Speaker 37:07
Oh, please.

Jason Zook 37:09
I can. With every business I've started, I can point to that exact moment the same as you never was it a dream, always a decision in the moment I wear your shirt was phone calls from our clients. I had a design business at the time. And our clients were asking me, Jason, what is social media? And should we be on it? And I'm like, oh, Mo, that's interesting. All you know, like multiple businesses were asking me, and then I walked in my closet a couple days later, I was like looking at these t shirts with logos on them. And I'm wearing for free. These two things that happened led to the start of that business. You know, my mom calling me and saying I'm getting a divorce, that led to me making $100,000 selling my last name twice. I never dreamed of selling my last name that literally fell into my lap. You know, writing my book, I sat down in a Tex Mex restaurant eating a burrito. And I was super bummed out. And the guy across the table from me, David Cohen said, you should write a book about your story. I was like all I know, but I'm not a writer. And he was like, no one's a writer until they start writing. And that was the moment that like being and you know, this by my future project, I would never would have dreamed in my life like, Oh, I'm going to dream. So my future No, that project came from really not liking the constant evolution and kind of reinventing of the wheel of the selling process of me. So

Kathleen Shannon 38:17
let's talk about that. Let's let's dive into by my future, tell us what that is.

Jason Zook 38:21
So what I'm doing is I'm offering a one time $1,000 subscription payments, basically, to buy my future. So I've created eight projects over the past two years that you get access to, which is five courses, my book, and two web applications and teacher in bump sale tea tree itself is an online learning app. It's 600 bucks a year. And then I'm guaranteeing six projects in the next two years that will be included. So it's Can you tell

Kathleen Shannon 38:44
us a little bit more about your past eight projects?

Jason Zook 38:47
Yes. So five courses, we've got the product profit course that I did with Nathan Berry and Paul Jarvis. I have two sponsorship courses, one that's like an in depth, it gets sponsorships for anything. And then one is a newer course that's just about getting sponsorships for podcasts. We're actually interview like, number one rated iTunes podcasters, which is cool. Finish your damn book, which is another course with Paul, which helps people finish their damn book because we found that Paul and I are unicorns, when it comes to writing books, apparently, like, it's really hard for people to sit down and finish their book. We've just established ways that help us do that. And then the fifth course is one that's called one week to profit. It's a seven steps and seven ways to really build a foundation. It's like it's the stuff your time earlier business and our time like building a business in the digital age requires such different steps than it did 10 years ago. So I just went through and looked at like all the mistakes I've made. And basically each day is a different mistake and how you can learn from it and actually find profit in your business that I have as well. So those are the five courses, my book and then the two web apps. And then so also included in the by my future stuff is six guaranteed projects in the next two years. Two courses, two books, two web apps, one of each of those will be dictated by the community. So they'll choose what they want me to make. And then for the rest of my life, you get access to anything I create for free and first, so you pay

Kathleen Shannon 40:03
me. So like, let's say you have a retreat or something like an event,

Jason Zook 40:06
by my future, if someone has purchased my future, they get access to that. And they don't have to pay a single dime.

Kathleen Shannon 40:12
So, so cool. Do you have ideas for some of the things that you want to make first? Next?

Jason Zook 40:16
Yeah, so I have I really want to extrapolate extrapolate on this business in the digital age thing. And I want to reach out to people that I know and I want to talk to them, and I want to break down. Okay, how are you actually building a business right now? And what are the things that are working the best for you, because it might be like customer validation calls to find customers, it might be email list building, it might be a bunch of other different things. But I want to find out and see where the patterns are from, like 20 to 30 different people I know, and build an in depth course that basically becomes like you want to start a business, this is where you need to start. This is your MBA in online business. So that's one I want to write a book on reinvention. Because I know, for me, I was never a person to talk about a lot of my personal stuff, I was never transparent about my hardships. And I think that I have become so different over the years, because I've given myself permission to change, like we've talked about multiple times, which is really fun. And then I have a couple different ideas for web apps. One is actually something that I'm using on my site right now where if someone signs up for my email list, that person will never see the signup form on my website, again, because it's dead real estate, right? Like that person never needs to see, hey, sign up, I've already done that. So I show them like, get my book for free, get 50% off of this product, because you're a subscriber to my email list. So I want to build that out for other people to use on their sites. So that's just a handful of the stuff that I'm working on. And listen, I have three other projects that are not even in the guarantee of by my future that are going to come down next year that are already planned. And you know, your as a customer who buys my future, which is such a weird thing to say, you will pay me $1,000. And then you will never pay me again for the rest of my life and for the rest of your life. And you will just continue to get stuff from me.

Kathleen Shannon 41:56
So like, what if you even start a one on one service that's like, so I'm even thinking about. So I'm applying this to not everything I've ever created. And out of all of the things that you could buy for me is probably about, I don't know, I would say around $10,000 total, maybe even a little bit more if you include being boss in that bundle. So if someone if I had done this a year ago, and someone paid $1,000, they might get $10,000 worth of stuff. So like even if you create a one on one service, where you're literally designing websites for people now does the buy my future subscribers, do they get a website now?

Jason Zook 42:33
Yeah, that's it. That's what I built. Wow. So yeah, I am, the way that I look at this is lifetime customer value. Right? So you you mentioned you have $10,000 in products I look at mine is about 40 $500 in products. And so what I've looked at is like, do I have anybody who's actually paid me for all of my things across the board. And it's a very, very, very small handful of people. So I'm thinking about this from the perspective of well, how can I maximize the value per customer that I have, and know that they're going to get the maximum value for me, I'm going to get the maximum profit from them. And that becomes a really great exchange, that doesn't happen very often in business, you know, we're not getting that off, you know, oftentimes. And so it doesn't scare me that, let's say 200 people buy my future, during because it's only open for two weeks. So if someone goes to buy my future comm after October 6, I'm sorry, you won't be able to purchase my future, which is again, so weird to say. But if you if there's 200 people, that means that Okay, any project I create going forward, I have to think I have 200 beta testers, I have 200 people who can give me feedback. Yes, these are people who I won't make money from. But there are people who know people, there are people who love what I do, obviously, because they've invested in me in the long run. And it's really interesting to I'm really excited to see what's going to happen, you know, when I launch a new project, because this might be my word of mouth army that's just sitting there waiting, you know, they're like, Oh, well, I got this. But now I

Kathleen Shannon 43:53
can say do you think Who do you anticipate is going to buy your future? Do you think it's your biggest fans? Do you think that you're actually going to be creating this really amazing little tribe of people that are actually paying you to be a part of that? I mean, that's really cool. What and I'm curious to like what your expectations are as far as how many people you want to sign up? And how many like, what's your loan number? What's your number? If you don't mind me?

Jason Zook 44:16
Oh, no, I so I wrote a 60 day journal leading up to this project. And I basically revealed everything except for what the project was. So in, I think it was in like, the third day, I talked about my my goals, public goals, which was the low number of 100, which I absolutely think I can hit and a high goal of 1000. Because that would be the first project that I've done a million dollars, basically at the launch. And it's completely arbitrary. Like, I don't need a million dollars. I don't and I think that there are a lot of business owners out there a lot of people out there who want to squeeze every diamond dollar out of every project. I've done that I don't want to do that anymore. I want to live a comfortable life. I want to enjoy it. So I want to see what happens if I do this. And let's say 500 people sign up and so I'm gonna have a slack community for this as well. Well, what does the slack community look like with 500 people because if it's too noisy, and I I can't keep up and I can't give the one on one that I want to give to those tribe members, I might close it off, I might say, like, no more people, because it's too many. I don't want to be the guy who's like, no one can get access to me, no one can talk to me, that's not the point, I want to build that highly inclusive tribe, like you just mentioned. So I'm really excited for that. And, you know, I think the other thing that this brings up for me is, yes, my fans and customers and people will buy, but I also am building stuff that helps people think more creatively, that helps people grow and make money with their businesses. And it helps people just become better versions of themselves, I think, because I've become that and I've learned so much over the years, and I'm not a woowoo guy, you know, like I you can tell, I've learned a lot about this stuff. And I believe in it, because it's made a big impact. So if people like that, and that resonates with them, that I think my future is for them. If it if it doesn't, then that's cool, too. You know, I don't need every customer to buy to make this a successful project.

Kathleen Shannon 45:53
And so I just want to point out that by my future launches today, September 22, and it will be shutting down October six, yes,

Jason Zook 46:01
my future is closed October 6, but I will I will be eating a lot of kale salads after that. So don't worry, I'm gonna be very healthy for a long time.

Kathleen Shannon 46:12
I'm so fascinated, I can't I, I want to buy your future and just out of morbid curiosity, like, like with me in 30 years, Jason, if I buy you for $1,000. And I think this

Jason Zook 46:25
is such an intriguing thing that I hope other people do this, if their businesses allow it, right? If what they do allows it where you don't have to give up a lot of your time. Because for me, this is not like a giving up a lot of my personal time. This is me giving people access to my work. But this is also me saying if I sell 200 of these, or whatever I make $200,000 over the course of two weeks, which is freakin amazing. And then for the next maybe year or two years, I don't have to sell a single thing, like how beautiful is that I will just be creating, and that's what I do best. And so I'll be able to say, you know what, Kathleen and Emily, I'm gonna make something just for you. Because you guys have this awesome, you know, creative business that you're doing it, it's awesome podcast. Well, I think I can help you. And here's exactly what I'm building for you. And maybe I build something for you. And that's the opportunity where that morbid curiosity that you have, I want to be able to fulfill that I want to be able to do things with that where I could never do that now, because it's impossible to scale that it's impossible to do that on a daily basis where I can make that money. Well, if I have a bank of money, where I'm taking care of now I can.

Kathleen Shannon 47:26
Alright, here's another question, I find that a lot of creatives and Emily, you might see this too, like they need the pressure of a deadline or the pressure of needing to pay the bills or the pressure of something to be creative, right. So let's say you sell 200 of these you make $200,000 in a week, you have all this freedom to create, I find that freedom too much freedom. I mean, I know people who are independently wealthy with trust funds, and they're not doing a lot because they don't have to. So I'm really curious how you're going to, well, one if you need that pressure to be creative, and then how you're going to continue to put the pressure on yourself to produce things, even with a little bit of cushion.

Jason Zook 48:09
Yeah, so this is a I like to answer this question in this way. When I go on vacation, 30 minutes in, I'm bored out of my mind. I'm bored. I can't, I cannot. I'm all for breaks. I'm all for space. I'm all for, you know, doing that as good. And I will find a way to make it happen. But I'm always going, my brain is always going my superpower is that I can't stop creating. And that's the perfect illustration of that writing, right? Like a million words in two years. I'm not gonna say it was easy for me, because there were days when it was hard. But it wasn't hard. It wasn't like arduous. It didn't take like a ton of effort for me. Because that's how I'm wired. And I've come to understand that and appreciate that. And that's my way, my way. Well, that's my way. That's why my website is Jason does stuff calm, because I do stuff and I get stuff done. And I don't have that that hurdle of I need a deadline to get things done. Now, I totally appreciate that people do. And I think that if that's something you know about yourself, then maximize that, right, like find a way that like, Oh, I need a deadline today. I need a deadline this week and endellion this month, you know, for me that cushion. If anything, I think it's just going to be able to create more space in my mind where now I don't have to think about the selling and the pressure of the making of the money. And now my brain can even hopefully have more creative thinking and more problem solving time. At least that's the hope. I don't know I may just buy a yacht and disappear. I don't know how much so maybe I won't but I really believe this is going to set me up for just the creation process and maximizing that.

Kathleen Shannon 49:34
All right, if I buy your future and you buy a yacht, can we hang out?

Jason Zook 49:39
Yes you are. I will I will I will commit to this on the beam vo boss podcast if I buy a yacht all by my future members can have a ride on the yacht so you're free to ride. I know this is gonna happen but

Kathleen Shannon 49:50
sure I'm gonna pretend to be be on your yacht.

Jason Zook 49:53
We're just gonna we're gonna make it rain. Then we're gonna

Unknown Speaker 49:56
go that

Jason Zook 49:59
yeah I am I'm really excited about where this is going to lead because I don't know what I'm going to be doing in five years. But I've loved the creation process, I've loved the writing process of love the building of these apps, you know, creating courses, you know that all the stuff that I do with Paul Jarvis is so much fun for me. I mean, we just, we come up with ideas, you know, we put them out into the world, they solve problems for people, we get these emails from people like, Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for creating this thing. It helped me overcome the fear that I've had for like 10 years. Like that, that is such a cool feeling. And I know that other entrepreneurs can relate to that with the work that they're putting out into the world. So yeah, I'm just really hoping that this by my future project allows me to have a lot more space for things like that.

Emily Thompson 50:40
I have to say, Jason, I think that you are like the physical embodiment of like my creative entrepreneur canon, like, I like it like, like this, this idea of using your life to create things for people, but also to create wealth for yourself. So you can live the life that you want to live like, this is exactly what I feel myself preaching to one myself constantly, but also to my clients who feel like way down by like, structure that's imposed by someone else, or these ideas that they have to choose one thing and do that forever, or,

Kathleen Shannon 51:17
or who

Emily Thompson 51:18
who get so caught up in like one on one engagements or whatever it may be that they don't really see the possibilities. And what happens when you just sort of trust your gut, you create what you want to create a you add value and pour passion into it, and then see what happens. Because if you love what you do as much as you do, and as much as like, the best creative entrepreneurs do, people are going to buy it, and they're going to support you and your message and whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. And you're going to get those emails like that. Because if you're out there to change lives, you will change lives. And that is like, that's why we all do what we do. And if you're doing it, so like, bow down to Jason. Yeah.

Kathleen Shannon 52:01
I think we have a new boss boyfriend. I know. Oh, yeah. See, you're kidding. You guys can both be boss boyfriends, you

Emily Thompson 52:09
are no longer the third wheel?

Jason Zook 52:12
Yes, no, I listen, I so appreciate that. And I it's not always been that way. You know, it's, it's, it's been a grind. It's been hard work. It's been getting $100,000 in debt, it's been having businesses that, you know, I thought were going to be the thing I was gonna do for the rest of my life. And I'm not being that. And it's been a lot of people telling me No, and that I can't I mean, all of my businesses before this, were so sponsor related. And when you're trying to get sponsors for things, it's incredibly hard, you're hearing No, a lot. And I think a lot of people with whatever their creative businesses, they're probably hearing no in some way. And sometimes it's quiet nose, it's the nose, have you put something up for sale, and no one buys, right. And I think there's a post that I should write about that of, you know, not trying to let the client knows affect you and affect the outcome of your projects. Because so often we put things out into the world, and someone doesn't like it, or someone doesn't retweet it, or someone doesn't buy it. And we think that that's a reflection on the quality of that thing. And no, maybe it's just the timing wasn't right, maybe it's just, it wasn't the right, it wasn't, you know, pitch the right way or whatever. So yeah, I mean, I've just learned so much over the years, I have so much more to learn, I have so much more to experience. And I really hope that this tribe of people who buys my future helped me grow. And they helped me realize that I do have a lot more to offer the world and that they're basically giving me permission to not worry about the selling of all these projects, and to just create and to just put things out into the world that hopefully make a small dent in people's problems. And, you know, hopefully some of these projects make a small dent in the world in some way. I don't typically think like that. But I think that this could be the first project that actually helps me set something up like that.

Kathleen Shannon 53:44
Are you at all afraid of ruining your life with this project?

Jason Zook 53:48
No, not at all. I mean, I think that there are enough kind of things in place where you know, the terms and conditions itself, you don't get access to my kids, you don't get any financial dividends from these projects. You know, that all that stuff that people are gonna kind of agree to when they buy, and it's not even scary stuff. It's just covering myself from like the baseline. I firmly believe that the work that I've done over the years, the work that I'm going to do, it's deserved for those people to get that, and it's not going to hold me back, it's not going to slow me down. And you know, there was one part of me that was like, you know, I kinda want to offer like an hour long call with every person that buys. But that does hamstring me into a lot of one on one time, a lot of personal time. But that's not saying that I won't do that eventually, right? Like, I might just say, hey, there's 100 of you in here. Like, I'm gonna do quarterly calls with everybody that's guaranteed. But maybe I just want to get on the phone with every one of these people anyway, and just say, what are you working on? What do you like? Like, what are your problems? What do you what do you need? because then I can create something for that that that they can then spread and that they can then use going forward?

Kathleen Shannon 54:48
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the signups themselves and then what those people do, how it really does dictate. I know that you said there would be one project that's dictated by the group, but even on a more subtle nuanced level, how the how many people sign up for this and, and what their projects are and what their you know what who they are how that's going to affect what you end up doing. I mean, I could take you on a whole new career path, like let's say you had only writers sign up or you're, you know, a big majority. And that'll be kind of interesting to you. I'm so curious about this. I'm signing up. That just because I'm so curious,

Jason Zook 55:25
that's amazing. I number one, thank you. Because that that like that validation is is so cool to hear, right. And I think we all crave that so much in our life of getting some type of validation, whether it's financial or just verbal. But I think the other thing that you're right, this could change the trajectory of my life and where my business life goes, and how this is going to evolve me as a person. And I'm excited for that, like that lights me up. Because as creative entrepreneurs, I think we feed off of that stuff. You know, like you said, all the businesses that you've done have come from decisions, not necessarily from dreams, it's such a cool thing that I now have a lot of decisions that are going to come in front of me from a lot of different people. And I can't wait to see what that shapes and how that happens in full transparency. I'm going to put this out there fully, transparently, who I didn't mess it up. So I'll tell everybody after this is done, how many people purchased it? How many people you know, email through because I want this project in itself to also be completely open so that people can learn from it. And they can see how I did it exactly what went into it. All the work that I did up to that point. And then afterwards what that kind of led to, because I don't think there's enough of that. I think there's too much of the build a billion dollar company type goals. Well, no, what if you just wanted to build your own creative outlet and entrepreneurial business, that's your own unique way and your own crazy way. And you can glean something from what I did with this project. That to me seems really cool. And that seems,

Kathleen Shannon 56:46
that's what I love so much about both you and Paul and why I latched on to invisible office hours so much is because I feel like you guys openly share your gifts and knowledge. So anytime Paul does something, I'm like, Okay, I need to do my ecourse that way, and I never fear that he's gonna get mad, like I told him because I'm on his ecourse he does these quarterly classes, or no, I think monthly. So I was like, I'm going to add that I'm going to add a quarterly class to my ecourse because that is such amazing added value. And then I asked him, Hey, how do you do that? And he's like, crowdcast, you know. So this sharing of knowledge between creatives i think is so huge. And I think that it only uplifts all of us. And that's another thing I love about the being boss Facebook group is that that's almost 4000 people who are constantly just exchanging information, and openly lifting each other up. So and just, you know, kudos to you. I think it's so cool. I feel like I could buy your future for $1,000 and then throw up that same offer in a week and you wouldn't be mad about it. Oh, no, I

Jason Zook 57:49
hope so. I hope that other creators do this, because I think it will get them out of the have to be selling have to be creating the funnels, the marketing the squeeze pages, like, you know,

Kathleen Shannon 57:59
I know how cool if you like end up creating an entire model that helps people take the egg out of selling. And even if you don't feel icky selling because I don't I think of it as simply explaining and I think people get, I think what I'm putting out into the world makes it better. So like I never feel guilty. But um, I know a lot of creatives do and so to create a model where you feel good selling, I think you've also done that with the what is it your app where you build on? Yeah, bump sell? Yeah. So I mean, I think that you've done that. And that's really cool that that's become one of your focuses is kind of shifting how you sell.

Jason Zook 58:37
Yeah, and I I really honestly hope that, you know, there's so many internet marketers out there that give so many things a bad name, even the word webinar now has like a connotation, ebook has a connotation, you know, we think of all these things that have just gotten tarnished by the affiliates. You know, I'm I'm doing partners with by my future, because I hate the word affiliates. And it sounds icky and sleazy to me, but these are people like Paul, who I trust in who I've context with, and I have a history with integration with and there's only 16 of them. There's not like 100 they're handpicked by me. We're doing you know, very interesting, you know, random things. But I want to do it in a way that feels good to me. And I feel like everybody else should do the same thing. So if selling your future, as a creative entrepreneur doesn't feel good to you, then do not do it. But if it sounds like something that could be interesting, maybe find your own way of doing that, you know, maybe use Patreon that's a great a great tool for people who want to get patronage from the you know, their audience, their fans, their followers. There's a lot of different things out there that you can do. And I think it's just looking at the world a little bit differently. Not seeing things the way that they are, but seeing things the way that they can be and being okay with Giving that a shot to make that happen.

Kathleen Shannon 59:42
And I want to go ahead and disclaim here. We're gonna include a link to buy my future. But I want to note that we are not partners, or affiliates have it and we just think it's really cool. So we're and I think it's fun and really just curious to talk about. I'm so curious to see how it turns out Emily, do you have any other questions for Jason? Um, I want to

Emily Thompson 1:00:05
know out of all the weird things that you've done in the past all of your weird projects, what has been your favorite?

Jason Zook 1:00:12
Oh, you can't pick a you can't pick a favorite kid. You know, I can say I will say that. The book creativity for sale, I, I was very happy that it made 75,000 bucks. But as we mentioned very clearly on this, that's not the highest grossing thing that I've done by far. It took a lot of work to get to that point. But the results of that book, it's never been a best seller, which I love to say, because everyone says, Oh, my books, the best seller, what's the best seller and oh, it's an entrepreneurship entrepreneurship for cats, entrepreneur for cats who like kittens entrepreneur for cats who like kittens and yarn, like it's the most ridiculous category that people say they're a best seller. And so anyway, sorry, soapbox. But I get emails probably once a week or twice a week from people that say, Jason reading your journey and how authentic use you told your story. And you peel back all these layers and you shared all your mistakes. It made me feel so good. And it made me feel like I was doing things Oh, you know, the right way. And that you gave me permission to take a chance in my life and to do something different. And I can't tell you how much like how happy that makes me feel when I read those. I mean, it's you people might think I'm just saying it. But it makes me so much happier to get that than it does to get $1,000 because I'm changing someone's life, I'm making an impact on them that they didn't even see for themselves. So if I have to pick a favorite child, I'm picking the little green one. That's a six by nine inch book that I just never was sure what would happen with it. I just wanted to do it. I wanted to put it out into the world. And I just loved what's come of it. So you know, I have to give Paul Jarvis credit for that because he wrote the write your damn book free course that I took. And I was gonna write a book like other nonfiction writers, you know, I was gonna just put it out there. And you know, here's a business book, and I read the thing, and it was just, you know, Paul gave me permission to be like, no, let me write my book. And if people like it, then people like it, and if they don't screw them, but I just I'm really happy with the way that turned out.

Kathleen Shannon 1:02:08
And okay, Jason, I have a little bit more of a personal question. You have a family. Yeah.

Jason Zook 1:02:14
I have a life partner as I call my girlfriend. Because we have interesting views on marriage. And I have a Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Plaxico Burress. Wiggles Zook. Yes, he has four names because he's amazing. Yes, so that's that's my little family.

Kathleen Shannon 1:02:30
Okay, whenever you said earlier you said you don't have access to my kids. I thought maybe you had kids.

Jason Zook 1:02:36
No kids, no kids yet. We will have kids at some point. small little weird. Jason's running around not gonna call them all Jason. But yes, at some point.

Kathleen Shannon 1:02:44
Well, I'm curious to see what happens with by my future whenever you have kiddos running around.

Jason Zook 1:02:49
I know. I know. I might just say like, Hey, can you guys watch these kids? Like

Kathleen Shannon 1:02:53
you Guys? Guys bought it? Can you babysit?

Emily Thompson 1:02:56
I'm most curious as to what you're gonna name them.

Jason Zook 1:03:00
Here's the thing with I said this when I was in college that my dog or my first child was gonna be named Plaxico, because that name is amazing. And I think fortunately for the child, the dog came first. So but I'm not a conventional name person, as you can probably tell, like, I have a conventional name, but I'm looking forward to having like a Maximilian or like, I don't know something interesting or different or, or maybe just like a weird like a cumulonimbus, you know, like, just like a crazy weird name. kid's gonna hate me growing up, but I love it when he's older.

Kathleen Shannon 1:03:29
My kiddos name is Fox,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:31
nice. Love it. Like

Kathleen Shannon 1:03:33
it's a little different. And I wanted to name him spike, but I was worried that I was worried that he might be a bully. And if he was a bully named spike, that's just luck. But if he was like a really cute nerd, then named spike, that would be a cute contrast. But I you know, it's funny, because earlier, you're talking about last names and selling your name and not being attached to it. I've never really identified with my first name.

Jason Zook 1:03:56
It does seem, you know, this is this is not a negative comment whatsoever. And I think you'll take it this way. It does seem a little plain for how awesome you are, you know, well,

Kathleen Shannon 1:04:03
thank you. Right. But like,

Jason Zook 1:04:05
I feel the same way for me with Jason. Like, you know, Jason, like, there's a lot of people named Jason, but like, I feel like I'm a really unique one. But yeah, it's really interesting, the whole name thing, the identity thing, like I went down a deep rabbit hole of trying to figure that out. And when I was selling my last name of like, what's this gonna mean? And, you know, what am I attached to and what matters to me and I got in my headspace pretty deep, and I, you know, kind of pulled my way out of it. So,

Kathleen Shannon 1:04:30
you know, it's funny, because whenever I'm branding, other creative entrepreneurs, they get really stressed out about the name like, what am I going to name my business? Should I use my name? Should I use my business name? And ultimately, and I probably even feel this way about my own name a little bit. I don't think it really matters. I totally agree. And, and I know that that's a big part of your brand is maybe your name, but I think it really is more about what you do and who you are. And even when I think about my friends I don't think about their names, I think about who they are. So,

Emily Thompson 1:05:04
yeah, I name everyone something else. I call very few people by their actual name, and I guess I will to their face.

Jason Zook 1:05:13
I'm gonna, I'm a nickname or as well, I'm also Yeah, like, I just, I don't know, again, I think it's that like, bucking convention where I'm like, I'm not gonna call you what your real name is, I'm gonna give you a weird name that's unique to me. But yeah, a Catholic, and I totally relate to that on the, it doesn't matter what you name your business, it really doesn't your business, if it's great, then whatever it's called, will work. And I think the only thing for new businesses that you know, as we live in this, like crazy, weird digital age is just trying to have an easy to remember domain. Like that, to me is the only thing that like just trying to have an easy to remember domain. That's why all of mine are like, I wear your shirt by my last name sponsor my book. By my future, you know, they're all

Kathleen Shannon 1:05:52
just say what you mean, you are

Jason Zook 1:05:55
very literal with my business names and URLs, but people remember them, you know, and I think that's the important part is you want to be memorable. So do something amazing. So that helps people remember you as well.

Kathleen Shannon 1:06:06
I agree. All right. And is there anything else that you want to add? Or say, Where can people find you?

Jason Zook 1:06:13
I think the the big thing is selling my future, you know, so let's go to buy my future Comm. You can find all my other stuff by googling me if you'd like to do that. But that's that's my big enchilada right now that I'm putting out into the world. So I want people to check that thing out.

Kathleen Shannon 1:06:28
Well, we will be sure to put that one in the show notes. And we'll put a couple other ways that people can contact you in case they're listening to this after October six. Jason, it was so good to have you on the show. And I can't wait to do a project with the four of us with me and Emily and you and Paul,

Jason Zook 1:06:45
we're gonna have to call it like being boss and visible time or invisible boss hours, or I think

Kathleen Shannon 1:06:51
it was invisible boss hours is that we? Oh, we are maybe bossy, bossy hours.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:58
In a conversation, here's

Kathleen Shannon 1:06:59
a question. There's actually a logistical question. Let's say in the future, you and I collaborate on a project and release it together? How does that affect by my future,

Jason Zook 1:07:11
any collaboration stuff has to be agreed upon by the collaborating party. So like Paul, for instance, Paul and I have already talked about it. He's like, anything we create, you can give to by my future first, and we don't like they don't have to be customers for it. But I'll totally bring it up with anybody I'm working with and say, Can we include this? And if the other person says no, then I'll just say no. And I'll let the community know, hey, this is not something that collaborator wanted to include that you agreed to that in the terms and conditions. So that is just a for sale thing that you can buy if you want and I'm sorry, you can't have free access to it.

Kathleen Shannon 1:07:41
But it might be interesting to see how you sell it to future collaborators, like, Hey, here's why you shouldn't make this accessible to my people. Well, and like I said, what I've experienced, I think there's so much word of mouth potential there.

Jason Zook 1:07:53
I think there's a whole group of people who will push any new projects. And if you say, hey, they can't buy this, well, now they're going to have kind of like a negative look at it. Or if you say like, Hey, you get this for free as a part of you know, Jason's future, will you share it? Well, you talk about it, you now have 200, you know, people who have their own audiences that they can share with and I think that's more powerful than the couple people who might buy it.

Kathleen Shannon 1:08:14
And it'll be so cool to see what kind of community you create. Sorry, we keep going back to buy my future. This is really not mind blowing my mind. And I'm really not trying to be like salesy about it, I really am just incredibly curious, like, what kind of community you end up creating from by my future and how much they support each other. And it'll just be really interesting to see.

Jason Zook 1:08:36
Yeah, and I think you guys probably know that very well from your own Facebook group that has almost 4000 people, which is amazing that you see a lot of collaboration, you see a lot of conversation, and I want that to happen, you know, with the by my future community, because now everyone's on the same playing field, just like they are in yours. And it's, you know, we Hey, we all have opted into Jason. But here's what we do. And here's how we can help each other. And I know Paul, you know, he's mentioned on a couple occasions that his creative class group and the slack group, like so many people are hiring each other, because most freelancers hire other freelancers. And that's such a cool thing that I'll look forward to you from my community. I'm sure it happens in yours. And it's just one of the added benefits that you can't tangibly see if you're thinking about purchasing or whatever, that hey, this just might it might be something that happens you might meet someone you might meet your life partner, and they're I have no idea. Maybe I'm creating like a little dating community. Who knows?

Kathleen Shannon 1:09:24
Well, it seems like a really good solid gamble.

Jason Zook 1:09:28
I think so I think it is. I mean, I'm gonna be around for a while. I'm pretty healthy guy. I just went on a hike this morning. Like I eat a lot of kale. We're gonna be good to go.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:35
Good to know glad you're investing in yourself that way.

Kathleen Shannon 1:09:38
Let's say you I buy your future and you get hit by a bus tomorrow. Can I get a front row seat at your funeral?

Jason Zook 1:09:46
Paul and I talked about this in our death episode, I will have a death party. It's morbid to say, but you can come to the death party where everyone will celebrate me and well you will have a great time and it will not be a sad somber affair because if I'm going out, you're going to go out remember me Doing something awesome. And you know, having fun. So yes, you may come to that.

Kathleen Shannon 1:10:05
All right. And I only mentioned that because I knew that you guys did a death episode, which also I'm pretty morbid. So I love that episode.

Jason Zook 1:10:12
Yeah, it was fun. It was, you know, you guys talk about a lot of things that a lot of people wouldn't talk about too, right. And I think that's why we get along so well, because all this stuff like we tiptoe around it, why? Why, you know, like, let's just be authentic and let's just have these conversations and not be Oh, no, you can't talk about death and you can't talk about these things. Why not? Why not talk about them, you know, why not peel the layers back and actually have conversation so this has been awesome. I've had a lot of fun with you ladies. You are super fun to chat with. And we are Kindred podcast spirits. I definitely yes, yes.

Kathleen Shannon 1:10:45
Well, thanks again for coming on to being boss. And we will see you whenever we do a project together.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:52
Sounds like fun.

Emily Thompson 1:10:54
Hey, bosses. I'm gonna take a second to interrupt this episode to tell you that if you're liking being boss, and you're ready to level up your game, we've got something just for you. Check out the being boss bundle. It's Kathleen's DIY coaching for creatives. And my Get your shit together series bundled together at one low price just for you bosses. You can find that at love being boss calm slash bundle.

Kathleen Shannon 1:11:21
If you like being boss, be sure to sign up for our newsletter at love being boss calm, where you'll get episode worksheets, secret content, and other goodies delivered straight to your inbox every week. Again, that's love being boss calm. Do the work. Be boss and we'll see you next week.

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