141: Jason Khalipa | Going from Zero to Hero in the New Year

Transcript for Jason Khalipa | Going from Zero to Hero in the New Year (Episode 141)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer Jason DeFillippo. Now some people you meet just give off a vibe. There's something about them that indicates they're a fountain of energy and intensity. When this is mixed with a winning attitude, the combination can be unstoppable and when I first met Jason Khalipa, I saw it immediately. He's won the CrossFit games, he started a highly successful business with dozens of locations, and he's bringing a lot of lessons learned along the way to the show here today. What I love about Jason is he didn't start off with the right stuff. He wasn't focused, he wasn't driven, he had poor grades in school. He's really an example of how someone can wake up, snap out of it, work really hard, stay focused and consistent, turn things around and discover what he or she is actually really capable of.

[00:00:47] Today, we'll dig deeper into Jason's story and learn how he developed a drill so we can surround ourselves with the right people and what that looks like in practice. We'll discuss why, focusing only on what we can control not only keeps our head in the game, but also relieves stress, anxiety and FOMO, fear of missing out, and we'll discuss how to sit down and reevaluate your path in life and more importantly, when you should sit down and take the time to do this in order to avoid spending time working towards the wrong outcomes. Getting to know Jason during this interview is really enjoyable and I hope you'll find value in it as well.

[00:01:19] If you want to know how I managed to book all these great guests and manage all my relationships with entrepreneurs, show guests, people I've run into, show fans, et cetera. I've got systems and tiny habits. It just takes me a few minutes a day. I'm teaching you how to do this for free. Check out Six-Minute Networking over at jordanharbinger.com/course. All right, here's Jason Khalifa.

[00:01:39] So you weren't the best student, which I think is interesting in school.

Jason Khalipa: [00:01:44] No.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:44] You know like I mean, what were you thinking at that time? Were you thinking like, I'm never going to use any of this stuff?

Jason Khalipa: [00:01:50] No. I mean like if you're talking about high school.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:52] Yeah.

Jason Khalipa: [00:01:53] I just -- I was never really inspired by school. I was more inspired by after school activities.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:59] Okay.

Jason Khalipa: [00:02:00] I like playing sports. I like partying. I mean, I would spend a lot of time doing that. I was more like the entertainer, the class clown, and so I never really took school to heart. One of the things I think is really interesting is like, in school, everybody starts off with an A and you know, it's your job to kind of maintain it. I never really maintain an A, but I stayed close, so I got Bs or whatever. But like, once I got out of school and I started going to college, I started to realize like in the real world, you don't start off with an A, like you start off with nothing and you got to work your way up. And so, yeah, in high school I really wasn't -- I just wasn't a good student. And I think it was because I was all fired up more like connections like outside of school and then in school I would just kind of like a class clown and looking back on it was, it was really unfortunate. I wish I had spent more time dedicated in there, but I didn’t.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:50] Yeah, and then so was there intensity anywhere in your life or were you just kind of like loafing across the board?

Jason Khalipa: [00:02:56] I was loafing in school, there intensity in terms of my relationship, like with my girlfriend time I was very focused on that and obviously playing sports. But in school it just was such a low priority for me. I would just do whatever I could to get by.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:10] What is your -- you married the girl that you were dating in high school, so your wife, what was she thinking of you at this point like you know?

Jason Khalipa: [00:03:19] I think she was, I think she liked me because I treated her well. She was like -- so funny story. The day I met my wife, we are in algebra class or something, we are 15, and I walk up to her and we meet each other. I go home, like “Hey mom, I met the girl I'm going to marry.” Well we ended up dating --

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:38] You said that the day you met her?

Jason Khalipa: [0:03:39] The first day, first day.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:40] That's incredible. So would your mom be like, what was her reaction?

Jason Khalipa: [00:03:44] My mom’s like “Yeah, son. Sure thing. And so I go back and we ended up dating. So date for two weeks.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:51] Okay.

Jason Khalipa: [00:03:51] And at this time this is like my first girlfriend. I was like head over heels.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:56] Man.

Jason Khalipa: [00:03:57] So we date for two weeks and then she dumps me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:58] Okay. Why?

Jason Khalipa: [00:03:59] And she dumped me because I was too nice and like what I think it was, it wasn't that I was being too nice was that, I was trying to be like overly something I wasn't, like over the top. I never made her feel like she was -- it was just too much like --

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:13] Yeah, a little needy.

Jason Khalipa: [00:04:14] “Oh, let me do this, let me do this for you, let me do this for you, and she wanted someone to kind of like, not playing hard to get but just wasn't so like over the top.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:20] Yeah, super needy, yeah. Wow!

Jason Khalipa: [00:04:23] And so we ended up dating for two weeks. We broke up, then we became friends for a while for the next like eight months. And then once we started dating again, that was it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:32] What do you mean that was it? You were like, “You're not leaving me again.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:04:37] Basically I learned how to better treat like a woman. Not in a sense like I ever treated her poorly, by learning that there's don't be something you're not and just be yourself, but also treat her right but don't be like overbearing because she wanted to kind of feel like it was more, I don't know what exactly she wanted, but at the time I learned about our relationship as being her friend then once we became friends, you get to know him on a real level and then we just stuck together ever since.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:02] Yeah. It sounds like in the beginning you put her up here and he treated her like that and that made her uncomfortable and you're trying to seek her approval the whole time. And then he became friends and you're like, “Well that's not going to happen.” She's like, “Oh, the real you is great.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:05:14] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:14] And then you didn't feel like you needed to impress her all the time because your friends.

Jason Khalipa: [00:05:17] Exactly, yeah. And then once we became friends, you get to know her on again like that, like a neutral level, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:22] Yeah. The playing field is then even because you don't need anything or want anything from her, you’re just friends.

Jason Khalipa: [00:05:26] Yeah. But we had a very interesting high school. Her dad was -- he came from Iran, so did my dad and they both grew up with a different set of kind of rules in terms of male, female. So he was extremely protective, very.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:40] Yeah. I can imagine.

Jason Khalipa: [00:05:42] Like no going out, nothing. And so like she would sneak out of her house and I'd go pick her up in the middle of the night and it was just -- it was not good. But we're going to get some karma on that later on in life with our kids I expect.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:53] Oh, yeah, good luck with that. That's how everyone -- that's dad are the way they are because they're like I hope he's not like me when I was a teenager because I'm keeping an eye on that kid if he is. They must've also been worried that you were just screwing around in school.

Jason Khalipa: [00:06:07] Yeah, I mean I think at the time like I probably wasn't the best example. I mean again I was playing sports and stuff and I was getting by in school but you know like leading out of high school, all my friends including my wife went to four year universities and she got accepted as San Clara University, which is where my mom, my dad and my sister went, so I thought I was going to go there but then I didn't get in and then I applied again, I didn't get in, and then I applied a couple more times and finally got my stuff together at a junior college and I went and met her there. We both graduated the same time but I always wondered like what her dad was thinking because coming out of high school. I didn't have, I mean I was working at the time, which was good, but I don't -- I think he was worried and I had started a clothing company that failed and I'd done some stuff that failed, but I don't think he knew all that. All he cared about was like, “What school is he going to?” And I was going to a junior college, ah!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:55] Yeah, I knew it!

Jason Khalipa: [00:06:56] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:57] Yeah. I'm wondering, the reason I'm asking you this is, is well one, it's a good way to get to know you. But two, you started a chain of gyms. This really successful, you won the CrossFit games in 2008, so you're not like some Schmoe who can't get his stuff together. You just didn't try.

Jason Khalipa: [00:07:14] Yeah. I didn't try and didn't find something that made me like want to have a deeper internal like reason to try. And so when I got to junior college, it really woke me up, it was like no one cares about me. No one owes me anything. If I want to be successful and if I want to get to Santa Clara University of the rest of my friends, I need to make it happen because they're not just going to give it to me. And so that was really when it stemmed that like in high school, I didn't have like this deep internal drive because I didn't really have a strong reason and a strong why. Then when I got to a junior college and my why was to be with my friends and my wife at Santa Clara University, that's when I put my stuff together and that's when I started going to work.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:52] What did it feel like when you tried to get into college and they're like, “Hey, we're going to Santa Clara!” And you're like, “I didn't get in twice.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:07:59] Yes. So I didn't get in out of high school. And then I went to junior college, then I applied again, didn't get in. I applied again, I didn't get in. And then finally, I believe it was my fourth try that I got accepted. It was humiliating, and also it's oddly enough. I got invited to be on our -- I'm getting inducted into our Athletic high school hall of fame in like a month. But the same gentleman who's inducting meme was also the same gentleman at the graduation speech who said something that was kind of like humiliating to me. And that was right when I graduated, that was another thing that kind of sparked this idea that like my friends, my family, my father-in-law, all these people are in the stands, and this gentleman said something, it was a joke.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:41] What did he say?

Jason Khalipa: [00:08:41] He was talking about this movie, the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And he said, “No, I'm not talking about Jason Khalipa’s brain, like he said it in a way where like, because I was a class clown and stuff, like it got a laugh, but it really humiliated me like I sunk into my seat and I just, it was that, combined with going to junior college and recognize it and no one cared. That really sparked this thing that like if I want to make something of myself and get to where my friends are at, I need to start applying myself.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:08] When you say no one cared, you mean like no one's coming to rescue you from this situation? What do you mean by that?

Jason Khalipa: [00:09:13] Well, I mean in high school you figure you have all these like teachers who like, I would be in the Dean's office all the time. I would have teachers talk to me all the time. They would actually talk to Ashley who's my wife to have her like inspire me because they were trying to like push me along this process. And there's like a system that almost is insuring that you get through high school well because it benefits the school and it benefits you. Whereas in junior college there is no system necessarily, if you want to be in junior college for 10 years you could be there. And so that's what I meant was like no one cared. There was no teacher trying to lift me up. There's just another teacher and you're just another student and you've got to lift yourself up.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:52] I know there was a girl in one of your junior college classes that said something that also lit a fire under you. Do you remember this?

Jason Khalipa: [00:09:57] Yes. I mean in high school it was that commencement speech, which I had never really talked about before until now, but in junior college, we're going through the first day of class and at the time, I show up to this place was called West Valley, and I kind of felt like, “All right, come out of high school. I was a popular guy.” Then you get there and you're just another number and we're going around the school. It's like, “Hey, my name is John. I've been here for a year. My name is this, I've been here for this.” And it finally got around to the woman sitting next to me and the woman says, “ Hi, my name is Mary, and this is my seventh year at the school.” And that's really when it just hit me. I don't want to be the guy who's sitting here seven years from now. I need to take responsibility for myself. So I went to the counselor office and I just like, “How do I get the hell out of here?”

So I took summer classes, this, that and everything I could.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:47] Did you say I got to get out of here?

Jason Khalipa: [00:10:48] Yeah. Oh yeah. Walked in there. I mean, I was just like fired up and I was like, “I got to get out of here.” And so then we start to put together a plan and the plan worked out. I mean, I got out of there in two years and graduated from college in four, but it was because I had to kind of have these situations that kind of got me inspired and then that transferred into other things in my life. So then that same year when I graduated from high school, I started working full time. I was working full time, going to school full time, and trying to build something, build something, build something. And then it created this work ethic that allowed me to then when the CrossFit Games, build a business, because of those experiences. So I don't regret them, it was just hard work.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:28] To be fair maybe Mary had kids and no family to help take care of him. I was working two jobs, but it didn't really matter. Because what you were thinking was, I'm straight out of high school. I should be, -- I have a lot of opportunity here.

Jason Khalipa: [00:11:40] Yeah. And Mary being there for seven years, that's fine. But like my thing is that wasn't for me. If I was going to be in school for seven years, I needed to be getting a doctorate.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:49] I was going to say maybe you're in a PhD program, seven years.

Jason Khalipa: [00:11:51] Yeah. And maybe for that person at that point, maybe they had drifted off and then they came back to school and maybe that was a big deal. But for me, seven years just wasn't in alignment with what I want to do.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:02] Did you know what you wanted to do at that time other than get out of there?

Jason Khalipa: [00:12:05] No, I just want to get out of there.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:06] Okay, that makes sense. But that was good enough at the time.

Jason Khalipa: [00:12:08] Because my internal drive was to get to -- go with my girlfriend, get all my friends at Santa Clara University because that's what everybody else was doing and I felt because in high school, I was on the same track as everybody. Everybody was equal, then once I didn't get accepted into college I wanted, I kind of fell behind that. Once I realized that like everybody else in these four year with these things going on, I felt like I was kind of an outsider.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:28] You get FOMO.

Jason Khalipa: [00:12:28] Yeah, I got FOMO.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:30] Were you ever worried like, “Oh crap, Ashley's going to find somebody else. I'm at this junior college, she's at this other place.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:12:36] It wasn't necessarily, I thought she was going to find somebody else, but it was like I wanted to be a better version of myself for her initially and which has now carried over and other things.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:44] Sure. That makes sense. I would be freaking out if my girlfriend was at a four year college with a bunch of people that were like had worked harder than me. That would be -- that would keep me up at night too.

Jason Khalipa: [00:12:54] Yeah, because they got there and I hadn't.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:57] Yeah. And I would imagine at some point you looked around went, “Wait, these are not my peers. I can do better than this.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:13:02] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:03] Yeah.

Jason Khalipa: [00:13:03] Yeah. And it's not like I'm not hating on people that go to junior college.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:06] Of course not.

Jason Khalipa: [00:13:07] Because it got me to where I wanted to go, but what I needed to know is that this was a time in my life where I needed to take ownership, that I had failed to get to where I wanted to get to and I need to put in the work to get there. And the people around me, there was some of them, there were on that same boat. There's other ones that were just kind of drifting and that's okay, but I didn't want to be in that category.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:29] Yeah. You for the first time because you’re in high school or when you're in the first situation you can kind of lie to yourself and go, “I'm in the same class with all these overachievers.” But then once they get selected over here and you get deselected you're like, “Oh wait a minute.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:13:42] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:43] This is the wakeup call where I can no longer convince myself that this guy who works this heart in me or in the basically in the same place, you're not like it. The fates slash admissions committee has decided that you don't make the cut and they do.

Jason Khalipa: [00:13:56] Right. And then you know, I learned a really valuable lesson. Their writing get accepted once, they can get subs twice, what three times. I learned a really valuable lesson that, and this is something I hope someone can take away, is that I graduate from high school and I go to this junior college and I really put in the work. I mean I was working full time, I was studying hard, I was getting great grades. I was really putting it together because I need to get a certain GPA that then I'm basically after two years at junior college offsets your high school. They don't look your high school transcripts anymore.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:24] Sure.

Jason Khalipa: [00:14:25] The problem was up until that point, even if I had gotten a 4.0 at junior college, they still looked at my high school transcript because I hadn't gotten two years of credits in. So I worked really hard for like six months. I applied again, and I didn't get into Santa Clara, and it was a really valuable lesson for me that six months of hard work can't make up for four years of lack of hard work. And that was a really cool thing to realize that this consistency piece to keep going, that you can't just work hard for a month or two and expect to make up for years of not working as hard, and that was a valuable lesson that I learned in that experience.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:00] That's a good point. I want to talk about the shortcuts people take as well because I think there's a lot of, especially young people now, entrepreneurship and being your own boss, whatever is really trendy. So you get these guys and gals who are like 21, they don't have any real skills because they never built them. And then suddenly they're like, “I'm going to be a coach or a consultant.” It's like, “Wait a minute, what are you doing?”

Jason Khalipa: [00:15:20.8] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:21] And they're trying to do this thing where they're like took a couple online classes, they watch a lot of Gary Vaynerchuk videos. Now they're like ready to be self-employed, but they never did anything to build this skill set to build the value in the first place.

Jason Khalipa: [00:15:34] So I think that's an important thing. So I talked about something called earn versus perceived confidence that I learned through competing in CrossFit where let's just take for example a really easy analogy, self defense or boxing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:47] Sure.

Jason Khalipa: [00:15:48] I could go into a ring with Floyd Mayweather and tell myself all I want, slap myself in the face, get excited that I am going to go ahead and went around against him. But chances are that he has earned confidence from decades starting boxing. He was a young kid then make him go in there and just feel very comfortable because he could rely on his background and has earned confidence, not this perceived. So with me, when I was competing every day I was putting in the work because I wanted to have -- I wore a wristband at the cross games that said “Earned.” Meaning no one gave me this. I earned the right to meet her through hard work. And I think when you're a business owner, I think it's really important to take a step back for a second before you start a business.

Just say, “Hey, did I earn the right to kind of open it? What is my competitive advantage? Why am I going to win?” And if you had that, great.

[00:16:34] But if you're just telling yourself you want to open it or telling yourself you want to give other people advice, but you don't really have that confidence from a background of years, it's kind of tough and eventually I think that'll actually do disservice because you're kind of putting on a front but you don't have a foundation to build off of.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:51] Yeah. People right now though, they say fake it till you make it. Which kind of, I mean it could work I suppose. And if you're taking confidence to go up and talk to somebody that you'd like or you're going up to give a speech, but it won't work over a long term period.

Jason Khalipa: [0:17:07] When we say any shortcut eventually we'll have some type of repercussion somewhere and you might not know it at first, you may not knot it for year. But eventually you'll find out. I'll give you an example. I know a friend of mine who got put into a CFO position without truly like having the background, but he got it because the company needed it, et cetera. Well, with that came a title and a salary. So he adjusted his lifestyle based off the salary and the title, but when the company recognized that you might have been the best fit, let's just say, let him go. Now when he's going for a new position, he's looking for what? He's looking for a CFO position with a similar salary range, but if he didn't have the actual background or the capabilities to earn that title in that salary, now all of a sudden he's in a very challenging situation. He's created a lifestyle for himself and a mindset where he thinks he's something, but the society doesn't necessarily agree with that. That's a very odd dynamic.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:59] That's got to be -- you've got to swallow the ego at that point.

Jason Khalipa: [00:18:02] That's right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:03] That's a tough pill to swallow.

Jason Khalipa: [00:18:04] And some people could say maybe the business did him a disservice by elevating him.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:08] who cares?

Jason Khalipa: [00:18:08] But in any case.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:09] That's his problem.

Jason Khalipa: [00:18:10] It's his problem

Jordan Harbinger: [0:18:10] Yeah, yeah, it's his problem.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:00:18:13] You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jason Khalipa. We'll be right back.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:18] This episode is sponsored in part by Athletic Greens. I love this stuff. I've been taking it for a while and it's partly because I don't believe that vitamins really could have enough nutrients in them for what you need. I'm bad at eating vegetables. I mean I eat them, but I skip meals a lot. So that's been kind of my big issue with these. So Athletic Greens is great, especially for me traveling, airplane food, not a lot of veggies. Airport food, not a lot of veggies. Hotel food, not a lot of fresh stuff. And Tim Ferriss originally told me about this. I know Jason, you were taking this stuff for a minute as well. Back in the day. I don't know if you still are.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:00:18:53] Oh, hell yeah. I love my Athletic Greens. They keep me going in the morning.

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Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:55] Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from Jason Khalipa. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast.

[00:21:05] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe, and if you're listening to this show in Overcast, please hit the little star button. It really helps us out. Now back to our show with Jason Khalipa.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:28] I know that you got out of junior college and you started working really hard, but I want to talk about how you did that because you mentioned, well I got a bunch of mentors. I sought advice from people. How do you go about finding these people and getting their help because a lot of people are asking me how do I find inquiry relationships with mentors? Do you have a process for this or was it just like -- do you remember this?

Jason Khalipa: [00:21:49] I was really blessed where I found like in high school I found guys who were doing things I wanted to do in college. So when I graduated high school and I got into college, I had these guys who really took me underneath their wing at the gym and they were doing things I was inspired by. They taught me how to sell, they taught me how to run a business, but I think I got lucky.

But if I were to give any advice to people, what I would think about is like in your circle of friends, there's some people you align with more, there's some that you've aligned less with, and so my recommendation would be to find people in your network that want to raise the bar. They might not be doing exactly what you want to do, but maybe they have the same ethos, the same desire to improve themselves, the same whatever, and just connect with them and they’ll get coffee. And even if they're outside your industry, if they're trying to better themselves, better their fitness, I'd find people who have similar interests create like a coffee on a month to month -- on a monthly basis and just talk about [indiscernible] [00:22:42] because that's what I get inspired is like building off the energy from somebody else and like when they're trying to raise the bar, so do I.

[00:22:49] So I got lucky finding my mentors, but I think if I were to find ones today, it's as you create like your circle, find people that align with your core values and start actually reaching out to set up meetings with them because I think you learn not just about the business but about other stuff too. You know, like maybe relationships or whatever maybe.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:09] It's helpful to be around -- I do this actually. it's helpful to be around people that think similarly but have different systems. So I hate the word mastermind because it's one of those like circles are kind of things that everyone's selling right now. And usually it's be around somebody with a bunch of Instagram followers for 20K a year, but that's not what I'm talking about. But like a couple of friends of mine who are successful business owners, but in very different niches. We get together every month either on a zoom call or in person, and we discuss things like how we're feeling with our relationships? How the business is going,? What we're doing to generate more of it? Are we aligning our values properly? How we’re feeling? Are we feeling good about where we're headed? Are we feeling bad? And that was something that I thought, “Ah, I guess I’ll try this and see how it works.” It's one of the most high value things because somebody will say, “Why are you doing that?” And I'll go, “Well, because it's other guys doing it,” and they're like, “Forget that your core strength is, I see it is this. Stick to this.” This is what you're really good at. You have room to grow here. Hire someone else for that. And it's like, “Oh yeah, I didn't think about that,” because they've gone through this deliberative process maybe like three years ago or maybe three months ago. But they already did a ton of thinking about that.

Jason Khalipa: [00:24:23] Yeah. Were you just meeting with people who have a difference perspective on you, but you might think you're really good at something, but if the groups like actually your strong suit is here, then it just kind of opens your eyes. But I think sometimes you don't even have those conversations. You can't recognize it. That's one thing, I'm so blessed to have my wife. I've got a really early on with the business. We started collaborating, we started talking about things I was good at, I wasn't good at and try to delegate out. Now that's been a whole learning experience for myself.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:50] I bet. Yeah. I'm laughing because I can imagine I work with my wife too, so it's fun sometimes to be like, we're going to do this, we're going to do this. And you just get like the, “Come on, man. Hello. Is this thing on? Are you crazy?” And you're like, “Ugh, sorry. I've been watching too much YouTube videos of entrepreneurs stuff and they get it.” You have to have somebody like shake you out of it.

Jason Khalipa: [00:25:12] Yeah. Like I was really fired up for like a week on doing a coffee and wine bar. So creating this location where it's coffee in the morning and wine at night because you figure coffee bars kind of dead in the evening. Wine bars kind of dead in the morning. It's both his genius. But then my wife had to kind of like, “Hey you're a fitness guy. Stick to your niche. Stick to what you know.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:33] Yeah. You can invest in a restaurant later on if you want to. If you really want to lose money, you can invest in a restaurant later on down the line. But in the meantime, get your core income stable for your family. That's probably wise.

Jason Khalipa: [00:25:46] Yeah, very wise.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:47] Man, she must be really proud of you. Where you are now knowing you in high school.

Jason Khalipa: [00:25:53] Yeah. One thing's for sure. Like we've truly like grown and developed together. So it's been a fun experience because she knew me when I wasn't as motivated then, I got inspired, motivated, and then I had to learn how to not be selfish with my motivations. I had to learn how to talk with her more like so for example, my wife and I have gone through our fair share of adversity in competition and with our daughter being diagnosed leukemia. I mean these are like real adversities that we've had to overcome. And I think one of the key things there is to recognize when I was being selfish in my endeavors and what impact that actually had on her and the family, and that really created through conversation. I didn't realize that until later on, every year I would ask her like, “Hey, are you ready for another commitment?” Because it was a commitment that we made for the CrossFit games. It wasn't a commitment that I just made because we had two kids, we have this, that. When I commit to it, well what that means. I'm gone for four hours a day training alone, not to mention the business and all those different things. So it had as much strain on her as it did on me, if not more because now she's at these events, it's completely outside of her control and she's seeing her husband struggling. And so something I've learned over time was how to not be selfish and always engage with her and hear her side. Because if she's not on board, it's never going to do well because there's going to be an underlying resentment.

[00:27:09] So when it comes to business, I'll give you another example. About a year ago I talked to my wife, I'm like listen, he was doing better. The business is doing well. We could stay where we're at right now. We're making a good living, we're good, but I'd like to try and see what we're capable of. I'd like to see if we could take this to another level and not have any regrets that we didn't reach our full potential. Are you onboard? She's like, “Yeah, I'm on board.” And so now we set the expectation that we're going to work together to work hard instead of media's going out and doing something because then she's not going to have as much resentment when I have to travel to Asia for new opening a location because we had that communication.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:42] Do you have to do that every time you have a major life change?

Because this is really apropos for me right now. Like Jen's over here on the floor switching cameras and handling some real time audio stuff. And I'm like, “Uh-oh, when's the last time I asked her if she was on board? I don't know when that was.” I'm pretty sure I was just like, “Hey, get on board.” And that was like three years ago, and we've been doing that ever since.

Jason Khalipa: [00:28:03] Right. Because in the beginning you just do what you got to do to get it kind of going.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:06] Yeah.

Jason Khalipa: [00:28:06] And then over time, I think for me is it happens major life events, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:10] Okay.

Jason Khalipa: [00:28:11] Or major like for example, every year, so in 2013, 2014 really big year for our family. We had our son in 2014, we already had a daughter. I got back on the podium at the CrossFit games both those years and our business grew globally and so we had multiple occasions. There was a lot of moving parts, and every year I'd asked her, “Hey, are you ready for the commitment?” And then finally in like ‘13 she's like, “Hey, I think I have one more year.” So all right ‘14, I go into it thinking maybe it's my last year as an individual and I competed, I got back on the podium, it was a good finish. And then after the games I'm like, “Hey, are you ready for another year?” And she's like, “I don't think I'm ready.” She's like, “I can't do it anymore.” She had said like, “I can't do any more.” So she actually made me sign an agreement with her that said I wouldn't compete as individual anymore. And so I went team because she wasn't ready to make that commitment. It made me not ready for that commitment because I knew that that was really important to me because if she's not happy then I'm not going to be happy, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:10] Yeah.

Jason Khalipa: [00:29:11] So then I switched to go team and that was an important reevaluation that I had to have. Then the next year when Ava got sick, I stopped competing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:17] I want to talk about that in a second, but I'd love to go back to the reevaluation. How do you go about this? Because I think every time we have a major life change. Do you have a new kid? You have a major career shift? I mean this kind of defined the whole year for me personally, I had a major career shift where I ended up getting a injected from an old company and starting a new company and in the beginning it was really terrifying. Of course, now I've never actually been happier and it was the best thing that could have happened and we ended up with Apple's Best of 2018 which was kind of like mind blowing. But in the beginning it was like, this is the worst year ever.

Jason Khalipa: [00:29:54]Of course.

Jason Khalipa: [00:29:55] What are we going to do? Re-evaluating makes a lot of sense. What do you do -- do you sit down and go, “Let's get out of paper and pen and write down what we're going to,” like what is this process like? Are you just in the car and you're like, “Hey, are we going to do this major thing this year?” She's like, “Nah, I'm been thinking about it. Not really into it.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:30:10] Yeah, I mean I think it's a little bit more than that. So like on a regular basis there's like these micro check-ins, right? Whether that's like, we're just having dinner and just be like, “Hey, so how are things going? What do you thing about the kids? Are we doing good?” You know like your micro check-ins. Like just like checking in and those happen on a pretty consistent basis. But then every now and then when like after the CrossFit games occurred, that was a major time ride to, “Hey, let's right now, I'm still on this high. Let's sit down a month from now. I'm really talking about next year.” So then what happens in CrossFit is I would compete in multiple events from the open regionals across the games. Now I get invited to go represent team USA, and it's invitational. That's all like a whole part of the series. And what I would do is after the invitational, you would sit down and say, “Hey, are we ready again for another year?” And that would be a deliberate time. We would sit down, “Hey, like on Friday, let's go to dinner and let's just go talk about it.” And then we'd have a long conversation with a pros and cons, but we had to have the awareness. I had had the awareness that I need to have that conversation and we didn't have the awareness together to be open and honest to that conversation.

[00:31:09] I'm looking forward to doing this with Jen at some point, maybe over the holidays here because I don't think we've ever really done that. I think she's just been really cool about doing what I feel like I need to do and that's going to change pretty soon.

Jason Khalipa: [00:31:22] You have to go into it with a place of like care and trust with each other and you might even have someone else that comes in and helps mediate it a little bit, just like having a good conversation. It's not like you're going, because when times are good, you want to go over these conversations that when times are bad, you already had this built in beautiful foundation of communication that then carries itself so well.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:41] Is that why you were able to, or how you were able to deal with your daughter being diagnosed with leukemia? Because you mentioned that earlier. It seems like that's something that's very traumatizing for a family.

Jason Khalipa: [00:31:52] Yeah, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:52] I mean I don't only have to tell you this.

Jason Khalipa: [00:31:55] I mean really, yes it is traumatizing. But I think what would help us with it is all these years of overcoming adversity. So you'd go to the CrossFit games, you get your butt kicked, but your wife would always also get her buck kick because you're getting your bucket, right? Like she feels what I feel only from like an outsider's perspective looking in. And so she had learned to overcome that and so did I through communication with each other. Well when Ava got sick, it was a really great test of all these years of competing, learning how to overcome these challenges through communication, through whatever, then we then transfer those skills which these skills were built in like a very like you know -- look if you win or lose a CrossFit the games, it's a competition. There's money on the line.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:36] Sure.

Jason Khalipa: [00:32:37] But it's not life and death. It is what it is. But when you talk about this challenge in the hospital, the stakes are significantly higher and so I'm so grateful for the competition experience because it taught my wife and I had to work together and when we had to come against adversity, it was great to see the way we both reacted to it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:55] I'm curious if there are other more takeaways from that that you want to get into or is that essentially the communication was the crux of it.

Jason Khalipa: [00:33:04] I think them really the biggest takeaway, there was a few takeaways from the whole, so she went through treatment for two and a half years. We spent months in hospital, ICU, you name it. I think the major takeaways we'll give you guys summarize like these two and a half years in like a few things is like is that you should do everything in your power today to build a hedge financially, emotionally, and physically. So that if something does take you out of your loop, you're best prepared to attack it, and that's what the book is about, is about how do you have good communication, develop these skills where you're present folks in your loved ones to have a really strong relationship so that when it gets tested, you're in the best position to be successful. How do you stay focused on work so that you can build a business or work hard so you become such good employee that your work will be supportive if something happens to you. And then finally, how can you improve your fitness to a point where if you can't work out for months, you're still okay. And so I think that was one big takeaway from being in the hospital so much is that we had done a good job of developing this set when this news did come, we able to focus on one thing and one thing only, which was getting her better.

[00:34:15] I also think that through that we recognize the importance of family. That the family support allowing my wife and I to go out for date nights or night time and family becomes even more and more important to me. And I think that anybody who doesn't at least work to try and create a relationship with their family should maybe try a little bit more because you never know. Those are the people that are going to have your back when it happens. And then finally, I think the biggest thing that it taught us was that the world has a lot of different challenges for a lot of different people. And I think at the time we think that whatever is happening in our day is like the biggest problem in the world. I think we need to have a little bit more perspective that there's a lot of people going through much worse and we need to be grateful for. We having focused on the positive things and not just the negative. And I think we learned that skill in the hospital. Like today has been a good day because we only had three pokes today instead of 20, or she can get put to sleep today, so today's a good day. Because it's all perspective and I think people can take that into their daily lives that maybe they are run out of gas, by the end of the day they have a car. You know what I mean? It's just the frame of mind.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:16] Is this just in exercise that looking at the positive because I would imagine you were pretty upset, your wife was probably pretty scared and upset, but you can't really show that in front of your daughter, who’s like five, or how old was she?

Jason Khalipa: [00:35:26] Four and half.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:27] Four and a half. So yeah, you can't really be like, “We're really sad because this is really serious.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:35:32] Yeah. There is no sadness. It was just -- I mean like I mentioned the book, like the first night that Ava was diagnosed, Ashley said, “Hey look, you got to tell the family this was going on.” But from this day forward, like when people walk into the room, this can be nothing but positivity because we believe that positivity breeded positivity and we wanted that surrounding her. And so if you're having dark times, you can go have that to yourself, but just outside the room. And that was tough for us. There was a lot of moments, but I think we stuck true to that for the whole time, which I think was really powerful.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:04] Did she not know what was going on because you guys were so positive about it or did she have an idea?

Jason Khalipa: [00:36:09] Well, we got to determine how we just distribute that information. So there was a lot of great books. So the night she was diagnosed, I read everything I could find. I mean as you know, as much as I could and I continue to read. There's a lot of great books about losing hair, about what leukemia is and stuff like that. But you say in such a way where like when you're a kid, I mean imagine when you first found out what the word, whatever word is, your parents got to define how that word was perceived. You didn't have any other perspective on it. So we decided how we want to explain what it was and I think it made it more accessible.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:42] That makes sense, okay. I'm curious about that because I don't think many people have an inside look at this and certainly people who don't understand that this had an effect on your relationship and sort of made you in a way who you are today, I would imagine.

Jason Khalipa: [00:36:57] Yeah, of course.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:58] Yeah. It sort of defines who you are as a parent, which has a heavy influence in how you run your business.

Jason Khalipa: [00:37:02] Yeah, I mean everything changed that night. I remember on social media, I put up this post, I said like “Life change,” and I think at the time like it was like two in the morning I was crying. It was a really heavy, heavy posts. I didn't really realize at the time like it would change my life, not because like we got through this, but this my mental outlook on life and what the way I want to approach things in the way I want to help people and my bigger vision for why I want to work and why I want to do these things, that all changed, and that was really cool. I don't wish our experience on anybody, not even my worst enemy, but I'm glad we went through it as a family because it made us a lot closer.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:41] You don't seem like the guy who has a lot of enemies.

Jason Khalipa: [00:37:44] I don't have any enemies.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:45] Yeah. All right. I figured. Yeah, you really don't seem like the type.

Jason Khalipa: [00:37:49] No, I'm pretty, I'm pretty low key.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:51] Yeah, yeah. There are certain people where it's like if they go, “Oh, I don't like that guy.” You're like, “Hmm, what's wrong with you then?” Because everybody likes that guy. I feel like you're one of those, everyone likes you. If someone's like, “Oh yeah, Jason Khalipa. He's a jerk.” You're like, “Oh man, you're probably not a good person. I don't want to be friends with you. There's something weird about you.” I don't want to see it yet, but that's an indicator. That's a good thing to have people think about you by the way.

Jason Khalipa: [00:38:12] Yeah, thank you.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:13] Yeah, you're welcome. I think -- I hope people say that about me, but I highly doubt it. I highly doubt that. I feel like I look like the type of guy I could have one or two enemies for sure. Is it true that you didn't go work in finance because you just had a bad suit on? What's the story behind this?

Jason Khalipa: [00:38:34] So this was a really interesting story. So when I was in high school, I started a clothing company that failed because I didn't have the earned confidence. I did a lot of stuff in high school. When I got out, the natural thing throughout college was, or excuse me, through college, I started a clothing company. The natural progression for me was to get into a finance job or a sales job or whatever, a job that was typical. You get out of college, you make X amount dollars, and I had interviewed a few places. I had been on phone calls that something just wasn't sitting right and then really the defining moment for me was I go to this one meeting and just things were kind of off from the get go. They wanted me to put down on a sheet of paper, like some leads for them to call, which I thought was kind of weird and I had a really good interview with the woman. Great interview, but I really tried to look sharp to this interview, I really tried. It wasn't like I just walked in there sloppy. I looked really good but I didn't have like one of those Chris blazer coat on. I didn't really have one like a suit jacket, I was wearing more like a coat, you put over a jacket maybe. It wasn't as sharp and I have like a suit. Remember when I left the interview the woman's like, I really like you. I think going to be a phenomenal fit in this company. I want to move you on to the next stage but before you meet can you please dress nicer? And I was like the ending thing and I just left there and I just remembered like I didn't want to be judged based on what I looked like, I want to be judged based on my work ethic ,and I wanted to directly correlate the amount of work I put in with how much money I was making. That's what I liked about sales is that there was no limit. You just -- the more you work, the better you did. And it was at that moment, I mean a lot of pieces led up to this, but it was that moment and that day that call my dad and I was like, “We're opening a gym. Let's do this.” Because of a number of factors, but her comments were the ones that made me realize I didn't want to be in corporate America.

[00:40:27] Now looking back on that, that was a stupid reason to say I don't want to have a job. I want to go open up a gym, that I would not recommend that to anybody because you shouldn't go open a business because you didn't want to wear a suit that's not that good.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:38] Okay, good. Clarify that.

Jason Khalipa: [00:40:40] Yeah, that's a stupid reason. What it did was it sparked an idea in me, it made me realize that I didn't want to see myself here years later, but I had the earned confidence from working at a gym for the last four to six years. Learning everything about the business from the owner on, you know, whatever, that allowed me to make that decision better. When I opened the gym, I thought it was because of this, but really what it was because this whole background that I was inspired to go change people's lives through fitness and this was just like kind of the nail in the coffin and make me go do it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:11] Speaking of decisions, you have this quote from the book that's goes something like if you want something bad enough, you can control the direction of your life with decisions focused on the very next decision. It sounds pretty obvious when I stayed at like that, but what I like is I think a lot of people are waiting for either permission or like, “Oh, I need to wait for this pivotal moment to kind of like do this.” Even if the pivotal moment is small, people go like, “I should lose some weight so I should stop eating carrot cake for breakfast.” But I'll do that later because it's Christmas and like there's going to be so many opportunities. I'll start working out later. And this is the classic fitness example that everyone has, but we do this in business too where like I really do need to get my branding together. Well you know what? I really do need to do social but I'll do it later because right now I'm focused on this or I need to find out -- I need to take classes on how to do that. I need to hire someone for that, and I've been guilty of this too. And there's a difference between staying focused on something and maybe telling yourself that you're going to do something later, but not really having any sort of decision making process in place.

Jason Khalipa: [00:42:18] Well, I'm sure you get this all the time. How do I do this? How do I do that? I want to do this. And the thing about it is like, you just got to start, you just got to do it. And I think a lot of people love to talk about what they want to do but never actually take action on it. And I think that your words, that'd be backed up by action. I'm a huge believer in this. Like if I want to do something, I'm just going to go out there and do it. We're sitting in this room, I really wanted to put foam on the ceiling. I just ordered it and didn't it, because I just think the problem with it is, is that oftentimes you get caught in this trap. There's always another thing you want to try and do, but you never actually start anything. And so for me, when I was coming out of college, I was looking at the business if I wanted to do something, I need to tell myself to go out there and do it. And I don't know exactly where that came from. I don't know where I learned that skill from. Took me a while, I'm sure. But now if I want something, I need to start it immediately. An example is working out.

[00:43:09] A lot of times when people work out, they'll get into the gym, kind of lollygag for a while and then maybe they'll get motivated, maybe they won't, maybe they'll just leave. I mean, I've seen it tons of times. For me to get motivated and actually work out. But for me, when I walk into the gym by myself, I'm not taking a class. I start a clock and when that clock hits one minute, I'm going on whatever I'm doing, but I hold myself accountable that when that clock hits a target number, I got to go. It doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter what clothes I have on, I got to go and you'd be amazed at what that does because it, it gives you a sense of urgency, and I think if you could take that sense of urgency in other areas of your life and hold yourself accountable to a date and a time, it really helps out.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:50] I love this, but it's not just about taking action on everything because you didn't open that coffee and wine bar. There's a decision making process in here. You're not just like impulsively doing every single thing, right?

Jason Khalipa: [00:44:00] Yeah. And that's a good point too, is that sometimes I'm too impulsive and so I've had to learn how to have a group of people around me that hold me accountable. For example, in the business, I used to be way impulsive. I used to be so reactive and I used to just do something, do something, do something, and it was actually a detriment to our business.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:20] Yeah, I’m like that. I’m like that, and people get surprised. If I'd met my wife earlier, we'd be having this conversation on my yacht. Because she's the one who's like, actually, why don't you look at this? Well, what if this happens?” And I'm like, “Damn, I was so excited about doing this thing.” And she's like, “Yeah, you just didn't even think about,” or “You only thought about these things,” or like “You didn't think what happens.” It's like, “Well, I thought about that, but that probably won't happen.” She's like, “But what if it does?” I'm like, “Damn, you're right.”

Jason Khalipa: [00:44:48] That's right. There has to be a checks and balance. I think what's been good about our company now is that we had hired a good friend of mine, but also our basically our CFO who holds me accountable both sides. Like for me, I want to do everything yesterday. I want to go, I got to get after it, and I think that's a really good tree to have. But then him, he's much more reserved, much more like “No, we need to think this through.” And so we kind of play off each other really well. And so I think if you do find yourself as a person who never actually commits in because anything done, you need to find somebody who can hold you accountable to get them done, and vice versa. If you're someone who just is reactive, just wants to put it out there, you need to find someone to kind of put you in check a little bit, and at least makes you aware of the pros and cons of your decisions. And I wish I had had that earlier in business because it would have solved some of our problems I think.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:33] Yeah, I have definitely gone on massive tangents and if it does get cured with what you talk about in the AMRAP Mentality, which is like finding your why. It sounds cheesy. When I first heard of this concept from Simon Sinek and other places, I was like, “Whatever. I'm doing this cause it's a business. I like it.” That's my why. That's not good enough by the way. You have to find reasons that you're doing something. And again, my accountability or mastermind, whatever you want to call it with my friends works really well for this because they're like, “What are you working on?” I'm like, “Well, I'm thinking about this and that and social media stuff.” And they're like, “Why?” And I'm like, “Well, if you look at these other people, like they're doing this and they got these a lot of likes and there's a lot of audience,” and like, “Hmm, is that what you want to do?” And I'm like, “No, but I have to because of this.” And they're like, “Ah.” I think you're going to find out. You go down this path and you start, you start investing time, resources into like Instagram which you secretly hate, which I do by the way secretly resent, it's not going to be successful.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:34] Yeah, it’s not going to be successful. Yeah, and so the why that I talk about a lot in a book, which carried over into business was like it started with competing in CrossFit. If you don't have a strong why and you're trying to compete in a professional sport. I mean you got big problems because you have to put your body through such terrible situations that if you don't know why you're doing it, it surely can't be for money and fame, and I think that should translate into other things you're doing. Now, you could have a variety of why’s. For example, if you working at a job and you don't necessarily like the job, well you know your “Why am I being, you like being able to provide for your family?” You might not like your job and that's okay. Not everybody can love their job and that's fine. But you need to light the byproduct that occurs. And then over time if you want to shift your profession, that's fine. But the big takeaway there is that you're providing for your family and that should be a deep internal drive for anybody.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:23] I know earlier in the show we talked about not relying on shortcuts because every shortcut has a hidden cost.

Jason Khalipa: [00:47:30] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:31] Let's dive into that a little bit. I think because this is the day and age of hacking the system and taking the shortcut in 80, 20 or whatever it is that people use to justify taking shortcuts, and what I see as someone who's been in business doing the same thing essentially for 12 years, what I see, it's really tempting to take those shortcuts because you see people taking them and you're like, “Wow! This person did this in two years. It's taken me 12 years to get there.” But then in like three, four years, they're not doing anything and you're creeping up on them and then you just sail past them and they're stuck because they didn't build any foundation. What are the -- where have you seen these hidden costs and shortcuts? How do I know if I have to do things without shortcuts or is it just always going to be that way?

Jason Khalipa: [00:48:14] So one of the reasons why I got inspired originally why I wanted to write this book was because I was traveling a lot, and I would always pick up books at the airport. A lot of them were so anti what I saw in my life, meaning like work less, get paid more. Here's a secret to success. And they never really talked about just like rolling up your sleeves, working hard, but not for a month, not for a year, but for years. And that's what I wanted to originally write about. And then it kind of transformed and kind of like when Ava got sick, it kind of transformed a little bit. But I think when you talk about these shortcuts, I mean I just think it's a fact that in life. I don't know if I've ever had a situation where I knew I was kind of taking a shortcut and it worked out well, long term. And I think the best example of that is when you buy something that's cheap and you think it's going to be as good as something, that's like -- there's a reason why something's more expensive because it was built better, it was this and that. But you just find the cheap one, well long term the cheap one that in my experience, it breaks and this and that and I have to end up spending twice as much than I could've just done it right the first time, measure twice, cut once. And I just think that in life, in business in particular, if it seems too good to be true and if it seems like a shortcut it probably is, it'll eventually catch up with you. Maybe not in a year, maybe not in five years but eventually, because it's foundation of skills we talked about and there's so many examples of that, it's just unbelievable.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:35] So you take that example of purchasing something. I either get the cheapest thing that will do the job or I get the most usually most expensive, highest quality and most badass one. So it's like computer that I use every day for work, expensive, kid it out, fully loaded. Batteries for something I use occasionally, cheapest possible, recyclable, rechargeable, whatever version will do. When you go in the middle, this is a little bit of a tangible, when you go in the middle on products, for example, you often pay a markup on something that's a branded and marketed better and is more expensive, but it's still really the cheap thing in terms of quality. When you get to the top and the high end with a few exceptions, you find something that's like handmade in Italy, the pasta maker, it's heavy, it doesn't break. They've tested it, it's worked in these Italian noodle shops for 30 years.

People had the same one, and then there's like the Chinese one made out of plastic when people are like broke after a week and you're like, “All right, so you get, if you're going to make a lot of noodles, which apparently we're doing now, you get their best -- you get the best pasta maker that you can get. And the example of the analogy here is the same thing for business. For example, in my business as a host, I'll spend $7,000 hiring a coach for like three hours. That's like the head anchor at CNN, and he doesn't want to coach, he doesn't want to teach. And I'm like, “I need to learn from you because you do these things that I want to do in my job.” And he's like, “Fine, eight grand.” I'm like, “Dammit. Wolf Blitzer, you're expensive.” Those kinds of things you have to pay for. And the shortcut would be, I'm just going to hire someone to spam my shit all over Instagram and then I'll get more listens. I don't have to be that interview.

Jason Khalipa: [00:51:19] What you'll do is you'll get more listens, but then you won't get that deep connection. And I think in business I've learned that as well. You know that things take time and it's really tough, especially in this day and age. I think it's going to be challenging in the future. I don't look, look to this as being very favorable for our children. And social media has really skewed people's perspective because they think that happened -- things happen instantaneously and everybody wants instant gratification is really tough because whether you're trying to compete in a sport or build a business or develop a relationship. Things take time, and I don't think that that's a very alluring thing, but it does not.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:56] It's not, it’s not alluring at all. It sucks to think that everything takes a long time.

Jason Khalipa: [00:52:00] But I also say to someone, if they're not reaching where they want to go right now, that's okay because at least if they're making a little bit of strides every day, that in itself is a huge win. And I think they should stop being so hard on themselves to try and be like somebody else and just recognize that they're making small improvements in whatever they're doing, and that's a huge win.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:18] One concept from AMRAP Mentality that I like was the idea of focus, focusing on what you can control. And I think I've done a lot of focusing on things I can't control in the past 10 or 12 years, and every -- in fact, whenever I'm really stressed out, I often focus on -- often look at what am I focusing on, and when I feel anxiety and stress overwhelming me 90 percent of the time and it's like I'm focused on all this stuff I can't control so I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop with my every sphincter, my body's clenched. How do you focus on what matters when you're in that moment? What are you doing? Because I know you've done this as well.

Jason Khalipa: [00:52:53] Yeah, I mean so when you talk about what's inside versus outside your control, it started with me with athletics. I found myself, you just focus on things or outside. I control my energy was expended without being on the field. In 2010, it was this big event, like jets fly over, national Anthem, I was fired up, and I was too worried about things were outside my control, my other competitors, what they were doing, what was the workout, things like that, instead of being focused on what was in me. So I ended up really doing Portland's a few events because of that, I wasted a lot of time and energy on things that I had zero control over.

[00:53:29] And so I think it's really important that a lesson that that some people can do is take something on stress in the mountain this world, whatever it may be, and just create two circles and just put in a left circle of things you have in your control. Putting the right circle things that are outside your control and choose to focus on things that are inside your control. My wife and I were talking about the other day, I was getting ready for a presentation whatever it was, I was a little distress, but we just go back to like, “What is in our control?” “Well, preparing for the speech that dah, dah, dah.” What's outside that control? Is it the lights turn off or if the camera, whatever. Those things are outside of my control, I can't worry about it. And I think through fitness, I develop this skill and so I'd recommend anybody who maybe is having challenging times, like in a work environment, focusing on things that are outside your control. For example, what your boss thinks about your paper. Well do the best paper you can, what they think is outside your control. But I think you develop that skill through fitness really well because when you're working out, if things are outside your control. I mean you could just stay focused and present on what you're doing and don't worry about anybody else.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:31] So the two circles exercise, you're writing these in these circles so that you can become aware of what you -- you're bringing awareness to. Like, “Oh hey, I'm worried about all this stuff in the circle on the right, which is the can't control it. Forget about it.

Jason Khalipa: [00:54:43] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:44] So you're essentially giving yourself permission to just go, this is something that I can't control now I'm aware of what that is. Forget about it.

Jason Khalipa: [00:54:50] Yep, or at least try to.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:52] Try to forget about it, yeah.

Jason Khalipa: [00:54:53] For example, in competing, it's like, “What am I in control of?” My nutrition, my preparation. How I tie my shoes. Great. Focus on that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:02] That stuff, I never think about it, but you're right, if your shoes comes untied during the CrossFit games.

Jason Khalipa: [00:55:06] That's a big problem, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:06] You got a problem.

Jason Khalipa: [00:55:07] You triple tie that thing and -- or for example, my transition, I'm going to do this and visualizing what I'm going to do. So like, “Okay, what's in my control is creating a game plan.” My goal now is to execute on that game plan, but this is in my control. What's out of my control is what my competitor does. He might go out really hot. I can't worry about him. I need to stick to my game plan, what I'm doing because when my heart rate was under control, this is what I came up with as the best plan to dominate. Then all of a sudden when things go awry and your competitors are doing whatever, stick to your game plan because you chose that when things were nice and calm, and you can relate that into everyday life. If you get into a situation, stick to your plan and then obviously you need to adapt and overcome when needed.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:46] So the proceeds from the book all go to NEGU.org. What is that?

Jason Khalipa: [00:55:50] So before the pre-release, so before January 8th, all revenue that comes in goes directly to that. After that, a portion of it, we're still determining exactly what that portion is, but it's going to be significant go to NEGU dollars. And my wife and I, when our daughter was diagnosed, we created a partnership with the Never Ever Give Up Organization. It's also known as a Jesse Reese foundation, which was named after Eric Reese's daughter who passed away from a brain tumor. So what we do is we partner with them and we give memories for kids. So kind of like Make a Wish on a micro level. So Make a Wish requires a ton of documentation which it should, because it can be very expensive. These are like 1,000, 2000 bucks, here go to Disneyland, go to dinner, and go to a baseball game, and what we're trying to do is allow families to create memories because these memories will last with them forever. Even if they do lose their child, we want to let them have these memories with them. So they're called Breakaway Adventures. It's a great thing we do. And we also fund people during the holidays with all kinds of things that we just go into the hospital and give them checks to help out with family. So all proceeds benefit that. My wife also hosts an annual event called avaskitchen.org, if you want to check it out so every year, and all proceeds from that also benefit Breakaway Adventures and NEGU.org.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:05] So it's important to you to help other families get through this because it sounds like it had obviously a super strong effect on you and your family, which it would be impossible not to. Have you seen other families that are really struggling with this? Because it seems like, I don't know what I would do. I feel like I'd be a mess.

Jason Khalipa: [00:57:20] Yeah. It breaks people.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:21] Yeah.

Jason Khalipa: [00:57:21] I mean, I've seen it. I've seen it mentally, physically break people where a lot of times what you find is that, you have the husband, there's resentment that builds up because the wife in general, I'm using very generalities. The wife is there in the hospital, the kid and the husband's out there working. And so the husband's saying, “Hey, I'm working so hard.” She's saying, “Well I'm in this.” And there's resentment bills because they're not in it together, they're each doing separate things. And so if we could build a little bit of financial support to let them kind of reconnect and come together and not just be so like hospital or work, but actually connect I think that's really, really rewarding for them. So that's one of things we do. But I mean, yeah, I've seen like -- we've seen families that just lost their kid. We've seen families that just got diagnosed. We've seen families that have been going through it. I mean it's there's a number of things you see when you're in the hospital for as long as we have in and we're forever motivated and inspired to help those families because we knew how hard it was for us and we had everything stacked in our favor, everything. We had the type of diagnosis, the type of this, the family being around. We had everything. We still know hard it is. So I can only imagine what it's like to not have all those things in place.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:30] Jason, thank you very much. This has been really, I got to say very interesting but also great getting to know you in the past couple of months. You do walk the walk of what a person who cares about other people does. I think it's really interesting and inspiring because of course, I interviewed a lot of people where I realized that a lot of stuff, but this is a veneer or like this is supposed to look good, but it really is driving sales over here. I mean, and look fine for people who do that. But you seem very -- what you see is what you get, man. You know what I mean? I was going to say simple. That's not a good compliment. What you see is what you get. You know what I mean?

Jason Khalipa: [00:59:08] I try and be authentic to what the message I'm putting out. It's like whatever I say, I hope people recognize like that's who I am and that's the goal.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:15] Yeah. And Ashley's dad must be really stoked that you turned out to be the man you are now. And so the guy he wore in high school.

Jason Khalipa: [00:59:23][indiscernible]

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:23] Yeah, let's do it. Thank you very much.

Jason Khalipa: [00:59:26] Thanks every one.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:28] Great big thank you to Jason Khalipa. The book title is As Many Reps as Possible, really fun getting to know him and his family during the show here. And if you want to know how I managed to create these relationships and opportunities and manage my relationships with dozens like the hundreds actually, over a thousand now that I think about it people, individually check out our Six-Minute Networking Course, which is free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. And the problem with kicking the can down the road is that we're not able to make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. The number one mistake I see people make is postponing this and not digging the well before they get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you're too late to leverage them. These drills are designed to take just a few minutes per day. This is the stuff I wish I knew a decade ago. It's not fluff. It's crucial, and you can find it at jordanharbinger.com/course.

[01:00:15] Speaking of relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Jason Khalipa. I'm @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. This show is produced in association with PodcastOne, and this episode was co-produced by Jason “AMRAP” DeFillippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes are by Robert Fogarty. Worksheets by Caleb Bacon, and I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, and even those you don't got a lot more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.