Chris (00:02)
I want you to imagine this. It's middle of winter in Nebraska. You're 17 years old. You're dead asleep in bed. Your phone rings. Your boss says, get here now. I need you. You work on a farm. You drive there. It's freezing cold outside. You get to the barn and what do you see? A cow laying on the frozen ground and her calf is in life's danger. Now from all of this, you have to dive in and help save this baby cow. But now you grow up and you learn lessons from things like

That example, being gored, being punched, being pushed to the limits. That is exactly what our episode is about today. And our guest is going to fascinate you. I'm Chris Hadnagy, CEO and founder of Social Engineer LLC, the Innocent Lives Foundation and the Institute for Social Engineering. And this is episode 324 of the Social Engineer podcast, The Human Elements Series. As always, before we get in, let's do a quick couple of quick announcements. If you like the topic of social engineering,

We want you to come over to our Slack channel. The link is in the show notes. And if you can't find it, just ping me on LinkedIn. I'll be happy to get it for you. And as always, I want to invite everyone here to take a minute to go to innocentlivesfoundation.org. If you're not familiar, we've been around eight years, the nonprofit that works with law enforcement across the globe to help geolocate people who traffic children and create child abuse material. We've also expanded our mission to help train law enforcement. We've done a dozen or more sessions with ICAC officers around the U.S.

training them how to use social engineering techniques to interview and interrogate predators. And it's been wildly successful. If you want to support our mission, can do so through voluntary donations at innocentlivesfoundation.org. And last but not least, if you love the music on this show, it's none other than the band Clutch. You know how much I love those guys. And Neil helped me start the ILF eight years ago. So we love them so much. Go to their website, clutchmerch.com and show them some love too. Keep giving us your comments, your thumbs, your likes. We love that because it helps us to know what

topics you really want to hear. Now let's get to the reason why we're all here. Jay Izso we met on his podcast and we quickly became like really good friends and we could spend hours talking. So you're to have, you're in for a treat today, but he's a high energy mindset and resilience coach, keynote speaker, bestselling author, media personality. He's also known as coach Jay. He helps people shift their thinking, master their mindset and unlock their potential in business and life.

He draws on his background in psychology and years of coaching leaders, entrepreneurs and athletes. blends humor, science and real world stories that resonate with audiences everywhere. And as the host of the New Direction and Real Estate right now, he's built the reputation for engaging conversations that inspire action, growth and results. Jay, it's amazing to have you on the show.

Jay (02:45)
Awesome to be with you. I'm so excited.

Chris (02:48)
So I'm going to talk about this book, okay? Because you hear something, lessons from the farm. Right. So that hook story, that was you at 17 years old, right? Yeah. What Possible lesson could you learn from walking into a barn and seeing a cow laying on the ground having a problem giving birth?

Jay (03:05)
Okay. First of all, it was outside. She was on a hill. She was on a hill. She was on a hill and the hill was frozen. Um, you know, I, I could still see it. Matter of fact, I drove, I drive by that place every year when I go back home to go fishing with my best friend of 58 years. We've been friends since 73 and I go back to that place and I'm reminded of that morning to this day. But the lessons that I pulled from here, there was something that happened to me later on about

Chris (03:12)
stand.

Jay (03:35)
10, 12 years ago, I was traveling up interstate 95 just outside of Richmond. And, you know, when you're put into position when you're younger to just have to save a life, you don't think about it. Cause I mean, it was freezing cold and Bob Liddell made me strip off my jacket and I rolled up my sleeve. said, roll up your sleeves. And we didn't have plastic gloves in the eighties, so early eighties. they soap up your arms. And he said,

The calf is turned and you got to reach in there and you got to turn the calf and I need you to get these chains around its hooves and so that we could pull it so we could turn the calf and mom's down. She can't help us. And you just go in and you just do what you're supposed to do. Well, here I am probably, ⁓ gosh, it's probably been more than that now. It's probably close to 20 years ago. I was traveling up interstate 95, Richmond, Virginia.

And a motorcycle driver passes me by. It's terrible traffic. Passes me kind of, you know, goes in between cars and he pulls in, in behind something and I see him and it goes forward. And then the next thing I see up in front of me is this motorcycle flying up in the air, spinning over the top itself. And I see the driver flying off the motorcycle and

I, best I could tell is he was landing towards the cement median between the traffic coming both ways, just in Richmond there. And I was in the left lane. I saw him on the side and I pulled my vehicle over and I got out and I just ran and ran to him and there was people around him and they were, he was in an awkward position up against the cement median.

His skin was torn off his body, half of his body. And so I never will forget the guy's name either. I won't say it, but I will never forget the guy's name. He had been in Daytona for the bike rally that they have in Daytona every year and he was coming back. And so these people go, we got to move him. We got to move him. like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't move him. Don't move him. Don't move him. Don't move him. I said, because you don't know if his neck's broken. We don't know what's going on. If we move them, we can have all sorts of problems. And I said,

Give me everything he's got on his backpacks and the back of his bike. Cause they just give me everything he's got. We're going to keep him propped up against the median and we're just going to keep him propped up there just so they doesn't fall over because he's in such an awkward position. so packed up everything. And I think I've had some blankets in my pickup truck and I pack in everything I can up against him just to keep him secure. So he doesn't slide and his neck doesn't move. And then I realized because

You know, his skin is bleeding and his skin's off and his leathers are torn up. And I remember going, okay, shock. Right. And everything I could remember about people going to shock was keep on talking, keep on talking, keep on talking. So I'm asking question after question after question. He's angry and finally people are leaving. I'm the only one there. And then finally the rescue team comes in the fire department and everything like, right. And I'm there.

And he gets put into transport. They got him stabilized and he's okay. And then after it was over, the fire department grabs me and says, you got to come with me. And I'm going, why? And they go, look at yourself. And I go, what? I'm fine. I said, I'm okay. And I had blood on me. I didn't know I had blood on me. Well, those lessons are similar because you do what you're supposed to do.

in a moment and you often don't think about it, you're just doing what you do. And I really believe to this day, because I've had several similar moments like this in my life, where had I not been in that situation where you just go in and you do what you do, you don't think about anything, you just do it. We end up saving people's lives.

Chris (07:42)
Yeah.

Jay (07:46)
And I've had, I've had, I don't know if it's the fortune or misfortune of being able to be in that situation. And I honestly believe that being in a situation where you know that somebody's life or something's life is at stake and your life doesn't matter anymore. Their life matters. And it doesn't matter if it's a calf or a person or whatever it is. That lesson taught me how precious life is. And I remember.

I remember that nothing mattered but that calf. Nothing mattered. It didn't matter that it was like 17 degrees. It didn't matter that it was freezing. It didn't matter that my arms were soaked up, that I had all sorts of fluid on my arms that I don't recognize. It didn't matter that the chains were slipping and I kept falling back and I'm in a pair of cowboy boots trying to dig my heels into a frozen mound. None of that mattered at the time.

The only thing that mattered was that little life.

Chris (08:48)
Yeah.

Jay (08:49)
And I think that lesson has carried with me through the rest of my life of, you know what? It's not about you.

It's just not about you.

Chris (09:01)
I love it. It's a powerful lesson and a powerful story. Wow. Okay. That's a, what a way to kick off. Thank you. Really? So the one chapter that I mean that you and I talked about before, but you're, lesson 12 where you lead with kindness. I'm thinking about that story in there where Bob had to correct you. He to, he had to give you some, some pretty, some criticism, instead of doing it in anger, he did it with kindness.

Jay (09:18)
Yeah.

Chris (09:30)
What's the lesson that that taught you that you carry through to help other people?

Jay (09:35)
Well, became a core value of mine. I have a eight core values called flag perk is my eight core values. And I make every decision through my core values and a K, which is that the end of perk is kindness. And I've always tried to, as I've grown into an adult, I've always tried to go the decision I'm about to make.

Is it going to be kind to another human being? And we talked about this before the show. When I was younger, I played college football and a little semi-pro football and I was a defensive tackle, defensive nose guard. And there's this thing called a bull rush where you just bull rush head four and then you wait for the guy to be off balance and then you just rip him straight down on the ground, the defensive tackle or the whoever you're playing against.

And we have a tendency to do this with people, especially like with things that we don't like. ⁓ You know, you probably have had your cable go out during Super Bowl. And so all of a sudden you're on the phone with the representative from the cable company going blankety blank blank and you're bull rushing. You're just going hard at them every fourth. You're streaming four letter words together that have never been strung together before. One after another.

And you're, and you're going right at them going, this is going to solve my problem because I'm going to get louder and I'm going get more agitated and I'm going to intimidate this person. And then maybe you get a result. Oftentimes you just get hung up on you have to call again, which just makes you more irritated. Nothing happens at that. But then if you go to the other side of it and you practice kindness and go, Hey, listen, I know that it's not your fault. I know that you don't have control over this.

Chris (11:20)
So

Jay (11:33)
My cable's out. Is there anything that you could tell me that we can do to make that happen? And, ⁓ you know, recognizing who's in control. Cause I know that that person who's on the other phone, who's a service operator, they aren't controlling any of it. They're not in control of it And me getting upset with them, which I've done, which I did way early in my life, did not get my phone call or my cable resolved. Right. But when I was kind.

Chris (11:39)
Hmm.

Jay (12:03)
The person said, you know, I'm really sorry. We're not going to charge you for the month.

But will tell you something else about kindness.

We lack it in our society because we're so filled with vitriol, because we want to make things so black and white. Kindness is our gray.

Tieness is where things aren't black and white anymore, they're gray.

And when we start to live and understand that that's where we all live is in the gray. don't live in black and white. There were not binary beings. We often live in the gray and kindness is that gray area that we bridge between zero and one. It's zero and one in binary code. There's like nothing in between, but there's something that's kindness. That's where kindness can exist.

Because kindness is going to be the one route that we can all take that will change each other. It's hard to get mad at somebody who's kind.

Chris (13:16)
Yeah, that's true.

Jay (13:17)
It's really hard to be mad at somebody who's kind. Very true. It's really hard to say to a kind person, you're off your rocker. It's really hard to say, well, you voted this way, but you're so dang kind. You know, I mean, you can't, you can't do it. And so kindness has a power all of its own that if we're willing to unleash it. And again, here comes, here comes.

It's not about me.

If I want to practice kindness, it can't be about me.

Chris (13:54)
Yeah. Right. Selfishness and kindness don't seem to work together.

Jay (13:56)
can't.

It doesn't, it doesn't work, Chris. You can't, you can't use kindness as some sort of tool to manipulate people because we're, we're, we're going to see through it if it's not genuine kindness. So when we practice genuine kindness, well, now we've bridged something that people can't, can't argue against. They can't get mad against all of our defenses come down with kindness.

All of them. But it can't be about me.

Chris (14:34)
I love it. That's a really powerful lesson too.

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Okay, lesson 13. The electric fence story is kind of unforgettable. So I want to have you tell that because that's kind of that's a great thing. have a question about it, which what did that that unbelievable unforgettable story
teach you about power. I'm just talking about electricity. I'm talking about influence. But let's hear the story first.

Jay (16:35)
Yeah.

So we have this thing called walking the lion out in the farming community. What that means is after we've harvested the crops, ⁓ and if we have livestock, like we had hogs, what we would do is we would run mile or more of electric fence wire to keep the pigs in a particular area, but they could munch on the corn or soybeans or whatever that was left on the ground from the harvest when combines.

So all through the winter, you can imagine what it's like during the winter. It's snow, cold, you're carrying these metal posts and these plastic insulators and your pockets are just full and you've got this one little piece of wire. And because the fence contracts and expands during the cold and changing weather. And so what happens is an electric fence wire will break and it'll shut down the electric fence. And there's two wires.

on the electric fence. There's an upper wire and lower wire. You have this little piece of wire that what you do is you cut off the circuit so that you can splice the two wires together that are broken. So you cut the circuit off and you splice the two wires. And then what you do is you take that little thing off. Generally with an insulator, you take that off so that you're not getting shocked and you move on. Well, it was spring. There's still a little ice and snow on the ground, little water. was cool, you know.

in a maybe a sweatshirt, maybe most pair of jeans, boots, and I'm carrying, I'm fixing fence, right? And I guess what happened was I forgot where the electricity was coming from to power that fence. So I put the wire across the two wires to create my loop, to create my circuit so that I cut off the circuit so that can attach the wire.

I'm standing in a little bit of water. Okay. It's a puddle. Okay. Well, I clearly did not put the, the, the, the, loop wire on the right side of where the power was. And I grabbed both pieces of the wire and created a circuit and I got shocked and it felt like somebody took a rubber sledgehammer. And I don't mean, I don't mean like when you held in your hand, I mean like the big long rubber sledge.

and hit me in the back of the neck so hard. And I mean, it just, I was just like, oh, and I was almost down on my ground and I was seeing stars and everything like that. And it hit me. I've never been hit that hard. I have been hit. I've been hit by some very large people coming through on a trap play where I forgot to bring out my flipper. I've been hit by a 300 pound lineman where I didn't see it coming. And I've been decleated. I have been.

Nothing has hit me as hard as that hit me that day. It's not forgotten. I feel it in the back of my neck to this day. I feel it when I tell the story.

You know what occurred to me in life and in business?

Are you really paying attention to has the power to make the decision?

Chris (19:51)
Hmm.

Jay (19:55)
Oftentimes, we have a real estate company and oftentimes I say to real estate people and I speak at conferences and I often tell real estate people, said, the person with the money doesn't often have the power to make the decision or they've given it away.

Chris (20:12)
Yeah.

Jay (20:13)
Because their assistant who doesn't make a whole lot of money can be the person with the most power.

Chris (20:22)
Right.

Jay (20:23)
He or she, who's their little personal assistant, is the one who has the ear every day of the person who's got the money to make, who can make the money for that decision. But they're the ones who walk in the door and go, Hey boss, I don't think this is the right person.

And so what we've done is we created a loop believing that the person with the power is the person who controls the finances. When it could be something small and you looked at the wrong side and you put the loop at the wrong side and the next thing you know, you didn't get the deal and you got hit over the head like a sledgehammer.

Right? Because you go, where did that come from? I did everything right. I did the presentation. I gave them the presentation. It was perfect. He loved it. He was nodding. He said, yes, the whole time. Yeah, but he didn't, the power was on the other side. It was the assistant that was sitting next to him.

Chris (21:16)
Mmm.

Jay (21:18)
And so you've got to know where the power is. And it's not always the person who has the money. It's the person who influences the decision. And, you, you know, you talk about something similar to this. You know, when you do your work, the person that lets you in the door, isn't the CEO. It never, it's never happened where the CEO goes,

Chris (21:42)
Never happened.

Sure, come on in.

Jay (21:47)
Go into the server room. Go ahead. Yeah, it's not that person. The person who's got the power to let you in is just a guy or gal standing outside the door.

Chris (21:58)
Mm-hmm.

Jay (22:00)
They have the power. And we often think so wrongly about who's got the power in real estate. So often I will see real estate professionals talking to the man because it's he's doing the mortgage and they ignore the wife. Guess who's going to make their nest in the home? Yeah, it's not him. He's just putting up the money. She's making the decision.

You're talking to the wrong person. You're creating a loop with the wrong person. You need to be creating a loop with person who's going to make the decision whether they want to live there or not.

Chris (22:37)
Yeah.

Jay (22:39)
And we miss it. We miss it. It's so easy to miss because we're enamored right? We get enamored. Mortgage power. They are making all the decisions. No, don't be so sure. And that's where we got to be careful. You live it. You know that that's true. You see it every day. It's you don't endear yourself to the people, the big uppers, the C suites. You endear yourself to people.

Chris (23:08)
Yeah, because they got the power to stop me.

Jay (23:11)
They

have the power to stop you. But they also have the power to let you in, right? You better know where the power is. That's really got to know where's the power. Oh, it's him. It's not him. It's him. Yeah.

Chris (23:14)
Yes, that.

I want to jump back to lesson five. Okay. You talk about completing tasks without all the directions and you, you, you paint some really nice pictures in there, but I want, I want you to, I was thinking about that, a story of you walking through the hog pen to clean, to clean it out and you had given no instruction. How do we apply that to, let's say like my company, right? Like I think about my employees or myself, even

How do we apply that in business? Because that doesn't sound anything like a business decision at all.

Jay (23:55)
Yeah. Well, my favorite four words are i'll figure it out. That comes from all that. That's my favorite four words. I'll figure it out. So Bob's only instruction to me is he would always say this to me. I don't care how you do it. Just get it done. And here's, here's the thing. You are often in life and in business. You are not going to be given all the details.

Chris (24:23)
That is true.

Jay (24:24)
just not going to be given all the details. So can you figure it out on your own that you can get the job done in the way that they want it done? That's the key. The key is that I couldn't get the job done the way I want to do it. I had to get the job done in the way he wanted it done. Right? So now I'm not given details, but I have to figure out, okay, well, this is what he wants to accomplish.

How can I go about doing that? there's a process to it, right? Because there's so much trial and error. And I think this is what he was teaching me. And that was, okay, be efficient, but you're not going to be efficient upfront. You're going to be really, really awkward because I haven't given you much detail. And you're going to be putting in and expending a lot of energy at the beginning. But when you figure out a system, you'll be able to make this work a whole lot smoother.

And so, you know, the story of me tearing apart these old hog pens and we were cleaning these out and we were getting everything done. You know, I was carrying one board at a time and taking it down to the bottom of the hill. some of these were railroad ties because we used railroad ties. So I'd carry a railroad tie on my shoulder, roll it down, get it down the hill and dump it off down there. And he said, you know, he said, I just want you to think about something. He said, you know, you've got this old fencing here, right?

He said, well, what if you piled a bunch of stuff on the fencing and dragged the whole stuff down there on the fencing?

yeah.

can do that. Because because I was figuring it out. But then he gave me a little clue about how to utilize what you have around you and become more efficient. So when I go into a business situation, right, I don't care what it is, it could be a personality, personnel issue, or it could be a physical issue. What do I have available around me right now?

Chris (26:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jay (26:35)
that can make my job more efficient that I can get done. You do this and you utilize things that you can find around you right away that you can bring in that you can, when the situation starts going south, you start trying to find things that you have available to you that you can use to get more efficient into how you can get into that building. Well, it's the same process in any business, right?

Oftentimes we complain, I don't have enough resources, I don't have enough resources, I have enough resources. Well, the only reason you're saying that you don't have enough resources is because you stopped looking for what resources that you do have available to you. And so you're not taking advantage of what you have because that requires creativity. And what do we know about creativity? Here it is. Listen to me. There is no problem that creativity cannot solve.

Chris (27:24)
Yeah.

Jay (27:28)
⁓

So he was forcing me to be creative. He was forcing me to find what I had around me that I could use that could make my job better, easier. And it was such, it was silly things like that, that I recognized that I could take into business and going, okay, I don't have a lot of resources. So without the resources, what do I have available that I could still get the job done at a high quality?

efficiently, get it done the way you want me to get it done and be able to find a way to make that happen for you. And when we start understanding that we have far more creative ability than we think we have. Right. And this is my, this is the frightening thing about AI to me a little bit. I love AI. I love it. I think it's amazing. It's awesome. It's made my job simpler in a lot of ways. But if you don't have AI.

You're relying on your own creativity. And by the way, we're really, really creative as human beings. Really, really creative. This show, when you and I were in college, didn't exist. This wasn't even a thought. There was no podcasting when you and I were in college. Nobody thought of it. Nobody thought of coaching. Nobody was thinking of human engineering. Nobody was thinking about that stuff. Nobody was even talking about it.

Chris (28:38)
No.

It wasn't a thing.

Jay (28:53)
It wasn't a thing, but we created it, didn't we?

Chris (28:56)
Yeah. And now this is bigger than radio.

Jay (28:58)
And that's bigger than race. So what are, think about this folks. What are you not creating that could be created if you just took a look at the resources you had around you.

Chris (29:13)
I love it. I love it. Okay, I got I got another question. Okay, sure. This is from the lesson 20. Okay, because this one was was was was a pretty wild if I want to ask. No, I do want to ask this one. Okay, I want to ask this one. So you talk really candidly about battling depression, you know, just fighting losing your way, you know, fighting yourself. What was the thing that brought you back to being you being this version of Jay so that we separate sit right here before us?

Jay (29:44)
I got rescindered. I had lost my faith.

Honestly, I'd lost my faith. I had lost myself into myself. Whenever we face some sort of depression, what we do is we turn inward and not outward. And I had turned inward. And whenever you turn inward as a mindset, we also get very selfish.

And I had become really, really selfish.

And it was just all about me. And my wife had to have a come to Jesus meeting with me. And our marriage was struggling. And she said, I don't know that I can do this anymore.

And it was an, I can still see it. We're at the kitchen counter crossing each other and she's in tears and I'm in tears and I know that she's right. And I know that I'm wrong.

but I don't know what to do about it. There's been several times in my life where I have had words come out of my mouth that I don't know where they've come from.

⁓ several times, and this was one of those moments too. And I remember the exact words I said to her. said to her, baby, I don't know how I'm going to fix it.

but I will find a way to fix this.

And I knew, I knew her pain was so bigger, so much bigger than what my pain was that I didn't want to see her hurt. And I was doing the hurting.

Chris (31:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jay (31:42)
because I was so self-absorbed, so depressed, so, so selfish, so into myself. And the only thing I could think of at the time is, okay, first thing you gotta do is you gotta get back to what you believe. Who are you? What made you, what got you to this point? And these lessons started coming back, but then I started recognizing that, you know,

I am not solving any problem. I'm not being creative. I'm not taking advantage of any resources that I have. I'm not being resilient. I'm not doing what I need to do. I'm not being who I was created to be. And I needed to make a change and those changes had to be small. And so it started with just small little changes, right? It was remembering what her love language is and

Am I giving her her love language with love languages acts of service? Am I really taking something off of her plate? What am I doing? And, ⁓ it was a huge wake up call for me. And I remember. Cause I mean, was part of the inspiration for this book. And I remember that when I started to let go of my ego.

might, our ego can get in the way really quickly if we're not careful. Well, it is. Yeah, it's not can be it is ruined. And you, you know what happens with your ego, you get used to your ego. And we don't think it's a problem. Everybody but you can see that your ego is a problem.

Chris (33:10)
Be a runer.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jay (33:29)
Because your ego won't see it as a problem. But it's a problem. And mine was a problem.

And I needed humility.

And humility is so important. It's, can't overemphasize it. In fact, um, if, if any of you've ever read of Jim Collins book from good to great, if you recall the research that he did, he looked for all these fortune 500 companies. He tried to find one that was good. That went to great, not that was bad. That went to great ones that were good. That went to great. And it was some 1400 companies. He was looking at went from good to great.

And there's only 1%, like 1 % of all the 1400 that actually went from good to great, because when we feel good, guess what? We don't change because we feel we're good enough. So we don't have a tendency to change. So very few companies are go from good to great. But what they found was that of the, one of the main things that they found in leaders that made the company go from good to great, humility.

Chris (34:39)
Yeah. I love that lesson. My class, teach about this ⁓ principle called ego suspension and how difficult it is, especially for Western white men. ⁓ But it's a difficult process. And ⁓ I'm saying this because what you just displayed is a perfect example of ego suspension. You're candidly talking about your past mistakes and what you learned from them. Self-awareness is the key to change.

Right. And you just, I don't know you as that other guy. I only know you as this Jay. So I'm glad I never met the other guy because you're, you're, you're an amazing human right now. So that's, that's a, what a drastic change. And I, I really want to ask you guys are still married.

Jay (35:23)
yeah. We have the best marriage ever. We have the best marriage ever. I am so intentional about her love language and expect nothing in return. And I just love doing for her. just, you know, I know this is going to sound silly to some guys out there, but I try to beat her to make the bed every morning.

Chris (35:37)
Yeah.

Jay (35:50)
I want to make sure the bed and all the pillows guys, got all the pillows in the right order and I got them perfectly. And I try to beat her so that she doesn't make the bed every morning. So that's one thing less because she's got her own business. She does her own thing. I make sure that when she walks in the door, there's not a dish in the sink. I make sure that that I'm, make sure that the trash is always out. I make sure that if I've done something on the counter, I can clean off my fingerprints off the counter because she hates fingerprints on the countertops. don't care what it is.

Serving her is one of the greatest gifts I have is to serve her in the littlest of things. And I did not recognize how great of a gift it is to serve. And I've come to learn that I can't, it is such a joy 27 years later to serve her. And I love doing it. And I love it because I really love.

Chris (36:28)
Yeah.

Jay (36:50)
her and my words have fallen empty. I'm sure for years, but I don't have to say it anymore. She sees it every day and she says, I know you love me.

Chris (36:59)
Mm-hmm.

There's more happiness in giving, right?

Jay (37:06)
well, but see, here's the other thing. We play by the 100 % rule in our marriage. There's no 50-50 in marriage. It's 100%. So here's our 100 % rule. Take this home with you, whoever's listening. I'm 100 % responsible for what I say. I'm 100 % responsible for what I do. And I'm 100 % responsible for how I respond to whatever you do or say to

And so we both play by that rule.

Chris (37:32)
Yeah.

Jay (37:33)
So ⁓ can we say something that maybe isn't the best way to say it? Sure. But I'm still 100 % responsible how I respond to that.

Right. So for me to get defensive, that's the wrong choice. I have a hundred percent responsibility for the choice I'm going to make by the way she does too. I just don't hold her to it because that's not my job. My lane is to control my hundred percent. Her lane is to control her hundred percent. That's not my lane to tell her how to do her hundred percent. It's only my job to do my hundred percent.

Right. It's, it's a fabulous world. And here's the other thing I learned. This is just a little trick, the marriage tip for those of you out there who are married or want to get married or have been married and did it wrong, which I have done. And, you, and you want to do it. First thing to admit is not that they were right, but you were wrong. So when I, when it, when she says something, I don't do it. And it turns out she was right. I don't go and say, you know what? You're right. This happened. Nope. First thing I say is.

Chris (38:11)
I like it. Like the rule.

Jay (38:40)
I was wrong.

I made the decision I was wrong. You were right.

Chris (38:47)
Yeah.

Jay (38:48)
because it's so easy to tell a person, you're right. But what's really hard is to say I was wrong. Right. And that's again, that's humility, ego suspension. That's all of that. And that's part of pulling that together is being able to literally look at another person in the eye and say, I was wrong. Isn't that more powerful than saying you were right?

Chris (38:54)
Again, ego suspension.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. 100%.

Jay, got three questions I always ask as we close. First, most importantly, I know people are going to want to reach out to you. They're going to want to interact with you after listening to this. What is the best mediums for that? I know I have all your social media links and things like that we'll put in the show notes, but what's the best way for people to reach out to you?

Jay (39:34)
I love LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my favorite platform. ⁓ I love interacting on LinkedIn. I love direct messages. ⁓ If you connect with me, you do me a favor? Drop a note with the connection saying, Hey, I heard you on Chris's show and I heard you and I would love to connect with you or I would, don't even have to say love. I would like to connect with you or would you connect with me? don't care.

But drop a little note so I know where you came from. That really helps me out. But I love interacting with you. So please reach out to me on LinkedIn. I think that's by far the best way to do it.

Chris (40:14)
Since 2009, when this show started, I have been asking this question on this series every episode. So are there any books that, and I'm gonna put yours in the show notes too, because that's a must read, but are there any books that, if that's even be about the topic we spoke about today, it could be anything. You say, everyone should read this book.

Jay (40:35)
I have several. ⁓ think they should read human hacking, by the way. I human hacking is one of the best books I've ever read. thank you. General John Gronsky, who I interviewed on my show, wrote a book called iron sharpened leadership. And I think that's one of the best books I've ever read on leadership is iron sharpened leadership by General John Gronsky. Dr. Ryan Gofferson wrote a book on called success mindsets that I think takes ⁓

mindset to a whole nother level, which I think is absolutely a fabulous, fabulous book, I think is a must read for people. If you're struggling with understanding what the four basic mindsets are and how to get around them, I think that book is a fabulous mindset book that people should read. I would also invite you to read a Nir Bishan's book called The Creator Mindset. Great book on creativity and

⁓ matter of fact, it's where I got the quote from, ⁓ there are no problems that creativity cannot solve because, ⁓ I believe that the challenge we're going to have with AI and all the AI tools that we have is we're not going to rely on our own creativity and anything that's going to change in your life is not going to start with chat GPT. It's going to start with your own mind. And I believe that that is a fundamentally, fabulous book, for people to read.

is the creator mindset. think it's outstanding. So those I've got more, but those three are the ones that I would start with.

Chris (42:10)
Excellent. Now I know for me, ⁓ I wouldn't be sitting here today if it wasn't for some key people in my life mentors, people that took time out of their life to just give me these lessons and help me. Do you have any mentors, any mentors that that you can mention that you know you would not be sitting here today if it was not that person or persons?

Jay (42:29)
Well, sadly, sadly, some of those passed, but, um, uh, you have Bob Liedl passed during COVID and, he was tremendous mentor to me, Alan Nigran, who I worked with Longhorn Steers and was in love with his daughter and stupidly tried to ride bareback horses with her and got thrown into a ditch. Uh, she was great. That's another story for another time. is a great mentor. Um,

I have a couple current mentors that are really great that I work with. Actually, ⁓ Pat McNamara, former Delta Force operator has a group that I find so beneficial in him in terms of more self-awareness and just great to be hanging around those guys. Bob Corcoran, who is a coach, has been a tremendous mentor and source for me to

grow from, he's got his own coaching company and he's, ⁓ he's been fabulous, ⁓ for me. And then I have some friends that, ⁓ I have met, I have men that I can speak honestly with and, ⁓ that I can talk to anything about. I think there's been a really important, so think Jimmy Vana, Jerome Tanner, ⁓ Judd Wisegold, those guys are like my

core guys who I can bounce off anything and be honest with about anything. And they can tell me, they could tell me I'm being an idiot or they could say, keep going in the right way. And I'm okay with either one. Yeah. And, you know, those are the guys who call me out, you know, if I'm trying to be right. Jay, are you trying to be right here or are you really making a really good point?

Chris (44:12)
We need that, don't we?

Jay (44:24)
And they stopped me in my tracks to see if I'm just trying to be right. And those guys are part of my fold who are my posts that really keep me grounded and are honest with me. ⁓ and at the same time, we can have a lot of fun together and we do, we have a lot of fun together. ⁓ I think those are the important relationships, but yeah, I believe in, I believe here's the thing I would encourage you. think.

You need to have, you need to kind of have a Paul, a Barnabas and a Timothy. Let me explain. So I think you need to have people who are younger than you that can speak into your life. think you need to have people your same age who can speak into your life. And then I need to think you have to have someone older than you who can speak to your life. And so I try to have those three people and I do, I have three of those people in my life who are one's older. One's my age. One's younger that can speak into my life.

honestly and truthfully and help me see something that I'm not seeing

Chris (45:28)
Yeah. Well, Jay, you have some really powerful lessons in your life. And I love the way that you've taken everything, including your mistakes and transformed it into something that we can all learn from. And just like on your show, I know we can go for much, much longer. I want to thank you so much for what you shared with us today. It was really, really impactful. I really appreciate it.

Jay (45:43)
Cut.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be on the show. Listen, folks, tell your friends about doing the show. This is a great show. I love the format of the show. It's a lot of fun. So thank you for inviting me and your engineer. I don't remember what's his name. Josten Great job. Absolutely phenomenal. And if you want to show this a great show, I love it. So thank you for the time for sure. Thank you.

Chris (46:04)
Josten

And I hope you all enjoyed it. And I hope you really got some lessons from what Jay shared with us today and you can apply them directly in your life. Really go pick up his book. It's one of those books that like sometimes a chapter is only a couple pages, but you could take something from it and just go use it right away. So I highly endorse this. Go get this book on Amazon. You can get an audio book if you'd to listen, or Kindle if you want it digitally. Either way, you will enjoy it. Stay safe until next month when we're back with another amazing human with an amazing story. Until then, see ya.