blossom, your awesome podcast, episode number 52 today on the show, Jeff Jarvis is here with us, Jeff is an entrepreneur, author and ceo of the teach better team, they are creators of teach better dot com the grid method and teach further. He works with educators to increase student engagement and improve student success. Jeff is also passionate about helping people overcome the fear of failure and he teaches people how to follow their dreams. I am so excited, honored and delighted to have Jeff here with us, sharing his wisdom, insights and light. Hi there Jeff, how are you? I am fantastic, thanks so much for having me on the show.

Oh, I am so excited to have you here, I cannot wait to get into all of this with you, I'm gonna say we start with your background and tell us how you got into this line of work. Oh jeez, um how much time we have because I don't do short very well. Hey, no problem and I know your background is extensive, but yeah, backgrounds uh you could use extensive or just like Twisty and Curvy I guess, I don't know how, what you explain, I have a variety back on the key too is that over the last 20 years I've started and ran a bunch of, a whole bunch of different businesses. I found myself at a young age realizing that I was an entrepreneur didn't know that what that word was or anything when I first started sort of creating things and want to do my own thing, but I spent quite a bit of time in my younger years and the hospitality food service industry and then into the entertainment industry, found my own record label and and running that for a few years and was actually via the record label that I that this this new venture with teach better team that we've we've been going on here for about just over seven years now.

Kind of came about because the co founder of my current company, teach Better was a drummer in a band that I managed and that's where we initially met and then we coached some soccer together. And then eventually somehow we stumbled along. We end up starting this uh educational consultant company. And uh here we are. So kind of taking a lot of twists turns a lot of side hustles. I always refer to like the opposite way my business is that I was trying to grow with my businesses and then whatever my daytime job was that those were my side hustles. So I did a lot of side hustling in like the uh the food service industry and and the sales industry and and and things of that nature as I was trying to build businesses that you know include a record label and online marketing firm and non profit at a time, a concert club, a restaurant. And now for the last seven years a consultant firm that works with uh teachers in school districts all over the country and all over the world. Mm Okay, I love this idea now, just like but where did this come about for you? Like this idea of wanting to help?

I mean I know we're you know, most of us are a lot of us are into self improvement and wanting to do better for ourselves and those around us, but like wanting to help teachers and educators do better. How did this idea come about? So the idea of what kind of started everything for us was actually my co founder, chad Ostrovsky was 1/7 grade science teacher uh in Ohio and uh I was doing pretty well and then found himself in a couple of years when he was really struggling. Um it was a very high needs urban population school district and found found himself struggling with problems that he wasn't sure how to fix. And he'll tell you that was the worst, worst year of his career. He got the point where he either had to figure out how to do something different friendly or I was gonna have to quit. Um and he dug into the data and looked at what all the research for the year, decades and decades says and Found that most of the research pointed to master learning being a solution to most of the problems he was seeing. So what he couldn't find was a way to put it all together because it could be a little a little scary if you think about 30 kids in a room all moving at their own pace doing different things.

That's always joke, that's like what nightmares are made of. Uh, and so he developed a system for himself and we now call it the grid method. It's one, a proprietary framework for utilizing master learning that we share, that we trained on one of many things we do. And when chad came to me at the time, I was running an online marketing firm as I mentioned, he and I knew each other from a different life. And he came to me with this idea. He said, I just want to like maybe put this in an e book or on a website or something because a lot of my teachers in my district are asking about it. I want to give them the information. And for me it was after he explained what it had done, not only for his kids, but also for him as a teacher and as a husband and as a father. Um, and the happiness he was experienced. I looked at him and I said, we're not just doing any book. We have to share this with more people. We have to get this out there. You know, I am not a teacher. I'm one of the very few people on our team that is not a teacher and I've never been a K 12 teacher. I thought a couple of years at the, at the college level. Um, it was kind of a unique experience. But oddly enough, when I first went to college, way back in 2001, it was to be a teacher, I just businesses and I just end up going there.

So it's kind of an interesting turn for me to be back in here. But I've always had this, uh, such a high level of respect and admiration and and care for educators and the work that they do that. I think that's why it kind of hit me differently than a lot of the other things that I've started and I saw this opportunity to see something that was having an incredible impact on students and the teachers in his district and use the things that all the skills and knowledge that I've gained over all my successes and failures over the years to do something good and impact not only teachers, but also the students, students they serve and impact all of them and just try and change education altogether. Mm, wow, I love this. This is so amazing. Now, tell me, like, so, you know, is this kind of, some of this is based in psychology or there's a multitude of steps that have to kind of come together here for this to all work. But what is that kind of initial, is it kind of reframing the way they go about it? Is it changing the mindset and then the students are receptive in a different way.

I mean, what is this, the kind of ideology behind it? Yeah, I mean a lot of, a lot of what we do is is around the master learning and self paced students that are learning. Um it really is, it starts with this mindset shift and change the way that we look at education. When I say we, I mean uh you know myself as a parent, the students, the teachers, the administrators of community everything and start realizing that teachers are not and are no longer a just the vessel of information, no longer just a deliverer of information, They're just facilitator of learning. We have so much information, we have all the information, like all the information in the world is available. But so teachers no longer have to be experts standing at the front of the room now, what they need to be is the facilitator. How do we help kids understand what information is good information, bad information biased information, uh slanted information, what if you want to call it? What information is the right information, What do I go to find it?

How do I back it up? How do I make sure it's the correct one? And then how do I actually use it in my real life in the real world? How do I connect it to that? And how do I use things like critical thinking skills and and uh collaboration with others and how do I develop communication skills and focusing on the things that students actually need, um in order to hit the objectives that we laid out before them to get them ready so they can actually come out of high school and make the right decision for their career path, whether that might be and contribute to society and really fulfill their their potential uh and there and and follow their passions and find something that will not only contribute, but also give them joy and give them happiness. And I think it's a big shift. It's it's a tough shift because we've been doing the same thing in education or similar things in the same basic framework for such a long time that it's, it can be a tough shift for teachers to um to shift this. And a lot of times it's not even it's not the teacher that stuff, it's it's the shift of other folks that are necessarily in those individual classrooms that don't realize that the shift is a good thing for the students that it puts the power and the control of the education and their educational journey back in the hands of the student, uh and it gives them the voice and choice to, to help guide their own educational journey.

And when you do that, when the students finally realize that they have that control, it's incredible to watch how they actually get reinvested in that journey and get invested in the work that they're doing when they see the connection to the things that they care about and the things that they want to do um but it starts with a mindset shift and it's it's a big one and not everyone is as close to that mindset set shift. So a lot of times it's, what is the starting point, how far away are we from that? What are the other little things that we can work on to continue to prove if we're not ready for such a big shift and that's where you know over the years we've started doing so many other things because we realize that that's not the right fit for everyone right now, sometimes they need just a little help here, a little support here and then we can kind of slowly but surely grow together to get them to the to the point where we're constantly improving and changing the way that we educate. Mm wow Jeff I just I have to commend you, I think this is just so amazing and so powerful and empowering the impact that you are having.

So that's just amazing. Thank you. I appreciate that a lot. I um I I like to say I just kinda I surround myself with incredibly intelligent people and then I just pretend like I do a lot of work So I'm fortunate to work with a whole bunch of really really really intelligent educators who are extremely passionate um and luckily I have a little something that I can help bring to logistics and allows me to be a part of it. So mm well, I think, you know, so just looking at your background and stuff, it seems like, you know, you're so kind of fueled by passion and this belief that, you know, you got to chase your dreams and so that's kind of what this was born out of and you're bringing that to these educators and to the students And where did that come from for you? Do you, were you always like this? Did you have an epiphany? Was there an Aha moment? Um, yeah, I think there's been a few of them. It's interesting when I think, I think I've always been like that, I've always been a big dreamer. I wanted to do big things when I was younger, the plan was to become a big famous rock star uh, and then start a record label and help other people do that.

And as I got ahold obviously realized that that's kind of hard to do. Um, and there was a period in my life where I, I literally said the words that I'd rather die broke poor and whatever than not be playing music because I was convinced that that was what my passion was and I'm really passionate about music, but when my record label did not work out and I had to make the decision to stop that and close that down, which is really my first like passion that really chased hard was that label shut that down. Like I it was a crash and burn moment for me into depression and trying to figure out who I was and what am I doing. And and um it was actually my my wife um who is just amazing. 11 day during that moment I had a breakdown in the hallway and like I've been holding in so like no one even knew, I was like struggling and just broke down tears and she asked me to know what's going on and I said, you know, in that world of the music, the record labels, FTF Records. So people called me, Jeff TF was just like a little nickname and the the local scene and I looked and I said, if I'm not Jeff t f, who am I?

And I was literally at the point like who am I, what, what am I doing? And she just looked at me and said, well you Jeff and I love you and then walked away not realizing like what she did to me. There was like, I realized like, oh, like I gotta be good, I have to be good with who I am first and foremost before anything of what I do is going to help me figure things out and what I figured out then was okay, well I love playing music. But then I really loved doing this record label thing where no one knew who I was and I wasn't the guy on the stage, I wasn't the guy writing music, I was helping other people do it. And then I was doing stuff where I I was in the fast food industry and I was a manager there and was helping young kids get their first opportunity at, you know, to be a key manager in that first like leadership opportunity and as they were trying to go to college or doing whatever they were doing and I found like, oh I really love that, I love helping them, I love getting them going. I'm like, well maybe it wasn't music that I'm that is my key passion, maybe it's helping people, that's my key passion. So then I end up getting into, there's a few other things in between, but I'm working, you know, starting my own marketing firms. Like I love helping young businesses, young entrepreneurs understand their business, understand their their marketing needs and website design and social media and all these different things.

I'm like, like I don't know where to hit, I guess I a lot of homeowners but theirs through those, I realized, oh it's not the subject matter necessarily right? It's not the music, it's not the fast food, it's not the whatever the subject is, it's the fact that I got a chance to help people, I want to know that I'm having an impact on people and and that's where this really came, came full circle with me realizing that I got no point in my life. I was like, I don't think I'm gonna build anything more. Like I was building my online firm and like, this thing doesn't work out, I'm done. And then this thing came around with chad and I said, all right, I guess I'm not done because this is another opportunity. This is a huge opportunity for me to continue helping people um and helping teachers and then helping them help students, and that's gonna help families, and that's going to help communities. And I'm like, this is an opportunity to actually really help people on a big scale. So for me, it was kind of finding, figuring myself out that my passion, I have a lot of passions, a lot of things that I love, but the key was finding what's the thing that kind of attracted me to all of them.

Well, I love the idea of helping people, I love being a part or a piece of bringing someone joy, bringing someone happiness, helping, you know, whether it was singing a song and someone, you know, feeling better over a breakup or helping an artist release an album or helping a young business get off the ground or helping an educator feel like they reach more students today, we're helping a teacher on our team realize that uh they're not quote unquote just a teacher there, an amazing teacher who has value to share with other teachers and other students and for me that's, that's what fuels me now is any time I have an opportunity to help someone. Um, a lot of times it's helping them chase their dreams and chase their passions, which is why I love coming on and trying to share my story on podcast because maybe hopefully it'll help someone chase their dreams. Mm I love that. Now, tell me Jeff. So what is that? Your advice to people? Someone who's like stuck and um, you know, this is gonna be two questions here.

So one, how do we start? How does someone start kind of, you know, putting aside the fear and chasing that like most ambitious dream. Mm that's a, that's, you know, that's a tough one. It's one that I've had a lot of conversations with people because I realized that I think I have this interesting tolerance for that and I think it's cause I just started doing it at a young age. Um, I've lost, you know, I also, you know, very privileged to have a family that's always been super supportive. Um, so I always said, I think in the back of my head, if I ever went completely under, I'd probably have like a garage or something I could probably move into. Um, but so I think having a backup plan is always a good idea, at least having a safety net. But if you can't, I think more importantly though, like it's figuring out if that's actually really what you want to do and I think a lot of times we, we watch something, we hear something, we talk to people, we watch someone else do something. We think that that is what we are supposed to do, what we want to do, what's cool to do might be in it.

And I think it's really important to step back and go like, why am I actually trying to do this? Do I actually want to start a business? Do I actually want to go to college and the doctor? Do I actually want to insert whatever here? Or am I doing it for someone else? Am I doing it? Because I think the money is important to me or I think the potential fame is important or whatever it might be to really assess yourself and and get that self awareness of what am I actually trying to chase, Why am I actually trying to do this? Because if you understand why you're actually trying to do something and that thing, that reason is actually enough and actually a passionate actually something that's driving you that'll get you over to fear. You still feel the fear like you'll still be scared. I'm still terrified now after seven years of a whole lot of success and profitability and everything, like still constantly there. But if you have that, that understand that clarity and that belief, you can get through it and you can fight through, it doesn't stop you from doing it, You're aware that it's there. Um but it becomes something you can actually use to help yourself build things that protect you from failures and potential downfalls rather than being the thing that holds you back from going after it.

I think that's really important. And I think one thing when it comes to self awareness is it's really hard to be completely self aware, so having conversations with others that are honest and brutal um is also really important, but and then I think on top of that, just purely directly to the fear is understand that regardless of how old you are and where you're at in your career, like you're still young, you still have a lot of time, you can go for it today, this year if it doesn't work out, just you can change and go another direction. Um but make smart decisions so that you have the opportunity to come back and change course and pivot if it's if it's not the right move for you, that helps. No, no, that was amazing. And I think um you know, this is one of the things I think people don't really address that in that way. So you know, kind of saying, okay, well really like, yeah, you can say, hey, go chase the stream and you want it and it sounds exciting, so go after it, but yeah, why do you want it to really get that kind of clarity around that?

That's huge. So I think that was very insightful and very helpful. Um Now what is the lesson for you from some of the failures? What do you think has been the biggest lesson for you? From your own failures? For me? Um I think the biggest lesson I actually go back to this couple of them, but the one of the biggest that just seems to always stick with me when someone asked me this type of question, this is the first thing that always comes to me is I go back to the hallway where I was in the hallway to break down. My wife said that to me, Um my mind went not in that moment, but as I reflected back in a moment, because I'd like to say obviously I wasn't just perfectly fine right after a moment, it took a while back and I don't know if you've ever seen the movie cool runnings from Disney way back in the 90s. Um but there's a scene where Doris the bobsledder is talking to his coach who had been caught way back in the seventies for cheating and lost his gold medals, and he wants to ask him like, why did you, why did you cheat you had two gold medals? You had it all?

And the coach said, well, I made it everything, like, so I lost, like I had to win, and he said, you know, gold medal is a really great thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be with it. And that's sort of what happened in the hallway with my wife. What she said to me without knowing that she said it to me was, you're good enough without that title. You're good enough without that thing because I love you and you're you and for me, I've tried to hold on to that of like I've got to be good enough for me without whatever that successes and success can be whatever a million different things for you, whatever that title is, whatever that business is, whatever that thing is. And for me that allows me, that's been such a strong lesson for me to know. Um going back to the previous question about fear, like no one like I can go after this, I can go it because I'm enough. If I don't hit it, don't need to hit it, I want to hit it. I'm driven, don't get me wrong, I might be upset if I don't hit it obviously, but I'm enough without it. And when you, when you realize that if you can get to that point where you know, you're enough without it. If you don't hit that goal, if you don't have that thing, if you have a failure or setback, you can't readjust and you can reset and you can go chase whatever else you need or you can sit back and do what you have to do um to take care of yourself and your family because you know, you're enough without the title of the fame, the glory, whatever, whatever that might be.

I think for me that was a hard lesson for me, but a really really important lesson for me um that I learned, it will be a long time to sort of dissect that and actually learn that lesson. Um but that was a big one for me. And if I got a second part of that, was that the big thing with failures and this is so easy, so much easier said than done and it's said all the time but realize and then trying to remind yourself that all the things that you're making mistakes on now that feel horrible that will beat you up, they're gonna be helpful later on because we constantly still seven years into this thing constantly are taking actions and making decisions because I can say, oh I don't know, we're not gonna do that because I did X y z back in the day and it hurt and it messed up and it didn't work. So let's not do that. So taking those those failures as a as a learning lesson, every opportunity is is the 2nd 1 I'd say, mm, wow, okay, and now, you know, so diving a little deeper and to teach better and some of the stuff that you um the organization, employees with educators and helping kind of build this whole marauder, you know, between students and teachers and the team and all of this.

How do we, do you have any tips for people with their own team? Their own? You know, whether it's your family or whatever, your team at work, how do we kind of lean into, you know, being more in alignment with people and building that team chemistry? Well, that's a good question, I think. Not to repeat, but I think the the self awareness is a big key to that and understanding what your strengths are and being okay with the fact that sometimes your strengths aren't what you thought they were or what you think they are or what you want them to be. Um, and and being okay with understanding, maybe I'm not as good at this as I thought I was, but this thing over here, I'm actually really good. I just didn't realize because I didn't think it was cool or sexy or whatever, but it's actually really good because I fit into this piece of the puzzle. Um, understanding your strengths and the gaps you have so that you can try to surround yourself with people that have the things that you don't have that are better at the things that you may be struggle with and being okay with the fact that some that you play a role in anything and you fill your team and when I say team, that could be your team and like your employees, your team, your colleagues whatever or your team could just be the people that you turn to, that your team could be your family members that support you or the mastermind groups that you join in or the different communities that you're part of to get though that information and that support if you're, you know, if you're a sole person or whatever.

So figuring out where your your strengths actually are, having that sort of brutal, honest conversation with yourself and sometimes with others to help you. Um I think is key because then when you can recognize your strength and your weakness is your gaps, you appreciate other people's strengths and their weaknesses more because you understand that you have weaknesses. They do but you complement each other and appreciation is there when that appreciation there and that that respect is and that communication is there, You can lean on each other a whole lot more and a whole lot more effectively. Mm That was awesome. Um and now Jeff, what about student engagement? Like how do we, you know, is there a tip there? You might have for us for having young ones or even you know, around your team or whatever that is having people be more engaged? What is how do you uh do that for yourself personally and with your team?

And how does that kind of, you know, uh fall into the organization? Yeah, I think for, for me and um, and, and I hear this all the time, I think all the teachers that we work with, an amazing educators that I get to uh connect with would agree that whether it's students, whether it's your family, your own kids, your friends or your teammates get into know them and understand what's important to them and where they come from, uh, and what they believe in and what they're trying to do allows you to connect to them and connect whatever you are trying to convey to them. Whether that's um, uh, deliver Sharon and helping them understand content and learn lessons to grow skills and knowledge in the classroom or to be able to connect and build a strong chemistry on your team with systems and routines and all those things, understanding the people that you're either educating or that you were educated alongside of or that you were working alongside of or that you are communicating to and with you understand who they actually are, where they actually come from, what they actually believe in, what's actually important to them, what they want to do.

You can better connect and therefore the whatever it is that you're doing with them, whether it's collaboration or if you're sharing information, you're communicating, it's gonna be more effective because it's gonna be more clear because you're gonna be able to connect it to, the things that are important to them based on the information that, you know, so when you talk, teachers will tell you all the time, relationships, relationships, relationships are the most important piece because the same is that a a student um doesn't care what, you know until they know that you care about them. I don't think I said that the right way. They don't care about what you're going to teach them until they know that you actually care about them first and that's step one. And then if you can connect what you're trying to teach them the information, you're trying to get them to stand the skills, you try to get them learn to what they care about. They're going to like they're going to learn it so much faster, they'll be more likely to receive it and therefore use it. Same thing we talk about colleagues and whether it's people that you manage or people that manage you or people that you work side by side with whatever when you understand who they are, what's important to them and connect the way that you talk and the message is trying to get across to them and what's important to them.

It's gonna be more effective, It's going to be more efficient, you're going to be a closer bond, you're able to work through problems better, you'll be able to uh complete projects faster and more efficiently and so for me, I guess to go on the back, it's it's really as simplified as relationships relationships, relationships get to know the people that you are working with. Educating, leading, following, sharing your home with whatever. It might be. Mm Now you know what's interesting here Jack? Like there's an aspect of this that's so simple, right? People like really struggle with this. So for you, was this always kind of a part of your D. N. A. Did you learn this along the way? Um You know have you always been a people person, have you always been open to other points of view? Um How did this come about for you? I think I've always been a people person in the sense that I like people. Um And I've been open but I'm I've realized probably over the last five or so years I've kind of had this realization that there's a lot of things that I thought I was just born with, it was the way I was wired whatever.

Um And that I couldn't teach someone else and I realized I'm like well no I learned that somebody taught me that it just wasn't you know through your typical school I didn't learn in a book necessarily. It was from my parents are from my brothers or from that mentor I had or that boss I had or that friend I had and so I think I had a I think I do have a natural ah connection with people that I like to connect with people I like to be connected with people but I don't think I always had an open uh it wasn't always open to other point of view of my, my eldest brother, I'm the youngest of three, my oldest brother help me with that at a very young age, just being like opening my eyes, my eyes up to more culture and arts and things of that nature, which opened my mind up to accept in different ideologies and and and being interested in learning about people um far beyond, you know, the people that were around me and looked and sounded like me and live next to me and things of that nature. So I think that was a big, big help for me, but no, I think it was something that I've had to learn a lot um and I've picked up little pieces here and there and um so I don't think it was natural, I don't think it's something I've always had, I think it's something I had to work at, I think it's something that that we, most of us have to work at and sometimes we have a a that's what I'm looking for, a better starting place based on maybe the environment that were raised in and sometimes we have to work even harder because of the environment we're raised in.

So um I don't think it's natural, I think it's something that can be taught, we can be learned mm okay, and now Jeff, you know, I just sense that you're really you're happy and you're doing this impactful work and you know, we know and read and hair and some of us are, you know, doing things out there in the world and making our own little difference. But it's, you know, people who are in service are generally happier. So do you, have you found that you're happier now with this amazing organization that you've built and the impact? I mean, do you feel like is it a tangible uh, feeling like Yes, I feel more fulfilled. Yes, absolutely. A 1000%. Um, and I think I'd be, I'd be lying if I said that the work we do obviously is good work and I, and I believe that that's a huge piece of that. But I think more so even more so was the fact that I found where I fit in and where the role I play in in this team and therefore in in my life and the world, um, and and through that, you know, realizing what I actually wanted to do and what actually like gives me those good feelings and brings me joy and being able to find that I think it's what's really led to my happiness because I am in a place now where I know that if this doesn't work out, I know what I need to find, I know what I need to be.

I know where the bar has to be set for me to go try something else because I know what brings me joy on a day to day basis and the fact that we also do really great work and and help students learn and help kids and help teachers and um all over the country actually over the world, the ones that were never even probably never gonna meet, like that's a whole bunch of cherries on top as far as I'm concerned because I'm happy in the fact that I get to do, wake up every day and do the type of work that that I enjoy and work with people that I love working with and that to me is is uh is happiness. And so I, I I struggle with weekends and I love Mondays because I love getting married to work and I struggle with weekends because I have an amazing wife and two beautiful kids who I love spending time with. But I also really want to work all the time. And I always joke, people talk about work life balance and stuff and I always joke, I don't like to balance. They like Harmony. I said my Harmony is just a little different than some others. And my Harmony is that my business still has parts to play over the weekend because that's just what brings me joy to.

So and I think that's okay and if that joy and that happiness that you need to find means that your weekends are four days long, then that's what you need to be chasing and there's nothing wrong with that either. Mm That is awesome, Jeff now, you know you are a serial entrepreneur. Like this is not, I mean I don't know, call me psychic, but what's next? Like, I don't think the buck stops here with me. Right, so what's, what's next for you? Well, hopefully it's next with this team. Um we've got a lot of things we want to have a lot of work to do still in education. But I I see some other things in our future um just other essentially other branches of our business. I do think, I think somewhere down the line and I I don't know if my team, my team listens to this, we'll see what they say. But I do think somewhere down the line that there's some sort of marketing arm where we start helping businesses and and maybe maybe school district stuff to do marketing because we built a nice little marketing machine and we really enjoy that. And I think we'll probably test the waters of the Ed tech space at some point and um I don't know, we'll see where we go.

Um for me it's i it's funny that you say that because when chad, so there's three of us that now have ownership in the company and its chad who started with me and Ray, who er who's an amazing educator who came in and she's the boss now. We I don't I don't like to lie any other way she's the true boss. But uh we we talk about like when we get to that point, if we ever build this thing to where chad and I was like the thing, we used to go golfing anytime we want, I was joking, I'm like yeah that's gonna be awesome. I see the problem is chad like you're gonna wanna go golfing all the time and I'm gonna want to figure out what else we're gonna build and like that's me, I'm like I like I don't dream about this retirement thing and I'm sure that might change, we'll see. But like I dream about I gotta be good if this thing is going good and it's continuing to grow, it's in good hands and it's changing lives, it's awesome. But like what's the next thing that I'm gonna do? And I don't know what that is, but I think you're probably psychic knowing that this isn't the last thing, whether it's other pieces of this or something after that. Um You know, we'll we'll see, but I just I love creating things and building things and if I get to do it with some really awesome people that's even better, wow, that is amazing.

So now um Jeff let me ask you like, I mean where you know like where does this come from? Like where where do you, you're just excited. So yes, you're happy you're doing work? You love, you've got great people around you. But how did this all? What do you think? Like what do you believe to be your own truth around this? How did this all kind of come together for you? That's a that's a loaded question. Um you know, I don't, again, I don't want to sell. I I feel like I'm a broken record stand, but I think it comes from this realization of understanding that like you have to figure out who you are and be okay with that person or if you're not okay with that person and get that person to a point to it, you're okay with them meaning yourself. Um so that you know that you're okay and you're enough without any of the other things in in our world so that you can actually sit back.

Okay? So all of that's gone, nothing else matters. This is who I am, what's important to me, what do I actually want to do? And for me it was I had to test a whole bunch of stuff and I recommend that for anyone. Like go test a whole bunch of stuff, do a lot of stuff, Try a lot of things trying to do a lot of things that are gonna cost you a fortune in hurt you. But like with today's world on the internet you can do a million things to go find what you want to do and don't feel like you have to stay here or have to stay there. Like explore test the waters and be honest with yourself about why you're trying to do something, why you think you like something to find something you actually enjoy if you can find people that you enjoy doing it with. And for me it was a lot, it was a whole lot of trying stuff, a whole lot of failing and stuff, some successes, that stuff, a whole lot of conversations and in late nights, bad nights, stressful nights, depression, the whole the whole nine yards of need to figure out who I was supposed to be, what kind of person I was going to be, what actually brought me joy so that I could go try and build something that did it and I don't know that I even had that figured out when this whole started, I think I figured that out over the last couple of years um that I had that this was the thing that I was going to continue running with because I kind of figured out all those other pieces, so I'm not sure if that actually answer the question, but I think it just got, you gotta understand, stop listening to what other people, other people are telling you that you should do or you can do and figure out what you want to do and what you can do and then go, oh for I know that's I'm simplifying it down and it's, but it's not as easy as I just made it sound um but it's it's important to figure out what that is that what are the things that actually being enjoyed and go figure out how you can do those things mm I love that.

And now um so in closing Jeff I will, first of all I want to say you have been amazing and so insightful and I just want to thank you for your time today. Well thank you. So I appreciate it, I love what you do and the share the stories you share. So I I am truly grateful for being able to be a part of it. That is so awesome. Thank you so much, Jeff. So one last question though, before we go, what if there were one message, some wisdom. Just your hope for the world, what do you want to leave us with? What's that one powerful statement or whatever you'd like to leave us with. As simplified as it is, as simple as it is but also as as difficult as it is. Go do what makes you happy. Mm I love it, Jeff. Thank you so much. You've been awesome. Thank you