August 1, 2024 • 55 mins
I am thrilled to have JP Holecka join me on the podcast today. He is the CEO and founder of Power Shifter Digital and a personal friend and mentor.
In this episode, JP discusses his experiences with ADHD, the pivotal moments that shaped his career, and the importance of mentorship. He also delves into the challenges of being super unemployable, balancing personal and professional life, and the concept of leading by example.
This is a show you won't want to miss.
Show notes:
The study regarding ADHD and entrepreneurship can be found here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dalearcher/2014/05/14/adhd-the-entrepreneurs-superpower/
The study regarding lump sums of money and what people do with them can be found here: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/05/1217437174/people-can-do-more-with-lump-sum-of-money-than-payments-experiment-in-kenya-sugg
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
32 jobs, 10 times being fired, and 22 times leaving under suspicious circumstances.
I am the Super Unemployable. Welcome to my podcast. Today we have an amazing guest.
J.P. Holicka is going to be in the studio chatting with me about his Super Unemployable journey.
(00:21):
He is the CEO and founder of the digital product design studio,
PowerShifter, here in Vancouver, Canada.
JP, among being one of the most amazing entrepreneurs I know,
is a leather crafter. He's worked in luxury watches.
(00:41):
He's been part of the TEDx experience, working with their technology.
And he's even worked in the movie industry. history. JP is a fascinating guy.
I had the privilege of meeting him about a decade ago.
He became a mentor, a friend, and a confidant in the very scary,
super unemployable world.
(01:02):
It is because of JP that I was able to get past some of my biggest challenges,
when I was running one of my first companies called Experience Headphones.
Jp is a fantastic guy and i couldn't be
happier to have him here so without further ado let's dive
in one quick caveat i did have some technical difficulties in the studio and
(01:26):
so the audio is not of the highest quality that i was hoping for i've done my
best to clean it up i hope it comes through okay and thank you for your understanding
we are recording we're recording everybody's feeling good?
It's been a while. JP and I go back actually quite a ways. And when I was thinking
about this podcast, first guest, I'm not actually even sure if JP realizes it.
(01:49):
I've been the first at many things, Unipig, first, I'm all in.
What does it mean to you to be super unemployable?
Well, as I pointed out to you that I have framed in my office here is the badge
that I got at 15 years old for my first job, which was from McDonald's.
(02:10):
I have it framed and backlit so that I can see it from my desk so that it reminds
me every day that I don't want to go back to work for a company. So that's a driver.
I took that job at 15.
I remember getting home and putting on the The shit brown uniform and the paper
(02:33):
hat that was of that era and walking out into the living room and my parents,
which were creative hippie types,
my mom looked at me and I could see the mixed emotion on her face of excited that I had my first job.
But I could see that there was some sadness that it was for McD's.
(02:54):
But nonetheless, she encouraged me and I went in and I lasted probably two months.
I wanted to work in the kitchen. I'd taken chef's training at Carson Graham, my high school.
And the first thing they did was put me out in the lobby. And then they said,
oh, and then on your shift on the hour, you need to go out into the neighborhood
with the garbage picker and get the garbage.
(03:14):
And I said, I have to go out like into my neighborhood.
And so that was not awesome and then at the time i was a heavy metal fan being
the 80s and at a certain point they said we need to talk to you about the length
of your hair and i was like.
Yes how's that and they said you need to cut it i said here's my uniform and
(03:36):
i quitting and i quit so i lasted about two months i had one job since then
at the parks board going to college and i've I've freelanced ever since a film business.
I've freelanced and really never looked back. Started my business everywhere.
Just to have been a contractor or freelance. And a couple of years ago,
my dad said to me, you've never really had a job per se. Have you?
(04:01):
I didn't know where it was going.
I said, I guess not. If you look at it, you know, in that term, like working full time.
No. Why? He goes, that's pretty cool. Never had to work for the man.
So i guess i was and then just it's in my dna and now that i've never had a
job i don't know how i would go into a system and and now having run run an
(04:26):
agency i mean i don't have a problem,
i don't have a problem you know taking orders or whatever but i think it's more
than that that would feel constraining there's a common thread so you mentioned
they wanted you to cut out your hair.
And I've heard this from a number of other entrepreneurs, whether it be the
way they dress, the lifestyle they're into. You mentioned heavy metal.
(04:48):
Even one guy I heard quit his job because they told him he needed calf implants.
He was an actor, so he decided acting wasn't for him. But this common thread
is almost like of being controlled.
It's not that you can't take orders. It's that somebody is trying to dictate
a part of your life that has nothing to do with the job.
And you almost feel like I can do it better or there's a different route.
(05:12):
Explain that feeling to us. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it.
I have worked inside large organizations as a contractor, and I've seen business casual Fridays.
With dockers and and you know the shirts
i think it's not the the work and being asked to do certain things it is typically
the egos and insecurities that are rife within organizations that that spill
(05:39):
over into the way in which you're treated and that to me i think is the where
it gets really difficult and ultimately very difficult for thinking about how
long you could last somewhere how you can make your way up you know if you're
stuck with a real insecure,
top-down micromanager at a large organization or even a medium-sized one there's
(06:03):
not a lot of ways you can get out within that organization without quitting
it's really tough and sure
there's HR and all that, but that's drama in and of itself.
So I think it's that, that to me, I don't like is the personalities more than
being told what to do, the insecurities and people that got egos that outweigh the job.
(06:26):
Do you think that's changed a lot over the years or organizations still roughly
managed and controlled by people
with insecurities or unsurities about themselves selves or their role?
I think it has improved.
If you look south the border, we see that there's a backlash against diversity.
(06:47):
And I, I am not entirely sure why I've got some theories on that,
but I think it has improved, you know, if you go to compare it to the eighties,
but I think it's probably leveled out. I'm not sure how much more we'll progress from here.
It feels like we've hit a ceiling as far as that goes.
So it was almost a foregone conclusion that you were going to strike out on
(07:09):
your own, whether it was that boss or another one.
And so again, there's this common thread whereby by the super unemployed will
have this, this, there's something inside that just ticks.
And all of a sudden you just can't do it anymore. You can't take it anymore.
Or you keep trying, like in my case, you know, in my journey,
I tried many, many times trying to fit my square peg in somebody else's round hole.
(07:31):
And it just kept failing and failing until I finally said, wow,
I have to take a different route.
You came to that a lot earlier than I did. And I think that's
really great how you know i
would say how many people trying to figure
out what side of the coin they land on how did you figure
that how did you have the courage did you have a mentor
like how did you make bridge that gap
(07:53):
between secure employment to self-employment i
don't know that it was in my 20s it was intentional the
intent was to get into the film business and that is
just straight up contract driven you
take a show you're on it for a couple
weeks couple months or if you move into commercial production it's a
(08:13):
couple of days and then you're off for a few days so it was it sort of landed
in my lap i didn't say i'm not going to work for anyone so i got trained and
conditioned in my 20s that that's okay that there's a way to make a pretty good
living not having to go to the same place every day.
Now, hindsight, looking back, with being diagnosed late in my life of pretty heavy ADHD.
(08:42):
I think part of the challenge for working at the same place time in and time
out, I saw it if I was on a second season of a TV show,
the dopamine starts to fail and you start to have a wandering eye, like chasing dopamine.
So part of it, I think, is my neurodivergent tendency to need to be constantly
(09:04):
looking for the next new thing.
If I align it to when I go on road trips with the family or even on my own,
I will drive from morning till dark because I want to know what's around the next corner.
And I think that's pretty indicative to how I've lived my life.
(09:25):
I can very much relate to that feeling.
I read a study and I'll link it in the show notes because I don't know the exact
statistic is that when you look at entrepreneurs a substantially higher number
of them compared to the general population are ADHD somewhere on the range I've
read similar studies yes,
(09:47):
what you know what impact do you think that had on your inability to work for
somebody Is it that wandering eye,
like just sheerly a long career, 30 years at the same company,
slowly progressing is just the thought, like that's a death sentence to you.
It certainly feels that way to me.
You know, what is the difference between doing your own thing versus working
(10:10):
for somebody else when it comes to your ADHD?
Well, if I even reflect back at when I graduated from high school,
looking at university versus a two-year college program, four years to someone
with heavy ADHD, I didn't know that was the reason.
But at the time, it seemed like a life prison sentence that I could never get through.
(10:33):
Four years was just like an eternity.
So I took the two years, accelerated, and I just wanted, I wanted to get to work.
I wanted to get to the doing, and I wanted to get out of the hypothetical and the academic.
So I think that's part of it is, you know, a big part is constantly needing
to be, have the quest, have your curiosity satisfied.
(10:56):
And I mean, I've contracted inside of large organizations to see the stagnation,
the politics and everything else that can happen to now know that's where I
would like to steer clear from. I wouldn't, I just wouldn't survive.
You mentioned something really interesting about the four year degree.
(11:18):
So I was listening to a podcast last night. Rory Sutherland was on the podcast,
phenomenal marketers from the UK. And he was talking about how the government
will loan you X amount of money to take a four-year degree, but that doesn't
fit the mold for everybody.
And he said, why doesn't the government, when everybody turns 18,
give everybody the same amount of money as a loan, and you can do what you want with it?
And apparently, there's been some phenomenal studies. And again,
(11:40):
I'll try to find those for the show notes about what people do with this money.
And when it's a small amount of money, they spend it on booze and cigarettes.
When it's a larger amount of money, they spend it on more impactful things for
their lives. So you mentioned a four-year degree is for some.
But maybe for you, that money would have been better off to launch your first
business as the seed funding to get you off the ground. For somebody else,
(12:01):
it might've been to buy their own home.
He mentioned in the study, another guy who bought recording equipment,
which sounds frivolous, but he went on to start a huge band.
Is our system kind of fighting against us? Are we in a system that's really
rewarding people to take the traditional path? Or again, do you see that changing?
I think the system we're in is ancient and based on early last century norms
(12:26):
of the just post-industrial revolution.
You got a job, you go to school. I mean, the way that our work week was set up, all that.
We're still living in that framework that I don't think holds true.
We've seen countries that are experimenting with great success, a four-day work week.
(12:48):
And so I think lots of things could change, but we're so ingrained in certain
ways and that the establishment wants it certain ways that it's not impossible
to change, but there's a lot of forces against it.
Yeah, I think that a lot of things are stacked against us. We're starting to see some change.
So the fact that you don't need a degree to get a job at Google and the likes
(13:09):
that came out in the last couple of years, I mean, that's a good sign.
And I know that a lot of young people use that with their parents to say, I can get in other ways.
So I do think it's an old methodology that needs radical change.
So for reference, we're here in Canada, and I've been watching,
I recently became a dad. JP, you've been a dad for quite a while.
(13:33):
Looking at the current system that we're in, looking at your kids and how they're
growing up, would you encourage them to pursue higher education?
Or how do you, I guess my question is, how do you help kids find their paths
that don't feel stuck in it?
I mentioned, you know, I got out of, I did the traditional path.
I did the university degree. I was a good little student. I went on to a job.
(13:54):
My dad always taught me, never, never live your life without a job.
If you're going to quit a job, make sure you have another one lined up.
He was a very long-term work with one company his whole life.
We, you know, retired their pension, the whole thing. My life was different,
but I wasn't willing to allow myself to see that until much later in life.
And a part of me wishes that I had that opportunity sooner.
(14:15):
And so when I look at my children, I want to make sure that as they rise up,
they can follow a path that they feel most comfortable and is going to reward
them in the best kind of way possible.
How do you see that with your children? How do you see the system and how do you guide them?
Well, first off, there really aren't any pensions anymore.
(14:35):
And so that would be a great incentive for
many still today to have a pension i have a friend of
mine who's you know in his 50s and looking at a
job that isn't necessarily his
first choice but there's a pension and even though at this stage it's uh it's
attractive but getting to the to the encouraging of of kids and i have My wife
(14:59):
and I are pretty confident that our son is not going to go to university.
He doesn't mean he won't go to any type of school. And I'm not against going the traditional path.
You know, I think it's fine for those. I think the best way is to not force
your children to go potentially against what's where they're going to excel.
(15:25):
There are a lot of people that do not excel inside the college university methodology.
Many do. There are a lot that could never be an entrepreneur.
I meet many every day that could not start a business and they look at me like I'm crazy.
They like it. So I think there's no one right way.
(15:47):
And I think we need to be at a societal level, more accepting and have more
ways in which to enable young people to make a different choice than just being
funneled into to university.
I mean, how many more lawyers do we need?
Right? A lot of it is based on,
I want my kids to have the most successful career and make the most money.
(16:10):
And we all know that for the vast majority, beyond your being comforted and
all comfortable with enough to, you know, money doesn't necessarily make it great.
So I think that we should be much more open. And I also would say that at 18,
you really don't know, for the most part.
(16:30):
Most don't know where they want to go.
And I encourage a lot of my friends to make sure that their kids do get a gap year.
Because that difference between high school and going straight in.
I mean, most kids pivot or quit first year a lot do or have an existential crisis.
(16:52):
Like why did I go down the path of whatever program
name that program so yeah I think we should
be at a societal level much more
like not just accepting but like have a more structured way in which to make
different choices and paths well I couldn't agree more with the gap here I didn't
(17:13):
take it right away I did three years of university trying to get into commerce
they had what was called back then pre-commerce you had to get your grades to
a certain level to get into to commerce,
I didn't get in the first year, I didn't get in the second year.
The third year I had my grades sky high and I said, okay, I'm going to go to
Australia for the summer because I was burning out, getting gray hair.
(17:34):
One year, 21. And while I was in Australia, I called home and I didn't get into
commerce again, third time.
I think if I was at home, I would have been chattered, but I was on a beach
in Australia. I got over it pretty quick and I decided to spend the rest of the year there.
And it was probably there that I got sent on my entrepreneurial journey because my eyes opened up.
(17:56):
I saw a world outside of my little community that I was rather isolated inside.
And even if we travel and vacation, you really have to spend time in another
place to really understand and kind of open your mind.
And that was what Australia was for me. And I met very influential people along the way.
And those people helped me reshape my journey. And it's absolutely no secret,
(18:17):
JP, you were one of the people that I met along my journey.
For those of you who don't know, because I probably haven't told the story yet,
JP came into a store I was running to buy some headphones.
I was running a retail store and an e-commerce and JP came in,
looked around, thought it was really nice.
I think one of the first things he told me is I get it cheaper on Amazon,
which I thought was funny, but he said, but I support local and I'm going to
(18:41):
buy from you and bought headphones for his whole crew.
And it's little moments like those that give you a little lift when you're a
struggling entrepreneur.
I bumped into JP at a TEDx event months later, and I had just moved from a mentor
we were working with with the EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization.
She wasn't really helping us move forward and ask JP if he'd mind stepping in.
(19:03):
And so over the course of the next couple of years, JP and I would meet every
few months and I would just bounce ideas off JP and JP would give me feedback
and I would leave those meetings always feeling energized and ready to go.
As did I. Your energy when you're an idea machine and I was always at awe with
that. And so when I think about that, in absence of that mentorship,
(19:26):
I think I would have struggled a lot more.
Along your journey, was there a mentor that came into the picture or were multiple
mentors that helped move your path forward?
Or were you one of those people that ended up blazing the trail on your own?
I've had mentors i think all
the way along for sure in fact
(19:47):
i'm gonna do i'm gonna call back to earlier where you said was
there a pivotal moment where you knew that it wasn't for
you and now and so in the second
after the gap year i decided to take a job at the parks board i got it through
family it was you know they had a student program and i was put into the the
(20:11):
morning shift and i looked around and i got put on a truck to go out and,
shovel gravel and i mean i didn't grow up in a pristine you know whatever i've
said i saw a lot of stuff the things i heard by by this crew and the words the
new curse words and the new.
(20:35):
The way that they interacted with each other, I very quickly recognized that
maybe working at a full-time job wasn't for me.
And I had had a university scholarship and bursary that was going to expire.
And that was like, I'm gonna apply for college because I'm not gonna work here.
(20:55):
There's no way I'm gonna work here. And so that was really a pivotal moment
when that's where I went to take film and put it in the creative space.
Space and i would say mentors my first
mentor that i had was the the head gardener
at the parks board she was a maverick she'd
come in from the city of vancouver into north
(21:15):
vancouver all the old school men hated her
because this was the 80s she was a threat she
had like the primo job and a couple
weeks into it i don't know how but she needed a
an assistant so she pointed to me and said get in
the truck and Evelyn was amazing smart
she taught me not just about the gardening that
(21:38):
needed to happen but also lots of things work ethic and curiosity so that was
my like my very first mentor and I had others in film when I went into film
Penny Gibbs who was a production coordinator that I was a PA for in the office
another one those are my first two mentors that taught me.
She really helped me navigate the film business and instilled a lot of great
(22:00):
qualities of how to do things because it's a challenging business.
It's really undefined, especially at that time. So those are two mentors.
And I recognize that at that time, having mentors is good and that you can learn
a lot if you find the right mentor.
You know, what's fascinating, there's a lot of mentors that I've had in my life
that were not as defined as you and I were, where I literally chased you down
(22:24):
with a drink in my hand and said, can you be a mentor?
There are people that in my life influenced me.
In ways that I didn't realize until years later.
And I think the benefit for me was I just asked a lot to her.
It's really fascinating when you start asking people questions,
the things that come out.
And I think one of the things that I've noticed is people don't ask enough questions.
(22:47):
I don't know if that's the older, the kid day mentality that I'm starting to
gain as I'm getting older, but I find getting social circles in absence of somebody
asking the questions, nobody says anything.
They're all waiting to be do you have the same experience or am i just just
getting old no i don't think it's even a generational thing necessarily we're
(23:11):
conditioned through our entire life to to be smart to do you know to go to school
to learn and when you get into a job.
Asking questions can be a signal that you don't know what you're doing and that
is i think deeply ingrained at PowerShifter, our agency,
(23:32):
where we say, you know, ideas can come from anywhere. So that's not questions per se.
But I also encourage them.
Let's see, if you don't know, please ask. I'd rather have a question.
And there's no stupid questions. I think we're just conditioned that when you
get to a job, it's very competitive.
(23:52):
And that by asking questions out loud amongst your peers
you could appear to be not as good
at your job not as smart as the others so i think it transcends generations
you're probably just aware of it as you mature and there's more you're asking
you're not the one asking the questions necessarily in the room as far as many
questions and so you're probably the absence of questions you're hearing this
(24:17):
the the screaming silence.
I couldn't agree more.
JP, we've known each other, I think it's been about 10 years.
And obviously you've run your companies for a longer period than that and run multiple companies.
You've been through a lot of economic cycles. Being super unemployable is super,
there's this insecurity that you have because every day you get up and in the
(24:43):
words of one of my other entrepreneur friends, you eat what you kill.
Have there been times that you've doubted this path that you've taken?
And when you did doubt, how did you get through it?
I have only had a few times where I've doubted the path at a deep level.
I think there's been light doubts, doubt light, maybe you've had a crappy couple
(25:05):
of weeks, and you may casually say, maybe I should just get a job.
But that's in those times where you start to actually think, Thank you.
I do need to get a job maybe this is not going to work out it
doesn't take long at best a
couple hours at worst a couple of days
for for me to realize that that's not
(25:29):
going to happen and that as long as i've got some money in the bank or a line
of credit which i've done in the past i'm going to bet on myself and i mean
i'm far from perfect and i've made a ton of mistakes along the way.
But ultimately, my son is 20.
(25:49):
And I bet on myself, as did my wife, the entire time.
I've done what you're supposed to do with having a family.
So it should get even easier as far as pressures go.
I imagine that I'll continue to bet on myself.
Now, I also know that But there'll come a time where it could be fun.
(26:12):
I'm moving to Salt Spring. That's been our goal almost there.
That at a point where if I do exit the agency, I would like to work at the local
hardware store or something like that.
And that to me is, it's not about, at that point, it's not necessarily about cash.
It would be about helping people, about just, it's a different thing for sure.
(26:36):
But it has crossed my mind. But ultimately, I think I'll always bet on myself. It gets hard sometimes.
I think sometimes, too, I don't gamble.
You want to go to Vegas?
No reason to go to Vegas. You don't gamble. I gamble every single day.
(26:57):
Every day I go into the agency, you have no idea what is going to happen. Economic cycles.
Something gets cancelled and even when you're doing the big pitch I feel that
probably how some people feel at the horse track and it's, you're getting ready
and it's waiting, you need to stop the pitch and you're waiting and you win,
(27:22):
It's a huge win. I'm pretty sure that's what gamblers feel like.
And I also know when you don't win, I'm feeling that's what gamblers feel like too.
The interesting thing when you talk about the lottery and betting on yourself,
the way I term it, it's this locus of control, right?
When you play the lottery, you put your dollars in somebody else's heads and
you say, if I'm lucky, you pick me and I'll be rich.
(27:44):
When you take those same dollars and put them into yourself,
you're saying, I pick you and you're going to take this money and you're going
to make me rich. Mark Cuban said, right?
Entrepreneurs live like others won't, so someday they can live like others can't.
And if that isn't the ultimate term of betting on yourself, because you make a lot of sacrifices.
(28:04):
And along that way, how did you balance it? Right? You mentioned your kids are
growing up now, getting there.
When you're employed, there's a nine to five. There's even new legislation mandating
that employees, they're working outside.
If you're in Ontario, for example, and you work outside, your office hours,
you're supposed to get paid time and a half, and it has to be minimum three hours.
(28:25):
And I might be getting some of these regulations wrong, but the point is it's
very strict about how employee time is used.
When you work for yourself, there's not really a shut off switch, not in my experience.
And I think the super unemployable, there is this unifying factor where the
super unemployed can't shut off.
I've never met a super unemployed who isn't ready to talk ideas,
(28:46):
business, family, vacations, any topic at any time.
Family during the workday, business in the middle of their sleep.
I've had texts at 3 a.m. I've sent texts at 3 a.m. How'd you find that balance?
I used to be more inclined to be that, but it is exhausting.
And it is also exhausting for the people around you to constantly be like that.
(29:11):
And I know that there's those that won't change that, but I encourage that you
find ways to change that.
I mean, if I look back at if I was
to log into our software for tracking vacations for the last five years,
you're not going to see a lot on there for sure i have a busy mind and it was
(29:37):
exhausting for my family and so a couple of years ago i started doing leather craft and.
What happened was each night i would actually stop my brain from cycling up
like that and i I would just focus on the next cut, the next stitch.
(29:59):
And I realized when you do that, when you either meditate or you actually stop,
you actually will have more energy the next day or afterwards to produce higher quality outputs.
I think that if you're constantly running end-to-end, non-stop,
(30:21):
energy is finite. I think that the neuron network in your brain is finite.
And anything that's run too thin and spread too thin, it's not going to be the
highest quality output.
So I would encourage those that are caught in that cycle,
Do find a way to get at least three or four hours where you're not thinking about work.
(30:43):
Now, there's some that won't, for sure, and they're obsessed.
And I think there's a lot of things that they may gain, but I think they're
also moving so fast that they don't recognize until way later in life some of
the things they did. And some people are just hardwired that way.
But I think I would encourage those that are maybe on the fence or feeling a
bit out to find ways to take that pause and that your outcomes will be better.
(31:05):
On the weekends now and for many years unless something is due on monday i take the weekends.
Fantastic i'll let you know what that feels like when i do that's
but you know what you're talking about meditation and meditation is
not something i've tried meditation many many times i truly hope to achieve
that someday where i can just truly sit and be at peace with myself but jeff
(31:28):
bezos has his version he said he does he washes the dishes by hand never uses
the dishwasher and by By washing the dishes by hand, it's a form of meditation.
It's a repetitive practice that requires a little bit of focus to get it done
right. You don't want to break the dishes in the process, and you don't want
to put them in the wrong spot.
That form of meditation, you mentioned doing some leather work,
whatever it is that you can do that takes you out of sight of it.
(31:50):
I think the one task, the one thing that I have is skiing, but it's not year round.
But what I try to do is pick the most challenging slope with the most trees
and go as fast as I can, because if you're not extremely present,
you're going to hit a tree. And that is so calming and relaxing for me.
Actually, the best mountain I ever went to, here's a shout out to Whitewater, BC.
It's just outside of Nelson. Your cell phone does not work there.
(32:12):
There is no cell phone reception, much to the dismay of many riders.
And that day was probably one of the best I've ever had. I didn't realize there
was no cell reception, but I also didn't work. And I didn't think about it.
That little bit of shut off time really helped me.
Focus just on something else other than the million ideas.
And I do agree. I am an idea machine and I've been trying to quell that and
(32:35):
instead it's just become more.
But I'm looking at your LinkedIn.
You got a lot of jobs on there right now. You have a lot of things on the go.
I think you have more now listed in overlap than you've ever had in your career.
How are you managing that? Is that through people? Is that through time walking?
What does that look like good, good people to that power shifter,
(32:59):
which is my main focus, the leadership team and the entire staff.
It just, at this point in time, I am no longer in the work.
I know that can focus on the,
I call myself the chief promo officer now, but it when it comes to delivery
(33:24):
operations it's all being taken care of i check in but i'm not,
that takes a lot of space in your head and this
is the first time that i'm not doing that and to
be quite frank a few years ago when i was still doing a
lot of that i was like looking to figure out a way to exit now that it's shifted
(33:49):
and i'm doing things like started my own podcast i'm out creating content and
doing all kinds of things around where we're going, I'm enjoying it again.
So some of the things I'm working a little less on, PowerShifter is my main focus, but I think it's.
(34:10):
Good people around you and being able to
create autonomous it sounds like robots but autonomous
thinking within an organization enabling people to
make the decisions because they've got they know
where we're going they know our value set and they can make the decisions and
make the mistakes knowing that that's going to be okay that's how you do it
(34:31):
or it's how i've been able to do it do you believe that to be successful as
a super unemployable you need to be good at managing people,
creating teams, building teams? Nope.
Leading people, not managing people. Managers will always stay managers.
It's a low ceiling and you'll be stuck in the middle.
(34:55):
When you lead people and you inspire them and you enable them to become leaders
in themselves, that's how you do it. Not management.
We have no management terms at PowerShifter.
I think it's a a terrible term. It's a terrible mindset.
So it's a, it's a, it's a sore spot with me.
Lead people. I like that. I like that a lot.
(35:15):
I think for a lot of people who are just starting their journey in a way they
feel, why would people follow me? I don't have any money. I haven't started my first business.
I just have an idea, but I know that I need people on my side,
whether working with me, helping me out, mentoring me, providing me with guidance,
but I need some sort of community that I don't like.
(35:41):
Not everybody wants to lead. Lots of people want to follow.
And I don't mean that in a negative way like sheep, but people want direction.
And they also buy into where you're going, your ideas, your vision.
And if there's an alignment there, they naturally will say, I want to go where they're going.
Let me want to be part of that. It's not really a following.
(36:02):
You want to be part of that. This person's in a direction you're guiding, right?
If you've never gone on a hike to the mountain, you're going to have a guide.
You're going to follow that person because they know what they're doing and
ultimately the top of that mountain is where you want to get to as well.
So I think people want to follow the right people if they're.
(36:23):
Aligned with where the destination is and if they align with how you're going
to get to the destination culturally or what have you. But not everybody wants to lead.
What percentage of people do you think want to lead first?
It's got to be a small percentage that you want to control.
There's no way you can have an army running in battle if you actually follow it.
(36:46):
I would say that true leaders that we have, the percentage today,
if you look and say, what are the leaders within an organization,
if you exclude management, it's pretty small.
I think that there are those that might be a little nervous,
so you can expand it a little bit as they haven't tried it.
And I think there's those that think they want to and try it and don't realize
(37:08):
that sticking your neck out, neck out, you expose yourself.
You do. Well, there's this, there's this fascinating interplay between the two
words, responsibility and accountability.
When you're responsible for something, you can very much be an employee responsible
for some tasks, but your manager or the leader, they're the one that's ultimately
accountable if it fails.
(37:30):
And so in my journey, I've really tried to always remind myself self about that difference.
The true leaders will always hold themselves accountable for everything that their team does.
And by standing in front, I think it was Julius Caesar that would run out to battle first.
And people love to follow him because he wouldn't do anything.
He didn't ask his soldiers to do anything he wouldn't do himself.
(37:51):
Now, that could be the history books rewriting that tale, but the tale in and
of itself is fascinating. And I've always tried to go by that mantra.
If I was running a restaurant, I would be willing
to clean the dishes and throw out the task actually better story
the guy who started in and out burger he actually built his
house right across from his first in and out burger he'd watch from
his window whenever there was a busy rush run across the
(38:14):
street and help out taking out garbage doing whatever it took and the in and
out burger story is actually fascinating if anybody listens to that that fascinating
podcast founders or how i built this i think they both have a story on that
but founders has a you know i'm going to do a shout out to that podcast because
i listened to it religiously but listen to that story.
But is that, you know, is that the definition of a leader? What,
(38:35):
what is the definition of a leader to you?
Because I think the super unemployable in my mind is.
Some degree have to have leadership skills because in
absence of somebody following you it's a really tough road in absence
of having a team around you you know there's a
lot that needs to get done in a day to make
it on your own and truly you're never actually going you will always rely on
(38:57):
others do you agree with that or i think you lead by example a leader isn't
necessarily riding in on on a white horse and charging in front of the army.
You lead by example. You lead as you would like others to conduct themselves.
(39:20):
When we were much smaller and we couldn't afford to have cleaners come into
the office all the time, I took the garbage out. I cleaned the kitchen.
I did it every day. And I had a partner.
And I watched him walk by the garbage.
Every day on the way out to his sit get
into his audi that he couldn't afford and because
(39:44):
he led he thought leading was telling you you know you do this and i think it's
different i wanted others to also help because we couldn't afford to have cleaners
and if you the people see that the founder,
CEO is doing that, it's not long before you come in and someone else is done and then someone else.
(40:10):
So you lead by example. It's the little things that go all the way up to the big things.
And you also really know that that's not something that as a leader,
you need to continue to do.
You got to grow, but you got to lead through the small and the big things.
I think one of the hardest parts about being in that leadership position is
the the responsibility that you feel, people rely on you. They become like your family.
(40:34):
Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. Recessions hit.
It doesn't always feel good to be super unemployable.
Sometimes I wish that somebody else had all the control and I was just getting a paycheck.
And I think every super unemployable that I've met has gone through bouts of
depression, whether it be short, lengthy, sometimes multi-year?
(40:59):
Have you faced that? How have you gotten through it?
I absolutely have faced that because the reality is none of it's in our control.
The only thing we control is ourselves.
Everything else is not in your control. If I go by the three circles or three
rings, like the is you, it's the only thing you can control.
(41:21):
The next ring out is close friends and family you can influence.
And the next ring out after that, we work with everything else.
You have no control. and so we all
have that same three rings so i
don't think we can control anything we're riding we're
riding it out like everybody i think the hardest part leading
(41:44):
is when there are factors so big that you don't know how to navigate it's not
even about controlling it's it's about even navigating through that are scary
you don't have the answers and a lot of times when you leave you don't have
answers and it takes a long time to,
you know, they say fail fast and fail often.
(42:07):
That's a podcast for another time that, that, that sentiment,
but we, it's that unknown when you really don't know your way through a tough situation.
That's for me has been the challenge because quite often I have an idea,
even if I don't know what's going to work.
(42:27):
I think where I start to get really freaked out is I know I've tried all these
things and then I'm staring at a blank slate or a blank, you know, in my mind.
I'm like, I do not know now how to solve this big problem.
And then when it goes for a few days or longer where you still don't have that
solve, even something to try and fail at, that's when I get really freaked out.
(42:51):
Luck, opportunity and timing. How's that play them?
Absolutely. All three. all three have played out you i like i like the expression
you have to make your own luck.
And what you so you have to create factors that mean that when an opportunity
a lucky opportunity happens you're ready for it or you also know how to take
(43:17):
you know take that past and make the best of that opportunity if you're always
just the looking down at your shoes
and not at the sky, you're not going to get lucky because you're not looking
for it. You have to look for luck.
You have to look for those opportunities because they're all around us.
Sometimes they're harder to find. Luck is harder to find for sure.
(43:37):
But the serendipity of it all, you've got to make luck happen and you have to
make it a higher likelihood that that serendipity is going to play in and that
you know and you're ready to pounce on it.
The reverse side, I should say the opposite side, committing to a losing cause
can be one of the number one reasons entrepreneurs go bankrupt,
(43:58):
fail, become depressed,
because it's like digging the trench and the deeper you dig it,
the harder it is to get out.
And it's all you can see around you now is what you've dug in front of you.
How do you know when it's time to pivot, to quit,
way to change you know being super unemployed was a journey and my favorite
phrase is success is not linear right if you look at the greatest most successful
(44:21):
people they're loaded with failures and the sooner they're able to recognize
what is truly a failure move on to the next thing,
the sooner the quicker the success generally comes i
i think i've struggled with knowing
the the failing fast i guess you could say and
and failing often or when to like move on i'm getting
(44:42):
better for sure but you know
as i said earlier could do a whole podcast on fail fast
fail often part of the challenge is that we're told
our entire life from like day one that failure is
not an option failure at school is bad
you know and ask for failure failure and then
you get into entrepreneur and you read the book books that
(45:04):
say fail fast and fail often well that does not resonate it
needs rebranding honestly but it's not
catastrophic failures it's small things
and iterative and i'm it's taken me
a long time to get over that i also didn't do well in school because of my dyslexia
and adhd i had seen myself a long long time as because i had failed things had
(45:27):
a lot of f's on my on my report cards so it took me a long time to get to understand
what that meant and I'm still learning it for sure.
So I don't have a real good answer there. I think everybody has their own.
But I think you just need to recognize that sometimes you can't let your ego make those decisions.
I think that's probably why a lot of people hold on to things is their ego.
(45:51):
You know, I can agree more. Ego is, again, I think characteristic of the super
unemployable, often feeling greater than.
I think that's why it's easier to leave a job because you say,
well, I'm better than this anyway. But there's a certain element of ego,
which I think slowly has to turn into confidence over ego before it's successful.
(46:13):
I'm still working on that, JP. I'll let you know when I get there.
Confidence is important. Confidence is healthy.
Confidence propels you forward. I don't think ego propels you forward, to be quite frank.
I think ego can be misconstrued.
And I think that it can hold you back. And I think those that are confident
(46:34):
are the ones that excel. But that's just my theory.
Well, I agree with you because the thing is ego doesn't let you fail.
It won't allow you to fail.
And in the face of failure, you will often make up stories.
And I have a great example of that. And I'll touch on that in another podcast.
But the company where I met you, we ultimately went bankrupt.
(46:55):
And it caused a personal bankruptcy for me. And I didn't admit that to anybody
outside of my Titus Circle for years.
Fears for fear that I was going to be judged that
bankruptcy was the best thing I ever did for myself and to
reinvent myself into the person that I am today and and I'll tell you this it
(47:16):
got to the point where I was actually paying bills with personal credit cards
to manage business bills I mean back and actually like caused further debt and
further liabilities and the sooner that you can recognize that and get out.
But then the sooner you can get out of my story, and it's the biggest failure.
The idea of bankruptcy was actually so traumatic for me that I couldn't even speak about it.
(47:39):
I shut down for days because I never thought I'd be that person.
I thought bankrupt people were bums and losers and had no ability to be successful.
I had to reframe my thinking entirely, but it has allowed me now to learn to
identify failure faster. faster, so I don't have to get to that really big failure.
(48:01):
I totally agree with you, but going back to that system, and if I think about
the way that I grew up, we were always taught you either succeed or you succeed,
but failure is not an option, and not in that healthy way. It was that you bury a failure.
It's hard. Again, the thought of that does not make me feel great if I had to face that.
(48:29):
I would probably go through similar feelings as much as I may be mature and
have lots of hindsight and wisdom.
The prospect of personal bankruptcy, I think I probably would still go through a lot of the...
Things that you went through? I'm still getting rejected for loans.
(48:54):
I'm five years, six years past
now, almost at that point where it gets removed from your credit score.
And then I can really truly move on. But you know what it's actually taught
me? A lot of financial responsibility.
Because in the absence of being able to acquire debt, I've had to learn to be
even more scrappy with the dollars that I have.
And my business today is larger than any other business I've ever run and I've
(49:15):
done it in absence of acquiring debt.
So JP, going all the way back where we first started this conversation,
there was that pivotal moment where somebody told you to cut your hair.
And there's this idea that almost in a way, your personality,
your freedom was being stripped away and that just wasn't going to fly for you.
How has moving your life to the super unemployable changed your perspective
(49:39):
of traditional employment?
I don't know if it's changed.
I mean, it's an essential piece of everything for so much of society.
I think it's just that I think we need to be more open to those that can find
other means and not have them judged by the greater world.
(50:03):
Community and society. How does it shape your perspective of freedom? How do you look that up?
How does it shape your perspective of freedom? That's an interesting question.
As I said earlier, when I look back at my holiday schedule, it's not super awesome.
(50:26):
However, I don't know that freedom is necessarily holidays.
Freedom in your mind can be many things. I think that knowing that I don't have
to go into a place and deal with someone else's insecurities and egos and their
challenges and their micromanagement, to me,
(50:50):
that's worth it. That is mental freedom.
I don't know how I would deal with that burden. I see it.
I've you know outside looking in adjacent to
not our organization but I see it I have
friends that deal with it I see the I see the
strain it has on people that strain that I have
being an entrepreneur is there but it's different I think you can pull levers
(51:16):
and it's more in your control I love it finally what legacy do you hope to leave
behind I don't think a lot about legacies As part of the ADHD,
I don't have a lot of looking back. I mostly look forward.
I think the legacy is a pretty simple one, which is to have been known to be kind,
(51:39):
to be known that I helped others maybe achieve things that they didn't necessarily
think were possible by helping, mentoring, or hiring, or whatever that means.
It's pretty simple. I think that would be, that would be in a nutshell.
I can tell you as part of your legacy, you've imprinted on me.
(52:02):
I've told you that many times in our conversations, but you know,
the way I always look at it is how will people speak about you after you've left?
And I can tell you, you've left an imprint on my life, on my journey,
but so glad to have you on HD.
That was feeling that insecurity about how are they going to fit in?
And are they that weird piece trying to fit into a regular puzzle?
(52:24):
They can see themselves in you and your journey. And it's just been phenomenal
having you share your story. So I thank you for that.
And the final question is, who else do you know that is super employable that
we should have on this podcast?
It's a long list, but I have a colleague, competitor, actually,
(52:45):
sort of. I mean, as an agency, does the similar work that we do.
They've got a healthy culture.
Chris at Triple T Studios. He's awesome.
And we're kind of, we don't, I don't think we ever competed against each other,
but we're in the same space.
I sit from afar and admire how he and his brother run their agency.
(53:09):
You hear in the industry how people run their organizations.
You can see a healthy culture in a healthy shop.
And he's a great storyteller. I would say Chris at Triple T would be who I would reach out to.
Chris is the guy. All right, Chris, you heard it here. JP Halecka has called
you out. You're supposed to be the next guest on the Super Unemployable Podcast.
(53:31):
I'm sure you're listening to this, eagerly waiting to hear your name.
But we'll reach out to you and see if you want to join. JP, fantastic.
Thank you so much. We've got to catch up more often. This was a great conversation.
And thank you for having me at your fantastic office. I wish we could,
maybe we'll post a photo along with this episode.
He's got fantastic framing on the back wall, a skateboard deck,
(53:55):
TVs, lighting, the whole works. It's all at WeWork.
And it's at WeWork. It's at WeWork, which when he gave me the address,
I thought, WeWork, is that still here? But fantastic office.
I'm going to have to look at one of these for myself. So it's been great.
Great. Thank you, JP. My pleasure.
That was JP Halecka, CEO and founder of PowerShifter Digital here in Vancouver, Canada.
(54:17):
For me, that conversation was just awesome.
You know, we talked about a lot of things, but what I really walked away feeling
was this sense of, you know, you really have to be your authentic self.
Even me telling that story about bankruptcy was not something that I openly
shared with people for years.
(54:38):
And even still to this day, I feel cringy about talking about that.
But for JP, when he was younger, somebody said something as simple as to cut
his hair. And he said, no, I can do something better.
He's embraced the fact that he has ADHD and use that to his advantage.
He doesn't shy away from who he is. And if that isn't the true definition of
(55:00):
what it takes to make it as super unemployable,
I don't really know what else would be or what it is. It's something to think about.
Thank you, JP, for joining us. It was so fantastic to have you.
And thank you all for joining the podcast. We'll see you next time.
32 jobs, 10 times being fired, and 22 times leaving under suspicious circumstances.
I am the Super Unemployable. Welcome to my podcast. Today we have an amazing guest.
J.P. Holicka is going to be in the studio chatting with me about his Super Unemployable journey.
(00:21):
He is the CEO and founder of the digital product design studio,
PowerShifter, here in Vancouver, Canada.
JP, among being one of the most amazing entrepreneurs I know,
is a leather crafter. He's worked in luxury watches.
(00:41):
He's been part of the TEDx experience, working with their technology.
And he's even worked in the movie industry. history. JP is a fascinating guy.
I had the privilege of meeting him about a decade ago.
He became a mentor, a friend, and a confidant in the very scary,
super unemployable world.
(01:02):
It is because of JP that I was able to get past some of my biggest challenges,
when I was running one of my first companies called Experience Headphones.
Jp is a fantastic guy and i couldn't be
happier to have him here so without further ado let's dive
in one quick caveat i did have some technical difficulties in the studio and
(01:26):
so the audio is not of the highest quality that i was hoping for i've done my
best to clean it up i hope it comes through okay and thank you for your understanding
we are recording we're recording everybody's feeling good?
It's been a while. JP and I go back actually quite a ways. And when I was thinking
about this podcast, first guest, I'm not actually even sure if JP realizes it.
(01:49):
I've been the first at many things, Unipig, first, I'm all in.
What does it mean to you to be super unemployable?
Well, as I pointed out to you that I have framed in my office here is the badge
that I got at 15 years old for my first job, which was from McDonald's.
(02:10):
I have it framed and backlit so that I can see it from my desk so that it reminds
me every day that I don't want to go back to work for a company. So that's a driver.
I took that job at 15.
I remember getting home and putting on the The shit brown uniform and the paper
(02:33):
hat that was of that era and walking out into the living room and my parents,
which were creative hippie types,
my mom looked at me and I could see the mixed emotion on her face of excited that I had my first job.
But I could see that there was some sadness that it was for McD's.
(02:54):
But nonetheless, she encouraged me and I went in and I lasted probably two months.
I wanted to work in the kitchen. I'd taken chef's training at Carson Graham, my high school.
And the first thing they did was put me out in the lobby. And then they said,
oh, and then on your shift on the hour, you need to go out into the neighborhood
with the garbage picker and get the garbage.
(03:14):
And I said, I have to go out like into my neighborhood.
And so that was not awesome and then at the time i was a heavy metal fan being
the 80s and at a certain point they said we need to talk to you about the length
of your hair and i was like.
Yes how's that and they said you need to cut it i said here's my uniform and
(03:36):
i quitting and i quit so i lasted about two months i had one job since then
at the parks board going to college and i've I've freelanced ever since a film business.
I've freelanced and really never looked back. Started my business everywhere.
Just to have been a contractor or freelance. And a couple of years ago,
my dad said to me, you've never really had a job per se. Have you?
(04:01):
I didn't know where it was going.
I said, I guess not. If you look at it, you know, in that term, like working full time.
No. Why? He goes, that's pretty cool. Never had to work for the man.
So i guess i was and then just it's in my dna and now that i've never had a
job i don't know how i would go into a system and and now having run run an
(04:26):
agency i mean i don't have a problem,
i don't have a problem you know taking orders or whatever but i think it's more
than that that would feel constraining there's a common thread so you mentioned
they wanted you to cut out your hair.
And I've heard this from a number of other entrepreneurs, whether it be the
way they dress, the lifestyle they're into. You mentioned heavy metal.
(04:48):
Even one guy I heard quit his job because they told him he needed calf implants.
He was an actor, so he decided acting wasn't for him. But this common thread
is almost like of being controlled.
It's not that you can't take orders. It's that somebody is trying to dictate
a part of your life that has nothing to do with the job.
And you almost feel like I can do it better or there's a different route.
(05:12):
Explain that feeling to us. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it.
I have worked inside large organizations as a contractor, and I've seen business casual Fridays.
With dockers and and you know the shirts
i think it's not the the work and being asked to do certain things it is typically
the egos and insecurities that are rife within organizations that that spill
(05:39):
over into the way in which you're treated and that to me i think is the where
it gets really difficult and ultimately very difficult for thinking about how
long you could last somewhere how you can make your way up you know if you're
stuck with a real insecure,
top-down micromanager at a large organization or even a medium-sized one there's
(06:03):
not a lot of ways you can get out within that organization without quitting
it's really tough and sure
there's HR and all that, but that's drama in and of itself.
So I think it's that, that to me, I don't like is the personalities more than
being told what to do, the insecurities and people that got egos that outweigh the job.
(06:26):
Do you think that's changed a lot over the years or organizations still roughly
managed and controlled by people
with insecurities or unsurities about themselves selves or their role?
I think it has improved.
If you look south the border, we see that there's a backlash against diversity.
(06:47):
And I, I am not entirely sure why I've got some theories on that,
but I think it has improved, you know, if you go to compare it to the eighties,
but I think it's probably leveled out. I'm not sure how much more we'll progress from here.
It feels like we've hit a ceiling as far as that goes.
So it was almost a foregone conclusion that you were going to strike out on
(07:09):
your own, whether it was that boss or another one.
And so again, there's this common thread whereby by the super unemployed will
have this, this, there's something inside that just ticks.
And all of a sudden you just can't do it anymore. You can't take it anymore.
Or you keep trying, like in my case, you know, in my journey,
I tried many, many times trying to fit my square peg in somebody else's round hole.
(07:31):
And it just kept failing and failing until I finally said, wow,
I have to take a different route.
You came to that a lot earlier than I did. And I think that's
really great how you know i
would say how many people trying to figure
out what side of the coin they land on how did you figure
that how did you have the courage did you have a mentor
like how did you make bridge that gap
(07:53):
between secure employment to self-employment i
don't know that it was in my 20s it was intentional the
intent was to get into the film business and that is
just straight up contract driven you
take a show you're on it for a couple
weeks couple months or if you move into commercial production it's a
(08:13):
couple of days and then you're off for a few days so it was it sort of landed
in my lap i didn't say i'm not going to work for anyone so i got trained and
conditioned in my 20s that that's okay that there's a way to make a pretty good
living not having to go to the same place every day.
Now, hindsight, looking back, with being diagnosed late in my life of pretty heavy ADHD.
(08:42):
I think part of the challenge for working at the same place time in and time
out, I saw it if I was on a second season of a TV show,
the dopamine starts to fail and you start to have a wandering eye, like chasing dopamine.
So part of it, I think, is my neurodivergent tendency to need to be constantly
(09:04):
looking for the next new thing.
If I align it to when I go on road trips with the family or even on my own,
I will drive from morning till dark because I want to know what's around the next corner.
And I think that's pretty indicative to how I've lived my life.
(09:25):
I can very much relate to that feeling.
I read a study and I'll link it in the show notes because I don't know the exact
statistic is that when you look at entrepreneurs a substantially higher number
of them compared to the general population are ADHD somewhere on the range I've
read similar studies yes,
(09:47):
what you know what impact do you think that had on your inability to work for
somebody Is it that wandering eye,
like just sheerly a long career, 30 years at the same company,
slowly progressing is just the thought, like that's a death sentence to you.
It certainly feels that way to me.
You know, what is the difference between doing your own thing versus working
(10:10):
for somebody else when it comes to your ADHD?
Well, if I even reflect back at when I graduated from high school,
looking at university versus a two-year college program, four years to someone
with heavy ADHD, I didn't know that was the reason.
But at the time, it seemed like a life prison sentence that I could never get through.
(10:33):
Four years was just like an eternity.
So I took the two years, accelerated, and I just wanted, I wanted to get to work.
I wanted to get to the doing, and I wanted to get out of the hypothetical and the academic.
So I think that's part of it is, you know, a big part is constantly needing
to be, have the quest, have your curiosity satisfied.
(10:56):
And I mean, I've contracted inside of large organizations to see the stagnation,
the politics and everything else that can happen to now know that's where I
would like to steer clear from. I wouldn't, I just wouldn't survive.
You mentioned something really interesting about the four year degree.
(11:18):
So I was listening to a podcast last night. Rory Sutherland was on the podcast,
phenomenal marketers from the UK. And he was talking about how the government
will loan you X amount of money to take a four-year degree, but that doesn't
fit the mold for everybody.
And he said, why doesn't the government, when everybody turns 18,
give everybody the same amount of money as a loan, and you can do what you want with it?
And apparently, there's been some phenomenal studies. And again,
(11:40):
I'll try to find those for the show notes about what people do with this money.
And when it's a small amount of money, they spend it on booze and cigarettes.
When it's a larger amount of money, they spend it on more impactful things for
their lives. So you mentioned a four-year degree is for some.
But maybe for you, that money would have been better off to launch your first
business as the seed funding to get you off the ground. For somebody else,
(12:01):
it might've been to buy their own home.
He mentioned in the study, another guy who bought recording equipment,
which sounds frivolous, but he went on to start a huge band.
Is our system kind of fighting against us? Are we in a system that's really
rewarding people to take the traditional path? Or again, do you see that changing?
I think the system we're in is ancient and based on early last century norms
(12:26):
of the just post-industrial revolution.
You got a job, you go to school. I mean, the way that our work week was set up, all that.
We're still living in that framework that I don't think holds true.
We've seen countries that are experimenting with great success, a four-day work week.
(12:48):
And so I think lots of things could change, but we're so ingrained in certain
ways and that the establishment wants it certain ways that it's not impossible
to change, but there's a lot of forces against it.
Yeah, I think that a lot of things are stacked against us. We're starting to see some change.
So the fact that you don't need a degree to get a job at Google and the likes
(13:09):
that came out in the last couple of years, I mean, that's a good sign.
And I know that a lot of young people use that with their parents to say, I can get in other ways.
So I do think it's an old methodology that needs radical change.
So for reference, we're here in Canada, and I've been watching,
I recently became a dad. JP, you've been a dad for quite a while.
(13:33):
Looking at the current system that we're in, looking at your kids and how they're
growing up, would you encourage them to pursue higher education?
Or how do you, I guess my question is, how do you help kids find their paths
that don't feel stuck in it?
I mentioned, you know, I got out of, I did the traditional path.
I did the university degree. I was a good little student. I went on to a job.
(13:54):
My dad always taught me, never, never live your life without a job.
If you're going to quit a job, make sure you have another one lined up.
He was a very long-term work with one company his whole life.
We, you know, retired their pension, the whole thing. My life was different,
but I wasn't willing to allow myself to see that until much later in life.
And a part of me wishes that I had that opportunity sooner.
(14:15):
And so when I look at my children, I want to make sure that as they rise up,
they can follow a path that they feel most comfortable and is going to reward
them in the best kind of way possible.
How do you see that with your children? How do you see the system and how do you guide them?
Well, first off, there really aren't any pensions anymore.
(14:35):
And so that would be a great incentive for
many still today to have a pension i have a friend of
mine who's you know in his 50s and looking at a
job that isn't necessarily his
first choice but there's a pension and even though at this stage it's uh it's
attractive but getting to the to the encouraging of of kids and i have My wife
(14:59):
and I are pretty confident that our son is not going to go to university.
He doesn't mean he won't go to any type of school. And I'm not against going the traditional path.
You know, I think it's fine for those. I think the best way is to not force
your children to go potentially against what's where they're going to excel.
(15:25):
There are a lot of people that do not excel inside the college university methodology.
Many do. There are a lot that could never be an entrepreneur.
I meet many every day that could not start a business and they look at me like I'm crazy.
They like it. So I think there's no one right way.
(15:47):
And I think we need to be at a societal level, more accepting and have more
ways in which to enable young people to make a different choice than just being
funneled into to university.
I mean, how many more lawyers do we need?
Right? A lot of it is based on,
I want my kids to have the most successful career and make the most money.
(16:10):
And we all know that for the vast majority, beyond your being comforted and
all comfortable with enough to, you know, money doesn't necessarily make it great.
So I think that we should be much more open. And I also would say that at 18,
you really don't know, for the most part.
(16:30):
Most don't know where they want to go.
And I encourage a lot of my friends to make sure that their kids do get a gap year.
Because that difference between high school and going straight in.
I mean, most kids pivot or quit first year a lot do or have an existential crisis.
(16:52):
Like why did I go down the path of whatever program
name that program so yeah I think we should
be at a societal level much more
like not just accepting but like have a more structured way in which to make
different choices and paths well I couldn't agree more with the gap here I didn't
(17:13):
take it right away I did three years of university trying to get into commerce
they had what was called back then pre-commerce you had to get your grades to
a certain level to get into to commerce,
I didn't get in the first year, I didn't get in the second year.
The third year I had my grades sky high and I said, okay, I'm going to go to
Australia for the summer because I was burning out, getting gray hair.
(17:34):
One year, 21. And while I was in Australia, I called home and I didn't get into
commerce again, third time.
I think if I was at home, I would have been chattered, but I was on a beach
in Australia. I got over it pretty quick and I decided to spend the rest of the year there.
And it was probably there that I got sent on my entrepreneurial journey because my eyes opened up.
(17:56):
I saw a world outside of my little community that I was rather isolated inside.
And even if we travel and vacation, you really have to spend time in another
place to really understand and kind of open your mind.
And that was what Australia was for me. And I met very influential people along the way.
And those people helped me reshape my journey. And it's absolutely no secret,
(18:17):
JP, you were one of the people that I met along my journey.
For those of you who don't know, because I probably haven't told the story yet,
JP came into a store I was running to buy some headphones.
I was running a retail store and an e-commerce and JP came in,
looked around, thought it was really nice.
I think one of the first things he told me is I get it cheaper on Amazon,
which I thought was funny, but he said, but I support local and I'm going to
(18:41):
buy from you and bought headphones for his whole crew.
And it's little moments like those that give you a little lift when you're a
struggling entrepreneur.
I bumped into JP at a TEDx event months later, and I had just moved from a mentor
we were working with with the EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization.
She wasn't really helping us move forward and ask JP if he'd mind stepping in.
(19:03):
And so over the course of the next couple of years, JP and I would meet every
few months and I would just bounce ideas off JP and JP would give me feedback
and I would leave those meetings always feeling energized and ready to go.
As did I. Your energy when you're an idea machine and I was always at awe with
that. And so when I think about that, in absence of that mentorship,
(19:26):
I think I would have struggled a lot more.
Along your journey, was there a mentor that came into the picture or were multiple
mentors that helped move your path forward?
Or were you one of those people that ended up blazing the trail on your own?
I've had mentors i think all
the way along for sure in fact
(19:47):
i'm gonna do i'm gonna call back to earlier where you said was
there a pivotal moment where you knew that it wasn't for
you and now and so in the second
after the gap year i decided to take a job at the parks board i got it through
family it was you know they had a student program and i was put into the the
(20:11):
morning shift and i looked around and i got put on a truck to go out and,
shovel gravel and i mean i didn't grow up in a pristine you know whatever i've
said i saw a lot of stuff the things i heard by by this crew and the words the
new curse words and the new.
(20:35):
The way that they interacted with each other, I very quickly recognized that
maybe working at a full-time job wasn't for me.
And I had had a university scholarship and bursary that was going to expire.
And that was like, I'm gonna apply for college because I'm not gonna work here.
(20:55):
There's no way I'm gonna work here. And so that was really a pivotal moment
when that's where I went to take film and put it in the creative space.
Space and i would say mentors my first
mentor that i had was the the head gardener
at the parks board she was a maverick she'd
come in from the city of vancouver into north
(21:15):
vancouver all the old school men hated her
because this was the 80s she was a threat she
had like the primo job and a couple
weeks into it i don't know how but she needed a
an assistant so she pointed to me and said get in
the truck and Evelyn was amazing smart
she taught me not just about the gardening that
(21:38):
needed to happen but also lots of things work ethic and curiosity so that was
my like my very first mentor and I had others in film when I went into film
Penny Gibbs who was a production coordinator that I was a PA for in the office
another one those are my first two mentors that taught me.
She really helped me navigate the film business and instilled a lot of great
(22:00):
qualities of how to do things because it's a challenging business.
It's really undefined, especially at that time. So those are two mentors.
And I recognize that at that time, having mentors is good and that you can learn
a lot if you find the right mentor.
You know, what's fascinating, there's a lot of mentors that I've had in my life
that were not as defined as you and I were, where I literally chased you down
(22:24):
with a drink in my hand and said, can you be a mentor?
There are people that in my life influenced me.
In ways that I didn't realize until years later.
And I think the benefit for me was I just asked a lot to her.
It's really fascinating when you start asking people questions,
the things that come out.
And I think one of the things that I've noticed is people don't ask enough questions.
(22:47):
I don't know if that's the older, the kid day mentality that I'm starting to
gain as I'm getting older, but I find getting social circles in absence of somebody
asking the questions, nobody says anything.
They're all waiting to be do you have the same experience or am i just just
getting old no i don't think it's even a generational thing necessarily we're
(23:11):
conditioned through our entire life to to be smart to do you know to go to school
to learn and when you get into a job.
Asking questions can be a signal that you don't know what you're doing and that
is i think deeply ingrained at PowerShifter, our agency,
(23:32):
where we say, you know, ideas can come from anywhere. So that's not questions per se.
But I also encourage them.
Let's see, if you don't know, please ask. I'd rather have a question.
And there's no stupid questions. I think we're just conditioned that when you
get to a job, it's very competitive.
(23:52):
And that by asking questions out loud amongst your peers
you could appear to be not as good
at your job not as smart as the others so i think it transcends generations
you're probably just aware of it as you mature and there's more you're asking
you're not the one asking the questions necessarily in the room as far as many
questions and so you're probably the absence of questions you're hearing this
(24:17):
the the screaming silence.
I couldn't agree more.
JP, we've known each other, I think it's been about 10 years.
And obviously you've run your companies for a longer period than that and run multiple companies.
You've been through a lot of economic cycles. Being super unemployable is super,
there's this insecurity that you have because every day you get up and in the
(24:43):
words of one of my other entrepreneur friends, you eat what you kill.
Have there been times that you've doubted this path that you've taken?
And when you did doubt, how did you get through it?
I have only had a few times where I've doubted the path at a deep level.
I think there's been light doubts, doubt light, maybe you've had a crappy couple
(25:05):
of weeks, and you may casually say, maybe I should just get a job.
But that's in those times where you start to actually think, Thank you.
I do need to get a job maybe this is not going to work out it
doesn't take long at best a
couple hours at worst a couple of days
for for me to realize that that's not
(25:29):
going to happen and that as long as i've got some money in the bank or a line
of credit which i've done in the past i'm going to bet on myself and i mean
i'm far from perfect and i've made a ton of mistakes along the way.
But ultimately, my son is 20.
(25:49):
And I bet on myself, as did my wife, the entire time.
I've done what you're supposed to do with having a family.
So it should get even easier as far as pressures go.
I imagine that I'll continue to bet on myself.
Now, I also know that But there'll come a time where it could be fun.
(26:12):
I'm moving to Salt Spring. That's been our goal almost there.
That at a point where if I do exit the agency, I would like to work at the local
hardware store or something like that.
And that to me is, it's not about, at that point, it's not necessarily about cash.
It would be about helping people, about just, it's a different thing for sure.
(26:36):
But it has crossed my mind. But ultimately, I think I'll always bet on myself. It gets hard sometimes.
I think sometimes, too, I don't gamble.
You want to go to Vegas?
No reason to go to Vegas. You don't gamble. I gamble every single day.
(26:57):
Every day I go into the agency, you have no idea what is going to happen. Economic cycles.
Something gets cancelled and even when you're doing the big pitch I feel that
probably how some people feel at the horse track and it's, you're getting ready
and it's waiting, you need to stop the pitch and you're waiting and you win,
(27:22):
It's a huge win. I'm pretty sure that's what gamblers feel like.
And I also know when you don't win, I'm feeling that's what gamblers feel like too.
The interesting thing when you talk about the lottery and betting on yourself,
the way I term it, it's this locus of control, right?
When you play the lottery, you put your dollars in somebody else's heads and
you say, if I'm lucky, you pick me and I'll be rich.
(27:44):
When you take those same dollars and put them into yourself,
you're saying, I pick you and you're going to take this money and you're going
to make me rich. Mark Cuban said, right?
Entrepreneurs live like others won't, so someday they can live like others can't.
And if that isn't the ultimate term of betting on yourself, because you make a lot of sacrifices.
(28:04):
And along that way, how did you balance it? Right? You mentioned your kids are
growing up now, getting there.
When you're employed, there's a nine to five. There's even new legislation mandating
that employees, they're working outside.
If you're in Ontario, for example, and you work outside, your office hours,
you're supposed to get paid time and a half, and it has to be minimum three hours.
(28:25):
And I might be getting some of these regulations wrong, but the point is it's
very strict about how employee time is used.
When you work for yourself, there's not really a shut off switch, not in my experience.
And I think the super unemployable, there is this unifying factor where the
super unemployed can't shut off.
I've never met a super unemployed who isn't ready to talk ideas,
(28:46):
business, family, vacations, any topic at any time.
Family during the workday, business in the middle of their sleep.
I've had texts at 3 a.m. I've sent texts at 3 a.m. How'd you find that balance?
I used to be more inclined to be that, but it is exhausting.
And it is also exhausting for the people around you to constantly be like that.
(29:11):
And I know that there's those that won't change that, but I encourage that you
find ways to change that.
I mean, if I look back at if I was
to log into our software for tracking vacations for the last five years,
you're not going to see a lot on there for sure i have a busy mind and it was
(29:37):
exhausting for my family and so a couple of years ago i started doing leather craft and.
What happened was each night i would actually stop my brain from cycling up
like that and i I would just focus on the next cut, the next stitch.
(29:59):
And I realized when you do that, when you either meditate or you actually stop,
you actually will have more energy the next day or afterwards to produce higher quality outputs.
I think that if you're constantly running end-to-end, non-stop,
(30:21):
energy is finite. I think that the neuron network in your brain is finite.
And anything that's run too thin and spread too thin, it's not going to be the
highest quality output.
So I would encourage those that are caught in that cycle,
Do find a way to get at least three or four hours where you're not thinking about work.
(30:43):
Now, there's some that won't, for sure, and they're obsessed.
And I think there's a lot of things that they may gain, but I think they're
also moving so fast that they don't recognize until way later in life some of
the things they did. And some people are just hardwired that way.
But I think I would encourage those that are maybe on the fence or feeling a
bit out to find ways to take that pause and that your outcomes will be better.
(31:05):
On the weekends now and for many years unless something is due on monday i take the weekends.
Fantastic i'll let you know what that feels like when i do that's
but you know what you're talking about meditation and meditation is
not something i've tried meditation many many times i truly hope to achieve
that someday where i can just truly sit and be at peace with myself but jeff
(31:28):
bezos has his version he said he does he washes the dishes by hand never uses
the dishwasher and by By washing the dishes by hand, it's a form of meditation.
It's a repetitive practice that requires a little bit of focus to get it done
right. You don't want to break the dishes in the process, and you don't want
to put them in the wrong spot.
That form of meditation, you mentioned doing some leather work,
whatever it is that you can do that takes you out of sight of it.
(31:50):
I think the one task, the one thing that I have is skiing, but it's not year round.
But what I try to do is pick the most challenging slope with the most trees
and go as fast as I can, because if you're not extremely present,
you're going to hit a tree. And that is so calming and relaxing for me.
Actually, the best mountain I ever went to, here's a shout out to Whitewater, BC.
It's just outside of Nelson. Your cell phone does not work there.
(32:12):
There is no cell phone reception, much to the dismay of many riders.
And that day was probably one of the best I've ever had. I didn't realize there
was no cell reception, but I also didn't work. And I didn't think about it.
That little bit of shut off time really helped me.
Focus just on something else other than the million ideas.
And I do agree. I am an idea machine and I've been trying to quell that and
(32:35):
instead it's just become more.
But I'm looking at your LinkedIn.
You got a lot of jobs on there right now. You have a lot of things on the go.
I think you have more now listed in overlap than you've ever had in your career.
How are you managing that? Is that through people? Is that through time walking?
What does that look like good, good people to that power shifter,
(32:59):
which is my main focus, the leadership team and the entire staff.
It just, at this point in time, I am no longer in the work.
I know that can focus on the,
I call myself the chief promo officer now, but it when it comes to delivery
(33:24):
operations it's all being taken care of i check in but i'm not,
that takes a lot of space in your head and this
is the first time that i'm not doing that and to
be quite frank a few years ago when i was still doing a
lot of that i was like looking to figure out a way to exit now that it's shifted
(33:49):
and i'm doing things like started my own podcast i'm out creating content and
doing all kinds of things around where we're going, I'm enjoying it again.
So some of the things I'm working a little less on, PowerShifter is my main focus, but I think it's.
(34:10):
Good people around you and being able to
create autonomous it sounds like robots but autonomous
thinking within an organization enabling people to
make the decisions because they've got they know
where we're going they know our value set and they can make the decisions and
make the mistakes knowing that that's going to be okay that's how you do it
(34:31):
or it's how i've been able to do it do you believe that to be successful as
a super unemployable you need to be good at managing people,
creating teams, building teams? Nope.
Leading people, not managing people. Managers will always stay managers.
It's a low ceiling and you'll be stuck in the middle.
(34:55):
When you lead people and you inspire them and you enable them to become leaders
in themselves, that's how you do it. Not management.
We have no management terms at PowerShifter.
I think it's a a terrible term. It's a terrible mindset.
So it's a, it's a, it's a sore spot with me.
Lead people. I like that. I like that a lot.
(35:15):
I think for a lot of people who are just starting their journey in a way they
feel, why would people follow me? I don't have any money. I haven't started my first business.
I just have an idea, but I know that I need people on my side,
whether working with me, helping me out, mentoring me, providing me with guidance,
but I need some sort of community that I don't like.
(35:41):
Not everybody wants to lead. Lots of people want to follow.
And I don't mean that in a negative way like sheep, but people want direction.
And they also buy into where you're going, your ideas, your vision.
And if there's an alignment there, they naturally will say, I want to go where they're going.
Let me want to be part of that. It's not really a following.
(36:02):
You want to be part of that. This person's in a direction you're guiding, right?
If you've never gone on a hike to the mountain, you're going to have a guide.
You're going to follow that person because they know what they're doing and
ultimately the top of that mountain is where you want to get to as well.
So I think people want to follow the right people if they're.
(36:23):
Aligned with where the destination is and if they align with how you're going
to get to the destination culturally or what have you. But not everybody wants to lead.
What percentage of people do you think want to lead first?
It's got to be a small percentage that you want to control.
There's no way you can have an army running in battle if you actually follow it.
(36:46):
I would say that true leaders that we have, the percentage today,
if you look and say, what are the leaders within an organization,
if you exclude management, it's pretty small.
I think that there are those that might be a little nervous,
so you can expand it a little bit as they haven't tried it.
And I think there's those that think they want to and try it and don't realize
(37:08):
that sticking your neck out, neck out, you expose yourself.
You do. Well, there's this, there's this fascinating interplay between the two
words, responsibility and accountability.
When you're responsible for something, you can very much be an employee responsible
for some tasks, but your manager or the leader, they're the one that's ultimately
accountable if it fails.
(37:30):
And so in my journey, I've really tried to always remind myself self about that difference.
The true leaders will always hold themselves accountable for everything that their team does.
And by standing in front, I think it was Julius Caesar that would run out to battle first.
And people love to follow him because he wouldn't do anything.
He didn't ask his soldiers to do anything he wouldn't do himself.
(37:51):
Now, that could be the history books rewriting that tale, but the tale in and
of itself is fascinating. And I've always tried to go by that mantra.
If I was running a restaurant, I would be willing
to clean the dishes and throw out the task actually better story
the guy who started in and out burger he actually built his
house right across from his first in and out burger he'd watch from
his window whenever there was a busy rush run across the
(38:14):
street and help out taking out garbage doing whatever it took and the in and
out burger story is actually fascinating if anybody listens to that that fascinating
podcast founders or how i built this i think they both have a story on that
but founders has a you know i'm going to do a shout out to that podcast because
i listened to it religiously but listen to that story.
But is that, you know, is that the definition of a leader? What,
(38:35):
what is the definition of a leader to you?
Because I think the super unemployable in my mind is.
Some degree have to have leadership skills because in
absence of somebody following you it's a really tough road in absence
of having a team around you you know there's a
lot that needs to get done in a day to make
it on your own and truly you're never actually going you will always rely on
(38:57):
others do you agree with that or i think you lead by example a leader isn't
necessarily riding in on on a white horse and charging in front of the army.
You lead by example. You lead as you would like others to conduct themselves.
(39:20):
When we were much smaller and we couldn't afford to have cleaners come into
the office all the time, I took the garbage out. I cleaned the kitchen.
I did it every day. And I had a partner.
And I watched him walk by the garbage.
Every day on the way out to his sit get
into his audi that he couldn't afford and because
(39:44):
he led he thought leading was telling you you know you do this and i think it's
different i wanted others to also help because we couldn't afford to have cleaners
and if you the people see that the founder,
CEO is doing that, it's not long before you come in and someone else is done and then someone else.
(40:10):
So you lead by example. It's the little things that go all the way up to the big things.
And you also really know that that's not something that as a leader,
you need to continue to do.
You got to grow, but you got to lead through the small and the big things.
I think one of the hardest parts about being in that leadership position is
the the responsibility that you feel, people rely on you. They become like your family.
(40:34):
Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. Recessions hit.
It doesn't always feel good to be super unemployable.
Sometimes I wish that somebody else had all the control and I was just getting a paycheck.
And I think every super unemployable that I've met has gone through bouts of
depression, whether it be short, lengthy, sometimes multi-year?
(40:59):
Have you faced that? How have you gotten through it?
I absolutely have faced that because the reality is none of it's in our control.
The only thing we control is ourselves.
Everything else is not in your control. If I go by the three circles or three
rings, like the is you, it's the only thing you can control.
(41:21):
The next ring out is close friends and family you can influence.
And the next ring out after that, we work with everything else.
You have no control. and so we all
have that same three rings so i
don't think we can control anything we're riding we're
riding it out like everybody i think the hardest part leading
(41:44):
is when there are factors so big that you don't know how to navigate it's not
even about controlling it's it's about even navigating through that are scary
you don't have the answers and a lot of times when you leave you don't have
answers and it takes a long time to,
you know, they say fail fast and fail often.
(42:07):
That's a podcast for another time that, that, that sentiment,
but we, it's that unknown when you really don't know your way through a tough situation.
That's for me has been the challenge because quite often I have an idea,
even if I don't know what's going to work.
(42:27):
I think where I start to get really freaked out is I know I've tried all these
things and then I'm staring at a blank slate or a blank, you know, in my mind.
I'm like, I do not know now how to solve this big problem.
And then when it goes for a few days or longer where you still don't have that
solve, even something to try and fail at, that's when I get really freaked out.
(42:51):
Luck, opportunity and timing. How's that play them?
Absolutely. All three. all three have played out you i like i like the expression
you have to make your own luck.
And what you so you have to create factors that mean that when an opportunity
a lucky opportunity happens you're ready for it or you also know how to take
(43:17):
you know take that past and make the best of that opportunity if you're always
just the looking down at your shoes
and not at the sky, you're not going to get lucky because you're not looking
for it. You have to look for luck.
You have to look for those opportunities because they're all around us.
Sometimes they're harder to find. Luck is harder to find for sure.
(43:37):
But the serendipity of it all, you've got to make luck happen and you have to
make it a higher likelihood that that serendipity is going to play in and that
you know and you're ready to pounce on it.
The reverse side, I should say the opposite side, committing to a losing cause
can be one of the number one reasons entrepreneurs go bankrupt,
(43:58):
fail, become depressed,
because it's like digging the trench and the deeper you dig it,
the harder it is to get out.
And it's all you can see around you now is what you've dug in front of you.
How do you know when it's time to pivot, to quit,
way to change you know being super unemployed was a journey and my favorite
phrase is success is not linear right if you look at the greatest most successful
(44:21):
people they're loaded with failures and the sooner they're able to recognize
what is truly a failure move on to the next thing,
the sooner the quicker the success generally comes i
i think i've struggled with knowing
the the failing fast i guess you could say and
and failing often or when to like move on i'm getting
(44:42):
better for sure but you know
as i said earlier could do a whole podcast on fail fast
fail often part of the challenge is that we're told
our entire life from like day one that failure is
not an option failure at school is bad
you know and ask for failure failure and then
you get into entrepreneur and you read the book books that
(45:04):
say fail fast and fail often well that does not resonate it
needs rebranding honestly but it's not
catastrophic failures it's small things
and iterative and i'm it's taken me
a long time to get over that i also didn't do well in school because of my dyslexia
and adhd i had seen myself a long long time as because i had failed things had
(45:27):
a lot of f's on my on my report cards so it took me a long time to get to understand
what that meant and I'm still learning it for sure.
So I don't have a real good answer there. I think everybody has their own.
But I think you just need to recognize that sometimes you can't let your ego make those decisions.
I think that's probably why a lot of people hold on to things is their ego.
(45:51):
You know, I can agree more. Ego is, again, I think characteristic of the super
unemployable, often feeling greater than.
I think that's why it's easier to leave a job because you say,
well, I'm better than this anyway. But there's a certain element of ego,
which I think slowly has to turn into confidence over ego before it's successful.
(46:13):
I'm still working on that, JP. I'll let you know when I get there.
Confidence is important. Confidence is healthy.
Confidence propels you forward. I don't think ego propels you forward, to be quite frank.
I think ego can be misconstrued.
And I think that it can hold you back. And I think those that are confident
(46:34):
are the ones that excel. But that's just my theory.
Well, I agree with you because the thing is ego doesn't let you fail.
It won't allow you to fail.
And in the face of failure, you will often make up stories.
And I have a great example of that. And I'll touch on that in another podcast.
But the company where I met you, we ultimately went bankrupt.
(46:55):
And it caused a personal bankruptcy for me. And I didn't admit that to anybody
outside of my Titus Circle for years.
Fears for fear that I was going to be judged that
bankruptcy was the best thing I ever did for myself and to
reinvent myself into the person that I am today and and I'll tell you this it
(47:16):
got to the point where I was actually paying bills with personal credit cards
to manage business bills I mean back and actually like caused further debt and
further liabilities and the sooner that you can recognize that and get out.
But then the sooner you can get out of my story, and it's the biggest failure.
The idea of bankruptcy was actually so traumatic for me that I couldn't even speak about it.
(47:39):
I shut down for days because I never thought I'd be that person.
I thought bankrupt people were bums and losers and had no ability to be successful.
I had to reframe my thinking entirely, but it has allowed me now to learn to
identify failure faster. faster, so I don't have to get to that really big failure.
(48:01):
I totally agree with you, but going back to that system, and if I think about
the way that I grew up, we were always taught you either succeed or you succeed,
but failure is not an option, and not in that healthy way. It was that you bury a failure.
It's hard. Again, the thought of that does not make me feel great if I had to face that.
(48:29):
I would probably go through similar feelings as much as I may be mature and
have lots of hindsight and wisdom.
The prospect of personal bankruptcy, I think I probably would still go through a lot of the...
Things that you went through? I'm still getting rejected for loans.
(48:54):
I'm five years, six years past
now, almost at that point where it gets removed from your credit score.
And then I can really truly move on. But you know what it's actually taught
me? A lot of financial responsibility.
Because in the absence of being able to acquire debt, I've had to learn to be
even more scrappy with the dollars that I have.
And my business today is larger than any other business I've ever run and I've
(49:15):
done it in absence of acquiring debt.
So JP, going all the way back where we first started this conversation,
there was that pivotal moment where somebody told you to cut your hair.
And there's this idea that almost in a way, your personality,
your freedom was being stripped away and that just wasn't going to fly for you.
How has moving your life to the super unemployable changed your perspective
(49:39):
of traditional employment?
I don't know if it's changed.
I mean, it's an essential piece of everything for so much of society.
I think it's just that I think we need to be more open to those that can find
other means and not have them judged by the greater world.
(50:03):
Community and society. How does it shape your perspective of freedom? How do you look that up?
How does it shape your perspective of freedom? That's an interesting question.
As I said earlier, when I look back at my holiday schedule, it's not super awesome.
(50:26):
However, I don't know that freedom is necessarily holidays.
Freedom in your mind can be many things. I think that knowing that I don't have
to go into a place and deal with someone else's insecurities and egos and their
challenges and their micromanagement, to me,
(50:50):
that's worth it. That is mental freedom.
I don't know how I would deal with that burden. I see it.
I've you know outside looking in adjacent to
not our organization but I see it I have
friends that deal with it I see the I see the
strain it has on people that strain that I have
being an entrepreneur is there but it's different I think you can pull levers
(51:16):
and it's more in your control I love it finally what legacy do you hope to leave
behind I don't think a lot about legacies As part of the ADHD,
I don't have a lot of looking back. I mostly look forward.
I think the legacy is a pretty simple one, which is to have been known to be kind,
(51:39):
to be known that I helped others maybe achieve things that they didn't necessarily
think were possible by helping, mentoring, or hiring, or whatever that means.
It's pretty simple. I think that would be, that would be in a nutshell.
I can tell you as part of your legacy, you've imprinted on me.
(52:02):
I've told you that many times in our conversations, but you know,
the way I always look at it is how will people speak about you after you've left?
And I can tell you, you've left an imprint on my life, on my journey,
but so glad to have you on HD.
That was feeling that insecurity about how are they going to fit in?
And are they that weird piece trying to fit into a regular puzzle?
(52:24):
They can see themselves in you and your journey. And it's just been phenomenal
having you share your story. So I thank you for that.
And the final question is, who else do you know that is super employable that
we should have on this podcast?
It's a long list, but I have a colleague, competitor, actually,
(52:45):
sort of. I mean, as an agency, does the similar work that we do.
They've got a healthy culture.
Chris at Triple T Studios. He's awesome.
And we're kind of, we don't, I don't think we ever competed against each other,
but we're in the same space.
I sit from afar and admire how he and his brother run their agency.
(53:09):
You hear in the industry how people run their organizations.
You can see a healthy culture in a healthy shop.
And he's a great storyteller. I would say Chris at Triple T would be who I would reach out to.
Chris is the guy. All right, Chris, you heard it here. JP Halecka has called
you out. You're supposed to be the next guest on the Super Unemployable Podcast.
(53:31):
I'm sure you're listening to this, eagerly waiting to hear your name.
But we'll reach out to you and see if you want to join. JP, fantastic.
Thank you so much. We've got to catch up more often. This was a great conversation.
And thank you for having me at your fantastic office. I wish we could,
maybe we'll post a photo along with this episode.
He's got fantastic framing on the back wall, a skateboard deck,
(53:55):
TVs, lighting, the whole works. It's all at WeWork.
And it's at WeWork. It's at WeWork, which when he gave me the address,
I thought, WeWork, is that still here? But fantastic office.
I'm going to have to look at one of these for myself. So it's been great.
Great. Thank you, JP. My pleasure.
That was JP Halecka, CEO and founder of PowerShifter Digital here in Vancouver, Canada.
(54:17):
For me, that conversation was just awesome.
You know, we talked about a lot of things, but what I really walked away feeling
was this sense of, you know, you really have to be your authentic self.
Even me telling that story about bankruptcy was not something that I openly
shared with people for years.
(54:38):
And even still to this day, I feel cringy about talking about that.
But for JP, when he was younger, somebody said something as simple as to cut
his hair. And he said, no, I can do something better.
He's embraced the fact that he has ADHD and use that to his advantage.
He doesn't shy away from who he is. And if that isn't the true definition of
(55:00):
what it takes to make it as super unemployable,
I don't really know what else would be or what it is. It's something to think about.
Thank you, JP, for joining us. It was so fantastic to have you.
And thank you all for joining the podcast. We'll see you next time.
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