August 26, 2025 • 50 mins
Big news—Jesse Jensen’s debut book, Throw Your Hat Over The Fence, launches on Amazon this Thursday, August 28th!
In this week’s episode of The Confidence Shortcut, Jesse shares the life philosophy behind the book—a simple but powerful commitment mechanism that can propel you toward your biggest dreams.
What if the secret to achieving your dreams isn't waiting until you feel confident, but taking action that forces you to move forward? In this illuminating conversation, Jesse reveals how "throwing your hat over the fence" creates a powerful commitment mechanism that propels you toward your goals.
Jesse shares the origins of this philosophy—a piece of wisdom from his grandfather that became the title of his debut book of illustrated poems. By creating situations that demand follow-through, Jesse transformed from a mechanical engineer into a multi-faceted achiever: sales executive, private pilot, patent holder, entrepreneur, comedian, and certified executive leadership coach.
The conversation takes a deeply personal turn when Jesse recounts his catastrophic early attempt at stand-up comedy, opening for a professional comedian with zero preparation. Rather than letting this painful experience define him, he eventually returned to comedy decades later, proving that failure provides invaluable lessons when approached with honesty and reflection.
What makes this episode particularly powerful is Jesse's emphasis on defining success on your own terms. Early in his marriage, he wrote down specific goals that mattered to him personally. Years later, he discovered this list and realized he had accomplished most items—a testament to the power of clear intention and consistent action.
For anyone feeling stuck or uncertain, Jesse offers practical wisdom: write down what truly matters to you, create commitments that force action, take small daily steps regardless of how you feel, and view setbacks as learning opportunities. His approach challenges the common belief that confidence precedes action, suggesting instead that bold moves create confidence.
Ready to throw your own hat over the fence? Listen now, then grab your copy of Jesse’s new book on Amazon August 28th—and share which commitment you’ll make today to move closer to the life you want.
For more information on Jesse's new book of illustrated poems:
https://www.throwthathat.com/
To purchase a copy of the book, Throw Your Hat Over The Fence, The Poems of Jesse Jensen, Illustrated by Jashton Gieser, head over to Amazon on August 28th!
You can find Jesse on Linked In:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessewjensen/
On TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@throwyourhatoverthefence?lang=en
On Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/throwthathat/
To contact Jesse:
Jesse@throwthathat.com
New episodes every week — packed with honest conversations, mindset tools, and real-life shortcuts to help you silence your inner critic, build true confidence, and take bold action.
📌 Subscribe + share if you're ready to stop overthinking and finally move forward.
💛 For freebies and updates, Join The Confidence Shortcut Community
✨ Grab your free Confidence Kickstart Guide.
🧠 Click to learn more about the Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) and how it helps rewire your brain for healing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut, the podcast
for ambitious creatives andentrepreneurs who are ready to
stop overthinking, take boldaction and finally step into the
life they've been dreamingabout.
I'm your host, nikki Sternermom, actor, comedian and
producer.
After years of playing smalland waiting to feel ready, I
went on a courage quest andfound a shortcut to confidence.
(00:21):
Each week, I'll bring you realstories, simple steps and
conversations with experts inmindset, courage and confidence,
plus heart-to-hearts withfellow creatives who are turning
their dreams into reality.
It's time to get unstuck andstart showing up.
Let's dive in.
Welcome to the ConfidenceShortcut.
I'm your host, nikki Sterner.
(00:42):
Today's guest is Jesse Jensen,sales executive by day, poet by
pretty much whenever inspirationstrikes.
During the pandemic, he startedwriting whimsical, funny poems
that turned into his debut book,throw your Hat Over the Fence.
He's a private pilot, avolunteer with Tiger Flight
Foundation, an inventor,entrepreneur and a certified
(01:05):
executive leadership coach.
Jesse lives in Atlanta with hiswife, heidi and their four kids
, who've patiently endured moredinner table poetry readings
than most families.
Today, we're diving into howJesse blends humor, creativity,
leadership and a love for lifeinto everything he does.
I want to welcome to the showJesse Jensen.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thanks, Nikki.
I gotta say it's awesome to behere.
We met earlier this year, whatat Jeff Justice's comedy class,
and I never imagined it wouldlead to a podcast, but I'm glad
that it did.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I know I'm so excited .
Jesse is one of my favoritepeople from the classes and he
is so funny you guys are goingto figure that out right away
after listening to this but he'sincredibly intelligent,
incredibly kind and giving andjust a wonderful human being.
On top of that, he's veryinspiring.
He has systems in place to getthe stuff done that you want to
(01:59):
do, and I'm just so excited foryou to share that with people
today, jesse.
So go ahead and get us startedoff with.
Tell us a little bit about whoyou are, what you do and what
you're passionate about.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You asked me to join based on the book that I wrote
and it's coming out here August28th.
There it is.
It's a little, that's right.
It's a fun illustrated poembook called Throw your Hat Over
the Fence and I feel like that'swhere we should probably start
the conversation.
I remember when we firststarted talking you're like
where'd the title come from?
You know, I chose that title.
(02:33):
There's a poem in the bookcalled Throw your Hat Over the
Fence, but I chose that titlebecause it's a phrase that my
grandpa used to say.
He used to say, jesse, if youreally want to get something
done, then throw your hat overthe fence, and that forces you
to go get it right.
He meant go do something thatmakes you accountable, that
creates a forcing function foryourself to go get something
done, because a lot of us willsit on the sidelines and not do
it.
And for most of my life that'show I've lived.
(02:54):
I love to commit, I love tothrow that hat and use that as a
motivator to get going.
In fact, I love that.
Should I read that poem?
You want to hear it.
Yes, would you please?
I would love that.
Should I read that poem youwant to hear?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
it.
Yes, would you please?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I would love that all right, let's do that okay all
right.
This is throw your hat over thefence.
Throw your hat over the fence.
To many around you it won'tmake sense.
Tamp down the voices that holdyou down.
Push past the negative so oftenaround.
Commitment is hard and scary todo.
Take that first step and betrue to you.
Deepen your bones.
You know that it's right.
(03:24):
Stop the struggle, the internalfight, stop the doubts, the
fear and the worry.
Take the first step in yourlife's journey.
Take that first step to liveout your dream.
Do not let a fence slow downyour steam.
The challenge is real, theobstacle high.
By throwing that hat andletting it fly, you're forcing
your hand to figure it out.
The path is now clear and youhave no doubt, for you now must
(03:46):
go to the other side, retrieveyour hat and feel the pride,
unless it's a hat that you don'tcare to own.
Maybe this works better if youthrow your cell phone.
So that was one of the firstpoems I wrote and became the
title of the book and also alittle bit of what we're going
to talk about today.
I'm hoping that I can sharewith your listeners a couple of
(04:08):
tips and tricks on how to throwtheir hat right, to create a
forcing function to overcomeobstacles and do those things
that they know they want to door that is in line with their
dreams, but they just haven'tdone it, for whatever reason, to
go, start living the life thatthey want to live.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, I think that's great.
A lot of people have that fenceblocking them?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, and so how do we?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
get over that fence.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah and force yourself to go do it.
And yeah, a little backgroundon me.
I asked about a little bitabout myself.
I am married.
I've got four awesome kids,ages 21 to 27.
So just starting to becomeempty nesters 27.
So just starting to becomeempty nesters.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Time to party now, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That's right.
Professionally, I'm amechanical engineer that kind of
moved into sales.
I got my MBA from theUniversity of Michigan and then
realized that salespeople looklike they had more fun than
engineers.
So I moved into the sales sideand I've been doing that now for
over 25 years.
I've worked for Gateway, ibm,intel where I'm at today and
(05:07):
I've covered some of the largestcompanies in the world.
I've sold Shell Oil, exxonMobil and my current customer is
AT&T.
So a lot of big customers.
But I think my professionalcareer is like one side of me.
But I think what I'm reallyproud of is that I've lived a
life that's been purposeful inpursuing the things that I
defined as successful and thingsthat I wanted to go do.
(05:28):
I think a lot of people don'ttake the time or really spend
the time thinking about what isit that success really means to
me?
What you know, what do I reallywant to do with this life that
we've got on this planet?
And and so for me and I think Itold you about this, nikki, the
other day, I was this wasprobably about five, six, seven
years ago I was cleaning out anold suitcase that I had,
(05:52):
actually a briefcase.
You remember the old briefcasedays with the handle on top.
I was cleaning that out and Ifound a piece of paper that I
wrote down a bunch of stuff realearly in our marriage that I
said I wanted to go do Like.
These were the things that Idefined as success.
And here I found it 25 yearslater, which was cool, and I
wanted to share some of thethings that I'd written down.
(06:13):
One of them was be a goodhusband right, and I wanted to
be a good dad.
I look back and I'm like I'vebeen married 30 years this
November.
We still pretty much like eachother most times and I've got
four awesome kids and they'reall contributing members of
society at different, varyingdegrees right, but I'm proud of
all four of them.
They're all awesome littlehuman beings, and so I feel like
(06:35):
that was a little check mark.
Obtain a Patent was actually oneof my one on there, which I did
.
I think it was 2012, 2013,.
Somewhere in there, I got apatent for a headband holder.
That also also led to anotherone, which was start a company.
My wife and I started a companyin 2011 called Heidi's house.
That is still going to this day, where we sell the headband
(06:56):
holders, mostly on on Amazon.
I had on there that I wanted totry standup again, and I'll walk
you through that later.
Cause that later, because Ithink that's how you and I met
and the way that this wholething got connected, so that's a
fun little story, theroundabout way of how that
worked.
I also had to start flyingagain, so that's a real passion
of mine.
You highlighted that in theintro.
I got my pilot's license when Iwas 16.
(07:18):
And then I ran out of both timeand money.
I went off to college and itjust got super expensive, and so
my goal was to eventually startflying again and then own an
airplane, and so I made thatdream a reality in 2020, be a
successful sales executive.
I've ticked that one off thelist.
And then there's there was onethat I had not done yet, and
(07:39):
that was publish a book, andhopefully in a few days I get to
check that one off the list andactually publish it.
But I think there are a coupleof lessons that, as I was
thinking about this and talkingto you, that I thought would be
takeaways, right as I reflectback, and the first one is write
down what you really want,right?
Get it in black and white andbe specific.
I think a lot of people justdon't take the time right, just
(08:02):
start running after whatevershiny object or whatever other
people think that they should bedoing, or what they think other
people think they should bedoing, which is probably more
accurate a lot of times butreally take the time to sit down
and say what's important to me,what matters to my life, and
when I look back, what do I wantto be able to point to that
says, hey, this, I feel like Ilived a life that was on my
(08:22):
terms, and so define whatsuccess is for you and don't let
others change that for you, butyou can change it yourself.
Right, I've certainly changedsome of the things that matter
to me, and we'll talk about thatlater.
Right, what I'm passionateabout today is a lot different
than before, but then the nextthing is throw that hat right.
Make a commitment, a promise,an obligation that forces you to
(08:43):
start going down that path.
Right, if this is something youreally want.
A lot of times for our own lives, we're like, yeah, I really
want this, but I've got thisother thing I got to do first,
or I got this that I want to do,or I've got these obligations
or I've got kids or whatever.
But start making those movesthat put you in a position to be
successful on the things thatyou said you want to do.
And if you don't do them, thenreally assess is it that
(09:04):
important to you?
Or, if it is, start knockingout the blockers and then do
something every day that movesthe needle towards your goal, no
matter how small, right, but dosomething every day.
If this is a real goal, startdoing stuff every day that moves
that needle forward.
And it doesn't really matterhow you feel, right, you're
going to.
There's going to be days thatyou get up and you're like I
(09:26):
don't feel like doing it todayand push past that and just do
it.
Do the things that you know youneed to do and, at the end of
the day, this was anothergrandpa-ism.
Is that a thing, grandpa-ism?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I guess it is yeah that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
He said just at the end of the day, you need to look
in the mirror.
And he was a sales guy, right,and so he was teaching me how to
go sell.
And he said, every day, ifyou're working out of your house
which I've done now for thebetter part of almost 30 years,
he said you've got to get upevery morning and be able to
look in the mirror and say I'mdoing the things that are moving
forward on moving a sale,moving whatever it is, and I
(10:02):
think it applies to so many morethings than just sales.
But sales is a great analogyfor that, right, Because if you
get up in the morning and youend up drinking a coffee and
then go and mowing your grassand you do a bunch of stuff that
isn't related to moving sales,down the road, one day turns
into two days, turns into a week, turns into a month, and all of
a sudden you're wondering whythings aren't moving.
And then the salesperson thatgets up every day and can
(10:24):
honestly look in the mirror andsay you know what I did do that
call today.
I did make those prospectingthings, I did do the things that
I need to do to move the ballforward.
It's amazing that eventuallythose are the people that people
look at and say, gosh, why ishe successful?
Why did that drop into his lap?
Why did and it's like it didn'tdrop into the lap, right, it
was all these little thingsbuilt up over time did exactly
(10:46):
what we need to do, Whateverthat works in sales but also
works in life right, it works inweight loss, it works in all
the different areas right, Ifyou get up every day and do the
things you know you're supposedto do and we're really good,
Nikki, at lying to do to movethis thing forward.
(11:07):
And if not, that's okay, Dobetter tomorrow and you'll find
that over time, thoseincremental steps actually make
a huge difference.
And then, finally, don't bediscouraged by failure.
Learn from it.
I think there's a lot of timesand we talk about one of one of
my biggest failures, right thatultimately led us together was a
(11:27):
harsh one, right?
But you, but I learned from it,and it took me a long time to
learn the lesson, and maybe Ican shortcut that.
This is a short, a confidentshortcut, so maybe we can
shortcut that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Tell me that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I don't have to go through all the pain.
There is a quote that brings tomind, right, bill Gates and you
and I talked about this theother day right, most people
overestimate what they can do ina year, but underestimate what
they can do in 10 years.
And, yeah, a lot of people justthink I'm going to get all this
done, and then, when they don'tget it done, they're super
(11:58):
discouraged and they'refrustrated, and sometimes it's
just the wrong time horizon,right?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
So write it down.
Do one small thing every daytoward the goal and then learn
from failure.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good summary of what I said a
lot longer.
Yeah, yeah, that's a goodsummary of what I said a lot
longer.
So I think.
So one of the things that wetalked about was people that lie
to themselves or aren't honestabout themselves, and there was
a fun poem that you and I readcalled time.
I was going to get that one out.
You want to hear that.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, please yes.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So this one is relatable for a lot of us.
I still struggle with thisevery now and then, but I'm
getting.
I try to get better all thetime.
Actually, it's not called time,it's called late.
Look at me, I don't even knowmy own poem.
All right, we all have thatfriend who is constantly late.
They're never on time.
It's a character trait.
There was traffic flat tires.
(13:20):
They're not inept.
The alarm failed again and theyoverslept.
If you find you're late toevery event, making up stories
to explain where time went, thenperhaps you're a friend who
needs a new clock to leave extraearly or to start to take stock
.
Your word is important, so bethere on time.
The excuses are cheap and notworth a dime.
You have to be true to thepromise you've made.
(13:41):
Show up and be present anddon't be delayed.
I just looked down and my watchmust have died.
I'm late to meet friends, mybattery's fried this is ironic
and I have to go.
We were meeting for lunch.
I guess I'll eat crow.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Oh my gosh, Jesse, this is something I struggle
with.
I don't know if it's because Ihave too much on my plate.
I don't know how to.
I want to do it all, Like yousaid, write it all down.
I have so many things that Iwant to do and I guess I need to
prioritize better, but I just Itry to do it all and it's like
I get behind, a little bitbehind, a little behind, I'm
(14:18):
like, but I still have to do itall.
Like how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You're like a doctor's office, right Morning
and by the evening it's oh mygosh.
You got a bunch of peoplewaiting in the lobby.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yes, yes, that's exactly right, oh yes.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, I don't know.
I do think, I do think I dothink there is a level of
commitment around time.
That's hard to do, but it's.
It is important, right, Becauseif you've got, if you are
meeting somebody and this is Iused to really be bad at this,
right, and I've gotten better Istill struggle at times.
Yeah, okay, but look people, ifyou say you're going to be
(14:52):
somewhere, if you're going tomeet somebody for breakfast, if
you're going to do something,and then they end up sitting
there waiting 15, 20 minutes,right, you're not valuing their
time.
Right, you're valuing your owntime, but you're not valuing
their time.
And I think, when you startlooking at it, as you know, that
everybody that you'reinteracting with is a valuable
person, right, a valuable personhas their times valuable, all
the things about them arevaluable, and you treat that in
(15:14):
that type of a way, right, thatsays, hey, yeah, I don't want to
be disrespectful to their time,I want to be respectful of
their time.
And I know, like my onedaughter really struggles with
this and I and then you hear hermake up excuses the traffic was
bad, and I'm like, look, thetraffic in Atlanta is always bad
, right, so just leave 15minutes earlier, you plan for
(15:36):
the worst case scenario insteadof the best case scenario, and
she always plans for if I leave,I got three minutes to spare.
And then you have a hiccup,have a hiccup, problems, right,
and so there is a.
There is an element of justchanging the way you think about
it and then changing the waythat you engage with the world,
kind of recognizing that, liketoday, my wife had to go down to
get her global entry card right.
(15:57):
We're going to Italy in acouple of weeks and we wanted to
have global entry and she hadto do an interview and those
interviews are scheduled inincrements online and you can't
be late.
If you're late, they skip overyou.
And then you got problems,especially when we're leaving in
a few months, a few weeks.
And I just said we're going toleave and we're going to get
there half hour early and mydaughter was going with us, the
one that's always late and she'sjust.
(16:18):
This is crazy.
But when we were driving there,she's like this is cool because
there's no stress.
She's normally.
I've got all this internalstress as I go.
Do it.
It takes all the stress out.
So, anyway, that's my that'swhere that poem came from though
, Because late is one of thosethings that I think all of us at
one time or another strugglewith, but not everybody, though.
I get my my one daughter'sfiancee guy's early to
(16:41):
everything and he's he getsoffended when people are late,
and at some level that'srightfully so, yeah absolutely I
it when people are late and atsome level it's rightfully so.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, absolutely I.
It's something that I really Idon't know why I do that.
I it's like a relationship withtime.
I think that I have more of itthan I do, and then I end up
like struggling with it.
But you're right, and thenyou're like heart is pounding on
the way there because you don'twant to be late, because you
don't want to let somebody down,and it's like ridiculous,
versus if you just stopped whatyou were doing, put it aside 30
(17:09):
minutes earlier and then justpicked it up, if you got there
early, you could work on it.
Then I know there's different,a different way to do this that
makes more sense.
I just have to.
I don't know, do I just have towrite it down as one of my
goals and acknowledge?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
yeah, I think.
I think acknowledging is thefirst step in fixing right.
If you really want to fix it,you got to acknowledge that
there's a problem and then justgo attack it and start
incremental, like we talkedabout.
Grab your next meeting and justthe other thing to do is push
everything back 15 minutes andthen just pretend like it starts
.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Not like it starts earlier, but, I think, changing
the perspective.
A lot of people look at theperspective as oh, the world's
not cooperating with me, thistraffic hit, or oh, yeah, I
think about because and that'swhat changed it for me, right,
it was like, oh, do I reallywant, do I really not value
(18:13):
their time?
I do.
The fact that they are willingto meet with me for breakfast or
do whatever, right, it meansthat they're taking the time.
I want to be respectful of that.
And that switch in my brain, Ithink, started really making a
difference.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, I remember my husband when we owned our first
company back in Boise a longtime ago it was like 20 years
ago he made the switch fromrushing to be like nope, I'm
done with that.
I'm not going to stress myselfout over being on time.
I will always be early from nowon, and he is.
He's always early now.
He just made the switch, so Iknow that it's possible, Need to
(18:43):
do it.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
You haven't done it yet.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I haven't done it yet .
I haven't done it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yet You'll get there, you'll get there, I will.
I will Soon, can you tell?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
me, jesse.
Did you have a low point inyour journey where something
happened and you made a change,a shift in the way you were
thinking about things?
What happened in your life?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, can I tell you a story?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I'd love it.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Tell you a story that got me there.
So while I was in college Istarted my first venture
juggling.
I was juggling for birthdayparties and I was.
I could juggle fire, knives,rings, pins, all that kind of
stuff.
I had a unicycle, right I washalfway to a clown.
But I was juggling a park witha friend of mine and this lady
walked by and she asked me if Idid shows and I said and at the
(19:25):
time I'd done a few birthdayparties and everything else but
I had this thing in my head thateventually I'd love to do
bigger shows.
And so I'd actually made upbusiness cards and I had them on
me and so I looked veryprofessional, right, jesse
Jensen juggling, it was likethree J's inside of three little
.
So I handed her one of my cards.
I said, absolutely, I do shows.
And she goes oh awesome, I'm ateacher and I'd like to see if
(19:47):
we could maybe hire you to comeinto our it was like an
elementary, middle school, combotype school and come in and do
our assembly.
So they had these bigassemblies and they would, they
wanted to bring somebody in.
And so she says do you do that?
And I'm like, absolutely, now,I had no, nothing.
I'd done a couple of birthdayparties for kids, right, I knew
I'd interact with kids and Iknow how to have fun.
(20:08):
But I she's like it would beabout an hour.
I'm like, okay, and she goes,let me talk to the principal,
I'll give you a call.
And she's like how much do youcharge?
I'm like $500 to do to come toyour school, plus expenses.
And she was like, okay.
So she calls me a couple ofdays later and she said talk to
the principal and we'd like tohire you.
And so talk about throwing yourhat right Now I'm fully
(20:33):
committed.
I've got a gig scheduled.
It wasn't for about a month anda half, but I had no real show
and so I had to come up with anentire show and I had a lot of
things right.
I had juggling things.
I could juggle balls, knives,rings, fire, all this other
stuff right.
But I didn't have a show and soI started trying to figure out
what I was going to do and Iultimately came up with gas,
(20:55):
goals, attitude, andstick-to-itiveness goes and
makes you be successful.
If you put that in the tank,you can go and be successful.
And that was the whole show andI built the whole thing around.
That Ended up goingfantastically.
I ended up doing a bunch ofshows for a bunch of different
schools, which led to me doingour talent show in the college.
(21:15):
I was a fairly small schoolGeneral Motors Institute is
where I went to college in FlintMichigan and so we had this
talent show and so I juggled, Iput a bunch of the stuff
together.
I didn't use gas or anything,the goals, attitudes I just did
a short little bit to some musicand ended up winning first
place in the talent show, whichled to a lady coming up to me
(21:36):
after the show saying, hey,we've got a professional
comedian coming to FlintMichigan named Jonathan Solomon.
Now this guy had been on theTonight Show, he was doing the
circuit right, he'd performedwith all the big names and
everything.
Back in the day he was comingthrough Flint and he needed an
opening act and she wondered ifI'd be his opening act and I
said sure.
(21:56):
I said, can I do stand-up, orwhat do you want me to do?
She goes you can do whateveryou want, but you got 20 minutes
.
In my infinite wisdom, I'mgoing to do 20 minutes of
standup.
I'm not going to use any ofthese crutches of juggling or
anything like that.
And so you're laughing, nikki,because 20 minutes of standup is
an eternity, especially ifyou've never done it right, and
I'd never done anything relatedto standup.
(22:17):
I just watched it and I lovedit and I thought it was
something that I wanted to maybego do.
So the day rolls around and I'dbeen working on jokes, I'd tried
it out with a couple of myfriends and I was trying to get
20 minutes worth of materialpulled together and which is
super hard, right.
And so, anyway, I get there theday of.
There's about 200 people thisis a big event, right?
(22:39):
So I got 400 eyeballs lookingat me it's just me a stool and a
microphone.
I have a black and whitepicture somewhere that night
that a friend of mine took.
He was like a photographer.
He took the picture and I'vegot it somewhere.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
You have to find that .
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, it was before I bombed, so I was still smiling
at that point.
So, anyway, I get up and Istart going right and nothing is
landing.
I've just got 400 blank stares,just 400 blank eyeballs, just
staring back at me, just lookingat me, and I was probably 14
minutes in before I got my firstchuckle.
(23:16):
And then I got a couple morejokes and they laughed and I.
The other thing is, if they'renot laughing, right, you go
through your material superquick.
So I had, and I had about ahalf hour of material that I'd
written, but it was so bad.
It was so bad and it wasn't inthe form of like we've learned
how to do this now and how tostructure stuff, and I didn't
(23:36):
have any of that, I was justtotally winging it up there and
but I did hit on a couple ofjokes towards the end, got some
laughter, and then Jonathan gotup and and he killed it.
He just did a great job, he wassuper funny and I still
remember I remember it probablybecause it was so traumatic,
right, but I remember the roomitself had this border up all
the way around it and I rememberJonathan's first joke was he
(23:59):
got up and he said I feel likeI'm sitting in my grandmother's
bathroom and that border lookedjust like a grandmother's
bathroom and everybody laughedbecause it was so accurate.
So anyway, we got done.
I sat down with him.
Everybody left and it was justme and Jonathan and he said so
how long have you been doingstand-up?
I'm like 20 minutes.
And he's like you were reallygood, you should keep it up.
And at the time I couldn't evenhear the feedback.
(24:29):
All I heard in my own brain wasthis was the worst experience
of my life Standing up there for20 minutes with nobody laughing
, thinking I think comedy isprobably more personal than
almost any other type of artform, because you wrote it and
you performed it, and when youwrote it you thought it was
funny, otherwise you wouldn'tperform it.
Then you got up and youperformed it and there's like
nobody to blame except you ornot, that you blame.
But there is a part of you thatlike you throw yourself out
(24:51):
there.
This is you, right.
And then nobody thinks you arefunny.
It hurts at a deeper level thanmost things, right?
If you're an actor, you canblame it on a crappy script or a
bad director or bad cameraangle.
Comedy is uniquely personal andso that one really set me back
right.
The whole throw your hat thingwas like that didn't work so
(25:12):
good and I think one of thelessons I took away from that is
make sure you do your homeworkright.
Misplaced confidence is also abad thing.
Right Now I think the thingthat I didn't do misplaced
confidence can be okay if youlearn from it right.
At the time I didn't learn fromit.
I was just like this wasterrible.
I don't want to ever do thisagain and it's funny.
(25:34):
Then I found that piece ofpaper saying that I wanted to
try stand-up again and I had notdone anything with it for
decades.
But I did watch the movieComedian.
I don't know if you've everseen that movie.
Have you ever seen the moviecomedian?
It's got Jerry Seinfeld.
It was.
You know.
Jerry Seinfeld had this, theshow Seinfeld.
Have you heard of that showSeinfeld?
(26:00):
Yeah, seinfeld, yeah, I mean,yeah, I've heard of Seinfeld.
When he got done with that TVshow he went back into standup
comedy and he did a documentarycalled Comedian and it followed
him around and anybody that'sdone comedy should go watch that
movie because it's fascinatingand I think it was.
For me it was a real wake-upcall on.
So Jerry Seinfeld right, donethis, he'd been a comedian for
(26:21):
years went and did this supersuccessful TV show and then he
went back into comedy.
He always wrote all his stuffon the yellow notepad and he was
in these comedy clubs in NewYork City bombing, trying new
jokes, having things that didn'tfly, forgetting his lines,
pulling out his paper, lookingat it, trying different things
(26:42):
and watching the process of himhey, I know this joke's funny,
but it's not landing the way Ithink it should and tweaking it
and playing with it and gettingit to the point where it's super
funny and then that would gointo his next hour-long act.
And watching that whole processis what that documentary was
and I remember and it had othercomedians in it that he was
performing with and stuff thatwere on the documentary, and I
remember for me it was like areal wake-up call of wow.
(27:08):
I was so arrogant andmisinformed and not doing my
homework on what it means to docomedy and what it takes to be
good at comedy.
And watching Jerry Seinfeld bewilling to go and fail and be
willing to try new things and bewilling to, and even with
people knowing who he is nothaving a joke.
You thought everything he saidis funny.
It's because he works reallyhard to make sure that
(27:30):
everything he says is funny, andso that, for me, was a real
inspiration.
So I actually looked up JonathanSolomon and found out that he
was teaching comedy in SantaMonica College in California and
I sent him a note and I saidman, you probably don't remember
me, but I remember you like itwas yesterday, because it was so
(27:50):
impactful in my life for allthe wrong reasons.
And I told him I would love tograb a coffee the next time I'm
out in LA.
I was going to LA all the timeat the time because I was
covering Warner Media.
At&t had just bought WarnerMedia, so I was flying out there
quite frequently.
I remember he sent me back thesuper short note just saying I
charge a $350 an hour.
So I'm like kind of curt, whatthe heck was that?
(28:13):
And then maybe two months laterI got a note out of the blue
from him and he and it just saidhey, jesse, this is Jonathan.
I had some problems with myemail.
I was responding to people.
I'm not sure if I ever repliedto you or if my reply was
appropriate.
But I just read that your emailagain and saw that you said
you'd come out here frequently.
Let's grab a coffee.
He said I'd love to, and thenthe pandemic hit and all travel
(28:38):
was kind of shut down.
And then he reached back out tome.
We ended up talking on thephone.
I shared with him the whole,that whole night.
He's by my side man.
I did so many shows I don'tremember it, but he goes.
That sounds accurate and hegoes because of the pandemic.
I'm gonna do an online course,he said you should think about
taking it.
So I did this course for 10weeks or whatever it was.
It was very much like JeffJustice's class, actually, and
(29:01):
it jumped me back into comedy alittle bit right.
So I ended up taking the classand then I graduated and, just
like us, I I had to do aperformance and at the time we
were finally out of the mask.
It was in 2022.
So this was probably around2021, 2022.
I finally did the class and thegraduation was at the Hollywood
Improv on Melrose Avenue in LAand it was supposed to be at the
(29:22):
comedy store and then somethinghappened with scheduling and so
we ended up at the HollywoodImprov, which was also very cool
, and happened with scheduling,and so we ended up at the
Hollywood Improv, which was alsovery cool, and I performed a
seven minute set in front of asold-out crowd.
So that was jumped back into itand it was cool.
Then I came back to Atlanta andI performed a couple times at
the Laughing Skull and a fewother places and then went
dormant again for a little whileuntil I took the class with
Jeff Justice and did a few more,and now I probably do have
(29:45):
about 20 minutes of relativelyfunny stuff that I could do in a
pickle.
But that was a low point thatreally turned.
Just a couple of lessons thatcame out of that.
I think misplaced confidence ispainful, but with honest
reflection we can provide somebig learnings, and so use those
failures as a chance to learnand be better.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah I wanted to mention.
It reminds me of something thata lot of us go through, which I
call the try cry by loop.
When you go to you have thislike confidence, this initial
confidence of I want to try thisthing.
So you go and you try it and itgoes terribly because you're
new and every time you trysomething new it's probably not
going to be the best.
And then you start comparingyourself to like these other
(30:27):
people that you're seeing, likethe Jerry Seinfelds out there in
comedy and the big names, andyou're like, oh my gosh, I'm so
terrible and you cry about it,you're so upset, and then you
say goodbye to it for a longtime, right, like, ah, I never
want to feel that again, ever.
I just don't want to feel thatway again.
So it's like this loop of tryingsomething new, being bad,
because we're always bad, wefail.
(30:48):
We have to fail forward, likeyou were saying, learning from
it.
But it's a mindset shift.
It's really being in the victimmindset of oh, I'm just not
good at it, versus being in thegrowth mindset of I'm not good
at it yet, but if I work at itand I put in the time and the
effort and study it and tweak it, learn something, apply it, get
feedback and tweak, do it again, do it over and over again.
(31:09):
Then you can be good.
You can be good at anything youwant to do, if you are able to
realize that I'm going to be bad, it's going to be messy, and
then I just keep going.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, and I think, recognizing that I think a lot
of times we don't think throughwhat's the worst case scenario,
right, we think it's the end ofthe world and most of the time
it's not that big of a deal.
Most people don't even careabout us nearly as much as we
think they do, right?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, they don't.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, and I look back and that night Jonathan didn't
remember it and I doubt any ofthose 200 people that were in
that room remember anythingabout that night.
Even though it was huge for me,it was a big nothing and blip
in time for most people.
So If you time for most people.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
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sound, it might not just be yourbody, it could be your brain,
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Dnrs stands for dynamic neuralretraining system.
It's a science backed programthat helps rewire the limbic
system, the part of the brainresponsible for fear, fight or
(32:06):
flight and overreaction toeveryday things.
It changed everything for me,helping me heal and return to
the creative life I love.
If this speaks to you, clickthe link in the caption.
It might be the answer you'relooking for.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
The other little bonus kind of lesson I learned
from that is relationships areeverything in this world Build
them, grow them, cherish them.
Just being able to reach out toJonathan and now I still have
that relationship with him andit's just fun.
It's cool to go back after somany years and have that little
connection and the connectionyou and I made, all the
connections that we have throughthese crazy life.
(32:41):
Yeah, that's the fun part oflife.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I think you're really good at that, Jesse.
The relationship aspect of it.
That's something you're reallygood at, that, Jesse.
The relationship aspect of it,that's something you're good at
throwing your hat over the fencewith is we had class together
and there was, I don't know 15,16 of us, but not everybody
reaches us back out and noteverybody reconnects.
And you did that with Jonathan,you did that with me.
You're really good atcultivating relationships.
I wonder why that is.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
That might be the sales guy in me.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Maybe, yeah, why that is?
That might be the sales guy inme.
Maybe, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
You're not afraid to do that, you're not afraid to
follow up.
Yeah, at the end of the day,sales is about helping solve
people's problems, and peoplethink a real sales is you're.
At the end of the day, ifyou're doing sales the right way
, people should feel like you'rea partner and you're helping
them do something that reallymatters, right?
I think a lot of times you feellike you think of a time when
you bought something, nikki,that you're just like oh, I
(33:31):
really needed that.
It solved a real problem for meand you were just happy to hand
over your money.
Right, that's how sales shouldbe.
It shouldn't be like I feellike I got scammed, I feel like
somebody tricked me.
I feel true, sales is reallyabout relationships and caring
that the other person reallyneeds, wants and has a use for
what you're trying to sell them,and I think that's how I've
approached sales my whole lifeand how I approach relationships
(33:54):
.
I think, at the end of the day,you can't do these jobs
long-term if people feel likeyou used them and you didn't
really care about what they'retrying to do.
Yeah, so even this podcast,right, my goal for this is
really to try to make itsuccessful for you right Help
contribute to your audience andhelp drive that.
And I think that maybe shifts tothat next thing.
(34:16):
As I look at my passions andgoals and things I've learned
along the way, I think it'schanged for me right.
Like in the early on it wassuccess at work, it was certain
things, and as I've gotten oldernow I've started to make this
switch towards helping, coaching, mentoring others right and
inspiring kind of that nextgeneration.
And that's been a fun switch tohappen over the last few years,
(34:38):
right as I, I think, justgotten older.
I think all of us realizedseveral people that poured into
me when I was younger made mewho I am today.
I had some sales guys that Iworked for that.
They've all passed on now butthe mark they left for me was
I'll never forget it.
It made me who I am today and Iwant to do that for other
people.
(34:59):
So that's also part of theshift and passion that I have
today.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
What does that look like in your life right now,
Jesse?
How are you mentoring andhelping people?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, there's a couple different areas.
One of them is through aviation, so we talked a little bit
about flying right and probablyabout eight years ago my
daughter was doing this fun runfor cancer research on
children's brain tumors, and itoriginated in Rome, georgia, at
the airport.
So I had to get her there.
At five in the morning she wasable to drive, but I didn't want
(35:29):
her driving up there that early.
I don't know why they call themfun runs when they start at
five in the morning.
Nothing fun about that for me.
And so I was getting her thereand then I went to actually go
play a round of golf.
So I got done with the round ofgolf, came back and she was
cleaning everything up.
That had been a reallysuccessful day.
A bunch of people showed up.
They raised a bunch of money.
This was her senior project inhigh school and when I got back,
there were these four littleairplanes sitting out on the
(35:51):
tarmac and my daughter and theywere all painted like tigers and
if you go to tigerflightorg Ithink you can see what they look
like.
But there were four little twoseat airplanes and she's, what
is that I'm like?
I have no idea.
And she's, what is that?
I'm like I have no idea.
So I started chatting with oneof the guys over the fence and,
before you knew it, they invitedus around and my daughter and I
(36:11):
were flying in those planesthat less than 20 minutes later.
And then they found out that Iwas a pilot that hadn't flown
for several years and they'relike we'd love to get you back
into it.
And I ended up joining TigerFlight and started flying.
And one of the missions of TigerFlight is to really inspire
that next generation of youthand get them excited.
And we really focus a lot onunderprivileged kids, kids that
(36:32):
kind of don't feel like they gotmuch hope, don't feel like this
is something they could do.
And you get them up in anairplane and it doesn't happen
to every kid and doesn't evenhappen to every other kid, but
you do find one in five, one in10 that just ignites something
inside of them that nothing elsecan do, like aviation.
Right, if you really loveflying, like that's.
(36:52):
I started flying when I waslike, I think, six or seven, at
a promotion at our airport thatyou could fly for a penny a
pound and my dad took me outthere and I went flying and that
ignited something in me and Isomeday I want to fly, and that
led me to get my pilot's licenseat 16 years old and I wanted to
give that back.
And so you get these kids upthere and you get that one kid
(37:14):
that's oh, this is unbelievable,and they may not even become a
pilot right, but it ignites,like this vision of themselves
that didn't exist before.
I flew an airplane and we alwayslet the kids fly for a little
bit and stuff.
And I flew an airplane, I cando anything I can, and so it's a
lot of fun.
And so that's one way that Ithink today that I really have a
(37:34):
lot of passion around doingthat for kids.
And I will say if any of yourlisteners have a kid in their
life that they'd love to get upin an airplane, have them, reach
out to me.
If you're in the Atlanta area,we'll get them up there.
Right, we do it as part of EAA709.
So the Experimental AircraftAssociation has a whole program
around it that we plug into andI can take them up in my
(37:56):
airplane.
We can do it in the TigerFlight airplane, whatever.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
They're both a lot of fun, I'm going to get in touch
with you, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, it's jesse at throwthathatcom.
It's probably the easiest way,right.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
That's just Jesse at.
Throw that hatcom.
J E S S E.
That's correct.
Yep, jesse, I'm also onLinkedIn.
I think you can find me onLinkedIn.
You'll see a bunch of tigerflight airplanes behind me.
So then you know you have theright, jesse.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Oh cool, that's your like profile picture.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, the profile picture has some tiger, flight
planes, flight planes.
The other thing that I'vestarted doing a lot more is
leveraging.
So I went back to school butit's actually two years ago this
summer to Georgetown Universityin Washington DC and took
executive leadership coachingclass that lasted about six
months and I'm a certifiedexecutive leadership coach.
(38:47):
And I think, nikki, you and Iwere talking what is coaching
versus all these other things?
Right, and I think coachingreally feels to some people a
lot like therapy, but it's quitea bit different.
If you think about therapy, ittakes a person and tries to look
backwards and figure out whyare you the way you are, what
went wrong in your life or whatchildhood trauma caused this, or
(39:07):
why am I always late?
Maybe I had something in mypast?
Coaching doesn't care right.
Coaching doesn't care whyyou're the way you are.
Coaching looks forward and saysyou are this way and you want
to.
If you want to change that, howdo we change it?
What do we go do and what?
And it's really a coach isreally a good verbal mirror for
reflection on somebody thatgives them the space to figure
(39:28):
out what they really want andhow to go get it and can really
lead to some pretty deepinsights, which is different
than I've done.
A lot of mentorship, if youthink about mentorship, is more
about trying to teach somebodysomething that you know how to
do, almost in sales.
I do a lot of mentorship insales.
I've been there, done that.
Let me show you how.
That, how I do it right, orwhat worked in the past or what
(39:50):
things might work for you.
And then the other thing that Ido a little bit of is
consulting, right, like aroundsmall businesses, and since I've
started a business, I'llprobably do a little bit free
consulting with you.
Or even around books right,I've wrote a book now.
I went through process.
Consulting is really aboutproviding solutions to a person
or a company, right, hey, you'retrying to get this done, here's
some solutions, here's someideas, here's some things.
(40:11):
A mentor so really, at the endof the day, consultants are
hired to provide solutions.
Mentors provide guidance basedon experience that they've had
before, and then coaches helpindividuals discover their own
path forward.
And I think, if you kind oflook at those three types of
things, I like to help people inthose three vectors, right,
depending on what they're tryingto accomplish.
(40:31):
And that's been a fun littlething.
Intel has a whole coachingprogram and a mentorship program
.
I'm part of both of those andI've mentored and coached a
number of leaders at our companyas part of that.
So that's.
I'm pretty passionate aboutthose things today.
Right, I'm still passionateabout sales.
I still love my career and myjob and the things that I'm
doing with AT&T.
(40:51):
But I think pouring into thatnext generation and those people
that are trying to makethemselves better and grow,
trying to help them do that, isa part of what I'm passionate
about.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So if you're wanting to grow in something, reach out,
find a mentor, find a coach,find someone who can help you on
the path, someone who's donewhat you want to do.
Yeah, and that a part of thatis being brave enough to ask.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, that's very true.
I had a couple of University ofMichigan kids reach out to me a
couple of years ago and theywere trying to start a new
company and wanted some adviceon sales.
And I took them out tobreakfast and we still have
breakfast now, probably onceevery six months or so, and
they're killing it there.
They started a company calledbird dog and they're doing an
outstanding job and I can't takeany credit.
(41:36):
All I can do is sit back almostlike a proud dad and say, yeah,
these guys are killing it andat some point I gave them a
little bit of advice and thatwas it.
And they did all the hard workand they've got the ideas and
they're super ambitious.
But I love doing that kind ofstuff and I remember when they
reached out, they actuallyreached out and used the wrong
name, and so I told them thefirst key of sales to use the
(41:57):
correct name when you reach outto a new prospect oh no.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
All right, we are going to move into the third
part of the conversation, andthat is the confidence quickfire
round.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Bring it on.
Bring it on.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Okay, the first question is Jesse, how do you
define confidence?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I really thought about this actually quite a bit,
because I knew this one wascoming, and I think it's like a
self-assurance about your owntalent and abilities and worth,
right, like confidence reallycomes from the self-assurance of
recognizing, hey, I've gottalents and abilities and I've
got worth.
But I also recognizing thatfailure is an opportunity to
learn and grow, right, that inthat confidence, you may have
(42:36):
some setbacks, right, but thoseare real opportunities to learn
and grow.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Second question is what's one bold move you made
before you felt ready?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Almost every job I've ever taken.
When I jump into the next job,the next thing that I'm going to
go do, I always feel like I'mnot ready and there's a lot of
excitement, nervousness thatgoes into that.
But each of those new jobsthose new, it's a lot of times
they require to move across thecountry.
They were very disruptive tothe family and I never felt like
we were fully ready and italways worked out.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
It makes me think of something I watched an interview
about how a lot of like highlevel actors will feel that when
they take on a role and theyknow that it's the right role
because they don't feel likethey can do it or they feel like
it's outside of their comfortzone, they don't feel ready for
it.
So they're like I'm definitelydoing that.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I feel it's pitting my stomach.
It feels like that's probably agood thing.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Third question how do you quiet your inner critic or
how do you face your innercritic?
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, boy, that's a good one, because I think we are
all our harshest critics,aren't we?
We just we're so hard onourselves.
For me, I like to be asprepared as I can do my homework
, do the time and the prep.
I think I told you at one point, if I get up on stage and I
fail because I wasn't ready, thefeeling I have is a lot
different than being fully readyand going up and delivering
exactly what I anticipated, ofdelivering and then not going.
(44:00):
That's a different feeling,because now I'm like okay, I was
prepared, I did my homework.
I didn't land, so I got to gofix it, but it wasn't because I
got up there and rambled on or Iwasn't ready.
I wasn't prepared Because Ialways feel like if you're not
prepared, especially in a comedyact or something like that,
then you're wasting people'stime, you're maybe not giving it
your all, you're not doing whatyou need to do on the back end
(44:20):
of prep.
So I feel like if I've preppedand I've done and I feel like
I'm ready, then the chips willfall where they may.
I gave it my best and if itdidn't work out, then that's a
different feeling than failingbecause I didn't, I wasn't ready
.
And then I think we talkedabout this a little bit before
zoom out and realize none ofthis really matters as much as
we think we're all in this bigspinning ball for just a short
(44:41):
amount of time at the end of theday, and if you look at the
worst case scenario, most of thetime it's really not that bad,
right, it's not as bad as wemake it out to be in our heads.
Most people will give you somegrace and I don't think usually
the consequences are nearly asbad as we make them up to be in
our head.
And then I would say the lastpart is throw that hat right,
just commit.
I think getting that hat overthe fence it helps quiet that
(45:05):
inner critic because now it'sokay.
The inner critic can keep youfrom actually making action,
doing anything right, and onceyou throw that hat, now you
gotta go figure it out.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
And the fourth question is what's one habit
that's helped you build realconfidence?
Speaker 2 (45:17):
I think we talked about this a little bit too
right, Take those steps everyday that help you move the
needle right.
You don't have to do everythingtoday.
You know, a lot of times youfeel like, oh my gosh, I gotta
do these hundred things today,but you gotta do something every
day, and then you'll look backand be like holy smokes, look
how far I came and always belearning and growing.
Those are the things I wouldsay, that that habit of always
(45:40):
moving and learning and growing.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
The fifth final question favorite book or
resource that changed how youthink?
Speaker 2 (45:48):
This feels like a loaded question.
Right, I'm trying to launch abook, but no, but seriously.
I think there's a book calledwho Moved my Cheese?
I don't know, have you?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
ever heard of that one, never, never.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, it's a super simple book, a super easy read.
It's not very thick I don'thave probably not even 100 pages
if I had to guess and it reallygives you profound advice on
how to handle and embrace change.
I think a lot of things thatscare people is change related
right, I'm going to and embracechange.
I think a lot of things thatscare people is change-related
right, I'm going to change myjob.
I'm going to try this new thing.
I'm going to change.
(46:21):
My kids are going off tocollege.
My life's going to changeSomething, and what you realize
as you get older is change isinevitable.
Right, things are always goingto change and there's these
seasons in life that change, andthis book who Moved my Cheese
and there's these seasons inlife that change and this book
who Moved my Cheese is a storyabout two mice.
I think it's like Scurry andScat, or I can't remember their
(46:44):
names Scurry and somebody andit's a lesson that we can all
take away on how to embracechange rather than fight it and
try to hang on to stuff that ischanging and is never going to
be the same again.
And that's, I think, a humantrait, right, we all get
comfortable and we don't want tochange and we don't want the
next thing right.
And my daughter just went backto college on Tuesday and she
(47:04):
was crying like crazy becauseshe's this is my last year and
everything's going to getdifferent.
And that's the reality of life,isn't it?
Things just time marches on,and that book who Moved my
Cheese, I think gives you a goodperspective on how to embrace
it and thrive during change,rather than fear it and shrink
away.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, you're constantly changing and growing,
or you hope to be changing andgrowing right Every level.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, wow, so much wisdom in there, jesse, and I'm
so excited for this book to comeout.
What date does this come out?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So it comes out on August 28th.
It'll be available in hardcoverand softcover on amazoncom.
Go throw that at, there you go.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Pictures.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yeah, so as a backgrounder, this was
illustrated by a college friendof mine.
His son became a professionalillustrator as a career, wow.
And I reached out to him andactually hired him to illustrate
every poem in the book.
So every poem is illustrated bya guy named Jashton Geezer.
And then there are a couplelittle pictures in there that my
(48:06):
daughter also drew, that Ithrew in there.
So if you go to, I got to lookat which page it is.
It's just a second the RoyalFlush on page 26.
She drew the toilet with thecrown.
So that was actually.
She did that artistry.
So Jaston drew the guard on theright, but she drew the little
(48:29):
toilet.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So that's cool and the whole book has this public.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, yeah, that was it.
It's been a lot of fun to toput that thing together and it's
been a lot of fun to.
It was fun to write the poems.
It was fun to put it togetherand that'll be fun to kind of
share it with the world.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah, that's so cool.
That's amazing.
Congratulations on putting yourbook together.
That stick to it-ness that youhave for completing things is
just incredible.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Thank you, nikki.
I appreciate that, and thankyou for the opportunity to talk
to you.
This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, you're a lot of fun.
How can people follow you?
Find you find out more workwith you.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, so again, I'm LinkedIn.
I'm terrible on social media.
I do have a TikTok.
I don't even know what it'scalled.
I think it's called Throw thatHat.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
We'll put a show notes.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, I haven't put anything on that forever.
I'm terrible.
And then I might have anInstagram.
I think I do.
It's probably called Throw thatHat as well, but LinkedIn I'm
active on LinkedIn because of myprofessional life and then just
j Jesse at throw that hatcom isprobably an easy way just to
(49:36):
reach out to me if you got aquestion or want to connect
somehow.
Yeah, flip me a note.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
All right, fantastic.
Thank you so much, Jesse, forbeing on today.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Thanks, Nikki.
It's been a lot of funAppreciate it.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Thanks so much for listening to the Confident
Shortcut.
I hope today's episode wokesomething up in you, reminding
you that your dream matters andyou can start now.
If this sparked something,share it with a friend who needs
it too.
And don't forget to follow meon Instagram at Nikki Sterner
and join our Facebook communityat the Confidence Shortcut.
Ready to take the next step?
Check out my free guide, theConfidence Kickstart, linked in
(50:10):
the show notes.
Keep showing up, keep takingaction and remember the shortcut
to confidence is courage.
Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut, the podcast
for ambitious creatives andentrepreneurs who are ready to
stop overthinking, take boldaction and finally step into the
life they've been dreamingabout.
I'm your host, nikki Sternermom, actor, comedian and
producer.
After years of playing smalland waiting to feel ready, I
went on a courage quest andfound a shortcut to confidence.
(00:21):
Each week, I'll bring you realstories, simple steps and
conversations with experts inmindset, courage and confidence,
plus heart-to-hearts withfellow creatives who are turning
their dreams into reality.
It's time to get unstuck andstart showing up.
Let's dive in.
Welcome to the ConfidenceShortcut.
I'm your host, nikki Sterner.
(00:42):
Today's guest is Jesse Jensen,sales executive by day, poet by
pretty much whenever inspirationstrikes.
During the pandemic, he startedwriting whimsical, funny poems
that turned into his debut book,throw your Hat Over the Fence.
He's a private pilot, avolunteer with Tiger Flight
Foundation, an inventor,entrepreneur and a certified
(01:05):
executive leadership coach.
Jesse lives in Atlanta with hiswife, heidi and their four kids
, who've patiently endured moredinner table poetry readings
than most families.
Today, we're diving into howJesse blends humor, creativity,
leadership and a love for lifeinto everything he does.
I want to welcome to the showJesse Jensen.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thanks, Nikki.
I gotta say it's awesome to behere.
We met earlier this year, whatat Jeff Justice's comedy class,
and I never imagined it wouldlead to a podcast, but I'm glad
that it did.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I know I'm so excited .
Jesse is one of my favoritepeople from the classes and he
is so funny you guys are goingto figure that out right away
after listening to this but he'sincredibly intelligent,
incredibly kind and giving andjust a wonderful human being.
On top of that, he's veryinspiring.
He has systems in place to getthe stuff done that you want to
(01:59):
do, and I'm just so excited foryou to share that with people
today, jesse.
So go ahead and get us startedoff with.
Tell us a little bit about whoyou are, what you do and what
you're passionate about.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You asked me to join based on the book that I wrote
and it's coming out here August28th.
There it is.
It's a little, that's right.
It's a fun illustrated poembook called Throw your Hat Over
the Fence and I feel like that'swhere we should probably start
the conversation.
I remember when we firststarted talking you're like
where'd the title come from?
You know, I chose that title.
(02:33):
There's a poem in the bookcalled Throw your Hat Over the
Fence, but I chose that titlebecause it's a phrase that my
grandpa used to say.
He used to say, jesse, if youreally want to get something
done, then throw your hat overthe fence, and that forces you
to go get it right.
He meant go do something thatmakes you accountable, that
creates a forcing function foryourself to go get something
done, because a lot of us willsit on the sidelines and not do
it.
And for most of my life that'show I've lived.
(02:54):
I love to commit, I love tothrow that hat and use that as a
motivator to get going.
In fact, I love that.
Should I read that poem?
You want to hear it.
Yes, would you please?
I would love that.
Should I read that poem youwant to hear?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
it.
Yes, would you please?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I would love that all right, let's do that okay all
right.
This is throw your hat over thefence.
Throw your hat over the fence.
To many around you it won'tmake sense.
Tamp down the voices that holdyou down.
Push past the negative so oftenaround.
Commitment is hard and scary todo.
Take that first step and betrue to you.
Deepen your bones.
You know that it's right.
(03:24):
Stop the struggle, the internalfight, stop the doubts, the
fear and the worry.
Take the first step in yourlife's journey.
Take that first step to liveout your dream.
Do not let a fence slow downyour steam.
The challenge is real, theobstacle high.
By throwing that hat andletting it fly, you're forcing
your hand to figure it out.
The path is now clear and youhave no doubt, for you now must
(03:46):
go to the other side, retrieveyour hat and feel the pride,
unless it's a hat that you don'tcare to own.
Maybe this works better if youthrow your cell phone.
So that was one of the firstpoems I wrote and became the
title of the book and also alittle bit of what we're going
to talk about today.
I'm hoping that I can sharewith your listeners a couple of
(04:08):
tips and tricks on how to throwtheir hat right, to create a
forcing function to overcomeobstacles and do those things
that they know they want to door that is in line with their
dreams, but they just haven'tdone it, for whatever reason, to
go, start living the life thatthey want to live.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, I think that's great.
A lot of people have that fenceblocking them?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, and so how do we?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
get over that fence.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah and force yourself to go do it.
And yeah, a little backgroundon me.
I asked about a little bitabout myself.
I am married.
I've got four awesome kids,ages 21 to 27.
So just starting to becomeempty nesters 27.
So just starting to becomeempty nesters.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Time to party now, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That's right.
Professionally, I'm amechanical engineer that kind of
moved into sales.
I got my MBA from theUniversity of Michigan and then
realized that salespeople looklike they had more fun than
engineers.
So I moved into the sales sideand I've been doing that now for
over 25 years.
I've worked for Gateway, ibm,intel where I'm at today and
(05:07):
I've covered some of the largestcompanies in the world.
I've sold Shell Oil, exxonMobil and my current customer is
AT&T.
So a lot of big customers.
But I think my professionalcareer is like one side of me.
But I think what I'm reallyproud of is that I've lived a
life that's been purposeful inpursuing the things that I
defined as successful and thingsthat I wanted to go do.
(05:28):
I think a lot of people don'ttake the time or really spend
the time thinking about what isit that success really means to
me?
What you know, what do I reallywant to do with this life that
we've got on this planet?
And and so for me and I think Itold you about this, nikki, the
other day, I was this wasprobably about five, six, seven
years ago I was cleaning out anold suitcase that I had,
(05:52):
actually a briefcase.
You remember the old briefcasedays with the handle on top.
I was cleaning that out and Ifound a piece of paper that I
wrote down a bunch of stuff realearly in our marriage that I
said I wanted to go do Like.
These were the things that Idefined as success.
And here I found it 25 yearslater, which was cool, and I
wanted to share some of thethings that I'd written down.
(06:13):
One of them was be a goodhusband right, and I wanted to
be a good dad.
I look back and I'm like I'vebeen married 30 years this
November.
We still pretty much like eachother most times and I've got
four awesome kids and they'reall contributing members of
society at different, varyingdegrees right, but I'm proud of
all four of them.
They're all awesome littlehuman beings, and so I feel like
(06:35):
that was a little check mark.
Obtain a Patent was actually oneof my one on there, which I did
.
I think it was 2012, 2013,.
Somewhere in there, I got apatent for a headband holder.
That also also led to anotherone, which was start a company.
My wife and I started a companyin 2011 called Heidi's house.
That is still going to this day, where we sell the headband
(06:56):
holders, mostly on on Amazon.
I had on there that I wanted totry standup again, and I'll walk
you through that later.
Cause that later, because Ithink that's how you and I met
and the way that this wholething got connected, so that's a
fun little story, theroundabout way of how that
worked.
I also had to start flyingagain, so that's a real passion
of mine.
You highlighted that in theintro.
I got my pilot's license when Iwas 16.
(07:18):
And then I ran out of both timeand money.
I went off to college and itjust got super expensive, and so
my goal was to eventually startflying again and then own an
airplane, and so I made thatdream a reality in 2020, be a
successful sales executive.
I've ticked that one off thelist.
And then there's there was onethat I had not done yet, and
(07:39):
that was publish a book, andhopefully in a few days I get to
check that one off the list andactually publish it.
But I think there are a coupleof lessons that, as I was
thinking about this and talkingto you, that I thought would be
takeaways, right as I reflectback, and the first one is write
down what you really want,right?
Get it in black and white andbe specific.
I think a lot of people justdon't take the time right, just
(08:02):
start running after whatevershiny object or whatever other
people think that they should bedoing, or what they think other
people think they should bedoing, which is probably more
accurate a lot of times butreally take the time to sit down
and say what's important to me,what matters to my life, and
when I look back, what do I wantto be able to point to that
says, hey, this, I feel like Ilived a life that was on my
(08:22):
terms, and so define whatsuccess is for you and don't let
others change that for you, butyou can change it yourself.
Right, I've certainly changedsome of the things that matter
to me, and we'll talk about thatlater.
Right, what I'm passionateabout today is a lot different
than before, but then the nextthing is throw that hat right.
Make a commitment, a promise,an obligation that forces you to
(08:43):
start going down that path.
Right, if this is something youreally want.
A lot of times for our own lives, we're like, yeah, I really
want this, but I've got thisother thing I got to do first,
or I got this that I want to do,or I've got these obligations
or I've got kids or whatever.
But start making those movesthat put you in a position to be
successful on the things thatyou said you want to do.
And if you don't do them, thenreally assess is it that
(09:04):
important to you?
Or, if it is, start knockingout the blockers and then do
something every day that movesthe needle towards your goal, no
matter how small, right, but dosomething every day.
If this is a real goal, startdoing stuff every day that moves
that needle forward.
And it doesn't really matterhow you feel, right, you're
going to.
There's going to be days thatyou get up and you're like I
(09:26):
don't feel like doing it todayand push past that and just do
it.
Do the things that you know youneed to do and, at the end of
the day, this was anothergrandpa-ism.
Is that a thing, grandpa-ism?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I guess it is yeah that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
He said just at the end of the day, you need to look
in the mirror.
And he was a sales guy, right,and so he was teaching me how to
go sell.
And he said, every day, ifyou're working out of your house
which I've done now for thebetter part of almost 30 years,
he said you've got to get upevery morning and be able to
look in the mirror and say I'mdoing the things that are moving
forward on moving a sale,moving whatever it is, and I
(10:02):
think it applies to so many morethings than just sales.
But sales is a great analogyfor that, right, Because if you
get up in the morning and youend up drinking a coffee and
then go and mowing your grassand you do a bunch of stuff that
isn't related to moving sales,down the road, one day turns
into two days, turns into a week, turns into a month, and all of
a sudden you're wondering whythings aren't moving.
And then the salesperson thatgets up every day and can
(10:24):
honestly look in the mirror andsay you know what I did do that
call today.
I did make those prospectingthings, I did do the things that
I need to do to move the ballforward.
It's amazing that eventuallythose are the people that people
look at and say, gosh, why ishe successful?
Why did that drop into his lap?
Why did and it's like it didn'tdrop into the lap, right, it
was all these little thingsbuilt up over time did exactly
(10:46):
what we need to do, Whateverthat works in sales but also
works in life right, it works inweight loss, it works in all
the different areas right, Ifyou get up every day and do the
things you know you're supposedto do and we're really good,
Nikki, at lying to do to movethis thing forward.
(11:07):
And if not, that's okay, Dobetter tomorrow and you'll find
that over time, thoseincremental steps actually make
a huge difference.
And then, finally, don't bediscouraged by failure.
Learn from it.
I think there's a lot of timesand we talk about one of one of
my biggest failures, right thatultimately led us together was a
(11:27):
harsh one, right?
But you, but I learned from it,and it took me a long time to
learn the lesson, and maybe Ican shortcut that.
This is a short, a confidentshortcut, so maybe we can
shortcut that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Tell me that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I don't have to go through all the pain.
There is a quote that brings tomind, right, bill Gates and you
and I talked about this theother day right, most people
overestimate what they can do ina year, but underestimate what
they can do in 10 years.
And, yeah, a lot of people justthink I'm going to get all this
done, and then, when they don'tget it done, they're super
(11:58):
discouraged and they'refrustrated, and sometimes it's
just the wrong time horizon,right?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
So write it down.
Do one small thing every daytoward the goal and then learn
from failure.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good summary of what I said a
lot longer.
Yeah, yeah, that's a goodsummary of what I said a lot
longer.
So I think.
So one of the things that wetalked about was people that lie
to themselves or aren't honestabout themselves, and there was
a fun poem that you and I readcalled time.
I was going to get that one out.
You want to hear that.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, please yes.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So this one is relatable for a lot of us.
I still struggle with thisevery now and then, but I'm
getting.
I try to get better all thetime.
Actually, it's not called time,it's called late.
Look at me, I don't even knowmy own poem.
All right, we all have thatfriend who is constantly late.
They're never on time.
It's a character trait.
There was traffic flat tires.
(13:20):
They're not inept.
The alarm failed again and theyoverslept.
If you find you're late toevery event, making up stories
to explain where time went, thenperhaps you're a friend who
needs a new clock to leave extraearly or to start to take stock
.
Your word is important, so bethere on time.
The excuses are cheap and notworth a dime.
You have to be true to thepromise you've made.
(13:41):
Show up and be present anddon't be delayed.
I just looked down and my watchmust have died.
I'm late to meet friends, mybattery's fried this is ironic
and I have to go.
We were meeting for lunch.
I guess I'll eat crow.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Oh my gosh, Jesse, this is something I struggle
with.
I don't know if it's because Ihave too much on my plate.
I don't know how to.
I want to do it all, Like yousaid, write it all down.
I have so many things that Iwant to do and I guess I need to
prioritize better, but I just Itry to do it all and it's like
I get behind, a little bitbehind, a little behind, I'm
(14:18):
like, but I still have to do itall.
Like how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You're like a doctor's office, right Morning
and by the evening it's oh mygosh.
You got a bunch of peoplewaiting in the lobby.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yes, yes, that's exactly right, oh yes.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, I don't know.
I do think, I do think I dothink there is a level of
commitment around time.
That's hard to do, but it's.
It is important, right, Becauseif you've got, if you are
meeting somebody and this is Iused to really be bad at this,
right, and I've gotten better Istill struggle at times.
Yeah, okay, but look people, ifyou say you're going to be
(14:52):
somewhere, if you're going tomeet somebody for breakfast, if
you're going to do something,and then they end up sitting
there waiting 15, 20 minutes,right, you're not valuing their
time.
Right, you're valuing your owntime, but you're not valuing
their time.
And I think, when you startlooking at it, as you know, that
everybody that you'reinteracting with is a valuable
person, right, a valuable personhas their times valuable, all
the things about them arevaluable, and you treat that in
(15:14):
that type of a way, right, thatsays, hey, yeah, I don't want to
be disrespectful to their time,I want to be respectful of
their time.
And I know, like my onedaughter really struggles with
this and I and then you hear hermake up excuses the traffic was
bad, and I'm like, look, thetraffic in Atlanta is always bad
, right, so just leave 15minutes earlier, you plan for
(15:36):
the worst case scenario insteadof the best case scenario, and
she always plans for if I leave,I got three minutes to spare.
And then you have a hiccup,have a hiccup, problems, right,
and so there is a.
There is an element of justchanging the way you think about
it and then changing the waythat you engage with the world,
kind of recognizing that, liketoday, my wife had to go down to
get her global entry card right.
(15:57):
We're going to Italy in acouple of weeks and we wanted to
have global entry and she hadto do an interview and those
interviews are scheduled inincrements online and you can't
be late.
If you're late, they skip overyou.
And then you got problems,especially when we're leaving in
a few months, a few weeks.
And I just said we're going toleave and we're going to get
there half hour early and mydaughter was going with us, the
one that's always late and she'sjust.
(16:18):
This is crazy.
But when we were driving there,she's like this is cool because
there's no stress.
She's normally.
I've got all this internalstress as I go.
Do it.
It takes all the stress out.
So, anyway, that's my that'swhere that poem came from though
, Because late is one of thosethings that I think all of us at
one time or another strugglewith, but not everybody, though.
I get my my one daughter'sfiancee guy's early to
(16:41):
everything and he's he getsoffended when people are late,
and at some level that'srightfully so, yeah absolutely I
it when people are late and atsome level it's rightfully so.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, absolutely I.
It's something that I really Idon't know why I do that.
I it's like a relationship withtime.
I think that I have more of itthan I do, and then I end up
like struggling with it.
But you're right, and thenyou're like heart is pounding on
the way there because you don'twant to be late, because you
don't want to let somebody down,and it's like ridiculous,
versus if you just stopped whatyou were doing, put it aside 30
(17:09):
minutes earlier and then justpicked it up, if you got there
early, you could work on it.
Then I know there's different,a different way to do this that
makes more sense.
I just have to.
I don't know, do I just have towrite it down as one of my
goals and acknowledge?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
yeah, I think.
I think acknowledging is thefirst step in fixing right.
If you really want to fix it,you got to acknowledge that
there's a problem and then justgo attack it and start
incremental, like we talkedabout.
Grab your next meeting and justthe other thing to do is push
everything back 15 minutes andthen just pretend like it starts
.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Not like it starts earlier, but, I think, changing
the perspective.
A lot of people look at theperspective as oh, the world's
not cooperating with me, thistraffic hit, or oh, yeah, I
think about because and that'swhat changed it for me, right,
it was like, oh, do I reallywant, do I really not value
(18:13):
their time?
I do.
The fact that they are willingto meet with me for breakfast or
do whatever, right, it meansthat they're taking the time.
I want to be respectful of that.
And that switch in my brain, Ithink, started really making a
difference.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, I remember my husband when we owned our first
company back in Boise a longtime ago it was like 20 years
ago he made the switch fromrushing to be like nope, I'm
done with that.
I'm not going to stress myselfout over being on time.
I will always be early from nowon, and he is.
He's always early now.
He just made the switch, so Iknow that it's possible, Need to
(18:43):
do it.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
You haven't done it yet.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I haven't done it yet .
I haven't done it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yet You'll get there, you'll get there, I will.
I will Soon, can you tell?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
me, jesse.
Did you have a low point inyour journey where something
happened and you made a change,a shift in the way you were
thinking about things?
What happened in your life?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, can I tell you a story?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I'd love it.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Tell you a story that got me there.
So while I was in college Istarted my first venture
juggling.
I was juggling for birthdayparties and I was.
I could juggle fire, knives,rings, pins, all that kind of
stuff.
I had a unicycle, right I washalfway to a clown.
But I was juggling a park witha friend of mine and this lady
walked by and she asked me if Idid shows and I said and at the
(19:25):
time I'd done a few birthdayparties and everything else but
I had this thing in my head thateventually I'd love to do
bigger shows.
And so I'd actually made upbusiness cards and I had them on
me and so I looked veryprofessional, right, jesse
Jensen juggling, it was likethree J's inside of three little
.
So I handed her one of my cards.
I said, absolutely, I do shows.
And she goes oh awesome, I'm ateacher and I'd like to see if
(19:47):
we could maybe hire you to comeinto our it was like an
elementary, middle school, combotype school and come in and do
our assembly.
So they had these bigassemblies and they would, they
wanted to bring somebody in.
And so she says do you do that?
And I'm like, absolutely, now,I had no, nothing.
I'd done a couple of birthdayparties for kids, right, I knew
I'd interact with kids and Iknow how to have fun.
(20:08):
But I she's like it would beabout an hour.
I'm like, okay, and she goes,let me talk to the principal,
I'll give you a call.
And she's like how much do youcharge?
I'm like $500 to do to come toyour school, plus expenses.
And she was like, okay.
So she calls me a couple ofdays later and she said talk to
the principal and we'd like tohire you.
And so talk about throwing yourhat right Now I'm fully
(20:33):
committed.
I've got a gig scheduled.
It wasn't for about a month anda half, but I had no real show
and so I had to come up with anentire show and I had a lot of
things right.
I had juggling things.
I could juggle balls, knives,rings, fire, all this other
stuff right.
But I didn't have a show and soI started trying to figure out
what I was going to do and Iultimately came up with gas,
(20:55):
goals, attitude, andstick-to-itiveness goes and
makes you be successful.
If you put that in the tank,you can go and be successful.
And that was the whole show andI built the whole thing around.
That Ended up goingfantastically.
I ended up doing a bunch ofshows for a bunch of different
schools, which led to me doingour talent show in the college.
(21:15):
I was a fairly small schoolGeneral Motors Institute is
where I went to college in FlintMichigan and so we had this
talent show and so I juggled, Iput a bunch of the stuff
together.
I didn't use gas or anything,the goals, attitudes I just did
a short little bit to some musicand ended up winning first
place in the talent show, whichled to a lady coming up to me
(21:36):
after the show saying, hey,we've got a professional
comedian coming to FlintMichigan named Jonathan Solomon.
Now this guy had been on theTonight Show, he was doing the
circuit right, he'd performedwith all the big names and
everything.
Back in the day he was comingthrough Flint and he needed an
opening act and she wondered ifI'd be his opening act and I
said sure.
(21:56):
I said, can I do stand-up, orwhat do you want me to do?
She goes you can do whateveryou want, but you got 20 minutes
.
In my infinite wisdom, I'mgoing to do 20 minutes of
standup.
I'm not going to use any ofthese crutches of juggling or
anything like that.
And so you're laughing, nikki,because 20 minutes of standup is
an eternity, especially ifyou've never done it right, and
I'd never done anything relatedto standup.
(22:17):
I just watched it and I lovedit and I thought it was
something that I wanted to maybego do.
So the day rolls around and I'dbeen working on jokes, I'd tried
it out with a couple of myfriends and I was trying to get
20 minutes worth of materialpulled together and which is
super hard, right.
And so, anyway, I get there theday of.
There's about 200 people thisis a big event, right?
(22:39):
So I got 400 eyeballs lookingat me it's just me a stool and a
microphone.
I have a black and whitepicture somewhere that night
that a friend of mine took.
He was like a photographer.
He took the picture and I'vegot it somewhere.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
You have to find that .
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, it was before I bombed, so I was still smiling
at that point.
So, anyway, I get up and Istart going right and nothing is
landing.
I've just got 400 blank stares,just 400 blank eyeballs, just
staring back at me, just lookingat me, and I was probably 14
minutes in before I got my firstchuckle.
(23:16):
And then I got a couple morejokes and they laughed and I.
The other thing is, if they'renot laughing, right, you go
through your material superquick.
So I had, and I had about ahalf hour of material that I'd
written, but it was so bad.
It was so bad and it wasn't inthe form of like we've learned
how to do this now and how tostructure stuff, and I didn't
(23:36):
have any of that, I was justtotally winging it up there and
but I did hit on a couple ofjokes towards the end, got some
laughter, and then Jonathan gotup and and he killed it.
He just did a great job, he wassuper funny and I still
remember I remember it probablybecause it was so traumatic,
right, but I remember the roomitself had this border up all
the way around it and I rememberJonathan's first joke was he
(23:59):
got up and he said I feel likeI'm sitting in my grandmother's
bathroom and that border lookedjust like a grandmother's
bathroom and everybody laughedbecause it was so accurate.
So anyway, we got done.
I sat down with him.
Everybody left and it was justme and Jonathan and he said so
how long have you been doingstand-up?
I'm like 20 minutes.
And he's like you were reallygood, you should keep it up.
And at the time I couldn't evenhear the feedback.
(24:29):
All I heard in my own brain wasthis was the worst experience
of my life Standing up there for20 minutes with nobody laughing
, thinking I think comedy isprobably more personal than
almost any other type of artform, because you wrote it and
you performed it, and when youwrote it you thought it was
funny, otherwise you wouldn'tperform it.
Then you got up and youperformed it and there's like
nobody to blame except you ornot, that you blame.
But there is a part of you thatlike you throw yourself out
(24:51):
there.
This is you, right.
And then nobody thinks you arefunny.
It hurts at a deeper level thanmost things, right?
If you're an actor, you canblame it on a crappy script or a
bad director or bad cameraangle.
Comedy is uniquely personal andso that one really set me back
right.
The whole throw your hat thingwas like that didn't work so
(25:12):
good and I think one of thelessons I took away from that is
make sure you do your homeworkright.
Misplaced confidence is also abad thing.
Right Now I think the thingthat I didn't do misplaced
confidence can be okay if youlearn from it right.
At the time I didn't learn fromit.
I was just like this wasterrible.
I don't want to ever do thisagain and it's funny.
(25:34):
Then I found that piece ofpaper saying that I wanted to
try stand-up again and I had notdone anything with it for
decades.
But I did watch the movieComedian.
I don't know if you've everseen that movie.
Have you ever seen the moviecomedian?
It's got Jerry Seinfeld.
It was.
You know.
Jerry Seinfeld had this, theshow Seinfeld.
Have you heard of that showSeinfeld?
(26:00):
Yeah, seinfeld, yeah, I mean,yeah, I've heard of Seinfeld.
When he got done with that TVshow he went back into standup
comedy and he did a documentarycalled Comedian and it followed
him around and anybody that'sdone comedy should go watch that
movie because it's fascinatingand I think it was.
For me it was a real wake-upcall on.
So Jerry Seinfeld right, donethis, he'd been a comedian for
(26:21):
years went and did this supersuccessful TV show and then he
went back into comedy.
He always wrote all his stuffon the yellow notepad and he was
in these comedy clubs in NewYork City bombing, trying new
jokes, having things that didn'tfly, forgetting his lines,
pulling out his paper, lookingat it, trying different things
(26:42):
and watching the process of himhey, I know this joke's funny,
but it's not landing the way Ithink it should and tweaking it
and playing with it and gettingit to the point where it's super
funny and then that would gointo his next hour-long act.
And watching that whole processis what that documentary was
and I remember and it had othercomedians in it that he was
performing with and stuff thatwere on the documentary, and I
remember for me it was like areal wake-up call of wow.
(27:08):
I was so arrogant andmisinformed and not doing my
homework on what it means to docomedy and what it takes to be
good at comedy.
And watching Jerry Seinfeld bewilling to go and fail and be
willing to try new things and bewilling to, and even with
people knowing who he is nothaving a joke.
You thought everything he saidis funny.
It's because he works reallyhard to make sure that
(27:30):
everything he says is funny, andso that, for me, was a real
inspiration.
So I actually looked up JonathanSolomon and found out that he
was teaching comedy in SantaMonica College in California and
I sent him a note and I saidman, you probably don't remember
me, but I remember you like itwas yesterday, because it was so
(27:50):
impactful in my life for allthe wrong reasons.
And I told him I would love tograb a coffee the next time I'm
out in LA.
I was going to LA all the timeat the time because I was
covering Warner Media.
At&t had just bought WarnerMedia, so I was flying out there
quite frequently.
I remember he sent me back thesuper short note just saying I
charge a $350 an hour.
So I'm like kind of curt, whatthe heck was that?
(28:13):
And then maybe two months laterI got a note out of the blue
from him and he and it just saidhey, jesse, this is Jonathan.
I had some problems with myemail.
I was responding to people.
I'm not sure if I ever repliedto you or if my reply was
appropriate.
But I just read that your emailagain and saw that you said
you'd come out here frequently.
Let's grab a coffee.
He said I'd love to, and thenthe pandemic hit and all travel
(28:38):
was kind of shut down.
And then he reached back out tome.
We ended up talking on thephone.
I shared with him the whole,that whole night.
He's by my side man.
I did so many shows I don'tremember it, but he goes.
That sounds accurate and hegoes because of the pandemic.
I'm gonna do an online course,he said you should think about
taking it.
So I did this course for 10weeks or whatever it was.
It was very much like JeffJustice's class, actually, and
(29:01):
it jumped me back into comedy alittle bit right.
So I ended up taking the classand then I graduated and, just
like us, I I had to do aperformance and at the time we
were finally out of the mask.
It was in 2022.
So this was probably around2021, 2022.
I finally did the class and thegraduation was at the Hollywood
Improv on Melrose Avenue in LAand it was supposed to be at the
(29:22):
comedy store and then somethinghappened with scheduling and so
we ended up at the HollywoodImprov, which was also very cool
, and happened with scheduling,and so we ended up at the
Hollywood Improv, which was alsovery cool, and I performed a
seven minute set in front of asold-out crowd.
So that was jumped back into itand it was cool.
Then I came back to Atlanta andI performed a couple times at
the Laughing Skull and a fewother places and then went
dormant again for a little whileuntil I took the class with
Jeff Justice and did a few more,and now I probably do have
(29:45):
about 20 minutes of relativelyfunny stuff that I could do in a
pickle.
But that was a low point thatreally turned.
Just a couple of lessons thatcame out of that.
I think misplaced confidence ispainful, but with honest
reflection we can provide somebig learnings, and so use those
failures as a chance to learnand be better.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah I wanted to mention.
It reminds me of something thata lot of us go through, which I
call the try cry by loop.
When you go to you have thislike confidence, this initial
confidence of I want to try thisthing.
So you go and you try it and itgoes terribly because you're
new and every time you trysomething new it's probably not
going to be the best.
And then you start comparingyourself to like these other
(30:27):
people that you're seeing, likethe Jerry Seinfelds out there in
comedy and the big names, andyou're like, oh my gosh, I'm so
terrible and you cry about it,you're so upset, and then you
say goodbye to it for a longtime, right, like, ah, I never
want to feel that again, ever.
I just don't want to feel thatway again.
So it's like this loop of tryingsomething new, being bad,
because we're always bad, wefail.
(30:48):
We have to fail forward, likeyou were saying, learning from
it.
But it's a mindset shift.
It's really being in the victimmindset of oh, I'm just not
good at it, versus being in thegrowth mindset of I'm not good
at it yet, but if I work at itand I put in the time and the
effort and study it and tweak it, learn something, apply it, get
feedback and tweak, do it again, do it over and over again.
(31:09):
Then you can be good.
You can be good at anything youwant to do, if you are able to
realize that I'm going to be bad, it's going to be messy, and
then I just keep going.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, and I think, recognizing that I think a lot
of times we don't think throughwhat's the worst case scenario,
right, we think it's the end ofthe world and most of the time
it's not that big of a deal.
Most people don't even careabout us nearly as much as we
think they do, right?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, they don't.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, and I look back and that night Jonathan didn't
remember it and I doubt any ofthose 200 people that were in
that room remember anythingabout that night.
Even though it was huge for me,it was a big nothing and blip
in time for most people.
So If you time for most people.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So if you've been living with chronic symptoms
like pain, brain fog,sensitivity to smells, light or
sound, it might not just be yourbody, it could be your brain,
stuck in a survival loop.
Dnrs stands for dynamic neuralretraining system.
It's a science backed programthat helps rewire the limbic
system, the part of the brainresponsible for fear, fight or
(32:06):
flight and overreaction toeveryday things.
It changed everything for me,helping me heal and return to
the creative life I love.
If this speaks to you, clickthe link in the caption.
It might be the answer you'relooking for.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
The other little bonus kind of lesson I learned
from that is relationships areeverything in this world Build
them, grow them, cherish them.
Just being able to reach out toJonathan and now I still have
that relationship with him andit's just fun.
It's cool to go back after somany years and have that little
connection and the connectionyou and I made, all the
connections that we have throughthese crazy life.
(32:41):
Yeah, that's the fun part oflife.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I think you're really good at that, Jesse.
The relationship aspect of it.
That's something you're reallygood at, that, Jesse.
The relationship aspect of it,that's something you're good at
throwing your hat over the fencewith is we had class together
and there was, I don't know 15,16 of us, but not everybody
reaches us back out and noteverybody reconnects.
And you did that with Jonathan,you did that with me.
You're really good atcultivating relationships.
I wonder why that is.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
That might be the sales guy in me.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Maybe, yeah, why that is?
That might be the sales guy inme.
Maybe, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
You're not afraid to do that, you're not afraid to
follow up.
Yeah, at the end of the day,sales is about helping solve
people's problems, and peoplethink a real sales is you're.
At the end of the day, ifyou're doing sales the right way
, people should feel like you'rea partner and you're helping
them do something that reallymatters, right?
I think a lot of times you feellike you think of a time when
you bought something, nikki,that you're just like oh, I
(33:31):
really needed that.
It solved a real problem for meand you were just happy to hand
over your money.
Right, that's how sales shouldbe.
It shouldn't be like I feellike I got scammed, I feel like
somebody tricked me.
I feel true, sales is reallyabout relationships and caring
that the other person reallyneeds, wants and has a use for
what you're trying to sell them,and I think that's how I've
approached sales my whole lifeand how I approach relationships
(33:54):
.
I think, at the end of the day,you can't do these jobs
long-term if people feel likeyou used them and you didn't
really care about what they'retrying to do.
Yeah, so even this podcast,right, my goal for this is
really to try to make itsuccessful for you right Help
contribute to your audience andhelp drive that.
And I think that maybe shifts tothat next thing.
(34:16):
As I look at my passions andgoals and things I've learned
along the way, I think it'schanged for me right.
Like in the early on it wassuccess at work, it was certain
things, and as I've gotten oldernow I've started to make this
switch towards helping, coaching, mentoring others right and
inspiring kind of that nextgeneration.
And that's been a fun switch tohappen over the last few years,
(34:38):
right as I, I think, justgotten older.
I think all of us realizedseveral people that poured into
me when I was younger made mewho I am today.
I had some sales guys that Iworked for that.
They've all passed on now butthe mark they left for me was
I'll never forget it.
It made me who I am today and Iwant to do that for other
people.
(34:59):
So that's also part of theshift and passion that I have
today.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
What does that look like in your life right now,
Jesse?
How are you mentoring andhelping people?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, there's a couple different areas.
One of them is through aviation, so we talked a little bit
about flying right and probablyabout eight years ago my
daughter was doing this fun runfor cancer research on
children's brain tumors, and itoriginated in Rome, georgia, at
the airport.
So I had to get her there.
At five in the morning she wasable to drive, but I didn't want
(35:29):
her driving up there that early.
I don't know why they call themfun runs when they start at
five in the morning.
Nothing fun about that for me.
And so I was getting her thereand then I went to actually go
play a round of golf.
So I got done with the round ofgolf, came back and she was
cleaning everything up.
That had been a reallysuccessful day.
A bunch of people showed up.
They raised a bunch of money.
This was her senior project inhigh school and when I got back,
there were these four littleairplanes sitting out on the
(35:51):
tarmac and my daughter and theywere all painted like tigers and
if you go to tigerflightorg Ithink you can see what they look
like.
But there were four little twoseat airplanes and she's, what
is that I'm like?
I have no idea.
And she's, what is that?
I'm like I have no idea.
So I started chatting with oneof the guys over the fence and,
before you knew it, they invitedus around and my daughter and I
(36:11):
were flying in those planesthat less than 20 minutes later.
And then they found out that Iwas a pilot that hadn't flown
for several years and they'relike we'd love to get you back
into it.
And I ended up joining TigerFlight and started flying.
And one of the missions of TigerFlight is to really inspire
that next generation of youthand get them excited.
And we really focus a lot onunderprivileged kids, kids that
(36:32):
kind of don't feel like they gotmuch hope, don't feel like this
is something they could do.
And you get them up in anairplane and it doesn't happen
to every kid and doesn't evenhappen to every other kid, but
you do find one in five, one in10 that just ignites something
inside of them that nothing elsecan do, like aviation.
Right, if you really loveflying, like that's.
(36:52):
I started flying when I waslike, I think, six or seven, at
a promotion at our airport thatyou could fly for a penny a
pound and my dad took me outthere and I went flying and that
ignited something in me and Isomeday I want to fly, and that
led me to get my pilot's licenseat 16 years old and I wanted to
give that back.
And so you get these kids upthere and you get that one kid
(37:14):
that's oh, this is unbelievable,and they may not even become a
pilot right, but it ignites,like this vision of themselves
that didn't exist before.
I flew an airplane and we alwayslet the kids fly for a little
bit and stuff.
And I flew an airplane, I cando anything I can, and so it's a
lot of fun.
And so that's one way that Ithink today that I really have a
(37:34):
lot of passion around doingthat for kids.
And I will say if any of yourlisteners have a kid in their
life that they'd love to get upin an airplane, have them, reach
out to me.
If you're in the Atlanta area,we'll get them up there.
Right, we do it as part of EAA709.
So the Experimental AircraftAssociation has a whole program
around it that we plug into andI can take them up in my
(37:56):
airplane.
We can do it in the TigerFlight airplane, whatever.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
They're both a lot of fun, I'm going to get in touch
with you, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, it's jesse at throwthathatcom.
It's probably the easiest way,right.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
That's just Jesse at.
Throw that hatcom.
J E S S E.
That's correct.
Yep, jesse, I'm also onLinkedIn.
I think you can find me onLinkedIn.
You'll see a bunch of tigerflight airplanes behind me.
So then you know you have theright, jesse.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Oh cool, that's your like profile picture.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, the profile picture has some tiger, flight
planes, flight planes.
The other thing that I'vestarted doing a lot more is
leveraging.
So I went back to school butit's actually two years ago this
summer to Georgetown Universityin Washington DC and took
executive leadership coachingclass that lasted about six
months and I'm a certifiedexecutive leadership coach.
(38:47):
And I think, nikki, you and Iwere talking what is coaching
versus all these other things?
Right, and I think coachingreally feels to some people a
lot like therapy, but it's quitea bit different.
If you think about therapy, ittakes a person and tries to look
backwards and figure out whyare you the way you are, what
went wrong in your life or whatchildhood trauma caused this, or
(39:07):
why am I always late?
Maybe I had something in mypast?
Coaching doesn't care right.
Coaching doesn't care whyyou're the way you are.
Coaching looks forward and saysyou are this way and you want
to.
If you want to change that, howdo we change it?
What do we go do and what?
And it's really a coach isreally a good verbal mirror for
reflection on somebody thatgives them the space to figure
(39:28):
out what they really want andhow to go get it and can really
lead to some pretty deepinsights, which is different
than I've done.
A lot of mentorship, if youthink about mentorship, is more
about trying to teach somebodysomething that you know how to
do, almost in sales.
I do a lot of mentorship insales.
I've been there, done that.
Let me show you how.
That, how I do it right, orwhat worked in the past or what
(39:50):
things might work for you.
And then the other thing that Ido a little bit of is
consulting, right, like aroundsmall businesses, and since I've
started a business, I'llprobably do a little bit free
consulting with you.
Or even around books right,I've wrote a book now.
I went through process.
Consulting is really aboutproviding solutions to a person
or a company, right, hey, you'retrying to get this done, here's
some solutions, here's someideas, here's some things.
(40:11):
A mentor so really, at the endof the day, consultants are
hired to provide solutions.
Mentors provide guidance basedon experience that they've had
before, and then coaches helpindividuals discover their own
path forward.
And I think, if you kind oflook at those three types of
things, I like to help people inthose three vectors, right,
depending on what they're tryingto accomplish.
(40:31):
And that's been a fun littlething.
Intel has a whole coachingprogram and a mentorship program
.
I'm part of both of those andI've mentored and coached a
number of leaders at our companyas part of that.
So that's.
I'm pretty passionate aboutthose things today.
Right, I'm still passionateabout sales.
I still love my career and myjob and the things that I'm
doing with AT&T.
(40:51):
But I think pouring into thatnext generation and those people
that are trying to makethemselves better and grow,
trying to help them do that, isa part of what I'm passionate
about.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So if you're wanting to grow in something, reach out,
find a mentor, find a coach,find someone who can help you on
the path, someone who's donewhat you want to do.
Yeah, and that a part of thatis being brave enough to ask.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, that's very true.
I had a couple of University ofMichigan kids reach out to me a
couple of years ago and theywere trying to start a new
company and wanted some adviceon sales.
And I took them out tobreakfast and we still have
breakfast now, probably onceevery six months or so, and
they're killing it there.
They started a company calledbird dog and they're doing an
outstanding job and I can't takeany credit.
(41:36):
All I can do is sit back almostlike a proud dad and say, yeah,
these guys are killing it andat some point I gave them a
little bit of advice and thatwas it.
And they did all the hard workand they've got the ideas and
they're super ambitious.
But I love doing that kind ofstuff and I remember when they
reached out, they actuallyreached out and used the wrong
name, and so I told them thefirst key of sales to use the
(41:57):
correct name when you reach outto a new prospect oh no.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
All right, we are going to move into the third
part of the conversation, andthat is the confidence quickfire
round.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Bring it on.
Bring it on.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Okay, the first question is Jesse, how do you
define confidence?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I really thought about this actually quite a bit,
because I knew this one wascoming, and I think it's like a
self-assurance about your owntalent and abilities and worth,
right, like confidence reallycomes from the self-assurance of
recognizing, hey, I've gottalents and abilities and I've
got worth.
But I also recognizing thatfailure is an opportunity to
learn and grow, right, that inthat confidence, you may have
(42:36):
some setbacks, right, but thoseare real opportunities to learn
and grow.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Second question is what's one bold move you made
before you felt ready?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Almost every job I've ever taken.
When I jump into the next job,the next thing that I'm going to
go do, I always feel like I'mnot ready and there's a lot of
excitement, nervousness thatgoes into that.
But each of those new jobsthose new, it's a lot of times
they require to move across thecountry.
They were very disruptive tothe family and I never felt like
we were fully ready and italways worked out.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
It makes me think of something I watched an interview
about how a lot of like highlevel actors will feel that when
they take on a role and theyknow that it's the right role
because they don't feel likethey can do it or they feel like
it's outside of their comfortzone, they don't feel ready for
it.
So they're like I'm definitelydoing that.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I feel it's pitting my stomach.
It feels like that's probably agood thing.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Third question how do you quiet your inner critic or
how do you face your innercritic?
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, boy, that's a good one, because I think we are
all our harshest critics,aren't we?
We just we're so hard onourselves.
For me, I like to be asprepared as I can do my homework
, do the time and the prep.
I think I told you at one point, if I get up on stage and I
fail because I wasn't ready, thefeeling I have is a lot
different than being fully readyand going up and delivering
exactly what I anticipated, ofdelivering and then not going.
(44:00):
That's a different feeling,because now I'm like okay, I was
prepared, I did my homework.
I didn't land, so I got to gofix it, but it wasn't because I
got up there and rambled on or Iwasn't ready.
I wasn't prepared Because Ialways feel like if you're not
prepared, especially in a comedyact or something like that,
then you're wasting people'stime, you're maybe not giving it
your all, you're not doing whatyou need to do on the back end
(44:20):
of prep.
So I feel like if I've preppedand I've done and I feel like
I'm ready, then the chips willfall where they may.
I gave it my best and if itdidn't work out, then that's a
different feeling than failingbecause I didn't, I wasn't ready
.
And then I think we talkedabout this a little bit before
zoom out and realize none ofthis really matters as much as
we think we're all in this bigspinning ball for just a short
(44:41):
amount of time at the end of theday, and if you look at the
worst case scenario, most of thetime it's really not that bad,
right, it's not as bad as wemake it out to be in our heads.
Most people will give you somegrace and I don't think usually
the consequences are nearly asbad as we make them up to be in
our head.
And then I would say the lastpart is throw that hat right,
just commit.
I think getting that hat overthe fence it helps quiet that
(45:05):
inner critic because now it'sokay.
The inner critic can keep youfrom actually making action,
doing anything right, and onceyou throw that hat, now you
gotta go figure it out.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
And the fourth question is what's one habit
that's helped you build realconfidence?
Speaker 2 (45:17):
I think we talked about this a little bit too
right, Take those steps everyday that help you move the
needle right.
You don't have to do everythingtoday.
You know, a lot of times youfeel like, oh my gosh, I gotta
do these hundred things today,but you gotta do something every
day, and then you'll look backand be like holy smokes, look
how far I came and always belearning and growing.
Those are the things I wouldsay, that that habit of always
(45:40):
moving and learning and growing.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
The fifth final question favorite book or
resource that changed how youthink?
Speaker 2 (45:48):
This feels like a loaded question.
Right, I'm trying to launch abook, but no, but seriously.
I think there's a book calledwho Moved my Cheese?
I don't know, have you?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
ever heard of that one, never, never.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, it's a super simple book, a super easy read.
It's not very thick I don'thave probably not even 100 pages
if I had to guess and it reallygives you profound advice on
how to handle and embrace change.
I think a lot of things thatscare people is change related
right, I'm going to and embracechange.
I think a lot of things thatscare people is change-related
right, I'm going to change myjob.
I'm going to try this new thing.
I'm going to change.
(46:21):
My kids are going off tocollege.
My life's going to changeSomething, and what you realize
as you get older is change isinevitable.
Right, things are always goingto change and there's these
seasons in life that change, andthis book who Moved my Cheese
and there's these seasons inlife that change and this book
who Moved my Cheese is a storyabout two mice.
I think it's like Scurry andScat, or I can't remember their
(46:44):
names Scurry and somebody andit's a lesson that we can all
take away on how to embracechange rather than fight it and
try to hang on to stuff that ischanging and is never going to
be the same again.
And that's, I think, a humantrait, right, we all get
comfortable and we don't want tochange and we don't want the
next thing right.
And my daughter just went backto college on Tuesday and she
(47:04):
was crying like crazy becauseshe's this is my last year and
everything's going to getdifferent.
And that's the reality of life,isn't it?
Things just time marches on,and that book who Moved my
Cheese, I think gives you a goodperspective on how to embrace
it and thrive during change,rather than fear it and shrink
away.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, you're constantly changing and growing,
or you hope to be changing andgrowing right Every level.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, wow, so much wisdom in there, jesse, and I'm
so excited for this book to comeout.
What date does this come out?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So it comes out on August 28th.
It'll be available in hardcoverand softcover on amazoncom.
Go throw that at, there you go.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Pictures.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yeah, so as a backgrounder, this was
illustrated by a college friendof mine.
His son became a professionalillustrator as a career, wow.
And I reached out to him andactually hired him to illustrate
every poem in the book.
So every poem is illustrated bya guy named Jashton Geezer.
And then there are a couplelittle pictures in there that my
(48:06):
daughter also drew, that Ithrew in there.
So if you go to, I got to lookat which page it is.
It's just a second the RoyalFlush on page 26.
She drew the toilet with thecrown.
So that was actually.
She did that artistry.
So Jaston drew the guard on theright, but she drew the little
(48:29):
toilet.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So that's cool and the whole book has this public.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, yeah, that was it.
It's been a lot of fun to toput that thing together and it's
been a lot of fun to.
It was fun to write the poems.
It was fun to put it togetherand that'll be fun to kind of
share it with the world.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah, that's so cool.
That's amazing.
Congratulations on putting yourbook together.
That stick to it-ness that youhave for completing things is
just incredible.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Thank you, nikki.
I appreciate that, and thankyou for the opportunity to talk
to you.
This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, you're a lot of fun.
How can people follow you?
Find you find out more workwith you.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, so again, I'm LinkedIn.
I'm terrible on social media.
I do have a TikTok.
I don't even know what it'scalled.
I think it's called Throw thatHat.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
We'll put a show notes.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, I haven't put anything on that forever.
I'm terrible.
And then I might have anInstagram.
I think I do.
It's probably called Throw thatHat as well, but LinkedIn I'm
active on LinkedIn because of myprofessional life and then just
j Jesse at throw that hatcom isprobably an easy way just to
(49:36):
reach out to me if you got aquestion or want to connect
somehow.
Yeah, flip me a note.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
All right, fantastic.
Thank you so much, Jesse, forbeing on today.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Thanks, Nikki.
It's been a lot of funAppreciate it.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Thanks so much for listening to the Confident
Shortcut.
I hope today's episode wokesomething up in you, reminding
you that your dream matters andyou can start now.
If this sparked something,share it with a friend who needs
it too.
And don't forget to follow meon Instagram at Nikki Sterner
and join our Facebook communityat the Confidence Shortcut.
Ready to take the next step?
Check out my free guide, theConfidence Kickstart, linked in
(50:10):
the show notes.
Keep showing up, keep takingaction and remember the shortcut
to confidence is courage.
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