March 4, 2025 • 54 mins
Serial entrepreneur and author, Jacob Lawson discusses his book Make It Extraordinary: 27 Life-Changing Lessons in which he shares his journey overcoming personal and business challenges. Lawson shares insights into his transition from working in the oil field to creating a successful flooring business, the impact of major events like Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and his passion for mentorship and personal development. He highlights the importance of mindset, knowing your numbers, and continuous growth in business and life.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Like if you're going to makesomething, make it
extraordinary.
You know, like if you have thatability, why would you just be
settling for ordinary if you canmake it extraordinary?
So that one moment sitting inthe back of a van, when I could
have listened to, you know,somebody who I highly respected
and admired tell me, Oh, that'stoo much.
I didn't listen to him.
(00:20):
I trusted my gut, changed mybusiness and it changed my life.
Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that lead them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
(00:44):
area of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the Wayfindersshow.
I'm your host, Louie Hernandez.
And today I'm here.
Uh, with Jacob Lawson, who I'mthrilled to welcome to the show.
Jacob is a serial entrepreneurand author of a book called Make
It Extraordinary, 27 lifechanging lessons that will
elevate you beyond the ordinary.
(01:28):
And he's the founder ofExtraordinary Flooring, Inc.
His journey from overcomingpersonal challenges to building
a thriving business andmentoring others is nothing
short of inspiring.
Jacob.
Has a passion for personaldevelopment and is committing to
help committed to helping othersunlock their full potential
Through his work and writingjacob.
(01:49):
Welcome to the show and thanksfor having me louis Appreciate
it.
I've been looking forward tothis one Yeah, likewise, man.
I heard you on some other showsand like, Oh, we got to get you
on the way finder shows.
So we're tap, uh, you got, um,I, you know, for people who
don't know, you just wrote thisbook and I think you're just
starting to get yourself outthere.
So, um, if you can just sharemaybe your origin story with our
(02:13):
listeners.
Yeah.
You know, so, you know, I'm akind of a serial entrepreneur.
I've been, been in business forover 20 years on my primary bit.
Business, which is, which is my,my breadwinner, my extraordinary
flooring.
We're a commercial flooringcompany.
We do, uh, polish.
Concrete and decorative concreteand epoxy coatings.
(02:34):
So it makes us a specialtyflooring contractor.
We're here in, uh, New Orleansand we service that whole kind
of greater New Orleans areaabout a, about a three hour
radius at a new Orleans area.
So it gets us in a couple oflittle states and in different
areas.
Uh, and that's my primary.
My primary portfolio that we,that we do have, you know, I've
also been a home builder and,um, a general contractor or
(02:58):
restaurateur.
Uh, but, but as, as of late, asI, as I gotten into my 40s,
I've, I've wanted to dive into,into more of a mentorship role
and, and kind of pay back someof the things that I've been
blessed with, uh, which led tome writing my first book, Make
It Extraordinary.
27 life changing lessons to helpyou on the ordinary.
(03:20):
Basically took, uh, all of thebiggest life changing lessons
and the mentors.
He taught them to me and I wrotea quick little story about him
and, and, and put him in somelessons and paid homage to those
mentors and, and, uh, you know,now I'm on a journey to, to
hopefully pay it back and, and,and maybe have somebody write
something about me one day.
Yeah, I love that.
(03:40):
You know, that's not muchdifferent than the origin story
of the Wayfinders show, really.
I was kind of inspired, uh, I'min my late forties now.
And, um, And, you know, we wereinspired to go and share stories
of people who've done someinspirational things to try to
motivate and inspire other youngpeople, you know.
Uh, and in particular, I reallylike, you know, kind of the
(04:05):
story of overcoming hardship,right?
Which I know you have a lot ofthat.
In in your book because I Ithink that's important, you
know, we look up to people whoare really successful You know,
we think that they've alwaysbeen that way but the the real
success is built In thestruggle, right?
So can you talk about some ofthose?
Struggles and hardships you hadto overcome to get to where you
(04:27):
are now.
Yeah, I mean for sure You know,I started in an offshore career
and then I and I kind of in myoff time was was working for a
kind Of best friend slash bigbrother mentor as a side job
doing flooring and I knew that Ididn't want to live my life
(04:49):
offshore Or so, you know,eventually I decided to make
that jump and when I did makethat jump, I called it my Home
Depot bucket and a prayer cardor a prayer moment.
You know, I didn't have jobslined up.
I didn't have work secured.
I didn't have a ton ofequipment.
I didn't have a ton of moneyleft over.
I took, I just finished takingall of my savings and dumping it
(05:11):
into my first home and Um, youknow, and, and it's one of the
titles, one of the chapters andit was a Home Depot bucket and a
prayer, you know, a Home Depotcard in a prayer.
I'm sorry, uh, because that,that's what kind of got me
through the first year ofbusiness, you know, racking up
that Home Depot card and, uh,buying tools and, and, and just
(05:31):
starting to grind.
Um, I.
Always had a great work ethicinstilled in me, you know,
whether it was instilled from myparents, my grandparents, you
know, they definitely helpedand, you know, whatever it came
and natural abilities.
I was always a hard worker, evenas a kid.
And so that was the thing thatreally helped me.
(05:52):
Just pulled me through my first,I would call it at least 10 to
12 years, 10 to 15 years ofbusiness and just grinding work
ethic, making sure you're doingright by your clients.
Um, and, and when your back'sagainst the wall, stand there
and fight, you know, and don'tgive up on it.
And, uh, you know, that, thatkind of work ethic is, was
(06:14):
definitely needed through myfirst 15 years of business.
And, uh, it, it definitelypulled me to those next levels.
Interesting.
So you, you, let's open it up alittle bit.
You said you went offshore intooffshore flooring.
What does that mean?
You went like to other countriesand stuff to do flooring work.
(06:37):
Uh, not to do flooring work.
It started in the oil field.
So it started in the oil field.
And, and I'm in Louisiana, whichis a big oil field state, you
know, oil and gas production.
Um, and you can get a lot ofthat done right here in
Louisiana, but I, uh, reallyquickly turned into overseas.
I did go to Africa.
Um, worked a couple of years inAfrica, which led me to a bunch
(06:59):
of different countries just kindof intermittently traveling,
which was an amazing time for a20 year old, 21 year old kid out
of high school, making greatmoney and got to see some really
cool stuff.
Uh, my dad had that same careerand he would always say that,
(07:19):
you know, if you ever catchsomebody complaining about the
things you got to deal with inthe States.
Tell them to go work in a thirdworld country for a couple
months and, and, and they'llstop those complaints.
You know, you, you, you kind oflearned that it ain't Kansas
anymore when you get to some ofthese other countries and, you
know, it ain't, uh, calling,calling 9 1 1 and anybody coming
(07:39):
to save you.
You can call whoever you want,but you're kind of on your own
out there and, and, and you gointo these different worlds and
you start respecting.
And although our country is notperfect, it is still one of the
greatest countries in the world.
And you start realizing why.
And you start going to some ofthese smaller third world
countries that don't have thefreedoms and liberties that we
have that's right.
(08:00):
Yeah point.
Well taken um the So so you wentso so how did you get into
flooring exactly?
I had I had a next door neighborwho who was kind of treated me
like uh, like a big brother Inever had any brothers and uh,
he was You know, probably it'sthe thing is a good 10 years
(08:21):
older than me and he lived nextdoor and he had his own flooring
company.
And so when you work offshore,you'll typically do different
hitches of three weeks on oneweek off or two weeks on one
week off.
You'd have different, differenttimes where you go work straight
and then you come home for anextended period of time.
And, um, I was never very, uh,good with just being idle.
(08:41):
So if I had a way to go makesome extra money, which he
presented that opportunity tome, I would do so on all the
times I'd be off.
I would go to work with him.
And that's how I picked up that,that kind of, that trade of
flooring.
Oh, I see.
And you liked it.
And I'm assuming you were justlike, Hey, I can do this for
myself.
Well, yeah, I mean, I, I didlike it.
(09:03):
Uh, basically it was justanother opportunity.
It's not like, Oh, I just fellin love with laying tile.
But I did see the opportunityand, you know, my big brother,
Jeremy, he, he, he painted thatopportunity for me and he showed
me what was possible.
Um, actually, you know,coincidentally, he, he had a
similar upbringing.
He, he started early in the oldfield career and quit and did
(09:25):
that.
No, he was, you know, I guess,you know, in his early thirties
at the time and, you know, had anice house, nice car, all the
money he cash he wanted.
And he just, you know, it kindof, it was that opportunity to
show me that, you know, if youjust grind and hustle.
And and whichever one youchoose, and it happened to be he
chose flooring.
And I seen that opportunity and,um, you know, and he, he, he
(09:48):
showed me he showed me what'swhat was capable from just, you
know, going out there andworking hard and getting it on
your own.
You didn't have to go work forsomebody else.
You know, you can go work foryourself, you know, and so he
showed me that opportunity and Ijust kind of opened that door
for me.
So I'd say I just kind of fellinto floor and it happened to be
who knows he could have been a.
You know, any other trade and itmight have turned out completely
(10:10):
different, but it just sohappened that he was laying
floors and that's what got mestarted.
So then you went off on yourown.
Did you, uh, was itextraordinary flooring for
Negeco or how did you start?
It was Big Jake's affordableflooring.
Uh, from the get go, uh, bigJake was the childhood nickname.
(10:33):
It was also my, uh, my hip hoppersona.
Uh, we had, uh, we had a hip hoprecord label at that time.
So, uh, big Jake's affordablefloor and is how it started.
And I was always, of course,attracting the biggest spenders
with that name.
You know, of course, that'sexactly who the, the, uh, the
well off or, or, or shooting forwith that, that kind of a name.
(10:56):
Um, and so, no, that's how itstarted.
And that's exactly.
Exactly what I was attractingwas the, the, the nifty and
thrifty spenders of the worldlooking to get the, uh, you
know, the best bang for theirbuck in the cheapest price.
Um, that didn't last very long.
Um, maybe six months into it.
(11:16):
I, uh, I kind of had an ahamoment and that aha moment came
actually doing some pickup workwith him riding in a bag of his
van.
At the end of the day, and Ijust kind of had an aha moment
and said, I got it.
And he's like, what?
I said, I know what I'm changingmy name to.
He's like, what?
(11:36):
I said, extraordinary flooring.
He's like, you sure?
That's a little much.
I said, no.
This is what I'm changing myname to.
I'm changing it to ExtraordinaryFlooring.
It's no longer Big Jake'sAffordable Flooring.
It's Extraordinary Flooring.
He kind of gave me a side eye,like, I don't know, it's a
little much for you, you know,but I was like, didn't matter.
It was, it was set, you know,that's what I was going for.
(11:57):
That's what I was going to do.
That's what I changed.
And that changed my wholepersona.
That changed the way, themindset of what I was going to
provide.
And almost instantaneously, itchanged my clientele.
You know, almostinstantaneously, from there on
out, I started attractingcompletely different clientele.
(12:17):
And, you know.
Was it because I changed thename or because I changed the
mindset because I changed theway I thought about it You know
that changed what I wasattracting, right?
so that was a huge thing for methat you know, it was it was a
One moment on an evening in theback of a van, you know Could
(12:40):
have listened to his advice andsaid oh, maybe that's too much
and maybe I think of somethingelse I trusted my gut and I went
with it and it changed and itchanged everything.
It changed my mindset.
It changed the way we didbusiness.
It changed the way I attractedclients.
It changed, changed everything.
And to, to say that it changedmy business, you know, 20 years
(13:02):
ago is one thing, but it'schanged my life.
It's now what it's, it's now mymotto.
It's not.
My flooring model of make itextraordinary.
It's my life model.
It is what I live by.
It's my credence.
It's my North star.
Like if you're gonna makesomething, make it
extraordinary.
(13:23):
You know, like if you have thatability, why would you just be
selling for ordinary if you canmake it extraordinary?
So that one moment sitting inthe back of a van.
When I could have listened to,you know, somebody who I highly
respected and admired, tell me,Oh, that's too much.
I didn't listen to him.
I trusted my gut, changed mybusiness and it changed my life.
(13:46):
Man, I, uh, I absolutely lovethat.
That, that's awesome.
Let, let's dissect that.
I mean, you've done a good, goodjob of already dissecting like
the mindset behind that, right?
Which is, is huge.
But I, I kind of want to dissectit almost like in a business
level, right?
When you were Big Jake'saffordable flooring, your
(14:07):
clients, um, well, you, you kindof joked around about it.
They were just the peoplelooking for the best deal,
right?
So you, you were, Essentially acommodity who people were just
trying to get for the cheapestand lowest, you know, uh prices
And what was it?
I I imagine in that um, itdidn't take long before you felt
(14:28):
a certain way I mean you yousaid six months you were like
i'm changing it and um, There'ssomething about that right that
you feel like people aretreating you like a commodity
right and you and you areDevaluing yourself.
Would you agree?
There's no doubt.
There's absolutely no doubt.
Um, Jeremy's clientele was inthat moderate stage.
(14:53):
He was doing at least, you know,three and 500, 000 homes.
So he was always at least doingnew nice homes.
And then when I broke off ontomy own, I was doing section
eight apartments.
I was doing dirty littlebathrooms in the back of grocery
stores and just things that youjust didn't even want to touch.
(15:14):
You go into a house and it'd belike, Oh, you don't even want to
go in here.
You know, whether it be the catlady's house or something that
hadn't been.
Remodeled in 20 years, you know,and, you know, things that just,
there was absolutely no joy indoing it.
There was no sense of pride whenit was done because you weren't
(15:34):
doing anything special.
You were doing the cheapest tileat the cheapest house or the
cheapest apartment for thecheapest person who still, no
matter how cheap the price was,still wanted to get a better
deal.
Usually.
Julie, right.
So, um, you, you weren't makinga ton of money at the end of it
because of all of the above.
So there was no sense ofsatisfaction in any of that.
(15:56):
It was, there was none.
It was, you know, it's like noneof it made me happy.
None of it made me feel goodabout what I did or feel
prideful in what I was doing,other than the fact that, you
know, I was putting food.
Put on a table for for me and myyoung family.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well put so then you When youtake that and you you start
(16:23):
being you you change it intoextraordinary where you did you
start becoming?
Selective in your clientele Likehow did you just change because
it must be hard when you had asteady flow of business in the
affordable flooring space Andthen all of a sudden you're
trying to attract somethingelse, like you, it's two
different worlds, two differentrealms all together, how did,
(16:43):
did, you know, did, did theclients just start coming in
right away and you didn't haveto worry about cutting the
others off, or, or did youconsciously say, nah, that's not
me, um, I'm gonna, uh, uh, I'mgonna wait for my, my, you know,
the extraordinary clients tocome.
There was a little bit of both.
(17:03):
Um, there was still, you know,still the need to make sure that
the bills got paid.
So, you know, still had to takesome jobs that, you know,
weren't your dream clients ordream jobs.
But, you know, I have anotherchapter in the book called guys,
divine timing.
And, you know, it's, it's basedoff of the premise that, you
know, like if you put, you putthese things together, put these
(17:26):
thoughts in the world, putthese, these, these goals and
ambitions in there and you startchasing after them, maybe they
don't happen exactly when youwould love them.
To happen, you know, maybe itdoesn't happen overnight, but if
you're continuing in thatprocess is going to happen and,
you know, whether it was, youknow, as divine timing, divine
luck, karma, or just pureoutlook, it, it almost instantly
(17:50):
happened.
We, we started landing some,some really big, uh, contract.
we're doing multimillion dollarhomes.
And, you know, as an earlybusiness, I only had a couple of
guys working with me at thetime.
And, you know, that would be,you know, big, huge jobs for us.
So that would give us instead oftrying to chop up and do 10, 15
(18:12):
bathrooms in a week, you know,we're doing a whole house.
That might take us, you know,two to four weeks, which then
also gives you time to startlanding those other clients in
the same time.
And.
It didn't take much at the sametime I landed some of those big
contractors.
I landed a couple of high endflooring stores, which, you
know, they sold high endflooring and then, you know,
(18:35):
led, which led to the leads of,of getting that flooring
installed.
And um, you know, it was kind ofoff to the races from there nice
So you you've got a fewtransition points that you've
grown with that.
I find interesting One is is theone we just discussed right just
How you become a really clearintentional and what you want
(18:56):
your business to be like yourclients um, you know the How you
value yourself and all that, butthen there's others along the
way as you grow, like you, youknow, you started doing the
floors yourself, right?
And now I imagine, I'm makingassumptions here, but I imagine
you're not going out and doingany floors, right?
You got some people out there,you might have people managing
(19:16):
those people, am I right?
Yeah, no, now we're now we're ateam of 20.
So, so definitely we're, we'renot doing any, and it wasn't too
long into the business that,that I couldn't do the flooring
anymore.
You know, that we had enoughwork going on to where I'd have,
you know, within the first yearI had.
I had six or eight guys, uh,working with me and you know,
(19:38):
when you get that, that amountof guys under you, there's, you
know, you can try to, you cantry to do the work, but you, you
gotta manage, you know, and ifyou're not managing, then you
can do all the work you want,but everybody else is laying on
your leg and you ain't gettingnothing done that way.
So, um, you know, so instantly Ihad to learn, I had to learn to,
uh, you know, start managingthat.
(19:58):
And, you know, I call it a yearinto that and we're rolling.
Next thing you know, the biggesttransition hits, which was a
groundbreaking moment here andhere in Louisiana and almost as
soon as we start rolling Katrinahits, you know, right.
And that was a whole notherwhole.
(20:19):
So that was that was right atthat time.
I'm a year and we start rollingand then we get smacked with
Katrina.
Which was just, you know, amonumental occurrence, some of
the biggest destruction in thisnation seen, uh, you know, over
time and, you know, secondbiggest hurricane in Louisiana's
history.
(20:39):
And, uh, you know, so obviouslythere was some downtime, you
know, to clear through some ofthat aftermath.
But once, once that downtimewas, was in, it was, it was, it
was really.
You know, as much work as Icould handle.
And I was sitting here trying torecruit any able bodied person I
could.
And, and, and we were, you know,I had, you know, I was running
(21:01):
as much as 15 at that time, youknow, into a year into business,
but, you know, Katrina was just.
You know, a chaotic occurrencethat, that almost 80 percent of
this general area needed to becompletely rebuilt.
Wow.
That was, that was, that wasanother groundbreaking moment
for us.
And it just happened so fastinto my career.
(21:23):
You know, once again, it just,it led to, I needed to learn how
to manage more people.
And if I had my business acumen.
Where I am now, I would havemade and retained more money
than I did.
We brought in a lot of money,but I was still learning, you
know, and I was, you know,making money on this side and
(21:43):
losing money on this side, youknow, cause you got so much
going on and you're new inbusiness and you're not prepared
for that.
And that's where that businessIQ really starts to come in.
And, you know, you can alwayssay live and learn.
And that was definitely livingand learning.
But had I had the businessacumen and knowledge that I have
now, You know, I, I probablywould have banked a couple
(22:04):
million dollars at that time,you know, so, um, but it's a
living and learning process and,and, you know, that's part of
the book.
I share so many lessons on whatI call the, the first off easy
lessons from the mentors thattaught it to me just by being
blessed to have them in my life.
And then what I call the hardlessons, which you learn the
(22:25):
hard way in business, you know,like learning the hard way you
got to get those costly mistakesthat cost you a lot of money.
And typically the more costlythey are, the better you learn
that lesson.
And then what I call theexpensive way when you're paying
to be in that room, paying to beclose to those mentors, paying
(22:47):
to be, you know, and learn thoselessons from the people who have
already, already learned them,right?
So, uh, part of that book isthe, the easy, the hard and the
expensive, and a lot of timesthe hard is equally as
expensive, but when you're justpaying to get.
That easy.
It's, it's, it's not hard,right?
It's you, you're paying to getthat.
(23:07):
It's expensive, but it didn'tlike learning a lesson the hard
way.
So I would imagine, right.
You, you learn it the hard way.
It's going to stick, right?
You know, you're not gonna, youlearn, you really learn, right?
So, uh, and even unfortunately,you know, the expensive way I
equate that to, you know, goingto college and everything.
(23:27):
And sometimes that sticks,sometimes that doesn't, right.
How many of us forget everythingwe learned as soon as we get out
of school and.
You know, had that degree.
We forgot everything we justlearned, right?
We still got that bill though,right?
So it's it's funny all of myhardest lessons that I learned
from getting spanked I call themcollege semesters, you know If I
(23:49):
lose more than a couple grand ona lesson or a job or a project
or a mistake That's a collegesemester and that's why I tell
people i've got my doctor CauseI've, I've taken so many, so
many lessons the hard way.
Never, never been into collegeother than to lay their floors.
But, uh, I've, I've definitelygotten my degrees through the
(24:10):
lessons.
I've learned the hard way.
Yeah.
Outside of Katrina, is there, isthere another really hard one
that really stands out to, tothat when you came out of it?
Really elevated your businessand yourself to another level
The next the next real bigelevation, you know things Grew
(24:33):
nice and steadily andprogressively over the next few
years and and you know, life isgood And you know all that good
stuff continually to slowly growand implement and change Um that
the next biggest lesson camecame at another monumental um
point in almost everybody'slife, uh, and this is as of As
(24:54):
of recent, a couple of yearsago, and that was COVID, um,
COVID came and, and, andextraordinary foreign was
rolling, rolling pretty well,damn near on autopilot.
I had started a few otherbusinesses.
I had started a home buildingbusiness.
Um, I had multiple partners.
We were doing multiple homes ata time.
(25:15):
I had also started up arestaurant, uh, with my wife and
another partner, um, and kind ofhad a lot of these balls
juggling in the air at the sametime.
And, uh, three weeks intogetting that restaurant off the
ground, it was about a half amillion dollar setup that we,
that we did and three weeks intogrand opening COVID smacks us
(25:35):
all dead in the face.
Um, at the same time, COVIDsmacks us in the face of the
restaurant, building materialsand labor went through the roof,
you know, building materialsinstantly almost, uh, for like
home building materials almostdoubled instantly when that
happened.
Like lumber doubled in somepoints, 2.
(25:57):
5 times.
Um, yeah, yeah, it was, it wasridiculous.
Um, and then, you know, a lot ofthe projects.
That we had slated on the booksfor extraordinary flooring.
We're kind of up in the air and,you know, can we move forward?
Can we do this?
How do you do this with socialdistancing?
(26:18):
How do you do that?
You know?
Um, so, you know, that wasanother, that was kind of that
next pivotal moment.
And at that time, that's when Ireally started.
Uh, you know, we all had alittle bit more time on our
hands than normal.
And, uh, I started diving into,I actually stumbled upon, uh,
Grant Cardone.
(26:39):
And, uh, he intrigued me.
He was, I jumped onto some ofhis real estate stuff.
And, you know, at the time wewere, we were, you know,
building a bunch of homes and wewere building, buying a bunch of
land.
And to build these spec homes onand, uh, and, and that dove me
into my personal developmentjourney.
(27:00):
And while things were going, youknow, really good before COVID
happened, uh, they were kind ofjust going organically.
And once again, you know, mywork ethic and determination is
basically driving most of thatstuff.
Wasn't that I was, um, justbecoming this super intelligent
(27:23):
entrepreneur or anything.
I was just, you know, living bythe basic means of
entrepreneurship of workinghard, doing the right thing by
your clients, getting all thatdone and, and learning the
lessons along the way.
Um, this is really when Idecided that I, I know that I've
got more inside of me.
(27:44):
You know, to learn.
I know that I can learn so muchmore in this real estate world,
in this business developmentworld, you know, um, you know,
all of these things and personaldevelopment.
And that's when I started divinginto that personal development.
Um, at the same time, I alsowanted to get back to my
physical development.
(28:05):
I had kind of let myself go.
I was running all of thesedifferent businesses.
I was doing all of thesedifferent things.
Um, you know, running arestaurant, I, I would start my
day with the flooring company,then go into the home building
and finish my day at therestaurant.
After, after doing all of that,you're finishing your day at the
restaurant.
Uh, you know, I would finish my,finish my day at the bar, at the
(28:28):
restaurant.
And, uh, that, that led to, youknow, just not taking care of
myself.
I was sitting here just kind ofburning at both ends and, and,
and not taking care of myselfphysically, not taking care of
myself mentally, not growing asa leader, not growing as an
entrepreneur.
Um, and, uh, you know, that,that sparked that huge, excuse
(28:53):
me, that huge change in my lifewhere I knew I had more to
develop.
I knew I had more mentally, Iknew I had more physically, I
knew I had more spiritually.
You know, things were, thingswere good in my household, but I
knew they could be better.
I knew that I was somebody whowas completely buried in work
and didn't really have much elseto offer.
(29:13):
offer other than just being thishard working guy trying to get
all of this stuff done, but Iknew I had more.
And, and that's where this, thiswhole pivotal change came in me
where I knew I could be more.
And I dove a hundred percentinto personal.
And professional and physicaldevelopment into myself, which
(29:38):
in turn coming out, out of thatis what has gotten me motivated
to, to know that, you know,everybody can do really well,
just kind of going at pace inthe world, but you know, you've
got something else in you andyou can dig deeper and get that.
And that's what led to this.
(29:58):
Make it extraordinary.
Not being my extraordinaryflooring model, but being my
life model.
That's what, that's what led tome saying, all right, Jake,
you've learned these lessons sofar.
You know, um, you know, how canyou start teaching this to other
people?
How can you start sharing someof these lessons with other
people?
How can you start, you know,where your life was, it was
good.
(30:19):
It was fine, but you knew youcould make it better.
You did make it better.
How can you start sharing thatjourney with other people?
So that led to the book that ledto the book.
It's uh, I was, I was just kindof felt, felt called to write
(30:39):
it.
Um, it started as what I thinkis going to be my next book,
which is The ExtraordinaryProcess.
And as I start diving in andstart writing it, I'm like, you
know, The Extraordinary Processis something you're still
developing.
You, you've got a lot of theselessons and chapters in here.
(31:00):
You know what, you know whatthat, that, that has taken
where, where it's going, whereyou're coming from for that.
You're still developing it.
And then I said, you know, but Iknow I'm ready to write a book.
I'm called to write this book.
I want to write this book.
I said, so what can you write iton?
I said, let me take every biglife changing lesson that I've
(31:23):
had thus far.
And let me put it in a book, youknow, and that's where I started
diving in.
Like.
Where was a pivotal moment thatchanged my life?
What was that step that didsomething that, that made your
life go in this direction?
What was a, you know, every lifechanging lesson that I had is,
is, is in that book.
(31:45):
And I wrote it, I wrote thequick little story behind it.
And I paid homage to the mentorsor the people that I learned
from, um, and that goes fromearly on childhood lessons to
young teenage and early 20adolescence lessons, some
knucklehead lessons in there,uh, to, to then the expensive,
(32:07):
the business acumen lessons thatI've, that I've learned from the
mentors that I've paid to be inthe rooms with, you know, and
paid to get into those seminars,paid to get into those
masterminds.
You know, um, you know, thoselessons as well.
And those are the ones that havereally been, you know, those
next level business lessons,right?
Those, those ones that take youfrom just the work ethic and
(32:31):
determination grit that got meso far to those next levels of
business.
So what, uh, what, what, what doyou hope to accomplish with the
book?
Is it simply to just get peopleinspired?
Do you have any other, well,I'll just come out and say,
like, I've heard you say youalso want to use it as a tool to
(32:52):
help open doors.
So what are those doors you wantto open with the book?
The doors I'm looking to open,you know, um, I think God's
going to put them out in frontof me.
Um, I do know that I'm put hereto be more than just, you know,
(33:13):
the owner of my flooringcompany.
I do know I'm put here to bemore than just the author of
this book.
Uh, I was blessed to have manypeople in my life to help me get
to where I am today to teach methese lessons that I've learned
that, that put me in thesedirections that I'm in.
I really, really enjoymentoring.
You know, people that arelooking for mentorship, that are
(33:35):
looking, that are struggling inthese different, different
categories, you know, the fourkind of, we talked about
earlier, the kind of fourpillars, health, wealth,
spiritual relationships.
You know, those are kind ofthose four things to me that
when you've got all four ofthose in line, you know, you,
you, it's what made me feelextraordinary when I had all
four of those combined.
(33:56):
I felt great, you know, and Ifelt good many times in life
when I didn't have all four ofthose in sync.
But when I got them in sync,that's when I truly felt
extraordinary.
So, you know, definitely gonna,you know, gonna help in the
mentorship role.
Um, you know, we will eventuallydo some, you know, do some, you
(34:17):
know, maybe masterminds andmentorship programs and things
of that nature.
But for now, I'm just, you know,I'm, I'm just opening it up.
I'm getting, this is the startof this journey that, that I'm
trying to spread this message,you know, worldwide.
You know, over the course of mylife, I plan on helping
millions, you know, inspiringthem to find fine with that,
that, that extraordinary versionof themselves is fine with that
(34:40):
extraordinary quality that theymay have.
You know, uh, I believeeverybody has something
extraordinary inside of them,you know, whether, whether
they're willing to admit it orwhether they're willing to dig
for it yet is up to them, youknow, but you know, the same way
I felt that, you know, I couldhave been satisfied with status
quo.
(35:01):
I knew and felt that there wasmore to me than what I was
putting out there.
And life was good.
You know, there's nothing wrongwith my life and there's nothing
wrong with so many, everybodyelse's lives, but they still
have something else inside ofthem that they can either share
with the world or share withtheir family.
We'll just be proud of that.
(35:21):
They're putting it outthemselves.
And I feel that, you know,there's many, there's many
others that feel the exact sameway that, you know, they're
doing fine.
Life is good, but it candefinitely be better.
And to be extraordinary, to feelextraordinary, there's, there's
no other, there's no otherfeelings.
(35:43):
So what, what will practicallylike really, um, uh, um, in, in,
in, in raw way, like what willsuccess look like?
Not figuratively, but just like,you know, 10 years from now with
this book.
Or or the extraordinary lifejourney that you're going on.
(36:05):
Well, what will success looklike?
Well, where will jacob lawson beand what will that movement look
like?
Well, you know, obviouslysuccess is determined
Individually by everybody right?
So, you know, you you do have tochoose your own version of
success You do have to choosewhat that is to me It's, it's
(36:29):
growing my businesses, um, youknow, to, to many higher levels
than they are now.
Um, and it is, you know,speaking more to inspire more,
uh, mentoring more to inspiremore, um, having people feel the
same way about me.
(36:50):
As I feel about my mentors, theones that have changed my life,
the ones that have, have givenme those lessons.
That have leveled me up, theones that have given me that
accountability to, to not giveup and to not take it easy when
(37:10):
I know that I could push throughthose, right?
There's, there's, there's manypeople in my life that have
given me that ability thatbecause I was connected with
them and because whether Ireached out and made that
connection or it was just anorganic connection in our life.
Those people gave me that driveto reach up and go for those
(37:31):
next levels, you know, that's,that's who I want to be to, to
as many people as possible overmy lifetime.
Excellent.
Well, Jacob, we're going toswitch over to our world famous
Wayfinder 4.
So, um, can you give us a hack?
This is just a life hack thatyou use every day.
(37:57):
I've had that I use every day isget up early, get up early and,
and, and that allows me to knockout me first.
Uh, I'm a family man.
I'm a businessman.
There's a lot of people that,that, that depend on me to do a
lot of things during the day,but nobody's calling me at four
o'clock in the morning.
So at four o'clock in themorning from four o'clock to six
(38:17):
o'clock is when I do me, I workout, I read a little bit, I
meditate a little bit.
I, uh, I, uh, do my stretching.
I just, I kind of get my mentalfocus going and all of that's
out the way.
You know, at 6 20 in themorning, I wake up my kids and I
get them ready for school andthen I go about the rest of the
(38:37):
day and everybody else thatneeds to depend on me can depend
on me and I'll get it done.
But at four in the morning, onlyperson is dependent on me is me.
And that's when I get up andthat's when I focus on myself
and I get that stuff.
Done because like all of us, weall have busy, busy lives.
And once, once the day takeshold, we may have a goal to work
out.
(38:57):
We may have a goal to dosomething for ourself.
We may have a goal to this, butit's so easy to get distracted.
But when I knock that stuff outearly, I'm starting the day
winning.
And, and then I can give myselfto everybody else who needs me,
but in the morning, that's metime.
And that's my productivity hack.
And that's, that's a huge partof what's changed me physically
(39:20):
and mentally is I can get thatstuff in and before six o'clock
is up, um, um, I've got thosewins checked, I've got those
boxes checked and now it's backto business, back to family,
friends, anybody else who needsme, anybody else that, that
anything else I need to do, Ican do it, but, but me has been
(39:41):
checked off the box.
I have, uh, I'm also an earlymorning riser and it started a,
uh, running club here in Denverthat we run at five in the
morning every day, even now inwinter.
And, uh, we have a guy in ourclub that, um, he's, he calls
it, uh, he, Kind of like what,you know, you're putting that
(40:02):
mask on when you're on anairplane before you help
somebody else, you know, whenyou go on to give you all that
spiel about what you got to doand before you help anybody, you
got to put that mask on.
And I just think, that's what hecalls it, you know, we start, he
always takes our selfies when westart out in the morning, he's
like, all right, everybody putyour masks on, it's time to put
your, you know, and, uh, it's,it's a great, uh, analogy, I
(40:24):
think, right, taking care ofyourself first, so you can help
others later.
Right, so well put yeah, andyou're you're built you're ready
to go.
You're a vic You're invigoratedafter that run, especially when
it's uh as freezing as it isover there, right?
Yeah Yeah today's rough butyeah, no no doubt about it you
(40:44):
always it it's it's always abetter day.
It doesn't matter what It'salways better.
It's tough sometimes, you know,to get out the door, but once
you do, you always feel better.
Your day is always better.
How about a favorite?
This is just a colorado.
Cool can be tricky.
Yeah Yeah, it's not that badhere.
(41:06):
Actually.
I come from the northeast goingoutside and you're like Yeah, it
actually, sometimes in Colorado,you can be like, uh, it ain't
bad, you know, coming from theNortheast like I grew up in New
England and the winters there,even though the temperatures can
be higher, they definitely feela lot colder, you know, um, so
(41:27):
30 degrees in, you know, NewEngland is a lot colder than 30
degrees in Denver, in myopinion, but, so, um.
It's, it's, uh, it's the firstweek of January, first time
we've seen 40 degrees in NewOrleans and we don't know how to
act too well.
Yeah.
40 and a lot of wind is prettycold for us.
Yeah, I bet.
Most people be laughing at it.
(41:48):
That sounds nice right now.
So how about a favorite?
This is just, you know,something you just like to do
for you, like, uh, books or acertain book or show or
activity, whatever.
when, when it's just for me, youknow, books and stuff, I'm, I'm
typically always self help.
So that's, I'm always trying tolearn something from a book.
(42:11):
So yeah, I'm doing that for me,but I'm doing it to make me
better.
But if it's just, you know, ifit's just to relax is this kind
of two things, it's, um, youknow, go fishing with my dad.
Is, is, is like a pastime that,that we, we grew up doing.
It was, it's kind of our, ourlittle special thing.
So, uh, he lives in a differentstate, so we may only get to do
(42:34):
it once or twice a year.
But when we do, do do it, it's,you know, it's definitely
something that, that Ithoroughly enjoy.
And then on like a weeklyoccurrence, uh, when I check all
the boxes, you know, for me tofeel like it was an accomplished
week, I got all this stuff done.
I needed to do kind of businesswise.
Um, I've, I've done all my mealprep and, uh, cooked some good.
(42:58):
Nice food for the family.
We had a nice family meal andthen like on a Sunday night, you
know, I like to just, just catcha, catch a one or two hours or
some, just some forget abouteverything, television or
something, you know, and to me,that's a, that's a, a perfect
week checked off the box.
Got all your work done.
(43:19):
That's all in the bag done.
And at the end, at the end ofthat Sunday, I'll catch a couple
hours of TV and I kind of feellike.
That's a, that's a, that's agood week when I finish it off
with that and ready to startMonday again.
Any shows and that's about theonly thing that one of the only
things that just my favorite onethat just ended was Yellowstone
(43:40):
Yellowstone was a pretty damnpretty damn good show
Definitely.
I hear good things about it Man,it's it's it's if there's a TV
show.
I think that that one in Vikingsare my two top TV shows Vikings
Maybe ever.
Oh, really?
That's that's my show.
(44:01):
Okay.
I don't watch things multipletimes Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, yeah, it is on Netflix.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh, I actually just went throughand watched it again.
And, uh, I'm not normallysomebody who will watch
something again.
Like I don't watch movies over,you know, like I've seen it
like, all right, I don't need tosee it again.
(44:21):
I get it.
Right.
I actually watched that showagain.
I think the original seriesended multiple years ago and I
was like, man, let me look atthat one again.
And I have to look it up.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching itthrough again.
Okay, nice.
What about, uh, well, I knowyou, you were pretty much, uh,
(44:42):
you're pretty much full ofthese, but I need to ask you for
one piece of advice for youryounger self.
Know your numbers, know yournumbers in business and know
your numbers personally.
Um, this is, goes even before Ieven started my, my own
(45:06):
businesses.
Um, I was always a younghustler, always hustled, still
do hustle.
Um, just because you're bringingin money doesn't mean you're
making money.
And even if you finally start tothink, you know, your business
numbers, if you also don't knowyour personal numbers in and
(45:26):
out, you know, the, thestructured numbers and then the
completely unstructured spendingnumbers.
If you don't know those numbers,then that, you know, you, you
might think you're doing reallywell and you're not, you know,
or you, you think you've made alot of money and you really
could be breaking even, or, ormaybe even going backwards, so,
um, if I.
(45:47):
I think I definitely could evenbe in a much better spot.
Had I, had I known my numbersbetter, it was always great at
generating revenue.
I can always generate revenue.
I was always a hustler.
I can always make some sales,but I didn't always know exactly
how much money I was making atthe end of the day.
And it took me a long time inbusiness before I took that
(46:10):
serious to know every single inand out of my business spending
and my personal spending toreally have a clear picture.
Of, of where you stand, what youmake, what you owe, who owes
you, you know, you know, whatyou're really making on a
project at the end of the dayand what you're really making as
a company at the end of the yearand what you really spent as a
(46:32):
person at the end of the year.
So, you know, if I, if myyounger self would have new
numbers better, like I, like Isaid, mentioned earlier, I
probably would have made a lotmore money during Katrina, you
know, it'd be one thing.
And, you know, but And add thatup over 20 plus years, you know,
whatever that percentage betteris, it would, it would be
(46:53):
significant if you added it upover this long period of time.
So the faster, you know, yournumbers, the faster, you know,
if you're making what you needto make and, um, you know, and.
If you need to be charging more,taking less, where you're, you
know, winning at, where you'relosing at, you know, you could
be doing 15 different things andonly making money on half of
(47:15):
them or less or more, you know,so until you completely know
those numbers, you know, justbecause you generate revenue
doesn't mean you make money.
That's right.
That's so good, man.
One of my favorites is actuallyreading biographies of, You
know, great, especially businesspeople throughout history.
Right.
And, uh, and lately I discoveredthis podcast called founders.
(47:38):
Actually, it's been around for awhile, but you know, they, they,
they review these books on themand it's so good.
And what, you know, the commontheme on them is.
These people are like, theyreally understand their numbers
and their KPIs, like inside out,like no matter what, you know,
from the Rockefellers to, youknow, the musts of the world,
(47:59):
like I can guarantee you ElonMusk can tell you what every
widget in a rocket ship that hesent to Mars costs, you know, I
mean, it's just, uh, the onething that they all have in
common, you know, and so I thinkyou're, you're right on.
And that's something I've oftenneglected, to be honest.
I, I, I'm on and off with as avisionary type, you know, we're
(48:19):
just thinking about the ideasand how to go after it And it's
so that's what we have fun.
But in the numbers sometimesthat that's a struggle like just
sitting with them But but it'sessential it isn't the sooner
you figure them out, especiallyin the early The sooner the
better, you know, cause you canmake those adjustments.
And if you wait, you know, somany of us entrepreneurs, it's
(48:39):
the last thing we want to do is,you know, get all of those
analytical things in line and,Oh, I'm going to let the CPA
handle it at the end of a yearor even worse, you know, like
six months after the end of theyear, most of us early
entrepreneurs that don't haveeverything in, in, in line, um,
you know, The faster you getthose numbers in line, the
(49:00):
faster you can make thoseadjustments, the faster you can
make those tweaks.
And it can make all thedifference in the world, whether
it's 5 percent or 50%, you know,it, it, it'll all add up and
I'll add up big time.
The sooner you do it, you know,you're just leaking it out and
you don't know it.
That's right.
Good advice, man.
So, uh, last one.
You can choose, uh, to discusseither a big opportunity or a
(49:23):
limiting belief.
What's my big opportunity orwhat I think is a big
opportunity out there?
Yeah, either one.
Yeah, uh, big opportunity, youknow, to me is, is what I'm,
(49:44):
I'm, I'm stepping into.
Uh, My, my, like I said, myprimary flooring company is a,
is a locally regionally basedcompany, and it is based on the
amount of people that I canphysically serve.
Um, you know, so we are aservice based business and that
(50:05):
all depends on the amount ofpersonnel we can train to do
these services and the amount ofequipment we can, we can
purchase to do these services.
Um, But to get a biggeropportunity, uh, is, is really
what I'm stepping into and, and,and this hopefully motivational
(50:26):
space and mentorship spacebecause I can reach out and I
can touch people worldwide.
And, you know, even on thismicro level that I'm doing now
through my social mediaoutreaches, I'm doing that now
with people in differentcountries that, that, that.
You know, I would never, you'dnever meet in your life without
(50:48):
this social media world thatwe've got, you know, through the
instas and the linkedins and,and all of these other, other
things that, that now we, wehave this ability to be
connected worldwide and makeconnections and business moves
and, and all of these thingswith people that, that you'll
never, you may never ever reachout and shake their hand because
(51:10):
they're in a, they're in anotherworld.
Right.
So to me, that big opportunityis, is this, is this worldwide,
you know, opening that we havein these social channels and,
and, and the ability to, to makeand do business with people
anywhere in the world.
Yeah.
I love that.
So Jacob, if people want to knowa little bit more about you.
(51:32):
Uh, maybe get your book, uh,maybe use your services, maybe
seek mentorship from you.
How, how can they find you?
So the book, Make ItExtraordinary, 27 Life Changing
Lessons to Help You ElevateBeyond the Ordinary is available
on Amazon.
Um, easiest way to get it.
(51:52):
Um, my socials are Make ItExtraordinary.
Uh, that's across Facebook,Instagram, um, TikTok, all of
those good.
Things make it extraordinary dotco is the website where you can
also go directly to it And giveme some DMS and we've got some,
(52:14):
you know, free goodies on thereSome extraordinary life
checklist and things of thatnature that that you can go and
get into and subscribe to Butbut definitely reaching out
directly via via socials thatmake it extraordinary is Is one
of the easiest ways?
I love it.
Thank you, Jacob, for being hereand sharing a little bit about
(52:37):
your journey.
Uh, you, you, you're quiteinspirational.
I hope people check out thebook.
I know I'm going to order it andsee the stories.
Uh, I, I want to know the dirttoo, man.
So, uh, we'll have to have youback on and talk about it then.
It's in there, man.
I'm an open book.
I put, I put the good, bad andthe ugly in there.
And um, you know, it's, it's forpeople to, you know, what I hope
(52:59):
is, is that it, that it,Leapfrog some people and they
learn a few lessons ahead oftime that instead of learning
them the hard way like like alot of us Have include myself,
you know So I put it in therefor for people to to hopefully
learn those lessons ahead oftime I'm not learning the hard
way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(53:19):
Well, thank you for sharing themand thank you for pushing
through and learning Actuallyfrom those those hard knocks
right because a lot of us don'tand we give up And we don't work
hard and we don't move on, butyou have, you, you work through
it, you figure it out.
You see it as an opportunity to,to grind and learn and now to
inspire.
So thank you for that, Jacob.
(53:39):
Great to have you here.
You're very welcome.
Thank you for letting me shareyour platform and get on here
and you're doing the same thingand you're helping people grow
and giving them opportunitiesand, and, and whether it's, it's
the listeners that get to learn.
Or, or the people like myselfthat are blessed enough to come
on and share their stories.
So, so I greatly appreciate youproviding that platform and,
and, and you're doing the samething.
(54:01):
You're helping people grow,elevate, and expand, you know,
beyond what their currentreaches are.
All right, let's go help peoplemake their lives extraordinary.
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a 5 starrating and review.
(54:22):
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
Like if you're going to makesomething, make it
extraordinary.
You know, like if you have thatability, why would you just be
settling for ordinary if you canmake it extraordinary?
So that one moment sitting inthe back of a van, when I could
have listened to, you know,somebody who I highly respected
and admired tell me, Oh, that'stoo much.
I didn't listen to him.
(00:20):
I trusted my gut, changed mybusiness and it changed my life.
Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that lead them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
(00:44):
area of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the Wayfindersshow.
I'm your host, Louie Hernandez.
And today I'm here.
Uh, with Jacob Lawson, who I'mthrilled to welcome to the show.
Jacob is a serial entrepreneurand author of a book called Make
It Extraordinary, 27 lifechanging lessons that will
elevate you beyond the ordinary.
(01:28):
And he's the founder ofExtraordinary Flooring, Inc.
His journey from overcomingpersonal challenges to building
a thriving business andmentoring others is nothing
short of inspiring.
Jacob.
Has a passion for personaldevelopment and is committing to
help committed to helping othersunlock their full potential
Through his work and writingjacob.
(01:49):
Welcome to the show and thanksfor having me louis Appreciate
it.
I've been looking forward tothis one Yeah, likewise, man.
I heard you on some other showsand like, Oh, we got to get you
on the way finder shows.
So we're tap, uh, you got, um,I, you know, for people who
don't know, you just wrote thisbook and I think you're just
starting to get yourself outthere.
So, um, if you can just sharemaybe your origin story with our
(02:13):
listeners.
Yeah.
You know, so, you know, I'm akind of a serial entrepreneur.
I've been, been in business forover 20 years on my primary bit.
Business, which is, which is my,my breadwinner, my extraordinary
flooring.
We're a commercial flooringcompany.
We do, uh, polish.
Concrete and decorative concreteand epoxy coatings.
(02:34):
So it makes us a specialtyflooring contractor.
We're here in, uh, New Orleansand we service that whole kind
of greater New Orleans areaabout a, about a three hour
radius at a new Orleans area.
So it gets us in a couple oflittle states and in different
areas.
Uh, and that's my primary.
My primary portfolio that we,that we do have, you know, I've
also been a home builder and,um, a general contractor or
(02:58):
restaurateur.
Uh, but, but as, as of late, asI, as I gotten into my 40s,
I've, I've wanted to dive into,into more of a mentorship role
and, and kind of pay back someof the things that I've been
blessed with, uh, which led tome writing my first book, Make
It Extraordinary.
27 life changing lessons to helpyou on the ordinary.
(03:20):
Basically took, uh, all of thebiggest life changing lessons
and the mentors.
He taught them to me and I wrotea quick little story about him
and, and, and put him in somelessons and paid homage to those
mentors and, and, uh, you know,now I'm on a journey to, to
hopefully pay it back and, and,and maybe have somebody write
something about me one day.
Yeah, I love that.
(03:40):
You know, that's not muchdifferent than the origin story
of the Wayfinders show, really.
I was kind of inspired, uh, I'min my late forties now.
And, um, And, you know, we wereinspired to go and share stories
of people who've done someinspirational things to try to
motivate and inspire other youngpeople, you know.
Uh, and in particular, I reallylike, you know, kind of the
(04:05):
story of overcoming hardship,right?
Which I know you have a lot ofthat.
In in your book because I Ithink that's important, you
know, we look up to people whoare really successful You know,
we think that they've alwaysbeen that way but the the real
success is built In thestruggle, right?
So can you talk about some ofthose?
Struggles and hardships you hadto overcome to get to where you
(04:27):
are now.
Yeah, I mean for sure You know,I started in an offshore career
and then I and I kind of in myoff time was was working for a
kind Of best friend slash bigbrother mentor as a side job
doing flooring and I knew that Ididn't want to live my life
(04:49):
offshore Or so, you know,eventually I decided to make
that jump and when I did makethat jump, I called it my Home
Depot bucket and a prayer cardor a prayer moment.
You know, I didn't have jobslined up.
I didn't have work secured.
I didn't have a ton ofequipment.
I didn't have a ton of moneyleft over.
I took, I just finished takingall of my savings and dumping it
(05:11):
into my first home and Um, youknow, and, and it's one of the
titles, one of the chapters andit was a Home Depot bucket and a
prayer, you know, a Home Depotcard in a prayer.
I'm sorry, uh, because that,that's what kind of got me
through the first year ofbusiness, you know, racking up
that Home Depot card and, uh,buying tools and, and, and just
(05:31):
starting to grind.
Um, I.
Always had a great work ethicinstilled in me, you know,
whether it was instilled from myparents, my grandparents, you
know, they definitely helpedand, you know, whatever it came
and natural abilities.
I was always a hard worker, evenas a kid.
And so that was the thing thatreally helped me.
(05:52):
Just pulled me through my first,I would call it at least 10 to
12 years, 10 to 15 years ofbusiness and just grinding work
ethic, making sure you're doingright by your clients.
Um, and, and when your back'sagainst the wall, stand there
and fight, you know, and don'tgive up on it.
And, uh, you know, that, thatkind of work ethic is, was
(06:14):
definitely needed through myfirst 15 years of business.
And, uh, it, it definitelypulled me to those next levels.
Interesting.
So you, you, let's open it up alittle bit.
You said you went offshore intooffshore flooring.
What does that mean?
You went like to other countriesand stuff to do flooring work.
(06:37):
Uh, not to do flooring work.
It started in the oil field.
So it started in the oil field.
And, and I'm in Louisiana, whichis a big oil field state, you
know, oil and gas production.
Um, and you can get a lot ofthat done right here in
Louisiana, but I, uh, reallyquickly turned into overseas.
I did go to Africa.
Um, worked a couple of years inAfrica, which led me to a bunch
(06:59):
of different countries just kindof intermittently traveling,
which was an amazing time for a20 year old, 21 year old kid out
of high school, making greatmoney and got to see some really
cool stuff.
Uh, my dad had that same careerand he would always say that,
(07:19):
you know, if you ever catchsomebody complaining about the
things you got to deal with inthe States.
Tell them to go work in a thirdworld country for a couple
months and, and, and they'llstop those complaints.
You know, you, you, you kind oflearned that it ain't Kansas
anymore when you get to some ofthese other countries and, you
know, it ain't, uh, calling,calling 9 1 1 and anybody coming
(07:39):
to save you.
You can call whoever you want,but you're kind of on your own
out there and, and, and you gointo these different worlds and
you start respecting.
And although our country is notperfect, it is still one of the
greatest countries in the world.
And you start realizing why.
And you start going to some ofthese smaller third world
countries that don't have thefreedoms and liberties that we
have that's right.
(08:00):
Yeah point.
Well taken um the So so you wentso so how did you get into
flooring exactly?
I had I had a next door neighborwho who was kind of treated me
like uh, like a big brother Inever had any brothers and uh,
he was You know, probably it'sthe thing is a good 10 years
(08:21):
older than me and he lived nextdoor and he had his own flooring
company.
And so when you work offshore,you'll typically do different
hitches of three weeks on oneweek off or two weeks on one
week off.
You'd have different, differenttimes where you go work straight
and then you come home for anextended period of time.
And, um, I was never very, uh,good with just being idle.
(08:41):
So if I had a way to go makesome extra money, which he
presented that opportunity tome, I would do so on all the
times I'd be off.
I would go to work with him.
And that's how I picked up that,that kind of, that trade of
flooring.
Oh, I see.
And you liked it.
And I'm assuming you were justlike, Hey, I can do this for
myself.
Well, yeah, I mean, I, I didlike it.
(09:03):
Uh, basically it was justanother opportunity.
It's not like, Oh, I just fellin love with laying tile.
But I did see the opportunityand, you know, my big brother,
Jeremy, he, he, he painted thatopportunity for me and he showed
me what was possible.
Um, actually, you know,coincidentally, he, he had a
similar upbringing.
He, he started early in the oldfield career and quit and did
(09:25):
that.
No, he was, you know, I guess,you know, in his early thirties
at the time and, you know, had anice house, nice car, all the
money he cash he wanted.
And he just, you know, it kindof, it was that opportunity to
show me that, you know, if youjust grind and hustle.
And and whichever one youchoose, and it happened to be he
chose flooring.
And I seen that opportunity and,um, you know, and he, he, he
(09:48):
showed me he showed me what'swhat was capable from just, you
know, going out there andworking hard and getting it on
your own.
You didn't have to go work forsomebody else.
You know, you can go work foryourself, you know, and so he
showed me that opportunity and Ijust kind of opened that door
for me.
So I'd say I just kind of fellinto floor and it happened to be
who knows he could have been a.
You know, any other trade and itmight have turned out completely
(10:10):
different, but it just sohappened that he was laying
floors and that's what got mestarted.
So then you went off on yourown.
Did you, uh, was itextraordinary flooring for
Negeco or how did you start?
It was Big Jake's affordableflooring.
Uh, from the get go, uh, bigJake was the childhood nickname.
(10:33):
It was also my, uh, my hip hoppersona.
Uh, we had, uh, we had a hip hoprecord label at that time.
So, uh, big Jake's affordablefloor and is how it started.
And I was always, of course,attracting the biggest spenders
with that name.
You know, of course, that'sexactly who the, the, uh, the
well off or, or, or shooting forwith that, that kind of a name.
(10:56):
Um, and so, no, that's how itstarted.
And that's exactly.
Exactly what I was attractingwas the, the, the nifty and
thrifty spenders of the worldlooking to get the, uh, you
know, the best bang for theirbuck in the cheapest price.
Um, that didn't last very long.
Um, maybe six months into it.
(11:16):
I, uh, I kind of had an ahamoment and that aha moment came
actually doing some pickup workwith him riding in a bag of his
van.
At the end of the day, and Ijust kind of had an aha moment
and said, I got it.
And he's like, what?
I said, I know what I'm changingmy name to.
He's like, what?
(11:36):
I said, extraordinary flooring.
He's like, you sure?
That's a little much.
I said, no.
This is what I'm changing myname to.
I'm changing it to ExtraordinaryFlooring.
It's no longer Big Jake'sAffordable Flooring.
It's Extraordinary Flooring.
He kind of gave me a side eye,like, I don't know, it's a
little much for you, you know,but I was like, didn't matter.
It was, it was set, you know,that's what I was going for.
(11:57):
That's what I was going to do.
That's what I changed.
And that changed my wholepersona.
That changed the way, themindset of what I was going to
provide.
And almost instantaneously, itchanged my clientele.
You know, almostinstantaneously, from there on
out, I started attractingcompletely different clientele.
(12:17):
And, you know.
Was it because I changed thename or because I changed the
mindset because I changed theway I thought about it You know
that changed what I wasattracting, right?
so that was a huge thing for methat you know, it was it was a
One moment on an evening in theback of a van, you know Could
(12:40):
have listened to his advice andsaid oh, maybe that's too much
and maybe I think of somethingelse I trusted my gut and I went
with it and it changed and itchanged everything.
It changed my mindset.
It changed the way we didbusiness.
It changed the way I attractedclients.
It changed, changed everything.
And to, to say that it changedmy business, you know, 20 years
(13:02):
ago is one thing, but it'schanged my life.
It's now what it's, it's now mymotto.
It's not.
My flooring model of make itextraordinary.
It's my life model.
It is what I live by.
It's my credence.
It's my North star.
Like if you're gonna makesomething, make it
extraordinary.
(13:23):
You know, like if you have thatability, why would you just be
selling for ordinary if you canmake it extraordinary?
So that one moment sitting inthe back of a van.
When I could have listened to,you know, somebody who I highly
respected and admired, tell me,Oh, that's too much.
I didn't listen to him.
I trusted my gut, changed mybusiness and it changed my life.
(13:46):
Man, I, uh, I absolutely lovethat.
That, that's awesome.
Let, let's dissect that.
I mean, you've done a good, goodjob of already dissecting like
the mindset behind that, right?
Which is, is huge.
But I, I kind of want to dissectit almost like in a business
level, right?
When you were Big Jake'saffordable flooring, your
(14:07):
clients, um, well, you, you kindof joked around about it.
They were just the peoplelooking for the best deal,
right?
So you, you were, Essentially acommodity who people were just
trying to get for the cheapestand lowest, you know, uh prices
And what was it?
I I imagine in that um, itdidn't take long before you felt
(14:28):
a certain way I mean you yousaid six months you were like
i'm changing it and um, There'ssomething about that right that
you feel like people aretreating you like a commodity
right and you and you areDevaluing yourself.
Would you agree?
There's no doubt.
There's absolutely no doubt.
Um, Jeremy's clientele was inthat moderate stage.
(14:53):
He was doing at least, you know,three and 500, 000 homes.
So he was always at least doingnew nice homes.
And then when I broke off ontomy own, I was doing section
eight apartments.
I was doing dirty littlebathrooms in the back of grocery
stores and just things that youjust didn't even want to touch.
(15:14):
You go into a house and it'd belike, Oh, you don't even want to
go in here.
You know, whether it be the catlady's house or something that
hadn't been.
Remodeled in 20 years, you know,and, you know, things that just,
there was absolutely no joy indoing it.
There was no sense of pride whenit was done because you weren't
(15:34):
doing anything special.
You were doing the cheapest tileat the cheapest house or the
cheapest apartment for thecheapest person who still, no
matter how cheap the price was,still wanted to get a better
deal.
Usually.
Julie, right.
So, um, you, you weren't makinga ton of money at the end of it
because of all of the above.
So there was no sense ofsatisfaction in any of that.
(15:56):
It was, there was none.
It was, you know, it's like noneof it made me happy.
None of it made me feel goodabout what I did or feel
prideful in what I was doing,other than the fact that, you
know, I was putting food.
Put on a table for for me and myyoung family.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well put so then you When youtake that and you you start
(16:23):
being you you change it intoextraordinary where you did you
start becoming?
Selective in your clientele Likehow did you just change because
it must be hard when you had asteady flow of business in the
affordable flooring space Andthen all of a sudden you're
trying to attract somethingelse, like you, it's two
different worlds, two differentrealms all together, how did,
(16:43):
did, you know, did, did theclients just start coming in
right away and you didn't haveto worry about cutting the
others off, or, or did youconsciously say, nah, that's not
me, um, I'm gonna, uh, uh, I'mgonna wait for my, my, you know,
the extraordinary clients tocome.
There was a little bit of both.
(17:03):
Um, there was still, you know,still the need to make sure that
the bills got paid.
So, you know, still had to takesome jobs that, you know,
weren't your dream clients ordream jobs.
But, you know, I have anotherchapter in the book called guys,
divine timing.
And, you know, it's, it's basedoff of the premise that, you
know, like if you put, you putthese things together, put these
(17:26):
thoughts in the world, putthese, these, these goals and
ambitions in there and you startchasing after them, maybe they
don't happen exactly when youwould love them.
To happen, you know, maybe itdoesn't happen overnight, but if
you're continuing in thatprocess is going to happen and,
you know, whether it was, youknow, as divine timing, divine
luck, karma, or just pureoutlook, it, it almost instantly
(17:50):
happened.
We, we started landing some,some really big, uh, contract.
we're doing multimillion dollarhomes.
And, you know, as an earlybusiness, I only had a couple of
guys working with me at thetime.
And, you know, that would be,you know, big, huge jobs for us.
So that would give us instead oftrying to chop up and do 10, 15
(18:12):
bathrooms in a week, you know,we're doing a whole house.
That might take us, you know,two to four weeks, which then
also gives you time to startlanding those other clients in
the same time.
And.
It didn't take much at the sametime I landed some of those big
contractors.
I landed a couple of high endflooring stores, which, you
know, they sold high endflooring and then, you know,
(18:35):
led, which led to the leads of,of getting that flooring
installed.
And um, you know, it was kind ofoff to the races from there nice
So you you've got a fewtransition points that you've
grown with that.
I find interesting One is is theone we just discussed right just
How you become a really clearintentional and what you want
(18:56):
your business to be like yourclients um, you know the How you
value yourself and all that, butthen there's others along the
way as you grow, like you, youknow, you started doing the
floors yourself, right?
And now I imagine, I'm makingassumptions here, but I imagine
you're not going out and doingany floors, right?
You got some people out there,you might have people managing
(19:16):
those people, am I right?
Yeah, no, now we're now we're ateam of 20.
So, so definitely we're, we'renot doing any, and it wasn't too
long into the business that,that I couldn't do the flooring
anymore.
You know, that we had enoughwork going on to where I'd have,
you know, within the first yearI had.
I had six or eight guys, uh,working with me and you know,
(19:38):
when you get that, that amountof guys under you, there's, you
know, you can try to, you cantry to do the work, but you, you
gotta manage, you know, and ifyou're not managing, then you
can do all the work you want,but everybody else is laying on
your leg and you ain't gettingnothing done that way.
So, um, you know, so instantly Ihad to learn, I had to learn to,
uh, you know, start managingthat.
(19:58):
And, you know, I call it a yearinto that and we're rolling.
Next thing you know, the biggesttransition hits, which was a
groundbreaking moment here andhere in Louisiana and almost as
soon as we start rolling Katrinahits, you know, right.
And that was a whole notherwhole.
(20:19):
So that was that was right atthat time.
I'm a year and we start rollingand then we get smacked with
Katrina.
Which was just, you know, amonumental occurrence, some of
the biggest destruction in thisnation seen, uh, you know, over
time and, you know, secondbiggest hurricane in Louisiana's
history.
(20:39):
And, uh, you know, so obviouslythere was some downtime, you
know, to clear through some ofthat aftermath.
But once, once that downtimewas, was in, it was, it was, it
was really.
You know, as much work as Icould handle.
And I was sitting here trying torecruit any able bodied person I
could.
And, and, and we were, you know,I had, you know, I was running
(21:01):
as much as 15 at that time, youknow, into a year into business,
but, you know, Katrina was just.
You know, a chaotic occurrencethat, that almost 80 percent of
this general area needed to becompletely rebuilt.
Wow.
That was, that was, that wasanother groundbreaking moment
for us.
And it just happened so fastinto my career.
(21:23):
You know, once again, it just,it led to, I needed to learn how
to manage more people.
And if I had my business acumen.
Where I am now, I would havemade and retained more money
than I did.
We brought in a lot of money,but I was still learning, you
know, and I was, you know,making money on this side and
(21:43):
losing money on this side, youknow, cause you got so much
going on and you're new inbusiness and you're not prepared
for that.
And that's where that businessIQ really starts to come in.
And, you know, you can alwayssay live and learn.
And that was definitely livingand learning.
But had I had the businessacumen and knowledge that I have
now, You know, I, I probablywould have banked a couple
(22:04):
million dollars at that time,you know, so, um, but it's a
living and learning process and,and, you know, that's part of
the book.
I share so many lessons on whatI call the, the first off easy
lessons from the mentors thattaught it to me just by being
blessed to have them in my life.
And then what I call the hardlessons, which you learn the
(22:25):
hard way in business, you know,like learning the hard way you
got to get those costly mistakesthat cost you a lot of money.
And typically the more costlythey are, the better you learn
that lesson.
And then what I call theexpensive way when you're paying
to be in that room, paying to beclose to those mentors, paying
(22:47):
to be, you know, and learn thoselessons from the people who have
already, already learned them,right?
So, uh, part of that book isthe, the easy, the hard and the
expensive, and a lot of timesthe hard is equally as
expensive, but when you're justpaying to get.
That easy.
It's, it's, it's not hard,right?
It's you, you're paying to getthat.
(23:07):
It's expensive, but it didn'tlike learning a lesson the hard
way.
So I would imagine, right.
You, you learn it the hard way.
It's going to stick, right?
You know, you're not gonna, youlearn, you really learn, right?
So, uh, and even unfortunately,you know, the expensive way I
equate that to, you know, goingto college and everything.
(23:27):
And sometimes that sticks,sometimes that doesn't, right.
How many of us forget everythingwe learned as soon as we get out
of school and.
You know, had that degree.
We forgot everything we justlearned, right?
We still got that bill though,right?
So it's it's funny all of myhardest lessons that I learned
from getting spanked I call themcollege semesters, you know If I
(23:49):
lose more than a couple grand ona lesson or a job or a project
or a mistake That's a collegesemester and that's why I tell
people i've got my doctor CauseI've, I've taken so many, so
many lessons the hard way.
Never, never been into collegeother than to lay their floors.
But, uh, I've, I've definitelygotten my degrees through the
(24:10):
lessons.
I've learned the hard way.
Yeah.
Outside of Katrina, is there, isthere another really hard one
that really stands out to, tothat when you came out of it?
Really elevated your businessand yourself to another level
The next the next real bigelevation, you know things Grew
(24:33):
nice and steadily andprogressively over the next few
years and and you know, life isgood And you know all that good
stuff continually to slowly growand implement and change Um that
the next biggest lesson camecame at another monumental um
point in almost everybody'slife, uh, and this is as of As
(24:54):
of recent, a couple of yearsago, and that was COVID, um,
COVID came and, and, andextraordinary foreign was
rolling, rolling pretty well,damn near on autopilot.
I had started a few otherbusinesses.
I had started a home buildingbusiness.
Um, I had multiple partners.
We were doing multiple homes ata time.
(25:15):
I had also started up arestaurant, uh, with my wife and
another partner, um, and kind ofhad a lot of these balls
juggling in the air at the sametime.
And, uh, three weeks intogetting that restaurant off the
ground, it was about a half amillion dollar setup that we,
that we did and three weeks intogrand opening COVID smacks us
(25:35):
all dead in the face.
Um, at the same time, COVIDsmacks us in the face of the
restaurant, building materialsand labor went through the roof,
you know, building materialsinstantly almost, uh, for like
home building materials almostdoubled instantly when that
happened.
Like lumber doubled in somepoints, 2.
(25:57):
5 times.
Um, yeah, yeah, it was, it wasridiculous.
Um, and then, you know, a lot ofthe projects.
That we had slated on the booksfor extraordinary flooring.
We're kind of up in the air and,you know, can we move forward?
Can we do this?
How do you do this with socialdistancing?
(26:18):
How do you do that?
You know?
Um, so, you know, that wasanother, that was kind of that
next pivotal moment.
And at that time, that's when Ireally started.
Uh, you know, we all had alittle bit more time on our
hands than normal.
And, uh, I started diving into,I actually stumbled upon, uh,
Grant Cardone.
(26:39):
And, uh, he intrigued me.
He was, I jumped onto some ofhis real estate stuff.
And, you know, at the time wewere, we were, you know,
building a bunch of homes and wewere building, buying a bunch of
land.
And to build these spec homes onand, uh, and, and that dove me
into my personal developmentjourney.
(27:00):
And while things were going, youknow, really good before COVID
happened, uh, they were kind ofjust going organically.
And once again, you know, mywork ethic and determination is
basically driving most of thatstuff.
Wasn't that I was, um, justbecoming this super intelligent
(27:23):
entrepreneur or anything.
I was just, you know, living bythe basic means of
entrepreneurship of workinghard, doing the right thing by
your clients, getting all thatdone and, and learning the
lessons along the way.
Um, this is really when Idecided that I, I know that I've
got more inside of me.
(27:44):
You know, to learn.
I know that I can learn so muchmore in this real estate world,
in this business developmentworld, you know, um, you know,
all of these things and personaldevelopment.
And that's when I started divinginto that personal development.
Um, at the same time, I alsowanted to get back to my
physical development.
(28:05):
I had kind of let myself go.
I was running all of thesedifferent businesses.
I was doing all of thesedifferent things.
Um, you know, running arestaurant, I, I would start my
day with the flooring company,then go into the home building
and finish my day at therestaurant.
After, after doing all of that,you're finishing your day at the
restaurant.
Uh, you know, I would finish my,finish my day at the bar, at the
(28:28):
restaurant.
And, uh, that, that led to, youknow, just not taking care of
myself.
I was sitting here just kind ofburning at both ends and, and,
and not taking care of myselfphysically, not taking care of
myself mentally, not growing asa leader, not growing as an
entrepreneur.
Um, and, uh, you know, that,that sparked that huge, excuse
(28:53):
me, that huge change in my lifewhere I knew I had more to
develop.
I knew I had more mentally, Iknew I had more physically, I
knew I had more spiritually.
You know, things were, thingswere good in my household, but I
knew they could be better.
I knew that I was somebody whowas completely buried in work
and didn't really have much elseto offer.
(29:13):
offer other than just being thishard working guy trying to get
all of this stuff done, but Iknew I had more.
And, and that's where this, thiswhole pivotal change came in me
where I knew I could be more.
And I dove a hundred percentinto personal.
And professional and physicaldevelopment into myself, which
(29:38):
in turn coming out, out of thatis what has gotten me motivated
to, to know that, you know,everybody can do really well,
just kind of going at pace inthe world, but you know, you've
got something else in you andyou can dig deeper and get that.
And that's what led to this.
(29:58):
Make it extraordinary.
Not being my extraordinaryflooring model, but being my
life model.
That's what, that's what led tome saying, all right, Jake,
you've learned these lessons sofar.
You know, um, you know, how canyou start teaching this to other
people?
How can you start sharing someof these lessons with other
people?
How can you start, you know,where your life was, it was
good.
(30:19):
It was fine, but you knew youcould make it better.
You did make it better.
How can you start sharing thatjourney with other people?
So that led to the book that ledto the book.
It's uh, I was, I was just kindof felt, felt called to write
(30:39):
it.
Um, it started as what I thinkis going to be my next book,
which is The ExtraordinaryProcess.
And as I start diving in andstart writing it, I'm like, you
know, The Extraordinary Processis something you're still
developing.
You, you've got a lot of theselessons and chapters in here.
(31:00):
You know what, you know whatthat, that, that has taken
where, where it's going, whereyou're coming from for that.
You're still developing it.
And then I said, you know, but Iknow I'm ready to write a book.
I'm called to write this book.
I want to write this book.
I said, so what can you write iton?
I said, let me take every biglife changing lesson that I've
(31:23):
had thus far.
And let me put it in a book, youknow, and that's where I started
diving in.
Like.
Where was a pivotal moment thatchanged my life?
What was that step that didsomething that, that made your
life go in this direction?
What was a, you know, every lifechanging lesson that I had is,
is, is in that book.
(31:45):
And I wrote it, I wrote thequick little story behind it.
And I paid homage to the mentorsor the people that I learned
from, um, and that goes fromearly on childhood lessons to
young teenage and early 20adolescence lessons, some
knucklehead lessons in there,uh, to, to then the expensive,
(32:07):
the business acumen lessons thatI've, that I've learned from the
mentors that I've paid to be inthe rooms with, you know, and
paid to get into those seminars,paid to get into those
masterminds.
You know, um, you know, thoselessons as well.
And those are the ones that havereally been, you know, those
next level business lessons,right?
Those, those ones that take youfrom just the work ethic and
(32:31):
determination grit that got meso far to those next levels of
business.
So what, uh, what, what, what doyou hope to accomplish with the
book?
Is it simply to just get peopleinspired?
Do you have any other, well,I'll just come out and say,
like, I've heard you say youalso want to use it as a tool to
(32:52):
help open doors.
So what are those doors you wantto open with the book?
The doors I'm looking to open,you know, um, I think God's
going to put them out in frontof me.
Um, I do know that I'm put hereto be more than just, you know,
(33:13):
the owner of my flooringcompany.
I do know I'm put here to bemore than just the author of
this book.
Uh, I was blessed to have manypeople in my life to help me get
to where I am today to teach methese lessons that I've learned
that, that put me in thesedirections that I'm in.
I really, really enjoymentoring.
You know, people that arelooking for mentorship, that are
(33:35):
looking, that are struggling inthese different, different
categories, you know, the fourkind of, we talked about
earlier, the kind of fourpillars, health, wealth,
spiritual relationships.
You know, those are kind ofthose four things to me that
when you've got all four ofthose in line, you know, you,
you, it's what made me feelextraordinary when I had all
four of those combined.
(33:56):
I felt great, you know, and Ifelt good many times in life
when I didn't have all four ofthose in sync.
But when I got them in sync,that's when I truly felt
extraordinary.
So, you know, definitely gonna,you know, gonna help in the
mentorship role.
Um, you know, we will eventuallydo some, you know, do some, you
(34:17):
know, maybe masterminds andmentorship programs and things
of that nature.
But for now, I'm just, you know,I'm, I'm just opening it up.
I'm getting, this is the startof this journey that, that I'm
trying to spread this message,you know, worldwide.
You know, over the course of mylife, I plan on helping
millions, you know, inspiringthem to find fine with that,
that, that extraordinary versionof themselves is fine with that
(34:40):
extraordinary quality that theymay have.
You know, uh, I believeeverybody has something
extraordinary inside of them,you know, whether, whether
they're willing to admit it orwhether they're willing to dig
for it yet is up to them, youknow, but you know, the same way
I felt that, you know, I couldhave been satisfied with status
quo.
(35:01):
I knew and felt that there wasmore to me than what I was
putting out there.
And life was good.
You know, there's nothing wrongwith my life and there's nothing
wrong with so many, everybodyelse's lives, but they still
have something else inside ofthem that they can either share
with the world or share withtheir family.
We'll just be proud of that.
(35:21):
They're putting it outthemselves.
And I feel that, you know,there's many, there's many
others that feel the exact sameway that, you know, they're
doing fine.
Life is good, but it candefinitely be better.
And to be extraordinary, to feelextraordinary, there's, there's
no other, there's no otherfeelings.
(35:43):
So what, what will practicallylike really, um, uh, um, in, in,
in, in raw way, like what willsuccess look like?
Not figuratively, but just like,you know, 10 years from now with
this book.
Or or the extraordinary lifejourney that you're going on.
(36:05):
Well, what will success looklike?
Well, where will jacob lawson beand what will that movement look
like?
Well, you know, obviouslysuccess is determined
Individually by everybody right?
So, you know, you you do have tochoose your own version of
success You do have to choosewhat that is to me It's, it's
(36:29):
growing my businesses, um, youknow, to, to many higher levels
than they are now.
Um, and it is, you know,speaking more to inspire more,
uh, mentoring more to inspiremore, um, having people feel the
same way about me.
(36:50):
As I feel about my mentors, theones that have changed my life,
the ones that have, have givenme those lessons.
That have leveled me up, theones that have given me that
accountability to, to not giveup and to not take it easy when
(37:10):
I know that I could push throughthose, right?
There's, there's, there's manypeople in my life that have
given me that ability thatbecause I was connected with
them and because whether Ireached out and made that
connection or it was just anorganic connection in our life.
Those people gave me that driveto reach up and go for those
(37:31):
next levels, you know, that's,that's who I want to be to, to
as many people as possible overmy lifetime.
Excellent.
Well, Jacob, we're going toswitch over to our world famous
Wayfinder 4.
So, um, can you give us a hack?
This is just a life hack thatyou use every day.
(37:57):
I've had that I use every day isget up early, get up early and,
and, and that allows me to knockout me first.
Uh, I'm a family man.
I'm a businessman.
There's a lot of people that,that, that depend on me to do a
lot of things during the day,but nobody's calling me at four
o'clock in the morning.
So at four o'clock in themorning from four o'clock to six
(38:17):
o'clock is when I do me, I workout, I read a little bit, I
meditate a little bit.
I, uh, I, uh, do my stretching.
I just, I kind of get my mentalfocus going and all of that's
out the way.
You know, at 6 20 in themorning, I wake up my kids and I
get them ready for school andthen I go about the rest of the
(38:37):
day and everybody else thatneeds to depend on me can depend
on me and I'll get it done.
But at four in the morning, onlyperson is dependent on me is me.
And that's when I get up andthat's when I focus on myself
and I get that stuff.
Done because like all of us, weall have busy, busy lives.
And once, once the day takeshold, we may have a goal to work
out.
(38:57):
We may have a goal to dosomething for ourself.
We may have a goal to this, butit's so easy to get distracted.
But when I knock that stuff outearly, I'm starting the day
winning.
And, and then I can give myselfto everybody else who needs me,
but in the morning, that's metime.
And that's my productivity hack.
And that's, that's a huge partof what's changed me physically
(39:20):
and mentally is I can get thatstuff in and before six o'clock
is up, um, um, I've got thosewins checked, I've got those
boxes checked and now it's backto business, back to family,
friends, anybody else who needsme, anybody else that, that
anything else I need to do, Ican do it, but, but me has been
(39:41):
checked off the box.
I have, uh, I'm also an earlymorning riser and it started a,
uh, running club here in Denverthat we run at five in the
morning every day, even now inwinter.
And, uh, we have a guy in ourclub that, um, he's, he calls
it, uh, he, Kind of like what,you know, you're putting that
(40:02):
mask on when you're on anairplane before you help
somebody else, you know, whenyou go on to give you all that
spiel about what you got to doand before you help anybody, you
got to put that mask on.
And I just think, that's what hecalls it, you know, we start, he
always takes our selfies when westart out in the morning, he's
like, all right, everybody putyour masks on, it's time to put
your, you know, and, uh, it's,it's a great, uh, analogy, I
(40:24):
think, right, taking care ofyourself first, so you can help
others later.
Right, so well put yeah, andyou're you're built you're ready
to go.
You're a vic You're invigoratedafter that run, especially when
it's uh as freezing as it isover there, right?
Yeah Yeah today's rough butyeah, no no doubt about it you
(40:44):
always it it's it's always abetter day.
It doesn't matter what It'salways better.
It's tough sometimes, you know,to get out the door, but once
you do, you always feel better.
Your day is always better.
How about a favorite?
This is just a colorado.
Cool can be tricky.
Yeah Yeah, it's not that badhere.
(41:06):
Actually.
I come from the northeast goingoutside and you're like Yeah, it
actually, sometimes in Colorado,you can be like, uh, it ain't
bad, you know, coming from theNortheast like I grew up in New
England and the winters there,even though the temperatures can
be higher, they definitely feela lot colder, you know, um, so
(41:27):
30 degrees in, you know, NewEngland is a lot colder than 30
degrees in Denver, in myopinion, but, so, um.
It's, it's, uh, it's the firstweek of January, first time
we've seen 40 degrees in NewOrleans and we don't know how to
act too well.
Yeah.
40 and a lot of wind is prettycold for us.
Yeah, I bet.
Most people be laughing at it.
(41:48):
That sounds nice right now.
So how about a favorite?
This is just, you know,something you just like to do
for you, like, uh, books or acertain book or show or
activity, whatever.
when, when it's just for me, youknow, books and stuff, I'm, I'm
typically always self help.
So that's, I'm always trying tolearn something from a book.
(42:11):
So yeah, I'm doing that for me,but I'm doing it to make me
better.
But if it's just, you know, ifit's just to relax is this kind
of two things, it's, um, youknow, go fishing with my dad.
Is, is, is like a pastime that,that we, we grew up doing.
It was, it's kind of our, ourlittle special thing.
So, uh, he lives in a differentstate, so we may only get to do
(42:34):
it once or twice a year.
But when we do, do do it, it's,you know, it's definitely
something that, that Ithoroughly enjoy.
And then on like a weeklyoccurrence, uh, when I check all
the boxes, you know, for me tofeel like it was an accomplished
week, I got all this stuff done.
I needed to do kind of businesswise.
Um, I've, I've done all my mealprep and, uh, cooked some good.
(42:58):
Nice food for the family.
We had a nice family meal andthen like on a Sunday night, you
know, I like to just, just catcha, catch a one or two hours or
some, just some forget abouteverything, television or
something, you know, and to me,that's a, that's a, a perfect
week checked off the box.
Got all your work done.
(43:19):
That's all in the bag done.
And at the end, at the end ofthat Sunday, I'll catch a couple
hours of TV and I kind of feellike.
That's a, that's a, that's agood week when I finish it off
with that and ready to startMonday again.
Any shows and that's about theonly thing that one of the only
things that just my favorite onethat just ended was Yellowstone
(43:40):
Yellowstone was a pretty damnpretty damn good show
Definitely.
I hear good things about it Man,it's it's it's if there's a TV
show.
I think that that one in Vikingsare my two top TV shows Vikings
Maybe ever.
Oh, really?
That's that's my show.
(44:01):
Okay.
I don't watch things multipletimes Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, yeah, it is on Netflix.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh, I actually just went throughand watched it again.
And, uh, I'm not normallysomebody who will watch
something again.
Like I don't watch movies over,you know, like I've seen it
like, all right, I don't need tosee it again.
(44:21):
I get it.
Right.
I actually watched that showagain.
I think the original seriesended multiple years ago and I
was like, man, let me look atthat one again.
And I have to look it up.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching itthrough again.
Okay, nice.
What about, uh, well, I knowyou, you were pretty much, uh,
(44:42):
you're pretty much full ofthese, but I need to ask you for
one piece of advice for youryounger self.
Know your numbers, know yournumbers in business and know
your numbers personally.
Um, this is, goes even before Ieven started my, my own
(45:06):
businesses.
Um, I was always a younghustler, always hustled, still
do hustle.
Um, just because you're bringingin money doesn't mean you're
making money.
And even if you finally start tothink, you know, your business
numbers, if you also don't knowyour personal numbers in and
(45:26):
out, you know, the, thestructured numbers and then the
completely unstructured spendingnumbers.
If you don't know those numbers,then that, you know, you, you
might think you're doing reallywell and you're not, you know,
or you, you think you've made alot of money and you really
could be breaking even, or, ormaybe even going backwards, so,
um, if I.
(45:47):
I think I definitely could evenbe in a much better spot.
Had I, had I known my numbersbetter, it was always great at
generating revenue.
I can always generate revenue.
I was always a hustler.
I can always make some sales,but I didn't always know exactly
how much money I was making atthe end of the day.
And it took me a long time inbusiness before I took that
(46:10):
serious to know every single inand out of my business spending
and my personal spending toreally have a clear picture.
Of, of where you stand, what youmake, what you owe, who owes
you, you know, you know, whatyou're really making on a
project at the end of the dayand what you're really making as
a company at the end of the yearand what you really spent as a
(46:32):
person at the end of the year.
So, you know, if I, if myyounger self would have new
numbers better, like I, like Isaid, mentioned earlier, I
probably would have made a lotmore money during Katrina, you
know, it'd be one thing.
And, you know, but And add thatup over 20 plus years, you know,
whatever that percentage betteris, it would, it would be
(46:53):
significant if you added it upover this long period of time.
So the faster, you know, yournumbers, the faster, you know,
if you're making what you needto make and, um, you know, and.
If you need to be charging more,taking less, where you're, you
know, winning at, where you'relosing at, you know, you could
be doing 15 different things andonly making money on half of
(47:15):
them or less or more, you know,so until you completely know
those numbers, you know, justbecause you generate revenue
doesn't mean you make money.
That's right.
That's so good, man.
One of my favorites is actuallyreading biographies of, You
know, great, especially businesspeople throughout history.
Right.
And, uh, and lately I discoveredthis podcast called founders.
(47:38):
Actually, it's been around for awhile, but you know, they, they,
they review these books on themand it's so good.
And what, you know, the commontheme on them is.
These people are like, theyreally understand their numbers
and their KPIs, like inside out,like no matter what, you know,
from the Rockefellers to, youknow, the musts of the world,
(47:59):
like I can guarantee you ElonMusk can tell you what every
widget in a rocket ship that hesent to Mars costs, you know, I
mean, it's just, uh, the onething that they all have in
common, you know, and so I thinkyou're, you're right on.
And that's something I've oftenneglected, to be honest.
I, I, I'm on and off with as avisionary type, you know, we're
(48:19):
just thinking about the ideasand how to go after it And it's
so that's what we have fun.
But in the numbers sometimesthat that's a struggle like just
sitting with them But but it'sessential it isn't the sooner
you figure them out, especiallyin the early The sooner the
better, you know, cause you canmake those adjustments.
And if you wait, you know, somany of us entrepreneurs, it's
(48:39):
the last thing we want to do is,you know, get all of those
analytical things in line and,Oh, I'm going to let the CPA
handle it at the end of a yearor even worse, you know, like
six months after the end of theyear, most of us early
entrepreneurs that don't haveeverything in, in, in line, um,
you know, The faster you getthose numbers in line, the
(49:00):
faster you can make thoseadjustments, the faster you can
make those tweaks.
And it can make all thedifference in the world, whether
it's 5 percent or 50%, you know,it, it, it'll all add up and
I'll add up big time.
The sooner you do it, you know,you're just leaking it out and
you don't know it.
That's right.
Good advice, man.
So, uh, last one.
You can choose, uh, to discusseither a big opportunity or a
(49:23):
limiting belief.
What's my big opportunity orwhat I think is a big
opportunity out there?
Yeah, either one.
Yeah, uh, big opportunity, youknow, to me is, is what I'm,
(49:44):
I'm, I'm stepping into.
Uh, My, my, like I said, myprimary flooring company is a,
is a locally regionally basedcompany, and it is based on the
amount of people that I canphysically serve.
Um, you know, so we are aservice based business and that
(50:05):
all depends on the amount ofpersonnel we can train to do
these services and the amount ofequipment we can, we can
purchase to do these services.
Um, But to get a biggeropportunity, uh, is, is really
what I'm stepping into and, and,and this hopefully motivational
(50:26):
space and mentorship spacebecause I can reach out and I
can touch people worldwide.
And, you know, even on thismicro level that I'm doing now
through my social mediaoutreaches, I'm doing that now
with people in differentcountries that, that, that.
You know, I would never, you'dnever meet in your life without
(50:48):
this social media world thatwe've got, you know, through the
instas and the linkedins and,and all of these other, other
things that, that now we, wehave this ability to be
connected worldwide and makeconnections and business moves
and, and all of these thingswith people that, that you'll
never, you may never ever reachout and shake their hand because
(51:10):
they're in a, they're in anotherworld.
Right.
So to me, that big opportunityis, is this, is this worldwide,
you know, opening that we havein these social channels and,
and, and the ability to, to makeand do business with people
anywhere in the world.
Yeah.
I love that.
So Jacob, if people want to knowa little bit more about you.
(51:32):
Uh, maybe get your book, uh,maybe use your services, maybe
seek mentorship from you.
How, how can they find you?
So the book, Make ItExtraordinary, 27 Life Changing
Lessons to Help You ElevateBeyond the Ordinary is available
on Amazon.
Um, easiest way to get it.
(51:52):
Um, my socials are Make ItExtraordinary.
Uh, that's across Facebook,Instagram, um, TikTok, all of
those good.
Things make it extraordinary dotco is the website where you can
also go directly to it And giveme some DMS and we've got some,
(52:14):
you know, free goodies on thereSome extraordinary life
checklist and things of thatnature that that you can go and
get into and subscribe to Butbut definitely reaching out
directly via via socials thatmake it extraordinary is Is one
of the easiest ways?
I love it.
Thank you, Jacob, for being hereand sharing a little bit about
(52:37):
your journey.
Uh, you, you, you're quiteinspirational.
I hope people check out thebook.
I know I'm going to order it andsee the stories.
Uh, I, I want to know the dirttoo, man.
So, uh, we'll have to have youback on and talk about it then.
It's in there, man.
I'm an open book.
I put, I put the good, bad andthe ugly in there.
And um, you know, it's, it's forpeople to, you know, what I hope
(52:59):
is, is that it, that it,Leapfrog some people and they
learn a few lessons ahead oftime that instead of learning
them the hard way like like alot of us Have include myself,
you know So I put it in therefor for people to to hopefully
learn those lessons ahead oftime I'm not learning the hard
way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(53:19):
Well, thank you for sharing themand thank you for pushing
through and learning Actuallyfrom those those hard knocks
right because a lot of us don'tand we give up And we don't work
hard and we don't move on, butyou have, you, you work through
it, you figure it out.
You see it as an opportunity to,to grind and learn and now to
inspire.
So thank you for that, Jacob.
(53:39):
Great to have you here.
You're very welcome.
Thank you for letting me shareyour platform and get on here
and you're doing the same thingand you're helping people grow
and giving them opportunitiesand, and, and whether it's, it's
the listeners that get to learn.
Or, or the people like myselfthat are blessed enough to come
on and share their stories.
So, so I greatly appreciate youproviding that platform and,
and, and you're doing the samething.
(54:01):
You're helping people grow,elevate, and expand, you know,
beyond what their currentreaches are.
All right, let's go help peoplemake their lives extraordinary.
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a 5 starrating and review.
(54:22):
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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