Leaving the Safe Path to Create a Business You Love with Jason VanDevere (Frameworks for Early Entrepreneurs)

What if the “safe path” isn’t really safe at all, but a trap keeping you from your dream business?

📌What’s covered in this episode: 

• The shocking decision to walk away from a multi-generational family business empire.
• Why planners, once dismissed as outdated, sparked an entire entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• The hidden dangers of chasing “easy money” business ideas.
• How the Dream-Driven Framework helps you identify the business that lights a fire inside you.
• Why most businesses die of “indigestion” rather than “starvation”, and what that means for you.

Jason VanDevere walked away from inheriting his family's 9-figure business to start his dream business from nothing.

He designed and launched a goal-setting planner called Goal Crazy, that has generated over $1,000,000 in sales and grown to serve 40,000+ customers through products, workshops, and programs.

Jason also built a $3.5M real estate portfolio and recently authored "Dream Driven," a book helping aspiring entrepreneurs create their dream lifestyle through business.

He hosts the Goal Crazy Podcast and is a proud husband and father of three.

🎁Download Jason's free guide to discover your dream-driven business idea at https://goalcrazy.com/idea

✨The 1:1 Founder Clarity Intensive. The Marketing Coaching Hour is designed for busy small business owners and entrepreneurs. Click here. ✨

 

💛 Thank you for listening in! 😀

P.S. Don’t forget to leave a review! Much appreciated.

Transcript

[00:00:00] My dad loves the car dealership. If you show up at one of his dealerships, and if he's at that one, you will hear him because he's loud and he's excited, but he just loves it. It's this extension of himself. I always knew I wanted that. He's got a fire inside of him. He just loves this business. I had this dream to start something of my own.

If you go out and fail, the marketplace isn't gonna evaporate. You can go get another job. So I think that gave me confidence too, to want to just go try it. There's this quote I like from Packard. Whatever his first name is. But he says that most businesses die of indigestion rather than starvation.

There's so many opportunities once you launch your business that most people get overwhelmed with them. When somebody's trying to find this perfect business idea, they think what's gonna be the easiest product or service to launch that'll earn me the most amount of money? And that's what they're scouring the market for.

And the problem with that is the foundation of this business that they wanna start is easy money, right.

[00:01:00]

Priscilla: Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Kitchen. Today I have a very special guest. I have Jason Vanderveer entrepreneur, real estate investor, and author of the book. Dream driven, the step-by-step process to discover your perfect business idea and launch it. This year, Jason, this is what people who are either in business, were moved by a dream, who are dreaming of a business.

This is the idea. So I'm so excited to have you here. Please let me know what's your mission.

Jason VanDevere: My mission is to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to take the leap and get it started.

Priscilla: That's what it's all about, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So happy to have you here and I think your story really interested me because you come from a family. I think you'll give us the story. A family that has a business that you could have entered into that business, but [00:02:00] you chose to go off on your own.

And why? I'll let you tell me.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah. Yeah. So my family, my dad is a car dealer, so I'm from Akron, Ohio. If you ever come here, you'll see our last name all over VanDeVere Kia, VanDeVere, Cadillac. They've got five dealerships. So I was supposed to take over the business. I would've been fourth generation. My great grandpapa started the business.

But it didn't align with a passion of mine. I had worked there for a number of years. I was working in every department so I could learn the whole business and one day take it over. But it just didn't get me excited and everyone told me that it was a crazy idea to leave. 'cause I was good at it.

It aligned with my natural skillset. But I had this dream to start something of my own. Specifically. I had a dream to design a planner of my own crazy weird dream. But I just wanted to go after it. Turned down the opportunity left with basically nothing. A little bit of money, bunch of fears, no clue what I was doing and just dove into entrepreneurship.

Priscilla: Is there a moment because you were [00:03:00] okay with learning the business. Was there a moment where you said, this is not for me, or what was not for you,

Jason VanDevere: so I'm gonna give you two maybe moments or things is when I was still working at the dealership, I bought my first rental property and I love talking about real estate. So now I've bought more and I really enjoy that business. But if I meet somebody who has real estate, I could talk to 'em for hours about real estate, but.

Then if I met somebody who worked in the car business or even other car dealer's, sons who were basically in the same spot as me, I knew how to talk about the car business, but there wasn't a fire inside of me that made me want to talk about it. It was just work. And I would say when I got that rental property, I started to realize wow, this is how much fun.

I could have with my own business that I'm not having at the dealership. And I would say the second thing is my dad loves the car dealership. If you show up at one of his dealerships and if he's at that one, you will hear him because he's loud and he's [00:04:00] excited. But he just loves it. It's this extension of himself.

And he has healthy boundaries for his business, so it doesn't overtake his life. But he really enjoys the work. And I would say seeing him, it was like I always knew I wanted that. I wanted, like he's got a fire inside of him. He just loves this business. But I knew I was not gonna have that for the car business.

So strangely enough, seeing that gave me, it gave me confidence leave. 'cause I knew that was possible for me to have and I wouldn't have it at the business. But it also made it harder. 'cause me and my dad are very similar and it seemed like he loves it. Why aren't I loving it? So maybe you found the answer somewhere in those two things.

Priscilla: Yeah, I think a lot of people. Can somehow relate to it. Maybe not, having the business, but that sense of being at a job, and , there's no passion in it for you. It's just work and being in search of that passion. And also as an entrepreneur, wanting to build that desire to build something of your own.

So now, like you said, a whole lot of [00:05:00] fears and you stepped into your own thing. How did you land on the planner Why was that the first thing?

Jason VanDevere: I like planners. And maybe that desire started, I was going through all these different departments. That was part of my dad's plan is I had to work in every department for about a year, six months to a year to learn the whole business. And because that, I had to get really good at learning quickly.

So I was getting these planners. 'cause whenever I went to a new department, I wanted to understand what are the goals of the department. What are the successful behaviors I need to be doing every single day so I can hit those goals? And I needed, a good planner to help me accomplish this and learn it in a short amount of time.

And I feel like I was trying all these different planners out there, they all had the right, I'm gonna call 'em keywords. Like when I would search for 'em they told me they were kinda do exactly what I wanted. But they would just let me down. And it seemed like all these self-help books had these consistent principles that they were saying, here's the things you need to do.

Or I would go to conferences, and they would say, here's the things you need to do. And I just wanted a planner that put it all together. If I follow this planner, if I use this system, I will reach my goals. [00:06:00] And I wasn't able to find that. And. It just felt fun to do it. I would say now planners are like the hot, trendy product to have.

All these authors are launching planners, but back 2018 when I was launching this, planners were not the trendy thing to be launching. Everyone was like, that's a terrible idea. It's a paper product. That's the time thing of the past. You should launch an app. And I just wanted to do it. Is it.

Priscilla: what was the timeframe? From okay, , you've stepped up and said, okay, I love the business. The business is good for the family, but it's not for me. I'm stepping out on my own to, okay, now what do I do?

And to landing on the planner is the first product.

Jason VanDevere: Probably like in the middle of 2018, I decided I wanted to leave the business and I told my dad that and at that point I had already landed on the planner idea, but when I met with him, I didn't know what the planner was gonna be called, what the design was gonna look [00:07:00] like, how I was gonna get 'em made, how I was gonna sell 'em.

I had no experience in e-commerce. He rightfully told me like, I think that's a crazy idea. Now he's been extremely supportive, but . It's like I had no clue what I was doing. It was just, this is what I wanna do. And at that point I had the confidence to say, I know it's not gonna be the dealership and this , not everyone will be able to relate to this exact thing, but in a way, I had an amazing Plan B option.

If I go out and fail, if I started my business and failed, I could go back and be on the trajectory to be a car dealer within several years. That's a phenomenal opportunity that most people don't have. So I might as well go out and just give it everything I have because if I fail, I can still fall back on this.

And I think people might not be able to relate to that same situation, but you can get another job. If you go out and fail, the marketplace shouldn't go away. The marketplace isn't gonna evaporate. You can go get another job. So I think that gave me confidence too to want to just go try it.

So timeline of that. So then I left at the end of 2019. I spent [00:08:00] six months just interviewing successful entrepreneurs, learning how they set their goals, how they track their goals, how they held themselves accountable. I made these designs. I then started hosting focus groups. I did maybe about seven focus groups which we can talk about that.

Huge fan of doing this if you're ever gonna launch a product. But then I didn't launch until July of 2019, so it took me by the time I left my job, it took me about seven months to get this thing designed and ready to sell.

Priscilla: I'm thinking to myself, to someone who hears a planner, which I'm sure, like you said your dad is a planner. What are you talking about? They're hearing planner and they don't see the success, you've made this into a million dollar planner.

Most people wouldn't see that pathway. And I'm thinking for you. Did you see that? When you started the planner? Did you think about the ecosystem? Because people are thinking about planning to leave a job. How am I gonna make enough money to support the way I'm living?

.

Jason VanDevere: So I would say, I thought I saw the pathway. I thought I was gonna launch my planner and be like crazy rich in a couple [00:09:00] months. That didn't happen. And I would say praise God. It didn't happen. It took me about two years of struggle, but I needed that. Now looking back, I can say that, so I would say maybe I thought I saw the pathway, but it wasn't the pathway of what I thought. Now I thought I would just launch the planner and sell tons of 'em, and it would make me all this money. I had no idea that the planner would open up these other doors because I started selling the planners.

And for years that's all I was doing. And then I kept having customers reaching out. They wanted more, they wanted coaching, they wanted workshops, different things. So eventually I started hosting workshops and then I started recording things and making 'em courses. And then I started coaching people and I launched a podcast.

And most recently I wrote a book. So I had no clue all of that existed on the backend of a planner. But it was like, those were all things I would've loved to do. I just thought that was gonna be 20 years in the future, and all of a sudden that planner was. These opportunities started coming way quicker than I thought.

And maybe even what I was ready [00:10:00] for. 'cause it took me a while to start saying yes to 'em. But there was a lot of opportunity on the backside of a planner. And I'm gonna add one more thing. I think that's with most businesses. I think once you start your business, there's a lot of opportunities on the back end.

There's this quote I like from, Packard whatever his first name is, but he says that there's, most businesses die of indigestion rather than starvation. There's so many opportunities once you launch your business that most people get overwhelmed with them. They try and do too much, and they crumble.

And I think once you start your business, you're gonna realize opportunities are on the back end. And maybe you've seen that with your own experience.

Priscilla: I love that. I love that. I think that's what I was trying to get to that now. It is that you've built this ecosystem around this product, but to the person who's starting. And I think people sometimes resist that, oh no, I gotta start with something big. I gotta start with something grand. And I'm happy to have you talk about how practically you build a dream business and that , it's such a practical [00:11:00] path that sometimes people don't want the practical path.

.

Jason VanDevere: Oh yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. I think it takes a level of craziness. Like my, the name of my planner was Go crazy. Like when you're starting a business, I felt like it was a crazy idea. People were telling me it was a crazy idea, but then I realized all the entrepreneurs I was interviewing, they felt crazy too.

But they went after what they really wanted rather than what was like. Determined by the market is this is a safe idea. It's Nope, this is what I wanna do. I'm going all in and I'm going after it.

Priscilla: Okay, so you've got this framework. Take us into the book a little bit because you've got the dream driven framework and you've seen thousands of people apply it. What would you think are some of the misconceptions that people have? I think we hit on one of them where it's like, Hey, I gotta start with something big.

And it's start with a concept, start with something and get some traction with that thing. But I'll let you speak

Jason VanDevere: Yeah, so I think the biggest misconception when somebody is wanting to start a business is they go after what I call the easy money route. And I'm gonna compare like the easy money [00:12:00] route to the dream driven route, but easy money route. When somebody's trying to find this perfect business idea, they think what's gonna be the easiest product or service to launch that'll earn me the most amount of money?

And that's what they're scouring the market for. And the problem with that is the foundation of this business that they want to start is easy money, right? That's what they're looking after. So if either of those components ever disappear, either the easy part or the money part disappear, they're gonna give up.

And in my experience of starting a business. It is hard. It's just hard. I've interviewed over a hundred entrepreneurs on my podcast. I know you've talked with a lot of entrepreneurs. I've never met someone who was like, the whole thing's been in breeze for me. It's just hard, right? And if you don't have this big desire inside of you to make it succeed, when you run into those challenges, you're gonna quit.

If the challenge is greater than the desire, you're just gonna quit and go somewhere else. But a dream driven approach is rather than scouring the market for this perfect product or service, [00:13:00] you scour your heart to figure out what do you really wanna do with your life? What's the dream that's gonna light a fire inside of you?

That gives you so much desire that you can keep overcoming these different challenges because you're willing to do it. Like my planner. People were right. It was a crazy idea. , It was super competitive. It wasn't a growing market at the time, I had no clue what I was doing. They were right that it was crazy.

But my fire inside of me was huge compared to those challenges. So I was willing to go years of struggling living on peanut butter to get this to work because I wanted to see it succeed. Now I've learned better routes of starting a business. So hopefully you don't have to go through that phase of struggle so long. But you need to be prepared for challenges. So I would encourage somebody that the approach I would take is figure out what's the dream that's gonna light a fire inside of you. That's what's gonna increase your chances of success and make it fun.

Priscilla: That's so true. And then you've got the Triple L framework.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah. Yeah.

Priscilla: that. Yeah.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah. So [00:14:00] once you find this idea, my book will guide you through a lot of that. And if we want, we can even get into figuring out these business ideas. But once you do it, we have to validate that it's actually a good business idea. And I'm gonna break validation into two different parts. The first is, we need to validate that this is the right business idea for you.

Is the fire big enough? And then after we validate, yes, that is then we need to validate in the market that. They actually want this. So the Triple L framework is gonna help you validate is this the right business idea for you? And those three Ls are, first, you need to make sure that you have a longing for this business idea, like you need to have a big desire.

And how I test this out with people is it needs to pass what I call the first alarm test. When your first alarm goes off, are you willing to get outta bed and start working on this dream? If the answer is no, then you need to find something that you want more, right? The second L is this needs to be lifting.

This business should make you a better version of yourself. It should lift you to the next level. [00:15:00] And there's this quote I really like, that I feel like just captures this, is Tony Robbins says it's not about the goal. It's about growing to become the person who can achieve the goal in this business idea, this should be a business idea that's so big you can't achieve it.

Right now, starting this business is outside of your current abilities. The only way you're going to achieve it is if you force yourself to improve, right? This should make you a better version of yourself. 'cause if you already know how to start it, that's not even a goal, right? That's not a goal.

That would be a to-do list item. I want this to be something that's actually a goal that will stretch you. So you've got longing. It's lifting. And the third thing is it's light, and this is a little more of an internal feeling. Does the idea of starting this business feel light or does it feel heavy?

And typically people can gauge that. Like for me, working at our family business, that was a very straight path to success. My family's done it three generations. I'll be the fourth one, but it felt heavy. However, the idea of starting a planner business when I had no clue what I was doing, I was gonna work [00:16:00] ridiculous hours, put all of my life savings that I had at the time into planners, crazy planners.

It felt light. It felt fun. So I would say if it has all three of those things, then you have validated that. Check , it's the right business idea for you, and then you can move to the second part of validating it's the right fit for the market.

Priscilla: Maybe you can tell us, like story to put everything together that you've mentioned in the three L framework.

Jason VanDevere: One of the ways I'm working with people to figure out their dream business ideas is I really encourage people to dream every single day. So I do this every morning.

I go into my basement, I put on some music that uplifts me, and I simply dream about the life I want. Like now. Dreams are different from goals. Dreams, I view as things like you don't hack to actually do them. You're just asking yourself, what would I love to do with my life? Versus goals are things that you must do.

They should be realistic. They should be time bound. So over 10 minutes, I'm just letting my mind dream every day, and this helps give me clarity on what I really want. So I had a client. He'd been dreaming every day [00:17:00] because that's what I told him to do. And actually, when I was working with him, he was in the process of wanting to start two businesses.

He had a self-service, home service business and then he also had this non-profit business that he was really excited about. But when he started working with me, he actually thought, Hey, I wanted my help to help him grow his home service business. But as he started dreaming every single day, he realized all he ever dreamed about was this.

Nonprofit growing that it had so much longing behind it. If he kept dreaming every day about his home service business, it clarified for him , there's not that big of a longing. Those dreams get old. The other one was lifting. It would stretch him, out of his comfort zone, and it felt light.

So because that it gave him the clarity to be like, Nope I'm gonna stop putting effort into my home service business and I'm going all in on this nonprofit.

Makes sense there.

Priscilla: Yes. Now it's interesting because, a lot of times we think you can build a career to the point that then you realize, oh, oh, I didn't actually want this. I thought I wanted it. But we [00:18:00] often don't talk about that in business, where you can build in business and go through all the struggles and build this thing and realize, actually I actually didn't want.

Jason VanDevere: I completely agree. And that's like the easy money versus the dream driven approach, the easy money approach. All somebody ends up doing is they create another job for themself. Most time it's work that they don't love, but they're just doing it because they believe it will pay them money.

And it's like right now, starting a business, it's the opportunity to make something completely new. However you want. So don't go out there and just make another job that you hate just to earn a paycheck. Find the thing that's gonna light a fire inside of you. .

Priscilla: we often think that just being an entrepreneur is the freedom. And , it's also about the process of building. When we spoke in the beginning that you felt the need to build something for yourself.

And I like that you said something that would feel light for you and it's. Very difficult to build a business. And, you talk about the realities of building a business, how a lot of times businesses fail and, to keep pushing, to innovate, to be creative to do [00:19:00] all those things.

I think your framework ties that all. It's gotta be something you love. It's gotta be something that's big. It's gotta be something that's new. It's gotta be something that feels fresh. Thank you for sharing that. I'd love to hear from you. What you would say to the entrepreneur who's in a job, who's feeling they wanna chase a dream, 

Jason VanDevere: Would this be an entrepreneur who has a business idea already or doesn't have a business idea already?

Priscilla: , I don't like this job.

Need a business. I wanna start a business. Most people feel that way. I wanna start a business. And so you're sort of Piecing together, can I do this? Can I do that? Can I do that? Can I do that? And I think that's where your framework goes well

Jason VanDevere: yeah, so I think I'm gonna go back to the dreaming every single day. Dreaming every single day. I believe it'll change your life. It's gonna give you clarity on what you actually wanna do. It's gonna give you the motivation to actually follow through on it. And I think people don't give dreaming enough credit.

As I talked about, dreams, like they don't have to be realistic. They're things you may or may not actually do compared to goals that are a little different. But the thing is when people stop dreaming. They can't have meaningful goals [00:20:00] because you can still set goals when you don't have dreams, but they're not aiming at anything bigger.

If you do have dreams, you can have goals that are aiming towards those dreams. And I think a big trap people fall into these days is they stop dreaming. So then their goals, they're not aiming at anything. And when you don't have meaningful goals in your life, you end up in this place that I call survival mode.

And lots of people were at a job where they're not enjoying it. That is how they feel. They feel like they're in survival mode. They're just trying to stay afloat. And once you have this dream. It can give so much more purpose to the things you're doing. Even if you're gonna stay in your job for a while.

If you have this dream of, Hey, here's the business I wanna start and I need this many dollars to get it started now, you're going to work every day, not just to clock in. You are going to work every day because you can see how what you're doing is directly connected to your dream life, and then it'll give you the confidence to actually leave your job.

So I would start with, with dreaming every single day for 10 minutes it'll completely change your life.

Priscilla: I recently posted something [00:21:00] on LinkedIn and I was talking about AI and what it's gonna do to the job market and. How people have felt about the world of work since post COVID. And it's just the perfect storm. It's the perfect storm for someone to be like

what am I dreaming to do? , What's the dream that I have or that I used to have? Or, let me start dreaming again. So that's why I was excited to speak to you. 'cause I think it's timely.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah I'm glad.

Priscilla: if you could go back to yourself in 2018. And right before making the leap, what do you wish someone had told you?

Jason VanDevere: That , having challenges isn't a bad thing. It's gonna be part of the process. My business is over the hump, I would say, of living in this state of struggle. But you still have challenges and I think lots of aspiring entrepreneurs and current entrepreneurs we dream of doing something great with our life.

We wanna live an epic life. But the thing is you don't. Create an epic life by doing what's easy, right? You do that by doing what's hard, and if you're praying and dreaming about this epic life and all of a sudden these challenges [00:22:00] start showing up. I want you to remind yourself like this is what you've been asking for, right?

These challenges, they're not the obstacle or the enemy of you creating a successful life. They're the requirement. And you gotta switch this mindset to, rather than viewing as I'm overwhelmed or I'm stressed, or my life is hard, it's, this is what growth feels like. I tell myself that little sentence all the time.

This is what growth feels like when there's challenges, when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel stretched. That's what it feels like to grow. If you're not stretching yourself, then you're not growing. And I would say like those years of struggle that I went through, I wouldn't trade 'em for anything. I don't wanna have to do 'em again.

But that was the most growth I've ever gone through in a short amount of time, and I'm so grateful for it. So I would just tell myself, dive in.

Priscilla: The growth pains, they're good pains, no pain, no gain. You've gotta have those growth pains , I love. It. Now I'm thinking you mentioned that your business is over the hump, and for those who are listening, they're like, okay, I've started this business and it was my dream, but man, the struggle [00:23:00] is just, and you said, okay, it's growth pains.

This is what it is. And they're thinking, okay but tell me practically Jason, tell me practically like what happened to go from struggle or what do you attribute coming out of Struggle Street to.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah. So I got a piece of advice from a mentor and he told me, Jason, the short distance between two points is a straight line, right? So whenever you wanna accomplish something, the easiest way to do it is find someone who's already accomplished it and ask him how they did it. Boom, there's your straight line.

So if you're starting this business or growing your business, you need to make your number one goal. How can I talk to somebody who's already done what I wanna do? If it's starting that type of business, you need to find business owners who are successful in that space and get yourself in front of them.

So you can ask 'em how'd you do it? Or if there's somebody who, they've got the next level business, you need to learn from them. What did you do to get from where I am to where you're at? And then you gotta follow what it is that they tell you to do. But that was probably the biggest. Change for me is I started to ask for [00:24:00] help and if you want to, I can go into different strategies of how I find those mentors, but I think that's one of the biggest things.

Priscilla: If you could go into that. There's nothing wrong with asking for help. Especially people feel like an entrepreneurship. A lot of times it's a lot of what's the word? It's a lot. It's like having your Sunday best, your entrepreneurship best.

.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah. I think it's good to get rid of that mindset. Like I think people wanna wait till they're super successful and then go tell everybody they have a business, right? And they wanna stay closed, and that's what I was doing and it didn't work very well. I needed to ask for help, but I think first place to start with is gonna be your friends and family, right?

Everybody should know that you're starting a business. Anybody that you know who has started a business, similar to what you wanna start. But that also won't be viewed as competition, right? If somebody was trying to start let's say a planner just like mine, and they reached out asking for help.

, It would be hard for me to give them the golden nuggets of what's really gonna work. So you want somebody who's successful but not gonna be viewed as competition. Start with friends and family. Who do you know who's done it or who do you know? Who knows somebody who's done [00:25:00] it? But if you don't have anybody there probably ones that kind of push your comfort zone the most, but cold calling people. I have cold called many business owners. I will show up to their business, I will call them, I'll email them and I'll ask them for help. And lots of times those calls don't go anywhere. They aren't helpful, but other times they're extremely helpful.

For example. So I have these rental properties I've been buying on the side, and two years ago there was a small mobile home park for sale in our area that caught my attention to buy. I knew nothing about mobile home parks, so I started calling all the other mobile home parks in the area and just asking, can I speak to the owner?

I'm interested in buying this mobile home park, and I wanna ask you some questions about how you run your business. Most of 'em told me. Just no nicely or not nicely. They told me no, but I had two or three of 'em that were extremely nice. They were, Hey, here's what you should be looking for. Hey, here's the contact of somebody who services that mobile home park for sale that we know.

They gave me all these resources and now that is an asset of people that [00:26:00] I can call on if I have questions. I ended up not getting the mobile home park. Other things is you could look for other businesses for sale in your industry. Like it would be amazing if you could sit down with a business owner in your niche and ask 'em line by line through their profit and loss, how they're getting those numbers.

And you typically have that opportunity if somebody is selling their business. Not only do that if you're truly open to potentially buying a business, like when I first started wanting to grow my email list, I was trying to weigh out. Do I wanna go through the work of growing my own email list? Or maybe do I wanna find one that's in the same niche and just buy one that's already made?

So I reached out to a bunch of people who had email lists and just was upfront, Hey, I'm deciding do I wanna build it or buy it? But it gave me the opportunity to sit down with people and ask 'em line by line, how are you doing this? Where are you getting these? How are you making your expenses this low?

It's . Incredibly powerful opportunity. I can keep going. I'll give you one more and you can cut me off whenever. The other is I would look for communities of these experts, whether it's Facebook groups, [00:27:00] networking events, conferences, for these specific type of owners strategy that I normally do, especially for an online one, is I'll post a question , that I'm curious about, but it's easy for an expert to answer.

For example, going back to that mobile home park, I found a forum. With a bunch of mobile home park owners. So I put a question, Hey, this park I'm looking at, I had a question about it called a wastewater treatment plant, had a certain question about it, whatever. But once I put it in there, I had a handful of people respond.

So then I responded to all of those owners and said, Hey, thank you so much. By any chance, would you be willing to gimme 10 to 15 minutes on the phone so I can try and go from clueless to knowing a little bit and got a couple people on the phone with me.

Priscilla: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. 'cause sometimes people are like I don't know anyone. And there's so many ways to reach people and to get the information that you desire. Oh, I wanted to talk about that because I know that You got into real estate and that has given you even greater financial freedom, which a lot of people will be like, okay, you got into [00:28:00] e-commerce with the planner.

And then tell me the thinking behind that move.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah, so my planner business, I've been blessed that it's worked, but it's a little more cyclical. Good times, bad times, and real estate is just very tried and true. It's a very safe asset to put your money in. Now I really enjoy the process of finding these deals and making the processes to run them.

So I was excited about it, but it is really helpful to have. Both businesses. I've gone many times where one business will lend the other money or the other business. Like sometimes I'll be launching a new initiative with my goal, crazy business, and I'll borrow money from my rental properties. So to fund it, it's better to borrow money from myself who's free to borrow from than a lender, or there's been other times I wanna go buy a rental property and I don't have enough money in my real estate checking account, so I borrow from my e-commerce business.

But there's something really helpful about having. Both of those. But I would tie this back to the dream driven. Like I [00:29:00] love it, but if real estate isn't gonna fuel you with energy, then I would find another investment. But I would highly recommend finding an investment strategy that you're passionate about, because otherwise.

As you start making money, the first temptation is to go spend it. But when you have this investment opportunity that you really like, you start to think more about those purchases. Do I really need a new car yet? Or, I could take this and put it into another real estate deal and now I have enough income to pay me again and again every month, forever.

But I think it's really helpful to have some of, you're passionate about.

Priscilla: that's a really key thing. Like you said, the temptation is. To live up a little bit. Reward your success. But like you said, business is cyclical. There are business cycles that the ups and the down, and these are the realities that sometimes people don't speak about.

And having that investment that gives you greater financial freedom. And I like that you said you become your own lender.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah it's easy. And I would [00:30:00] say what was in the back of my head with the rental properties too, is me and my wife, we dream of having a lot of kids in a big family. And , I knew that once we had our first kid, , I wanted my wife to be able to quit her job. And there was a lot of peace of mind by the time that came to be like.

Look, we don't even have to think twice about this. You can quit your job because we have enough passive income coming from those rental properties that we can get by if we need to. Even if my goal, crazy business tanks which added so much confidence to go into it, and

because of my kids, I've become so much more successful, though they're never been an obstacle to me trying to achieve my business dreams, I would say they're one of the biggest reasons where I am in my life right now.

Priscilla: great. So many nuggets. Thank you for sharing that. Jason, please tell me what's exciting you right now, personally and as you look out into the marketplace.

Jason VanDevere: what's newest on my horizon is my book just got published this past Tuesday, so two days ago. So that's been really exciting. Been working on that for a year and a half. And what's [00:31:00] next on my horizon is within the next two years, I would like to start hosting my own conferences. I've gone to.

Tons of conferences over the years, and I feel like I would like to start hosting my own is hopefully something next on my horizon.

Priscilla: Congratulations on the book, and that's very exciting and I'm excited that's where you're going. I'd love for you to give us a last minute a look back roadmap. The building of the brand the goal crazy brand.

Jason VanDevere: .

Yeah. started with a planner, then it turned into workshops, then coaching programs, then courses, maybe the podcast. Somewhere in there. And then the book. 

Priscilla: Thank you for that. I think people who are listening, who are entrepreneurs going through that are like okay, that's the building of a brand. What is it that you want to be known for Jason? What is it that you're trying to do in the marketplace?

Jason VanDevere: I'm gonna answer that question in two ways. I would say there's the marketplace and really what I'm after in my personal life, but in the marketplace is I wanna show people that you can do [00:32:00] this. I had this golden ticket to success that many people would kill to have this opportunity to become a car dealership.

And I left it, my family didn't gimme money. I just left the opportunity and I was able to figure it out. And I'm not a genius. There's a lot of other people out there who are, and I'm not one of them. And I wanna be able to show somebody like. Look, you don't need to come from a, necessarily a wealthy family or have this family business like I had those, I left them and I was able to figure this out.

You can do it too. But I would say on a personal note, greatest thing I think I'll ever do with my life is be the father to my kids. So if I can do that well, I will be proud of myself and I feel like my businesses are what's making that possible. Hopefully I'm doing a good job there. My kids can answer that in a number of years, but they're giving me a lot of freedoms that hopefully make it more possible.

Priscilla: Oh, that's wonderful. I'm excited to hear that. And I'm so grateful to be able to speak to you like this because helping people chase their dreams that's a wonderful thing to do.

So thank you so much. To the audience, please, if you can go to [00:33:00] goalcrazy.com/idea. That's GOAL go crazy.com/idea. You can download Jason's free guide to discover your dream business idea and we look forward to the conferences. You can tune into his podcast. Just let them know the name.

Jason VanDevere: Yes, podcast is goal crazy, and that's goal like a soccer goal. My book is dream driven, so if they're curious about this, check that out. But that that website url, you gave goal crazy.com/idea. That's a free course that the goal of it is to help you find the business idea that will light a fire inside of you, because I believe once you find that.

Everything else gets easier. It gives you the confidence to, to leave your job, to validate your business idea in the marketplace, to take all the action that you need to launch it, to get mentors, all of it. But you need an idea that'll fuel all of the courageous behavior, and that course can help you find it.

Priscilla: That's a great mission to have a whole lot of people fired up, with their dreams and pursuing them. I'd love to meet a whole bunch of people who are on [00:34:00] fire

Jason VanDevere: There we go.

we can make it. Yeah.

Priscilla: Thank you so much, Jason. I appreciate having you on the podcast.

Jason VanDevere: Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for this opportunity.