Cut The Tie | Own Your Success

“Dream First, Then Execute”—Jason VanDevere on Choosing Purpose over the Family Business

• Thomas Helfrich

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Cut The Tie Podcast with Jason VanDevere

What happens when the family business is your “golden ticket”—but not your dream? In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Jason VanDevere, entrepreneur, creator of the Goal Crazy planner, real estate investor, and author of Dream Driven.

Jason shares how he walked away from a fourth-generation car dealership legacy to build something of his own: a business that helps people clarify goals, make plans, and execute daily. From designing a paper planner in a digital-first world, to building a subscription model, to publishing his new book, Jason’s story proves that cutting the tie to expectation can open the door to true ownership—of your career, your time, and your life.

About Jason VanDevere

Jason VanDevere is the founder of Goal Crazy, a 90-day planner designed to help people set meaningful goals, make daily progress, and hold themselves accountable. What began as a side project has grown into workshops, courses, coaching programs, and now his new book, Dream Driven, which guides aspiring entrepreneurs in finding the right business idea, validating it, and launching it with confidence. Alongside his business, Jason has built a portfolio of rental properties and, most importantly, a life centered on his wife and three young children.

In this episode, Thomas and Jason discuss:

  • Cutting ties with the family business
    Jason explains how he stepped away from his family’s dealerships despite success, expectations, and his last name on the building.
  • The journey to creating Goal Crazy
    From six months of interviews with entrepreneurs to seven brutal focus groups, Jason describes how persistence turned an idea into a viable product.
  • Why paper still wins
    Jason breaks down why a physical planner beats digital apps for focus, clarity, and productivity.
  • Stacking assets: planner, coaching, book
    How one simple product turned into a system of revenue streams and positioned Jason as a thought leader.
  • Designing a life you want
    Building a business that supports a 30–35 hour workweek, time with family, and long-term wealth through real estate.

Key Takeaways

  • Dreams give goals meaning
    Without a dream, goals lack direction and purpose.
  • Clarity beats complexity
    A simple written plan executed daily drives better results than juggling multiple apps.
  • Ship, then sharpen
    Painful feedback is the key to creating a product people actually use.
  • Build assets that stack
    A product can open the door to coaching, courses, and a book—each fueling the next.
  • Define success on your terms
    Jason measures success by supporting his family and raising his kids—not by titles or legacy.

Connect with Jason VanDevere

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonvandevere/
🌐 Goal Crazy (90-Day Planner): https://goalcrazy.com

Connect with Thomas Helfrich

🐦 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 Instantly Relevant: https://instantlyrelevant.com



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. Hello, I'm your host, thomas Helfrich, on a mission here to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding you back from success. You gotta gotta define your success yourself, otherwise you are chasing someone else's dream. Now join today with Jason Vanderveer. Jason, how are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate that. That's always a good start when someone's excited. I really don't want to be here with my agent. Take a moment, introduce yourself, where you're from, what you do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so Jason VanVeer. Let's see, I'm married, three kids. I'm from Akron, ohio. I guess my career here in a short timeframe. My family owns car dealerships in Akron Ohio. So if you ever come here you'll see our last name VanVeer all over Akron Vanderveer, Kia, cadillac, they got five dealerships.

Speaker 2:

So growing up I was on this trajectory to take over the family business and become a car dealer and after several years of working there I turned down the opportunity. I started a business selling planners I designed called Goal Crazy Random but business that I was excited about and had no clue what was going to happen next. But it started turning into workshops and courses, coaching programs. I have a podcast on my own, I have a book that just came out called Dream Driven that helps aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own business, and on the side I've been getting rental properties from up to 34 apartments. Hopefully I can keep growing that, but that's my highlight reel, I would say. Other than that I spent a lot of time struggling. Uh, you know, there's good times, bad times. Uh, yes, that's a little bit about me.

Speaker 1:

I mean that's. I love that. You took your own path with that and you got a lot going on there, so I want to dive into your journey. Uh, how are you currently defining success?

Speaker 2:

To be able to support my family with the lifestyle that we want. I work maybe 30, 35 hours a week, and as long as I can support my wife and our kids with the lifestyle we want, that's the biggest thing. That's a success to me. I truly believe raising my kids will be the greatest thing I ever do with my life, so hopefully I can do a good job of that.

Speaker 1:

It's challenging.

Speaker 2:

It's going to test. It is challenging. We have a three-year-old, a two-year-old and an eight-month-old, so challenging.

Speaker 1:

Nails it on the head 11 years from now, I'm going to check in with you how your statement's going. I could just survive these teenage years. We're going to be just fine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Enjoy it. The ages three to seven are probably the most golden. I will tell you Okay, no, no, it's bad, I'm going to leave it there. It's good, but those are like pure gold.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

You're a walking legend in those moments, because they don't know anything else. Yeah, tell me a little about your journey. You alluded to it. You know, maybe do it in context of a big tie, metaphorically got to cut. You talked about it with not being in the family business. If that's a good one for you, I'd love to hear that impact and how that all went down.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was terrified to cut that tie. It was like just assumed I would go into the family business. My dad had me on this program where I work in each department for about a year so I could learn the whole business and my last name is on the building. It seemed like a hard thing to leave. My great grandpa was a car dealer and me and my dad are similar. He's great at it.

Speaker 2:

I was doing really well at it, but it just didn't light up a fire inside of me like he had and I thought about it for a while. I was terrified to bring it up to him. He was extremely supportive, I think, completely shocked that I wouldn't want to go into the car business Our family. I think this has been a big blessing to us. But it was like if you wanted to go into the family business, you had this opportunity, but if you didn't, it wasn't like you were given money Like some other people who come from a family business. It's like you can take advantage of this opportunity or you don't have to, but nothing's going to be given to you, and so it was a big opportunity to cut. Now my dad and my uncle are partners in the business and my uncle has some kids that plan to stay in the business, so it wasn't like I was going to let the family legacy die when I left, which also did help with making the decision.

Speaker 1:

I was going to ask that If you have siblings, there's someone else who's going to carry that, but the truth is it's a brand and a name. At some point, right, it's established enough where you could sell it, and this is the Vannevar deal that a guy named Bob owns. Now, yeah, you have to stay in the business. So now when I buy a car, I'm going to come to you first and you're going to we're going to use you as a chat.

Speaker 1:

We're going to connect you to choose whatever chat guy you're talking to. Um did when you went through that though, like, uh, talk about how you approached it, because I think I know like there's a lot of there's a lot of listeners who are faced with that, that they are expected to do something that might not be a family business. It might be like I went to college for this. I had to do that. It's the same type of thing that you have an expectation coming from a parent who now has to have a plan B because that was their plan. How did you approach going to your dad with it? Walk me through that a bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I feel like I had done. He could see that I was doing well at the dealership and he could respect that I had started getting rental properties. I had four apartments by that point, one property, four unit building. So there was something to kind of prove like I could be successful to myself and maybe to him. But I was going to leave to launch this planner business which at the time I didn't know what it was going to be called. I had no design of a planner design. I had no clue how I was going to buy them, sell them, import them, any of that stuff. So it sounded like a crazy idea to him and it sounded like a crazy idea to me. But in a way, because I had the family business, it's like I have a killer plan B career option, Like I could go out and fake it, but there's most people like, yeah, but you got to go get a job there.

Speaker 1:

You're like, yeah, but you got to go get a job there. You're like, all right, you know what I tried me a culpa, I'm back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it would be really embarrassing.

Speaker 1:

It's a starting point, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like, but I could call my dad this afternoon and he would take me back I mean, 99% chance of that and I could be continuing this path of becoming a car dealer like I was.

Speaker 2:

So it was like, look, I'm just going to go after this dream of mine, I'm going to give it everything I have, and I can always come back here, which I wouldn't want to do. But I think even you brought up most people don't have this maybe benefit or this grade of a golden ticket to fall back on too, but most people can go get a job. It's going to be hard. They might not be able to have a job as quickly as I would be able to, but it's not like if you fail on your business there's nowhere to go from there. You do have other opportunities and the skill sets that I've learned from running my own business. If I ever needed to go get another job, I feel like it'd be so much easier Now, even if I wanted to go somewhere outside of my family business, because I have something very tangible I can show of the quality of work I can do.

Speaker 1:

I will tell you, at some point you become an hireable. I will say People, he's a founder, he's 49. No, you get a doubt. Plus experience, though those hours. Okay okay, you know, who knows, maybe you made the best decision because car dealerships may go the way of Kmart at some point. It might be like, hey, listen, it's all internet-based. You drop it off, the model might change oh yeah, I think it's ripe to change.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what it'll look like, but people should change one respect it, because I think it's still. You need a place to get service, which is what make like 99% of their money on right the service and warranties and things like that and financing. But it's like I might be overspeak, but it's a lot of it. Yeah, but if you're like you know, when you buy a car randomly online, I buy a car like once every 15 years, right? So it's what I'm saying. I think that I think the model changes. All right, let's go back to you. So the planner uh, you gotta walk me through that one, because even now, I'm like how, how do you, how do you think of have something as simple as that working?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well. So now launching a planner is like a trendy thing, like lots of authors are doing it, but back when I was doing it, everyone was into apps. Everyone was like this is a dumb idea. Why are you launching a paper product? That industry is dying. So it was nice I got in when I did, because now the market has actually grown.

Speaker 2:

But my route to do it was I quit my job. I spent over six months just interviewing successful entrepreneurs and I would say having a family with a business helped me make connections with people. But I wanted to figure out how are they setting their goals, tracking their goals, holding themselves accountable, and I came up with this layout. And then I launched or I did six or seven seven focus groups where I took groups of people through this design and they would try it out. And that was a really painful process, like I the first one. It was supposed to take an hour.

Speaker 2:

I gave this design out thinking like everyone's gonna love it. Somebody recommended I do a focus group and I was just going to check the box and do it. But we were there for three hours. We didn't even get through the design. People were like this doesn't make sense. This is too much writing. I'm confused. This is repetitive, just bad feedback. One after another. But after so many of those, I could keep taking these pieces of feedback and making it better and better until the last couple. It just worked like people loved it. They were trying it out, they're getting results, and that gave me the confidence to say this is something I'm ready to get behind.

Speaker 1:

It's somewhat of a lead magnet or tip of spear for you because it goes into coaching. You said book workshops. Talk to me on the business end of that. Like I just I'm making a poor assumption here, but I'm assuming your whole idea is I'm going to billions just selling this you had to tell me how that works with a bigger picture of business or how maybe involved Maybe you just don't like that Just tell me something bigger, which I think is like I'm trying to get my head around it. Still I see it as a loss leader to something else. But like tell me, tell me how you leverage that or what the original model was and how you morphed it.

Speaker 2:

Original sell planners. Like I had no concept that this could be opening up backend products. Uh, I thought that I would start selling these planners online and make tens of thousands of dollars a month just by doing close to nothing and like. The greatest thing was that that didn't happen, because I actually needed to learn to learn to sell and learn to run a business. But I thought that's what was going to happen and I thought I'm going to make my money here. I love this product. I'm going to invest it into real estate and something next would present itself. But I sold them. It was really hard for the first couple of years. It took me probably about two years to get to the point where it was consistently turning profits off my planner sales and then, a little bit after that, people have been asking me for more help. They wanted coaching. I was afraid to coach people because it was like I don't really know what else I can give them. I already put everything I thought I knew into this planner.

Speaker 1:

You're learning. That's what coaching is. By the way, people, when you buy a class, you've already got all the information free.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like like you're like, hey, you make it make sense, though You're the key that opens the final door. Yeah, and it's so interesting because, like now that I'm writing a book and when you buy books like I'll buy a book, I love it I reach out to the author for coaching and they just tell you how to do what's in the book. Right, but I know that's what's going to happen and I didn't realize that's how the coaching would work. People loved my planner. They were getting results, but by having the personal accountability to help them implement it, I was able to help them get much, much greater results.

Speaker 1:

It's all in the execution, and from entrepreneurship to I won't say job, because sometimes you can really check out of a job and get paid. Actually, often, most people do that Most. Maybe, I'm projecting, I'm definitely projecting to some degree, but the idea, though, is, if you really want something to work, you got to do the details and the work. And I give an example through sport. My son's like he's in pickleball, he's like 13. He's like oh, I've already learned all this stuff. I was like then you should make it razor sharp, work on a spin, do something, make it fun. And he's like all right. I'm like, if you don't take the work to take the extra work to do it, it doesn't actually ever work. And you just keep buying more programs, looking for that. So you got the planner. Yeah, I think that's right. What does the planner do?

Speaker 2:

ask me that question one more time, sorry that's right.

Speaker 1:

So high level? Or or just pointed like the one-liner when someone's gonna buy it. Why does someone buy the planner? What problem did solve? What does it do for them?

Speaker 2:

yeah, it's gonna help them clarify their goals, it's gonna help make a plan to accomplish them and it'll hold them accountable to do it, and I can talk about how each of those three things happen.

Speaker 1:

But it's like a data we like. Every page is the same kind of thing and you just work it.

Speaker 2:

For the most part, it starts with what I call your life crash course, which is a little bit of a life audit. You look at where you're at right now, grade yourself in the different areas of your life, you create a vision of where you want to be long-term goals, short-term goals and after you do that, you'll break down these plans and then you have your daily planner pages that you fill out every single day. There's planner and journaling all in this one structure. And then this accountability part is you create it's like a daily scorecard where you plan out what your ideal day would look like, like what are the successful habits I should have every day that would make it my ideal day, and you grade yourself against that every single night. And it's a super powerful accountability tool just to make sure you're taking the actions you need to.

Speaker 1:

You do, you tie any social media with them, like hey, post here, keep it connected, kind of thing. You bring community to it.

Speaker 2:

I have. I've got a Facebook group, maybe like 700 people in there, instagram, I think. Probably something I've dropped the ball on is social media. I don't like social media. I don't believe in it. Is it something I'm going to have to overcome? So I have a VA who runs these things for me, but I can't say I can speak too much on it, other than I avoid going on there at all costs.

Speaker 1:

My company is instantly relevant. I built it because that problem you described is it's a necessary thing for today's modern sales presence and I have my time to run everything Like that's what we do. I get it because many entrepreneurs are like that. You shouldn't ignore it, right? It's like, oh, I don't like it. I don't ignore it because it's going to consume you at some point if you don't right. I'm curious. You have a very defined user, though, who wants to write like I could see the benefit of that, but I'm also somebody who drops notes on my phone more often than I do anything else. Uh, tell me about that dilemma of is it like a you're saying hey, listen, put it by your bed, make it the last thing you do, or the first? Do you have a pattern with that? Because I I see that being like a hard not a hard sell, but something I just want to do so.

Speaker 2:

my target customers are people who want to journal.

Speaker 1:

Most people do want to journal and they just don't. But they don't know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't know how to define that for somebody like you, write things down. Yeah, so this is the beauty of like when I was launching this people who want to write in a paper planner. It's a niche market, right Like launching an app much larger target audience but you can build this really passionate following of people who want to write and you can create raving fans. And I'm sure you can do that with an app too. But it was like people if they connect with it, they love it. They love it and they can share it with other people. So I'm not there necessarily to try and tell them they should be journaling or writing. I'm going after the people who already want to be writing their goals down and I think like more and more people are starting to reach out now to me who they've used productivity apps on their phone in the past.

Speaker 2:

But it's like your phone trying to use it for productivity. It's like you open your phone up and there's probably six notifications waiting for your attention. Versus I've got this written planner, nobody else is going to put something in this other than me. Versus your phone has access to the entire world for somebody to tap into your attention. So I find actually more people now are like I'm trying to get away from the technology. Now they have eight different productivity apps that they're trying to use in some blended web of a way and it's like Nope, you can just do this in one way. You don't need to have a hundred items to try and do in a day. You physically can't do that. Anyways, if you have the physical space of your planner, if there's a physical barrier of how much stuff can you actually do in your day? Uh, if you can't put it all in there, you can't do it in your day.

Speaker 1:

I love that. It's amazing. Sometimes I'll do this I'll go to a coffee shop just to change locations instead of being in my home studio here, and I will take a planner I book with me. Usually I got to make sure there's nothing written in it, like at least in the front, and I'll. That'll be enough for me to go to use GPT or some other AI to go build what I need to go do. But it's because between writing a few words you're thinking of a lot of steps and then, when you go back into use technology to accelerate it, I'm already clear on what I want to do. But I cause I have the five or six, seven, eight keywords and should just do that, like just write, do things, how it helps you clarify to accelerate other things, and that I agree with you. It's a. It's a lost art and I can't read my handwriting, so I gotta be careful there. That's a long story.

Speaker 2:

I run into that sometimes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Talk about your business bit. So you still have to make tens of thousands to go, you know. Put you what makes the most money now. Do the planners make the money? Does the coaching?

Speaker 2:

Is it the?

Speaker 1:

real estate. I mean the real estate. Ultimately it'd be better, but like from the planning coaching book speaker. How does that distribute?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So as I've gone further in my business, like at first, the only thing I had to sell was a planner, right. But as I started offering courses and then coaching, the planner has this beauty of you can build subscribers. It's a 90 day planner. It's undated. You can build the subscription base so it creates passive income which I like doing every 90 days basically.

Speaker 2:

Yep, you need to do one every 90 days. So most of the time people don't normally subscribe necessarily on their first one, but if they're going to go by a second, they click the subscribe and they get the subscription, which is awesome. But the coaching I would is where I've made most of my money from this business now, and I mean most recently, like when I signed on with this publisher to write the book the past year and a half, I dropped all my coaching clients and it was like I need to focus on writing this book, because if I have coaching clients, I stopped all my ads for my goal crazy business. Maybe this was in a year from now.

Speaker 2:

I'll tell you this was the worst decision I ever made, but it was like I can only I have a limited amount of focus. I only want to work so many hours. I'm putting everything I need to in this book and at that point I was so grateful that, rather than going out and buying fancy things, for the past five years I was buying rental properties because it's like I've got a wife. She takes care of our kids, she doesn't have a job and we can still live off of the income. She works way harder than I do.

Speaker 1:

That's the hardest job on the planet, the most thankless. They're like they have kids themselves and that point. You're like I have dementia. I don't know who you are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yep, she works really hard, but it was like I was able to take some time off and, between our rental properties and my subscribers for my planners, I can get by very comfortably until my book comes out and I can start everything again. So I would encourage that for other entrepreneurs. Just like, as your income increases, put some aside, just a little bit aside, or a lot of it aside.

Speaker 1:

It's funny because part of what you're describing I have a high interest in and I've bent the show a little bit for selfish reason because it's my show. I do that.

Speaker 1:

But the truth is, I think it's really important for people to understand this For our ideas of Cut the Tie. I wrote a book and then, during editing, I'm like I got annoyed editing it. I'm like it's too effing long. I'm like enough, I've trashed it, literally. Ghost writers are like what are you doing? I was like it doesn. I agree with you.

Speaker 1:

You have to have some kind of execution plan that's non-digital, and I have a Facebook community. I got to be honest with you. I don't like digital communities. They feel kind of hollow. I would be much better sure to have hey, let's go meet 10 people and you know, hang on, because I really feel it. I feel it's hollow, I have it there because people like it. I would drop it in a minute once I figure out like why I do or don't need it. But the truth is, I think what you've described is what people need and you have, you're starting to put components in place that puts, eventually, you on stage talking about something or a TEDx or something else, right? So you're, you're, you're, you're stacking it, and I don't want people to take it away that you have a very nice stacking method of hey, I can write a book about this are the posture.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm going to add something here, because when I started this I love, completely agree with everything you shared, but I didn't know what was going to happen after I launched this planner. I think, like what's may have slowed me down for a while of starting a business is like I didn't know the whole picture, but like it was so clear on what I wanted to do first. Like I want to launch a planner that was just I had a fire inside of me, random, but like I wanted to do that. But once you did it, the next thing just starts presenting itself, and I would say, actually to the extreme, where maybe you've heard this quote from Hubert Packard. He said most businesses die of indigestion rather than starvation. And it's like once you launch your business, there are so many opportunities that present themselves. It's like you have this buffet of options you can choose from. And then it starts to stack up and you got to be strategic of how you want to stack these things.

Speaker 1:

So you have. So the key to that and sometimes this is like a little deeper conversation is focus. Don't seem ADHD For your ADHDs. Get medicated. Start doing therapy or you'll never get there. You'll be doing all those at the same time and personal experience I'll tell you I'll medicated they don't work. So you got focus. And I think the other piece is you're incorporating some ideas from like Dan Sullivan, like 10X Z's or 2X, not Grant Cardone. So if the idea is focus on one thing and 10X it and then focus on the next thing to 10X that Rental properties, you're 10Xing those. You're doing those by taking hey, I'll take, you know, 50% of that money and put it towards this and live off this. And that's smart, um, and and there are pieces of your life you have to have an order to make that happen. To be very clear, it is a dream, otherwise you can't. They'll have what you probably are given. Um, do you have any mentors in your life?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, yeah, big fan of mentors. I mean ranging from free ones to paid coaches but one of the best pieces of advice a mentor gave me when I wanted to start my first business was he was like Jason look, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? So if you want to start a business, easiest way to do it is find someone who's already started a business like the one you want to start and just ask them how they did it.

Speaker 1:

There it is. Listen if you didn't hear it it's a whole podcast.

Speaker 2:

It's free consulting. Oh, as a podcast guest, I love it. That's what I'm doing. I'm tracking down the people at the next level.

Speaker 1:

This is the best part, though you get to talk about you, I get to learn and no one else listens. I win. It's great, that's true. Where do you sell your planner initially? And I ask this question more broadly because people will come up with products I've always I'm a services guy I look at it going too many choices, I can't do any of it, so I won't do anything. Where did you focus on the planner by?

Speaker 2:

Amazon. At first it was. Amazon was the name of the game. I don't know if that was 100% the right strategy.

Speaker 1:

But getting ranked tons of reviews, it was like I just need that for. Did you do that all organic or did you did you? Did you?

Speaker 2:

did you be active and say, hey, please review, please review, or did you just let it happen in the background I created so when somebody buys my planner and this is a neat thing you have with the physical product is there's a little flyer in there that says I'll have sequences that follow up with them asking to leave a review. So that happened. But I would say, like all those sales, they weren't completely organically and most of them, especially like the first, like 10, maybe even 20,000, I was so aggressive with ads that I wasn't even making money. I just needed to get it ranked. I needed to get a customer base. I needed to get subscribers our base, I needed to get subscribers.

Speaker 1:

And that's where. That's where now, if you did it again, you're like, hey, I'd have the drips for the book or this group activity or these funnels in place, cause then the investment in ads is like you had it, you had the list, but then you're like I have a plan to make money.

Speaker 2:

Take that negative 10,000 and make it a positive 100K or behind it.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, and I would add, like if I were going to be launching this business again and now this is my psychology with the book is paid. Ads was the easiest thing to implement, not the easiest to turn profitable, but it was like you could just turn them on and ads are going to run and sales will come, whether they're profitable or not. But the influencer marketing or doing like guest posting, kind of like coming on this podcast. It was crazy how that was what really moved the needle forward and my budget for that was like slim to none and it's still just brought me so many sales. It's built relationships, like now that I'm launching a book, I've got dozens of people I can reach out to who are fans of my work, who can support me, and I think if I would have taken a good portion of the effort I put towards paid advertising and put that towards this, it could have gone a lot further. Sorry to say 100%. Looking back, but that's my approach going forward now.

Speaker 1:

There's a balance, I think, with it where your ads it's also like you look at it more tight, like, hey, I'll run this experience. You control numbers better. Typically, people run ads. Initially they just let it go and they hope, hope, spray and pray and they don't do enough.

Speaker 1:

on the strategy right On the podcast side or appearances, I agree with you. You know there's different variances in cost of firms and there's also things like pod match. They're not sponsoring this but I would tell you, for 300 bucks a year or so, whatever it is, it's not much. Or you can get on a ton of shows of your choice if you just work it and it's very easy and there's a bunch of those. I agree with you that using someone else's audience as a multiplier it's smarter and it's more fun. And for us we're building it where I don't go on any shows on time but next year that whole switch is. This year has been all about 400 shows and guests and bringing on the building, the internal network, so I can reach back out to you and be like hey, six months, tell me what you did.

Speaker 2:

How'd the book go? Because once you're on the show you get a repeat Unless you suck. You have to suck. Try my best not to, unless you really suck. Yeah, but like on the both end of that, when I'm going on other people's shows or they're coming online, you're creating these connections with neat people. Like you're doing something. You're doing cool stuff or you're doing stuff similar to me, like there's many people I've gone on their show, where they've come on mine, where now we host a workshop together or we swap email lists or we connect in some other way that it helps both of us out. I'm learning, they're learning. It's not just like you're running these ads and the second you turn it off it's gone. It's like, no, I'm building a little bit more of an asset there.

Speaker 1:

That actually interesting. Uh, I haven't done the collaborations. Uh, a lot of people don't think that way. It's good, I will follow with you on that, because what you do and from the to make it happen there, becomes like things downstream that you describe you hate doing, what everyone does, which is like social media content and stuff like that. That's where we come in and say this is how you do yourself quickly or there's a cheap way to outsource it, right, right, like we give that advice and I love those kinds of collaborations where that enables what you're trying to help people go do, because there's always an execution piece that people fall apart on.

Speaker 1:

It's too much, it's overwhelming, I don't want to do it, it's not a core piece and they just give up and then it becomes a void or a hole in their business, right, and so I like that. That's beautiful. Listen, just conscious of time. We had a completely different kind of show tonight, today, because I think what you're doing and building is a really cool example of step-by-step business. I really wanted to feature that piece because I think learning from like, hey, I did this, I did this, I had this opportunity, I said no to it that is all hard stuff to do, to stay focused, to say no to something that was a guaranteed golden ticket. I love that, so thank you for yourself, for showing that courage and going to do it. If there was, though, a question I should ask you today, though I didn't what would have been the question?

Speaker 2:

I think like the golden thread that's been able to make that all happen is I had a dream inside of me and I think lots of times people stop dreaming, like they just don't have dreams for life. And when you don't have dreams for your life, you can't have meaningful goals. In my opinion, you can have goals without dreams, but they're not aiming towards anything else. But when you have a dream, your goals have meaning. Uh, cause we don't have meaningful goals, I'll tell people you end up in what I call survival mode. You're just working to survive, but, like when you can have this dream, it's going to fill you with a fire to overcome challenges.

Speaker 2:

Like if I didn't have, my desire to make this happen was so much greater than the challenge of leaving the dealership or struggling through the hard times in my business. So I'd say, like if there was one piece of advice people need to leave with, is you got to figure out what do you want to do with your life, because once you can get clarity on that, it's going to light a fire inside of you and even though I've had some really hard times, it's been fun. This is what I've chosen to do. I can't get mad when I run into struggles as an entrepreneur. It's like, yes, I signed up to be an entrepreneur. This is hard. If you want to do something epic with your life, you got to do what's hard. You don't do that by doing what's easy. So last piece of advice I would give is figure out what you want to do with your life and find what's going to spark that fire inside of you.

Speaker 1:

Listen, it is the core principle of we've named this show a few things. That plaque on the wall there says never been promoted. I literally one day changed it to cut the tags. That was what I was telling people to do. That's what the brand was. I was like, well, never been promoted, it's about me. So I you changed it. You're like, hey, my goal was to help someone cut the tie, not talk about me, not ever be promoted. And so you have these reflection moments and you have to take action and you're spot on If you don't own that success that's one of the second titles of our name was cut the tie, own the, own your success. If you don't own it, someone else will. And it does feel hollow when you get there. This is why people, when they get the job, buy the house, get the car, and they're like, like still unhappy because you got all the stuff that you thought everyone else thought you needed not what you wanted actually. And so spot on.

Speaker 2:

Listen up. Who should get ahold of you? How do you want them to do that? Yeah, First thing I would say if you're wanting to start a business, check out my book Dream Driven. It'll help you find that perfect business idea that'll light the fire inside of you, validate it's a winner and launch it. If you want, you can learn about me and my planner and the other thing I'm doing for my business at goalcrazycom. Really, this is targeted for people who want to start a business or have a business. That's who my planner book are for. Yeah, let's start there. Check out my book, Dream Driven.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, Jason Vandermeer. Thank you for the support. Get out there, cut the tie, own your success.

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Thomas Helfrich

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