Jake Isaacs: The Grace in Redirection

What happens when life keeps shifting the path beneath your feet?

In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Jake Isaacs, Serial Integrator and Co-Founder of Gathering The Kings as he shares the turning points that shaped his leadership, his resilience, and his definition of success.

We explore:

• How constant childhood moves shaped his adaptability
• The cost of high performance when relationships and well-being are left behind
• The wake-up calls that led him to rebuild his life more than once
• How he now guides entrepreneurs toward clarity, structure, and healthier success

If you’ve ever felt pulled toward a different chapter or sensed that something in your life needed realignment, this conversation offers perspective, encouragement, and a grounded path forward.

Connect with Jake: https://gatheringthekings.com/

Explore more career and life alignment resources: nextsuccesscareers.com

Transcript

0:03

Life redirected him more than once. And each time Jake Isaacs grew into a truer version of himself. This conversation is an honest look at the turning points that shaped an integrator leader and deeply resilient human being. This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal I'm a life first career coach and strategist on a mission to normalize questioning your career because I believe each of us is made on purpose for a purpose only we can fulfill. The longer we live out of alignment with who we are, what we do best, and why we are here, the more we miss out. And the more the world misses out on what only we can give. The Your Next Success Podcast is where we explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life. We talk about self-discovery, smart job, search strategies, professional growth, and you'll hear stories from people who have navigated big career transitions themselves, so you can create a life first career and become your own version of authentic success. Today's guest is Jake Isaacs, serial integrator co-founder of Gathering the Kings and a leader who brings clarity and calm into the chaos of business growth. Jake has spent more than two decades in operations and leadership, helping entrepreneurs build efficient companies, strengthening their teams, and creating more margin for what matters most. His story is rich with movement, reinvention, loss, faith, discipline, and the kind of resilience forged only through honest reflection. I am grateful to share this conversation with you. Jake's journey is a study in redirection, he grew up moving constantly learned to integrate fast. Rose quickly in his career, burned out hard, lost marriages, rebuilt his life again and again, and eventually found a path that matches both his gifts and his heart. In this episode, we explore the moments that recalibrated him, the lessons he carried forward, and the clarity he now uses to guide entrepreneurs into healthier, more intentional success.

Caroline: 2:26

Jake Isaacs, welcome to your Next Success. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time, and I'm so excited that this day is finally here.

Jake Isaacs: 2:36

I agree. I've just been on pins and needles since we first met about this recording, so thank you for having me.

Caroline: 2:43

Absolutely. I'm just thrilled we can make this happen. So, as you know, I love talking about people's careers, career transitions, how their definition of success changes, and we're gonna get to a lot of the fascinating things that you do now with the mastermind of Gathering the Kings, being an integrator, very successful entrepreneur, winning in all phases of life. And let's take it back to the beginning. Can you help me understand a little bit about your childhood? Like where did you grow up? What was that like for you? For the little, little, Jake.

Jake Isaacs: 3:19

By the time I had turned 18 years old, Caroline, my family had moved 12 times. And I'm not talking different house, same city, i'm talking across the country. So I joke that my dad was either really good at what he did or he sucked at it. Non-military family but we just, we just were constantly kind of climbing that rung of climbing that ladder of success. And he was leveling up his career and his job and because of that, at the time I didn't realize what a gift they were giving me by watching them pick up move across the country to chase success. It really created this freedom for me as an adult where I don't need to be tied to the same five mile by five mile area where I grew up in order to continue to live my life. And so I've perpetuated that same thing as an adult. Moved all across the country, chased opportunities, where they became available to me and just have had a very fruitful and wonderful career in a lot of different sectors of business.

Caroline: 4:19

And so what kind of job did your parents have that they moved all over? My dad, we moved a lot when I was growing up as well. My dad was a teacher, principal, then superintendent and so similarly I moved a tremendous, all over, but still within mostly Ohio. But it was a good thing because I can walk into a room full of people I don't know, and quickly make connections. But what was the uh, background of the employment for your parents that helped that.

Jake Isaacs: 4:47

Yeah, so my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad was a sporting goods salesman. And so towards the end of his career, he was working for a manufacturer's rep group, which is essentially just a third party sales company that would connect big box retailers like Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart to manufacturers like Rawlings Baseballs or Brass Eagle Paintball was a client of his. And so, yeah. he had an incredible job for a little boy. I've got a brother who's 16 months younger than I am, and so like going to work with dad was like going to the coolest toy store in the world, just camping equipment and baseball and foosball tables and paintball guns everywhere. It was just incredible.

Caroline: 5:33

That's awesome. Yeah, I was gonna say like, did you guys, did you get to test out this stuff or see, or, I mean, I don't know if he ever went to trade shows, like what kind of giveaways did they have, because that would've been so awesome.

Jake Isaacs: 5:44

Yeah. I mean, some of my earliest memories are staffing trade show booths. You know, him just using us as baits to to bring people into the booth so he could talk to'em about whatever it is that he was representing at that time.

Caroline: 5:56

Oh, that's cool. And so did you grow up loving sports and those kind of outdoor activities as well? Or how did that shape your identity?

Jake Isaacs: 6:05

It's really funny, my dad's kind of from the northeast corner of Oklahoma, kind of right on the Oklahoma, Arkansas border and so he grew up very country and he is not very sports-minded and he's not very outdoorsy. My mom grew up in the Boston area and she wanted to make sure that we had, my brother and I had that background and so we did the Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts and all that stuff. And I've had the opportunity to hike and fish and camp all across the United States and we were both very active, not only in our church and in scouts, but also in sports. The rule in our family was that you had to participate in one sport every single season, and so we were doing something different all the time.

Caroline: 6:47

So what sports did that, you know, where did your interest take you in your abilities as well?

Jake Isaacs: 6:53

In high school, I lettered in five different sports.

Caroline: 6:57

That's awesome.

Jake Isaacs: 6:58

I played football, I played baseball, I wrestled, I swam, and I did track and field and so I broke my neck junior year of high school and I kind of had to pivot my sports interests as I recovered from the injury.

Caroline: 7:13

And so you pivoted into what? Still like I think a neck is pretty important. Like what sport does that not take a precedence, you know?

Jake Isaacs: 7:22

I had to step away from football, obviously. And then, I pivoted from wrestling into swimming and from baseball into track.

Caroline: 7:30

And what'd you do for track?

Jake Isaacs: 7:31

I was a shot putter.

Caroline: 7:33

Yeah, I, that was the one season I did like band, I became band and like all these other leadershipy kind of things, theater and all of that. But in the spring I didn't wanna have to, like, there wasn't necessarily anything wrong with home, I just loved being out and doing other things. So I decided track, but I didn't run at that point unless someone was chasing me. But boy, shot put, man, I could just do one lap and I did shot put and discus, ran one lap, hung out with friends. Had a glorious time.

Jake Isaacs: 8:04

That's right. My defensive line coach for the football team was also the shot putting coach and so I didn't really join the track team'cause I was interested in shot put. I just wanted to continue to be around him, he was such a great mentor in my life and I just enjoyed the time on the team because of him.

Caroline: 8:21

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. And so in all your moving, do you still, so was high school in the same area or did you move during high school as well?

Jake Isaacs: 8:30

Yeah, no. Thankfully I was able to stay in the Chicago land area for all four years of high school.

Caroline: 8:36

Oh, that's awesome. And so scouts, you also achieved the Eagle Scout rank?

Jake Isaacs: 8:41

That's correct. Yep.

Caroline: 8:41

Yeah. Wow, that's pretty cool. And did your brother do scouts as well?

Jake Isaacs: 8:46

He did. Yes. And he also was an Eagle Scout.

Caroline: 8:49

Oh wow. How phenomenal. How phenomenal. That's cool. My brother was an Eagle scout. so this leadership was an important thread. This activity, this community, this leadership became part of your growing up then?

Jake Isaacs: 9:05

Yeah. It's been a through line through my entire life, whether it was both my brother and I were honored to be a part of the, when we were in high school, the state of Illinois had like a junior leadership training program where we would take different scouts from all across the state and do a leadership training course every single summer with them. And, we ended up running that for a couple of summers and, and so it's just always been not just local leadership, but high level leadership in different things has been a part of both of our backgrounds.

Caroline: 9:35

Oh, that's cool. Now, when you were graduating high school, considering what you wanted to do for your next steps, tell me a little bit about like what went into that decision and how did you choose what to do next?

Jake Isaacs: 9:48

Yeah, I had my life all planned out. I knew exactly what I was gonna do, where I wanted to go to school. And then that fateful fall afternoon at practice at football practice I ended up breaking my neck and everything just took a quick right hand turn. I thought I was gonna go to school at Michigan State University'cause they had a really good business school. There was a chance to play football over at Michigan State for a little bit. And so I thought I was gonna be a D one football player and go to Michigan State and go graduate from this great business school and follow in my father's footsteps through our entire high school career, we had been courted as like the next generation of this family owned business that my brother and I, or that my dad had worked for. And so we were kind of the gap generation between my dad's business partner and his kids. And so we'd get pulled outta school and go to pitch meetings for different lines as like, just the health of the company and the longevity of the company was gonna be intact. And, so when we got outta college, both my brother and I rebelled against that path for us.

Caroline: 10:59

So where did you end up going to school then?

Jake Isaacs: 11:02

I went to a small college in Kansas called Haskell Indian Nations University, and I know you can't tell by looking at me, but my dad's side of the family is all Native American. My mom's side of the family is all Irish potato farmers. And I got the Irish looking genes where my cousins and everything on my dad's side looked like they just stepped off the reservation.

Caroline: 11:23

Oh, wow. How amazing So you went to college there. What did you study then?

Jake Isaacs: 11:27

Business administration with a kind of a minor in speech pathology. So,

Caroline: 11:33

How did you pick that?

Jake Isaacs: 11:34

From all of the leadership training stuff that we had done, I have always felt comfortable being in front of crowds and talking from the front of the room. And so I figured if I could get a more formal education that would back some of that up, that it would be good. That's why I decided on the manner.

Caroline: 11:51

Oh, and so then what did you decide to do? Like, I know that you were pulled in a lot to your, your dad's business, but as you started to make some of your own decisions, where did that lead you for employment or things like that?

Jake Isaacs: 12:04

Yeah. I had a college counselor that we still interact with each other to this day, which I'm super thankful for. She just told me that careers were changing and the marketplace was changing. My father and grandfather's generations where it was go to work for one company and retire from that company, that those days were over and that I needed to be comfortable with change. And so my first big boy job out of college was working for Sprint in Kansas City in their subpoena compliance department and it was a job that I wasn't really, I didn't know anything about I just needed something to pay the bills so I could continue to support my alcohol habit and my living single habit. And it was an incredible opportunity to just go in and learn something brand new. And again, just over time, kind of the cream rose to the top of the glass. And they promoted me into a new position. And In the middle of the training for this promotion that Sprint had decided to give me, I was fired because they did a huge layoff. They cut, like 25% of their staff or something like that. And I just remember at that time how crazy it was because they took me into this offboarding meeting, fired me, and then told me that if I went to a temp agency that I could be back in the building on Monday, doing my job again. But because I was an employee line item, they needed to like shift some of the money around on the P and L. And so as a contractor, I didn't hit the bottom line the same way that the labor number did and so was at that moment, and I'm thankful, it was the very first job that I ever had it was at that moment that I was,like, oh, it's not about me. It's not about me at all. It doesn't matter how good I am, it's about the numbers and the dollars and the cents and I just have to be okay with not taking these type of things personal. I still have to show up every single day and do a great job. I still have to, you know, personal belief system is to work unto the Lord and just give my best. And if I get let go from giving my best, it's not because of my effort or anything that I did.

Caroline: 14:16

How wise was that though? That's a very wise perspective. But you weren't really fired, you were laid off. So your position was eliminated because there's a difference here because some people get, it feels like firing. I was laid off, right, and I was in my early twenties, so from a research scientist position doing fatigue and fracture, developing millions of dollars of adhesives, had two technicians working for me. My stuff went into automotive, and in this 2008, 2009 timeframe, there was a 40% decrease in projected sales. All of a sudden, this company's making a 10% cut. Me, my two technicians and 297 other people were part of that. It felt so personal. And I'm like, are you like, on one hand I'm like, are you kidding me? Like me? Don't you know who I am? And on the other hand, seeing some of the other folks who didn't get their job gone and I'm like, seriously, you picked them? Like, but very, very ego driven for me in that point. And there's a distinction between being laid off from a business decision and being fired or terminated for cause because one has you eligible for unemployment benefits, the other does not. One becomes a little bit of a, something you're gonna have to explain it how you're getting better and the other becomes a, ah, unfortunately it was a business decision outside of my control, and I'm so glad actually now that that happened for me, because otherwise I would never get to know about your amazing company. Boy, I can see we do great things, but so I, yeah. Interesting. But, but that's a very wise perspective. Where do you think that perspective came. Like you were already so solid in like a little bit of who you are in that, like this identity of your job doesn't ultimately define you, like where did that come from?

Jake Isaacs: 16:02

It's that I had taking the time to set up, like a vision for my life. Dreams. I was chasing something that was bigger than just the paycheck. And so I was making sure that I had a job, I had solid income, it was paying the bills, but I had a dream for my life and the vehicle at the time for dream, a part of that was just the job. And so the dream didn't change when I lost the income stream. I just had to go find a new incomes stream and continue to catch the dream.

Caroline: 16:35

And you mentioned something about your, like, was the alcohol habit a fun habit that was just a exploring your life and enjoying, or did it ever become a bit of a, maybe a not aligning with your long-term goals?

Jake Isaacs: 16:50

Yeah. No, so in high school I was very straight edge, didn't drink, didn't do any of that. I was the good kid. I didn't have time to be a bad kid, to be honest with you between the sports and the Boy Scouts and all the stuff that my brother and I were doing, we didn't have time for that type of lifestyle. But when I went to college, I was immersed into this world that I wasn't really sure of. And one of the things that I felt like I needed to do to relate to these people that were just so drastically different than I was, was to meet them at the bars. I didn't know what my alcohol tolerance was. And so I would just continue to drink all night long that just turned into a lot of problems for me. And so there was a period of time where it was fun, then it became hazardous and detrimental to my long-term success, and so I had to cut it out.

Caroline: 17:39

Tell me about that. How did you know that? Right. Because sometimes when you're in the middle of something, did somebody have to help you understand, or did you just like, when did it become a point of like, this is not actually aligned with.

Jake Isaacs: 17:52

I had a long night of drinking and I opted not to go to work the next morning, and I called in and made this just like terrible dumb ass excuse and I was laying in bed, sleeping off my hangover. And later on that morning I woke up and I was like, this is a ridiculous thing. Like you're an adult now you're acting like a child and you are using this as an excuse for you not to lean into some of the responsibilities and the commitments that you've made. Like it's now a problem. You've just gotta stop.

Caroline: 18:26

Wow. And so did, did you just push through mind over matter or did you get help at that point. How did that work?

Jake Isaacs: 18:34

No, I just stopped. I just stopped. I made the decision that I wasn't gonna drink anymore. And so I, I stopped alcohol, didn't have anything to drink for like two and a half years. Um, and so yeah,

Caroline: 18:47

Wow. Again, this, this, yeah.

Jake Isaacs: 18:49

I enjoyed it.

Caroline: 18:50

Here.

Jake Isaacs: 18:50

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It needed to be something that was a value add to a situation, not something that controlled the situation. And so I had to stop until I had enough faith in myself that I could control it, not allow it to control me.

Caroline: 19:05

So wise. So wise. Okay. So you get, your position gets eliminated at Sprint. Did you go to that contract thing then and come right back? Or then where, what did you choose to do? Tell me a little bit about those things.

Jake Isaacs: 19:19

I considered it, but I didn't want to be used. I know that kind of sounds weird, but I didn't want to be a solution to the problem that they created. Right? So if they didn't value me and my time when they had me, I wasn't gonna let them abuse me again in a different manner. And so I went and I found another job.

Caroline: 19:41

What did you choose to do then?

Jake Isaacs: 19:42

I started working for an educational facility, doing meeting planning. They were doing seminars all across North America, teaching people about leadership development, teaching people how to use Excel, teaching people how to speed read. And I was one of five meeting planners that would book the meeting space for the speakers to come in and do the presentations.

Caroline: 20:06

What a cool foundational skill for you to have acquired for what you're doing. That's so cool. All right. All right, so then walk me through then, that sounds pretty, pretty interesting, touching a lot of the things that you're realizing are important to you. How did you decide to leave that and go pursue something else?

Jake Isaacs: 20:28

It was really in that job that I had one of my mentors, the CEO of that company really kind of took me under her wing. They had had some eliminations and my boss got fired and that position didn't get rehired. And so as a result, I now found myself reporting directly to the CEO and she took the time to really start developing my business acumen. I understood leadership and I understood people up to that point, but I didn't understand P&L's and projections, and she took the time to like really teach me that spreadsheets are the language, the universal language of the boardroom, and that if I wanted to be successful in business, I needed to understand how to walk into a, an environment, read a spreadsheet, understand a P&L, do cash forecasting and projections. And so I really took my time in that position, learning all of those skills. And a friend of mine who just left the army had purchased a small business and said, hey, I've seen what you've done at Sprint, I see what you're currently doing now, and I think that there's a real opportunity for you to come in and help me run this business. Now that you have a better understanding of some of these things, will you come in and help me run it? And so I ended up leaving that position to get my first operations role, running a company for a small family.

Caroline: 21:55

Oh wow. And what kind of work did they do? What was the business relation, business focus?

Jake Isaacs: 21:59

Yeah.

Caroline: 22:00

Oh, wow.

Jake Isaacs: 22:01

It was a moving company in Kansas City.

Caroline: 22:04

That's cool. That's cool. Okay. And so a friend calls you, you have this need to kind of level up anyway, and now you expand into this moving company operations and then what happened? You know, now you're doing operations work.

Jake Isaacs: 22:18

We took over this company, he and his wife and kind of the role was, she was gonna do the marketing. I was gonna do the operations and he was gonna do the sales and kind of be the face of the organization. And so that's kind of how we tackled it. And we took the business from one truck and just a little over a hundred thousand dollars in revenue to three years. In three years we had five trucks, we had started a franchise system, we sold three franchises of the moving company and we were doing just a little over a million dollars in revenue in three years.

Caroline: 22:54

Oh wow.

Jake Isaacs: 22:54

It was just pouring a lot of gasoline, a lot of hard work and just, you know, being too stupid to fail. We just weren't gonna take no for an answer and just kind of young and dumb and just ran after it. It was awesome.

Caroline: 23:07

And so he and his wife were working together. What about your relationship at that status? Were you in a relationship as well and how did that or,

Jake Isaacs: 23:16

at that time, I was married and so my wife and I had both dropped out of college. We didn't do a traditional four year college path. We dropped outta college, just to kind of pursue a little side business hobby that we had. And so at that we were married, both of us back in school. She decided that after she completed her undergrad, that she wanted to move forward and get a law degree, and so she was in law school and I was building out this business.

Caroline: 23:44

That's so interesting. Because that's the thing, it's not just the education, it's not just the, what you're doing, and what's your greater life looking like and is that working with you, for you, against you? How's all that alignment? Very, very interesting. Why did you, or how did that transition into your next, next thing? I'm fascinated by this whole story.

Jake Isaacs: 24:05

So, in the process of both of us running after what we thought we wanted, both of us being my, wife at the time. And she was all in on school and we thought we were building towards this better life and I was working my tail off trying to make sure that we could get her through law school without taking on a mountain of debt and so we were very much two ships passing in the night. And we thought that that was just a season of our life and we didn't understand what we were doing to erode the foundation of our relationship. And so by the time that she was ready to get out of law school, she was about done with me and my working 20 hours a day for someone else's business. So we ended up getting divorced, through the process of the divorce and me trying to find myself and kind of recalibrating my life. I moved down to Dallas, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, because that's where my brother was living, and I wanted to just reconnect with him and spend more time just kind of licking my wounds around a new place that I had never been and didn't hold any memories and hard feelings and things like that.

Caroline: 25:13

I got you. So you, left on an adventure just with, I guess kind of like reminiscent of your parents going to different places. You're just like, all right, I'm just gonna pick up and start new somewhere else?

Jake Isaacs: 25:24

Yep. Yep. I left, left all my friends behind, left great job behind and decided that I was gonna move down to Dallas and start over again. My brother ended up introducing me to a buddy of his and as I was also doing the moving company thing, I had a little, side gig'cause I'm, I'm always interested in side gigs. But I was running a home handyman company so he knew about my home handyman company and said, hey, you don't have a job I need a maintenance guy at a couple of my Marriott hotels. You know how to plunge toilets and change light bulbs. Why don't you come work for me and get your feet underneath you, but at least you've got some income coming in. I said, hey, that sounds awesome. I appreciate it. And what I didn't expect at that time, Caroline, was that I was gonna fall in love with hospitality. And everytime I had the opportunity to learn something from someone at the front desk or from someone at the bar, I just took the opportunity to understand the systems, understand the the computer programming, kind of what the process was for all of it. Within six months of me going to work for my buddy as the maintenance guy, I got promoted to be an assistant general manager. A year later I got promoted to be a general manager, and then my career in hospitality was kind of off and running.

Caroline: 26:44

So it was this desire to help people have a really great time and a really great experience while they were under your roof. That, that's what you mean by hospitality or how did you define it in that moment? What were the attractive things about it that you loved?

Jake Isaacs: 26:57

Yeah, I just loved making people feel comfortable, were spending their hard earned dollars to come down and go to a baseball game, or go to a football game, or take their family to an amusement park. And they've chosen to stay at our hotels in order to make that dream come true and I felt like it was my obligation to make sure that they had the best experience possible. So it was just really kind of creating this environment that my mom created for my brother and I through our childhood of just it being warm and welcoming and a place that you can put your guard down and feel comfortable to be in. And I just absolutely loved the entire experience and because I had traveled all across the country, I found myself being able to relate with all of our guests and talked to them about something unique and specific about the place that they lived, which then drew them into me and drew them into our hotel and created loyalty, and it was just a lot of fun.

Caroline: 27:54

That's amazing. I love it how this like, the life is aligning for you, right. You know, even moving, going to your, your brother gives you a connection which leads you into learning, and your willingness and desire to just be like. All right, like, what do I need to do? Let me buckle down and figure it out and find some fascinating things along the way. That's cool. Okay, so now this, this hospitality edge of your career is starting to build and thrive. What about life around it?

Jake Isaacs: 28:22

Yeah. You know, I was still trying to figure out, at this point in my life, I'm in my early thirties and I'm trying to figure out, what life looks like as a divorced man in a new city and, and making friends. And you know what it does dating look like and, and how do I balance that and a career? It was a very unique and interesting time for me. I got to meet a lot of really incredible people, a lot of which I'm still very good friends with today. I am a hardheaded dude. I didn't realize that. I had met someone through some of the training that I was doing with Marriott International that was interested in pursuing a relationship with me and we eventually ended up getting married. We met at a general manager's conference in Washington DC which is where Marriott's headquarters was at the time. And, she happened to live in Houston and I was in the Dallas area so just kind of worked out. I ended up getting married, because we were both in the industry together. I moved from Dallas to Houston to manage a portfolio of hotels down there and she got an opportunity for a hotel in Cincinnati. So we picked up and moved to Cincinnati and I just kind of was perpetuating what I saw my parents do, chasing success.

Caroline: 30:18

How'd that work out? Like I typically don't go from Texas to Cincinnati. But hey, I can see for love how some places look a little more attractive. Of course. Like I grew up in Ohio. I now live in North Carolina and it's gorgeous. Carolina Blue sky. What was my spring jacket, is now my winter jacket. It's just, just amazing. Okay, so you, you get up to Ohio, you have this relationship that's looking amazing. You're in this hospitality, inter industry where you found some real interest, passion, all of that. And then what happened?

Jake Isaacs: 30:56

And then what happened? Then COVID happened, right? And it just kind of decimated our industry and my hotel and my wife's hotel at the time, didn't close. We had to, I personally had to furlough 95% of my staff, so for 18 months in and around COVID, I was running a 24 hour facility with four employees, and it was just intense, lots of long hours. Not that we were busy because there wasn't a lot of travelers, but the responsibilities that we all had were so immense because we had this huge facility. I went from a staff of 42 to a staff of four overnight, and the expectations didn't change, right? We still had to make money, we still had to have a clean hotel, we still needed to serve breakfast, we still needed to check people in. And so we had to do so much more with so much less that it just created this environment where everyone was burning the candle at both ends. And it was just a really, really, really hard time for a long time. It wasn't a three month process for us. It was for me it was 18 months.

Caroline: 32:06

How did that affect, because I kind of look at things now from a performance, relationships, and well-being lens because there was a long time where I just assumed my relationships were gonna be there and my well-being was something I could take care of later and so I excelled in the performance area. COVID helped me kind of see a little bit like, oh, some people aren't gonna always be there. Oh, removing all the things you have to do. Oh, interesting. You know, but how did that affect you? Now you, you're having to do all this stuff. Your performance is, you're doing everything you can to keep it, but how about your relationships and your own personal well-being? How did that stress go for you? Good or bad?

Jake Isaacs: 32:51

Fantastic question. Similar to what you were talking about, I just took for granted the relationships and I took for granted, my own personal health and figured that if I just doubled down in taking care of my career, that the rest of that stuff would be there for me later on to focus on and so as a result, there were days that I didn't leave the hotel, I just slept in an empty guest room because, you know, i'm on shift 20 or 22 hours a day trying to make sure the thing goes. It's really hard to be a husband when you're working 20 hours a day. And it just, it paid its toll. My wife was experiencing the same thing because she was in the industry also. She was experiencing the same thing on her own, at her own facility. And similar to my first marriage, when I said that two ships were passing in the night, I found myself the same mistakes, right? Super involved in my career unto building for my family. But what I was doing at the time is I was creating irreparable damage to the people that I was building all of this stuff for, all of the sweat, all of the toil, all of the things that I thought that I was working for was being destroyed because I was doing the work.

Caroline: 34:06

I get it. I get it. I was so busy chasing this global pacesetter top 2%, you got to go on a cool vacation, except the vacation was in like February. So I couldn't even take my family with me'cause they had school. And I'm trying to be everything I can for any client that I was working on.'Cause I was a hundred percent commission only trying to make matches between chemical companies and people. And while I'm kind and thinking I'm making a difference for the world and helping people's, not just their jobs, but their families and super nice on the phone, I'm snapping at my kids and I'm yelling at them, mommy's on a call. Quiet.

Jake Isaacs: 34:49

Yeah.

Caroline: 34:49

You know, if we did go to Disney or something of that sort, I'm taking calls in line and for what, you know, then I realized that, you know, they're getting older. They're teenagers getting attitudes. Luckily, my husband luckily, he doesn't like changing slacks. He's not gonna change his wife. So thank God for that. But uh, he, he sat me down and he said, look, I'm terrified, we're not gonna have another anniversary, because you are literally killing yourself. And I'm sure that took a lot for him to say at that point'cause he is very much a peacekeeper, very much a even keel, very much a whatever you wanna do, that's fine. But, I'm really glad that he, he said that I had gotten to class two obesity, high blood pressure, three different medicines, and a regular heart rate going up to 210 while I'm just sitting and I'm still not connecting that all these body things are related to trying to conform into this version of success taken for granted. The other stuff, while kids are growing up, spending time with other people, my husband's like, one night of poker becomes six, you know?'Cause I'm just never, never there. But I, I get it. So how did that, how'd that go for you then? Then? What did you choose to do? Or, you know,'cause you're kind of torn. You're, you're leading this place now with much reduced staff. I believe trying to do you best you can. She's trying to do the best she can. And then what?

Jake Isaacs: 36:20

I mean, the crazy thing is, I don't know if you can relate to this in your own story, but like the accolades kept coming in. I was winning awards I was getting promotions, like all of the things that I was working for towards, I was being affirmed with. so I was seeing the success. And my wife would come home from work and she would have to go into the bathroom and sit on the toilet seat and just cry for 45 minutes to process her stress and her emotions before she could come out and engage with me. Finally one day she came home and she just said, hey, I just wanna let you know I quit today like I'm done. I was like, no conversation about that? Like that's 50% of the household income is just gone overnight. And so, I did the only thing that I knew how to do, which was to work more, which was to work harder, to be more focused, to be more intentional about trying to grow my career and be successful because I had to make up for us not having the other income anymore. And so as I'm away from the house now trying to provide for the family, my wife is dealing with all of this emotional stress and burden and toil and she takes to self-medicating with marijuana during the day and, you know, so she's going left, I'm going right. Like, we're not even talking to each other anymore. I'd be lucky if I'd get home and dinner would be sitting on the counter for me, and she was in bed. It turned into living with a stranger here this person was that I said was my best friend who said that was my soulmate, and said it was the best thing for me. I just never saw her and you can't survive in a relationship like that. So eventually, what it came down to is like, I gotta get off of this merry-go-round just like she is. So we decided that I was gonna leave my job and that we were gonna move across the country and we weren't gonna proactively or preemptively try to find jobs. We decided that we wanted to move to Phoenix. We packed everything that we own up in a couple of pods, shipped'em across the country, and then put some suitcases in our car and took 60 days to drive from Cincinnati, Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona, just stopping and trying to rekindle that passion that we had had in our relationship. Camping, seeing some of the sites, still using our incredible hotel employee discounts and staying in just amazing places and just trying to recapture what we had had at the beginning of our relationship. Unfortunately, Caroline, it was too little, too late, right? Ended up getting to Phoenix after this incredible vacation, this incredible experience, and like, now it's time to get serious again. We both have to have jobs. We need to start bringing in some income. We need to figure out what the next chapter of our lives are gonna be. One of the reasons that we had moved west all of our family had lived on the West coast. During COVID, we were isolated and we couldn't be there for my parents or her parents as they were dealing with COVID, because we couldn't travel to see them. We weren't close enough to drive and so we decided that we wanted to move west for that reason and so she wakes up one day and says, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go see my aunt. I haven't seen her in a while, and I was like, awesome, that's why we moved here, do that. So she got up on a Saturday morning, went to visit her aunt, and she just never came home. That was the end of my second marriage. And so now, i'm in this new place, with no job, with no family, with no purpose, with no anything. Uh, trying to figure out how, how do I start over again? And, would use the word resiliency earlier, as we were talking and I'm thankful that that is one of the things that through my childhood, that my mom and dad just instilled inside of me was just this, this form of resiliency. So I decided I didn't wanna go back to hospitality, even though that would be the easiest thing to do. I could have gotten a job immediately, but I wanted to find something that gave me some more intrinsic value. One of the aspects of my career in hospitality that I enjoyed the most was working with local human trafficking organizations to help stop that. So I found a nonprofit organization in Phoenix that was doing some stuff with some immigrant children, they were in a huge need for someone that was operationally minded. They had taken in a couple of really big grants from the United States government I was able to come in and provide a little bit of leadership and a little bit of business acumen around what to do with that money. And, we grew that organization from 25 employees to 135 employees in 18 months. And they were just doing some incredible work.

Caroline: 41:01

So you buckled down on your mission driven purpose here. Now, one question to go back to the Cincinnati time,'cause I'm kind of curious about this. So you were working, she was working lots of hours. She just decides that's it. I can't do it anymore. She quits. And you felt like you had to work more'cause you felt like as the guy you needed to do that? Or were your finances also designed around having to have two really great incomes?

Jake Isaacs: 41:28

Yeah, our finances were designed around trying to, or having two incomes. I felt like I needed to, like the math equation didn't work, right? I was gonna make any more money by working more hours, but I felt like I needed to prove myself. I needed to prove the work that I was doing was worth it, the sacrifice that I was making was worth it. And so, yeah.

Caroline: 41:53

Interesting. Interesting. Okay. All right, so this, did it feel like in those 60 days, did you feel like it was gonna work and resolve itself? Like, did you feel like everything's coming around, this is the thing, but she wasn't necessarily communicating accurately what her feelings were? Is that what you think kind of happened or?

Jake Isaacs: 42:16

Yes, I do, she was experiencing things differently than I was experiencing through that trip. We had a great time. I thought that we were on the same page. I thought that things were moving in the right direction and that we were going to be able to get through that time and look back at COVID and laugh about all of the stories that we had had. But, that wasn't the case.

Caroline: 42:38

Interesting. Okay, so now you immerse yourself into this incredibly important high impact human trafficking, helping kind of figure that out and then what? That seems to be like very purpose fulfilling. How, how was it all the other parts of your life fulfilling?

Jake Isaacs: 42:58

I found myself repeating old habits uh, because I,

Caroline: 43:03

Good or bad.

Jake Isaacs: 43:04

Right, on call 24 hours a day, working way more than I should have because the reality of the situation for me was Caroline, by working all of the time, it kept me from having to focus on the thing that I really needed to do, which was to heal myself. Which was to spend time healing myself. So if I just stayed busy with the job, I didn't have to worry about that and it was the excuse that I kept telling myself, oh, I'll get to it tomorrow or, oh, I'll get to the gym next week or, oh, I'll start that diet here next month. I've got this

Caroline: 43:39

Yep.

Jake Isaacs: 43:40

Deadline that I need to meet. And so,

Caroline: 43:42

I get it. I did it too. I was a head attached to a body, but my brain and whatever like that had gotten me so far. And thoughts, thoughts were awesome feelings. Ooh, I don't know. Feelings started going on emotions, and I hadn't developed in that, in that capacity. So I just did everything I could to keep thinking, until, until I couldn't anymore, until I like to say I didn't quit. I chose myself. I chose myself and to just immerse myself into a bunch of uncomfortable things to develop in ways that I had not yet done. I'd heard about it, but I didn't realize the importance or allow myself the freedom to actually understand a little bit more about all these beautiful complexities and kind of heal, heal some past things, but when did you get into that personal development, more fulfillment? How, how did you transition into that focus?

Jake Isaacs: 44:43

You know, personal development has always been a part of my, my life. I love reading. I love learning when I was a young man, a mentor of mine got ahold of me and said, listen, son, if you want to be a leader of man, you need to be a reader. Not all readers or leaders. Not all readers are leaders, but if you wanna be a leader, you need to be a reader. I just took that seriously. So I was always a consumer of podcasts, audio books, physical books, all that stuff. But what I neglected to do, Caroline, was to apply that to my own life, right? Like I applied it to work, I applied it to my career, I applied it to the advice that I gave my employees. I just didn't apply it to myself. And, you know, just thankful that I had people around me that were able to say like, Hey dude, like you don't need to continue to serve people in order to make them love you, like we love you for who you are. So,

Caroline: 45:44

Not what you do, so the human being versus the human doing.

Jake Isaacs: 45:48

Correct.

Caroline: 45:49

Interesting. So when did it transition, I guess, do you still help with the human trafficking thing or, that all transitioned into now the, the Gathering the Kings thing.

Jake Isaacs: 45:58

Yeah, it all transitioned into gathering the Kings. My buddy who was the founder of Gathering the Kings and I were just in talks because he was a great friend and he knew that I was in a period of my life that I needed a friend. So, you know, we had weekly conversations that we scheduled with each other just to check in, and he was all excited about growing and building this business and starting this podcast. And he wanted to know if I was willing to help with that and so I would help on the side and where I could, but I wasn't really serious about leaving this job that I felt really fulfilled in that I felt so much intrinsic value from. And then one day I had a conversation with my government handler who was responsible for all of the finances and realized that there's no amount of work or effort that I can do. It's never going to be different. The government is just gonna control the money the way they want to control the money.

Caroline: 46:54

Gotcha.

Jake Isaacs: 46:54

It was at that time that I realized like. I can continue to stay here and beat my head against the wall, or I can go somewhere where I'm wanted, and where I can make a real difference in people's lives. And so, left the ministry and ended up working full-time, with Gathering the Kings.

Caroline: 47:10

And how did you get to meet your business partner originally? Like when did you first start to become friends? What's that story?

Jake Isaacs: 47:17

I mean, we met each other. We've been friends for 18, 19 years now.

Caroline: 47:21

Oh, wow.

Jake Isaacs: 47:22

His at the time, girlfriend. We're introduced to my first wife and I through a series of friends, and we just had stayed in connection with each other. I mean, we have not been best friends through the last 18 years, but we've been a part of each other's lives. And some seasons we were really close and some seasons we weren't, but we just always were there for each other when we needed other. And It's just been, it's been a great, fruitful relationship and a lot of fun.

Caroline: 47:50

And so now you're, you're basically utilizing all these skills you've developed, plus now you're in control of your own destiny and you're doing great things by helping others become even greater, even better at they are. Tell tell me a little bit about like what is your, well tell the listeners what's the mission of Gathering the Kings? How do you help people? How do you serve and how are you loving it?

Jake Isaacs: 48:14

Yeah, so Gathering the Kings is an entrepreneurial mastermind community, our goal is to help businesses grow profitably, help business owners work less, and the most important part is for them to win at home. Not perpetuate the same mistakes that I made through two marriages. My business partner, his name is Chaz, he and I are the yin and yang or the two different sides of the coin. He married his high school sweetheart. They have four beautiful children, have been married to over 20 years now and just have this incredible relationship. And then there's Jake who is still trying to figure all of it out and thankfully through his encouragement we've been able to talk a little bit more about some of those mistakes and be more public about my experience as well, because it also matters.

Caroline: 49:02

Absolutely.

Jake Isaacs: 49:03

You can be intentional and be successful, both of those things can happen at the same time.

Caroline: 49:10

So what was your definition of success? Like let's say from that, maybe early twenties, Jake, what did you think success meant, or was from that, from that lens then?

Jake Isaacs: 49:22

Yeah. I would've defined it as not having to be controlled by anyone. Whether that's financially with time, any of that stuff.

Caroline: 49:36

And how has it evolved now to this refined, leveled up Jake?

Jake Isaacs: 49:42

Well, you're too kind. I'm not sure that refined is the right word,

Caroline: 49:45

Why not? Everybody's a work in progress. That's where my company is next success, right? Because I'm like, wherever, however somebody is that got you to today. Dang, you are a success already'cause you're here. You are here and now what? Right? And just like I think you're, you're a man of faith as well, but like, God doesn't look at us and see anything other than the amazing beauty that we are. And if we could learn to have that own viewpoint of ourselves, also unconditional, just love acceptance, wanting the best that, that's where it's at, that's what I want to aspire to be now and not like, oh, I should have, could have done this, or I should have done that, or, oh man, I'm a real, you know, no. If I'm just as valuable as every other plant, flower, tree, mountain, creature, all of that. If this world needed one of me too, then who am I to say that now, can I level up? Absolutely. Can I become better, getting better skills, make a better experience here for my family, my community? Absolutely. And I got to today. So I would say you are already a success Absolutely. Up, down, and sideways. And I can't wait to see what you do next. But the question was how do you define success now for you? Like what's your version?

Jake Isaacs: 51:09

Yeah, I think the most important, like thing about that is that we all need to define success for our own individualness, right? We live in this culture with Instagram and TikTok that it's very easy to judge your life based off of what you see from someone else. So when I talk about success or when I talk about what I think the exceptional life is, that's really good for me, but that doesn't have to be what it is for you. Most people, unfortunately, will not slow down enough to define what success looks like for them. And so for me, what does success look like for me? It's having people around me that love, care, and support me for who I am. It's having the ability to do what I want, when I want, where I want. The dreams that 20-year-old Jake had, he gets to live today and it's incredible. I am so thankful that I get to travel the way that I get to travel. I get to spend time with the friends across this country that I've made and developed over the course of my lifetime and I get to do a job that not only am I good at that fulfills me. It makes me want to continue to improve and be better because I want to continue to help others improve and be better.

Caroline: 52:29

Yes, yes. I'm there with you a hundred percent. How do people work with you? How do people find you? How do people find out more?

Jake Isaacs: 52:38

We are, you can find more about Gathering the Kings at Gatheringthekings.com. I'm very active on both Facebook and LinkedIn and can be found at Jake Isaacs. One of the things that, that we do not only help entrepreneurs be successful as entrepreneurs, so we do a coaching program, one-on-one executive coaching. We've got the mastermind program, we do in-person training around leadership and sales and marketing and all of the things, right? The thing that we're the most passionate about is making sure that we help curate intentional time with the business owners and their families, and we do a family vacation every summer. We call it the Family Mastermind experience, and it's a week long vacation to a tropical location. We'll bring in parenting and marriage experts for some intentional classwork for the spouses to do, and then we curate these really cool workshops for kids around entrepreneurship, leadership development, money management, and helping them just grow their skills as young entrepreneurs as well. And it's, it's cool to see families from all across the United States who are like-minded and their desire to be entrepreneurs inside of their communities but sometimes Caroline, that's a lonely, lonely existence because the people around you can't relate to the stress and pressure and,

Caroline: 54:01

Right.

Jake Isaacs: 54:02

We have this unfortunate proclivity to take that out on the people that we love. And so by being able to slow down and put families in environments with each other where game can recognize game, and you can instantly appreciate the suffering and the hardship and the success that you've had because you've experienced it also.

Caroline: 54:23

That sounds beautiful. And it's so lovely also for the kids to get to, kids of all ages, to get to experience and see, and there other families are going through similar, similar things. Now it'll be interesting to see though, how many of these younger generations choose to want to perhaps be that next gen, that could be lined up for them. That'll be interesting to see how that develops.

Jake Isaacs: 54:46

We're currently planning our fourth summer trip, right? So we've done three summer trips and the beautiful thing that has come from it that I didn't expect when we started was the relationships that these children are making with each other and just like stacking years and years of time with each other. And so that's now blossoming into co-hosting podcasts together and having competitions on who can sell the most at a garage sale and just like these little things that they're doing with each other to encourage each other, but then also spur each other on in success. It's been a lot of fun to watch.

Caroline: 55:25

Oh, that sounds amazing. That sounds amazing. Well, thank you so much. I feel like I could talk to you for like weeks and weeks and months and months. Thank you for sharing more of your story on your next success, and I can't wait. Although you've been successful in every single thing you've done and clearly with the Gathering the Kings, but I can't wait to see how that continues to blossom and evolve in your, in this next beautiful chapter for you as well.

Jake Isaacs: 55:49

Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate the opportunity to come in and speak to your audience.

Caroline: 55:53

Thanks, Jake. Thank you.

55:55

Jake, thank you for your honesty, your humility, and the clarity that you brought into this conversation. Your life reflects the quiet strength that comes from choosing growth, even when the path shifts unexpectedly. Thanks for listening to your next success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.