Ship's Log 14: Break the Wake with Jason Maraschiello

“True prosperity starts with the individual, expands to the team, and strengthens the entire organization.” - Jason Maraschiello

Episode Summary:
In this episode, Jeanne sits down with Jason Maraschiello, an award-winning team-building facilitator, corporate coach, and DISC expert, to explore the hidden dynamics that impact team performance. Jason shares his philosophy that true prosperity starts with the individual, extends to the team, and ultimately strengthens the organization.
They discuss the challenges teams face in speaking up, emphasizing that communication often breaks down not because of skill but due to fear, hierarchy, or unacknowledged personal pressures. Jason highlights how tools like DISC assessments help teams understand different communication styles, adapt effectively, and prevent burnout by recognizing natural versus adaptive behaviors.
The conversation dives into the human side of work, including the impact of stress on communication, emotional intelligence, and empathy. Jason shares powerful examples—from corporate teams to first responders—illustrating how small, vulnerable steps and acknowledging individual experiences can transform workplace interactions.
Finally, Jason touches on his keynoting work, encouraging audiences to notice and connect with people around them, fostering presence, empathy, and stronger relationships both inside and outside the workplace.
Listeners will walk away with practical strategies for creating psychological safety, building trust, and encouraging courageous, honest conversations within any team.

Guest’s Bio:
Jason Maraschiello is a TEDx speaker, author, counsellor, hypnotherapist, and the creator of the Prosperity Triad. After experiencing corporate burnout in his twenties, Jason travelled the world to study Eastern philosophy, mindfulness, and meditation in Thailand, India, and Nepal. When others began to ask Jason about what he had learned, he began his career as a keynote speaker, inspiring and educating audiences around the globe on topics such as emotional intelligence, effective communication, and mental health. Upon returning to Canada, Jason deepened his expertise by pursuing studies in psychology, psychotherapy, social work and hypnotherapy. His passion for wellness and professional development has led him to work with a wide range of clients, including leading organizations like Bell Canada, AstraZeneca, the City of Toronto, and Amazon. For over a decade, Jason has spoken at conferences, facilitated corporate team-building events, and coached individuals and teams to help them redefine prosperity. His innovative framework the Prosperity Triad emphasize the integration of Emotional Intelligence, Effective Communication, and Self-Restoration, empowering individuals and teams to thrive both personally and professionally.

Links:
Website:  https://jasonmspeaks.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-maraschiello-09842828
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JasonMSpeaks/

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Email: info@projectcandor.com

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Transcript

Jeanne 0:02

Our guest today is Jason Maraschiello, an award-winning team building facilitator, corporate coach, and disc facilitator, known for helping teams surface the unspoken issues that quietly lead to dysfunction. Jason creates custom, value-driven experiences that move team building beyond buzzwords and into honest communication, stronger connection, and sustainable performance. At the heart of his work is a simple idea, one he sums up this way. True prosperity starts with the individual, expands to the team, and strengthens the entire organization. That belief runs through everything he does, and it's exactly why his story belongs here. Jason, welcome to Project Candor.

Jason 0:48

Thank you very much. It's always interesting hearing the bio kind of read back. You write it, and there's these little pieces of it. They're like, oh yeah, I do that and I do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Jeanne 1:00

Oh, that's great. Before we get started, I'm going to ask you a few questions, but before we jump into anything structured, I want to ask a personal question.

Jason 1:10

Oh, okay.

Jeanne 1:11

When people meet you for the very first time, what's something they usually assume about you that isn't quite true?

Jason 1:17

That's an interesting question. And we didn't rehearse this question.

Jeanne 1:21

No.

Jason 1:22

It's funny because there's so many hybrid meetings and virtual meetings. And I'm five foot four. And you don't get that when you're on these virtual calls. So a lot of the times I actually get, oh, you're shorter than I expected. Um, which then, you know, goes into some more joking and comedy related to it. But that's actually honestly the thing that I get the most when people meet me in person.

Jeanne 1:46

That's interesting because I think if I was going to answer that, I would just say, you're a person that's never had any hardships. You're just a nice person. You're happy, you're prosperous, you're intelligent, smart. And I do know that the two truths and a lie are coming.

Jason 2:04

Yeah. Wow. I didn't know I was just going to get to sit here and kind of be complimented. This is nice.

Jeanne 2:09

Yeah, well, that's what I would have thought if I just met you at one of your conferences after talking to you before this call, obviously. But I I did want to ask you that question. So they you think everybody thinks about your hype and what would Freud have to say about this?

Jason 2:25

Yeah, maybe that speaks more to what I think about myself than what other people think of me. I didn't know I was getting a therapy session as well.

Jeanne 2:32

Hey, you never know what's going to happen on Project Candor. It's all about the truth, right? All right. So let's ask some questions. You help teams talk about what is being said, isn't it being said? What's one unspoken issue you see show up again and again, no matter the industry?

Jason 2:49

Well, it's an interesting thing. I'm writing another book right now called Communicate Bravely. And that's really the thing, thing I think that is missing is our system wasn't really set up well for people to be brave. We didn't reward bravery. There was this, you know, big hierarchical gap between who should have opinions and who shouldn't have opinions. And now that we're in a bit more of a society where we're understanding that things like 360 feedback and being able to hear the voice from even the person that just started yesterday, we recognize that that's important now, but it's still drilled in our head that no, maybe I shouldn't have a voice. So the biggest thing is recognizing that at the deepest common denominator, we're all people. We all have a voice, we all have tons of experience to bring to any situation. And really, that's what I get to do is I go in and I get to help people find their voice and maybe make it a little bit more simple for them, maybe with some structures or some tools to help them to be able to know how to let their voice come through.

Jeanne 3:50

That's an interesting point. You made me think while you were talking that um, you know, about whistleblowers for one thing. I mean, that's more of the extreme than what you're doing. But it is someone that finally came to the realization that they needed to say something about what was going on. And so it goes that far. Um, but I mean, if you could catch it earlier, like you're trying to do, and help people be more bold and strong and what their opinions are, that would be great.

Jason 4:16

And sometimes these are regular day-to-day conversations. I had someone I was working with uh just before the holidays, and they admitted in front of their boss that it takes them 30 minutes to just build up the courage to be able to just go and deliver a report or to just have a regular weekly conversation, 30 minutes of you know, inefficient wasted time where they're ruminating in their thoughts about what are they gonna think about me? Did I do a good enough job? Am I an imposter? All of these things.

Jeanne 4:43

Right. It's so true. I mean, I know I've been told before, you're my consultant, I want you to advise me and consult with me. So I do that, and then a lot of times I'm faced with I don't like that. I just don't like that. I don't like what you said, you know. So you have to get tough skin after a while. But at least I I still say it anyway. Can't shut me up. Anyway, just keeping on going. When teams struggle, it's often labeled a performance problem. What usually is happening underneath that?

Jason 5:15

I'd say it's a connection problem. It is a failure to kind of connect with the individuals that are actually in the space. So, for instance, we talked in the bio about doing a disk assessment. Now, I don't believe that people can be reduced down to a D, an I, an S or a C, or you know, if you're using Myers Briggs or any of these, I don't think we can really be reduced, but they're really great to help us conceptualize the fact that people are different and we need to honor and respect the differences that are coming to the table. People communicate differently, they have different values, they have different fears, they have different drives that are speaking louder underneath the surface. So it's really an issue often about connecting to the people that are actually in the room and recognizing that we're not all, you know, just stamped cookie cutter kind of beings.

Jeanne 6:03

Yeah, I like that. But what is a disk? I know I tried to I looked it up, but I'm used to Myers Briggs and some of the other tools. I can't even remember all the tests I've gone through, but um I've not heard of disk. So can you explain it a little bit?

Jason 6:18

Sure, absolutely. So very similar to some of these other assessment styles. It's a framework to try to discuss the ways that we communicate differently. In DISC, they have the D, the I, the S, and the C. The D is your dominant, you know, strong, loud task-focused individual. Your I is your loud people-focused individual, your S is your quiet people-focused individual, and your C is your quiet task-focused individual. So when we can kind of conceptualize the types of people we want in the boardroom, for years, boardrooms were typically made up of D styles. They're dominant, they're getting things done, they're your delegators, but sometimes things are missed. You need the C's in the room to be able to look at the fine details. You need the S's to kind of keep the traditions and to keep the people in mind as you move forward. And you need the I's to be able to almost be the navigators between the different styles, cracking jokes when it's necessary, and really just keeping the fun, playful energy into the space as well. So it just kind of again, it's an assessment that one would do to kind of just find where do you typically find yourself communicating? What can you tell other people about you as far as that goes? How do you want people to communicate to you? And just starts getting conversations going about how we can work better together and hopefully understand each other more.

Jeanne 7:43

So as a project manager in my past experience, I wonder have you ever come across a team that's all C's or S's or Oh, yeah.

Jason 7:54

Never all S's. Maybe uh it's just the sectors I've worked in. But if you get it like a group of accountants, I see a lot of teams that are all C's. Because one of the things I like to make experiences out of the different work that I do. So I'll go in and I'll, you know, put in each corner a D and I and S and C, stick it up on the wall, and I'll say, okay, let's all get into our corners and just take a look at who we have in the space. And there has been those times where all of a sudden one corner is just filled all of a sudden with a whole bunch of the same. And that's great. You know, we could talk about the organizational behavior psychology behind diversity in the workplace versus, you know, having it built of a lot of people that are similar. With people who are similar, you're gonna have a quicker startup and production. You'll understand each other a little bit more right off the get-go, and you can get underway with things pretty quickly. But when you look at the ultimate performance of a team over a period of time, diversity is what actually builds more growth and longevity into the culture that you try to build and a lasting culture anyway. So it, yes, I have seen it, but what we try to encourage is look at the ways that you're different. Even if you're all C's, you're never gonna be 100% C. Everyone has a little bit of each of those different styles. So recognize the differences between you. And one thing that's actually really fun about disc that I like is it talks about the natural style and your adaptive style. And this is a really useful way to kind of look at are people on the track to burnout or not? How much in their day-to-day are they having to put on a mask and be someone that maybe they're not?

Jeanne 9:26

Okay. Myers Briggs does that a little bit too. Like you have your personality quadrant and then what you survive in, I think. So I think I was always in this like perceiving kind of perceptive kind of quadrant, but I always was in the judging to just do my work as a project manager. So I had to step outside my comfort zone, and yeah, after a while you get burnt out. I totally agree with that.

Jason 9:51

Well, and it's interesting because you you have a podcast, you connect with people regularly, you're talking to people, you're speaking of your project manager background, and yet when I meet you, I get what we would call, like in the disc, more of an S kind of energy. Like that there's this warm, person-focused uh motivation behind your interaction. And sometimes those are the individuals that maybe you don't want to go out and be making all these connections with podcasts and everything, but you are you're doing it. You're finding this balance of like having this calmer, quiet energy and making things happen with people.

Jeanne 10:30

Yeah, I think the biggest thing, and I don't know what test I would ever find out about my personality on, but um, I really love people. I that's just the thing. I connect with people, I like to connect with people. That's why I guess teams were fun to me. Being on a project team, being a project manager, project exec, whatever level it was. It was just the teams were so much fun for me. So that's why I like doing this because I love connecting, like you're sitting up in Canada, I'm down here in Florida. You know, we had some jokes about the weather, as always. But it's so fun to connect to you and find out, you know, who you are as a person. So that's why the podcast is important to me. So very good. What was the S again? So I know you said it was more of a the S is stability.

Jason 11:18

Okay. So they are your more quiet, like if you're so the idea would be if you're in a a big party, are you the one getting up on the table and you know making all the ruckus? Those would be your I's. But for your S's, you're loving the people connection, but you're usually a little bit more on the quiet side.

Jeanne 11:36

Oh, okay. Yeah, I I guess I kind of waffle in there.

Jason 11:40

Unless there's part of you that I like I just met you. Maybe you are getting up on the table at the parties and and jumping up and down. I don't really know, but that was just my initial review.

Jeanne 11:50

Well, I know my uh my daughter would testify to this. We went to um so I'm in near Jacksonville, so we have the Jaguars here, which are doing great right now. Yay. Um, even though I don't follow football that much, but um one of the quarterbacks that is no longer with the team had an event. He went to the same college that I went to. So he invited me to his um event fishing for cure, and all the Jags were there. So yeah, I was working the room. I talked to every single one of these young guys. I was so shocked. I was like, I can't believe how young you are, and you're like a running back, or you're and I was asking him, like, where are you from? Where are you from? Pennsylvania, you're from uh Wisconsin, what uh you know, I knew all of what they were doing. My daughter was just totally embarrassed. So I'm I don't know that I'm an I, I'm not totally out there, but I am working the room. I like to know, you know, I like to know people. And so anyway, getting back to questions uh that you can only answer. Uh you've seen a lot of patterns over the years. What do people most misunderstand about communication styles, especially under stress?

Jason 13:05

That's a really good question. I think whether it's a misunderstanding or we only understand it on certain levels, I think it's really, again, about this idea that it's it's not often really about you. Uh so I come from a bit of a psychodynamic background in in my study and in my interest. And that is speaking a lot about the unconscious mind. And it's so easy for us to take things personally when someone's even yelling right at us. Of course, why wouldn't we take it personally? But so often it's more about what's going on in their life, the things that we don't know, the assumptions that we're making that fuel conflict and communication breakdowns. So, you know, one of the classic defense mechanisms we'll use uh as an example is displacement. The concept of displacement is, you know, I have a fight with my wife in the morning, and that's a really complicated relationship, right? Like if I actually let all of my anger out at my wife, then I have to come home to her later, and then it's gonna be awkward, and I don't want to do that. So instead I bottle that up, and then I go into the office, and now you get John from accounting, you know, was 10 minutes late getting that paper on my desk or something, and then I just take everything out on that individual. And that's one like very simple example. There's like, I don't know, 30 different defense mechanisms that people talk about now with the ones that originally came from Freud and then his daughter and moving forward through the ages. And this is the thing, right? We don't know what's going on. And so we'll take things as a personal attack, and when we feel like we're attacked, we often just attack back. When if we can just kind of create some space, recognize, and this comes from emotional intelligence and empathy, recognize that we don't know everything about this person. Actually, we probably know very little about what's uh going on day to day in their lives, and to take some space, recognize they're just a person having their personal experience, and with that little bit of space, we can get back on track on what we're really trying to do, which in communication is have a mutual understanding where I'm speaking to be understood and I'm listening to understand. And hopefully you're doing the same thing.

Jeanne 15:18

Okay. You kind of gave a good example of that. Have you ever heard the story kick the cat or the poor cat at the end of the day? Was the one that got kicked? I think that's an old, old story from a speaker called Zig Zig.

Jason 15:31

Jumped in and started making, yeah. Yeah.

Jeanne 15:34

I was probably one of the first uh motivational speakers I ever heard right after I got out of the Navy. And uh that was the story that always resonated with me that something happened and it just kept going downhill till he got home and the cat was the one that got kicked.

Jason 15:49

This is the thing, right? Like one of the first uh organizations I worked with was the local, a local police force. So when you know, we'll get into the whole thing. Maybe I shouldn't say too much in case I give stuff away, but I went on some journeys, and when I came back from my travels and came back to North America, uh, I started working with police officers, firefighters, people experiencing post-traumatic stress, veterans. And I remember I was working in a group of sergeants at a local police station. And I said, What do you do to reset between one call and another call? So say you have this like really aggressive guy that you have to wrestle down or something like that, you get hit in the face, and then you move on to your next call, and now you're pulling grandma over for speeding. Like, what are you doing mentally to separate these different experiences you just had? And they just kind of laughed at me and they're like, what are you talking about? Resetting. We just go, go, go, go, go. There's no time to reset. And that was, you know, really surprising to me in in such a place because it is hard to not take it out on the cat at the end of the day or take it out on the kids or whatever, right? Take it on the next person that you see because stress doesn't compartmentalize easily.

Jeanne 16:57

Yeah. I never thought about it though, when you talk about policemen, because I got when we were going down to this night of lights in St. Augustine over the holidays, uh, we got you know just blockaded on the highway. And what we found out later was is that there was there were cop cars or sheriff cars everywhere that they were chasing somebody that had stolen a car and stolen money and drugs and had guns holding hostages and stuff, and they were all over the place. And I when you just said that, it reminded me of that. I can't imagine how they would clear their mind of that. It was there was a big manhunt, and there's like one highway, US one, and then it runs parallel to on US 95, and both areas were blocked. So we actually ended up turning around and coming back home and saying, we're not seeing the lights tonight, but there must have been on the on US one, there must have been 12 cars, sheriff cars there searching for him in the woods between the two highways. That has to be devastating to people. You don't know what's happening, you don't know yeah, you don't know what you're running into. What he could do coming out of the woods if he had a gun and they don't see him coming out another portion and there's cars everywhere blocked and they can't get out. So oh my gosh.

Jason 18:09

And I think this is the reason why a lot of people in those kinds of careers often end up in relationship with people in similar paths. Because how do you empathize with someone if you your lived experiences is so vastly different than that? How do you actually empathize empathize at the end of the day to go home to your I don't know, your your partner who works behind a desk and just live such a very different life? You will just sometimes feel like you're not on the same platform.

Jeanne 18:37

Yeah, yeah, that does make a lot of sense. I'm thinking about myself now. Yeah. I've never had um I have my family member that's heavy into government work, and so I know he must get a lot of pressure on what he knows that um that I don't know. And it could be uh very difficult for us to hold a conversation at a certain point in one of his um you know, governmental I can't say much about what he does, but in what they're deciding to do, you know. I can say it's foreign service, so you know foreign service is a big topic right now. But yeah, he's gotta have difficulty in communicating after knowing things that me, the average person that's quilting or embroidering or playing the piano is you know doing, and it's all innocent on my side, but very difficult on his. So yeah, that's interesting. I like what you're doing. I think it's good to help people to work through communications and some of these stressors.

Jason 19:43

I think like what you mentioned earlier when you asked, like, what are some of the the key things that people are missing with their communication? Push comes to shove, right? Like even if you don't know or you they can't speak about what they do at work, I believe that we all have still the same base drives. We have the drive to defend ourselves, which perpetuates our life. We have the drive to bond, which in some sort or some part of our mind might be reproduction or something like this, depending on how, again, you know, psychoanalytic we want to get with it. When we have the drive to acquire and expand our knowledge. And I think if we can focus on those aspects of what it is that we're all looking for, then sometimes you don't even need words. You can just look at someone and say, like, yeah, I get it. And I've I've had those experiences with people who, again, can't say much, and you can just sit across from and be like, Yeah, it's hard. And like with just three words, you get someone who'll just break down and and give you a hug and start crying, because sometimes there's so much that we can't say, and just to be able to remember that we're both just people having a human experience is super, super powerful.

Jeanne 20:50

Yeah. I wonder, do you teach those kind of words? I'd like to know some of them. I was just talking to a friend earlier this week, um, having going through some stuff, and basically I just had to tell her, I have no words of advice to give you. I don't know, but I I'm there for you if you want to talk. That's all I could say because I just don't know. You know, it's stress for her.

Jason 21:13

And where did that come from? Where did that come from inside of you? Where did you find those words? Did someone teach those to you?

Jeanne 21:19

Um, I'm sure that I've learned them over the years because I've had a lot of loss in my life, I think. And so it's probably me talking to myself. And then when I find someone who's going through something similar, it just what I'd like somebody to have said to me comes back out. And so, you know, when I I had friends when I was um younger that um taught me to sew because when my I lost my mother at a very early age, uh they said, Well, if you can't do anything else, you can just sit and sew. The pressure will go away for a while. And it has work, so I'm still sewing. And I like to do that.

Jason 21:58

But I think this is it. You have Those tools because you listen to yourself. When we talk about emotional intelligence, which you know, you mentioned prosperity, that all comes from my first book, The Prosperity Triad. The key in that, the first pillar, is emotional intelligence. And we all have so many life experiences. We have things that we can learn through observation and you know, people around us, and we're all living. Even to just get to the point, you and I, I don't know you very well, but to be where you are, sitting right there, you had to experience pain in your life because it's one of the fundamental principles of life is that there's pain in it. And so, you know, you said people spoke to you and they maybe tried to give you all the answers when you were grieving. And then in part of you in your mind was maybe thinking, Oh, I just wish someone would say, Look, I don't have the answers, but I'm here. And if you're with your that part of yourself that's saying it, if you spend that time, that reflection, that emotional intelligence building, to be able to be like, yeah, what would I have enjoyed? What would I have liked? What would have felt good to me? Then you have the tools to be able to then, you know, help your friend or help somebody else. So yeah, we can learn things. People write books about all of this stuff. I've written books about phrases and things that you can say, but I do believe we have so much more inside if we are less of an reactive place, more of a responsive place, and then we can trust our intuition in some of those experiences. Who knew this podcast was going to get so heavy?

Jeanne 23:25

Yeah, you never know where it's gonna go here. For someone listening right now who feels tension on their team but can't quite name it, uh, what's one small honest step that they could take to get a healthier conversation going?

Jason 23:40

I think a lot of the times when we're looking at building psychological safety and trust, which is often what leads to you know, not being able to name that tension, is you kind of do name it, but you don't throw it at the person. We talk about our own experience. So you can start by being a little bit vulnerable yourself. That's one of the biggest ways that a leader can kind of step out of the role of just a manager and actually show that we can lead with our own experience. So to say, you know, I'm in a situation with you and I'm trying to talk to you, and I say, hey, you know, there's been a lot of great things that's been coming up. You've been doing this, that's fantastic. This has been happening. And I'm just noticing that it feels like you've maybe been a little bit off. And, you know, it's not showing up in your work at this point in time, but I want to create an environment here where we can have these kinds of dialogues. And maybe that involves you sharing a little bit. Like, you know, I know myself last week when this thing happened to me, I wasn't doing my best here. And I want this to be a space that we can kind of discuss things. It feels really vulnerable, and it's like not the model that, you know, since things really ramped up in the business world, 70s, 60s, all of this kind of mentality that still is living in the artifacts of our cultures today, but it's more the environment that especially the newer generations want to be in. And this is a really interesting thing with companies that I'll go in and work with, because the old model was this is how we do business, this is how we communicate, this is how we address conflict. And then this newer generation came into the workforce and they're like, oh, I don't want to work here. And then employee turnaround just ramped right up. And people are not being able to have the longevity in a career anymore because they just want to go and move on to the next best thing. So they're asking the question of how do we create a healthier, better work environment. And it really is part of this um more accepting, more vulnerable, more empathetic leadership model.

Jeanne 25:39

Right. I can't say anything about my husband's job at this point, but he's got one of those environments that are very healthy. It's um very nice atmosphere for him. So, and they do try to foster a culture where your family also counts and is included. So I really like that. So great company.

Jason 25:59

Yeah, celebrate that.

Jeanne 26:01

Yeah. Do you have anything else you want to kind of say to the listeners about what you do?

Jason 26:06

And well, we didn't talk about my keynoting, which is, you know, another big aspect of what I really get passionate about doing, getting up on the stages. I have found, you know, there's the benefit to the whole spectrum of things. You get inside of a group of people, you get to work with, you know, a bunch of executives or something, organization where you're really getting into the nitty-gritty, that is amazing. And you're limited kind of to the audience. So I've found that in the last like year or so, really ramping up the keynoting because you get to just go and plant so many seeds in people's heads. And it's so exciting to kind of be there and talk about some of this stuff, talk about communication, talk about how we're all people. And you start to notice those moments where even sitting in the audience, people start looking around and just seeing the people that they're sitting beside a little bit differently. And I think, you know, taking away that message from the keynoting that I'm doing is to just say, like, do more of that. When we're moving around, when we're on public transit, whatever, get less of the distraction, be in the moment, and just notice that we are in a world full of other people. And what that can start to do in changing the way that you see people, the way you interact with people, maybe a little bit more eye contact on a day-to-day, I think it can make huge changes overall.

Jeanne 27:24

Yes, I I totally agree with you. But if you're riding on the subway, would you say it? Did you say the subway? Look around. I think that's a good uh bit of advice for a lot of different reasons. But but in the south, there's a big thing here, and that is eye contact. And I find it very difficult when I go other places where there's no eye contact. So I've been out west and I have been places where when I looked at someone as they passed me in the grocery store or just anywhere, they would not maintain an eye contact, which drove me nuts. And I decided that, and I was living out there for a little bit of time. I was like, I can't ever leave the south again. Because that's the big thing here is that you do like to do eye contact, you like to speak to people, you want to be aware that people are around you. And I'm not saying that it makes us better than anybody because there's a lot of negativity as well. But um, that's just one thing I grew up with is that we do have to be in the moment, we do have to look around to see people, we have to observe who's beside us, walking beside us. It's just protectiveness from you to learn from your parents, as well as just an observation that we're all in the same boat together, just like Project Gander. We're all sailing around the world together. So we need to know who our partners are, even if they're not gonna be long-term friends. So I think that's interesting. Keynoting in what else? Did you want to kind of go over? Because you do so many, so many things, Jason.

Jason 28:59

I've done a lot of things. I'm still, you know, wondering what I'm gonna be when I grow up. Um no, but you know, really what it comes down to when I look at the history of my life, it's always really been people. It's always come down to people. I enjoy the work that I do in the corporate sector. I do find because I came from that initially, and then I experienced corporate burnout that there is something that I get about going back into the corporate space, working with people, coaching people. Um, but after that, you know, there was just so much. I owned a wellness center, I did all of this stuff that just allowed me to connect with so many different people and even the coaching and counseling work that I do, like connecting with so many different people, I just now am a champion of people understanding that connection doesn't have to be so scary. And that's the that's the real message that I try to put out there. And when you do that and you focus on, again, the we're not really jumping too much into the prosperity triad that I that I wrote, but that balance between developing our emotional intelligence, spending the time to do that, how that informs our effective communication skills with ourselves, with others, and then how that can help us to set boundaries to take care of ourselves. And that's the self-restoration is the third piece. And those three aspects, the emotional intelligence, the effective communication and self-restoration or wellness, need to be developed in tandem. They can't be in silos because you need to set the boundaries in order to be able to have the space to take care of yourself. You need the space to take care of yourself in order to self-actualize and work on your emotional intelligence. And your emotional intelligence helps you with your effective communication, your effective community. It's just this ongoing cycle. But we often put things in these silos. And if you can work on those three things in your life, your relationships improve, your work-life balance improves, your everything just kind of gets a little brighter in your life.

Jeanne 30:49

Nice. Well, you're on the perfect podcast because I'm all about people too. And so now we're getting to time to play our signature game, Two Truths and a Lie. And at that point, we get to find out more about you and your life experiences. So this is how the game goes. Jason has given me three headlines. Two are true and one is a lie. And I'm not sure exactly the lie, but I'm going to share my screen and we're going to go over his stories. And then after I read them for the listeners and show them for the listeners as well, he'll tell us each of them individually. At the end, he'll tell us which one is alive. This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts. Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, life can be different. Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story. And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech. Simple socket print, the lightweight blazing fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the bloat. With version 1.5, you get instant printing in milliseconds, fully maintained print sequence, and automatic base 64 decoding all without needing print driver installed. If you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer, SimpleSocket Print 1.5 drops right in and gets to work. Keep your workflow simple, keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket Print. Thank you to our sponsors. So Jason's number one headline is at one point in Jason's life, he was a competitive Mua Thai fighter.

Jason 32:52

It's pronounced Muay Thai.

Jeanne 32:53

Muay Thai. All right, that's one. Number two, Jason participated in a shamanic exorcism. Uh that's quite something. And then number three, Jason found himself homeless for eight months during a discovery period of his life. So I'm gonna guess first. I don't think number two is correct. I don't even know what shamanic exorcism is. So I gotta learn more about that. But I'm gonna turn it over to you for you to start going one by one with the stories, and I'm gonna ask questions. So tell us about being a Muay Thai fighter.

Jason 33:35

Okay, so at this point, I'm not disclosing which one is the truth and which one's the lies, right? I'm just gonna tell the stories.

Jeanne 33:41

You are not telling me yet. Just telling me the stories. Okay, are telling us the stories.

Jason 33:46

Yeah, okay. So number one, uh Muay Thai fighting. You know, I mentioned at the beginning of this, I'm not a super tall person, I'm five foot four. When I was in high school, I believe it or not, I hit like a growth spurt at the end of high school. So I was this small, asthmatic, pretty bullied kid growing up. And so I wanted to try to find some way to defend myself. So when I was in high school, uh I had a friend of mine, this like one best friend that I had, ride or die friend, he said, hey, we should join the wrestling team. And I joined the wrestling team with him. And I found out that I was pretty good at it. I was pretty good at defending, harnessing all that anger, whatever I had inside of me, and uh using it. So then from wrestling, I got into um judo. I did some judo as well, I did some jujitsu, I started doing some MMA, and then I needed a striking, a punching and kicking form of martial arts in my background. So I had another friend of mine say, How about Muay Thai? We can go and try it out. So I went to a couple classes and I realized that I really liked it. So at one point in my life, I was training for three hours, six days a week in the gym, and that led to me getting in the ring and uh getting a chance to feel what it was like to compete and have all kinds of people standing around the outside and lights and photographers and all of that stuff. So that was one period of my life where I just got hit in the face a lot.

Jeanne 35:21

Wow. So was it kind of like uh not like WWE, that's the fake stuff, I think. I shouldn't say it. But the fighting that goes on now, what is that, MMA or is it was it something like that? It'd be in an arena?

Jason 35:37

Yeah, so the difference with MMA is it's mixed martial arts is MMA, and you can bring in all kinds, you can bring in your wrestling background, you can bring in your judo, your jujitsu, um, which I did some MMA, but it was kind of underground when I did it because it wasn't uh legal in Ontario actually yet. So that was a that's a whole other different story. Yeah, wow. But uh Muay Thai is actually one of the striking forms that is common in MMA because it's very versatile using your fists, using your elbows, using your knees. Um, you have a lot of tools to your disposal. So a lot of people like to use that to round out their MMA fighting. But it was in a ring, just like you would see like in a boxing match, but we also got to kick each other.

Jeanne 36:18

Oh, okay. And but it's also like a weight class and height class requirement or something. I mean, they wouldn't put you with somebody that's huge to smash you down. So how what was your highest award?

Jason 36:32

No, we definitely had weight classes. I mean, you know, it was one of those things that uh I just won a lot. That was kind of the way it was judged. I only actually lost one fight, which was my my last fight. And I didn't like the feeling of getting hurt that much. I was like, what am I doing? Is this what I've been doing to other people? I I need to stop this. So that was uh my only fight that I ever lost was my last fight as well. But um, yeah, I because being small and the weight classes, I actually was constantly trying to put on more weight the whole time I was fighting. So when I would be in the weigh-in room, everyone else there, because normally you're trying to cut weight, everyone else there hasn't eaten in days, and they're just waiting to weigh in so they could put some food in their stomach. And I'm there waiting on the scale with like bananas and protein bars, and everyone's just looking at me like they hate me. Um so definitely coming from the small person trying to ramp up was always the challenge for me.

Jeanne 37:28

Oh wow, yeah. I dated a wrestler once who was always trying to sweat off pounds to weigh into his class, so it wasn't pretty. I didn't want to talk to him around those times. Oh, wow. Okay, so you only lost one fight, you won a lot. Oh, that's a tough one. Okay, what about this shamanic exorcism?

Jason 37:50

Okay, so I'm gonna sell all of these equally well, you know.

Jeanne 37:53

I think you kind of told me some about that, but yeah.

Jason 37:56

I come from an improv background, so you're in you're in for a bit of a challenge trying to figure out the lie here. Let's see. So I I've always been fascinated with different cultures around the world, you know, even at a young age. Again, remember this young, bullied kid was always looking for something to kind of escape into. And uh I kind of accidentally discovered mindfulness and meditation at the age of 10. So that already kind of made me a bit of a weird kid. And when I started studying Buddhism, I was like, oh my goodness, like I was brought up Roman Catholic. There's more outside of the Catholic Church. So I started, you know, again, just learning all I could about different cultures. I learned about our indigenous cultures here. And then at one point in my life, I went traveling abroad and I lived with some different indigenous peoples. I studied Buddhism in Thailand, I studied yoga in India. Well, one of the cultures that really called me was the West African culture. And I started learning West African percussion. So that is the djembe, the dunduns, which are these like really big drums. And uh I did that for 15 years. I was I was pretty deeply in that culture. I met some amazing people. I studied under some incredible drumming masters. And what happened at one point in time, this shaman came over from Africa. They were, he was sponsored over here to do this grief ritual. And uh I was asked to be one of the drummers to play for this grief ritual. And what this meant was when we started drumming, I couldn't stop drumming until the the ceremony was done. And this ceremony took about five hours. So that means I was drumming with my hands nonstop for five hours. And in that time, at one point, I noticed a little bit of commotion kind of happening off to the side. And again, this is this a grief ritual. You're expecting some emotion to come through different people, but this woman started writhing around, her back was arching in ways that were very peculiar, seemed dangerous. And the shaman walked over and started saying some different things while the music was still happening. He turned to us and said, make sure the music keeps playing. And then he grabbed some ash from the fire and he started placing the ash on top of her head. And I she started speaking in tongues and all kinds of like some weird stuff going on. And I'm like, okay, just focus on the music, just focus on the music. And uh at the end of it, I asked the shaman what happened there. And he said, sometimes when we start doing this work, evil spirits come down and they can try to possess the the bodies, they could try to possess the people in the rituals. So we had to do an exorcism. And, you know, I'm not saying I'm not going to uh speak to anyone else's beliefs or you know, what's right, what's wrong, what's possible, what's not possible. But I experienced something that was very radical. And the way that she was behaving uh was something I'll never forget, that's for sure.

Jeanne 41:05

Yeah, wow. So he put ashes on her, were they hot? They weren't like hot ashes from the fire.

Jason 41:11

They were no, it was it's a apparently something to do with like the elemental connection, where it's a piece of ground like earth, and for whatever the spirit was, that the earth being grounded back down to the earth is something that um supposedly would would help to keep the person that's in the vessel connected to the now.

Jeanne 41:33

Wow, that's interesting. Well, uh the shaman culture is you said African. I thought that was like Indian, uh an American Indian. There were shamans.

Jason 41:54

So, you know, you can say that there are shamans in many different cultures. It does have an original root um that come from certain peoples, but typically when explaining these stories, especially in English, it's easier to use a language that is more understand uh understood.

Jeanne 42:10

Okay.

Jason 42:10

So that's why I use the term.

Jeanne 42:12

And you play drums for almost five hours. I guess the Mua Thai fighter, you know, all your fighting helped you have the stamina. Oh my god.

Jason 42:25

Something did.

Jeanne 42:26

Yeah, yeah. I I think I told you that I used to play drums and march in parades in high school, but I couldn't have done it for five hours. So it's like, nope, sorry. All right, the last one, let's go with that one. You were homeless for eight months during a discovery period of your life.

Jason 42:44

So at I mentioned a little bit earlier how I reached that kind of corporate burnout. So for me, you know, I again I was brought up, I'm I have uh Italian father, I was brought up in this like European mindset of go to school, get the good job, get the house with the white picket fence, you know, the wife, the kids, all of this kind of stuff. So I just kind of did as I was expected to or conditioned to. And then I wasn't in the greatest work environment. And that led to a period of my life where my mental health was not good. And I didn't really know what to do with that. So I did something fairly radical and I sold all my possessions and I just left the country. And the first place that I went to was Australia, and I thought that I'd be able to make it there. I thought that I'd be able to find a way to support myself. Um, but that that wasn't the case. Times got really tough, and I found myself just kind of destitute for a while, and uh that led to this eight-month period of my life where I was just kind of homeless on the streets uh in Western Australia for about eight months.

Jeanne 43:59

Wow. And you had a passport, but do you have did you have to have a visa to be there in Australia?

Jason 44:05

I did. So I had a a two-year working holiday visa. This was all because I was under thirty. They had systems in place to kind of, you know, help you be able to go and get a job when you go to these places. But um I just found that it was really difficult. At the time, I think the economy in Italy was not so great and a few other places in Europe. And Australia was like the promised land for all these backpackers. So there was a lot of people that were trying to get work at the time, and uh it was tough competition.

Jeanne 44:34

Yeah. Well, that would have been a good place to go though. I think you've made a good choice. Sorry it didn't work out. Or did it? I don't know. So all right. Well, I don't have any questions, any more questions. Australia, did you ever scuba dive? Maybe I do have a question. Did you scuba dive there?

Jason 44:54

Um I went to the Great Barrier Reef. I've never, it's on my bucket list, I've never got my scuba certification. I used to do quite a bit of um snorkeling, and then when I spent some time in Indonesia, I actually learned how to do some freediving. So I was able to be underwater for quite a while just holding my breath. So that was kind of my excuse to never spend the money to get my scuba.

Jeanne 45:14

Oh, okay. Yeah, my husband lived there for a little bit of time and he got his, he that was his thing. But did you surf? He didn't like that. But he said it was gorgeous there.

Jason 45:23

I did surf. I do enjoy surfing. It's really hard though. I've never been good at surfing. It's kind of like you have to be a glutton for punishment in order to want to become a surfer. You just get beat down by the waves over and over again. And maybe that's the pattern in my life, be from the Muay Thai and the drumming for hours and then just being beat by the ocean. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Jeanne 45:44

Yeah, well, I wouldn't want to be out there because of sharks. There's people that get bit bitten at Jacksonville Beach. I think I'll stay away from that. All right, so please tell us which one is the lie.

Jason 45:57

So I made it really challenging for you because I didn't give you any outright lies. I kind of just bent the truth a little bit. Okay. So the last one is the homeless for eight months. Although I kind of was homeless, I was certainly not destitute. I spent quite a bit of time in the eight months. So I was in Australia actually for a year. And when I went out there, there's a program called, I don't know if it's still going, but it was called Wwoofing, Willing Workers on Organic Farms. And this was an opportunity for you to actually go and live with different locals.

Jeanne 46:29

I have never heard of that.

Jason 46:31

Yeah. So you you sign up and you reach out to these different people who would put their farms up on at the time it was in a book. There was a big book that you bought. And you'd have to find them, and then you could send them an email, and you'd get an opportunity to go and work with them. And it was such a great way to learn which snakes are poisonous, which spoilers, all of them. Um, and like, you know, which spiders are safe and what's not. It was a really good way to learn the country. And then eventually I bought uh a car and I lived in my car for eight months while I got to see all of Australia and I had a fantastic time. I drove all around the outside and through the middle, made it to the red center. I I truly fell in love with that country while I was there.

Jeanne 47:18

Oh, nice. Well, I'm glad to know you weren't 100% homeless and you had a lot of fun out of that.

Jason 47:25

Technicality.

Jeanne 47:26

Yeah, technicality. Yeah, I don't know living in your car if that's a great compromise, but you used it to travel, so that's a good compromise. So in Sweden, since my husband's from Sweden, they have this thing about nature being owned by everyone. So if you're riding somewhere and you want to pitch a tent on somebody else's yard, you can do that as long as you clean it up the next day and don't leave it any worse than you got there, you know. And so, I mean, I guess you wouldn't want to do it in somebody's front yard, but I mean, if you're just riding around, if you need to. So I didn't know if Australia had that, if you could pitch a tent somewhere and on the side of the road.

Jason 48:08

No, I'd never heard about that. But what they did have, um, there was another book. This was before the internet was really, you know, what it is today. Uh, there was another book that just had all these free campsites. So we had a big roadmap with all these free campsites, and uh most of them had kind of outdoor kitchens you could use as well. And there was also um we kind of got I got into like the routine of just going to like a caravan park once a week, wash some clothes, maybe take a shower. So I wasn't completely. I also had a beard that was like quite significant in this time of my life because I wasn't shaving or anything like that. So I looked like quite the ruffian at the time.

Jeanne 48:49

Oh man. Yeah, I can't imagine you looking like a mountain man from the hills of Tennessee. Well, uh Jason, this has been so much fun. You are such a great personality, and I know people will probably want to get in touch with you. So I'm gonna go back and share how they can. And you have a website, jasonmspeaks.com, and then you have other links here, and these will all be shared in the transcript for this podcast. And I put your quote back up here. We I actually read it in your bio, but I think it's a really great quote. Um, so all of that will be available to folks.

Jason 49:30

And yeah, I think the best way is navigating to the website, jasonmspeaks.com. And once there, uh there's access to the booking link, people can reach out in different ways. And whether you want to just set up a consultation call, because sometimes you know how we want to work together is always going to be, you know, up to the discretion of what we can create together. But you can email me, you can reach out, book a little consultation call, and we can make it happen.

Jeanne 49:59

Okay. Well, thank you again. Thank you for your time.

Jason 50:02

My pleasure. It's been a lot of fun.

Jeanne 50:04

Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real. If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew. Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck. I'm Jeanne Anderson, your Admiral of the Unexpected. See you on the next voyage.