Special Guest: Josh Zepess
How do you catch success?
Josh knows.
In this episode, Josh will share his secrets to success and help you create the life of your dreams. He’ll teach you how to establish a solid foundation for success by focusing on your mindset, relationships, and habits. You’ll learn what it takes to move past your limiting beliefs and achieve goals that are seemingly impossible. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some of Josh’s favorite tools for creating healthy habits, managing stress, and cultivating creativity—all of which he uses in his own life to stay focused on what matters most: himself and those around him.
Looking to Share Your Story? Be a Guest on the Show
Podcast Transcript
Success Cannot Be Taught it can ONLY be Caught
[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan Dement from the chasing happiness podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day on the show this week. We have Josh ZPA and I mispronounced it, but I’m getting better at last names, but I like his tagline where we met online, the identity archeologist, and we gotta dig into that. Josh. Welcome into the.
[00:00:27] Josh: Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate it. And just so everyone knows he didn’t share how he mispronounced my last name. He wouldn’t tell me. So
[00:00:37] Ryan: thank you. I think it’s funny. That’s
[00:00:38] Josh: fine.
[00:00:39] Ryan: well I hate butchering last names. It’s just one of those things. So tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and then we’ll get into your journey.
[00:00:47] Josh: Yeah. So identity archeologist. You mentioned it there. People always ask me like, Josh, what does that mean?
[00:00:52] Josh: At the core, it really means I have no competition. So imagine being in business and having no competition, cuz you’ve got such a unique [00:01:00] identity. But really honestly, it’s more about my process on how I help people, which is I get to dig deep into a person, right? We get to dig deep through all that crap conditioning and BS.
[00:01:10] Josh: You’re told growing up, all those layers are crud and grime. We go right to your treasure, right? Your uniqueness, that mission, that purpose, the value, the stand, the things that make you, and we bring that to the surface, right? And then when we bring it to the surface, we Polish it and refine it until it shines so bright that people come from thousands of miles to come to see you.
[00:01:30] Josh: So basically it’s the end of selling. It’s no more chasing, begging, and convincing people to do business with you. It’s now people are attracted to you naturally because you’re finally telling the truth.
[00:01:42] Ryan: Love it. That’s very powerful. That’s we’re gonna have a great conversation. So this is gonna be fun.
[00:01:49] Ryan: So let’s dig into that a little bit. The end piece that you said is you’re now finally telling the truth, and I know this can be translated to business and to, personal life. [00:02:00] Yes. How do we start telling the truth for, if you’re gonna be in business, you gotta be able to start telling the truth for yourself personally, so you can show that in business?
[00:02:08] Ryan: So how do we start that process for ourselves?
[00:02:12] Josh: Yeah. Great question. So let’s talk about why we don’t tell the truth real quick because love to what I find is we’re so afraid to. We’re afraid to take a stand, right? We’re so afraid to take a stand. Here’s where I hear like Josh if I was, when I was growing up I lived as shy.
[00:02:26] Josh: Like I was told, keep your head down. Cuz if you stick your head up too high, it might get chopped off. So I live that kind of shy. And so because of stuff like that, we’re afraid to stand up and tell our truth, say what we really stand for because they’re like, Josh, what are people gonna think about me?
[00:02:42] Josh: And I was like, wait a minute. If you’re in business, You should only, you should hope people ever think about you again because the number one reason for going outta business is obscurity. Yes. The number two reason is being forgotten. So yeah, you wanna be remembered, but you wanna be remembered for your truth [00:03:00] for what you truly believe.
[00:03:01] Josh: So I’ll give you just a very high level. Like how do we start doing that? How do we start finally telling the truth? The first step is clarity. We’ve gotta get clear on why we. And I know everyone’s heard this right purpose, right? You gotta find your purpose. And I just hate it to become so cliche. But at some point, you gotta figure out why you put two feet on the ground every single morning.
[00:03:24] Josh: And it’s gotta be something other than just making money to pay the bills, to go home, to eat dinner, to take a poop, and to go to bed. And then to start all over again, please tell me there’s something bigger than just survival. Because most people tiptoe through life hoping to make it safely to death.
[00:03:44] Ryan: And you know what, and that’s a shame what you’re talking about. I can relate to 100% I’ve had two failed businesses prior to the business I have now. And those first two businesses were based on money. It was all about money and it wasn’t a, in [00:04:00] the old cliche of passion, it’s truly a passion.
[00:04:02] Ryan: I love what we do. We help people. Purchase homes, affordable housing space that has otherwise couldn’t, and yeah. Being, does that feel good though?
[00:04:11] Josh: As I could see, even when you say it, you’re like, doesn’t that feel good? Not just the money part, but you’re actually doing a good
[00:04:17] Ryan: service.
[00:04:18] Ryan: And I know we joked about this on our pre-call I’m in a business that I love helping people and there’s a byproduct of it making money. I’d rather see people happy. And then if we break, even God bless us. Okay. We still pay the bills. I got a roof over my head food on the table, and clothes on my back.
[00:04:35] Ryan: Perfect. But guess what? I get to be able to make money. And then the other thing is giving back because I get to share our journey with others. I. And then others will be able to share that journey and it just starts replicating and growing. And it, I hate the old, the cliche of, we can all pass along some great information, but it’s what you do with it.
[00:04:55] Ryan: And I think that’s where I’m at in life. And in, in how we approach it [00:05:00] is we wanna find that family that really wants to buy a home and has been left behind. But at the same time, we’ll always. Side or air on their end, because I want them to make sure that if they get in that house, they’re not house broke.
[00:05:14] Ryan: They have something that’s very prideful and they can pass along to future generations. And that’s huge for us. I don’t know if I told you my story, but I’ll stop talking here shortly. But our very first house we sold almost 10 years ago. It’s to a single mom, with two kids. She’s lived in, was living in a one-bedroom apartment studio, apartment for close to about a thousand bucks.
[00:05:35] Ryan: And she finally bought this house, on not national TV, regional television. I broke down and cried. It was just, that was very moving. Cause it took a lot for us to get this house to where it needed to be, but then also for what she got out of it and she cut her housing expenses in half. Yeah, it was huge for us.
[00:05:54] Ryan: So anyhow I digress. So we there are, we keep going
[00:05:59] Josh: yeah, [00:06:00] absolutely. There are two lessons here that you brought up. This is really important stuff. The first lesson is everything is monetizable. So when it comes to, if anyone’s out there thinking of starting a business, or they’re in business, never start with the money piece because everything’s monetizable.
[00:06:12] Josh: So if that’s the case, if you can make money doing anything. And this is, they don’t teach you this stuff in school. They don’t want you to know this, but everything’s monetizable. So why you might as well start with something you’re good at you’re passionate about, or you’ve got skills in or all three, or any combination of the two.
[00:06:26] Josh: It doesn’t matter. But the other thing is this is really important, affordable housing, helping people buy homes and find that home for themselves. That’s not actually what you do. It’s not what you do. No. That’s how you do what you do, but it’s not actually what you do. What you do is you give people another, maybe give people another chance to a step up in life or another chance to create that life that they, have always dreamed of whatever that case is.
[00:06:51] Josh: And then how you do it is through affordable housing. Correct? So this is important in messaging. So anyone out there that’s looking to try and like, how do I differentiate myself? [00:07:00] How do I really get out there? You got, this is your uniqueness. This has gotta come to the front of your message. You can’t be about houses.
[00:07:07] Josh: Houses are just the, how, it’s just the process. You bring your mission, your purpose, your vision like you’re talking bring that to the front of your message and it’s game over. You’ve got no competition. Yeah. Cause no one will have that same combination as you, no one will have that same heart, that same position, that same story, that same value, the same stand.
[00:07:24] Josh: This is where business gets fun
[00:07:26] Ryan: And we’re all unique and that’s a whole nother process and it’s oh man. I get it. It. It’s a process that we all have to go through to find it. And I love how you say we have to start telling the truth. And I think that really leads into other aspects of life and being and I’m gonna go to the personal side a little bit.
[00:07:44] Ryan: Here is being healthy in our relationships, whether it be with a husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, friends, whatever, once you’re truthful with yourself, you can be truthful with others, and then everything else comes out. And then I think for me, it just becomes huge.
[00:08:00] Beautiful box that gets open. It’s a treasure chest, and we get to expand the life and start living that life that we really want to or have wanted to, I should say.
[00:08:10] Josh: Yeah. And we gotta love ourselves first before we could love anyone else there. There it always starts here. Yeah, always. And by the way, this is where fear comes from people that are afraid of change. People are afraid of what we always think what’s the worst that can happen.
[00:08:22] Josh: We get into this weird cycle, but it always starts with something here is missing. Let me tell you something when you’re on the mission when you wake up every morning and you’re so clear on exactly why you woke up and what your mission is, you can see the finish line. Like you, you can see that vision, nothing can stop you.
[00:08:39] Josh: There’s no more. There’s not, I won’t say there’s no more fear, but your courage outweighs the fear. Now it’s you know what? I don’t even care what obstacles come my way. It’s not gonna stop. Hell, even death is, people, say you have to kill me to stop me. I don’t even think death is gonna stop me.
[00:08:54] Josh: screw that. Good luck.
[00:08:57] Ryan: So how do we get there? How do we start working on [00:09:00] overcoming the fear? I know it’s the truth part, but how do you start working on that? Because a lot of us struggle with it. We’re afraid. We’re afraid of things and we don’t try. We become.
[00:09:11] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So the first step is getting that clarity.
[00:09:13] Josh: The next is realizing that we’re afraid of success. People think we’re afraid of failure. We’re actually, we’re afraid of success than we are a failure. I know people think that sounds weird but think about it. We fail constantly. Don’t we every day always failing. There’s always every day, right?
[00:09:29] Josh: That’s every day. That’s the human condition and that’s okay. So how can we be afraid of something we’re already doing? Think about that for a second. We’re doing that already. So if you look at a scale, let’s look at the scale of ultimate abject failure on one side, and on the other side of the scale, we’ll call it.
[00:09:45] Josh: Self-actualization like you’re the absolute best version of yourself. Where are most people in their lives right now, most people are really close to this object? They’re one mortgage payment away, right from outta their house. They’re one pink slip from their job away from being
[00:10:00] completely financially ruined.
[00:10:01] Josh: Like we are just flirting with failure constantly. That’s not what we’re afraid of. We’re already there. We’re afraid that if we start peddling that bike let’s call it a success. Like this bike. We get a few pedals going and all of a sudden we’re like, wait a minute, this is working.
[00:10:18] Josh: Something’s happening. we get scared that we’re gonna start going too fast. We’re gonna lose control. We don’t know if we can handle it. We, that self-doubt starts creeping in and we’re like, Nope. What if I crash? What if this happens? What if I get a flat tire? Oh my goodness. And we talk ourselves out of it.
[00:10:35] Josh: We talk ourselves out of success. And it’s absolutely nuts.
[00:10:40] Ryan: I, I gotta ask. So here we are. We’re on the bike. We’re peddling, we’re going through that. I love the analogy. So how do you continue to pedal and not let the self-doubt come in?
[00:10:51] Josh: You gotta see the finish line. The reason we let self-doubt creep in is the reason why we give up so soon.
[00:10:57] Josh: And a lot of times we give up, I call it the 99-yard
[00:11:00] line of life. Like we are, we’re going down the field and we’re getting tackled and beat up and bloodied and muddied and all that kind of stuff. And then we stop right on the 99-yard line because we can’t see the goal line. We can’t see the finish line clearly.
[00:11:12] Josh: That’s honestly why we gave up so I do Spartan races. Have you ever heard of those oh yeah? Obstacle course race. Oh yeah. So I do those and I just finished doing a training run for that actually. So I go do those and the first thing I do, here’s my secret. First, as soon as I show up at a race, the first thing I do is go to the finish line.
[00:11:30] Josh: Oh, wow. That’s strange. Like I go right to the finish line. I and I look at it and I, sometimes I touch it and I’m like, okay it’s actually real. It’s a finish line. . And I look at this thing and I’m like, all right, Josh. When you start the race, keep this image in your mind because as long as you don’t give up, as long as you keep going, there’s a finish, there’s a reward and it’s going to be worth it.
[00:11:52] Josh: That’s what keeps me going people. The reason we give up is cuz we can’t see the finish line. We think it’s an endless loop of getting shit on. [00:12:00] Getting crapped on. Sorry. I dunno if this is PG 13 or no, you’re good. You’re all good. Yeah. So that’s why we don’t know why we’re doing this. We don’t see the finish line.
[00:12:08] Josh: And of course, you’re gonna get frustrated. Of course, you’re gonna start doubting yourself. Of course, you’re gonna start giving up too soon. So we really gotta get clarity on not just why we exist, but what we truly want. What does that finish line look like? And then from that point, see if you know where you are and where you want to be.
[00:12:26] Josh: The middle is the easiest part because someone else has already done it. Now we just have to build. Now we just have to go read, study, go to school find a mentor, read some books, whatever we gotta do, but we can find them, how the how’s the easiest part. The hardest part is knowing where we are being honest.
[00:12:45] Josh: Yes. That’s where we are. And seeing that finish line clearly and having that finish line, be something we truly want. It can’t just be some fake. Like I want to be.
[00:12:55] Josh: People like, I, I do goal crushing for folks like the psychology of [00:13:00] accomplishing things worthwhile Uhhuh, I’m always like they’re like what I said, what’s your goal said, oh, I just wanna be rich. That’s rich. That makes no sense. Is it $10 in some societies is pretty wealthy 1,000, 10 billion in some other societies is wealthy.
[00:13:14] Josh: So we’ve gotta get clear, like really specific on what we want. Then we gotta put it through a test and here’s the test. So once you write down what you want, sorry, everyone out there writes down their goal. All right. This is what I truly want. The test is why must you have it? Not? Why do you want it?
[00:13:34] Josh: That’s the wrong question. Everyone asks the wrong question. They’re like, why do your, why’s gotta make you cry? Why do you want it? No. Why must you have it? In other words, six months from now, say your goal is six months. You wanna lose 30 pounds, right? That’s a very common new year.
[00:13:48] Ryan: Whatever years resolution.
[00:13:50] Ryan: Yep.
[00:13:50] Josh: Yeah. So let’s say you wanna do that, right? Okay. Let me ask you a question in six months. If you don’t lose those 30 pounds, will life go on, will you, will life be, will [00:14:00] you just figure it out? And life will continue. If the answer is yes, stop right now. You’re not going to accomplish it. Go back to the start and find it a more important goal.
[00:14:09] Josh: I want to hear when I ask you, why must you have it? I want to know where you’re gonna be. Your kids are gonna start someone’s gonna die or get seriously injured. It’s gotta be that level of importance to you. Otherwise, go back to question number one, re-answer why, and what exactly you want, and make sure it’s something you’re willing to die for.
[00:14:30] Josh: Make sure it’s something that you’re, you’ve got to do. See, we always, don’t always do what we should do. We don’t always do what we wanna do, but we always do what we have to do. If you can turn your wants, I like that. You have to that’s the key. That’s how you do it. That’s a lot. We’re, this is just random stuff and scratching services.
[00:14:49] Josh: No,
[00:14:49] Ryan: no. We’re all good. We go down rabbit holes on this show, so we’re good. This is all healthy stuff. That’s very true. We do what we have to do and. A lot of people, just do what we have to do to
[00:15:00] survive in it. And it’s just a normal thing. And in the affordable housing space that we’re in, I learned in a very short period of time that unfortunately eight out 10 people that come to us are unbankable and they have that mentality of, I can play in these secondary credit markets and be fine in its life.
[00:15:19] Ryan: And that’s how it should be. And. Reprogramming that. And being able to talk to them about that is a very daunting task. And I’m by no means I’m not yeah. A counselor at all, because we all have some type of negative relationship with money in our past or current or whatever the case is. and I’m not that type of guy.
[00:15:38] Ryan: I will help you strap it all on and understand where you need to go. And I will figure it helps you figure it out, but you gotta do the work, but I’ve learned in a very short period of time in all these years that. If you can talk to the individual, like you said, and find the why of what they’re trying to do, and then get them to where they need to be while they’re doing that work on the, how, yeah.
[00:15:59] Ryan: They’ll [00:16:00] be very successful, but the challenges they’re comfortable with and the. To this day, I still don’t understand the comfortable piece, cuz I’ve never been comfortable. I’ve had multiple failed businesses. I worked in corporate America. Never taught me how to fish. Yeah. Yeah. I had to learn how to fish as an entrepreneur and there are struggles there and I struggle.
[00:16:18] Ryan: There’s a struggle every single day. Here’s a struggle. I’ve got two podcasts. I’ve gotta balance those out with my businesses. And I have to learn how to I’ve had to do post-production. There are all types of stuff that you have to learn. And I screwed up a lot of stuff. Along the way, I still keep going.
[00:16:34] Ryan: But I think it’s deeper cuz now you’ve brought this all up is the way it’s not just housing and it’s changing people’s lives. I got that. But the other piece of the podcasts is I wanna be able to touch at least one person with a podcast. If I can help them to understand that they can make that.
[00:16:52] Ryan: And there, why is there? They just have to go find it. And that what you just said, just all started resonating. It’s all coming out. So it’s [00:17:00]
[00:17:00] Josh: thank you. What if we had to succeed? That’s the question we’re asking here. What if we had to succeed? Not just had to survive. Yes, but what if we had to succeed there and that’s the key we have to get to a place where we have to succeed.
[00:17:11] Josh: Cuz the comfort zone’s a lie I’ve been there. I was 20 years in corporate America as a shy, negative, skeptical, introverted engineer. That comfort zone is only temporary. The comfort zone always breaks and it always breaks when you don’t want it to break. That’s, that’s by definition when you’re comfortable.
[00:17:27] Josh: Can we,
[00:17:27] Ryan: sorry, can we go into that? Cuz that’s a really good topic. The comfort zone breaks. Let’s dig into that cuz that’s a big piece that I deal with on a daily basis in, in, in our space and so forth and in helping people. You want the comfort zone to be there because it’s what you know and how you do things.
[00:17:43] Ryan: But yes, you’re right. It breaks if you have a car breakdown or you’re short on, your rent or whatever the case is. And now you gotta go do that craziness. So how do we get away from that piece? How do we get away from one comfort zone and two, it not breaking on us?
[00:17:59] Josh: Realizing [00:18:00] that either way, life is gonna be hard.
[00:18:02] Josh: You can stay in the comfort zone and it’s gonna be hard, but it’s gonna be out of yours. Or you can get outta that comfort zone at least a little bit. And it’s gonna be hard too, right? That I’m not promising. It’s gonna be easy either way, but at least you’re in the driver’s seat. That’s the key. It, it’s all about being in the driver’s seat versus being in the trunk.
[00:18:21] Josh: Of the car. See, it’s funny. People say, people are like, I feel like I’m in the backseat of the car. No, you’re not in the backseat. You’re in the damn trunk because you can’t see anything. You are blind as a bat and someone’s driving your car and there, and you’re scared shitless cuz they could crash.
[00:18:35] Josh: You don’t know where they’re going. Yeah. You’re in the fam trunk and it stinks and it’s cold and dirty and all that stuff. That’s where people are. So is getting in the driver’s seat. Scary. Yes. Because you’ve gotta learn how to drive. You’ve gotta be okay with taking full responsibility for where this 3000-pound death machine goes.
[00:18:54] Josh: Yes. So either way, it’s scary either way. It’s hard, but [00:19:00] basically you’ve gotta choose which hard you want to do. Be out of control. Hard. See, when I left corporate America, the one thing I told myself was if I win in life or if I lose in life, I just want it to be my fault. Oh, that’s all that I wanted.
[00:19:13] Josh: I like that.
[00:19:14] Ryan: I like that.
[00:19:16] Josh: I got out there and I failed and I ended up under the bridge here in a cardboard box and I was homeless. I’d I sleep like a baby. I’d be perfectly fine. Cuz it was up to me, but I couldn’t handle my boss, doing something stupid or firing me or the economy or the company or whatever.
[00:19:30] Josh: Something outta my control. No that wasn’t gonna be
[00:19:34] Ryan: my future. And that’s one of the things we talk about in our coaching with these individuals that are buying houses. your economy is yours and it’s yours alone. What happens outside of that? You can’t control it. So you have to be able to control what’s in your economy and understand that you’re the driver.
[00:19:51] Ryan: You can’t be a passenger in it. You can’t be in the trunk. However, you describe it. I’m definitely not in the trunk. And you’d be amazed. How many individuals think that they’re a
[00:20:00] passenger? And they might be in the trunk too. I need to start using your analogy. I’m gonna, I’m gonna steal a little bit of that.
[00:20:06] Ryan: So go for it. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. But it’s amazing. How many of ’em are not a driver? They just said this is how I know life. This is what I’ve been raised. And this is where things go. And I’m just like, but when do you say you’re ready for that change and find that why and become that homeowner?
[00:20:27] Ryan: Or whatever you,
[00:20:27] Josh: yeah, by the way, ‘s accomplished, here’s something for your folks out there, especially whether it be homes or anything. Yeah. You’ll never be ready to sit in the driver’s seat. Ne if you wait till you’re ready, it’ll never happen. You’ll never be ready. Let me ask you seriously, think about this when you learned how to drive.
[00:20:44] Josh: Did you read? Did you just read the manual and then like hop in and you were driving like no problem. Or did you have to get behind the wheel, feel some of the controls get a feel for the brakes and the acceleration, and maybe there was someone with you at the first few times, right?
[00:20:57] Josh: Yeah. Didn’t you have to just fricking do it? There was no
[00:21:00] reading in a book and becoming proficient at driving. Correct. We’ll never be ready for success. We’ll never be ready to take the wheel. We just have to take the wheel and learn as we go. There’s no other way to do it. And by the way, that’s nature.
[00:21:14] Josh: That’s not my rule. That’s like the universal rule. Nature does not reward you for studying. There’s no reward in nature for studying. There’s only a reward for work. If you don’t plant the seed, you can’t study how seeds work. And then nature says, oh, by the way, here’s an apple tree. Have an. Doesn’t freaking work that way.
[00:21:31] Josh: Sorry, I didn’t make the rules. I just spent a lot of time trying to understand them so that I can apply ’em in my life. And I think that’s what we need to do. We just need to understand that it’s gonna take work and yeah you might crash. You might get a flat tire. So freaking what? So freaking white, either
[00:21:49] Ryan: that or the trunk change the tire and keep on going.
[00:21:52] Josh: Yeah, but lemme tell you something. If you’re in the trunk, whoever is driving that car, they’re gonna crash too. They’re gonna get the flat tire also. Yep. It doesn’t matter. [00:22:00] You’re getting the flat tires. The only question is what are you getting in return? What are you getting in return for all this pain, sweat, blood, tears, all the stuff you’re putting into life.
[00:22:09] Josh: What are you getting out of it other than waiting to die? Other than just doing it again until you hit the end, right? What’s the point. If it’s just to survive, it’s just to get to the end, too, to your deathbed. What’s the point? Why even? And I don’t wanna even take this the wrong way, but why wait, it doesn’t make sense.
[00:22:29] Josh: Like just. No, I hang around. If they’re not gonna do something you’re,
[00:22:34] Ryan: You’re saying all the right things. You’re preaching to the choir. I agree. All those things. And I agree with all those things. I just don’t understand why we continue to stay, in a funk when we know that it’s causing problems.
[00:22:47] Ryan: You want the answer? Yes. Do you want the real answer? I wanna hear the real answer, cuz I’ve got a few of my own, but I wanna hear yours.
[00:22:54] Josh: It’s very simple because we can. It’s very because [00:23:00] we can, we’ve built a society and I’m talking in us here. We built a society, especially in us where we don’t have to be good.
[00:23:08] Josh: We don’t have to work hard. We don’t have to really do anything and we can actually survive and have, an okay, not a great life, but we can have an okay life. So in other words, we’re victims of our own success as a society. That’s why.
[00:23:24] Ryan: So does, and this is gonna go down a rabbit hole. So is this basically what we’re taught from early on in age is that it’s okay to be okay.
[00:23:33] Ryan: And I’m saying school because if you think about school, Everything is regimented. You go to break at a certain time. You go to lunch at a certain time. You go home at a certain time. You have to do what does that sound
[00:23:43] Josh: Doesn’t it sound a lot like corporate. Yeah. Oh, by far
[00:23:46] Ryan: The point I mean training, I joke about it, but in my last position where I was running call centers, I had to ask permission as a director to go to the bathroom because I was a quadruple triple, double-booked
[00:24:00] every hour for meetings.
[00:24:01] Ryan: And I literally have to say, excuse me, I have to go to the. You’re gonna have to wait and taught me nothing other than, to hold it as long as I could. That, that got to a point where what, how effective am I’m not doing very much other than talking to people on the phone and not working with my people and being able to be effective as a people leader.
[00:24:21] Ryan: And that’s my biggest thing is I’m a people leader. I want to be out with my people and be able to lead them and show them that it can be done. But I spend all day behind an office in behind an office. It
[00:24:31] Josh: was not, you remember that 50-song flying purple people leader do remember that song?
[00:24:36] Josh: Oh yeah. One arm, 1, 1, 1 arm, one horn flying purple people leader anyways.
[00:24:41] Ryan: So we go back to school and in, in all those things and it can be all the above, but the biggest thing I talk about and I keep on saying I gotta stop doing that. Sorry. They. They don’t teach us how to be successful in life.
[00:24:57] Ryan: It’s just the basics. And we don’t even get [00:25:00] the basics like to balance a checkbook. You’d be amazed how many people we interact with. Never had a checkbook, which is okay, great. But how do you know how much comes into your bank account on monthly basis and goes out if you don’t have a budget, or know what’s going on?
[00:25:15] Ryan: Ryan,
[00:25:16] Josh: Look, that’s not the purpose of school. That was never from the beginning. We don’t, you don’t wanna go down this rabbit hole. It’s too much to take too much time. But look, school from the beginning was not designed to equip you for life. The number one goal of the school is obedience.
[00:25:31] Josh: Think about everything is about getting you to OB. And this way you go into corporate, you follow a job, you do what you’re you do the good for society, right? That’s it was never about helping you find your own power, helping you create something, teaching you what you need to succeed because the successful populace is not in the best interest of a controllable society.
[00:25:53] Josh: You can’t control people that are free thinkers that are critical thinkers that are creating and doing wonderful things. You can’t control it.
[00:26:00] So schooling, and I’m not saying this as a judgment, it’s just, if you look back from the industrial revolution forward, you can see how schooling was created.
[00:26:08] Josh: And it was created to create workers and to create obedience in society. That was his purpose. And guess what? It’s done a good job. Like it fulfilled its purpose. Even Mark Twain recognizes, he says he never let school interfere with his education. Oh, so we need to separate school and education are not the same thing.
[00:26:26] Josh: Some education happens in school. Yes, but that’s not the purpose of school. It’s not to educate it’s to create obedience. And that’s where we are. And so our system has worked as planned
[00:26:39] Ryan: oh boy. It’s there are just so many layers of the onion to peel back on this. So I have to ask, from the change standpoint, about Entrepreneurship.
[00:26:49] Ryan: I, for me, it’s all intertwined. Yeah. How do we as individuals be able to better ourselves in life? I know it starts with the [00:27:00] why and we work on the how, and we get to the finish line, but some people see that as oversimplified and need a little more guidance and help. What are there some exercises that we can do or things that we can do for ourselves?
[00:27:16] Ryan: Continually focus on these things. So we stay positive and move forward and not continue to be comfortable.
[00:27:23] Josh: Yes. And I know these things sound simple and they are simple, but they’re not easy. It’s not easy to look inside or have someone like this why I do what I do is because it’s hard to look at yourself.
[00:27:34] Josh: It’s hard to see the masterpiece when you’re in the. You can’t or one of my favorite ones, someone told me the other day was you can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar whatever analogy you like. I like that one. We’ll use that one, right? Yeah. I like that one too. I thought that was pretty good.
[00:27:48] Josh: So yeah. So we need someone to help us see this. So is it an easy process? No. Is it simple? It actually is fairly simple. So don’t, I don’t want anyone to think it’s easy. This does take a lot of work to really
[00:28:00] dig deep and find that uniqueness and bring that to the surface. But a couple of things come to mind.
[00:28:05] Josh: One when it comes to determining what do you really want outta life? And getting similar, that clarity and exercise you could do on your own. And it’s gonna sound a little morbid, but I promise it works. It’s right. Your ideal EU. Sit down and I’ve got, in fact, if you remind me, I’ll send you, I have a little PDF on how to do it properly.
[00:28:25] Josh: Okay. I’m happy to send that to you. If you wanna share it with your audience, that’s fine. That’d be great. But your ideal eulogy, like specifically, like what was left behind, what was your legacy who showed up, and what did they say? And who’s reading your eulogy and. A couple of people that like, maybe you haven’t met yet, but where were they before they met you?
[00:28:41] Josh: Where were they after they met, you start seeing some of the transformations that you had in your life, and then you spend the rest of your life living up to that eulogy that becomes your north star. That becomes your litmus test. Oh, should I start this business? Oh, I don’t know. Is it an alignment with my eulogy?
[00:28:57] Josh: Is it gonna get me to that? No. Oh,
[00:29:00] bye-bye. It doesn’t even matter. It could be lucrative like millions of dollars of profit doesn’t matter. It’s not in alignment. So that’s one thing, another thing I would say is you’ve gotta get around people that make you uncomfortable. You’ve got to associations are everything.
[00:29:18] Josh: So if you’re in the comfort zone and if you’re like I just need that impetus. What else can I? Get around people that are doing bigger things than you. And lemme tell you something rich, people like rich people are mean there are all these, reasons why we think we hate money, but truly wealthy people love to share.
[00:29:34] Josh: They love to mentor. They’re happy to answer questions. They’re happy to be inspirational. You just gotta reach out to them. You’ve gotta get yourself into circles where it makes you uncomfortable. People are doing better than you. Yeah, we do the opposite. Don’t we, we try and find people that are doing a little worse or a little bit uglier, a little bit fatter, slower, and it makes us feel good, but that’s just ego.
[00:29:53] Josh: We’ve gotta go into we gotta be the small fish in a big pond and that’ll make us naturally
[00:30:00] uncomfortable, but also we’ll see examples of greatness. When most people grow up, they don’t see examples of greatness except through tabloids or the news, or you. But that’s filtered. I’m talking about a real personal relationship.
[00:30:13] Josh: Having a family member, having a friend who really is doing great things and just cuz it’s contagious. Success is contagious. I always say success. Can’t be taught. It can only be caught. I’ll say it one more time. This is really important. Success. Can’t be taught. There’s no one that’s gonna teach you.
[00:30:31] Josh: Here’s how to be successful. It’s gotta be caught like you catch the flu or a cold, or I know I shouldn’t be saying this in time of COVID, but, it’s you gotta get close and rub against these folks and catch their success disease. It’s so gotta out there and finds these folks.
[00:30:47] Josh: You
[00:30:47] Ryan: just probably made the headline for this podcast episode success disease, or which
[00:30:53] Josh: one success
[00:30:55] Ryan: can’t be taught. It has to be caught and I’ll put a spin on it. I think that is going
[00:31:00] to be the headline of this episode because that is perfect. It’s very powerful but very straight.
[00:31:06] Ryan: And you are right. I, you have to surround yourself with people that are not in your comfort zone. And I totally agree with that. And I know I’ve struggled with it as an entrepreneur, especially when I first started out. I surrounded myself with people. I knew none of them didn’t been down the path that I was trying to go down.
[00:31:23] Ryan: And the only way I was able to interact with people that were outside of my comfort zone is doing things like this. I was putting stuff out on social media. I was going to local business meetups and so forth and putting myself out there. And I finally met some people that were. Out of my comfort zone.
[00:31:40] Ryan: Those individuals at first were not, I didn’t think they were gonna be mentors. I’ve got two now of them. , that turned out to be great mentors and connected me with other people. And now it’s starting to roll the other way, I’m starting to mentor other people and give them some leg up.
[00:31:55] Ryan: But I have plenty to learn on a daily basis that I love being surrounded by people that
[00:32:00] have more knowledge and more experience. It’s uplifting because you get to. Forward to it, cuz you get to get some knowledge and obtain knowledge and be able to put it in place. But we seem to be, and this is gonna go down another rabbit hole and we’ll have to circle back around.
[00:32:14] Ryan: We have this instant gratification in social media today that everything is perfect in joy. And you can’t be happy for somebody else’s success. It really boils down to if they’re doing what they love. They found there, why they’re working on where, how, and they’re getting to the finish line.
[00:32:31] Ryan: Why not support them? How does that hurt you by doing that? That means that you’re it’s our feeling yourself. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:32:38] Josh: exactly. It hurts our ego. It hurts our feelings and that’s why we tear people down. But by the way, which is another good point, you need to find some naysayers. If you have, if you don’t have any naysayers in your life, people that are trying to tear you down because you’re trying to do something.
[00:32:53] Josh: That’s not a good sign. You want it’s okay. To have naysayers. You want ye I call ’em naysayers. You’re cheerleaders. Yeah. And then the naysayers,
[00:33:00] you wanna have naysayers, people, to pick you up when you fall down and you wanna have naysayers because naysayers for me anyways, that’s my tackling fuel. I call it if you watch the water, boy, that’s like my tackling fuel.
[00:33:11] Josh: Someone says water, socks. I’m like, I get all crazy. So when someone says, Josh, you can’t do it. That’s all you have to say. Tell me I can’t do something. Get the Frick out my way and watch right. That’s it. Is that simple? So it’s good to have naysayers. Good to have people that are, that you’ll never allow them to say.
[00:33:28] Josh: I told you, so you want people like that in life, but because you’re doing something big, right? You need to stop when you step out and you get people to like you can’t do that. Like your friends and family. Oh, what are you doing? That’s crazy. Leaving a job. You’re gonna be an entrepreneur. What are you gonna be a broke artist?
[00:33:42] Josh: No, blah, blah, blah. He’d say yes. Thank you. Appreciate that. And then spend, then do everything you can. So they never get to say, I told you.
[00:33:51] Ryan: And that is the epitome. And I don’t wanna say epitome. That’s the majority of the individuals that come to us is they’re surrounded by [00:34:00] naysayers and they don’t have supporters.
[00:34:02] Ryan: And that’s why they’re still in that comfort zone. Okay. And I explain that to them is, we try to figure out the dynamics of maybe their family, friends, whatever, and understand where they’re at. And the majority of them are individuals that don’t think they deserve to one, buy a home.
[00:34:18] Ryan: They should be renting the rest of their life. I spoke to a gentleman a few weeks ago, maybe a little bit longer than four generations, three generations of his family lived in the same house renting. Yeah. And this is over time. This house was built in the fifties or sixties. And they said, oh, my kids are wanting to buy a home now and he’s on the phone and we’re all having a conversation.
[00:34:41] Ryan: And he’s just like, why do you need to buy a home? Just. You don’t have to do the upkeep. It’s not yours. It and I said, my first question is, that’s fine if you’re okay with it, but why are you so against buying a home? Yeah, he says because no one in my family
[00:35:00] is ever owned a home. So why should we start now?
[00:35:04] Ryan: That was, that’s pretty powerful to me.
[00:35:06] Josh: That’s when you’re defeated before you even start, you lose the battle and you haven’t even stepped on the.
[00:35:11] Ryan: Yeah. And those individuals I can’t fight that battle for them. I, my saying is I’ll be here when you’re ready, because they have to have some type of mindset of change and they have to like you said, have their way, and I’m gonna steal that is, cause I don’t ask people there, why I ask them their purpose, why do you want to be a homeowner?
[00:35:28] Ryan: What’s the purpose? What are you trying to do? Yeah. And most of them are trying to really change their lives. For the better, they’re tired of living in a dilapidated rental or overpaying for something in a rental. And they want something that they can call their own. And I understand that.
[00:35:45] Ryan: And we, it’s a source of wealth,
[00:35:46] Josh: right? It’s a source of wealth. It’s a source of pride in identity. Yes. There are a lot of reasons too, to own a home.
[00:35:52] Ryan: Yeah. And it’s prideful. I share with them some of the videos that we shoot after these individuals or these families buy homes. And I [00:36:00] said, look at how happy they are.
[00:36:02] Ryan: When they’re actually after they’re buying their home because now they’ve created something that’s very personal to them, but also very important to their family in how they’re actually going to live going forward. And they accomplished what they set out to go for. And I explained to them, that they too had some credit challenges or financial challenges, but they stuck it out.
[00:36:23] Ryan: They saw what they needed to do, or they knew what they needed to do. They took those steps. And got to the finish line. You can do the same. You just have to be ready for that, that change, and be able to step into that new world of being uncomfortable.
[00:36:39] Josh: Yeah. And a good question in those instances is just the what-if question?
[00:36:44] Josh: Oh, I, so you don’t think you can or it’s worth it, but what if you could, how would that feel? I always like asking questions about what if you could, what if you had. especially when someone says I can’t do this, I can’t do this, Josh. I can’t. Okay. I got it. You can’t do it. But what if you [00:37:00] had to someone, gun to your head either do it, or you’re dead.
[00:37:04] Josh: That’s, there’s no other option. You do it or you’re dead if you had to, how would you, I’m just curious. And all of a sudden they sit there for a second. I guess if I had to, I would probably start with this and then I would do this and go here and. and they just outlined their entire plan.
[00:37:21] Josh: And I was like, there you go. You just tell me exactly how to, how to do it now. ,
[00:37:26] Ryan: it’s crazy when you’re put in a pit bull and you have to do it. And, but, and we’ll have to wrap this up, but at the same time they do, they use the same analogy for living that comfortable life.
[00:37:38] Ryan: Yeah. Comfortable breaks. As you said earlier, they have to find a way, and now the guns to their head, and they’re gonna have to find a way to make comfortable work again. And I always say if you can make comfortable work, why can’t you make uncomfortable work?
[00:37:53] Josh: That’s right. Excellent point,
[00:37:55] Ryan: because you’re having to do the same things to thrive in your comfortable
[00:38:00] life because it’s broken.
[00:38:01] Ryan: Why not go to the uncomfortable portion of your life so you can actually grow and expand. What you’re trying to do in life, not just stay in the same place. And a prior guest used it called camping or being called a camper, stop camping out in life. Yeah. And it really hit home and that’s big as if you continue to camp out as you said,
[00:38:24] Josh: or tip you were tiptoeing through life, tiptoeing through life hop to make it all the way to death. So it’s about choosing your hard, choose your hard, you got hard over here staying the same. That’s really hard and it usually gets nothing in return or you could step out and choose a different hard. And, but you might actually get something in return over here.
[00:38:42] Josh: The only difference is ROI, but they’re both gonna be hard. That’s it?
[00:38:47] Ryan: Yes. So that’s huge. Josh, it’s been it’s, this has been an awesome conversation. We definitely need to have you come back on and we can have some more in-depth conversations. How I take a
[00:38:58] Josh: topic next time so we can get deep.
[00:39:00] Josh: We, we just scratched the surface on a few things. Oh yeah. But we, for sure didn’t even get started yet.
[00:39:05] Ryan: I will pull the listeners and see if there are any specific topics and we can definitely reshare that and get that out there. How can everyone get ahold of you if they wanna talk to you?
[00:39:15] Josh: The easiest way is my website, which is Josh zeus.com.
[00:39:18] Josh: Just my name.com or on social media. I’m the only person out there with Josh Zeus as a name. So that’s the benefit by the way of having we’re gonna do a call back here. What’s the benefit of having a very unique and hard-to-pronounce name? Is that no one else? so I’m the only one out there with that or the identity archeologist.
[00:39:36] Josh: And you can find me on Facebook is not a little bit on Instagram, but mainly Facebook and LinkedIn. Okay. And I mess around with some other ones, but those are the two main ones. I
[00:39:45] Ryan: will put all your links in the show notes so people can see that and we’ll share that across social media. So they will be able to find you.
[00:39:53] Ryan: I thank you for coming on wholeheartedly. It’s been a great conversation. No pleasure. I enjoyed it. And we’ll have you back. [00:40:00] Sounds good, Ryan. All right. Thank you, sir. Yep. Thank you. Bye
[00:40:04] Josh: bye. Bye.