Here, Not There

It’s been a while.

The past few years I’ve been in monk mode. Getting quiet, building, doing the work. Now, I’m ready to reintroduce myself.

Age 3: Home video of me crying “I can’t do it” while riding my bike… doing it. My starter mindset.

Age 17: Nothing on my resume. No sports. No clubs. “I know Jordan can do it. He's a sponge,” my mom told the guidance counselor. ‘Sponge' became prophecy. I read Awaken the Giant Within. I remember my brain literally turning on within the first few pages. I still have the picture in my head of being in my room the moment the On switch was flipped. Mapped out a 45-day plan to finish the book. Kept that promise to myself. Probably the first time I ever really did. Spring 2015 marked the beginning of my thinking life.

Age 18: Moved to LA to learn from Steve Jordan, celebrity trainer to people like Tobey Maguire and Jordan Belfort. Lesson #1: Even the water you drink should be consistent with your brand. I walked in with a generic brand water bottle on Day 1. It was to be Fiji from then on. Had the honor of running his studio solo the next year while he traveled for 2 weeks. Again the following year. Responsibility = rewarding.

Age 18/19: Start college. Week 1, I joined the cheer team, ran for president of my residence hall (won), and joined a fraternity. Learned to make bold decisions quickly, without hesitation. Being so quick about these decisions didn't leave any room to talk myself out of it. I started to believe I could do anything, even be president of the US if I really wanted to. “Why not me?” I thought. “Who else my age has a leg up on me?”

Age 19-20: Became a certified personal trainer. Got clients. Then learned to build websites. Started getting paid. Then realized... I couldn't scale PT, but I could scale digital work. I'd have to do 50 PT sessions to make what I was making on a website that took me 5 hours. Pivoted.

Age 21: Launched Growth Mindset University podcast + book. Self-published 184 pages in 30 days. Interviewed Mark Manson, Robert Greene, Ryan Serhant, Kevin Rudolf (my favorite artist I listened to on the bus in 5th-6th grade), and more. Just would reach out to my favorite authors and entrepreneurs. I was making a name for myself and having fun doing it.

Age 22: Graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurship (fitting). About 7 months post-college, I had nearly 6 figures saved thanks to my growing business. Things were clicking. Life was fun. Lots of time with family. Exactly how I drew it up when I set out to design a life at 17/18.

Age 23: Bought my first house. Spent almost every dollar I had. Became house poor. Got humbled. Got to work. Briefly tried wholesaling real estate on the side. Cold called annoyed homeowners 2 hours per day for 6 months. Didn’t pan out. But I learned. Nothing is a waste, especially not your “bad” experiences. All is medicine.

Age 24: Started Zeus, an operations consultancy. Built assembly line-esque project management systems for service businesses. We’ve provided the stable foundation for over 100 businesses to grow big.

Age 25: Traveled Europe for 4.5 months. Had my best month ever money-wise that January. Then: brutal business partner breakup. Restarted from zero in February. TOUGH 4 months. Came back stronger though. Forged my character a bit. By year end, business was back to pre-breakup revenue and all but one team member joined me at the new company, which meant the world to me.

Age 26: Reconnected with someone I’d met 5 years earlier in the Exumas, a killer of a real estate investor in St Pete. She became my mentor. What was a black box of confusion 3 years earlier now suddenly all made sense. 1 on 1 mentorship does that. I moved to St. Pete. Bought my first rental property. Then a quadplex that was falling apart. While transitioning my life to St Pete, I lived on a 6-inch single mattress on the floor for 3 months, on a construction site. Used my bathroom sink as a kitchen sink. Literally danced through it. Yes, when the project was over, I danced for the first time in my life. Spiritual chains I’d been trying to break free of my entire adult life were finally broken once and for all.

As for the quad: Refinanced, pulled cash out, kept the asset. Learned a ton. Results: $143,000 in renovations added $345,000 of appraised value. After refi, I’d essentially gotten 4 rentals for only $18,000 out of my pocket and it still cash flowed $1000/mo.

Age 27: Under contract for a waterfront teardown. Fell through. Then another. Also fell through. 135 days of work and nothing to show for it. Knocked on the door a third time, willful as I am. Closed on it. When I want something, I persist until I succeed; There’s always a way. Now I’m about to embark on building one of the most beautiful homes St. Pete has ever seen. My name's on $2.8M of debt. And I couldn’t be more grateful.

A few lessons I've learned along the way:

1. Your visions become your reality. I take my visions very seriously. Visions are like seeds. Diligent action is the water that brings them to life. Another metaphor that's been helpful for me recently is that of a bricklayer. I imagine myself as a bricklayer, with each action being a brick. Rain or shine, lay another brick.

2. You direct the scene(s of your life).

3. Every hero bleeds. Challenge is a spice of life.

4. Think of yourself less often = the way of peace.

5. Life is really as simple as pursuing your interests. Sounds obvious, but 99% of people don't do this, instead leading lives of quiet desperation.

6. You can be anyone you want. You are exactly who you think you are.

7. Experiences, memories, time, people you care about and who care about you; these are the real riches in this life.

8. You can never give up hope.

9. The only way to live a good life is to do your best. To do anything less than your best in life leads to poor outcomes.

10. I’ve been preaching and living this one since I first put it in my IG bio as a freshman in college... Don’t make a living; design a life. If you don’t consciously design your life, other people will do it for you, and you don’t want other people to do it for you. Life’s too short to not live it how you want.

“Everything is going to go south on you. You can either and accept that or you can get to work. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem. And you solve the next one. And then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.” - Mark Watney in The Martian

Thank you for reading. I hope you got something out of it.