Episode 125 – Frame Shifting for Success With Jason Drees

When first getting into real estate, you’re bound to face rejections, failures, and all kinds of speed bumps in the road. However, setbacks shouldn’t discourage you from pursuing your goals. With a simple perspective change, you’ll find that success is much easier than you thought.

Join us as Craig interviews Jason Dreer, a renowned life coach and author of Do The Impossible: Unlock Your Full Potential. As the founder of Jason Drees Coaching, Jason has made it his life mission to educate his students on how they can re-align their frame of thinking to achieve groundbreaking successes in their career.

This week’s episode is essential for anyone looking to exponentially grow their real estate careers. Tune in to learn more about how Jason catapulted himself from rock bottom, how referrals can make or break your business, and why nurturing your mental environment might just be the key to unlocking your potential.

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Frame Shifting for Success With Jason Drees

We had the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Jason Drees, on the show and you’ve probably heard about him and his coaching program. He’s Brandon’s coach, Brandon Turner’s coach. He was my coach for a little bit. And he just — again, he’s one of a kind in his field and we talked about some things that you probably haven’t heard him talk about before, his origin story, about the businesses he started before the coaching and how he made that shift and how he decided that, hey, he could coach somebody. And he was actually not doing as well as some of his clients and so what is a coach to coach a client that’s not doing as well as him.

There could be some impostor syndrome there but you have to have that frame shift or that mindset shift that we’ll talk about in this episode. It’s just like LeBron James or Tom Brady, they’re the best at their craft, they still have coaches even though their coaches are probably not as good as them but they can see them, they can analyze them and see what they’re doing right and doing wrong. Same thing with a life coach. And so this episode, again, one of a kind. It’s a little bit different because it’s not totally real estate focused but he coaches a lot of real estate investors so I think you’ll be able to apply some of the business concepts of this episode with your real estate business. So, without further ado, let’s get Jason Drees on the show.

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Jason Drees, welcome to the show, my friend. How you doing today, man?

I’m doing good, Craig. How are you?

I’m doing good, man. So great to have you on. I don’t even know if you knew this but I was one of your coaching clients there for a year or two and, yeah, you’ve got some really good stuff, you’re a phenomenal businessman, and I’m so excited to kind of jump on in here your little bit unique journey.

Yeah, definitely. I recognized the name, I’m like Craig, I know Craig, he’s been around JDC.

Yeah, yeah. GoBundance, JDC, BiggerPockets. I’m sure we have a lot of circles that kind of clash. And so, Jason, why don’t we just take it back to the beginning, take it back to when did you first have that shift from W-2 employee to entrepreneur, like take us back to that date and time and we’ll go from there.

When my mind shifted or when I actually made the shift?

Let’s talk when your mind shifted. You got to make your mind shift first and then you got to take action. That’s always the first step.

Yeah, I think it happened, I don’t remember exactly but it was around 2003 or 2004 and I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. And when I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, it kind of changed my life. Prior to that, I was enjoying the weekends and I was working for the weekends and there was no entrepreneurs in my family so basically everybody worked, had a good job and had fun. And then when I read that book, I haven’t had weekends off since. I’m trying to unwind from that book now but that’s funny. So that’s when I started.

It’s funny. That book’s all about working harder for a couple of years to have the rest of your life off but then here we are working on something you’re more passionate about and you’re always on, always off kind of thing. And so what were you doing prior to that shift? Was it like some sort of banking or — you remind me of like a finance guy —

I was in sales.

Sales, okay.

Technology sales. I worked in telecom and I was a manufacturer sales rep for a technology company.

Okay.

So I would do phone system demos. I’d literally drive around in my car to small businesses and demo phone systems.

Okay. Okay. Nice. And so you’re driving around in your car, demoing phones, sedentary job, which doesn’t sound great, and so you read Rich Dad Poor Dad in ’03, ’04, and that’s what made you make that shift. And so how long did it take you from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad to actually take action?

Well, I started taking action to really making money like close to 15 years but it was — I started researching, like I tried an internet business that didn’t really work, I just kind of tried that, I tried — read about real estate investing, I read a bunch of Dolf de Roos books, do you remember Dolf de Roos?

No.

He’s this Australian guy who has talked a lot about real estate investing. I went to a conference once but I never actually took any action. So, the real estate route didn’t actually go anywhere but it was in late 2006 when my partner — well, not my partner, he was my engineer, I was the field sales guy, he was the field engineer, he was into auto racing and we kind of stumbled across the idea to make a product better than something else out there. So, the initial ideas of 986 Inc. in 2006 and 2007, really started in 2008, but that’s really when we started this company that manufactured racecar driver cooling suits.

That is so cool, literally. Before we get into that, I want to kind of talk about like why did you not go towards real estate? Like Rich Dad Poor Dad is so real estate heavy and he encourages it so much.

Yeah.

Was it like the down payments or was it just…

It was like I had a lot of debt and I’m like, okay, we need to buy a house and we own one house right now but we need to get our finances in place to do it. So that was kind of the idea.

Okay.

At the time.

So you didn’t have your finances in a row so getting a mortgage might have been tough, but like it was ’06, could anybody get a mortgage in ’06?

I didn’t know that.

Yeah, okay.

I just assumed that like you had to qualify for the mortgage with your money and down payment so I was not really sure how else to do that.

Yeah, looking back on that, maybe you did dodge a bullet not getting in in ‘06. You might have been paying for that for 10 years or so later.

Possibly, yeah.

So I guess let’s talk a little bit about this race car cooling suit. And so your buddy was into race cars and you felt that there was a need for this, and so what is the first step in like — I mean, you were first time business owner, it feels like a pretty large endeavor, you’re not starting a lawn care company, like that’s a pretty easy thing. How do you get into this?

Yeah. Well, we basically started by solving a problem, like he was into auto racing and there’s a product on the market called a Coolshirt and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it but it’s basically this cotton shirt and they have tubes sewn on top of it, and they still sell those today and there’s racecar drivers driving million-dollar race cars wearing a cotton shirt with plastic tubes sewn on it. And then they basically plug it into ice chests and the ice lasts about 30 minutes and then they’re just pumping hot water through that basically. So, somewhere along the way, we came up with the idea of using Peltier thermoelectric coolers to cool water instead of ice and making an ice-free system and I also had the idea of making a shirt that, instead of using tubes, used like molded Camelback bladders, so there was no pressure points and a lot more surface area. And that’s kind of how we started.

Okay. So the whole shirt was kind of like a Camelback and you just had cold water. You probably had it — did you have it plugged in? I gotta imagine.

Yeah. The primary product uses — you know those little like, if you have like an ice chest that you plug into the cigarette lighter, right?

Yeah.

They use this thing called a Peltier thermoelectric cooler. It’s this little bitty wafer, and when you run a DC current through it, one side gets hot and one side gets cold.

Okay.

So it’s a solid state cooling device. The problem is they’re very extremely inefficient, they use a ton of power, so we were developing prototypes constantly to try to cool the water using those devices and basically the shirt would plug into that. The shirt was amazing. I mean, it blew everybody away, but then we ran into new problems in that we were pulling so much more heat off the driver, we were overpowering the system. And like a race car, it was mostly sports cars, right? So it was like Mustangs, BMWs, Porsches, those were the Continental series that we were in, and they would do like a couple of warmup laps or a session, come back, park the car, and after five minutes, the bottom of the car is still like 150 degrees inside. The heat in there is just insane so it was like this never ending battle of trying to overcome heat.

Yeah, okay. So you discovered a problem, you’ve got a solution to that problem, and so like you had the idea but what was that prototype? Like how do you go ahead and just create that shirt? What is the first step? Do you have to go get a patent? Is your buddy the engineer and he’s kind of making everything happen?

Yeah, well, the shirt didn’t come first, the shirt came second. The first was the liquid cooler, which was the goal to replace ice chests and everybody would buy that. Little did I know that I was putting a lot of time and money into a market that didn’t have that very big of an audience. So that’s a very different business lesson but my partner volunteered to work the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, which is a 25-hour race in Northern California, north of Sacramento, and he met a guy there that was into racing and ended up being our first investor and, literally, without much effort, I raised like a quarter of a million dollars, just like that, because he had a lot of money, we got that chunk of money and then we used that for development and kind of there but we were never making enough money to quit our jobs so, basically, we ran this business on the side for about four or five years before it fizzled out.

Okay, okay, and so did you get this guy — this guy was an investor, did you give him a portion of the company? Was it an equity stake or was it a debt position?

It was equity.

Equity? Okay. Very cool. So you did this for four or five years. At the end of four or five years, what was your revenue at? Were you profitable?

Yeah. I knew very little about running businesses back then. Looking back, we were out of cycle. We were like trying to sell when in the wrong phase. We should have went slower, we should have done different things, but we did about 300,000, 350 in sales over a couple of years and we ran out of cash, in like 2012, we ran out of money. We had taken some debt addition. We said we needed more money and he’s like, “Okay, well, I’ll loan you money,” and we’re like, “We don’t wanna pay it back,” and he’s like, “I’ll never call them.” So we took notes and he gave a verbal agreement that he would never call. When the business ran out of money, we ended up getting into a deal with MOMO, these investors actually bought MOMO, that Italian racing company, so MOMO was purchased by investors in 2013 and we worked with them for about a year to acquire our intellectual property and basically turn it into MOMO driver cooling, which was a really great opportunity, a lot of interesting experiences in going through the transaction of a business. And after that, they literally just dropped the integration and let it fall and didn’t do anything so it basically fizzled out. And then the primary investor got divorced from his wife who made all the money and threw us under the bus in the divorce settlement and she came after us and we got sued.

Oh, my gosh. So was there any sort of exit for you that was successful? Did you make a dollar out of that exit?

No, no. I got sued and declared bankruptcy.

Oh, so you declared bankruptcy after your first business. Okay, so there are — obviously, someone, obviously, you were kind of green to running a business, you jumped right in, which I think is an amazing way to do it, why don’t you tell us some of the top two things that you learned that you would recommend to someone that’s just starting a business now to not do?

Number one, be very careful who you do business with. Share on X

Unfortunately, everybody seems to learn that lesson. Looking back, the money was coming too easy, we didn’t really get along. I don’t think that person is of the highest integrity so I’m not surprised that he went back on his word and I can see the divorce settlement like, “Here, go after these guys,” and he told us that he would never do that.

So, pay attention to who you’re doing business with but keep going. Keep going. Because what actually happened is when I started the second year in 986 in like 2010 is when I hired a Tony Robbins coach to help me and the Tony Robbins coach that I started on started to change my life and literally did and I think it was 2012, I had gone to Unleash the Power Within and I went to Date with Destiny and I was on a call and my coach said, asked me, “Have you ever thought about becoming a coach?” And at this time, I was like working a tech day job, I was doing 986 on the side trying to get through this thing and then also interested in coaching and basically he asked me that question and I felt like I got struck by lightning. It was like, bssh, and my life changed in that moment with that one question and I realized I’m going to become a coach. So, as I started to get more and more into coaching, interested in coaching, that was the end of 2012 but literally in early 2013, I got invited to Tony Robbins coach training program. So 986, the process led me into coaching and the interesting thing is, at the end, we get into this lawsuit and he and I, we don’t make a ton of money, we’re maybe each making 100 grand with families and we’re trying to survive and we’re getting sued by a rabid attorney who overbills, basically. Like our attorney, we had to file a motion for access of discovery requests.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Because he was billing by the hour and she wasn’t paying attention and he basically threw this frivolous lawsuit at us by looking at our expenses saying, “Oh, you’re going to airports and airfare and stuff,” I’m like, “Yes, we’re flying to racetracks in Florida constantly.” So, unfortunately, in lawsuits, it doesn’t matter who’s right, you have to defend yourself, so what actually happened is we needed to come up with money so he actually worked in channel marketing at his tech company. I was actually out of tech sales at that time in 2013, I was at Tony Robbins starting to coach, and what he did is he directed some of the channel marketing development funds to his reseller channel to do coaching workshops for me so I could deliver those workshops and we can get that money to pay our legal fees.

Wow. So Tony Robbins is helping you do this?

No, no, no, like I was working for Tony Robbins but I had my own coaching business on the side.

I see.

So I’m like, “Hey, sell my coaching business and we’ll use that,” and I would do these coaching workshops for these partners and then that money would pay and we’d use that and that’s actually how my coaching speaking business started.

Wow, what a genesis. I mean, it starts from almost like the failure and kind of the sputtering and the big — I mean, it was a cash suck for you guys. Like the lawsuit, how much did that end up costing you over the course of the few years that you were in it?

Well, it was like 30 grand and it was a lot of — and also, in that process when I’m in my office trying to be a Tony Robbins Peak State coach, I’m getting emails and texts from my attorney having panic attacks because I can barely pay anything and, at one point, we were on food assistance from the state,

and in that process is when I developed my belief change process which is the foundation of frame shifting. It happened as me processing the reaction to the lawsuit from the previous business failure. Share on X

Wow. Yeah. It’s funny how sometimes like you have to hit rock bottom to have clarity as to like where you’re going to go and that’s just kind of like you’re pulling that arrow back to rock bottom just to get launched. And now look at you.

Yeah.

And so I guess like talk to us about, you mentioned this frame shifting. What is frame shifting? What does that mean? And if somebody is in a rut, how can they get out of it using it?

So, we all know mindset is important, but mindset is hard to change. Like what is mindset? The simplest way to think about mindset is a point of view. It’s a perspective. And, Craig, you have points of view based on your life experience, so you grew up in where you grew up and you went to school where you went to school and you had the jobs and families and friends and that creates your mindset. And my mindset is different because mine is different from yours. Now, you operate, just like all of us do, within the confines of our mindset. Your brain is like a computer that is cataloging everything you’ve done prior to now so every step you take forward is basically compared to what you did and that’s why people do the same thing over and over again.

So, mindset is really the biggest limiting factor in what people do because most people just don’t think amazing, crazy, impossible things are possible so they end up playing at the same level over and over again. Share on X

Now, changing mindset is challenging. Tony Robbins figured out a way where you like make your move and you tap your face and you scream and you do stuff like that. I have figured out the level above mindset that creates mindset, which is called frame, and I believe it’s the vibrational frequency of us as a being, because our body is made of atoms, it’s pure energy, and when I discovered framing about two and a half years ago, I basically realized that you can shift frames in a second and the second you shift frame, the mindset shifts automatically. So mindset literally starts to become irrelevant so that as long as you align your frame with what you want, the mindset will show up. That’s why I’ve developed what’s called like alignment coaching compared to results coaching, because results-based coaching, when I was at Tony Robbins results-based coach, I talked to a new real estate investor, I say, “What are you doing?” and he’s like, “I’m struggling with money,” and I’m like, “What do you need to do?” he’s like, “I need to cold call,” I’m like, “Go cold call,” and he goes, “I don’t like to cold call,” I’m like, “Why?” he goes, “Because I don’t like rejection,” and I would say, “What kind of man are you?”

Yeah.

Put your hands, and I would crank the screws to force —

results coaching is forcing misaligned action and you get average results with that so what I figured out to do is instead of coaching on action, I coach people on their mental environment Share on X

because when you get the mental environment in a line, the action’s automatic and it works much better.

Okay, keep going with that, and so someone — this is so common in this business, especially if you’re a new investor and you’re looking for deals and you’re cold calling for sale by owners, you’re cold calling these listings, and the sellers are saying, “No, I don’t want to work with you,” etc., etc., it sucks, like I’ve gone through with, and so what do I do? What’s the different thing? Different approach?

So you’ve got like the action you take and that comes from the mindset, so action, mindset, your thoughts create your action and your frame creates your thoughts. So, for example, you can be in a happy frame, which will create a happy mindset and happy actions. You could also be in a sad frame, which creates sad thoughts and sad actions. You can be in a mindset of, “I’m gonna be successful in real estate investing because I’m not gonna stop until I do,” which will generate the aligned actions, or you can be operating in the version of, “I don’t know if it’ll work,” because what happens for most people is their focus is on what I’m going to call the micro level, which is the specific strategy they’re running right now, and because they are not 100 percent certain on how to hit the target, their lack of certainty at the micro level is seeping into their global level.

Yeah.

And what actually matters is the global level. So, what I do is I help people align the global frame and then the mindset at this level will just figure itself out.

I don’t think people talk about this frame. Mindset is such a buzzword, but you don’t hear this word “frame” very much at all. And I think, honestly, I’m just learning about it right now from you. And so, frame, it’s like a step deeper. That’s what it sounds like and so like —

It is, yeah.

— how do you recognize if I’m in a bad frame or if I’m in like a sad frame?

You feel it. You feel it.

Because your emotions are your indicators of alignment. Share on X

So if you’re feeling positive emotions, you’re in alignment. If you’re feeling negative emotions, you’re not in alignment. If you’re feeling flow, you’re in alignment. If you’re feeling resistance, you’re not.

Okay. And so how do you make that switch?

Switch of what?

How do I get switched — I keep having bad days, right? Woe is me. Negative alignment. It’s almost like, let’s say it’s a habit of mine to be negative. I think recognizing it is probably the first step, right? But, also, how do I get out of that mindset and get out of the habit of being in that mindset?

That’s a great question. Nobody I know is talking about frame shifting. I’m the first person I know talking about this. Because, basically, everybody’s living right here and I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, if you come up here, it’s different.” So, the first step to actually starting to make that, because changing mindset from the level of mindset is hard, right? Because the mindset, think about it like this, the mindset where you may be sad every day or frustrated is coming from a frame that’s misaligned so we’re trying to change the frame from the mindset level but that’s actually backwards because frame creates mindset, not the other way around. So, once you understand the foundation of this, you can then say, “Well, I’m feeling negative emotions every single day, I’m not feeling motivated, I’m in the wrong frame,” so instead of solving those emotions, you shift to a frame that is aligned, then that will generate the mindset automatically. And a big part of this is like there’s actually a framework that I’ve created on how to operate this way and hit impossible goals but the foundation is the basics, like you have to understand — when I’m talking to new people, I have to educate them on what this is before they can do it.

Right.

And right now, this conversation I’m having with you is already creating a frameshift in you because you’re starting to think a little bit differently about how life works.

Yeah. Well, I feel like I’m trying to take it that step up and I’m no longer thinking mindset, I’m thinking frame and it’s like, okay, sometimes over the holidays, a lot of depression happens and whatever and so, okay, how do I rewire to make that happen? And sometimes, for me, it’s like I’ll just go for a run or I’ll just get outside or I’ll just like pump some weight or whatever and I feel like that puts me in a better mood so would that be like an actionable item to frame shift or am I still thinking on a mindset level?

Well, there is an emotional reaction too. So, a lot of times what’s happening when people are having those patterns, they’re having triggers that are causing that so they’re literally having a reaction to life, for example. They’ll have a reaction to the present moment and a simple example is like if you’re in a relationship and you have a fight with your partner and you’re mad and pissed off, you’re probably not going to make the best decisions so you got to cool off. The same thing with your emotions, so if you are in reaction or you’re feeling frustrated or angry or sad or whatever, simply giving yourself space to process the emotions and the energy will get you out of reaction and then you can shift because if you are in emotional reaction, you can’t shift frames.

Right, right.

That’s why running is so good because you’re taking the time to process the energy.

Yeah, and I think stepping away from things that will distract you, like stepping away from your phone, like it’s hard to run and text. And I love to work out without music and I love to work out just like in my own head because, for me, that’s just like my meditative state. I’ll go for a run, lift weights and people I feel like look at me like I’m crazy because I don’t have these big headphones on but it’s just, I don’t know, I feel so good. And so, Jason, you’ve created a coaching business that is pretty much like, I feel like it’s top tier, it’s probably one of the most popular coaching businesses maybe outside of like Tony Robbins and all this, but especially within the real estate community and BiggerPockets, GoBundance. And so I want to go back a little bit and talk about that shift you had because like race car suits to coaching is like nothing is similar and so what got you into the coaching? So just because your coach said, but how do you even know to hire a coach? Where did that transition happen?

Well, I first started listening to Tony Robbins’s content in like 2002, 2003, I bought like Personal Power, listened to that, and then I’ve got a flyer and then I called in for a free session one day in 2010 and that’s what started coaching. And I liked coaching, I thought it was great. I went to a couple events. But then in that day in 2012, when he asked me if I’ve ever thought about becoming a coach, I was like, I literally felt like I got struck by lightning. I was like that’s what I’m supposed to do with my life.

Wow.

And it was the first time in my life I remember being excited to learn something.

Yeah.

I was like thinking I don’t care how long it takes, I’m going to become a coach.

Wow. And so —

Because I am — yeah, just like boom.

Did you have any sort of impostor syndrome? Because you kind of had a business that failed and now you’re going to become a coach and so, I mean, I think that’s a real thing.

Yeah, me? No, not really. I never really get impostor syndrome. That’s just my personality style. Part of the coaching process, you do have to deal, I guess there’s a little bit of impostor syndrome came up when I was learning how to coach, a couple calls where you’re like meeting them, going, “Oh, my god, what am I doing?”

Yeah.

But then I was, basically — well, life brought me, the two of us together and it’s going to work or it’s not so might as well give it all I’ve got.

Amazing, amazing. And so — but start about the inception of this coaching business because it sounds like you’re just doing it part time to start. What did it look like in the beginning? Because I think that’s the fun stuff, that’s when things are kind of sloppy and you got to be kind of scrappy and then, obviously, it grows.

Well, yeah, like so I started coaching in 2013 with Tony Robbins. I didn’t actually start getting clients ’til the end of that year and, at the same time, I was like let’s start my own coaching business so I basically was going to the Chamber of Commerce and networking to get clients.

Wow. People still go to that?

That’s kind of what people do, yeah. A lot of small businesses do. And that’s where I went to get clients and I worked there, so Jason Drees Coaching has actually existed for close to 10 years now and then I worked at Robbins and then I left Robbins in 2016 and took a job with one of my clients that lasted about three months and that didn’t work and then I started an outsourcing company in the Philippines after that.

Oh, wow.

And ran that for two years and then that didn’t work and then I had another job and then JDC took off.

Wow. So, really, it sounds like what happened is just like JDC was your passion project for like five years and you were doing these other kind of one-off jobs to just basically pay your bills. And so what happened? What was that inflection point? And why stay with it for — so you stayed with it ’cause you loved it is what it sounds like and so it wasn’t going to feel like work. Yeah.

I loved it, yeah, like I wanted to be a full-time coach, that was my goal but I’m like to be a full-time coach and make the money I want, I have to be a standout coach and I didn’t know how to do that. And it was like I didn’t want to go back to tech sales. It was like I’ll do whatever it takes and that’s why the whole outsourcing company started, which kept me afloat for a year and a half with income but it was just like bad direction. But I just didn’t want to go back to working for somebody else. That’s why.

I love that, yeah, and so 2016 happens and there’s a big inflection in your business. Let’s talk about that. What happened? It sounds like you struck gold.

Yeah, well, the big inflection was in 2019.

Okay.

I was working this — I forgot, I had a job that didn’t work, the outsourcing company stopped, was working with two partners to start this business coaching company called Excel Business Coaching, and in me and a salesperson were cold calling and doing webinars and social media full time and in six months, we didn’t close one coaching contract. And I’m literally like what is going on here? And that’s when I really like had the, “This business is over, I have to get a job, it’s putting too much stress on my family,” and I like cried, I’m like the dream is over, and then I hung up, went to bed, and then literally over the next month, referrals started coming out of nowhere. And I was like what just happened? Because I grinded as hard as I could for six months and it didn’t work but the second I quit, it starts flowing? And that was kind of the foundation of my search to understand what alignment was. Because when I was chasing that result so hard, I was actually really focused on it and wanting it and wanting is actually the lack of it.

So people could recognize that in your voice in the webinar and the body language you were doing.

So, if you’re in a place of wanting, you’re actually in the present frequency of not having it so that often turns into release of resistance when you quit because quitting is I don’t care, wanting is I want it but it’s not there so, basically, you’re saying, “I don’t have it, I don’t have it, I don’t have it,” “I don’t care,” is actually a better place to be than, “I don’t have it.”

Right.

And then it started flowing in and I was like, holy cow, wait a second. I just got four contracts.

Yeah. So is that because you sounded maybe desperate on your webinars? It’s hard to hide that, it’s hard to act out of that or paid ads, like, okay, like you need something and so if you need it real bad, it’s almost like, well, people’s kind of walls go up, right?

Yeah. What I really believe though is that life wanted my name on the door and the other company didn’t have my name, it was called Excel Business Coaching, it wasn’t called Jason Drees Coaching so Jason Drees Coaching was on the door, then it starts to work.

Okay. And so the referrals started picking up, right? And it’s funny —

Not yet, not yet. that was the middle of 2019. I had been coaching Brandon for a year and a half. I didn’t even know who he was.

Yeah.

And then the interesting thing is we would have these coaching calls and he’d be like, “Oh, well, we should do an Instagram Live,” I’m like, “Okay, great,” and he was my paying client so I wasn’t going to follow up to start marketing me and like it happened probably two or three times and I’m like, “Oh, he just doesn’t follow through.”

Yeah.

And then it was October 2019 and when I realized the reason he wasn’t following up with me is because I wasn’t a high enough financial mindset to work with him.

So explain that a little more. You just thought —

I don’t even know how I had these thoughts. Part of my process is I get these really interesting breakthroughs of my process but I realized that I needed to raise my financial frequency in order to work with him. My financial mindset wasn’t high enough, because I was living in financial scarcity and I was struggling to get out of financial scarcity and I found this book called Being You, Changing the World by Dain Heer. He has a study of what’s called Access Consciousness and within that is a belief change tool. My repeat after me’s are belief change tools so before I discovered that, I used his book and I did his financial mindset. He also has a book called Money Isn’t the Problem, You Are and he’s got these money exercises or questions. I forgot what they were, but I did those every day for like three weeks. And then the next week, we have a coaching call, Brandon, late October 2019, we have a coaching call. At the end of the call, he’s like, “We should do an Instagram Live,” I’m like, “Yep.” I wasn’t expecting anything. The next day, his assistant calls me up and scheduled it.

Wow.

And then we did the Instagram Live in the middle of November and then literally I started getting five clients a month.

Wow. Yeah.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And then it just trickles from there, right? Once you’ve got that big enough referrals, just like in real estate too, like once you’ve got enough clients, it ends up just being — and you do a good job, like my dad, he was a chef right now, blue collar guy, cooked really, really good food, and they had a really successful catering company and, basically, he says good food will always prevail, and so good service will always prevail. A good product will always prevail because referrals are the best source of lead generation. And you did six months of cold calls and webinars and all that and you didn’t net one client but now they’re just flowing in. And so, obviously, I think it’s funny, like I always make this joke that whatever Brandon touches turns to gold and I think there’s some truth in that. And so you’re getting these referrals come in and then it was just snowball from there. You got on BiggerPockets, you got in the GoBundance community.

Yeah, then I was on a BiggerPockets podcast and that was August of 2020 and prior to that, Jason Drees Coaching was just me and I had just started to get the part where it was like — I think I was looking at an assistant to help me because I couldn’t do it but, basically, prior to that, it was just me and I was doing maybe 15 to 20 introductory coaching sessions a month. The next month after the podcast, we had 192 intro sessions booked.

Wow.

So Jason Drees Coaching went from just me to me and three coaches and operations and sales within two months.

Wow. And so how do you scale that quick and how do you — like there must have been some growing pains there. There must have — yeah.

However you can, because Jason Drees Coaching in 2019 did 100K, and in 2020, we did a million, and 70 percent of that was in Q4.

Wow.

So I actually had people reach out to me, they’re like, “Jason, you don’t look so good,” because the big bags under my eyes during Q4.

Yeah.

It was like so amazing. I’m just like, Don’t screw it up. Don’t screw it up. Don’t screw it up.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just handled however I could because that’s also when we launched the Mindset Academy so we basically just exploded into — went from like 50 to 150, 200 clients in like 60 days.

Wow, that’s incredible. You got to love that. And so what does it take to like hire coaches? Because there must be something like you know, like you’ve been coaching for 10 years, now, you’re going to hire a coach that maybe has some experience but not nearly as much as you and so was there a worry of that you were lacking quality as you scaled or anything like that?

There was, because my option was I can put out a little velvet rope and say, “You want to coach me, that’s how much it costs or I can get other coaches,” and I knew that there were no other coaches. Nobody was coaching at the level I was. So I brought on coaches that I knew could coach. I knew they’re highly skilled, I knew they could deliver quality coaching, even if it doesn’t match everything I did. And over the past two years has been the process of trying to figure out how to teach what I do because I’ve got at a level of proficiency that I don’t even know what I’m doing and it’s a paradigm shift. So, a lot of the early on coaches at JDC clients were getting Tony Robbins coaching experiences because that’s where all the coaches came from. So that’s why we’ve been evolving the content and that’s why I created Mindset Academy to kind of push that out. We have the DTI framework now, the principles so that’s been the challenge is like how do we get that in there because it’s literally operating at a higher level of consciousness.

Yeah, love that. Tell us what’s this Mindset Academy that you’re talking about? Is that — yeah.

The Mindset Academy is a group coaching program. It’s a group coaching program. So Jason Drees Coaching does one-on-one coaching where you can talk with a coach a few times a month and then group coaching is like a one-to-many program where we deliver structured content to kind of put the fundamentals in place.

I see. This is me just — I’m assuming here that the Mindset Academy is probably a smaller buy in so if the thousands of dollars a month is maybe too much for you at this time, you start there and then eventually you work your way up to that one-on-one coaching because it is true, I think everybody needs a coach. Like they say, like Tiger Woods is the best golfer — well, I guess maybe not anymore, but he was the best golfer in the world at one point and he still had a coach, right? Because there’s always some mechanics that you can keep improving.

Absolutely.

And so, Jason, man, you’ve built a machine, you’ve built kind of like an empire here of coaching, what’s next for you?

What’s next? Next is like not killing myself.

No more bags under your eyes, man. Get your eight hours, yeah.

Yeah, like ’cause last year was like — so, you know, basically, what happened, in 2019, I could — 2020, actually, 2021, it didn’t matter what I did, we just grew. So much business came in. 2020 was a different animal. And it was an interesting problem because Jason Drees Coaching had gotten 95 percent of our business out of referral and then when that slowed down, we need to figure out our own leads generation and stuff like that so that’s why we’ve had a big shift in that. So, really, my goals right now is to get myself into a place of alignment so I’m living and balanced how I want to be because it hasn’t been the past year.

Yeah, and so what are some of those ways that you’re kind of — if the referrals start drying up, like what is your secondary source of lead gen? Because that’s a good point.

Yeah, well, we didn’t know what the funnel was and trying to figure out the funnel was a hard time because it was something I struggled with even in my old coaching business, I struggled with that, when it was just me, but I finally figured out that you got to do a podcast so I started to do the Impossible Podcast, it’s been running three months now, we’re up to episode 30, then we’re doing the Monday Mindset Reset Call, which is a free 20-minute call every Monday so we’ve got now a formula of what the business needs to operate and how I need to operate in the business. Because for the first two years, I’m like I don’t know what to do.

Right, right.

And now, I’m like, oh, my God, so I would advise anybody, funnels matter, right? Funnels matter, and put the foundation in place because, right now, I’m going through a little bit of the basics of how to run the business because it was so easy to run it before, it didn’t matter what I did.

Right, yeah.

So it’s like analyzing the numbers isn’t my great thing, my strength, but I need to learn how to do that.

Yeah. It’s funny, you know, we’re kind of running through the same thing, where it’s like I did over 100 deals my first year as a real estate agent, and I did that because I wrote for two years on the BiggerPockets blog for free and then wrote the house hacking book, that gave me the reputation of like, “Oh, hey, this guy probably knows a thing or two about house hacking, about real estate investing. He can coach, guide, and mentor me through the process.” Now the team is starting to grow, and those leads, I mean, they’re still good but as the team grows, you need to keep funneling leads to them and so now we’re like, oh, crap, we need to open up a new source. So if all your leads — if you’re doing a business and all of your leads and all of your clients are coming from one source, you got to diversify. If that source dries up, you’re screwed. And so that’s something that people don’t really see and I think, I don’t know, maybe we’re both going through the same pains but it’s incredible, and what you’re building here, it just makes sense. You’re adding value in a free way with the podcast. Again, getting them to your Monday Mindset Recalls, which is also free and I suspect on those calls, you’re like, “Oh, hey, if you want more of this at a deeper level, go into the Mindset Academy,” and then they graduate into your coaching and so that, again, it’s a beautiful funnel and that’s how you think of business.

Yeah. And it took me two years to figure that out. Yeah, I really did.

Yeah.

And the other thing about lead generation, I had a big breakthrough about lead generation and I realized that the reason Brandon is so amazing at it is because he’s amazing at communicating with his audience and

that’s all really lead generation is, it’s talking to your audience. Share on X

I’ve had that breakthrough last month so one of my focuses right now and the path that I literally created a new lightning bolt moment, like I’m consciously choosing one, like this new path I’m walking is to master communication with my audience, because if I can master audience communication like Brandon, I’ll never worry about money again.

Yeah, it’s true, being relatable, not being too uptight and sticky. Brandon, I feel like everyone is friends with him and it’s just because like he is just that likable and that good. He’s a great role model to model business after. All right, Jason, we are coming down to the final part of the show but before we get there, I want to ask you if you have any parting words of wisdom for the listeners?

I would say go after — start your own business. I’ve been exposed to probably a thousand small business owners in my career over the past 15 to 20 years and the only difference between the ones that have started a business and the ones that haven’t is they started a business.

So start a business, take action, and just stick to it, and if it doesn’t work, pivot and keep going. Share on X

Yeah, and it could pivot from racecar cooling suits to coaching, right? You never know how the pivots happen but you just have to pursue the opportunities to unlock more opportunities. Okay.

100 percent.

All right, now it is time for the…

The Final Four.

This is way less fun doing that without Z here. All right, Jason, what is the book you’re reading right now and do you like it?

I’m actually not reading any books right now.

You’re not reading any books right now. It’s January, man, you didn’t have a New Year’s resolution to read more?

I don’t read a lot of books, no.

Okay. What’s your favorite book?

Let’s see. Probably The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho.

Okay, that’s a good one.

I love that book. Also Untethered Soul by Michael singer is really good. Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Those were the books that kind of set my consciousness free.

Okay, love that. Jason, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I think the best piece of advice I’m telling right now is

be careful who you do business with. Who you surround yourself with matters. Share on X

And follow your gut because you know if that person is the right person to be around and you also know the right way. I’ve kind of passed all the advice I’ve gotten.

Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, honestly, being able to discern the good people from the bad people is probably the most valuable skill in business that you can have. Okay, third question, what is your why?

My why. I don’t really have a why, like why do I do what I do?

Like what’s get you up in the morning?

It’s really about — what’s that? What gets me up in the morning? I love exploring what’s possible, like I love seeing what’s possible. I haven’t really set goals but I just love to see what’s possible. That’s why I wrote a book on doing the impossible because I just love pushing the capacity of growth and expansion so that’s really my why, growth and expansion.

Like the David Goggins of business. David Goggins tests his physical body to see how far he can go. you test your business body, their mindset, yes, see how far that can go. All right, Jason, so last semi-serious question. If you’re arrested with no explanation, what would your friends and family assume that you had done?

I don’t know. The thing that popped into my head was bank fraud, I don’t know why. I don’t know if that’s actually the case but what would they say? Maybe driving my new side-by-side illegally, I don’t know, something like that.

Yeah, off-roading too much.

Off-roading on my illegal, unlicensed vehicle on the street.

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Cool, Jason. So where can people find out more about you if they wanted to do the Mindset Academy or join your weekly calls? How might somebody want to do that?

The easiest way is go to mondaymindsetreset.com. If you go there, you can sign up for my link for the Monday call. You can also find me on the Do the Impossible Podcast, that’s probably a good place to listen to.

Awesome. Yeah, definitely check out his podcast, Do the Impossible. Mondaymindsetreset.com, is that what you said?

That’s right.

Okay.

Yep, mondaymindsetreset.com.

Awesome. Definitely go check out Jason’s stuff. He’s one of a kind. Any last words before we head out for the evening?

Don’t stop, keep going.

Don’t stop, keep going. Love it.

Just keep going.

Awesome, Jason. Thanks so much for coming on the show. This was such an enlightening episode and, definitely, I wouldn’t say a mindset shift but a frame shift, which is not something you hear every day. So, Jason, thanks again so much for coming on, man. It was a pleasure having you. We’ll be in touch. We’ll talk soon.

All right, take care.

—

And that was Jason Drees. Man, that dude is a wealth of knowledge. You can tell that he’s like a derivation of Tony Robbins, right? He talks a lot about psychology and consciousness and how just being aware of how the mind works and being able to not just shift your mindset but totally shift your frame. And that concept of frame shifting, again, it’s something I’ve never heard of before and so I was learning, legitimately learning on this call with Jason because the frame happens before the mindset and so if you shift your frame, then your mindset shifts and your emotions shift and your actions shift and then you kind of change your life. And so there’s a lot to uncover here, much more than you could in the 45 minutes to an hour that we have, but if you haven’t already, sign up for Jason’s Mindset Academy, sign up for — just go take a listen to his podcast and see if you might like it.

And if you ever find yourself in a rut, if things feel boring to you, if they feel heavy, you don’t want to make those cold calls, you don’t want to make that Instagram post, you don’t want to screen those tenants or do your due diligence, call that prior landlord to actually do the diligence on the tenant, make sure you do that stuff and shift your mindset. I think that’s so important, and I just love to hear his stories of failure, how his first business literally almost went bankrupt, he got sued, and then started coaching as a failed business person and that took almost 10 years before really taking off, he started coaching 2010, 2019 is when it really started taking off so there’s a persistence factor there too, like if you keep pushing at something, the only way that you fail is if you quit. He never quit and now he’s got one of the bigger coaching companies out there.

So, a lot to take from this episode, guys. If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends, share it with your family. Please leave us a rating and review on iTunes, it helps us so much to grow the show and we just love, love seeing your feedback.

If you haven’t already added me on Instagram, I’m at @thefiguy, Zeona is at @zeonamcintyre, and we look forward to seeing you there. All right, guys, we’ll talk to you all next week.

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Tagged coaching, frame shifting, Mindset, real estate investors