Jimmy Farris

Jimmy Farris  00:00

Pull up on YouTube, you know, the origin stories of Apple, Amazon, Tesla, any of these massive companies, and listen to the founders, and they’re going to tell you like, Oh, I was completely obsessed with X, whatever the you know, whatever they were, their specific obsession was. And I grinded and I worked, and it was the only thing I thought about. I was working 20 hours a day, and that’s how I built this thing. Now I’m not telling people like, yeah, if you got a dream or a goal and you’re not working 20 hours a day and not sleeping, then you’re not going to get there. What I’m saying is, is that there has to be some level of obsession around what you’re doing. And so then people say, Well, what does that look like? Obsession looks like relentlessly seeking wisdom and mentors as an example, who are the people that you have access to that are doing what you’re trying to do at a really high level that you can either get them as an actual mentor or as a virtual mentor, just like I talked about with tone guys like Tony and Brendan. When I was a rookie with the 40 Niners, I had the best wide receiver in the world three lockers down for me, a guy named Terrell Owens and so when I realized I got to get better quickly, I attached myself at his hip, and I did everything to did to the best of my ability. When he whatever he was eating at lunch, I ate if he got in the cold tub. I was in the cold tub. If he was stretching, I stretched if he was lifting, this certain lift in the weight room. I did it because, as Jim Rohn, you know, famously, said, Success leaves clues, right? So these people that are having success doing what you’re dreaming of doing, they’ve got some stuff figured out, and they’re doing things that are leading them to that level of success. And you can figure out what those things are, implement them into your game and what you’re doing and get significantly further down the road. So it’s things like that, like, are you modeling? Are you? Are you modeling excellence? Are you seeking that? Hi, I’m Jason,

Nicole  02:12

I’m Fran. This is Bill Peter, and I’m Nicole, and this is marketing for what matters, where we explore how marketing paired with a regenerative mindset can uplift humanity, heal the planet and still achieve profitable business growth.

Jason Miller  02:23

Yo, what’s up? What’s going on? Everybody? This is JAM at Peaceful Media. Welcome to marketing for what matters. I have one of the most spontaneous, ad hoc episodes we’ve ever produced. I was literally out on a walk wrapping up my my work week here and chatting with a dear, dear friend of mine, one of my closest friends, who is on the the pod with me today, Jimmy Farris, uh, Jimmy, what’s up? What’s up? Brother, literally, he goes, I go, Hey, bro, we’re an hour into our conversation, and about the last hour has been stuff that I would love to share on marketing for what matters, because you’ve lived a journey that so many of our audience will want to go on to, and you’ve kind of lived the hero’s journey of thought leader. And I want to, I want to tell that story to as many people who are trying to positively make a difference in the world, trying to uplift humanity, trying to heal the planet, and in hopes that it’ll give them courage and some framework for developing their own voice and their own platform, and hopefully, at the end of the day, sustenance, right? The thing that keeps the whole thing sustainable, which is a productive and thriving business. And so we’re going to share some of that story today, but first I have to explain we are in we are in good company here. So my boy over here, we went to football to get we played football together. We played a University of Montana, just a couple little scrawny kids. Jimmy wasn’t that scrawny. He was yoked, to be honest. But a couple little scrawny kids running around in the dorms there at University of Montana, trying to figure life out, trying to get out, trying to figure out our way onto the football field. And Jimmy and I just we still tell stories to this day. We still laugh till we’re crying, just regaling the stories of a freshman year at the University of Montana. And what’s cool about it is he demonstrated throughout that career and throughout the career that preceded that, the things that make anybody who’s building a business thrive make it’s a mindset. It’s a mindset of all of it, right, the principles from which you live your life and build your business that make it successful. And so I’ve seen that trajectory. I’ve seen him go from one career to the next and just everywhere he goes, he thrives and succeeds. And so my hope is that you’ll hear something today that’ll inspire you to know. It’s possible. It’s going to take some work, but it’s possible, and to sort of remember that, you know, everybody once sat in your shoes, or in some cases, sat on the couch looking at YouTubes and wondering, how can I one day build a business that I love, that gets me out of the bed thrilled to do because I know I’m making a positive impact in the world. And Jimmy Farris, my man, you’re, you’re the person to tell that story. Welcome, man.

Jimmy Farris  05:29

Thank you so much for that. Yeah, I, I wanted to interject so many times along along the way there, just to back up some of the things you were saying. I think, you know those years that we spent over in aber Hall, or that first year for sure, and then those subsequent years at University of Montana, so many of the conversations that you and I had at the time, you know now, in retrospect, those were such formative growth years and the conversations that we were having, Even though at the time we didn’t really know what we were talking about we were we were espousing a lot of the ideas and beliefs and principles and habits and practices that I think we’ve both continued to implement to find success in, you know, in multiple different arenas, different careers. And so it’s always so fulfilling to me to get to chat with you and reminisce on some of that stuff, and then make those connections, you know, in terms of how those things are still big pieces of our lives now, you know, in our 40s,

Jason Miller  06:34

yeah, yeah. Man, shoot, we sometimes we’re even getting them tatted. Some of the things that we were practicing back then, we were getting tatted on our arms, tatted on our bodies, 100% so the space that I work in peaceful media has mostly been made a name of working with thought leaders. And that name fill in the blank there. That name has changed throughout my career, my 17 years of doing this, but back in the day, it used to be one of two things, right, speakers and authors, right? And that was basically the way that you would use what you know inside your brain, inside your heart, to go and positively impact society. You get booked to go travel to a stage. You get up there share your thing. This is pre internet, of course, or you would write down your ideas and try to sell them as as books, right? And then Brendan Burchard comes on the scene, and a bunch of other people that we’ve crossed paths with, and, you know, they renamed it now, you know, then it became experts. You’re not just a thought leader in the traditional sense. You’re not just an author or speaker in the traditional sense. You are an expert in your field. And he you know, Brendan was a genius at capturing that genie in the bottle and saying, This is how you turn all of what you know into a viable business. And now it’s like shifted to influencer and all this stuff. But I, I keep coming back to, you’re a thought leader, you know, and and I have a filter here at peaceful media that it’s thought leaders who are trying to make a positive difference. But I, I was as I was shoveling, uh, bark dust out in my front yard, thinking about this, this episode, in the 15 minutes prior, I was wondering, Jenny, what are some of the most prominent thought leaders who have made a difference in your life? And I think that’ll set the table for some of our conversation today.

Jimmy Farris  08:32

Man, great question. So like so many people probably listening, people in this space, or people that have ever really embarked on a personal development self help type journey. The guy that that started it all for me is Tony Robbins. I remember sometime back in oh seven or oh eight, my mom randomly sent me this little packet of Tony Robbins CDs, and she said, these got mailed to the house. I assumed they were probably for you. You’d ordered them and they just sent to the wrong address or whatever. So I figured they were yours. So she sent them to me, and I was like, I didn’t order these and but I was like, you know, at that time, this is pre YouTube being what it is, you know, I think like, oh 607, I started to mess around just watching YouTube videos. And so I wasn’t really in that space at all. I was on the tail end of my football career, kind of thinking about what’s next. And I popped in these Tony Robbins CDs and started thinking, loving what I was hearing, and it, you know, what he was talking about, just really gripped my curiosity about what I could potentially do, because a lot of things he was saying were things that I’d thought for a long time I just had never labeled. Them as a thing or or define them, or articulated them the way that he did. And so that really got my wheels turning about, you know, at the time, I was like, maybe I’ll be a motivational speaker when I’m done playing, right? So I think for a long time it was, it was Tony, and then I started to see things here and there of Brendan, certainly. And then in the years since, it’s been more like podcast people like Tom bill you with Impact Theory. I love Simon Sinek. I think, you know, just hearing some of the content that he puts out has really, he’s really been somebody that I’ve I’ve been like, Man, I really, really resonate with his core ideas around leadership. And so it’s, you know, definitely Tony and Brendan. And then throw in six, 812, other podcasters, people that are just, you know, in the space putting out long form content that there’s just so many nuggets that I’ll pull from those different people. And so I think that would probably be my, my crew, so to speak, of people that that really resonate with that got me really going in the industry. Yeah,

Jason Miller  11:19

so perfect. So I want to our lives have intersected since we met each other in college, and I want to sort of use that timeline, that linear path that we’ve been on, intersecting here and there and finding so much juice in our reconnection, as the sort of soundtrack to this episode. So let’s take it back to we’re not going to tell the stories of our professors or some of our dorm mates or anything like that, because we’ve done that before, but, but I would like to just comment on something I noticed in you that we were speaking to a little bit earlier today, and that is the conviction you had and the belief you had in yourself, that that I don’t think anybody else had, unless they were a junior or senior returning starter. You had the five year veteran swagger and self belief that that usually has to be completely earned on the field. And what I noticed is that it propelled you into places and spaces and in a career trajectory that most people don’t even get a chance to entertain, you know, let alone live a fulfilled version. So I want to cut to the chase a little bit and just explain to people you’re a Super Bowl champion. You are. You are a wide receiver out of the state of Idaho, playing in one double A football. You know, most people don’t see it on TV. And playing for this, it was a good school, no doubt about it, but at that level, but certainly no Florida State or Clemson or Georgia or anything like that, right? So here we are, and, and, and yet you were able to climb, climb, climb, rapidly, climb to all American and then ultimately go on to play in the league alongside the likes of Tom Brady and and so many, so many other legends of of the sport, and earn yourself a Super Bowl, ring, catch touchdown passes, etcetera, etcetera. And so, man, could you explain how someone who made like me, who’s not raised with growth mindset, who’s not raised with Tony Robbins tapes, who frankly, was told to be as pragmatic as possible throughout my childhood, what would you say to someone who’s got that kernel of desire to go and positively use their gifts to impact the world. What would you say to them to help them drum up that growth mindset and self belief?

Jimmy Farris  14:10

This is always an interesting one for me, because it’s the most simple, basic thing that we’ve all heard that is so cliche now that I think a lot of people dismiss it and don’t give it the proper weight that it deserves, is the the things that we consistently say to ourselves shape our beliefs about what’s possible. And so I can go all the way back to being in fifth and sixth grade playing flag football. I and I can’t trace where this idea or mindset came from, but I always, and to this day, still operate with this idea that whatever the best possible outcome for anything. Is that’s what will happen for me. I have this ridiculous, delusional optimism that everything always works out the best possible way that it could for me, and so anything that I endeavor to do, if I do my part and put in the work study, do what’s required, that the right doors will open and I’ll be the guy standing there ready to walk through it. Now, whether that’s true or not, who knows, right? But one of the things that Tony Robbins used to say all the time, and I, you know, I didn’t hear him say this until I was in my 30s, but he I certainly resonates with me now. He says, you know, you don’t experience life or reality. You experience the life or the reality that you focus on. And so because my focus has always been that good things happen to me, and things always work out for the best for me, that’s the life that I’ve experienced, and that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had hardship and up and downs and, you know, cried myself to sleep at times because things didn’t work out. I went through a massive identity crisis when I left the NFL, all of these things that that we can get into, um, but I think that core belief that everything always works out the best possible way that it could for me, and repeatedly telling myself that and a multitude of other things just around positive self talk to me, there’s no bigger game changer that can take someone from whatever current state they’re in, mentally, emotionally, whatever position they’re in, financially, professionally, that can propel you to wherever you want to go. You can literally convince your brain that you are experiencing the life that you want and that you choose, and you know again, to get kind of deep into some NLP stuff, you pound that stuff into your subconscious, and your subconscious has no choice but to believe it. And once it believes that that’s true, then it starts to create actions and behaviors that are congruent with the dream that you’re espousing or telling it is true. And then things start to happen, and connections start to be made, and things start to pop up, and doors start to open, and people come into your lives, and you meet people, and it just that type of synergy is really what gets you from where you are to where you want to go, you know, to put that simply,

Jason Miller  17:33

right? So a few anecdotes here to illustrate this point. We’re running. We’re lining up to run 40s. You know, you know what I’m getting at. Yeah, we’re lining up to run 40s. And all of us, you know, young, young freshmen, are like, shoot, you know, this is the first time I’ve ever, for me, at least the first time I’ve ever even been clocked enough for you. I hope I do well, etc, etc. There’s, there’s some cats on the team that got some scholarships, more scholarship than than we did. Yeah, both of us and and you were told, Well, the reason why you didn’t get the full ride, Buddy is because, you know, you just, you haven’t shown us the speed on tape. And you’re like, I alright. And so you line up. I don’t know if we were like side by side with, you know, a fellow teammates, but regardless, you lined up, looked here, looked at our head coach, dead and eyes, and said, Watch this coach and tell, tell what you said at the tail end.

Jimmy Farris  18:34

So, so just a little bit of context on that. There was a there was a receiver on our team that they’d given a full scholarship to who was from the state of Montana, who was the defending state 102 100 meter champion. And they were really high on him, because he was one of the fastest guys in the state, now supposed to be one of the fastest guys on the team. And when the head coach recruited me. He told me, like, like you said, we just don’t think you have the speed and explosion to be a difference maker on our level. Think you’re a great player all these things. But well, they ended up giving me some money, and I signed and ended up over there. And so when we were running 40s, if you remember, we were in in two lines. Remember, they had us run two at a time to kind of race somebody. And thought, so, yeah, yeah. I was three or four back, and I saw this kid up about ready to go. And I was like, let me, let me take this shot right now and go head to head with him. And just, you know, I think I’m fast. I think I’m Let me see. Let’s, let’s see. And so I hopped up and kind of challenged him in that in that race, and beat him. And then I, I, I walked by MC Dennehy, the head coach, and I said, Coach, you think I’m fast enough now? So will that? Will that, will that work? And and he luckily, luckily for me at the time, you know? Yeah, he, he knew what I was referring to. And he. Kind of smiled. He kind of, you know, he was humorous about it, and he said, Yeah, that’ll work,

Jason Miller  20:04

yeah. So I say that, yeah, not to, like, put you up on some sort of ego pedestal, but just to say that, you know, you, you, most people don’t even walk up to that, that starting line, right? That’s that would be me like, I would be like, oh, shoot, man. These guys are real fast. And, you know, I ended up running a really fast time too, but I never had that belief going at it propelling me ahead, right? Sure. And so, like you so, so many people feel like, when you don’t have that belief that you’re going to be in the best place possible as a result of the work you’re doing. They don’t do the work because that work is fruitless, that that it’s a waste of time in that sense, right? Like, if you just don’t believe it’s gonna ever materialize it into anything you ever want, then why do it? Well, here’s let

Jimmy Farris  20:59

me, let me interject real quick. So because you’re making a great point that I think needs, we need to drill down on. Most people start with the work. They start at action, right? It’s like, okay, I want to get a result. I want to start this bit or do whatever. And so then they look up, okay, what are the actions that I need to take to make that happen? Fair enough? Right? Action is you got to take action, yeah, but you can take massive action. But if you don’t have belief around your ability, your potential, you can take massive action and still not get the result, and when you take massive action, you don’t get the result. What does that do to your belief now you’re now right takes a hit because you’re like, Well, shit, I just took the action, didn’t get the result. Maybe this doesn’t work. Maybe I don’t have it. Maybe I’m not good enough. I worked with this guy a couple years ago who was a multi millionaire from Cutco and vivid home security systems. Okay? And he, when he started working with me, he was in a phase where he was like, Man, I just don’t have the passion, the joy, the love. Said, I’m still knocking on the doors, but I just don’t have it, right? And what he was doing was he was going out and knocking doors, and essentially doing some version of knocking on door, and saying, Hey, you wouldn’t want to buy a home security system, would you? People are like, No, all right, thanks, right? And then so you could do that, you could knock on 100 doors, which is a lot, that’s massive action, and come with that energy, that level of enthusiasm, that level of certainty, that level of belief, and get no result. So the reason I say all that is is to kind of back up what you just said, which is it starts with the belief and the certainty that you’re doing the right thing, that you are capable, that you can do it. Because when you have that kind of belief, you tap all of your potential. And so then the action that you take is now taken with your full potential, full enthusiasm, full engagement, full passion, full drive, that type of action produces results, right? And so when you get in that cycle, and people are wondering, okay, how do you create that positive momentum? How do you keep it going? Or, if you don’t have it, how do you kick start it? It always starts with the belief, not the action. You can take action without belief, and you will not get the result.

Jason Miller  23:42

And so I’m imagining it’s that belief that inspired you to pop into the field house when the lights were all off and the doors were locked. And I think you If correct me if I’m wrong. You asked somebody that worked at The Field House, which is basically our internal like workout space at University of Montana, I believe you asked somebody to leave some windows cracked.

Jimmy Farris  24:10

So what I did was I I found this door. This was before they renovated. You probably remember that that back door that that up some stairs led to the concourse of the stadium right there, remember, and nobody used that door. I mean, it was just, you know, it was locked, but nobody ever used it. And so what I did was I, I used to check on it every day, and I had put a, I got some tape from the training room and put some tape over the little latch so that it looked like it was closed, but the latch wasn’t, you know, how the door, so I could open it, essentially. And, yeah, I used to go in there, you know, sometimes 839, o’clock at night, because we, you know, you remember what we were doing. We were ready. Shooting. It was, you know, meetings, and then practice, practice. Get over at 536, and then we’d go to dinner, and then we had study hall. And so there was no time to really get any extra work in. And so, you know, in that winter period leading up to us running those 40s, yeah, I was using that that door to get that extra work in, you know, kind of in private, in the dark, so to speak, when nobody was watching, and and again, you know, to the point you made earlier, if I didn’t believe, yep, that I could get faster, I wouldn’t have done the work. So the fact that I that I had so much certainty around the fact that doing these drills and running these sprints would create a better result. I did those workouts tapping every single ounce of my potential. So I was taking massive action, but but full full of passion, full of dedication, full of desire and drive, and it produced the result which then did what strengthened my belief in what I was doing. And so, you know, you get in that positive feedback loop like that, and, you know, again, self perpetuating, yeah, and I’m just, you know, the only word I can think of is, is I’m just thankful and fortunate because I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time. Like I didn’t know it consciously, the way that that I was, that I just broke it down. Now I know I just was like, I gotta work hard, I gotta do extra work. I gotta get ahead, and so I’m gonna go do this. But it’s only now, looking back on it that, I mean, you know that I was full of belief and certainty. It was like, There’s no way that this isn’t happening. For me, it’s gonna happen. I’m just gonna make sure I do the work so that I’ve got no excuse.

Jason Miller  26:50

Yeah, so I’m gonna I’m a non linear thinker, as you probably very realized, so I’m gonna skip way ahead to where you are today. You’re coaching, you’re speaking, you’re getting paid a bunch of money to do keynotes. You’re working with leadership teams in nearly fortune 100 companies, and it sounds like millionaires and very successful people as well, and but in between. So we’re going to get there right that’s the big stage, and you’re circling back around to have the conversations around what’s my next and how do I upload this even more so that can impact more people. But in between there and where we just told the story, at University of Montana, you had obviously a very successful career at Montana, like I said, it took us to the national championship. It was just an amazing ride watching you there and and then you go off to the NFL, and we intersect. There some fun anecdotes of me coming down to training camp and couch surfing while you’re in training camp with the 40 Niners, so that I can go explore my, my next in my, my career. And so then you go off and you have a great career in the NFL. I believe seven, eight years, right? Yes,

Jimmy Farris  28:12

yeah, six years, yep, six years. And

Jason Miller  28:15

you 40 Niners, patriots, falcons. I believe Redskins, so I think you had a TD, a tub with the Redskins, if not mistaken, yeah, and, and then you come out of, I’m just skipping right ahead, because that’s that’s all the payoff from the work you did and the self belief you had, and to the point where now you’re, you’re in a nice pad, driving a nice car, going to the gym boxing, kind of have a life of of, you know, some luxury and some freedom and lots of idle time, and you’re reading a bunch, and you’re kind of thinking about what your next is. And I think you get into a space of like, man, like you talked, you talked about earlier, a little bit of an identity crisis, and a little bit of like, is this it? What? What is my gift? How can I contribute to society, and how can I can make a difference in people’s lives? And I know, as I know I love boxing, and I love all this stuff that I’m I’m doing to fill my my brain and my heart, but it’s not it. I’m sure of that and that’s about the time that we reconnected on a deep level and started talking about you as a thought leader, just to circle back, and this was a correct me, if I’m wrong, Jimmy, it was a, it was just like a, not even a fully fledged seed. I mean, it was like, I’m reading a bunch of books. I am doing some coaching programs for myself, and I feel like I can do that for other people, right? I’m seeing people come up on on Instagram. I’m watching your your client. There, your homeboy, Brendon Burchard. He’s pretty motivational. I feel like I can do that. You. And so talk to me, Jason, how do you how do you build up a platform? How do you build up a personal name brand? And you joined one of our programs, right? You joined one of our programs. We started a little podcast together, watching helping like you, sort of dial in a few things with that thought leadership business, and you ran up against some resistance. So I’d like to just jump to that part of the story and talk about what, what was, what was that whole seed like? Because that’s exactly where people are at, yes,

Jimmy Farris  30:29

yeah. So there’s a lot there. I’ll try to touch on a lot of things quickly here. Post NFL, I hit probably the lowest of lows, the identity crisis. Who am I if I’m not a pro football player, if I’m not an athlete? Yeah, I mean, what’s my value to the world? What could I offer? Did I just waste the last 10 years of my life? You know, I was 31 when I retired, no resume, no work experience. How am I going to make any money? I didn’t make enough money playing football to just, you know, live as a millionaire the rest of my life. I was enjoying life, but it was only, it was only for me. You know, I was doing things that I enjoyed, but just like my NFL career, I was the only one benefiting or getting any joy out of the things that I was doing right and I and I started to really feel this pull, like I want to do something that that there’s some impact on the world. And big or small, somebody’s life is better. Something in the world is better because I was here and because I endeavored to do these things. And, you know, I was really at a low place because I knew I wanted to do that, but I had lost some of the belief that any of that could happen for me, I saw other people doing it, you know, again, I started to see Brendan and, you know, I was watching Tony and all these type of things. And I started to think, man, I think I could do that. In fact, I know I could do that, but I’m not sure that I could actually get there, that it would, that it would happen, because I had no idea it was like now I’m in a, you know, football and sports and all that we grew up with that it was like I always knew exactly what to do if I wanted to get better. I wanted to get a result. I knew I’ll go catch a couple 100 balls, I’ll go run these sprints, I’ll go do these things. But when it came to to speaking coaching, you know, the thought leader industry, I was clueless. And that’s around the time that we connected, and you were, you were in the space, like crushing, like working with some of these people, like helping kick start some of these careers with what you were doing. You knew exactly what to do. And so when we connected, it was like, Oh, perfect. Here, here it is. And you had all this certainty. And you were like, Okay, we’re gonna do this, this, this and this, and because I was lacking some belief that it would happen for me, all of that was a little bit overwhelming. And if you remember, there was a point in time where I was like, Dude, I gotta, like, step away from this, because I just, I’m overwhelmed with, with all the stuff. It’s, it’s too much. I, you know, I just want to, I just want it to happen. I just want to get booked and gone. You know, these clients and, you know, want to be in the league. Man, they’re just way in the league and, and, you know, I went through that, that very infant stage of just like, Man, why isn’t this happening? I just want it to happen, and I didn’t understand the work that was necessary. Didn’t know if I wanted to do the work that was necessary. And so it took me really stepping back and saying, okay, dude, you have to figure out how to apply the blueprint that you use to be successful in football to this new endeavor, and what does that look like? And once I said that, it was like, Okay, if, if I want to have similar success, I gotta put in similar work. This isn’t just going to happen. And so I, I kind of went back in the lab and started working, you know, back on myself a little bit, building that belief back up, then writing some programs, then putting myself out there, you know, which is scary, going into business for yourself and saying I have a service or some expertise. Would you like to buy it? You know, would you like to pay me for it? Which is scary, and so I had to break through so many of those limiting beliefs, and then I found a little bit of success, and then I just stacked that positive and created some new habits and stacked that and just continued to to kind of do the work and it, you know, it was probably i. Uh, two, two and a half, three years, kind of toiling away before I really started to make some progress and really started to make some money and get some some consistent clients, um, and I’m thankful for that, because by the time that happened, I’d written so many programs and and, and in my head, gone through so many scenarios about, you know, how to help people and what’s what matters, and what’s meaningful, that by the time you know that all happened, I was so prepared. And that’s, you know, that’s why one of the kind of, one of the principles of, of one of my core original programs was, which is called be a pro. Pro is an acronym. The P stands for preparation. Prepared. Like, we have to be prepared. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. And so I was staying ready that whole time. And then when I started getting clients, when I started getting momentum, there was no, oh shit, I gotta figure this. It was like, No, I’m ready. Like, let’s do it. And then, you know, I got that certainty back that we were talking about before that. Now it’s like, hey, even if I don’t know, I’m still gonna say yes and figure it out, you know, so I don’t know if that, if that answers the question. I mean, dive deeper into some of that. But that, Look, I I had come off doing something that was a lifelong dream for me at a really high level, and even coming off the back of that, really struggled with belief that I could do the next thing. And so I had to, I had to really dive deep and say, You got what it takes to climb this next mountain. You’ve identified the next mountain. You got what it takes to climb it. How do you climb a mountain? One step at a time? You know you’re not going to get to the top of the mountain right away, which is what I was hoping or wishing would happen. And so I just went back to the blueprint that I that I had always used, and rebuilt the belief, rebuilt the confidence through doing the work, the daily habits, just doing the stuff that’s necessary. Yeah,

Jason Miller  37:05

so Jimmy, you know so much of what peaceful media does on the surface is digital marketing, brand building, content production, sales funnels, CRMs, email marketing, all this stuff, right? That’s the tactics, that’s the X’s and O’s stuff. But the really, 75% of our job is mindset training and counseling, because to your point and work with 1000s of people who are in your shoes, to your point, it is really hard. You know from personal experience as well, it is really hard to just go up and put your your face, your name, your ideas, your words, out into the public. And it’d be nice to receive a negative comment. What’s worse is when you receive nothing, right? Yeah, for for years, yeah, you know, and, and so that’s where this sort of resiliency, self belief, that blue chip mindset that we were talking about a long time ago, comes in. And so I would love to unpack that even further, because I do think that this is, at least, this is the 80 of of the of the 100. Yeah, this is the 8020 Nope. No questions, right here and right here. And so could you unpack some of those things that are in your blueprint that you’ve noticed through all these different cycles of your life, of creating success from nothing, quote, unquote, that you’ve gone back to and pulled out and said, Let’s go. Trustee, shovel, let’s go. Trustee, let’s go. Trustee, that sounded a little weird. Trustee, whatevs, you know, what are the tools within that

Jimmy Farris  38:55

blueprint for you? Yep. So the first thing I’ll say is, and it’s something you mentioned earlier, kind of the evolution from, you know, thought leader to expert and all that, right? None of us are experts. Let’s just, let’s, you know, we may know a lot and know more than others about certain things. I say to all of my clients in front of audiences in my leadership development group. Hey, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. These are my thoughts on leadership. These, this. These are the things that I’ve experienced that I think are important points. There’s no universal truth around the best leadership practices. I mean, there is, to some degree, but you know. And so I say that for people listening that might be in that space where you go through what I went through, which was like, why would anybody listen to me? Like, what makes me an expert? What? What? What makes me somebody that somebody else would listen to or take advice from? It’s like you only have to be one chapter ahead. You know, you only. Have to know a little bit more than the person that you’re working with, or have a slightly different perspective that can give somebody an aha, that can really, you know, propel them in a different direction. And so I say that just if you’re in that place where you’re, you know, where I was, and you’re questioning yourself like you don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to be the greatest thinker that’s ever lived, to have something of value that can really help somebody that number one to answer the question about kind of the blueprint for me distilling everything down. It really came down to those, those three pillars that I talked about with with be a pro, which is preparation, reliability and obsession. And so just to kind of touch on those quickly, preparation is things like, you know, if you think about the definition of preparation, doing the work beforehand, making ready beforehand, because once the game starts, you don’t have time to get in shape. You got to be in shape before the game, you know? Yeah, you got it. You got to practice the you know? And this all comes from our sports background, right? We practice for weeks and months, and then every week we had a new game plan, and we practiced three four days to prepare for that game. So in the in the real world, it looks like things like, clarity, right? What, what’s, what’s clarity of purpose, right? What are you preparing for, like, what’s your niche? What do you actually trying to do and communicate? Right? Clarity of person, am I? Am I the type of person currently habits, behaviors, practices that will do actually do the things necessary to get the result. Clarity of plan. Do I have a Do I have a plan in place? Um, discipline. Do I have the discipline to do the things necessary? Right? Reliability, to me, is all about trust, and that’s kind of pause on that. P first, yeah, let’s go Sure, yeah, that

Jason Miller  42:01

I really want to touch on one of those in particular, which is that clarity of person,

Jimmy Farris  42:09

who do I need to be? Who do I need to because, most of the time, and who do I not need to be? Yes, 100% like, right? It’s a great point, because one of the things I’m glad you brought that up, because I wouldn’t have said this had you not, had you not stopped me, um, one of the things that was that was harmful to me in the beginning of of this iteration of My career was comparing myself to Brendan, or, you know, Anthony trucks and these other guys that were kind of in our circle, that we knew that we, you know, the comparison, it’s good to model. I’m a huge proponent of modeling. In other words, saying, hey, Brendan, does this. That works really well. Let me implement that into my game, right? Sure, but the comparison just killed me, because I was looking at these guys like, Man, I think I could do that at that level, but, but I’m not having anywhere near the success that they are. I must suck. And so, you know, that really shaped an idea for me, which I just, you know, loosely call the shift from competition to creation, which is to say I’m not in competition with anybody. My job is to create the best version of me, the best programs that I can create, the best business that I can create, live the best life that I can live, make the most money that I can make, regardless of what anybody else is doing, or anybody in my space is doing, and once I really adopted that, then it just opened up for me. It gave me freedom to say, I don’t have to be Brendan or make the money Brendan’s making, or speak in front of the audiences that he’s speaking in front of to have an impact and to have some success. We’re in different parts of our journey. And so I’m just going to focus on creating whatever the best I’m capable of today, I’m going to create that, and in five years, I’ll have so much more capability that I’ll be able to create so much more. And so that idea of saying, you know, number one, who am I? What are my unique gifts, talents, and then, and then, more importantly, that question, though, who do I need to be? In other words, Do I Do I Do I have shortcomings? Am I the type of person that will put in this work? Do I have the discipline, the accountability, the reliability, because we can cultivate all those things, yeah, but a lot of times we’re we’re we’re not honest about where we’re at at a given point in our life and and we look at all the things that we need to do, and the realization is that in order to do a lot of those things, we might have to be a slightly different person. And I’m not talking. About at the soul level. I’m saying, if you’re not a morning person, and what you’re trying to do requires you to be up at five and getting after it, you’re gonna have to become somebody different. Yeah, you know what? I mean, it’s so

Jason Miller  45:14

what? Yeah, relative to the soul level, this is all superficial, yeah, yes, yeah. All everyone’s capable, yes, yes, and so except for my wife.

Jimmy Farris  45:24

But, you know, I think, I mean, that’s a it’s a great question to ask yourself, like, be are you? Are you? Would you consider yourself somebody like, shy, timid? Doesn’t like being on camera? Well, if you want to be in the in the speaking, coaching, thought leader space, you’re going to have to become, and be somebody that’s comfortable being on camera, right? And so those are things to evaluate. And to me, that all falls under the preparation aspect. You don’t have, you don’t have time to get ready. You don’t, you know, you can’t book a gig and then say, okay, now I need to figure out how to get confident speaking in front of people. It’s like we got to do that. Would do that beforehand, you know,

Jason Miller  46:04

and figure and do those use, like, the small stakes, opportunities to demonstrate your skills as opportunity for self assessment as you grow. Like, I’ll give you a quick story with this podcast. When we started it back in May 2024, man, I was not in a place where I felt like I wanted to be on camera voicing and it was like a really awkward feeling for me. And I remember after the first one, I was, like, so happy that the guests were so kind and forgiving. I was butchering names of things that they’re involved with. I mean, it was, it was a total shit show, and they’re just lovely people, and let it ride and and I remember just going, God damn it. I I really should have the other hosts be the host of this show, like, this is just not, not my thing. But I said, I’m, I already booked the next one, so I guess I’m doing it. And what I noticed in that second episode I hosted is like, oh, like, that was like, 10% easier and 10% more fun, and I was probably 10% better, if I’m judging myself objectively. And the same thing happened on the third episode and the fourth episode. And so coming back to your point, like, just give yourself incremental growth curve here. You know you’re not going to be whatever, whoever your idol or legend yes is tomorrow. And I think you did the same thing with your speaking career, right? Like you found the Rotary Club, you found hundreds local organizations that were begging for speakers, and I think you got paid like $5 to go do it that literally. And so, like, stakes, low stakes, and you but they felt big at the moment, right? Like those a big shot, getting yourself on camera, giving yourself like a big, you know, multiple 100 people audience, you’re shaping your craft, and you work through it, you learned a ton, and the next one was 10% better, and so on and so on and so on. It’s all

Jimmy Farris  48:08

reps, you know. And again, like, I come from a sports background, so I my analogies are, are, you know, typically tied to that? Like, yeah, you know, I played for a lot of different teams, and had to learn a lot of different offenses, and the way that I learned that was and got comfortable in those systems was by just getting in the huddle, hearing the play, and going out there half, knowing what I was doing, but getting the rep, getting coached on it, and ultimately doing it enough times that it just became second nature. And that’s, you know, that’s, again, it’s so cliche, right? Hey, you got to do the thing to get comfortable doing the thing. And but that’s just the truth. And I think a lot of times we want to, you know, nowadays everything is, is all this neuroscience. And, you know, hack your brain and rewire your brain to do X, Y and Z, and it’s like, or just go get the rep and overcome the fear and get more comfortable, get, you know, a little bit better, get 10% better. Like, you know that that’s the other path, yeah, and that’s what’s always worked

Jason Miller  49:16

for me. Yeah. Okay, so let’s move on to the R, yeah,

Jimmy Farris  49:20

so the R, the R is for reliability. And I think this one I love, because I really love to make the distinction between being dependable and being reliable. Dependable people show up, right? And a lot of people live by this idea. That’s, again, cliche, that’s showing up as half the battle, and it’s bullshit, showing up is none of the battle. Yes, you do have to show up, but what matters is the performance you put in when you show up. Can we count on you as the definition of reliable has this element that there’s a quality of performance? There. And so for me, this means evaluating, how am I showing up in my daily life? Am I just here, or am I showing up, you know, tapping my full potential? Am I showing up with a level of enthusiasm? Am I representing myself the right way when I show up, if people want to book me, am I reliable in the sense that they know when they book me that I’m going to get on stage and rock it, or I just going to show up and speak for an hour and say, Well, you paid me to show up. I’m here, you know. So the reliability is about the trust factor, the trust you have with yourself and the trust that you can endear from other people through putting in quality performances and quality work. I think if we really flesh that out, the reason why people work with you is because they’ve either heard from other people word of mouth, or they expect that when they work with you, the product and the quality that they’re going to get is going to be really high level. At the moment, you didn’t deliver high level, people will stop working with you. So you’ve built a reputation of being reliably good at what you do. And if you think about every aspect of life when you when you’re thinking about trust and reliability, it permeates almost every aspect of what we do. And so you know that pillar for me, it that’s about confidence, the confidence you have in yourself. Do you trust that you can show up and perform well? Do other people have that same confidence in you? I talk about being congruent. Do your actions and your behaviors align with who you say you are? Right? If, if, if I’m not congruent, that’s the guy that’s that talks a big game and then shows up and you’re like, that wasn’t, that wasn’t, that wasn’t really, didn’t really deliver what, what he said he was going to deliver, right? Like, do you, are you actually about the work, you know, am I actually doing the stuff I’m coaching people to do? And I struggled with that. There was a period of time where I was coaching people based on the version of myself that I used to be, right. I was coaching people like, you gotta be up at 6am and doing X, Y and Z. I was sleeping until eight or nine sometimes, if I could. And so I had to evaluate that and say, no, no, I gotta get congruent with the type of things that I’m saying. Um, reliability is about consistency, right? Are you consistent? How do you how do you become great? You become great by consistently doing ordinary, boring, mundane things at an extraordinarily high level, consistently over time, and when you do things consistently well, or you show up consistently well. People will say, hey, Jam’s reliable because he’s consistent. So, you know, again, there’s, there’s obviously a lot more context and and a deeper dive into all these things, but these are just kind of the bullet points, um, reliability. It’s not enough just to show up. And you shouldn’t accept that in any facet of your life, in your marriage, with your kids, with your friends, with your at work, with your colleagues, just saying, Well, I’m here. It should never be acceptable. And it’s not half the battle. It’s none of the

Jason Miller  53:38

battle. Yeah, that’s why I grimace when I hear about prescriptions with that are quantity based, right? Sure, when it comes to our work, let’s, let’s say you want to build up a YouTube channel, and somebody tells you, okay, yep, the prescription here is, you got to feed that algorithm once per week, right? And so you gotta, you gotta teach that algorithm every week you’re gonna be producing a piece of content. And people just think, yeah, okay, well, I gotta produce a piece of content, good or bad it’s going up. And I think what you’re speaking to is, is, can you, can you say that reliably, that that piece of content is, could be your last

Jimmy Farris  54:20

Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember when, um, when we’d watch film. And you know that that whole idea that the eye in the sky never lies, and coaches always used to say, don’t put bad film out there. So Don’t, don’t be the guy that when we go in and watch film on Sunday or Monday that you’re loafing on a play. You’re not running to the ball, you know, we’re running away from you, and you’re over here half assing it, right?

Jason Miller  54:48

Don’t somebody with fumbles, and you’re dragging behind the play by 20 yards because you just didn’t hustle. Yep,

Jimmy Farris  54:54

don’t put bad film out there, quality. If you’re going to get a rep, you. To do it to the to the highest degree that you can. It’s not enough just to say, Well, hey, I was out there. You know, it’s just such a big point for me. I mean that. And, you know, and especially from a performance training standpoint, you know, when I, you know, back in the day, when I was coaching, like realtors and loan officers and things like that, I was like, you know, kind of back to the, thing we’re talking about with, with taking massive action, you can make, you can make your 50 or 100 calls, but if you’re just doing it to be able to check it off. Hey, I’m Jess. I’m a loan officer. Do you need a loan? No, okay, thanks. Like, yeah, that, yeah, you made the call, but it wasn’t worth anything because you didn’t put in a quality call. It wasn’t a quality performance. And so to me, reliability is a huge, huge piece at any phase of life, at any phase or stage of building a business, building a career, building a brand, which is something you know a lot about. As soon as a brand gets a bad reputation for not being reliable. It’s over. Yeah.

Jason Miller  56:04

So since I know we’re segwaying to obsession, and you just mentioned brand, I’m going to do a an unprovoked sponsor call out this is this is me believing this into reality. Jimmy, I love it. Okay, this year or last year, 2024, I switched my one drink per night habit for NAS. Okay, so I’m gonna put this, this company on the spotlight right here. Whatever this is, I don’t even know how to say it. Class cluster, they make a delicious na beer, and I’m it’s a nice, crispy, refreshing end of night. Way to just lose poundage, get better sleep, feel better, less brain fog, more alive in the mornings. And so there you go, cloud. I love it. There’s your there’s your free plug. Sponsor, yeah, sponsor us. So tell us about, tell us about obsession. So,

Jimmy Farris  57:10

um, obsession is a funny one because it’s really gotten painted with a derogatory brush. Um, I feel like for a long time, you know, we use it to say, grand, grand. Well, yes, that. And if you think about when people will say, oh, so and so they were obsessed with that. It was, it was stupid, you know, you were. People used to tell me that when I was in high school, man, you’re obsessed with this football stuff. Like, come on, just come hang out. Like, stop being so obsessed about it, you know, pull up on YouTube, you know, the origin stories of Apple, Amazon, Tesla, any of these massive companies, and listen to the founders, and they’re going to tell you like, Oh, I was completely obsessed with X, whatever the You know, whatever they were their specific obsession was, and I grinded and I worked, and it was the only thing I thought about. I was working 20 hours a day, and that’s how I built this thing. Now I’m not telling people like, yeah, if you got a dream or a goal and you’re not working 20 hours a day and not sleeping, then you’re not going to get there. What I’m saying is, is that there has to be some level of obsession around what you’re doing. And so then people say, Well, what does that look like? Obsession looks like relentlessly seeking wisdom and mentors as an example, who are the people that you have access to that are doing what you’re trying to do at a really high level, that you can either get them as an actual mentor or as a virtual mentor, just like I talked about with guys like Tony and Brendan when I was a rookie with the 40 Niners, I had the best wide receiver in the world three lockers down for me, a guy named Terrell Owens and So when I realized I gotta get better quickly, I attached myself at his hip, and I did everything to did to the best of my ability. When he whatever he was eating at lunch, I ate if he got in the cold tub. I was in the cold tub. If he was stretching, I stretched if he was lifting this certain lift in the weight room. I did it. Yeah, because, as Jim Rohn, you know, famously, said, Success leaves clues, right? So these people that are having success doing what you’re dreaming of doing, they’ve got some stuff figured out, and they’re doing things that are leading them to that level of success, and you can figure out what those things are, implement them into your game and what you’re doing and get significantly further down the road. So it’s things like that, like, are you modeling? Are you? Are you modeling excellence? Are you seeking that? Here’s, here’s one of my favorite ones, singular focus. What? I mean by this is, if you look at again, those founders that I talked about before, what was Steve Jobs side hustle, right when he was building Apple, what was, what was Bezos, multiple streams of income when he was building Amazon, none, yeah, singular focus and it and it. It parallels with the idea the other idea of obsession is no plan B, right? No fallback plan. Burn the bridges. You got, Jay, you know, you have, you look, it’s, it’s, it’s hard. I get it. Not everybody’s in a position to do it, but there was no fallback plan when, when we were in college, you know? Yeah, we got our degrees and stuff because we had to. There was no fallback plan. It was like, I’m going to the league, and if that fails, then so then, so be it, and I’ll figure something out. But there’s, I’m diverting no mental energy to anything else,

Jason Miller  1:01:04

and explains why. That explains why I wrote 90% of the papers we would work on together,

Jimmy Farris  1:01:11

maybe, but maybe, maybe 60% of them, but, but you know you, and you understand that because you, you had that, that part in your journey where, you know, you were doing multiple things, it was like, Hey, I’m gonna do a little of this, see if that’ll pop off. A little of this, see if that’ll pop off, you know, then you, you really, you know, kind of focused in on when you guys did the project, you know, you did the tour, and the you did the project, wrote the book, did the whole thing, like you got focused, and it was like, Hey, I’m doing this. It’s such a huge thing to me, especially for young people now, because they get on YouTube and they hear on these podcasts, these guys say all millionaires have multiple streams of income, and so you gotta diversify, and you gotta be and so I meet these kids in their early 20s that are, they’re real estate agents, and they’re doing that. And then they gotta power washing business over here. And then they’re also doing some some bitcoin investing over here, and they’re doing, you know, and they got five hustles going on, and they’re making like 80 grand, and I’m thinking, what if you focused all your energy on one of these things and really popped it off? Yeah, you know, with with singular focus and no fallback plan. If you look at Coby Jordan, LeBron, Tom Brady. Tom Brady was a quarterback. He’s a football player, and that’s it. Coby was a basketball player. There was no side hustle, there was no fallback plan. There was no let me build this over here. In case this doesn’t work, it’s like, no, this is working until it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, then there’ll be a new plan A, but there’s no plan B. And you know, somebody with that mentality, I’ll look at them and say, oh, yeah, you, you, you tapped into that obsession. That’s necessary. If that’s the mindset, like, we can rock with that. That’s that’s somebody who’s obsessed, to me, that’s like, this works until it doesn’t, and only until it completely crashes and burns do I move on to a new plan A, no plan B. And I, you know, again, not everybody’s in the position to just go all in and say that, but if you’re one of those people that’s in that position where, you know, I was eight, nine years ago. Um, it wasn’t until I decided, nope, I’m doing this. There’s no fallback plan. I’m not going to try to keep any other little income stream or side hustle going. I gotta go all in. It wasn’t until I did that that it, that it popped off, and I should have known better. I should have known better, because I just come from a career where I employed that mindset, and that was the only way I had success in football, was remembering that I’m a football player and keep the main thing, the main thing, right. And I should have known better, but, but I, I got caught up in well, let me, let me try to do multiple things and just see which one pops off? It’s like no, until I went No. I am a speaker. I am a coach, and this is what I’m doing, right? It didn’t pop for me.

Jason Miller  1:04:31

So I have, I have a slightly different take on that, but I think that’s probably good, good fodder for another conversation we can have, Jimmy. So I think of I’ll just briefly touch on it, and then we can unpack it later. I think when I look at the successes of my professional career, it was following. So obsession is one word that’s probably I don’t use a ton. I use an. Enthusiasm, passion, Joy. So I would get obsessed with following my bliss, like Joseph Campbell would say, right? And, and that would look like a lot of different things. You know, I would be dabbling in Photoshop, for instance. I’d be dabbling in screenwriting, I’d be dabbling in writing. I I’d be dabbling in filmmaking and dabbling in making websites you remember back in senior year of college, Oh, yeah. And then also dabbling in acting, right? And, like, totally doing that thing. And I, and I, when I look back on all that, it’s like all those things I would have done without being paid to do, right? They were all things I was obsessed to do. I’d stay up till three in the morning learning how to do it, because I just freaking loved it. And they all merged together to make me a weapon, you know, in the in this industry, I can do so many different things. I am uniquely positioned to be a Swiss army knife. And so I, I, the one thing I may have my own take on is the the singular focus piece I would the only thing I would tweak there is keep a singular focus on that which lights your ass up. Love it, right? And that’s it. And then you know that again, that could be multiple tendrils. You can have. You could be an octopus with eight different things that light you up. That’s your singular focus. Yes,

Jimmy Farris  1:06:36

yeah, no, 100% agree. And I can say the same thing. All of the things that I’ve dabbled in contributed so much to who I am now, and they and a lot of those things come out, you know, off the top of my head in a coaching session, or when I’m on stage, a memory or something that I learned from absolutely I just think that at the point in time, because now you’re not doing any modeling or acting or anything like that, right? But it’s contributed to, I mean, you could, don’t I mean, don’t get it twisted about this guy, like, he got some roles in some movies, he did some high level modeling. Like, don’t get it twisted like I’m just telling you any was a totally fantastic mother. I can pull up the movie where your face is right in the background. Man, yes, I can. It’s

Jason Miller  1:07:32

called a background. There’s nothing high level about don’t

Jimmy Farris  1:07:35

diminish it, um, but all right. But you know it’s um, yes, I’m agreeing. It’s a yes. And once, once the path becomes clear, like, Hey, this is the thing I want to make into the business. You got to burn the boats at that point in time. Yeah, you know. And, but yes, point well taken. That’s a great, that’s a great, great context to that.

Jason Miller  1:08:01

Jimmy, any final thoughts, words of encouragement to someone who’s in us, in your space, in this thought leadership space out there trying to develop speaking, consulting, coaching business, yeah, it,

Jimmy Farris  1:08:15

we kind of touched on it. Um, how do you climb the mountain one step at a time? But you got to take the step. You got to take the step. And you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have it all together. You don’t have to know it all to take the step. Put yourself out there, market yourself, get a client, get to you just, you know, 10% stack the positive. Yeah, 10% better. Um, I wish. I wish there was something really profound to say. There just isn’t. It’s just doing the simple, basic, ordinary, mundane things at an extraordinarily high level, consistently over time, more and better than other people are willing to do it, and, and that’s it. And, you know, you don’t have to be perfect to get started, because you’ll never be perfect. I struggle with that. You know, there’s so many months and years I didn’t start because I was like, No, it’s not ready yet. It’s not perfect. And, and it’s still not I still sometimes I’m like, I don’t know what I’m talking about, you know, yeah, but that, that would be, that would be, it is, is just take the whatever the next step is that you know you need to do. Just take that step. And however long it takes you, no worries but take the next step and just continue to move forward and and consistently make that progress, and that’s the only way I know how to do it. So I hope that helps somebody that works for somebody

Jason Miller  1:09:50

right on, right on, Jimmy, thanks. And just a couple hours ago, we were out walking, I think you’re on your way to a Pet Smart, yeah, I was getting up something for you, some cat food. To get some cat food, and suddenly you’re on a podcast late into the evening. So thanks a lot, man, I really appreciate your heart and soul and dedication to your craft and the beautiful example you’ve set for other people who you know just want to achieve something great. So likewise, Dan for joining, and we’ll see you soon in a double click second. Looking forward

Jimmy Farris  1:10:26

to it, man. I appreciate you so much. Thanks for having me. All right, brother, until

Jason Miller  1:10:30

we see you next time, remember to love more. Play more and do more good. I’m jam at peaceful media. You’ve joined the marketing for what matters podcast. Make sure to subscribe. Leave a comment, do the liking thing I don’t know. Follow us on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, whatevs, whatever you like to do, and we’ll see you soon. Peace, thank

Fran  1:10:48

you for tuning in to our podcast marketing for what matters. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, Google or Pandora. Love the show. Leave us a review, and follow us on social media, at peaceful media to stay up to date about new episodes, and as always, thank you to this earth for giving us all we’ve ever needed. See you next time you.