Peaceful JAM

Karli Petrovic  00:00

And like, I think that what you’re talking about, too, is like, a good gage of whether or not you are, like, having that effect on people, right? Like, if you’re doing something that you’re truly passionate about, you will impact impact people in a way that they’ll be drawn in and excited by your excitement. But if you’re doing something that you’re not that thrilled about, you might just like try telling it to someone else, and you’ll notice that like they’re not that interested because you’re not that interested. Hi, I’m Jason, I’m Fran, I’m Karli

 

Nicole  00:31

This is Bo 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 around

 

Jason Miller  00:41

Well, hello. Welcome to a new episode of marketing for what matters. Hey, Karli, hello, promise I’ll introduce you formally. For everyone who’s joining us and is used to season one, this is going to look a little different because we have a new host. Karli Petrovic, welcome.

 

Karli Petrovic  01:04

Thank you. Happy to be here. Yes.

 

Jason Miller  01:07

And this whole episode got started all of 15 minutes ago when when she asked me a question over slack and, you know, asked me a question to help her create some content and write some content for peaceful media’s upcoming zine, which we’re super excited about here. So Karli, do you want to briefly share that story and then also maybe touch on what you do here at peaceful media?

 

Karli Petrovic  01:32

Sure, sure. So I think Lesson number one is never ask Jason a question over slack, because this is where you might end up. But yes, so peaceful media, right is creating this new zine. I’m kind of running the content for it, and I think that what’s important to share is that we’re creating this out of a deeper conversation about trying to be human in a digital age. And we see people doing this in various ways. And for, you know, a media company that’s trying to do good, that’s trying to reach people tangibly, having something that you can hold in your hands and isn’t just on a screen, is really powerful. So we started talking about what that looks like, and how do we make it something that isn’t, you know, just something you can scroll through, or, you know, something that like you throw away. It’s, you know, you get this piece of marketing material, and the whole thing feels like an ad, and it’s kind of gross, and you just don’t want to be a part of it. So how can we do something different? And what it started to be, and what I started to realize about this is that, like we need your story of how peaceful media came to be in order to kick off this zine right. People need to understand what you were trying to do, how you built this company from the ground up, in order to kind of take this seriously and and connect with it, I think, in a deeper way, especially for the first one right like where you’re introducing yourself, it makes sense to have you as the face of introducing it. And so what I do here at peaceful, as you know, but listeners probably don’t, is I write a lot of stuff, and so I really try to focus on beautiful,

 

Jason Miller  03:25

right? It’s not stuff.

 

Karli Petrovic  03:29

Well, it sometimes feels like summer when it starts out, it’s stuff, and then we try to craft it into something beautiful and powerful and impactful.

 

Jason Miller  03:39

Yeah, I’ll extend what you just said. I think if I’m reading between the lines here of why you asked that question, is the zine is also going to be following a seasonal cycle, the earth seasons and and also how we can incorporate the earth seasons into with human seasons. And we’ve sort of by happen chance, just sort of have collected a lot of team members and beautiful hearts here that do have that connection with with the earth, and this desire to better understand the moods of life and how that the how the earth seasons can can be incorporated and also inspire our manifestations, our creativity, our growth, our workout in the world. And so that will be a sort of thematic framework for these quarterly zines that go out around each of the solstices. So I’m imagining Karli that’s we’re going to be creating spring as our first one. So I’m imagining, when we were thinking about spring and the sort of the things growing, the things, the things coming up from the earth and the underneath coming forth into the world. Then you’re like, wait a sec. I need to know, I need to know Jason’s. Perception story here at peaceful media, is that correct?

 

Karli Petrovic  05:02

Yeah, because what is like, Spring is the time of planting seeds, right? And, like, long ago, you planted the seed of peaceful media, and it’s growing in various ways. And there have been seasons right, where, like, you harvest things, you get rid of things. Sometimes even, you know, as you do with nature, you burn it to the ground in order to create the fertile ground for it to grow again. So, you know what? What was that seed planting like in the beginning? How can we kind of go through that process of what it takes to plant something and watch it grow

 

Jason Miller  05:36

beautiful? Well, that story, so, just so you can kind of see behind the scenes of our podcast here, we’ve been talking about Karli being a host here at marketing for what matters and peaceful media and doing a lot more public facing content. You know, underneath the peaceful media umbrella, in fact, she’s a Karli, if I can too your horn, she’s a phenomenal, phenomenal writer, tarot reader, content creator, and just create creator over on sub stack on the board, aquarium channel. So do look her up. We’ll put her in the show notes, of course, so that you can go check out the writing and I actually weaves into what I wanted to share today, so that this is as useful as possible for you, the listener who may be considering launching your own business, right, doing your thing, your passion, your big idea that may feel a little scary. It might feel like, Oh, that little branch is real thin out there, and I have a lot of things that I need to take care of in my life, financially, whatever you know, in order to even consider that as this is not a practical idea. And so I want to share as part of the inception story, or the the origin story, of peaceful media, I thought it may be useful to kind of encapsulate some of the principles that have made peaceful media what it is today. And you know, you can attach adjectives to our agency, if you’d like, that’s a little tenuous. It’s all subjective. What success means to me is wildly different than another agency owner or another business person, right? And so I think you need to know, like, what matters to me is that I feel like we’re expressing ourselves courageously with all of our hearts and doing magical work that uplifts humanity and heals the planet, and all the better if we can be surrounded by people who also want to do the same thing and clients who also want to do the same thing. So that’s how we measure success at peaceful media is, do I feel like I’m using my precious time here on this planet in the best way possible, in the most not just productive, as in getting work done and but am I impacting? Am I making a difference in the world? And if so, then this is a success. And as we’ll talk about throughout this episode, the other things that use to measure success, ie, money, status, followers, all that stuff is a tertiary concept Karli. Do you have anything to riff on that before I go into this four part framework,

 

Karli Petrovic  08:43

yeah, for sure. Because I think what you hit on, and what most people are are afraid of when they start something, is that like it being fulfilling for me is not enough. But the truth is that because it’s been fulfilling for you, it has ultimately been fulfilling for other people as well. But like, we can’t really help other people if we’re miserable and doing work that feels undermining to ourselves and so, like, it’s easier said than done to separate the money aspect from the joy aspect, because life requires money, and we don’t, you know, we it’s hard to separate, but that fulfillment piece really is so important, and I like that you touched on that because it’s easy to discount our own joy in this process. You know, when you have a big idea, most likely it’s because, like, it felt joyful for you, it felt purely creative, and then you have to figure out the rest from there. But like, that’s actually a really legitimate starting point. It doesn’t have to be like, I already know how to make money, and I know that this makes me happy, and I’ll be able to put my energy behind it.

 

Jason Miller  09:58

Okay, the table is. Beautifully set. We may need to do this in two sections here. But let’s, let’s jump in, because I think, I think what you’ll I think if I were thinking about a title for this, this episode of marketing, for what matters, it would be something along the lines of, you know, follow your bliss. The money will come just because I know when you’re searching through youtubes. So many people are looking for answers to, how do I make money by following my Blitz? Right? Is such a so many decisions we make in our vocations and careers do get filtered through that lens of, can it a replace my my current income? Right? Karli, I know you’re, you’re considering all these things in real time, right? With board aquarium, can it replace what I’m making, doing the things that aren’t totally alive within me and or, if you’re just getting started out, sort of done in a career that obviously it’s like, again, it can’t make the money that’ll help me, you know, buy the things that my friends and family members think I should have, you know, like. So wherever you’re coming at this from, I think there’s, I think the things I’m going to share with you today, with Karli here will will help you just reorient and perhaps change a few paradigms, or change a few stories that you’ve told yourself about what it takes to be successful. Does that

 

Karli Petrovic  11:27

sound good? Yeah, on that note, now we need to hear more. Okay,

 

Jason Miller  11:32

all right, let’s jump in. So the four, right? So four sort of principles, and each one has a brief story and some some props, so I’m going to be doing some screen sharing, but each one also has a quote to kick it off. Alright? So the first one is Joseph Campbell’s simple, simple, simple message, follow your bliss. And the story behind this one for me was, I am. I’m a traditional kind of jock dude up in University of Montana, got a full ride football scholarship there, and really follow myself again. I’m a pretty big badass and and lots of identity wrapped around it. And as I’m going through business school and business marketing communications kind of stuff, I, you know, had this, this vision of myself being and I’ll never forget it, the image that sort of encapsulated where I was going with my professional career after college was me and a drop top, BMW silver. I was really, really clear. Had it all? Man, silver convertible BMW cruising down Highway one from my from my office in San Francisco, down in Santa Cruz. Like, that was, that was it, you know, I was like, I am destined to be in the corner office being an executive badass, you know, just like I’m a badass on this football field, right? So, so ego driven. And so you’ll, you’ll see there’s some, probably some career choices along the way that also feel ego driven. But I’m going to assure you that it’s a little different. It’s a little bit more along the lines of following your bliss. And so I am, I’m destined. I’m, I think I’m in my senior year, and I’m destined for this next, you know, of professionalism, and I go into this organizational communications class and Karli, you probably know the story. You have your own version of this story. Everybody does. There’s this, you know, University of Montana is, is an Ivy League, let’s be honest. And so there’s some teachers in there that should have been retired, like, 30 years ago, right? Just terrible. And then, and then, there were some the who who like rock your world, right? And this organizational communications teacher had us read this book, executive blues, Down and Out in corporate America and write an essay about how it impacts it. I have no idea how has anything to do with organizational communications. I think what the professor was doing was saying, check yourself, you know, like you’re at this stage of your of your business school. Do you what? What does a successful career look like? And aren’t you building castles in the sky on a concept that may not be accurate. So it’s this heart wrenching story of this guy who dedicated, just like my dad did, dedicated 40 years of his life into this corporation that ultimately saw. On, you know, ultimately, saw this guy who’s aged and getting paid a ton, and there’s way cheaper labor who will do the same thing, maybe faster and better for a third of the cost, right? And so his whole the whole rug, the whole cement Foundation, rather that he had stacked his identity around was yet. And I had the same thing happen. My senior year of football is like that whole I injured myself three times in three months. He was torn all this stuff, right? And I was going through this same identity crisis of like, Oh, I’ve been building this Castle in the Sky. So it forced me to do some soul searching and ask myself, what what did? What do I want? What do I actually want deep down? And my answer that, currently, you’ll love this, my answer to that was to go live in the woods. I 1,000% having not even read Thoreau. I wanted Thoreau’s Walden Pond and and, you know, of course, I have a left brain, so like all in it, and I was raised with very left brain oriented parents, and so the voices in the heads of Good God, man, zero practicality in that, like, come on. Man, you know, but it wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop like whispering in my ear, like, I want to go live in the woods. I want to go find my and I think what it would symbolize for me Karli is that I wanted to go find I want to be quiet with my own heart and listen to nature and listen to the news and allow my own heart’s desire to come forth. Right? Instead of these things that I it’s they’re sort of crumbling around me these castles, correct? So I so I started doing whatever I knew how to do, which was to I thought, Well, I’m just gonna go be a model. I’m gonna go be a model. I’m gonna get in my car and go down to San Francisco, and I’m gonna go be a model, because, I don’t know, some people say I’m pretty face, so I’m just gonna go make money doing that and figure out what my bliss is. And so I printed out a did some pictures, and I sent them down to 100 agencies down in California, and one of them reached back out and said, a couple of them reached out, back out and said, Hey, look, you look interesting. Come on. Come on down to San Francisco, and we’ll see everyone wants

 

Karli Petrovic  17:52

to hear about their headshot is interesting.

 

Jason Miller  18:00

But if, if, if you like, if you can bear with my I didn’t, I know if I can, my, my chief of people, Chief People Officer, would say absolutely not. You’re not sharing the photos from this, but I have the photos and Okay,

 

Karli Petrovic  18:17

obviously, like you have to. We all know.

 

Jason Miller  18:24

Very ridiculous Karli, in fact, you know, no no slam on, on the modeling industry, but it’s just vanity, right? So like, and so I, I did that. I hopped in my car, still chat with my one of my buddies. One of my buddies got picked one of my teammates got picked up by the 40 Niners, and so he’s in San Clarita didn’t training camp, and I drove, I got him in the car and with a rice cooker and suitcase, and I showed up, and he was there putting up, him up in a hotel. And I was like, Dude, can I stay with you? And ended up giant, usually driving to the city and go explore this modeling career and lots of fun, juicy stories within that. But what it did is got me started on a trajectory that would it was completely impractical. I was living on my grandparents gave me like 500 bucks for my college graduation gift, and it was it, that’s all I had. And I was like sleeping couches, offering to sweep floors for people who were people who were lusty eyed, eyeing me, and just like squirming my way through this until someone said I was at some show, and somebody said you gotta get down to LA. Like, that’s where it’s at, actually. So at this stage, what I all I’ve done is just follow. My place. I’ve listened within enough to know that there’s something here that I want to go explore. And what happens is you start when you get to that next barrel you see on the other side of the horizon, oh, there’s another barrel that I that will help me get to whatever’s next. But I couldn’t have seen that from the previous barrel, right? This is the whole crossing the cigarette desert story I learned from Jack Canfield. Right like when you’re starting that journey, you there’s no there’s no signpost, there’s no guideposts saying, Oh, just follow this road. There’s no road. All you see is a barrel at the end of the at the horizon, just glimmering through the glimmers of Gee. You go, Okay, well, that’s where we’re going, and then what? And you don’t know until you get to that barrel, right? And so that’s all I could do, right? And so, so my my takeaway from this one, from this principle, before we get into the next part of the story, is to listen to your heart more than your mind. And what I know currently is that your mind is really crowded, really crowded with all the pragmatic ideas and all the stories that you’ve learned as a kid, you’ve heard from your parents, and you’ve heard from the horror stories of you know, people who hippies that follow their place are the ones who are broke and homeless and on the side of the streets asking you for money because they can’t afford food like you nip. You’ve heard the stories that say that’s just not possible. Karli, do you have anything to Yeah,

 

Karli Petrovic  21:35

for sure, I like the point that you’re driving home in this principle is that our deepest, truest desires are often completely illogical, in terms of like, they don’t make logical sense to our minds, because your mind will undercut anything you really, really truly want to do. It’s like, you know, I want to start this music career, but it’s like, well, you don’t really know anything about music or, like, I want to, you know, make my multi sensory talents, like my psychic abilities, my my job, right? And that’s well, who are you to be able to do that? Or who are you that people should trust you, right? Whatever it is, your mind will find a way to tell you that it’s dumb and stupid and you should probably just get, like, a regular job, like, so, I mean, we’ve all had those, those moments where we’re kind of battling mine versus heart, but I think it helps for people to know that, like, very often, that deep desire of for you living in the woods, Right? It’s like, it doesn’t make sense, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to make sense to your mind. What’s

 

Jason Miller  22:46

What’s crazy about is now I’m 17. Well, I graduated college in 2001 but now that I’m here, so you know, what is that? 25 years later, 17 years of peaceful media later, I could get to spend a good chunk of my day in the forest creating content that helps inspire other people to follow their bliss, right? So like you know, you know that maybe that’s just a cherry picking of an example, but I am in the forest. I am making my living by being in the forest and exploring that. So it’s interesting how when you look at the perspective of time and experience that you look back, you go, Oh yeah, okay, cool. There’s there’s the threads that were there. The threads were totally there. So threads is another word for this, you know, or another concept connected to this is skills. And that’s my second principle, and that is started with the quote, The world is but a canvas for your imagination by Thoreau. And so I’ll connect this to skills in a second year. What happened as I was in San Francisco? I you? Well, first of all, I needed to, I needed to learn Photoshop in order to do my my brochures to the modeling agencies, right? That’s I learned Photoshop so that I could make my ads look better.

 

Karli Petrovic  24:27

I mean, is that not why we’re all learning Photoshop?

 

Jason Miller  24:31

All starts there. And so, so dorky. I’m, like, mildly embarrassed, but it’s, it’s great. So that’s where I learned. I started to learn Photoshop. And um, sure enough, when I’m down in San Francisco, I follow that cue from this, this guy who seems to know everything about the modeling agents the modeling world. He says, You gotta get down to LA and then you can get acting gigs too. And I’m like, why? Hiding cool. I don’t know how to be an actor. I’ve never done acting well third grade. I did a play I was like, Santa’s left hand man, you know, like, I’m, I’m pretty good at that elf stuff, you know. But I’ve never even thought about acting through Hollywood. And yet, something said, Go, Go, just go see what happens. So once again, drove with I drove up back to Portland, where I grew up. Uh, reloaded at my parents pantry. Uh, got some more rice. Got a thing of ham this time, like, actually, nice, damn. I brought some protein and I went down. I buddy’s dad lived in North Hollywood, and I asked him if I could sleep on his couch for a month while I find a place. And sure enough, found a place. I found a studio that was subsidized by the government, and you know, the kitchen sink was the bathroom, and, you know, it was just enough space, and I had just enough money, right? And so I could afford one month. And then it was just like, Alright, I know nobody. Know nobody here. I have no connections whatsoever, and I’m gonna go be an actor class. Classic, that’s the Hollywood story and but I put up a sheet of butcher block paper from the dollar store because it’s the only place I could shop. Literally, Karli, I’m going to El pull you local to get the sauces like hope nobody notices this, but I’m just going in and scooping up little containers of sauces to put on my rice. Yeah, literally, all I can do, yeah, I am and studying. I’ll get back to the butcher block and signing up to become a like a marketing and promotions person who’s basically goes out to festivals or carnivals and music shows and stuff like that, and hands out free stuff, yeah, and whatever, I would specifically choose the ones that had food, because that was how I was eating, right, like zero money and and so I put up this. I knew that in order to be successful, I knew just enough to know if I was going to be successful here, I needed to put up. I needed to know people, and so I put up butcher block paper across my entire studios walls and wrote 1000 people I’ve met. And every day I force myself, I mean, I’m an introvert, if you’ll believe me on that. And totally introvert. I don’t like going up to people and networking and shaking hands and stuff is totally exciting to me, and so I had to force myself, Okay, today I’m going to meet three people. I’m going to write their names every day. I’m going to write three names up here, where I met them, and what their name was, so that I forced myself to build that muscle. So there’s a skill, right, stacking skills. In the meantime, I got a job at a restaurant, but also got a job at a production studio, and just a production assistant doing the total BS job. It was horrible. It was a terrible, terrible job. Terrible, terrible company. I won’t name the name of the company, but total BD movie kind of stuff, and and so I would at there, there. I would spend as much time as possible in Photoshop, more coming back to Photoshop. So I got to know the the screenwriter there, who was also miserable writing horrible B, you know, B movie scripts, and dreaming of of actually doing something, uh, worthy of his time someday. And so he and I would chit chat, and I started like writing screen plays, and then, and then, in the free time, I would like download all their software so that I could learn how to do video stuff, and I could learn how to do photo shopping. And I started creating a comic strip called The Adventures of bunny love, and got really, really invested into it. I’ll show you one of them. I built. I also built a website because I had a modeling email side of me, and this acting side is so I needed a website. So I built a website for myself, and it was called millertainment.com and I would post my comic strip, and I post my beautiful ABS all over the place,

 

Karli Petrovic  29:44

photo shopped perfectly. Oh, my

 

Jason Miller  29:47

God, they were gorgeous, just strutting, strutting my stuff. Okay again, I apologize for all the the vanity. But so my comic strip, The Adventures of bunny love, this is like one of the first ones. There’s a whole series. But, you know, really exploring the things, the currents within me, my dichotomy of like, God, I feel like a a beast deep down, nutria man, but I’m also like a man, and I have feelings and and some part of me is is not being fully expressed. So it was like this beautiful little outlet for my photoshop skills to grow. And what happened here is that while I’m building up my career in in in acting and starting to give some gigs, got representation. Sure enough, met, you know, about 200 of those lines in on my butcher block paper, I met enter the entertainment attorney for Jack Nicholson, Nick Jagger, and asked him to mentor me, and I mentored him in the gym. We were, you know, I’d help him work out he would help me build my career. I got representation from Jack Nicholson’s agent, Sandy Bresler, and eventually started stacking some income coming through from acting, getting commercials, doing, doing theater and, and. But in the meantime, I’m I’m making films. I’m making little films, I’m writing screenplays. I’m getting excited about this stuff. I’m like, buying a camera and my at this point, my buddy Matt calls me, who you Matt? Girly, because he came back around to do a lunch and learn this was kind of what all inspired this, this session. So I’m going to pause right there, because I know we are actually diving into one of peaceful media’s lunch and learns in just a few minutes. And I’ll share where Matt where, what Matt asked me to join that leveraged the skills that I was stacking. So we’ll come right back after this break. All right. Okay, welcome back. You know. So continuity is, is a nice, nice to have in our world. We are now two what Karli, two days removed from our well being Wednesday session. And I do, I do recommend, you know, we’ll put a little note up here, wherever that lands in the YouTube space, uh, put a little note to it so you can go watch that. I think it was Karli. Love to get your take on it. It’s, uh, it was a, I think, a really cool process for designing the life you really want to be living,

 

Karli Petrovic  32:40

yeah, yeah, very intentional around, like, this idea of like attracts like, kind of, if we’re talking in, like, the greater sphere, right? So what do you want more of? What do you want to call in? You want like to be like, and then what do you want to repel? Is how I like to think of it, like what is not for you. And you want to just, like, push it away with your energy. And, yeah, being intentional around that is important. Yeah,

 

Jason Miller  33:06

yeah. It’s kind of like a view. If your body or your vibration is a house, right, your energy is a house, and you get to decide where the doors are open and where the doors are closed, boundary setting. And just, you know, getting into the vibration and manifesting all that you would like to see in your life. You know, this process that you’ll see in the well being Wednesday can certainly help get that, get that flow going. I noticed that in my life dramatically lately. All right, so we, we left off where I’m stacking skills in Los Angeles, you know, with the photo shopping and film, right? You know, screenwriting and a little film making and and acting, doing some theater and so forth. And I was right to the point Karli just reminded me where my buddy buddy is. Is putting it lightly. We’ve been like this since third grade. You know, it’s just like one of, one of the, the closest human beings in my life, one of the most intimate relationships I have in my life, you know, just the amount of stuff we’ve been through together, highs and lows and so when he called and said, You, I, I want to invite you on my team. I have this dream. As you know, I’ve been out there like I might mention this to you a while ago, I’ve been interviewing my grandparents to capture their love story, because growing up in a pretty broken home and seeing most of most of my aunts and uncles get divorced, and just feeling the impact of that. Five and then seeing that, in contrast to see my grandparents, who’ve been married for 65 years, holding hands and still madly in love, I mean, I, you know, I’ve been inspired to write down their their story and so that I can reprogram what’s possible within my brain so that I’m not sort of relegated to the story that that lifelong love isn’t possible, right? And so it was a beautifully, beautiful, inspired dream that he had to capture that love story and talk to other lifelong love stories. Owners like you know, basically our grandparents. You know people who’ve who’ve been married at least 40 years and are still excited to be with each other and see each other. And I currently my honest reaction being a single 24 year old in Hollywood like the epicenter of salaciousness and just I don’t, I really don’t think of it as like the vibes of lifelong marriage and chatting with your grandparents, but it’s so, you know, I’m, I’m kind of in that world, right? And, and I’m single, and I’m, I’m loving being single, and really have no intentions over the next, you know, whatever, years, to get into a lifelong, committed, monogamous relationship. And so my initial reaction was like, I am, I think it’s really like, there’s something in my heart that loves the the kernel of this. And I’m like, I know, you know, I don’t know how, how much like personal excitement I have, but I love you, Matt, and I love the projects we’ve done in this, you know, the history we have. And I anything to be in cahoots with you. I’m in and nice, uh, immediately thereafter, I said looking at one of the things I’m really passionate about is, is filmmaking. And I, you know, think about when, When Harry Met Sally, you know, touching little vignettes, you know, like people, and I think they were dramatized, but they felt real. And I think there’s a documentary film here. I think if we, instead of just going in and tape recording folks telling their love stories, we we could have something here. And so he agreed to that. And I went out and bought a a nice camera and, and I was like, Yeah, I’m a real filmmaker now. And we started just driving around in my car, just like, driving door to door, knocking on, you know? Oh, we got a referral from so and so that you you have a great marriage, and we’d love to document that, and we pull in our cameras and lights and sound and and just this poor couple who had never met us, just revealing everything you know, their their hardships, their their traumas, their the principles that have made them successful in their marriage, and I so, so we started to get a little bit of traction, like, we’re like 10, maybe love stories in 10 marriages and couples in and and so we decided, okay, we’re at this point, where we started getting a little bit of media, like, we went to somebody I knew up here in Portland, who was an anchor at a local station, and she came and did a story of us, you know, and filmed us like, you know, recording a love story with with a couple. And we took that, that little piece on the news, and turned it into a promo video that helped people believe that there was a movement starting. Right for help ourselves believe that there is a movement starting. We could cut up a little promo video as we were starting to document and starting to create a book proposal to tie this back to skill stacking. We we started to write our book proposal. So all the writing skills that I was working on and the design skills of making these beautiful book covers and putting putting them on top of of book spine, so that you know, when we’re handing off our proposals, they see the they can imagine this book cover on their you know, their publisher shelves and and there’s a whole story of building media kit and building some momentum and eventually getting to the place where we land us. On the Today Show, and where we were struggling to find couples to, you know, let us into their doors and document their stories. We suddenly had, we suddenly had 1000s of people all across the country offering their love stories. And it helped us manifest. It springboarded us into traveling around the entire country in a sponsored RV with sponsored, sponsored hotels, sponsored one 800 flowers, sponsored this and that to help make this thing happen with a with a film crew, and we are, and what came of it is the Book Project Everlasting, and it was post Project Everlasting, where, you know, we’re out there speaking, we’re going to Hallmark and sharing the Story and inspiring them, like just kind of traveling around the world. And I was really, really excited about the momentum that was going on with all the skill stacking and and success with getting a Simon and Schuster publishing us, like we had, like six or seven publishers bidding on this book proposal,

 

Karli Petrovic  41:22

right? Yeah, like,

 

Jason Miller  41:25

right. We’re like, at this point, we’re like, 27 never been published, you know, 25 or whatever, and and, you know, had been turned down by agents. Had been told our book proposal was total crap, and eventually finding our way to William Morris. Now William Morris Endeavor where they’re like, no, no, this isn’t just a book, guys. This is yes. We want the book. We want the documentary film. We’re gonna plug you in with buna Murray for a reality show like this. This is a empire, you guys. And we’re like, somebody gets it. Somebody gets it, you know, after so many No, no, no, you know, this will never fly. So yeah, so two bachelors discover the secrets of America’s greatest marriages. Ultimately landed on, you know, every major Bucha book store and book shelf and and had some mild success. We went on the Today Show again and told the story after the tour and with the book published and ready for for purchase, and, and, and then, you know, Oprah radio and all this stuff. And it just for me, it comes back to that that is not something that you prepare for overnight, right? We talk about the world is the is but a canvas for your imagination. That quote by throw we, both of us, had been developing the skills that helped make that even remotely possible, but we’ve been simply following what we were passionate about doing and not getting paid to do in the first place, right? So if, if you can put yourself in that state of of, you know, doing whatever it takes to do the practical, to keep the bank accounts from going, you know, in the negative, getting your rent paid, getting your utilities paid, but also spending allowing your your the dreamy part of you, the dreamer within you, continue to explore and develop the skills. Then I can tell you from experience, that those, those will those will pay off. Those will pay off and and then sometimes, incredibly, like, they look like magic, right when you’re, you know, we’re talking to Hilton Hotels about a multi million dollar sponsorship deal where they’re going to be putting our our book and film in one of their it was called the romance project, everlasting romance package, where, if you were going to the Hilton, you’d be able to see these, you know, different packages that you could buy. One was like a sports thing. Well, one was romance, a bottle of champagne, a couple glasses, and our book and film sitting there on the table, things like, you know, it’s like, what the hell? So I I’m just telling you, keep stacking those skills. Keep doing, you know, courageously, courageously stacking them so that you can ultimately be ready for those, those moments of pure, pure opportunity that come your way. Currently, I know you’re publishing. You’re publishing soon, right? You’re you just finished your manuscript. You’re editing

 

Karli Petrovic  44:54

it right. Now, publishing, I don’t know, is, yeah, how I describe it, but like on the. On the journey. But yeah, and, like, I always joke with my husband, I’m like, if a single other person enjoys this book, reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed and, like, laughed my ass off writing it, then I will be totally fulfilled. Like, I just need, like, I probably don’t even need one person, but, like, it just goes to show you what you’re talking about, which is, like, this process has been pure joy, you know, like, not that there haven’t been hard moments, right, have it? You know, like, we are kind of like skimming over the top right of like, when the band breaks down, or like, when you were rethinking the same scene over and over, or like you wrote something that you love, and then you find like, Oh, it doesn’t actually fit. So I gotta take it or skimming over those parts, but like, ultimately, most of the process feels like joy. And there’s this Jonathan Franzen quote that I think, like, kind of fits into this a little bit too, and I’m paraphrasing here, but it was essentially, like, if you’re having fun writing it, it’s probably pretty good, and if you’re not, it’s probably not very good. And like, sometimes it’s that simple, like, Are you having fun creating it? Then it’s probably, you know, not to say that it’s going to immediately find its place and make you a million dollars, but it’s probably good, and it’s probably going to connect with someone. But drag the whole time, it’s like, well, you know, a lot of people live in a nine to five job that’s already a drag, so you don’t want your art to be a drag too. Like, you got to find the thing that like lights you up. And I, what I love about the story that you shared is like, at first you’re like, I don’t know if I’m the guy for this project, but like, there was something that, like, drew me to it. And then it sounds like, you know, overall, you guys kind of had the time of your life doing it when it came right down to it.

 

Jason Miller  46:56

Yeah, I should put a little punctuation mark on the whole thing. And since you mentioned my, my state of the state of being in the state of relationships and, and my relationship with relationships at the start also had its own beautiful arc, you know, in that, you know, we did, we did publish, we did produce a feature length documentary film. And, and there’s lots of sort of poignant moments within there in the book where it was just I felt their their wisdom and their love and like what’s possible and starting to seep into my heart, right? And, and really explored that to the point where my heart opened up to my eventual wife, Megan. And Matt was the one that officiated our wedding, you know, and who else, so there’s this, yeah, this is beautiful, full circle moment, you know, at the very end of Project Everlasting, you know, my my bachelor word, as we call it, I wrote, I wrote just a whole note to myself about how that process of melting, melting the stone down to that suppleness and willingness to engage in, in, you know, as you know, yeah, complex complexity, complex relationship, inter dynamic, you know, inter relational dynamics. And so anyways, I’m getting off off track a little bit, but it was a really neat story and, and I think it tees up the the next stage of this in this linear story of how we got to peaceful media, and this third phase builds off of what we just talked about, because I do not believe that it’s enough to passionately stack your skills in in the closet, right? And Karli, you and I talk about this a lot, you know, there is, so I’m gonna start with the quote, and we’ll get into that. So it’s from Jim Carrey who, but wait, man, he just tapped into some Jim Carrey on YouTube. And at least my, Jim, if you can ever join our podcast, I’d love to have you, bro, you’ve made such an impact on my life, and more, in more ways than Dumb and Dumber comedic relief. So his quote is, the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency. There it is and how this connects. I post Project Everlasting. I bought on a whim. I bought a home overlooking the Puget Sound. And no had no real business buying this home. Financially speaking, I had one great year from Project Everlasting, where I thought I was super cool and going to be doing more years like that. Just firmly believed it, and it was 2008 good right

 

Karli Petrovic  50:24

at the beginning. People know,

 

Jason Miller  50:26

right, yeah, the ultimate, the ultimate zone of the finance, you know, the mortgage finance industries, greed and looking it was just stated income, you know, I’m going through buying a home right now, and the process of the scrutiny that you go through to get lending and financing right now compared to what I did when I’m I was 30 years old, walking into a broker they I fill out this, like, like a DMV form. You know, it’s like, one, one or two pages of like, what’s your, what was your income? Oh, I shoot, I made $100,000 last year. I’m, I got this right? And they’re like, Cool, all right. Well, you’re right, yeah, what was your they can ask what my income was before, you know, oh, that’s like, it’s, you know, starting after making money off of little commercial residuals. And it didn’t matter to them. Just like, what you made last year and what you put on this paper is is enough for us. And here’s your half million dollar loan for this home that is completely impractical. And so I got into that home, and within i for the first two or three months, I was like, Oh yeah, total bliss. You know, I was like, I’m setting up my commune on Orcas Island, having all these people come in and live with me. And it was just awesome, biking around it here in the woods and just spending most of my time, like, floating around in a lake, and, you know, looking at starfish from these beautiful, beautiful retreat spaces, like, oh yeah, this is, this is it. I’m living my dream. And the next book is just going to come spring forth for me, and it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be my Walden Pond, and yeah, within two and a half months of trying to ferry my way over to an airport so that I could do these speaking gigs that were starting to decline through Project Everlasting, and kind of going through some failures, of like, we launched a radio show called The Bachelor Pad, you know, that we paid to have the radio show. There wasn’t like podcast stuff like this back then. And so it was kind of like a zero, negative $10,000 of our way, and ultimately got to the place where I started realizing, like my money is drying up, and everybody who told me this is a completely impractical idea to buy this home and go live on Orcas Island was starting to creep in, real hard into my Brain, to the point where I was on the floor just sobbing, you know, and my parents come up and for to camp and see me and this stuff, and they walk in there’s like, holy shit. Like, you’re not in a good place. I was really, really not in a good place that the financial anxiety just consumed me, and I it was in that state of anxiety that I went to the guy who built my home and said, Hey, Man, I’m I’m really struck, kind of really struggling. I’ve never worked in construction, but I’m a hard worker, and you have any jobs. He’s like, like, yeah, man. Like, I paid 25 bucks an hour to come and pound nails. And I was like, oh, hell yes, yes. And then this work comes to that create, courageously expressing your passion to as many people as who will listen. Because I can tell you right now that swinging hammers is nice. I enjoy it. There’s some Zen Buddhism in it, but it is not my passion? What is my passion was all the things I was doing in Project Everlasting, building or building and maintaining our website, setting up the marketing email systems, writing proposals, doing media kits, going out and speaking and doing brand. Marketing, essentially branding and marketing, online marketing, and so on a whim, it was a total PS, Karli, I said, Cool, man, I would love to come and swing hammers. Oh, or, do you know anybody who could, like use a website or brand or anything, marketing stuff, postcards. And he looks at me, he’s like, Oh yeah, man, I’ve been, I’ve been looking for, I actually really need that stuff, all of that. And I was like, okay, cool. Let me get your proposal. And so I just scrambled downstairs to the desk and I built this like, you know, what? I felt like it was a huge proposal for, like, 5k for everything. It was a full kit, a full your brand, your brand, your magnets, your postcards, your brochures, your website. By the way, I had never started a website on my own. I just maintained the one that we had my brother make me so I’m like, I can have, I can do all this, and I’ll deliver it within 30 days. I spent the first 21 days of that researching how to build a website from scratch.

 

Karli Petrovic  56:20

Yeah, yeah, you guys, you gotta put in that time first. Obviously, yeah,

 

Jason Miller  56:24

yeah. Like, oh, what my brother did was really nifty, and I have no idea how

 

Karli Petrovic  56:29

to like, that’s what I love. It’s like, how hard could it be? Oh,

 

Jason Miller  56:34

yeah, there was no Squarespace back then, folks. There was no WordPress, not my not my peripheral. It was like, HTML, you know, set up your own server like Angel Fire, yeah. And I’m like, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, make this website. I have no idea, no idea how to start and and so scrambled, scrambled. But I loved it. I was like, I was like, holy this. Is this so exciting to me. And I would go and stay up all night. And he’s like, at three weeks into this timeline, he’s like, Hey, man, how’s it coming along? And at that point, I delivered a few brand samples and logo samples and stuff, and got that part going. But how’s the website coming along? Jay, and I was like, Oh man, yeah, just, just crank it along. I’ll have something for you to review, and I’ll never forget. And, like, the day before it’s all due, just like, big, big crux here. I I’ve been building the site. And for any you developers who are listening to this, any real developers who are back in building websites, back in 2008 2009 you’ll know what I mean by this. So I’d been building the website in Firefox. Firefox is super developer friendly, and and I sent the the this prototype, like, I’m, I’m on time, you know, I sent this, the website over to the builder, and he’s like, Hey, man, um, I just pulled it up and, oh, man, it looks pretty broken. I was like, What do you mean? What do you what? What do you mean? He’s like, I don’t know. I I’m using Internet Explorer, and there’s this Internet Explorer called ie six, the browser, if you were in any developer forum back then, it is the, it is the bane from Batman. It is the, the Bane, you know, it’s like the devil. It’s the devil browser, okay, yeah, it does demonic things. It plays by no rules. It’s like its own thing. And everybody who was like, not on the cutting edge of browsers, just had this ie six. It’s called ie six by default on their computers. You’re running a PC, you had ie six as your browser, and there’s ie seven was out, but you know, that means people would have to update their browser so they’re all running IE six, and it just clobbered, just clobbered the site so that so the next 24 hours was just pure agony trying to figure out how in the hell To get the site to render correctly in IE six. But if, to circle back to this principle, if, if you could stack all those skills you want, if you don’t go and have enough courage to just say, like, this is, this is something I’m passionate about. This is something I’m excited about. This is something I can contribute to you or society. Then I think you you leave like 99% of the possibilities dormant, right and on the side of the road, and Karli, I’m going to pass it over to you to see if this sparks in. Thing for you, before we go on to the fourth principle,

 

Karli Petrovic  1:00:04

yeah, just this idea of, like, you can’t really create in a vacuum, and then, like, expect anything to come from it. We talked about this a little bit the other day, of just like every masterpiece that you have right begins in your mind, and then it’s like, you have to actually, kind of like, shake it out onto the page, or the browser, or whatever it is. And like, a lot of times it doesn’t look exactly the same, like, I would say, most of the time it’s not like exactly the same once you’ve actually created it. So it’s this idea of like, if you let that, like, the beauty of the vision, stop you from actually going out there and doing the thing, then you’ve already lost the battle, right? So, like, it, like creative expression, whatever it looks like, in your case, building this website, right? It’s like, you gotta take it out of the lab and just like, into the world, and that requires so much bravery. And I think we don’t give enough credit to people who were brave enough to put their stuff out in the world, because, like, I think about movies, right, you know, and like, things that get, like, really panned or whatever. And like, a lot of times it’s like, okay, maybe there are flaws with like, the script, or there are flaws with a acting or execution, right? But like, the bravery it takes to, like, put something out there, especially if you’re brand new or trying something new, or, you know, it’s like, we want to, like, take things down a peg, sometimes without really thinking about, like, how hard it is to just be courageous with what you’re doing, because it’s so much easier to hold yourself back and stay in your lane and, like, not do the big, dreamy things for fear that somebody is gonna, like, dislike it. So yeah, it’s kind of some tangential things, but like, that’s what comes to mind when you talk about it. It’s like, you know, you’re talking about stacking skills, but then eventually you have to fucking use them, and you have to, like, show other humans, like you have to put it out. Yeah, yeah.

 

Jason Miller  1:02:12

And I here’s a thread that I don’t know if I totally nailed that I had hoped to get across in that section. I just, I’m just kind of realizing that is that the reason I started with that quote from Jim Carrey, the effect you have on other people is the most valuable currency. There it is, is that I believe, I truly believe, that when we’re in that zone of passion and zone of bliss, the things we talked about in the first principle, when you express that to others, you cannot help but start, ignite some new possibilities in in your life. I truly believe that manifestation is not a an individual, independent sort of process to me, or at least it’s not utilizing the full possibility of, of allowing the world, the universe, to sort of support the stream that you’re you’re trying to achieve. And so that builder doesn’t, that builder doesn’t listen to me, or doesn’t take me seriously if I don’t express Damn my earnest passion for this thing that I’m offering, right? And I think that that has has been one of the through lines of any success that I’ve been able to achieve with peaceful media or Project Everlasting. It’s how am I showing up? What is this my vibration, and am I doing things? Is my lifestyle conducive to keeping me in that energetic vibration, right? And if I’m doing things that I fucking hate doing, then, of course, like the frequency is so low, and I’m going to attract people who will have the same frequency and repel the people who have the frequency that I want in my life. And I just find it like black belt level Self Mastery to expect yourself to do, to commit 810, 12 hours of your waking day to things that you hate and then go manifest anything beautiful and powerful and magical, is that, does that? Did it connect the dots there? Karli,

 

Karli Petrovic  1:04:32

yeah, for sure. And I think that what you’re talking about, too is like, a good gage of whether or not you are like, having that effect on people, right? Like, if you’re doing something that you’re truly passionate about, you will impact, impact people in a way that they’ll be drawn in and excited by your excitement. But if you’re doing something that you’re not that thrilled about, you might just, like, try telling it to someone else, and you’ll notice that, like, there. Not that interested because you’re not that interested. Yeah, I’ll give you a personal example, right? Yes. So a lot of what I’ve written previously is about agriculture, and specifically AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS, right? Robots used in agriculture. I’ve written 700,000 articles on agro, so many

 

Jason Miller  1:05:23

is that, like, in the range of literal figures,

 

Karli Petrovic  1:05:27

no, it’s an exaggeration. That’s what it felt like, because it’s not my passion. But I’ve written about it so much for years, right? Like, I’ve written about it a lot for years. And, like, I very much respect the agricultural industry. Like, I love like, robots are very necessary. Like, all of this is important work, but it’s not my passion. So if I’m telling somebody about, like, what I write about a lot, you know, and I I’m telling them about agrobotics, right? It’s like, I can just kind of see, like their mind is probably wondering a little bit because, like, I’m not that excited. They’re not excited. Like, they’re, like, they’re being nice, yes, nice. Like, they don’t have a lot of great questions, right? Like, there’s zero follow up questions I’ve, like, completely killed this conversation, right? But if I tell them about, like, my newsletter, my book, or the things that I’m writing about, like, I can tell, like, people are like, Oh, that’s really cool. And like, they’re excited. Like, tell me more, like, tell me about, like, the the kind of mechanics of, like, the realism that you’re talking about, right? Like, then it’s like, that’s what gives me more confidence that what I’m doing is the right. Thing is that, like other people are, like, vibing with it too. I’m, like, other people are now just as excited as I am. Like, so should I be writing about agrobotics Like, all the time? No, I’m not the person to be writing about that. And, like, I eventually kind of let that job go just this last year. But it does require that leap of faith and that courage, because, like, I have to say no to income in order to do something that is, like, currently unpaid, but Right, gets me so excited. So yeah, it’s a it’s a mixed bag on some ways, but I just feel like sometimes people are like, I don’t know if this is my passion. It’s like, Well, talk about it to other people and see what happens. Like, they’re gonna let you know, like, if they’re your friends or family, like, hopefully in the nicest way possible, but they’re gonna let you know if that’s like, your passion or not.

 

Jason Miller  1:07:32

Absolutely, absolutely, I’m listening to you while I’m also trained to put a picture in the album I want to share with you on screen. So sorry if I look a little off to the side. Here you shall we do a plug, an unsolicited plug for AG1.

 

Karli Petrovic  1:07:52

Here it is, well,

 

Jason Miller  1:07:56

so my friend runs an influencer agency, and you know, AG1 is, is constantly working with influencers. I am a non influencer, influencer for AG1 and AG1, if you want to send us some more of this good green stuff and more of your zines, actually. Karli, yeah, let’s connect some dots here real quick before we get into the there’s the

 

Karli Petrovic  1:08:21

inspiration, right? Like, that’s what got yes thinking, right?

 

Jason Miller  1:08:25

So at the beginning of this episode, we talked about how we’re developing a zine talking about the, how do you be human? How do you especially like the marketing? Like, how do you bring the humanity to the digital age of marketing, where most of our stuff is sending pixels around the web, right and working

 

Karli Petrovic  1:08:44

with influencers, right? Like there’s a place for it too, yeah, and,

 

Jason Miller  1:08:49

and for the most part, ignoring the power of the tangible thing in your hands that’s connected to your brand’s mission. And so, AG, one. I got your zine. I think it was the inaugural zine, and I treasured it. I can’t look I wish I had it in my hands. I gave it to our creative director, Gabe, and I said, Gabe, like this, this lands for me. This is, this is the type of marketing or just brand awareness that I want to, I want to do for peaceful media. And it’s been like a year of stop and starts. But this is 2025 is the year where our zine finally emerges. I don’t think we have a name for it. Give me Karli, not currently Okay, and Karli’s Karli and Gabe are responsible. They’re the ones directing that project, and so that’ll be coming forth soon. But I want you to know, AG, one that not only did your zine inspire our zine, but also this drink. I consume it every morning. My wife consumes it every morning. It is her way of getting. Her greens because she refuses to eat my kale salads. And so thank you for a great product that is does have a very, very clean ingredients list. I have some friends in my life who are extremely scrupulous about the ingredients that they can allow into their bodies, and they, they really scrutinized the back of your, your package, and so, oh, like, this is surprisingly, surprisingly clean. Like, normally you do not see this in these, quote, unquote, good for you. Great drink. So, good job. AG, one, all right, in the future episode, we’ll talk about what’s in my coffee mug. That’s we can only do so many brand sponsorships

 

Karli Petrovic  1:10:49

before we get back to our regularly scheduled program. Yes,

 

Jason Miller  1:10:53

yes. Oh, why is it so difficult to add this to my photo album? Yeah, I’ll just, I’ll share my screen, and we’ll kind of clinically go through this, because it’s still, this still connects to that. What I just said about the vibration, well, we don’t. So started with humbly, humbly, doing you know that that the $5,000 all, all meal, you know, full meal deal. Brand a website project for a builder. And, you know, flash forward to say, 2014 2000 now, I’m probably 2012 2013 my, my whole classmate from the University of Montana, Brandon Burchard and I kept running into each other in the book marketing, just kind of full circle this, in the book marketing and book speaking and the whole thought leadership, you know, conference world that we are in, we we Actually this. This was an unbelievable story for me that I still that tickles me so much. So we go to a Mark Victor, Hansen and Jack Canfield sort of sponsor, like Chicken Soup for the Soul Book Marketing Conference that happens every year. And and Matt and I, you know, invested money that we didn’t have. We go to this event. We’re out there networking. We’re learning how to build a platform around your book and really think about the books as as marketing assets. And there’s this guy running around the halls who has the energy of eight volcanos and and also, like the the peace and sort of groundedness, also of and wisdom of someone that’s, you know, well beyond his years, and just a super bright human being, like Matt is really bright. And then there’s, like, the Brendon Burchard light is, is up there too. Like it just you, you feel it and see it from across an entire conference expanse. And we kept bumping into him and kind of sharing stories. And he was a little bit ahead of us, you know, he was like he was building partnerships with Rotary Clubs and like, you know, he’s, he’s a super fast riser at Accenture. He’s on, like, partnership track at Accenture in San Francisco. And just bought one, you know, like he’s is clearly like, using, using his, his bright light, to impact the world and and he was working on his first book called life, or his first major publishing book called Life’s golden ticket. And he was working through the manuscript and everything. It was a sort of, anyway what the book is. But we’re working on Project Everlasting. He’s working on life’s golden ticket. And then, you know, we would go to these conferences, and then two years later, Mark Victorians, and reaches out to us and says, Hey, you guys are, you know, publishing this year, we’d love to have you up on stage to share your story. And so we go to the one in LA this two years later. And just so happens, Brendan and and us are both getting up to share our success stories, like how we use the principles we learned here, you know, to go out and and get your book publishing deal of your dreams right and, and it was there that we realized that we were in a circle of like, Dream achievers, you know, like we’re coming to Conferences and blow and smoke up our asses. We are. We’re here to, like, do this thing. And I think it was there that we formed a real relationship with Brendan, and I offered him, I offered him to come freely and like, shoot when we’re in San Francisco, to come and shoot his Promo. Video for life’s golden ticket. Right? Going back to the filmmaking stocking skills, Brendan had never shot a video. This is hard for a lot of people to believe, because Brendan is prolific on video now, like it’s if you think of Brennan, you’re probably thinking of watching his YouTube videos or his Instagrams or whatever, and that first we were in his crowded apartment in San Francisco, where there’s no room to set up lights. There’s really no room to set up a tripod for the camera. It was like one of those apartments, and he talks about this in his in his speeches, like the you know, you know, just struggling to make this dream work, and we’re using his his like night nights, to light this thing right. And he is sweating profusely. He is so uncomfortable. He is like he’s fumbling over the lines. He scripted the whole thing, and he’s just fumbling over the lines, and like we’re doing, cut take after take after take after take to get this, like, two minute promo video, and I edited it, and I, you know, tried to create something that was like, similar to the Tuesdays with Mori author that had this neat, like, creative way of doing, like, these four pains in his one of his book promo videos, and I was like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do something cool like that with Brendan, because I certainly can’t have like him just doing what he was doing. I need to, like, creatively, pull in other, uh, frames to keep the momentum going, because it was kind of an awkward piece. And I sent it over to Brendan. He’s like, Dude, this is so cool, so cool. Thank you. It was like, just all give. And, I mean, I don’t think he ever used it, because he just didn’t like the way he showed, you know, showed up

 

Karli Petrovic  1:16:57

because it was lamps. And, yeah,

 

Jason Miller  1:17:00

it was really gross. It was really gross. It was not our finest, it was not an award winning piece, but we tried our best, but nevertheless, relationship really formed there and and he would invite me as he was building up what was called back then, Experts Academy, where you know, 1000s of people from all over the world would come in and learn how to build a platform like he had. I, he would invite me to those and I would readily show up, because I was like, my god, that’s all my clients. Let’s like, I can meet people and and really build up my my peaceful media business. And after like, three or four years of that, I finally had the courage to go and again use the express my passion to Brendan around doing brands and websites, and he was at this stage in his career where he was like, I’m all in on DIY. If I can’t do it, then I’m I’m missing out on opportunities for growth, and I’m missing out on opportunities to be as agile as I need to be with my lunches. And so, which was beautiful, is something he espoused, and it was like a principle of his success that he would teach others, and it meant that he from 11am to 3am I’m sorry, 11pm to 3am in the morning. He’s coding his own HTML websites on Yahoo, you know, and doing the thing that I was you had tried to learn to do in 2008 and those that it was the era where mobile devices were coming on, and the site looked awful, like all tables. Websites just got totally bjorked when mobile devices came around, because it just didn’t respond. And so he was like, man. I was like, Dude, I I have a package trio. I want to do your website. I want to do I want to get my team. I built a little team to rebrand you and build a website for you. And he said, Yeah. And so we did Brendan back then it was Brendan burchard.com now it’s brendan.com and and what happened from there is that everybody who saw that website in his sphere came out of the woodwork and said, I Joe Polish, Jeff Walker, you know, Frank Kern, all these folks who, Dr Mark, came in. I mean, it was just like these crazy, crazy, successful thought leaders were coming out and saying, like, I want to work with you guys. And it got to be such a flood. They were like, I, like, went back to Brandon dude. I, I, he’s, like, we, it was a CO, like, collaboration on this idea, of course, but like, he’s like, Dude, I think we need to, like, do something, you know, like a bigger setting. And we need to do something like for multiple people. Can you build people? Can you build a template that’s like mine, that helps people get their marketing websites done well and launched fairly quickly? I was like, Hell, yes, I can. And so the idea for elevate your brand was, was born, and am I sharing my screen? Yeah, we, we brought in 30 people in our entire team into San Diego. And CO led this beautiful event called elevate your brand, where we delivered that promise of from start to scratch, your entire marketing platform is done within a week. Now, of course, there’s prep, and we train people and prep people, and so they’re bringing all the materials, but we did it the peaceful media way. You know, every every tabletop, had our mission. Love more. Play more. Do more good. Uh, quotes from Rumi as you enter positions of trust and power, Dream a Little think, what does that say? Think, no, that’s Tony Morrison. And dream Empower dream. A little before you think, oh, ooh, that seems for me, succulents everywhere. Oh, years ago I’ve Rumi let let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pole of what you really love. It won’t lead you astray. How apropos. And so we host this event, and we launch, we bring everybody together, happy dancing throughout the week, yoga. Currently, this is going to be the art. We’re we’re actually re we’re bringing this back in a different flavor. But all of these components of infusing people who are trying to brighten and shine their light throughout the world, to uplift humanity and heal the planet, is bringing them together in space for an intimate opportunity to excel, like elevate your brand, automate your revenue, and expand your engagement, all the things that we do at peaceful media So Karli, before I jump, there’s a total aside, but I feel like it connected a lot of dots, And and it also helps us see what’s in the near future in 2025 as we start talking about a couple of events coming up.

 

Karli Petrovic  1:22:47

Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I wanted to say as you were talking it’s like, you know, there, there’s something beautiful about being in your DIY era that Brendan was in before you kind of helped him, which was like he was skill stacking during that time. So like, within like principle two, as like, you’re helping him move to principle three, because there is something to like, being able to know at least the basis of how to do all these things, because then you can determine what we’re talking about, which is what’s for you and what’s for someone else, you know what? Where can you, like, offload something that isn’t actually your passion and to somebody for whom it is their passion? Yes, yes, exactly. Collaborate effectively, right? We’re all doing our zones of genius. We’re all in our zones of passion. And you know, we recognize that, like, not everything is our passion, even if we have, like, the skills to do it.

 

Jason Miller  1:23:53

So, so what the audience may not understand is that Karli is a an amazing yoga teacher or yoga instructor. What do you what do you call it Karli? I

 

Karli Petrovic  1:24:05

usually say yoga instructor, but, yeah, I have like, over 700 hours of training. That’s actually not an exaggeration.

 

Jason Miller  1:24:14

So, so while we’re looking at this picture, how would you What’s this? What is this move? And how would you grade that flexibility? Well, it’s

 

Karli Petrovic  1:24:23

a it’s a hip opener, like people sometimes call it runners lunge. I like to call it like lizard lunge, because you’re like, rolling to the outer edge of your your foot. But it’s a good one. You know, it’s like, external rotation of the hip is the big one, and being able to get down on your forearms like that is pretty advanced for a lot of people. So Oh

 

Jason Miller  1:24:43

yeah, well, I am, I’m looking forward to the next version of this event where Karli will be an influential and impact, very impactful on many different levels, member and leader of that program. So. So I’m going to stop sharing my screen before we get into the fourth one, because I want to pull up some photos that help connect the the dots I found, I guess I mentioned I found a tasteful this is, this is actually the picture that I would send down to, down to the modeling agencies. I told you I’d find the tasteful version. I think, I think our HR department will let this one slide. The other ones were no go, no go.

 

Karli Petrovic  1:25:28

I mean, is this like with the photo shopped abs? Where are we? Where are we on the Photoshop journey right now? No,

 

Jason Miller  1:25:34

this is not photoshopped, but, but I, I, you know, when I was taking my own photos without a professional I was like, Oh, shit. Like, I don’t, I don’t know how to make it look like that. That’s looks really dramatic. That’s really cool. I want to learn how to do that. Yeah. But you know, media kids some I forgot to mention that Matt, Matt’s grandma, who’s two years old, went on the entire journey with us. So cool, yeah, from from coast to coast and back back around again, is an entire loop of the entire nation with, like, you know, 15 stops. And there’s the love story that inspired the whole thing. Here’s something that happened a lot throughout the tour. It also happened a lot. And here’s Brendan’s Motivation Manifesto book. It was definitely crossed over with a lot of our work. And then the elevator brand this. This is the one I wanted to incorporate into this next principle, which is the quote from Jim Rohn that you and I came up with, which is, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And so we’ve we’ve gone through we’ve listened to the what the heart says more than the practical mind. In many cases, that’s the follow your bliss principle. We’ve talked about the stacking skills. Let’s do this. Things that make you so happy that you don’t even need to be paid for paid for them. We’ve talked about the courageously expressing your passion to as many people who will listen, and that ultimately gets us to that Jim Rome quote and the fourth principle. So the quote goes, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And that’s, that’s something I want to highlight, is peaceful media today is an at an unbelievably beautiful place in terms of who we, who this agency has attracted and and sort of organized and curated and developed such that I know, I know people talk about this when, like, your workplace feels so enriching. I feel like I can’t even express how full My heart is when I get to show up and be in relationship and do work with the people who’ve congregated here at peaceful media. And you can see it in the this photo right the the joy and the passion and also the exhilaration of achieving something incredibly, incredibly difficult to do, producing an event and and and serving in that way with that many people. So this isn’t the current team here at peaceful media, but there’s that’s been a through line of of what peaceful media means, you know, of just beautiful people who show up with their full selves, following their bliss and courageously expressing that passion with massively stacked skills and just doing in the highest quality, most creative work possible. And Karli you’re a part of that

 

Karli Petrovic  1:29:18

happy to be.

 

Jason Miller  1:29:21

I the way I distill that one is the tip that has to take away is to take that surround yourself with genuine people, first of all, who are doing the three things we just covered, right, follow your bliss, stacking, stack happy dancing skills, and courageously express their passion, right? And when you do that, you have that. What Jim Rohn is talking about, which is your you are the average of the five people you surround yourself most with. Well, you become all of that, right? And if you’re surrounding yourself with people who are not. Not in that high vibration. And you know, if you’re not running your own business, maybe you don’t have the choice. But I think everyone has a choice on where they spend their time when it comes to their careers. And I just, I just firmly believe in if you’re going to spend that much time at something you damn well better, like, the way you feel around the people that you show you you’re doing work with. Karli. Do you have anything to add to that?

 

Karli Petrovic  1:30:30

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s work, it’s friendships, it’s like, even family, though, like, sometimes people get caught up on this idea of, like, there are certain people that we have to spend time with, and I, I disagree with that, you know, I feel like we don’t, we don’t actually have to do that. If we don’t want to. It might be hard to say, you know, I don’t want to see this person or like, you know, it doesn’t have to be anything dramatic. But it’s like we slowly pull our energy back, we slowly stop spending as much time with the people who don’t end up energizing us at the end of our time together. And it’s like, you know, maybe you are not a person who pays super close attention to your energy, so it takes a little bit for you to, like, really understand who uplifts you, who is a good person for you, versus who isn’t. And I really don’t like to think about it as like the people who aren’t for you, or somehow like bad people. They’re just like, not for you. They just don’t uplift you. Maybe you don’t uplift them. It’s just not a good, cohesive relationship and like, that’s fine, because there are other people from that person, right? And like, some people just enjoy being in a lower vibration. They like to be around people who are very dramatic. They thrive on drama, and that’s okay, like there’s, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it might not be for you, and you just have to know, you know who, who are the people who are going to give me what I want to be feeling all of the time, and how can I give that back to those people and like, eventually you draw on the right people and you repel the people you don’t want, like we’re talking about so,

 

Jason Miller  1:32:12

yeah, yeah, yeah. So this whole, this whole episode of marketing for what matters started with, you know the question, Hey, I’m I think we should tell the story of peaceful media, because it’s missing from our website, and it’s kind of missing from our brand messaging and and so I hope that you know, for those of you who aren’t necessarily interested in my, my modeling career, will put up with the fact that, as you know, it’s, it’s, it’s part of the the journey in, in all the things we just talked about and is, is is a useful springboard for something, there’s something that there’s something within me that feels like a little vulnerable, But about sharing so much of this journey when nobody’s aside from you. Karli has asked when being fully candid, like imagining the average Joe listening to this podcast and going, yeah, yeah, bro. Cool, cool, cool. Thanks for the story.

 

Karli Petrovic  1:33:20

But I like, it’s not really about just, like, how, like, yes, the basis of it is, like, how peaceful media was born. And I think, like, it’s funny, it’s just like, it was missing from the website, because, like, no one asked. Meanwhile, I’m, like, looking at the website. I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s what’s missing. Like, obviously this, but it was about so much more than that, right? Like, so much of what we’re talking about, of like, how to build a business or a something from like, your deep passion and love and like, just with a dream in mind, is important for everyone, regardless of who you are or what you’re trying to build, right? Because you don’t have to be a business owner to connect to the idea of, like, surround yourself with good people, follow your passion, you know. And like, all these principles that, like, yeah, sound kind of lofty if you’re just thinking about them, but you’ve kind of gone through the down and dirty journey of that all and like, where it ended up because of that, what I would call a continual trust that it was going to work out, as well as continuing to be courageous around the trust that it was going to right. So with some like message, with

 

Jason Miller  1:34:39

some intermittent fetal positions and questioning,

 

Karli Petrovic  1:34:43

you know, I don’t think we would take it seriously if it all went perfectly from start to finish, that would be like, Yeah, okay,

 

Jason Miller  1:34:51

those aren’t really interesting stories anyways, right? Yeah, I’m excited for people that come check out the new about page. That you and Gabe are working on coming to a web site a web browser near you, as long as it’s not ie six and yeah, I mean thinking about the title for this episode and and realizing that this really expands beyond business building or brand building. Certainly this is, you know, for me, like talking about, like this super superficial or pithy sayings like, follow your bliss. Follow your bliss and watch the magic happen. Or build the field of your dreams and watch, you know, watch people you know, watch them come even the saying from the movie, build this, build the Field of Dreams, and they will come. If you build it, they will come, yeah, if you build it, they will come, yeah, exactly. But I think, I think

 

Karli Petrovic  1:35:53

it’s important to say is, like, if you build it, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna come fast, like people want instant success, right? Keep that in mind, like any building, but like, maybe not tomorrow, yes,

 

Jason Miller  1:36:09

yes, but yeah, with the power of AG1 and Yes, wait, wait, girly with the power of AG1,

 

Karli Petrovic  1:36:26

that’s better. That’s better. Yeah,

 

Jason Miller  1:36:30

really, all things are possible.

 

Karli Petrovic  1:36:34

What’s nice? Karli no ice,

 

Jason Miller  1:36:38

yeah, no, I think that’s all part of the experience. Perfect, because I got to tell you, AG1 executive, if you’re listening, it’s not that great with you know, lukewarm, lukewarm water, like ice, is an essential component of that, that habit in the mornings, making that something that I actually look forward to and enjoy. So, yeah, it’s kind of nice Karli being a non influencer, influencer in that. Yeah, I know influencers have to follow a very tight script sometimes, and we can tell, because they’re all the same. We’re just sharing our hearts. Okay, it’s the it’s the best, it’s the best user generated content you can have. Karli, this is a start of lots more juicy, amazing conversations. At least, I’m finding it entertaining and fun just to be in cahoots with you and being part of your creative, creative energy and your enthusiasm and your curiosity. So look forward to more Karli on the marketing for what matters, podcast hosting all sorts of amazing brands that are out there, like we always say, uplifting humanity or healing the planet, or doing both at the same time, because she’s going to be a powerhouse here at peaceful media. She already is. It’s just that you don’t get to see her as much as we would like. So that’s all changing here in 2025 and I hope you’ll come check out peacefulmedia.com check out the new about page. By the time this episode is live, we have to have it done, Karli, so I know you’ll be using some of the material from this episode, and yeah, until we see you next time, I’m going to just go through those four principles again and finish with our mission statement. Follow your bliss. Stack happy dancing skills. Courageously express your passion and and surround yourself with genuine people who are doing all three of those things every single day, and allow all that good, juicy vibration and AG1 propel you into the life you want and the business, if you’re launching a business or developing a business into the business that you ultimately want and the success that you want until we see you next time I’m jam at Peaceful Media,

 

Karli Petrovic  1:39:06

I’m Karli at Peaceful Media,

 

Jason Miller  1:39:10

and remember to love more, play more and do more good. We’ll see you soon. Peace.

 

Fran  1:39:14

Thank 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.