IAM1650 – Therapist and Coach Helps Entrepreneurs Reach Their Potential Through Entrepreneurship

Jason Wasser Teaser 00:00

I think the secret sauce is not only do I have the therapy side and this coaching side and the coaching program, but I was also actually trained under a capital venturist who is radically successful, has over 50 companies under their portfolio and his name is Rick Sapio.

His, passion is training and helping other entrepreneurs reach their potential through entrepreneurship.

Intro 00:22

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:46

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and we're doing something a little bit different this year. With some of our episodes, we're repurposing some of our favorite episodes around specific topics related to entrepreneurship.

This month we're focusing on entrepreneurship and community. Us, we, our together, and we're gonna look at entrepreneurship and industries in different types of entrepreneurship and ultimately what that really means.

But we're also gonna delve deeper into the importance of community, networking niche communities, and how that supports being a CEO entrepreneur and business owner. So sit back and enjoy these special episodes around entrepreneurship and community.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jason Wasser of the Family Room Wellness Associates in South Florida. Jason, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Jason Wasser 01:33

Thank you for having me, I'm really excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 01:35

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Jason so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Jason Wasser is a licensed therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, and a certified entrepreneurial coach.

He believes that every business owner, whether an entrepreneur or entrepreneur, should have a therapist and a coach in their life to help them reach their potential and minimize their stressors. Jason utilizes a mind, body, and spirit approach when collaborating with his clients and their families. Jason owns the Family Room Wellness Associates in South Florida and works with entrepreneurial clients and their loved ones all over the world.

Jason, are you ready to speak to the I am CEO community?

Jason Wasser 02:12

I'm ready and excited.

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Gresham Harkless 02:14

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Jason Wasser 02:20

Absolutely. So having grown up actually in an entrepreneurial family, I'm actually the second generation. My grandfather started a family furniture business after he survived the Holocaust and moved to Pennsylvania. My father eventually took it over, they moved it down to South Florida. And then a bunch of years ago, my younger siblings, my brother, and sister kind of started getting involved in the business and pretty much managing the day-to-day.

Meanwhile, as part of my journey, I've always been involved in informal education, the nonprofit worl and student programming, whether it's high school or college level programming, and never really saw myself as this person who's an entrepreneur. I always saw myself as a healer and a therapist more than I saw myself as a business person.

And a bunch of years ago I opened up my own practice, still not accepting this idea that I'm an entrepreneur, that I'm a CEO, right? And saw the struggles of what it was to be a solopreneur, right? A person who was trying to run a business by themself and while I was doing that, I was hitting my head against the wall.

I couldn't grow the business while I was seeing clients. And if I was seeing clients and servicing the people I cared to service, I couldn't grow the business. So I was stuck in a catch-22 and meanwhile, I was still fighting the idea of being a business owner as opposed to this idea of a therapist until a colleague of mine who's a chiropractor, who's also a NET practitioner, took about a year and a half to try to convince me to join about this entrepreneur conference in Dallas, Texas.

And finally, once I summed up my strength to be really uncomfortable, where I saw myself probably being less than all the other people that were there, even though I had this business for many years, I jumped on a plane and went out for a weekend and walked out with the realization that not only am I an entrepreneur, but I'm actually really, really passionate about it, but I've just been thinking about it and defining it the wrong way. And that is some significant limitations.

Year one alone of changing my mindset and putting into play of this program that I'm now a certified coach through, brought not only radical, massive increase to my bottom line and profit in my company, but also made it much simpler to operate.

And now I use these same skills to help other companies and families change their life through that world of entrepreneurship.

Gresham Harkless 04:18

I love that. I love that because while you were talking, I was immediately thinking about, the book, the E-myth, which always talks about the different aspects of running a business and how in order to go to a different level, you can't be the technician, I think it is the technician.

You have to move from the technician to the business owner, to the kind of person that can see everything. So I love that because so many business owners I find struggle with it. Do you find the exact same thing?

Jason Wasser 04:40

Absolutely. And I share this with everybody, especially people who are reaching out to me for ideas about going into graduate school for therapy or any other type of business that I really correlate that technician, manager, entrepreneur, which is what the e-myth talks about. To anybody who's getting a salaried position and or they're that solopreneur person that they're the technician, right. Whether you are a janitor, whether you are a barista, at a coffee shop, whether you're a therapist, whether you're a doctor, you're only getting paid when you're doing the work.

And a lot of times that comes with also a lot of administrative work as well, a lot of extra paperwork, all that stuff. But going up to the level of a manager, Someone like me was doing all three. I was trying to manage my paperwork, marketing, answering phones, scheduling everything, and trying to network, right?

Going to networking groups and advertising and managing all that. And I didn't have enough time in the day. So when people come to me now and I walk them through each of those things, it radically shifts. A person's idea, whether they're a student or they're already running a business on how to change from that paradigm.

And in fact, that's one of the first books. Or I'll say, skip the book. Just go on YouTube and listen to as much as you can. Yeah. And you can write, get all that in a much shorter, more efficient time. But I know that we've been trained to go to school, go to college, get a job, get that salary, have that safety and stability.

But meanwhile, you're still trying to do all those other. My paradigm, my new paradigm is to become the person who's the most successful. You have to give up practicing the trade in which you're trained in to learn to go to the next level so you don't become superman or superwoman in trying to do it all.

And that's why I help both my therapy clients as well as my coaching clients. Really let go of and it really does help change everything for them.

Gresham Harkless 06:16

Yeah, I can definitely imagine that. So I know you touched on it a little bit, is that kind of like what you do for the clients you work with and what you feel makes you unique and just like what I call your secret sauce?

Jason Wasser 06:24

Absolutely. I think the secret sauce is not only do I have the therapy side and the coaching program, but I was also actually trained under a capital venturist. Who is radically, radically successful, has over, I think 50 companies under their portfolio and his name is Rick Sapio.

His, passion is training and helping other entrepreneurs reach their potential through entrepreneurship. And he does that through core values of values-based decision-making, managed by objectives. What my other buddy, Matt Manero, I don't know if you've heard of him through the Unique Money Podcast.

Is also now co-owner of this program called Business Finishing School. He talks about a lifestyle by design, and that's kind of the way I coach my clients where we typically think too small, right? We think about a goal that we want to make, you know, in the next three to six months, but I push to five to 10 years out.

And reverse engineer, and I know the anxiety's gonna be provoked in them because we usually make a goal or what we want to attain, and then we take a step back from that just below the level of resistance on emotions.

And my job as a therapist and a coach is to push you into that anxiety-provoking state because that's really where I believe your potential lies once you get past that.

So by doing that reverse engineering, putting together this lifestyle by design, and then when my clients are in person with me, I throw a narrow emotional technique at them, which is a mind-body stress reduction protocol. We find out what the self-sabotaging, self-limiting stories are that hold them back.

You combine the therapy, the coaching, and the NET, and you have a game changer that I don't believe anybody else in the world is doing.

Gresham Harkless 07:47

What I wanted is to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a C E O hack, and this might be an App, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Jason Wasser 07:56

So one of my favorite things through this program that I'm a certified coach through was the accountability groups, right? There are so many masterminds out there. There's everybody's offering a mastermind, which I see more as a first buy-in sale to get that person to buy more of your products. What I mean by this situation is that you find 2, 3, or 4 other like-minded people that are equally committed to doing the work through a very specific lens.

To help you get to a goal in each of your personal and professional lives. So, for example, through this program, I have two other people that I work with. One's a chiropractor out in Portland, Oregon. Another one's a buddy here in South Florida, who is a business coach and also does kind of outsourced CEO and works in online education.

And we are going through different themes and how it apply to each of our problems, both emotionally, and practically about our business, our limitations, our delegation, and time management. So we go through themes. as well as the module from this curriculum to help us do better as well as to hold each other accountable, to do the work that we say we're gonna do.

And I think that's something that most people don't realize. To hold yourself accountable is really difficult. And a lot of people don't have that. And that's why all these great books out there, you know the way this seal and all these things about how do you get up and rise and grind and all those things, all these cliche phrases. But to be in a space where you are holding someone else accountable and they're holding you accountable is radically part of the success factor.

Gresham Harkless 09:14

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Doing that on a regular basis like you guys are doing and I think that's definitely a great CEO hack.

Jason Wasser 09:19

Well, and I think that's also part of that story, right? That people carry about their success factor, right? I grew up, I was a scholarship kid and to know that, and I also wasn't a great student. I barely graduated high school. To know that not only my successful therapist with a great reputation but to know that I came from a parent's divorce scholarship.

Right. Not doing really well in high school and then finding out what I'm passionate about and then putting myself in that environment. I wanna challenge your listeners to not be afraid to take that risk, to do that, to now be coached by some of the big-name people out there and have a personal relationship with some of the big-name people that are out there in the entrepreneur space.

Is really something that I've leveraged through this in the last two and a half years. So I was nothing to having leveraged with this community. And people are radically successful making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And I'm not saying that from an ego place. I'm saying it by those influences become part of your network.

And I think that if you bring value, there's also a difference for people out there who I care about. You know, the thing of a CEO, just because you're selling a product doesn't make you a CEO. But when you have a business, when you have products and a company around it, that's what makes you a CEO.

And I think that people out there need to understand. That there's more than just a product in order to do that. And a lot of times the product they're trying to sell is themselves. And that's really tough because we can have 15 minutes and we'll be done. But to leverage the people that you're engaging with is really powerful.

Gresham Harkless 10:39

Yeah. I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Jason Wasser 10:47

So the younger self of me would realize that I am an entrepreneur. I think if I were to go back to the time I was in graduate school, we didn't have social media.

And so I did graduate school from 2003 to 2005, which was right after Facebook got started. No one was using social media for business. I think maybe around that time Gary V was probably the only guy who was using AdWords for all this stuff. But no one was leveraging a personal brand.

So I have two friends from here in South Florida who just started graduate school. They're twin sisters and they just started the family therapy program that I'm in, I said, throughout your entire, from day one, you start creating an Instagram that's just your professional Instagram.

So by the time you graduate where you have two years till you graduate, and then you have another two years until you get fully licensed, that's four years to build up a social media presence. In that annular brand, in that timeframe.

So that night I got request from both of them. I'm in stuff with their business brand, right, with their therapist brand. And this is something that I feel like if you know, and I agree a hundred percent with Gary V if you don't have a brand, if you're not leveraging social media, not to tell us what you do, but to show what you do, how do you solve the problem?

What's the problem you're trying to solve? I wish I knew that back then. And I also realize that, and this is something I teach my clients, is that entrepreneurship I hundred percent believe is a therapeutic modality. That you can heal and figure out your purpose through entrepreneurship, probably more profoundly than you can in many other ways.

And I think that's an incredible actualization of a person through that. So those are just those nuggets of bone up on all the reading. But know where your role is, right back to the entrepreneur, the manager and the technician. Some people are really great at baking cakes and they need to hire a partner to be the marketer.

Some people are really good macro thinkers, so know your role, know what you're really good at, and don't try to like force yourself into something else as if like there's an ego thing there. I think that would be the, biggest nugget I would, I would give to some.

Gresham Harkless 12:32

I know we touched on it a little bit and we talked about the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and I wanted to see if there's anything additional you had or like how you would define and what you look at as far as being a CEO.

Jason Wasser 12:42

So it's interesting, I don't see myself as a CEO. I have a very niche practice. I have a chiropractor and a nutritionist that work out my office as my associates, but I feel that unless you're really running a larger scale company, this idea of having this idea of CEO, really people are still holding onto that superman superwoman principle.

And I think to really be a CEO means that you are a master at delegation. You're a master of implementing and, getting people around you that are aligned with the core values of your business. You're a master of brainstorming objectives and action steps. And holding each person in that business accountable.

But you have to have a business, right? Again, I like the idea that people aim to be a CEO, but there's a difference between being a president or a founder of something and being a chief executive officer. , which means that you have an executive team, which means you might have a board of directors, which means you might have stakeholders in your company, investors.

But I want to challenge people to think bigger than them being Superman or Superwoman. And that's the only way that you can eventually become a CEO, is when you build something that's much bigger than you, where at the end of the day the business does not revolve around you, that if you disappeared for a month, it would still run.

I think when we get to that point, then you can officially call yourself a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 13:58

Nice. I absolutely love that. So I truly appreciate the time Jason, and I wanted to pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then of course how best they can get hold of you.

Jason Wasser 14:08

Absolutely. So I know that people out there are kind of figuring out like this coaching thing is such a big thing right now and I really wanna make sure that people know where to go and where to look for coaching. And obviously, I'm not here to be the therapist and coach for everybody.

As a therapist, I can only see people that live in the state of Florida. But when I'm doing coaching, the background that I have as a therapist is where I can separate between what's an emotional challenge and what's a solution-focused challenge is to find someone who does have that background and solution-focused work.

Unfortunately, a lot of times there are coaches out there that are doing therapy and unfortunately, also you can wake up in the morning tomorrow and anybody can call themself a coach. So know who you're working with, know what their experience has truly been, and know the difference between working on a therapeutic issue and a coaching issue.

And I'm happy to answer anybody's questions and point them in the right direction. As I said, I'm not here to take everybody. I don't have the caseload and the bandwidth to take everybody. I take very, very specific clients and, but those I do take people who are passionate, who are committed to long-term change in their life, committed to realizing that mind, body, and spirit has to be part of it.

Work-life balance has to be part of it. Accountability has to be part of it. Defining core values has to be part of it and making themselves really uncomfortable to figure out who they are capable of having to be a hundred percent part of it. So happy to help anybody out there. Please point them in the right direction or even set them up with some coaching time with me.

And the best way to get me is through my website. It's www.thefamilyroomsfl.com and the SFL is South Florida. Abbreviated, so it's thefamilyroomsfl.com. I can also be found on Instagram, Jason Wasser, lmft.

Gresham Harkless 15:36

Awesome, awesome, awesome. We'll have those links in the show notes as well too, just so that anybody can click through and follow up with you and follow you on Instagram of course.

Just like the students, you did that, you spoke to as before. So again, I appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Jason Wasser 15:49

Thank you so much, right back at you.

Outro 15:50

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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