Episode 21: The Self-Employed Life W/ Jeffrey Shaw

Welcome to the 21st episode of the Self-Employment Success Podcast. My guest on today’s podcast is Jeffrey Shaw. Jeffrey is an authority and advocate for self-employed business owners, valued for his actionable and “in the trenches” approach to achieving business and life success. Something that is unique about Jeffrey is that he has NEVER had a conventional job. His entire life has been self-employed. He started by selling eggs door-to-door at 14 years old. In his twenties, he built a portrait photography business and became one of the most sought-after portrait photographers for affluent families in the U.S. for more than three decades. His portraits have been on the Oprah Show, CBS News, featured in People and O Magazine and hang at Harvard University. Today, Jeffrey is the author of LINGO and The Self-Employed Life. He is the host of The Self-Employed Life podcast, and founder of the Self-Employed Business Institute. His TEDx Talk is featured on TED.com, he’s a LinkedIn Learning instructor,

contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine and speaks at association events,entrepreneurial groups, and conferences. In this episode he shares his story of self-employment and it is JAM PACKED with valuable wisdom and insight to any and every self-employed professional. We talk about the mindset, the heart, and the life of self-employment. No matter where you are in your journey, this episode is for you. So with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Self-Employment Success Podcast with Jeffrey Shaw.

Links:
PeaceLink Financial Planning LLC
Jeffrey Shaw
Self-Employed Business Institute

Transcript:

Leland (00:00.938)

All right, welcome Jeffrey Shaw to the Self-Employment Success Podcast. I'm excited to have you here today.

Jeffrey Shaw (00:06.272)

I'm glad to be here with you, Leland. Thank you.

Leland (00:08.954)

For those listening, Jeffrey Shaw is the king of self-employment. I would say he has his self-employed life podcast. He actually wrote a book called The Self-Employed Life and he has done a lot of work around a business but also what does it mean to be self-employed and how that's different than being a small business owner or being an entrepreneur. And there are differences there. So I'm really excited to get to have him on the podcast today. Have you on the podcast, Jeffrey.

So go ahead and I want to give you the floor to tell the listeners about yourself, who you are, and your story.

Jeffrey Shaw (00:46.619)

Well, my entire story is about being self-employed. I've actually never had a traditional job. I've never received a paycheck from anybody. Um, so this is it. This is all I've known and quite honestly, I didn't realize Leland. That was even remotely unique until I was at a dinner party in Toronto a few years ago and that topic came up and I'm a professional speaker. And I was at a table with other speakers and they're like, do you tell that story on stage? I'm like, no, why is that unusual? They're like, yeah, it's unusual that you've never had a job, you know,

But that's part of the journey. I think of being self-employed is that we're just doing the thing, right? I mean, we're just doing the thing day in and day out. And sometimes, uh, aren't even aware, you know, of, of what it takes. And, and I said, we're just doing the thing. So my, my story is I literally started out being self-employed at 14 years old. When, um, I had a pivotal conversation with my father, which went something like him saying, um, no one's going to care about your life as much as you do. And.

Leland (01:15.537)

Hahaha.

Leland (01:43.755)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (01:44.995)

I really get the message of what he said and it's, it's proved true in a lot of ways, but at the time as a four-year-old kid, I was like, damn, I think that includes my father. Like I don't think he's going to care about my life as much as I do, you know? So it had a profound effect on me that I literally, I felt like I in that moment. And I remember the moment exactly. I was literally sitting at a breakfast counter at a Denny's for those of you remember Denny's restaurants. Um, one of the few, my father's a man of very few words. And I recalled this being one of like three conversations I have with him. He passed.

Leland (01:53.524)

Hahaha

Leland (02:06.416)

I'm sorry.

Jeffrey Shaw (02:14.035)

when I was 20, so I didn't have a lot of years with them. And, um, I think in an instant, I made a decision that this thing called life was up to me, that no one was going to step in to save me, no one was going to care about my life as much as I do, and that I didn't see a lot of other, uh, choices. I was growing up in a small country community. Uh, there was never any conversation about higher education. I had two older brothers that went right into construction after high school. One brother who didn't complete high school. Um,

Leland (02:22.733)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (02:43.267)

I was kind of the intellect of the family and the deep thinker, but there didn't seem to be any path for that. I was the unusual one. You know, I was the kid that was reading self-help books from I was time I was 10 years old, I'd save my allowance and hide them because my family would have thought I was weird if they knew I was reading books by Wayne Dwyer. So I just I literally think at a moment I said I'm going to take this bull by the horns and figure it out. And that to me is what being self-employed looks like. So at 14 years old, I struck a deal with a local farmer.

Leland (02:48.336)

Hmm.

Leland (02:59.761)

Hehehehe

Jeffrey Shaw (03:12.039)

Uh, who had chickens and eggs and that seemed like something I can sell on Saturdays because everybody needs eggs for Sunday morning breakfast. So I struck a deal with him. I would buy a dozen of eggs for 25 cents. He supplied the cardboard cartons and I went to the farm on Thursdays and I sat there and put the eggs and all the cardboard cartons and went door to door on Saturdays and selling eggs and door to door included driving my mother's old and be able to cut the Supreme, which is an enormous of a car to a 14 year old.

Leland (03:19.96)

Yeah.

Jeffrey Shaw (03:42.363)

didn't, I was two years too young to have her driver's license. No, it was completely illegal. But again, we do what we have to do and we're self-employed. And it was the country. Nobody was going to care. So yeah, I did. I mean, I drove all around town as a 14 year old, barely seeing over the steering wheel and I sold eggs and my mom owned a beauty parlor. So I would drop off cartons of eggs to her customers on Saturdays. And, um, and there you go. I did that for a number of years. And then.

Leland (03:45.869)

I was about to say like...

Jeffrey Shaw (04:09.319)

By 20, I was off in photography school, um, trying to figure out if there was a pathway to making a career as a photographer. Cause it was the one talent I felt I had. I'd won a number of awards in high school. I just didn't know what to make of this talent. And then, uh, while in photography school, I found that I really liked the intimacy of photographing people and doing portraits, despite the fact I was very shy.

Leland (04:21.923)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (04:31.547)

But I really, I enjoyed the intimacy. I don't like crowds. I don't like big groups of people, but I love to get to know one person or a family of five or six. And I loved it. And short, you know, long story short from the age 20, I started my photography business and by my late twenties, I had a phenomenally successful portrait photography business for very affluent families.

Leland (04:38.21)

Hmm

Leland (04:54.943)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (04:54.947)

Now the crazy thing is I'm this kid that grew up in farmland, lower, lower middle-class upbringing. And I ended up being the go-to photographer for the most affluent families in the United States. Um, obviously there's a lot of steps on how that happened, but, um, you know, it also, oh, it's a whole book. My first book lingo kind of it's my book. Lingo, uh, is a brand messaging book. It's, it's the strategy of, of speaking the lingo of your ideal customers, regardless of what market you want to reach, but it's predicated on that story. Like,

Leland (05:08.43)

I'm sure that's a whole podcast in and of itself.

Leland (05:16.866)

Hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (05:24.463)

That's how I, that's how I did it. Basically. Like I figured out what is the lingo of affluent families. And, and I will always, I mentioned cause I always do. Cause I think it's the polite thing to do is I didn't pursue an affluent market because I thought the roads were paved in gold or that they had a lot of money. I became aware a few years into my photography business, which was failing in my hometown. I became aware that I needed people with a discretionary income to, uh, to appreciate my work because it was all based on long-term thinking.

You know, people invest in large portions of their home for their future, for their children. And the only people that can afford to do that are people with discretionary income. Right. So I, I came to that awareness, but I then had to figure out how do I speak their lingo, how do I break into that market? And that's, that's ultimately what I unpacked. Uh, and then that led me to, I actually just a few weeks ago did my very last photography portrait session. I officially retired from photography just about three weeks ago. Um,

Leland (05:54.762)

Mmm.

Leland (06:20.066)

Really? Wow, congratulations.

Jeffrey Shaw (06:23.987)

Thank you. Over the past 15, 16 years, I've done a lot less. I mean, it's been a part-time business, whereas I've been building my coaching practice and building, writing books and launching the self-employed business Institute. And so I've been doing all things are on self-employed for the past 16 years, doing less photography, but hanging on to those last few clients until, um, I felt really complete. Um, so I'm officially, you know, a former photographer, you could say, and that leads me to what I'm doing today, which is.

Leland (06:50.39)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (06:53.159)

The founder of the self-employed businesses to writing books for self-employed business owners, self-employed life podcast, and, uh, really hopefully being an advocate for self-employed people, which is what I think is necessary. I think, uh, as I often say, uh, on stages that we are, we're an unconventional business in a very conventional world. And it's not that your industry is unconventional, but by means of being self-employed, you're unconventional. Like the world around us is not.

Leland (07:04.816)

Mmm.

Leland (07:13.281)

Mmm.

Leland (07:19.979)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (07:22.459)

doesn't do things, the world of business around us doesn't do things the way we need to do them to be successful.

Leland (07:27.23)

Mm. That's really profound. I haven't thought about that, but you're right. Everything in our society is geared towards traditional job.

Jeffrey Shaw (07:35.591)

It's a trend. Yeah. And here's the reason I'm widely, and I want to make sure people understand why they go the world. It's a transactional world. We live in conventional businesses, transactional. You go into you, you go in and have a transaction. You leave when you're self-employed. I don't care what industry. And, and I challenge anyone to convince me otherwise, because I've, I know, cause I'm, I'm actively seeking. I've yet to find an industry where someone is self-employed that this does not apply to. And that is that we are in relationship based businesses.

Leland (07:41.858)

Mmm.

Leland (08:03.647)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (08:04.219)

And the reason that's key is that, you know, most people know the 80 20 rule, the Pareto principle, uh, that says 80% of your income comes to 20% of your clients. Again, that's a very conventional business thought, because when you're self employed, you can't afford for 80% of your income to come from 20% of your clients. That means you're wasting your time on eight out of 10 customers. And we don't have the time for that. We can't sustain ourselves. We need almost all our customers to be ideal customers, which is why I, why I wrote my book lingo. Like.

Leland (08:24.454)

Hmm

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (08:34.235)

Let me teach people how to attract that. So I don't care what industry in, I mean, we are a relationship based, whether, whether your goal as a business is to get customers to come back to you, refer you, or simply not speak badly about your business because you can't afford that. You're in a relationship based business. And I can, you can almost take everything that you see in the world and flip it upside down. And I'll give a very clear example of that. Transactional businesses often off to offer.

Leland (08:49.661)

Mmm

Leland (08:57.09)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (09:02.887)

discounts for new customers only. When you're self-employed and in a relationship based business, there is no faster way to turn off your existing customers than to give a deal to new customers that your loyal customers don't get. It's completely ass-backwards when it comes to being a self-employed business. Which is why we need to do things different and almost always complete opposite of what we see around us.

Leland (09:18.038)

Hmm

Leland (09:30.538)

And how do you think that creates, or do you think that creates a unique challenge to self-employed professionals where, Hey, you know, big corporate transactional, we don't totally care about our customer. They're a money machine for us. We're going to do discounts because it's great for the bottom line. Does that create challenges for the self-employed professional who I'm with you? It's like, my whole business is relationship focused.

the whole idea of I need to find my target client because my time is valuable. And you're right, if I start charging new people half of what I charged, my loyal people who've been around, who really value my service, they're going to be actively turned off because it's such a relationship that they're going to feel slighted by that in many ways.

Jeffrey Shaw (10:19.667)

Yeah. A hundred percent. And so, um, we have a good number of our students are a self-employed business Institute that are in the financial industries. I, my work, and I speak at a number of financial conferences and my work and my message really resonates with people in financial industries, because as I, and I say this from stages, you all are in one of the most emotionally charged businesses there is like people, no one fights over, you know, couples, families fight more over money than almost anything, and yet the marketing

Leland (10:40.09)

Mm-mm.

Leland (10:45.122)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (10:47.511)

is completely lacking of emotion. I mean, it's kind of interesting to me as an industry, how you, you know, it's such an emotional business and yet it's, it's presented very corporate, professional, cut and dry, non-emotional. Right. So funny when, when that message gets through to financial folks, they really latch onto my message and my work. And I work with a lot of students like that. So to your point, yeah, it causes huge confusion because

Leland (10:50.005)

Mmm.

Leland (11:05.196)

You know.

Jeffrey Shaw (11:12.423)

We're trying, we were, if we try to emulate more transaction based business strategies, we're confused as to why they don't work for us, you know, and in the business Institute, for example, um, we, I teach a whole marketing system called hug marketing and to kind of summarize the aspiration of that hug marketing is a, instead of, instead of a marketing funnel, which looks like a triangle of a funnel, hug marketing system is a series of concentric circles, one circle inside of the other.

Leland (11:19.159)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (11:40.507)

So that we, as marketers and business owners understand that there are people in the outermost circle, what I call lurkers, people that are watching you, seeing you, hearing you, but you don't know they're there. You don't know my name, but they've, you've gained their eyes and ears. And then it's your job to bring them closer one circle at a time. The second to last circle is client acquisition. Great. Right. Transactional businesses, thrilled. They acquired a client, but we go one step further, which is the hug, which is why it's called the hug marketing.

Leland (11:50.548)

Hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (12:08.015)

And then hug marketing, the goal is how do you build such deep relationships with people that if you had never met them before, if you met them in person, you would naturally want to give them a hug because the relationship is there. And in that process, we talk a lot about customer loyalty and I'd literally teach, uh, and provide ideas on how to create customer loyalty programs that are complete opposite of the way the rest of the world does it. So where as conventional businesses will give a discount for new customers only.

Leland (12:16.834)

Hmm

Jeffrey Shaw (12:35.463)

I believe every relationship based business should have a program where your existing customers get benefits that new customers do not. Okay, again, completely. That's how you maintain loyalty. And that's how you make people feel like they're part of a club because and you don't you don't necessarily market that as a as an attribute of your business. And often it's even more effective if it's something they find out once they become a customer and you're like, Hey, now that you're in the family, now that you're you know, part of us, I'd like to let you know about something that

Leland (12:44.308)

Mmm

Leland (12:58.222)

Hmm.

Leland (13:07.833)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (13:07.854)

right. So it becomes that wow, you know, impact that they, they feel like they're part of a club. Um, and, uh, so that to me is, you know, it is such a part of a relationship based business that a conventional business transactional business, they don't do it that way.

Leland (13:22.542)

Well, and I love that the concentric circles because innately that's how we, whether we know it or not, that's how we live our life with our relationships. Like, you know, my wife is my most inner circle, you know, and then we have our family and our closest friends and then our, you know, work friends and our colleagues and you know, the person from down, like your neighbor who, you know, ideally your neighbor's closer probably, but we live in a weird world where we don't know our neighbors. So, but...

Jeffrey Shaw (13:31.091)

Correct.

Jeffrey Shaw (13:51.107)

Thanks.

Leland (13:52.31)

We live with people kind of in these rings, closer or further out. And you're right, the people in the most inner circle get a different piece of you that people the next circle out don't necessarily receive. And from a marketing standpoint, I think about, I've just lost the name of the book, but an author who talks about the fact that there's always another inner circle, and we're all longing to be in the next inner circle. So whether you...

Jeffrey Shaw (14:19.463)

Mm-hmm.

Leland (14:20.81)

are like, oh, I want to join the school's football team. And then you get on JV and you're like, well, now I want to be on varsity. Well, now I want to be a starter. Well, now I want to be a captain. And there's always this inner circle in every situation that we long to be included in because we want to be, we're humans who are hardwired for connection. And so to do that for your clients is so powerful.

Jeffrey Shaw (14:26.203)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (14:41.403)

Yeah. And you just right. Yeah, because it's actually tapping into one of the what has been proven to be the most emotionally most emotionally significant thing for humans is belonging. Right? People need to have a place that they feel that they belong. And I actually was having a conversation with someone recently and I said, you know, I've yet to get my head around this because it's both

Leland (14:55.82)

Mmm. Yeah.

Jeffrey Shaw (15:10.711)

inspiring as business owners and sad as a member of the human race. And that is that as businesses, we absolutely can make people feel like they belong by through the power of our businesses, particularly relationship based businesses through the power of our businesses. We can make people feel seen, heard, and understood in a place that they belong. That's incredibly powerful. The sad thing is.

Leland (15:15.138)

Thank you.

Leland (15:23.051)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (15:37.423)

is how fulfilling that is because of how much it's lacking for so many people. So many people don't even get that at home. They don't get their parents. They don't mean they may not even get it from their relationship in like that feeling they're really seeing. So it's, it's a bit sad to me that as business owners, we can fulfill the human need for belonging. It's sad because they're not, people are often not getting it elsewhere. And yet what an incredible role we play in people's lives. If we recognize the power of that. Um, so.

Leland (15:41.784)

Hmm

Leland (16:04.502)

Hmm

Jeffrey Shaw (16:06.531)

I agree with you. I mean, there's always another circle. There's always a, but there, cause we're craving, we're always looking for a place to belong and, and it's why, you know, my, my photography business, um, in over a 40 year span, I had many clients. That I worked with for more than 30 years. Um, and many of the good percentage of those I worked with every single year. All right. So I actually knew the depths of, in fact, we had a process in our.

in my photography business that if we didn't hear from a client over three years on the third year, we would drop them a note and just check in with them and say, Hey, it's okay if you've chosen to work with another photographer, but just want to let you know that you're missed. You know, we wanted to make sure people recognize that we didn't see them. And it almost always led to, Oh my gosh, has it been three years? I had no idea that much time. I knew actually that was likely to be the response. It was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. I can't believe my kids are three years older and I don't have a record of that.

Leland (16:47.02)

Hmm.

Leland (16:50.358)

Mmm

Leland (16:57.675)

Yeah.

Jeffrey Shaw (17:03.535)

Let's do another session. So it actually was a significant marketing plan and we knew that, um, but the messaging was much more heart centered than that. It was really about letting them know that. As I said, do we just say, Hey, we acknowledge that we don't see you because I'll tell you what, in my business, uh, there, yeah, they matter. I mean, there were, I, I'll give you an exact example. There was a, for, I think about 13 years of my photography business. I worked with the same frame maker.

Leland (17:08.375)

Mmm.

Leland (17:18.102)

Yeah, we miss you. You matter.

Jeffrey Shaw (17:31.571)

And we're talking about handcrafted 22 karat gold leafed, beautiful frames that I would use for my portraits. And I worked with this frame maker for 13 years and I in part built their business. They did. I did a lot of business with them. I also introduced them to a lot of photographers. So their business grew significantly and the production got slower. I kept next thing it was taking longer and longer to get my frames. And I continuously complained about it to the point where I eventually dropped them as a vendor. I'm like, you know, it's taking.

Leland (17:58.475)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (18:00.451)

Way too long to get frames. There are other options out there. I'm going to switch vendors Some time went by and the owner of the company flew out to see me And let me know that they were dying to get my business back that I was their number one photography client in the country And I said well the shame of it is I never felt that way And I said, how is it? I'm your number one client as a photographer in the country And I didn't feel that way. That's the problem

Leland (18:16.007)

Mmm.

Leland (18:19.586)

Mmm.

Leland (18:29.043)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (18:29.191)

So I gave them another chance with a promise that they would improve their production and they didn't. So they lost my business permanently. So I actually gave them a second chance to acknowledge. So I think how, how ridiculous that is when you people, right. You're number one customer and you're not taking care of them.

Leland (18:35.117)

Hmm.

Leland (18:42.571)

Yeah.

Leland (18:46.134)

And they have no idea that they are anything more than just a transaction to you.

Jeffrey Shaw (18:51.335)

I would have had, I had no idea that I was their number one photography client and I had introduced them probably to a dozen of my photography friends, many of which I had admired. So I assume maybe they were doing even more business with this company had no idea that I was the number one client. And that to me is the shame of it. How can I be your number one client not feel that way? So as businesses, we need to

Leland (18:59.9)

Mmm.

Leland (19:12.301)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (19:15.395)

I've never actually said this before, but we are gold. We wanted people to feel completely seen, heard and understood. And we also want them to let them know that they, when they're unseen, you know, I mean, and again, often you'll gain their business back by letting them know, Hey, you're missed. You used to be a part of our business and you're not now.

Leland (19:23.315)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leland (19:32.554)

Yeah, I think that is a phenomenal framing because you think about people who, like many times for your top client you are, you have your lists and you're like, all right, I'm going to call my top clients. I'm going to do a special event for them, which is awesome. Like you said, caring, letting them know you're, you're important to me. But there's tons of other, like if we think about the 80-20 rule, are we going to the other 80% and saying, hey, we miss you.

It's been a long time. How are you doing? I know last time we talked about this, how was that? To basically say, you could be, A, if you're not my top, you could become my top and B, regardless, you matter. And like you said, you're gonna retain a lot and win a lot of loyalty because we are so heart-centric. I mean, in my business, I'm in finance. So like you said, it's totally heart-related. Money is a weird thing. I tell my clients this because...

even though it's inanimate and it feels corporate, it feels transactional, it feels like stock market charts, it touches every area of your life. It touches relationships, it touches where you live, it touches quality, protection, self-worth. There's so many things that in many ways it's dangerous because it can become a false god for someone. It can become this idol in our lives and it can also become a huge point of contention.

Like you said, it's a huge area of divorce is arguments over marriage or over money. And so to sit with people and speak to them in that language and let them know you matter, this matters. I care about you. I see you. Hey, it's been a long time since we've talked about your finances since you've come in. And you know, this is a really important part of your life. How is that going for you? Really breaks through that threshold.

And I think it surprises people, even though it makes sense. Like you said, we wish people were getting belonging in every area of their life, but they're not. And we, they think of business, everyone thinks when they first think of business as transactional, as money, as a job, as this gray thing. And so when you treat it as it should be, which is

Leland (21:53.178)

We're in the people business. We care about hearts. We're impacting heartbeats, not clients, not customers. It almost surprises them. They're like, that was not an experience with a business or a financial planner or whoever it is that I was expecting, if that makes sense.

Jeffrey Shaw (22:02.191)

Yeah.

Jeffrey Shaw (22:10.755)

Yeah. And, you know, especially since you're in the money, uh, business, let me give you some insights, which I often say part of, I have such a unique perspective. My life has just offered me an incredibly unique perspective in so many ways. And one of them is the fact that I grew up lower murder class and I ended up. You know, working with the most affluent families and, um, and that dichotomy always existed, you know, it's, uh, for many, many years of my career, I would be working with my clients and their 20, 25,000 square foot mansions. And they're.

gorgeous, well-appointed homes. And I'd leave there and have a family event I had to go to at my mom's house, which has a 1400 square foot ranch with, you know, um, you know, brothers that were questionable. Just, it was just like, it was such a, it was like a huge contrast and one that I was always able to manage because I respectful of where I came from, but acknowledged where I was going and, you know, and, and so I was always respectful on both ends. And I think one of the things that afforded me,

Leland (22:57.901)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (23:09.351)

perspective, particularly as it pertains to money is because I made this journey from lower middle class to working with affluent families. Here's one of my key observations that comes to that experience, but I think applies to everyone is that money, how people feel about money, the energy of money, the buying decisions people make has everything to do with how they see themselves in the world.

Leland (23:23.38)

Mmm.

Leland (23:35.776)

Yes.

Jeffrey Shaw (23:37.115)

And when you work, and again, that's true of all socioeconomic classes, it's, it seems a bit highlighted, or maybe it was highlighted for me because I was studying the behavior and mindsets of an affluent clientele that I had to grow to understand because I didn't come from that. And I realized that they're buying decisions are based on how they see themselves in the world. They see themselves in the world as deserving the best. And I don't mean that it's not an snobbish way. They have every right to deserve the best, but they see themselves in the world as deserving the best, wanting to maintain a certain quality.

Leland (23:55.786)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (24:05.763)

educating their children, um, to the lifestyle they should expect for themselves. So they're inspiring their children to, to not be lazy rich kids, but to aspire to greatness. Uh, they, you know, so they're, they're very strategic. So there's, there's a reason why they choose a high end brand as opposed to a discount brand, right? It's how they see themselves in the world. If you're, if you're someone who sees yourself in the world as having to skimp by, which, Hey, if that's your.

Leland (24:14.919)

Enjoy.

Leland (24:25.706)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (24:34.315)

If that's your truth, that's your truth. But that's how you see yourself in the world. It also can be pigeonholing, right? If that's how you see yourself in the world, no matter how hard you work, you're not likely to put yourself in the world in a different way. This is one of the things I tell people that are aspiring, particularly service businesses, if you're aspiring to serve a higher inclined tell. I just don't think your brain is capable of allowing you to shop at the dollar store.

while you're trying to market yourself as a high end because you're, you're confusing your, your perception of how you see yourself in the world. The moment you decide you want to pursue or hire and market, you have to see yourself in that world. So that's, and that's literally how I trained myself at 23 years old. After having three years of a struggling photography business, because I was in the wrong market.

Leland (25:06.082)

Mm.

Leland (25:12.308)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (25:22.351)

And I realized that I needed to work with an affluent clientele because of the, they had values that were aligned with what I was offering. I gave myself three months to understand what made them tick. So for three months, every dollar I made, every dollar I could put on a credit card, everything I could scrape up. I was living their life. I went to high-end stores. I bought the clothing that they would buy. I went to the restaurants that they would go to and financially could have driven myself into the ground.

And I was still making a little money here and there and all that's the education I was investing in. Because when I decided that was the right market for me, I had to be the right person for them. I had to understand. So I had to change my perception because prior to then I saw myself in the world as a kid who had to become self-employed because there were no opportunities for me. That was how I perceived myself in the world. I had to change my perception of who I was in the world in order to change my position in the world.

Leland (25:53.322)

Mmm.

Leland (25:57.61)

Mm-hmm.

Leland (26:14.636)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (26:14.831)

And the coolest thing, you know, and I rarely say this because it always runs the risk of sounding a little snobbish, but Hey, I'm okay with that. One of my primary sources of education. And this whole story is in my book. Lingo is I, uh, grew up an hour and a half outside of New York city. So I went to Bergdorf Goodman, which is if people aren't familiar with it, it's a one of a kind store on fifth Avenue. It's one of the most exclusive brands and stores you'll, you'll ever encounter and they do everything right there. It's it's flawlessly high-end and beautiful.

Leland (26:43.906)

Hmm

Jeffrey Shaw (26:45.115)

And, um, I spent a lot of time in that store studying the behavior of the people that went there. I was looking for the emotional triggers. What are, what makes people choose this? So I would, I started going there as a kid that for the moment I walked past the doorman, I'm thinking, Oh man, they know I don't belong here. Like I am completely misdressed. I look like a poor kid. The first time I went to Bergdorf, I literally started hearing tapping and I'm like, what in the world is that tapping noise? And I realized that I, I

literally had holes in the bottom of my shoes. And there was like a metal plate in this embedded in the soul that was tapping on the marble. I never walked on marble. My parents home had linoleum. Right? And I'm walking on linoleum not marble and it's tapping. The to me the greatest representation of what I'm saying about how you perceive yourself in the world you have to change that.

Leland (27:17.634)

Mm-hmm.

Leland (27:23.022)

Hehehe

Jeffrey Shaw (27:35.715)

My greatest example of that is I went from that kid that didn't belong to actually being an ongoing steady customer with a personal shopper, Bergdorf Goodman. And again, I know that might sound a little uppity, but I, at this, I don't care if it gets the point across, like that's the journey it took me on not belonging in there, right. And literally changing how I perceived I belonged in the world to actually being an, a consistent customer of the brand because of what I created and how it afforded me the ability to do so.

Leland (27:48.566)

view.

Leland (28:03.726)

Totally. And one of the things you're speaking to in changing the way you view yourself in the world has to do with what I think is kind of a plague to our society right now, which is victim mindset versus hero mindset. Are you a victim to the world you grew up in, the circumstances of your life that, like you said, if that's your truth, that's your truth. But are you believing that has to be your truth? Are you believing that has to be your story?

I think it's easy that it's a lesson I've been working on in my personal life for the last year or so is like these stories I'm telling myself, are they true? Or do they have to be true? Am I a victim to circumstance or am I going to be the hero of my story which says regardless of my circumstances, I can change the way that I view myself in the world. I have agency to make a change to learn and grow and evolve.

to the next level that I want to go to. But I think so many people get caught in, well, like a perfect example is the affluent and the lower middle class. Like many times the lower middle class believe like, well, that's just my lot in this world. You know, I'll never be there because this is where I come from. And they almost feel like if I go there, I'm leaving where I come from. And that's going to be like, I'm going to lose relationships. I'm almost going to lose belonging and safety.

Jeffrey Shaw (29:17.255)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (29:29.723)

Survivors literally survivors guilt when people accelerate their wealth considerably or their success. There's literally often a survivors guilt

Leland (29:31.948)

Yeah.

Leland (29:38.726)

I see that with other self-employed professionals because a lot of us come from grassroots or we work our way up and we achieve the success we've dreamed of, but then we feel like we left our kin. And it doesn't have to be that way, but again, it's these stories we tell ourselves. And if we can push through that and put on the hero mindset of our story and say, all right, I'm not a victim to this. I can build the life.

Jeffrey Shaw (30:06.779)

Yeah, I can give you a, yeah, I can give you a complete mind bend. Let's see if, if how your listeners feel about this. So if you can see what's possible for yourself, like AKA goals, but if you can see what's possible stuff, no, but how, no matter how big what you think you can see for yourself, that's you're going to experience incremental growth, which is good, you know, you can incrementally get bigger, higher, more successful.

Leland (30:11.667)

Hahaha

Leland (30:29.915)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (30:34.555)

By seeing goals, obtaining goals. But if you really want to take a big leap forward, it's what you can't see. Right. There's a version there's, there are things that can happen in your life that you can't possibly see right now. And it's actually moving forward in a way of believe in just believing in that, but you can't believe in it because you don't know what it is. It's just something far bigger than you can possibly see.

Leland (30:41.43)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (31:02.627)

And it's, I said, it's a bit of a mind bend for people because yeah, because we're so often, like I said, if you, if you, if you reach for goals and you achieve those goals, that's fantastic. That's incremental growth, right? You're seeing it, you're hitting it, you're seeing it, you're hitting it. The big leap is believing and trusting and not seeing.

Leland (31:05.334)

I know, I'm dropping my head around it.

Leland (31:24.437)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (31:25.519)

And that's a much harder thing to then it gets right back to perception. Like you have to really work hard on. How, what you see available to you. And one of the, in a more practical sense, one of the things, so in my self employed business Institute, we, uh, the first month is a five month cohort. And the first month is devoted to personal development. Uh, because as a cornerstone of all my work, I really believe you have to grow the person before you grow the business.

Leland (31:53.416)

Mm.

Jeffrey Shaw (31:53.911)

And if you don't, it's why you end up with this, this hustle, hustle type of culture where, and I think every self employed person can relate to this, that we just keep stuffing more in the sack, right? We just keep learning more skill sets, more business strategies, more social media, we keep stuffing in this sack. And then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed and then we can't keep up. We feel like a hamster on the wheel. Right. Because we haven't actually cracked the code. If you will, the code is growing yourself first. And I often refer to this as capacity in order for your

Leland (32:03.671)

You know.

Leland (32:19.63)

Hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (32:22.567)

Business to have greater capacity more of anything's possible You have to first work on the person and what's laying on the top of most people's heads is what I call a deserving ceiling We're holding ourselves back by what we have predetermined we deserve and no matter how big and bold You want to think that you deserve I deserve it all I deserve to be a billionaire You can say that to yourself, but do you believe it and are you living it and are you?

Leland (32:40.497)

Hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (32:52.507)

acting and do you really absorb that? So one of the first things we really look at is this idea of a deserving ceiling. How do we get? How can we each get into stepping into believing those we deserve more than we can possibly see? Right? So we're not just raising the deserving ceiling, but how can we crack it open like it's an auto an automatic ceiling on a football stadium? Like, how can we just crack it open so that it's unlimited? And then really, like I said, that your biggest leap

Leland (33:06.932)

Mmm.

Leland (33:17.13)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (33:21.079)

is in believing and trusting in what you can't see right now.

Leland (33:24.174)

Mm.

I think that's phenomenal. I'm on board. I mean, well, and I think because like you said, we it's like opening the box, like we put everything in a box. We're finite humans who want to be able to understand everything. So we create these beliefs, we create these visions for ourselves, for others, and we're putting things in a box. And I think what you're saying is like, I can imagine putting opening the box and putting myself in a bigger box.

Jeffrey Shaw (33:29.648)

Yeah.

Leland (33:55.498)

But then I'm just confined to that box. As opposed to saying, well, what if we just ripped the lid open on the box? And it's uncomfortable. I'm feeling that of there's some mystery involved. I can't understand what it'll be like. I can't fully fathom. But I know that I can believe that it's bigger than my biggest box that I can believe in. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Jeffrey Shaw (33:58.299)

size box.

Jeffrey Shaw (34:17.839)

Yeah. I had an experience, I had an experience a couple of months ago, actually I was several months ago now. Um, and I have to say, like, I can get as woo as anybody, but I'm also extremely practical minded. Like I like facts and so I like science to back up everything. Even, you know, I talk about manifestation. You can look at it two different ways, right? One can look at manifestation as a woo thing. Um, I look at it.

I'll add a little woo woo, but I had a little science to it. The fact of matters is to me, it's based on the science of brain priming, like brain priming is you can only recognize what you already know. Right? Which is why when someone tells you about something you've never heard before, and then suddenly you see it everywhere. You know, somebody tells you about a movie or a book or something you never heard of, or a concept, and suddenly you see it everywhere. Well, that's because you can only recognize what you know. So once your brain has been primed to recognize that thing, you're more likely to see it, it's actually been there all along.

Leland (34:50.647)

Mmm.

Leland (34:56.181)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (35:16.194)

So they're actually really good example. So to me, it's the scientific version of manifestation. It's still powerful. You get to choose what you want to see and what you recognize. You put that in your brain and you're more likely to see it. Okay. So it's still incredibly powerful, but, um, uh, several months ago, I had an experience where in a week's time, my front and rear windshield just blew out. Right. Within a week, the front windshield got hit by your typical rock. And then you're like, Oh, I'm going to go back to the front windshield. I'm going to go back to the front windshield.

Leland (35:21.783)

Mm-hmm.

Leland (35:26.655)

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (35:40.635)

But in a very, like within a day, it, the small fracture on the windshield just shattered the whole windshield. And then, um, I had to drive a convertible, the smallish window in the back of the convertible just shattered. And I just thought it was annoying. So I posted on social media, like what are the chances in a week? And by the way, when you blow out the wind, the rear windshield and convertible, it means replacing the entire top. You can't exactly. So now it's a much bigger project. And, um,

Leland (35:46.862)

from sit down.

Leland (36:01.794)

higher top.

Jeffrey Shaw (36:07.199)

I just posted the annoyance of it on social media. And so many people wrote back to me and said, Well, you know what that means? Like that, that literally means that there's something much bigger waiting for you, like you're busting at the seams. And I just it became a really interesting metaphor. And when it was said to me, I'm like, you know what I can, I can actually feel that. Like I felt like I'd gotten like to use your example, I felt like I got too big for the box. And by the way, it's a mini Cooper, right? So it's small to begin with.

Leland (36:20.174)

Yeah.

Leland (36:32.687)

Hmm. Literally too big for it.

Jeffrey Shaw (36:35.031)

Yeah, it literally energy. I it was when that was said to me repeatedly, I was like, you know, I energetically feel like I just busted out the parameters of my life several things that happened in my life right around that same time. That literally led me to believe that that's what was going on. Like I was I energetically felt like I just blew up the deserving ceiling and it was maybe been the sides of a vehicle but it was the same essence. And I don't know where it's going. And that's what I'm saying. It's like

Leland (36:44.489)

Hmm

Leland (36:55.694)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Jeffrey Shaw (37:01.915)

But I can instinctively say, yeah, there's, there's something on the cost peer, maybe it'll be the next, my next book I'm working on. Maybe it'll be this circumstance. I don't know what the circumstances will be, but I can energetically feel that a bigger, bolder version is awaiting me. And that's what I mean when I say about, you know, you can have your goals. You can have your aspirations, go ahead, reach for them, hit them. Awesome. But at the same time, really lean into believing that your biggest leap is one that you can't

Leland (37:12.118)

Mmm.

Jeffrey Shaw (37:31.059)

possibly see right now. Yeah. I remember when my kids were little and I was talking to a coach I had at the time and talk about educating my kids and wondering, I mean, he gave me such great advice is, you know, my kids were little, they're like maybe five, seven years old. And he said, you know, by the time they come of age to go to college, there are going to be things in the world that don't even exist now, which are likely to be the trades they go into. And I'm thinking, huh, that's very true. I mean, right. We're looking at AI now, right? I mean, there's an entire industry, an AI