What Got You Here Won’t Build Your Next Chapter with Jeff Jaworski (ep. 248)

[00:00:00] **Adam Coelho:** Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Coelho, and I'm so glad you're here.

If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org/start and download my free 

envisioning guide. In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life.

Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org/start. Let's jump into today's episode


## Three Years After Leaving Google

[00:00:55] **Adam Coelho:** Jeff, welcome back to the Mindful FIRE Podcast. I'm thrilled to have you back. 

[00:00:59] **Jeff Jaworski:** Thanks so much for having me back, Adam. I really appreciate it. Can't believe how long it's been since I've been here. 

[00:01:03] **Adam Coelho:** I know.

It's been three years, and when I had you on the podcast you were just a mere few monthsout of Google and stepping into the next chapter of life after building financial independence. So the big question is, it's been three years, how's it going? 

[00:01:17] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy to think it's been already three years.

at first it felt like it was going by slow. Now it feels like it's going by very quickly. But things are, things are great. three years later I have my version of retirement, which is I'm- I built my own business called The Ship Coaching and Consulting. I actually created a, a publishing LLC and just wrote my first book, which is coming out on September 22nd.

We can talk more, a little bit more about that if you'd like. and, from, like, a 


## How FIRE Created Runway

[00:01:43] **Jeff Jaworski:** FIRE perspective, without sharing numbers, like, I'm doing better today than where I was three years ago. So the good news is when you're disciplined around these things and doing the things that matter to you, you can still see the growth from that.

So, yeah, it's, it's been a fun ride. I've learned a lot, and I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing. 

[00:01:59] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah, that's awesome. And so- Leaving Google, especially having the success that you had being a, an executive, building incredible global coaching programs that really- 

empowered a lot of people, I imagine that was pretty purposeful for you.

I guess- Yeah ... and we talked about this a little bit the last time you were on the show, episode 151. Definitely recommend people go back and listen to that. That was a really great conversation that got into your mindset at the time. But looking back three years out, what were you hoping for in this next chapter?

and 

[00:02:31] **Jeff Jaworski:** how were you approaching it? And, and then how did it go? 

It's funny 'cause I would say I've been reflecting on that a lot. Like, I hit the, the three-year anniversary of that, if you will, on July 7th. So July s- 7th, 2023 is when I stepped out of the doors of Google, po- hopped in my Jeep Wrangler, popped the top open, and drove off into the next chapter, if you will, with FIRE on my side, to make sure I had runway to build towards what's next for me and, have that independence that I, that I wanted and needed.

But I would say, when I first looked back then, there w- a lot of it was purpose-driven, Like, I'm, I'm still, an executive coach. I run coaching workshops and trainings and, things of that nature, so there was, like, a passion for the coaching space, but there was also a passion for just increased, like, presence with my family.

My kids are young. I wanted to spend more time with them. I wanted to be around more. I wanted more flexibility in terms of how I was using my time, what I was using my time on, and things of that nature. And it's funny, I, I think about three years ago, I used to, like, count the days to, like, when will my, when will I have enough?

Like, when is my number truly FIRE? And if I wanted to, I could just, like, not work anymore, And I think the reality is I learned very quickly a couple things about myself. One, FIRE for me was more about, like- Giving me options. like I tell people all the time, the two most important things we have in this life is the time we have and how we choose to use it.

So it gave me that. And then, as I first embarked on that process, I took a little time off first. It was like, I'm just gonna, spend some time with family and go on a vacation. We went to Ireland for a couple weeks. And then when I came back, I started, thinking about and building this business, The Shift.

And I mentioned to you before we started the recording, which I'll share with the audience, like 


## Why Jeff Wrote The Leader-Shift

[00:04:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** writing a book was not on my bingo card. what was on the bingo card was I wanted to scale my experiences to more people, more teams, more organizations, and really, from sitting on all sides of the table in sales and, and leadership and on the buy side and coaching and seeing what, what I built with the global sales coaching program at Google, I was like, "I just wanna do...

Like, help more people." Like, that was my thing. I was like, I just wanna help more people be more successful in what they're doing. and I realized pretty quickly, like as one person, it's impossible for me to get to everybody. and that's when I started thinking through like, okay, how can I, how can I start to package these insights, these stories, these learnings into, into something that could live on forever?

And that's where the book came from. So, short answer for you, three years, things are great, I've learned a lot. Some things are happening that I wanted to happen. Other things, like writing a book, wasn't immediately like on the list, but scaling my experience was and, and the book has become the expression of that 

[00:05:06] **Adam Coelho:** Very cool.

Very cool. Yeah, that's, that's interesting, and it's cool to hear. And I, and I think that's why you and I, bonded so quickly, because we have a- Yeah ... similar approach, We're both FIRE people, we both kinda grew up, a long time at Google, and also just this idea of wanting to build a business in our own time, in our own way, 

Mm-hmm. Without having to force it, without having to rush, without having to worry about putting food on the table, that kinda the basics are covered and can At least for me, it's like I can create and connect and, and build this thing, in, as I always say, in my own time and my own way. 

[00:05:42] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah

[00:05:42] **Adam Coelho:** and that, that's really, I feel like that's a superpower of sorts in, in business. Yeah. 

[00:05:47] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. And, and the thing I would like put out there on that I'd, that I don- just don't want people to lose sight of is like we're, we're very, you and I are very lucky to be able to, to do that, working at companies that we worked at and, and things of that nature.

But I'd also say we, it requires a lot of discipline, I think, many people kinda... Like, you have to find that balance between living in the now, living in the now, like today, the Jeff of today, the Adam of today, and then investing, what I call investing in your future self. 

[00:06:16] **Adam Coelho:** Mm. 

[00:06:16] **Jeff Jaworski:** Because there's a, there was a time, there was a version of me in, in my 30s, right, that if I didn't do those things- 

this version of me today wouldn't be- ... wouldn't be comfortable doing this, Mm-hmm. So there is, how do you find the discipline for, yes, I wanna enjoy life right now today- but where am I getting to a point where that's enough, Like, the, the word enough is so important to say.

[00:06:37] **Adam Coelho:** Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:38] **Jeff Jaworski:** That's enough to maintain a lifestyle that I can have fun, I can enjoy what I'm doing, I can enjoy my work, but I can also prepare myself, like, over the longer period of time to have, the time that I want to spend the way I wanna spend it, and the choices around that time, and that requires discipline and, and a, and a FIRE-type mindset.

Otherwise, you're perpetually on that kinda hamster wheel of like, "Well, I can't really stop doing this," or you're taking, a massive risk if you're going from- 

[00:07:06] **Adam Coelho:** ... 

[00:07:06] **Jeff Jaworski:** I'm collecting a paycheck every two weeks and now I'm not- ... and I wanna build this business- In immediate ... but I gotta pay the, but I gotta pay the mortgage, in two weeks, 

Those are different things. So I think there's a balance- Right ... of, finding, like, what your enough is in the moment, in your now, and then, like, how are you investing in your future self so that you can have those, those options that you might want for yourself in the future. 

[00:07:27] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. I, and I, I think that's why pow- that's the power of, of FIRE, 

And that's the power- Yeah ... of financial independence, and the, the simple path to wealth, Like, it's- Yeah ... avoiding debt, spend less than you make, invest the difference, and if you, if you're diligent about that, and, and no one's saying you need to deprive yourself, but- 

[00:07:45] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah ... 

[00:07:45] **Adam Coelho:** if you are thinking about that in that way, you can build this level of financial freedom over time and start to think about, well, what if, what do I really wanna do?

What do I really- Yeah ... wanna spend my time on? And then it gives you the runway to go and try to do something, Like you said, like, you, you weren't at a point where you could just kick your feet up on the beach and, and live forever. You, a- and not that... You didn't even wanna do that, You wanted to- Yeah

create a business and, and scale your i- influence to other people and share your experience with as many people as you could. But you had built the financial, runway to be able to do that without having to- Yeah ... rush, There's, there's always those stories of the, the, the entrepreneur that bets it all and, it has to work.

Mm-hmm. And yeah, that'll certainly make you work hard and, and- Yeah ... put your feet to the fire, but that doesn't guarantee success, and that's probably not the most healthy way to go about it. Yeah. It's certainly not the way that I wanna do it. and so I guess one thing I'd love to hear your thoughts on, w- you've ta- you and I have caught up a few times, between the last episode and this episode, not recorded, and what I've shared with you is, like, it's been a challenge to truly embrace the mindset that there's no rush, 

Mm-hmm. I d- I don't ... I, I find that I'm still have s- been at points still putting a lot of pressure on myself- 

[00:09:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** ... 

[00:09:08] **Adam Coelho:** with regards to trying to, like, make it successful, to get people to say yes to hiring me for a workshop or to do coaching or whatever. Yeah. And then when it doesn't happen- It's quite disappointing.

Yeah. And so I'm curious of y- of your experience, and how that has evolved over the last three years, 'cause I imagine you had some things that you were h- real excited about that didn't work out. Yeah, yeah. and we both spent, 13, 14 years in a system that was, like, very much high expectations.

Go, go, go, go, go. Mm-hmm. What have you done for me lately? Yeah, so what was your experience with, with all of that? Yeah. Like, 


## Building a Business Without the Rush

[00:09:41] **Adam Coelho:** building a business i- in practice without having that, pressure or- 

[00:09:45] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. 

[00:09:45] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. 

[00:09:46] **Jeff Jaworski:** Well, I, I think the difference is the pressure is often self-manufactured, not to say the pressure doesn't exist, or that our wiring doesn't create it, but I think the important piece to be mindful of is, like, there's pressure that...

The way I s- it's actually in the book, is there's pressure that's real and there's pressure that's mine, Meaning, like, I'm just placing this on myself. Mm. It doesn't actually, it doesn't technically exist. I've just chosen- Right ... to place that pressure. And, again, if we think about, like, FIRE, if you have runway, if you have that, financial independence, or, like, you've got...

You've built up enough that you have a lot of runway- 

[00:10:21] **Adam Coelho:** ... 

[00:10:21] **Jeff Jaworski:** and, and you can take your, take your time, take your pace, it doesn't necessarily mean that, like, that wiring that you might have if you're, like, a type A person or you're used to the pace, and you're used to achievement, and you're used to, like, the pats on the back or whatever- 

doesn't mean those things go away, So, I still, classic sales, No different for me. You When I go out there and I'm, talking to people and doing outreach and p- 

[00:10:43] **Adam Coelho:** Win more than you lose or lose more than you win? 

[00:10:45] **Jeff Jaworski:** Or, sorry, you lose- 

[00:10:46] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah.

Say it again. 

[00:10:47] **Jeff Jaworski:** That's the correction. 


## Handling Rejection in Entrepreneurship

[00:10:47] **Jeff Jaworski:** You lose more than you win. I wish you won more than you lose. 

[00:10:49] **Adam Coelho:** Like, 'cause that's, that's not the experience I had. 

[00:10:51] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yes, yes. Yeah. I wish, I wish that was actually what was happening for me, but no, like, you lose more than you win. It's no different than sports, a batting average of 300 is amazing, but that means 70% of the time they were, they lost that at-bat.

Mm, sure. So I think it's like sometimes we have to remind ourselves of those things, but the difference is when you're building something for yourself, it just feels personal in a different way. Like you've rejected me- ... or my idea or my product or my solution, whatever it is that I think's gonna help you, 

And you have to just remind yourself, like, you're gonna lose more than you're gonna win. If you feel... It's the same thing I used to tell my, my, team at Google when I was leading a sales team. I said, "If you can rest your pillow, your head on your pillow at night knowing that you brought something of true value, believe there's a problem you can solve, and you bring value in solving that problem-" Even if they don't say yes, you should sleep well at night.

And that's the thing I always try to, like, bring back to myself- Mm ... is, like, do you believe you're bringing something of value to somebody even if they don't choose to buy that thing from you, Like, some of those things aren't perfectly in our control for a variety of reasons, so I've had to remind myself of that.

But yeah, it's... Like, that's just human nature. Like, you get a no, like, that rejection or what have you is, gonna... You're gonna feel a certain way about it, and then you're gonna feel an increasingly certain way about it when it's something that you built, Absolutely. that's yours versus, like, whatever.

I can blame the product if I work at a corporation- 

[00:12:21] **Adam Coelho:** Google Analytics 4 ... 

[00:12:22] **Jeff Jaworski:** yeah, it's defe- It's the pro- it's the pro- there's something wrong with the product. It's not me or- 

[00:12:25] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... 

[00:12:26] **Jeff Jaworski:** whatever 

[00:12:26] **Adam Coelho:** it is. It's totally different. It's totally different. Yeah, it's 

[00:12:28] **Jeff Jaworski:** just different when it's yours, So, I think that's, like, a totally normal, natural feeling.

And I've- I've learned a lot in this process for myself. I've- I've had so many times where I've had people reach out to me interested in my product, service, offering, what have you. We have a couple conversations. I put together a recommendation or a scope or a proposal, and they disappear, 

And initially you're kinda like, "Well, that's weird," like, "You asked me for this," right? 

[00:12:55] **Adam Coelho:** Yes. 

[00:12:56] **Jeff Jaworski:** At- at minimum, just t- tell me to kick rocks or- Right ... say no or whatever. 

[00:13:01] **Adam Coelho:** Yes. Yeah. 

[00:13:01] **Jeff Jaworski:** But- but we have th- we've created this, like, interesting culture where it's, like, just okay to, like, completely ghost people.

Like, if I... Like, Adam, if I asked you for something, and you said, "Oh, to do this for you, here's what that looks like," da, da, da, and I just decided I didn't wanna do it, I'd be like, "Hey, Adam. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. I'm gonna pass on this," or whatever that might be. So- 

[00:13:21] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... 

[00:13:21] **Jeff Jaworski:** anyways, like, I could go down- It's weird

a total rabbit hole on this. It's- it's a weird dynamic. It's one thing when you do the outreach cold or what have you. That person has no right, no expectation, no obligation whatsoever to ever res- reply to you. The ones who ask for you to provide something to them, and you put some time, energy, effort, thinking into what could I do to help you- 

[00:13:44] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah

[00:13:44] **Jeff Jaworski:** at minimum you'd love for them to just, even if they don't wanna do it, just say, "No thanks." 

[00:13:48] **Adam Coelho:** Yes. Yes. I'm- I'm having a flashback to- ... a- a situation exactly like this. Some guy that worked at Google reached out to me. We had a great call. We talked, like, "This is what it looks like." " That sounds great. Let's do it."

Never heard from him again. 

[00:14:02] **Jeff Jaworski:** Mm. Never heard from him again. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what is that about? I- I had one client sign... I had a client sign the contract and then- Like disappear. I'm like- 

[00:14:10] **Adam Coelho:** That's crazy ... 

[00:14:11] **Jeff Jaworski:** and, and I'm like, I'm not just, I'm one person. I'm not gonna chase this down, 

[00:14:14] **Adam Coelho:** No, no. 

[00:14:15] **Jeff Jaworski:** So, 

[00:14:15] **Adam Coelho:** Probably not someone you wanna put a lot of effort wor- into working with 

[00:14:18] **Jeff Jaworski:** if you're- No, you just, at the end of the day-

gonna just disappear after that ... you wanna work with people who are, who reci- in a cer- reciprocal way want to- Yeah ... to collectively do the work. And again, you believe you're providing value to them, they believe you're providing value as well, and you- Yeah ... can lock arms, if you will- Yeah ... and go after it.

for those that it doesn't work for, even if you believe you could really help them, there's not a lot you can do. Like in coaching- Yeah ... I, I say all the time, like if someone doesn't want the coaching, it's, it doesn't go well for either side, Yeah. So if, if there's not that mutual alignment there, it's, it's just not a good use of either person's time.

[00:14:47] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a great point, and it's good to remember. And, and I like the, the mindset of, am I bringing, do I feel like I'm bringing something of value? Am I putting, m- this effort, am I putting this offer and this effort out there in good faith? That's all I can do, 

Yeah. That's all I can do. Yeah. And you're not gonna g- you're not gonna win every time, and you gotta just, keep going. And that's how I've been thinking about this, and it's been, it's been up and down, Mm-hmm. It's certainly been up and down. Welcome 

[00:15:11] **Jeff Jaworski:** to entrepreneurship. It, it is a- 

[00:15:13] **Adam Coelho:** Oh, yeah

[00:15:13] **Jeff Jaworski:** rollercoaster ride, for sure. 

[00:15:14] **Adam Coelho:** Absolutely. Absolutely. And, I look, I look at, when I, when I really kinda step back and look at my situation, I am living the life that I envisioned, Yeah, I agree. I've, I've got this room behind me that I always envisioned, and I've got, 

you know, I, I, I'm building a business in my own time and my way. I work when my kids are at school. I can hang out. I can do whatever I want when I want to. That's what I wanted. That was the vision, And it turns out building a business is challenging.

And so there are gonna be ups and downs. And so I just gotta like keep in mind, like I'm moving forward, I'm building this progress. And, that kinda leads me to the next thing, which is this idea of writing a book. Yeah. And I've thought about it from a, for a long time in various ways. And so I, I think that I would love to find a way to scale my ideas around mindful FIRE for as many people as possible.

Because I- Yeah ... I truly believe that this approach, both the financial independence side, but also the building self-awareness through mindfulness and, and envisioning the life you want and building resilience along the way is really a, a powerful package for how to think about this. And so I'd love to scale that.

And this business, this podcast, this, all the, all the assets that I'm building over these last six years, the podcast listeners, the downloads, the email list, all these things are growing slowly. And that is preparing me, and, and the clarifying my ideas, is preparing me for that in the future. Yeah. You said that you didn't have this on your bingo list.

So you mentioned like why you did it, but I'd love to- I'd love to explore this concept, and then I really want to dive- Yeah ... into the book, and I think there's a lot of- Sure ... a lot of value for people, listening to... for us to, to understand the, the the core concept of the book is what got you here won't get you there.

Yeah. And so we'll talk about that in a few moments, but, selfishly I'm curious about like when did you say, "You know what? I want to write a book. I want to scale this"- Yeah ... like how did, when did that turn from I want, would love to do this, which is the phase I'm in, to- ... I'm going to do this and I'm actually starting to do it?

And then just, yeah, walk me through like that process of what it was like to write the book, like- 

[00:17:20] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah ... 

[00:17:20] **Adam Coelho:** and all of that. I'm very curious. 

[00:17:22] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. So where do I begin? Let's see. So, if I think about what led to the book eventually, when, when I first left Google three years ago I said to myself I wanted to, bring my experiences to morepeople, teams, and organizations at its simplest form to help them make the shift that's gonna transform their impact.

That was like kinda the, the high level tagline. 

[00:17:41] **Adam Coelho:** Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:42] **Jeff Jaworski:** And I started to do that. I sit on Hudson Institute of Coaching's faculty, so I do a lot of... I teach coaching, I coach a lot of executives, I do a lot of workshops, work with a lot of great organizations. I've still done work for Google and LinkedIn and Amazon and, all these, all these different things.

And, but even as I was doing that I was like I want to keep doing that, I love that, I enjoy that, but that also is like still not at the level of scale that I really wanted to bring. Like I just think back to like all my experiences, and especially building the sales coaching program at Google and seeing like just the impact it was having on sales leaders and their teams, from a leadership standpoint but also from like the actual performance of their team and the revenue it was driving.

I was like I need to like... These experiences need to be like out there, So I just came to this realization of like the only way you can bring this at scale where you don't have to be in the room every single time and it can live on forever even, morbidly whenever the day comes that I'm not here anymore is to write a book.

And for me I would say this is like a broader leadership thing overall. Like, people ask me all the time, like, so this book's focused on sales leaders, I was like, it's focused on sales leaders in respect to the process they go through, how they get to sales leadership, the tendencies that got them, got them to the role that are the opposite of what they should do in leadership.

We'll get to that in a moment, et cetera. But there's a lot of things inside of this book that are like apply to leadership overall. Like, to me, in general, there's so many leaders that just h- have it backwards, Too directive, don't, open up other perspectives, aren't curious enough, and all those things, 

So that's where like the i- this like, okay, if you really want to hold true to what you said three years ago and scale this, a, a book is probably the next step to do that at a true scale where anybody could access it, So that's where it came from. In terms of me starting to like work the process of that- 

I probably started the process, I'll say like maybe a year and a half ago. I started having conversation with other people who've written books. what their process was, what route they chose. Do they use a publisher? Do they self-publish, all these other things.

Dave Morline comes to mind, another former Googler, wrote The Safety Effect, great book. Jenny Wood, Wild Courage. Mm. Great book, New York Times bestseller. Yeah. Lorraine K. Lee, Unforgettable Presence. Like, those are some of the people that I started to talk to and, learn in that process.

And then I started to get connected with, different publishers to explore like do I go the publishing route? Do I go the self-publishing route, et cetera. And one publisher who, as I tell the story, I, I just will let re- remain nameless, but one publisher gave me like their form. They're like, "Okay, happy to explore this book with you.

Like, here's all the things we need to know," and had me draft up a book proposal And it was a really good exercise 'cause it, it was the first step in the process of, like, get all your thinking on paper. What's the core premise? What's your thesis? Mm-hmm. 

What's the problem you're solving? What's your point of view? Is it, is it a contrarian point of view? Like, are you bringing something that's maybe much different than, what the market would expect, in terms of a way to approach it, et cetera? And is it, again, like, a real problem, to solve?

And then do you have the experience to solve it? So I write out this entire proposal, and I feel great about it. I was like, "Okay, I feel like this is now like, more thought through." present it to them, and going back to my earlier commentary, this publisher completely ghosted me. 

[00:20:59] **Adam Coelho:** Oh, no. 

[00:20:59] **Jeff Jaworski:** Like, like, no, like, no feedback whatsoever.

No, "This is great. This is not great," anything like that. I'm like, "Okay. All right. Well, that, that one's... Sounds like that one's not gonna work out." But it helped me. I... What I took away from it was I was like, "Okay, I built out the proposal." Okay. It helped me kinda, like, clarify my 

[00:21:17] **Adam Coelho:** thinking. You still had, you still had the output.

[00:21:18] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, I still had the output, so I... So that was the start of the work, And talked to other, a couple other companies that, charge a whole bunch of money to go through their process or slap their name on the book and things of that nature. And I was like, "You know what? Like, that's just not, like, the way I wanna go about this necessarily."

Mm-hmm. And as I talked to other people and got some other resources, I was 


## The Self-Publishing Process

[00:21:40] **Jeff Jaworski:** encouraged to self-publish. so a couple people were like, "You should just publish this book yourself." And I said, "Okay." Like, I've never done that before, so now I need to think about how am I gonna, like, turn this into a book. And, I just started writing.

Like, I took the book proposal portion and I started to break that out into, like, okay, what would the chapters be like? What's... if you were to think about, like, the organizing structure of it, ' cause part of the book proposal they have you, like, give a, give a table of contli- contents outline.

Okay. And then what's the premise it s- it sits underneath? How does that story flow, et cetera? what are the stories that you wanna insert in it, to kinda play back experiences at Google, experience at, at other places? And, and then just started building from there. and, and transparently, and I mention this in the acknowledgments, like, AI played a role in helping me with structure and some copy editing and things like, of that nature.

but all the stories, experiences, point of view, frameworks, the, the kinda lived tales, if you will, are all, are all fully mine. And then I hired a, expert developmental editor, an expert professional formatter, and a, expert, cover designer to do all of those elements of, of the book to kinda bring it all together.

So the culmination of that was it lived in a Google Doc for almost a year. it went through well over 300 versions, as I went through that process. And a lot of times it would be, like, me An idea popping up, while I'm walking my dog about the structure or a story that was, like, missing that I needed to get in there or something.

Mm-hmm. And then I would just, like, start making changes to it. I remember, one day my son had a robotics competition, and he... they only do their part of it for a little while, and then you're just sitting there for a while watching other people do stuff. Just sat there with my laptop page by page, word by word, revising, rewriting, re-editing, et cetera.

So I wouldn't say it was, like, this, like, perfectly linear process. It was just, like, building up, building up, building up, and then thinking through what are the revisions, what's the structure and, and flow I need to revisit? What sto- what areas need a story? getting professional guidance from the people I hired to help me with the book.

And then you get to this point where you're just like I, I realized, like, this book will technically never be done. Like, I'll read this... I could read this book again and find something else that I maybe missed or would have liked to do differently. So I embraced this idea that, and it's in the book as well, that perfect doesn't exist, but progress does.

Mm-hmm. And I said to myself, " This book is at a point where I've made enough progress on it that it- we need to close it and say, 'This is the book. I'm gonna put it out into the world,' and move forward." And then one last piece, and then I'll see what questions come up for you.

[00:24:12] **Adam Coelho:** Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:12] **Jeff Jaworski:** As I went through that, I had a beta reader stage- ... where I had people read the manuscript in the Google Doc in, like, a beta form, and then I had an advanced reader stage where I had about 20 people read the book again. Some of the people who actually did the beta read it for me a second time just to, like, again, give me feedback.

What's working, what's not working, what am I missing? sales leaders, enablement leaders, things of that nature. Mm-hmm. People who've written books, had them r- ... read the book as well, to go through that process, and then I used that as my final round of, final editing.

And then even my professional formatter was like, " This, y- like, we're good. Now, now call it, call it done. Let's start to move this into, into publication." I'll pause there 'cause there's... I, I've said a lot, but let me know what- 

[00:24:54] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. No, that's very interesting ... questions you have. I appreciate, I, I appreciate the n- specificity of, of the process.

'Cause, like, I wanna know, like, practically, how did you do it, 

[00:25:04] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. 

[00:25:04] **Adam Coelho:** Like, Yeah ... yeah, so that's- 

[00:25:06] **Jeff Jaworski:** I, it lived- Yeah ... in a Google Doc. Like, truly. It- Yeah ... like, to see that, again, this is, like, the finished product, Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:11] **Adam Coelho:** Looks 

[00:25:12] **Jeff Jaworski:** great. To see, to see it, like, actually get printed and come to life, i- the first time was pretty wild.

'Cause in my head, I'm like, "This has just been a Google Doc that I've been scrolling through- I know, yeah ... scrolling through like crazy and reading through over and over." Like, I've lost count of how many times I've read my own book. I've definitely read my own book more times than I've read books in my life.

Sure. That's how many times I've read this book. So. 

[00:25:34] **Adam Coelho:** Sure. 

[00:25:35] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. 

[00:25:35] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah, yeah. That- Yeah. For me, like, that, that, that sounds like the worst part. The, the rereading and over and over again, just like that little detail stuff. Like I'm not- Yeah ... I'm a big-picture guy, So, 

[00:25:47] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, yeah ... 

[00:25:47] **Adam Coelho:** leaning on, 

But that's, that's a part of the process. It's, it's- It is a, it 

[00:25:50] **Jeff Jaworski:** is a part, it is a part 

[00:25:51] **Adam Coelho:** of the process ... probably the most important part of the process. Yeah. Because, getting the words out of your head once, doesn't mean they're ready for other people to read in, in a format that is going to really deliver the information you want and keep people reading, 

If it's, if it's too clunky, like, people are just gonna be like, "Nah, I'm good." Yeah. I've read books- Yeah ... that are like, "This is not for me," Like- 

[00:26:09] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, totally ... 

[00:26:10] **Adam Coelho:** this doesn't make 

[00:26:11] **Jeff Jaworski:** any sense. And, yeah, and, and I would acknowledge, like, I've, I've read plenty of books, but I'm not, like, an avid book reader.

So, like, there's irony. sometimes I'm just like, "Who am I to write a book," if I'm not, like, the person who has, like, 80 zillion books in the background. But I've said to myself, like, this is less about, like, you don't have to be an avid book reader. Like, this book is- Yeah ... like, this, it's not that thick.

Like, and that's on purpose because my goal is, like, if you're a sales leader, for example, reading the book, I want you to be able to read it over a weekend or read it on a round-trip flight to a client. Right. Or even, like, from Chicago to San Francisco you could read the whole book and you can be like, "I can now apply this.

I have the prompts to reflect upon. I have the frameworks. I can go apply this immediately," versus this being- ... like, something you've gotta, like, chip away at it or like, "Okay, I gotta take a break. I gotta take a break," Yeah. I want this to be, like, an easy, smooth read and then something you go, "Okay," like, "I can, I can put this into use."

[00:27:02] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. What's a formatter? This is a, the question that most people probably don't care about- ... but I'm curious what a formatter is. 

[00:27:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** Well, I didn't realize I would need a formatter either- So it's- ... until I got to the point of actually, like, looking at uploading the book into, like, Amazon, things like that.

There's different formats. Mm-hmm. So, like, Amazon has a format called KDP, and it has to be... A- and then you have to decide, what size is my book? So my book's a six by nine. Then y- when you do the six by nine, there's all these, like, little nuanced things about paragraph indentation, about, on the top of the book, things I wouldn't have even thought about, like the page on the left should say the leadership, the page on the right s- should say the name of the chapter you're in.

The 

[00:27:39] **Adam Coelho:** chapter, Yeah. 

[00:27:40] **Jeff Jaworski:** And, and I, those were things I hadn't even, like, thought about. And- And that's- 

[00:27:44] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... not in a Google Doc, so I guess you 

[00:27:46] **Jeff Jaworski:** gotta- No, not, it's not in a Google Doc ... turn that into... Yeah. So they then move it into a different, into, they have their own, like, tool. 

[00:27:52] **Adam Coelho:** There's, like, a 

[00:27:53] **Jeff Jaworski:** software, 

They pull it out... Like, software, yes. 

[00:27:55] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. 

[00:27:55] **Jeff Jaworski:** They pull it into their own tool to add the page numbers in, to add, where do we need- Mm ... a blank page 'cause a chapter is changing. Right. where do we need it say leadership versus the chapter it's in. 

[00:28:05] **Adam Coelho:** Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:05] **Jeff Jaworski:** All this stuff that I, that I, yeah, I didn't even think about, to be honest.

[00:28:09] **Adam Coelho:** Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. That... Okay. So that, yeah, that's interesting. So, and then what about, like- Now you're in the, the, the book is, it's out. It's not out yet. It's going out the 22nd. 

[00:28:22] **Jeff Jaworski:** You can pre-order, you can pre-order Kindle now, and then it will be available on 9/22.

Paperback is available on 9/22. For some odd reason, you cannot pre-order paperback on Amazon. Again, another fun thing I learned. the book itself is complete. It's done. It's more- I set that date because I'm doing a keynote talk in San Francisco, so I'm setting that as like my launch marker, and I'm just doing some pre-launch, marketing, trying to drive some, excitement and interest in the book leading up to the launch date.

So the book's fini- the good news is the book's finished, and ready. Now I'm just trying to... I have author copies coming to send, signed versions of my advanced readers, things of that nature. So it's just a lead up to the, to the talk in San Francisco. 

[00:29:02] **Adam Coelho:** Very cool. Very cool. And so, like, what are you doing to, like, 


## Promoting a Book Without Burning Out

[00:29:05] **Adam Coelho:** promote the book and to drive sales of the book?

[00:29:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** one of the biggest things I've been doing is I post about it a lot on LinkedIn, so I'm sure hopefully my following's not tired of hearing me post about this book. But, my advanced readers have also provided, what I call advanced praise for the book, They read the book and I say, "If the book resonates for you, I'd love for you to write a testimonial, and if you write a testimonial, and you're comfortable with it, I'll put the testimonial in the book."

So the first couple pages of the book actually are called Advanced Praise for the LeaderShift, and a bunch of people have written a nice testimonial for the book that I included in there, so then they can live inside the book for forever as well. So I've promoted and shared a lot of those things- Nice

with them. I've already had conversations with companies about doing keynote talks. I've actually already delivered a couple keynote talks before the book even launched. I, I delivered one for a Google- Nice ... sales leadership team. I've already delivered a virtual one for Sales Enablement Collective, so things of that nature.

I'd be lying- Very cool ... if I didn't say to you, like I, I always in my head, going back to your earlier point about like, am, am I doing enough? Like, I do have days and moments where I'm just like, "Am I doing enough to promote this book?" Like, you wrote a book. Like, should you be doing more?

And I've just- Come to terms with like just do what feels right for you. Don't like burn yourself out- 

[00:30:18] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... 

[00:30:18] **Jeff Jaworski:** pushing too hard on this. Like just do what feels right for you. Like I, like I have no grand... This is gonna sound weird to say this, but I don't, I'm not worried about how many copies of the book I sell.

Yeah. I am more focused on does this book get in the hands of the people that it will truly help? Yeah. Whether it's an individual that buys a book, whether it's an organization that buys a book for their team, whatever that might be, like that's what matters the most to me. Like I've enabled the scale.

There's only so much I can control in terms of how much it's gonna scale. And then, ideally those who read it find it valuable and d- and do something with it. Like they make that leadership for themselves, and they see the benefit for them as a leader and for their team. Like that's, that's really all that's in my control.

could I post more? Could I do more outreach? Could I... Sure. Forever. Like forever and ever. but I've kinda come to terms with like do what feels right for you and go back to your principle that you applied three years ago, which is I'm not trying to work 60, 80 hours and breakneck speed all the time.

Like I'm trying to fi- strike that balance of like doing meaningful work that I care deeply about, and also like enjoying life as well, So. 

[00:31:25] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. That makes, that makes sense. it's, it's, Yeah, it's, like, you, you could be grinding like crazy to try to push it, push it, but you, you have an idea of what you wanna do.

You do what, you do what you can, and then you put it out there, Yeah. I've been listening to... I listened to an episode the other day of, the Nathan Barry Show. Have you heard that podcast at all? 

[00:31:44] **Jeff Jaworski:** I have not. No. It sounds like I should add it to my list. 

[00:31:46] **Adam Coelho:** It's the founder of Kit, the email service provider.

Oh, yeah, 

[00:31:49] **Jeff Jaworski:** I use Kit. That's who... That's my... That 

[00:31:51] **Adam Coelho:** is my email provider. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Kit is awesome. also, I don't know if you know this, but they have studios that you can use for free. 

[00:31:59] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, I do know that. 

[00:32:00] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. 

[00:32:01] **Jeff Jaworski:** I have not used it yet, but I do know that. 

[00:32:02] **Adam Coelho:** They have it in Chicago, and they have it in New York and Boise, where they're based.

I have used it, and it's awesome. It's so fun. 

[00:32:10] **Jeff Jaworski:** That's cool. 

[00:32:10] **Adam Coelho:** they have a teleprompter. Like, I don't know, like I, I just had a really good time with it. I'm gonna be going in a lot more, 'cause I just like really enjoyed it. But anyways, he has a fantastic podcast. He's the CEO of Kit. His name's Nathan Barry, and he had, 

I guess it was at their conference where he had a conversation with James Clear, who's like, wrote the book A- Atomic Habits. 

[00:32:29] **Jeff Jaworski:** Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:30] **Adam Coelho:** Yep. It's probably the best-selling book of the last five years. and he's sold 30 million copies, and so he was talking about, his process and what he did, and I think he wanted to sell like 5,000 copies.

Like- ... that was his goal. Oh, 

[00:32:43] **Jeff Jaworski:** wow. 

[00:32:43] **Adam Coelho:** That's crazy. And, but a- and so it was just interesting to hear. and but the thing is is like you don't really control it. H- His point was like- there's only so much you can do u- upfront, but the quality of the book i- is what's going to actually drive it to grow.

He's like, "You can't sell millions of copies of books with promotion. You need to go- Yeah ... and actually create something that spreads via word of mouth," and that's what he did. And, and so for your book- Yeah ... like when it gets in the hands of the people who It, it's going to help. They're going to be recommending it and- 

[00:33:13] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah

[00:33:13] **Adam Coelho:** to their teams and stuff. And the thing about a book is you don't need to sell millions of copies for it to be successful. You don't need to sell hundreds of thousands of copies, Like, you are creating a situation, and this is how I've thought about it, and I don- I'm not gonna put words in your mouth.

But- 

[00:33:27] **Jeff Jaworski:** ... 

[00:33:27] **Adam Coelho:** you can have this book as something that is going to enable you to do more of the work you love. Yeah. To do more coaching, to do more keynotes, to do more workshops, because it is like a encapsulation of all of your- 

[00:33:39] **Jeff Jaworski:** ... 

[00:33:39] **Adam Coelho:** knowledge and experience, and people are gonna want to have that tailored to their specific situation.

[00:33:46] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yep. 

[00:33:47] **Adam Coelho:** And so that's how I think about it. Exactly. Like, it doesn't matter how many copies it sells, It, it's available and people can do it, but it's also something that allows you to go and, and do more of the work that you love. 

[00:33:56] **Jeff Jaworski:** Exactly right. Like, I, the way I look at this is, because someone was asking about this about this the other day.

Like, this is a, this is a very thick business card in a sense, Like- 

[00:34:05] **Adam Coelho:** Exactly ... 

[00:34:06] **Jeff Jaworski:** if you wanna, if you wanna hear my perspective, my point of view, my lived experiences, my stories, how you could, in my view, become a more effective leader and d- and build teams of scale and drive, better business results, like read the, read the book and that's all you need to know.

And then if you want more than that, if you say, "Okay. I read the book and that's great, but I need, I need Jeff to come talk to my team," or, "I need Jeff to come and help us actually install these things in my, in our organization-" 

[00:34:29] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... 

[00:34:30] **Jeff Jaworski:** then you know where to find me to do that. And I've been... It was funny.

There's another person, I th- his name's escaping me right now, but wrote a book who actually, like, put his personal phone number in the book, which was, like, a, a wild thing to me. I'm like, whoa. Like, you'd put your number in there? I did not put my phone number in there, but, like, my direct email address is in there.

Like, you can easily, you can reach me. It's me. It's not some- Right ... like, AI agent bot. It's, like, my email address that I will see you reach out. So if someone reads a book and they're like, "I wanna talk to Jeff," they could send me a note and, and I would, be happy to do that. So, that's the biggest thing is, like, it pr- it, it, provides the scale, and then within that for those it benefits, they can either go, "I read the book.

I'm gonna now take this on myself to whatever degree I want," or they could say, "I wanna do more with this," And- 

[00:35:14] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... 

[00:35:14] **Jeff Jaworski:** and, That's good ... reach out to me, so. 

[00:35:16] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's great. 

So Jeff, thanks so much for sharing a little bit about your process and kinda how you're thinking about the book.

Would love to dive into what is in the book, and what are the core ideas in here. Yeah. And I hinted earlier m- when we talked about it before, it sounds like the theme is what got you here won't get you to the next level. Yeah. And so walk, walk us through the premise of the book and how, how it's helping leaders step up.

[00:35:43] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, yeah. So what I'll do is two parts, 'cause conscious not everyone listening to this podcast is a sales leader or aspiring to be one. So I'll, I'll c- I'll make two connection points for you. But when I think about the book, a- and this is common in leadership overall, but especially pervasive in sales, which is, in getting to this what got you here won't get you there type of, thinking, most sales leaders got to a leadership position by doing what they used to do, which is being a top performing seller, and then they carry those same behaviors into leadership, which is actually the opposite of what they should do as a leader, 

When you're a t- when you're a seller, you have your number, you have your metrics, you have your accounts, you have your responsibilities, and you need to go after and go deliver those things, Individually, that's your responsibility. And then, of course, you should be a great teammate and collaborator and, on all those things.

But when you become a leader, it's often because of how good you were at your, what you did individually, which, which is what I call, like, your heroic behaviors and heroic leadership. And then when you bring that into leadership, you then have a tendency to tell people what to do, to jump into their deals and opportunities, to, direct them, tell them how you've done it or how you would do it.

And what happens as a result is the team doesn't build their own judgment, capability, and levels of accountability, frankly, to deliver on their responsibilities in a way that feels right for them, like how they should actually go do that. So there's the element of, like, a leader, of course, should say, "These are the expecta- these are the numbers, these are expectations," all those things.

That's, like, the what. And then how they do it, how they show up, the things they, they need to develop, get better at, thinking through the paths forward, and building their own judgment around those things, and then empowering them to go do those things, is really critical for a leader. And in a lot of cases when you're a top performing seller and then you move into leadership, essentially what you just did is you try to multiply yourself.

You try to become the top performing seller for the 10 people that report to you versus thinking about, how do I create the conditions For this team collectively to come to answers that make sense for them based on what's expected of them, and then I coach and guide them through those things. And then, of course, hold them accountable to that, 

So that's really, like, the important pivotal shift. If you think about this, like, at a more meta level, if you will, any time we make a transition in our life or career, something, it needs to change or evolve, So for, for example, when I decided to leave Google and start my own business and, write a book and all those other things, I had to unwire some things about myself, 

Like, I was used to the hundreds of emails a day. I was used to back-to-back meetings. I was used to, being needed all the time for things and then coaching people to work their way through those things versus where they might need direction. When you start building your own business, like, a lot of that noise, that, like, manufactured noise of just in the flow work goes away.

And then you need to start thinking through, like, "What's my evolution?" Like, what's the thing I need to do? the things that got me to that point are not what I now need to do. What do I need to do differently to, like, build this next expression, evolution of my career? So, like, for, people who are big believers in FIRE, at some point, you decide, " I've achieved FIRE," and you may say, "I'm gonna retire.

I don't wanna necessarily do the thing I'm doing anymore, and I've built the runway I need to not do that." Some people might say, "I wanna lay on the beach and do nothing." Some people might say, "I wanna go do something else." Whatever that might be, it's gonna require... It's an identity change, and it requires a, frankly, like a rewiring of your expectations and how you're showing up for yourself and for others when you do that, 

So the book's very much about going from top performing seller to sales leader. It's an evolution. Most sales leaders never get, properly prepared or trained or coached to drive that evolution. So an aspiring leader is heroic, but sometimes even the CRO or the CEO. I'm coaching a CEO who admits to heroic tendencies of, like, directing, doing, jumping in.

Like, these things happen at all levels because they've never really been shown a different way, and as a result, they feel more comfortable just, like, giving directives or jumping into things, So, those are the two, two dynamics I think about is, like, the book's premise around sales, top performing seller to sales leadership for people who are big on FIRE.

Whenever you make that evolution or make that shift in your career, in your life, what have you, there's likely some level of identity change behind that and some rewiring, that you need to prepare yourself for as well. 

[00:40:10] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah, absolutely. I think of it in the FIRE context as saving and investing and being frugal has gotten you to the point where you've saved enough that working has become optional, and now you are looking to step into this next chapter.

A lot of people get stuck at that point because they haven't built the muscle of like, okay, well, what, what do I wanna use this freedom for? What do I wanna use- what do I want the next chapter to look like? And then also the shift from saving to spending, Mm-hmm. Yep. Especially if you are literally turning off your paycheck and now need to withdraw from your investments.

That's a whole different skill. Mm-hmm. Yep. And then, Brad has talked about it on Choose FI, and, they call it the skill of spending And so that is something that, need, you really need to think about and you really need to prepare for, and, because what's the point of saving all this money if you're too afraid to spend it when you- 

actually need to or can? Yeah ... and so that's the shift there. with, with regards to the, the shift for, for leaders, w- I understand the, the problem of, of this heroic tendency to- this hero- this tendency of heroic leadership to just like try to control everything and, and keep doing the things that have gotten you to be successful.

Yeah. What are the shifts that you prescribe to, to leaders in, in the book to help them overcome that? 

[00:41:26] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, yeah. So there's three, 


## From Heroic Leadership to Coaching

[00:41:29] **Jeff Jaworski:** the three core tenants of this leadership more broadly, and there's a bunch more in here, but, and some of these are gonna sound very simple and common sense, but they just don't happen in practice, 

Right. So first and foremost, like this really important shift from telling to asking, It's a natural tendency. Someone brings you a problem, someone's working through a situation. The natural tendency is to answer, to tell, to direct, to jump in, to do, Instead of just pausing and saying, "Okay, someone's bringing me an issue, or they're navigating something.

Before I provide m- my perspective, what would you do? Or how are you thinking about this?" Right? Even that first opening question- 

[00:42:03] **Adam Coelho:** Mm ... 

[00:42:04] **Jeff Jaworski:** can unlock something in someone else's brain to, like, get a sense of, like, what does their brain think about this, And when you don't do that, they don't need to build capability or judgment.

They can just outsource the answer to you, and then you never build any awareness of, like, "How are they thinking about this? Where can I help them? Where do they need support?" Versus actually, like, "That's a better approach than I would've thought of myself," Mm-hmm. So the, first and foremost is, like, 


## Ask Instead of Tell

[00:42:29] **Jeff Jaworski:** being much more curious, less directing, less telling, more being curious and asking.

The second one, and especially this is a big one in sales, and it's hard in, the marketplace we live in, but there's this orientation of, like, reality of, like, "Here, here's all I think we can do," right? "Here's what's realistic," right? And I always try to orient people around 


## Focus on What's Possible

[00:42:47] **Jeff Jaworski:** think about what's possible.

Mm-hmm. It's akin to Caro- Carol Dweck's fixed versus growth mindset, Mm-hmm. Where you would say reality is a very fixed state. It's, this is what's in front of us. These are all the reasons why we can't do X, Y, Z. Okay, but if we looked at what's possible, and you just, like, put those constraints to the side for a moment and just fully orient it on, if I could, like, fully unlock this opportunity, based on the problems I believe we can solve and the value we can provide, what would it look like, 

And then you start to have a different con- you change the conversation to understand, like, what's- What's the potential look like versus- 

[00:43:19] **Adam Coelho:** ... 

[00:43:19] **Jeff Jaworski:** anchoring on the reality. And then the third one, and again, very sales specific in a, in a sense for this is from moving, beyond, 


## Lead Performance, Not Metrics

[00:43:27] **Jeff Jaworski:** managing metrics to leading performance, 

Yes. And you know this well in sales, like lots of metrics, lots of dashboards, things of that nature. That's all great. I see these as like the different diagnostics on, on your car dashboard, Some of them are gonna say, "Warning, warning, you need to take your car to the mechanic." Others you might need to like look under the hood a little and go, "What's underneath this?"

But I'm, I've always been a big believer that the, the right metrics rise when you are focused on the right strategy and the right outcomes. So I'm a big believer in lead the performance, the strategy, the thinking, the execution behind those things that will then drive the appropriate metrics as, as a result.

I remember, there was one key metric in our Google days, everyone was rallied around and our team was at the top of the leaderboard for it, and people were like, "How are you doing that?" I said, " Well, I'm not selling that metric. what we're focused on is what's the problem to solve, what's the value we provide, and if it just so happens that that's like the product or feature that's gonna unlock that value, then the metric will go up as a result."

Mm-hmm. And then the inverse is also true. If there's a metric that we're not prioritizing, we, we bring that with clarity. This isn't really a prior- priority for a customer right now for X, Y, Z reason, so we're prioritizing these three areas, So it's really more about, utilizing coaching driven leadership to be much more curious to help people come up with their own judgment, capability, solutions, paths forward and accountability- Leaning more into what's possible, like getting beyond this fixed state.

[00:44:49] **Adam Coelho:** Mm-hmm. 

[00:44:49] **Jeff Jaworski:** And then, going beyond the metrics alone and, and coaching the thinking behind them are, are at the core, the core three. 

[00:44:55] **Adam Coelho:** Very cool. Very cool. I love that. Yeah. And especially the second one. I'm all about possibility and envisioning a bigger future for yourself. And so people get so caught up in just, like, the constraints that they currently have.

And so what I like to get people to do is just break out of that and think, "If anything was possible, what would this look like? What would you want it to look like?" Yeah. And all of that stuff is a lot more possible than we give it credit for, and that's because we just don't consider it most of the time.

[00:45:23] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:45:24] **Adam Coelho:** And so that's, that's huge. 

[00:45:25] **Jeff Jaworski:** We don't consider it, we don't sit with it, and, and people rarely ask it, Mm-hmm. Exactly. Like, when you're caught up in the flow of... When you're caught up in the flow of just, like, a busy day, emails and pings and Slack and- 

[00:45:36] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah ... 

[00:45:36] **Jeff Jaworski:** back-to-back meetings and double booked- Yeah

you're not, like, taking a pause, 

You don't have any space. You're just like, operating so fa- yeah, there's no space to think. Yeah ... and sometimes if you can just go, "Time out," like, " I think we need to take a brief pause here," utilize some space to think, get to a better quality thought process and outcome strategy, you will likely get a better outcome, 

Mm-hmm. Versus, like, continually reacting and reacting and just trying to, like, check boxes all day long, 

[00:46:02] **Adam Coelho:** Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. that's why my workshop is literally called Ask What's Possible. So- Yeah. 

[00:46:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** Love 

[00:46:08] **Adam Coelho:** it. Love it ... it's, it's the... It's, it's an important thing to do, Yeah ... to create that space in, in your busy day.

All right, Jeff, well, Let's switch gears now into the 


## The Mindful FIRE Final Four

[00:46:15] **Adam Coelho:** mindful FIRE final four. You ready? 

[00:46:17] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, I'm ready. Let's do it. 

[00:46:18] **Adam Coelho:** All right. So first question is about vision, and we talked about this three years ago, and now you have this book and this impact that you're making in the world.

So I'm curious, if you think three to five years in the future, and, and again, anything is possible- 

[00:46:33] **Jeff Jaworski:** ... 

[00:46:33] **Adam Coelho:** no constraints, what is your big vision for this next chapter? 

[00:46:37] **Jeff Jaworski:** Oh, man. this is gonna be recorded, and I'm gonna be... I'm gonna hold myself to this. But, book one is done. But if five years from now, if I hold true to my vision, there will be four books by the end of five years, would be the goal.

I'll still be running this business, ideally, continuing to, guide leaders, teams, organizations to make the shifts that will transform their impact. That still holds true today as it did three years ago, and I hope it still does five years from now. But, I would be a, a multi-time author at that point if, if I stick to my plan, so.

[00:47:04] **Adam Coelho:** Very cool. Very cool. Love to hear it. Second question, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

[00:47:11] **Jeff Jaworski:** discipline's an important part. You have to decide how much you're gonna pay yourself today and how much you're gonna invest in your future self. That's the most important thing, Is, there's how can you set the rate cons- constraint's a strong word, but set the right what's that enough for now- 

[00:47:25] **Adam Coelho:** Mm

[00:47:25] **Jeff Jaworski:** and then invest in your future self, It's hard in the moment, like when you're 30 or 25 or whatever, to think you'll ever be in your 40s. God willing, you will, Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:34] **Adam Coelho:** Like, 

[00:47:34] **Jeff Jaworski:** which means 

[00:47:35] **Adam Coelho:** you- Best case scenario. 

[00:47:36] **Jeff Jaworski:** Best case sc- right, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. So, like, there's the how do I take care of today's self, but then how do I invest in future self?

And, and that's the way I look at this. And then there's all kinds of different rule sets of how much you should spend versus save and all that, that you can look into. But it really comes down to, like, how much am I g- willing to invest in my future self, and then be disciplined around that. Because the reality is if I w- didn't have that discipline, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today.

Like, that's a fact. 

[00:48:01] **Adam Coelho:** Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Take care of the now and, and the future so that you have options in the future. 

[00:48:07] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. 

[00:48:07] **Adam Coelho:** Yeah. 

[00:48:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** Exactly. 

[00:48:08] **Adam Coelho:** And the third question, Jeff, is what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and/or mindfulness?

[00:48:14] **Jeff Jaworski:** I'll go more like the, I- I've, I've dabbled in meditation. I'll go more the mindfulness route. I, I think, like, creating space for yourself is so important. In, in a world where things just are moving so fast, there's so much distraction, so much noise, when I think about mindfulness, like my mindfulness practice is walking my chocolate Lab, Scout.

I, when I have to like, like, let my ideas simmer and sit or I need to work through something, I go on about a 45-minute to hour-long walk with my dog. We stop at the, this little donut place where they give her a little donut treat and stuff like that, and usually by the time I'm back, like, I'm calmer.

Mm-hmm. There's more clarity. Like, and I'm just, like, I'm... It, it like resets me. So think about, like, whatever it is for you, like, that's my version of it for me. 

[00:48:56] **Adam Coelho:** Hmm. Love it. I love it. And just creating space, honestly, that's why I stuck with meditation. I kinda struggled to stick with good habits.

Maybe I still do. But m- meditation was a, a, a beautiful space in my day that just allowed me to just 

[00:49:12] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah ... 

[00:49:12] **Adam Coelho:** let things simmer down a little bit, and it was really, really powerful. 

[00:49:15] **Jeff Jaworski:** that moment to, like, slow down. Like, where can you create some space to slow down? Yeah.

[00:49:20] **Adam Coelho:** Absolutely. Absolutely. And Jeff, the last question is, where can people learn about your work, the, the- Yeah ... leadership coaching that you do, the workshops that you do, and of course the book, The Leader-Shift? Where can they find you online? 

[00:49:32] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah. The, if you wanna go to my website, it is www.theshift.llc. the book is available on Amazon.

You could literally just search my name, Jeff Jaworski, or The Leader-Shift to find that. And then of course, feel free to find me, connect, follow, reach out on LinkedIn as well. Jeff Jaworski on LinkedIn. would love to hear from you. 

[00:49:52] **Adam Coelho:** All right, we'll make sure that's all linked up in the show notes.

Thank you so much, Jeff, for being here. It's always a pleasure to connect with you whether rec- we're recording or not, but I'm glad this time that the audience gots to, learn from your experience and wisdom as well. 

[00:50:05] **Jeff Jaworski:** Yeah, I love it. Thanks so much for the conversation. 

[00:50:07] **Adam Coelho:** My pleasure. 

[00:50:08] **Jeff Jaworski:** Appreciate it.