August 6, 2020 Nick Glassett Entrepreneur, Inspiration, Side Hustle, Work

That Time I Hit the Bounce House Lottery

A LONG time ago I said that I “wanted to change the world”.

I firmly believe that you don’t ACTUALLY change the whole world, but rather impact one person, thus changing THEIR world, and when you do that, you have succeeded…Then that person you impacted goes and spreads it, and you’ll never know what came of it, meanwhile you keep working to change another person’s world.

It’s a process that repeats in perpetuity and there is no finish line!

In a million years I never thought that the vehicle for me to execute on my ambition to change the world would be a Waterslide and Bounce House rental company! But…

When You Hit The Bounce House Lottery

What the hell is the Bounce House lottery?

Well, in this case it happened to be a 14ft enclosed trailer with 9 bounce houses in it, and we bought it for a mere $2000.

To put that in perspective, the newest slide that we just bought on July 12th 2020 was $2300 used, and a good deal at that!

So how did I score that trailer? It’s a story of hustle and people.

It was early in the week of Thanksgiving, and I had quit my job back in September.

I was driving Uber and selling old stuff on eBay and FB Marketplace to make money. I had got some old bikes from my buddy Kip to sell, and the guy that came to buy them a few days later noticed the bounce houses in the garage. Turned out he had his own business too!

We had 3 at the time…he had 28!

We chatted for a bit and then he said, “You’re a cool guy…”

I knew he was about to tell me where he buys his slides at! I took out my little journal I keep in my back pocket and he said…”Tony and Red Stick Entertainment. He sells them in bulk…”

After he left with the bikes I called Tony. No luck the receptionist wouldn’t put me through. I tried 2 more times and still couldn’t get him.

I had to drive out to Prairieville the next day to bid a job for the first business I’d ever started, Christmas Light Installation! (It’s called Lets Get Lit and I kill it on hanging lights, FYI).

Logo prob looks familiar 😉

Tony’s shop was in Prairieville too…odd coincidence. After I bid the xmas light job, we drove over to his shop (It’s a freaking warehouse actually!) and knocked on the door cold. My mom was with me b/c she was looking to invest in The Jump Off!

The receptionist was NOT happy to see me, but I talked her into getting Tony for us.

He walks through the doors a few minutes later and is NICE AS CAN BE. He leads us back through warehouse 1, full of inflatables and forklifts and games….our heads exploded, then out back to a big shipping container. He said we can have all 25 in there for $5000.

Uhhh…yeah, a bit much for us to handle.

So he said “Ok I also have that trailer back there, it has 7 inflatables in it, and you can have them for $1800. If you want the trailer too, $2000. I just want it gone.”

HOLY SMOKES!

He only wanted cash, so we went back the next day with $2000 and bought the trailer and towed it home having no clue what was in it!

We started pulling stuff out and blowing them up when we got back home, and it was so fun!

One blows up and we yell “It’s a bear one!” or “Oh, it’s a finding Nemo water slide!”

We unfortunately couldn’t keep the trailer because we have a HOA where it’s not allowed. It was a little beat up, so I posted it for $1600 and it was gone, sold to an awesome guy named Joe, in a day.

Then we rented one unit from the trailer (after scrubbing it to death) to two different clients over Thanksgiving weekend for $200 each time…

$1600 + $200 + $200 = $2000

We were even on our investment in 5 days!

That’s how the Jump Off got to scale, and THAT my friends, is called Hitting the Bounce House Lottery!

Lesson here: Hustle is super important, but if you slow down just a tad to CONNECT with people, amazing opportunity WILL come your way!

Much love,

Nick Glassett
Owner
The Jump Off

985.212.8510

October 22, 2019October 22, 2019 Nick Glassett Inspiration, Leaders & Managers, Leadership, Morning Messages, Personal Growth, Work

The Seesaw of Balance (Work Life Balance is a Myth)

The Seesaw of Balance

Work Life Balance is a myth.

If you try to achieve it, you will either fail, or live a life of mediocrity.

Achieving “balance” is a fool’s errand.

You think Tom Brady is balanced?
You think LeBron is balanced?
You think Ronaldo is balanced?

NOPE.

In order to be great, you have to put in too much work to be “balanced”.

Think about the word.

Balanced means you have something held perfectly in the middle so no part of it falls.

You can’t be an amazing father living in the middle.

You have to put your phone away and jump on the trampoline, blindfolded, chanting “Mummy, mummy come alive”.

You can’t be a high achiever at work living in the middle.

You have to wake up before dawn to grind on that big project, day after day, until it’s done and you crushed it!

Here’s Why Work Life Balance is a Myth (and how to actually win big)

It’s less about balance and more about appropriate pressure.

You don’t go hard at work 24/7 and you don’t jump on the trampoline 24/7. You pick and choose the times when you will go balls to the wall!

This, admittedly, is a concept that I have struggled with my whole life.

I tend to be HIGHLY unbalanced, running to one end of the seesaw, staying there shouting about how amazing it is, until it eventually it starts to wear on me and I burn out.

The way to do it correctly is to go to one end of the seesaw, DOMINATE, then head back to the middle.

When another opportunity comes your way, you head to that end of the see-saw for a bit, DOMINATE AGAIN, and then head back to the middle.

Repeat.

Don’t work for harmony.
Pick your moments and WIN BIG.

-NG

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 Nick Glassett Inspiration, Leaders & Managers, Personal Growth, Work

Everything We Do Is Perfect (A Lesson in Working Too Much)

I work a lot. Like A LOT.

And, when I look back at my 20s, I actually wish I would have worked more.

Yep, more….

I ambitiously sacrificed a large amount of the fun that most kids in their early 20’s in exchange for a chance to build a meaningful career.

I actually love to borrow a term from sportscaster Colin Cowherd to describe this so-called sacrifice…

“Surrender the Bro Years”

Ok… so, even though I skipped college parties, and lots of boating trips, camp outs, and other potential world travel to chose to work like crazy, I know I could’ve done more.

Yes. MORE. But how?

I definitely don’t think I should have worked more days.

I KNOW I shouldn’t have worked more hours.

No, no…

What I’ve realized now is that I could’ve worked much more FOCUSED.

In those younger years I thought working hard meant working non-stop. Always on, and always focused on winning in business.

But, all that time I spent CONSTANTLY working wore me down to where I wasn’t very sharp very often.

My mind couldn’t think as creatively with no time to unwind.

My body couldn’t get into great shape being constantly worn out.

And it was difficult to make friends because I thought I always needed to be looking at my phone (which was a BlackBerry back then).

So I say all that to say this…

The Way I Did It Was Perfect.

What I did was perfect.

I know, that sounds crazy…but hear me out.

I can say that because those actions and decisions brought me here so I could write this blog post for you to read.

It caused me to meet my beautiful wife Michelle and caused us to have two amazing children, Boston and Brodie. And it caused me to meet all the amazing friends I have.

Everything we all do is perfect. It has to be. Because there’s no what-if machine or time machine, to check on what other decisions would’ve caused.

And while the past may be just right, it doesn’t mean that we can’t use history to teach us how we can change our intentions for future actions.

What my past ambitions have taught me is that it actually takes LESS work than I think to be successful.

Less days in a row. Less hours per week. Less constant thinking.

What it takes is more meaningful days, and more meaningful hours. It’s thinking about work less often, but when you are thinking about it, you become consumed with it.

Profound change to experience. And one that can’t be communicated unless you’ve had it too!

BTW, I know I’m not some genius for talking about this concept. I know it has existed for years and been called 100 different things communicated 1000 different ways. But here’s the thing, it has to hit you at the right time from the right person with the right delivery for it to be profound. 8000 people read these blog posts per month. If it strikes one person just right, then it’s a success to me!

So why all the hours and why all the days and why all the constant attention on work?

Survival Mode Turned Into Ego Driven

It started out as a survival thing.

I dropped out of school and perused a career against the advice of most everyone, especially my parents that were paying my tuition at the University of Utah.

So I had to win, or face the “I told ya so’s” and quite possibly experience the real world for the cold thing that most tell you it is.

In order to win, I did what I knew…I hustled my face off. At first, the insane work ethic worked great!

But then something changed…

While it started as a survival thing, it eventually turned into an ego thing.

I needed the bragging rights from all those hours. I wanted the reactions from people when I told them worked 81 hours last week.

I’m not joking when I say that I used to hang my time card on my own refrigerator!

But it wasn’t just ego though…

It was also insecurity.

I was over stating the importance of my efforts in order to appease the opinions of other people.

The funny thing though about that…And this is going to get super meta here…

The “opinions of other people” that we so often concerned about, are actually our own opinion of what we think their opinion is going to be.

That means that I did all this out of a need to either impress someone or to not look bad to someone, and there’s a very good chance that they either didn’t give a shit, or they actually thought the opposite, thinking that I was a lunatic or an egomaniac (as always, truth is probably somewhere in the middle).

But we never pick our head up to think that the opinions of others are actually OUR opinions of what they’re opinions might be, because we’re too busy being consumed by what we think other people think.

The old saying applies perfectly, perception becomes reality.

“Everyone is watching so I better work 56 hours this week!”

No One Counts the Hours on Your Timecard Except You and Your Significant Other.

No one counts the hours on your timecard except you and your significant other.

Usually at least one of those two hates it!

So what’s the lesson?

The lesson is, work hard AF while you’re clocked in. Maybe strategize a little when your clocked out, but for hell sakes, clock out in body, mind, and soul. Get away, do something else you love, and enjoy life.

In between accomplishments there’s this thing called life that’s pretty fun to enjoy.

-NG

July 16, 2018October 15, 2019 Nick Glassett Inspiration, Leaders & Managers, Leadership, Morning Messages, Personal Growth, Work

It’s Values vs Tactics (The Power of Positivity)

It’s Values vs Tactics, and Values Win

“Positivity is a force multiplier”

I’ve embraced a lot of things in my life; Leadership, discipline, simplicity, passion…but they all just felt like tactics that I was attempting apply.

There was a certain “staying power” that was missing.

Tactic = a tip, an action, or a life hack
Values = a “religion”, a ritual, or a philosophy on life

The value that I’m going to talk on today is the power positivity and optimism.

You Can’t Fake It

The thing about positivity is that I couldn’t “fake it until I make it” last year no matter how hard I tried.

The positive mindset is not a tactic that can be applied. It’s a value that you have to FEEL and believe in.

Once I saw the power of it, and found my path to it, I was able to resolve 30+ years of residual negativity. From that, good things have happened over and over.

What is it? And how do you get there?

Call it Karma.
Call it God.
Call it “The Universe”.
Call it the Law of Attraction.
Whatever…

The thing is, it occurs differently to all of us, and we all take different paths to get there, but the over reaching effect that it will have on a person is incredible!

My path to positivity was trough people and work. I had to put my ego and reputation aside and go help others.

Being selfish by nature, this was not an easy thing to do! But when I said “to hell with what people say and think” I was able to go do what I wanted and created some truly special relationships.

The Crazy Thing About This…

All the tactics that I’d tried to enact just started happening naturally (leadership, discipline, etc).

All the books that I read, and all the things that I’d looked up that never “stuck” started to be automatic. Started to “just happen”.

I lost my value of “getting credit” and through that I found my path to positivity.

In my life I’d made true attempts at complaining less, acting more grateful, listening more, being a better person, etc etc etc.

But it was never a value. It was always a tactic that was being forced on top.

And we all know how well FORCING something generally turns out! 😉

So What’s Your Path?

Of course only you can find the answer to that, but I strongly recommend examining your ego and looking at what it’s doing to corrupt your plans at personal development.

Find your guiding light (karma, god, etc) and put your best efforts into achieving the goals that get you there.

Small hint, it’s going to involve helping people in some way, I promise!

Love you!

-NG