Who Is Jared Stewart
Can happiness be compounded, where every day is better than the last? Jared Stewart certainly seems to think so. After examining some of his previously existing narratives, he found that life can truly be joyful if lived by certain principles. Jared is the founder of TribeHouse, a company whose focus is to gather as many tribes as possible. He loves the connection that comes from authentic relationships. He has found that his best business ventures happened when he worked with those he truly cared about. This has led to make wise choices not just in business but in life.
Jared is most extroverted introvert I have met. He loves people and making connections, but he doesn’t enjoy the surface-level stuff. He wants to have deep meaningful connections. It was an absolute pleasure chatting with him and seeing where the future of TribeHouse is going to head towards. Enjoy!
Get to Know Jared Stewart
Perhaps the fact that there are 11 children in the Stewart family, and Jared Stewart is pretty much in the middle, means that it was inevitable he would be great at communication. He grew up needing to talk to older and younger siblings, and this skill has served him well in life. In fact, it’s something that has interested him since his younger days, and he was lucky enough — and skilled enough — to be able to carry this on and not only make a career out of it, but a success of it too.
But not everything Jared Stewart has done ended in success. His first entrepreneurial adventure, earning commission from selling handsets, ended abruptly when his commission was drastically cut. His business was over, and he vowed on that day never to rely on anyone else’s product or service again. It would be all him from now on. That meant not using anyone else’s platform either.
Founding TribeHouse
As well as this realization, Jared found that every good relationship he had made in business — even in life — had come through networking. Clearly, a proactive, safe space to network was something that was required so that everyone could have the same chances as he did.
This is where the idea of TribeHouse came from. There was nothing else that was like it, nothing else that would work for him. Anything that did exist was more about transacting than interacting, and that was something he did not like.
TribeHouse is different. It’s more about creating relationships than it is about seeing people as ways to make money. In this way, it’s much more organic, and it’s much more truthful. Although good business partnerships will come out of it, those relationships start differently from any other networking site or event. They start on a human level and move on from there, as opposed to starting at the business end and possibly never getting to find out anything personal or knowing more about the human behind it all.
This means that not every interaction at TribeHouse will result in a sale, but that’s okay because it’s an open network. That means that even if you can’t benefit, you will be able to help others, and in turn, you will receive the help you need too. It’s a much more richly rewarding concept of marketing. It’s based on genuine relationships, and that makes it all much more fun and much more worthwhile. It’s long-term too; this is something that can go on for as long as you want it to — you’re building relationships, and those relationships build relationships, and so on. It’s the ideal way to network and the ideal way to grow.
By working towards a common goal, by helping one another, you can get much further ahead. This is why TribeHouse is the ultimate networking tool that isn’t all about networking. It’s about making your tribe, and making it worth something important.
Jared Stewart has changed the world of networking for the better, and that’s exciting — it’s time to find your tribe.
Jared Stewart Podcast Transcription
Charan: What’s going on, guys? This is Charan Prabhakar with the Lemonade Stand Stories podcast. I’m here on location in a very, very special place with a very, very special man. This is Jared Stewart and we’re here at TribeHouse, which I just very recently heard about, and I’m very honored to be here. And here’s an interesting thing. Jared and I, even though he doesn’t remember me at all-
Jared: That’s not true.
Charan: Okay. Well, he may remember me. We met- gosh, it must have been 2002 or 2003, actually. It was when we first, first, first met, because we had a mutual friend, Don Osmond, who introduced me to a company. A connection type of networking thing called Corporate Alliance. I don’t even know how you describe it, so you need to-
Jared: That was perfect.
Charan: That was perfect. It was just so eloquent and perfect. But no, Jared was there and you founded it, I believe. Is that right?
Jared: Yeah. Started the company in 2000.
Charan: Oh, my gosh. That’s great. And that’s when we first met. And then 20 years later another Osmond, David Osmond, reconnects us and he was-
Jared: They’re everywhere.
Charan: You just can never get rid of them. But it’s also cool because we realized, you went to Timpview High School, right?
Jared: Yeah.
Charan: Yeah. I’m also a fellow Timpview graduate, and we also made the connection that your younger brother, Mahonri, is a really good friend of mine. He was a year after me in high school, and he’s your youngest brother, right?
Jared: Yeah. He’s my youngest brother. There’s 11 in the family though, so there’s a lot.
Charan: 11 in your… Where do you fall?
Jared: I’m fifth.
Charan: You’re fifth. Oh, my gosh. That’s so great. This is great news, because your family made up for the fact that I have no kids, so thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing that for us. No, it’s so great. I’m so glad you’re on the podcast, man. But thanks for being here.
Jared: It’s a pleasure. I’m glad to be here.
Charan: Yeah. The Lemonade Stand Stories podcast is all about people’s lemonade stand stories. When they first got into business, sometimes they got engaged in creating a lemonade stand and doing business like that as a child.
Jared Stewart Talks About the Power of Networking
Charan: But one of the things I know about you is you’re a big proponent of networking. You’ve got such great relationships with a lot of different people. Was this always in your blood? Were you always interested in doing this type of thing, or how did this all kind of begin?
Jared: Obviously, always loved people and I thought that was a huge part of life. But initially, I had started actually in wireless. I worked for Sprint right out of school, and then I realized that I’m an entrepreneur. And so within a year-
Charan: Is that when you decided you were an entrepreneur, when you were doing Sprint?
Jared: Yeah. Because I realized I just was never going to be happy working inside of a structure. And so I started, I don’t know if you remember Nextel phones, but they came out and it turned into Sprint Nextel.
Jared: But anyway, Nextel came and they had their kind of walkie-talkie thing going on. I heard about it and then I opened one of the first Nextel dealerships. We were the top in the state. But that’s where I realized I got my entrepreneurial chops.
Jared: Part of the biggest lesson I learned, because Nextel was paying about $250 per handset. Because I didn’t work for Nextel, I was a dealer. An authorized dealer. And then I woke up one morning. We had built this whole structure around this compensation package with employees and a good chunk of staff.
Jared: And I woke up and they sent me an email that said that they had changed the pricing structure, my commission structure from $250 a handset to $75 a handset.
Charan: Oh, my gosh. That must have been not fun for you to hear.
Jared: We were out of business.
Charan: Yeah. Just like that?
Jared: Yeah. It was over. That was my commitment that day, I said, it was one of the first entrepreneurial lessons I learned, that I was never going to build on somebody else’s platform again. And people do it all the time and I get that they build on Facebook or LinkedIn or all of these other things.
Jared: A good friend of mine, too, Paul Allen built a company on Facebook that he grew into this huge thing, and they were out of business a day later. Because I think Facebook changed their algorithm or something.
Charan: Isn’t that crazy?
Jared: And he built this beautiful business and overnight it was over.
Charan: Oh, my gosh.
Jared: And I’m like, “How do you… ” Anyway, that’s one of the entrepreneurial lessons I’ve learned, is that at least for me I’m going to as much as possible try to build infrastructure that is controlled by the organization and that somebody can’t flip that light on or flip that light off.
Charan: Yeah. It’s an interesting thing, because my career as an actor is based off of people wanting to hire me. And so I remember I was on this one show, and they were like, “Oh, my gosh. We love your character. You did so great. Yada, yada, yada.” And then the next season they never called me back.
Charan: And it wasn’t anyone’s fault; it was just the storyline just went a different way. But when you don’t have the control or when you don’t have that ability, then you’re consistently relying on something else or someone else.
Jared: Yeah. I don’t like that feeling.
Charan: Yeah, it’s not a good feeling. Dude.
Jared: And I love loving people and relying on them.
Charan: Of course.
Jared: But I don’t like having them have the power to say, “Yes, you’re successful” or “No, you’re going to fail.” That’s too much power, and I think as an entrepreneur you’ve got to go into it saying, whatever that thing is you’re mapping out, “This is the area that we’re going to be the ‘best in class’ on. We’re not going to benchmark on other people’s success. We’re not going to try to figure out what they’re doing and try to copy it.”
Jared: We’re going to be like, “Hey, we’re building our own unique thing that’s unique to us, that’s our own.” It’s not necessarily even, in the TribeHouse world it’s not even a better mousetrap. It’s a completely different way to catch mice. This is a different idea. It’s a different thought. And sure, it has components of what’s existed in the past, but that’s kind of where I try to focus.
Charan: Well, no, I love that. It’s cool because your whole ability to network and kind of get people to believe in your vision and stuff, I think, kind of lends itself to something like that where you want to create your own infrastructure and create a culture around that, that people feel safe and feel like, “Hey, yeah. This is where I belong and this is good.”
Jared: For sure. Well, and I really didn’t answer your earlier point. Did I fall in love with networking? Actually, as I was working in my companies early on, I started to realize that all my opportunities were coming from relationships. I started to read everything I possibly could on networking and building relationships, and I realized there’s nothing.
Jared: The great advice at the time was, “Hey, go join the Chamber or go get on charity boards, or figure out ways to get into opportunities where you can mix and mingle and start to build relationships.” But I’m like, “That’s not a system. That’s not predictable.”
Jared: And it’s intentionally transactional, which I didn’t like either because I don’t like viewing people as human ATM machines. I’m like, “Look, I want to interact with you as a human being.” And as a salesperson typically, because every entrepreneur is a salesperson, and the question is how much do you believe in what you’re selling?
Jared: And so I think it’s super important that… But I started to realize I had to feed my family, I had to figure things out. I started viewing every interaction as me trying to get a withdrawal from somebody. I needed them to buy this product or service.
Jared: And I’m like, “It took the humanity out of the whole experience.” And so that’s why people hate to be a salesperson, and that’s why they hate salespeople, is because I think it feels, it offends us in some way. Subconsciously we’re like, “I’m feeling like you’re not seeing me.”
Jared: Our whole thing is life is about relationships; business is about relationships. Why don’t we just focus on building the trust and the relationship and worry about the transaction and business opportunities later?
Charan: I like that.
Jared: We call it “learn, serve, grow.” But it’s one of the fundamental principles that we outline in the book Tribalry, which is, if you want to build a relationship, learn about who they are, find a way to serve them. And naturally, they’re going to reciprocate over time. And then you don’t have to really worry about yourself. You can worry about them. They’ll worry about you.
Charan: I love that.
Jared: If you got 200–300 people worrying about you and taking care of your business and you’re focused on them, it’s amazing how all the ships, the tide rises for everybody.
Charan: Right. There’s this analogy I’ve heard that in hell there is this big banquet. This huge feast. Have you heard of this analogy?
Jared: No, I haven’t. I’m super excited though.
Charan: Okay. Well, you’re going to be so pumped. You’re going to be so pumped. No, there’s this huge feast, big banquet. And instead of arms, people have these long big spoons attached to them. It’s complete hell, though, because of how long the spoons are. They can get the food, but they can never get it in their mouths. They can’t bend it.
Charan: It’s always out of their reach and they’ll never be able to get to, and it becomes hell because they can see it, but they can’t get it. In heaven, same banquet, same spoons. Except people are feeding each other.
Charan: And I like that analogy and I didn’t come up with that analogy. But I really like it because it’s kind of like what you’re saying, where, “Let’s worry about each other. I’ll worry about you, you worry about me.” And by doing so from a genuine perspective, you can lift each other up and help each other grow.
Charan: Which I think is the best form of any sort of transaction. It’s interesting because when I got back — I served an LDS mission and I got home in 2002. And at the time, a lot of my friends were getting involved in different network marketing businesses.
Charan: And I’d never even heard of that, honestly. I didn’t even know what that was until they started introducing me to that. And at first I was like, “Yeah. This is awesome. This could be interesting and cool.”
Charan: But I started noticing very quickly if I wasn’t expressing too much interest, they didn’t talk to me anymore. I’m like, “Wait, what? What happened? How? What? I don’t know. I don’t understand.”
Charan: And I always thought that was a very interesting thing. And the thing is, but network marketing if it’s done properly, because I have seen successful network marketers, they’re the ones that are building real relationships.
Charan: The product is coming second. Even if someone is not interested in the product, they’re still interested in being your friend and caring for you. And then if the person signs up, great. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. They’re still your friend.
Jared: Yeah, exactly. Right. I think that’s where we get lost, because the truth is, there’s no getting away from the idea of relationships. In the book, we talk about every opportunity has its root in a relationship. Everything.
Jared: And we’ve actually beat up this principle for about a month, just making sure it was true. We were like, “Okay.” My sister and I wrote the book together, and we just literally went back and forth trying to figure out if there was any path to an opportunity that didn’t start with some type of relationship. And it’s impossible.
Jared: I’d be happy to do that at some point if you want to test the theory. But that being the case… Well, and even Forbes, they say the number one predictor of career success is being part of an open network. A closed network is-
Charan: Yeah, explain the difference.
Jared: … I’m going to church and meeting the same people, going home meeting the same people, go to work and the same people. The water cooler. I’m in this kind of incestuous loop of people, and an open network is what we’re building here which is, “Hey, I met George and Sally and Frank yesterday. But Suzy, Judy, and Greg I met the next day. They’re not doing exactly the same thing I’m doing.”
Jared: And so every time, because on average people know about 250 people, and none of our people are average. A lot of them know thousands of people. You build one relationship, you build trust with that one person, then they start open their networks up to you.
Jared: It’s one to many. One to thousands in some cases. If they trust you, but again they have to trust you. If they don’t trust you and there’s not a real relationship there, it’s always going to be transactional. But if you can get to the relational component of this, that’s where true success is. And frankly, it’s just so much more fun.
Charan: Totally.
Jared: Nobody wants to be a salesperson that’s cold calling and knocking on doors. It’s nobody’s dream. But by building relationships and then having a cool product or service that you represent, and seeing if those people that you have relationships with are interested in helping you be successful, that’s cool.
Charan: That’s super cool. Yeah. Because then you’re having fun with the people as well. You know what I mean? You’re having a good time. I think the same thing. In the film world, you want to work with your friends, and when you’re making movies with your friends, you end up having a way better time than with complete strangers. Because you’re just kind of going through this little war together.
Jared: I saw a LinkedIn poll the other day. They asked how many close associations, close friends that you could call in a time of need. And it was like 25% had zero.
Charan: Are you kidding me?
Jared: No.
Charan: Wow.
Jared: And then the other was like one, and some that had three or four that was like 15-20% on the high side. But that was it, which is pretty amazing that we go through life being so disconnected from each other that we don’t feel… And a quarter of the cases that no one that they can call. To me, that’s just terrible.
Charan: Yeah. And that’s the thing, because then you realize, “Oh, my gosh. What are we doing with our lives if we’re not building friendships, and if we’re not building these relationships? Why are we even here doing what we’re doing?”
Charan: And sometimes I feel like we get a little too distracted. And tell me if this is the case, if you’ve seen this before. But I’ve seen some entrepreneurs that get a little too lost in their business, to focus on the importance of it, which was building relationships to begin with. Do you see that ever?
Jared: I see it really close. I see it every time I look in the mirror.
Charan: Really? You feel that way about yourself?
Jared: That was me. That’s why the reason I could write the book about this topic, is because we call them gladiators. Governors versus gladiators, or tribe leaders. But a gladiator sees the world through the lens of victory, and we celebrate them.
Jared: Anybody that gets in the Colosseum and just goes in there and battles, and beats, and kills. If you’re the victor it’s about winning. And winning is fine, but I’m into team sports. I want to do stuff as a group and get connected and feel like we’re working towards a common goal.
Jared: And I think most time it’s like, “Hey, I’m going to overcome all the odds.” Some of it’s just kind of the American hero stuff, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think we miss… Again, we did the research on Disney; we did the research on all of these major leaders that people think were self-made.
Jared: None of them were. Actually, in almost every case they were great what we call tribe leaders. They had these massive amounts of… Disney especially. People don’t know that there’s, I think it’s Ub Iwerks is his name.
Jared: Disney had a distributor that came and basically stole all of his employees that he’d been working with and basically underhandedly was putting him out of business. And Disney was a 50-year overnight success. It took him forever to actually get anywhere.
Jared: But all of his animators left, because Disney wasn’t a first-rate animator. People don’t realize he was average at best. But Ub Iwerks, which is an interesting name, but Ub actually stayed with him. And they drove, they got back on the train and were going back, and Disney is just depressed obviously. And he’s like, “I have an idea for a character.”
Jared: Because their old character was called Oswald. Another rabbit I think. But anyway, his idea was for Mickey. And then Ub drew him into existence on that trip, so that little group, that relationship between those two people, those two men on that train at that time in a really difficult situation, was basically the founding of Mickey Mouse and everything we know as Disney now.
Charan: Wow. I had no idea, man.
Jared: Yeah. Well, nobody knows who that guy even is. All the credit goes to Disney, and the truth is, that’s not real. That’s fine, but the reality is, Ub had as much to do with-
Charan: The creation of Mickey.
Jared: … the creation of Mickey as Walt did. But nobody knows his name. And it doesn’t really matter. I don’t know that we need to know everybody’s names; I think we just need to recognize that the principle exists. This is how things happen and that we don’t do things in test tubes in isolation. I just think we need to start celebrating the combined effort of people, rather than like, “Hey, I’m the king of the world.”
Charan: “I’m the king of the world.” Do you know who Tom Shadyac is? Does that name ring a bell?
Jared: I don’t.
Charan: Tom Shadyac is a director and he directed movies like Ace Ventura, if you remember that; Liar Liar; Big–
Jared: Bunch of Jim Carrey stuff.
Charan: Bunch of Jim Carrey stuff. Yeah. He’s a very successful guy and he knows comedy and all that stuff. His story is very, very interesting, because he directed these movies. He became extremely successful. He had this beautiful home; I think it was in Pasadena or something like that.
Charan: He had people wait on him. It was just insane. And he said he’s never been more miserable in his entire life. And he was like, “What in the world is happening? Here I am, I have all these things, and all this stuff. And yet I’m so depressed.”
Charan: And he was taking a bike ride one day, and he got in a pretty bad accident that put him in the hospital. And while he was in the hospital, he really reflected on his life. And he’s like, “Well, if this isn’t bringing me joy. If all the stuff… “
Charan: Of course, it brought him moments of recognition and excitement but not true joy. He’s like, “What is joy? What is happiness?” And so he went on kind of a little journey and made a documentary called I Am.
Charan: And it was self-funded. It was him and just a couple people, and the whole idea was to search for joy. And he was saying, “In America, we have a very competitive mentality, and it’s taught to us from a very young age. It’s like, You have to get the best in school. These are the best grades you can get. You have to be the best in this; you got to be the best in that.” And it’s all about competition, and sometimes capitalism leads to that.”
Charan: “It’s survival of the fittest. We have this mentality ingrained in us.” But then he started realizing a lot of the other parts of the world that he would go and visit, where they hardly had anything but were incredibly happy, they believed in cooperation.
Charan: And it was all about putting things together. And so he loved that idea, and so he basically was like, “Yeah. I’m getting rid of all of this stuff. This stuff isn’t serving me.”
Charan: He got rid of all of his stuff. He bought a nice little trailer, and he started to teach at a local university in California for free. And the money he would get, he would just donate it back to the school because he was like, “I don’t need any more money. I’ve got all the money.”
Jared: Yeah. He was fine.
Charan: He was fine, and so he was like, “I’m just donating it back to the school.” And he would buy bicycles, I think, for all of his students and say, “Go out there and just go ride, and just go experience life.”
Jared: That’s cool.
Charan: Anyway, it was a really cool story and from a very talented guy that discovered, “Okay. What is true happiness and what is true joy?” And the problem is, I think, a lot of times people, entrepreneurs and such that are so into the creative space and making so much money, forget about the component of having joy with the people you’re working with.
Jared: Yeah. Especially because if you work as much as I do-
Charan: Which is a lot.
Jared: Way more than I should probably. Because again, the data supports this. I’m not a huge data guy as much, but it just does. Like I said, according to Forbes, the number one predictor of career success is your network. The people you know.
Jared: And I don’t even like using the work network actually. It’s your relationships, your friends. And if you look at the longest-running study in history, I think it started with JFK’s graduating class in college, and then it’s still going today.
Jared: It’s a Harvard study that they just kept, because they were just trying to figure out, “Okay. We’re going to study these people forever and see what it shows us. Why are people living longer? What are the variables that make… Is it heart disease? Is it how they it? Is it their smoking? What are all these things?”
Jared: And I don’t think the data that they got was the data they expected. In fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Because what do you think the number one predictor of health is?
Charan: Probably relationships.
Jared: It’s friendship.
Charan: Friendships. Yeah.
Jared: Yeah. Friendship is number one. Basically, if you have a close circle of friends, it’s like not smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And people don’t really recognize that, and we’re talking health benefits, too. Not just societal benefits, all of the other stuff as well.
Jared: But for whatever reason, we don’t… I think the cultures and things you’re talking about that are really highly connected, they live longer and they’re happier. Because we’re designed to be together, we’re not designed to be apart.
Jared: And the world, especially with tech right now, it’s putting us in silos. We’re getting less and less connected; we’re getting less and less happy. And we’re getting more and more numb.
Charan: Yes. And it’s weird because the technology is supposed to connect us more, and yet it’s not.
Jared: It’s not. And I don’t know if it’s by design or whatever it is; it just is what it is.
Charan: It is what it is. Do you feel that, I don’t know, we were talking about different technologies kind of pulling us apart. Do you ever sometimes feel like a lot of the relationships that people have with each other are very surface-level?
Jared: Yeah. In fact, that was the primary driver for building the organization in the first place, is that… Because I had a problem. I’m actually introverted.
Charan: Are you?
Jared: Yeah. I’ve got an introvert building a relationship company.
Charan: Fantastic.
Jared: It’s just like, “Hey, hold on. Don’t you just hate relationships in general?” I’m like, “No, I actually love relationships, I just need them to be meaningful. I need them to go deep. I need to talk about real stuff.”
Jared: If we’re not, then literally death to me is a mix and mingle or just some kind of ice breaker at the beginning, where people are just milling around with a drink and just trying to feel comfortable. You might as well just shoot me in the head.
Jared: I don’t like it. But I looked at that, I’m like, “There’s an opportunity.” Because wherever there’s a problem, there’s an opportunity to solve the problem. And I’m like, “The problem obviously is that this is all surface crap. None of these people like it.”
Jared: I think even extroverted people might like a certain amount of that, but eventually they still want some depth. And they want to feel like these people are their actual friends.
Jared: What we did is like, “Hey, let’s build a system that takes all these people that don’t know each other. They’re all there with the intention of building relationships. And then let’s organize the process so that they feel deeply connected to each other within a couple of days.”
Jared: It was, “Hey, let’s do what would normally take 10 years, let’s do in two days in terms of connection and trust.” And we figured out how to do it. And the irony is the first step was so freaking simple that it’s almost embarrassing.
Jared: It’s one of our favorite quotes and it’s, “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” And it was shocking. We’d put a group of executives together at a table. We’d have them share their stories. The hardest thing they’ve overcome, their favorite outdoor experience.
Jared: We have a couple hundred topics that we’d use. They’d go around, take two minutes each, and they would connect as human beings. And then we would have them connect and talk about their business, and that was beginning process.
Jared: And now these people are best friends. They know more each other than probably their families know about. Just because it’s all comfortable and they don’t share anything they don’t want to share. It’s just the fact that there’s a natural environment designed to help them share.
Jared: And when you start storytelling, it’s amazing actually. It’s magic. And then we have them talk about their business. But before I understand, unless I care about you, I don’t really care about your business.
Jared: If I don’t have context for you, context creates caring. But proximity doesn’t equal connection. If that were true, you could stick everybody in a 65,000 football stadium. You’re surrounded by tens of thousands of people, but you exit that experience the same way you entered it. But when we have 100 people in a room, we want them to exit completely transformed and deeply connected at the end. But that takes intention.
Charan: It takes intention. It’s interesting. I don’t know why this story popped in my head, but we’re talking about stories, so I can share this one. But years and years ago, gosh, when the first Avengers movie came out if you remember that, Marvel did a Marvel marathon, and at the time there were five or six Marvel movies made before The Avengers came out. And so they said, “Hey, you guys can go in the theater, and we’re going to show you all five of the movies back to back to back, and then Avengers at the very end.”
Charan: It’s a 15-hour extravaganza. It started at 10:00 AM and ended at 2:00 AM or something like that. And they would take a half-hour break between movies. And I remember going in the theater, and there was this group of us.
Charan: And I remember sometimes I get overly extroverted, but I said to everybody in the theater, I said, “Guys, we’re all going to be on a journey together. We might as well get to know each other. You’re the ones. We all have inner nerds within us.”
Charan: It was amazing to see how people just opened up, and they wanted to talk about the stories and everything. And we were kind of getting to know each other. And I just remember thinking there’s definitely something incredibly powerful with this.
Charan: And one of the things that you guys do at TribeHouse, and I actually don’t know the difference between Corporate Alliance and TribeHouse. Is it much of a difference?
Jared: Started the company 2000, and then we built it and then there was a bunch of transactions back and forth. And eventually, we came back and bought the Corporate Alliance piece back. Essentially, the biggest difference with TribeHouse is just that we focus on a lot of different verticals.
Jared: Corporate Alliance focused mostly on business-to-business. We have the mom tribe and CMO, CTO tribe, and all of these different… The Latina tribe. We’ve got all these different, because there’s all these different groups.
Jared: And I didn’t want to think linearly anymore; I wanted to think exponentially. “Okay. The whole world is made up of tribes, the whole world is, and I want to connect the whole world. And how do we do that as an organization? How do we get our staff and our employees and our members to all engage in this process of, ‘Okay. Let’s transform the world.'” But it’s not just business executives that transform the world.
Charan: It’s everyday people.
Jared: Yeah. Moms will do more to transform the world than a business executive ever could imagine doing, and they need just as much support and connection to their tribe. And so building those connections is vitally important to the world’s health and to, obviously, the individual community’s health.
Charan: We talk about this maybe even from a scientific point of view, but it’s kind of like raising the frequency and the vibration on the earth. I really believe that one of the big things that we could possibly do in the world is to just share more light into it and to lift other people up wherever they’re at. And I feel like you’re trying to do that. You’re already doing that on a very, very massive scale, on a global scale, which is awesome. And it sounds like you keep growing.
Charan: But one of the things I was going to tell you is part of the TribeHouse experience is planned retreats. And I think retreats are actually really powerful as well, because… Yeah, go ahead. You go ahead.
Jared: No, I was just going to say there’s a chapter in the book called “Pools,” and basically they’re like you described, Charan. They’re events, but they have a certain recipe that’s required, because, again, proximity doesn’t equal connection.
Jared: Just because you’ve got 1,000 people in a room doesn’t mean those 1,000 people… Go to CES. Go to any trade show and you’re going to be surrounded by thousands of people, but you’re going to feel alone. We call it the Cheers effect. You’re too young to even-
Charan: No, I’m not too young. I know Cheers. Come on, I know Cheers.
Jared: You remember Cheers.
Charan: I’m not that young. Yeah.
Jared: Obviously, if you are too young to know, Cheers is an ’80s sitcom.
Charan: Yeah, and it’s a great sitcom starring Ted Danson and a bunch of other people. It was ’80s.
Jared: Yeah. ’80s, ’90s, when was… Whenever it was. Yeah, ’80s. But anyway, it’s a bar and beer is a commodity, and there was probably four other bars on that same road. Why did Norm walk in that door, and why did Diane? Why did all those people go in there specifically?
Jared: It’s because that’s where everybody knew their name. That was their place. They didn’t go there for the commodity; they went there for the connection. And I think people that sell commodities need to understand if they want to really truly be successful and enjoy their life and their experience. Instead of trying to connect people to products and services, connect your customers to each other, and then provide a product or service in the middle. Does that make sense?
Charan: Yeah.
Jared: Now it’s all about us connecting our communities with each other. That’s what’s going to bring the real joy, and then we’re going to provide a product or service that’s going to amplify that experience.
Jared: I think if people started really doing that and ingesting that, and realizing that’s where the real power is, not only would they build better products but they would enjoy their life experience. Which like you said, is probably 40%, 50%, 60% of it’s at work. We spend most of our time here on earth in this building or doing this thing.
Charan: This thing. Yeah.
Jared: And what are we going to wish we had changed? And for me, I think it’s, I think we’ll wish that we had more connection, that the people around us were more connected to us.
Charan: It’s interesting because we talk about having an abundant life where you made a lot of money, or you had a lot of success in your business, and all kinds of stuff. But sometimes it’s more important to say, “How do you experience life more abundantly?”
Charan: You know what I mean? And I think that having those rich relationships, those friendships where you can count on each other and call upon each other, and have deep conversations with each other that go to midnight, or 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning sometimes.
Charan: Those type of relationships are just so cherished and, unfortunately, so rare. Because people aren’t used to opening up and sharing, and I think it’s a powerful thing. But it’s cool that you realized that, man. And it’s cool that you’ve built this whole organization around it. What is the future of TribeHouse?
Jared: Well, like you said, you talked about us being global. We’re not yet, but we’re still in Utah. But that is the goal.
Charan: Utah is a global state.
Jared: Yeah, that’s right. No, we are starting to look at Arizona finally for real as our next market launch.
Charan: Cool.
Jared: And then we’ll probably do Intermountain West, Boise, Vegas. Vegas might be a tougher town to break into.
Charan: Maybe. It might be.
Jared: But maybe because we’re highly connected in different groups, maybe that works. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. But our goal is to have a physical TribeHouse, because again the TribeHouse is an actual place. We’re working on getting the restaurant and we’re working on getting the components of connection.
Jared: We want when people come here that this feels like the new town square. Because back in the day, you watch the old shows, it was like everybody is gathering to these central places, and they’re hanging out. Where is that now?
Charan: There is not one place. No.
Jared: Nowhere. Literally there is no town square. There is no central place for connection and community. And I’m like, “TribeHouse is committed to creating those epicenters in each community.”
Charan: I love that.
Jared: Those are gathering places where all of those people gather that want to connect and feel connected to their tribes. And again, there might be 100 different types of tribes that they’re a part of.
Jared: We connect them to their community, the people that care about the same things and enjoy the same things. Eventually, we might get all the way down to knitting tribes, or people that have specific hobbies or fly fishing. Whatever it is.
Jared: Right now, it’s more generalized. But eventually at some point, we want people to enjoy their life together with people that have similar types of interests.
Charan: I love that, man. It’s so cool.
Jared: Thank you.
Charan: It’s so cool and I love that you’re doing all that stuff. Because we were talking about the different tribes that are being created right now, and I think there’s such a demand for it.
Charan: Because one of the hardest things is to feel like I have a desire in my heart, and I feel alone because I can’t find people that have the same desire. To find people that have a similar thing and to be able to share that with them, that’s powerful. That’s really, really powerful.
Jared: They’ve done some studies and everything, that probably one of the primary things we provide to people is a way to get out of loneliness.
Charan: I love that.
Jared: It’s so weird that that’s kind of the national and international disease right now. And again, this goes back to what we talked about earlier, which is this idea of technology somehow freeing us. In reality, in a lot of cases it shackles us and imprisons us, and distances us from… Because I was a child of the ’80s. I know what it means to just hop on my-
Charan: Bike.
Jared: Big wheel and just go wherever I wanted on my bike, and I lived as part of a community. I was a part. My whole neighborhood was my oyster. I could go anywhere and be a part of that experience. I feel so bad for my kids because they live it.
Jared: It’s just a smaller experience in terms of community, and I think we need to figure out how to solve that problem, because it’s a problem. It’s a real problem. Anxiety and all these social things that we’re dealing with right now, I think a lot of that has to do with disconnection.
Jared: A lot of that has to do with living in this virtual world that’s not even real, and this fear now of everyone around you. And isolating ourselves and protecting ourselves and not being a part of an actual extended family that extends into your neighborhood, and into your city, and into your state. To me, that’s the number one problem I’m trying to solve, is how do we fix broken… How do we bring the ’80s back?
Charan: How do we bring the ’80s back? Dude, I love that. Yeah. No, it’s interesting because, and I’ve shared this with other guests on different podcasts, but when I was in India, I was having a conversation with one of my cousins and I said, “Listen, man. If you could live anywhere in the world, anywhere at all, where would you live?”
Charan: And without even blinking he’s like, “Pondicherry,” which is the town that he was living in. I’m like, “I’m so sorry, let me rephrase the question. Anywhere.” And he’s like, “No, I’d choose Pondicherry.” And I said, “Well, why?” And his first answer is, “I’m never lonely here.”
Charan: It was so simple, and I realized that everything was a celebration to them. Everything. And family got together and we always celebrated; we always went out and did fun stuff. When I was there, I don’t even know if I’ve met these cousins until I went there.
Charan: But instantly I was like, “Hey, come with us, Charan. We’re going to go do this. We’re going to go do that.” And it was just so fun. It was just this fun time, and I love that idea: how do we bring the ’80s back? Because that is the thing.
Charan: I remember as well as a kid, there would be certain neighborhoods where the cul-de-sac — it was my favorite. We’d go to the cul-de-sac and my friends all lived in a certain cul-de-sac, and we’d all-
Jared: Night games.
Charan: Yeah. We’d play night games, we’d play Nerf, and we’d play Street Fighter. Video games. I don’t even know. Just the wee hours of the morning, and our parents, they didn’t worry. They didn’t worry. They would just be like, “Yeah, they’re having fun and doing their thing.”
Jared: I was a child of the community. And that requires trust, that requires connection. And I’m sure bad things happen and I get that we need to protect against some of those things. But I think if we weigh those things against each other, the net-net is still negative. It’s not what it could be.
Jared: And again, I’m not anti-technology. We build tech here, but I want to figure out how to build community tech that allows people to feel more comfortable with each other, to trust each other more. And create communities again that are safer, but that are also deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply connected.
Jared: And way more fun. We don’t have nearly enough experiences. We have this beautiful life to live and we’re spending it lots of times just typing on an app.
Charan: Computer or something.
Jared: That’s just silly.
Charan: It is silly. Let me ask you this. This is a question I wanted to ask you earlier. How do you become more trusting yourself? Because that’s one of the number one things I would say, in order to have a community like this, is to become a more trusting person. To allow people to come into your life and feel safe.
Jared: Yeah. I love all of Brené Brown’s stuff, and about the power of vulnerability. The power of understanding how the beginning steps of real happiness are the process of letting go and allowing people to see you. The real you.
Jared: And I think that is the foundational piece, where you have to kind of let go of this façade and kind of get real with people. And once you get real with people, they start to trust you. And once they start to trust you, then you start to trust them.
Jared: And there’s this beautiful kind of harmonious cycle that happens as a result of that vulnerability. And just you’re not trying to pretend that you’re perfect anymore. You’re not trying to pretend that… It’s just all the kind of façades drop, and you start really just thinking, “Okay. I see you, you see me. And I trust you. Not that I think you’re perfect, but I understand that, I’m starting to get the feel for your heart and who you are as a person.”
Jared: I think to me, that’s the first step is just vulnerability, starting to be whole in terms of… Because one of the best things that ever happened to me, is we’ve gone through phases in those company where we were viewed as very successful. And times where we were viewed like, “Hey, you’re probably going to fail and it’s over for you.”
Jared: And it was those times that were the hardest that I started to realize that real relationships are built on not caring what other people think. Which sounds like a really weird paradox.
Charan: No, no, no. But keep going with this. I like this.
Jared: But the fundamental principle of real relationships is not absorbing what other people are thinking or what you think they’re thinking, meaning that the dialogue that’s running in your head-
Charan: The narrative.
Jared: The narrative that you’ve got running that I’m trying to maintain goes away, and you literally become present, and you stop caring if that person thinks you’re cool. Or stop caring if that person thinks that you meet some kind of checkbox or set of arbitrary standards that somehow have been built in through society or whatever.
Jared: And you’re like, “No. I just see you. I don’t care what you think.” This is the hardest part with doing that with my wife and my kids, because I’m like, “Honey, I really don’t care what you think anymore.” And my wife is like, “What are you talking about?”
Jared: And I’m like, “No, it’s not like that. The only way for me to truly love you and connect with you in a meaningful real way is to stop the narrative in my head. Because it’s damaging all of this.”
Charan: Totally. And that narrative in your head makes it so you become a people-pleaser, which I’ve been guilty of. And like, “Oh, my gosh. What’s going to happen here? What’s going to happen there?” And you’re like, “Wait a minute. Forget about all that. Just be present with the person.” Was there a moment in your life where you were living façades, and then you’re like, “I got to let these go?”
Jared: Yeah. I think most of my life. I think most people. I still do. I think that’s definitely part of who I am still. I still have those narratives running my head. What I’ve gained is the skill to… I think most people… we’re really, really, really, really sophisticated computers with souls, in my opinion.
Jared: We have this beautiful amazing human tech that we use, our bodies, and we’ve got these spirits that kind of drive it. But we’ve got all that DNA, all that encoded stuff that’s been generational for years and years and years.
Jared: I struggled with OCD and all kinds of other major issues that are hereditary. And I’m not saying they’re not real; they’re 100% real. Napoleon Hill talks a little bit about this, but there’s a certain amount of 3% of the population that’s actually awake, and the rest are in hypnotic rhythm, like he calls it, meaning that they’re just operating on their program.
Charan: Yeah. They’re kind of like zombies in a sense.
Jared: Yeah. I don’t want to be critical. I was a zombie for… Because I remember being a zombie and then I’m operating at 97% of the… The way you know you’re in that cycle is that you just are in a cycle. You’re in a little river and there’s this little whirlpool, and you’re like, “Hey, that scenery looks familiar. I’ve been here before.” And then you’re there again, and you’re there again.
Jared: But you have the illusion of progress, but in reality you’re just experiencing the same things a little bit differently. And then at some point you can wake up, and I hope that 3% turns into 97%, and everybody starts to wake up.
Jared: Because I think when you wake up you realize, “Sure, I have DNA. Sure, I have all these challenges. But I can also start to reprogram.” Just like Java or any kind of programming language, we have a human programming language and our brains have the ability to recode and reassess and then reprogram literally.
Jared: But we have to assert control over that, and then we have to start practicing, and then we start have to see actual transformations in our life. We have things, we’re no longer in the same patterns that are obvious, and we’re breaking through to new places we’ve never been before. Then you realize, “I’m awake. I’m alive because I have the ability to start creating my future, as opposed to just living my code.”
Charan: I love that, man. Dude, so many freaking things to unpack there. I don’t even know if we have time for everything. But the thing that I’ve always felt is what human beings want more than ever is to feel alive, is to really feel alive.
Charan: And what human beings don’t get more than ever is that feeling of being alive. Because they’re living in that narrative, they’re living in that code. That pre-programmed thing that determines the lens in which they view life.
Charan: I remember I was in Target one day. It was over Christmastime, and I started looking into just kind of the eyes of people, and they just looked so dead. They looked so sad and they’re just kind of going through the motions, because that’s what they’re supposed to do. And I’m like, “Wait a minute. This doesn’t seem right. This seems like we’re supposed to be a lot more awake and alive, and full of joy and full of awe.”
Charan: It’s interesting because I look at my little nephew. He’s not quite two yet. And when he looks at the world, everything is just full of awe. He’s just so blown away by a rock, and he just picks it up and he’s looking at it. And I’m like, wow. There was a time when I was blown away by a rock. Now I’m just kind of like, “Oh, yeah. It’s a rock.” I just take it for granted. But how do you get back into that state of complete awe? What do you think for yourself?
Jared: Well, I think the first step to that is asking that question: How do I get back to that stage? Because when we ask our bodies, our brains, the universe, whatever, however you view the world, when we ask questions, we get answers. And when you get used to getting answer by asking questions, you have to look for them and they come to you. But it’s like, “Hey, how do I get back?”
Jared: Because I’ve asked that specific question lots of times: How do I get back to… Because I had a really blissful childhood. I know what it feels like to live in awe. I know what it feels like to have those feelings be consistent as a part of my experience.
Jared: I’m glad I do, because otherwise I might think it’s a fairy tale, and I might think it’s impossible. But becoming a child again is a real question, and I think it’s maybe the most important question a human being will ever ask. Because you can’t unpack all of your knowledge and wisdom. That’s probably not a good idea. You want to combine the two.
Charan: No. You want to combine the two. Right.
Jared: How do I bring all that I’ve learned, all of this creative power and energy, and how do I bring back that child that can kind of lead me back to happiness? Because I want go be happy really. At the end of the day, I just want to be happy.
Jared: I’ve asked myself lots of times, is there a path back to that person that I used to be? And the answer is yes, but it requires another 30–40 questions. That’s what I’ve learned is that it’s questions, and then you’re going to get to a level of…
Jared: There’s a whole thing in our process that we talk about. A lot of it’s calm. We talk about bringing your ships in. And you’ve got to get really clear on what you want. You’ve got to start to look at the cues in your life. Visual and auditory cues. You say, “This is what I’m building; this is what I’m creating.” And then you’ve got to get calm, and people don’t know how to be calm anymore.
Charan: No, they do not.
Jared: You get these really calm and beautiful states, and then clues start to appear. And once those clues start to appear, you need to unlock all of those clues. It’s like a series of breadcrumbs. I’m following it to the next thing, and I’m following it to the next thing, and following it to the next thing.
Jared: Because you have to learn in stages. You have to say, “Hey, no. I want this bad enough that I’m going to go through this whole process.” When those clues arrive, and they can come in the form of people; they can come in the form of products; they can come in the form of paradigm shifts.
Jared: Now I had this paradigm shift, I’m like, “I never even thought about that before.” But then you’ve got to chase that. You and I before, we talked about three or four paradigm shifts, right?
Charan: Yeah. Completely.
Jared: I’m chasing those right now and then you and I are talking about some of those cool things that we’re chasing. And that becomes, those clues and following those clues eventually lead to claiming the prize at the end of that. And then we have to celebrate the arrival of those things.
Jared: There’s this whole beautiful process, and the only reason I figured that process out is because I started asking questions, and I started to document the process.
Charan: I love that. Yeah.
Jared: I think at the end of the day, the answer is yes, absolutely, we can become children again, and we need to if we really want to be happy. And societally we need to figure out how to do that as a group. And part of that, again is what we do here at TribeHouse, which is connection, connection, connection, connection. Seeing people.
Charan: I think it’s interesting, because even in the Bible, Jesus says, “Become like a little child.” And I think that’s such a powerful statement. What does that mean? What does that look like? And that’s the path that you have to take on yourself. Your individual journey.
Jared Stewart Talks About His Greatest Fear
Charan: Well, we are running out of time. We’ve been having a wonderful, wonderful chat. I have two more questions I want to ask you, and we can wrap things up. What right now would you say is your greatest fear? What’s holding you back?
Jared: Fear has been a huge part of my life, and so I’ve spent a lot of time asking questions related to fear. Not nearly as many things as I used to.
Charan: Great.
Jared: I think allowing myself to believe in things way bigger than they currently are. And there’s a specific principle I’m trying to really believe and ingest 100%, and it is this idea of compounded happiness.
Jared: Because I started to realize that a lot of my fears were kind of revolving around societal norms that I’d been taught. I’d watch a movie and everything is… The main character is like, “My life is perfect. I can’t believe how happy I am.” They’re in a car. And one of two things is going to happen. A semi is going to hit him straight head on, or they’re going to call and somebody’s going to ring and, “What’s going on?” And we call it the other shoe dropping. Two steps forward, one step back.
Charan: One step back. Yeah.
Jared: It’s these constant narratives that we run in this world that say that happiness is only the forerunner of pain. And if you’re going to be happy, all you’re doing is setting yourself up for pain. And if you start to believe that consistently, you’re going to stop chasing happiness. Because the fear-
Charan: Because the fear of pain will be there.
Jared: Yeah. The fear of success. You’re going to undermine your own success at work; you’re going to undermine your success in your family; you’re going to undermine it with your friends. Because if you experience too much happiness and then go in the direction of those things, I’ve been taught literally that that’s going to be taken away.
Jared: I’m trying to get myself and my psyche to believe in compounded happiness, which is every day is going to be better than the day I just lived. Every day. Every day is going to get better, and better, and better, and better. And so even when I say it now I’m still like, “Do I believe that yet?”
Charan: Have I owned it yet? Yeah.
Jared: But that’s a choice, and believing in compounded happiness as opposed to the other shoe dropping, this is a really powerful belief that can accelerate and push me to new levels of happiness. This one by my own experience for decades is hell.
Jared: This is literally you not wanting to connect with your kids because your kids might die. With an OCD person, these are natural cycles inside of their brain. And so you’re like, “I don’t want to get too close to this person because that might cause me pain.
Jared: “Or I’ve been hurt in the past by this type of person, and so I’m going to disconnect from relationships in general, and I’m not going to feel or experience things anymore. Or I’m not going to accelerate at work because people that are successful at work get rich, and rich people are terrible. And I don’t want to be judged as a terrible person because I have wealth.”
Jared: We have all of these mixed signals and it’s all fear-based, and so you have to get to the point where you’re like, “Hey, first of all, that first thing. I don’t care what anybody thinks.” Because that’s the first step. If you care what everybody thinks and you’re living everybody else’s narrative, fear will inevitably come in and just destroy you.
Charan: Just destroy you. Yeah.
Jared: Yeah. But if you can get to that where you’re like, “Okay. I’m past worrying about what people think. Now I’m just trying to work on I want to have new beliefs.”
Jared: Because all those beliefs are wired in my subconscious. It’s not like I’m even thinking about it. I’m self-sabotaging, which I have been for years in a lot of different ways just naturally, because that’s my belief in there. And those beliefs create cognitive dissonance, and that’s how you know you got a bad belief in there, is you’ve got this-
Charan: This unstable…
Jared: Unsteady. You feel it. Whenever you feel that, then you have a belief that you probably need to go look at, and then you need to replace it. That’s what I’m talking about, coding. We need to change our belief around that thing.
Jared: Because as long as we hold that belief, it doesn’t matter what circumstances you bring into your, it’s still going to be an issue. I don’t know if that answered your questions.
Charan: No, but here’s the thing. It’s interesting because even as you’re talking to me I’m like, “Man, this is just therapy for me.” Because I look at my own life and I think, “Are there beliefs that I’m holding onto that are not serving me?” And I’m like, “Yeah, absolutely.”
Charan: And you ask, you got to go beyond the place of what other people think of me. Am I there yet? Not 100%. I feel like that’s going to be a lifelong journey.
Jared: Yeah. That’s my dream though.
Charan: Yeah. It’s a great dream. Isn’t it a great dream? A buddy of mine introduced this to my vocabulary, FOPO. Do you know what FOPO is?
Jared: Mm-mm (negative).
Charan: Well, FOMO is-
Jared: I know what FOMO is, the fear of missing out.
Charan: Yeah. Fear of missing out. FOPO is fearing other people’s opinions.
Jared: I love that.
Charan: And I love that, too. And a lot of people have FOPO.
Jared: FOPO. I’m using that.
Charan: Yeah. Use it, dude. Use it.
Jared: Okay.
Charan: But yeah, I think it is true. So much of my life growing up was fearing what my parents thought of me, or fearing what this happened, or fearing what that happened. And so much of my life was battling that. Initially, becoming an actor was definitely going against everything that they ever thought.
Jared: True.
Charan: Because they were like, “Charan, you need to be a doctor. You need to do all these type of things.” And now I’m like, “Well, I’ve played a doctor on TV. You’re welcome. You are welcome.” That’s kind of my justification.
Charan: But it is, it’s very interesting. But man, it’s absolute freedom. I’ve talked to people and I’ve seen people that you can tell, “Wow. They truly live life without fearing what other people think.”
Jared: Yeah. And the truth is the only thing that can set you free. And so when you realize, “What’s the truth here?” And you realize, “What’s the truth about me? Am I really defined by other people’s opinions? Is that really the focus and the focal point of everything that I am? Am I being defined by all these people, that even if I love… ” The worst people are the ones you love. Not the worst. Obviously you love them.
Charan: I know what you mean. Yeah.
Jared: But they’re the ones that have the most power over your happiness if you allow them that power, and they’ve never asked for that power; they don’t want that power. And I’m a worse dad, I’m a worse husband, I’m a worse boss, I’m a worse coworker in every case when I’m trying to run their narratives in my brain. Because I don’t have any room for them.
Charan: Yeah. All you’ve created is narratives that are controlling you.
Jared: Yeah. You’ve been around people that are like this-
Charan: Every day.
Jared: … on either side. They’re running massive narratives, and the ones that actually are clear and with you and present are like, “It’s just so beautiful being with somebody that doesn’t care what I think. They’re not invested in that; they’re invested in me. They see me.” And I don’t think you can run those two programs at the same time.
Charan: It’s exhausting.
Jared: Yeah. You can try but you want to run the program where you’re like, “Hey, I’m present, I’m with you. I’m not trying to impress you, I’m not trying to tell you that you think that I’m a great person. Or I’m not trying to-“
Charan: You’re not afraid of being judged around them.
Jared: That’s exactly right. Yeah.
Charan: You’re not afraid of being judged, that you know that when you’re with them there’s real love there.
Jared: Yeah. Unconditional.
Charan: Unconditional love, and it’s a beautiful feeling.
Jared: It’s rare though.
Charan: It’s very rare.
Jared: Sometimes people feel it and they’re like… But what’s cool is that’ll happen consistently in our events, people that are just sharing, and they get lost in each other’s stories. And they’re like, “I just really care about that person. I want to help them be successful.”
Jared: And it’s because they saw a glimpse of who they actually are for a second. They turned off the programming for just long enough that they connected, and they’re like, “Oh, yeah. This is what this feels like and I want more of this.”
Jared: Again, the best relationships, the best people in my opinion, are the ones that have that unique ability. And they worked on it. This isn’t something… Some people are born with it, I guess.
Charan: [crosstalk 00:59:18].
Jared: But it was not natural for me. I was running those narratives like crazy constantly, all day long. And it was exhausting and it didn’t serve me, and it made me miserable. I turned that off and I said, “Look, I love all of you. I don’t care what any of you think.”
Jared: Literally I meant it, not like it was just… Because you can say that. That’s nice to say, but when you actually mean it, it’s interesting how those… Even in this dialogue there’s been probably 10 times just the little while ago, where it kicked in. The narrative piece from, “What am I going to say to Charan here?”
Jared: And they’re always the least honest and real and raw moments, because there’s a program running in the background where I’m trying to convince you of something, or I’m trying to say something or sound a certain way. Or do it in a way that’s impressive or that I’m looking over here at the-
Charan: At the camera to see.
Jared: … camera. I’m like, “Do I look like an idiot? Is my wife going to judge?” She always says my hair is a little sideways. Are those the emotional… When I get in those places I get sideways, and we’re not connecting about real stuff. I can feel it. We lost the realness of those conversations when I got inward and start focusing on what I need, or what you’re perceiving me to be.
Charan: Well, in acting one of the biggest things we talk about is being present with your partner. Because one of the biggest things that beginning actors do, and I’ve been totally guilty of it and I’ve been doing it for a long time as well, is thinking about your lines. Because you have the script, you have to memorize your lines.
Jared: That’s true. I could never do it. [crosstalk 01:01:03].
Charan: That’s a narrative. You just share a narrative that needs to be scrubbed away.
Jared: I don’t memorize very well. But okay, yes. I can work on it.
Charan: Well, that’s going to be the next podcast is you acting. No, but I remember thinking when you’re completely off-book, meaning your lines, you don’t even have to think about them. It’s like breathing.
Jared: It’s intuitive.
Charan: It’s so intuitive. You can just become completely present, and you’re saying the lines as if it’s just very fresh. But when they’re not there, then instead of being with the partner, you’re in your head thinking about lines. And it’s a very, very difficult thing.
Jared Stewart’s Advice to His Younger Self
Charan: And I love acting for that reason, because it’s practice for life. And that’s what I love. I want to have one last question to wrap everything up. What is the most important piece of advice you could give your younger self?
Jared: I might sound weird, but I don’t think I’d give him any advice.
Charan: I love it.
Jared: Because I would worry that he wouldn’t… Because I value my failures as much as my successes, and they were better teachers and more powerful teachers. And I worry that I might give him too much information that would not have him make those mistakes. If anything, I would just say, “Look, just I love you.” And I’d probably just give him a hug and just say, “You got this.”
Charan: “You got this.” Yeah.
Jared: Yeah. “And just keep going.” Because to me, that’s the most important thing I’ve learned over the last 20 years. Because honestly, the last 20 years have been hell. Back to the business side, the data says that it’s anywhere from 60% to 95% of businesses fail in the first five years.
Jared: I don’t know. The data gets all over. I’ve looked everywhere, but I used to say 95% of businesses fail in the first… Anyway, within 10 years. Most businesses fail, let’s just put it that way.
Charan: Sure.
Jared: And I no longer believe that. That’s BS. People give up. There’s a difference between failing and quitting. And there was a bunch of businesses that I ran at the beginning that I’m glad that I quit, because I didn’t love them enough to sacrifice for them.
Jared: This company because of its mission, I was willing to experience ridiculous amounts of risk and pain to keep it going. And there’s been so many people, so many investors, and so many partners, and so many members that have made this all possible.
Jared: I am literally the definition of a non-self-made man. I am a community of people that have been able to do this together. I couldn’t have done… It’s ridiculous what we’ve been able to… The fact that we’re still here, especially after COVID. If there’s a company that had COVID’s cross-hairs just… Yeah. We had the red dots all over us.
Charan: Yeah. All over TribeHouse. TribeHouse was not going to be a tribe anymore.
Jared: We had 60 people with their guns. But they all came together and saved us. It’s this beautiful symphony of relationships, and it’s all real and beautiful, and I just feel so blessed to be a part of their experience.
Jared: Back to that original idea at the beginning of the company. It was about connection. Because this used to say, “Business is about relationships.” It’s just recently we changed it to “life is about relationships.”
Jared: The reason we’re here is to understand our connection to each other, and start to lever that into a happier, more meaningful, more beautiful existence. And so, yeah. I want to do this for the rest of my life. I do. I want to be a part of building-
Charan: Love that.
Jared: … tribes and connecting people forever. But again, it was worth the sacrifice. And so if it’s not worth the sacrifice, if you are an entrepreneur and you’re starting a business and you’re getting a little ways in, and you’re like, “I really, not only do I hate the work, but I hate the mission.” Or not even that I hate the mission, but it just doesn’t seem worthy of me. I don’t wake up-
Charan: Elated.
Jared: Yeah. Elated and lit up. Because you’re going to have to go face the world.
Charan: The world.
Jared: And in my case, it was 22 years of beat-down. And so are you ready to sacrifice? Because again there’s a difference between failure and quitting, and most founders quit because it gets too hard. It’s not like they couldn’t have found a way.
Jared: I don’t believe that they couldn’t have found some way to keep going, because we found a way thousands of different times. But only because the mission mattered more than my personal pain. Anyway, that’s the only-
Charan: I love that, man. No, here’s the thing. I absolutely love that. It’s a great piece of advice. Because I’ve met people that have done that, and I’ve been guilty of it where you’re going down a path, you’re doing a project, and deep down inside you’re like, “I know I’m not excited about this project. But I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep pushing and working hard.”
Charan: And I remember having this prayerful ask with God. I’m just like, “Why isn’t this project succeeding?” And I remember him asking me, “Well, do you want it to succeed? Do you really want it to succeed? Do you really want it to go?” And I’m like, “Oh.”
Jared: Never thought about that.
Charan: I don’t know if I have. And he’s like, “Hey, I can help you. But if you ask yourself, you can tell that this isn’t really where your heart truly is at.” And I realized that that was the case, but I kept trying to convince my heart to be there.
Jared: Sure. Well, and there’s some lessons to be learned doing things that you don’t love at that level, as long as you’re graduating to-
Charan: As long as you’re graduating.
Jared: Yeah. Just make sure you’re graduating to things that are more meaningful, and don’t ever get caught back in that-
Charan: Cycle.
Jared: … cycle of being un-alive. And if you find yourself looking and you’re seeing the same experiences and being frustrated with the same parts of your life, that means you’re probably in hypnotic rhythm, like Napoleon Hill might say.
Jared: And just be aware of that and realize that you’re falling back into a pattern, that if you don’t break out of that… It takes some energy to get out of a current like that, so you got to exercise some energy to get back out into the actual current, where you’re making progress and going down the river. And not just in those little whirlpools to the side of the river, and you’re just having the illusion of progress.
Jared: You want to have actual progress, and the only way to measure that is that you start to feel more and more alive. And you start to see things differently, and you keep breaking through those patterns.
Jared: You might have one, and then get into another, and then get into another. You just have to start recognizing the pattern. And if you’re not growing and you’re not progressing and you’re not becoming, like you said, more full of light, more alive, and more powerful frankly. And more aligned with whatever your mission is. Then you need to recognize that, break free from that pattern, and jump into the next experience.
Charan: Man, Jared. I’m telling you. That’s freaking powerful stuff, man. This is insane. No, I love it. I think you’ve unlocked the key to becoming alive, and anyone that listens to this podcast, I implore you guys to do that. To come alive and to let go of the things that don’t serve you. Recognize if you’re seeing the same things over and over and over again.
Charan: For me, it’s probably dating. I have a hypnotic rhythm like no one has ever seen with that. But it’s great, because now it teaches me, “Great. I got to figure out the things to come alive in that area of life.” But thanks, man. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Jared: No, it’s my pleasure.
Charan: Yeah. This has been so awesome.
Jared: I really, really enjoyed it, so thank you for inviting me.
Charan: Yeah. Likewise. Yeah, of course. And we’ll chat soon, okay?
Jared: Yeah, for sure. Thanks. See you.
Charan: Okay. Thanks. Bye. Thanks so much for listening to the Lemonade Stand podcast, and we hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use, to be alerted when we release new episodes. We’d also love to hear your feedback in the reviews. And if you or someone you know has an awesome Lemonade Stand story, please reach out to us on social media and let us know. Thanks so much and have a great day.