We caught up with the brilliant and insightful J-ryze a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
J-Ryze, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
I got my first client by being homeless.
OK, that’s not the whole story, but my homeless years did lead to me working with a millionaire thought-leader named Evan Carmichael.
As a kid I had a lot going for me. I had an IQ of 147, went to a gifted school, and was popular with all the different cliques. I skipped University because I was already making $60/hr. When that was done, I went through a bunch of girlfriends & jobs, but…
…eventually ended up struggling to run my business homeless on the cold streets of Toronto.
While living rough, I read tons of books, struggled along with multiple businesses, and even interviewed on a radio show from a subway platform payphone.
Anyway, I did that for nearly 3 years before I gave up and tried to commit suicide, but I failed at that too.
It absolutely crushed my ego and self-worth to have so much talent, intelligence, and drive… but fail at everything I touched, including ending my life on my own terms.
Anyway, after lying on a bench for over thirty hours, completely surrendered to life, karma, God, or the universe…
…my deep boredom gave way to inspiration.
I was inspired to head to the library to find some shade, and passed the time by giving my advice away free on the net. All day every day I gave the best answers I could to whatever question I could find. And all my time on the streets, my failed businesses, and my deep study & practice meant I actually had a lot to offer.
And by answering questions online, I got my first client.
Who happened to be Evan Carmichael, quite a ‘big’ client.
So things started turning around for me. Evan wanted my help so much that he offered to not only pay me, but also let me sleep on the floor of his office and have shelter there until I got back on my feet.
So I collaborated with him on growing his brand from 1000 subscribers to 3,000,000 over the next few years and earned quite a bit, keeping myself off the streets permanently.
J-Ryze, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m a renaissance man with a strong focus on mindset, branding, and wisdom of all kinds.
I’m all about brand boosting (& brain-bending) for rebelpreneurs.
Although I breezed through the gifted program in high school, and was awarded a spirit award from York University, I only have my high school diploma.
It’s my life experience of many hard knocks, failed businesses, and my homeless years that made me who I am today. And my being humbled by life taught me to serve not just my high-end clients, but the
“least” of society, and everyone in between as well.
That’s why my mission is to significantly and permanently raise the consciousness of all of humanity, or as much as is possible in my lifetime. And whether I do that through mental health, brand strategy, spirituality, or whatever else is fine with me.
For example, I’ve had many partners and collaborators over the years, again, each one taught me a lot. Especially about communication, mindset, and human relationships.
And one of my biggest accomplishments is helping my girlfriend Cynthia transform from a depressed, junkie, single mom, into a happy, fulfilled, mompreneur. Plus, she’s losing weight and getting healthier now too, so that’s even more epic.
But I’ve also had an absurd number of “failed” businesses during the last 25 years, and many people would accuse me of lack of focus, discipline, or commitment if given the full list.
But they’d be wrong. My mom and dad raised me to pursue excellence, embody focus, and keep my word, instilling those quite well in me.
Each business “failure” taught me branding and business lessons that would directly contribute to my value and success, and it takes an inhuman focus, commitment and dedication to get knocked down that many times and still get back up.
In fact, recently I (temporarily) pivoted again, to focus more on the brand-strategy side of my skills and put my mental health podcast “Eyes Wide Open” on hiatus after a hundred episodes.
Why? Because there was increased demand for my brand consulting, and I can use the resources I get from that to add juice to my podcast, and they both serve each other —and my audience of rebelpreneurs— in the end anyway.
Ultimately, I’ve been blessed to receive hundreds of testimonials praising me for “giving epiphanies” and “practical advice” given in “just a five minute conversation.”
I’ve had people praise my “polymath” style abilities. I’ve had people praise the way I’m able to clear away confusion, shed light on what matters, and help them build the lives and brands they want.
And I’m deeply grateful for every one.
At the same time, my direct, clear, blunt delivery isn’t for everyone.
I’m like a shot of mindset vodka, strong, intense, pure… and only for those with the constitution for it.
Too many people these days seek to be coddled and comforted rather than given unvarnished truths. Still others think they “know all the answers” and aren’t ready to listen. Either way, those peeps aren’t for me, and we’re unlikely to get along.
But, if you’ve ever wanted to…
Cut through the bullsh*t, get a judgment-free advisor, ease any decision, see a clear path to solutions, get fresh views on taboos (or a shot of mindset adrenalin)… I’m your guy.
(Also, I can play every League Of Legends champion decently, can rap Godzilla by Eminem, have changed thousands of beliefs, read thousands of books, written thousands of words, made thousands of art pieces, and love bouldering.)
I look forward to connecting with anyone who resonates.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Picture a lone wolf, introverted, hermit-like, recently homeless dude.
He’s been burned by society and been the black sheep for so long, he basically avoids people.
And the few times he does interact with people, he ends up misunderstood, judged, betrayed, or projected upon by them. One of them even jailed him through a false accusation.
That was me.
And I believed that my best chance of success was being alone.
But I was so wrong.
Approaching life that way was a fast path to stalled growth.
For the longest time I refused to see the value of connections. I thought skill or talent or salesmanship were the key to succeeding in business or life.
I rolled my eyes whenever I heard someone say “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
And my life bore this out.
Although I know there are successful solopreneurs, even they have third party contractors, remote workers, sizable networkers, and other connection-based assets… and no man is an island.
My trying to be a disconnected solopreneur, an island unto myself caused my businesses to struggle.
It was only when I connected to Evan, or connected to Cyn (my girlfriend and current biz partner), or connected to anyone that real growth began to blossom.
After seeing the proof in the pudding, and realizing the immense value of connecting to others over some lone wolf fantasy world, I adopted a new philosophy in business and life.
I summarize it as the following:
“Friends are wealth.”
And the more friends you make, the wealthier you become.
On the other hand, show me someone with little to no human connections, and I’ll show you someone living in lack and minimal thriving.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I have pivoted my businesses more than anyone I know, and possibly more than anyone ever.
So much so that it’s challenging to choose one in particular to share about, but I’ll outline the most recent pivot because it happened this week.
For the last couple years, Cyn and I have been running a podcast called “Eyes Wide Open.” It delivers mental health for rebelpreneurs and gives insightful, eye-opening perspectives on common topics that trigger people’s mental health issues.
Meaning one episode might clear up confusion on beauty standards, another on monetizing well, another on blaming our families, another on lying & denial, and so on.
We hit our 100th episode, and were gaining some traction, but it wasn’t self-sustaining financially yet, and the audience was still smaller than we’d like.
Which meant that to keep it going, we were going to have to fund it through alternate methods and income streams.
Fortunately, I’d been helping entrepreneurs build their brands and businesses for years, and although we’d taken focus off that to grow the podcast, an influx of customer demand for brand strategy nudged us a well-timed, and temporary, pivot.
So even though it may not have been part of the plan, marketing my brand strategy skills for now, and allowing that to be front-and-center, could help Eyes Wide Open grow more when the time is right, similar to how James Cameron directed Terminator and Titanic despite having the idea for Avatar much earlier on.
Now, at this point I have a unique attitude towards pivots.
On the one hand, I know how much work goes into a pivot or a re-brand, and it’s somewhat galling.
On the other, I’m so familiar, comfortable, and adept at pivots that I barely blink when one is called for.
So, at this point, if I wanted to branch out from brand strategy, I could surely market myself as the Pivot King.
(But I’m gonna go a different direction and leave the pivots to others as much as possible. :D)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jryze.me
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryzeonline
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jfonceca
- Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/ryzeonline
- Twitter: https://x.com/ryzeonline
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@eyeswideopenpod
- Other: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/eyeswideopenpod/
Image Credits
Matt Barnes
Annie Nguyen
Dmitry Koupriyanov
Rich Yagutilov