We were lucky to catch up with Jason Priest recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was deciding to quit my corporate job and betting on myself when I started my business. My wife was pregnant at the time and I remember sitting down at the table for dinner one night to break the news to her.

She had known I was quite unhappy for a while as I often talked about my lack of fulfillment at my corporate job. But I was paid well at my corporate job and obviously that was a consistent stream of income. As a new business owner there is no guaranteed income.

I remember the look on my wife’s face when I sat there at dinner in 2018 and told her that I would be quitting my job. However, it was the greatest decision of my life because I’ve been extremely fulfilled ever since because I’m now living out my purpose and doing what I truly love.

Jason, 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 started my career as a registered nurse working in the ICU at 23 years of age. As you can imagine I witnessed a lot of scary things working in that environment at such a young age. After several years of working in an ICU I decided that it wasn’t for me long term. But that time of life served an amazing purpose because it lead to me eventually finding my own purpose.

Once my time in the ICU came to a close my mother passed away right around that same time and she was only 49. That was the most difficult time in my life and I went through some depression and put on 60 pounds. During that time I was not making my health a priority and in fact was doing the exact opposite.

A couple years later I went on my own health journey and lost the 60 pounds in about 9 months. During the period of time I became extremely passionate about fitness because of how good I felt. We have a saying in one of our communities that goes “it feels damn good to feel damn good” and I was experiencing that for the first time in a long time.

Shortly there after I started working in corporate wellness as an RN Health Coach and quickly became a personal trainer due to my desire to help others get healthy. I spent about 5 years working for that company and started to realize I had more to give. I was no longer fulfilled talking to 6 or 7 people each day who may or may not want to get healthy. Most of our clients were there because their insurance made them participate. This lead to me becoming unfulfilled very quickly and I decided that I wanted to start my own company.

In 2018, Dad Bod Health was born and I was officially an entrepreneur. But I had no idea how difficult the journey would be and I made several massive mistakes along the way. But I kept getting up each day and adding value to the lives of others. My goal at one point was to make one positive contribution each day to someone’s life on social media until I had enough clients to serve.

Fast forward to today and I have now built several thriving communities and I am truly living out my purpose. The thing I am most proud of is the culture we have built inside The Fatherhood. It’s a true brotherhood and many of my clients have become close friends. We now host in-person retreats each year and I get to spend quality time in nature with the men we serve multiple times per year. Seeing our men in person and giving them a transformational experience at our retreats has been the pinnacle of my journey. I have never felt a stronger pull from my higher power after the impact we have been able to make for our men.

We’ve now helped several men lose well over 100 pounds, we’ve helped hundreds of men lose unwanted weight and keep it off and we’ve helped multiple men turn their entire lives around while quitting drinking and smoking along the way. Leadership, growth, personal development and becoming the most elite version of yourself as a father is what we’re all about and our culture is thriving because of these core principles.

Our podcast, The Fatherhood Experience, has an awesome fan base and we truly feel like we’re making the impact we know we’re capable of as a company. The men who follow us are becoming better leaders by leading by example for their families while experiencing growth in all areas of their lives. Health and fitness are simply the foundation for living your best life and The Fatherhood Experience is the perfect place for any father wanting to get better each day.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Meeting my business partner was totally random and I was not expecting it at all. A friend of mine who helped me out with my 401K after I left the corporate world actually connected me with my business partner Zach. When I left the corporate world I changed my 401K over to a self-directed IRA so I could free up capital. After he arranged the call Zach and I had a 30 minute meeting scheduled on Zoom together and we ended up staying on Zoom for 3 hours discussing our goals, dreams, vision and mission for the men we serve. This ended up being the most important 3 hours of my business journey because now I have a business partner who has helped my personally and helped our business grow exponentially.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Client communication is massive for building a strong culture and fostering brand loyalty. We prioritize constant communication with our clients because we know how much more successful they are with communication, support and accountability. With our top program – The Fatherhood – we have an entire web of communication because we also realize that each father’s life is unique. We have a help desk in our educational training platform, a private Facebook group, weekly Zoom classes, a fitness app with messaging, private Facebook messenger pods, mandatory check-in forms, weekly newsletter, several text outreach messages per week and the list goes on. As you can see our support and accountability is top notch because of how much value we place on client communication.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thefatherhoodexperience.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonapriest/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChatWithJason/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonapriest/

Image Credits
Josh Sherman