EP 235 – Jason Neubauer – Founder of Affect Change – Inner Peace, a Clear Mind and an Open Heart

Read the best-effort transcript below (This technology is still not as good as they say it is…):

Michael Waitze 0:04
Hi, this is Michael Waitze and welcome back to the podcast today we’re joined by Jason Neubauer, founder of Affect Change. I’m just laughing, right, because I have notes. And I wrote the word founder twice. Anyway, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the show. How are you doing? today? It’s today. Yeah,

Jason Neubauer 0:22
yeah. Has this tonight over here? No, thank you for having me. But I mean, maybe, maybe there’s a synchronicity to that, you know, I almost feel like it’s a it’s a founder times to, you know, going through the whole journey of where we started to where we’re at in this moment, you know,

Michael Waitze 0:36
yeah. And why don’t you tell? Because I don’t really know that much about you. Actually. Can you give me a little bit of your background just so I can have some context? Because at the end of the day, I want to talk about affect change, but we can’t talk about it. Unless we get there first. Yeah.

Jason Neubauer 0:49
Yeah, it’s important. I mean, my thing, the journey for everybody, right? I mean, everything is a stepping stone that ultimately leads you to your purpose. You know, I think there’s a couple of fork in the road moments that were pretty, you know, Pivotal along the way and I just wasn’t normal kid growing up, you know, I never really knew I was an entrepreneur or really had an entrepreneur or like spirit, but I, you know, I was selling golf balls when I was like, seven, you know, on the golf course. And if I’m actually looking back, it’s probably my most profitable business. You know, there was zero overhead I was selling for for $1. Yeah, 50 cents for the good ones. But, you know, I came from a blue collar family. And, you know, my dad was electrical contractor, and the path was always to be an electrical contractor to take over the family business and, you know, study construction and city planning and college him. You know, when I got out of college, I worked for a general contractor for a year. And it was really the first time in my life, I was doing something I wasn’t like, passionate about or like, I didn’t love, you know, but in college, I had an entertainment company and I threw this concert for Sean Kingston. I ended up losing, like 20 grand that I bought from my girlfriend’s dad at the time. And I was like, I’m never, I’m never going to be an entrepreneur ever again. I was like, why am I working so hard? To make my life so much more difficult, you know, but, you know, I was putting the together these pieces of a building in South Central LA, and it at 23. It taught me how to put all the pieces together just in a business, right? I was managing all these different trades, but I knew it wasn’t for me. And so I actually tried out for wheel of fortune, the TV show in college at the time, and I only did

Michael Waitze 2:22
that. Are you from California originally? Yeah, I’m

Jason Neubauer 2:25
from California originally. Now. I’m based in Miami. Go ahead. And I went to school and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Okay, well, you

Michael Waitze 2:32
tried real fortune.

Jason Neubauer 2:33
I did. Because my roommates girlfriend, who I didn’t appreciate at the time because she was taking them away from me. Her dream was to go on the show. And so the Wienermobile randomly came up, ended up getting to the final test and passing got a letter in the mail. So when I got the letter in the mail, it could be up to 18 months to when you film but I kind of knew deep down I was like alright, this give me my ticket out. Right? So I bought this book called winning on the wheel. They stopped publishing in 1989. And I studied the process, right there was 5000 hanging man puzzles in the back. I backpacked through Europe, and I just played the app, you know, and it was it was about a year into construction when I finally got the call. So I ended up winning 32,006 95 and attend a cruise to Panama Canal. And I had you were you nervous being on TV. I was super nervous. Like I literally the first puzzle was a toss up. I clicked in. I knew what it was, I looked at my parents, I looked at Pat, I looked at vana and nothing came out of my mouth, except like my bad Pat. So I literally just everything I studied for everything I planned. I just failed, right, but I wasn’t gonna let it beat me. So it came to the third puzzle, which was the price puzzle. And it was they call me the onder. And as I’m spinning it, am I look, if this doesn’t go on bankrupt, my mother went $20,000 You know, and it goes one click on the side. And then from there, I settled because my goal was 20. And then I was fluid, but it sounds corny, but it was really from that moment in traffic after that. I knew I could do anything that I wanted to in life if I if I really applied myself, right

Michael Waitze 4:06
could ask you this, though, because look, I record all the time. And I have these incredible conversations with people we do prep calls, we do all this stuff, right? But I find sometimes that when the red light goes on just metaphorically, yeah, people get super nervous. I’ve never been on TV per se. How what does that feeling? Like? Seriously, when that red light goes on? You’re like, Oh my god. Millions of people could see this.

Jason Neubauer 4:28
Yeah, you know what, after I failed, it almost kind of all went away because it almost felt like subconsciously I was manifesting that that was going to happen, right? Where, if anything I’ve learned in my life now I replace, replace the negative thought with what I want, right? Like I almost look at that subconscious and I do this still on a daily basis, right? Like if I have a moment where like, I feel like I don’t know, I’m gonna fail and you say no, I already won. Right? Like I just I strictly replace it. But there’s a story I really like it’s You’re gonna have that energy, that nervousness, that sickness, right? It’s a story about this rock star. And he said, one guy said, that was at the moment that I knew I wasn’t supposed to do this. I wasn’t supposed to be a rock star. And then the other person took that same energy and goes, that’s what I know. I was actually born to be great, right? So it’s gonna be there no matter what it is, how do you harness it? And how do you channel it?

Michael Waitze 5:22
I remember seeing and I’m desperately trying to remember his name right now. But I remember seeing stories about what’s his name, the guy from the Beach Boys who’d literally just like walked off stage one night. There were only problems there. Yeah, because there was so much pressure on him right to competition with the Beatles and writing great songs and stuff. In one day, there was just so much pressure, you just like literally walked offstage. And I just thought, like, what does it take to get to the point where you’re just so scared, where there’s so much to lose? That you feel like you just have to walk off? Because I do the same thing? You do? Right? I think I remember when I first started recording, we’ll get to that in a second to you where I was happy if the guest didn’t show up. Yeah.

Jason Neubauer 6:05
Because because you’re always up levelling. Right? Oh, and it’s, it’s are you going to be? Are you going to run to that fear? Are you going to embody that? Right? Yeah. So it’s, I almost look at it no matter what that’s going to happen, the fear is going to be there. So like, am I giving my power away to fear? Or am I stepping through that level to uplevel? Right? I almost look like a video game. There’s a boss at every level in life and different levels of consciousness and different things that we’re doing, right. But it’s that constant commitment to uplevel. Right? So it’s different challenges at different stages.

Michael Waitze 6:37
But how do you teach people to do this, right? Because, again, I do this with people all the time, people I know, people I don’t know. And I literally have to walk them through this process of, you know, like, don’t let the don’t let the fear control you. You control it. And I think you’re right at some level. If you tell yourself beforehand, you’re gonna fail, you’re like 98% more likely to fail. But if you just go you don’t, I’m gonna be okay. I’ve done this 1000 times. I know I can do this. And I’ve not failed before it says people plenty of times, what are you nervous for you do this everyday kind of thing. How do you teach people this idea?

Jason Neubauer 7:09
Is that I mean, everything’s energy at the end of the day, right? The mind. So you’re creating, whether you’re conscious of it or not every single day, right? Like you’re creating something right, you’re creating that negative thought you’re creating that positivity. And I think if there’s anything I’ve learned about, you know, negativity, more recently from from my mentors, Stephen Shea, is that inherently, we’re born with negative thinking. So like, the majority of 80% of humans is negative thoughts, right, per se, but, you know, my difficulty was, it was always thinking that it was me, right. And I was always beating myself up no matter how much work I did, how much energy Why am I just just as negative but like, it’s, it’s naturally genetic from built in from our survival consciousness, right? So when you start to start to understand that and you can start to recognise, okay, here’s this negative thought, or here’s this limiting belief, or I can understand this as like a running parachute in my in my field, then you just learned the tools to cut them. Right. And you are your own master at the end of the day? I think so. Yeah. It’s It’s amazing. Like there’s, I’m not in competition with anybody else. Because if you saw my inner world, and the stuff that I’ve gone through, there’s no harsher critic or battle than any of you know, I think most people can resonate with that up and being truly honest with themselves.

Michael Waitze 8:24
Can we go back to Quick go back to this feeling you had after the Wheel of Fortune, you’re like, I wanted to get to 20 Grand i got to it and driving home. I felt like, what because you also said, This entrepreneurship thing was super hard. Like I lost 28 grand doing this concert, it felt like it should have been a bigger success. For me. It wasn’t and I thought life’s gonna be easier than doing this thing on my own. Right? Yeah. But

Jason Neubauer 8:45
I but I was always I think I was always driven by self worth, at the end of the day, and maybe in your 20s I think like anybody, it was like this chip on your shoulder that like I’m going to be great and good things like any 20 year old, I want to make a million dollars before I’m 30. Right? There’s just this design ambition, but like, I cannot work on something unless I love it. And it takes over me. It’s just kind of who I am. You know, I just, I’ve always kind of been that way. So I had my first idea. I quit my job. I didn’t tell my dad for four months, because I knew he would he would try to stop me not because he cared. You know, he doesn’t care. Your parents want you to feel safe. Yeah, yeah. And I moved up to San Francisco and I invented this app called you bet me it was like betting with your friends on anything that you want. Right? It was. I’ve never been wrong in my career. But I’ve been early and I think that’s important for a lot of entrepreneurs or inventors, right. And something not to hold that against you as you move forward in your career. Like, you know, the market eventually caught up. We were right, just legalisation was it was pretty much now right? It was almost 10 years too early. I still get calls about that company now. Right but in the middle that it was great, like we got the top five and sports but I saw a huge shift of where it was going. My board members started managing these first two influencers, and I was watching them dry. I’ve a million downloads organically to a game on the App Store, right? And I was like, this is this is where it’s going, I have a no, this is where it’s going, right? And there’s only like six or seven or eight of them on Vine at the time. And so I was like, Look, we got to pivot. I was like, what if we call this challenge, we get away from the whole betting thing. These kids are already making these videos on YouTube. Why don’t we make an app where they can have video responses, right. And I was like, This is Genius, because there’s no amount of money I could spend marketing that would have got so what I could get, you know, having all these kids by Intuit, and my CTO knows, Lars is very, like the top video architect in the world. So naturally, it made sense. But everybody thought I was insane. Because they’re like, why are you investing in teenagers? Like why? And so I was like, I’m all in on teenagers, you know, but but that, but to me, that was really now looking back. That was my introduction into media, and where it was going, right. And so as I was building that took 90 of these kids to Hawaii, I could tell you which ones I knew were going to make it based on their drive, but watching them make organic content and seeing how the younger generation was to react, it was completely different than what I felt like we grew up with,

Michael Waitze 11:10
please. I mean, I’m older than you for sure. But I believe really strongly that the media business is at an inflection point and a massive inflection point, like I almost think it’s upside down. Sorry, go ahead.

Jason Neubauer 11:22
No, that’s what I’m most excited to talk about. You know, let me let me finish it. I have just finished how we got there. And what you know, that was great. It was like the first version of Tik Tok in the middle of that event, this thing called the cool box, it was a smart toolbox. We went on Shark Tank for that. And it was cool, because it went, it was filmed one soundstage over from where I filmed, we were fortunate, like seven years earlier, right? Like, I just wanted to build something that was actual tangible, that like it actually touched because I always built software, right? You know, and that just happened naturally. And then I got married, and my life turned upside down. And she was pregnant, and I moved to Miami, right? And then that’s really, really all changed for me. And I think when I was running challenge, I had everything as a late 20 year old want, right? In an egoic world, it was clubs, it was, it was everything you could think of and I couldn’t have been more miserable in my life. I don’t know, I feel like most people experienced that at some point, right? I never felt more off my actual life path. And where I was really in that moment, you know, and my son really started to shift that for me. And, you know, I did like the fact that when we were using distribution with the influencers to drive for a cause, that was like, we were using their distribution to raise money for charity. And that really, like stuck with me during it. It was it was I was like, Okay, this is a hard opening or direction that that we want to go and I and then I kind of became the guy in the brand space that would build the influencer programmes and figure out how to monetize that within their existing business. But where affect change came from was I was doing Sprint’s millennial and Gen Z division. And I was like, there’s a show here. There’s a show. I’m like, what if we could because I honestly was like, Look, if this is where our world’s going, and this is the content that kids are making. That’s all ago, like, look at me, look at me, I’m like, we’re so fucked. Like, and these people are gonna get the power. You know what, there’s good ones. So I’m like, Well, this is just a theory. What if we use them for good? What if we let them pick one person, we give them the resources to build their dream company or dream job. It to me it was like, understanding the fact that there’s greatness that all equal and all of us, we all just need a different spark at a different level. And I truly believe this is works like I really believe that we can build this win win world, right? Yeah. And that’s where Affect Cange was, was born. It was originally called the Santa Claus effect, because it was just a phrase that I used to stay in my mind. And I’ll tell you, the moment that changed my life forever was I was I was going through a really difficult time in my marriage. And I was about to get divorced. I was going through, you know, a lot of pain. And I had the idea for it. No, it’s no, it’s one of the greatest lessons. The greatest teacher,

Michael Waitze 14:02
I’m just saying, like, it’s hard. But yeah, it’s Yeah,

Jason Neubauer 14:05
yeah. And the moment it’s really hard, especially, especially when a child’s involved and you want to do the best thing for your child. And, you know, I had the idea for the show. I booked a mobile carwash like to my house, and this guy shows up in my driveway when I’m black. I’m rugged van, nothing. I don’t really talk to him, but I get my car was the best carwash I’ve ever had. And I go, I texted him and I was like, Hey, you got a client forever limited. I could feel like the gratitude that he was giving. So I sat with them for about an hour the next time he came and he he lost an eye in his firework accident, saving his niece and his whole dream is well he lost his confidence he lost everything like he just his dream was just to have a mobile carwash business called like Dr why out so I call my gosh, like guys, the guy showed up in my driveway I found I found the guy but while in LA my Spence and Brian they found Girl because they were a little bit ahead of me. And it was interesting seeing the mirrors. So, but when I gave Johnny the car, and it’s not on camera, but like that was the moment that I don’t know, it’d be it will always be anything personal I ever did for myself because I saw the impact that it, it changed in him and his family, you know, and it was like, Man, when I cried was when the little his son rolled down the window when I was leaving, and he was just like, Thank you for helping me and my daddy. And I was like, God asked, like, That’s it, you know? And, and, you know, you flash forward to today. I mean, Johnny’s got, I think he’s got four cars, about 12 employees, he washes all the Lamborghinis and Ferraris in Miami for like all the celebrities, it’s wild to see where he’s at. But, you know, take a step back. So after we tested, the trailer, went out Hit like 30 million on Facebook, I spent a little bit of money on it to see, okay, can this resonate across the globe? Because I wanted to see it was really like 99.8 positive feedback. Some countries don’t believe in Santa Claus actually has a really negative connotation, you know, so that was interesting to see. Then we tested it on pilot on Amazon is really well went around the world because TV was different back then. I don’t know if you if you remember when really 20 This is 2017. Yeah, super different. It was super different. The US market didn’t seem like it really mattered. It was all about getting the international distribution and working it backwards. Right. Okay. And so, you know, I had to deal with Channel Four, meeting all these different partners and everything was really coming together. And then right about that time as where COVID happened. And so that it pause everything and the best way for me, right, like there was there were situations that were very clear that were happening, that I needed to reassess myself reassess my team, like, this is a big mission. I don’t felt like there were certain people that was on the project. That was, it was truly aligned. Right. And to me, it was a clear sign to reflect, you know, incubate really stop after 12 years and go inside. And I think, no, I know that the most important thing you could do for yourself or anybody, no matter where you’re at, is, if life’s not going the way that you want to go do the inner work, because your inner world is a reflection of your outer world. Right. And I do that on a daily reading, you know that very well. And, you know, it was I was, that was a little, it was a little different. I mean, I think like everybody, right? We’re all going through our own growing pains. I don’t know about you what, what happened, Mike, when when did you start to When did you make this shift and start recording.

Michael Waitze 17:36
So I’ve been interested in media since I was 12 years old. And that’s one of the things that I want to ask you about as well. And I’ve just been waiting my whole life to CAD for the technology to catch up to the vision, right? So I’m trying to remember the guy’s name, but I think was Glaser who was a programmer at Microsoft, came out with this thing called real player, it must have been 1995 or something, right? So I’m probably 10 or 12 years older than you maybe 15. And when I saw real player, I thought, wait a second, everybody can have their own TV channel. Remember, I grew up in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. So for me, the main news channel was Channel Four, NBC W, NBC Nightly News with like Chuck Scarborough, and I can’t remember the lady’s name anyway. But we used to call it the slashing gash news, right. And I thought there must be something else in the world better than learning that a guy killed his girlfriend, put her up into pieces and made soup out of her bones and put it in the Port Authority, like there must have been better news than this, right? And I just thought it’s got to be better. And I’m not naive enough to know that if you just tell good stories, that the world ends up being a better place. But I do think that if you’re inundated on a day to day, moment by moment basis, like you said, with this negativity, that media has the ability to change the way you think about things. And while sure humans are pre programmed, right, because of their defence mechanisms to be scared, and that it’s easier to scare somebody than to make somebody happy. And we always know that like, the fear of losing is way more impactful than the joy of that one when you have

Jason Neubauer 19:10
right the same thing like gambling like the three times it releases serotonin from if you look at it gamblers serotonin reloaded they lose is three times released more than if they win.

Michael Waitze 19:19
Absolutely. Yeah. So So I’ve just been waiting, right? And I was dabbling in this new thing until I could get to a point where I could get better at production, at recording at distribution and understanding all this stuff. And once I figured out, I can do this now I went all in. Right, and my goal is and I had to play to my strengths. So what do I know really well, I know technology. I know business. I know, finance. These things drive the way the world works, right? And for me, I thought if I could focus on those things, and build a brand that understands that, then building everything else and I always talk in relative terms is easy or right it like I can’t, I can’t talk about things that I don’t understand yet, although we’re getting there. But for me once I could get the right video, get the right audio building the media business made sense. And I live in a location where there is no dominant media brand that the rest of the world knows about. And that was the epiphany for me, is that building that but the other thing too? Can I just say this is that I think that every company should be their own media company. Right? Like your like your guy, Johnny Wright, who runs what did you call it? Dr. wideout, I think you said yeah, he should have his own media company as part of his car cleaning company. But I don’t mean in just an influencer way. If he wants to tell a story about what it’s like to build a company to clean cars and all the things that people are curious about, he should do it himself. Because my contention here is that you could go on to CNN, or you could go on to Bloomberg and tell your story. But they’re not building that media for you. They’re building it for them. Right to build an ad based business. And I think that you should build media to tell your story. So that’s why I got involved Anyway, go ahead.

Jason Neubauer 21:05
No, no, we’re very, very similar line in that, you know, and really, when I was going through his incubation period, you know, I’m really just detaching from everything right. And that was like, Well, what sticks? What do I love, and I was like, I love I love affect change, because the plan was always to me, it was it’s a brand. But the show was really important, because it’s unscripted. It’s undocumented, it’s really good people helping great people. Right. And that was the that was the beauty of it. And this is how I know this is how we’re supposed to launch the brand. And so when we got put in them mammoth Film Festival, the beginning of this year, I know people liked it, but I wanted to really feel like did it resonate with like the industry people, you know, and we ended up winning Best New TV show and as judged by same guy that does the Cannes Film Festival, right? And he came up to me, he’s like, he’s like, You got it. We need more of this in the world, because it’s something unique. And I and I said literally, in my speech, I said, the reason this is good television is because I knew absolutely nothing about television, going into television, right? And so then we got to slow momentum, you know, starting this year starting to talk with networks. And I quickly realised I was like, Look, if I let any of these networks funded, they’re gonna bring in their own people, it’s gonna be influencers don’t don’t resonate, you know. So

Michael Waitze 22:13
this is what I want to ask you, because you said kind of in passing, I wanted to make sure that what I was doing resonated with people that were already in the industry. And I really wanted to ask you what, because for me, I don’t care if they get it, because I feel like by the time they get it, it’s going to be too late. But go ahead. I’m really curious why you cared?

Jason Neubauer 22:30
I don’t know. Actually, I don’t know why I actually cared. I don’t know if I was looking for. I don’t know, I don’t know that answer that I’m gonna sit with that one tonight, to be honest, but I think if anything, maybe maybe that’s not what I was looking for. The winning didn’t affect me. It was actually when I was watching the theatre, and I saw, you know, over 100 people watching at the same time feeling the same emotion. Yeah, that hit totally different for me, because I would get like a text. Somebody watched it, right. But there was something about the collective energy watching it together. That’s what got me excited again. So if anything, I almost backed what I said, Yes, it was great validation. But that wasn’t the feeling that gave me like the Go route, you know? Yep,

Michael Waitze 23:09
I got it. I talked earlier about this fact that technology was catching up to the vision. I’m curious, because I couldn’t have done what I did even 10 years ago, because just stuff was too expensive, right? I think about new television networks trying to be built when I was growing up. And even when and not I don’t want to be political about this at all. But even when Rupert Murdoch came from Australia and bought like the old business of foxes was a shell. The other networks just basically good, yeah, good, dry, but this is never going to work. And there was billions of dollars of investment was necessary. But let’s be fair, you probably haven’t spent billions of dollars to build your media company and your media brand. And I haven’t spent anywhere near that. So I think that the technological change as well, has made this possible, and will make the vision actually easier to implement. Do you do you think about that, too?

Jason Neubauer 23:56
Yeah, I think of a lot. I think about it non stop 24/7. Right. But I also think it’s the growth of web two, meaning web three, I think that the combination of you know, blockchains, and NFT. But to go back to what I was saying is when used to be the network’s had all the control, right? Yep. They control what went on the air, how it went on the air, and who goes in it. And what we see, well, the rise of the internet started to balance that out. Now, people are seeking truth, they can call BS, you can see where it’s at, right, and that wave already passed. Now to me, the next wave of the revolution is like, I’m building a community that’s helping people like by the people, so my community and my changemakers, and my influencers should be a part of that. Right? So when I when I met my business partner, Christina of metalworks, I said, he’s like, look, we’re truly going to be authentic and change the game. This is how we have to do it. Right. So for us, we’re going to end up launching an NFT very small amount and anybody who has that is going to be an owner of the entire series, every influencer that we record with Xena on a percentage of the revenue. And to me, it starts with the show. But if you want to talk about my my big goal or in doubt is having $100 million Dow Impact Fund, right? That’s driven by the community, this whole next wave is community authenticity. And those are the only things that are going to work. And that’s what I love about web three, because you can be an athlete, you could be somebody and come in and you could go nowhere, right? It’s truly an equal playing field. And nobody has it figured out. It’s such an early infancy,

Michael Waitze 25:31
can we can we run through this progression? And you’ve got to flip this switch in my head, right? So when I was a kid, let’s just say you lived in New York, you read The New York Times, right? And really, it was just for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, because just getting it printed and getting it to people at eight o’clock in the morning was just hard enough logistically. And then USA Today came and said, you know, we can, we can have this anywhere, we can print it by satellite, we’ll shoot it up in the air, we’ll send it back down to LA, we can have a national newspaper. And I think people freaked out when they saw this. And then stuff went global right after the 24 hour news cycle. But this idea that geographical boundaries don’t matter anymore. I mean, it’s moved from web to to web three. And this community building says, I don’t care where you are, we’re not going to organise any more by where you live, because proximity doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not proximity of geography. And tell me I think it’s proximity of thought and belief. And what that means is that your community now can get built just as easily in Korea and Myanmar, as it can in Miami, and Los Angeles. Does that make sense?

Jason Neubauer 26:36
Yeah. 100% 100%. And then that’s, that’s the most amazing thing about it, right? I mean, you’re even looking at, like, traditional television distribution, right? Having these these networks across these different countries, but you’re seeing even more Sri models, like look at Mr. Beast, he built a community, he built a following, right? You know, really only 10% of users 10% of internet viewers, I think on YouTube, watch English, right? So he’s literally taking his same content, dumping it in all these different languages and creating different chant. And I’m like, that’s, that’s revolutionary, that didn’t exist before. Right? So there’s just so many different ways. It’s your creative world right now, you know, and I just think it’s the most important thing you can do. And I know people overuse it, but it’s just be authentic, and it will catch up.

Michael Waitze 27:22
Yeah, I don’t think you can overuse this idea of Be authentic when I record with people to want to, and I and I’ve been, I’ve recorded so much video over the last week, right? So if I seem a little bit tired, please excuse me. But that’s part of the reason why filming from nine o’clock in the morning until seven o’clock at night anyway. But do you feel like there’s a generational change as well, right? You said you said that. Part of the goal is to have this 100 million dollar Dow that has impact. Do you think there’s a generational change? Or like maybe you and I, we thought let’s just get rich, and I feel like my daughter feels like, I just want to have impact into something good? Because remember, you said to like, why are you focused on teenagers? That’s ridiculous. But I feel like they’re going I’ve had enough of this noise. I want to do something good. Do you feel that as well? Because you’re in a complete different country than I am? Yeah,

Jason Neubauer 28:08
I feel that I don’t know my diamond 36. Right. We came in here with a lot more like karma and lessons to learn, right? And we’re really not going too deep, like, you know, energetically but you know, the world’s evolving. We’re going from three to five d to this winwin consciousness. And I believe that the younger ones, I mean, my my son is six. And I’m telling you, they come in here fully lit up, you know that I feel like they are the generation of impact, where we’re like, I grew up with AOL dial up Auto Tone to passing notes in high school to grow with cell phones to now I’m talking about like NF T’s and H like on a blockchain, right? Like we’ve seen, we’ve seen this whole transition where they’re like, No, this place isn’t doing that. Well, we’re here to help. You know,

Michael Waitze 28:52
I mean, I’ve seen so many cycles, right? So I try to think of things in this way that everything is cyclical, right? But I look around and I feel like so many people are Doom staying right now. And yet they haven’t seen enough to know that we can come out of this even better than we go into this. Am I just so naive or so idealistic that I see this in the wrong way? Or is it just leaning on experience from seeing like stagflation in the 70s and thinking oh my god, the whole world could die. Yeah,

Jason Neubauer 29:19
look, I think that’s like with any any phase or any transition, you’re out in your life, right? Like you can use it to rise above or you’re gonna fall below like the we are. I think we’re alive at the most interesting point in history where we got this combination of science and energetics in understanding it and have the tools to be able to evolve into our greatest self right so to me I just look at it like you’re either you really got to pick up your vibration and move the same way to Earth remove it, or it’s probably going to end up taking you out I mean, I don’t mean it like in a harsh way. I mean it more like philosophically but do you

Michael Waitze 29:57
do you feel like there’s like what’s the except for the media that you’re building, because you talked about the TV show, you talked about winning this award, like you talked about this impact Dow. But if you look ahead to yourself, right, what does this media company look like in five years?

Jason Neubauer 30:13
I mean, just this amazing community across the globe? Well, I’m gonna what we’re doing right now, as we’re finalising like our technical partners, like we’ve been really slow, thoughtful, to people that we bring in, we’re building the entire architecture around the technical side, right. And then once we complete that, I mean, we’re literally in the middle of it right now. And then from there, we’re gonna start the community builds, right. So it looks like something that’s just like an overnight thing is something we’ve been thinking about for a while, you’ve just hit on

Michael Waitze 30:41
two of the most important things that I that I say all the time. And I want to dig deeper on this, right? You said we’re moving slowly, we’re going methodically, there’s mythology in the world of starting your own company that you go big, fast, right. And I believe really strongly that you just have to like bit by bit while you’re while everybody is racing past you to build something amazing. If you just like methodically build something, you’re gonna build something stronger. And also this idea that like, it looks like it’s I always say, everyone’s that overnight success. 10 years later, right? Because while everybody else is running around, you’re just methodically building and then when everybody figures out, there’ll be like, where did affect change come from? Sorry. Yeah, exactly.

Jason Neubauer 31:21
Look, Chris, Chris, even talking about this, I still even have a little bad news, I’ll get so excited that I want to make a move. But it’s really like the different level of discernment, right? Like, you know, I spend the extra three or four conversations, having the meeting with them to go to the deeper levels, because if you get excited, you jump on board and you sign a contract, those four meetings are going to probably save you four years of potential hell, right. And so, you know, I also just look at it from selling these days is really the opposite of selling, I will almost tell you not to do it. Because if I have to sell you 1% of why I think we should work together or why I think we should talk that 1% of friction is going to come back and bite me like I used to be that person, I would literally sell you to move, I would say whatever it is to get that deal. And let me tell you, my dad has told me this my whole life, but I didn’t learn it until my late 20s. But man honesty and integrity at the end of the day is everything like it will. It does catch up, everything will catch up with you, no matter what.

Michael Waitze 32:25
I just love this idea of saying no to people, my business partner and I talk about this all the time, I have a partner called Martin Martin and I build this media business together. He’s funnily enough, starting to filter and 29. I just turned 57. So he’s basically like, half my age. I love this arrangement. By the way, he’s so great at things that I’m terrible at number graded stuff that he’s not so good at. But I just lost my train of thought. Yeah, but we say all the time, like not for love or money. We do business with that. Because we know just like you said, saying no is hard when it looks like you can make a tonne of money doing it. But you know, it’s just going to be pain the whole time. You have to be able to say no, even if it feels like it’s gonna be great, because you’re right, whether it’s for meetings or 40 more meetings to determine, oh, no, no, this is just friction creating, and for love or money. It’s not worth it. Right?

Jason Neubauer 33:15
And if it’s if it’s real, and it’s meant to happen, it’ll still be there. Right? So like, I just look for signs. If someone’s trying to sell me in a given me for like a timestamp, you have to do it in this moment. They’re trying to create scarcity, like every psychological manipulation in our world, just just goes wrong. You know, I think that applies not just in business, but in you know, friendships, relationships, I mean, you’re, it’s just, you know, you’re gonna be you’re a product of the five people around you. And it’s true, right? Leaving the law of attraction, the more that I worked on myself, and was up levelling myself, the greater team that I’m surrounded by now, and I’m matching those levels, you know,

Michael Waitze 33:53
it’s pretty amazing. Look, I love when people say no to me, I won’t sell either. I really won’t. I’m just like, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we think it matters. Here’s where we think it’s important. And here’s the impact we think we can have. And I love when people say, You know what, we’re just going to do this on our own. Because inevitably 75% of them will come back and go, we tried. And we just don’t know how to do that. How can you help? Yeah, exactly.

Jason Neubauer 34:14
I’m not here to force anything right? At the end of the day, what I care about most now is I got an inner peace, a clear mind and open heart and I can maintain a grounded presence on a daily basis with that everything is flowing in my life. You know, are

Michael Waitze 34:30
there certain things you look for in partners, but I’ll give you some context. Like I was having this conversation yesterday with this woman that we were recording with. And I told her before we started recording, I wasn’t worried at all about what was going to what we’re going to end up with because she has so much charisma. Again, it gets back to this idea you were talking about when you went to I think it was Hawaii with the influencers. Like if I go down with 20 people that I know the three that are gonna succeed just by being around them, you can feel it. I want to be able to sort of in institutionalised that feeling is that make sense? And I don’t know how to I don’t know how to qualify. You can’t

Jason Neubauer 35:05
like institutionalised and empathic and your intuition, right? Yeah, no, no, you know, I mean, even even Chris and I like we’re trying to take like male vulnerability and honesty to like a deeper level, I mean, the conversation that we’re having on the personal level and what we need out of each other, or what’s reflecting or, Hey, you may not notice, like this aspect, right? Like, that’s the real shit. Like, forget the layers, forget the mass forget talking about like, Hey, this is this is who I am. This is where I’m at. And this is where I want to go.

Michael Waitze 35:35
Yeah, yeah. And I want to go there with people that want to go there with him. And look, we talked about this before we started recording, I don’t think you can be great at something unless you really care about it. And I think you

Jason Neubauer 35:45
also don’t think you’ll be able to remain humble if you haven’t gone through a lot of shit in your life. So like, you know, if anybody, anybody says, I meet the tumble, like, I’m like, I can relate. Back, man, we’ve been through shit.

Michael Waitze 35:58
Yeah, I mean, look, it takes so long to learn stuff. I mean, I told you this already. I’m 57. And it’s like, I want to maintain the energy of a 25 year old, right? Because that’s the balance you have to get right. It’s like I have all this knowledge and experience. But then how can I use it? As if I knew that when I were 25. So that makes sense. Because you’re in between, right? Like, you’re in between me and Martin, I can feel it. And the older,

Jason Neubauer 36:22
you are more like, I feel more like a kid now than I ever did, you know, the level of joy and things I can find in the small things right now is just an incredibly different perspective. But perspective comes with seeing both sides of life, you know, and learning the tools of how to dig out, right. So, you know, anybody that’s going through pain, mental, physical, whatever, like, that’s a lesson, right? And so until you learn that lesson, you’re not going to beat that level. And it’s gonna keep showing up. I mean, until you figure it out. Yeah. And, and look, look, I didn’t know limits until I press boundaries, right? Like, I mean, literally, I’m gonna write a book one day, it’s called How to fuck up everything in your life and still affect change. That will be like, like the towel. But there’s like this intel all elements that like I’m not ready for it about like, man 50 more years where those come out.

Michael Waitze 37:13
That should be at least one of the maybe titles for this episode. I want to talk about tech just for a minute, before I let you go, because I feel like I’ve taken up way too much of your time already. Any day, but you said you are building this tech stack? Yeah. Yeah. What is that meant to look like? And what is it meant to affect? No pun intended is

Jason Neubauer 37:34
multitude of things, right? So when you’re looking at, you know, NF T’s and blockchain are made to like contracts and coin and token like, we’re can’t say who our technical partners that we’re going with, but we’re partnering with somebody who already has those tools that’s going to make us to be able to move faster, right. But in terms of what you’re talking about, where these people can have their own channel, you know, we Neil’s still has the tech that we created for challenge, but I know deep down, it was really meant to be for Affect Change. So really farther down the line. It’s our own video platform where people can speak their truth, it just doesn’t make sense to launch it with the show, because you want to establish the brand and have a reason to have the eyeballs Villa driver to the platform, because I’m still not understanding what what value props we can provide that don’t exist, that can affect change related to a mobile video app. And I have some ideas, but it’s not clear yet. But it will come to me

Michael Waitze 38:33
what’s the benefit to the community for joining from the NFT perspective, right? So you have this non fungible token ERC 721 Probably to be able to give ownership out to the people that are in the community? How does it work from a benefit to them? Whether they’re involved in the creation of that content? And I’m curious, really curious about this, right. So

Jason Neubauer 38:52
like, our whole thing is the community don’t own a part of this series, right? So an NF t have your NFT locked without messing with like security laws, right? The NF T will actually give like, Hey, you have backstage you can see all the behind the scenes footage, you’re gonna get a chance to meet, you know, one of these influencers, you’re going to help us pick like the story, right? But also know, our roadmap of phase three is you’re gonna own a percentage of everything that we make with our coin. Right? If you really you want to do everything the right way your securities in the coin and doing that, and that cost time and money. And it doesn’t make sense to you don’t want to insert that in with the NFT because you’re not even making money yet. Right? Yeah. But you want to know them. You’re buying into this because you’re going to help us grow the community, and you should earn while being a part of the community. And everybody’s got a voice.

Michael Waitze 39:40
Yeah, I guess the thing that we struggle with is how to determine what that ownership looks like. Right? Like, what percentage, just all the sort of technical details around what that ownership looks like. There’s not an answer to it. It’s not a question actually. It says we think about it too, because we also believe that having a community that believes in The stuff that you’re doing and giving them an ownership stake through some sort of technological implementation NFT or not, is an important way to build support for the thing you’re doing. Again, like you said, it can be global, not just local, right? And today, we have the opportunity to do it through an NF T, but like, what’s the right mechanism for it? And then what are the right technical things around it that give them the right ownerships? If they have the right impact on what you’re doing and building? We struggle,

Jason Neubauer 40:25
right. And that’s, that’s why we were taking so long on the architecture, because we want to make sure that it is authentic. Yeah, we doing what we’re saying. And it’s well thought out, and there’s nothing that could ever come back to us at the end of the day, you know, so. And that’s, and this is the exciting part, because now I see why it makes sense where the delay is because this was it was meant to happen this way. Right? And we didn’t really have these shifts two years ago, where it’s more becoming mainstream. And, you know, I’m interested to see or ask you really around the Asia market, because it’s like, yeah, great. We film an English show. And it’s syndicated, then we have like a global one. But to me, like, it’s really about licencing, the name and the show to these different countries. And the people in the countries are making it about their country, right, like change, change doesn’t come from a white guy, going around the world and trying to affect a local country, like the change has to come within each community in each country. And I know that takes time, but it’d be really, you know, for you and I to talk and moving forward. I just would love to understand that market. I know nothing about it.

Michael Waitze 41:30
Yeah, happy to have that conversation. And you right, even the region of Asia is not just this one big monolithic thing, right. And to be fair, United States is the same way, right? Like what’s happening in Boston is not the same thing that’s happening in Santa Fe, even though it looks like that from the outside in the same way. What’s happening in Jakarta is very different than what’s happening in Manila or in Singapore. Happy to have that conversation. Yeah, yeah, whenever you want. Okay, I’m gonna let you go JSON,

Jason Neubauer 41:55
I’m gonna let you go. It’s morning for you. You know,

Michael Waitze 42:00
it feels like midnight, Jason Neubauer the founder of Affect Change. This was awesome. You have to come

Jason Neubauer 42:05
back. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I love the progress on the growth of where we’re at, you know, but honestly, like, I always ask anybody that I’m talking with, you know, if there’s anything I can do to help you on your mission, like I truly, truly mean that, you know, please let me know. And honestly, there’s anybody listening or have any questions about energy, or growth or business or anything, just shoot me a message on Twitter, and I’m happy to just to help if I can give any sort of knowledge or understanding that can help you on your journey.

Michael Waitze 42:31
Yeah. And for anybody who is sceptical about Jason responding to them on Twitter, I can vouch for the fact that all I did was ask him on Twitter to be on the show. And he said, Let’s do it. So if you’re there sceptics out there, I love Twitter. You know, I actually, I know no one hears the look, go ahead. No, I

Jason Neubauer 42:46
love my whole, this whole thing started with a book deal, right. And I had a publisher, it was gonna be called the standard called effective with influencers. And like, I was going through the start of my awakening, and I was tweeting, and that was like my therapy, and I love Twitter. And then I got there. And I realised, I was like, I told the lady, I was like, this book has nothing of any value. Because this is stuff that everybody’s heard. I’m like, I’m just starting stuff that’s actually going to be living in the book. And I’m like, until I figured out what my actual voice is. And I still don’t fully know what it is. But I know that it’s coming back. So I just recently started going back on Twitter, and not even going anything deeper philosophical. I’m just like, here’s a funny video that’s making me laugh. And maybe this will make somebody else laugh. And I’m going to start there before he started to go down a different rabbit hole.

Michael Waitze 43:33
Can I just say isn’t in a way, like a metaphor for all this stuff we talked about before. There’s all this negativity there. But there are these little pockets of people just going like, if you think about it this way, it’s not that bad. And that’s kind of where I focus. Anyway. It was nice to talk to you.

Jason Neubauer 43:48
I love Twitter. I think there’s a lot of great people on Twitter. It’ll be interesting to see if Musk actually buys it to see like, Okay, if they can get rid of the bots, I truly believe it can become one of the greatest platform still, and everybody in the web three space. Yeah.

Michael Waitze 44:01
Everything that I read when I woke up this morning, said that he’s now not guaranteed, but he’s confirmed now that he’s going to buy this thing. And look, I’d love to see the bots removed from everywhere. Because in the real world, right? You wouldn’t talk to me unless you knew my name. Just would

Jason Neubauer 44:17
have like docky behind them, you know, whatever. Yeah, it is. It is what it is. But I’m uh, I’m very excited about it. So it’s all mine. Okay, thank you so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to talking online too.

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