255. A Speaking Expert’s Take on the $1.2M Yap Challenge Launch [Part 1]

Jessi Jean's $1.2 million Yap Challenge launch is a marketing case study for the record books, and in this episode I’m sharing my vantage point as a 24 year pro speaking veteran and communication expert (and it's probably not what you think). We’ll drill into the three intangible qualities that I believe led to her massive success (none of which have anything to do with positioning, offer design, or marketing tactics). Plus I share my own "curse of the expert" moment and what 24 years of speaking on stages didn't prepare me for in building my business. NOTE - this episode isn’t just about "the launch", but rather how YOU show up as an expert moving forward in this “attention economy”.

What You'll Learn

• A breakdown of Jessi Jean’s Yap Challenge launch from a speaking/ communication  expert 
• The three qualities I saw in Jessi that contributed to her community building success (none of which have anything to do with marketing tactics)
• The "curse of the expert," and why it makes it harder to teach the thing you're best at
• Why discomfort watching someone else win is often a map back to your own values
• Why the "she wasn't really new to this" criticism going around misses the point
• What's coming in Part 2: the recipe for combining confidence and competence into real momentum

READ THE FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

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Transcript

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Heather (00:12)

Well, hey friend, and welcome back to another episode of the Hinge Up Hustle Podcast. I missed you last week. I took the week off because, well, quite frankly, I was sick. But I'm actually really glad that I wasn't able to record, which side note, I went to record this episode four like kids not four times yesterday. And because of summer break, I was interrupted by screaming children. But I'm a big like believer that.

Sometimes timing just forces its way into the best way. And I'm so happy that I had this extra 24 hours plus the last couple weeks to record today's episode because one, my perspective has changed, and two, more has happened to make today's conversation even frickin' juicier. Which that word juicy, sorry, I it's kind of an annoying word, but whatever. All right, we're gonna dig into it. We're talking about

The Yap Challenge with Jesse Jean. She's a creator on Instagram at Jesse Jean Home. if you haven't heard of her or heard of this launch, no, you're not living under a rock. You just have a different algorithm on the Insta. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna break down what is, what is this? Why is it relevant to the conversation? Why am I commenting on it? creators, marketers, social media strategists have all been talking about it in the entire month of June. So I'm gonna

I'm gonna share with you they've been talking about positioning her offer. Everyone's trying to explain why this phenomenon happened in her launch, a very public launch. I'm gonna talk to you about my take. And specifically, one of the things that I think Jesse is doing so well in creating her brand online, it's something that a lot of my clients struggle with. And so if you're an expert, if you have years or like most of my clients, decade decades.

of experience doing the thing that you do, you need to hear this episode today because yes, I will be talking about Jesse's launch and Jesse's brand, but I'm doing so to point out to you opportunities that you have within your own brand around how you show up and how it impacts trust with your audience and therefore the results of whether or not they take action with that trust. So we're gonna dig into it. And again, if you

If you don't know Jesse Jean, if you don't know the challenge, or even if maybe you do and you're slightly rolling your eyes a bit of going, I'm so sick of hearing people talk about it, I'm gonna ask you to just check your own one ego, quite frankly, but to just check, check yourself at the door and be open to the conversation today. Because I'll give you the cliffstones version of what I saw and to give you full transparency, I'm not one of the people who jumped in after the fact and said, like, ooh, who is this chick?

I've been following Jessie since very, very early in her account. She started this new account in November of 2025. I'll get into this in a second, but I've I've been following her content almost since the beginning. And I had a front road seat to her launch, and disclaimer, I joined her Yap Challenge in the first round. And I'll tell you exactly why, even though I teach the very same thing that Jessie teaches, but in a very different way. I'll get into the nuances of that. But I joined it. So I'm not coming to you as

Some spectator in the peanut gallery commenting on someone else's launch. I'm coming to you from someone who was front row seat in the journey. but also the disclaimer, I don't know Jesse. I've literally never talked to her in my life, and I I don't know the interworkings of her brain. This is pure speculation. And with that, the one thing that I will say is this episode is not going to be throwing any shade, creating any gossip or creating any negative perspective.

Around her success. And quite frankly, yes, there are people who are being negative at it. There's people that are rolling their eyes around the word yap. There are a lot of people just rolling their eyes about I'm so sick of talking about this. And if you know me, you know that I firmly believe that someone with that attitude has fallen into the bitter bee trap. So side note, if you're curious about what that is, go back a couple episodes and listen to that. It's literally titled, I think failure and the bitter bee trap.

Bitter bitch trap is what it talk about in the episode. But I I'm the kind of gal who is going to cheer you on so freaking hard. I'm gonna tell you when there's toilet paper stuck to your shoe or there's lipstick in your teeth. Like I'm a girl's girl, I'm a I'm a cheer for it. Even when sometimes other people's success makes me jealous and uncomfortable. And I'm gonna say that boldly and I'm gonna share with you a lot of vulnerable admissions today that might be embarrassing, but I don't think I would be honest if I didn't give you.

My full take on what happened with Jesse Jean's launch and how she's grown her account, how it quite frankly, how it feels to watch someone who is selling something super successfully in the same arena of the work you've been doing for two decades. Let me just say that. It is extremely uncomfortable. And what a gift for all the lessons that I have had watching this experience. So

Without further ado, let's freaking dive into it. So if you are new to this entire conversation, or maybe you're relying on me to be like your cool friend or big sister, maybe little sister, I don't know how old you are. I'm an elder millennial. So I in my brain, as the youngest child of six, I always just assume I'm the youngest person in the room, but that's not the case anymore. Anyways, if you're relying on me to like give you the the rundown of what's going on, I gotcha. So I'm gonna try to make

I'm gonna try to make this part of the episode fast, but I also I don't want to, I don't want to simplify her her experience in the story of Jesse. So I'm I'm just gonna tell you, I wrote down some notes here. So let me pull out here. So Jesse Jean, on again, her handle on Instagram, I will include in the show notes link to her to her stuff. but she created this brand new Insta count in November of 2025, which at this point is six, seven, eight.

I don't know what the math is. It's the end of June. So seven, eight months ago. And here's the context with it. Jessie is not new to the online space and definitely not new to building a personal brand. In fact, she's had a personal brand for a very long time. I I think, don't quote me on this, but I think I heard her say she's 35. I want to say 35 or 36, but she's in her mid thirties. She's a millennial. She was really struggling the last eighteen months around who am I and what the F am I doing with my life? But

The quick context behind it is Jesse started building an online brand when she was a fitness trainer in her early 20s, based around what she shared either in her content or inside the app challenge with us. And so she wasn't new to it, right? She was building her social media. And in fact, if you scroll back on her old account or even search Jesse Jean on Facebook, you will see a lot of her early posts. You even see pictures of her in a fitness competition. I don't know when or how things changed, but she ended up moving into the coaching space.

And she ran a very successful coaching business in the binge eating recovery space. I don't know any details around this, but I would bet part of Jessie's origin or signature story is something in the middle of fitness space into binge recovery eating. And I'm sure she's got a pretty big story around that. But again, I don't know it, and it's also not mine to tell. But with it, she had a really successful coaching business. And when I say successful, things that she has shared that I have either heard in her content or again, she shared inside the Yap Challenge.

Is that her business had its highs and it had its lows, but at its highs, it was doing awesome. She had a podcast that was successful by any measure, over a million downloads, I heard her say. she also had this really incredible visibility opportunity where she was a guest on, I believe, don't quote me on this, but Caroline Leaf. She is a

She's an author. I can't remember her book. I have it on my shelf somewhere behind me, but I won't look for it right now. But anyways, Jessie had the opportunity to be that podcast and on the coattails of that. She had a huge frickin' month of her program. I think it was something, I think she said something in the upwards of eighty, eight hundred thousand dollars in sales, which was her biggest month ever. Of course, she had said that wasn't a consistent thing, but she had had these really big highs. But she also shared very openly, both in her public content and privately inside the Yap Challenge.

That she was not great at managing the operations and specifically the finances. So even though she had made money, it wasn't like she had kept a lot of money. And along the way, if I remember correctly, I think her husband was also in the fitness space, but he did a big pivot. And she talked about this publicly in her financial transparency series that she did when she opened this account. She talked about how.

They made a strategic investment to send him back to this really specialized program for him to become trained in this certain thing and then grow his personal income for their family. And so he has been financially making money for their family, but back to it, they had a baby. And as many do in their early 30s, you start asking some really big freaking questions. So here was Jesse sitting with this business that was successful by so many measures. I mean, her business is at that point in time what she talked about. It's more

quote unquote successful revenue-wise in my current business. But she found herself with a new baby at home asking some really big questions and realized that, my gosh, like talking about binge eating recovery is really heavy. And if you're a coach or if you've ever had difficult conversations helping someone navigate through something, you know that as a coach, you have to hold space for people. And so something that I think is really beautiful is Jessie found herself as a new mom, which I get, I I've had

three children. And literally every single time I have given birth to a baby, I have had a like a smidge of a midlife crisis. and I've made huge changes. My first baby, I quit my very successful executive job. My second baby, no, it was my sorry, my first baby, I got promoted to my executive job. My second baby, I left that job and then started my own business. And then my third baby, my gosh, that was like a holy crap. I'm 40. Let's have another kid. Anyways

I know what it's like to to be sitting there asking big questions around the meaning of life and where we're spending our time and what our priorities are when you have kids. And this is where the story really starts for me. And when I resonate so much with what Jesse talked about. And I had my first glimmer of admiration. She sat with this, I don't know what to do. And she finally got clear that I know I can't hold space for these women anymore. So she had the courage to literally shut down that business.

Just shut it down. And she didn't know what she was doing next. So she kind of did nothing, right? And by nothing, right, I'm sure she still had all her mom duties and she was doing stuff at home, but she was trying to figure out okay, what am I gonna do next? And so I believe her timeline that she had shared was it was almost a full year. It was all through 2025. She was trying to figure out what do I do. And the thing that she enjoyed was flipping furniture. So she started flipping furniture on Facebook Marketplace, and that's how she was helping contribute to the family.

She talks about in her stories now around literally last summer, that was a year ago, she was trying to pay bills by flipping furniture. Like that, that's where she was at, even again with all that past success. She found herself in this position by walking away from that. She was, what the hell do I do? She was terrified of sharing this with like what am I doing? She had this idea for this personal account, but she found herself frozen. But yet, what was kind of cool was she had the wherewithal to actually record content. So she had all this footage of her.

I don't know, sanding dressers and flipping furniture. But she finally had the balls to say, you know what? I'm gonna start this new account. I don't know what I'm doing, but I know I'm going to try to create something to provide for my son, for my family. I I need to do something. And so I'm gonna fuck around and find out and just try shit and throw it against the wall. And she specifically said, I'm willing to eat shit for an entire year to figure this out. And that key phrase right there is really important. We're gonna come back to that.

But she was just like, fuck it. Let me just, let me just see what happens. So she posted her first video on Jesse Jean Home, her new Instagram account in November 2025. And she grew her following to close to 350,000 followers on Instagram. I have no idea on TikTok. I know she's there too, but I don't, I don't even log into TikTok. So no idea. But she she grew there and she did it with obviously with intention, but a lot of it was like, holy shit, what is happening?

And what's really cool to see, I came across Jessie, I think in December or January of January this year. So still relatively new account. But what immediately struck me when I came across her content was how easy it was to listen to. It was interesting, it was smart, she's intelligent, but you can tell she doesn't take herself too seriously, she doesn't put herself on a pedestal. She's like shooting the shit with that friend that you enjoy talking about.

business or talking about social or or talking about life with someone who you enjoy having a conversation with. That was the vibe. And I believe the first video that I saw of her was something around her sharing like overly like overshare of her personal finances with her husband. She did a financial transparency series. And later I learned from her that she started creating content that she liked to consume. So she thought, well, what kind of stuff do I enjoy watching online?

Well, that's the kind of content I want to make. So she started these different series. But here's the interesting part around all of it. If you go back to the very beginning of her account, you'll notice the first few posts were more like a day in the life vlogs where it was voiceover. And she had a really cool B-roll and really she really good graphics. She's a great editor of video. And but you noticed a few videos in, she did her very first talking head video, which talking head video is literally you looking at the camera and talking.

And I think this is really, really significant because a lot of the conversations that I'm seeing of armchair experts talking about Jesse's success. And that's honestly what we all are. We are on the sidelines just like looking at what she's doing, right? And common like doing commentary on it. I feel like a sports broadcaster doing the debrief after a football game. But what's interesting is I've noticed a lot of people are really quick to add context.

Because context is important when you see someone else succeed. No one's an overnight success. There's like all the work that went in before the quote unquote overnight success. And Jesse's the first to admit that. But a lot of people are trying to bring this context of saying, but she wasn't new to content. Well, no, she wasn't new to content, but she wasn't new. She'd been doing whatever on video. She'd been doing this. And this is the first thing that I really want to bring up here is.

Jesse, yes, had a podcast. Jesse, yes, had been on camera. Yes, she had been doing voiceover, a lot of B-roll style social media. If you scroll back to her other account, which by the way, her other account was 120,000 followers. So just as a she had a great following when she created this account. Okay. So she wasn't starting from scratch. She even posted her first talking head video was between the two accounts. And I'm sure she brought a lot of followers over. But the thing that I want to point out too is Jessie was freaking terrified.

of talking on camera. And I think this surprises a lot of people because when you watch her content, she's really natural and you do not get nerve energy at all. But I really want to call attention to this because I noticed in a lot of the dialogue of of people, they're talking about how the context of it is it essentially insinuating that can't be true. And I just want to say like first shout out is holy shit, I know what it feels like.

To be really good at communicating and really comfortable talking, but be terrified of the camera. So pause from Jesse's story. Let me give you some context for me. So if you're new to my world, maybe you're finding this because of the title of this episode, or maybe you're just super uber curious around a speaking coach's take on the Yap challenge. But for me, I've been speaking on stages since 2002, which quick math.

Holy shit, that's 24 years. So in some capacity, I have been in a like professional way speaking on stages, whether it's through nonprofits and social fundraising, whether that's through my professional career in professional speaking, my executive career. Like I've been on stages a ton. And of course, I still get nervous when I speak on stages, but I've really developed the skill of on stage speaking. And in fact, that's what I've been teaching. I've actually been formally teaching professionals how to give

Incredible presentation since 2010. I've been coaching that in some capacity, whether it was in my corporate job or when starting my business in 2018, doing this full time. So the the context is I can pretty much speak off the cuff about anything. I can stand up and hold a room of people and get a round of a frickin' applause or standing ovation. I'm really, really good. I'm really good when shit happens, like the power going out during my keynote address.

Or falling on stage or having someone really rowdy or rude in the audience, I can navigate pretty much anything in a live format. But put a video camera on me, I turned into a blubbering idiot. In fact, I can tell you, we used to have at my big old events back in my corporate job, we would do 60 plus events a year around the country.

But one of our big ones in Las Vegas, I'd hire this film crew that would follow us around, record the content, get all the energy of it so we can use that content later. And that film crew would want to like interview me about it. And I'm like, I don't know what you want me to say. I can't get words out. And I just felt like a complete idiot. Now I'm sure to other people, I'm sure it came across just polished and whatever else.

But inside me was this fight or flight freaking out situation happening where I, it was so bad. And in fact, that videographer later went on to create a little reel of reels didn't exist at the time, but like a video reel of my worst outtakes, and they are so embarrassing. But I tell you this: that when I started my business, I knew that yes, speaking on stages was a big part. I was gonna teach people to do it, but I was gonna have to do it virtually.

Which meant I was gonna have to have a come to Jesus moment with that frickin' camera lens. So I declared when I started my business full time, I went full time in my business in January of twenty nineteen. I said, I gotta make this camera my bitch. And so here's what I did. This is what I want you to pay attention. What I did is I said, Okay, I bought a webcam, I put it on my little my little computer up at the top. And every single day I went in and I hit record and I would just talk to the camera and it would be stupid shit. Like

Hello, I look like an idiot. Okay, what does my set look like? Okay, what if I move the camera this way? What happens when I talk like this? Why is my eyebrow doing this weird thing? Okay, blah, blah, blah. And I literally would talk to myself like this, just to pull the buzz of how terrifying it was. Then I would go, okay, fake question. Well, Heather, what do you think about X, Y, and Z? Great question, Sam. How about? Blah, blah, blah. And I would just talk to myself every single day in the privacy.

Of my home office, I would make the camera my bitch. I would talk to my camera. And then I finally got the balls to say, okay, let me let me do some Instagram stories. I remember being so new, like asking people at the time who were legends in the space, Jasmine Starr. I don't know if you remember Tyler McCall. I'd reach out to Instagram people, like asking silly questions like, should I start a new account or use my personal?

Or I remember sending the most embarrassing DM on the planet to Jasmine Star, which was a voice message, but it got cut off, thank God, after 30 seconds. But I was essentially asking her, how do you look so put together all the time? Like, how did you figure out what your whole personal style was to be beautiful online? I asked her a question. It was not that eloquent when I said it, but it was super dumb. Anyways, I'm telling you this because I had no idea what the F I was doing to build a social like a personal brand online.

But I knew I needed to get better at camera. So I started doing Instagram stories. And back then, Instagram stories had to be filmed in 15 seconds. And I can't say anything in 15 seconds. So it was challenge. But the beautiful part about getting more comfortable on camera was Instagram stories would disappear after 24 hours. So here I was practicing getting better on camera by the privacy of my Logitech webcam, which would never be seen by anyone again.

paired with me going on Instagram stories for a minute or two every single day and they would disappear after 24 hours. And slowly and slowly I built my comfort with video. I got better. If you look at my early stage back in 2019, my YouTube account, I started doing I started going live on Facebook. And then I would take those, cut them down, and I would put them on YouTube. And when I go back, I cringe. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I cringe because you can hear in my voice, my voice is higher pitched

And it's tight because I'm trying so hard to like prove that I'm comfortable, but I wasn't comfortable. And I tell you all this is because we, if you're like me and have been around the block for the last couple of years doing face-to-camera video, we did our work.

mostly in private. I mean maybe me. I'm just saying me. I built the reps in private because I was so terrified of coming across like an idiot because I teach people how to talk, but talking on like a live long form stage is a very, very different skill than speaking in short form video to a camera, especially right now in the attention economy, aka we're in a world where you have to get really good at getting people's attention. I'm not great at getting attention. I'm great at holding attention.

I'm great at taking that attention and teaching people and reaching people in a way that they want to take action and connecting and making them feel so seen. I'm so good at that, but it serves into long form. I'm not great at the quick look at me, this is you, let's resonate like in three seconds, boom, boom, boom, hook. It's a different skill. And so I worked on my on-camera skill, but still it was in long form video. But holy shit, I was too terrified to do it in public. Now go back. Let's

Go back into the story with Jesse. Here's what's incredible. She had, yes, that experience of recording her podcast, doing long-form content. She did voiceovers. I'm sure she done scripting. I don't I don't even know the context of it, but I know she was in Russell Brunson's mastermind at one point. So she's been around the block when it comes to marketing, right? But I know viscerally, the fear that shows up constricting your throat and and just the whole panic and the underboob sweat and the armpit sweat, which

Would imagine is why she wears tank tops all the time. It's me too. I'm very aware of the sweat factor when you're trying to record on video. But this woman, my gosh, Jesse Jean, like she has such audacious balls. Like, so audacious as fuck was the first thing that I wrote down. And it's because of these two things. One, the fact that she was brave enough. I get emotional thinking about this because holy shit, like, this is huge.

That she was brave enough to walk away from something that was working because she knew deep down that chapter needed to close. I, it resonates with me because I sat in an indecision for two years trying to figure out how to re-like I knew I had grown out of talking about signature talks and speaking as my full-time thing. I've said from day one behind closed doors to my private clients that I've always wanted to be more in personal development, but I was too scared because it was too generalized. So I niche down on speaking and

Let me just say this. I'm great at speaking and communication and speaking will always be part of what I do, but I was too scared to let it go. And then here comes that bitch Jesse Jean. And she literally walked away from something successful. So boom, number one, audacious as fuck. But number two, for her to start on that account, literally out of the gate in the first couple of videos, to go direct to camera. Holy crap, for her to do that skill publicly.

Every single day. I don't know if it was every day, but pretty much every day. Like you look back, she's put published a lot of content in these last six, seven, eight months. But for her to show up and work on that skill publicly, that is so fucking audacious. Like you I when people are like, Well, we talk on we talk on head, we've been talking on heads for years. Yeah, me too. But do you understand like, do you remember your first video of how much you sucked? Like

For her to one, get up and she didn't suck, but she probably felt like she sucked. Like for her to like rinse and repeat and say move on to it again tomorrow, the mental strength that that takes, I just don't think anyone's giving her credit for that. Like I think everyone is treating it like she just walked out of the room, beautiful, blonde, and well spoken. Yeah, she's well spoken. I'm well spoken too, but I don't think people are giving her credit for how fucking audacious it is to build in.

Public. Like that, ballsy. So, first, like, so when I came across her work, I had no idea she was terrified of speaking. I had no idea she was like former whatever in business. I just knew she had a refreshing take. And what I think it would works really, really well for Jesse. One, she is not tied to her ego anymore. She walked away from that business. She's not going, I've already done X, Y, and Z. So I like, I shouldn't have to scoot the poop.

This is a phrase I say all the time. Like, I I I gotta call you out here deep down because this is me too. Right. Let me use myself as an example here. And I've talked about this on the show before. I'm gonna sound like a total asshole, but I think I think you feel this too. When you have decades of experience doing something, you've already cut your teeth quite a bit. You've already done the grunt work. And it kind of feels like, shouldn't we be over this by now? Like, when is the point where it's like all the effort pays off?

But here's the here's the gods, like here's the freaking truth. Okay. That works, I think, well when you're running the corporate ladder. But when you run your own business, platforms change, social behavior changes. It it all goes so quickly. You have to be able to adapt and eat shit, learning the new thing. Like to use Jesse words, she talked about eating shit for a year. And I don't think.

Many of us have the balls to be seen as messy and a beginner again because our ego doesn't want to. We've already earned the right to be at the table. Why do we have to sit at the kids' table now? Like that's kind of the vibe here. But the humility that Jesse had to actually say, I one, I don't even know what I'm doing. And maybe this is where the humility came from. I don't even know what business I'm starting. I don't even know how I'm gonna monetize this. I just know I'm gonna show up and be consistent and I'm gonna figure it out.

Like there was something really beautiful that that she was so unattached to her old self and her own ego, but so committed to her future of figuring out how to financially provide for her kid and her her family, she had a lot of humility in that. So let me turn my page here because it's I'm starting to get into my notes of what I wanted to share with you. So there are four qualities that I really noticed as what was happening with Jesse over this time. So number one, as I mentioned, her courage.

Her being audacious as Fox, one is start like leaving her old business, to starting this account to start building the skill of being direct to camera. She knew how important that was for building relationships. And she knew that was a skill that she wanted to work on. But I mean, think about this. Would you be willing to do that? Like right now, I want you to think about it. You're scared of the camera. If you're one of these people going, like, I don't want to show up on video. I'm not even showing up on social. I just don't, I don't, I just don't even know. Like, if you made the commitment to show up for 60 days, I want you to imagine what it would feel.

Feel like on day one and day two, like terrifying, right? Day three, day four. Most people quit after a couple of days because they hate feeling so uncomfortable and doubling down. Like they hate the idea of other people seeing them suck. So they don't do it, right? This is why most people will never do what Jesse did, is because they're unwilling to be seen as sucky, right? Even though Jesse didn't suck. But for her, I'm sure she thought she sucked. Just like for me when I started, I thought I sucked.

Right. It like it's a very normal thing. So, like, would you be willing to, if you like put all of your eggs in this basket of building a business, would you have the balls to walk away? I don't know. Like, I I just I don't think we're giving her enough credit for how fucking audacious she has been. So fast forward, let's go to the next audacious thing. So that number one. so what happened is right, Jessie's talking about financial transparency. She's talking about this is really where she popped off, was she was talking about being co.

career confused as a millennial. That's where she started sharing the stories of look, I have this other business. I'm trying to figure out now what am I doing? How am I gonna make money? I'm trying shit like furniture flipping. She was trying like just different things, right? So she was sharing along the journey and then along the way, she was also talking about, well, here's how I'd create content. I remember a reel that she did at a whiteboard and she was wearing a bucket hat, which I remember that stopped my scroll because I was laughing because she looked like my I remember my oldest when he was a toddler, I had a bucket hat for his giant head at the pool.

And remember laughing because I thought the bucket hat was a joke. And then I realized, I'm not cool in my elder millennialness. I guess bucket hats are in. I still don't even know if they are. I don't know if it was a joke or not, but I remember it looked stupid. Sorry, Justine the bucket hat looks stupid for my for my day. Just probably how people think my side part and skinny jeans look stupid, but that's fine. But I remember she was sharing around like here's what I would be thinking about with social, like, or here's what I'm thinking about with content. She was just sharing what she was learning and the shit that she was trying.

Which started building this really great camaraderie with other creators. Then in April, Jessie posted a video, and it was her and her laptop and she had like a slideshow presentation, which these are always fun. I remember when Elise what's her name? she started doing laptop presentations on TikTok. but anyway, she the the presentation was essentially how to yap on camera. And she had 10 really specific things.

Around that she's been working on and share her story about how she's really been intentional working on it, but yapping on camera. And that video took off. And here's what I want you to pay attention. Remember how I said Jesse was intentional, knowing that I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with this account, but I'm headed in the direction of I want to monetize it. So she knew who she was talking to. She knew started getting clear on what the types of things she want to talk about, but she had put up before that moment, she had put up a wait list saying, Hey.

People were interested in whenever she talked about content. She put up a wait list of saying if I ran out a content course, would you be interested? And she she got some bites. But the day she put up that Yap video, it popped off and it was so freaking popular. Side note, I remember commenting on that video and co-siding. I was like, from a speaking coach like Ditto on everything that she said, do it. it was really, really good. And that was that.

Well, Jesse paid attention and she posted a couple other pieces of content around quote unquote yapping, which side note, I know a lot of people are getting annoyed at this term, or maybe you haven't heard the term. Yapping is the 2026 name of essentially direct talking to camera. But the nuance around yapping, a lot of people think that yapping means just, you know, pull out your phone and just share whatever's on your mind, but that doesn't, that's not what it is.

Yapping is still strategic. A lot of people still script or outline their content very specifically, and that's what Jesse teaches, by the way. But yapping is the casual nature of it. It's not you're not in a set, it's not like formal, it's not polished. It has more of a behind-the-scenes casual vibe, which is why it's called yapping. Okay. So she she's sort of talking like double down on the word yapping.

and she wasn't the only one. I know a lot of creators were using this word earlier in the year. I've used it in content earlier this year, but she really doubled down and just kept talking about the yap. And that content kept performing. And I don't remember when the date was, but sometime this spring after that initial yapping video, she posted another video talking about how working on her communication, specifically her tone, her cadence, all those things, how that has been so important for how she shows up and she started talking about the different

archetypes that you could be when you speak. And then she started talking about, I'm gonna do a challenge around this, join the wait list. And that's when things started getting momentum of people started associating Jesse with Yap. Now, this is where I want to pause and be totally vulnerable here. I love the first video that Jesse posted around here's the 10 ways how to yap better. And I didn't even think twice of it. I'm like, yeah, girl, that's awesome. Totally great. This is like proving my work.

Boom. Then she starts posting more and more content around yapping and post as wait list. And I remember feeling

So freaking jealous. So jealous. And let me let me unpack this for you because there's like a lot of different stages of feelings here. But have you ever had someone who talks about work that you talk about and it's really, really close to what you do? Or maybe it's something that you've been saying for years, but you haven't really gotten a lot of attention or exposure for it. But someone who has a larger following says it and they just go viral and there's so much to it, and you're like, I

I've been saying this forever. Yeah, that's how I felt. And I also then had this big embarrassment of it because I, again, girls, girl, empowerment, like more the merrier. Let's all talk about it. But it started unpacking a lot of things for me. And so I started really getting, I went introspective. Cause at first, I'll I'll just tell you, I was just really like kind of annoyed. I'm like, who's this bitch? Like, what that's you know, you're flipping furniture. And now what? You're coming into my world? I've been doing this shit for 10 years.

Not 10 years, 20 years. Like, and and you're just gonna share these couple little things you watched from watching a couple video people's videos. Like these are the real things coming in my brain. And then I slept on it. I remember going on walk and I had the most this is what I want you to hear. I had the most beautiful lesson. And I don't know why I'm getting emotional when I say this. I I've worked really hard on myself over the last 10 years. And

Anytime I have big and negative emotions, I feel them. I feel big emotions. I still feel jealousy. I feel shame. I feel so all the things, right? But I'm really good at asking myself questions. And I think emotions become this really beautiful blueprint for us to better understand ourselves and point us to what we value that gives us a map to where we should be going. And here's what here's what I started exploring when Jesse's content started really butting up against mine. The truth was.

I had never branded myself as a talking on video. Yes, I have. I have a workshop, but I don't sell it anymore around how to get better at talking on video, specifically more like going live. I've realized that for me, trying to own the market on quote unquote communication or speaking is stupid because it's such a huge fucking pie. I am really good at long form, as I mentioned at the top of the episode. That understanding is something I've gotten much better at owning over the last year. But at this point in time.

I realized that I the reason why I was feeling really conflicted with her posts and her wait list of her challenge was because I had had the idea five years ago just to have a course about helping coaches, course creators, people building online brands, just focused on how to teach them how to talk better, how to get their ideas out there, how to articulate their ideas in real time. In fact, that's the number one downloaded episode of my podcast: how to articulate yourself so others can understand you.

I want to talk about articulation and body language and storytelling and there's these things that I just, I want to help with. But I had convinced myself that people don't want that. People want to grow their revenue. People want to speak on stage. People want to be seen in an authority. Like all these quote unquote tangible outcomes that all the marketing programs tell you you need to grab on to the tangible of what people really want and make your vehicle the thing that gets them there. Which is how I found myself teaching how to.

Create a signature talk so that you can become the known authority and grow your business, which I I do do that and I love that. I'm really good at giving presentations. But I've always been way more interested in helping someone show up better whenever and wherever they speak. In fact, inside my programs I talk about all the time, a stage is simply a platform. I want to help people get better on video or better in a sales conversation. Like I just am obsessed.

With helping people get better at representing themselves and their ideas, putting them out in the world in a comfortable way and not awkward or not over-explaining or not trying to prove or convince. Communication is really important. It's how I've been so successful in my career and in my business. And the awakening that I had in reflection of being really up at arms. and I say up at arms, I was just having an emotional breakdown around the fact that she was launching this course because.

Going back to what I said before, it was so fucking audacious. She didn't have any formal training. She talked about she wasn't a public speaker. She talked about how she had normal formal training. She was just interested in psychology. She had just worked on these things and got better at yapping the last six months. And at that point in time, I didn't know anything about her previous business. So I was sitting there going, What the fuck? This is what my clients talk about all the time: that they have all of this experience. They have true expertise, they have certifications, they have training, they have.

lived experience on this thing. And then here comes some whipper snapper on Instagram. This is literal verbiage from sales pages that I've done through customer research of this whipper snapper on Instagram that literally started yesterday as selling this thing. And just like they just happen to be able to get better at having attention. And so they're getting, they're getting it online. And I was having that moment of like, holy shit. And so what I realized, so okay, let me just be full confessional here since you and I are like beginning

Real. I definitely joined for that wait list because I was so curious. I was like, what the fuck is she doing? So I joined the wait list, but I didn't have the balls to join the wait list using my own name because I'm a speaking coach and it's very public on that and all my email addresses have my full name. So damn right I used the hide my email feature on my iPhone so that it would have like a dovetail coffee sixty-four at iCloud dot com.

Whatever it is, right? and so I was on the wait list and I was I was hiding on the wait list. And I'm I'm embarrassed to admit it, but also I am I'm glad I did because here's here's what happened. When Jessie opened doors for her launch, you better know I was watching and I watched every single launch email, and I was I experienced a lot of such jealousy as I as I read her emails. They were cool, they were a vibe, they were s they were her like.

unapologetically celebrating the power of communicating. Like it wasn't trying to hide behind a business outcome. It wasn't trying to hide behind some bigger thing that they wanted. She was just full raw dogging. Like here's how important communication is for you. And I was so envious of the fact that everyone was eating up. I'm like what the fuck? And what I realized was what a humbling experience was I was so

I have been so like I I talk about this and I'm still in it. The curse of the expert. The curse of the expert is when you are doing something for the first time, your brain is literally trying to create these neural neural pathways of like, imagine when you go learn how to drive, right? When you learn how to drive, you're like, my gosh, how do I open the door? Where does the key go? Is it a push ignition? which foot goes on the brake? And you literally are consciously thinking about every single step.

You have to put on the clicker, it's like a very conscious thought. And what's happening is all these like boom, boom, boom, neural pathways are firing off in your brain. But when you repeat a task over and over and over again, what happens is our brains are smart and they need to conserve energy. So those neural little pathway things, forgive me here because I'm not a brain science expert, but let's just go a little geeky here for a moment. All those little neural pathways, they start like, they start simplifying. We'll just make this super easy. So let's say before in your brain it was like 23 steps.

To get your car out of the driveway. Well, now it's just go to the store. But like 17,000 little mini steps it took from finding your keys all the way to pulling out of your driveway to getting onto the freeway to wherever else to get to the store. Now it's just go, go to the store. You don't even think about it. It's just one boom, fired off thing in your brain. You don't think about all those individual things. And this is the curse of the expert and why so many of us struggle around talking about expertise in language that others get. I teach this stuff, yet I still fall.

into the same traps as my client. And this is where I found myself deeply reflecting as I was going through Jesse's launch is she wasn't having the curse of the expert because she was the opposite. She was quite literally telling them, I am not the expert in this. I don't know that this is gonna work for you. I'm just gonna share with you the shit that I've learned along the way and hope that it's valuable. Like that was her like promise around it. And

There's something to unpack with this. So, one, we need to understand as experts that it doesn't make someone wrong for selling something when they have far less experience as us. That, so you know, if like me, and again, obviously I got very trapped in it, that is our egos talking. At the end of the day, the ultimate end person, the clients we want to work with, they just want to know that we care and we can support them. But I think a lot of times our

Expert angle, we actually make them feel bad by them being the end user. It's because we're so far ahead of them. Sometimes when we explain things, we make them feel kind of dumb, or we make them think too hard. And a beautiful part around someone who is way earlier in their journey but has figured it out and then has the confidence to then mentor or shepherd or coach or teach or share their experience with others.

They don't have the egotistical baggage that we have, which makes them more nimble, makes them be able to go a little faster. They don't have a lot of the head junk that we have attached to it because we're so worried that our stuff is not going to be as valuable. And then here comes someone else, just like whoop, whoop, whoop, I'm just gonna do it. I'm not even thinking about, I'm just gonna share what I know. So I I think there's a really beautiful lesson here that yes, I definitely am a fan of certifications and trainings and all these things, but I think.

A lot of times, for those of us who've been at a lot while I think we hold those things at a higher value than our ultimate clients do. And so the first thing I really first thing, this is like the 70th thing I've said in this episode, I want you thinking about where in your business and where in your expertise are you valuing that knowledge and that experience at a level that is quite frankly at this point just egotistical. And do your clients actually care about that?

And I think in maybe some realms, yes, but at the end of the day, our clients just want to know that we get them, that we have experience, and we're going to help them. And that is like the thing that we need to keep at place. So going back to Jesse's initial launch, I think one of the reasons why she was super successful is because one, she was audacious as fuck, right? The fact that she launched a program of something that she wasn't

An expert in, and I'm gonna say that she's not an expert in communication and speaking. She is someone who is super interested in it. She's worked really hard on it. And I would say through this now is her learning to teach it, she will build in her expertise ab so freaking lutely. But the fact that she positioned herself as not an expert, the actually anti-expert, I think that is where she built so much trust with her community because.

Instead of trying to convince or explain even facts, she shared in her Instagram stories during that launch. Somebody had asked, Well, is this gonna work for me? And she quite literally was like, I don't fucking know, but here's what I do know. And that, think about this. For those of you who sell digital courses, services, and stuff, you're taught, we're all taught, we need to overcome all of those objections. And she she did the opposite, which I thought was really freaking ballsy and so it was just really it was humble.

There was a really humble way for her approach it. And I think that is what had a really great trust building thing. And you you can't fake that. You can't fake that with an audience, right? You can tell when it's gimmicky. If someone's just like, well, I don't know if it'll work for you. Like for her, she was just sharing her truth, as lame as that expression is, which I just think is really cool. So, anyways, let me go back to my notes here. So, number one, I saw just overall audacious as fuck for her to start stop her old business, audacious as fuck for her to

go live on camera, right? And get my live like record face to direct on camera. I thought that was really freaking cool. and for her to be audacious to literally listen to her audience after posting a video around here's how to get better at yapping. They wanted to know more. They kept asking her questions. She kept publishing content and then she created a program for it. And here's the cool part is the the time between that initial here's how to yap video and her the the yap challenge starting was a hundred days. I

Hundred days. How many times have you sat on an idea in your business and you were waiting? You wanted to plan it. You wanted to figure out the strategy for it. You wanted to figure out the positioning. You were trying to figure out how it fits in your ecosystem of offers. What does it look like in the long term? What's gonna be the funnel? Is it an application? Is it this? How much time do you frickin' masturbate over the s the frickin' details in your business? I have an old client, she is in her 60s and she used the term all the time. I'm just laughing.

Masturbating over the minutia, which the first time she said it, I literally spit my beer out at an event. again, imagine like a 64-year-old woman saying, Masturbating over the minutiae. That's y'all, that's what you do. That's what you do. And it's 100% just your egotistical fear trying to plan your way into success. And what Jessie didn't do is she didn't allow herself to hide. She said, Fuck it, let's go, baby. So her ability to be audacious and just follow the fun, ugh.

That is a strategy that no one well nobody's talking about too. You can't teach that. You can't replicate that. It's just following your intuition with a backpack full of really good skills. So let's go to the next thing I want to talk about. So one of the things, no, actually, hold on. I'm gonna come back to that backpack in a second. So let's talk about number two. I mentioned this word before. What Jesse had through all of this is she had humility.

She had humility and transparency. She was very much always talking about her why for what she was doing. She was trying to create impact. And she also was trying to provide for her son and for her family. Like she was very transparent from the get-go. But when I mentioned earlier, one of the things Jesse talks about all the time, I was willing to eat shit for a year. So she wasn't trying to come across a certain way. She wasn't like

worried about what people would think about her. She wasn't worried about this Yap Challenge failing, which I think is really important for us to look at. She had no ties to it. Now, when the Yap Challenge initially opened, based off the wait list and how things were going, she literally told her husband, Babe, I think, my gosh, I think this thing could do six figures. Which I don't know about you, but that would be frilly frickin' cool, right? So the fact that her first launch, when she had it, she had card open, I think for it was like eight days. It was like open like a week

Before it started on Monday, June 1st. And she it was wild. She was sharing in her stories, like, holy shit, the the results. But again, she thought she'd maybe get a couple hundred people, which the price point for the offer was 297. It was a 40-day challenge that got extended to a 43-day challenge where she was going to teach you the art of a damn good gap, a couple other things around what she did. And then every day for 40 days, she was going to give you a video where she taught some insights around communication, psychology, and then give you.

a direction for your video. Now, at the time we all thought it was gonna be prompts. It's not prompts. It's actually her teaching and giving you some different frameworks and stuff to be able to create your own video each day. But the fact was when she had this idea, she was going from the idea of I'm gonna try different things, follow the fun, and I'm willing to eat shit for a year. She could have never imagined, as she shared, that it would be a $1.2 million. She enrolled over 4,500 people, many of which came in the last two days of car close.

And then on the coattails of that is really when things got wild. People were like, holy shit. And that's when marketers, social media strategists, a lot of people started talking about it because it was so public. Because here's what's interesting: Jessie is she doesn't have like she has an email list, but it was literally the email list was just for her wait list and just to sell the program. She doesn't do content every week, she didn't have a podcast, like she shows up on Instagram. So everything happening, she shares in her story, she shares in her content. People who joined the app challenge started sharing it. So

Everything that many of us would do behind closed doors or inside Facebook groups backstage, she did all of this on stage in public, which then added to that momentum, which I think is really freaking cool. But paired with everyone else started talking about it, and it was publicly. Paired with in the gap challenge, there was no community for people to talk to each other. So people started connecting in public and Instagram, which created this really beautiful momentum.

That then got people banging down and saying, Well, now everybody's talking about this $1.2 million launch. Then people are talking about it. And then Jesse, did you know she got an interview on I don't remember which TV show, but she was on like a TV show. And then Brock Johnson, big Instagrammer, he he asked her to come speak at her his huge event in September. Like, my gosh, it was like what I call the speaking snowball of visibility. Like she snowballing, like whoa. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, she's

Ranking out a video every day for this 40 day challenge. Like, I don't know this woman has slept in the last six weeks. I hope she gets to take a nap here soon. But I share all this with you is because through it all, her humility and how wild this opportunity is, it's it's pretty cool to watch. I mean, she's had to scramble to hire a team. She's had like she's had to figure a lot of things out, and her ability to stay humble through that, it's really cool.

And here's what I want you. here's what I want to talk about with this. if you've if you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect. So this is something I came across this probably six years ago. And it's from a psychologist, it's this layout, this graph I might imagine on the up and down access. What is that, the X or the Y? Who cares? The up and down is confidence, and the horizontal access is competence. There's these two different things: confidence and competence.

And what happens is when we start something new, our confidence is ridiculously stupidly high. but our competence is low. So go back to the video before it's like, yay, I'm gonna start posting on Instagram. Let's go. Maybe we're really highly confident, but then we start recording and realize, my gosh, I can't say this in less than 60 seconds, or my gosh, why does my face look like that? Why do I look stupid? We we

Initially, when we start something, we're at what's called the peak of ignorance or the peak of Mount Stupid, because our confidence is so high, but our competence is so low. And then what happens is once we realize how much that we don't know, our confidence tanks. And this goes into what they call the valley of despair on the side. I think is why a lot of people quit a lot of things, is because they realize just how much they don't know and they get overwhelmed of like, my gosh, I know nothing. But what happens is when you stick with something and you work on your

Competence, your confidence starts growing. And this is called the slope of enlightenment. And if you can push through that, that's where you become that true expert with your knowledge. And it's that combination of competence and confidence. And part of this takes a big part of humility. But now let's go into the third piece, that backpack I mentioned before, is Jesse with her.

like audacious fucking balls going forward, but with humility to pack with it. She had confidence and humility. But she also had and built along the way competence. She built competence in her articulation skills. She definitely worked on those, but she also built competence and brought with her a backpack full of competencies from her previous experience. She got really good at video editing, she's good at scripting. She's good at understanding human psychology and getting into

Like ideal customer avatar type messaging, right? I'm sure she did this a ton in her old programs, but she was really good at figuring out how do I speak to the problem my person is having in language that makes them go, holy shit, they're in my head. I talk about this all the time. I call it the head nod effect. There's seven specific things that you need to get your audience head nodding around, where it's like, my gosh, she totally gets me. She does that really well. These are competencies that Jesse has and has built.

She, as I mentioned before, she also had a podcast. She'd gotten good at articulating her ideas and long form form content. And what I want you to start thinking about this for yourself is as you start growing your personal brand, you probably were really excited when you started, but there comes a point where you moved into that valley of despair, just learning of how much you need to learn. Whether it's learning about sales copy, it's learning about funnels or right now, learning about AI or learning about short form video, learning about hooks, learning about

Hitching. there's all these different things that you didn't realize that you need to know until you realized you didn't need to know, like you needed to know it, right? I was a mouthful, but you followed beyond that, right? What I what I want you thinking about is if you find yourself getting down on yourself or getting jealous of other people, I want you to stop focusing on shit that you can't control and start focusing on the controllable, which are competencies. What are the skills?

That will serve you? What are the skills that are gonna take you to the next level? And I think this is something that Jessie has done so well. And it doesn't have to do with positioning or offer design or marketing and all that shit. She's learned how to pack her bag with skills so she can stay nimble and react to what, like wherever her personal brand is taking her.

She's committed to a year of saying yes and trying new things. And in order to do that, you can't like overplan your way to success. And even for you, if you have a direction around your expertise, you can't, you can't plan your way to success. You only can do it through action. And in order to take action, you have to have confidence, but you sure as hell have to have competence. This is not just a roller coaster that you jump on and hopefully like take off and go uphill and succeed. Like you have to take the steps necessary.

Now, one of the things that I wrote down in my notes here that I wasn't sure if I wanted to say, but I I think Jesse would be okay with me saying this. A huge part of her success in this launch, and then we'll get to this next piece in just a moment, but a big part of this was luck. And I don't say luck as like a fluke situation. I firmly believe in the definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I don't know who originally coined that, but like it's very true here. Jesse prepared her ass off. She

Built the skills. She got confident. She made the camera her bitch. She learned who our ideal client was. She started speaking to them in very specific language that they used. She built, as she talked about, a freaking vibe on her Instagram. When you watched her videos, there was a vibe around how she showed up. And when the opportunity came, when she saw that, my gosh, people are interested in this, she did not overthink. She did not like.

plan her way out or try to build a funnel or try to map out a launch with a pre-launch and a this and like all those things, yes, are important. But she just took action and kept following the like following the the little like I think about pulling on a thread that's sticking out of your sweater. She just kept pulling the thread and it and it worked. And it worked to the tune of $1.2 million. And I I just think there's a really beautiful lesson here around all of us to stop overthinking shit.

And start listening to our audience and start taking action. But as we take action, you gotta have the confidence, but you have to have the competence. Build the skills. So within all of this, right, I I wanna share this. The reason why I joined the Yap Challenge, which by the way, I've been sick for the last two and a half weeks, so I haven't actually dug into any of it beyond the first few videos.

But I will be. and I'm happy to share with you of my experience along the way. And you'll probably start seeing me talk a lot more. I mean, I've been much more active on Instagram in the last six months than I have been in the last year. But this is what I wanted to share with you. The the turning point for me was on the last day of her card open for the first round. And I was watching her stories and I started digging into some research because I was like, I don't know what's going on here. And then I I realized, my gosh, she had a business before. And I'm like, my gosh, wait a minute.

This whole messaging had been around. I just started my account in November, but she had a business before. And I started really digging into it and realized that she had been sharing all of this along the way. And her integrity and her transparency and her sheer humility had been consistent the entire time. She had never hid anything about her experience. It was just not a lot of us saw it because we didn't see every single video. So I thought, you know what?

Let me take a slice of humble pie. I have a lot to learn to get better at the skill of short-form video. Now let me be clear. I'm good at video. I mean, I'm I'm been, I don't not gonna publish this video, but I've been staring directly at a camera recording this whole thing in Riverside today. I'm on video right now. I have no problem anymore talking the microphone, talking on video. I have no problem like creating video for social media anymore. However, it is a skill and a competency that I really want to make.

My bitch. I really want to get much better at getting attention, not for the sake of attention, but I know the content and the things that I want to do in this world. The things that I want to share, the way that I want to help people, I want to help people live better by speaking better, by building better businesses. Like I I want people to step into this next era as stronger leaders. And I'm still articulating what this next era of my business looks like, but I know.

That I'm humble enough to learn. And I know that learning new skills and practicing new skills and surrounding myself with different types of teachers is important. So the thing that really stood out to me was I've learned from the quote unquote experts, and I'm very grateful for that, but I have never learned from someone who is in the thick of it and literally teaching in the same lane as me. So I know I have a lot to learn. And so I joined

I'll be honest with you, like 10% wanting the content and 90%, I wanted to be part of the vibe. And this is what I this is what I'm gonna I'm gonna pause on this episode and actually do a part two because I have I have a s a specific breakdown that we're gonna riff on around as you're building out your personal brand and getting more visible. I have I put together a recipe and this has less to do with Jesse and more around what I teach. So we'll do a part two where we actually systematize some of this around.

building the engine that helps you with not just your communication skills, but your visibility. So it all works together. So let's do that as a part two next week. But I wanna, I wanna leave you with with this thought here. I am I'm at the point in my life and the point in my business where I am no longer willing to hang around people who spend their time griping and bitching about other people and what's not working. I like I don't have time for it. I also see no value in it. I wanna hang around with people who are having fun.

I want to hang around with people who are seeing the good around them. I want to hang out with people who are delusionally optimistic about their future. And not because we're not realists, not because we're like have our head in the clouds, but because it's much happier to be optimistic chasing your goals than it is to be the worrier and be the planner and trying to have all the safety nets. And it just gets so stressful in that world. So

The reason I joined the app challenge is because I want to be around people who are just doing cool shit, who are willing to eat shit and have fun doing it. And I think this is this is the thing that worked really, really well for her is she built an awesome community of people who, yes, wanted to hang out with her, but they wanted to be in that vibe. I've said that word or that phrase, that vibe, quite a few times on the episode. It's been intentional.

This is one of the things that Jesse talked about inside the app challenge is she was very intentional from day one that she wanted to create a corner of the internet where it was a it was a vibe. It was like a like a place people wanted to hang out with. It was a place that just people felt good in. She never wanted to be the authority or the expert or like she was up on a pedestal. She just wanted to like kick the shit with cool people and attract cool people into her world. And she's done that. And she continues to do that inside the challenge.

all of her videos, I'm like, holy shit, she spending so much time editing them with like cool music and graphics and stuff that creates a vibe. And I want to be in that because I want my energy to be aligned with people that I admire, that I respect, that I can learn from, but I want to feel good when I'm around others. You know, the expression is that you're the sum of the five people you hang out with most. It's hard to think about that our digital environment really impacts that.

And I am way intentional in the groups and the spaces and the people that I hang out to, and the people that I boxer with. Like, I if it's not a good vibe, I'm not here for it. I'm I'm not gonna apologize. I'm just gonna peace out. Like I I wanna be in good vibes. And I think this needs to be a strategy that more people follow this year is surround yourself with people that make you feel good. Now, asterisk. I don't mean surround yourself with people who are quote unquote like

Where you're better than them. And so you feel better because you're farther ahead and more successful. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm I'm saying surround yourself with people who are having quality conversations, talking about things that you care about, making you think bigger, making you show up better, making you feel better about the progress that you're making. You should feel good when you're around other people because you're growing together. That's the kind of community that I want to make. That's a big part of this show and this new direction in my business of morphing from.

speaking coach for coaches and course creators into high performance coach specializing in communication for visible leaders. Well that actually sounded pretty smooth as I said it, but I am still figuring out what that looks like. But what I know to be true is I want to be the place, especially in this podcast, where you come not to like get the T or to learn the tactics. I want you to come and I want you like filling up on this podcast and walk away speaking better. I want you thinking better. I want you leading more boldly. I want you living

better. I want you to feel like you were a b better version of yourself after spending time with me. And like, you know, the expression leave him better than you found him. That's that's my that's my vibe. I want any time I interact with someone, whether a piece of content or a podcast or an email, I want to leave you better than you found me. And that's a huge reason of why I joined the Yap Challenge. But all this to say I woke up this morning, today is Tuesday as I record this Tuesday, January or June, January, June 23rd.

And Jessie did an encore launch of the Yap Challenge. It was so successful and she had so many people begging her to get it. And it wasn't one of those fake, like everybody's asking me about X, Y, and Z. No, she literally, especially after that TV appearance and all the hype after the launch, she shared last week, a couple days ago actually, that she'd opened up a wait list and that wait list had close to 32,000 people on it, on the wait list. And I had watched her marketing for the wait list and I had watched her

Talk about, please only join if you're actually serious because she needed to actually get clarity on how much room she needed with her tech platform. She opened up launch at 5 p.m. Mountain Time last night on Monday, and she did $100,000 within the matter of minutes, and she did $1.2 million in 70 to 72 minutes, she shared this morning in her Instagram stories.

at this point, she woke up this morning and she's done over two million dollars. And but the last I checked on her Instagram story, she hadn't checked it in a few hours. You think about this. like less than like a month ago, like a less than a month ago, like cart closed for her first round of the app challenge at one point two million. And when she opened up cart last night, she had already done one point two million in about an hour and she's already at two. Like

This is insane. She has done over three million dollars. I would not be surprised if this launch did close to five million or in total between both launches, five million by the time this wraps up. I just like holy, holy shit. Holy shit. And I see people, I'm gonna I'm actually gonna call this out here. I saw Jeff Walker, you know, the OG on launching.

I remember he responded a couple of weeks ago of somebody talking about how Jesse Jean's 1.2 million dollar launch was like a four million minute mile. And of course it wasn't like literally saying it was the biggest launch ever, but watching someone go from literally initially talking about a topic and then a hundred days later closing a one point two million dollar bond. Like that is insane. But I I saw Jeff Walker post something around like

That's not a four-minute mile. Those of us who have been around a while, yada, yada, yada, I was the original creator. And and he went on to clarify, and he actually posted a video on YouTube last week that I watched the first little bit. But I just here's what I know is I see a lot of people doing two things: wanting to share Jesse's success and write her coattails to posture themselves as an expert. And I hope that you know that was not my intention for me today, is to quote unquote use her name.

To make myself look better. If anything, I made myself look work worse today because I talked about how jealous I was and I had a my own little identity crisis. So but number two, I see a lot of people talking about this launch and then shitting on it. You right? Like I talked earlier, feeling the need, but you don't know the context. She did all this work before. She did like having to explain it. And I think we need to do better.

One, if somebody else's success makes you uncomfortable, I think that's a question that you need to sit with, just like I did, right? Why did her launch, why did her top, like why did that make me so fucking jealous? Well, it was because I was pissed at myself because I had had this idea, but I didn't have the balls to do it. That's not her problem. That's my problem. I I like one, I hadn't figured out short-term video. I don't know how to do that. Also, I don't teach people hooks in Instagram. I like, I don't even teach people that. Why was I even jealous, right? Just because someone teaches something similar.

Right. It was not even the same. And hell, even if it had been the same thing, her success does not take away my success. That that's my own baggage to unpack. And I think it's the same for anyone rolling their eyes and like, I'm so sick of people talking about yappy. Or I'm just if I hear another person, I saw somebody say this morning, if I see anybody who comments on this challenge during this round, I'm gonna block them.

I just, if that's where you want to put your energy, and if that's the attitude you're gonna have about other people being excited about someone else's success, you just go on, you you know what, you do you. Like, which that's the passive aggressive term, right? You do you, babe. Like anytime anyone says that, it's totally passive aggressive. It's just not for me. I I would much rather see someone succeed and then also know that obviously what we see.

On the surface, there's always more to the story, but we don't need to have the whole story and make sure everyone knows the whole story to say that's fucking killer that kicked ass. I I think I think we need to stop trying to worry about the nuance of everything and explaining, but what about this thing here? Or what about this thing there? Can we just let a moment be a moment and celebrate it and just all collectively choose to honor those moments and so we see more of those moments?

Like, let's stop shitting on other people's parades. Is that that's not the expression, but we're gonna go with it. and what if we just started like dealing with our own issues of why other people's success make us so uncomfortable? And I don't say that to I don't say that to bring anyone down. I say that because I lived it, right? I am a much happier person. I am in a much better place because

I asked myself the tough questions around why am I jealous? Why am I uncomfortable? Why is someone else's success success making me comfortable? And it wasn't about them. It's everything about me. And I think this is the I'm gonna pivot here and just end that line of line of thinking, because I don't have anything more to say on that. But the the here's the last thing and that I wanna say. I think there is a big masterclass for us to learn around how visibility and success.

Is going to stem up a lot of things in you. Other people's success is definitely going to stem it up, but also your own success is going to stir up a lot in you. And when you do get more visible and you do experience success, you have to be really intentional of taking stock of what's happening on the inside and how you react and how you handle it. And one of the things that I'm watching right now is I'm watching how Jesse handles all of this. And I'm

Can't help, but they're like, holy shit, would I have the grace to do that? Imagine having won that, the level of eyeballs she's having, right? We all say we want that level of visibility on Instagram, but to have that level of attention. And then how crazy would it be? Imagine your next launch, you closed the doors and you had a successful launch, but imagine a huge corner of the internet talking about you. Imagine people.

Debriefing your launch. Hell, I just did a over an hour episode just on this. Like I did not intend this to be this long, but like imagine so many people talking about you. And now you have the pressure of holy shit, I have to create the thing and I have to deliver. And then, my God, when am I gonna sleep? Like, I just imagine how riled up her nervous system has been over the last six weeks. And it's gonna continue through the month of July and into August as she finishes up the second round of the Yap Challenge. I just

I am sending, Jesse, I am sending so much energy to your way, so much love your way, because I know how hard it is to hold space for people. Granted, it's a hell of a lot more fun when you're doing something that you like, it feels fun, but energetically, that is a lot to hold, having all of that attention and all eyes on you. And then you ask the question around like, this is where the fear of, my God, can I do it again? my God, the fear of like what's next?

Right. And I'm gonna call it. I think Jesse is gonna be exactly who Jesse is, and she's gonna navigate this with Grace. And she's going to, whatever she does after this, whether she decides to make the Yap Challenge a thing that becomes her coined thing. I would bet though she's also gonna incorporate other things because she committed the year of trying shit to eat and shit. She she's gonna have the humility to try new things. And I don't think that she's going to.

Allow herself to have an identity crisis if she tries other things and they're not as successful as this. I'm gonna call that right now. I think she'll I think I think she's going to be very successful in whatever she does because she's built a very loyal community and a lot of mad respect and trust with her audience. but I'm I'm watching and I'm watching because I just I see a lot of grace, I see a lot of humility, and I see a lot of maturity in how she's handling all of this. And she's still showing up.

the same gal who showed up four months ago. She's not the same gal as where she showed up four months ago, but she in her heart she is. And it's it's pretty cool to watch. So I didn't mean to make this a fangirl little closer here, but I I'm choosing to see to see the qualities in people that are really awesome. And as I shared today, I think she's audacious as fuck.

I think she is a vibe. I think she is humble. I think she's got a backpack full of mad skills that she's learned along the way. And I think she truly cares about the work that she's doing and who she's helping. And all those things combined, I think it's really helped her succeed. And I think she's gonna continue to see succeed in the future. So, anyways, that's my take on the Yap Challenge launch. I it's just so I I'm geeking out. It's like the World Cup.

to watch here in launching. And I hope that this has been a valuable episode for you. if you have friends that you all been talking about the challenge or you think this would be valuable, feel free to share this episode. I hope this was helpful for you. And I I can't wait to hear your take, one, of what you noticed, but two, how today's conversation started making you think differently, starting to visit your own emotions when you're seeing things that make you uncomfortable, starting to ask questions around where you can be more audacious

Where you need to step back and maybe be a little more humble and put your ego aside. I I really hope that I I encourage you to think a little differently around visibility and success today. And as promised, I'll be back next week and I'll start I I have three more pages of notes that we didn't get to that we'll circle back. So we're gonna do part two next week where we're gonna talk about all right, how do you

channel your passions into a successful personal brand. And I'm gonna talk to you about how to get traction with your momentum, with your message. So, specifically, what I want to share with you next week is around messaging momentum. Whether you're doing short term video or you're doing stages, you're building your brand on your podcast, whatever it is where you're showing your body of work, I wanna talk to you about what's the recipe to get momentum, both with your confidence and your competence.

and overall to create the impact that you want to make. So that's a wrap on this episode of Hid to Hustle. I'll see you again next week, friend.