I take this silium husk. I don't know if you know what that is. It's like a sawdust. And it's like liquid Drano for your body. And it tastes like complete shit. And it's literally like sawdust. And you drink it and it acts as like a Drano in your body. And it just flushes your body out. But for some reason, I decided to take it before this. Yeah, so sorry about that. It's called Celian Mosque. It's supposed to be really healthy. It's supposed to be really healthy for you, but it doesn't sound healthy. I mean, there's something crazy in my life all the time. There's always something crazy going on. What's the craziest thing that's ever happened? Something. You know, there's been a lot of dumb things. I mean, if you watch the Banner Pump for the last nine years, I think I've done pretty much every episode, I've done something stupid on that show. But then again, it wouldn't have made the show. It wouldn't have made it what it is. I wouldn't have what I have if I didn't do those stupid things. Yeah, I did a lot of dumb things, but that led me into where I am today.

When I won that million, I was two million in death, barely hanging up. Tiktok has become an aggregator for some of the dumbest human actions. Here we go. Welcome to the Let Me Save You 25 Years podcast, not just another interview podcast. Instead, we jump right into a new Shana's in each week. Each one of these is a lesson I've learned, usually the hard way, along the way, in hopes that you can maybe learn from my mistakes and build great things, even bigger, better, faster than I ever did, perhaps shaving off a decade or two on your own journey to success. These are simply true principles and useful tactics for success in life, not just business, unpacking great depth by extremely successful people each week. My book, also called Let Me Save You 25 Years, where today's topic comes from, is intentionally really short. So think of this as the long version of the book where I can go even deeper into topics. I'm so excited about the insights from today's special guest, a model/ actor/realityTV sensation who puts our topic today into a whole new lens. Shana is in number 15 It's your fault.

Okay, so to set this up with a personal story from the book, I've just won a million dollars on national TV. Richard Branson, I'm his protege a President of Virgin Worldwide, do a stand traveling the world, meeting his CEOs, go back to Love Sack, keep growing it, open some locations, raise some venture capital on all of this success, riding high. I'm a local celebrity in Utah. Everyone knows my name because I'm like the local kid who want a million dollars on TV. And the first thing my venture capital partners want to do once in is bankrupt my company. Chapter 11, started over, go from 40 whatever locations down to 12, have to lay off most of the people, have to cut costs, have to get through a Chapter 11 reorg. And all of this is very public. I have to run the company while going through all this. There's people coming to the stores that know about this, reading it, it's like this is the same guy. Nothing more humiliating. I unpack it in great depth inside the book. It's just the worst time, worst time in my life. It really sets the stage for this, Sean Asen, to come to the forefront.

It's your fault. Whatever happens to you, whatever terrible events, bad timing, bad luck, learn to just own it. Own it all. The stuff you've done, the stuff you could have done, didn't do, the stuff that someone does to you. Can you find a way to take responsibility, stop blaming the world, and own it? If you can, then when things go great and everything starts working, and it does, life ebbs and flows, there's ups and downs, you can also take comfort in knowing it It's your fault. Successful people like working with other successful people. They like working with people who take responsibility. And so a few things to think about, whether you're an entrepreneur or not, Are you on a bus with mostly successful and capable people? Are they honest? Are they good people that you want to spend your life with building something? Whatever it is you're doing. Because if you find these are people that give excuses and make scapegoats every chance they get or are not transparent or not honest, you first have to question the bus you're on. But if you can get yourself on a bus with mostly good people and then find a way to make everything your fault, even things that are outside of your responsibility to some degree, find a way to take ownership of it.

When things go wrong overtly, apologize proactively and sincerely, and then brush it off and move past it. If If you can become that person, you are going to be a successful person in the story. The best part is when things finally do go right and everyone's celebrating and everyone's looking around, they also know whose fault it is when you take responsibility for everything anyway. And you don't need to take credit for all that stuff because there's so much credit to go around. You don't need to because it becomes obvious. And so this is a concept that can be hard to understand, one that can be harder to live out. And no one better to unpack this with us than today's guest. I'm really excited because we get into some pretty steep terrain. Enjoy. If you love your reality TV like my wife Tiffany does, and therefore I do by sharing a bedroom with her, then you know today's guest. He began his career as a model/ actor, and not the other way around, spending over a decade just getting by on his devastatingly good looks alone, from Europe to Miami, New York to Japan, but amassing credentials for appearing on TV shows like Desperate Housewives as Hot Guy number 2 in the official credits.

Having never been credited as a Hot Guy, Anything Myself, I'm not poking fun. I actually think this is super awesome. Even awesomer is that he was able to parlay his modeling/acting/restaurant worker career, not in just to being a star, but the star, perhaps on Bravo's Vanderpump Rules, detailing the exploits of the employees at various restaurants owned by the infamous Lisa Vanderpump, the only one perhaps more infamous on that show is this classic reality TV villain himself, and now, a ringleader of all the villains, perhaps, having pivoted yet again, and even more recently, into not only his own podcast, cast When Reality Hits with his beautiful wife, Brittany Cartwright, with whom he had his own spinoff show as well. But also now the headline of her House of Villains on E-Network. He helped make that happen. And as such an entrepreneur self-worthy to help me unpack today's Seanism in a way only he can. We welcome to the pod, Mr. Jacks Taylor.

Wow, that was a hell of an introduction, and I love it. I love it. I'm going to have to play that at night for myself. That was nice. I like that. Thank you for having me.

You're so much more than just a model/actor/hot guy number two. You are an entrepreneur. I mean, you're hustling. You have used your creative energy to take, I think, many negatives, as we all do as entrepreneurs, and spend them to positives. And by the way, just find a way to make it happen. You and I could unpack a bunch of different Shanaisms from my book. I think of there is always a way. I think of everything else is dust, your love for your family and everything you've expressed about your father and your thoughts there. We might get into that, but today's topic, it's your fault. So this is like a topic that's near and dear to my heart. And just catching up with you, I realize that it's really cool to see someone who I think a lot of people might perceive one way to to take ownership, to just own it. And I think that's one of the powers sometimes of people who are less kouth, who are less edited, who are more willing to say it like it is, like you say in your own in life and just own stuff. Just own the good, own the bad.

So when you heard the topic, It's your fault, and this idea of ownership, what's the first thing that comes to your mind from your own experience?

I lived in a lot of crazy crazy stuff in my life. But there's one thing I can do, definitely, I'm proud of myself for. It's everything that I've done, I've owned up to. I've said, You know what? I've done this. I screwed up. I made a mistake. We'll move on from it. I've never really denied anything that I've ever done. So when I heard this topic, I'm like, You know what? This is great because I want to tell people there's many mistakes you're going to make until you get to the top. And mistakes are good because you learn from mistakes. So people coming to Hollywood, people trying to get into reality TV, all the guest speaking I do at the different places I do, you need to make those mistakes. It's also It's really nice to talk to somebody who's gone down the road that I've gone on, so you can make less mistakes. But it's good to make those mistakes. It's good to get down to the bottom because if you don't hit the bottom, then you'll never appreciate what you have. And like I said before, I've gone through many peaks and valleys, and after I left Banner Pump, I went down to the bottom, but I needed to do that.

I needed to hit ground zero for me to get where I am today and to feel comfortable in my own skin again and just to feel good because there was many times on Banner Pump rules that I was not comfortable in my own skin. I was just doing what... I was just doing that. They weren't yelling at me. I called the producers, Am I in trouble today? Am I in trouble? No, you're good. Keep doing what you're doing. Click, click. Okay. As long as everybody else is happy, I'm happy. And even if I wasn't happy inside, the networks are happy. And at the end of the day, they're paying my bills. So you just got to keep doing what you're doing, even if you're not happy with yourself. But I didn't have that mentality. I didn't care a lot on that show. I was very selfish. I didn't care who I I hurt. I was in it to win it. I was the number one guy in the group. I still believe that I am today. And I just called people on their shit. Like I said, I shot first, I asked later. I made a lot of mistakes, but I also learned from all those mistakes.

And that's why I'm so happy to get back into TV again because I learned what to do and what not to do. And I needed to go through all of that to figure out how I was going to go through this new project that I had today. You need to make mistakes. If you don't make mistakes, you're not going to learn. I mean, you can go your whole life asking questions and trying to do the right thing. But if you don't personally go through the mistakes, if you don't personally see what it's like to fall, then you're never going to learn. Now I know I'm never going to go back to that because I know what can happen. I think I needed it. I had to look for the silver lining there because there was many times where I was just down in the dumps. I was depressed, especially my father died when I was filming the show. I had a hiccup with my now wife, but it was my girlfriend. I made some mistakes. Like I said, I thought I was untouchable. Sometimes you to poke the bubble of the untouchable people and realize, listen, you're no better than anybody else.

Even though you think you are, you're no better than anybody else. And I needed to hear that. I needed the growth. And I continued to watch the show. I didn't watch the show, I'm sorry. But after I was off the show, I would hear things that were going on. And I was like, you know what? I'm so glad I'm not in that picture anymore because I would just keep going down that spiral. So when I developed this show, it was a little bit more... I call it a Vanerpump Rules 2.0. It's like the next chapter because how many times I I love Vanerpump Rules. It's given me everything. I'm back on the show now. But how many times are we going to continue to do the same things, the cheating with your friends at the same clubs doing this? It's time for a little refresh. Same concept, some of the same people, but the next phase of your life. I mean, if you're not moving, you're not changing, you're just feeling... I feel like it's a dead horse. You're just beating a dead horse. Who's going to cheat on who this season? I feel like there needs to be some growth.

People getting married, people having children, people starting businesses. Because there's people my age that are like, Jack, are you ever going to grow up? What's the next phase? We need to see what else to do. So that's why you're going to see me starting businesses. You're going to see me raising a family, going to Daddy Daycare, talking to other people about raising children, things that I would never talk about in the past that I'm talking about now. And I feel like people need to see that. They want to see the growth. They followed me for the last 10 years. And all of a sudden, I left TV for two years. They're like, wait a minute. He got married and he just left. Now it's been two years. I have a two-year-old. We went through a pandemic. There was downfalls. People want to know what happened. So that's why I said, there's a show here to be made. There's a show here. And I pitched the show. They loved the idea. There was enough time that went by. I had a break mentally. My mental health was not in a good place. And it wasn't any part of the show's fault.

It wasn't any part of the reality show's fault. It was my fault. I put myself in a position that I should not have been in. Again, I needed a piece of humble pie, and I needed somebody to knock me down a few notches. And And like I said, it was my own fault. And I had to look at the silver lining there, and that's where we are now. And I'm glad where I am right now. I'm sorry, I'm ranting on. I'm just trying to get all that information out.

No, I love it. It's great. I love what you said a minute ago. It's my fault. That's really the spirit of today's episode.

And I think- It was all my fault. Everything was my fault. And like I said, I think there's such a learning thing there. There's such a thing that be said there to find... When you think you're on top of the world, and then the world says, no, you're not, and pokes you down, puts you on the bottom. That part, when you're on the bottom, is the place where you need to grow. When you hit that rock bottom, you can go one way or you can go the other. You can blame everybody. I can blame the networks. I can blame Bravo. I can blame my cast. Or I can say, you know what, Jack You effed up. You fucked up. You're the only person that made this happen. You can either cry about it or you can fix this or you can rise above.

So here's my question for you. Were you able to do that out the gate or did it take you some time before you were able to own it and admit these things were your fault? Tell me about that.

Yeah, because I put the blame on everybody else in the beginning. I was like, no, I blamed my friends. I blamed my family. I blamed my friends on Bravo. And it was nobody's fault. It was nobody's fault. It was nobody's fault. I make my own decisions. There's a reason. They didn't just say, hey, it's time to move. I set ways with you out of the blue. There's something that I did that they didn't like. And it was my actions. It was the way I was acting. I was acting too cocky and I was too conceited, and I was too... Just wasn't listening. And like I said, even with a child or with you're growing somebody up, when you get to that level, you got to knock them down a few steps. You got to teach them that you're not better than anybody else, no matter what you think. And like, yeah, I just I needed it. And like I said, it was 100 % my fault. It's 100 %.

So how did you get there? How did you get from a place where you You could see reasons or excuses that it could be, like you said, the network's fault, the environment's fault, just the way it came down.

I was blaming everybody. There was nobody I could blame.

How did you make the change to owning it?

I sat in my man cave for many, many days thinking, okay, what am I going to do? There's options here. We're going through a time in the world where there's a lot of things going on. What am I going to do? Am I going to sit and cry about this? Am I going to go get a normal job? Am I going to move? I had many things going through my head. My wife is pregnant. What are we going to do? I talked about it with my wife, and she's the main reason why I'm still here today, and my son, too. She said, Listen, we're going to rise above this. Don't worry. This is just a small hiccup. Not a small. This was just a hiccup in life. She also knew. She goes, You needed this. You needed this. You were getting too big for your breaches. And I was putting her in situations that she didn't want to be in. And that wasn't fair to her. She's my wife. And I'm putting her in situations where you're like, She's going to these meetings enough to make your husband got a big ego right now. And I didn't want her to feel that way.

So I said, You know what? We just tucked our tail between our lights for a little while. I went under the radar, went off the grid for a month or two. And then I thought of some ideas. What am I going to do? Then this idea for the show, The Valley, came up and I go, Okay, we're going to start here. We're going to start doing good things. We're going to start being a good person. We're going to volunteer your time. You're going to help out here. You're going to just do things that make me feel good about myself. And that's what I did. I donated my time. I was volunteering. I was helping people. I was going out of my way to just do things that just made me feel good and that I can help others. When you do good things to other people, good things come back to you. And I was just feeling so good about myself. It took years for me to feel good about myself because when I was doing this show, I was not feeling good about myself. I was a machine. I was like, Everybody loves me for doing what I'm doing.

I'm just going to keep doing it, even though I can barely sleep at night. And it's just not the person that my mother and father raise. And I was becoming somebody that I really wasn't. I was blinded by the light, like they say in the song, blinded by the light. I was. I was blinded by all the glitz, the glamor, the fame, everybody knowing who I am. I was blinded by it all. And I needed to come back to ground zero and get back to my roots as a good person, as the person that my mother and father raised. And so I started there. I started there. I started saying, What can I do? What can I do to better other people's lives? And what can I do to help out? Where can I volunteer? Just things like that. And then gradually, when I was doing that, things were coming my way. And I was just feeling good about things. And I was like, man, this is so good. I can finally sleep at night.

Do you think that in your experience now, having come full circle, and now you've got a lot of things working, you've got a couple of new shows, I think. You've got cooking, you've got your podcast, you've got all these, of course, your family, number one, a lot of things working for you.

My wife's doing incredible right now. She's knocking it out of the park with all her social media stuff that she's doing. And yeah, with the bar and the influencing in our podcast and the book. I'm just very, very blessed right now that somebody upstairs decided to give me another chance.

So do you think in your experience, people have to go all the way to rock bottom in order to get to a place where they can really own it, where they can make it their fault as opposed to that blame game that everybody plays at some point? Or do you think that it could be avoided? That's the spirit of my book, right? Let me save you 25 years. Hopefully, you can learn from some of my mistakes so that you can save some. At the same time, we already talked about you're thankful for your mistakes because they bring you to where you are. But what do you think? Do you think it's possible to avoid getting to rock bottom and get to the place you're at now? Or is that just the way it has to go?

Yeah, listening to a podcast like this, of course. If I would have had somebody along the way saying, Hey, step back a little bit, or, Hey, pull back. You're getting here. This is where this could lead. This is where this could go. Somebody else was gone down the road that I went and said, Hey, this is what happened to me. This is where you're headed. You need to step back. You need to calm down. You need to go into the radar. Stop doing what you're doing, reevaluate, and go a different direction.

Would you have listened? Would you have listened, though? Do you know what I mean? In that mindset, if you could put yourself back.

If it was the right person saying it to me. Okay. Yeah, if it was... And it was. I had a couple of incidents when it was like that. And I thank God for my manager, Ryan, and my publicist, Laurie, and like I said, my mentor, Alex, those guys right there and my wife, those are the only people that I really trust in life, and my sister. It's the only people I trust. I talked to them and they knew where I was going. And they said, Hey, listen, just pull back a little bit. Listen to the people that know. And my publicist, Lauryn, and my manager, Ryan, they're in this business for a long time. They've seen people like me go down the wrong roads. So it was nice having them there. And it was nice having my wife by my side because she could have took off many times. She could have said, I'm not dealing with this. And I'm not dealing with your attitude or your ego and this and that. But she didn't. She saw something there and she knew I was just going through it. It's like anything else. You just got to rewire yourself.

I was used to a certain way for so long that I need to like, okay, I got to start over and I got to figure out a new path. That's all. And like I said, it was somebody... I thank God I had my wife and my manager and everybody there because it could have gone down a lot worse. It could have gone a lot worse.

That's great. I mean, what a blessing. I think, yeah, just to double click on a few of the things that you threw out there. It's interesting that you call out this idea of a right person because it's one thing to hear good advice if you even bother to listen or if you even bother to seek it out through podcast, through books, through friends, mentors, family. But if it doesn't come from the right person or a person who maybe can identify with the struggles you're dealing with, right? Because my struggles with whatever I was doing, building Love Sack, whatever, might be very, very different than what you were feeling as a celebrity, I'm guessing. I had 15 seconds of fame. I want a reality TV show. I don't know if you know that. I want a million dollars on TV with Richard Branson.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And I was famous in Utah anyway, nationally, but especially in my hometown for one minute. And it's interesting because I wouldn't even compare it to what you've experienced and being in the high of in LA. But what I learned, what I felt for that minute was that instantly people didn't care about my feelings anymore because I was rich. In their eyes, I was a rich guy. I was a famous guy. So it's like nothing could hurt me. But in reality, what hurt the most was feeling this vibe from people like it wasn't one of them anymore. It wasn't a human anymore. And that was a crazy thing to feel. And I only got a tiny little taste of it. So I can't imagine how that felt in your world.

Yeah. You don't know if people are there for the right reasons anymore. I have a very small circle, so you don't know if people are there for You don't know who you can trust. When you're going down these holes, on the outside, on social media, you look great. Nobody posts sad pictures in social media. Everyone's always happy. Usually when people are posting social happy pictures of themselves, and you see people loving themselves, that means they're usually going through something on the other end. That's what I always thought. Yeah, it's tough. You got to know who to trust, especially when you're at your high. It's fun. It looks great on the outside, but you don't have no idea what that person is dealing on the inside. You don't know what they're going through or what they had to do to get to the top. Like I said, I've experienced some incredible, credible highs and some incredible, credible lows. And like I said, if I didn't have my close core group of friends there, my manager, my lawyer, my wife, I don't know where I would be. And I'm just blessed to have them. And listening to a podcast like yourself, like yours, it helps.

It helps. And it has to come from the right person, though. You're right. It does have to come from the right person. It's not just people soliciting good advice because they just want clicks. It's got to come from somebody that you care about, somewhere where it hits home. And that's what it happened to me. It hit home when I got my own manager, my own wife, my mentor saying, You got to stop coming at me with my friends. Then it hits home. A random person or a random podcaster like that, it could hit home. But when you hit it from your friends and your family, that's a real... People that love you are telling you that you need to change your ways and stuff like that, that hurts. And I have a huge ego, and I hurt my ego. I had to tuck the tail between my legs and go, You know what? You're right.

One of the things that I try to talk about in the book a little bit on this topic of It's your fault, is this idea that it's really freeing when you just make everything your fault. It's easy to be like, Okay, well, that was me, but this is because it was a really bad situation, or this is really bad luck, or someone did this to me. And I love flipping everything and turning it to like, okay, someone did this to me. What could I have changed? So either I wasn't in a position where they could do that to me, or did I somehow provoke them to do this to me, whatever was done to me? My point is, it's your fault means you can own everything. You can even own the bad stuff that happens to you. And whether or not it's 100 % true or I believe it's very freeing just to take extreme ownership like that. Have you experienced that as you've recovered from your lowest of lows?

I agree. I used to be very defensive. I used to be very... Nothing was ever my fault. And that was just awful. And I guess as soon as I started accepting that and being like, okay, well, hey, take ownership. Are you responsible? Yeah, you're going to screw up in life. It's life. Life is freaking hard. It's hard. You're going to make decisions. There's things that you're going to see that you're going to want to do that you shouldn't do. It's very tough. It's tough. And you got to make the right choices. And if you don't make the right choices, you got to own up to it, especially as a grown man. I'm not a kid anymore, especially as a father, as a husband. It's just tough. Life is fucking hard. It's fucking hard. And I feel like the greater you do, sometimes it gets harder. People think, how can your life be this hard? You're on a television show. You got all this, you got a beautiful home, you got money in the bank. Well, it took a long time to get there. It's harder to stay on top than it is to get there, too.

So it was tough for me because it all came crashing down. And then, first off, my head always goes financial. What's going to happen now? What are we going to do to pay our bills? And we weren't really that bad off. But in my head, I always make things worse than what they are. I always have to have a plan A, a B, a C, and a D, always in life. And I'm just the type of person that I need to have X amount of dollars in my account, X amount of dollars in this account. I need to be making X amount of dollars every month to be where I am. And I got in my head with my finances and stuff like that. And I had to learn to set back and be like, it's okay. It's okay to mess up. It's okay to make mistakes. You're learning as you go. You're taking ownership. Just keep going. You're on this right path. Somebody was telling me I'm on the right path, even though I was changing my ways and some things weren't happening for me that were great, some things weren't. I was relearning, if that makes any sense.

I was relearning at 40 years old. I was 39, 40 years old and relearning, which is tough to do. You got to relearn. And not really relearn. I knew how to be a good person. My parents raised a good person. I came to LA and lost all that when I came here. And I did a lot of bad things. And I lost my way. And I feel like after my father passed and then after losing the show, I felt like, okay, this is a way to find my way and get rid of that old Jacks, get rid of that person. Yes, the world may have liked my antics. Joe Schmo in Ohio may I love watching what I do on TV, but it's not making me happy. And is it really worth my mental health or the finance? You're making a lot of money, but your mental health is shit. And it's just like, I just couldn't do it anymore. And I feel like, yes, I'm starting again from ground zero and I'm working, but I'm so proud of everything that I'm doing right now. And I've never been proud of myself. And I'm getting emotional thinking about this.

I can't remember the last time I was proud of myself. And I think starting this show and building a podcast and opening a bar. I'm so proud of these accomplishments because I did them on my own at ground zero. I worked my ass off to get these things when I was at my worst, when nobody wanted me. So it's a lot easier to be on top of the world and be like, Oh, I can do this and this and that because everybody wants it. Try doing it when nobody wants you. Try doing it when you're feeling like shit. Try starting a business that way. It's tough to do. It's really, really tough. And I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of myself for how far I've come, for the hole that I was in Man, I was going through some rough times. I wasn't talking to my mother. I still don't talk to my mother, but I lost my father. I lost my job. My wife was pregnant. I mean, does it get any worse, really? So to be able to pick yourself up from that and do what I've done, I think I'm going to pat myself on your shoulder a little bit.

Well, look, so this is the point of this phrase, it's your fault. The bad stuff, it's your fault. Just own it. The good stuff, it's your fault, man. You built it. And I think often, and I love that phrase because often we don't give ourselves enough credit or sometimes take enough credit or get enough credit. But like LoveSack, I use this in my own company. If LoveSack's culture drifts and falls apart. I own it. I'm the CEO. But I also challenge my people who work there to own it as well. They're contributing. Make it feel like your fault. On the other hand, if Lovesack crushes it, it's your fault. You did that. You built that. Not It's just me. I'm talking to the people that work there. And I think in your case, I love what you said. You've made money. You've made a ton of money at different times. You've probably felt, reading up, you felt the crushing weight of debt at different times. It's all your fault. But the reality that you created, Jacks, where you were in a scenario where you were having success by that standard, but miserable in certain realms and not feeling proud of yourself, they're They're both your fault.

So then you have to just turn it into a reality that you can be proud of. And I think that process is something that I'd love to dig in just a little further. I think it's so fascinating because it's not like, oh, you did this and you did that. So the typical hero's journey where you had some hard times and then you used grit and got through it. Sounds to me like you actually made a conscious effort to start volunteering, to start spending your time in different ways, to maybe surround yourself with different people and get to a place where you could open yourself up to a little bit of luck, to some good things happening. And I think that that's really fascinating to me. Once you finally took ownership, stop blaming. And then it wasn't as simple as that. You had to do some things. Tell us a little bit more about that process. Things you did, tactics you used to get to that place where you could have success the way you wanted to.

How I got to where I am right now. Like I said, once you hit ground zero, there's really nowhere else to go. So you can sit and play victim or you can say, Listen, I'm going to change my ways. I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to listen. I wasn't listening. I mean, I still have a problem with that now. You can ask my wife, I have a hard time listening. It's just my father was like that, my grandfather. I have a hard time listening. My mind is going a mile a minute all the time. I'm talking to you, but in the back of my mind, I got laundry, I got to pick up my kid from school, I got this. For the life of me, I cannot turn my brain off. I would pay a lot of money right now just to turn my brain off for five minutes. I just can't do it. I can't. But I'm learning. I'm trying to control it. I'm trying to be there more for people that need me, that need an ear for me to listen, for me to give advice. For my employees, now that I have employees that I'm responsible for that have to make a living as well, I'm there for them.

I'll stay an extra hour at work. I will help you do your job. What can I do to help out other people? I feel like the more I help people, the more I volunteer, The more somebody needs my help or whatever, I just feel like the better things come to me. I don't know if that's a selfish, selfless or selfish. I don't know. Doing things so you feel... I don't know. I don't know if that's a bad thing to do things. Doing things for other people so make you feel better. Is that bad?

Listen, it's a truth. I won't call it bad. It is a core truth. Listen, call it whatever you want. It is a reality.

I wish I would have figured this out sooner because I would have done it sooner. And if it's a bad thing, then you know what? I don't care. I love I'm helping out people now. I love not being so stubborn, not being such an asshole, taking the extra minute to listen to somebody. I have to work a little bit hard with my wife right now because I've spread myself so thin right now. The problem I'm having right now, if there's a problem, is that I'm spreading myself very thin. And I'm not taking the time out now to... I'm missing the family time. I'm not spending enough time with my wife. And that's tough to do because you're starting all these businesses. You want everything to go well. You want to be there for everybody. But you also forget that you got a family at home. I have a son. I have a wife that needs me. I need a wife that needs to go on dates once in a while. And I put that on the back burner. And that's what I'm working on right now is trying to manage all my time. And it's so hard to do, especially when you start a family, you start businesses.

But that's the problem we have now is I need to manage my time, especially with my wife, a little bit better, and I got to figure out how to do that. And it's okay to say no to things. That's a problem I have, too. I'm a yes man. I turn out to say yes to everything. Can I do it? Probably not. I'll take on four projects in one day. Can you do it? No. But I'll say yes because I don't want to disappoint anybody. I hate doing that. I hate disappointing people. And I'll say yes and I'll figure it out later. And then you end up screwing yourself because you took on four projects and you do them all half-ass and then people are mad at you. So I got to learn to say, hey, it's okay to say no to certain things. I'm having a hard time with that. I'm learning. I need to learn to prioritize my time with my wife a little I got to get back to the roots of when we used to date. I lost that a little bit, and that happens. That's marriage. But I just got to find that a little bit.

Those are the things that I'm dealing with now, if we're being honest. But everything else is okay. I think I'm starting to spread myself a little bit thin But that's just the workaholic in me. I love constantly working, going, going. I'm never satisfied with now. I shouldn't be super satisfied. I got a beautiful home. I got money in the bank. I got a beautiful wife. I got a son that's just gorgeous. I have a hard time living in in the present. I'm always like, All right, what's next? What's next? And I can't sit down and just enjoy what I have. I have most people's dream home. This is my first home. This is usually people's third or fourth home before they get to a home like this. This is my very first home. And I can't tell you the last time I sat and just enjoyed my house. I just love to live in the now and it's so hard for me to do.

I will say this listening to you. The fact that you're even saying these things out loud, let alone on a podcast with others, potentially Actually listening, is why you will answer those questions and challenges successfully. People ask me for a long time, what's the secret to success? And in some form or fashion, they ask that question. And my answer for a long time has been self-awareness. And I think people are just unwilling to be honest. I love this is one of the super powers of someone like you, shoot first, ask later, is even with yourself, when you're finally willing to be humble enough to just be honest, Hey, my My marriage might be struggling in this realm. Okay, the fact you're saying that out loud really makes you a great candidate to make a few good decisions, maybe say no to this or that thing, get on that date, spend that time necessary to keep it going. And by the The way it never ends. We're constantly juggling these things and making really hard decisions on a day to day, minute to minute basis. And that's why they pay you the big bucks. You're the CEO of your own life.

Being a CEO is hard. But when you're unwilling to admit it and to say these things out loud, you have no hope. You're just going to fumble through, make bad decision after or just decision after decision. Many of them will be bad.

And that was the old me. If you want to talk to me five years ago, there's no God, I would never say any of this. I would be like, no, everything's great. I'm the best. Everything's wonderful. But there's an underlying there. And I feel like, especially in today's world and how everything's fast, it's okay to talk about it. It's okay to say, Listen, I'm struggling here. Even the most successful people, they struggle. There's always going to be a struggle somewhere. And I feel like it's okay to be a little vulnerable and say, Hey, it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to say, Hey, am I doing the right thing? It's okay to be, You know what? I need to work on A, B, and C in my life. D, E, not G, are doing great, but I need to work on A, B, and C a little bit better. The most important things. Yeah, this part is doing great and you look great on paper, but your foundation, your wife, your marriage, your child is that good. And that's the most important thing, obviously, your family. In my head, I'm like, okay, to keep my family happy, I need to make X amount of dollars.

To keep everything going smoothly, I need to make X amount of dollars. So my focus needs to be on work. What can I do? What jobs can I start? What companies can I start to make sure that my family is happy? Meanwhile, my family is already happy with who I am. They do. But in my head, I'm like, they're not going to be happy unless we have this much in the bank. Okay, if I just make this much more money, okay, I'll stop. If I just make a little bit more, I'll stop next month. And I just can't do that because I'm constantly We're going.

Well, and I feel like you're at ground zero for comparison, man. I mean, LA, especially, but everywhere. There's that famous quote, Comparison is the thief of joy. And I've had the chance in my life to know a few billionaires, 100 millionaires, lots of wealthy friends. You know plenty of wealthy, successful people, successful financially. There's just always a bigger boat, man. There's always a bigger house. There's always a better view. There's always more cars, a better car. And it will literally never end. Even if you're a billionaire, it doesn't end. There's a better spacecraft.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and I read a lot of books and stuff. Those guys aren't as happy either. They're not happy either. It's all just stuff. And it's like, I know it's hard to look past the stuff to see the big picture because life is so freaking short, man. It's so freaking short. My kids are already two and a half, going to be three. He's at school. I just remember At the hospital, I feel like yesterday, pulling them out. And I feel like life is going by so fast. And I feel like if you don't stop for a minute, what are they saying, Farris Buhler? I think there's a quote there. Farris Buhler, if you don't stop in a minute, it's going to pass you by. We don't take any of this shit with us when we die. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. And I have to remember all this that I'm telling you right now, I have to remember. And it's a lot easier said than done. It really, really is. And like you said, I live in a state of comparison. That's why on my Instagram, I've muted 95 % of my Instagram.

I try to stay away from it because it gets easy just to go on there and be like, I could be doing this. I could start this or this person does this. The people that I follow now are more motivational. I follow a lot of just motivational stuff and stuff that's funny about dads or something like that. But other than that, I stay away from all the Instagram because I was getting in a hole with that, too, because like you said, I was comparing. Comparing, why does my kid have this? Or why am I not here? How come I don't have this much money? Or how come this person is doing this and I'm not doing that? It's so easy to do. And it's like you just need to stop and be like, relax. It's life. It's just relax. Be happy in the present with what you have. There's people out there that would kill to have what I have, that would give anything to have what I have. And I have to realize you're doing well. You're doing okay. It's okay to take a break and take a breath. It's okay.

And not only that, but take credit for it. When it is good, it's not just the bad. It's your fault mentality. As we said, it's not just the bad stuff that happens that you got to take ownership for. You have to take a minute and be like, look, this beautiful life you've created, this beautiful family you've managed to hold together, mostly even if you've had moments like we all have where it's tough, it's your fault.

I don't care how long you've been married or whoever. And this is not me just being talking about it. Every single marriage goes through an up and down, goes through something. That's just normal. That's life. And I don't even want to meet the person that has never gone through that. I feel like that's growth and that's just part of life, especially if you want to be successful. We're men and we're driven on starting companies like that. That's going to happen because sometimes our priorities go other places because we want to be so successful for our families. And I want to supply It's not that I don't want to spend time with my wife. I want to spend every waking moment with her. But I just want to create a world where she's proud of me, where she's got everything that she needs so she doesn't have to worry about anything. I grew up that way. My grandfather was that way. My father was that way. We We just want to take care of our families. And sometimes we just realize it's okay to stop. It's okay to slow down. You don't have to have every deal.

You don't have to start every business. It's okay. And I feel like it was just driven in us. I'm 44 years old. It was driven in my head from such an early age of success, success, success, go to school, do the right thing, make money, support your family. And I know that's maybe an old way of thinking now because everything's night now. Women are going out there making just as much as not. But I just grew up like, where the man takes care of your family. And my wife, she says this all the time. She's like, I do pretty well, too. Actually, my wife does better than I do. And I always forget that. And I'm like, I know, I know, but I don't want you to do that. I want you to stay at home and just be happy and not have to stress about everything. Let me do all the work. And I think that's just such an old-school mentality, but I've had a hard time breaking that.

So coming back to the cocky jacks that so many people knew from Vanderpump and thinking about that for one second, because you spoke about that, How does one balance this idea that's so popular, like manifestation? Like, oh, what I put out in the world, I'm going to get back. And with the idea of staying humble, being self-deprecating, being more owning it? How do you think you deal? Because I think there's power in both of those things. Have you ever thought about how do you balance that, especially as someone- You got to balance it because I'm known.

Let's be honest, I'm known for being a villain. I was I was the bad guy. I was the guy that everybody liked to watch because I was a loose cannon, runaway train, whatever you want to call it. Is that guy still there? 100 %. He's never going to go away. I just have to work extremely hard to suppress him. And he can come out once in a while, and he does. He comes out again. I just have to work extremely hard. It's like an alcoholic or it's like anybody else. They're always going to be an alcoholic. They just have to work really hard not to be. It's always going to be there. If you're this person, this person, this and you want to change, you can change, but that person is always still there. It's like a drug addict. They can be off drugs for 10 years, drug free. But that drug addict is still there. He's still there. I believe in change. I do believe people can change, but I feel like the original person is always going to be there. And I feel like for me, I have to work really, really hard.

My father always used to say we would give us Christmas cards or birthday cards. He would always say the same thing every single year, make good choices. And I have it tattooed on my arm. In his handwriting, make good choices, love dad. And that was always the thing with him, make good choices, just make good choices. And that's what I think about. If I'm doing something that maybe I shouldn't be doing or I don't know, I'm on the fence, I have to look down at my forearm and I read, make good choices, love dad. And this tattoo has helped me out so much. And I have to be reminded. I have to be. I'm 44 years old. And until I'm 100 years old, I'm always going to have to remind myself to make good choices. It doesn't come easy like you or anybody else who just automatically knows to make the right choice. It doesn't happen for me. I'm always going to look for that corner to cut. And I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to.

One thing I love reflecting on is what you've now created with your new shows, with your new businesses, your bar, your family, everything. What I've created with Love Sack is nothing more than the product of my choices or our choices or people's choices. It's all just choices and the product thereof. And I think that's really powerful. Another thing that I think is powerful from what you said, you answered my question in a roundabout way, which was a real question, how to balance, let's say, manifestation making things happen by putting out the universe with staying humble and staying grounded. And I think there's power tying it back to it's your fault in saying both out loud, both, listen, I'm the man. I can do this. I got this, whatever it is, and owning it and saying, like you said, I have these drug addict tendencies, so to speak, metaphorically speaking. I'm this person inside. I need to be really honest with myself. I have a tendency to screw this up. I have a tendency to talk too much. I have a tendency to not listen. When you own it as your fault, both the good and the bad, I think you're able to both have the confidence and ego necessary to go forth and manifest things and do big things and and good things, as well as stay grounded simultaneously.

And that is the art to say them both out loud, therefore be held accountable for it. Just by you putting this out there, you become a hypocrite if you don't live up to some of this stuff. And you know it. Even if other people don't hold you accountable, you are more likely to hold yourself accountable because you put that out in the universe. And I think there's real power in that.

I agree.

That's amazing. Well, look, having met you, I got the opportunity to meet you at a love sack event. It was so cool. By the way, your couch is the best couch in the entire world.

My absolute favorite thing in life to do, favorite thing in life to do is absolutely nothing. That's my favorite thing to do. And after I get my daddy jobs done and my wife, my honeydew list done. I'm on that couch as soon as possible. I love my couch. My friends love my couch. I'm very protective of my couch. I don't let anybody just on it. But that is my sanctuary. And I think you made the best product. I'll never have to get another couch for the rest of my life. I mean, it's the best couch ever. And like I said, everybody who comes over loves it. And it's this amazing product. Like I said, my wife and I and my son spend a lot of time on it. So everybody out there listening, there's two things in life you should spend a lot of money on. That's your couch and your bed. That's where we spend a lot of time. So anyway, love your product. And yeah, it's the most amazing thing ever. We love it.

No, thanks. That means a lot. I feel honored to be part of this family that you're building, and you're building publicly through your shows, through your presence, through your wife's presence on social media. I feel really honored to be at this epicenter of your life, even as a silent partner there in your living room. To me, that means a lot. And I think there's power in that. And I think that when I met you and we chatted a little bit. And I think you were in that transition period back in 2020, probably when we met.

Yeah, I was in that transition. I was going through it then. I was really, really going through it then. And that's when things were starting to... I was still at rock bottom there. And I was just trying to figure out a way out and things like that. And then getting back out in the light and go into events like as yours and stuff and getting back out there because I was just hiding. I wouldn't go to anything. I wouldn't go to anything that I was invited to. And my manager was like, enough is enough. You got to get yourself out there and stop feeling sorry for yourself. And your event was awesome. Loved it. And I needed it. That was my kickstart right there. That event, actually.

Wow. Well, I'm honored. And I also sense, look, man, I think that as much as people There will always be people who will love to treat you as a villain no matter what because it's fun for them.

That's all right. I don't mind. I am a villain. I built my brand.

I sense there's a lot of depth in Jacks, as you've displayed, that people would never give you credit for necessarily certain people. And by the way, it's not just Jacks. There is the same depth to every human soul. There really is. And I think that people are sometimes in a bad place or express themselves poorly or do things that are judged by others or, by the way, just aren't developed enough at that moment in time to reveal that depth. But it's always there, like you said. It's always there for every human, actually. And that's why I love the idea that if we're honest enough, as you've demonstrated on this call, to own it.

But you have to want to own it. You can't be like, well, I'll do it. You have to dig deep and be like, I'm going to own it. You can't just... For some people, it's harder than others. For me, it was tough. It was tough to sit there and be like, I own everything that I'm doing. I'm owning everything I'm doing wrong. I'm not blaming anybody. You got to want to. And once you do that, I can't tell you the weight that is lifted off your shoulders. It is incredible. It was like night and day. Once I just sat down and be like, You know what? I'm throwing in the towel. I'm owning everything. And it's just such a weight lift it off and you feel good about yourself. And you just feel so happy. I felt light as a feather. Once I started owning everything that I did, I just felt light as a feather. And it was such a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Because like I said, I was down in the dumps for so long. And for me to figure that out and still, like I said, going through the transition of trying to figure that out and not just only create these businesses, but to try to make my family happy and not spread myself too thin.

It's a work in progress. You're always going to be a work in progress. You're never going to be perfect. You just got to be You're aware and self-aware. You want to make yourself better. And I think that's a huge thing.

Well, congratulations for discovering so much of this on your own through your own life experience. I think we all have to learn these things. And that's the spirit of this whole podcast is I don't really believe I can save everyone from their mistakes. You said it early on this podcast, you're thankful for your mistakes that you've learned from them. But perhaps there were one or two that you could have avoided, that were particularly painful if you had learned some of these things a little sooner or maybe in a less painful way. And I think that is possible. I don't think people need to experience so much pain in order to get some of these lessons. And that's the spirit that we share all this in. So I agree, own everything, the good and the bad. Right. Both. Even the stuff that happens to you, figure out how you can own that. You didn't need to be in that position. You didn't need to be exposed expose yourself to that person or own it all. And in the end, the best part is, Jacks, that means there's no one to blame for the good stuff either, man.

All this good that's happening to you, it's your fault, Jacks. Right. Congratulations.

I appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Pretty cool. You can follow Jacks as I do at Mr. Jax Taylor on Instagram. Definitely listen to he and Brittany's podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, they are an inspiration, not just to parents everywhere, but for anyone who remotely finds pleasure in the back stories of all the juiciest reality TV gossip. Please don't forget to subscribe to this podcast or video. Please give it a star rating. Every little bit makes a huge difference. I have no advertisers just doing this for the content for you. Maybe share it out on social media to help others save a chunk off their own 25 year journey because you're just that a friend. Thank you so much to the VIP of Villains, the regal of reality TV, the Tsar of celebrity podcast couples. Thank you, Mr. Jacks Taylor.

Thank you so much for having me, Sean. I really, really appreciate it. And love to be back again sometime. And thanks again for such an amazing intro. That was amazing. It made me feel really good. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. And remember, to everyone listening, make It's your fault. It just might save you 25 years.

My trip that I do once a year to take my friends away, it should not be the budget for your bike across America.

Let me save you.

A lot of times, the next thing is not always next.

It's happening right now as well. When I won that million, I was 2 million in debt, barely hanging on.

Then all of a sudden, he comes running in front of the camera, the phone, drops his pants, drops his pants. Let me save you. Let me five years. Pants, drops his pants. This is a Sweet Fish production. Become your market's favorite corner of the Internet.