Deep Dive into Jared’s Life and Philosophy

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, It’s great to see you. It’s a big weekend in South Bend. Yeah, we got the USPGA going on. I know you’re going.

Cornelius McGrath: Yep, So really appreciate you making the time, and I know you’ve just got back from a bit of vacation So yeah, I thought this would be just a great opportunity to reflect on, I think, for the audience at home, one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met you are somebody who sees things that others don’t, you are one of the best relationship makers, curators [00:02:00] arbiter of social capital there really aren’t, there really, I do really run out of words to describe you, I think, the way you’ve built.

Cornelius McGrath: Your career is very non-traditional, but the way in which people speak about you and talk about you, I think, is something for the world to take note on. So I really do appreciate you, you making the time.

Jared Mrozinske: Of course, thank you, that was very kind of you.

Cornelius McGrath: And you’ve been a, you’ve been a big inspiration behind me starting the show, so it’s actually really fun for me to be here in your dojo and just gonna record something that I think will Be really powerful. So, as is Junto tradition at this point, seven episodes in, you know what the first question is, who the hell is Jared Mrozinske?

Exploring the Importance of Family and Relationships

Jared Mrozinske: That’s a tough one. I don’t know. How do you answer that without sounding egotistical? I would say this. I think I’m the end product when you surround an individual with two incredibly loving, caring parents who did everything in their power to make sure you were set up for success at the same time.

Jared Mrozinske: Who understood that you gotta fail too to learn from?[00:03:00] I think I’m the product of when you have a little sister who’s your biggest fan in the world, and you can’t do anything wrong in her eyes who loves you to death. Really treats you as a friend, more than even a sibling, and I think teaches you a lot growing up what it’s like to live with a girl, too, and the sensitivity that surrounds that.

Jared Mrozinske: And then, in the end, I’m fortunate to be a husband of a wife who could have been with anybody in the world, and chose to be with me, and spend her days loving me and having fun with me, I don’t really know who I am, but I do know that I’m surrounded by some incredible people. That’s for sure.

Cornelius McGrath: So I’m really interested, and I ask this question a lot, nobody’s talked about their family first. So why is that your answer to who you are?

Jared Mrozinske: I don’t know that; I don’t know that you aren’t that product of who you’ve been around. And I understand that not a lot of people.

Jared Mrozinske: We’re as fortunate as me not to have a family that’s [00:04:00] stuck together, loves each other, and cares about each other. And it’s I feel bad that’s not everybody’s case. I’m not trying to sound like I’m so great or so lucky, but I am; I’m super lucky. And so when you asked me that question, I don’t know how to answer.

Jared Mrozinske: I don’t want to say what my job is or anything, on the I love all of that at my core. That’s what I am. 

Understanding the World Through Connection

Cornelius McGrath: I love it when you look at the world. What is it that you see that nobody else does?

Jared Mrozinske: I think that when I think about the world, I think about people, and I believe there’s a deeper level.

Jared Mrozinske: That all of us don’t show one another. And I think we need to connect better. And I’m not saying more Facebook friends or LinkedIn fans, but truly connect. I wonder, I often wonder what great things are being missed because we’re not connecting. And we’re not being our true selves with each other.

Jared Mrozinske: I think the feeling of connectivity is this euphoric; there’s this awesome feeling in a state of ecstasy where I think that’s what [00:05:00] drives people. When you really feel like you’ve connected with somebody, think you feel better than you’ve ever felt. Yeah. And what I’m worried about is I’m worried about our online personas.

Jared Mrozinske: Being these highlight reels and never really showing what we’re really going through. A lot of times, I wonder what would happen if we became more honest and vulnerable with each other. How far would we go? That’s why I work to ask as many people about their stories as possible. And I’m willing to share mine and with anyone who cares to listen.

Jared Mrozinske: But by living that way, I’ve gotten where I am today, and I’m pretty damn happy where I am today.

The Impact of Honesty and Vulnerability

Cornelius McGrath: So is that tall? Your life is such a theme of connectivity. It’s effectively all that we talk about because it really is all that we have and all that there is. Was it taught? Was it Floyd?

Cornelius McGrath: Was it Connie? You’re a wonderful mom and dad. Was it your grandparents? Talk to me. You grew up in LaPorte, Indiana. Connectivity is the first word that comes out of your mouth.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, I, and it’s not like I was sat down, here’s, here’s what the alphabet is. Here’s what numbers are.[00:06:00]

Jared Mrozinske: Here’s what connectivity is. I don’t know that you can teach it. I think I just saw it lived out and played out. My mom and dad. Some of the best question-askers and storytellers, I think they get the most genuine, honest personas out of people. And I’ve always just I don’t know that I could even point to what they specifically do.

Jared Mrozinske: You just watch them have enough conversations in life. My father in law is the exact same way. My wife’s the same way. And I feel like I keep being surrounded by these incredible life interviewers to where the next time I’m out at. Let’s face it, more than likely a bar or, but anyway, really, it’s just fun to ask people questions and start getting stories out of them and really hitting it off.

The Power of Storytelling and Connection

Cornelius McGrath: And do you think why is stories interesting to you? I asked the question as someone that describes himself as a storyteller, but I’m interested. Is there something about stories that do something through you that allows you to access a deeper level in people that makes you keep coming back?[00:07:00]

Jared Mrozinske: That’s a good question, man. It’s tough to answer. It’s tough to point to; I always get X out of it. I just think people are really frickin interesting. And you mentioned I was on vacation. I had the privilege of golfing some incredible courses last week with some really good friends.

Jared Mrozinske: It’s just funny because the caddies have incredible stories; the one told me this incredible story of him caddying for Michael J. Fox once, and how inspiring that was; when I asked him, what’s your favourite caddy story, and he says, I don’t know about my favourite caddy story, but I can tell you the most inspiration I’ve ever seen in anything was when Michael J.

Jared Mrozinske: Fox shot 18 holes out here, and I was like, Jesus, I’m glad I asked that guy, right?

Cornelius McGrath: As opposed to what do you make?

Jared Mrozinske: What do you make? What do you do?

Cornelius McGrath: Who’s the most oppressive person you’ve ever met, right?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, just tell me your favourite story. I love asking bartenders that. What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened here? What’s the funniest thing? Tell me a great joke. They’re my grandpa; he passed when I was five. And I’m always told by family members how much I [00:08:00] like. I am to him, and it’s incredible when you think, for all intents and purposes, he was a tremendous influence on me.

Jared Mrozinske: I think he went to one t-ball game ever that he could make it to, and my last conscious memory of him was his birthday. When he was five, and, or when I was five, he passed the next day. And what’s weird is that one of my last best memories of him was the day before he passed, and to think I’m a lot like him is interesting, but when you hear stories, and the reason I bring that up is, you hear stories about what that guy did, and he screwed with people, he joked with people, he volunteered to bartend at the fight outs as a club user part of, he worked this company called Wonderland, it’s a local general store in our small town so he met everybody, everybody knew him, they called him the mayor, and he was never mayor, it’s just, but I think what was, and I’m, my middle name is Thomas after him, Tom.

Jared Mrozinske: And it’s just funny to hear the best things about him were because he got the best out of people. And I know he did that because he asked the best [00:09:00] questions and told the best stories.

Reflecting on Personal Growth and Identity

Cornelius McGrath: That’s fascinating because you’ve talked about your granddad a couple of times that we’ve known each other, and you’ve told some great story. He ran for office once upon a time, right? That’s a fantastic story. I feel like we have to talk about that.

Jared Mrozinske: He ran for city council, which is funny because I think I always had growing up, And not like growing up when I was five, like growing up through college, political aspirations, maybe still do. And I don’t know, but there’s this great story about him where he, yeah, everybody liked him.

Jared Mrozinske: And a lot of times, he’d be down at fight-outs bartending and just telling people what he would do. So finally they said, Tom, you should run for city council. So he didn’t really want to. I think he was happy to be. The jokester and the guy who pointed things out. And maybe when it was time to actually be the public official, maybe he felt like he was gonna lose a piece of that freedom.

Jared Mrozinske: But again, it was La Porte, Indiana. Small town. He could have the best of both worlds. So he ran. So he had [00:10:00] campaign, people helping him, and they said you really need to think of your platform. What you’re gonna run on? And about a year or two before he ran, there was this zoo in Fox Park in La Porte.

Jared Mrozinske: And for a year, they rented these I was from China or somewhere, they got it from the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, but These really special species of monkey that they had and they rented for a year, and it was a huge attraction to our town. So people from everywhere would come to La Porte to see this thing that was super rare.

Jared Mrozinske: It was rare that Chicago had a little La Porte, so everybody was super disappointed when they left. And for over a year, it just was the talk of the town. Man, wasn’t it great? When we had all those people here, and the monkeys were here, and people were coming to the zoo. And so, for his campaign slogan, all it simply said was, vote Tom Nelson. I’ll bring the monkeys back to Fox Park.

Cornelius McGrath: That’s unbelievable.

Jared Mrozinske: And he won [00:11:00] 80%. It was the largest the largest margin of victory in the board politics. And he did a great job when he was there, right? Goofball slogan, right? But everybody knew the guy, everybody knew he was legit, and I think it was so on-brand of him to even make fun of the whole idea of politics, right? But when he got in there, he did a lot of good for the community And that’s why people wanted in there in the first place.

Cornelius McGrath: So some Rhodesian monkeys effectively gave you your ass your taste for the political life. And I think that has such a deeper meaning for just what people to respond to, like we definitely take ourselves too seriously.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, and I think what you’re great at, I know we’ve got some good stories to tell on this point, is it’s just a little bit more lighthearted, getting people to crack a smile, open up and like you said, like you started your intro with. The story of your family, as opposed to the job you have, the VC you’re backed by, the market you’re serving, the Fortune 500 [00:12:00] clients that you have in your books, and I think that leads the conversation and curates an aura around you that’s very different to somebody that’s maybe a little bit more what focused.

Cornelius McGrath: And so I’m really interested in; you’re clearly a very deep thinker and just a deep guy in general. How do you go about finding that? That deeper level in society. And how long does it take you? Do you ever give up? What, how do you approach conversations in a world where it is just about the headline and, you know, The two cents and the TLDR, as I always like to say?

The Role of Connectivity in Life and Work

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, I think the theme so far as I’m hearing myself, you know, back in these headphones, I’ve said the words, ask good questions. Tell good stories. I think Those two are very true. But I think to start, if you’re gonna ask somebody good questions and ask about their stories, you definitely have to be willing to share yourself.

Jared Mrozinske: So I try to keep up on anything that’s going on. [00:13:00] Anything, even sports I don’t like necessarily, or politics where I think you gotta be ready to go out in the world and talk about whatever’s. But finding that common piece of information that you could just take off with is where it all starts.

Jared Mrozinske: And I’ve been shocked by sometimes what I thought was going to be that ended up being totally different out of somebody. And then, and I can’t necessarily point to a specific, but I, I’m sure you and your millions of listeners are can all resonate with the fact that people surprise.

Jared Mrozinske: With what they’re into, what they want to talk about, and what they’ve gone through. And you never know what that little trigger is that sets them off. Again, back to the caddy story, just asking the guy the favourite caddy story, I get a Michael J. Fox battling Parkinson’s. I just didn’t see that coming at all.

Cornelius McGrath: And that’s and that’s a story, that’s a question you can take everywhere. And by Using that question. You always have a key to a different room or a different perspective or lens that people don’t see. [00:14:00] And if we think about sales, which we’re going to talk a lot about today, if we think about social capital, we’re going to talk a lot about that today, storytelling. I think it all really comes down to how many keys can you access. How much trust can you create? And then when you can unlock when you can unlock those deeper levels, you’re impossible to be or very difficult to be.

Jared Mrozinske: No, I agree. And I think it helps you; it gets you past the high-level stuff that’s honestly so boring. What school would you go to, what’s your job, what do you, and I think it helps people judge you a lot more truer than what’s your job and where’d you go to school. Things that you can be written off for quickly in somebody’s mind. Maybe it was their rival saw this, and you’re a bad guy. Maybe it’s a job title that people don’t jive with, so maybe they feel like they know who you are.

Jared Mrozinske: And that’s why I don’t like asking those questions. I’ve met accountants who are some of the biggest partiers in the world. That’s not what you would’ve thought. [00:15:00] They need an escape. Yeah, and people surprise you. And if you want them to surprise you, you have to ask them the right questions. And you have to be willing to tell them a lot about yourself.

Cornelius McGrath: Do you have to be open to being surprised, though?

Jared Mrozinske: Interesting question. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you’re going to go out there and talk to people and try to connect, you have to be willing cause you could get surprised in the total drop into the spectrum.

Cornelius McGrath: Cause what I don’t want to do is, and I think this is easy, is someone looks at the transcript of this podcast and is, Oh wow, the takeaway from Jared is, what’s your story? And that would be literally what we’re complaining against. That would be the surface-level takeaway. Of the deeper question. And you probably don’t even realize this because you’ve done it for so long, but it’s not just about asking what’s your story. It’s really living that.

The Influence of Baseball on Life

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. You probably don’t even actually ask that question. But, at the end of 18, I knew who Zach the Caddy was. I had a really good friend. He’s from [00:16:00] SoCal. He was in banking, wanted to change; you get a lot out of somebody. Granted, I had a lot of time with him, but yeah, I never said, so Zach, tell me about your story. You just, it’s hard to just be natural. It’s hard to teach naturally; it’s.I think

Cornelius McGrath: it’s curiosity at the end of the day. Because I for example, I used to the question, so what’s your story all the time, and I use it at bars and I think people are surprised by it, but I think people have started to realize that it’s just genuine curiosity and I don’t really have a love for small talk because if you can be, if you can be small talking, why can’t you be big talking and I think it does genuinely shock people the first time they hear it, but if you can develop a knack for it.

Cornelius McGrath: You really have this really rich life where every Uber driver, every shopkeeper, every caddy isn’t just a means to an end in that, all right, you’re carrying my bags today, and you’re going to help me shoot or break a hundred. But [00:17:00] actually, this is a human being that I could gain something from.

Jared Mrozinske: A hundred per cent. I love taking Uber just for that aspect of it. You’re sitting in a car with a stranger for a certain amount of time. What else are you gonna do? Most of the time, they’re not playing music. So it’s just quiet. I don’t like that. I’m okay with silence, but also, it is just fun to say, how’s your day going, man? What’s up? Yeah, you never know what’s coming out of that.

Cornelius McGrath: On the subject of Uber, I know you met an incredible Uber driver. Yeah, he was a bit of a musician back in the day.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, dude, this is crazy. So It was a way, it was; I was on my way back from San Francisco, flew into Chicago, took the train to South Bend, so why not finish it with an Uber? And on the way.

Cornelius McGrath: Didn’t fancy a walk?

Jared Mrozinske: No. So on the way to the house from the airport, which is maybe a 10 or 15 minute ride for, for me, this guy’s playing Buddy Guy. He was a blues singer, and he has this song called It Feels [00:18:00] Like Rain, and the emo in me played it a lot back in the day when I got dumped by this girl I liked.

Jared Mrozinske: And so, I knew the song, to say the least. You’d spent some time today. It’s for a different podcast. So anyways, yeah, I said, Oh, buddy guy. And this guy’s got this big, and I won’t even imitate it, but the New Orleans accent, which is, I think that in South Africa, the hardest to imitate. But he’s got this big, burly, New Orleans accent, and he’s this huge guy, and he’s just Yo, yeah, Buddy Guy?

Jared Mrozinske: And I said, Yeah. He said, How? I said, Same as why every guy knows Buddy Guy, a tale of a scorned love affair. He said, A woman did me wrong. He starts laughing, and the next song comes on. And I said, That was pretty good too.

The Importance of Hard Work and Persistence

Jared Mrozinske: I said I’m realizing a theme here. He said, Are You really into blues?

Jared Mrozinske: He goes, Yeah. He says, You like this band? I said, Yeah. And I said, Who is it? Now I should say. My Uber driver, I was looking for Robert T, was the guy, and so I knew [00:19:00] his name, and he said He said, oh, he said this is a band called Big Robert T and the Scene of the Crime. And, Luckily, I was still on point even after a long trip.

Jared Mrozinske: I said, wait a second Are you Big Robert T of Big Robert T and the Scene of the Crime? He says, yeah, in the flesh and turns out this guy toured with Buddy Guy. He opened with Buddy Guy for 20 years. And then he met his wife in Seattle at a show. Her parents are from here in South Bend. They moved back here to take care of him, and he lives here.

Jared Mrozinske: He drives Uber. And then, on Thursdays, he cuts his Ubering short, heads down to a bar called the Phoenix, drinks two Long Islands, and they just let him play. And what I think is so interesting about that is, first off, that was an incredible outcome of a question that I had no, that’s a great example of kind of what we’ve been talking about.

Jared Mrozinske: Did not know I was sitting with the guy who toured with one of my favorite blues singers ever. But he’s down at the Phoenix on Thursday. And I guarantee most. I’m pretty confident most of those people don’t know who he is when he’s playing. So they’re listening to a world-class musician in Mishawaka, Indiana, on Thursday at a dive bar.

Jared Mrozinske: And it’s incredible to me to know that he’s there every Thursday entertaining people, and people used to pay a ton to see him.

Cornelius McGrath: And it’s right before your eyes, but it would be so easy just to bang your AirPods in; I’m guilty of that. Oh yeah. Whip out the phone; hey man, how you doing? Don’t really fancy talking today.

Cornelius McGrath: I have said in years past that I would pay a premium for Ubers in silence. Having said that, though, living and dying by the curiosity sword, for every person you do meet that talks your ear off, there is some value to asking the right questions. Yeah. So I guess for you talked, and you started this podcast by saying, what would happen if we truly connected?

Cornelius McGrath: Where could we go? A satellite, space astronaut-esque, right? One, one giant step for man. But what do you mean by that? Who’s we? And do you have a criteria for what you think a true connection is, means, feels or looks like?

Jared Mrozinske: The second question, short answer, no. Hell, it could be, eh? I feel like I connect with the grocery store clerks it. At the checkout line. And that’s two-second interaction, but sometimes you just, exchange that quick combo and look, and it’s just okay, you know what I mean? Just you’ve definitely know that you’ve changed that person’s day by just some funny joke or wisecrack on the other side.

Jared Mrozinske: When I say we, I guess I just mean people I, I’ve been surprised sometimes if people have given a conversation a shot where it ends up going, and you never know where that’s going to end if you’re not asking, again, the right questions, but I wonder what’s not being built, not being discovered, not being created because people aren’t getting together the right way and it’s because They don’t want to have a conversation, they want to be on their [00:22:00] phone they want to be to dinner with five of their friends, texting their ten other friends who aren’t there, talking about how great of a time they’re having with those other four.

Jared Mrozinske: And it makes no sense. It was, it is interesting, I’m not trying to say technology’s bad or we should go back to the fifties, but when’s the last time you talked to somebody you sat by on a plane? Four straight hours by a stranger, and you may never say a word to them. And that one, I’m guilty of.

Jared Mrozinske: I don’t mean to sound on this podcast, by the way, that I’m the world’s best communicator. I just zoned out on my flight back from Vegas last night. I just kinda wanted to watch a movie and chill out. The shame of it was when we landed, the lady next to me struck up a conversation, and we hit it over, hit it off over our love for the Cubs together.

Cornelius McGrath: She was a Cubs fan?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. Yeah. And you said you had sat next to and Yeah, for a three and a half hour flight and didn’t say a word to her. So Now, some people might be, some people might say, what’s the value of that? Like, why, I didn’t need to speak to her. She, she could have done nothing for my life.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. And that’s fine. I look, that’s the other thing, man.

Jared Mrozinske: Like, I get it. I get that. Maybe I’m in [00:23:00] rare company by liking to talk to people and hear from them and learn from them. I can just say this. I’ve gone to high school, college, had some great jobs, learned a lot. I still can’t actually tell you I learned more from my schooling than I have with a conversation with a random person I met. You learn a lot about life that way. Again, I don’t always do it. People don’t have to be into it, and that’s fine. I just find that I like to do it most times.

The Impact of Sales and Business on Life

Cornelius McGrath: I like that you’re doing it for you. That’s very obvious you’re not doing it because it’s look how many contacts I have. Yeah. And I think that’s something that Shane Parrish at 400 Streets talked a lot about, which is the difference between real progress and movement and then actual results, right? And so a lot of people will celebrate movement. I have 500 connections on LinkedIn. I’ve got 10 000 followers on Instagram.

Cornelius McGrath: I have all your results. [00:24:00] We’ll just search your capital. Who would go to bat for you? If you needed to go to court tomorrow and testify your existence, what I find is that a lot of people, for example, I remember this kid in Ames said to me one day, Hey, so I want to get big on LinkedIn.

Cornelius McGrath: How do I do that? I was like, dude, that’s the completely wrong question, right? Because being quote big on LinkedIn doesn’t matter. What matters is the social capital and the respect and having the curiosity of others. And if you’re asking me how to develop that, then let’s have a dinner together and go about talking about what that nobody else sees.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. I think that’s a great example of kind of what you’re talking about. Isn’t that every single plain seatmate you’re going to have is going to be a game changer? Yeah. But in the long term, that’s probably a good habit to have. Over time, and I think about my roommate John, who sat next to this lovely lady called Phyllis once and he’s told me this story so many [00:25:00] times I remember it, and he is much like you of no headphones until you hit the runway, so effectively until you hear those engines run up, it’s fair game, as soon as you’re off you put the Bose headphones on, so he was, nice for 30 40 minutes, but she did not want to stop.

Cornelius McGrath: For the whole six-hour flight from San Francisco. To New York City and you’re right in the short term. Okay, that could look like a habit that doesn’t play out, but actually, You know, six hours of your life over the long run, that’s probably a good thing to be. Yeah. So I love that. So look, you started with a very interesting bio about family.

Cornelius McGrath: I love that. I think that frames our conversation, but I know you’re also a college athlete and that baseball has played a huge role in your life. So talk to me about the first day you ever picked up a baseball bat and the journey that ensued since.

Jared Mrozinske: It’s funny, actually [00:26:00] I didn’t really think about this until you just asked me that.I didn’t want to play. I was so scared. I was a scared shitless dude. We moved to a new neighbourhood in my town that I grew up at. It would be like if you played football in Texas. Baseball in the port was what everybody cared about. And the town didn’t have much else to do besides the 4th of July parade.

Jared Mrozinske: So, the community would really show up. To the baseball games, and when I say that, a small community and still a thousand people, 1 500 people at a regional championship, ton of people when you’re, so anyways if you’re going to play baseball in LaPorte, it’s a little bit more intense than if you’re going to play it at a few other communities.

Jared Mrozinske: So anyways, I remember when my mom asked if I wanted to play and it’s funny, right? You don’t, I don’t remember any birthday, but I remember things like the day my mom asked me if I wanted to do T T-ball sign-up. And I remember just, that sinking feeling of [00:27:00] nervousness, just get real hot all of a sudden and stomach hurts.

Jared Mrozinske: Because my dad played, my grandpa was very good, my cousin was really good, and even at six, I had the awareness of understanding. It’s a family thing. I hope I’m good at it. Maybe I don’t want to play, but I’m glad I did. Because I met some of the best friends ever, and we played together all through high school.

Cornelius McGrath: Were you immediately good? Like day one, you were like rockstar player?

Jared Mrozinske: No, I don’t think so. I was a big, I was a big kid, which is funny now because I’m, 5’8, you know, 1, 1 70, probably could lose a few pounds, but who couldn’t? Yeah, the Michelob vultures, as great as they are, they still add on.But it, no, I was a smaller, chubbier kid, and, but I was fast. And I had a hand icon.

Cornelius McGrath: You were that guy.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, I had a hand icon.

Cornelius McGrath: You were the fat bastard that everyone thought, Alright, I’ll stick the bull past him. Yeah. And then, oh [00:28:00] wow, he’s got some, he’s got some legs.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, so I remember, oh man, my dad, he was so funny. He was hard on me in the right way. Not obsessed, crazy dad hard, but I remember my first baseball glove. So, my first position I ever played was second base. And right above the finger hole, he wrote E4. And I said, what does that mean? He said if you’re doing your job right, you should never find out.

Jared Mrozinske: E4 means Air Second Baseman. That’s the scorecard symbol they put in when the second baseman screws up. Even from the get-go, it was just this, I don’t know, this funny bond with the sport. It was the family thing. You met a little sister; God love her. So disinterested came to every game.

Jared Mrozinske: Sat there with a coloring book, supported me. Eventually, through high school, got way into it. So But yeah, I wasn’t good at first. But I think when you’re little, It’s like more the most important thing is sticking with it, you know, If you got the mechanics, hand-eye coordination, and just the heart to play, you’ll get It [00:29:00] doesn’t have to be terribly difficult.

Cornelius McGrath: And did you when did you get good because obviously, you went on to play in college, right? So like, When was that moment where you’re like, oh shit, this could really be something?

Jared Mrozinske: I think probably the second, third year of t ball and then certainly into the little league. That’s when things like all-stars start. Once you start realizing that amongst your peers, you’re getting chosen to be, I feel like this podcast make me sound like a douchebag.

Jared Mrozinske: I feel like when you start. You’re at this level playing field with the same people your age, and then there’s a special team where only the next 10 or 11 get to go to, and you have to go to it. That’s what starts hitting you like this could be something, and it turned out to be something for me.

Cornelius McGrath: And so, where did it take you?

Jared Mrozinske: I think it took me; you could argue it took me to college, I did get a little bit of scholarship money to play. I think where it took me was just [00:30:00] astronomically higher than just a college scholarship. I think it taught me so much. The game of baseball, I think, I don’t know that there’s, albeit, if you played soccer, I’m sure you can make the same analogy, but for me, it’s baseball, and I don’t know that there’s a better sport that kind of really exemplifies life because you’re on a team, so you have to be able to work with others towards a common goal.

Jared Mrozinske: However, four, at least four times a game. On average, you’re just up there by yourself when you’re in the batter’s box, and the other eight are looking at you to help them. And you might strike out, and you feel awful about it, or you might hit, and you might be the huge success, but when you strike out, okay, now there’s eight others to rally behind me.

Jared Mrozinske: So, it’s like this weird example of life. Sometimes it is just you. And you’re trying to do something for your team, in my case now it’s my family, it’s my work team, et cetera [00:31:00] but then if I screw up, Jenna’s got me, and my wife, she’s gonna pick me up my co-worker Ireland’s gonna pick me up, and I guess that’s how you realize baseball is just this incredible sport and it taught me a lot more than just, about the sport if that makes sense.

Cornelius McGrath: Tell me about that that Little League game that you had when you were seven. I know that was a big moment for you, a big turning moment.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, again, just like the memories that stick out in your head when you’re little. I was seven years old. I played horribly. My dad was super disappointed simply because, by the time you get to Little League, it’s off the pitcher, and there’s no more tea.

Jared Mrozinske: I looked at third strike. He was disappointed, not that I Struck out, but just I didn’t even try and when you look and just don’t even swing the bat. What are you doing? So we were driving home, and I remember he was pretty upset my mom telling him, Floyd Maybe you’ll just have to [00:32:00] accept the fact that he might just be an average player And he stopped the car, and he said, are you kidding me?

Jared Mrozinske: He says if we accept average now, that’s all he’ll ever be. Cause to his point, this isn’t about baseball. It’s about life. And that stuck with me, and it worked my ass off, and I got better. And Fast forward, by the time I got to high school, I was one of the best, one of the better players in the state.

Jared Mrozinske: And again, I found myself getting kind of complacent. My dad put a tee down in the basement with a tarp that I could hit off to practice.

Cornelius McGrath: I love these stories.

Jared Mrozinske: And he said, you’re not done until there’s a hole in the tarp. Because I beat the hell out of this thing so much that, at this point, it was tennis balls, too, not baseball.

Cornelius McGrath: I was going to say, what’s on top of this?

Jared Mrozinske: It was going to take a while. So every day he’d come home and ask me if I hit off the tee and, I remember one time he got home and he said if I hit off the tee and I said, no, I took today off, but I’m hitting over 400. That was your buying average.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. At the time. [00:33:00] And he said, guess what, pal, while you’re sitting around telling yourself how good you are, somebody’s practising to take your place. And again, it’s such a micro-life example. You have to continue to grind and work and get better, especially when you feel like you’re at the top.

Jared Mrozinske: Cause that’s especially when everybody’s gunning for your position. So I’m glad he did that because I did have the ice I did and at times sometimes catch myself still But then that story echoes back. Don’t get complacent. Keep grinding.

Cornelius McGrath: What is your modern-day tea? What’s that modern-day version of hitting off the tea every night?

Jared Mrozinske: And that’s a great question I think for me, it’s a mental check at each end of the day Did I engage with my family and friends and loved ones, you know, The ones today that were on my list to make sure I circle back to yeah did I do good work at work? Did I follow up with all the clients that needed something from me?

Jared Mrozinske: Did I make sure my team was set? Did I make sure I checked in with our founder? [00:34:00] And that she didn’t need anything else out of me. And I guess it’s more of did I hit off the tee today? To me is, did I cross all the tees down all the aisles? Did I do everything for the people who care about me and need stuff from me?

Cornelius McGrath: What’s your modern-day batting average? What’s that? Cause I mean, You could take that a million directions, especially being in the kind of line and the world of Biz Devon sales.

Jared Mrozinske: I would say it’s above the Mason-Dixon line. The Mendoza line, the Mendoza line, which in baseball is 200. I don’t know. It’s funny. It’s probably a question that I should ask our founder or my wife, but I feel like it’s decent, but I know it’s not Hall of Fame, so I need to keep hitting off the deep end.

Cornelius McGrath: And how’d you define it? How’d you define it?

Jared Mrozinske: Shit, I never thought about it. I’ve never been asked that question. Like I said, I, look, I will say this. I don’t feel like I’ve ever done a good job. I don’t feel like I’ve ever done a good job with Jenna. I don’t think I’ve done a good job at work [00:35:00] yet.

Jared Mrozinske: I don’t think I’ve done a, been the best big brother, the best son, the best friend. But I also don’t think I’ve been bad at it. So if you’re going to average it out, I would say I’m doing okay, I think, I hope. But I also hope that I’ve projected enough in life for people to know that if I’m not, they could call me and tell me. I hope nobody’s afraid to tell me that I’m disappointing them or haven’t lived up to it yet.

Cornelius McGrath: Talk to me about an at-bat home run. I did my homework. I’ve been reading, I’ve been reading Scott Kapoor’s Secrets of Sand Hill Road, and He talks about venture investing as not about buying averages but about at-bat home runs. So what, talk to me about an at-bat home run that you’ve had. And why it was a home run, and what it did for you?

Jared Mrozinske: In work?

Cornelius McGrath: It could be anything.

Jared Mrozinske: The best thing I’ve ever done in my life is get Jenna to marry me. And that took a while. It was if you took it as one big at bat, it was [00:36:00] a seven-year at bat. With a lot of back and forth, but I think the funny thing about the story of my marriage is when I met her, It was under a completely different, almost personality I had than when we finished. And I suppose the best at-bat home run I ever had was learning enough about myself in my 20s to make sure I was the man that deserved her by the time I was 30. And I guess it’s like super deep sounding; I mean it to sound like it was just this incredible thing I did, but. And for me, it was.

Cornelius McGrath: Because so much stems from that, right?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, it’s what helps; as long as that’s good, everything else can be. There’s no real problem, like that’s not my saying, right?

Jared Mrozinske: There’s a lot; a problem at home is a problem. As long as Jen and I are rock solid, we can take on anything else, jobs, [00:37:00] other family problems, stuff like that. Is there a professional moment that stands out? I would say, again, it’s more of a long-term. It’s not like one success.

Jared Mrozinske: Like you, you close a big deal, and it feels like a grain of slime sometimes, but I would just say being able to have this opportunity that I have now. Was a lot of, it took a lot of work to get this opportunity. So the fact that I have the job I have now makes me feel like that was a not completed journey yet, but a hell of an app at home run to get here and get offered to work on this incredible team.

Cornelius McGrath: And part of the reason why I love baseball, and I think my, and like probably many Brits, my obsession and fascination with baseball. It’s like before our relationship started with Moneyball, the film and the story of Mr. Billy Bean. And I think what I like about baseball, and maybe what is tough about it, is it’s very clear who the MVPs are.

Cornelius McGrath: Abundantly clear. In football, it’s very difficult, I think, to tell if you’re having a good season. [00:38:00] Or, maybe I’ll reframe it, how good of a season you’re having. Purely because you could take the opinion from the dads on the sideline, and that goes both ways, right?

Jared Mrozinske: And they all think it’s a kid.

Cornelius McGrath: And yeah, and then people are tracking your assists and goals, yeah, but it’s not nearly as sophisticated as, like, a baseball school board, and We certainly don’t have a recruitment pipeline from the fact that we don’t play baseball But also on the soccer side the analytics of that game is still being figured out Yeah, you could have an incredible season and have scored zero goals.

Cornelius McGrath: You could have a shitty season and scored 25 because you should have scored 60. Yeah. And so that’s what I’ve loved about baseball, but I wanted to know, as a player, how do you keep those statistics in your mind. I, you’re confident that you’ve been hitting well. Yeah, but you still stay hungry to grow and try and increase that, piece by piece. And, like you said, it has such takeaways for life. So that’s why I’m asking the question.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. [00:39:00] Baseball is a failure sport. If you think about it, you’re in the Hall of Fame if you’ve failed seven out of 10 times on average. So when you’re playing a sport that’s already heavily favoured against you, You gotta under, you gotta learn if you’re gonna stick with it to find the good out of things.

Jared Mrozinske: It’s funny that you’re talking about stats and who the MVPs are. You think about, any incredible RBI leader is only the RBI leader because people got on base for him to hit in, or her to hit in softball. Even when you are the best, it’s because of others helping you get there.And it’s tough, it’s tough, it’s tough to stick with it when you’re in a slump and things like that’s when I go back to, I’m so happy I played a team sport and wasn’t a true individual like tennis or golf or something like that because I needed that, I personally need, I need people rallied around me in anything, as much as I like [00:40:00] to, think one day I can be my own one-man shop I love working with a team.

Jared Mrozinske: I love having people that we kind of riff with back and forth, and I think that all stems from the fact that I grew up and understood culture and humanity based on being on a baseball team.

Cornelius McGrath: Is sales a famous sport?

Jared Mrozinske: You feel like it, don’t it? Because it, yeah, I think it is in the fact that you’re not going to close every deal, right? Purely. You’re not going to close every deal even when you make the most sense in the world, and you have the best value prop. It’s still sometimes not for everybody, and I feel so defeating sometimes.

Jared Mrozinske: I mean, you live this too. You’re in the same thing. It’s like, how in the hell are you not buying this from me? This makes so much sense for you It’s just not working out, and that’s even the more frustrating thing when you feel like you did everything right, you know Back to the baseball analogy, you make perfect contact and just hit a liner right to the shortstop Right and you’re out, and you did everything, right?

Jared Mrozinske: But on the [00:41:00] flip side, you hit one time off the handle that just dribbled in between third and pitcher and got on. And that happens in sales too. You have your luck into things too.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. No, I couldn’t agree more. And what role do you think, what role do you think, connecting it back to our first kind of narrative? What role do you think connectivity has in helping you play the sport, the ultimate sport, which is life?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. I think if you go back to, let’s say, careers, right? Especially sales jobs. I don’t know that you do well because you gave a great pitch deck, and the value is there and all that. I think you’ve done well because you’ve truly connected with the person. There’s a lot of things to buy.

Jared Mrozinske: Probably now more than ever, there’s more stuff to buy and things to have and services to get. So you have to be different. And then I think with dating, yeah. There’s a lot of [00:42:00] people that you could date, so you have to be different, and you have to have a different, way about how you handle yourself, tell your story, etc.

Jared Mrozinske: That’s how you end up getting your spouse. That all happens with connecting differently and just being genuine and honest with people, whether it be a client or you’re, the girl you’re trying to marry.

Cornelius McGrath: It’s no different.

Jared Mrozinske: No.

Cornelius McGrath: Will Storr has written this great book called The Science of Storytelling, and he says story really is the language of humanity, and as it pertains to the human race, that’s how we became the dominant forces is not that we couldn’t run faster than the cheetahs stronger than the lions, but because we could create narratives that allowed us to hunt and also we could create narratives that could convince mates that we were worthy partners to reproduce and move forward and sales is exactly the same, right?

Cornelius McGrath: You’re just convincing some outside party, some partner. That, you’re the best guys to go home with tonight. [00:43:00] And that you can create something special together, right? Whether that be a family, whether that be a business relationship.

Jared Mrozinske: And I think if you’re doing it genuinely, they’re gonna know that guy’s not trying to take me for a ride right now. He really does believe in this.

Cornelius McGrath: Do you feel like sales is a dirty word? Like when you tell people you’re in sales, what’s the response they get from you? Like snake oil? What are you gonna try and do me over on here? And be honest.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah yeah. I guess it’s a dirty word. I can’t say, I guess.

Jared Mrozinske: I suppose it’s become one for sure. I don’t often tell people I’m in sales. Unless they press me on it. Which is part of the reason why you’re a business card, right? So I can’t really run away from it, right? But I don’t like to lead with it. I’m not a part of sales I work for an incredibly innovative company.

Jared Mrozinske: That’s really trying to build a community and change the way companies are connecting; my title is director of sales and BD, but that’s not what I’m that’s not what you know I’m trying to do here with you right now. Right, [00:44:00] really trying to connect

Cornelius McGrath: And I appreciate that sentiment as a storyteller, but fundamentally, sales is life truly, honestly, and so I agree it’s become a dirty word, and I like the way you’re able to pivot off it because it’s an effective sales tactic, and it is true.

Cornelius McGrath: But also like very truly if sales is what the make the world’s, what makes the world go round. You’re constantly selling, right? You’re selling to, Hey mom, I don’t want to be grounded this weekend, or if I get these grades, I want to go to X party. Can I have a sleepover? It’s the same shit.

Jared Mrozinske: It also allows you, if you’ve done the first piece, the connectivity, and you’ve really got on the level with somebody. And then I do like to toss the word back in. Especially if the relationship is lingering, with nothing going; hey, I’m the sales guy, let’s really talk about this now. It’s this cost. While I still believe in everything I just told you, it’s a business.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, we’re not doing this for free. Who taught you sales? And why did you want to get into it, [00:45:00] even though you’re not in sales?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, my mom and dad taught me sales, my mentors in development at Notre Dame taught me sales.

Jared Mrozinske: The account execs I interned for the minor league baseball team taught me sales; a random person, maybe my caddy or my Uber driver, teaches me sales because there’s only so many actual things you need to know regarding sales. It’s really comes down to what kind of personality are you showing the world and how genuine and honest are you being about yourself and your product.

Jared Mrozinske: And so if that’s the case, my third-grade teacher taught me sales, my little sister who teaches taught me sales. You talk about standing in front of a classroom and getting 20-something people to pay attention to you. And we have to say and tell them this is because this is very important to you.

Jared Mrozinske: And then they listen. That’s sales. My little sister’s name is Kayla. Kayla’s probably a better [00:46:00] salesperson than I am. She commands a classroom of 25 second graders daily. I just couldn’t do that.

Cornelius McGrath: That’s a, that’s such an interesting that’s such an interesting takeaway. And as I think about you, I think you’re somebody that understands the hard work that goes into a sale. And it’s partly because I think of the jobs that you’ve had and you’ve really had to earn your stripes. I remember when I first met you, you told me you had interned. At the athletic office. It was like four cents an hour?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. The first job I interned for before that I was at this minor league baseball team and South Bend, Silver Hawk. When you added up the time compared to the stipend, it was like 57 cents an hour.

Cornelius McGrath: 57 cents an hour?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah.

Cornelius McGrath: That’s amazing. 57 cents?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, but dude, it was one of the best jobs I ever had in my life.

Cornelius McGrath: Which I would love to hear. It’s intern season. We’ve got a bunch of friends that have just started internships. 57 cents. Talk to me about that.

Jared Mrozinske: First of all, the head office [00:47:00] staff was incredible.

Cornelius McGrath: And what year was this? Just to give context.

Jared Mrozinske: 2007.

Cornelius McGrath: Wow.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, 2007. And then I went back in 2008 even did it two summers in a row. The front office was incredible, and they were incredible because they were all there, not for the money; even the GM didn’t make a lot of money. They were all there for the right reasons.

Jared Mrozinske: And the right reasons being. That, that ballpark was going to leave the community and then they’ve really, they really pulled together to save it and get people there. So the hustle of everybody was real, and the GM would help sell hot dogs and showed me that nobody’s above anything.

Jared Mrozinske: Secondarily to that I met, I interned with what then became the best man in my wedding eventually. My wife’s summer job was the From promo girl in between innings that would throw t-shirts at you and stuff like that met her. I don’t know. [00:48:00] Met some of the best friends in my life. I had some of the most fun.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, there’s this great I got guy, and the GM was this incredible person, and I’ll never forget. You know, we were all in college, and he knew we didn’t make anything The apartment we were living in we didn’t even have cable. We had a TV tray That a TV sat on with bunny ears. And then we slept on air mattresses and we, we’re stacked two, three deep and didn’t have cable or internet or anything like that, but we were all 21, and it was the summer.

Jared Mrozinske: And out of his own pocket. After a 10-game homestand, he’d call me into his office and just slip me a hundred bucks and say, Hey, take the boys out tonight. And it was just like, God, that’s management. That’s the boss that you want to be, is the guy who’s just, I know you work your ass off, and I know the pay is shit.

Cornelius McGrath: Thank you. And I love you.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. Oh man, it was so much fun. God, it was fun. At first, it was baseball. [00:49:00] It was the summer.

Cornelius McGrath: I love that sentiment because I didn’t grow up in that world. I was very lucky growing up and then my parents had a very different philosophy. That was all I was loved to, which was Hey Eric, how are you?

Cornelius McGrath: That’s Jared’s wonderful dog. He’s a bit jealous he’s not on the pod. But at least he’s not falling through a bloody lake today, but we’ll get to that. But yeah, my parents had a very, not that they had a different philosophy, but they were just like, look, focus on school, we’ll take care of you.

Cornelius McGrath: But my mom and dad worked the shittest jobs; my mom worked five days a week, looked after the kids, and then worked Saturdays and Sundays in a bakery and then became a doctor on top of that. She was like; I always hated when my granddad would come down, her dad, and be like, stop studying, come do the dishes, in a very traditional kind of Irish family.

Cornelius McGrath: So we grew up very differently but still did some fun things. Like I remember going to Glastonbury Festival with a great family friend of ours, Nick Hunt. Glastonbury is the biggest festival in the [00:50:00] UK, it’s probably the most famous festival, and he convinced me to come and sell hot dogs and Diet Cokes.

Cornelius McGrath: In a van to the left of the stage. So, dude, this thing is just amazing. So we went down there, and they sell them out this H van. And the H van only goes 30 miles an hour. And we’re like driving down to Glastonbury. It must’ve been a six-hour journey for them. It was like four for us. Slept in the front of a Y van that night.

Cornelius McGrath: With my eye shade and a yoga mat as my bed. No covers. And then a little thing to block out the sun. And then proceeded, for three, four days to work at Glasto, right by the second stage. Wake up at six. In a hot tent. Get up, set up. A bit pissed down with rain. And they’ll send hot dogs and Diet Coke. All day long.

Cornelius McGrath: And watermelon. We actually sold watermelon for the first two days, and then they ran out. And I think they liked me because they were like, Oh, you’re, put the good-looking kid at the front. You get all the girls. Yeah.

Jared Mrozinske: That’s why you think they liked you?

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. I think they did. Cause I was making the money. [00:51:00] It was great. At the end of the weekend, they gave me 450 quid in cash. I was wrecked. I was like, never again. Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t showered in three, four days. But it, it taught me something about, sort of, the earth people and yeah and what they do to make their money, and I’m never above that because that is fucking the front line of sales. That’s everything that I fucking stand for here.

The Festival Job: A Humbling Experience

Jared Mrozinske: You are telling that story.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, right, and ━ that’s what I love; no one would know that about me. But that experience it wasn’t even a shit job; it was a fucking great job; I mean, We went to one of the best festivals in the world; I had a free ticket. We got to go off to see Kanye; they gave me a bit of shit for going to too many gigs.

Cornelius McGrath: But it’s alright; I’ll take a bit of slack. You know what I mean? When we started doing really well, the guy would give us Give me 60 quid, I’d go get the rounds in. And go get the beers in. It was a proper hard three days of graft, like Yeah, and those guys, those festival goers, and I and, shout out to them because I think they’re some of the [00:52:00] best, and shout out to Nick for giving me the opportunity, but, I think Nick, he must have cut Halloumi for literally 60 hours straight.

Cornelius McGrath: This guy stood up 14 hours a day and just cut Halloumi. So that you can have a fresh, halloumi sandwich, when you’ve seen Kanye as the festival goer. And you think, oh, it’s 16 quid, fuck these guys, they’re screwing us over.

The Hardships of Festival Business

Cornelius McGrath: The amount of money that the festival site charges them they put in 50, 60k in the hole.

Cornelius McGrath: Before they’ve made a penny. And the festival goers control where you’re at, so you have to keep them sweet every year. Because they could put you off the path, and you would lose your money. Secondarily, if it rains, if it’s freezing, no one’s eating fucking water. Yeah. So it’s tough. So I just had such an appreciation for that line of business of just you; you deal with the variables.

Cornelius McGrath: And we were just this team, right? We were this team of 15, 16 friends and family who would come and sell hot dogs. [00:53:00] Diet Coke, and cut Halloumi to three days in three or four feet of mud. You know what I mean? And I remember I stood next to this great guy, the guy who sold hot dogs next to me; he was a former copper.

Cornelius McGrath: Former undercover cop. So we just spent three days just talking the shit. But I’ve never stood up for that long. So anyway, sorry to talk for a while there, but that Silverhawk story, I just, I felt like everybody needs a moment like that. Cause it; it brings you back to reality of.

The Silverhawk Story: A Reality Check

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, I tell people that, young students now, right? It’s sometimes it’s okay to eat some shit, right? Do something rough. I think it’s going to take you a lot farther.

Cornelius McGrath: But what’s the Silverhawk’s learning environment? It sounds like it was.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah.

Cornelius McGrath: Cause it can’t be just take shit.

Jared Mrozinske: No. And I didn’t; I was treated incredibly well. It’s the idea of a 10-game homestand in a hundred degrees. Got it, but being recognized for that. Yeah, but then being recognized for that and then couple that with the fact [00:54:00] that They helped me get my next gig right, and they vouched for me, they vouch for a Purdue grad to go work at Notre Dame, a boilermaker, which is hard. It’s, I love Notre Dame, but it’s, if you’re not from there, it’s tougher.

The Outsider at Notre Dame

Cornelius McGrath: Let’s talk about that. Cause I don’t have that experience. So you’re an outsider. You’re an outsider turning up to one of the best universities in the world that has a brand that has an expectation, good or bad, of calibre. How the hell did you build your net worth, your social capital? I know it ain’t. Maybe you can start from the recommendation you got.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, I went; I had a talk with the owner of the Silverhawks. Incredible man. A guy named Joe Kernan, who I always like to say is Notre Dame’s Forrest Gump because the guy’s done everything.

Jared Mrozinske: He was a scholarship athlete in college, played baseball, went on to fly in the war, [00:55:00] got shut down, became a POW. Made it back. Ran for mayor. He eventually became lieutenant governor and then bought the minor league baseball team in his community that was about to go under and saved it.

Jared Mrozinske: He’s an incredible guy. When he asked me, he took an interest in the interns, which was really interesting. And when he asked me what I want to do next, I didn’t know. So I said I, I think athletics would be really cool. So maybe I want to be an athletic director.

Breaking into Development: A Strategic Move

Jared Mrozinske: So he made it possible for me to be able to apply to this internship at Notre Dame, which is a really phenomenal opportunity.

Jared Mrozinske: You have to be a college graduate, and then it’s a year to 18-month internship. Where that’s last six months is really you trying to figure out where you’re going next. And they give you pretty decent pay in healthcare. So it was like an entry-level job, even though it was an internship.

Jared Mrozinske: So I went and did that. And I was a ticket office and like [00:56:00] marketing department intern. So I did that for a while, and my quote-unquote big break was when I was able to help a lot on the research side for a coaching search. Happened to be for the baseball team. So I really got to know the deputy AD and who’s now actually the AD, I believe Marquette.

Jared Mrozinske: Anyways, he’s deputy AD I was talking to him a little bit then, and he said, what do you want to do? I said, I think I want to be an AD. He says guys like me or a dying breed, he says, you can’t, it’s hard to just do it because you played and you know the business. He says you really now have to go back and get your law degree or get your MBA because most of being an AD nowadays is just contract negotiation and business decisions.

Jared Mrozinske: So, I didn’t want to do that. If that’s what it is, I didn’t want to do that. Not like I wasn’t, Oh, I don’t want to go to law school or MBA, but it was just, if [00:57:00] that’s what the role has become, then that doesn’t seem to be appealing to me. So then I said, what else should I do? What else would you recommend if you want to stay at a university?

Jared Mrozinske: And he said the closest thing to sales, Relationship building, and, quite honestly, some of the best money you can get outside of being an actual like tenured professor would be in the development department. I didn’t even know what development was. It’s the fundraising arm of a university.

Jared Mrozinske: So, I said how do I get into that? And two names were brought to my attention. So had to figure out how to reverse engineer a meeting with them. What I was blessed with was to find some incredible people. Who worked in development, who would take coffees with me and help me understand the landscape of the job, who to talk to, how to get in, what it’s all about.

Jared Mrozinske: And they were lovely guys, but even they said it’s going to be a little tough because you went to Purdue.

Cornelius McGrath: Like they actually said that to you, like straight up, like you’re a nice guy, but.

The Power of Networking and Persistence

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, [00:58:00] and I get it. How do you fundraise? How do you tell an alum why they should love and believe in this school that you actually didn’t go to?

Jared Mrozinske: And I think, while I disproved it, I like to believe, but I think early on, and I wasn’t the first, I wasn’t like the trailblazer here. But it was super rare and it was difficult, especially at my age. I was 25. I eventually was able to figure out a way to meet one of the people that I was supposed to meet.

Jared Mrozinske: And the reason I was able to do that was because when football season happens at Notre Dame, faculty and staff get, sometimes, bulk season ticket orders. They needed interns to volunteer to make deliveries around campus. And so what I did was I went and found the packets that went to the people I needed to talk to.

Jared Mrozinske: And you’re supposed to just drop them off at the front desk or with their admin. And I took mine and did that most of the time until I got to the one person I [00:59:00] needed to speak with. And so I took it to the administrative assistant, and she said, Oh, sweetie, you could just leave that here. I said, no, it says on this envelope here that you’re supposed to hand deliver it. And I’m an intern. I don’t want to get in trouble. And she said that’s weird. They normally just have you drop it off, but that’s fine. She’s back there. Go on back.

Cornelius McGrath: Incredible.

Jared Mrozinske: That’s so great. Get sweet with the gatekeeper, buddy.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. Talk about that for hours.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. So I went Back to the office, knocked on the door, introduced myself, and dropped the tickets off. I said, oh, I just wanted to hand you your tickets. And she said, oh, that’s weird. They normally just leave them at the front. I said, no, I understand that, but I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Jared Marzinski. I’ve heard so much about you, great things. I’m just letting you know I’m really excited to be working with you in the future, and I’m excited to see what we can build together.

Jared Mrozinske: And she said, Oh, I didn’t realize you were starting a job here. I said I’m not yet. She said have you applied? I said, yeah, but nobody will look at my resume. I went to Purdue, and I know you guys don’t like us. [01:00:00] And she cracked up, and that’s it. I left, and I thought, why not? What else do I have to lose?

Jared Mrozinske: I go back to my internship. So anyway, the next week, I got an email from her admin asking to get coffee with the person. And we had coffee, and we had about an hour and a half conversation. And she told me she was so impressed with the fact that I just made that bold move that she was intrigued enough to find out what I was all about.

Jared Mrozinske: And then. I’m confident enough in myself to understand if I could get somebody in a convo I believe I’ll give off a pretty good impression. Not a phoney one, but just, I’m just going to tell them who I am, right? Yeah. I’m from La Porte and went to Purdue. My parents are Connie and Floyd. Floyd was a fireman.

Jared Mrozinske: Super. Yeah. I’m, I don’t know how I’m really going to help you, but I just know that I want to work for you. And so she became, and to this day still is, my mentor. I meet with her, I’m meeting with her next week actually. And I haven’t worked for her in five years. And she’s incredible [01:01:00], and she gave me that first shot.

Jared Mrozinske: And I, it goes, for me, the lesson, if that was supposed to be, what was the takeaway? It was grind and hustle. Yeah. Don’t be fake, but grind and hustle and wheel and deal. Find somebody, though, who’s going to give you your first big break.

The Importance of Genuine Relationships

Cornelius McGrath: And do what it takes to get there. And do the damn research, dude. Believe. Believe. I know research has a slightly negative connotation in you and I’s minds, but I do believe in doing your homework. I think I love that story. I might offer one up too, but I went to a conference in Ireland, very reminiscent of you of just understanding the gatekeepers, understanding the value prop.

Cornelius McGrath: And I got invited to this conference in Ireland junior year. During finals week, and I had no finals, talk about understanding a system, playing a system. And it was just at a point in my academic career where everything was a paper-based final. I’d started speaking to this professor, who was brilliant.

Cornelius McGrath: His name’s Len Clark, incredible guy. And he ran a [01:02:00] brilliant journalism class at Notre Dame. And he’s a great kind of multimedia storyteller. And much your mentor took a chance on you, I think Len took a chance on me, met him for coffee, I was asking the right questions, he was like, look, I’m planning this conference called MojoCon in Dublin, and Note and Aim are actually hosting a pre-conference dinner, so I bet if you email them, they’ll give you a free ticket.

Cornelius McGrath: So I emailed them, got a free ticket, I had some grant money left over from the Nanofit Institute, and I went over there during finals re-tuning year. The year my girlfriend Monica was graduating, and had this incredible conference. I had done my research beforehand. I looked up all the speakers. There was one speaker I really wanted to meet, and her name was Molly Swenson and she at the time was running this company called Riot that had just been acquired by the Huffington Post.

Cornelius McGrath: So she gave this amazing speech, incredible presence from the West Coast, went to Harvard. And I [01:03:00] went up to her afterwards, and I was nervous, so I just started babbling about, I remember what I said, I was like, I think there’s a huge gap between capitalist journalism and the New York Times.

Cornelius McGrath: And she looked at me like, duh, of course, there is, right? A bit politely. But I just didn’t quite get there, and someone else had to speak to her, so we were done. So I remember that night. In the back of my conference packet, because I had been at the pre conference dinner. They had put a little card that admitted me to the speaker’s dinner that night.

Cornelius McGrath: So I remember going over there, arriving, and it was this beautiful event at this beautiful Irish hotel. Bottles of Jameson were just being given out. And Molly, I saw Molly, I was like, alright, I’m gonna have a Guinness pluck up the courage to go say hi again. And she was just swarmed. It was literally like the Pope had arrived at this hotel.

Cornelius McGrath: Because she was easily the most impressive speaker, everybody wanted to speak to her. So anyway, it quiets down; I don’t know if I just said, fuck it, I’m gonna go for it, but I went up there. And she [01:04:00] turns to me, I catch her eye, and I said, I just wanted to let you know, I actually thought today’s speech was better than your TED talk.

Cornelius McGrath: She’s You watched my TED talk? Oh yeah, I watched your TED talk. It was brilliant. Perlin, right? She was like, can I tell you a story about that? I’d love to. Can I buy you a drink? And she was like, sure. And we walked over to the bar. It created the space that we needed to have a 25, 30 minute conversation.

Cornelius McGrath: And she proceeds to tell me that, actually, the morning of her TED talk, her alarm didn’t go off. So she nearly missed it. And then they messed up her slides. So they got the slides wrong. So she was like, it really means a lot that you said that because I actually didn’t think I nailed it, but I could speak to it, and she was impressed.

Cornelius McGrath: She then introduced me to two VP, VPs from Apple, and she’s a mentor to this day. We check in once a quarter; she’s been amazing for me. She introduced me to million-dollar consulting, just unbelievable. So I think that the [01:05:00] takeaway of just being willing to go that extra mile and do that extra thing and be entrepreneurial of you weren’t too big for the task. But then you saw the task of delivering tickets, which could be boring in theory, as actually an opportunity to get close to somebody. And I think that’s amazing.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. What do you have to lose?

Cornelius McGrath: Nothing.

Jared Mrozinske: My dad had this great line. Growing, when I was entering the dating scene.As we all do. Yeah. And he said, you know how you get a pretty girl to go out with you? You ask her.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. Love that.

Jared Mrozinske: 90 per cent of the time. People don’t ask. No. They’re just, it was too intimidating to even go try. And that’s so true in life. In this case, the pretty girl was a job, and you just gotta go ask, yeah, do the right things to get the job. Ironically enough, what I left out about that story was. Huh. The mentor she was an IU grad.

Cornelius McGrath: That’s brilliant.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, so not even a Notre Dame. And ever since we’ve always bonded on like being the outsiders. [01:06:00]

Cornelius McGrath: And I think that’s a great takeaway. If you feel like the outsider, do the due diligence to figure out who’s going to give you a chance. Go on LinkedIn. Google the entire department. You’re sure someone’s going to have a wife, a brother. A sister, a cousin who went to your school or is from your area and tell them that and use them. It’s simple. Really. I just don’t think people want to do the work.

Jared Mrozinske: No. No, I think people rely too much on the false things. My GPA was good, my resume’s stout. That ain’t gonna cut it. A lot of people have good GPAs. A lot of people have good resumes.

Cornelius McGrath: And they mean jack shit because what you demonstrated to your mentor, If you’re willing to go that far to get the job really on the donor side, how willing you, how what, yeah. Are you to cut an extra mile and get that donation or build that relationship. And that’s all that matters, right?

Cornelius McGrath: That’s what you’re being hired for.[01:07:00] I’m interested, Jared; what is it that you see? That nobody else does. You’ve had such an interesting career; you’re not from a big city, you’re a college baseball player, you were The Outsider when you first came to Notre Dame, you’re not beyond any task, not above any task. What is it that you feel like you see that maybe others miss?

Jared Mrozinske: I think I would start by saying again back to the family. My mom had this incredible ability to make every single person, has I should say, this incredible ability to make every single person she meets, feel like the most important person in the world at that moment.

Jared Mrozinske: And I think that rubbed off on me. She makes people feel so good about themselves that they open up to her. And it’s totally genuine, too, when she does it, and people can pick that up. She’s genuinely giving a shit about you right now when she’s talking to you. On the [01:08:00] same note, my dad has this innate quality to read between the lines and understand the point of view of others.

Jared Mrozinske: He can see what people aren’t saying, and I say all this because I’m a product of the two of them. And with those two qualities, I think I’m able to see the traits and positions of others through different lens. It allows me to get to a lot deeper levels with people. And the insulated benefit of that being that I can see in everyone the potential they have to make things better.

Jared Mrozinske: And I can then connect them to others in my network and see the beauty that’s derived when you connect two people that would have never met each other. But because you understood each person’s mission in life, you’re able to say, wow, you should meet this person now. And then to see what gets built from there is awesome.

Cornelius McGrath: It’s got the relationships that have the most leverage, period. Content is the most scalable asset class. You take a step back from that, achieve stories that are the most scalable asset. And they make up every sale and every [01:09:00] asset class, but it is the relationships that form the story in the first place that are most scalable.

Cornelius McGrath: So, I describe you as a kind of arbiter of social capital; what is social capital to you? How do you define it? And in this crazy thing called life, how has it worked to your advantage but also your disadvantage?

Jared Mrozinske: To me, social capital is your personality currency. It’s what you trade on based on the person you are. It’s what you can get, or it’s what you can get from others in this life, completely based off how they feel about you. And I can tell you that had it not been for the social capital I built, there’s no way. I would be where I am in life, both personally and professionally.

Cornelius McGrath: How the hell have you built it? So clearly, you in the in that Purdue story, right? You were clearly lacking a form of social capital. [01:10:00] And I think you built some in a big way. By executing, by doing every task, and then by just being ballsy as fuck to go and hand deliver the football tickets. But how else do you build it? How do you build it today?

Cornelius McGrath: On a daily basis, when you’re approaching a new client, in just a new relationship, and you don’t have, You know, 10 billion exit to point to or a salesforce to point to, like, how do you build such capital?

Jared Mrozinske: My intention? So, not to say I kneel this every time, right?

Cornelius McGrath: No one does.

Jared Mrozinske: But my intention going into any interaction with somebody. It’s to see if I can give them value and that can be many things that could be I have a product that you need. That could be. Hopefully, my wife would say this a life of love and fun, or that could be Cornelius. I picked you up last night in Chicago on the way [01:11:00] back, and maybe you look like you’ve had a down day.

Jared Mrozinske:Let’s get a beer. If you want to talk about it, we can; we don’t have to. I think a lot of times it’s just, is there something I can do right now that’s going to be valuable to you or help you? And if you start there, you’ve always gone off the right foot. You can never you, people can’t leave that interaction and be like, Jared’s a dick, first thing he ever did was ask me for a favour. No, it’s he listened, or he helped me out with something that was really the guy, right? Again, I don’t always nail it. I try to figure it out if I do that.

Cornelius McGrath: I think Naval Ravikant said something great on Joe Rogan’s podcast a few weeks ago, which is there are 8 billion people in this world. Not everyone’s going to like you. And I’m someone needs to remember that. Especially when you do all the right things, you hit the right shot, and you still get out, or you don’t get a home run. And I guess on that point then, we have to remember that everybody’s not gonna like us. How do you know when you’ve built social capital?

Cornelius McGrath: Because [01:12:00] it, it can’t just be, oh, I feel like that person fucking loves me. Cause, cause there’s people that I’m sure don’t love me as much as my girlfriend or my mum do. You still respect the fuck out of me, right? How do you know that you’ve built? Social capital with someone. And how do you go thinking about, so I love the value piece, right? But how do you know, at the end of the day do you have criteria?

Jared Mrozinske: I don’t know, I don’t know that I do know. I got a good feeling if the person keeps wanting to hang out. I also don’t take offence if they don’t. I don’t want, again, I don’t want the message of this session together to be I think I’m so great and everybody loves me because I know that’s not the case.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. I also have a tendency to be. I talk about genuineness and honesty, and I think that goes both directions. Yeah. I’ve I’m honest with everybody about how I actually feel in a respectful way; there’s a good reasoning behind what I’m telling you right now. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but this is how I feel.[01:13:00]

Jared Mrozinske: That shocks and awes some people. My buddy’s got this great line where he said if he and this was the guy who’s the best man in my wedding, by the way. Okay. The one who’s supposed to love me as a friend more than anybody. And he said if you go before me. I’m going to have on your tombstone; here lies Jared Mrozinske. He wasn’t for everybody.

Cornelius McGrath: That’s fantastic.

Jared Mrozinske: And I take that as a term of endearment. I think what he means is, Hey, you got the genuine, honest version of him that may have not been something you enjoyed, but you at least know where he stood, and I’m okay with that.

Cornelius McGrath: I think it’s a damn good thing to have. How do you think about building relationships? Mr. Arbiter of Social Capital, how do you build relationships? Because it’s a word that’s chucked around as much as machine, machine learning and artificial intelligence. And it’s been a, it’s been a, it’s been a word that’s been around a lot longer than then.

Cornelius McGrath: And you’d think by [01:14:00] this point, the human race would be better at relationships, given how much of a role they played in our history. But I, as someone who I like to think of myself as a good relationship builder. I think you’re an even better one. How do you think about them? So how do you approach building relationships?

Jared Mrozinske: The best thing you can do again the theme of the podcast, right? I think you, you have to cultivate them genuinely and honestly, and you have to be willing to tell people your story, and you especially have to be willing to be honest with one another, even if that means risking the entire relationship.

Cornelius McGrath: Give me just a stop there, Suke. Can you give me an example of that? Have you risked the quote, an entire relationship, just to cultivate something that’s genuine and honest?

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, so not to name names. Of course, that’s fine. That’s fine. Some big ones, some honest big ones, I’ll tell you. And everybody’s been here, right? What this example I’m about to give, everybody’s been there. Your really good friend is going down a path with somebody that you’re not certain that’s the right person for the right person. [01:15:00] And. It’s been told to me, by the way. Yeah. And I’m, thank God, it has. Yeah. I had good friends, and especially family members, who told me, Hey, this girl, I just don’t think this one is for you.

Cornelius McGrath: Is for you. Yeah.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. That sucks to hear. And it makes you hate that person for telling you that. But I think at your core, you knew I did, at least. As pissed off as I was, That they weren’t, that was being told to me in the back of my mind, I know. So that’s one example. And I think it’s even more sensitive when it’s family.

Jared Mrozinske: Families are funny. It’s this whole idea of there’s nothing stronger than a family and stuff. I call BS on that. I think those are the ones who get pissed off the most, if you’re honest sometimes, right? Is that families are, and I love mine. Don’t get me wrong at all, but we’re an honest family.

Jared Mrozinske: I know right now that my mom, dad, and sister and wife are super okay with me and happy with me right now. I know that because I guarantee my [01:16:00] phone would be blown up if they were pissed off at me for something. Like you’d know. Yeah. And I think people are really have a really hard time being honest with their family because they’re worried about, Oh, is my brother ever going to talk to me even if I tell him that he’s married to the wrong girl or is about to and that’s really hard.

Jared Mrozinske: So yeah, when I say honest and genuine I, what I mean is, both ways. Whether that’s going to be honest and genuinely complimenting somebody or also telling them some hard truth that you feel at least. Bizarre truth. And I would say one-sided relationships are doomed. So I always try to stay conscious of the fact that I’m bringing value to everyone in my life. So sometimes that’s, again, business value. Sometimes it’s as easy as sitting down with somebody.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. What’s the best relationship you’ve ever built?

Jared Mrozinske: It’s my wife. That one that’s probably the easiest question you’ve asked.

Cornelius McGrath: I don’t want to ask easy questions.

Jared Mrozinske: I know. Dude, I have never created a stronger relationship built on love, honesty, and fun like I have with my wife.

Jared Mrozinske: If [01:17:00] you think about it, there’s no, there was no initial reason for her to talk to me. There was no professional gain for her. And it’s not like she had to love me because she was a blood relative or something like that. Huh. I had very little money. Not that I’m rolling in it now.

Jared Mrozinske: My point is, if the question is, what’s the strongest relationship I have? How can I not say it’s the one where I took it from complete strangers? To committing to a relationship of love for all of eternity. That’s super heavy.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, that’s real.

Jared Mrozinske: You’re incredibly blessed.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, that’s real.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. And you talk about that girl, dude, she’s the one sitting next to me when I’m telling somebody honest things.

Jared Mrozinske: And she’s right there by my side. And you know what the best thing about her is? And I love this. She’ll call me out on things when she thinks I’m off. But at least she does it like kinda on the ride back. In public, she’s always a If I get into a [01:18:00] pissy match that two plus two equals five, she’s going to have my back on the way home.

Jared Mrozinske: She’s you were way off. It was four going forward. Maybe don’t say that. But my point is, she’s always got my back. She puts up with me. She understands that to my buddy’s quote. I’m not for everybody.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, I love that.

Jared Mrozinske: Sure. That was for her.

The Silicon Valley Experience: Inspiring but Challenging

Cornelius McGrath: Oh, that’s awesome, man. I love Jen. What is it like being a huge Having spent, what, the best part of three years as part of NDE Development, going out to Northern California. What’s it now like to be building as Silicon Valley starts up from South Bend?

Jared Mrozinske: Inspiring. If you go out to Silicon Valley, you can’t walk down the road to get a cup of coffee without bumping into 15 startup CEOs. And I think the area has grown immune to novel ideas and great stories. And if you tell somebody out there that you have a startup, you get this feeling like, yeah, buddy, you and everybody else, [01:19:00] the sun shining. I had two companies this morning.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. So true.

Jared Mrozinske: You can have the greatest idea in the world, but it may never get legs in Silicon Valley because of startup saturation.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, it might not even get its 1 billion exit. So no, seriously, maybe she doesn’t want to speak to you. But that’s not entrepreneurship, is it?

Jared Mrozinske: No. And the reason I love it so much here is outside of my family and loved ones and network being strongest here you get in Indiana, you get curiosity, you get enthusiasm. And most importantly, you get people who want to help you. And that’s not to say it’s easier in Indiana. Because you’re new and cool, and people aren’t used to seeing that, I simply mean that your idea will get a fair shake, and you’ll be heard.

Jared Mrozinske: And it’s still up to you to drive it forward, but people are willing to help. And the Midwest, in my opinion, is the next great innovation hub and it’s really exciting to be a part of that and especially feel like you’re a part of the early movement of that.

Cornelius McGrath: What [01:20:00] did you love about SF?

Jared Mrozinske: What I loved about SF was so it’s funny. When I started in development, I remember initially having the opportunity to go to Texas, Minneapolis, or Northern California. And my really good friend, Stephen Smith, was on the Northern California team. Love Stephen. Shout Stephen. And so I wanted to do that. I was single, also.

Jared Mrozinske: So the long trip didn’t bother me. I knew that spot was probably better suited for somebody who was married with a family who didn’t have to go as far. I don’t mind going to California. Why not? It was exciting to me. And what I loved about it was. I think back, had I gone to Texas, had I gone to Minneapolis every other week for three years, would I have been bitten by this entrepreneurial spirit?

Jared Mrozinske: Would I have realized the creativity in myself, and would I have had the when you see people making the jump and taking chances all the time, you start flying [01:21:00] back on that plane to Indiana saying, why not me? And so I’m really happy I did that. So my favorite part about SF was the inspiration I got from the area.

Building a Startup in South Bend: A Different Approach

Cornelius McGrath: And it’s very clear to me from your narrative that you’re not trying to rebuild or remake. The Silicon Valley here, you’re trying to, you’re trying to do some things differently. Yeah. What are the things you won’t be, weren’t taking back with you on the plane? The things you were like, I definitely don’t want to be engaged with that.

Cornelius McGrath: I don’t want my ecosystem to look like that. If any, you don’t have to have one, is a leading question.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. I would say the same reason I like it here. I do what I don’t want to see it turn into is another huge community that gets super disconnected from reality. And sometimes I feel like when you go out there.

Jared Mrozinske: A dollar amount that used to be a big number to you is no longer a big number; an idea that you thought was incredible is no longer a cool idea. Or just this idea of, like, how to treat a [01:22:00] person, it gets a little lost, it’s a compact, small area full of a ton of people, and I’m not so certain they’re looking out for each other.

Jared Mrozinske: And I think here where you’re going to have the ability to do is of just as much success and still not lose that kind of core that was always in why we started this thing. Yeah, I think I think you think of SF. You’ve gone out there all the time too.

Cornelius McGrath: I think you’re right. I think inspiring is the right word. It’s truly phenomenal what’s happened there. People you meet. Beautiful landscape. The fact it’s so fucking small. Yeah. People think it’s a big city. It’s tiny. It’s seven square miles or something. And it’s a couple hundred thousand people.

Cornelius McGrath: But you’ve got paper billionaires everywhere, the most billionaires per capita in the world; rent is outrageous. So, on the one hand, I think it’s inspiring; on the other hand, though, I think it’s one of the most difficult places to go and make something of yourself. [01:23:00] I think there’s a very specific model that works there, which is venture-backed and for those listeners that are maybe wondering what I mean by that.

Cornelius McGrath: I basically mean that you have an in through a lawyer or some angel investor to a big BC, BC, there’s such as an Andreessen, and you have an opportunity to pitch them. They think your total addressable market is big enough for them to put some money in you. And then the hope is that you’ll be at bat home run.

Cornelius McGrath: That’s the model. And I think if you evaluate it, every baseball player. By their at-bat home run, you probably miss some fucking gems. Yeah, right. And so that’s actually what I believe is I think that model was incredible, but it’s not realistic for most of us. It’s certainly not the company.

Cornelius McGrath: I want to run, and actually, I’m much more familiar and comfortable with Howard Stevenson’s definition of entrepreneurship, which is the pursuit of a goal without regard to current resources [01:24:00] You know, and for that reason, I think everybody is an entrepreneur. So I think I love SF, but to me, it’s not the pinnacle of entrepreneurship.

Cornelius McGrath: I will say that. Yeah. I think it’s an amazing place where people have done incredible things at scale and it’s probably the best at that. But you know me, I’m probably more biased to the parishes and the Pharisees the world because I think that model is easier to work with.

Cornelius McGrath: And so if you’re spending 2 700 bucks for a. You’re a studio, right? You’re just gonna be eating more cash, can’t buy nice equipment like this, can’t take flights for big business meetings, you’re under the cosh, don’t have time to think and create, and I also think socially that city’s got a lot of issues, of what happens when economic growth isn’t inclusive, so yeah, I think it’s a great case study, and I think that’s what you should always be looking for is, Never trying to recreate everything. We’re trying to be taking away the best of the best and then figuring out what you could [01:25:00] do with the rest I don’t know. What do you think about that?

Jared Mrozinske: No, I like that. I really like theory.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, I love it.

Jared Mrozinske: I love going there’s a lot of extraordinary stories coming out of there, but I think it can be done somewhere else, and it should be done somewhere else, and it should be done differently.

The Philosophy of Being Your Own Best Shot

Cornelius McGrath: They should have It’s tough. It’s you ask yourself. What was I a good soccer player? Compared to Marcus Rashford? No. But, compared to my high school team, boys in London my age maybe not bad. So it’s all about your reference frame. Let’s kind of transition to a couple quickfire questions, J Rod. To wrap this up, I’m fascinated. How do you learn? What do you read? What’s your filter for information and how do you get inspiration for your kind of daily pursuits?

Jared Mrozinske: Technically, I’m a chronological learner, and I’ve learned that about myself over time. So, I think I learned better in sequence. So I suppose that’s why I’ve always been pretty decent at math and good at history.

Cornelius McGrath: For the patterns.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, there’s a pattern, there’s a [01:26:00] story, there’s an order. But if you think about it, it tells you a lot about my personality too. I enjoy a good story, and I ask a lot of questions, and that’s how I learn and where do I get inspiration from.

Jared Mrozinske: It’s the same thing. I get inspiration from hearing other people’s stories. I love that Zack the Caddy told me about the tiny caddy from Michael J. Fox.

Cornelius McGrath: And I wonder how many people know that story. I’m not to say no one knows it, but my bet is, did you ask him how many people have asked him that question?

Jared Mrozinske: I could tell by his answer not many did.

Cornelius McGrath: I like that.

Jared Mrozinske: Because he gave me one of those.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah. Shit, I don’t know.

Jared Mrozinske: And then it came to him. So he didn’t have it queued up.

Cornelius McGrath: Because that’s what I love, is I always love making people pause.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, like you attended me for a couple times.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, just I’m glad I asked you that because there’s a connection going on there that hasn’t happened before. If you think about inspiration, I know you watch a lot of sports. I know you love, love, love some good TV. What’d you get for inspiration?[01:27:00]

Jared Mrozinske: I suppose I just go to my network. I think there’s been a lot of times, ma’am, if you think about it, where my day hasn’t gone that and I call you up just to not even to complain, but just to hear about yours. Maybe something cool up and you that turns me around a little bit. I go to Jenna.

Jared Mrozinske: I go to my parents. I go to my friends. Something to lighten the mood a little bit. We’re getting me back on track. I go to my coworkers; our founder of our company has this awesome ability to calm me down when I feel like, are we doing well enough? Am I there yet? Are we, and she’s Hey, I really think we’re on a good path. I was like, okay. And so it’s funny.

Cornelius McGrath: What do you want to be remembered for?

Jared Mrozinske: What I want to be remembered, what I hope when I’m gone. People know two things about me. I hope that they know that I loved my family and friends. And that if I spoke with you and we had a relationship, it was because I genuinely appreciated our relationship. [01:28:00] And I hope nobody ever feels confused as to where we left off.

Cornelius McGrath: I love that. You’ve said to me a couple times that you want to be your own best shot. What does that mean?

Jared Mrozinske: This kind of came from a question you asked me a long time ago about me being able to one day go watch The Masters. And, you had some people that, In my life, that I know that could maybe perhaps make that a little easier for me to do, and you said, I remember you saying, do you think your best shot is blank?

Jared Mrozinske: And I said, yeah, probably, but I want to be my own best shot. And what I meant by that, and I said it at off the, I didn’t have that ready.

Cornelius McGrath: No, I like it. It’s a great phrase.

Jared Mrozinske: I started saying it all the time. But what I mean is, dude, I want to work so hard and do so well and not sacrifice the things that are really important to me, like family, I want to get to a point where [01:29:00] if I want to go do something fun, or if I want to have something happen, then I’m my own best shot at having it.

Jared Mrozinske: So the next time somebody says, how do you think you go to the masters? I just want to be saying, I’ll probably get invited, because people are going to love me there. And so that’s what I mean. I don’t want to have to know somebody. To reverse engineer an outcome. I just want to be like, no, people want Jared there. I’m enough.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, and I think that mindset completely reframes how you think about it. Not that, oh, I’m so deserving, but Yeah. I’ve always loved that. Yeah. I’ve always loved that phrase. And I think that can be perceived as arrogant, but I think confidence and knowing that you have what it takes and you studying the system, understanding how Augusta works, how they think about value, all of those things will, I think, enable you to go.

Cornelius McGrath: So I look forward to our next episode, being at Augusta. And you can totally bring me ’cause I don’t think I have my own best shot. [01:30:00] Final two questions. How do you earn your stripes and prove your worth? We’ve talked about social capital, talked about the value of executing. We’ve talked about building relationships. But how do you earn stripes and prove that you are who you are?

Earning Stripes and Proving Worth

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. In the spirit of social capital being your personality currency, that bank role only grows as you continue to show up and produce. And I think Agreed. Throughout my professional career, I hope I’ve shown people that I’ll get in the weeds and do the grunt work just like my GM did at the Silverhawks.

Jared Mrozinske: I don’t think a lot of people are willing to do that anymore. I think I get this sense that many people feel entitled to the top before they’ve really produced, and I’m not a; I like to think I’m not above anything, and I think that when you show that to people, they’ll give you a shot.

Jared Mrozinske: And I remember doing some crazy things back in my internship days, scraping snow off coaches’ cars. [01:31:00] Counting all the seats in Notre Dame Stadium to make sure nothing changed over the winter.

Cornelius McGrath: The devil was proud of stuff.

Jared Mrozinske: As if it would have. And but then I got my shot because of it. And I think the key then becomes producing, improving people. Improving. to my mentor, who took a chance on me after I delivered her tickets, that this was a wild hire for me. And she was on her own career trajectory. She didn’t have a very great threshold of failure at the time. She was really trying to make sure she was producing, and she took a shot on me, and I like to think I worked hard to make her look good.

Cornelius McGrath: Fuck yeah. Alright, brother, final, this has been an incredible final couple of questions. Favorite book? Favourite philosopher? And the person or people that are most exciting to you right now and why you can take that in any order.

Jared Mrozinske: Okay, I’ll just go in the order you asked. Favourite book and I have no idea why this is my favourite book.

Jared Mrozinske: It’s not a business book, although special shout out to The Power of Habit, which I really enjoyed.[01:32:00] I’m not a big reader, so it’s hard for me to keep a book, to keep my interest. I would say it was actually all quiet on the Western front. Again, I can’t tell you why; I just found it so honest and raw, and I breezed through it.

Jared Mrozinske: It’s for some reason, I enjoyed it, I think; I suppose it’s because it was so authentic and genuine. It’s this really great vibe and human story you get from it. Philosopher? Yeah. What is a philosopher? Ooh. Really? I’m gonna throw it back at you. To me You know, it’s somebody with a deeper level of thinking about the human beings of the world, and so to answer your question, I actually think it’s my dad Guys like residence.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah, guys had a hell of a life full of ups and downs. He was a fireman for 35 years, so you can imagine the shit he saw. But his outlook is still super optimistic. He didn’t even he didn’t you know, have the best childhood in life But, a guy loves his wife and kids, he’ll do anything for anyone, he’s always had an [01:33:00] incredible perspective on things and has always made me feel better about the world.

Jared Mrozinske: So I think he’s a great philosopher, and I think to be one, you have to truly live a life and actually see some things. I’ll never forget the time he when I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real, and he told me he is real, but Santa Claus is a spirit. It’s a spirit that lives in all of us, and you’re Santa Claus just by being good around that time and helping people.It’s what way to. Tell your kid there’s no Santa Claus.

Cornelius McGrath: Wow. I didn’t get that. Just found my mom wrapping presents, pouring flour on the ground, and then pressing her flip flop into the flour to make it look like Santa Claus has slept on the snow.

Jared Mrozinske: But that spirit to make her go through all of that.

Cornelius McGrath: Oh yeah, it’s amazing.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. Is the same.

Final Thoughts: Remembering and Building Relationships

Cornelius McGrath: It’s everything. It’s everything. All right, buddy. To wrap up. Person, people that are most exciting to you right now. I know you meet a lot of great ones.

Jared Mrozinske: You. My little sister, my wife, my parents, everybody in my network that I’m emotionally invested in [01:34:00] right now is super exciting. I can’t wait to see what’s next for my network. Of I think Game Changers and World Beaters.

Cornelius McGrath: Fucking love that dude. Where can people find you?

Jared Mrozinske: What night of the week?

Cornelius McGrath: Depends on the bar special.

Jared Mrozinske: That’s so true as well.

Cornelius McGrath: Yeah, I know it’s Jay’s, right?

Jared Mrozinske: It’s definitely Jay’s. Jay’s Lounge in Niles, Michigan, is the spot.

Cornelius McGrath: It’s a great spot. You gotta go there, guys.

Jared Mrozinske: Walking around Cross Creek with Jenna and my dog Eric every evening. And Basically anywhere there’s a cold beer game on and some fun people. And on the digital side? Email would be Jared at bricklayer. com. B R I C L E I R. com. Or just jamerezinski@gmail.com, and then I’m on Instagram, Facebook, the regular.

Cornelius McGrath: Awesome, buddy. Look, this has been such a great time. I hope you have a wild time at the PGA this weekend, I’m sure. There’ll be a ton of social capital [01:35:00] flying about. And yeah, man, I think some of your philosophies and insights on life are brilliant, but I think what the title of this episode will be is Being Your Robust Shot because I think that’s something that everybody can reflect on and really think about.

Cornelius McGrath: And then, when you start thinking about that, you change your kind of perspective and how you experience each scenario. And I do think you’ll be at Augusta one day; who knows playing if you keep up the practice and shooting 90s on the hard courses in Vegas, but I do believe that you’ll be there.

Cornelius McGrath: And I think that you have to have that self-belief. Otherwise, how are you going to convince anybody else that you should be there in the first place? Right on. It makes so much sense.

Jared Mrozinske: Yeah. And thank you for having me, man. And I’m super proud of you. Thank you. From the kid who, you know. A new nobody from across the pond to reverse engineer what you’ve done at the age you have done it at. Super inspiring. So thank you. Fun being here without you, brother.

Cornelius McGrath: Hey, buddy. My pleasure. All right, man. Look, have a great weekend. Guys, [01:36:00] thanks for listening. And we’ll see you next time.