Hey there, listener! Thank you for checking out our older seasons! We're adding this note on the top of the show notes to keep you up-to-date with the show. Connect with Jen Amos and get bonus content when you subscribe to our private podcast show, Inside the Fort by US VetWealth, at http://insidethefort.com/

Last Updated: September 2, 2024

---

176: "Entrepreneurship is definitely not a chia pet." Gaining Clarity Through an Outside Perspective with Adrian Suzuki-Cruz

Jen Amos invites UX Design Expert and Project Manager for US VetWealth, Adrian Suzuki-Cruz to share how working with her company has given him the confidence to pursue his own business, Suzuki Startups. Jen thanks Adrian for his work improving the Military Retirement Blueprint Portal, saying it has led to more qualified leads and conversations. Jen credits Adrian for helping them stay focused on US VetWealth's objectives. In closing, Jen emphasizes how entrepreneurship is a commitment like a marriage that requires consistency over time. Adrian encourages persistence and creating opportunities yourself rather than waiting for them.

This episode is also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rEkBxW6ot_U

Connect with Adrian Suzuki-Cruz

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-suzuki-cruz/
• https://www.adriansuzukicruz.com/

--

Check out our last newsletter for 2023: https://mailchi.mp/5f4af326864a/holdingdownthefort

Do you want to do more than “follow orders,” think outside of the box, and manifest your dreams? Then you’ve come to the right show! The award-winning podcast, Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth, is returning for Season 7 to highlight motivational stories of personal growth, financial awareness, and autonomy in our military community. The show is hosted by Jen Amos, a Gold Star daughter, Veteran Spouse, and Entrepreneur.

Access our FREE PORTAL for bonus content: https://holdingdownthefortpodcast.com/portal

Season 7 is in partnership with The Rosie Network! Read more - CLICK HERE

Get the latest updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter:  CLICK HERE

Our main sponsor US VetWealth is proud to offer a FREE Retiree Appraisal to help military retirees make a confident and informed decision on the Survivor Benefit Plan and Thrift Savings Plan. Get a comprehensive understanding and financial valuation of your time in service today by visiting: https://usvetwealth.com/usvw-appraisal/

In the Fall of 2023, Jen Amos was sought after by InDependent to co-host the 8th annual InDependent Wellness Summit™. In August 2022, Jen Amos' work on the podcast was recognized by Disney Institute and she was hand-selected as the only non-Disney employee to moderate the first Military Spouse Employment panel for the Veterans Institute Summit. March 2022, Jenny Lynne has voted the 2022 Naval Station Norfolk Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year. November 2020, Jen Amos was awarded “Media Professional of the Year” at The Rosie Network Entrepreneur Awards! The show continued to collect award nominations in the following years. In September 2021, the show made the Final Slate in the 16th Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards for the Government & Organizations category. In November 2021, the show was an Award Finalist for the 5th Annual National Veteran & Military Spouse Entrepreneur Awards. December 2021, the show was a Golden Crane Podcast Awards Nominee. September 2022, the show was a Finalist for the 13th Annual Plutus Awards presented by Capital Group for “Best Military Personal Finance Content.”

Holding Down the Fort has also been featured in multiple media outlets including Military Entrepreneur (M.E.) Magazine, MOAA’s Never Stop Learning Podcast, The Leadership Void Podcast, Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast, Sisters in Service Podcast, Get 2 Vet, Blue Star Families of Dayton & Southwestern Ohio, Legacy Magazine, U.S. Veterans Magazine, The American MilSpouse, VeteranCrowd Network, It's a Military Life, VirtForce, Military Veteran Dad Podcast, and much more.

Enjoy our show? Kindly leave us a 5-Star review on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/30SJ7NW, Podchaser https://bit.ly/3dnCacY, or write a LinkedIn Recommendation for Jen https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenamos/edit/forms/recommendation/write/

Jen Amos 0:00

Is this on? I gotta turn this on. And then I have to turn this on. Okay. And then now I have to do a clap. Okay. All right. I'll do one more. Okay, that's pretty damn as high. Okay, cool. Cool. Did you freeze? Wait, wait. Don't freak me out

Speaker 1 0:27

lately reduced the jitters for you. Yeah.

Jen Amos 0:30

Oh, thanks. I know. I feel like it's funny because like, I've like, I think the way like, because I come off very meticulous. I come off like super nervous at the same time. But I don't know. I think it's

Speaker 1 0:43

because I don't even know what to say. Yeah. I just like, like, like doing improv right now because I'm like, yeah, it's not an interview. Like there's no like, work interviews. So I was just like, oh, yeah,

Jen Amos 0:54

you gotta be you. You gotta you gotta exercise practicing Suzuki startups. It's gonna be really tight. And yes, and yeah, density and the audacity, Audacity. That it's like it's working right now, as far as I can tell. Okay, cool. All right, cool. So let's go ahead and jump into it. So what I'm gonna do first is I will just welcome you. And then you can say hi. And then I'm going to open up with an icebreaker question. So that way, like, we can just kind of ease into it, and, and then we'll start flowing and all that stuff and see and I'll be sure to guide the conversation. Okay, here we go. Hi, Dennis. You're like, okay, it's been a minute and a half in and we haven't started yet. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I am so excited. Because, you know, as we wrap up the season, I have the fortune of, in my opinion, saving the best for last, which is bringing on my best friend of 20 years. And also, you know, he's been working with us on behalf if you've been sorry, he's been working with us at US bet wealth. And as you know, every Thursday's, by now, if you've been following the show from the beginning of season seven, I often take advantage of Thursdays as a day to feature either our clients or people who work with us. And so without further ado, I'm so excited to introduce my best friend Adrian Suzuki Cruz with Suzuki startups. Adrian, welcome to holding down the fort by us but well,

Speaker 1 2:25

I Dan, thanks for having me. I'm really appreciate it. Yeah,

Jen Amos 2:28

so let's go ahead and open up with an icebreaker question because even though we talk to each other all the time, we don't talk to each other in this kind of fashion. So the icebreaker of the day is what do you what are you likely or let me let me rephrase that? What do you tend to splurge the most on? When you like when you want to spend like what do you spend on and I'll go first I'll as you think about it, I'll think about mine lately because it's the holiday season. It's it's fall weather. I've been splurging on just sales for clothes, like I've been wanting more like long sleeves that aren't like, you know, Scott's flannels from when you know he was like when when he was like overweight. And so now he has like, I ended up taking all of his flannels and wearing those, but now I'm like, Okay, I should probably should like get long sleeves for myself. So I I've been taking advantage of sales online during the holiday season to buy to splurge on like long sleeves, so so no, that's what I've been splurging on lately, but what about you?

Speaker 1 3:31

Well, for myself, I That's a good question, because I splurge on a lot of different things. Okay, top three, top three. Okay, that's a good one. I love splurge on a lot of food and drinks. I don't know if I should be saying and it's

Jen Amos 3:54

the holiday season. And

Speaker 1 3:56

actually, when I'm bored, sometimes it bored and also trying to develop myself I do like to splurge on training material, anything that helps level up my skills like Skillshare or some kind of app that I can Oh, I'm gonna learn some new skill on this thing. So I tend to splurge on those type of things. Just to feel like I'm leveling up so

Jen Amos 4:20

yeah, so it's like it's like even though you like eat a lot drink a lot at least you also splurge on educating yourself. So yeah, I just There you go. Yeah. The audacity? Yes. I'll just, I'll just share it now as we start to, you know, as we're wrapping up this season, but if you've been following from the beginning, you'll know that my audio quality has been different than the season versus past seasons. And so right now I'm actively recording on three different programs right now, just to make sure that I get the best like audio and video quality because I want to end the seasons. wrong. And so thank you, thank you, Adrian for, you know, just giving me a couple of minutes before we got started to turn on everything and then do a couple of claps so that we can like, hopefully get the best, you know, for for this recording?

Unknown Speaker 5:13

Yes, of course, anytime.

Jen Amos 5:16

Yeah. Well, I am just excited to now get into your story, I'm not just bringing you on, because you're my best friend, although,

Speaker 1 5:24

that's what this interview was all about. But sure,

Jen Amos 5:30

about our friendship has nothing to do with the military, nothing to do with what, Season Seven hold down the fort has been this entire season. Now, it's, it's actually really cool. Because, you know, a little background on us, we've known each other since high school. And it's just been crazy to see how our lives have turned out so differently. And yet we we still share so much in common. I think the key thing between us is personal development, it's always been a big thing for us. And interesting thing is, while you ended up going into corporate America, I ended up pursuing entrepreneurship. And so it's very, like, I'm curious if you have anything to say about that, like, you know, just the different the different lifestyles we chose?

Speaker 1 6:18

Well, we all you know, just like going to school or going to college and everything, you know, we choose different paths, even though we went to the same college, and, and a lot of times, we don't know what we're going to do, honestly, after, because we've just been like, oh, we just think that our lives are just gonna be very, like, simple. And but the fact that, you know, it's, I'm starting to see how my life is now, kind of, like, I'm starting to know what I want, you know, and, and it's always nice to hear your story where you, you went full entrepreneurship. And, you know, it was always something in the back of my mind. So it was really cool, that we can continue to talk and, and, and learn from each other. So that's,

Jen Amos 7:09

yeah, yeah. And so and I think, you know, I think it's like, so like, I think it's been really cool how we been able to continuously, like, update each other about our lives, you know, to the point where you are, you've like, open up your mind to entertaining the idea of like, a career change. And so you decided, so tell us, tell us about that journey, you know, where did you start from? Like, what, what is like, I guess the young adult years of being a professional look like to like, to that moment where you're like, Okay, I need to think outside of the box. So I gotta, I gotta use some buzzwords, for sure. So here, when did you start thinking outside the box, like, you know, and thinking outside of like, what you were doing? Or first, what were you doing? And then how did you think outside of that? Okay,

Speaker 1 7:51

yeah, sure. So I, my background is in sales. Well, I studied international business in college, and I wanted to do something with language and international and business. So why not try sales, you know, and everyone needs to have sales ability to, you know, have great communication skills when you're talking with people and just everything in life. And so I am still in sales right now. I've been doing it for over 10 years now. So, and mostly in the outside sales. So I travel a lot for work, and it was starting to feel like, okay, I've been, you know, I'm starting to see my life unravel. And I was like, well, in the back of minds, like, Can I do something else? Can I create a side hustle? Can I do something that I can have a little bit more control over my time. So that's where I started to venture out into a creative field, which is, right now, Jen knows this, but I'm, I'm I stepped into learning. Another skill called UX design. And people are like, what is UX design? So it's just user experience design, it's, it's just learning how, just being curious about how other people think. And empathize with how you know, like, think of your favorite app. Always wondering, like, how does this White who made this, you know,

Jen Amos 9:19

like,

Speaker 1 9:20

is this like bad, you know, so that the UX designer would do something with that in order to enhance the experience overall. And so for me trying to find my passions because over the years, I've done a lot of different things. Not so there's there's my sales but I was doing a little bit of Zumba. I tried to do stuff like language teaching, you know, because I love Japanese culture. So I was I wanted to teach Japanese a lot of people but you know, we in life we we go up and down and into our passions, and it's just all about like, what do you really want. So it was still, in a way, I was still trying to find who I was, you know, and I don't think that's very easy to know right away, just like I mentioned the beginning with college like, Oh, I'm done, where do I go next? You know, I guess I'll just do this, you know, it's really hard to create something for yourself if you don't know where you're going at first. So as I, as we all get older, I started to realize, hey, I can, I feel like I'm starting to know what I really want in life. So that's why I chose this creative field to hold to venture out to while still doing what I know now and maybe either merge the two or create something different or, you know, build my own business or side hustle on the side, just like, Jen, you know, so I'm going into entrepreneurship, too. So I'm not that far behind you. I'm almost there. So all right, catch up. I'm literally right behind you, though.

Well, you're all the way in the West Coast, you got a long way to make your way over here to the East Coast,

I still fly, you know.

You could probably be here in a couple hours. Yeah. If you really wanted to know, I think that's awesome. And I, you know, one thing I've always known about you is like your desire to learn, and I think that's why I think that's really why we've stayed friends for so long as we've always valued like improving ourselves or learning something new. And, you know, just knowing where you were at in your like sales career and knowing that you wanted to learn something new was really exciting for me to hear because it felt like you had a like, what's the phrase I'm looking for? Like you, you had like a new lease on life, so to speak, like you, you you realize, like, Oh, you don't have to have like, necessarily a midlife crisis. You know, we're still like, fairly young millennials. You know, I mean, we're like older millennials now. But like, you know, I don't think I don't think it justifies us having like a midlife crisis, but you know, just to see your excitement and like, like, your understanding of what UX design could be, and like the kind of people you could be working with, it was just really exciting for me to hear, because it just made me think about what I've, in a sense, what I've already been doing for the last 13 years is like, like doing, like, like, to me entrepreneurship is a collaboration, you know, it's a collaboration with the people you work with. It's the clients you work with, you know, and, and also the data, you know, the data and like the bottom line, it's like, it's like, how do we know if everything's working is if our bills get paid, you know. And so it was just really cool to hear that you wanted to dive into that industry. And, and I know that and so for so tell us a little bit about I know, I'm kind of talking about, like, what I think the things attracted you to it, but what would you say specifically, if you can kind of go back to over a year ago, like, well, over a year ago, when you started your program, you know, what attracted you the most to UX design?

Yeah, um, for me, UX design being a creative field, think of like, so I'm not a graphic designer, I don't have the visual aspect of what it has for this field. But it's, it doesn't limit you to this field, like, like a degree like, like being a lawyer or being an accountant, you have to have very specific hard skills on, you know, financial statements, you know. So that's different, because with UX design, it is that creative outlet that I've always been kind of looking for. And I wanted something that can still build on top of what I'm already doing, which is sales. And I learned that UX design has that bridge to work with stakeholders, meaning people are just clients, and understanding their needs and, and figuring out how I can match what I need, like whether it's to update their website, or it's to update their app or to update just their overall. You know, it's a little bit of marketing too. But it is a very unique field that has multiple different creative outlets. And I keep using that word creative. Because it's when you're doing something like day to day almost like like with sales, you have to make calls and set up meetings. And it's it gets easier, you know, you've started to figure out the rhythm and how to do it. But it's also kind of starts to become very mundane, versus something like UX design. It was just like, oh, there's, you know, something I can create out of it. And that creative skill that I will add last thing I will touch upon is it did match to what I was saying earlier, where I want to be able to what it was it? Yes, I wanted to be able to use my sales communications because you're communicating constantly with people like oh, why did you do it this way? Or like How come you're not getting the outcome that you're looking Looking for. And so I can, you know, talk there's a lot of research involved, there's a lot of designing involved, there's a lot of back and forth and I love that I just love you know, being well personality wise I'm an extrovert so I really love people and I get energized by that that's why I jumped into sales. And I saw that there was some correlation with UX design to have the creativity freedom as well as the the the communication sales bridge together, so

yeah, it wasn't it wasn't like a completely like Farfetch field. Like, it wasn't like you're jumping from sales to like, like knitting and crocheting, you know, like, yeah, actually, like, aligned in its own way. Like it was almost like, like you said, it was it kind of it really adds upon if not complements, or supplements, or however we want to use or whatever we want to what you're already doing. Yeah. Yeah.

And not only that, I just to add one more thing on that is like, even till now, I am using my UX design skills within my sales, day to day. So it's actually spiced up, like my day to day work, because I do now market research, I've helping the marketing team, I'm actually increasing my sales, surprisingly, because I'm able to you to reinvigorate myself in that aspect, but still want to create something on the side and not feel like they're two separate parts. It's a kind of graded, so I do like that I you know, learning just learning any new skill. That's, that's, like, what General is saying too, is like, if you know, you always want to be learning, you know, it's because the minute you stop, it's been you're just kind of like, that's when we have these midlife crisis is like what am I doing with my life? I'm, I'm, I'm 38. You know, I'm not 38. But I. And that's why we get to those points. Because it you start to feel like, you know, your life could have gone in a totally different direction. So what instead of feeling those motions, why don't you just take it all back in your control and do something with

it? Yeah, yeah, I love it. There's a phrase I've heard before that goes something like, if you're not growing, you're dying, you know. So like, just having that continual curiosity for life and being like a lifelong student. I hope that I hope that you and I still have conversations like this, like decades from now, you know, I think that would be a testament to our friendship, and also our like, our lust and love for life and like learning and grow.

Oh, you've already been doing this for 20 years. So I think we have the habit down of learning.

To be friends for probably twice as long. Yeah. Very minimum, right? Yeah. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Well, speaking of which, speaking of as, you know, part of the program, you're a part of recorded, you required you to build your portfolio so that you could actually, you know, seek out employment or, you know, potential clients for Suzuki startups. So tell us about your first client and or your first portfolio that are not your first portfolio. But tell us how, in building your portfolio you stumbled across as you as bet Well,

well, how that start. I'm kidding. What Jen, Jen keeps referring to the business, I'm trying to start up which my last name being Suzuki, I wanted to do something with startups or anything that that's already in motion, like businesses that are in motion. And that's why I am on this journey to build my own entrepreneurship business called Suzuki startups. And you know, I wanted but with that in, in any type of creative field, you kind of have to show a portfolio of what you've done. Whether if you're a hairstylist, you have to show a portfolio of all the hair, people's hair you've cut or color. If you're a graphic designer, you have to show all the different designs that you've made. So you have to constantly show your not show your worth but show like what you can do because it is a little bit also skill based. And being UX design. Yes, there's the research. Yes, there's the the business but you also need to be able to have you worked and collaborated with others. Where's your proof of, you know, kind of like social proof like what what did you do? You know, do you have any testimonies on on what you've created? Uh, how do we know that your work is actually good, you know? And so I asked my best friend and I Hey, you You know, I, you know, I know you guys have your business, and I need a portfolio to try to work on can I? Can I help you guys out in any way possible? And then an opportunity came up? And I'm going to pass?

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I, I have to, I have to, like, admit that as you were pursuing your new career, or you know, kind of like building toward it, I was like, I was like, Oh, how cool would it be if like, my best friend worked with me? You know, and, and the thing is like, with with us about wealth, you know, it's primarily Scott and I reading it, as you know, we do have a team. And, you know, shout out to all of them. You know, Trevor Sandy, Mike Siebel. And who else is there, shout out to Matt. And Bobby, and you know, and then all the people who came before. Yeah, we have some incredible people we work with. And one thing I've come to find in with all of our strengths, one thing that we definitely needed help with is clarity, clarity, with our messaging and clarity with our systems. And so the way that I kind of describe military retirement blueprint.com, which is our online portal for anyone, for anyone, any of our clients, or prospects of us about well to like, dive in more and like continue to self educate. It's also available to our podcast or podcast listeners here at holding down the fort podcast.com Ford slash portal, shameless plug, hold another podcast.com forward slash portal, which you can get access to, not only if you actually go that route? Yeah. We'll see. We'll see if we put like an hour wherever. Yeah,

no, no, here, here. And here.

We had the whole thing about if you do grow, if you do go the podcasting route, again, hold down the four podcast.com forward slash portal, not only will you get all the goodies that US bet wealth offers, all the Educational Resources for Financial related stuff, especially for alternative solutions, and the private market, you also get bonus content for holding down the fort exclusively. So like bonus episodes that are not released on here on the show. And we're going to be releasing more stuff in the offseason. But either way, either way, you know, the way that I describe our online portal is like, a house that we moved into, and a bunch of boxes are still unpacked, you know, like, everything's like kind of, we moved in, but we didn't like organize. And, and I think, you know, bringing you in with like a fresh, a fresh perspective and new perspective, really made the difference, you know, so tell us about, tell us about, like, what that was like for you to kind of walk into our house and figuratively speaking, like, see, see all the all the mess?

It was interesting. That's a good word. That's good. But I'm glad that I was welcome into SSI. You know, just in the analogy of the home, it's really hard to have someone come in and kind of, you know, help you see what's all lying around and help try this even trying to help organize and bring some perspective. And but yeah, I'll just I guess I'll touch upon it. Like when I wanted to, the first thing that I wanted to tackle with this membership portal is that clarity that Jen has, has brought up because there again, it was it was I guess, that was kind of messy, you know, and in the beginning, but I can't just, you know, say that, you know, I could but then it wouldn't really do anything, you know, and that wouldn't solve anything. Yeah, it wouldn't solve anything, it would just people would just say, well, what are you talking about? I worked really hard on this. And you don't, you know, yeah, that's to prevent, you know, any mosty or, you know, like, challenges that you might get? It's one thing to tell someone to like, oh, yeah, your house is messy, for instance. But it's another thing to actually want to change that you know, or even accept that. And, um, the one thing I, one of the first things we learned, especially doing UX design is, you know, how do you create this user experience to make it more friendly and fun and easy and make sense? And it's all about doing early, you know, what we learned is to, to do research, but not just any kind of research, it's research of who's already in it, like your, your, your user, in this case, and how can we enhance it based off of those feelings for for instance, you look again, your favorite app or, or your favorite food place, there's gonna be reviews, there's gonna be why they like it, why they don't like it. And as a business owner or have any case, you want to like, listen to those opinions at some time? Not all the time. Yeah, you have to sort through it so that you can enhance your business so that your customers, the people that are supporting you will continue to support you. So the interview very beginning, we what we did is we did I told Scott, like you have a very wonderful membership portal, you have three areas to say, start here and start here and start here. So yeah, I mean, three start areas. If I was, if I was going into this portal button that was brand new, definitely, I would think that I'm playing like an escape room, like, where do I start? Where do I, you know, so yeah, it was really, it was very interesting, but I can't just say like, it'd be most people say, based off of my experience, you should use you should just you should do that. Certainly, you should, you should, you know, like that doesn't make anyone want to change. So I just asked a, let's get just three people who are more to want to go and do a one on one research interview with us to see like, kind of like a focus group, but it's different. A focus group is where you have a lot of people, user interviews, like one on one. And I even had Jen join on some, and it just opened her eyes. So yeah,

which actually, for people who don't know, this, like this was very mind blowing for me, because in my mind, I thought, Oh, you need a you need a focus group to have many people give feedback. But for you, you did this one to one user testing. And so guide us through that, because it was mind blowing to see like, wow, you can actually get a lot of feedback from just watching one person, you know, observing one person's actions on your website. Yeah,

I feel like anyone can do this. It's just taking the time to step out of the situation. And as business owners, I've learned, talking, I've seen that it is hard when you're in the business, and you're so focused on what do you need to do next? How are you going to bring the next sales and all those several Corrado? How do I make the customer happy that you forget that it's already running, and then, you know, now you're need to take yourself out, or you might have some blind spots. And that's why when I came in, even genuine a lot of what was happening, but couldn't see it as well. And it's not her fault, because there was there's, there's so many other things that were moving. And so I came in to kind of like, hey, well, let's just stick a step back and see what we can do. So the user testing was that, so we took one member, and we said, hey, here's their membership website. Where would you start? Like, yeah, give me a simple as that. And then, and tell us, you know, and you could just watch them, you know, and then it literally, it confirmed, even my biases, like maybe they might be able to actually go through it perfectly fine. And then maybe I'm wrong. But it was very evident to see that they were like, Wait, where do I start? I see three, again, it goes back to the three start buttons, do I scroll to the top to go to the bottom, it says scanning start here, or maybe go get this tour and start here. So it was really, it was very eye opening to watch. And then from there, you know, we got to show that to Scott and and to show that like, Oh, I do need to make a change. I didn't realize that. You know, sometimes, you also learned that I what I've learned in UX design, is that you you're not the user. Yeah.

I was gonna add to that, because, you know, Scott had, he said, Well, I am the user, as you know, as a state, you know, he's the stakeholder Right? Like, we're the stakeholders here. And, and yet his mind sets like, well, I'm, I'm going through this, this is for me, but it's a completely different experience from someone who's like, who's created created this portal versus, you know, like, how do the people we actually want to serve? navigate it? Yeah,

I kind of another good analogy for this is like, if you have your, you know, when you have your own computer or desktop or even your phone, you organize your folders the way you would do it, like, Oh, this is where I put all my photos where I put all my files. But if someone else were to take that and and try to find those, that same information, they wouldn't because they didn't organize it. So now it's taking that and trying to say, well, how can I make it so that everyone can see it in the same way, and it's not confusing. And that's like the whole back to the house analogy that Jen mentioned, where maybe we just organize a few spots here and then it would be very simple to know that this is the living room, the kitchen. And so for us there was like where do we create this additional doorway? You know, people can get in understand what they you know what this portal means to them, and then how they can still be a part of it. So, yeah, overall, we did like three user testing, and we improve the portal each time to give clarity. And it was great because at the end, we had like only one start button, and it was a good start to finish. People understood what they want, people are now active in the community, and you know, there, there's no less, you know, friction, and now more like, again, clarity of, okay, I know, this is exactly what I wanted. When I came in here. I love what they're providing us. I want to learn more, and then now everything is nice and smooth and running again.

Yeah, I mean, I gotta tell you, because the calls we've been having, as of late, have been people who say, I've read your book several times, or I've followed, I've read, I've read into your content. And I really just have like, clarifying questions. And the thing is, when people say, I've read your book, we do provide it at a price on amazon.com. But like, you know, we don't we don't actually get a lot of sales there. However, you know, it seems like every single day, we tend to get new people joining military retirement blueprint.com If not a couple of people every day, and our in our stats have our numbers continue to grow every single day. And the fact that we now seem to have more qualified prospects, like scheduling calls with us, you know, I really want to credit that to you, you know, Adrian, and for you really making the portal like digestible for you know, the end user, because again, it's like, it is not, it's not like, like, like you said, our team has worked so hard, first and foremost, to create the brand, you know, to create us that wealth, and then to create the messaging, you know, and then to do the sales, like, we do everything, but the one thing that is definitely our blind spot is, okay, are our actual potential prospects receiving this in a way that we want them to receive it. And so that was just it, I think, I think you really came at the right time to help us with that. And now, you know, we love that so much, now, we're contracting you to just work with us, you know, continuously so, so I want to just, you know, I want to just thank you for that. And thank you for, you know, adding us to your portfolio, because clearly, you know, in just offering the portfolio, it's kind of like, I think kind of what in a way, like, what you did was like, Oh, let me intern here for free. And then the company ended up liking you so much, they wanted to hire you, you know, just a little tip for anyone, any, any entrepreneur or anyone trying to get their foot in the door, it's like, offer something for free, you know, and if you provide enough value, they may either hire you, or they'll refer you to people, because I definitely know there's some people, like I mean, when I'm thinking one person, honestly, in my head that I would refer to you already working with us, because this person is also building out, like a course in our portal. And, you know, they they've been so like they've been in their silo, like this whole time, they've been in their own little, you know, cave, like building this out. But who knows if like, he, you know, they could just spend all this time working on this course. Like, will it really resonate with the people actually going through it? So, so anyway, I'm just, it's just reassuring also, because, you know, Scott, as you know, Scott is the the visionary, the entrepreneur, you know, he's always the innovator of our business. And I'm more than happy to encourage him to run with his ideas, I just want to make sure we have, you know, that filter, like someone like you to help us say, okay, like this, this will resonate, or, like, we've done a couple of tests, and this is what we found, and, you know, this will probably be better than this option, you know, so just to know that, like, we could have that, you know, that we do have that opportunity to, like, know, for sure, you know, like, or at least, like, as best as we could, at this point that at least what we're trying to put out there. People know, the 123 steps, you know, to like to receive our information or to receive whatever we're, you know, whatever we're putting out there. Yeah,

and very well said, Jen, I want to add to the fact I was going to mention in the same matter, but it is true, like putting yourself out there in the beginning is not easy. Everyone just you know, that's a little bit of the 9999 to five mindset, like, Oh, I got to be paid to do, you know, this hourly work, but when you're, when you're starting out, and you're, you know, you're and you're trying to do your own thing, you know, people are not just gonna pay if they don't know what you can actually provide. Yes, you have to provide value first. So I did like what you said like, you know, get go ask a friend or a family, friends friend or someone to see if you're gonna go do something Then you're not too sure of it, that at least you could test it for yourself to see, even if your what you're going to be offering is valuable to the marketplace. And then and I'm really grateful I will I did want to touch upon the fact that other than, you know, being this being a portfolio and even contracting work for me, now I'm, it's given me the confidence to, you know, do the thing that I've said in the beginning, it's not doing something where I do have my nine to five job, I'm also being molded to create something on the side, something that I actually feel like I want to be doing, and just getting that the, you know, the valid feeling that like, Hey, I'm actually putting something of value that people would actually want to, to, you know, work with me, for instance, and it's hard, it's very hard in the beginning, because you're in your mind, you know, I don't know how Jen did it in from the very beginning, just to just to go through it year after year. But it's not easy to just like, you know, everyone's like, oh, I want I want this, I want financial freedom. I want that, you know, we want all these things, but we will you put in an effort to do it. So, a lot of times we don't because we feel like oh, well, it's just, I'll just go back to what I know. Because it's going back to status quo. I feel uncomfortable to step out. And there's so many other good people out there. Everyone started somewhere. Okay. Yeah. So, and this for me, this is my journey of starting somewhere. But there, don't get me wrong. There was many moments where I'm just like, oh, I want to do this, this, this, this this, but it just I never took the first step. So sometimes it's just taking that first step.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you ask me, what got me through everything. Desperation.

That's yeah, that works. Getting

fired from for jobs and your knees and realizing that working with probably wasn't good for you. Yeah. Just stumbling through sales. And like, the last decade, yeah, it just a lot of, I definitely feel like I'm at a place now where I'm like, okay, like, I think I even started telling you, even last year, I was like, I was like, You know what I'm like, I'm like an entrepreneur. Like, I'm legit. Like, I actually recently I told you that I consider myself an intermediate entrepreneur now. Because, like, all the stuff I used to digest that was like, very, you know, entrepreneur, one to one to like to advance, I've always felt like, I've seen, like, the rags to riches story, right? Of like, being an entrepreneur. Yeah. But I feel like I'm in the middle. Because I feel like I know enough to, like, keep going. And I have like, a long way to go to, like, get to where I want to be, but like, I'm definitely not new in this right. And, and I gotta say, I like it. I like the journey. I like where I'm at. And, and it's so much better than, like, I'm just glad that I stuck it out with the the desperation, and I found other sources of motivation, that wasn't desperation to, you know, be where I am today and genuinely, like, enjoy all the things I'm doing, especially, you know, having this opportunity to do this show, and then bring you on and work with you. And, you know, and then just obviously, with everyone else, who's been a part of the US debt wealth community, it's been really, really amazing. So, so as we start to wrap up here, Adrian, what do you think the future looks like? For you? What are your What are your plans and hopes for Suzuki startups?

Well, I do hope that I continue to build my clientele my skills, and just continue to put in the effort. In even, like I mentioned before, this is just the beginning for me, I don't know where it will take me but I do know is taking me somewhere. And I do want to make it where I can continue to help. And it taught me a lot when just helping with your business and with Scott that I can help other people do the same. So I do hope that I can continue to do that. And and with that mindset of just sort of saying I want this amount of money and in this short amount of time. Doesn't seem to I realized that there does seem to be like It's like trying to tell a seed of a flower like you just pour water the next day. It's it's a full grown tree. This tree yet is a no chia pet, you know? Oh, I just yeah, we know what your pets are. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know about everyone else. Just aged ourselves. Either. Or insulted people older than us. You know this, but yes, yeah, definitely not the like entrepreneurship is definitely not a chia pet. That is absolutely true.

You don't know what a Chia Pet just look it up but it's basically this plant that somehow grows in a day of love. It's while it was a very good marketing tool back then.

You know what, I never bought a chia pet but I always remember the commercial and like the two and like, yeah, it's so funny, and I didn't and then I learned later in life that you can actually eat chia, like chia seeds

are actually the name of the brand. I just like, it's so cute. Like,

yeah, like chia is like, it's like soy like soy beans, or, you know, it's like tiny seeds. And they that's why they they are like, I can't think of, I can't think of the other tiny seed that like, like sprouts wrap, you know, it's like sprouts, they like root really, really quickly. Right? And so I think that's, that's a reason and, you know, but anyway, I don't know, I just, I kind of want a Chia Pet now. Throwback finally buy that your pet I always saw in commercials that I never bought? No. Yeah, no. And, and also, I wanted to one thing I, the biggest thing I really appreciated working with you and continuing to work with you is that like, there's like so much power in the phrase, third party is the best party. Because you know, this, there are so many things that I have been wanting to say to my team. And for whatever reason, it only resonated with them, because you brought it up. You know, and I think I think that's also something to keep in mind, you know, to our listeners hear, especially if you do have businesses, or if you're trying to test out something is that, like, sometimes it does help to hear a third party who has nothing to do with your business, yeah, you're more likely to receive what they have to say, versus the people you see on a day to day basis. Because, you know, just like, just like some of the brainstorming sessions, I'll have it Scott, every now and then, you know, I admittedly, I admittingly will tune out a little. And I find I find comfort, because I do record it. But also, it's like, you know, it is easy, what I'm saying is, it's very easy to tune out the people that you see in a day to day basis. And I think that having someone like you come in, really gets us to kind of like sit up straight, and actually like, you know, like, act like we know what we're doing and, and all that stuff. So it just makes it, it just makes it better for businesses to have someone such as yours on

on the whole idea of third party, whether it's a referral, or a testimonial, or, you know, in this case, even big companies do this all the time. They have to sometimes they they're so into what they've been doing for such a long time, they need a third party to come in and kind of observe, you know, how the employees are doing, how the management is doing, and then give feedback on how they're doing as a whole. And they might see their blind spots finally, versus like, you know, from bottom up saying, I told you so. And then top downs like, What are you talking about, you know, as though you there's always gonna be that conflict, you know, but if you have a third party that can say, well, we're just observing. Yeah, you know, that this is what we see. And, yeah, so it's like, very nice way. It's almost like a therapist.

Yeah, yeah. You're like a therapist for like businesses. Yeah, for sure. HR, you're like the HR department.

You know, it was a big thing here too, that Jen and I always do. And we're just talking. As you see, we didn't really interrupt each other a lot. It's just the act of listening. It's really hard to listen, sometimes we get into so caught up into what we want to do and say and you know, but when you actually take time to actually hear what the other person is saying, like literally hear, not just like, Oh, I heard it and Scott, it's like you, you want to be able to interpret that so that you can you can fully help out, you know, versus just tuning out. So

yeah, yeah. Or pretending that you are the user. Let's find out Scott. Yeah, he's he's an easy punching bag. And he's fine with it. We work together and we love each other. Anyway, wow, what a great conversation we just, you know, we just killed 45 minutes there. I'm curious if there's any final closing thoughts you want to share to our listeners here who are you know, aspiring to do more than following orders think outside the box and manifest their dreams?

Well, I did want to touch up on one more thing before wrapping up was like Jen had mentioned that you know, she became an entrepreneur based off of one Yeah, Desperation can and be a big motivator. But the one thing I would say that I commend her for is persistence and consistency. You know, the it's very hard to keep having to do something and not you know, not sure what's where it's going to go next. You know, but the just the fate that like it's going to go somewhere. That's what I feel like a true on for years. You're saying you're an intermediate entrepreneur, but I think you're a true entrepreneur in the long run. that vision of wanting to do something and I've seen that even for myself and for others is if you really want to get through your break through something, it's going to require some, yes, some sacrifice, some desperation. But there's also the good side of it is if you're just consistent and doing it over and not letting those you know your day to day motivations, pull you down, and you just know that you, this is really what you want to create, then create it, you know, so that's what I want to finish up here is, a lot of times things are created for us. Well, instead of, you know, you know, your job is created for you, you have a position there, but to actually create it for yourself. Well, that's a different level. And I you know, I think that's what entrepreneurship is about as well, yes to collaboration, but it's some it's taking control, you know, not the external mind, but your internal environment to do something. So, hopefully, that that helps wrap up. It was and for you.

That was so that was that meant so much thank you for saying that. And, you know, this, this lifestyle is a commitment. It's like a marriage just like you just you commit to it, you go through the ups and downs and you like it's a step into faith every single day is what I often say. And every day is a new day, you know, so thank you for that you for saying that. You know, this life is a very thankless lifestyle. So thank you, Iris Do you know thank you, you hang up on that don't know. Yeah. Wonderful. What a great way to wrap up. But yeah, thank you so much. You know, Adrian for being on our show. Thank you for working with us. But well, thank you for being my best friend. And you know, to our listeners, we hope you got a lot of value out of this conversation. Just listen to the outro for you know, ways to get ahold of Adrian will also have his contact info in the show notes. And with that said, I love if you're watching video, you should see Adrian's movements with his hands pointing down. So you're gonna watch a YouTube video of this is great. Yes. Thank you so much for watching or listening and we'll chat with you in the next episode. Tune in next time for me. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Adrian. Okay. And then let me end this