How to Get Unstuck, Reinvent Yourself & Build a New Identity - Jody Friedman

Sebastian Rusk 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. Hey, thanks for having me. Hey, thanks for being here. I know that uh you and I connected through the great Dan Martell's coaching program, and it is a great coaching program, and he is a great coach. Yeah, I've learned a lot from him. Yeah. It's been great.

Jody Friedman 0:38

And you're in Miami, right?

Sebastian Rusk 0:39

I am. I am. And you're in my old stomping grounds of Orange County.

Jody Friedman 0:43

That's right.

unknown 0:44

That's right.

Sebastian Rusk 0:44

That I miss dearly. I'm stuck in Miami where everyone in California and New York moved here. So it's very expensive. Like Newport seems like a bargain now.

Jody Friedman 0:55

Oh man, I doubt that. I doubt that. I was just in Catalina this weekend with my my daughter on a camping trip. And you know, the the boat ride back, there's you just really appreciate the area and why we live here. We pay for it, but it's a beautiful place for sure.

Sebastian Rusk 1:10

Yeah, I went on a men's retreat out there for a weekend. And um when they said it was a kayak retreat, I thought we were gonna kayak like from Alboa to Catalina, which some some some psychopath does, has done multiple times. We were not doing any of that. We were taking a ferry out, they were bringing our stuff out, and they we were renting kayaks, and we that's exactly what we did. And we went and we camped on the side of the mountain. You probably camped in a similar spot.

Jody Friedman 1:38

Yeah, that's awesome.

Sebastian Rusk 1:39

It's like to the like the north side of the mountain, pull up and a bunch of pebbles, and with that whole camp and the whole nine, and it was great. And we we we kayaked all around that island and went in caves and everything on Saturday. And I get back, I'm telling my friend about it. I was like, you know, that was that was a great trip. And they said, You did a lot of kayaking around that island. I said, I sure did. And they said, you know, that that that area is specifically known for great whites, like that's that's actually where they breed, is right around that island because it's so far out there, and you were in a kayak. That could have been a Jaws situation, and uh funny, yeah, for sure.

Jody Friedman 2:19

That's a great white pup uh breeding area, but uh we had a little education this weekend. There's apparently from the shark expert, only five to ten people are actually killed from sharks yearly. Out there that's like a I don't know if it's a U.S.

Sebastian Rusk 2:35

stat or oh I was like that's a big stat for just Catalina.

Jody Friedman 2:38

No, no, like worldwide, tiny. Yeah, I believe so. Five to ten. Now people get attacked, but they don't typically don't die from it. Five to ten people are killed by sharks, and then the other on the flip side, 70 million to 100 million sharks are killed by humans every year, mainly for shark fin soup.

Sebastian Rusk 2:56

Yeah, and they're current, yeah, they and they're they're very they're very protective, those. The crocodile like crocodiles down here. Some one crocodile ate this guy's dog a couple weeks ago because he was down by the canal. And you know, hey, listen, don't you can't send Scruffy down there into the edge of the canal because that's the crocodile's area and came in and the guy's like, I want to shoot the crocodile, but I also didn't want a felony. And uh kind of kind of wild how that happens.

Jody Friedman 3:20

I don't remember crocs even being there. I grew up in Florida and I would not even go in, I would never go in the Atlantic knowing there's crocs in the Atlantic. That's crazy.

Sebastian Rusk 3:28

Yeah, no, this was like uh, you know, it's a it's a canal, so it's probably brackish water, probably finagled his way in there somehow. I mean, I wasn't shocked it is South Florida, but uh, yeah, I've been I was out to Catalina, I think that was the only time I was out there for that uh for that camping trip, kayak trip for the weekend. Yeah. Uh had a buffalo burger, lots of buffalo out there. Yeah, there's lots of buffalo. That was my picture.

Jody Friedman 3:50

How the hell do these buffalo get on an island? Okay, you mean I think it's bison, right? Was it bison or buffalo? Yeah, and that's the same thing. So, okay, so here's the deal. My daughter told me this. There was a film that was filmed there. They brought in a bunch of bison to film it, and they left them there and they just reproduced, and now they're on the island.

Sebastian Rusk 4:08

Great. Yeah, I have heard that story. I have. There's also an air, there's a well, I don't know about an airport, but there's an air landing. Yeah. Uh the planes can land on there. And I think it was all based on, and then the the house that's there, there's no longer a casino. It used to, it looks like what used to be a casino. I guess they do events and weddings there. And then the Wrigley House is there. Did I say that right? The Wrigley House. Yeah, sounds right. Yeah. So same the Wrigley family with the gum. Yeah. So there you go, listeners. Little Catalina Island education for you. And on a clear day, you can see it all the way from the coast. You sure can. Well, Jody, great to connect with you, man. I love telling people stories on the show. And part of that process is I like to give our listeners some context and go back to the beginning of the story. Since the beginning of the story is always different for everybody, you decide where the beginning was. But let's spend a few minutes going back to where you started and what really brought you to present day with what you're doing. I know you're out there doing really cool stuff with movies and all kinds of cool things. So I'm excited to to hear how this whole thing started.

Jody Friedman 5:13

You know, I used to tell the abbreviated version of this story to uh musicians that I would coach and kind of leave out like the juicy bits from the early parts of my life. So I'm gonna give you the sauce if you want the sauce, as Dan says.

Sebastian Rusk 5:26

Do it.

Jody Friedman 5:27

So I grew up, um, had a good life, you know. I'm gonna I'm gonna go through periods of my life and I'll do it as fast as I can. Three to six, maybe seven, and then uh, you know, parents sat us down and said, we're getting a divorce, right? So mom and dad split, we're going like week and week back with each parent. I lived in uh 16 different homes in 10 years. My mom eventually she met a man, she moved across the country, so she left my brother and I. Um, but we had my dad. My dad was my buddy and my hero, you know. My dad's self-esteem, it was wrecked by the divorce. So my dad, he turned to the bottle, he started drinking. He wasn't a violent drunk or anything like that. He was a sloppy drunk. But here I am at 10 years old, realizing that okay, I guess I'm on my own at 10 years old. So that was the first time I started building rooms to survive in. My process is called wreck the room. And um, the room is the identities that we build as children. Uh, for me, mine was built from trauma. Uh, you know, for everybody, it's different. Not everyone's room is built from traumas. Um, we most of them are. I mean, truly, there are micro traumas. Like 80% of adults or 85% of adults are actually living in identities they built to survive in as kids. And they carry that identity forward to build their life and build their business, and it works because it protects them. But that identity eventually keeps you stuck, so it can become a prison from evolving in your life, evolving in your business. And a lot of business owners that I know, just like me, the business surpassed who I was inside the business until I was burnt out. And that success that I had didn't feel like success anymore, even though I hit the numbers. Dude, I remember I don't know about you, when I was a kid, I thought one day I'm gonna make a million dollars. Like that was the promise I made myself. I'm gonna make a million bucks. The million dollars came and went, I did not celebrate it, I didn't even notice it. It just came and went. So if that says anything, like that was my goal. I hit it, I didn't celebrate it. So stopping to enjoy those moments and designing your new room and then wrecking what no longer fits is really the process. I jumped ahead in the story, so I'm gonna go back to the story, all right? We'll go back to the story here. So all right. I got out of there early, I got out of there at 17, I left home. Uh I got it uh admitted to Florida State on another. Cocaine's cocaine's, yeah. What is it? Wide left, wide right, what was that?

Sebastian Rusk 8:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think both.

Jody Friedman 8:04

Uh so yeah, I went there in '97. I was 17 years old. Didn't have a senior year of high school. I went to college early. I was there from 97 to 2001. So um from there, I got a job at CNN out of school right after 9-11. I majored in TV production. Wanted to do film, I wanted to make movies. But FSU Film School was third in the nation at the time, and I didn't get in. So if you don't get into film school, you do TV. That's like the the uh hack for getting into the industry at Florida State. So I was working at CNN and by that time I had learned that I had a talent for playing guitar and writing songs. CNN had a talent show called CNN Idol. I wrote a song called The Prompter Song about my job working the teleprompter operator and working your way up the corporate ladder to director. I played it at the talent show in front of the entire company at one first place, $12,000, which was a lot of money for a kid working at CNN right out of college. And it got me in the office the next day. The uh the president of CNN, he calls me in his office, he wanted to see me, and he said, I saw you apply for a job in New York. How would you like to go to New York? And of course I accepted that. I mean, my dream was to live in New York too. So that song, that impact that that had on the company. I like to say the song was guiding my path. It got me to New York. In New York, I'm working on a show called Nancy Grace. You know who Nancy Grace is?

Sebastian Rusk 9:32

Nancy Grace, absolutely.

Jody Friedman 9:34

Yeah, she's uh she's a sweetheart. Nancy's um she's she she's pretty brutal on TV, but she's um she's still on TV? Yeah, she's still on TV. I think she I saw her. Um she's doing something for it, wasn't Court TV, one of the streamers. She has a show on one of the streamers. Oh, okay. Um, doing the same thing, you know, hunting down the bad guys, the predators. Um I was Nancy's audio tech, so I'd get her mic'd up on set, make sure she has everything she needs, and check the mics, the batteries of the mic pack, and make sure the set's good to go. So I got to know her pretty well. Nancy became a proponent of mine because I was I was still gigging in New York. I had my guitar on my back going to gigs. And I think she talked to Dean, the executive producer, and said, Go talk to Jody about his music. Dean stopped me on the way to a gig and told me they needed a new theme song for this show. So this is the first time that I really felt like I wrecked a room because I stopped waiting for permission. At that point, I was sending my demos out, trying to get signed to a record deal and all this stuff. And any business owner can relate to this. You wait for people to sign off on the deal or on the proposal, or uh, if you're an artist on your art, like you're waiting for permission. So I wrecked that room of waiting for permission and decided I'm just gonna take this opportunity and seize it. And I went and created a theme song and I started my own record label. I became the label instead of waiting for a label to sign me. And that was a huge shift for me. That song ran for two years on CNN. It got me into the business as a publisher. Uh, it earned $30,000 that summer. I got $30,000 in royalties just from a song that I wrote from that opportunity. But it wasn't just a song, dude. It was seizing that moment and actually walking through the door. I think a lot of people, there's there's doors that are always opening and knowing which one to walk through is um or just walking through them. Some people struggle to even just walk through the door. They wait for everything to be perfect, and um, you know, you just gotta go for it. So that that got me into the business. I've been in it for 20 years now, licensing my music for film and TV shows. I'm a music supervisor. Also, I work on shows like The Bachelor franchise. Uh, I'm a music coordinator on Dexter Resurrection season two right now, which is a dream job for me because I'm a huge Dexter fan. Anybody listening that knows Dexter will understand why. You're in Miami, you probably understand why. I've never gotten into it.

Sebastian Rusk 11:53

It was a little too bloody for me.

Jody Friedman 11:55

Oh, yeah. That's a that's like it's like The Walking Dead. Like The Walking Dead is not about zombies, it's about the people. Dexter's sure, it it has the serial killer component, but he's like Jack Reacher. He takes out the bad guys, you know, you root for him. He's like uh the Dark Knight. I mean, that's Dexter's whole thing. Yeah.

Sebastian Rusk 12:12

All right, fair enough. That's fair enough. So, what does all that mean regardless? So, you you make music for these shows, is that what happens?

Jody Friedman 12:20

Uh, sometimes, no. As a music supervisor, my job is to handle anything related to the film or TV show that I'm working on related to the music. It could be coordinating recording sessions with for the composer, bringing in um orchestras if need be, uh, working with the unions, securing rights to popular songs, replacing popular songs with independent songs when they can't afford the popular songs. So there's a lot of legal and clearance and administration involved in that too. In 2020, Hollywood froze. I don't know if you remember what happened in 2020. There was this little thing called COVID. Yeah. Hollywood froze and there was no work. So I started pivoting and started coaching online. My wife at the time worked for Kajabi and she said, Have you thought about teaching? I said, I that sounds like a great idea because I was a song leader, a guitar teacher, songwriting teacher 20 years earlier. So I started doing that again and teaching musicians online. So I have a company called Elite Music Coaching where we coach musicians on how to license their songs to films and TV shows. And then about a year and a half ago, I started building Wreck the Room, which is more about coaching entrepreneurs who feel burnt out after success, like their life no longer fits them. And um they feel like they're just playing this role they wrote years ago. So I don't add systems or strategy, I don't say do more of this, do more of that. We strip things down to the foundation at the identity level, and we rebuild from there.

Sebastian Rusk 13:46

Love it. And so that's been what a good six years now, you've been doing that. And then what do you do on the on the on the on the so you're on the music side with Hollywood and TV shows? You got your coaching program to show people how to make music and then make money with the music with Hollywood. Um, is there anything else you got in the mix that you're doing?

Jody Friedman 14:08

I mean, I'm going all in on Wreck the Room. I think this the power behind Wreck the Room, it's much bigger than me. I have uh people going through my program right now, my founder's cohort, and seeing their transformation uh has been amazing to watch. In the meantime, I just finished the rough draft of my book on Wreck the Room. Uh what else do I have going on, man? It's for me, it's been about subtracting things, yeah, removing all the noise and being more present. Like my room was the performer's room. You know, when I was young, going through all that chaos, the one thing I could control was performance. Performing in school, getting good grades, performing in soccer, being the goal scorer. Um, actually performing when I learned how to play music, like being an entertainer and a performer. So that room, you know, when you're an achieving overachiever and a performer, you can get in stuck in that routine of believing that if I'm not performing, if I'm not achieving, then I'm not worthy of love. Or people might leave me, or they won't accept me for who I am. And that's the lie underneath the performer's role. A lot of high achievers, they may not know that they believe that, but it's there. If you're a high achiever or a performer and you can't break that cycle and you feel burnt out, there is a lie that you're telling yourself at a deep level, and that lie runs your life until you see the other side of it. So the first part of wrecking the room is recognizing what that is and revealing what that room is, giving it a name, and then exposing what that lie is and where it came from. It's not it's not therapy, but it's a compliment to therapy. Sure.

Sebastian Rusk 15:46

You know, absolutely anytime you're able to disrupt a pattern or a belief system, you know, it's it's some form of doing what I would refer to as the work.

Jody Friedman 15:57

Definitely the work. Yeah. It's heavy work, it's intense.

Sebastian Rusk 16:01

Well, so's life.

Jody Friedman 16:02

Yeah, right.

unknown 16:03

Yeah.

Sebastian Rusk 16:04

Life's even more intense without the work, but people, some people don't understand that.

Jody Friedman 16:09

So true. It's very true.

Sebastian Rusk 16:12

I love what you've been able to put together here. It looks like you love what you do, huh?

Jody Friedman 16:16

I do. I'm passionate about it. Um, you know, it's always a balance work, life, balance, and uh spending time with the family, being present while my kids are young. My kids are 11 and 14. So, you know, I got some years left with them trying to start. Oh, that's gonna fly by. I know it's already flown by, it's crazy.

Sebastian Rusk 16:34

My grandmother said the days drag on and the years fly by. My daughter's 25, and I can't even wrap my head around that. It flew by, and I raised her by myself. So you'd imagine the days dragging on and the years flying by. More days dragging on than years flying by, that's for sure. But then when it was time to go to college and uh spread her wings and uh and fly, you know, you're you're like, wow, I didn't realize how fast it actually did go by.

Jody Friedman 17:02

So that's yeah, I mean, that's that's an accomplishment, dude. Um, raising a daughter on your own, that's no easy feat.

Sebastian Rusk 17:10

No, not at all, especially in Orange County, California. My goodness, as a as a as a 25-year-old. But we did it. We did it. Uh well, man, it's been great to chat with you and learn more about what you got going on. Love your story, love what you're up to. I'm gonna include the your uh links in the show notes so people can connect with you further. Any final thoughts for our listeners, Jody? On a record room.

Jody Friedman 17:31

I mean, if if you're listening and you feel like this is something that you're connecting with and you want to take a quiz that I built, I built a quiz at are you gonna leave this link or can I drop the link here on the show?

Sebastian Rusk 17:41

Yeah, you can just send me the link and I'll include, I'm gonna make it easy for everybody, include it in the show notes. That's the description of this podcast episode.

Jody Friedman 17:48

Yeah, the the quiz is about figuring out which room you're in. So you're either gonna be um drifting, stalling, renovating, or rebuilding. If you're the type of person who is stuck in that analysis paralysis, everything has to be perfect, you're likely in the stalling room. If you're unaware of what's going on and you also don't take any action, that's gonna be the drifting room. If you're renovating, it means that you're taking action, but you're taking action on the wrong thing. And then rebuilding is where you're both aware of what's going on with you and you're taking action. So drop by take the quiz and hopefully can provide some value for you there.

Sebastian Rusk 18:26

Yeah, absolutely. That's a fantastic quiz. Find out what room you're in, will you? My goodness, they'll make it easy for you. You take the quiz and it'll tell you exactly where you're at. There's a rhyme and reason you press play on this episode. No mistakes. We don't do mistakes, they don't even exist at all. Life is a divine journey of lessons that we need to learn. Sometimes some take longer than than than the other one. But if you're stuck if you're stuck right now, I learned a long time ago, stuck is a mindset. You're you're making a choice to be stuck. You also have a choice. If you can make a decision to get stuck, you can make a decision to get unstuck. And what Jody teaches and helps people better understand is where you may actually be stuck along the process and how to get unstuck. Because it is possible. I'm living proof. Jody's living proof. Jody, I appreciate you, my brother. Any uh, we already gave us our final thoughts. Just kidding here. Don't mind me. No, I'm not drinking. It's Monday. Okay.

Jody Friedman 19:19

No, I appreciate it. You got to wreck the room. If you want us to get a wreck room, I love that man.

Sebastian Rusk 19:23

Wreck the room. Let's go, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks again, my brother. Thanks, Sebastian. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you're so inclined, please leave us a review. Be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, LaunchLab.com studios. Talk to you next time.