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Welcome to 'Changed' a podcast celebrating transformative encounters with Jesus Christ. Each episode unfolds powerful testimonies of profound life changes, providing inspiration for your spiritual journey. Join our community, drawing strength and encouragement to deepen your relationship with God. Witness the irrefutable evidence of lives dramatically changed by His love. We're here to inspire hope, reinforcing God's relentless pursuit, and sparking the desire to seek a life profoundly transformed. Let's chase after God together. Your journey to deeper faith starts here.
Brent Stone (00:00.574)
Hey, welcome to the Change Podcast. My name's Brent, I'm your host, and I have the incredible privilege of being here with my friend Jay. You all are about to be blessed with this episode. I can assure you that. Jay, thank you for being here with us. Welcome.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (00:14.674)
Hey, thanks for having me, Brett. Excited to be in the podcast with you to talk about all things encountering change.
Brent Stone (00:22.89)
Yeah, absolutely. So as we get started, I'm sure you're probably going to talk about your background. So I'm just going to go ahead and ask you the question I ask everyone when they come on to the show. So what was what was your encounter with Jesus that left you changed? And we'll go from there.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (00:37.91)
Sure. You know, growing up, I went to church all my life, which did not mean that when you put your, when you go into the garage, you come out as a car in the same way that going to church doesn't make me a Christian, if that makes sense. So I went to church all my life, born and raised in the church. My parents were very devout Christians. My dad was an elder. My mom was a deacon and they were involved with the choir. But kind of going through the motion was
I didn't really adopt my parents' faith, if that makes sense. I actually was a skeptic and would try to contest God and scriptures and all these things that I was experiencing. And I was on a journey to actually disprove God, that's the rebel that I am. And in that journey, I found that God could be true. So my parents actually sent me to a conference, a student conference in Long Island, New York in my last year of high school.
I think their goal was to reform me that I would come to an encounter with God. My goal was to go have fun with my friends and play lots of volleyball and skip all the events and actually disprove God. So we had different agendas. So going there I did what I achieved or was setting up to achieve which is playing tons of volleyball with my friend, going to New York, which is, you know, an exciting city coming from Toronto and never being outside of my
comfort zone and never being outside of the city or country or traveling, it was just like a vacation for me. On the last day of the conference, the student leader literally dragged me by the ear saying, I let you off the hook the entire week and you went off to go and play with your buddies, but tonight's the last night before the conference ends. And so I want you to come to this last talk or last seminar or whatever they called it.
And I was like, you know, I played all my volleyball. I had all my fun. So I really have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. That was my attitude, a very poor one at that. And when I heard the student leader talking, she was a PK. We affectionately know that as pastors kids. And she was basically talking about how she really did not like her dad who was a pastor. And she prayed to God that he would not be able to come on this family vacation.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (02:57.998)
and she her prayer was granted because he was too busy because one of the guest speakers got sick and he had to go preach and So she was happy that her two sisters and mom went to Virginia Beach Long story short she was swimming in the ocean and she wasn't a strong swimmer and a riptide took her into the current and she was drowning and she basically was going under the water and
losing her consciousness, but before she did that she made a prayer to God and sometimes we do this we kind of spray and pray and hope for the best and she said if you save me God like literally save me from drowning I will devote and commit my life to you and she woke up and
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (03:51.302)
of God is kissing me. So my dreams and prayer have come true. But what she didn't realize was there was an off-duty lifeguard that saw what was happening, went there and saved her life and was giving her mouth-to-mouth CPR. And so she devoted her life to God and she became a campus minister or campus leader and she was sharing her story, which, you know, when I was in church, it was kind of like I hear these boring sermons.
Brent Stone (04:02.302)
Wow.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (04:17.566)
And my goal was because they were putting me to sleep and they had a monotone voice. And I might've made a vow at that time. I'm like, I never want to be or sound that boring ever in my life. I would hide behind the biggest hair or the biggest head and situate myself. And then I would sleep for an hour every single Sunday. That was my church experience. And so she was talking in a story format, a narrative format, which was not only interesting, but it caught my attention. It was captivating. It was riveting. It showed me that she was saying that, you know, being good is not good enough.
And I was like, yeah, that's me. And going to church doesn't mean that you're gonna become a Christian. I'm like, that's me too. And so she says, God's standard is perfection. And I'm like, that's not me. And he says, but he is perfect and he can make a way through the great exchange through his son, that when you believe in him, he can make a way for you. And I was like, okay, that makes perfect sense. So she articulated something that I believe my experience with the church and the sermons did not articulate well. And I was fighting.
Because I'm a rebel, so I don't really want to give in, because if I give in to God and His plea and become a Christian, that's going to make me weak. I'm going to be a loser. This is a down sell. So I thought about this, and as I was wrestling with God, and you look in the scriptures, God always wins, right? So it's what we call, there's three persons of God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And I felt like God was tugging at my heart.
and saying, you know, just let go and let me come into your life and show you a better way. And so I basically long story short, kind of gave up the fight and said, you know what, we'll try this for a bit. It's like a, maybe we'll do a seven day trial. And then I want my money back out of a thing. And so I was like, you know, and then basically I was a, an introvert because I was the youngest of three boys and I didn't have a voice or identity or confidence.
and I couldn't protect myself or others. That was my upbringing from a Korean immigrant background. And the Holy Spirit, the third person of God, just filled me that day when I decided to let go and give up and accept God into my life. And ironically, and in God's humor, he transformed me in pretty much instantaneously from introvert to an extrovert, to a person who had no identity with a person who had a strong identity and had unshakable confidence. So...
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (06:45.222)
On August 22nd, in my last year of high school in Long Island, New York, I encountered Jesus. And he radically transformed my life from being an introvert to an extrovert, from being someone who didn't know how to talk and or sell to becoming a seven figure sales ninja. So there's the intro.
Brent Stone (07:06.661)
Wow. That's, that's really wild. I know we, we've had a chance to catch up and talk a little bit. So I do know more of the story, but for the sake of, for, for our listeners, you know, I'd love for you to go into, you know, what you, what you did with, with this transformation, you know, how have you walked that out? I know you walked me through a lot of different things.
We spoke yesterday and it's just fascinating what God can do instantaneously and would love for you to walk people through that.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (07:44.33)
Yeah, sure. So after that encounter with God, you know, being a Korean Canadian immigrant, my parents pushed me very, very hard. You know, when you get like 98% on a math exam, you would think that they would pat you on the back or say, you know, great job, but they're like, where's the 2%? Right? And I'm just like, you can never please my parents, right? And they meant well, because they came from a background where they had to come to Canada.
um, learn a different language that they weren't familiar with, had no friends, had no money and had to work two, three jobs in, um, factories, assembly work, variety stores. You know, the, the going joke for Korean, Canadian immigrants, you know, 40 years ago is any place in the world where you find a corner, you will find a Korean because they own, they own corner stores or convenience stores, right? Um, or, or laundry, laundromats or dry cleaners, right? Cause they're, they're willing to do the work.
that other people aren't. So growing up, we grew up kind of poor. We were the kind of people that were shopping at the bargain places, getting the bargain shoes, the bargain clothes. So grew up with very much of a poverty scarcity mindset as immigrants. And nothing was ever handed on a platter. There was never any freebies. So my parents were working 12, 15 hours a day. My mom was a nurse.
because she got re-educated, went back to school, even though she had already had a full scholarship in Korea, was working as a nurse for years, they had to come back and re-educate, learn a language, study in a language that they don't understand, go back to school. My dad was an animal scientist. His claim to fame was helping invent cottage cheese, which is really cool. Anyway, so they both ended up going to school and ended up getting jobs and working very hard. So growing up, walking out this encounter with God was very difficult because
When you have a poverty mindset, which is the opposite of God, which is an abundant mindset, it's really hard to see that transformation actualized because my wiring and my upbringing was completely opposite of the biblical framework or the gospel, which is, you know, a life that is abundant, John 10 10. You know, I've come to give you life and life abundant, life eternal, life abundant, which is a great opportunity for people to understand that there is a way
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (10:10.174)
and we can have a life that's completely fulfilled. But I wasn't living that out. So how did I walk out that change? Is I had to read God's word, which is the Bible. And I had a voracious appetite. I'm like black and white, I don't like race. So I'm like, I was reading this thing, the Bible every single day, I was praying, I was experiencing God. And back to my parents in my upbringing, they had really pushed hard in athletics and sports and music.
So I learned the piano and this is my keyboard. I'm a worship, I was a worship pastor for five years, music director, worship leader. I played for 25 plus years, you know, went to the highest level of what we call rural conservatory music. It's basically just below becoming a concert pianist, if that makes sense. So I practiced three hours a day. And then, you know, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the outliers principle. How do you get really, really good or become the best? You practice a lot until it becomes that you can't get it wrong. So...
Walking that out, my faith was easily expressed through music. And so worship, which is what we call musical, a musical expression of our love for God, became a huge thing. So I poured myself into music, was recording, I was composing, I was making songs, and really heavily involved in my church with the music portion. That really helped shape my faith and walk out that change.
in ways that my words were still catching them as a former introvert. And then from there, I went from becoming, graduating from university, my parents had a prophecy for all three of their children's, three boys, to become one of three things, a doctor, dentist, or a lawyer, a doctor, dentist, lawyer. And so I did science because my parents wanted me to do that, but I hated it. So it was kind of a incongruent.
to where I felt like I was wired and where God was leading me, but I did it because I wanted to be a good, obedient Korean kid honoring my parents. But after going from there, I ended up in the banking industry for one of the largest, the largest bank here in Canada and ended up growing up the ladder. It's interesting that even while I was walking up my faith, I had a desire to start a, I think it was called a lunch.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (12:38.646)
a Bible study prayer group. We ended up having, I could have lost my job because there was 70,000 employees, there's a lot of red tape. There's things that you can and cannot do. And I started, this is the start and beginning of how I walked out that change in the corporate world. And so I started a lunch Bible study prayer with people that were not of faith and people that were of faith. So we had about a dozen people that were meeting every single week. And we saw people cured from cancer. We saw people's lives change. We saw people coming to know.
who God was, et cetera, et cetera. And we were basically just bringing up bag lunch and studying the Bible and praying together. And one story of many, and I'll pause there for you to interact, is we had an executive vice president come into the boardroom where we were meeting to pray and read the Bible. And he was like, he stepped in and we were in the middle of I think it was prayer. And he's like, I'm sorry, I must have walked into this, into the wrong world. Because we're on the 40th floor of a,
Brent Stone (13:35.018)
Thanks for watching!
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (13:37.334)
the central brain of Toronto in the financial district. And these are for board meetings for executives. And here we are praying. And he's like, I must have stepped out into a different portal, right? And so long story short, we could have lost our job, but God really used that to bring people to him and really elevate even my career. And there's more to that from banking, to pastoring, to sales. But I'll leave this.
Brent Stone (13:55.711)
Yeah.
Brent Stone (14:05.086)
Yeah. No, I mean, it's just great because, you know, you start living out of faith and not living out of fear, you know, after some kind of conversion, typically what ends up happening is that it manifests in different ways. And then clearly in this case, you just don't even think about losing your job. You're just like, I'm going to organize people for the kingdom and growing the kingdom and moving from there. Yeah, it's awesome.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (14:23.711)
Yeah.
Brent Stone (14:31.234)
But yeah, so at this stage, you're climbing the corporate ladder and you're basically leading the Bible studies in your career. Are you a worship leader, worship pastor at this time? I'm just trying to connect the dots here. So that's what's going on. So then what happens over the course of the next year, two, three?
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (14:56.39)
Yeah, so, so chronologically, I went from the banking industry, was climbing the corporate ladder. I went on missions for a month and the bank sponsored me. So it's interesting. They gave me money. They gave me clothes to give like bank, bank clothes. They gave me mugs. So while I was going on mission with my church, they were funding the mission because they thought this is a great opportunity. I was I left work for an entire month. Right. And I did it on without.
leave of absence if that makes sense. I wasn't getting paid and they thought that was no one has ever done that. It's unheard of ever and so and they were paying the way which is amazing. I came back and then they asked me to do it's like a lunch learn for all the executives and the staff. We do a monthly rewards and recognition so they brought me up to the highest place. It was like the 40th floor. It was the executive boardroom for the CEO, CFOs, all the top people.
Brent Stone (15:29.698)
Yeah, that's unheard of. Like, you don't hear of that happening, yeah.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (15:55.798)
So you had all the top leaders of the bank there and they asked me to give like a 15 minute presentation so that they can say, this is what we do to fund Jay's trip and the bank made the way. So I gave this presentation with a lot of fear, but a lot of faith. And I had an executive vice president of card services for this bank, the largest bank in the nation, send me a personal message saying, that was the best presentation I've ever heard.
and your heart young man is something that I've never seen in my life. Long story short, the VP gave me a $10,000 raise. And with my bonuses and my stock options, I was able to buy a house. And, and this is a time when, this is a time when, you know, we had friends who were like 10 years ahead of us and they're renting apartments. They're like, how did you, how did you afford a house? You literally, and I just got married. So we actually, once we got married and we had a brand new home, we moved.
Brent Stone (16:39.395)
That's amazing.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (16:52.598)
from the wedding day into our brand new home. So that's what happened from the banking. And then I got a message from God through a cartoon. I love cartoons. I love pictures. I'm not really a good student, but I love learning. And so I saw this caption on the, I was on the 29th floor of the head office of the largest bank. And I saw on my colleague's cubicle pinned a cartoon caption. It was two captions.
And one of them was, I think, 2650 AD, the future. The first caption was archaeologists mining ruins, right? With like a hammer or axe pick. Under their second caption, they found under the rubble, they found cubicles. And the actual cartoon was pinned on a cubicle with 70,000 employees. And my heart just dropped and my spirit sank. And I felt like God was saying to me, you know, you're doing a great job and I'm advancing you in your career.
clearly you can see that I'm with you. And whatever you do, I will be with you. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Hebrews 13, five. And I heard that not audibly, but I heard it in my spirit. And I felt like he was saying, you know, you are helping people drive profit for a large company, which is excellent, but I want you to drive profit in people's hearts so they can experience health in their marriages, health in their finances, health in their spiritual wellbeing. And so I felt like God was calling it.
out of the workplace, which is the exact opposite of what my parents wanted, because I wasn't a dentist, doctor, or lawyer, but I was a banker and I was making good coin. And so them bending over backwards and breaking their backs to help provide a better education and life was okay. He didn't do what we asked, but at least he's got a decent job. So just stay, never leave. And now I have God saying, okay, you did a good work, you're obedient. Now I want you to leave and not stay.
So now I have issues because now it says, because honor your parents, your mother and father. And I'm like, but that's a 10 commandments. So how do I, who do I listen to? Do I listen to the boss upstairs, which is God, the one who made the commandment, or do I listen to his commandment, which is honor your parents? Because if I honor my parents, then I'm not leaving this workplace.
Brent Stone (18:53.406)
Yeah, yeah.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (19:11.626)
So my parents worked their tail-offs for like, you know, 25, 30 years from the bottom up. Now they have a five bedroom, 3,200 square foot home. My dad just bought a brand new Mercedes SUV and my mom bought a brand new Volvo. We are in my mom's brand new Volvo and we are driving into the cemetery where my grandmother passed away. And if you've ever seen Korean dramas, it was like a Korean drama playing in slow motion. It was raining.
Brent Stone (19:11.958)
Yeah, totally.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (19:41.674)
We were in a brand new Volvo. We were going to see my grandma's cemetery. And I was about to break the news to my mom that I was going to leave the bank and disobey my parents' dreams and wishes. And you could hear the music in the backdrop, the rain falling extra slowly in HD. And I said to my mom, I said to my mom, I don't know how to break this to you. And I know this is going to be difficult, but I am going to leave the bank and I'm going to pursue full-time ministry by going to seminary.
and doing my masters and become a pastor. And she was speechless. And long story short, she said, well, I don't feel that that's where God's calling you. And I don't know if I can bless that. So as close as you can get to be cutting off from the family, relationally and financially, that's kind of what happened. And my heart just broke, my spirit just sank. And I went to the largest seminary to do my master of divinity for four years.
Brent Stone (20:34.189)
and
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (20:41.958)
in missional leadership. I was a worship pastor, music director for five years, and then I planted or helped plant 10 churches from there in 10 years. And then three years later into my ministry of pastoring and church planning, my dad, you know, who is a typical Korean father, very stoic, you know, you, you know, very kind of like, you know, performance driven. He calls me into the kitchen. And you know, when your dad calls you, I don't know about you, but when my dad calls me,
I feel like I'm going to get in trouble. And so he says, son, come, come to the kitchen. I want to talk with you. I'm like, oh, I'm in trouble again. You know, and so I go to the kitchen and I'm sitting across the table from him and he says this son, you know, when you went into ministry and you left the banking world, we were very displeased with you. But now that we see how God is using you, I want to let you know that we had desires for you.
but they were not in align with God's will. And I wanna say to you as a father that I wanna apologize to you for making a mistake in trying to push my agenda on you instead of hearing God's voice. And what you did was right. And the way that you're impacting and transforming lives and bringing people to faith in Jesus is a heart that is beyond me, my understanding and even beyond my capability. And I'm so proud of you.
And if you ever understand Korean father-son dynamics, that doesn't happen not only for a lifetime, but for generations. And something broke inside that says, God, you are pleased with me and I'm on the right track.
Brent Stone (22:09.568)
That's awesome.
Brent Stone (22:24.694)
Wow, that is amazing. That's I actually have a handful of friends that
Brent Stone (22:33.45)
that Korean descent and I just know a little bit about family dynamic and that is incredible. That is, that's well number one I'm so happy to hear that because we didn't get this deep into your story last time we spoke but this is just, this is really awesome and it just goes to show that God obviously was with you but you know it's just he's like giving you like
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (22:35.551)
Mmm.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (22:48.18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brent Stone (22:59.702)
Hold your head up high like you're obedient and you're in my will and you're moving forward and I'm going to go before you and I'm going to prepare the way and it's just awesome to hear that.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (23:00.852)
Yeah.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (23:12.158)
Yeah, absolutely.
Brent Stone (23:15.982)
So now you're in this space where now you've gotten Affirmation from your father what happens what happens now like what happened? You know now it's like you're in the space and you're walking this out and you're obviously walking in obedience Where do you go from here?
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (23:33.366)
So that's a great question. You know, when you're aligned with God and when you're honoring your parents, there's like a double blessing there. Let's just say that from that point on, the ministry that I was doing and pastoring, it exploded. It literally just exponentially grew.
And I think there's an alignment in our spirit and in our hearts and our minds that says, you know, you can, you can even think, you know, when you said you started all these, you know, multimillion dollar businesses, you know, five, six businesses and counting that in a situation in a marriage, if your wife is not on board, even though you're capable and competent and you're called, it makes it very difficult. But when your spouse or partner or wife or husband, whichever
when you look at it is on board and say, hey babes, you know, we don't have the money, but I'm willing to support you because I believe in you. That kind of a thing. You know that as a father, as a man, as a husband, you can literally, once you get that support, you can literally walk through brick walls, right? Break down new ground, you can pioneer. And so when my parents were for me, when I felt like God was already for me and not leaving me, but.
he was paving the way. From that point on, you know, I put together an advantageism curriculum from seminary and the church that I was serving as a worship pastor grew from 100 to 800 in three and a half years. We had trained over 250 people. We had 25 students getting trained in two classrooms simultaneously every quarter and we had about 17 going out and doing outreach every single week.
Brent Stone (25:03.756)
Wow.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (25:16.006)
So we had like over thousands of people coming to Christ, but in terms of the number of people that came to our church after that was about 800-ish. So we went from one to five campuses. And then over the next 10 years, instead of 250 people trained, I helped train 2,500 people. And over 40,000 conversations later, we had recorded professions of faith of 10,000 or more people.
Brent Stone (25:42.698)
Wow, that's incredible.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (25:44.542)
So success leaves clues, I guess, and we call it fruitfulness in the ministry, right?
Brent Stone (25:48.172)
Yeah.
Yeah, yes, absolutely. No, that's awesome. So because I know a little bit about, like what you're doing now and whatnot, you're not in the ministry anymore, but that's okay, because you're following obedience and other things. Can you just kind of bring people to current day, present day and what transpired in this illustrious ministry career to what you're doing now, which is...
Equally is awesome. You're still helping people, but just in a different capacity. What happened there?
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (26:26.55)
Yeah, the transition was in ministry because I couldn't be everywhere at all times. I got really good at working myself out of a job. So I was a judo master. Do you do this? Do you do that? That was my pastoral joke. And so basically because I couldn't be everywhere, I basically empowered and trained people to do the work that I couldn't do myself. And so in ministry, because I was working myself out of a job, I was a regional evangelist for all of Canada.
Brent Stone (26:40.386)
Ha ha.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (26:55.582)
And so I was traveling from Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, and training all the pastors, church planters, campus ministers, leaders. And because I was going out and doing OJT on the job training, which I would go into campuses, I would go into downtown, I would go into the coffee shops, I would train people. And then I would leave them with a training curriculum. I would give them worksheets, you know, they had classes that they were running themselves. They're all...
running themselves and self-sustaining. And so because I was on ministry partnership development, which basically means fundraising for a pastor and raising my own salary, because I was working myself out of a job and I didn't realize I was doing such a good job, my missionary funds started going down because they're like, you know, everything's in place now. And the support went down to about a thousand dollars a month and living in Toronto, Canada, where the average home is $1.3 million.
It was unsustainable. So I did what I thought was the most, the brightest idea that I could think of at the time. So I did a newspaper route for my neighborhood and I made an additional $100 a month. So I brought my salary up from $1,000 to a whopping $1,100 a month. And I had my kids who were babies at the time in the wagon and I'm like, I still can't make ends meet. So I saw an ad, I think it was on Facebook and there was a gentleman who was a business girl consultant.
He was driving a green Lamborghini and he was in a power suit. And I'm like, oh wow, this guy's making a lot of money. So I thought if I can learn how to do what he's doing, then maybe I can supplement my $1,100 income a month. So I did what no one did at that time. I sent a video personalized message. And if you were that guy in the Lamborghini, which I'm sure you could be with the business that you're running, it'd be like, hey Brent, my name is Jay. I'm a pastor and...
There is no reason why you would even want to care or listen to what I'm saying. And it's not like you're even putting a job, you know, posting anywhere. But I see that you're doing some great work with your businesses and the clients that you're working with. And whatever it takes to learn and to help you with things that you hate doing, I would love to work for free for you and be your right-hand man and help you continue in your incredible success. Would you be wildly opposed to connecting?
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (29:21.026)
I sent like a 60 second 90 second video.
Brent Stone (29:23.242)
Wow. Yeah, you get a response.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (29:26.286)
I got a response within 45 minutes and he got on a Zoom call and he's like, what on earth would cause you to reach out to me? Cause I don't have any jobs for you and I don't even have time for you and you're a pastor, you know nothing. And I'm like, you're like, I, you're right. I don't know anything, but once I learned things, I can master things and I can help you do stuff that you hate doing and you don't need to pay me. So what do you have to lose?
Brent Stone (29:41.538)
Sure, wow.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (29:55.55)
And so he's like, okay, this was a Sunday. And he's like, I didn't realize he was downtown Toronto. I guess the Facebook ads targeted me well. I thought he was in the States. He goes, come downtown to my penthouse and you can be my understudy. You can job shadow me, right? And then I'll give you some tasks and we'll go from there. So I'm leaving the next morning and I'm going downtown and my wife is like, where are you going? And what are you doing?
And I'm like, I'm going to a guy who drives a Lambo, and he's apparently a very successful business consultant or coach, and I'm going to work for him for free.
And she's like, do you know him? I'm like, well, I talked to him yesterday. I saw him on a Facebook ad. She goes, that sounds really sketchy. And I said, well, let's say if I don't come back within eight hours, you can put on my tombstones two words. And those two words would be loved much, loved much. Because I don't know if I'm gonna come back in one piece or if I'm gonna be dismembered and thrown to Lake Ontario. Like I have no idea, I'm just trusting God. And so.
I go there and this gentleman is wearing a, looks like a Hugh Hefner robe, bathrobe, and he's wearing no socks and he's wearing Gucci leather dress shoes. And I'm like, and he's like, here, so come into my penthouse. And I'm like, I'm so confused. I'm like, God, protect me. God, Lord, help, help me, please, Lord. Like, is this from you or is this from the devil, right? And I'm like, is this Satan himself manifested in the flesh?
Brent Stone (31:31.21)
Oh
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (31:33.078)
Anyways, I'm so confused and I'm scared, right? And we go, he literally owns like the entire penthouse in downtown Toronto, right? So I'm like, okay, clearly he's doing quite well. And then he was legit. I was his understudy for like three months straight. And then he's like, I was like, you know what? Your business, I can see your ticket price becoming 50 times more.
like your premium ticket price can be increased by 50 times. And I said, in my mind, as a prophetic guy and as a futuristic guy, I see three packages that are 15,000, 36,000, and 50,000 dollars. And it was a lot less than that. And he's like, you don't know anything. How would you even say that? And so he was running paid ads. He says, let me throw a paid ad and just, you know, once you put that offer together and try to pitch someone and you fail, I can tell you that it didn't work.
and I can prove to you that it was not a good idea. So he was willing to throw a paid ad in my direction. I never had done sales. I don't understand the business. And I get on a call with three CEOs, CFOs, CTOs from UK, England, and I throw this offer, slap together a slide deck together. And it says, so that will be $50,000 to help you do a done for you VSO funnel and run paid ads to help you grow your leads to increase your sales because you guys are already closing it.
40% so once we get leads to your calendar, you're gonna be making that money back in the first month. And I'm thinking, I think. And they're like, that's exactly what we're looking for. So how do we pay you? And I honestly inside said, I wasn't expecting you to say yes. And they said, we don't have a credit card that has that limit. So how do we pay you? And I'm like, I'm not sure. They said, do you take a wire transfer? I'm like, maybe.
So I went back to Slack and I said, give me your SWIFT code, your transit number. And then $50,000 came into the Slack channel and it says boom shakalaka. And all the salespeople were like, who on earth shut the front door? Who just closed a $50,000 cash collected deal? And I started doing that two, three times a week, sorry, not a week, a month, and closing six figures a month right out the gate. And since then I've helped close for a lot of different...
Brent Stone (33:32.206)
Oh my goodness.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (33:54.918)
seven, eight figure coaches that are, you know, you may be familiar with and took them from $15,000 a month to $150,000 a month, took them from $100,000 a month to $1 million a month. So that's the short version of what I've been able to do with the gifting that God humorously gave to me as a former introvert, now an extrovert, and someone who had no voice, who was speaking on stages in front of hundreds and thousands of people.
Brent Stone (34:22.926)
That's awesome. So you have this journey where you had things and I briefly shared with you, we've gone through stuff in our childhood, right? That we had some wounds from and God has just and His mercy just come in and rescued us, right? And then has done some really incredible things amidst our journey and
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (34:35.852)
Yeah.
Brent Stone (34:52.19)
how much, you know, we probably tried to run away from him. At least, let me say that for myself, because I was running from what I thought, you know, a life trying to pursue Jesus would be like. And then I just started to realize more and more and more as time went on that I didn't wanna run. And then eventually got to the point to where I actually had this longing to get back into the right relationship. And so now it's like you have this awesome
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (35:12.406)
Hmm.
Brent Stone (35:21.962)
story about how you were trying to disprove. And then all of a sudden, you know, you get this incredible evangelistic message from this young lady that was basically sharing her testimony. And then, then you get infilled with the Holy Spirit and then you become an extrovert when you're an introvert and then you totally didn't like anything dealing with people. And then now, now you're doing all the things that you're doing. And along the lines, you know,
40,000 evangelistic conversations, 10,000 professions of faith, started 10 churches, tons, all this stuff. And then now it's like you're working in the business marketplace and you're helping businesses and you're using these gifting and talents that God's given you. And then also sharing your faith along the way. I think that that's pretty awesome. Let's do this because I would really like, if there's any kind of closing remarks that you would have to encourage somebody that's maybe in...
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (36:00.13)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Stone (36:18.318)
Um, my, who, who we really like to go for, who I'm really trying to reach is, is who I was for 15 years. I was in church, idolizing my calendar, idolizing money, idolizing my businesses. It's not wrong to make money. It's not wrong to be business owner. I mean, we, we do those things, but, but how do we put God first? Like, how would you encourage somebody that maybe is thinking that, Oh, I'm,
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (36:25.829)
Hmm
Thanks for watching!
Brent Stone (36:48.406)
really go after God. What would you say to them, Jay? How would you instruct somebody to bring it around and not run from God or run from relationship, but to run to God, run to relationship so that God can just show you that abundant life that you talked about earlier in the episode.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (37:07.402)
Yeah, amazing. So a couple of remarks, and I'm actually picking up and connecting dots from before that I missed. I do believe that there's a ministry and there's a marketplace and our faith is seamless. So even though I'm no longer quote unquote, a full-time pastor, my ministry has not ever left. I look at ministry and marketplace and our faith as a seamless integration of our life. That's what the life of abundant life eternal is.
So I have actually equally, if not the same, if not more opportunities to share my faith. And I just literally prayed for a potential client right before this call to help them grow and scale their business. So I get to serve them as a servant leader. So in the closing remark, you know, as you mentioned reaching who you were and your target market, you know, the whole idea is I wasn't running from God like you were, I was kicking and screaming.
I'm the biggest skeptic. I'm like I want to disprove God. I'm like, I'm not even running away from I'm gonna I'm gonna show that God is not real and you know at the end of this journey and you look at all these great You know scholars and academics and people that try to disprove God through the litany of scriptures through historicity through you know validity of the scrolls and you know time and the you know the
all these different evidences, if you will, and eyewitnesses, at the end of my search of someone who's trying to disprove God, and not just running from God, but kicking and screaming into relationship with God, I found that God was not only true, but he's also personal. And something that I cannot negate is the experience I have with my relationship with God, and what I felt on that day of my last year of high school when God
And when I kind of dropped my guard and gave permission to give God to come into my life, is I cannot negate the experience I have with God, even decades after. I'm not saying it makes life easier. I'm not saying it's a life of roses. I'm saying that in some ways it's actually harder to live out of faith in the marketplace. But...
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (39:25.118)
instead of running from God and running to God, I wanna encourage all those people who are listening and the whole church taboo, because I come from the church and the ministry of the church and the pastor role, is there's nothing wrong with money. It's the love of money that is a root of all evil, right? It's okay to make a lot of money. My whole mantra as a sales manager is to sell more so I can give more, right? And we just put a, my wife was an accountant, just gave a...
Brent Stone (39:42.644)
That's right. Yeah.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (39:54.738)
very substantial amount to our church in tithes. And we've given more in the last year than we have in our entire lives collectively, because we're able to. So before things took off with business and before things really started getting traction, my wife said something really interesting. And gentlemen, please listen to me with a heart of openness. The head of the household may be the husband, but the wife,
is the neck that turns the head. Right? There's a reason why God gave us a partner, our better half. So my wife said to me one day when I was trying to really grind and grow, and I think my priorities to making money was idolized like you. Like I was in the wrong place, in the wrong space. And she said something so interesting. She says choice words in the right season. She said, honey, the reason why I think God is not allowing you to grow in this business,
is because your heart's not in the right place and you're not ready for growth. And I was just like, man, you're supposed to say nice things to me. You're supposed to encourage me. You're supposed to support me so I can go through that brick wall, but you're saying the exact opposite. You're going against what I want you to say. So can you say that differently in a way that I wanna hear it? And she's like, no, I'm hearing that again. And so I had to get on my face instead of running from God, instead of kicking and screaming, I literally got on my knees, on my face, and I fell.
Brent Stone (40:57.942)
Yeah, man, that's good.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (41:24.334)
before God and I submitted like I did when I came to Christ I said like I know nothing you can take anything and everything away from me and regardless if I do this if you want me to do something else just say what you want to do I want to be completely open to what your will is if you want me to stop this right now okay that's fine I don't like it I don't want to but if you want me to stop it I will stop it so putting God first is not an option because
When I don't put God first, nothing good happens in my life. And for me, it's like oxygen. In order for me to breathe, God is more than my oxygen. And for him to help me navigate not only my life, my marriage, my parenting, my family, and helping my clients, I need his input in my life in every area so that I say, you know, three words. Holy, well, Holy Spirit is one, I guess. What next? I always try to ask and inquire and include
so that I can participate in his perfect plan in every single decision.
Brent Stone (42:26.763)
That's good. It's so good. You know, it's not that it gets easier right away once you make that declaration or you put your idol on the altar and sacrifice it or whatever. I mean, it doesn't get easier right away. Sometimes it's really hard and it gets really hard and it can sometimes, you know, hurt. But I think, and Jay, I think you'd agree with this. You know, what we've probably found in this transition is that when you do that,
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (42:43.658)
Yeah.
Brent Stone (42:55.19)
God gives you something way better in all cases. With that, here's what we'll do in conclusion. I know that some of y'all listen to this, you're gonna be like, man, Jay's a cool guy. I wanna go and learn more about Jay. Jay's sending me some of his social handles and bio and all that. I will include that in the show notes. So if you wanna learn more about Jay, it will be there. And with that, Jay, we just thank you so much for being on the show today. And with that, everybody, thank you for tuning in.
Any other closing salutations, Jay?
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (43:28.222)
Yeah, I think when we can have faith with actions, because the opposite is sales without faith is dead, but faith with actions, which is hearing the voice of God, hear the whispers, heed the call, and taking that massive imperfect action based on the faith that God gives and gives you is when you're faithful with little, He'll entrust you with much.
Brent Stone (43:52.182)
Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Thank you so much, Jay. Hey everybody, thank you for, oh, of course. Thank you all for tuning in today. We'll see you all very soon.
Sales Ninja "Sell More Give More" (43:56.214)
Thank you for having me.