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A Widowmaker Wake Up Call That Changed Everything with Adrian Jones · Beyond Expertise

0:01
Eric Dickmann: Welcome to Beyond Expertise, a podcast about identity reinvention for professionals ready to explore who they are beyond their titles and their careers.
0:11
Eric Dickmann: I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
0:14
Eric Dickmann: Today, I'm excited to welcome Adrian Jones, or AJ, to the podcast.
0:19
Eric Dickmann: After more than two decades in financial services leadership, AJ experienced two widowmaker heart attacks that forced him to confront a difficult question: What happens when the life that looks successful from the outside no longer feels aligned on the inside?
0:35
Eric Dickmann: Those experiences became the catalyst for major reinvention.
0:39
Eric Dickmann: From high-pressure executive life into work centered around purpose, alignment, and helping others rethink success before crisis forces the issue.
0:50
Eric Dickmann: Today, AJ is the founder of More, a career wellness platform for accomplished professionals navigating burnout, transition, and the search for a more meaningful life.
1:00
Eric Dickmann: AJ, welcome to the show.
1:01
Eric Dickmann: I'm so glad to have you as a guest today.
1:04
Adrian Jones: I'm thrilled to be here, Eric.
1:06
Adrian Jones: I'm excited for today's conversation.
1:08
Eric Dickmann: I am too.
1:09
Eric Dickmann: I think you've got an interesting story to share, and I'd like to rewind the clock a little bit.
1:15
Eric Dickmann: With my guests, I like to go all the way back, to start to think about your journey right from the beginning, when you graduated from school when you got that first corporate job, was it in financial services?
1:26
Eric Dickmann: Was it on a path you were excited about right from the start?
1:29
Adrian Jones: That is-- Wow, you asked a question that has a lot to it, and you might get more than you bargained for.
1:36
Eric Dickmann: I'm ready.
1:38
Adrian Jones: I actually, yeah, I went to, uh, a liberal arts college and studied, uh, international relations.
1:45
Adrian Jones: Um, I went to Occidental College in LA, and I wanted to be a diplomat.
1:50
Adrian Jones: I felt like that was what I wanted to do, that that was my calling going through college.
1:56
Adrian Jones: I studied abroad in, in Belgium, in Brussels, because that's the, the center of Europe, the headquarters of Europe, even back in those days.
2:03
Adrian Jones: Uh, and that is where I wanted to, um, end up after I graduated, so I could get some more international experience, and then I would go, um, in my mind, I would go get my master's of foreign affairs at the Kennedy School at Harvard or Georgetown or Fletcher at Tufts or whatever, or Monterey or wherever.
2:23
Adrian Jones: That's how I saw the world.
2:25
Adrian Jones: And so I did That, that was it.
2:28
Adrian Jones: I, I, I left college, whatever I was 22, and that was my plan, and I ended up over in, in Belgium, and I, I got a job, uh, on a bond desk for a French trading company.
2:40
Adrian Jones: I didn't know the first thing about bonds.
2:42
Adrian Jones: They trained me.
2:43
Adrian Jones: The-- They taught me about the difference between interest rates and the, the value of bonds, which was entirely mind-bending for me,'cause I didn't have any of this education before.
2:52
Adrian Jones: But I actually, um, I was on the Belgian long bond desk for this French trading firm, and I became the second most active traders.
2:59
Adrian Jones: But I had a problem with my work permit, sadly.
3:02
Adrian Jones: Uh, and Belgium had 15% unemployment, and they just could not justify hiring an American to do a job that a Belgian could do, which I get.
3:09
Adrian Jones: So I had to come home, um, sadly, and the first thing I did is let all my friends know that I was back in the States.
3:16
Adrian Jones: Uh, and my college friends had all settled in San Francisco, and they said,"Jones, get out here.
3:21
Adrian Jones: Um, we got a couch in our apartment in, uh, in Cow Hollow in San Francisco, and, and I'm sure we can help you find a job." That sounded good to me.
3:29
Adrian Jones: I never unpacked my bags from Belgium.
3:31
Adrian Jones: Got a one-way ticket to San Francisco, went up there to figure it out, and then I got a job in a financial services firm because I had that somewhat brief experience in Belgium.
3:41
Adrian Jones: So I got a job on the sales desk of a mutual fund company called GT Global, which no longer exists.
3:46
Adrian Jones: I was on the sales desk working market hours, so I had to be in at 4:30 in the morning, five days a week.
3:51
Adrian Jones: And that's how I started my corporate career.
3:53
Eric Dickmann: and were you excited about it, that change?
3:55
Eric Dickmann: I mean, if you had wanted to be a diplomat, you kind of were on that path, but it took a little turn.
4:00
Eric Dickmann: Uh, were you excited now about how things were going in financial services?
4:04
Adrian Jones: Well, it was unexpected.
4:07
Adrian Jones: I, I, I, I really enjoyed being in San Francisco in the early'90s.
4:11
Adrian Jones: It was a very vibrant city, and it still is in ma- in, in an awful lot of ways.
4:16
Adrian Jones: But I, um...
4:18
Adrian Jones: Yeah, my heart was still in Europe and I felt like I had abandoned something I worked so hard to achieve or was hoping to achieve and putting myself on a path.
4:27
Adrian Jones: I had stayed close with my mentor.
4:29
Adrian Jones: I mean, I was one of those, Eric, I literally was one of those students who, uh, was super involved with the major.
4:35
Adrian Jones: I was head of the student advisory committee.
4:38
Adrian Jones: I did all these things because I was so devoted to, to that major and learning what they were teaching us about international relations throughout the late 80s and early 90s.
4:49
Adrian Jones: Um, so I stayed in touch with my advisor from college two or three years after I had graduated and had a really interesting conversation with him.
4:58
Adrian Jones: And he advised me, sort of threw me with this one.
5:01
Adrian Jones: He advised me, he said,"AJ, why don't, why don't you look at getting your MBA?
5:05
Adrian Jones: And, and maybe it's a different route for you.
5:07
Adrian Jones: Maybe the Masters of Foreign Affairs, the MFA there, isn't the path.
5:12
Adrian Jones: And maybe working your way up the State Department at all these random outposts that you'll be assigned to every couple of years, maybe that's not for your path.
5:20
Adrian Jones: Maybe your path is to go get an MBA and work for a company that has, um, international offices and you can get your international exposure, exposure that way.
5:29
Adrian Jones: And then who knows?
5:30
Adrian Jones: Maybe there's a political appointment or, or down the road you could do something and get involved." And to me, that made a ton of sense.
5:37
Adrian Jones: And so I switched, I switched gears.
5:38
Adrian Jones: I really valued his opinion.
5:40
Adrian Jones: We were, we were pretty close.
5:41
Adrian Jones: So then I changed gears and I applied to MBA schools and ended up getting into the Anderson School, uh, at UCLA and went down there.
5:49
Adrian Jones: And, and lo and behold, I started in management consulting at Deloitte, and then I went over and got a job for Wells Fargo and their wealth management group.
5:58
Adrian Jones: And I was working for a bank that had no, effectively very little international business.
6:03
Adrian Jones: I mean, they didn't have, you know, one-- It wasn't a big global bank.
6:06
Adrian Jones: So I was like,"How am I gonna, how did I end up here when I'm trying to go abroad?" And so I just felt like every chance I had to like get abroad, like seemed to just, the world was pushing me in a different direction.
6:18
Adrian Jones: I'm like,"Okay, well, I guess this is what I'll, I'll, I'll do." And, and ironically, um I'll, I'll finish it with this.
6:26
Adrian Jones: So I, I went to Anderson at UCLA, and it's a two-year program if you're a full-time MBA.
6:33
Adrian Jones: And I deci- me being me, I want some more international exposure.
6:36
Adrian Jones: So instead of going over to Europe, I got myself an internship, uh, at an investment company in Hong Kong.
6:44
Adrian Jones: And then I extended my stay there and, and applied to The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Sai Kung, in Kowloon over there, thinking maybe Asia is the place where I need to be in all this.
6:54
Adrian Jones: And what I realized is I really miss San Francisco and the Bay Area.
6:59
Adrian Jones: And so, I don't know.
7:00
Adrian Jones: So anyways, graduated and moved to the Bay Area, got married and, and settled and started my career there in corporate America, so.
7:07
Adrian Jones: Anyways, and so I probably gave you a lot more than you bargained for
7:10
Eric Dickmann: No, that was interesting because I think a lot of people start that way, right?
7:14
Eric Dickmann: They have hopes, they have dreams, they've got aspirations, what they think their career is going to be, and they push very hard to get themselves going in that direction, and then life intervenes and pushes you in slightly different directions.
7:27
Eric Dickmann: And it sounds like throughout your journey, you tried to course-correct a couple of times or what you thought was course-correcting, but fortunately for you, new opportunities kept opening up and pushing you in slightly different directions.
7:40
Eric Dickmann: And it sounds like you ended up in a good place, just not exactly where you envisioned you would be at the start of that journey.
7:48
Adrian Jones: Exactly.
7:50
Adrian Jones: 100%.
7:51
Adrian Jones: And I think that's w- was one of my early lessons is about being adaptable and, and where do you find-- where do you strike that balance between being adaptable and, and understanding where, where the trends are g- are going for you, so to speak, versus continuing to, um, push for something that you had previously believed in pretty mightily.
8:15
Adrian Jones: Um, and it's an interest-- When you're in your early 20s, that's a, that's a, that's tricky.
8:19
Adrian Jones: That's a difficult time.
8:20
Adrian Jones: I think it's, those are difficult decisions at any stage of life, but particularly I felt in the 20s, that's, that's hard when many doors are still open, um, and we don't have, um, other responsibilities as you get older, right?
8:32
Adrian Jones: And so, um, it was t- it, it was tricky, but I, I, I, I realized in, in hindsight now looking back all these many years, you know, I had a great fortune of working for some wonderful firms like, you know, Deloitte, Wells Fargo, Barclays Global Investors, BGI, who got bought by BlackRock.
8:49
Adrian Jones: So I worked at BlackRock and over at Schwab.
8:52
Adrian Jones: And so, uh, very, very fortunate in that way.
8:55
Adrian Jones: It just certainly wasn't Coming out of college, the life that I had envisioned, where in my mind I was gonna be running, running around the world solving problems in all the global hotspots in a ver- sort of reasonably idealistic way.
9:10
Adrian Jones: Um, yeah, that the, the universe said,"Yeah, I don't think so."
9:14
Eric Dickmann: Yeah, and at this point you've, uh, you've gone to school, right?
9:17
Eric Dickmann: You've gotten your MBA.
9:18
Eric Dickmann: You've had a chance to be in Europe and in Asia, worked for a number of different, top-tier companies.
9:24
Eric Dickmann: So you've been moving up the corporate ladder and at this point settled into San Francisco, met your wife is everything great?
9:31
Eric Dickmann: I mean, are you feeling content now in this new identity as you've kind of fit into the opportunities that presented themselves in your new education and firm footing in financial services?
9:43
Eric Dickmann: Is this a great time?
9:45
Adrian Jones: Amazing time.
9:46
Adrian Jones: I met my wife at, at college.
9:48
Adrian Jones: She was two years younger.
9:49
Adrian Jones: So We got married in San Francisco, and then stayed there, and life, life was groovy.
9:54
Adrian Jones: I mean, the, the'90s was just what was going on with internet and venture capital and launch parties, and the energy was just so palpable.
10:02
Adrian Jones: Uh, it was, it was wonderful.
10:04
Adrian Jones: Wherever you are, it touched you.
10:06
Adrian Jones: Um, and so that was super fun, and to s- bring children into the, the equation was incredible.
10:12
Adrian Jones: Um, after we had both our children, a daughter and a son, we moved over the Golden Gate Bridge to a place called Marin County.
10:19
Adrian Jones: Loved raising our children there.
10:21
Adrian Jones: Just tremendous, tremendous community of friends.
10:24
Adrian Jones: It's beautiful.
10:25
Adrian Jones: The-- I think Marin County is 80% protected open space.
10:29
Adrian Jones: There is just an abundance of trails to explore, um, things to do, vistas to see.
10:36
Adrian Jones: Uh, it's, it's a beautiful, beautiful place, and the weather's generally very good there.
10:41
Adrian Jones: But going back to this theme that I had.
10:42
Adrian Jones: So, right, I worked at Wells Fargo, not really an international bank.
10:46
Adrian Jones: Um, I got a job at Barclays Global Investors and, and BlackRock bought them, and, and BlackRock is global.
10:54
Adrian Jones: And so I saw this opportunity, and we had-- The stuff I was working on had, had actually gotten quite successful.
11:00
Adrian Jones: And so I thought,"Well, I could take this and bring it to Europe." And I was all set and ready to go over there, and my plan was I'd pitch it to the London office for the EMEA, you know, efforts, and then I could potentially, uh, parlay that into a short-term assignment over there and move the family over.
11:17
Adrian Jones: Our But as fate would have it, um, once again, um, that was all teed up, and then August 8th of, what was it?
11:25
Adrian Jones: 2011, the S&P downgraded the US Treasuries.
11:29
Adrian Jones: And at that point, the firm shut down all non-essential travel, which included my trip to Europe.
11:35
Adrian Jones: And, and lo and behold, that was the end of that.
11:37
Adrian Jones: And, uh, it just-- I, I-- Gosh, I'm like,"How many times am I gonna throw s- throw myself against this brick wall and, and the universe keeps saying nope?"
11:45
Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
11:47
Eric Dickmann: So I know that eventually you had a health scare, right?
11:51
Eric Dickmann: Tell our audience a little bit about what happened there, and then was that really the big wake-up call that said,"I don't know if I wanna keep doing this"?
12:00
Adrian Jones: Mm-hmm.
12:00
Adrian Jones: Yeah, absolutely.
12:02
Adrian Jones: So the, the setup here is, as I said earlier, we had moved to Marin County, which is, uh, a fun fact for your audience, it's the birthplace of mountain biking.
12:11
Adrian Jones: Anyways, because there's all these great trails and, um, fire trails or single-track trails, and I'd gotten into mountain biking recently, it was a Saturday, beautiful fall day, and three friends of mine and I, we went mountain bike riding.
12:26
Adrian Jones: And the first part of the ride has a pretty significant, uh, climb to it.
12:30
Adrian Jones: It's, it's a hilly part of the world and, and unfortunately, most climbs there require what we call the suffer fest.
12:37
Adrian Jones: It's climbing up hills to get to the trails on the ridges and all the fun downhills.
12:41
Adrian Jones: But this was a ride like all the others.
12:44
Adrian Jones: You had to go up, and one part was pretty strenuous, and that's, um, when I...
12:49
Adrian Jones: My legs basically turned off.
12:51
Adrian Jones: All the strength, like someone hit the off switch on my legs.
12:53
Adrian Jones: And what ultimately happened is, um, within a very short order, uh, I was sick and nauseous beyond anything I'd ever experienced before.
13:04
Adrian Jones: Super lightheaded, uh, uh, like s-terrifyingly so.
13:08
Adrian Jones: Terrifyingly so.
13:09
Adrian Jones: Like I, like I might just fall over and collapse.
13:12
Adrian Jones: Um, and then a chest pain set in in my chest and, and all these things.
13:16
Adrian Jones: Ultimately, what happened is, and we-- none of us knew it at the time, but I was suffering a, a massive widow-maker heart attack.
13:23
Adrian Jones: Uh, fortunately, fortunately, uh, we were able to walk down the trail.
13:28
Adrian Jones: How I could walk is, uh, I don't know, a testament to maybe some good health and exercising regularly, whatever.
13:34
Adrian Jones: But, um, we were able to walk down.
13:36
Adrian Jones: That walk took 40 minutes, um, and got into a car and got taken to the hospital, and that's the, the...
13:42
Adrian Jones: I mean, I was in heart, uh, heart attack protocol and was in the cath lab, catheterization lab, like getting, uh, a stent in minutes.
13:50
Adrian Jones: It happened so fast.
13:52
Adrian Jones: And yes, that was a, a moment that changed my life forever.
13:57
Adrian Jones: I mean, as, as any survivor, um, might attest to, it's, uh, it, it'll shake you up.
14:04
Adrian Jones: And for me, what, what, what really happened is I got out of the hospital after I was there for three days, um- I was working for, for Schwab and they, they put me on, on leave for I think four months.
14:18
Adrian Jones: They were very, very good to me.
14:19
Adrian Jones: I have all kinds of respect for them.
14:21
Adrian Jones: And I would lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder why I survived.
14:26
Adrian Jones: You don't survive a massive widow-maker, full occlusion of my left s- left anterior descending artery, uh, when I was on the op- by the time I got to the operating table and, and tell the tale and actually not suffer any lasting effects to my heart.
14:40
Adrian Jones: It's just incredible.
14:42
Adrian Jones: So what do I do with the second chance of life?
14:44
Adrian Jones: What, what is the, what's the message?
14:46
Adrian Jones: What is the play?
14:47
Adrian Jones: Do I go back to my three-hour daily commute into the financial district in the, in San Francisco and continue with that job?
14:54
Adrian Jones: Do I become a, a, a stay-at-home dad?
14:58
Adrian Jones: Do I volunteer myself in, into the world of teaching, not as a volunteer, actually as a new career, or join the Peace Corps or something along these lines?
15:07
Adrian Jones: Like, what is the plan?
15:09
Adrian Jones: Universe, help me out, please, because I, I really need to know.
15:13
Adrian Jones: And it finally happened in a, in a way that is, is almost hard to describe.
15:18
Adrian Jones: It, uh, I call it my, my voice of God moment.
15:21
Adrian Jones: It was like a lightning bolt to my soul.
15:23
Adrian Jones: I, I, I had this thought that hit me like a two-by-four on my forehead or a lightning bolt to my soul.
15:29
Adrian Jones: It was like,"Use your story to help and inspire others."
15:33
Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
15:34
Adrian Jones: And I had no idea what that meant.
15:37
Adrian Jones: But it was loud, it was clear, and it was not a message or a voice that was to be argued with.
15:45
Adrian Jones: I just signed up right then and there.
15:46
Adrian Jones: I didn't know what about my story would be helpful or if how I delivered it would help anybody or inspire anybody, but I knew that this was the path that I was gonna be on.
15:56
Eric Dickmann: I think that's so interesting because when I talk to people, a lot of people have a growing frustration, growing level of discontent that they're just not finding the fulfillment in what they do like they used to, and they're wondering if there's something more.
16:12
Eric Dickmann: And it sounds like your path is a little bit different.
16:14
Eric Dickmann: Things were fine, and then all the sudden you had this heart attack And you wondered, well, fine is okay, but is my life really meant for something more than just what I was doing?
16:28
Eric Dickmann: Which is really an interesting, moment of choice.
16:33
Adrian Jones: Absolutely.
16:34
Adrian Jones: And it made you or made me think, well, was it fine?
16:38
Adrian Jones: Right?
16:38
Adrian Jones: Like, why did this happen?
16:40
Adrian Jones: So medically, I had a plaque rupture and, um, in the left anterior descending artery, AKA the widow maker, um, because when we're, we were climbing up that steep pitch, the, the plaque under that strain cracked, broke, and created a blockage, much like sticks create a little dam in a, in a little creek or something.
17:01
Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
17:01
Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
17:02
Adrian Jones: So, um, I mean, that was the, that was the medical reason, but, but, but why?
17:07
Adrian Jones: Why was the plaque loose?
17:09
Adrian Jones: Was it stress?
17:10
Adrian Jones: Was it diet?
17:12
Adrian Jones: Was it what-- it's just a bad day, just unlucky, but lucky to survive, but unlucky that it happened.
17:18
Adrian Jones: Um, so it really got me thinking like, well, was this the path?
17:23
Adrian Jones: Was I truly aligned with what I should be doing?
17:26
Adrian Jones: Yeah, I had nice roles and, and very nice compensation and, and things like that.
17:31
Adrian Jones: Um, but was this the path I, I should have been on, or, or was I glossing over some other things that were going on inside that I just didn't know were taking place?
17:43
Adrian Jones: Um, because my busyness and, and being in the game and hustling and doing all the things was, was filling up my time and filling up my focus, where potentially there were other things going on deeper down inside.
17:56
Adrian Jones: And
17:56
Eric Dickmann: How did you sort through all that?
17:58
Adrian Jones: Yeah.
17:59
Adrian Jones: Well, here's how I sorted through it.
18:00
Adrian Jones: So, um, for better or for worse, full candor and vulnerability here for, for your listeners.
18:07
Adrian Jones: So I, um, I had this message,"Use your story to help and inspire others." And I said,"Yes, that's exactly what I'm gonna do." Uh, however, what I ended up doing is once my four months of, of leave, uh, came to an end, I went back to work and did that for a few months and realized, yeah, this isn't for me.
18:25
Adrian Jones: Um, I don't know where I'm gonna go, but it, it, it can't be here.
18:29
Adrian Jones: So on my way out the door, uh, a good friend of mine who h- who has a wealth management firm offered me a job.
18:37
Adrian Jones: He said, you know,"Hey, Jones, we get the band together here and do these things." And I said,"Well, okay." And he knew my, my health situation, so I thought,"Well, maybe this makes sense." Very kind, very generous.
18:47
Adrian Jones: And the, the reality I think is, is that for the next f- five years, I was in wealth management, and even though I was dabbling on the side with this helping and inspiring others, the exploration of what I could do there, and by dabbling, what was I doing?
19:03
Adrian Jones: I was-- I started off by blogging anonymously.
19:07
Adrian Jones: I did it anonymously'cause if you're in a highly regulated industry like financial services, you have to be careful what you put out.
19:14
Adrian Jones: And then with time, I, I got some confidence and, and have my own blog.
19:19
Adrian Jones: And then, um, you know, I had a podcast that I did in COVID, like so many people.
19:24
Adrian Jones: Once we all were locked up, we all went on Amazon and bought a mic and started creating content.
19:28
Adrian Jones: I was one of them.
19:29
Adrian Jones: I still have the same mic, the Rode NT right
19:31
Eric Dickmann: a good one.
19:33
Adrian Jones: yeah, I love it.
19:34
Adrian Jones: Um, and so I started to dabble with these things, and then the Heart Association asked me to do some talks for them, and that's how I started to pick up, um, some momentum.
19:44
Adrian Jones: But I think the reality is, and, and this is where, you know, it's, it merits a, um, honing in here is I, I stayed in financial services because it felt safe.
19:57
Adrian Jones: It-- I, I knew how I could get a nice paycheck.
20:00
Adrian Jones: I knew how to do the job, um, whatever.
20:03
Adrian Jones: You know, I knew how the industry works.
20:05
Adrian Jones: Uh, I knew the regulations and, and these sorts of things.
20:10
Adrian Jones: It almost killed me again, and, uh, a-and, and here's, here's what happened.
20:15
Adrian Jones: So, um, my, my buddy's firm, like I didn't wanna be on his P&L, There was like a 12 to 15 month, like, trial run, and we both came to the end of it and said,"Hey, you know, like maybe this isn't the right thing." And I said,"Yeah." And what did I do?
20:29
Adrian Jones: Instead of like maybe pursuing this calling, I went and got a job at a, another wealth management firm, and I got...
20:38
Adrian Jones: It just was not the right move for me.
20:40
Adrian Jones: And I've so much-- I, I like to say, if I could use a tree metaphor, that my, my trunk and roots were firmly on or in the ground because that's, that's the world that I knew.
20:51
Adrian Jones: So that, that trunk and tree and, and being in the ground, that's the world of financial services.
20:56
Adrian Jones: But my branches had grown into this other world that I, I, I, that I felt called to.
21:03
Adrian Jones: Uh, that the nourishment and the photosynthesis was pulling my tree branches in a, in another direction and causing me to crack inside, quite literally.
21:11
Adrian Jones: Um, I suffered extraordinary bouts of, of nau- I think stress-related nausea.
21:16
Adrian Jones: I couldn't sleep.
21:18
Adrian Jones: I was highly anxious.
21:19
Adrian Jones: I-- It was all I could do to get out of bed every morning.
21:23
Adrian Jones: Um, needed therapy, um, and anti-anxiety medication for a little bit just to, to, to get through.
21:30
Adrian Jones: Like, was, was pretty traumatic.
21:31
Adrian Jones: And I'm thinking,"Why am I this?
21:33
Adrian Jones: I, I, I've just survived a heart attack.
21:35
Adrian Jones: I don't need this pressure and this anxiety.
21:37
Adrian Jones: Why am I...
21:38
Adrian Jones: I gotta get out of this," but I couldn't get out, and it was a strange trap that I was in.
21:43
Adrian Jones: Um, and You know, it was, it was not a good situation, Eric, at all.
21:49
Adrian Jones: Um, and so fortunately, uh, our firm that I was with got bought by another firm, and they were like,"Okay, well, we need to like rationalize uh, workforce." And, uh, and I was-- I got on the wrong side of that and, and, and as they told me the news, I was-- I had a smile on my face.
22:08
Adrian Jones: I'm like,"Oh my God, this is perfect."'Cause my wife was telling me to quit.
22:12
Adrian Jones: Like,"You are, you are not yourself.
22:14
Adrian Jones: Like, we have some savings.
22:16
Adrian Jones: Like this-- your life is not worth it." Uh, sorry,"This job is not worth it.
22:20
Adrian Jones: Your life is." And, and it's hard to hear that message.
22:24
Adrian Jones: Like, even though I was miserable, and I knew I had to go, and I had felt this calling, and I felt like I could jump into the space that I'm in now, I, I, I don't know what held me back.
22:34
Adrian Jones: My identity, my worry about money, just fear, fear, fear.
22:38
Adrian Jones: And it caused this like crisis.
22:40
Adrian Jones: And so anyways, I left in 2023, and in April of 2024, I came home from the gym and, uh, walked in the-- i-into an empty house and had a second widow-maker heart attack.
22:52
Eric Dickmann: No, Mike.
22:54
Adrian Jones: And yeah, and, um, you know, had-- luckily knew the symptoms immediately, called 911, and we had lights and sirens outside our house in three minutes and 40 seconds.
23:03
Adrian Jones: I know this.
23:04
Adrian Jones: Uh, and back I went to the, to the emergency room and had a second stent put in.
23:09
Adrian Jones: So I don't know.
23:11
Adrian Jones: It's-- for me, it's a lesson that, um, you have to make a move.
23:18
Adrian Jones: Your, your health-- If you don't have health, you don't have anything.
23:21
Adrian Jones: If your health isn't good, in my mind, you have nothing.
23:24
Adrian Jones: So health is everything, and even if that job is nice, and even if the money's nice or whatever, if your health is suffering, it's not.
23:31
Adrian Jones: Like, stop.
23:32
Adrian Jones: Stop, please.
23:33
Eric Dickmann: They're warning signs, right?
23:35
Eric Dickmann: And I, I think it's so interesting to me because I had a guest on the show recently who had the same reaction to a big event where it actually was relief.
23:45
Eric Dickmann: They had the same smile on their face because I think it was a forcing moment.
23:49
Eric Dickmann: And I think where we so often get stuck is we get pulled back into the comfort of what we know, right?
23:56
Eric Dickmann: That's where I- our identity lies, and that's where it's comfortable.
24:01
Eric Dickmann: But I loved your metaphor about the tree and the branches that you had sort of already extended into these other things, and it sounds like there was something there, but you just didn't know how to fully monetize it, turn it into a business, turn it into a new life, a new identity.
24:17
Eric Dickmann: But there was the start of some growth there.
24:19
Eric Dickmann: And I'm guessing that this second episode gave you the clarity to start to move in that direction.
24:26
Adrian Jones: so and, and my time ended with that firm that March-ish, around there, 2023.
24:39
Adrian Jones: And so I had some idea.
24:40
Adrian Jones: I was-- I, I had a little blog, um, which I had never promoted, like it was just a side thing.
24:45
Adrian Jones: And, and I had a podcast, which was a side thing.
24:48
Adrian Jones: And for a while there, I thought,"Well, maybe I'll just get into content space on, on, on a couple topics." Number one, heart disease prevention and awareness.
24:58
Adrian Jones: Um, and that's what led me to volunteer and do some things with American Heart Association.
25:03
Adrian Jones: And, and then the other piece was I'm an adoptee, and after my first heart attack, I decided I'd go find my biological family.
25:12
Adrian Jones: And, and that was, and is-- continues to be an incredible blessing in my life.
25:17
Adrian Jones: Got-- found both my biological parents, and I have three half-sisters, and it's just been an incredible story and journey for me.
25:25
Adrian Jones: Uh, and so I started to put some content into the universe around, you know, adoptee advocacy, what's it like to go through a, a reunion.
25:33
Adrian Jones: Because in those days, 2017, 2018, 2019, um, era, um, Ancestry was blowing up, 23andMe was blowing up.
25:42
Adrian Jones: There were so many genetic surprises popping up in people's families.
25:45
Adrian Jones: I thought I could lend a voice.
25:47
Adrian Jones: So I was out there with that.
25:48
Adrian Jones: But what was crystallizing in my mind, although I didn't know it at the time, was this notion of, of your authentic truth and, and really getting aligned with, with just who you are and being grateful for that.
25:58
Adrian Jones: And, and, um, ultimately-- So go-- now fast-forwarding back to 2023, um, I was like,"Well, what is my content gonna be about?" And I, I realized that I don't know if this is it.
26:10
Adrian Jones: And so in early 2020-- In January of'24, I started a company called More, which is what I have now.
26:15
Adrian Jones: And in its first iteration, we were gonna create a community for Gen Xers who wanna get more out of life.
26:22
Adrian Jones: At the time, I was a one-time heart attack survivor, and I felt like I wanna help people.
26:28
Adrian Jones: I've touched death's door and come back.
26:30
Adrian Jones: If I can help people get more out of life with the time they have, like that is, that is a noble mission for me, and I think I can help.
26:38
Adrian Jones: Gotta fine-tune the articulation of what that help is, but that's what I think I can do.
26:42
Adrian Jones: So we started More in January of 2024, trying to build a community business, and in April, I had the second event, and I'm like,"You've gotta be kidding me." Um, I, I-- it was one of them-- It was like a, the massive leg sweep.
26:57
Adrian Jones: Then you just find yourself like Humpty Dumpty on the ground.
27:00
Adrian Jones: Like, how do I put this back together?
27:02
Adrian Jones: Why me?
27:03
Adrian Jones: Why again?
27:03
Adrian Jones: It was a pretty traumatic couple weeks there.
27:06
Adrian Jones: And my cardiologist told me to retire, and I said,"What are you-- Are you serious?" Like I mean, I, I appreciate you telling me that, but, um, I, I just started something, and I feel like I have unfinished business here, and I've survived two of these.
27:20
Adrian Jones: Like, there's gotta be a reason I've survived two.
27:22
Adrian Jones: The odds of me being here today after, as two-time widow-maker survivor are slim to none.
27:29
Adrian Jones: Um, so what can I do with this?
27:32
Adrian Jones: Well, no, it was my thing.
27:33
Adrian Jones: I mean, it was the only game I had, uh, and we had just started.
27:37
Adrian Jones: So, you know, to call it a business would be Yeah, I mean, it was technically a business, but we were just starting off.
27:43
Adrian Jones: So I went back to the drawing board and said,"Okay, I'm gonna commit to this, to bus- this being the business of More and creating some destination for people who want more out of life." And as, you know, time went on, I, I began to refine what that could look like and how we could serve people, and what really are we trying to help solve.
28:03
Adrian Jones: And so now, in, in, in this-- in, in today's day and age, if you will, um, More is, is really helping people find, you know, alignment.
28:13
Adrian Jones: And what does that mean?
28:14
Adrian Jones: It's helping people move out of this trap that they're in, where they're, they're, they're high on achievement but low on aliveness, and they're suffering.
28:23
Adrian Jones: And they don't even-- can't even say it out loud that they're suffering,'cause they may not even fully understand it.
28:28
Adrian Jones: But they, they guzzle caffeine in the morning and come home and have a few drinks just to level out and-- or maybe, you know, a sleeping pill or whatever it is.
28:36
Adrian Jones: And, and, and they're just putting Band-Aids on this sense of, of, of misalignment, and it's something that my firm now is, uh, More is gonna start sharing a lot more about.
28:47
Adrian Jones: We have a, a PhD of psychology on staff.
28:50
Adrian Jones: She's amazing.
28:50
Adrian Jones: And, um, we have one piece out on the science of alignment.
28:54
Adrian Jones: Uh, and, and, and this, Eric, is fascinating, that when you are aligned to your purpose, your all-cause morbidity risk goes down.
29:05
Eric Dickmann: I believe that.
29:07
Adrian Jones: Risk of heart disease and cardiovascular disease goes down.
29:13
Adrian Jones: Sign me up if that's what's happening.
29:16
Adrian Jones: Uh, there's some really interesting research coming out of Japan, you know, it's one of the blue zones over there.
29:20
Adrian Jones: And, um, so this is something we're gonna hone in on around helping people get aligned with their authentic truth and making sure their actions and ambitions track to, to who they are.
29:32
Adrian Jones: Um, and if they can find that alignment, they can...
29:35
Adrian Jones: Well, evidence would suggest that it can be g- you know, can be good for-- It's physiologically beneficial and protective.
29:43
Adrian Jones: And then that is really powerful, beyond just getting people pointed in the right direction that they've-- that lights them up,
29:50
Eric Dickmann: I think that's a great mission for a business.
29:51
Eric Dickmann: You know, what a noble goal to help people in this way.
29:54
Eric Dickmann: And I'm always curious when I, talk to people who start up a business like this is you talked a little bit about the fact that you started out, you had to fine-tune it, where your original vision wasn't quite right.
30:07
Eric Dickmann: You had to make some adjustments, and then you finally found something that resonated with you and obviously with an audience.
30:15
Eric Dickmann: And so take me through that a little bit.
30:18
Eric Dickmann: So, you know, you're no longer working in the wealth management space.
30:21
Eric Dickmann: You've decided to go full-time into this business of your own.
30:25
Eric Dickmann: But having a great idea is not everything, right?
30:29
Eric Dickmann: You also need paying customers.
30:31
Eric Dickmann: You need to build something that, that you can make a living off of.
30:34
Eric Dickmann: Talk to me a little bit about how you navigated that.
30:39
Adrian Jones: Well, um, I was just thinking about this yesterday actually, that Thomas Edison, right, the inventor of the light bulb, what did he say?
30:46
Adrian Jones: He found 10,000 ways how not to make a light bulb before he figured out the way to do it.
30:52
Adrian Jones: And I feel like I'm, I'm not quite at 10,000, but it's, it, it's a process of evolution.
30:56
Adrian Jones: It's a-- But if you're an entrepreneur, um, failure can't be the thing that scares you, I, I think.
31:02
Adrian Jones: I think we're always dealing with failure.
31:04
Adrian Jones: Like this didn't, like the, the Thomas Edison example, like 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb.
31:10
Adrian Jones: It's trial and error, trial and error.
31:11
Adrian Jones: Is, is your minimal vi- minimum viable product, is it landing?
31:14
Adrian Jones: Do we need to tweak it?
31:15
Adrian Jones: Do we need to tweak the message?
31:16
Adrian Jones: Do we...
31:17
Adrian Jones: It's constantly doing that.
31:18
Adrian Jones: So when we launched MORE in 2024, it was this-- the idea was let's create a community for people who want more out of life.
31:27
Adrian Jones: And even though our value proposition was very squish- squishy and wouldn't pass muster in any, any business school, um, marketing program, but, um, we just felt like, let's just-- you gotta start somewhere, and let's start here.
31:40
Adrian Jones: And we'll offer like this really cool 13-week career coaching, career crossroads programming for people who wanna redesign their careers.
31:48
Adrian Jones: And then, and, and this will come as no surprise, Eric, I wanted to add some international travel and retreats, right, into our portfolio, right?
31:58
Adrian Jones: I'm gonna get there one way or another, and if I have to do it my own way, I'm doing it, right?
32:01
Adrian Jones: So that was the design.
32:03
Adrian Jones: And then, um, I, I had the, the heart attack a couple months later, three months after we started.
32:08
Adrian Jones: Uh, technically, I think right around three, three and a half months.
32:11
Adrian Jones: And so when I came out of that, I said,"I, I think MORE actually, our value proposition was not where we needed it to be.
32:17
Adrian Jones: And I really wanna meet people at a crossroads." And the crossroads in, in people's lives, I think the best place I can help them is, is with their career, where, where career and life sort of intersect.
32:28
Adrian Jones: You know, health could be something I talk about, but there's some great people who are talking about health or financial.
32:32
Adrian Jones: Yeah.
32:33
Adrian Jones: But, but, but careers, I think we can do some work there.
32:36
Adrian Jones: So we redesigned the career, the, the business around cr- this notion of career wellness.
32:41
Adrian Jones: Like, which-- who puts those two words together, career and wellness?
32:44
Adrian Jones: Well, we tried.
32:45
Adrian Jones: Um, and we would offer, like we would design everything around Getting people pointed in the right direction with their careers.
32:53
Adrian Jones: And we s- I wrote a, to, to put a stake in the ground and build a philosophy around this, I wrote a book, um, which by the way, I will show you, which, uh, is, is right here, um,"Powered by Authenticity," which this is the proof book, so it comes out next week.
33:10
Eric Dickmann: I love that.
33:10
Eric Dickmann: Congratulations.
33:11
Adrian Jones: Thank you.
33:12
Adrian Jones: But in, yeah, summer of 2024, I sat down and started writing it, and from it was born the methodology for More, which is about driving to your authentic truth and being radically honest and ex-exploring these, you know, what success is to you and all these things.
33:26
Adrian Jones: So we relaunched as, as More Career Wellness, um, and I recruited some, um, coaches who've joined us, uh, on the platform.
33:35
Adrian Jones: And, you know, we're, we're building and figuring it out, and people are coming in, and we have some successes.
33:42
Adrian Jones: We stub our toe more often than we had successes, I think.
33:46
Adrian Jones: And, and, um, last November, I was invited to New Orleans for a mastermind.
33:52
Adrian Jones: I've never been to a mastermind, and I, and I was invited, and I said,"Well, this, I got time.
33:56
Adrian Jones: I got some budget.
33:57
Adrian Jones: I'll, I'll go attend." And I came out of it with a big aha, um, uh, from this two-day workshop with a bunch of other, uh, really smart entrepreneurs.
34:08
Adrian Jones: And what, what hit me like a freight train as I shared my business and got feedback from them is the problem I'm trying to solve isn't careers and this notion of career wellness.
34:21
Adrian Jones: It's actually about alignment and, and aligning what people do with who they ultimately are.
34:26
Adrian Jones: And the career is a expression of that.
34:31
Adrian Jones: Your job, your vocation is an expression of that if, if we can do this right and help people.
34:35
Adrian Jones: So I went back to the, the drawing board and redesigned the business around alignment.
34:42
Adrian Jones: Um, and so that is, you know, who we are now.
34:45
Adrian Jones: And like, uh, like I say, I've got a team.
34:48
Adrian Jones: I've got a head of research.
34:49
Adrian Jones: She's, uh, um, a PhD in psychology and neuroscience, and, uh, we've doing this research and work'cause I want to infuse what we're doing with evidence and research and science.
34:59
Adrian Jones: So yeah, when we-- You know, so I've got the story of inspiration.
35:02
Adrian Jones: I've survived two widow-maker heart attacks.
35:04
Adrian Jones: Here's how I just redesigned my whole life so I can get more out of life and live it in a way that I wanna do it on my terms.
35:12
Adrian Jones: Um, but we're also gonna bring in science and, and tools of neuroscience to You know, not only prove what we're doing, but make sure that what we're doing is pointing people in a, in a physiologically good way or helping train the brain to move through the blockers.
35:26
Adrian Jones: Like, as we're-- as you were saying earlier, like, it's just easy to stay in your own job.
35:30
Adrian Jones: It's comfortable, you know?
35:32
Adrian Jones: It's, it's easy.
35:33
Adrian Jones: Um, but, but there are ways to work on your brain, um, to get it to feel comfortable moving forwards into doing something new.
35:42
Adrian Jones: So, um, that's where we are now.
35:44
Adrian Jones: So I'm not quite at 10,000 light bulbs, but, um, I've got a few more to go.
35:49
Eric Dickmann: Well, I appreciate you sharing that because I think some people think you have this epiphany, you wanna do something new, you feel you find your purpose, and magically you can create a successful business out of that.
35:59
Eric Dickmann: And more often than not, it's a lot of trial and error, it's some adjustments, and it's a slow build.
36:05
Eric Dickmann: And, you know, that takes time and patience.
36:07
Eric Dickmann: But I think if you're grounded in authenticity and really trying to provide value to others, the business will come.
36:15
Eric Dickmann: You just have to be willing to make those adjustments, to find the business that works for you.
36:21
Adrian Jones: Totally.
36:22
Adrian Jones: You know, what do they say?
36:23
Adrian Jones: It took me 10 years to build my overnight success.
36:26
Eric Dickmann: Yeah, that's
36:28
Adrian Jones: something like that.
36:29
Adrian Jones: So yeah, it does take time.
36:31
Adrian Jones: I, I, uh, if anyone can have an overnight success, uh, good on you.
36:36
Adrian Jones: Um, but I, I think many things that are worthwhile take some time to figure out to get it, to get it right, um, and then to, you know, message it properly and all that kind of stuff.
36:47
Adrian Jones: So, um, I think we're, I think we're there with what we're doing, um, with around alignment and, you know, the business is still called More.
36:55
Adrian Jones: I have, um, you know, three career coaches and a, and a wellness coach who work with our members and, um, we, uh, I'd like to-- I've tried to, to get a retreat going, um, uh, and I, I think we're gonna try again in the fall this year, um, to have our, our first retreat.
37:13
Adrian Jones: Um, and, uh, so-- because I think that if you really wanna do some transformation, you've got to get out, out of the known of your everyday life and get into the unknown, right?
37:22
Adrian Jones: And, um, I'd, I'd love to longer-- my longer term vision is to go back to what I, what I was saying just a moment ago about more like have some, some retreat destinations around the world when we, when we really get this thing rolling.
37:36
Eric Dickmann: I think that's a great goal, though.
37:37
Eric Dickmann: Getting people together face-to-face is so needed in this virtual kind of Zoom economy that we live
37:43
Adrian Jones: You know it.
37:44
Eric Dickmann: And, you've mentioned a lot of great resources, and I'd love if you could just, uh, share those here as we, we bring this interview to a close.
37:51
Eric Dickmann: Tell people a little bit more where they can find out information about MORE, also about your book and your podcast
37:57
Adrian Jones: well, I appreciate that.
37:58
Adrian Jones: Yeah, so the, the business is called More, M-O-R-E.
38:00
Adrian Jones: Our website is B, B-E morealigned.com.
38:06
Adrian Jones: And, um, our-- I do, I, I do have a podcast.
38:09
Adrian Jones: We have episodes that drop every Monday morning.
38:12
Adrian Jones: It's called"Code Three" in honor of my ambulance ride and the second heart attack,"Code Three: Life Reinvented." And my book is coming out very soon, uh, any day now.
38:24
Adrian Jones: It's called"Powered by Authenticity." My name's Adrian Jones and, and so that's the author's name, me, on the book.
38:31
Adrian Jones: And yeah, uh, would love to connect with anyone if they wanna reach out, say hi, get connected.
38:37
Adrian Jones: The best email is hello@bemorealigned.com.
38:40
Adrian Jones: Would love to hear from you.
38:42
Eric Dickmann: dude, that's really great.
38:43
Eric Dickmann: I'll make sure that all of that is linked up in the show notes so that people can find it.
38:47
Eric Dickmann: Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story.
38:50
Eric Dickmann: It's a pretty dramatic one, and the path that you're on today sounds exciting, it sounds fulfilling, and really meaningful to the people that you're having a chance to interact with.
38:59
Eric Dickmann: So I really do appreciate you sharing that story with us here today.
39:03
Adrian Jones: Yeah.
39:03
Adrian Jones: Thanks, Eric.
39:04
Adrian Jones: Uh, it was very enjoyable.
39:06
Adrian Jones: I hope it helps someone in some way, or a lot of people in some way.
39:09
Adrian Jones: And thanks for this opportunity to have this conversation.
39:11
Adrian Jones: Really appreciate it
39:13
Eric Dickmann: Thanks for listening to Beyond Expertise.
39:15
Eric Dickmann: You can find show notes, resources, and links mentioned during this episode at podcast.ericdickmann.com.
39:24
Eric Dickmann: If this conversation resonated with you, I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue exploring what it means to reinvent ourselves beyond our careers, titles, and expertise.