Sales Reframed | The Resilience Engine: A Hidden Upside of Rejection

What if the secret to success isn't avoiding failure, but actively seeking it out? 

In this debut episode of Sales Reframed, host Eric Janssen takes his students skydiving to prove a point: resilience isn't something you're born with, it's something you build. 

Featuring Survivor winner Erika Casupanan, 29029 co-founder Marc Hodulich, and psychologist Dr. Meg Jay, we explore the four elements that make some people unstoppable—and how your twenties are the perfect time to start building them.

Reframe Takeaway

After listening, you’ll see rejection not as a signal to stop, but as proof that you’re expanding your capability. You’ll understand how will can be built intentionally and how every “no” moves you closer to your goals.

Episode Guests

Erika Casupanan: Winner of Survivor Season 41; Media Personality, and Host of the Happy to See Me Podcast and Storyteller
LinkedIn | Instagram

Marc Hodulich: Co-Founder of 29029 Everesting; Endurance Athlete
LinkedIn | Instagram

Dr. Meg Jay: Clinical Psychologist; Associate Professor, and Acclaimed Author of The Twentysomething Treatment, The Defining Decade, and Supernormal. Her TED Talk, “Why 30 Is Not the New 20” is among the most popular of all time.
LinkedIn | Instagram

Top Episode Learnings 

1. Sales Is Human

   Every conversation you have, every relationship you build, every moment of influence…that’s sales. When we reframe sales as a skill anyone can master, it stops feeling intimidating. It becomes approachable, relevant, and deeply connected to how we move through life. Sales isn’t about persuasion or pressure—it’s about connection, understanding, and helping others see what’s possible.

2. Will Is the Foundation

   Your will (the drive to keep going when things get hard) is what separates success from stagnation. No matter the domain, growth depends on your willingness to face discomfort, uncertainty, and rejection. Will is what keeps you grounded when things get hard and reminds you why you started in the first place.

3. Resilience Can Be Trained

   Like skydiving, resilience starts by jumping before you feel ready. Every time you push through fear, you strengthen the part of yourself that knows you can handle more next time. Growth doesn’t come from avoiding hard things — it comes from choosing to face them and realizing you can.

4. The Four Cs of Will: Cause, Capacity, Capability, and Community

   These are the building blocks of your personal will. 

   Cause: your “why” — what keeps you motivated.

   Capacity: your energy — taking care of yourself so you can keep going.

   Capability: your skills — built by doing hard things.

   Community: your people — the support system that makes everything possible.

   Together, they create the foundation for lasting resilience. When you develop these intentionally, they work together to fuel your purpose, your energy, and strengthen your resilience.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Pain As Social Glue: Shared Pain Increases Cooperation research paper by Brock Bastian, Jolanda Jetten, and Laura J Ferris - Link

Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability, and Resilience  research paper by Mark D Seery, E Alison Holman, and Roxane Cohen Silver - Link

An Upside to Adversity?: Moderate Cumulative Lifetime Adversity Is Associated With Resilient Responses in the Face of Controlled Stressors research paper by Mark D. Seery, Raphael J. Leo, and Jessica L. Almonte - Link

Dr. Darren Meister professor at Ivey Business School - Link

29029 Everesting founded by Marc Hodulich & Jesse Itzler - Link

The Defining Decade, Supernormal, and The Twentysomething Treatment books by Dr. Meg Jay - Link

TED: Why 30 is not the new 20 by Dr. Meg Jay - Link

Survivor (CBS Television Series) Season 41 featuring Erika Casupanan - Link

Transcript

STUDENT: I'm very scared of heights. But I was thinking about it the other day. What am I going to not do it? Obviously, I'm going to do it. Actually, she said the 1, 2, 3, and then you jump. That's when it was a bit of a reality check for me. But I'm excited. I'm excited. I wouldn't lie and say I'm not nervous. But it'll be fun. For a classroom experience, I think it's like once in a lifetime.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ERIC JANSSEN: I'm Eric Janssen, an entrepreneur turned sales professor. And I have a simple mission, to change the way people think about sales. And believe it or not, what you just heard was from one of my classes. Those were my students getting ready to board a plane, fly 10,000 feet in the air, and then jump. If you're wondering why. Well, stick around. Welcome to the first episode of Sales Reframed, podcast powered by the Ivey Business School.

It's a show where I bring together diverse voices, big ideas, and cutting-edge research to help you see sales in a whole new way. Because sales is a life skill. And sometimes that's something you can't learn in a classroom.

We're here to do skydiving. It's the first time I've ever done this. And I'm extremely excited, but also very, very scared. Let's go, let's go, let's get ready. Let's go.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So you're probably wondering what jumping out of an airplane has to do with sales. Well, most people think sales is about persuasion, smooth talking, closing techniques. I think sales is about something completely different. For me, sales is about will. Will is the ability to hear no and keep going. It's feeling fear and still doing the thing. It's getting knocked down and standing back up. And will is what we're talking about in the first episode of the show.

To help us through it, we're going to hear from a survivor winner, an extreme ultramarathon runner, and a famous clinical psychologist and author who studies your 20s. And of course, a bunch of college students who are about to do the scariest thing they've ever done.

STUDENT: I'm really scared of heights. So it's going to be really interesting.

ERIC JANSSEN: Have you done any editing to conquer your fear of heights in the fens?

STUDENT: Other than some roller coasters and hiking, not too much. But still I'll be shaking in my boots on the edge of a cliff, looking down, just that queasy feeling.

ERIC JANSSEN: When I first started teaching, I wanted to offer the sales class that I wish I'd had when I was in school. That meant starting with one simple question. What makes great salespeople truly great? Well, I did a ton of research. I looked at all the studies I could find. I interviewed experts. I partnered with academics. And in the end, I think I found the answer. It turns out there are four elements to a great salesperson. Will, skill, strategy, and luck.

And while each of those elements are valuable, will was by far the number one element that appeared at the top of the list. So, yeah, skydiving might seem like an extreme way to teach a class about the value of will. But here's the thing. There's actually science behind why this works. A study from Mark Seery at the University of Buffalo and his colleagues looked at adversity. What they found was really interesting. People who'd faced some previous adversity in their lives handled new challenges better than those who'd faced none.

Their research actually proves that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And just like a muscle, the more you work on your will, the stronger it gets. So yeah, that's why I presented my class with the opportunity to go skydiving. Do something hard. Do it with your peers. Build your will muscle. And I think when you look for it, you'll see evidence of that almost everywhere, even on TV.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: I think that resilience was something that was always just built into me. I don't think I remember a time in my life where I wasn't being resilient in some way.

ERIC JANSSEN: That's Erika Casupanan. Erika has one of those names that might have you thinking, she sounds familiar. Is it from the award-winning podcast she hosts, happy to see me? Was it at a conference that she spoke at? There's one other place you may have seen her. Erika, if someone were to ask you in your own words, what's your story? How would you answer that?

ERIKA CASUPANAN: Oh, I think that the story that a lot of people externally would see from me is the story of this girl who goes on Survivor, first person living in Canada to be on the show, and then wins and makes history as the first Canadian to win Survivor fame, fortune. Great life after. And I think that, as an external story for people who just know a little bit about me, that's cool. That's humbling and sweet for people to think that. But when I think about my story, I think it really begins when I was a kid.

I was born in the Philippines. And then my family immigrated to Canada when I was just 1-year-old. And I grew up in Niagara Falls. And I think that right from the get go, I learned very quickly that I was really different from everybody who was around me.

ERIC JANSSEN: So, Erika, one season 41 of Survivor. And if you've never watched the show, imagine being dropped on a remote island with complete strangers. No food, no shelter, cameras capturing every moment while you compete in physical and mental challenges, and navigate complex social dynamics, and try to avoid getting voted off. It's basically a masterclass in resilience, strategy, and even sales.

Anyone who has watched any of Survivor 700-plus episodes, knows that you can't win that game without a bottomless well of will. And Erika didn't just survive. She won the whole thing. So who better to talk to than someone who's been through it all and came out on top?

ERIKA CASUPANAN: So I work as a keynote speaker. I podcast. I host. I do the social media thing. I've acted. And the common thread through everything that I do is around that feeling of someone who has felt overlooked, and they're ready to step into their power, and they're ready to be authentic to themselves and to not be apologetic about anything. And ultimately, I think that I'm just a person who now gets to live the dream and work the jobs that I always wanted to do since I was a little kid.

ERIC JANSSEN: When I landed on this framework idea of sales success being a combination of will, skill, strategy, and luck, I knew I wanted to break it down further and see what each of those pillars was really about. But more importantly, I wanted to understand, can these things actually be taught? So I broke it down. And I found that will is actually made up of four elements. I call them the four C's. Cause, capacity, capability, and community. And I really think Erika's story shows how those elements all work together.

Also, just a quick note. Throughout this interview, you're going to hear will and resilience being used pretty much interchangeably. In my class on resilience, I talk about four C's. One is cause. Having a reason for why you're doing what you're doing. One is capacity. You need to do things physically and mentally to be prepared to do hard things. You actually need to sleep. You need to eat. You need to drink. You need to meditate. You need to take care of yourself. Whatever those things are for you. You need the capacity.

There's some capabilities. There's actually depending on the job or the chapter. There's actual skills that you need to learn to be able to overcome resilience. And then there's community. You need other people somehow, whether it's through podcasting, or your family, or your friends, or whatever. So cause, capacity, capability, and community. So those four resonate with you, and is there one that stands out as being particularly important in your resiliency challenges that you faced?

ERIKA CASUPANAN: Yeah, I love that framework. Cause is what's going to keep you motivated to make sure you have the capacity. And it's going to be what binds together potential community. And it's what's going to keep you motivated to ensure that you are keeping up your capabilities. So, I think that, for me, cause has always been the most important. Because the other things, you can build. You can carve out time to create capacity.

Capabilities. You can learn any skill out there. And community. There is so much out there. And I think that if you are lacking in any of the other three, you can figure it out. And you can fill them. But if you're unsure of the cause, you could have all of the other three. But then that's when you could be floundering a bit, or maybe people aren't really understanding your product or your brand. And you might not even be understanding what you're doing. And you could feel disconnection or resentment from what you're doing. So cause for me has always been at the forefront.

ERIC JANSSEN: I like to break will into four C's, because it turns a soft skill into tangible elements that you could work on and improve. And I think you'll notice pretty quickly how interwoven they all are. Again, that's why I wanted to talk to Erika. Besides just being a phenomenally impressive human, I really think her story embodies all four of those C's. And for Erika, the story goes back to when she was a little girl.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: So Niagara Falls is a great place to grow up. Learn so much empathy when it comes to working in tourism. Also, at the time that I was living there, it was an extremely white city. And I had the experience of going through elementary school, high school, and being one of the only people of color in the school, let alone the only Asian or Filipino person. So I learned really early on that I had to really figure out my own way of doing things and figuring out how to find belonging and everything within myself.

From being the kid, going to school, and being four years old and realizing I have to code-switch and talk to people in a different way, and talk about my family in a different way at school versus at home. That was something that I picked up. I remember consciously going to school and I'm like, OK, I have to not eat with my hands. I have to translate the things that I would normally say and the way that I would refer to different relatives or even translate the different traditions we were doing at home for this audience here.

And people at the school like me to behave in a certain way. So I have to switch to be like that. And then I would come home. And I would act totally different and talk totally different.

ERIC JANSSEN: This is capability being built in real time. At 4 years old, Erika's learning to read rooms, adapt her behavior, and navigate different social contexts. Those aren't just survival skills. They're the exact skills she'll need decades later to read people on Survivor and figure out what they want. Is being able to code-switch a skill that is helpful, or is that a bad thing, and that it's a sign of being inauthentic?

ERIKA CASUPANAN: I think that it's a skill that can be helpful. But then the challenge is that it devalues like the actual you. It's like you have to hide versions of yourself in order to fit in. And especially when it comes to marginalized groups who are code-switching, it's like they have to switch to be palatable to whatever the majority they're in. And I think that that's the challenge where it becomes the trait and the experience that you have aren't seen as valuable in other places. And you have to hide who you are to fit in other places.

ERIC JANSSEN: Like a lot of kids with similar experiences, Erika turned to television, hoping to find the representation that she wasn't seeing in her day-to-day life.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: I consumed a lot of pop culture when I was a kid. I watched every award show. I watched Entertainment Tonight every night.

ERIC JANSSEN: Erika's favorite show, Survivor. It became a real source of comfort for her during those tough times.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: Survivor wasn't just like a, oh, it's my favorite show and I want to be on it. But it was really the culmination of a chapter of me building my resilience and my sureness of myself and my own personal strength. The reason that I actually started watching Survivor to give everyone the background. I grew up in a multigenerational immigrant home. So I was with my siblings, my parents, and my grandparents live with us. And my grandpa passed away when I was a kid.

And it was the first time I ever really experienced a death. And it was the first time I experienced grief. And I was a kid. And then also my parents had to basically immediately go back to work and continue providing for the family. And they didn't have as much time to grieve or as much time to comfort us. So I'm this kid. And I'm trying to really process everything that has happened. And then this new show premieres, and it's Survivor. And you see all these people out in the jungle doing these hard things, pushing themselves.

And I was so immediately into the show. Now that I'm older, I can look back at that time. And I know that watching that show, it was like an escape for me. And it was a way for me to really process my grief and to think, OK, these people are doing something hard. I can do this hard thing.

ERIC JANSSEN: Think about what's happening here. She's building capability at 11 years old, connecting hardship on screen to hardship in her own life, training herself to see challenges as survivable.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: And I remember being an 11-year-old kid and watching the show and being like, I'm going to be on that show, and I'm going to win. It was both this beautiful escape where I could leave my regular life and watch this show. And I would dream about all of the ways that I could become stronger, or all the ways that I could push myself, or all the ways that I could win the game. And even when I would do anything in real life.

ERIC JANSSEN: Erika's love of TV and culture continued to grow. And eventually, she headed to Western to study media, information, and technoculture. That degree was the beginning of a decade-long career in public relations, marketing, and branding. So post-graduation, Erika was off to a strong start, a budding career, promotions, world travel, the whole thing. But she still somehow felt unfulfilled.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: I was good at it. And I was picking up these skills that I still even use today. And I was finding ways to challenge myself. And I was meeting incredible people. But the whole time, I knew that this wasn't the thing. But something I always wanted to do was be on Survivor. I remember I ran a couple half marathons. And during that time, during the race where you get really tired, I would tell myself, when I'm on Survivor one day, it's going to be even harder than this. So let's keep going.

So Survivor for me, really symbolized pushing myself, and being resilient, and being strong. When I found out that Canadians could finally be on the show, I instantly applied for the show. And then I didn't hear back for a few months. And then, Lo and behold, I hear back. I go through casting. I'm told that I've been cast on the show, and that I have to get ready and make all the arrangements in my life to film Survivor in March 2020.

So for folks who remember recent history in March 2020, there was no international travel. So, for obvious reasons, I did not film Survivor at that time. So all of the arrangements that I made for myself and taking a leave of absence at work and all of that, it all got put on pause, just like everything else in the world. And then having that time to myself during the pandemic, I was able to start taking writing classes. I was taking comedy classes.

I was realizing that being able to tell stories and do those things that I was interested in ever since I was a little kid, ever since I went to study media when I was in fims, those actually have places in the world. And I realized as I was going through my job, mourning that I wasn't on Survivor. And also starting to lean into my creative muscles. I was like, wow, there's actually another lane for me, and there's another path for me.

So when it came time to actually film Survivor a year later, I was like, you know what? I'm not going to take a leave of absence from the job. I'm just going to quit. And I'm just going to do this survivor experience. I'm going to let go of any previous expectations I had about myself. And I'm going to do the experience wholeheartedly. And then after that, I'm going to figure out what to do.

ERIC JANSSEN: If you would have just taken a leave of absence or a sabbatical, do you think you would have found yourself doing the same thing that you're doing now?

ERIKA CASUPANAN: Even when I think about the version of me who was supposed to play Survivor in 2020, and was just going to go on a sabbatical, I think that at that point, I had been so focused on really satisfying this expectation I had on myself of being the PR person who had it together, knew what she was doing. So I think that I would have been so focused on being this perfect survivor player and making sure that I didn't do anything that would make me vulnerable when it came to my job.

Then I think I would have come back to my job and probably been so frustrated that I just did this very expansive experience that really changed my perspective on myself and on a lot of things. And then to just go back into that space that I was in before, I think that I probably would have been really jaded and maybe not the best person to work with at that time. And I think that probably in some way, I would have had to have gotten out of that lane that I was in to start doing the things that I'm doing now.

But I probably would have burned some bridges and had some hard conversations and embarrassed myself along the way. So it probably would have been a way messier route had I done that. When I played Survivor, it was the new era. It was the first group of seasons since the pandemic. So they describe it as the new era, because the production decided that they were going to change a bunch of the format and a bunch of the rules. So it wasn't exactly the same as the survivor that we saw before.

And I was someone who was so prepared, so perfectionist, studied so hard. And then I roll into the season. And I'm like, OK, wait, this is not what I was expecting.

ERIC JANSSEN: Here's where all those years of code switching, that capability she's been building since she was 4 years old suddenly becomes her superpower. Because while everyone else is thrown off by the rule changes, Erika has been adapting to new environments her entire life.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: But I was also someone who had to grow up to be hyper-empathetic and understanding of the people around me. Because I always felt different. So I always knew that the way that people were thinking and feeling were different from me. And I really used that empathy to help me throughout my career. So by the time I'm on Survivor, I'm like, OK, everything I think I know on paper is different. But what stays the same is I am here with 17 other people. And they all want something.

Granted, a lot of them want the same thing that I want, which is a bit of a challenge. But they all want something. And I'm like, if I could use those skills of empathy and figure out what else they want and figure out how to position myself as someone that is an ally to them, or at least not the biggest threat to them, and I can move myself forward. That's what it's going to take for me to win. So even doing things like endurance challenges, I was sent to a place called Exile Island. So it's separate from the other castaways.

You're on an island completely alone with Meager supplies. On the seasons of Survivor, before mine, typically people would go to Exile Island for one night. And I was like, oh, my gosh, going to Exile is my nightmare. And I got sent there for two nights. And it poured rain both of the nights that I was there. And I have never cried more in my life. I'm sure the rain washed away a lot of my tears, thankfully. So you didn't fully see me cry on TV as much as I did. But even in that moment, I was just like, OK, like this is what you worked for. This is the moment.

Like all of the things that you did in your life up until now, this is what has set you up for now. You've got this. And I remember when the sun came out, and I was leaving exile, I was like, wow. Being out there by myself changed my life because I realized that even the thing that I'm the most scared of, I can overcome it because I can do anything. I had always dreamed of that survivor moment. And it was like second nature for me finally, when I was there to do whatever I needed to do to get to the end and to win.

And it turned out these qualities that were often overlooked by people and often overlooked by myself. Those are the qualities that helped me to win. And I always tell these stories with different qualities. So I also talk about being courageous in my own way, in how through being courageous and sticking to that value, I was able to make changes in my career. Like leaving the 10-year career that I had and then being on reality TV and then pursuing this creative entrepreneurship.

And I show people that, yeah, those things that I have were enough for me. And you definitely have those things within yourself. So if you can do that self-reflection, and figure out those things, and start living by, those values that now you can make sure shine and you can make sure are no longer underestimated. You get the chance to win.

ERIC JANSSEN: So, like a muscle, she had built up her resilience. So that by the time the real test came to face exile on Survivor, she was ready. So now, does subjecting my students to skydiving make more sense? By pushing yourself to do uncomfortable things, you build your resilience muscle. But you don't have to do it alone. There they go. That community, part of the four C's really matters when it comes to pushing through adversity.

In fact, research shows that there are positive social outcomes to doing hard things with a group. A 2014 study by Brock Bastian at the University of New South Wales found evidence that doing hard things with others acts as a social glue that builds cohesion and solidarity in groups. The study examined the link between pain and social bonding in a series of experiments where undergraduate students did things like put their hands in very cold water or competed physically challenging exercises.

The groups of students who'd gone through more painful experiences reported feeling more bonded to their peers than groups who undertook less painful experiences. And almost universally, at the end of doing a really hard thing with a team, you end up feeling a huge sense of pride and accomplishment.

Tell me about that. Second, when you're hanging out at the door.

STUDENTS: Oh, my god. I don't even know. It's like when you're looking at an airplane and that intrusive thought of, oh, my god, what if I was falling right now? But you're actually about to do that. Every instinct in your body is like telling you, you should not be doing this. I think it's very difficult to sometimes feel like you're a part of everything at once while also being separate from it. But it's a feeling I got. I often fell down. I was tearing up, freefalling. Yeah, it was unbelievable.

ERIC JANSSEN: Awesome. Amazing. Thank you so much.

STUDENTS: Of course.

ERIC JANSSEN: For my students, this challenge is preparation. And that got me thinking about something. What if you took that idea to the extreme? What if you didn't just use hard things as training? What if you deliberately sought them out? What if you made a career out of putting yourself and others through the most physically and mentally demanding experiences you could design? That's exactly what our next guest did.

MARC HODULICH: I just want to put myself in that position where real growth happens. And you don't know what the outcome is going to be. But I think you just are so proud of yourself every time you have an opportunity to quit. I know what it feels like to not succeed, to quit on yourself. And it feels horrible. So I'd much rather face that moment where I don't want to go forward and always choose to lean in. Because the other side feels way better than the quitting side.

ERIC JANSSEN: That's Marc Hodulich. He's an incredibly accomplished endurance athlete whose list of finishes includes the Leadville trail 100 run, Hennepin 100 miler, IRONMAN Mont-tremblant, and a sub-4-hour Marine Corps Marathon. Just to be clear, the 100 signifies 100-mile runs. Like what? So clearly, he knows a thing or two about finding the resilience to push through difficult things. He also knows a lot about the benefit of doing those difficult things with other people.

In fact, he created a super successful company out of bringing people together to do just that. Marc is the co-founder of an endurance event called 29029 Everesting. His partner is Jesse Itzler, a rapper turned entrepreneur who sold his businesses to Warren Buffett and Coca-Cola. Instead of being a distance event, 29029 is a 30-hour endurance hike in which you cover 29,029 feet of climbing. That's the equivalent elevation of climbing Mount Everest.

You hike up a ski mountain, take the Gondola down, and repeat for 30 hours. And it's actually developed a huge cult following. I somehow got convinced and had the pleasure of participating in one of the 29029 events in the summer of 2025. And it was actually one of the most challenging. And because of that, most rewarding experiences of my life.

I wanted to talk to Marc because here's someone who's taken the idea of building will through capability, deliberately doing hard things, and made it the center of his entire life. But here's what surprised me. Marc didn't start out as an endurance athlete. He didn't grow up dreaming of 100-mile races. He actually started in sales.

MARC HODULICH: Look, I want to set the context that I was not the best door-to-door salesman. I didn't have the best numbers.

ERIC JANSSEN: Door-to-door sales, selling payroll services for a company called ADP. Getting rejected over and over and over again.

MARC HODULICH: And there's a lot entrepreneurs. You can talk about all of the highs. It's way more lows than highs. It's way more challenges than successes. I quit ADP because I moved to New York to pursue a career in finance or consulting. I wasn't happy in what I was doing. And I did find happiness and joy in being an entrepreneur. I wanted more responsibility. I wanted more accountability. It was a progression.

ERIC JANSSEN: You've done some incredible endurance challenges, Leadville 100, Multiple IRONMAN, 1516, 29029 events now. And yet, sometimes quitting is the right answer. If you didn't quit, you'd still be at ADP direct salesperson today. So, at some point, you had to decide that quitting was the right answer. So how do you decide when to quit something?

MARC HODULICH: I've had a failed business as well. And that failed business was something that once I tried every single thing to make that business successful, you have to look at the fact patterns and say, more hard work, more resilience is not going to yield a different outcome here. It could be market. It could be pricing. It could be product, it could be promotion. But once you go through all of those things and you're still not finding success, you just say, well, the juice isn't worth the squeeze here.

I'm working 90 hours a week and trying everything. It's just how opportunity cost. I can put these efforts into something else, maybe be more successful. And that doesn't mean you quit early. But I think once you've exhausted every single thing you can think of, you do need to look at the fact patterns and say, this may not end up panning out. And that doesn't make you a quitter. That makes you rational. Your 20s are a time to just experiment with a lot of stuff and get your own feedback, not what other people tell you to do. Go and experience it for yourself and see how it feels, and then decide how you want to spend your 30s and 40s.

ERIC JANSSEN: A lot of students that are just starting out their careers. They want to make the perfect first move. They want to do things like a Marc does. I want to build my own thing like a 2929. But can't really draw the straight line from ADP direct sales specialist 2003 to founder of 29029 in 2017. So I don't know. Reflecting back on where you got started to where you are now. Is it one of those things that only makes sense in retrospect? And any advice to those people that are just trying to make the right first step?

MARC HODULICH: Sure. I mean, no, there's no straight line. It's a really crooked line that becomes a dotted line. At some point, some parts get erased. What I will say is the success that we're having and the wonderful experiences we're able to provide at 29029 are in large part because of failures or mistakes I made at other businesses and entrepreneurial journeys where I didn't care for the customer as much as we do now, or the business plan wasn't as well thought out.

Or I wasn't as intentional with my business partner in the very beginning about. What does success look like for you? Do we want to sell this business? Do we want it to cash-flow? Is it impact? Is it philanthropy? So as I've gotten older, I've taken those experiences. And they've much more shaped with intentionality what this has become.

ERIC JANSSEN: He's talking about learning from failure, building capability through mistakes. But here's what he tells students who are just starting out.

MARC HODULICH: It's about figuring out who you are, and what you want to do, and the people you want to surround yourself with. Me moving to New York was a big risk. Selling payroll door-to-door for ADP was not fun. It was figuring out things and failing fast. And we talk a lot about entrepreneurship. But it is it's just trying. Things move to different places. Try a bunch of new things. I think college is a great opportunity for that. But with your own money, invest in things with a small dollar amount and lose it.

See what it's like to make an investment of 1,000 or $2,500 and see it go to zero. So, when you actually make money and have success, you can decide like, hey, do I have the mentality to place $10,000 bets, or $100,000 bets, or $10 million bets and see a lot of them go to zero? Do I want to play in venture capital? I realized at a very early age, when I was 24 years old, and I put $5,000 into an investment and went to zero. I couldn't do that. So I'm a conservative investor.

Do those things when the stakes aren't as high? When you don't have a mortgage, when you don't have employees, when you don't have kids to take care of, take those kind of chances, so you can figure out your risk tolerance. So when Marc was in his 30s, an opportunity presented itself. And he was able to run with it and turn it into the career he has now. It wasn't something that he could have planned for or expected. But in retrospect, it seems like one of those are, of course, kind of things.

He'd moved to New York City. But at the time, back in 2008, it was just a bit between some friends over who was the best athlete working on Wall Street. And a friend of mine were like, well, just put on an event and do it. And that was just an event for 10 friends.

ERIC JANSSEN: Marc and his friend Dave Maloney put together a one-day 10-event challenge and called it the Wall Street Decathlon. The first winner, Greg Feldman, got a $15 plastic trophy and bragging rights. Word about the event spread quickly. And in 2009, they made it official, laid down some rules, and opened it up. 30 people competed in five events that year, and it's been growing ever since.

MARC HODULICH: It did become something that was raising millions of dollars every year for pediatric cancer research. That took a while to get to that point. There were things that we messed up along the way. But we kept iterating, and were unsettled, and kept perfecting the product and service, and fundraising platform.

ERIC JANSSEN: Marc discovered that the community sense of purpose and satisfaction he got out of organizing the event was much greater than what he was getting out of working in finance. So, just like he'd felt with door-to-door sales, he knew it was time to move on to the next thing. And that led to 29029. It's something you wouldn't have had the confidence to do if he hadn't been developing his will all the way along. He knew that he was going to hear no a lot, that he was going to make a lot of mistakes, and that he was going to have to keep on pushing through adversity, and that it still might not work out.

MARC HODULICH: It looks way different than it did in 2017. But I knew it was going to be imperfect. I also knew that we could almost perfect the experience if we had enough attention to detail, and were humble enough to know that we would mess things up. And we still do. It's still imperfect. And I'm still willing every year to work on making it better. So I think you just have to start. It's very easy to say that it's much harder to put things into motion. And you have to focus on, what is the end goal here?

What are you doing it for? And that's the thing that I think gets lost. A of people want to be an entrepreneur without really understanding what it means. What's the end goal you're searching for? For me, it's creativity and curiosity at this point in time. We're not doing 30 of these events or 50 of these events, even when they sell out at 7 or 8 minutes. Because I want to test new concepts. I want to bring new ideas to life. I want to care for the customer and challenge them in other ways.

That's what I'm after. So I think it's being very in tune with who you are, and what success is going to look like, and being more inward focused on what that success looks like, rather than outwardly focused on what is achievement look like, and what story do I want to tell other people? I think I've just been very in tune recently with being honest with myself about what makes me feel good, and what fulfillment looks like, rather than achievement.

ERIC JANSSEN: Listen to how clear Marc is on his cause. He's not doing 29029 for money or scale or because it's trendy. He's doing it for creativity and curiosity and the chance to challenge people in new ways. When you're that clear on your cause, you can say no to the things that don't serve it, even when they look like opportunities.

We've all got friends and family who've been through something really that tests your resilience. Do you see any parallels between the resilience that we face in what I'll call manufactured resilience, signing up to do something hard like a IRONMAN versus the resilience that happens, like the really tough life circumstances that sometimes come up? Are there any parallels between the two of those?

MARC HODULICH: I think there's a direct correlation. I do think that doing events like this does build grit, and it does build that resilience 100%. And will make you more prepared for those moments. But life prepares you much more for an endurance event than endurance event will prepare you for life. I wish people could take that into account when they come in. And that's why you see in ultramarathons hundreds miles and 200 milers. The most fit people who were in their early 20s have the lowest finisher rate. It's the life experiences of the 40-year-olds that they're like, wait, I got through kids, failed jobs, careers, bankruptcy. I can finish this. Life prepared them for the endurance event.

ERIC JANSSEN: I saw this firsthand when I participated at 2929 Everesting at Snowbasin with my wife. Of the hundreds of people who showed up, only 59% finished the event that weekend. And a lot of people who didn't make it were those super-fit 20-somethings that Marc was talking about. I learned something critical during that event. Fitness alone wasn't enough. You needed capacity.

We lined up at the starting line and began hiking that first morning at 6:00 AM. After the sun had set, we had completed our ninth ascent of the day. My wife and I decided to record a short video on the Gondola ride down to capture how we were feeling. It was rough.

Body is running on empty. The plan is shower.

JUSTINE JANSSEN: Yeah, quick shower. Get into bed.

ERIC JANSSEN: Yeah, get to bed for 1:30.

JUSTINE JANSSEN: That would be amazing.

ERIC JANSSEN: And then get back on the mountain.

JUSTINE JANSSEN: 6:00. That would give us 12 hours to finish the last four.

ERIC JANSSEN: At that point, We'd been climbing for 16 straight hours, burning 600 to 800 calories every single ascent. And at just before 1:00 AM, reality hit hard. That moment, knowing we had to be back out there at 6:00 AM, that's when we understood what capacity really meant. It wasn't about grinding harder or gutting it out, it was about knowing when to pause and recharge so we could keep going in the morning.

When you're burning that many calories for that long, your body needs constant fuel and rest, or it just stops working. And I watched people way fitter than us have to quit because they didn't recharge. They'd skip meals to squeeze in another lap. They thought willpower would be enough. But without fuel in the tank, you simply can't keep pushing. The 59% who finished that weekend, they embraced that. Rest wasn't a sign of weakness. Refueling wasn't quitting. Taking care of yourself is the strategy.

But the other 41%, they weren't failures. Those people pushed themselves right to the edge of what they were capable of. And there was as much respect for them as the people who finished the 13 ascents. Because everyone on the mountain was testing their capacity, not against each other, but against their own limits. And I think the same holds true in sales and in life. You can't just will yourself through every tough season, every big goal, every crisis. If you're not taking care of yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, you'll eventually run out of gas. You can only sprint for so long. That's capacity.

And you know what else those who finished the event that weekend figured out? They knew they couldn't do it alone. I know you do a lot of work to foster community and the people that are participating in the events. So maybe touch on the role of community in doing really hard things.

MARC HODULICH: I haven't done anything worth talking about by myself. When I did Leadville or I did an IRONMAN, it was my wife supporting me. It was my kids. It was my parents being at the finish line. It was my coach, Coach Brent, being there for me whenever I needed a pep talk. We need those things. We need those people around us. Some people aren't blessed with those immediate family members. The coach, they don't have that. We can be that for others. And at 29029, it's not a competition.

I lead with empathy and a big heart of saying what I want to happen for people. And then you just show it in action. It naturally makes people feel more comfortable to let the guard down and be like, you know what? I do need help. Yeah, maybe I'm the CEO of a publicly traded company. But I don't know if I can do another hike. And giving people that safe place to be vulnerable creates community because it's just human connection. And what's amazing is for all the divisiveness that we see with politics, or economics, or whatever it may be, humans just really want to feel good and care for each other.

And we create an environment where that naturally happens because you're tired and hungry. And humans are great people. And I truly believe this. At our event, we have the best of humanity on display.

ERIC JANSSEN: And there's that 4C community. Marc's entire business model is built on the idea that we do hard things better together, not competing against each other, but supporting one another. That's community as a force multiplier for resilience. Now, you might be wondering, OK, Eric, these four C's make sense. But why are you making your students? People in their early 20s, jump out of airplanes to learn this. Why not wait until they're older, more established, when they have real careers and real stakes? Well, there's actually a really good reason for that. And it has to do with something fascinating about the decade between age 20 and 30.

DR. MEG JAY: There's just more change that happens between 20 and 30 than in any other decade in adulthood. So it's change in your brain, it's personality, it's job, it's emotion regulation, it's friendships, it's relationships, identity that you'll see more change here between 20 and 30 than any other decades.

ERIC JANSSEN: That's Dr. Meg Jay. She's a clinical psychologist with a PhD from UC Berkeley, and she is responsible for one of the most popular Ted Talks of all time. It's called Why 30 Is Not The New 20? And since it was published in 2013, it has over 13 million views. She's done a ton of research into what makes your 20s such an important time in your life, and has even published three books about it. The Defining Decade, Supernormal, and the 20 Something Treatment. Her research into what makes your 20s such a critical decade, completely changed the way that I think about teaching.

DR. MEG JAY: 80% of life's most defining moments take place by age 35. And yes, you could look at the calendar and say, well, a lot of them are happening between 30 and 35 now. And yes, it's true for myself, I got my PhD between 30 and 35. I got married between 30 and 35. I started having kids between 30 and 35. However, all of those started in my 20s. So even though I think your 30s is often when life's biggest moments feel like they're coming to fruition, and that's something to remember in your 20s. That you're not going to feel like you're there yet. It is actually when we start all those long-form projects.

ERIC JANSSEN: In other words, your 20s are when you're building the foundation. The resilience you develop in your 20s, that we're talking about. That's what you draw on in your 30s and 40s when the stakes get higher. And that's exactly why I take my students skydiving. So, if your 20s are the decade for building will, what does that actually look like in practice? What should you be doing? Dr. Meg Jay had some specific advice about that.

A lot of people coming out of getting their degree, and they feel a lot of pressure to choose the perfect job coming right out of university. How would you coach them through trying to pick the perfect job for them?

DR. MEG JAY: You probably not going to have the perfect job coming right out of graduate school. You're probably not in that position coming out of business school, no matter how good your business school is. And that's OK. That's normal. Remember most people end up in positions they've never heard of. So whatever it is you're imagining is your perfect job, you might not have actually heard of what turns out to be your perfect position. So I would be thinking more of go get the best job you can.

And to me, that means the one where you're going to be learning the most, growing the most. That'll just help you get the next better thing and the next better thing and the next better thing. I don't know at what point you're going to reach that perfect job status. But I certainly would not put the pressure on yourself.

ERIC JANSSEN: There you go. So some pressure off to not worrying about finding the perfect job coming right out of school.

DR. MEG JAY: No. Just the best one you can. And to me, that means the most growth.

ERIC JANSSEN: There was an anecdote that I saw about, the right crew around them to be able to call them when things are bad. And we spoke about the right crew around you to cheer you on when things are good. That you can pick up the phone and call a friend who to tell them that you got promoted and they're genuinely happy for you and rooting for you. How do you think about either creating or cultivating those relationships to surround yourself with the right people?

DR. MEG JAY: I mean, that's part of, you know, some of the job advice that I give. I often have 20-something clients who are choosing between jobs or choosing between graduate programs. And I often say, go where you will be surrounded by the smartest peers or the smartest colleagues.

ERIC JANSSEN: That's the community piece. The people around you in your 20s aren't just friends or coworkers. They're part of the infrastructure that lets you take risks and build resilience.

DR. MEG JAY: In work, similarly to the graduate school, you often learn more from your peers than you do from your professors or your bosses because you get more time with them. And they're near peers are going to teach you a lot. So I just always encourage 20-somethings to surround themselves with the smartest, most ambitious. And I mean that in a positive way. Not necessarily it's all about the money or the status. But people who want similar things in life as to what you want.

I mean, that's important to go for not just in terms of jobs, but also in terms of friendships and relationships. And I like thinking about who can you call when life is good? Who's going to be happy for you? And who's going to help your life be good? And that they're headed in a direction where they can bring you with them.

ERIC JANSSEN: Dr. Jay's book Supernormal is subtitled The Untold Story Of Adversity And Resilience. In it, she looked at the lives of people who had experienced childhood adversity, and how those experiences set them up for incredible achievement later in life. She writes about how resilience is a skill, not a trait. It's something you do, not something you're born with. It's something you can work at, develop over time, and improve. And your 20s are a great time to develop that skill.

DR. MEG JAY: Work is actually the leading driver of growth and change in your 20s. And that's because it forces you into so many new situations that you've never been in before, and different work relationships and hierarchical relationships and customer relationships. So it's stressful. People think, oh, yay, I made it. I got the job. It's exciting to get some amazing new job. And then you get it and realize, like, wow, this is hard. I guess I would say you're not doing anything wrong if you go get that amazing job and realize it's a lot more stressful than you thought, or you're not amazing at it at day one, and you're learning a lot of things the hard way.

I mean, I do think one thing I see a lot with ambitious, high-achieving young adults, and I mean, I work at UVA, so I'm surrounded by those is that sometimes they forget to stay in their lane or just worry about their lane. That they look side to side at what other people have chosen, and how quickly other people are rising, and what other people are doing. And they forget, well, what was it I was trying to do? What is it that's valuable for me?

And so I talk to people a lot about looking forward at where you're trying to go, what kind of future you want, instead of looking sideways at what everybody else is doing. Because I mean, you really cannot. I mean, that's the wonderful and difficult part about adulthood is unlike school, you really can't compare one person's performance with another person's performance. So it's a great time to say, you know what? I just care about what I've chosen to do. And I'm not going to worry about whether it's as good or as quick or as fruitful as what someone else is doing.

It's OK if I don't get the job that I was going for, or if my boss writes me an angry email, or someone else is getting further faster than I am, just to put that in perspective and realize this is probably not the last job you're ever going to have, or the last setback or failure if that's your word for it. Although I think most things in people's 20s aren't failures. I mean, they're just genuinely learning opportunities.

ERIC JANSSEN: So this is the part of the show called The One Thing. Will isn't something that the lucky few are born with. It's something that all of us can develop over time if we're intentional about it. So get out there and start working on those four 4 C's. Cause. Get clear on your why. What are you doing this for? Capacity. Take care of yourself. You can't do hard things if you're running on empty. Capability. Seek out challenges. Build the muscle by using it. Community. Find your people. You don't have to do this alone.

Take a risk. Try something new. Challenge yourself. Whether it's applying for a new job, asking someone out on a date, or jumping out of an airplane.

DR. MEG JAY: I'm excited to reflect after today and be like, oh, my gosh, I did this.

ERIKA CASUPANAN: Maybe in the future, because if I have this under my belt, if there's anything else that comes about and it's like, oh, this is like a really big deal, this is scary, then I will feel more confident to do that.

ERIC JANSSEN: On the next episode of Sales Reframed, we're tackling the most important sale you'll ever make yourself, positioning expert April Dunford explains.

APRIL DUNFORD: Positioning defines how your product, your offering is the best in the world versus everybody else that someone could pick. So it defines who am I actually competing with? What have I got that's different than them? What's the ultimate value?

ERIC JANSSEN: Whether it's a job interview or a first date or asking for a raise, you need to know how to answer these questions about yourself, and we'll show you how. Until then, this has been an episode of Sales Reframed. And I'm your host, Erik Janssen. Thanks to my guest this week, Erika Casupanan, Marc Hodulich, and Dr. Meg Jay. You'll find links to their socials in the show notes. This podcast is brought to you by the Ivey business school. And I wanted to take a moment just to thank them for their support.

Ivey consistently ranks as the best business school in Canada and one of the top schools in the world. This podcast is part of our ongoing effort to take the latest research and turn it into practical lessons and real-world insights that help people learning, growing, and succeeding in a changing world. I couldn't teach these ideas without their support. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.