Hey listeners. This is Neil Ludovic and Amir Jan Dolly. Welcome to leave looking at. Where we have uplifting conversations about the state of the world, with our heroes, with the intention to demystify orient and leave you our listeners inspired for this. Episode we sat down with two incredible humans that are changing the game when it comes to finding your dream job.
Jonathan Javier and Jerry Lee are co-founders of an incredible organization, called one salting founded in 2019 with the mission of turning underdogs in two winners. One salting focuses on helping people from non-traditional
backgrounds. Secure offers from top companies like Google Facebook, Deloitte Goldman Sachs and More in three years they managed to build a Be of over 1.5 million followers on social media garnered, over 50 million views of their content online and built Partnerships with more than 70 companies, including Google, Cisco and Zillow. In today's episode, we talked about the importance of finding self confidence to achieve success in your career.
Why balancing hard work with rest is key and how sometimes our Dream companies aren't what we expect and now, without further Ado, let's start this. Episode. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did and that you leave afterwards. Looking up. What up? Y'all, welcome. Welcome back. Great to speak to everybody in The Ether. Thank you again for bringing your hearts in your ears and we're so happy to have you back. We are joined here by two incredible humans.
Jonathan Jerry introduce yourself. Say hello to our fans, our audience, welcome friends. Thank you so much for having us whether we're excited. So we are here today to learn a little bit more about you guys understanding how you got to where you are today, talk to us about your origin stories, freshman year of college. Where I remember I was at the dorms and there were two of the students in the hole and one of whom ran out of her room
screaming. Oh my God, I got an internship and everyone else came was like oh my God. Congratulations. But I literally started being like, what's an internship? And she was saying, yeah you know like oh my gosh I'm going to be at Goldman Sachs investment banking at Hong Kong and who were like, oh my God, congrats, and I was like what? He's investment-banking.
What is Goldman? I had no idea what that was only later to realize, that, like that person had only had had gotten that role in part, because their family had extremely tight connections with a lot of the global managing directors to me, that's where something clicked in my mind. Where I could have thought the situation in one of two ways I could have thought to myself said, wow, that really sucks that I don't have anyone in mind that work.
You can vouch for me like that or the other way I could have thought was listen if that person can do it because I knew someone so, can I and so thankfully, I think because of sort of values that I grew up with, I very much lean towards the latter, all that to me has made me realize, oh my God. There is a really big institutional knowledge Gap that needs to be fixed here. That was where I belonged. Began to realize, man. Like we definitely need to do
something in this space. I don't know what it's going to be. Initially once I graduated, I thought to myself well, my outlet to helping fix. This problem is going to be to create content on LinkedIn so that to me was that initial start same for me too. I feel like there's a lot of privileges that a lot of people have especially when working at these respective companies because maybe there aren't already works at a McKinsey or their Uncle already works at a meadow.
And for me, I didn't know anything about careers until I was only a senior in college. And I remember I was saying to myself, okay? Like that's get into the big four, which is the accounting companies because I thought that would be the only way to get into Tech because that's what everybody said and everyone was like, oh it's impossible to get into these respective big-name tech companies because be don't go to a school where the opportunities come here.
But I realized that it is possible because a lot of people just self reject themselves before going in for the roles when you think about career, coaches crew development, folks, you think of people who have been in the space for 20 15 years, probably in their mid late 40s and they charge 2,000 bucks an hour for pretty Consulting. And so for us I think, in a lot of ways, we were sort of the
Pioneers in defining. Hey, listen, just because we don't have the age or we don't look like a certain way. That doesn't mean that we don't have, we don't have an opportunity to add value that, that doesn't mean that we aren't the right people to be solving these problems. We are the right people, is we solve these problems because we personally have felt and continue to see the problems happening on the ground every single day.
That is exactly what drives us to create content every single day. And so, As I sort of think about my Underdog Story and having to realize, Hey listen, I want to do something in the world one day where I can do this listen we aren't 45 year old middle-aged white Caucasian males who charged 2,000 bucks an hour but I still do blue crazy, right? I have no idea.
Surprise I come from a first-generation low-income household and so for me, I wear that very proudly as a badge because I feel like that has instill the virtues of hard work persistence never giving up into me that I sort of apply throughout my entire career. And so come College, I had never
heard of what an internship was. I heck I didn't even know how to tie a tie but it was at that moment where I began to realize I have so much more to learn about what it means to be a professional, so you sort of fast forward through the first couple years of my college. I began to realize that. Hey I'm applying to 300 jobs. Semester for me to get an internship. Every single semester wasn't the
best utilization of my time. And so that's where I started learning about the concept of networking and going beyond the application process fish later began to be the foundation of what we do. I want with one salting for me. I was trying to go for a lot of these big name companies but I attended a school that didn't have companies directly recruit from my school which is basically a non-profit School.
So when I was simply applying to a lot of the roles I was going for was getting rejected for them and I thought to myself, why is this the case? But by actually networking and creating human connections with individuals who have guided me throughout my own Journey but it's providing insights whether it's getting referred. Whether it's getting recommended to someone who's on the actual hiring team was able to land at Snapchat, Google and Cisco, but before all that had no
connections whatsoever. It was just all from Utilizing LinkedIn and other social media platforms to meet individuals and putting yourself out there for us. A lot of people have a dream career in quotations. When they start for me, it was getting into Tech by getting into a Google, getting into a big corporate company, which a lot of people aspire to get into. But you soon realize that working in these respective companies, you are a small fish in a big pond but also your
dream company might change. And that's for me and Jerry probably tested for his own to sometimes. Your dream company is your own company that to me is something special was there a Magic Moment a Eureka Revelation or Catalyst that said I need to start my own thing, right? That dream company is no longer what I want.
Yeah I mean it was crazy because that a memory that came back to me was when I first found out who John was and John was at the time in LA and he was just doing workshops at local universities and colleges Just because he loves to do it. And so I remember I came across one of his LinkedIn posts. He and I connected and we said, Hey listen, whenever you come up to the Bay, let's do something together.
And he said, okay, cool. He eventually came up to the beta with a Google and then I remember we were doing a number of these workshops and the first one was at UC Berkeley. Once we did that, we then had we post about it on LinkedIn, then three more schools reached out. Then we went to school. Number two, did the whole Workshop posted about it.
Three more schools reach out. Then we went on to the add one and we sort of had this really weird, networking tree of us just getting invited to do these opportunities and John and myself. We genuinely just loved the idea and sort of that, like, aha moment in people's faces when we do these workshops. But it wasn't until the moment when someone started asking us. Hey, John and Jerry. Do you guys do resumes for my? Yeah, for sure, we do. And they're like, how much? And we're like, what?
Wait what? I mean, how I mean, okay, I $20 right now lunch And so I think that's where we began to realize. Hey, maybe there is a need for things like this. And that's really how things got started from occasional workshops. Three years ago, Jerry and Jonathan have since established Partnerships with companies like LinkedIn and handshake grown. Their company to a team of almost 30 people and been covered in Forbes, Business Insider and Fortune just to name
a few. When did this become real for the two of you the gravity and seriousness of starting a business together? Heather where that conversation about your work Dynamic and who is going to do what, you know, CEO, CEO. Oh, this is where your roles begin and ends. I was working at Cisco and covid-19 happened. And what happened was? My job actually got affected by covid-19 layoffs. So when full time with it and it was only about four of us if I'm correct. And we were thinking to
ourselves, okay? Like we're getting really big on LinkedIn which is our platform that we were most known, as should we get on other platforms. And so we got on Tick-Tock, we've gone on Instagram and we saw a huge amount of conversions coming from those platforms. So when we were able to focus directly on what impacts the business, what helps it grow? We were able to hire like we're hiring right now is All time sales coordinator. It's crazy to think about because I would never imagine
hiring someone full time. For my own company, the large community Jerry and Jonathan built for one salting demanded a strong team to run it setting goals and making use of their team's resources were critical to insulting success and making sure the team remained on track John and I sort of have a rough outline of what we want to accomplish this year. We then break it down by how we think we ought to be able to
achieve this. This from sales numbers, marking numbers, Ops numbers, and everything else in between and have goals by months of what we hope to achieve for us to be able to achieve our broader mission of the goals that we had set. And as a result, we then design teams around to help achieve those goals. And so we very much take a very structured approach. We have a sort of a key vision of what we want to accomplish.
That's generally the way that we structure our business, how we think of our priorities and how we think about hiring, I think we live in in this world and New York specifically, that and generationally that it's go. Go go, the more works, the more you produce the better. You are. And if we're not working, we need to appear, like, we're working. And I've seen it when I've lived in New York, I've seen it when living in South Korea, I've seen in quite a few capacities and I'm curious.
Do you have those moments? How do you spend those moments if you do and how do you protect the vegetable Miss? Like, the, the life? Outside of this work that can seem very validating and can be the sole definition of you.
It's I should really timely that you bring this up because John and I were actually talking about this exact topic because I think for us our roles are little bit funny because we have to be, it's a business Executives, but we also have to be content creators and both, those are full-time jobs and if you treat one of them like a part-time job, well, you're going to get part-time job results.
And so, one of the things that John and I recently talked about was a, Hey, listen, like what are We Are? We more Executives? Are we more content creators? And if so, what's a balance between that? And are we okay with those results? If that means that one side might slip to, for example, if we think of ourselves as more as Executives than, are we?
Okay, dedicating more time to building the business less so on content creation, knowing that our content, my foot in terms of growth, And so for us, I think that's probably the biggest thing. We struggle with understanding that balance and so we know what it takes to create content every single day on three platforms. But then from a work perspective that this is only getting bigger, right?
Are there systems that you guys have in place that help Foster and nurture those kinds of realizations? Yeah, I would say that Jerry and I do have weekly stand-ups but recently He and I were in like Executive coaching session with one of Jerry's mentors who are super thankful to have shut up to RAF if you're listening in, but that session made me realize like that. What are my bone priorities, or where's my mindset, is in the correct place or not.
So, I feel like those sessions and just having a one-on-one sessions with Jerry every week, we always come up with the realizations of what's what we're feeling. And we're very transparent about it with each other. Which is allowed us to grow as individuals.
Yeah, and I think with at least between me and John I think we're going to start using an executive and executive coach to help Foster these important conversations which has been super cool to try out this past weekend, at least with our team. One of the things that we try to do on a quarterly basis. So whatever is we try to bring an external consultant, sort of
host workshops. So most recently we have a sort of leadership off site where We had one of my buddies who was an innovation consultant for about 45 years work with Fortune 500 Fortune, 100 company management teams to help Foster, these type of discussions and these with our leadership team, that's how we try to have these open conversations. In addition, one thing that we do every once in a while, maybe once every quarter once or twice a year.
Is that John? And I will say, Hey, listen, Everyone on the team listen we want to share feedback and but most importantly we want to hear your feedback on the company. So I remember last year we did a Anonymous survey, we give people the opportunity to say things that they maybe need may not feel comfortable, sharing directly to us. And so I think that those three levels for up between me and John at the executive level and our T-Mobile.
That's how we try to Foster the types of conversations. It's clear here. R that connecting often with your team and getting feedback is just one crucial element to effectively lead an organization yet with the many Avenues Jerry and Jonathan were exploring. It's even more apparent that Building Systems to support each other as co-founders was the
Bedrock of their company. It allowed them to organize their weeks and days more efficiently grow their business Empower, their team and protect their time. So, in the morning, we usually do a meditation with one of our team members who use our web developer, but he also had runs a Facebook group with 400,000 people. And we'll have a ton of meetings specifically, with leaders, on
our team. And we also have been doing a lot of one-on-ones with each of our individual team members, just to make sure number one, our priorities are aligned, but also just talking about their own personal goals and aspirations, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and more lakhs for us. We try not to have as many meetings on Tuesday. Thursday's. The reason being is because those days are mostly heads down work. Yeah. Yeah. I would I would +12 that so
Tuesday Thursdays for sure. We tie try to keep it. No meetings. All unless we have cool opportunities like this to be uncool podcast. Hey, you know, it's way we met deception. Hey, yeah, like exactly what day is today, I feel like what's really good about our work schedules. Is that? Jerry and I hold each other very accountable to what we're doing. But also we remind ourselves to
take breaks. So for example, I'm actually going to the Philippines from May 12 to June 4th and in my head I was like, dang maybe I should check in on the team and see if everything is okay, like throughout the weeks. But Jerry was like now I just take a break, take a break, don't look at your laptop and it's like okay, fine, fine.
All right, but I feel confident that Jerry will be able to leave the team even more and Jerry's, been able to instill that confidence in me to say, hey, like, if one of us takes a break, it's okay. We'll still be running the ship even further along. Like it's crazy to think about because last month for example, or two months ago Jerry actually went on vacation for about maybe like two three weeks and we saw a growth of like ten percent, right.
And I don't know Jerry was like Jerry was like oh my gosh I could ever come Fast. I'm like but then the next month we grew, even like 15% more so maybe it's going to be switched Jerry, maybe I won't come back after this one keishon, I feel like I'll like for a company to be successful. You should as co-founders, just trusting one another to deliver results and also the be an asset to the team of course.
Neil and I are speaking to Jonathan Xavier and Jerry Lee about how crucial it's been for them as co-founders to build a relationship of trust and reliability for one salting success. We're digging deeper on how they brought their personal strengths to the table and use them as a foundation for their work. When I was working on the the
National Consumer packaged. Goods startup, I lightened with my buddy, there was actually a moment, he had an office on Fifth Avenue, sat me down and like Hainan. Vision. It was Lion King, Simba style of like this could all be yours, right? And saying, like this is the vision and I want you as my partner for this. We talked about roles and responsibilities, but that was when there was a real negotiation of, what do you want to do?
What is this mean? Where do you see yourself seeing if those lives and I'm curious because it is really hard to find that, co-founder, especially, given that you guys, I had, you know, five ten years of friendship behind us and you guys met through. In was there a cool you're gonna
do this? I'm gonna do this great thanks so much, shake your hands and 50/50 it very much happened organically and as sort of John mentioned, one of the key principles that looking back that we realize, is that what we did at the time was a commodity, Ravine people's resumes, reviewing people's interview, prep, all that stuff.
Anyone else can do it. So what differentiated as I feel like was the marketing piece it was that marketing to help set the foundation for us to Do everything that we can today. And so for me when I was coming on full-time and the line of work that I was doing, I was doing business strategy work for Google for a multibillion-dollar business unit at Google that was growing at double digits year-over-year.
And so all the work that I was doing was foundational work, stuff project management working across Marketing sales product Executives and stakeholder management. And so I got an Insider's look at how companies run businesses and so It was very natural for me to sort of take on that like business, the business owner type mindset. Whereas, John, I feel like his release, his real strong suit is being with the communicate story, tell connecting and
building communities. And so, Initially, I think we were really lucky. In a sense that we didn't, we didn't have an overlapping set of skills. Rather there were extremely complimentary and extremely necessary for the type of business that we were doing at the time. And I think it's extremely important when you're trying to find a co-founder that you remove all the emotion, remove all the ego and say Beyond job, titles Beyond whatever, what is the right thing to do for the
business? And I think that's one thing that John has continually taught me. And I feel like John leading through For has brought us to where we are today that scale on that growth can come with some growing pains and it sounds like y'all navigated it really well to share what new was saying. Like we both come from entrepreneurial. Backgrounds are at least in that mode. Now and I'm learning a lot of these lessons that you're talking about.
Now, in real time, I'm really interested for our listeners you, because you've referenced it a few times career, coaches mentors sort of guiding lights. How did you find these people? At what point in your career, did you either reach? Each out or connect with them and establish, a relationship with them that has manifested in what seems to be regular feedback, lessons education. Really kind of setting yourself
up for success. I think it's just been from maintaining relationships with these individuals and staying in touch. I feel like a lot of people will meet someone though network with them, and then they'll be like, okay, like let's stay in touch, and then they never actually stay in touch. What?
I love to do is to keep track of who we connect with and also send them always seen them updates of what we've been up to and that's one of the most important parts of networking that nobody does like Jerry. And I we've connected with so many individuals from the past less than 1%, probably even less than point one percent. Actually even follow up and stay in touch and the additional point.
There is, I think having the humility to say, listen, we don't know everything and we need a lot of help and we snow Know that you're an expert in that field, destroy us right? Like give it to us straight. And so I think that's one of the one of the things that John and I try to always have in mind is just lead with a humble heart, making sure that we don't always assume we have all the right answers because 90% of time we
definitely don't. And so that's why we try to hire smart people on our team to help us. Get to those smart people answers because there's just no way that John or I have the intellectual capacity of our time. Our team nor do we have the bandwidth to do all that. There's one thing that continually keep this on our on our toes, they just recurring calendar, invites with mentors. And so I think for me having that layer of accountability is extremely important.
Not only externally, but also internally and how we give it back is, we create this free content out there for the world to see so they can be able to utilize it to get jobs. But there's some individuals from need that white glove hand holding service which we offer as well. But we've seen a ton of people And jobs through our free content or might take six months but freaking paid content on average when we work one-on-one, with our team takes average of
three months. So it's literally have. Yeah. And wait, what other things that, you know, John and I sort of always joke about is that like if someone had the time to like go through every single one of our tick-tocks and every single one of our LinkedIn post an Instagram post, it is one of those things that I think at The Core Essence of what we do. Yeah, we could try to keep all. This is a No-No like, did this. Our territory, right?
But if there's anything that we've learned through our personal and professional experiences that, there's always enough to go around the secret to Jerry, and Jonathan success is their commitment to their mission of accessibility. It's the quality of their services and their effective use of social media to entice customers and even more than that it's that they know exactly what they can do and what they
can't their work. Embodies the idea that you can never achieve it if you don't believe it. It. Because at the end of the day, they know that their customers true power lies within themselves. If you think about why someone is not getting a job and you're trying to quantify why they are not getting the job. What percentage do you believe is because they don't have the right experience, right
knowledge. And what percentage do you believe is because they don't feel like they have enough confidence or they don't feel like they're good enough. Majority of the times are very surprisingly. You want to hear? I'm not ready yet. I'm gonna wait to 3 years and then I'll be ready almost as if they're like saying I'm not good enough. Hmm writing a resume is important. Yes intervene is important but there's this whole psychological thing that's a little bit less tangible.
That's a little bit less. You know, you can't really see it. Is this something that enables your confidence when you're in a dip? Tell ya, one thing that has been incredibly helpful for me, especially for me personally, as a crater as an entrepreneur, it just having someone who's going through it with you. I understand exactly what you're feeling and then being your support system. But confidence self, confidence, self rejection and the job search process specifically is
everything. Well said, well said, I think this is very connected to your catchphrase which is turning
underdogs into winners. We asked about the origins of one salting slogan, why it was important to them, and what it means to be an underdog and Underdog is someone who's been through obstacles in their lives, whether it's mentally, whether it's through rejections, whether it's your own feeling, it's something that mentality of you being an underdog and we help you turn into a winner, I think.
Historically, when you think about the whole career Consulting space, you don't think of two Asian dudes who are 27 years old and who create content on and have a social media presence. I don't think that's a person that comes to mind for most people. I think, when you think about career, coaches Career Development, folks, you think of people who are who have been in the space for 20 15 years, probably their mid late 40s and they charge 2,000 bucks an hour. For free Consulting.
And so for us I think in a lot of ways we were sort of the Pioneers in defining. Hey, listen, just because we don't have the age or we don't look like a certain way. That doesn't mean that we don't have, we don't have an opportunity to add value. That doesn't mean that we aren't the right people to be solving these problems. We are the right people, is we solve these problems because we personally have felt and continue to see the problems
happening on the ground. Every single day because as that is exactly what drives us to create content every single day.
And so as I sort of think about what Hey, listen as my, my Underdog Story and having to realize, Hey listen I want to do something in the world one day where I can do this, I do feel like as a result of that we are doing our work to continue to break down that stigma of what career coaching is, what group seeking out career, help me and making sure that people Poor educated enough, whether it's through are paid or free content
that you, that you have to be aware of these of how to write a resume on, how to interview, how to network, otherwise, you're going to be left behind and the job market today, continuing to fight the stigma of what career coaching is what it means to the users, but also just making sure people are aware of how important it is for you to be practical career. Anyone can identify as an underdog, whether you go to a Target school, right? Maybe you are Pacific minority
at that Target school. You can still be the underdog. A you've been rejected for roles or maybe you're trying to get into a specific VC like Y combinator and you go rejected, you can still consider yourself as an underdog. I feel like that Underdog mentality and adapting that mentality is important because that'll Inspire and motivate you even more to continuously. Keep getting your goals. It's like in the March Madness, when March Madness was going on,
nobody want to Kansas to win. Hope nobody listening and want. Candace to win, but everybody wanted scene Peters to win because you're the underdog. So by considering ourselves The Underdogs, I feel like we keep on aspiring to help other underdogs to and it builds a community of individuals who want very similar goals and have similar values. So until now we've heard a lot from Jonathan and Jerry as they've answered the questions Neil and I have been wondering
about what we wanted to shake. Things up a bit and add a new segment to this episode. We got connected to one salting through one of our colleagues at leave looking up Taylor's ensberg. She's been listening in today and we asked, if she wanted to stop by and say hello, and ask them a question too. hey guys, first of all, thank you so much for joining You and like, I've been just smiling ear to ear the
whole time. The question is, what leaves both of you looking up. C+ is individuals like yourself Taylor who we've been able to help land their dream jobs or land a job. And you know I'm going to teach you those two Taylor Taylor was and is probably the one who stayed in touch with us the most regarding her on job search. So, as I look up, I would say I'm looking forward to helping more people and jobs and more of those success stories.
For me. What keep me looking up is that our success is deeply integrated with the success of our community. And if our community isn't successful then we are also not going to be successful. So I think it's those things that helped me keep myself grounded and making sure we're doing the right things. But most importantly that we are ultimately still solving the same mission that we were trying to solve for years ago.
We're approaching Sing this last part, which is one of our favorites is closing a little bit of a rapid-fire. So you guys have three to five seconds, answer the questions as your gut and your heart, responds, whatever it might be. I'm here and I are going to go back and forth and we're then we're going to wrap up. How's that sounds? Let's do it. Okay, question one, who is your inspiration? Mom and Dad. Yeah I'll say my mom and dad say what is your favorite drink?
Water, kumquat juice actually now biggest fear failure. Yeah. Failure to say disappointment And lastly, if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? New York City, baby. Let's go. Philippines in the Philippines On My Own Private Island. Okay Jonathan, Jerry, thank you so much for joining us today. Sharing some wisdom, you're definitely going to leave me looking up after this. And so for everyone, that's here and listening and tuning in.
Thank you so much. You can find out about Jonathan and Jerry on Instagram. They are all over the place and through one salting Jonathan Jerry, if there are folks that want to get in touch with you. What is the best way? Yeah, please messages, message us on Instagram. Jonathan words of wisdom, Jerry's, Jerry H Li and yeah, if you if you're interested in any of our services, we work one-on-one with individuals definitely visit.
Want something.com slash services and we also have a lot of free templates and free resources on want to lynda.com slash resources for folks that love what they're hearing today. A and want to hear and see more. We have the complete uncut and raw episodes in video form available online on our fan, page via patreon and www.levitt.com up.com fans there. You can support, what we're creating here sound bites, that didn't make it to the Final Cut gain wisdom from our guests score.
Merch, be the first to access our content and more also we'd like to take a second to thank you for joining us today. So, if you haven't already, please be sure. To leave a rating and review of the podcast in your app of choice. Leave looking up is hosted by myself. Neil Ludovic and my co-host, Amir Jan Dolly, and produced by our small. But Mighty team at Moon 31, a company dedicated to creating platforms for Meaningful conversation.
That tackle, the important issues of today, this episode was created through the combined efforts of myself as executive producer and our lead, producer, Louis XI closely editor andreea cos Chi Ang near Alexander Rossi with support from Eric Erin, the moon 31 team also includes designer, andreea, Kang glass, slipper, media, and engineer. Justin jet Carter. Original theme music by Brady W and background music. Provided from Blue Dot sessions.