Podcast interview with Jai (from The Salsa Foundation) and Chris from Living Value
Transcript below
Full podcast episode available here
Chris:
Hello, and welcome to living value a podcast about living your best life and making the world a better place by living in a way that brings value to yourself and to everyone around you. I'm so fulfilled. And on each of these podcasts, I'll be interviewing someone who I believe is a true example of living value. They bring value to themselves, their families and friends, to the community at large, through how they live and through how they do business. I believe that this is one thing that we can all agree on, that everyone who can, should create more value than we consume, build more than we destroy. Give more than we take. If every able-bodied enabled minded person on earth, focused on creating more value than they consumed in their lifetime, then the world would become a better place at breakneck speed. So you and I may worship different gods, speak different languages, vote for different politicians or follow different sporting codes.
Chris:
But hopefully we can all agree that our aim should be to create living value with our lives. This is the first ever episode of the living value podcast. So before we get started with today's guest, let's get a little bit more specific. I believe there are three separate areas where we should all create value and value in each of these areas. You can't trade one off against the other. Firstly, financially money is one way of tracking and understanding value. It's not the only way, but it is one of the most universal and that makes it important. Our aim is part of the living value. Ethos is to create more financial value than we consume. I E pay your own way. The focus isn't necessarily to get rich. There's no prize for dying as a billionaire, but we should all strive to pay for our own funeral.
Chris:
At least if your last dollar goes on, putting you into the ground, then well done, you are not a financial burden to the world around you. You created more than you consumed. You made the world a better place financially. And that is the first goal. The second goal is in relationships, be someone who builds community rather than tears it down. Someone who supports others rather than sapping them dry. I am to be a better father, mother, husband, wife, or crazy cat lady, whatever floats your boat. I am to be better than your parents were. That's not to say that you always have to be the one giving. That's not to say that you always have to be the one who's strong. None of us can do that nonstop for our whole lives. You will have times in your life when you're the one, depending on others to help you get through and that's okay, your community is there, or at least should be there for you when you need it.
Chris:
But you have a responsibility to then help build that community back up so that they can be there for others as well. The third area, easy ideas, ideas are the most powerful force that you will ever have at your disposal. But whether your ideas are a force for good or for evil, depends on which ideas you adopt and which ideas you share with others and help them to understand. So how do we know which ideas are which well, I bring it back to the premise of this podcast. Living value. There are ideas that create and make the world a better and more prosperous, happier place. And there are ideas that destroy value make the world pour a more miserable and harder to live in. And so we see that ideas have consequences more so even than what you do with your money, or even what you do in terms of building community, what you do with your ideas, we'll leave a Mark on the world long after you're dead.
Chris:
And you have a responsibility to hold to and promote ideas that create value rather than destroying it. So these are the three areas of living value that this podcast is focused on finances, community and ideas. I believe that everyone who can has a responsibility to create more than we destroy in each of these three areas in this podcast, I interview people who I believe are doing exactly that people who are running their own businesses big or small creating financial value for their families, but also building community and making the world a better place. And this podcast is designed to help them share their ideas with you and with me so that we can all learn and all make the world a better place. It's almost time for me to introduce my first guest for the living value podcast. But before I do, if you like what you're hearing and you want to help me keep going, please support me.
Chris:
As I create the living value podcast. By going to my local community, locals is like Patrion, but without the political correctness and de platforming go to tofa field.locals.com, join the Tofield locals community and help me to create more content like this finally. And without any further ado, let me introduce my first ever guest for the living value podcast. His name is J Villa Gonzalo, and I had the privilege of meeting him back in 2012. Now, Jay is one of those really frustrating people who just seems to have it together. It's just infuriating. He's intelligent. He's, well-spoken, he's very good looking if you don't believe me, go to his dance school someday and you'll understand what I'm talking about. He's got a fantastic family, both the family that he grew up in, and now also the family that he is a husband and father, and he's got it all, which is infuriating.
Chris:
So frustrating, but he's also worked extremely hard. He studied, he's learned from others and he's applied what he's learned and he's taken some risks along the way. And in my opinion, he's someone that we all myself included have a lot that we can learn from. And he is bringing tremendous value in all three of those areas that we've discussed financially in relationships and in ideas, he's bringing tremendous value to the world. And I've got him on this podcast to share that value with us. Jay, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Pleasure to be here.
Chris:
Your story is a really fascinating one to me, not only because of what you've done, the community that you've built, a business that you've built, the family that you've, that you've built at the same time, but actually getting to know you a little bit over the years, understanding how much you've actually changed as an individual from who you were. I'm going to say pre salsa foundation. I don't, you can fill me in on, on what caused things to change, but the way you talk about who you were prior to the salsa foundation is very different to who you are now. So let's wind all the way back to the very beginning. Who were you before salsa and the salsa foundation kind of changed you?
Jai:
Right? Well, I think maybe the best place to start would be from the beginning of adult life. Uh, these kids to kind of one of these teenage kids who kind of cruise through everything, um, everything sort of seemed to fall into place. I mean, I came from an amazing supportive family, really raised in an environment where had a huge family support network and, and the church support network and all that kind of stuff as well. And most things I tried, I had a natural knack for, and I picked it up very quickly. Um, and I sort of, I was very spoiled individually as well, cause I have four sisters, so I'm always the only blue it was the golden boy, um, could do no wrong. Um, and so, yeah, well just being in that environment, um, gave me sort of the ability to, and the freedom to try things. I never sort of thought pressured to do anything in particular. Um, my parents were amazing that way. Uh, they were really supportive advancing that I wanted to attempt. And so, uh, end of year 12, I had no idea what I really wanted to go into, um, because the downside of, of picking things up naturally in many different areas is that I'm not forced into one particular area.
Chris:
[inaudible] tyranny too much choice can sometimes be quite a challenge.
Jai:
Yeah. It's kind of ironic like that. So a lot of the times you don't think that that happens, but it's, it's kind of like you hit the end of year 12 and then suddenly you're thrust into this position of like, okay, now quickly make a decision of what you want to do for the rest of your life or at least the next 10 years. And so I had no idea. So I, um, dropped myself into, uh, the most cushiest course that I could find, which was a tourism degree, which I knew nothing about what that was. But, um, I thought, well, I like the idea of traveling. So I'll find out a little bit about the industry and actually turns out that tourism degree was actually very useful because in the first two years they take you through basically multiple different aspects of running a business, whether it's marketing, accounting, uh, public speaking, lots of different things.
Jai:
And like even like, uh, you know, computer programming and all that kind of stuff. It's, it's really bizarre. Cause it's a, it's a really eclectic mix of different topics to cover. You need a wide range of yeah. Yeah. And, and it just, it was just fortuitous because it allowed me to sort of sample lots of different industries without actually committing to one. Um, and then ironically, again, I actually chose none of the above I got into, I got into fitness. So I, um, I was really, uh, into the gym at that time. And, and the friend of mine asked if I wanted to start doing some personal training and
Chris:
Won't be the case for you prior to that, that was very much a change for you. I do remember overhearing you describing your past life to somebody at the salsa foundation as being sort of the classic skinny weedy. Uh, if you don't mind me saying Asian kid, uh, that, that you might have stereotypes of.
Jai:
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Just, just, uh, just I look underfed and somebody tried to sponsor me once.
Chris:
And, and for those, for those of you listening, who, uh, haven't seen J which is obviously going to be most of you, if you head along to the salsa foundation, once they're open again and you see what it looks like today, you'll understand why that's just so incredibly funny.
Jai:
Um, yeah, actually, uh, my parents dragged the whole family over to the Philippines when I was 17 and I did my year 11 in the Philippines. It was, I did homeschooling, which means that I got all of my school work done in the first three hours of the day. And then I was free to pursue anything I wanted. And I spent two hours a day in the gym. That's where, sort of my that's where my passive for fitness center came about. So a friend of mine,
Chris:
Sorry, I didn't know that you'd been homeschooled at all. I'm not sure if you know that I was actually homeschooled for most of my education from the second half of primary school all the way through. I never went back.
Jai:
Yeah. I remember you, you mentioned that. Yes,
Chris:
That's interesting. It, it is an interesting experience. I tend to find that people who have homeschooled or, or if not homeschooled had a heavily self-directed education do tend to be very good at the generalist challenges of life. The, that being spread across multiple fronts, which I think is a good description for how you've kind of been able to build the business, which we'll, we'll get to in a moment. But anyway, I'm sorry I cut you off.
Jai:
I actually, I hadn't thought of that. Actually. It was actually, again, one of these fortuitous things, you just turned out that way. Although I suppose everybody's sort of going through that now. Right?
Chris:
Well, that's exactly right. I've, I've got a four year old that's I literally set him down today and I bought a few books for handwriting and I'm numbers adding and subtracting and so forth. And literally today was actually his very first ever day of school, which of course was homeschooling because that's what everyone.
Jai:
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, at the time when I, if I go back to the fitness journey, a friend of mine who I was away, actually my training partner, he, uh, asked if I wanted to start doing some personal training and I had zero qualifications whatsoever, but I love fitness and people seem to always ask me for advice in the gym. So I started doing that,
Chris:
Getting results in the gym, you can't help, but have people walk up to you?
Jai:
Well, that seems be a thing. I don't know. I don't know if people just interrupted me during my work. I have to start wearing your phones with no music playing. Yeah. Um, and then sort of, we just decided to take a plunge and open our own personal training studio back then. This is quite a few years ago. There weren't many boutique personal training studios. So we, um, we opened up our first one in st. Kilda at the time. And we were actually training a lot of, um, corporate types CEOs and all that type of stuff. And, um, we, we did really well cause we were one of the first in that area at the time. And, uh, we actually opened up two and a half locations. I want to say two and a half locations. So half a location. Cause we shared a space with another personal training company, but we went two and a half locations and, um, group it really, uh, I don't even know how it just, people just started coming in.
Jai:
But then, um, I sort of grew tired of the 5:00 AM, starts, um, personal trainers run kind of weird hours. And also at the time I noticed that they had just released our online personal training courses. So you can do them remotely. And I kind of sort of put two and two together and I was like, okay, well there's going to be like an influx of new trainers. Exactly. So I was like, okay, they've lowered the bar to entry into the industry. And so I sort of saw maybe a couple of years down the track, we're going to have an uphill battle. So I told my partner, look on, I'm looking at maybe getting out. I said, I explained all my reasons he decided to stay in. So he bought me up, which I'm afforded me some leisure time to just do a few things fair.
Jai:
And um, so I, I started playing around with some stuff on the internet. Um, and I got this idea. So this is really funny cause I, I got this idea to do like a, a social media agency models wanting to get sponsorship from companies, right? So this is way back. So this is before social influences was a thing, but what I did was I was, I sort of searched, uh, good looking people with this X amount of friends. And I actually have, this is M folder on my computer of people's photos. And then I just messaged them and I said, Hey, I'm like, so I called the company, vain, VHI and vain. That worked really well. And um, at the time that I stopped doing that, I think I had like 240 models where part of the project. Um, and so we had, um, some companies coming on board with sponsorships and stuff like that. Um, these people of benefit to the companies, we all understand how influencers
Chris:
Work today at that time. How were your models bringing value to those brands?
Jai:
So the metrics that we were sort of plugging to those brands were just like, cause that was pretty much, I didn't even know that there was any analytics behind it. No, this is, this is early Facebook,
Chris:
Barely Facebook. Right. Okay. All right.
Jai:
Yeah. And so it was like, look, we can't, we can't give you a metrics on your ROI, but this is just, it was literally like the first thing that I just experimenting with social influences.
Chris:
Okay. So, so obviously, um, you know, just putting on my, my Brian from that many years ago, uh, I'm thinking single guy, you just want to hang out with models. This is a really great excuse to ah, to do exactly that, but I'm going to move on. I'm going to move on immediately from that thought. So you've studied, you've studied tourism, you then run a successful gym. Uh, and I think you picked a good moment to get out. And, uh, and one of the realities of modern life is that we actually are all gonna have to retrain and change industries multiple times over our lives. And that was kind of the first one for you. I guess you've been gone into really sort of being one of the pioneers of a new market segment that is now become absolutely massive, but then somehow you ended up as Jay, the dance teacher, what the hell happened?
Jai:
Well, look, if I look back on that time with that social social influences thing, I'm like I should have kept going for a few more years because it really did explode like once Instagram came on the scene and I was like, I should have kept going, cause I really had a good foothold going, but I kind of just got bored. And also, I guess I didn't have the foresight of seeing how to monetize that model. So I was like, look, I'm sick of the party scene. I'm sick of, you know, so and so, and so I just thought, you know, I need to give that a break. Um, and so I went back into the corporate world and um, I, uh, actually took up a job at, uh, I can't remember if it was Telstra Optus first, one of the telcos. And, um, it was just doing some, uh, order fulfillment or something corporate fulfillment anyway.
Jai:
So I attended the training session and it was, they make it really fun at the training sessions. Right. But then after the two weeks of training, it's like boring, but then I thought, hang on, the training was fun. How do I get involved in the training side of things? So, uh, after about a month, then opportunity for us to comment came up and they said, they're looking for trainee trainers to, um, to train up, to, to be become corporate workplace trainers. And so I put my hand up for that and, um, no qualifications whatsoever. There seems to be no experience. Yeah, well actually, yeah. Yeah. And so they, there was like a, uh, audition process. We kind of like an audition process where you had to, um, teach something to the group that they didn't know. And it had to be something that you don't know.
Jai:
So I decided to teach them how to speak Italian, which I tend to, how to speak, but I just made it really, I can't even remember the details, but I just made a really sort of, um, jokey fun type thing. And they really liked the presentation on it. And so they gave me the last slot. So I was forced to comment slots the last slot, um, which was good. Cause it was a, it was a triple the pay of the job that I was doing the time and it was much more fun, but I really flew by the seat of my pants. I had no idea what I was doing. I would actually, I actually learnt the teaching material half an hour prior to the day starting and I'd teach it out of the book basically, and just rely on entertaining the group. It's a high stress way to live well, that's how I really, I really just had to turn on the entertainment side of things. Yeah. And so that sort of gave me a little bit of a glimpse into the teaching side of things, which I would use later on such again, fortuitous
Chris:
Fast forward a little bit. Um, you ended up the very first salsa foundation classes. If my memory serves me correctly, we're outdoors in a park. Take me through that journey.
Jai:
I, um, while I was working there at the workplace training, I, um, I got dragged out to a Latin night by a friend of mine and he didn't tell me where we're going and just brought me there. And he'd been dancing already.
Chris:
Non dancing guys are only ever dragged along to these things. We never go willing once you're a dancing guy, you'll be, you'll be hunting them down. You'll be looking for them. But until that happens, you get dragged.
Jai:
I have to get tricked into it. I thought I was going to like a Latin restaurant, turned up. There's a live band. Anyway, that sorta got me started into dancing. I don't know. I just, I was hooked when I saw it all the movement or that all the music and I was terrible, horrible at it. But a girl went up particular girls sort of, um, took me under her wing and decided to mentor me into, uh, the scene. Um, also something
Chris:
Maybe she just saw the abs who knows, but she saw something.
Jai:
So I, uh, I met a girl at the time who was one of the best salsa dances in Australia. And, uh, I started dating her and, uh, at the time she was just bouncing around from school to school, teaching, whatever she could pick up. And I, um, I suggested to her, she stopped her own school or we started school for, um, and, uh, that's when we decided to do it, we decided to go ahead and do it. And, um, we didn't have any people and there was no sort of Facebook ads didn't really exist back then, the way we knew it or Google ads and knew nothing about it. So I'm like, how do we fill the first class? So I went to my workplace and I said to them guys, we're going to do a free class. Everyone's going to come along. She's amazing instructor. We're going to teach you guys how to dance salsa. Nice. Um, and so that's how our first class, we didn't have a venue. So we went to the Flagstaff gardens, which is the closest park to our office, from the Telstra building and how many days we had four. And, um, one of them was, one of them was my mate, George that's all to pretend that he didn't know how to dance. There's a, one of my dancing friends. He had to come and make up the numbers.
Chris:
You had four people and 25% of them were rented grad.
Jai:
Exactly.
Chris:
But Hey, as the Bible says, you mentioned before your church background, uh, don't despise the day of small beginnings that, uh, that was a small beginning. But am I correct in saying that now the salsa foundation, in terms of just the number of different people that have come through and, and taking classes with you, you are hands down the largest dance school in Australia. If not the world. I don't, I'm not confident saying that, but you'd have to be close
Jai:
In terms of, uh, yeah, you actually know what we've had 60,000 come through the beginners class. And we average about now we are nowadays will pre COVID. We average about a thousand a week, 2000 students a week. So yeah, just absolutely incredible.
Chris:
The decision to start the school. Did you have any inkling at the time, what it would lead to and if not, what did you think this was? Was this a little side thing? Was it's an entertaining thing for your girlfriend to do? What was it in your mind at the time?
Jai:
It was for her to, um, to get away from teaching from, for other people. Um, but then we broke up and at that time when we broke up, I sorta had a decision to make whether I just kill it or try and keep running it.
Chris:
Your school wasn't a, you, that you were administrating it, it was kind of your thing. She just taught there.
Jai:
Well, it depends how you look at it. Like she was the face of it. She was teaching all the classes. Farrah was running the back, the back end of it and doing the behind the scenes stuff. Yeah. So it depends on how you see it. So, um, I had never taught a class at that time that she left. And so I had a big decision to make and I was like, well, I'm going to have to learn everything on the fly while running it. So do I really want to do this? Plus you know, our community that were grown men. And I want to say like at the time we'd grown it to about a community of about 50 students, um, which is about a typical size of a school nowadays. Um, most of these schools around have about that many students. So it was a, it was a proper school. Um, and uh, most of those students saw her as the face of the business. She was, it was her school basically. And so for me to take over, it would have been, I'd have to win them over.
Chris:
Were you still working at that time? Did you still have that other job?
Jai:
Uh, no. So I, I had some other investments, um, that I was involved in, which did really well. And also, yeah, just property stuff and a couple of other businesses that I've invested in, um, through contacts actually through context through the previous businesses that I've been in. So that sort of afforded me not having to work.
Chris:
I was going to say that that probably makes it just a little bit easier for you to take that risk and see if you can keep it going. But on the other hand, if you started it for your girlfriend, what's the upside to keeping it going at that point in time. If you can cast your mind back that many years, what was it that made you keep it going?
Jai:
Um, look, to be honest, uh, I think it was a case of a little bit of personal pride. I think it was a case of, um, maybe taking on a challenge for myself. Uh, if I track back all through the years, again, like it's just hard for me to pinpoint a time where really faced a challenge. And this is why, like, I think sometimes if I, you know, when I, where I'd do interviews, job interviews, they'd be like, great. Then ask me, like, can you name a weakness? And I'd be like, okay, well maybe one of the weaknesses, I haven't really faced a failure or an adversity yet. And, um, I sorta had the, at least the common sense to look at it that way is not as in like I'm invincible or anything like that. Um, but so at the time when that came along, I thought maybe it's a challenge that I like to try. Um, but yeah, I definitely, I, I pretty much had to dismantle the whole school and start from scratch. So essentially, even though I kept the name, which funnily enough, doesn't really sound like a dance school other than the fact that has the words.
Chris:
Yeah, fair enough. Look, it could be bad chips and dips, you know, the salsa foundation, you know, it's uh, so do you remember what year that was when you kind of made that decision to take it on and say, right, this is now my school and I'm going to learn how to teach.
Jai:
That was a 2010. We started at the end of 2009. So about a year. Yeah, a little bit over a year.
Chris:
And so I think it was in about the third year of the school that I walked in for the first time. I think, I think I was there just in time for the third birthday party. So that'd be probably 2012 sometime. I want to change tack a little bit here. I want to talk just for a moment about that experience of walking in, because I think it's going to be really useful for listeners to get that sort of the other eye view of what it was that created by that point in time. So the whole, I'm not a dancer, I'd never been a dancer. I didn't just think of myself as someone who didn't dance. I thought of myself as a dancer, I actively avoid dancing, but at the time I was studying acting, um, you know, speaking of things that we, that we dabble in and then, and then go, ah, nah, no, thanks.
Chris:
Uh, I was studying, acting full time at a, at a screen acting school in South Melbourne. And my agent was very big on the idea that you had to never say no to a casting agent. If you're in a casting and you're going for a role and this you and 20 other blokes, and at least half of them are going to be better looking. And some of them going to be better actors and each one of them is going to have their own edge and their own advantage. And we're all competing. There's only one role to get, right. If the casting director says to you, can you ride a horse? The answer is yes. Can you swim? Yes. Can you do stunts? Yes. Can you dance? Yes. The answer had to be yes. And then you'd go out and figure out how to do it.
Chris:
Right. And so he said this to me and the thing that terrified me the most out of all of that was dancing. The, the idea that I would have to coordinate my feet and actually do like dancy stuff was, was terrifying. So I then went online to find a school and learn some kind of dancing just to kind of get over that fear and get to the point where I could look at a casting director in the eye and say yes, and actually have some hope of being able to learn whatever it was that they wanted me to learn. I settled on salsa because it was danced quite a lot socially. So I thought it'd be a bit more useful than say ballroom, which is dance more competitively or other styles of dance that just didn't sort of appeal to me. And I went online and I found that there was this dance school right in the heart of Melbourne, in the CBD, not far from where I was studying.
Chris:
And one Tuesday night I showed up to their free beginner's class. I mean, Hey, you know, it's, it's free. So of course I'm going to walk in. I did not expect what I walked into my, my perception of dance schools and particularly the Latin scene, because it does have kind of a sleazy sort of undertone to it in many places. And I would say that that is still the case in many places. And, and the salsa foundation is actually a bit of an exception to that. But I walked in and found some of the friendliest, happiest, most nonjudgmental, you know, they allowed me to be able to be the beginner that I was and set. So I signed in, sat down, waited for the class to begin at you came, you started doing the teaching and it was just fun. And it was hilarious and your jokes were fantastic.
Chris:
And I had an absolute ball. Of course I learned since then that it's the same jokes every single time, but they were very, very funny. But what absolutely just stood out to me was the atmosphere and the committee unity that you had actually created, even at that point on the a few years in was, was genuinely something that I've not seen before, or since in any other context like that, it's just, it's just a really unique and quite a special place. So what I want to ask you about is this community, obviously a school is always going to have some sense of community. That's, you know, you're all kind of trying together, you're working together. That's going to bring that shared experience that brings that sense of community. What decisions did you make along the way to actively build that community?
Jai:
Well, look from, I guess, from the birth place of the dance school, one of the things we set out to do, and this was, this was a stated goal for us when we first started out, we're like, we want to do as many things as we can. The opposite of what all the other dance schools do. I've always subscribed to this kind of theory of like, if you're going to do the same as everyone else, then what's the point of entering the marketplace. And what's the point of entering the game if you're going to be the same as everyone else, but not, not only that, there was just this something didn't make sense to me about the dance scene. We have a dance same, which is quite small, um, relative to the population of people who would be eligible to be in that demographic to today.
Jai:
And if you list all of the benefits of dancing, you, it just doesn't weigh up. It's like, there's so many benefits. And then why is there so few people and ultimately it can be traced back to how the industry and the scene is run the politics behind the scenes, the way that things are communicated and all that kind of stuff. And I genuinely believe that that's what was limiting the growth of the entire industry. So I listed out, I described, we went to several different classes. I've went to every dance school that existed in Melbourne at the time. And I took my notes as to how they did it with the expressed sort of intent of doing as many things different opposite way opposite. Exactly. Right. So it's kinda like that Seinfeld episode where George decides to do the opposite of everything he always does because his life sucks.
Jai:
He does help us, everything improves. So it's kind of like that. And so expressively different from everyone else is what we wanted to try and do. And, um, the thing that kept coming back to me was that, uh, all the schools that I went to sort of had this exclusivity about them. And I realized that if you, if you actually think about exclusive, it sounds very attractive for people, but if you actually break down what the word means, it means that you are literally excluding people. And by doing that, you actually are limiting the growth of the community. So while dance schools do have their own community, usually it's an enclosed community. It's not an open, welcoming community. So they're not expressly, or they're not intentionally trying to grow as a community. They're just trying to exist as a community among themselves. So when I look back on it, like this is actually something that I think about on a regular basis, I was like, how do we grow a community?
Jai:
I mean, there's all the intangible stuff. Like, as you said, being the friendly, being accepting, being welcoming, but then you have to create systems around that, that encourages that out of people, because I believe that people are naturally inclusive. You train them to be exclusive by nature. Like they're just not by nature. I believe that especially in a social environment, um, you just have to unlock it and you just have to let people be inclusive. Um, and so one of the things that we did from a technical standpoint was really try to use different language as we teaching the class, um, less technical language more. And that's why you hear us telling stories and analogies a lot more than the average school does. Most people use technical language because it makes them look more, uh, sophisticated. It makes them look more knowledgeable.
Chris:
If anyone who's for anyone who goes along and does your beginner's class, you will never look at making pancakes the same way ever again, the stories, the stories aren't, the stories are an absolute highlight and, and really, really you're absolutely right. It does actually make it more welcoming. It's, it's a way of really simplifying language without people feeling like you're actually dumbing it down for them that you've just made it fun instead of, instead of dumbed down. One of the other things that you did though, and I really benefited from this, and this is, this is one of the things that I'm super grateful for to you and enter the salsa foundation is you actually made a place for other people in the community and gave them a structure within which they could contribute back to the community and kind of be rewarded for that in the form of sort of free lessons and things like that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I'm of the view having sort of experienced it as one of the people that walked through the front door, that this is really one of the keys to the success.
Jai:
So we try and do that in multiple different areas of the community. So even, even our staff program, our crew program, um, and then from each level and how they relate to each other levels. So from a beginner to an intermediate, intermediate to advanced, um, and one of the keys to doing this is that we sort of flipped the model a little bit because in most environments, they champion the level above where what we wanted to try to do was to champion the level the low. So we wanted to explain to, we wanted to raise them in a way that they understand that the next generation is the key to the entire thing existing, if that makes sense. Cause it's kinda like, it's kinda like how you go through life. So the, as a child, obviously you're just dependent on anyone above you to look after you as an added adolescent.
Jai:
You're kind of just, it's all about you, you, you, and as you grow into an adult and have your own children, then you realize the most important thing in the world is your children. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of that way. We sort of want to raise our, our advanced people all along believing that the beginners are the most important thing. Cause that's essentially like take taking a step back and looking at the entire industry, they are literally the lifeblood of the industry without, or beginners coming in new blood coming in. There's no people at the events without the events. There's no social dancing without that. There's no people in classes, everything and all the teachers, without that, the teachers don't get paid and they have to work, stay jobs and just teach as a passion project. Um, and that's, that's the thing. Everybody has it reversed. And a lot of times they champion, okay, the teacher is the God. Everything's about the teacher. And, and then it's just backwards. It just feeds it the wrong way.
Chris:
So the salsa foundation, as we touched on earlier has probably has the claim to being the biggest dancing school that has ever existed in the known universe. We can't say that for sure, but, but it would be up there, but along the way, obviously many, many years, since 2009, when you started, that's been 11 years now, what would you consider to be one of the most important and best decisions that you made? And that might be decision about how you've structured things or a decision about personnel, or it might be decision about yourself and self-improvement to build the business. What do you think is one of the most important decisions that you made that has contributed to the success of the salsa foundation?
Jai:
Um, the last thing I mentioned earlier about flipping the model on its head, I think was really, really key. Um, but from a personal standpoint, something that I had to sacrifice myself was, uh, the pursuit of the artists side of things. Right. Um, as a dancer, it's very tempting to, you know, I could have spent most of my hours developing myself as a dancer, becoming a world champion or an Australian champion or whatever like that. And instead I spent most of my time researching, how do I become a better teacher? How do I run a better community? How do I, and so a decision like that was very hard, especially when I, when I'm in environments with my peers and they're asking me, why aren't you competing? And most people just assume you're not competing because you're not good enough or you're too scared to compete. And, uh, it was just like, it, wasn't hard for me not to say that because in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, that's fine. You guys keep doing that while you're doing that. I'm doing this. And, um, I'm getting ahead in this area, which I, which I know is more important when it comes to running a dance school.
Jai:
And so that, that was a big sacrifice for me at the time. And, and I sort of just took a bit of swallowing my pride a little bit. Um, and also just recognizing, cause this is, it is crucial. This is something that really stuck with me. I can't even remember who said it to me first, but when you're a teacher, it's, it's all about your shooting. When you're an artist, it's all about yourself, teachers, all that student. So you have to choose which one you're going to. It doesn't mean you can never be the other one, but it just means that when you're going in one direction, you're moving further away from the other direction you need to, you need to understand that and choose when you do that. So that was definitely key in building what it would become. A but there was definitely, I, I definitely relied a lot on the people around me.
Jai:
So the biggest contributing factor would be empowering and people who are brought on to be there, the personalities, their own personalities, you know, cause it would have been easy for me to just cater everything around myself and just have everyone is a bit player, but I wanted like each teacher to have a different character. So we, we have Saren, who's an authoritarian type of, do we have like a kindergarten teacher? We have, you know, yourself, who's look, you know, deep, big voices, like a very, like you just sound knowledgeable and anything you talk about, you know what I mean?
Chris:
It's all a facade and for the record, I'm, I'm a long retired teacher. Now. It's a, it's been a number of years since I've been able to come along. Unfortunately, because I moved actually. Yeah. I now live nearly 50 kilometers away and it's just too far to drive. Um, I want to flip the question on its head though now and say, is, has there been along the way, something where you headed off in the wrong direction, you made some sort of a mistake, something that you had to undo recover from along the way, what would be the biggest mistake that you think you might've made at some point?
Jai:
Um, now that I've said what I just said, um, I did sort of, there was a period there where I really tried to, um, cater the class to students who had been with us for a while. Um, it became this sort of a balancing act where you kind of stretched yourself because you're, you're looking after it. For example, in my case, I'm looking after students who are just starting, but then I'll have these students who have been with me for years and I want to keep those students cause I have a personal attachment to them and I want to cater to them as well. But the kind of, again, the analogy is kind of like your, your holding onto one branch and trying to reach for another branch. You kind of have to let go of one branch to hold the other branch, if that makes sense.
Jai:
Otherwise you hold neither of them. Um, it's kinda, yeah, actually that's what it is. So I sat down with a mentor many, many years before I started dancing and he was actually the creator of a entrepreneur magazine. I think it was, I can't even remember what it was called. It was an entrepreneurial magazine was called entrepreneurial or something like that. Right. Um, and he, he actually, he, I actually just asked him for a coffee and I said that with him. And I was just, I was just like a 17 year old kid. And I said, give me some advice. And he's just said, if you chase two rabbits, you catch them.
Chris:
Yes. That's so true.
Jai:
Yes. At the time sort of my mistake was I was like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sort of, I guess I let that professional, private ego come into it a little bit. And I was like, I think I can do everything. And um, you just know that
Chris:
No. So I'm guessing not to feel burned out. I'm guessing, given what you've, you sort of said you, when you realized you had to let go of one of those branches that the branch you held onto was those beginners and, and bringing the new people into the community. Yeah, absolutely. Which, which I can only imagine is very, very difficult. Cause I, I do know how much you invest into your students and you do you get attached over time and yeah, I can only imagine that would have been a challenging decision. Now I want to pivot a little bit now and talk a little bit about family and community, not just within the school, but also more broadly because you're, you're married to a beautiful wife and you've got two to, I believe two beautiful boys now. Um, if my memory serves me correctly and I'm going to claim a little bit of credit here because I think you and Diane actually first got together at a dance party that I held at my house.
Chris:
My, if my memory serves me correctly and I were talking about how I know that, but no, that was, um, and seeing that happened, obviously I had the joy of kind of watching that from the sidelines and seeing sort of the beginning of what is now a, a fantastic, beautiful family. But you're, you're, you've mentioned your parents and, and they've been fantastic parents to you. I'll mention that your dad is also involved at a local political level, uh, trying to make the world a better place, uh, in that way. And at that level, you're obviously growing your family, continuing to build the community. Uh, I don't know if you're still involved in the church or not, but tell me a little bit about sort of family life and particularly how you've managed to have a family build a family, stay connected to these other communities outside of the salsa foundation, whilst also building a business that does require a huge investment of time and emotional energy. How do you balance those two?
Jai:
Well, look, I'm going to be honest, a lot of the community stuff that we are involved with.
Full podcast episode available here
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