Episode 154 – Jordan Ray

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Automated Transcription

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Jordan Ray  0:00  

I love failing, which might sound weird. But entrepreneurship is all about failing and growing. So I got to a point where I was able to accept failure. When I first started this, I was 18. I knew I was going to make so many mistakes because I didn’t have experience, but that’s how you get the experience is to fail and make mistakes. But the thing is, you can make mistakes, but you need to learn from them and grow.

 

Richard Matthews  0:31  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers, and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success, and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money, and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…you 

 

 

Richard Matthews  1:27  

Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews, and today I have the pleasure of bringing on Jordan Ray. Jordan, are you there?

 

Jordan Ray  1:34  

And thanks for having me.

 

Richard Matthews  1:36  

Awesome. So glad to have you here today for those of you who have been following along with my wife and I’s journey. We are still in South Carolina. During our travels and Jordan, You said you were coming in from South Florida?

 

Jordan Ray  1:46  

I am

 

Richard Matthews  1:47  

Where in Florida are you coming in from?

 

Jordan Ray  1:49  

I am in Wellington, Florida, which is in Palm Beach County.

 

Richard Matthews  1:53  

Palm Beach, we didn’t get to go to the east side. When we were down in Florida. We only got to do the west side of Florida. So I look forward to doing that at some point and getting to see Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale and all that kind of stuff.

 

Jordan Ray  2:04  

Yeah, you definitely need to make another trip and get down there.

 

Richard Matthews  2:07  

Yeah, absolutely. They told us to stay away during the whole pandemic year because apparently, Fort Lauderdale was a bit crazy. So we just avoided it.

 

Jordan Ray  2:15  

Yeah, Fort Lauderdale in Palm Beach County was a bit crazy with the pandemic.

 

Richard Matthews  2:20  

Yeah, well, hopefully, you and your family are all safe and healthy. For those of you who’ve been watching for a long time, you’ve probably noticed I don’t have glasses on today, I got contacts yesterday. So that’s a new thing for me if your wondering what happened to my glasses, they’ve been changed up for contacts. And so what I want to do before we get too far into this is introducing Jordan, for those of you who don’t know who she is, and then we’ll get talking about her story. So Jordan Ray has gone from a star athlete and a brain surgery survivor to a serial entrepreneur all before the age of 20. And you are now the founder and CEO of limitless medical logs, your keynote speaker, and you are an author. So with that sort of brief introduction, why don’t you tell us what you’re known for now? What’s your business like? Who do you serve? And what is it you do for them?

 

Jordan Ray  3:10  

I am known for a few things, the business limitless medical logs, we provide paper medical journals, and a digital app to patients like myself who are battling a chronic illness who need to accurately track pain and symptoms. But I’m also very well known for the advocacy I do for the chronic illness community. I do whatever I can to use my platform to open up the conversation of chronic illness, the support we need the resources we need that are not there. So those are the two things I am well known for, especially in Palm Beach County.

 

Richard Matthews  3:47  

Awesome. So your app, the limitless medical logs. So I understand, you’re logging tracking and symptoms and whatnot? What benefit does that have to both the doctor who might look at those logs and the patient who’s making the logs?

 

Jordan Ray  4:04  

Yeah, so the benefit is to both the doctor and the patient of improved communication. When I was first diagnosed with my health condition, my doctor would say to me, How are you feeling? How have you been doing since the last time I saw you a month ago, and I would just stare at him, and say I don’t know I can’t remember. And it kept going on and on and on. And I’m like, there has to be a better way to communicate my pain and my symptoms. And a big thing. It also benefits is the stress levels you have when you have a chronic illness you’re stressed all the time. It’s literally a full-time job. And I would sit in the waiting room before the appointment. And I would scramble and stress about exactly what I had to tell the doctor a month ago if I had a symptom or a rare flare-up here a month ago. How am I supposed to exactly remember that so that is the whole point of limitless, it’s to improve communication between doctors and patients?

 

Richard Matthews  5:04  

Awesome and from a business standpoint how do you guys turn that service into revenue for your company?

 

Jordan Ray  5:13  

So we have online sales of the paper medical journal I actually get a lot of gift orders so if someone a cousin or sister has cancer or any type of chronic illness I get a lot of those orders. Right now for the first three months the app is completely free because we’re on a pandemic and I realized that community means a lot right now and taking control of your health means a lot so for three months it’s going to be completely free but then It’s going to go from a free version to also having a premium version

 

Richard Matthews  5:46  

So you’ll have like a freemium model where they can get in and use it for a little while or whatever and then like an upgraded subscription?

 

Jordan Ray  5:51  

Yep exactly

 

Richard Matthews  5:53  

Awesome and are you guys live with us already are you doing beta testers where you guys add in the progress?

 

Jordan Ray  6:00  

For the app, we just launched on March 1st, two days ago.

 

Richard Matthews  6:05  

Awesome so you guys are right in and I know this is probably going to publish a few weeks from now from when we record this so you guys are live on which platforms are you live on right now?

 

Jordan Ray  6:16  

Both android and iOS

 

Richard Matthews  6:18  

Awesome and so that’s the business that you’re running now and I know since that’s sort of new as you mentioned in the bio that you’re a serial entrepreneur what else have you been involved in?

 

Jordan Ray  6:31  

Real estate actually I’ve been trying to get more involved with that and am a full-time student as well so full-time student running the company full time and then dipping into real estate investing here and there and one of my end goals is another company I want to start a real estate development so that’s what I’m dipping into.

 

Richard Matthews  6:54

Nice so you got a medical journal company and you’re also investing in real estate that’s super awesome and you’re in college I assume.

 

Jordan Ray  7:03  

I still am yes

 

Richard Matthews  7:05  

Yeah, so what grade are you in college? I don’t know if it’s called grade in college or not but what year are you?

 

Jordan Ray  7:10  

I am finishing up my junior year.

 

Richard Matthews  7:13  

Awesome so that’s really cool that you’re not even done with college and already have a couple of companies under your belt

 

Jordan Ray  7:18  

Yeah, It’s great and it really actually helps the students as well. My professors will always say to me Jordan can you come up and present with the topic we’re talking about can you give us real-life experience as a business owner and I’m always happy to do that and my peers would always pull me aside and ask certain questions so it’s great to be able to help them that way because I have that experience.

 

Richard Matthews  7:40  

Yeah, that’s awesome I remember I ran a couple of small time businesses in college and had a similar experience and so it’s certainly fun to be that way but what I want to talk about is your origin story and every good comic book hero has an origin story, It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today and we want to hear that story. Were you born a hero were you bit by a radioactive spider or whatever that made you want to get into business and become an entrepreneur and or did you start in a job and move into this career I know it’s early in your whole career but how did you get to where you are now?

 

Jordan Ray  8:21  

So my hero I would say that softball was what kind of built this foundation that I have and this mindset that I have now I started playing softball when I was four years old my parents wanted to get me out of their hair for a few hours I guess I had a lot of energy and they put me in softball and the minute I stepped onto the field I instantly fell in love with the sport and by nine years old I was a competitive athlete and all I knew it became my identity for 13 years I was a competitive athlete going to play D1 softball and my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 16 and I think that diagnosis really prepared me for my unexpected future and I’m also grateful I had my sport at the time because it became my escape during that period i mean my grades were tanking everything just seemed to be going wrong except my sport during the time when my mom had breast cancer she went into remission a year later after that and everything was falling into place I had scholarship offers she was now in remission I mean I felt on top of the world and then a month after she went into remission I unexpectedly blacked out on the softball field which led to a rare diagnosis of Chiari Malformation which is a serious neurological disorder where my cerebellum extends into my spinal canal blocking cerebral spinal fluid to and from my brain and the next thing I know I’m getting wheeled into brain surgery so my story really does start as an athlete at four years old and it’s crazy how that period of my life saved me during my mom’s cancer diagnosis and my long term health condition.

 

Richard Matthews  10:15  

So how do you go from having brain surgery before you’re 20 to deciding what I’m going to do with this is I’m not just going to suffer from chronic health I’m going to start a business that helps other people who have similar issues.

 

Jordan Ray  10:30  

I actually saw the need for this when my mom was diagnosed with cancer she would come home from doctor’s appointments and treatment with papers everywhere and she would say oh crap I forgot to ask the doctor this or say this or tell them this is how the treatments going and I said I’m like there has to be a better way to do this i mean i felt so helpless and that is absolutely one of the worst feelings, but i was 16 i had no clue how to start a business and i was at the peak of my athletic career so when i blacked out and i was heading into brain surgery I was now in my mom’s shoes in need of a tool that she needed and i remember i stayed in the pediatric ICU for four days after my surgery and there was two twin boys they were probably two years old they drowned a few days before my surgery so thanksgiving my surgery was December 1st one passed away and the other one was in the room next to me and my nurses I call them drill sergeants they would force me kind of out of the bed and say okay let’s go we’re doing laps and i remember i passed by the little boy’s room walking to a window to look outside of the hospital and i knew i saw tubes hooked up to him and i knew that he wasn’t getting out of here but i was and i said when i get out of here i will make something out of this situation to help others and that’s where the birth of limitless came about.

 

Richard Matthews  12:04  

That’s really fascinating so you decided that at the peak of your medical career how did you get into deciding you needed to create a journal and what was that sort of development process what did that look like for you?

 

Jordan Ray  12:19  

I spent two years developing the journal I wanted it done right I wanted test I wanted research done what I knew I was a customer at that point I was looking for something I was looking for a journal that can help me track everything for a whole year and I could never find what I was looking for so that’s where I knew this is where I’m going to start and then later down the road the technology will come into place. So I designed it in the way that I needed it but used other’s opinions, I use people who had chronic conditions who had cancer who had a heart condition so it ranged it wasn’t just me and my biased opinion.

 

Richard Matthews  13:01  

Awesome so how long did it take you to go from the idea to shipping your first product and I mean like once you got past some of the beta testers and you actually had your first sale where you sold it to someone or maybe you got a gift from someone and actually had a financial transaction involved with that what was that timeline like? 

 

Jordan Ray  13:21  

It started at 18 the development at 20 is when the company officially launched and actually a few days before I launched it I said you know what I’m going to go to a doctor I know personally I’m going to see how I can try to sell him this is kind of gonna be my test run and he ordered 25 books right away and I was like that I kind of knew once that happened that this really can be something and so yeah it was a two-year process.

 

Richard Matthews  13:51  

That’s really cool and just personally I know a lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time realizing how much time things take to go from idea to sale and you know that story that so many people give up two feet before they hit oil right and so in that process did you ever have any of those difficulties where you’re looking like it’s you know this is taking a long time you’re getting there and how did you sort of just in your mind keep the motivation to go even though it’s taking two years to go from idea to real business?

 

Jordan Ray  14:23  

Oh yeah, every day I was frustrated, I was annoyed it was hard being 18 trying to do this like I’ve had small jobs here and there like waitress or hostess you know 16, 17 I never had a true professional career I was an athlete that was my full-time job to get me a scholarship and so I think my story’s a little bit different because the one I only knew the perspective as a patient I didn’t know the side of a business owner so I knew that even in softball I had days where I wanted to give up I was mentally exhausted not just physically exhausted but I knew I had to keep pushing for the long term thought the same mindset for business it could take me two to three years just to develop it but I’m in for the long term. 

 

Richard Matthews  15:19  

That’s awesome so that’s quite a fascinating origin story to go from star athlete to brain surgery to creating a product that actually helps people with chronic conditions to actually like being in a selling position where you’re actually selling these and benefiting people’s lives i want to talk a little bit about your superpower and how you may have discovered it in that process right and we talk on this show all the time every iconic hero has a superpower whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by genius intellect or the ability to call thunder down from the sky or in superman’s case it’s super strength in the real world heroes have what I call a zone of genius which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with or you developed over time and that superpower sets you apart and allows you to help your clients overcome their villains, help your customers overcome their villains and come on top in their journeys and the way i like to frame this for people is if you look at all the skills that you have. All the ones that you’ve developed in order to run this business and create this business there’s probably one skill that’s kind of the common thread is the one thing that’s ties them all together and you realize hey all these other skills have happened because I have this one superpower and with that sort of framing what do you think that superpower is for you?

 

Jordan Ray  16:37  

I think my superpower is that I can always maintain a positive mindset no matter what happens to me it took me a while to realize that but your mindset is 50% of any battle so I believe that is my true superpower

 

Richard Matthews  16:55  

Yeah and that’s really interesting too because not a lot of us have the experience of dealing with chronic illness and things like that personally in trying to develop our business so I would imagine that the positive attitude not only applies to being able to overcome those chronic illnesses and keep on moving forward but also to build and develop a business so just sort of with that in mind how do you recommend other people who are looking at dealing with difficult situations whether that’s in their business and they’re running into problems or they have chronic illnesses or their family of chronic illnesses how do you keep or develop a positive attitude?

 

Jordan Ray  17:44  

There’s a reason I started this business and every time I get frustrated or I say I can’t do this I always go back to my why did I start this company and that is to help people and to make a difference in the world and leave it better than when I first got here and so every single time adversity hit back to, just remembering my why and doing everything I possibly can to maintain that positive mindset I honestly think you have to go through adversity to really build that strong mindset and that’s where I think the blessing of being an athlete comes into play having that opportunity to face adversity every single day to build that positive mindset because you need it as an athlete as well.

 

Richard Matthews  18:39  

Yeah and I know there’s that metaphor of you strengthen steel by forging it with fire right, and it’s the same kind of thing with dealing with chronic illness or building a business. It’s not the bull markets right the easy side of the market that makes great entrepreneurs it’s the difficult things and overcoming the challenges and the problems that make a great entrepreneur and one of the things that I’ve always sort of held dear is this idea that you have to have something in your life that you’re willing to cry or die for. And it can’t be a love of money it can’t be a love of superficial things. It’s got to be something that you’ve got an emotional connection with that drives you to deal with that adversity and what I love so much about your answer is it ties perfectly in with the whole concept and the reason I built this show is that culturally we have this mistaken idea that entrepreneurs are always the villains and you have to look no further than like your kids his tv show to watch that like the bad guy is always some business guy who you know for the love of the dollar is willing to kill all the baby ducks by pouring oil on their faces or some variation thereof right and it’s always culturally like that and the reality is so much different. Entrepreneurs are the ones who want to leave this world better than they found it and they’re looking at the problems in the world and saying how can I solve this using my tools and experience and perspective to make the world a better place and it sounds like that’s exactly how you’re coming at this problem and that’s what drives you to to move forward.

 

Jordan Ray  20:24  

Yeah, definitely and I do want to add on that I love failing which might sound weird but entrepreneurship is all about failing and growing so I got to a point where I was able to accept failure when I first started this I was 18 I knew I was going to make so many mistakes because I didn’t have experience but that’s how you get the experience is to fail and make mistakes but the thing is you can make the mistakes but you need to learn from them and grow.

 

Richard Matthews  20:58  

Yeah I say all the time to my kids and to my staff and to myself that failures are just stepping stones to success 

 

Jordan Ray  21:08  

Exactly 

 

Richard Matthews  21:10  

So the only difference between me and another business owner and maybe someone who’s not quite as far along as long as I am is the number of times that we failed and the more failure you’ve had the more successful you’ll be.

 

Jordan Ray  21:23  

But being open to it as well because when I was an athlete I’d fail all the time and I knew I had to get better from that failure, it’s called errors in softball and baseball you make an error but you need to learn from it and grow and get better.

 

Richard Matthews  21:40  

Yeah in the marketing world which is the world my business is in we talk about conversion rate a lot which is the number of people who see an item for sale versus the number of people who buy it and so a 50% conversion rate would mean that if you had 50 people see your product or 100 people see your product 50 of them would buy it and the reality is that never happens there’s nothing in the world where you succeed most of the time the reality is in business and in marketing and in sales all of that you’re looking at anywhere from 3 to 10 to 20%, sales or success rates when most of it is going to be a failure and that’s the way most businesses are too, the failure is is going to be the overwhelming majority of what you do but the best part about that is it’s the successes one success can outweigh the difference between 100 failures if you’re learning from them.

 

Jordan Ray  22:44  

Oh yeah, definitely and there’s a saying in softball that it’s a game of failure, and what I did I took that saying and I just use it towards my business to the same thing it’s crazy to me like thinking back that when you’re playing a sport you’re just playing a sport either for fun or competitive but it’s just crazy how it prepared me for being a patient and being a business owner you just don’t think of it when you’re 15 years old running around on softball field so it just blows my mind every single time I think about it.

 

Richard Matthews  23:16  

It’s amazing how life rhymes like that where things go together and your skills can translate from one place to another and it’s one of the things we talk about regularly on this show is that the skills and the things that you develop in other areas of life you can bring to your business right and you have this ability to take those stack skills and actually the perspective and the kind of stuff that you’ve earned over your life of experiences and turn those into ways to bring value to the world

 

Jordan Ray  23:44  

Yeah and I mean even when I got sick like today I actually have a really bad migraine but I put a smile on my face and do what I need to do to get through the day and I always think that you can’t control the hand you’ve been dealt but you can play the hand or you can fold so I kind of look at my situation with my health there was a point where I just kept saying why me? And a friend sent me a quote I think it was like you the biggest issues are given to the toughest soldiers I can’t remember it word for word but when I read that I realized that I can only control what I can control but my attitude is what I can control and that will always be positive no matter what.

 

Richard Matthews  24:30  

Yeah so if your superpower is your ability to keep and hold that positive attitude the flip side of that of course is your fatal flaw every superman has his kryptonite and wonder woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad you probably have something that you’ve struggled with for me it was a couple of things I struggled with perfectionism for a long time which kept me from wanting to actually ship products I could always tweak it a little bit before bringing it to market and then never bring it to market another one I struggled with was lack of self-care where I would let my clients walk all over me and didn’t have good boundaries and things like that you learn to fix those some of those things over time but I think more important than what the flaw is, is how have you worked to overcome it so that you can continue to grow and grow your business hopefully sharing that with our listeners will help them learn from your experience

 

Jordan Ray  25:23  

So my biggest flaw that I actually still deal with to this day I have not been able to fix it yet and it might not even be considered truly a flaw is acceptance of everything that has happened literally the appointment where I was diagnosed I lost my sport lost all my scholarships and was literally told get ready kid you’re having brain surgery all in one afternoon so it’s been really hard for me to accept this new life and my new adjustments which I was go go go for 13 years I could do anything and some days I can’t even get out of bed so that’s really hard for me to accept and I think it might be even holding me back a little bit but so I can’t give any advice on how I’ve worked through it because I’m still in the process working through it but maintaining that positive mindset but it’s very hard for me to accept that everything happened and that I know this condition will be for the rest of my life.

 

Richard Matthews  26:34  

So I know you’re still working through it actively but if you imagine for a moment that says one person in our audience just got a diagnosis like yours what would your advice to them be for moving forward from there?

 

Jordan Ray  26:52  

You’re not alone I was diagnosed with a rare condition so I’m like oh I’m the only one who has it I don’t know why I kept thinking that for a while because i felt so alone in this process yes i had have an incredible support group family, friends but i just felt so alone because they weren’t the one dealing with the migraines or going into surgery and my mom actually said to me when they give you medicine right before surgery my mom looked at me and she said i would do anything to trade places with you and be on the operating table and I said back to her well you can’t you won’t ever be on the operating table it’s me on that table and so the feeling of being alone even though i’m not that’s something else that i’m working through but i want a listener to know that you are not alone and It’s okay to cry and be vulnerable because that also took me a while because as an athlete you’re told oh you can’t cry but when i realized that strength is in crying and talking about your emotions and what you’re going through so just know that you are not alone.

 

Richard Matthews  28:08  

The thing that’s interesting about sort of your answer there is one of the things that comes up regularly in my discussions with other entrepreneurs and here on this show in our mastermind groups is that business owners frequently also feel alone because you’re in this great wide world of people that we interact with on a daily basis entrepreneurs are kind of the crazy ones we’re doing different things we’re not living a normal life we’re not earning money in a normal way we don’t do normal things with our time and a lot of times that can feel lonely and i know one of the most effective things for dealing with that as an entrepreneur is learning how to get into support groups and things like that i know in the entrepreneur world we call those generally masterminds right and it’s getting around like-minded people who are dealing with the same things and it’s interesting that it’s another one of those things that sort of rhymes in those two experiences where you have to deal with exact struggles.

 

Jordan Ray  29:12  

Once you started talking I know exactly where you’re going with that about entrepreneurship and feeling lonely but what I do is, there’s always groups on Facebook and this isn’t the entrepreneurship side this is the chronic illness side I go and find these groups on Facebook and it’s like Chiari Malformation group and at first when I first looked it up and like there can’t be that many groups it’s rare when I looked it up and I see like 200,000 people in one group I’m like oh wow so I start joining the groups and start interacting with others and yeah so it is the same with entrepreneurship you just feel like you’re kind of on like an island, you have to make all the decisions and so yeah it is very lonely but it is rewarding in a weird way you know.

 

Richard Matthews  30:00  

It is and I know at some point you find your tribe and you move forward, and have people that can relate to your problems. And kick you in the ass when you need a little pick me up and that kind of stuff. And it’s certainly helpful to move forward and grow and help you deal with the problems that come along with running a business and doing those things. So I want to shift a little bit and start talking about your common enemy. Every superhero has an arch-nemesis, It’s the thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business that takes on a lot of forms. But generally speaking, we put it in the context of your clients, your customers. So it’s a mindset, or it’s a flaw that you have to overcome so that they can get the results that they’re looking for. So in your business, talking about medical journals, and helping people have better conversations with their doctors if you had a magic wand when they picked up your journal for the first time. And you could just bop them on the head and help them achieve their result, which is again that that better communication with their doctors, what kind of advice would you give them? What’s that sort of common enemy that chronic illness sufferers are dealing with? And, and you sort of see all the time.

 

Jordan Ray  31:18  

I think that patients, look at doctors where they always have the answers. And when we go to an appointment, we’re not prepared, we prepare for everything in our life. And it’s weird, we don’t prepare for health the way we should. So that’s what I’m trying to change. But with the magic wand, I would push on teamwork, patient, Doctor, your team to get a better outcome for you. And it’s literally who’s back to softball, you have coaches and you have the players you work together to create the team that successful so just maybe the patient is showing up? Or maybe the doctors just showing up, it’s not going to be successful if they don’t show up together and work.

 

Richard Matthews  32:12  

How does your product help with that teamwork aspect of dealing with chronic illness?

 

Jordan Ray  32:19  

The patient can track before they go to the doctor, they can ask those questions in their journal and the appointment Notes section say okay, I asked Dr. Smith, this, this is urgent let me store it or let me put it in an app as a reminder, or in the checklist. It allows for open communication and better communication. I’ll give you an example. So I have to see my neurosurgeon a few times a year I have to get MRIs, CAT scans done. And lately, I’ve been having numbness and tingling throughout my whole body. And I’d never had that until after the surgery. And in our journal, we have an enlarged human body chart. So I was able to pinpoint exactly where the pins and needles are in my whole body. Also, I have certain areas that have back pain. It’s not just one side, it’s scattered. It’s weird. And I walked into the appointment sat down, I showed my neurosurgeon the human body image, it took him about two seconds to look at it, we put it down, and he was pinning and broke a stick and touching my skin. And that took probably a minute and he knew exactly what was wrong. The little test he did with the stick matched the image that I drew. And we were able to spend a minute and get a conclusion. But if I went to that appointment, and I had no way to prepare myself, we would be staring at each other saying Yeah, my back hurts. Okay, Where does it hurt? I can’t remember it’s everywhere. And when you say it’s everywhere, that doesn’t help you.

 

Richard Matthews  33:57  

It’s like finding a needle in a haystack of bagillion nerves all over your system. So with the journal and all that it really helps you be a member of the team instead of having this chronic illness that something that’s happening to you. It’s something that you are actively engaging with and working to correct.

 

Jordan Ray  34:17  

Yeah, you become your own health care advocate.

 

Richard Matthews  34:22  

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So if your common enemy is the thing that your clients are fighting against and learning how to become their own healthcare advocates and being an active participant in that process, that’s something that they’re, they have to fight against that sort of resistance to wanting to do that and just letting their illness happen to them. The flip side of that is your driving force It’s what you fight for in your business. Just like Spider Man fights to save New Yorker Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it you guys fight for in your business, your mission, so to speak?

 

Jordan Ray  34:59  

Our mission is to put every individual in the driver’s seat of their own health.

 

Richard Matthews  35:08  

So what does that mean for someone who has a chronic condition to be in the driver’s seat?

 

Jordan Ray  35:17  

It kind of means exactly what it’s saying you are in full control instead of relying on the doctor or relying on these other medical professionals you are in control because it’s your pain points your issues you want to be in full control of your health and not rely on someone else.

 

Richard Matthews  35:39  

So how do you sort of help customers or help people who are dealing with chronic illnesses get over that mental barrier of saying this is happening to me and I’m not in control to make that shift to say I am in control even though I have to deal with in your case this rare brain condition that might make you feel out of control like you know you didn’t choose that it happened to you. So how do you sort of reclaim that control and that feeling of being in control of your health?

 

Jordan Ray  36:07  

So that is actually something I am still working on obviously I use the journal and the app religiously but I know I’m being proactive there but I think that also falls with the acceptance I’m working on it’s hard for me to accept this new condition my new limitations. But I know that I am actively doing everything I possibly can and when my doctor says okay you need to do this and this my adherence is there I am doing everything they say because I want to get better I want to be in control and have a better quality of life I think everybody would want that.

 

Richard Matthews  36:48  

Yeah makes a lot of sense so I want to shift our conversation a little bit away from talking about the chronic conditions we’ll talk a little bit more practically about running a business right and I call this your heroes tool belt. And just like every superhero has their tool belt with awesome gadgets like batarangs or web slingers or laser eyes or in Thor’s case a big magical hammer I want to talk about the top one or two tools you use that you couldn’t live without to actually build, run, grow your business right it could be anything from a notepad that you use your calendar to keep track of your time and appointments or the tools you use for marketing and sales or something you use to deliver the results for your clients. Anything that you think is essential to getting your job done in your business and actually growing that company and growing its impact in the community you serve.

 

Jordan Ray  37:43  

First, I would start with my mentors they are a huge tool for me, when I first had the idea for this and when I made the decision at the hospital that I will start this business I didn’t know where to look. You Google how do you start a business and it doesn’t really give you the right answer. I was in school at the time and I went to a professor and who I’m actually very close with now she comes to my keynote speaking events it’s awesome I went to her and I said listen I need a mentor I need some type of guidance and she told me about SBDC, which works with entrepreneurs. And I started with them at 17, 18 years old I’m still with my mentor now to this day I actually spoke to her yesterday. And I knew that I had no clue what I was doing and I needed to admit that but I had a goal and I have the motivation to achieve it so my mentors and i grew I have about five mentors now that all helped me in different departments so I would say number one they are the biggest part of my toolbox and also my team that I have working with me and for me, they have been a driving force motivation for me and a simple tool like you’re saying like a notebook or something I would probably say a notebook I agree with you on that with me having brain surgery it’s really hard for me to remember a lot I have memory loss I have a lot of other symptoms and I need to write things down and I think that’s kind of answers your question you had before about why a paper journal first it’s very therapeutic when you can write things down so those are my three biggest assets to the company right now.

 

Richard Matthews  39:43  

So your mentors your team and your notebook for keeping track and just out of curiosity, how big is your team right now like how big of an organization are you actually running I know you’re sort of at the beginning of just launching your app and you’ve been doing it for for a little while now, how big is the organization and where do you plan on seeing it go over the next couple of years?

 

Jordan Ray  40:07  

We’re about 10 maybe 9, 10 I have a few interns I have development team business development so we’re just under 10, and where I’d like to see this go is I would like to try to bring new people on one to two every single year and double that growth but obviously you need to double the revenue to achieve that so we are setting the short term long term goals but I’d like to bring on more team members this year.

 

Richard Matthews  40:40  

So how does it feel in the midst of a pandemic where our economy is struggling and these kinds of things to be the kind of person who is providing jobs and income and livelihood to other people?

 

Jordan Ray  40:57  

It feels really good to know that you’re helping to put a roof over their head and food on the table but I can tell you this pandemic has made it difficult as anybody listening would know. But it is a blessing, it was weird when I was 10 I said to myself I will own a business and it will be to help people and it was crazy that I knew would be maybe down the road 30, 40 years old I never thought at 17 that that dream would be coming true so it’s also really humbling to me that I know that one of my dreams I said as a little girl came true.

 

Richard Matthews  41:39  

Yeah that’s amazing and I know part of that the other side of that it feels cool and feels good to do that but at the same time, there’s that responsibility to like hey I can’t drop the ball here as the growth driver behind this business because I’ve got other families and sometimes kids and other things that if we don’t continue to succeed these people don’t get to feed their kids and that’s always a huge responsibility.

 

Jordan Ray  42:02  

It is and it’s always in the back of your mind you think about it all the time and like you just said you really can’t drop the ball they rely on you.

 

Richard Matthews  42:14  

It’s a fascinating thing and I know it’s something that I’m still, I’m new to having a team myself I’ve only had a team for a couple of years in my business. And that thought and that responsibility are always there in the back of my mind they’re like hey I got to keep going and got to keep everything going and growing so we can continue to provide that and hopefully grow and I sort of love that challenge and that feeling but I know that’s one of the risks that keep people out of the entrepreneurship world and wanting to grow a team and grow a business so it’s part of the thing that makes us crazy.

 

Jordan Ray  42:50  

And when I was first starting this I had a bunch of people say oh I don’t think you should do that I think your stay in school, go get a job, get experience. And I can’t even tell you how many people are actually had told me that. And at first, I started to believe it because at that age you listen to people, you feel like you don’t know anything. But if I didn’t take the risk now, it just wouldn’t matter I mean it was so worth it and I’m in school it’s not like I’m just running the business and if it’s not successful I’m not doing anything else that’s not true. I’m running the business, full-time student, full time dealing with my chronic condition, writing two books at the moment and I’m so blessed that I yeah keynote speeches COVID has changed that I’ll tell you that I’m not a fan of the zoom keynote speeches I’ve done a few I like in person I like interacting but I am just blessed that I did take that leap of faith and I jumped and landing stuck and I think it’s an incredible story to say I started at 17.

 

Richard Matthews  44:01  

Yeah, how old are you now?

 

Jordan Ray  44:04  

I just turned 23.

 

Richard Matthews  44:06  

23 so you’ve been running this business for five years?

 

Jordan Ray  44:11  

It’s been launched for two and a half but yeah designing for two and a half. 

 

Richard Matthews  44:15  

From like inception. 

 

Jordan Ray  44:17  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  44:19  

That’s cool.

 

Richard Matthews  44:20  

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Richard Matthews  45:58  

So you sort of already talked about my next question which is about your own heroes and mentors and stuff like that so I’m going to talk a little bit about your guiding principles. One of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by a code, for instance, Batman never kills his enemies he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum so as we sort of wrap up the interview I want to talk about the top one or maybe two principles you use regularly in your life may be something you wish you had known when you first became an entrepreneur and started out on your own hero’s journey.

 

Jordan Ray  46:27  

I actually just touched on it I don’t I kick myself every time I think about it I needed to stop listening to so many people and taking advice from people who were not successful I should have listened to the people who were successful and where I wanted to be so that was one thing but another one is I’m always kind of on the go I’m always wanting to do something I get bored so quickly and I actually think that’s full in business if I’m doing something I can get bored very quickly and it’s like okay let me not do that but you know you have to do it so I would say that and just I love connecting with people networking talking to people so I think that is another way that I interact with the customers I make it personable I always believe that the person who understands the customer the most will be the most successful and I literally am a customer

 

Richard Matthews  47:26  

Makes a lot of sense, I really like the principle of choosing the people you listen to wisely and I remember as a kid I was reading the Robert Kiyosaki books The Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books and I remember in one of those books I was probably I don’t know 13 years old at the time and he mentioned in one of those books that he’s like you have to pick your mentors wisely and you don’t have to choose them based on their whole life experience right so and the idea was that like if you have someone in your life who’s got really good results financially but doesn’t have great results with their family. You can take advice from their business but you don’t take their relationship advice so you can pick and choose your mentors based on on where they have the success and where they don’t and i realized early on that like for instance my dad is a fantastic father and he’s really good in his job in his community but he’s not an entrepreneur he never has been and ever will be and there’s nothing wrong with that but i realized that like I had to as a young kid sort of like split out what i was willing to listen to who for which is a big decision as a kid you’re like the advice my dad gives me on business and like other stuff i’m not going to listen to and i remember having a couple of conversations early on where i’m like hey this is what i’m gonna do for college and so what I’m gonna do after college and him telling me I don’t like those and i don’t think i should do them I don’t think it’s smart and having to do it anyways because that’s what my mentors in business said we’re we’re good ideas and like that’s a hard thing to learn how to do but over the years you get a lot better at picking and choosing the people who have the results in the area you want and then learning to listen to them and then ignore everything else.

 

Jordan Ray  49:13  

Yeah and I actually can relate to you with my dad and my mom they’re fantastic parents I will not go to my mom for business advice I will only go to her first she’s brilliant when it comes down to written stuff grammar I will only go to her for that if I really need her and my dad actually started a cabinet company when he was 19 then he sold it a few years later but cabinets and medical is completely different I will only go to him for sales advice that is it out of the whole umbrella of business sales advice is the only thing I go to him for and it took me a minute to realize that with what you just said I respect my parents and I felt like why would I not just kind of talk to them about everything like we do with personal stuff but I realized that I need to just focus on asking him sales only and realize what he’s good at what I need help with and find mentors and other places like missing. I have five mentors and that’s a lot but what I did was I have one for sales, one for marketing, one for pr, one for overall business operations so I break it down and pick the best ones.

 

Richard Matthews  50:30  

And that’s a hard concept as an entrepreneur to learn and then to put into practice because just as human nature I think is I like this person therefore I respect all the things they say and those two things aren’t don’t have to be true at the same time

 

Jordan Ray  50:49  

I was just gonna say I had a gut instinct on a situation in business and I actually this was before I realized I got to stop listening to my parents are asking them certain things I had a gut feeling to do one thing but my parents kept saying no I think you should do the other and I was right my gut was right and I just out of respect I just kept listening to them and but that’s where I actually learned you have to see who’s strong where.

 

Richard Matthews  51:22  

I totally feel you there I got all sorts of stories about that from different people my parents, family, friends everything and we’ve probably talked for hours just about where you find good advice versus bad advice but that’s such an important thing as an entrepreneur to learn that skill to learn how to know when to listen to who and when to seek out advice when you don’t have the right answers yourself so that’s it. It’s a powerful principle and I think that’s a really good place to sort of end our interview but I do have one final thing I do with all of my guests and It’s something simple I call it the hero’s challenge and I do this as a selfish way to sort of find stories I might not otherwise find from people who aren’t actively looking to be interviewed on podcasts. The question is simple, do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story who are they? First names are fine and why do you think they should come to share their story on our show first person that sort of comes to mind for you.

 

Jordan Ray  52:21  

Someone who also stepped in as a mentor she’s kind of my go-to I’m actually in the same office as her right now my good friend Nicole, she owns an hr firm and the work she does for businesses is incredible but her backstory is incredible as well I’m not sure if she’d be open to sharing that but she’s a young entrepreneur and that is inspirational as it is.

 

Richard Matthews  52:49  

Well, the worst that can happen is we can ask and maybe she’s interested in sharing her story which is why we do that because we’re always looking for fascinating people to talk to you on our show so thank you for that we’ll reach out after the show and see if we can get Nicole to come on and share her story maybe we’ll get that maybe we won’t. But in comic books there is always the crowd of people at the end of their heroic acts that are clapping and cheering for their heroism are analogous to that in this show is where can people find you, where can they light up the bat signals so to speak and say hey you know what Jordan I would really like to get your help I know someone who’s got a chronic condition or I have a chronic condition where can they go to get your help and I think more importantly who are the best types of people to reach out and actually make use of your products.

 

Jordan Ray  53:35  

The best people to make use of the product obviously chronic illness patients caregivers if you have multiple health conditions the journal in the app is really beneficial for you but you guys can find me at limitlessmedicallogs.com is a website after I do podcasts I always get people who reach out to me and share their story so if you have a chronic condition or even you’re an athlete overcoming adversity please feel free to reach out I will get back to you my Instagram is jordanray25 so I get Dm’s with stories and you can find the app completely free for three to four months on both app stores it’s limitless medical logs.

 

Richard Matthews  54:17  

Awesome so thank you so much for coming on Jordan it has been a pleasure speaking to you and getting to hear your story and the adversity that you’ve overcome and everything especially at such a young age so super fascinating to hear your story before we finish up and hit this stop record button you have any final words of wisdom for our audience?

 

Jordan Ray  54:36  

Never give up don’t ever give up no matter what you’re going through whether it’s business or you’re dealing with a chronic condition just keep fighting keep pushing and never give up.

 

Richard Matthews  54:47  

Yeah and that goes right along with that idea that failure is not an end, It’s a step along the journey and if you don’t give up failure is not permanent. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us today.

 

Jordan Ray  55:05  

Thank you for having me I appreciate it.