MY FRIEND JAKE HILLER

“The man on top of the mountain didn’t land there by accident.”

Author unknown

One of my favorite stories is from one of my friends, Jake Hiller. Growing up, Jacob or Jake as we all called him, always wanted to be able to dunk a basketball but, for whatever reasons, he just wasn’t able to. This bothered him so much that he made it his life mission to figure out how to increase his vertical jump. Jake researched all sorts of different tips and strategies and turned himself into a human guinea pig, testing out every idea one by one. 

HE LOVED WHAT HE WAS DOING

Eventually, he started having success, he recorded videos showing the techniques that worked and posted them on a YouTube channel. Nobody really cared at first. He was really focusing on himself and trying to improve his own vertical jump, so viewers didn’t matter much. He recorded the videos for free and put them online because he loved making them. 

HIS PASSION DROVE HIM

Over time, people started noticing and started to share his channel link with their friends, and soon he built a nice little following of people just like him who were interested in learning how to jump higher. His channel grew from 0 followers to 100…then 1,000… and 10,000…and finally, beyond, just by sharing what he was passionate about. This is how most expert businesses started up. 

SOMETHING INCREDIBLY VALUABLE

You find something, literally anything you’re passionate about, then applying your obsession with learning, you become the expert who convincingly leads others. Soon his viewers kept asking for more, and that’s when it dawned on him that he’d built something incredibly valuable and unique. 

FINALLY

He then started creating software products, (Training videos) to teach others what he had learned and turned it into a company that now makes millions of dollars teaching people how to jump higher. As inspirational as Jacob’s story is, you have to believe me, it’s not unique.