18 Months in 150 Seconds

​Almost exactly two years ago, I sat across from Arianna Huffington and the rest of the HuffPost exec team in their polished NYC headquarters. We were discussing the opportunity to partner together: When to Jump and HuffPost. I was a few days into seriously considering my new “jump” – from the squash tour to starting the WTJ community – and as if the execs across the table could read my internal thought process, one asked, “So, is When to Jump a brand, or just an idea?”

I said of course we were a brand.

As soon as the meeting ended, I went about figuring out how to make a “brand”.

Turns out, it’s hard to make a brand and especially one anchored around a community. The past 18 months since I decided to jump into WTJ has been everything I anticipated it would be – full of failures, setbacks, surprises, big wins, huge losses, and above all, worthwhile.

​Together with my friends Daniel Jaffe (videographer guru) and Scott Korchinski (music maestro), I set out to capture the When to Jump story of the past 18 months in this video.

We feature a few jumpers who are contributors in the book – lawyer-turned-firefighter Brenda Berkman and banker-turned-fashion-entrepreneur Eric Wu – along with others – UN women’s rights advocate-turned-Netflix original TV series creator Vandana Snyder, pharmaceutical sales rep-turned-crossfit-gym-owner Maillard Howell – to bring the story to life.

I hope you like it, share it, and celebrate with us the first 18 months of When to Jump.

Mike