Great entrepreneurs aren’t self-made.


They’re Community made.

About Jayson

Forbes named Jayson a “Top Networker to Watch,” though he has spent his career rejecting everything networking stands for.

He’s keynoted for various groups and organizations including EO, YPO, and the US military.

Jayson’s work has appeared in dozens of best-selling books, often in the acknowledgments where it matters most.

He wrote Community Made: The Truth About Success and the Relationships That Create It. Then he used its principles to launch a Kickstarter that 5X'd its goal.

Writing fills his mornings, community-building carries his days, and the farm steals his weekends.

He lives on fifty-seven acres in Ontario, Canada, with his wife, daughter, and a small herd of Scottish Highland cattle.

A snapshot of a recent engagement

What Speakers Are Saying About
Jayson and his work

“Jayson is one of the rare people who listens closely, remembers what matters, and shows up in ways that make people feel seen. I've experienced this firsthand. He puts language and structure to something he's been living for years, and it will change the way you build relationships.”


Will Guidara 
Restaurateur and New York Times 
bestselling author of Unreasonable Hospitality

"Connection is the key to success--and Jayson is your guide. His story is living proof that cultivating your relationships is the missing ingredient. Don't leave your most important relationships to chance."


Vanessa Van Edwards 
Behavioral researcher, and founder of Science of People

“My bestselling book, my best friends, the city I live in, the father I've become — Jayson Gaignard's fingerprints are all over it. Read Community Made. In 10 years, you'll trace everything back to the relationships you built.”


Dan Martell 
Serial entrepreneur and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Buy Back Your Time

Before we talk about topics..

I only take six travelling speaking engagements a year. Not because of the prestige, the locations, or the fees. Those are nice.

But the bigger deciding factor is always: can I move the needle for this audience?

The right speaker at the right time for the right audience can change lives. The inverse is also true. Passive attendees who show up to be entertained, not changed, are a poor fit for the kind of work I do.

Although relationships touch us all, the audience that tends to get the most from my work is entrepreneurs. It's who I've served intimately for fifteen years. It's who I've been for twenty. And it's why the stakes are different in this work: for most people, relationships are a quality-of-life issue.

For entrepreneurs, it's much more. The relationships you build before you need them are what get you through the moments that decide whether your company makes it.

When the fit is right, the proof shows up afterwards — in the notes I get from people who've implemented and benefited from the talk (like shown above), and in the emails they send thanking the person who booked me. That's the bar.

Topics

  • Why We Resist Asking for Help, and How to Break Through

    Everything you want may be on the other side of a single ask. Yet it’s hard for almost all of us. There are patterns behind the resistance, and they run deep. Most leaders struggle to ask for help, and eight patterns explain why. Many wait until they reach a breaking point before circumstances force their hand. But you don’t have to — once you can name the resistance, you can do something about it.

    You’ll leave with the ask you’ve been avoiding, the words to make it, and the system that turns your network into allies before the next crisis.

  • How to Turn the Connections You Have Into the Relationships You Want

    You’re already in one of the most powerful organizations in the world. But access is just that. Access. You got in the room, but how you navigate on the inside is on you.

    The challenge? Your calendar is already full. So investing the time to deepen relationships starts to feel like one more thing.

    You’ll discover how to invest in those relationships with intention, how to nurture them at scale, and the small habits that compound into something extraordinary over time, without becoming another full-time job.

    You’ll walk away with a clearer map of your current network, a system for staying meaningfully connected to the people who matter, and a clear next move for the connection you’ve been meaning to deepen — and haven’t.

  • How to Trust When the Stakes Are High

    We’re taught that trust is a soft skill, and that it’s intuitive. This works most of the time — until it doesn’t. The cost of getting it wrong rarely shows up in the moment. It shows up years later, in the partnership that should have been a non-starter, the hire that nearly broke the company, the investment that went sideways.

    You don’t need more instinct. You need a scorecard. A five-part framework for evaluating people when the stakes are too high to guess.

    You’ll come away with a framework you can apply to your next big decision, a sharper read on the relationships already in your life, and the confidence to trust faster where it’s warranted — and slower where it’s not.