In The Bachelorette star Jason Tartick's book, The Restart Roadmap, Jason gives advice for rewiring and resetting careers, but he also gives some inside information about his time spent with the show. Jason first appeared on Becca Kufrin's season in 2018. A year later, he met franchise star Kaitlyn Bristowe when he was a guest on her podcast. He asked her out on a date, and she accepted. They fell in love, and Jason proposed in May 2021.
Jason wrote his book The Restart Roadmap because he wanted to help people realize that they could be happy and reach their full potential by breaking out of the career blueprints they created at a young age. Jason has worked in corporate banking for ten years before he ventured into reality television. He earned his MBA in accounting and finance and currently hosts Apple's top-charting business podcast, Trading Secrets. Jason also founded Red Ridge Capital, a lending and investment company, and Restart Consulting, an educational consulting company that centers around career and money management.
Although Jason's main goal when he wrote the book was to help people restart their careers, he also shared plenty of behind-the-scenes gossip from The Bachelor franchise. His experience on The Bachelorette was one of the main catalysts for his career change, and he writes about the experience through the lens of how it changed his career path after he was unhappy with his banker career. Here are Jason's revelations about his time with Bachelor Nation.
Jason Had Imposter Syndrome On The Bachelorette
Jason admitted that he was intimidated on the first night of The Bachelorette when he got out of the limo and walked into the mansion to meet the other men. He described them as "thirty absolute studs: tall, jacked, beautiful-looking, sharply dressed dudes." Jason explained that some of them were major-league ballplayers, some were in the NFL, and another was a Harlem Globetrotter. Fellow suitor John Graham was a co-founder of Venmo. Within seconds of being introduced, model Jordan Kimball told Jason that he had been featured on four magazine covers. All of this made Jason feel like he "just didn't belong. Classic imposter syndrome." He recalled thinking, "I'm an average dude from Buffalo, New York, and I'm a banker. In my little world, playing Division III soccer was solid; in here it was like, 'joke show.' So how do I compete with this?" However, Jason then realized that since he was invited to be there out of the hundreds of thousands of men who applied for the show, he did belong there. Jason noticed that although the other men had "plenty of ego," they did not have "very much self-awareness." Jason, who was once hit by a car, knew that he had to find what differentiated him from the other guys, and found his strengths were his ability to read and react to a situation, "be aware of all the moving parts from producers to suitors," and communicate effectively without needing to attract attention to who he was. Once he figured this out, he knew that he could "Stay under the radar, befriend them all, do not pose a threat, speak less, listen more, and use all the information gathered to my advantage." Jason said that it "worked like a charm."
Jason Refused To Be A Gimmick
When Jason was cast on The Bachelorette, he knew that he had to think through every single detail of his limo entrance. As he waited in the hotel for about a week before filming, the producers would visit him and the other men at least twice a day in order to get to know them. Jason saw this as an opportunity to make a great impression on them and proactively pitched ideas for his limo entrance. Jason made it clear to them that he did not want to be the guy who exits the limo "in a chicken costume or on a horse or in any way visibly trying to make a rousing, electrifying first impression on Becca Kufrin." Instead, he told the producers, "I am going to be who I am, with a simple entrance that both shows and tells Becca the particular message I bring." Jason explained to them that he was confident in who he was, and knowing that he could not control what happened on the show, he did have control over himself. He was not looking for screen time but instead wanted to make "an authentic impression." Jason clearly achieved that goal as he made it to Becca's final four.
Jason Found Lifelong Friends
Jason had grown up watching Survivor, so he knew that he had to find allies on his first night of The Bachelorette. He needed people whom he could trust, and he found them in Wills Reid, Joe Amabile, Colton Underwood, Blake Horstmann, and Garrett Yrigoyen. He said that the six of them clicked right away. They would sneak away and muffle their microphones so that the producers could not hear them and talk about things going on in the production. They tried various tricks to help one another, which worked as four of them, Jason, Colton, Blake, and Garrett, made it to the final four, with Garrett proposing to Becca at the end. Colton became the next Bachelor, Blake was the talk of the town on Bachelor In Paradise, and Joe earned a spot on Dancing With The Stars. Jason said, "these relationships built early on saved me on the show, after the show, and still to this day." Jason has since said that he is no longer friends with Colton after he unfollowed Jason and Kaitlyn on social media, and Jason called Colton a very calculated man.
Jason Refused A Spot On Bachelor In Paradise
Shortly after Jason appeared on The Bachelorette, he was asked to join the cast of Bachelor In Paradise. Jason said, "It's wild, it's crazy, and some folks think it's tacky, so I definitely wanted my stint on it to be worth it." The first thing Jason did was negotiate a better salary, from $300 to $600 a day. However, he was also worried that the bank he was working for might fire him if he participated in BIP. This caused Jason to negotiate a BIP commitment of at least $5,000, so even if he was eliminated on the first day, he would take home a large minimum. After careful consideration, Jason realized that he had created a brand for himself and did not want to tarnish it by possibly being turned into a "goof" due to the "shenanigans" on BIP. He also realized that his intentions were not authentic, and his only aim for joining the show was to be on television again. Jason was not ready to go find a life partner just weeks after getting dumped by Becca, so he bowed out of the deal and the show.
Jason Thinks Colton Underwood Is A Master Negotiator
Jason said that no one is more masterful in "negotiating, positioning, and selling" than Colton. When Jason, Blake, and Colton were interviewing for the lead role or The Bachelor, Jason and Blake talked about how their interviews were "pretty vanilla and straightforward." However, Colton was able to convince the producers to cast him by telling them he would bring the ratings the network desired. Jason also marvelled about how Colton was able to use his COVID-19 diagnosis to publicize his book that was published right at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Colton even accomplished his dream of starring in his own television with his Netflix series, Coming Out Colton, which focused on him coming out as gay. Colton had even asked Jason to do a casting call for another reality series he had in the works. He pitched Jason the idea where their other friends would be his wingmen in his new dating life. Although this show never happened, Colton's Netflix show was successful. Jason said, "when Colton has a vision, it's remarkable how it always becomes a reality."
Jason Got Fired Because Of Kaitlyn's Podcast
Jason was fired from his job of almost ten years after Kaitlyn shared what Jason called a "PG-13-rated, funny story" about their sex life on her Off the Vine podcast in 2019. Jason was so upset that the CEO of his bank, whom he describes as Forbes' number one most powerful woman in banking, did not have an appreciation for Kaitlyn's podcast. In fact, the podcast had to be deleted from the network, costing Kaitlyn much more money than Jason lost. The former reality star had not even told the story himself, but the bank fired him anyway. Even though this situation was unfair, everything worked out in the end, as this ended up setting Jason up for his future success.
Jason's book The Restart Roadmap is a fantastic guide in helping people change their career paths by breaking the blueprints they think they need to follow. Jason used his experience on The Bachelorette to help explain his points about how and when to make changes in one's career. Jason is a successful businessman whose advice can help many people, and he is just getting started.