Ep390: Janet Metzger – Trust Your Gut to Find the Right Coach

Andrew Stotz 00:01
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk. But to win big, you've got to reduce it. If you're not already a member of our community, please go to my worst investment ever.com right now join and receive the following five free benefits. First, you get the risk reduction checklist. Second, you get my weekly investment research email to help you increase your investment return. Third, you get a 25% discount on all a Stotz Academy courses. And fourth, you get instant access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally, you get my curated list of the Top 10 episodes. Fellow risk takers This is your words podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest, Janet Metzger, Janet, are you ready to rock? I am ready. There's a little scared, but I'm ready. Let's do it. Oh, fear is a good motivator at times. Right? That's right, it gets us focused. So let me introduce you to the audience. Janet Metzger is an experienced network marketing coach and consultant with a demonstrated history of achieving results. She has been a leader in various organizations and has led sales teams that produced $60 million in annual revenue and large teams of over 100, I'd say 10,000. Maybe we're going to get to 100 later. But for right now 10,000 members, her experience varies from startup businesses, to fortune 100 companies. And her first love, ladies and gentlemen remains network marketing. And she's proud to be a part of this great industry. Janet, take a minute and filling further tidbits about your life. Wow, that's a lot. It kind of shows how old I am, doesn't it? I guess, I guess what I would say is, you know, you can take the girl out of network marketing, but you can't take network marketing out of the girl. I just absolutely love it. It is so much fun. It's the best industry that's out there. And you're in Thailand. I'm here in Wisconsin. And you know, it's a global, a global opportunity. I just love it. And it's interesting, because, you know, we've got listeners out there, you know, I think of my mother as an example, who's listening, my biggest fan, I mom. But I got lots of listeners out there they go, Wait a minute, what is network marketing?

Janet Metzger 02:35
Tell us a little bit about what it is and what it means to you. What it means to me is, well, there's a lot of things that it means to me. But I think the easiest way to say it is we do it every single day. And we don't get paid for it. So if you go to a movie, and you enjoy that movie, you're going to tell five or six or 10 people how much you love that movie, and is that movie theater going to pay? You know, same way with a restaurant, you recommend a restaurant, and people will go to the restaurant, and the restaurants not going to pay you. With network marketing, you can recommend products, you're recommending an earning opportunity, and you will earn residual income. So you're going to earn money while you sleep.

Andrew Stotz 03:22
But it's not as easy as it sounds, until you learn all the skills because there's a lot of skills that are involved. But they're easy skills that anybody can learn. And that's what I do is I help people to develop the skills. It's interesting, because if you think about a person like me, I did. I don't know that much about network marketing. But with my increasing age, I have a lot of experience with a lot of different products with a lot of different knowledge. So when I say something is good, you know, my followers and friends say, Hmm, maybe I'd pay attention to that. And so for someone that's getting older in their career, thinking about retirement, is it possible that network marketing is a real suitable thing where they can bring their authority?

Janet Metzger 04:05
Absolutely, I think it's perfect for everybody. But I don't think everybody's perfect for it. I will say that. But the best part about it is is someone is winding down in their corporate career. This is a supplement, it can be a supplemental income, but you do come across as an authority. You know, we had talked earlier that in our generation, people would tend to stay at a job longer. You know, I had I had one job that I was there 17 years another I was there 18 years. And that back in the day was very commonplace. So you come across as an authority because you've been there a long time and I always say there is no substitute for experience.

Andrew Stotz 04:49
Hmm, yeah. Well, my father worked all his life for one company. You know, yeah, that's a different watch. Well, he's the end of that generation where the company not only That, but he got his gold watch. But he also got help in saving for retirement, his pension fund all that stuff. Whereas companies really don't do that to the extent anymore. So the result of that is my mother. When my father passed away, my mother was able to live, you know, a good life and is able to live a good life on that retirement income. But I would say, individuals out there are much more challenged. And that's probably why network marketing is even more critical for someone to consider as they're winding down their career. Absolutely, absolutely interesting. Well, I'm learning as we speak. So now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it Intel. Okay.

Janet Metzger 05:46
Okay. Well, as I started to share with you, I had one company that I had worked for that was a fortune 100 company, you may be have heard of it, Sears Roebuck. Okay, I worked for them for 17 years. This is a great place. In fact, I met my husband there. So have fun fond memories. But we all know what's happened to Sears. Then I went to another humongous company, and it was in network marketing and direct sales. I had no idea. I didn't have any knowledge. And I worked there for 18 years. There's another company you probably heard of. Everybody's heard of Avon, right? So I worked there. Oh, was a great career. I loved it. But times change both companies were a bit on the antiquated side, I guess you could say. So my positions were both eliminated. So here, here I am. I don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up. So I tried a couple of different things. I ran multi multi million dollar businesses, but nothing ever felt good. And I was the person that all of a sudden, I worked here two years here two years. And then the last place was two years. And then they said, got called into the CEOs office, you just did a phenomenal job. In fact, you did such a phenomenal job. We don't need you anymore. So like, Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do I here I am, I'm, what was I back then, like 58 or 59 years old, I'm going I don't know what I'm going to do. I knew I wasn't ready to retire. And you know, fortunately, I had some money in the bank. And I did start with the 401k in that, but I was bored. I was crazy bored. So that's where all of this started. But my first love was always network marketing. It was always my first love. So and, and I was certified in coaching and that type of thing. And my goal was to always help people achieve their goals and dreams. It's so much fun to see what's like, I don't have kids. But if you our listeners probably have kids and you know how when your kid gets an award, you're so excited. That's what it's like and network marketing. I loved it when the people I worked alongside got recognized. But so I don't know what to do. So I finally said, You know what, I think I'd better hire a coach. I don't know what I want to be when I grew up. So I hired this coach. first mistake, first mistake. It wasn't a lot of money. But to me, it was a lot of money at the time. And I told her what I wanted to do. And she was a dream stealer. Yeah, you don't wanna do that. That won't work. So I listened to her I was kind of vulnerable. Two years later, after I went the direction that seat she suggested, and investing over $50,000 into a franchise, I still wasn't happy. I was kind of the, the, the round peg in a square hole. It just wasn't me. So I wasted two years, I lost all of the confidence I had developed over those years and had a ton of knowledge. Because I worked for great companies at great mentors. And I went from being at the top of how I felt about myself and my self esteem to at the very, very bottom. It was awful. It was a worst two years of my life. Just a waste. So here I am. Now I'm 60 years old. I don't know what the heck I want to do. When I grow up. I had no idea. I just know that I had to do something because it was the worst time in my life. The only good thing is I had money to live on I wasn't wasn't like we were homeless or anything like that. But

Andrew Stotz 09:37
can you remember kind of the worst day when it all came together? Like, you know, oh, something's got to change here.

Janet Metzger 09:46
Something's got to change. Yeah, I went to a company event for franchisees and i'm not this person. I just felt awful. I felt awful about myself and I did all the things you're not supposed to do like, compare yourself to other people. And I went back into my hotel room. And I said, Enough of this. I said, I, you know what I think I'm gonna do I think I'm gonna buy a plane ticket home, I was gonna, I was in Canada, and I was actually gonna fly home. I was gonna leave the conference early and all that, and I went, well, that's really dumb. So what I did is I just basically put a bubble around myself. And I said, I said, this ain't me. I gotta figure something out. But that was pretty bad. I was in Toronto, you know, and I'm all by myself. And I'm like, Oh, my God, it was just I was just miserable. Just.

Andrew Stotz 10:38
So let's talk about the lessons that you learn. How would you summarize that?

Janet Metzger 10:43
I think the first lesson is, probably the biggest lesson is you've got to trust your gut, you know what you're good at. I knew what I was good at, I knew what I was passionate about. Because you know, when you own your own business, you got to love what you do, because you got to love your boss. And I wasn't loving my boss at that point in time, which was me. So I learned that you've got to follow your goals in your dreams, and you can really do anything that you decide to do. But you got to have the right mentor, you got to have the right coach, you got to have a person that believes in you, you know, they're they're gonna, they're not gonna cut you off at the knees, and they're gonna guide you. So that was my biggest thing, right? There is just i saw i like i said, and I spent over 50, grand, closer to 75. I got to be quiet because

Andrew Stotz 11:32
my husband's upstairs. Did you hear maybe thumping around when he hears that? Yeah, you know, that's all right. Yeah, that's a waste. If I look at what you said, you know, trust your gut, and get the right advice, get the right coach, get the right support of people around me. So maybe I'll summarize what I took away from your story. You know, there's, there's three different things I wrote down as you were speaking, my first one actually, is a question that I just don't i don't? It's a tough question. And that is, how to find the right advice. You know, like, how do you find that person? Because, I mean, ultimately, you know, you can hire someone and go, I'm not doing anything you say, well, then you're just resistant to change. But if you hire someone, you say, I'm doing everything you say, okay, is that always going to work? So that's the first thing I wrote down. And that just, you know, for my own thinking, the second one is, you know, the word that really strong stuck out to me was confidence. And I know that, you know, I've been known as a confident guy, and all of that. But, boy, when you do business on your own, there's nothing that can bring your confidence down. You know, I think stronger than that, you know, that, when you don't hit your goals, when you're not really hitting the market, when your products Not really, you know, just that can really wear you down. And the second derivative of that is that in order to be successful, the people that work with you around, you need to have confidence in you. So the typical leader is kind of stuck in a position that's tough. You're potentially losing confidence, but you've got to shore up your confidence. Otherwise, people, if people see that you're losing confidence, they're gonna bail. Absolutely, they're not gonna hire you if you're not confident. Exactly. So that's the second thing I wrote down. And then the third thing is intuition. You said, trust your gut, I like to help people think about the difference between emotion and intuition. And intuition. Is that kind of moment where it's a moment of clarity, you know, right. And, and what you're reminding me is to pay attention to that. So those are the three things I wrote down how to find the right advice, confidence and intuition, anything that you would add to that discussion?

Janet Metzger 13:50
No, I think you're spot on in finding the right person, is not easy. It takes time. But you, you know, again, I have a lot of great mentors, I ask people that I trusted to begin with, you know, who would you recommend? If you go online, my gosh, there's a bazillion different coaches. And what I would say is, you just have to test them out. Everybody's got this free masterclass, and this and that. So I got on a bunch of those and tried a couple of them and saw who I liked. And then I went to one of my great mentors, and I said, Okay, I'm looking at this person, what do you think? And she actually helped me to interview the coach, because I have different coaches. I don't have just one coach, but you know, coaches should have coaches. So I asked for help. And, you know, your intuition is really one of your higher faculties. Everybody has it, and you'll know if something doesn't feel right, you know it in that That to me is what you got to do, but I just asked and I just took my time. I hire different ones. I hired social media. And I hired a, I had a marketing coach. And that was the other mistake is that I didn't, I didn't take enough. I was trying to be cheap. And I didn't, I thought I could just do this marketing and stuff by myself. Well, since I've hired this person, about three months ago, my business has tripled. It's just crazy. But I got the right person who knew what they were doing that always had my back and wanted me to succeed as much as I did.

Andrew Stotz 15:36
Wow. So ladies and gentlemen, that's quite a testament. In fact, I suspect that if you reached out, come to the show notes and reach out to Janet, who probably can get some support in how to find that type of person. And all that. I just want to highlight one thing you just said that, I think worth repeating. You said, intuition is, is our higher faculty, or one of our higher faculties, I guess, the idea is, actually then I thought to myself, what's our lower faculty and I thought, in some ways emotions are because sometimes they swing us, you know, where we don't really need to be but intuition. My intuition never comes up and goes, you're a loser. You know, my emotion does or my mind does at times. But the intuition just goes, Okay, boom, here's, here's, here's a moment of clarity. And so I really appreciate that intuition is a higher faculty. So that's a great takeaway. So based upon what you learn from this story, and what you continue to learn, what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Janet Metzger 16:42
To avoid suffering the same thing? Well, can I say two things? Sure. Okay. The first thing is, is have a goal, have a goal that you want so bad, that you can taste it, you don't know how to do it, but have that goal in front of you, because you're gonna have some bad days, owning your own business and keep that goal in front of you. The second thing is, when you're selecting a coach a program or whatever the heck it is, whatever you're doing, this is the one time slow down to speed up.

Andrew Stotz 17:18
Great. So ladies and gentlemen, get that goal and have a burning desire. And the second one is slow down to speed up. Love it. All right. Last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Janet Metzger 17:32
My number one goal for the next 12 months, it actually it shorter than that is to serve 1000 people. With my online subscription program that focuses on the 13 skills that network marketers have, it's a month to month subscription, and my goals, I'm gonna have 1000 people

Andrew Stotz 17:54
that I'm going to help achieve their goals and dreams. Fantastic. We'll make sure to share the link with us and we'll put it in the show notes. And if people listen to this, and they want to reach out to you what's the best way to get ahold of you?

Janet Metzger 18:05
Best way to do it. I'm on Facebook, of course. But my website is coach Janet m.com.

Andrew Stotz 18:14
Perfect. We'll put that in the show notes. All right, well, listeners, there you have it. Another story of laws to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you mind listener reduce risk, and increase return in your life. To achieve this, I've created our community where you get gain the five free benefits I mentioned earlier, just go to my worst investment ever.com right now, to join us. As we conclude, Janet, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of East Arts Academy. I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Janet Metzger 18:59
Well, I'm pretty happy I survived because You scared me Andrew, but um, you know, as long as you learn a lesson from it, you're okay.

Andrew Stotz 19:09
Beautiful. As long as you learn a lesson from it. You're okay ladies and gentlemen. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.