Ep405: Marie Gervais – The Value of Your Worst Investment Is the Learning

Andrew Stotz 00:02
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. To join our community go to my worst investment ever.com and receive these five free benefits first, you get the risk reduction checklist I created from the lessons I've learned from all of my guests. Second, you get my weekly email to help you increase your investment return. Third, you get a 25% discount on all a Stotz Academy courses. Fourth, you get access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally, you get my curated list of the Top 10 podcast episodes. Fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests. Marie Dovey Maria, you ready to rock? Oh, yeah, let's do this. I want to introduce you to the audience. And you know, we just had like a really interesting conversation before we turn on the recorder, which I really appreciate. And I learned something also about long term versus short term gains from therapy and discussions. But I want to introduce you to the audience. Marie Dre, is CEO of shift management. And she offers targeted supervisory and middle management training, team coaching, and organizational capacity development to businesses and organizations. She has developed an award winning program using online courses in live web coaching, to help managers develop the confidence and skills they need to lead for competitive Vantage, a clear focus on communication and conflict resolutions. Will skills will get you there, you can build a healthy, inclusive, best in industry work culture, Dr. Dre is your guide to success her upcoming book, The Spirit of work is scheduled for publication in November 2021. And ladies and gentlemen, if you don't get enough from this podcast, she is the host of the culture and leadership connections podcast go check her out there. Maria, take a minute and Philly further tidbits about your life.

Marie Gervais 02:19
Thank you for the introduction and the dramatic way of doing it, which I really enjoyed. You're the star of the show. Well, I thank you. The other tidbits would be that I have been This is my fourth career being a business owner, it's my 14th year in my fourth career. So I am I get bored easily. But I haven't been bored as business owner. So. So there's that I'm also a visual artist, and I used to direct choirs and theater, which I don't have time to do anymore. But I do still do visual visual arts.

Andrew Stotz 02:55
And I see visualizations behind you like some things up on your walls, I mean, leadership learning, intercultural shift, some of the words I see up there, maybe you can just give us like a little tidbit about the value that you bring to your clients.

Marie Gervais 03:10
Yeah, so for my, for my clients, I bring two things, I bring an intuitive spiritual approach that helps them to remove blocks, that they have been sabotaging them for years, and very strong business strategy. I've coached hundreds of businesses through their difficult moments. And I can usually identify in minutes what the issues are, and what they need to do next. But they will do them until they remove the blocks. combination of the two, that's really, that's pretty significant. And it really is a sort of a really valuing of that of that of the person or the people so much so that they feel really cherished. And most of us don't feel appreciated, cherished, even acknowledged or seen most of the time. So that piece where I feel like I embrace the spirit of that other person really helps them to blossom, and to move forward in a place of space and safety. And it also very useful for companies who are so wounded. So many companies are so when workplaces are very unhappy. So I have pretty much dedicated the business to increasing workplace happiness by increasing leadership skill. And that comes with the two sides. That intuitive side and that strategic side, and the skills get built in the middle.

Andrew Stotz 04:27
Interesting. And, you know, it is surprising how many people are unhappy with work. And people always ask me how Why are you so happy with work? And I said, Well, I said my advice. Don't listen to me, but my advice is quit. And what I meant by that is that when I found environments that I just didn't enjoy, you know, obviously, you know, if it's a family or relationship, I'm going to try to change that. But if I can't change it, I just left and say, Well, you know, I'm not up for that. So look for something else. So that's kind of the way I dealt with it. And I built an environment around me of kind of happiness and all that. And that's my advice in that space. And I just wanted to also mention one thing, there's some listeners out there going, What do you mean, block, I don't even understand what block means.

Marie Gervais 05:16
Well, people grow up with unconscious tracks playing in the back of your mind, that money blocks, for example, people have blocks to earning, they have blocks to saving their blocks to debt, they have blocks to money, mistakes that they made that have caused money, trauma, those are some money blocks that they have. People have relationship blocks, where they just they experienced, you know, fight or flight as they were growing up. And that's all there was. And so they don't know how to have a loving, constructive relationship, or even a constructive workplace relationship, because at the first instance, where something scares them, they just they and they're not even aware, they're being scared, they just quit. So they quit mentally, they leave the building mentally, and they just, they're just not there. And they won't deal with anything, or they're just highly confrontational. So that's an example of relationship blocks, or people keep attracting the wrong partner, they keep finding the wrong person over and over again, and they really similar characteristics each time, and they know it logically, but they can't, they don't know how to address it. So that would be an example of a relationship block, people have career blocks, the relationship blocks, they have health blocks, most things that are wrong with our health with our bodies have to do with an emotional issue that's manifesting physically in the body. So when you address that a lot of it, a lot of things just clear up. And so that's, that's what I mean, by blocks, we're removing those pieces internally, that you are not aware are there, they're your your life that you can see is the tip of the iceberg. And everything underneath is the result of your culture, your family, your environment, the experiences that you had, the opportunities you have, and the obstacles you had to overcome and how you face them. And so all of that then builds into who you are, but it becomes it's pretty unconscious. And so taking pieces of it, making it conscious can be helpful.

Andrew Stotz 07:09
It's so for the listeners out there, you know, think about that, the interesting thing about blocks is that they don't, you don't see him, you know that easily, what you see is the result of them, I guess, like, you know, you're afraid to get close to somebody or, you know, you're afraid of confrontation, because you experienced the situation where confrontation really, really hurt you or something like that. And so what you see is that, you know, you're not able to achieve the goals that you want, or maybe the happiness that you want. And I think what I take away from what you're saying is that it's not just because you're weak, or you know, you don't know how to handle the situation, it's just that there's probably something that happened in your past, it's set up the way you think about something in the way you feel about something. And it may have worked to protect you at that time. But now it may be working to hold you back. And so exactly, the idea is, try to identify that. And I guess that's, that's, you know, a great lesson, I'd love to hear that. And, you know, just for the listeners out there, and for myself, you know, I'm just thinking, Hmm, okay, what are the things that I want to achieve? Or what are the things that I want to experience that I'm not? And what potentially could there be? that's blocking me from doing that? And just working harder? Does it hasn't yet. Yeah. So great. I think

Marie Gervais 08:34
it doesn't do it. It's also not logical, you can't talk your way through it and create a strategy and follow it. In fact, if you create the strategy at a certain point, you'll always resist getting it done. So it and that's because we have this false dichotomy where we think that, you know, we have a logical side, which we think is the really important side, but it's, it's not even, it's like 10% of our thinking and our processing that logical side. And then we have an emotional side that's related to our physiology. And we have a spirit, we have a heart, we have a mind, all of those things are not the same thing as logic. And so and they all operate simultaneously. At the same time. You can't just say, I'm not people selling I'm not mad, and you can tell that they're really what everybody's going. Yes. Yeah. So the thing is that they operate simultaneously at the same time until you recognize what the triggers are, and you can start to name them and release them. You really, you're being written by your emotions instead of you writing emotions.

Andrew Stotz 09:32
So I'm picturing our life is a 150 piece orchestra. And our logic is the flute player down there, that one little lone flute player that's playing out that logic, but there's a lot of other factors, you know, in plastic is

Marie Gervais 09:47
probably the notes on the page. It's not even the music. Yeah. And I'm a big believer in logic. I'm a very logical person in what I do, but it's but it but it is really only a fraction of what you need to make things work for you and your life.

Andrew Stotz 09:59
Great. That's a great lesson for all of us. Well, 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. And then tell us your story.

Marie Gervais 10:14
Most of my industry clients are in the manufacturing industry. And I belong to one of the manufacturing industry networks that was a large for C suite, manufacturing decision makers. And I really learned a lot while I belong to it for five years, but it's very expensive. And it went from being $3,000 a year to $20,000 a year for an individual members. And so that's why I don't belong to it today. Because it wasn't worth that much to me. But during that time, people kept saying how if they could just find a way to give their managers more practice in a way that didn't cost the company. Because when managers make mistakes, it always affects the company in a huge way. And that was part of so many discussions that I attended, and lots of speakers addressed that. And so I thought, well, really everything is going towards gamification, what I do, I have a, I'm really interested in games for learning, and really interested in sort of the whole process of how some people can experience because my background is in drama. So having a world that you experience was very, really I love that I love that whole piece of being in worlds, I thought well, what if we could create a world that managers could go into? This was before Google Glasses had an immersive experiences had been invented? And so what if I could create something like that? I guess the only way to do it would be through a game. So So I pitched the idea to some of the people that were there. Like, there was the regional North American regional manager for Johnson and Johnson and like they were really big companies that then and they said, What do you think about this? Is this something you think that's worthwhile pursuing? And they all said, Yeah, that's a great idea. This is something we could really use. That's the beginning of my mistake. So I thought, I thought that would be a great idea. And the thing is that I had been doing work online, and courses online, but I had never created a game. And I hadn't worked through the process of creating the game before. And so I started to think about what I would do, and how I would get practice doing that. And I thought, I know, I should create an app, I should create a management decision making app. So I'll start with that. And then I'll move into the game. And then the game, I'm going to pitch to this whole audience of people that are decision makers that could send me to their training and development people, and we can start piloting it and see how that goes. So again, I pitched it to the group, I pitched it to about 20 people, and they said, Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. But, you know, just because people say it's a good idea. They haven't put any skin in the game. Right? So yeah, good idea you should do it isn't. And then they gave me a few tips, which I thought was really useful come back to us when you finish the app. So I am. So I invested in the phone app, which was $20,000. And got me nowhere, because I went to a technology company that didn't know what they were doing with that particular type of game because I didn't research it properly. So that the short version of this was after that I invested $120,000 in another technology company to create the game. And they didn't have the skills either. So I switched to a third one and lost more money. So the whole thing was a big money sucking poll. And I was using my business which was doing very well to subsidize it. nother money sucking whole bad idea. context.

Andrew Stotz 13:48
When I'm just curious, because you know, these ideas start off with so much excitement and opportunity. When was the moment when you realize all this last?

Marie Gervais 14:00
Well, about halfway through. And before that ETS, I started to realize that a I didn't have the necessary experience to find the right people. And, and, and that, but this did give me experience. I mean, I assume you learned a bunch of stuff, which I'll tell you later. So I didn't understand the tech process. I didn't know what a scrum was. I didn't know what the phases of development were in, in a tech product. And I didn't understand how that there was always going to be a disconnect between people who speak code and people who speak ideas and people who are going to buy it all there like three planets and solar systems in fact, and so like I didn't know that at the time. And because I always go with idea first rather than research in the past I did I don't do that anymore in the heart research really carefully. Yeah, I didn't research first it was idea checked it out to see a segment of the market who might be interested and then went from there, but I didn't have partners right from the from the beginning. So the partners were sort of flimsy and they weren't really committed and they had no investment in it. So they didn't really it wasn't they gave me some great ideas to keep going with it. But it wasn't actually, I wasn't necessary for a commitment, like I really needed to come image and somebody who was going to will to work with me. And I was a really poor, low, poor risk for them. Because I didn't have the experience and why should they invest? I didn't have a track record in that area and track records and other areas. And several people kept telling me how, you know, you do this really well. I'd be interested in talking to you about that. And I just ignored them and went on with Oh, yeah, but I want to do the game. Right. So I lost business as a result of that single focus. So yeah, that's what I started, I realized when I when I, my accountant said to me, what are you doing? You've been subsidizing this thing for two years. And it's, you know, it's not going anywhere. And I went, right, that's when those darn accounts? Oh, I felt I felt so stupid and so ashamed. And I, you know, and then my husband said to me, so how are you going to start paying back this debt, and then I lost it, I thought, I'm never gonna pay back this debt. This was the stupidest mistake ever made. And if I would have just continued to invest my business that was doing so well, I would have been lightyears ahead of where I am instead of sunk into this

16:08
hole. Hmm. Yeah,

Marie Gervais 16:11
I felt terrible about it. The worst problem was the shame. Yeah, I just felt so ashamed. I felt like everybody on the street was looking at me and thinking, like, That woman does not know how to manage your money, right? Because she told me messed that up. Of course, it's totally wrong. But that was it. So it was stopping me from doing other good things with my business, took me a while to get through that.

Andrew Stotz 16:30
Now. Part of the part, the purpose of the podcast is to reach the listeners out there who are struggling in the middle of that right now. And they are feeling that shame, they are feeling depressed. And so I think, you know, I really appreciate that you would share, you know, how you were feeling through that process. So let me ask you, what lessons did you learn from the experience? Well,

Marie Gervais 16:54
it was really helpful for working with future clients in the tech industry, and in the financing and financial industry. And I was able, because I understood the some of the process processes from that. And then I took on another job shortly afterwards, which was a job that I thought, you know, I'm never going to do this again, because I don't like doing this kind of work. And it's way out of my wheelhouse. And it was working really carefully with a tech company that wanted to roll out a version of their product. And I thought, This is not my wheelhouse. And I realized that and but I had so much data from all the interpersonal problems that I saw, I thought, Oh, I can really work with, you know, my workplace communications and conflict resolution stuff, this is like this is gold. So I started to think that way I was, I was able to, to move past the shame, I discovered something called the consciousness map, you might want to just look that up consciousness map and what it is it has emotions, their vibrational frequency, and what the mindset is, and how you see divine being as as influencing. So you might see, for example, if you see the divine, your divine being as being a mean, angry God, or if you see a benevolent being or haec, a goddess, that's part of the you know, the nature thing, you're going to, you're going to see your failures and your successes differently. So it's really interesting, this consciousness mapping and it can be used in multiple different ways. So the very bottom underneath every single emotion, that one where you're just the lowest of the lowest shame.

Andrew Stotz 18:22
I see. It's, I'm looking at the map right now. In fact, as you said that and it's under God view, life view and then level and then at the bottom, shame.

Marie Gervais 18:32
Yeah, yeah. And so in the middle is anger. And people think anger is the worst, but it isn't. So it's really interesting that when, so I, was part of the wave of getting out of that was personal development, I worked with a coach named Trina Miami that I interviewed on my podcast, and I worked with a couple of other coaches. And I discovered all the gifts that I learned from this mistake. And I started to dig my way out of the debt. And I also focused on what I was doing well in my business, and started to be proud of that. And that, and I started to teach debt is good debt and bad debt. And I thought, you know what, this was actually not bad debt, because for one thing, it allowed me to write off all my taxes for a while. And the other thing was that it allowed me to learn a whole bunch of stuff that I would never have gotten before, if I wouldn't have been through that experience. And, and I still have all the stuff I created, like all the scenarios I created and all of those things. And that has come in handy and multiple other other work. So yeah, yeah, so that was, so that part that was good. But I did have to go through a lot of, I had to go through my own personal reflection process and do that assisted with somebody else, like not only on my own in order to get past it. And so that was what I did. And the distance I would say was, you know, first off that take risks but be calculated. You know, I'm not like most women who have a really risk averse Like I was like, Yes, I'm gonna do this, it's a good idea. And let's just dive in, and I'll find the money and I'll make it work, right. So now I've kind of learned my lesson, I've gone backwards. And I take calculated lis, I do really proper market research. And I'm very careful about each step of the way, testing every point with potential clients. And those clients have to have skin in the game if I'm trying a new idea. And so that's what I learned from it.

Andrew Stotz 20:24
Got it. And just to be clear, on the book that I'm looking at is called the map of consciousness explain a proven energy skill to actualize your ultimate performance by David R. Hawkins.

Marie Gervais 20:34
Yes, that's it. It's been around for a while. But it's a very useful tool doesn't become dated, kind of like, you know, Napoleon hills Think and Grow Rich. Yeah, there's some things in there where I'm going, you can tell that was later. But most of the stuff that he has to say is really interesting. And one interesting then comes comes out Napoleon Hill book, which I think is my, also my learning from this investment is he he created in his mind, a series of people he admired, and that were successful in different ways that were either past or present in his life. And every night before he went to bed, he would consult with them on a business problem for for a period of time. And they became real personages. And it was kind of weird, he kept thinking, am I going crazy with this idea. And then he met one of the people who was alive, and mentioned something about it. And the guy turned around and said, exactly, to him what he had imagined in his imaginary conversation with the guy. And they had never discussed anything like this before. met him for the first time kind of thing. And so it was, was really interesting. So he must have been tapping into some collective wisdom. And I think that I started to realize that I can't do everything alone, I have to tap into the collective wisdom, the actual wisdom, and I have to start using the people around me, and the research that's available to me more effectively, and not try to do it alone.

Andrew Stotz 22:03
So let me summarize some of the things I took away. I mean, one of the things I just wrote down, as you wrote that you told us about that is that many years ago, I gave a presentation about one of the businesses that I have with my best friend here in Thailand, a coffee business. And we gave a presentation to a group of people. And I said, you know, maybe in the middle, I said, I'd like to introduce you to my our advisory board. It's very distinguished. And then I showed a book of, you know, Napoleon Hill, and I showed the book of Dr. Deming and I showed the book of all the key people who have influenced our lives. And I said, We base a lot of what we do based upon our very distinguished advisory board, which I just showed a lot of books. But the truth is, is if you read the books of what you know, you're getting, you know, a hone down message of what they say. So that's the first thing you reminded me of. The second thing is, when you validate an idea, the best way to validate is to get people to pay you cash. Oh, yeah. And I think that's where you alluded to the fact that people are like, yeah, that sounds good. You know, that's all right. But you know, in the end, that's not the you know, that's not

Marie Gervais 23:10
that's not Oh, and I wasn't actually confident to ask for it. But I am now Yeah, like, So now, I'm going to say yeah, for this is what it's going to be are you interested in ra is going to cost this much you want to come in? Yep. Right. And I'm like, fully expecting them to say yes. And if they aren't, I don't take it personally. But it before I was not expecting them to say yes. And so that should have been a red flag for me. But you know, yeah, living on.

Andrew Stotz 23:31
The other one is, you know, this, this, you know, tech is everywhere. And, you know, tech supposed to be getting easier and all that. But the truth is, is that we oftentimes face a pretty significant tech hurdle. Yes. And when we get an idea it could it be an AI, good idea, but the actual challenge of implementing it in the tech space is much harder than it appears. And I did have one another guest that developed a game. It was called Pictionary. And it was a guy named Rob Angel. He was Episode 243. And basically, but the thing about his development was he was just writing things down on pieces of paper, you know, and like, there was no tech hurdle. And so, you know, one of the questions I want to raise for the listeners out there is to think, how could you remove the tech hurdle to test your idea? And I think that that's a real challenge. And if you could do that, then you could potentially validate that, okay, now, it's worth going in, and trying to develop some of this tech.

Marie Gervais 24:26
You know, I'm really glad you said that, because that's actually one of the most important things that I learned. And that's been the basis for all my business decision making about things. I use a lot of tech tools, but I'm just I am looking first for you know, can it be written down? Can it be done with soft technology? Is this is this something that can be reused with something that is already existing or not? And you know, like, how can we use what we've already got to get the same results and it really transformed my, the way I was working with people online, so people have to have a real connection to you. would be, or they just don't learn, they have to have a collegial context in which they discuss things. And then the online content and the way that it works reinforces the content learning. But it actually doesn't make a difference how many bells and whistles you have, and how many fancy stuff is in there. What matters is how much they relate to the content. Right? So if you're looking at that, first than anything you add on is going to be value added to the experience the optimal experience for the customer. And I have people from tech companies approaching me all the time and going, Oh, we want to build this, and what do you think owners are going to want? And why would have you talked to anybody because I'm an owner, and I wouldn't want any of that stuff. So. So I think I think you have to, it's got to be, it's got to meet a real need and work with real human beings and the technology is the vehicle. If the technology is the vehicle, then it you're much more likely

Andrew Stotz 25:52
to be successful. And the final thing is one of my recent episodes, which I'm going to release Pretty soon, my guest said something that was pretty profound to me, and I hadn't thought about it. But, you know, we always talk about the sunk cost fallacy, you know, you've invested so much money time energy into it. And so it's hard to let go of something, but you need to let go of something, you know, but what he said was that, you know, the money the sunk cost fallacy. avoids, should include the learning. And a lot of times we forget that, you know, there was a huge amount of learning, yeah, they cost us. But the learning that came out of it, you know, is, you know, is so valuable. So it just reminded me that if you're if a listener out there, if you're stuck in a situation, where you have sunk in a lot of cost, you've sunk in a lot of money sucked in a lot of energy, but you realize, it just may not work. If you walk away from it, it's so painful to walk away. But the truth is, you're going to leave with a huge amount of learning. And I think that's one of the things that you remind me of through your story.

Marie Gervais 27:00
Yeah, what I call that is that I had to pay my tuition. Right. So the sunk cost is my tuition fee. And when I started seeing that whole experience as being a tuition for the next step in my business, Google scale, I went, Hmm, that's not so bad.

Andrew Stotz 27:19
There we go. We feel better, right there. Yeah. All the things I wasted my money on in my time, and I can feel a little bit better than I learned from each and every one of them. Well, it's

Marie Gervais 27:28
their tuition, maybe it's the tuition, but for learning how to spend appropriately, or learning how I mean, you know, so yeah, it can, it can also be that you had to learn something the hard way, maybe your tuition fee was higher, because you wouldn't listen, when I listen to the, to the stuff that was around you that was trying to speak with you.

Andrew Stotz 27:46
So So now, I would like to you to put yourself, you know, into the shoes of a young person or any person listening, right now, who is trying to push an idea, in a similar way, maybe that you are doing and 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.

Marie Gervais 28:09
develop a relationship with somebody who has the knowledge you need, over a period of time, allow yourself to develop that relationship and learn from that person, and allow the time that's required for the process. It's like a plant grow, you can't just yank on it and say, Crow, you have to create the environment. And to work with someone if I had found someone who had the technology that I needed, and who I could just become a friend. And I actually did find that person through the process kind of vicariously and has remained a friend and, and confident for all sorts of things. If I want to launch anything, I'm going to talk to her first because she's one of the top people in the world, I would never have found her if I wouldn't have been through that issue. So it was, yeah, find out find one person who can be your, your mentor. And you know, eventually it becomes reverse mentorship, too, because you teach the other person. But yeah, I would say that's the one action item.

Andrew Stotz 29:06
Great advice. So ladies and gentlemen, you've got the advice. Now go out and do it. Find that person and start that conversation because what you just heard is it takes time. So last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Marie Gervais 29:22
Well, I'll give the book my book published. It's I'm just about finished on the last chapter. So get it published and out in the world and have some speaking engagements around it so that people can learn from it.

Andrew Stotz 29:34
Fantastic. Well, we're going to be all cheering you on with that. So listeners there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you my listener, reduce risk and increase return in your life. To achieve this. I've created our community at my worst investment ever.com. I look forward to seeing you there. As we conclude Maria, I want to thank you again. for coming on the show, and on behalf of a Stotz 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? I'm sure I had lots of things inspirational. That was a laugh. I love that parting word. I think I think I'm just gonna say have a little fun with what you're doing. And I just see you laughing and smiling and that makes my day better. So ladies and gentlemen, take that advice. Have fun, enjoy, and laugh it up. 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 hose Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.