Ep584: Jerome Myers – What Value Do You Bring to the Table?

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 risks. But to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And that mission has led me to create the Become a Better Investor Community. In the community, you get access to our global asset allocation strategies and stock portfolios, our investment research weekly live sessions and the risk reduction lessons I've learned for more than 500 guests go to MyWorstInvestmentEver.com right now to claim your exclusive podcast listener lifetime discount. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from A. Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest, Jerome Myers. Jerome, are you ready to join the mission?

Jerome Myers
Absolutely, let's do it.

Andrew Stotz
Andrew, let me introduce you to the audience. Jerome Myers left corporate America because he realized that although he had had many accomplishments, he had not gained significance because he was not leading a centered life. Now, as a leadership coach, he uses his personal journey and unique training method to guide other Apex performers in leadership positions to face their toughest personal and professional challenges. Head on drone, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you bring to this wonderful world.

Jerome Myers 01:33
Oh, man, that's a tough question. I guess it all depends on who you talk to. For the kids, I help them adventure and explore for my partner, I think it's security and safety. But I guess for the world, it's just really furthering this message and creating an awakening around this concept of your dreams being real. I think a lot of folks out there have had that beaten out of them, maybe they haven't heard that since they were small. And I just love to remind people of those things of old and try to inspire them to take steps towards it. Because I think we get one life to live. And if we don't do what we were placed here to do in that life, then I think we hinder other people from doing what they're supposed to do. So my goal is to get people to take that first step toward making that dream a reality. And then hopefully, they get some support along the way, and said it much more eloquently by my mom, if you sit in the lane, the hand attorney lane with your hazard lights on, nobody's going to get up and help you. But if you get out and you start pushing your car, inevitably, somebody will pull over and help you push it. And I think that's just the way that things get done.

Andrew Stotz 02:54
Mom wisdom, Mom wisdom when someone sees you know that you're making an effort, it's just so valuable. So that's great. And let's just talk about this for a second, you know, when we're young people ask us, you know, what do you want to be, I want to be an astronaut, I want to be a data, I don't want to I want to ride, I want to be a cowboy, I want to be whatever. And then when we get older, it's like that all starts getting beaten out of us. For whatever reason, sometimes life tells us, you ain't gonna be that I remember a story of one of my best friends when we were young. And we were both like, I'm going to be a CEO of a company. And about 15 years after graduating from high school, he called me and he said, You know, I just realized something today, I'm not going to be a CEO of a company. And I'm okay with that. And so how do we like when we start off, we have big, big dreams, then kind of the world starts to bring in some realities. And then we start giving up on like, all have our dreams a lot of people do. Why is it that we give up? What is it that you know, that that's causing us I don't know, in society and our families in the way we feel about ourselves to start giving up on those dreams?

Jerome Myers 04:08
Yeah, I think there are a couple of different models for how we get results that people use. And the one that I've seen most common is just three parts, our beliefs and our actions, our actions create our results. And the way that we think about it, is there's a step that's missing. And it's the programming the programming informs the beliefs, the beliefs and forms, the actions, the actions are formed the thought, or the results. And that's a cycle. And so what happens is, we try something, and we might not get the outcome that we desire. And then somebody who loves us and wants to protect says, A, maybe you shouldn't try to be so ambitious, maybe you shouldn't and try things that are so outlandish. Why don't you do this because you have a higher likelihood of Success? And we like oh, well, that hurt, this person loves me. So they wouldn't give me guidance that will hold me back. Their guidance is simply to protect me. And then you got this thing in your brainstem, the amygdala, that is hardwired to protect you from any discomfort and keep you safe. And that is the exact opposite direction of us being able to go out there and achieve and accomplish our dreams, right? Because that's about the expansion that's about growth. And all of the things that we just described from the environment with the person outside saying, Hey, be more practical. And then the programming of the 2000-year-old brain, hey, A, that's dangerous. But last time I checked, there aren't any saber-toothed Tigers have T rex is out there. So I'm not sure that what our fear centers and what I call a prison or a matrix is a place that we should live. I think we live in a pretty safe environment.

Andrew Stotz 06:09
Yeah, I know you often refer to the matrix, and you call it the matrix of meritocracy, and lack of fulfillment. And I can imagine a lot of people are trapped in there. I want to tell another story that you made me think of which is, I have a friend of mine. He's a genius. I mean, literally, top in the world. And his skills without revealing too much information. His skills put him in the top point zero 1%. In the area that he's in. He should be a multi-multimillionaire. And I've known him he works his butt off to and dromey has no money. After decades, and his wife has always kids always struggling. And one time I said, let's sit down and talk about this. And we went we had a two-hour conversation, I asked him a lot of questions. And what it turned out was that he told me about how his mother always said to him, you know, your skills are a gift from God, you shouldn't make money from people who make money from the skills and people who make money. They're rich people, and they don't care. And they're, they're not good people. And it just reminded me of the word you use programming. And the fact is, no matter how hard he works, until he deals with that program, he is never going to be able to hold on to attract and accumulate any money. Is that what you mean by programming?

Jerome Myers 07:36
Without question, and so as you're telling this story, I was just like, there's no way that this ends well for him, unless he has an awakening. Right? He hears somebody on a journey that says that if you have amazing gifts, you have a top 1% gift, then it will make room for you. And you can and should be rewarded for that. Right? There are so many people I know who do work that they're not passionate about just because it pays well. If then they say, Oh, well, I got to go to handcuffs. So I can't go do this thing that I'm really supposed to be doing. Really using my gifts. I think they're getting rolled asleep. And I think they're doing the world a disservice.

Andrew Stotz 08:23
Yeah, I think that's the key message that you've got, which is that you got to bring it out to the world. You're hurting other people if you're holding it back. It's great. I was when I was a young kid, I got addicted to drugs and alcohol. And I went in a few different rehabs. I was actually in jail in Akron, Ohio. And I was in trouble. And I managed to get clean and sober at a young age. But as soon as I got clean and sober my mom said, Well, it's time to move out on your own. And I was 18. And it's like, oh, she said, and my mom and dad both said, you can come back for food but never, no, don't come back for money. And I remember living I lived in Kent, Ohio, and I lived in a tiny room. And I barely had enough money. I worked at a factory nearby. I wrote not actually that close by I wrote like a moped that I had an hour to the factory. I made $3.35 an hour, came back didn't do anything extravagant. I hung out with my sober friends and we had a lot of fun together. And I learned first that relationships and happiness is not directly related to money. I didn't I didn't learn it by being rich and unhappy. I learned it by being poor and being happy. I remember going down to the church sometimes and asking for cans of food. And I got food stamps for a while as I tried to survive. And then somehow I picked myself up and I went to California and then I slowly built up and then I wanted to kind of film find my dream in California and then I got interested in Asia and then I came in Thailand in 1992, to find my dream, why did I come here? I came here because I just thought this would be amazing to live here. And so I feel like I was, I was I broke free of the matrix to some extent. I had a corporate job at Pepsi, and I just broke free. And I just, and since then it's just gone up and up and up. So I love it. dream catchers, hosted by Jerome Meyers. Ladies and gentlemen, listen to the podcast, learn from Jerome and I want to learn more from you. Why don't we get into your story? It's time to tell the story of your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking of well be, tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Jerome Myers 10:47
I think I've got to do something that's pretty unconventional here. It's a little risky and edgy, but I think people get a kick out of this. And so most people would think about a deal that they did is their worst investment. And I've got enough of those that I could talk about. They think the worst investment that I've ever made, was when I exited corporate America, and I decided that I was going to go and do real estate full time. And what I found was, I didn't know what I was doing. And I didn't know that I didn't know what I was doing. So how did I come to the epiphany that I didn't know what I was doing? Well, I jumped on loop net, found a deal, a 23-unit apartment building, I put my business plan together, and I took it to the bank knocked on the door and I said, Hey, don't you want to give me a million dollars to buy this building? He said, Ah, why would we do that? I said, Well, I just got done building a $20 million division for Fortune 550 company. I got my MBA. And I took a group of two people 275 in about nine months. Surely I'm qualified. And I've got a great credit score and some money in the bank. He said, What else you got? So I'm a Project Management Professional. Anything else? licensed engineer? Yeah, what else you got? I don't What do you want? And they said, well, we want to know that you bought a deal with similar size and executed a similar business plan before I reached in my pocket, and I pulled out a piece of land because I didn't have that. So we went back and forth for a little bit. And they said, Yeah, you need a partner. And I was like, You guys are being ludicrous. What are you talking about? So I went and I said, I'm not going to be deterred, and went to the next break. Very similar shaped, and went to the next day. And then when I got to the 10th Bank, I realized that I didn't know what I was doing. So I went back to YouTube University. I went back to the podcast circuit, I started listening to stuff. And I realized, hey, this probably isn't going to happen for me. So I pivoted, found a fix and flip house to do. And then I found some more. And as I'm sitting on the stoop of one of them, it was a 1920s build. And I think my budget on that project was like $90,000, just for the rehab. The guy pulls up in his white Dodge Ram, and he says, Hey, I'd like to check out your finishes, and he goes through the house. And, man, you took out the wall, you put the gooseneck sink in the island, and ooh, look at the tile in the bathroom. That's really well done. He's getting ready to walk out and he says, Hey, do you know anything about a 23-unit apartment building? The one behind the jumbo Martin said, Yeah, that one's Yeah, I tried to buy that four or five months ago, but the banks told me I need a partner said, Hey, man, I, I'm gonna make an offer on that. Later today. I said, Please don't leave me out the deal. He said, What are you gonna bring to the table? I don't know. But banks told me that I needed a partner and there's no way you make an offer if you don't have any experience. Yeah, we own a few things. But we didn't bring to the table man said look, I don't know. Just don't leave me out of the deal. And so he looks at me one more time. He's getting read and little frustrated, said what do you bring to the table? Said, I don't know. But I know I want to do the deal. So please don't leave me out. So he shakes his head, turns around, walks out walks through the grass. I've seen his truck drives off. And I'm like, man, it's gonna happen. I got a partner now. And this was on a Wednesday. Thursday comes and goes nothing. I was like, Okay, today's the day Friday is the day I'm getting the call. We're under contract. Nothing. Weekend comes and goes. Tuesday rolls around. I'm like, Well, maybe I should call him and see what happens because I'm sure you wouldn't leave me out to deal. I realized that didn't have his phone number. I realized I didn't even know his name. And I'm like, oh, no, I get a sinking feeling because I feel like I blew my opportunity. Say, maybe he'll drive by one day, who knows what'll happen. Friday comes and goes of that week. Then I get a phone call on the following Tuesday from a guy who I used to lend money to. When I was in corporate America, he was a rehabber. He said, Hey, man, I got the opportunity. General Contractor on that project we talked about five or six months ago. Until the told them, I was only comfortable doing it. If you were involved in the project, though. It's like, oh, man, we're gonna we're meeting he's like, tomorrow at nine, give me the dress, I'll be there. And so here's the thing that I learned, once we got into that project. I realized there were gaps. In my knowledge, I realized there were things that I didn't know, because I went to YouTube University and I went through the podcast circuit, there was not a cohesive system that I was implementing into the business that I was beginning to build, or the project that I was executing, in, that literally costs hundreds of 1000s, and potentially over a million dollars, because of the mistakes that were made along the way. And so for anybody out there, who is trying to figure out how to get something done, pay a person who's already done it, who has a comprehensive system, in order to accelerate your process. Because the time I wasted listening to 40 hours of content a week, trying to make sure that I didn't miss something or didn't know, something that I was supposed to know, was a complete and utter waste. There was no efficiency in it. And I think so many of us think we're being cost efficient, or maybe even cost effective. By going out and collating all the information that's available on the Internet for free, this completely disparate, organize, and trying to put together a curriculum or something that we've never done in order to say that we're prepared to do something as risky as invest hundreds of 1000s or millions of dollars.

Andrew Stotz 17:32
So how would you summarize that lesson? How would you summarize the lessons,

Jerome Myers 17:38
pay somebody who's done what you've already done to help you do what you want to do? I think the other piece is always be able to articulate the value you bring to a deal or a organization, because if you can't do that, then you're asking them to do charity. And I don't know anybody who is in business, and truly in business that does charity. Yep, with their business.

Andrew Stotz 18:06
Yeah, exactly. Maybe with their profit. Let me summarize what I'm taking away, I wrote down some things, one of the things I wrote down was system, you know, the value. The other thing I wrote down is chaos, life goes to chaos, business goes to chaos, you know, like, half the value of a manager is just keeping it from going to chaos. A higher level of managing is, you know, implementing some sort of system. The other thing, you know, as you say, pay someone to teach you, or you could do it the other way around. When I was poor, and I didn't have any money. I had to have someone pay me to learn by being kind of an apprentice, and following along, and learning. So if you feel like you want to do this particular type of business, go work for someone go, you know, volunteer with someone and get that experience. Or if you got the cash flow, go ahead and pay and learn from someone who's done it before. But that experience like on the ground, it's interesting thing about the older I get, I have a young guy that I know in Thailand, he's super handsome Jerome. I mean, it looks nothing like me. And he is, you know, fashion model and TV star and all that. And I'm like, Make hay while the sun shines, because when you're 26, there are going to be 22-year-old coming up, that are going to be taken away your sunshine. And by the time you're 30 you're going to have nobody's gonna be calling you. But the older I get, the more experience I've accumulated, and therefore the more value I bring. And that brings me to the last thing and that is, what is your value? I teach a course called the valuation masterclass and we value companies, but I constantly talking to the students about what is your value? And ultimately, one of the key ways to generate value is to develop a skill. Whatever skill that is, it could be coding for someone, it could be graphic design, or whatever it is. Just build that skill, one skill and get really good at it. For me, it was Excel when I was younger. But the point is, build a skill, because then you've really got something to bring to the situation. So when I think about it, actually, when I think about what you bring to the table now, what you bring to the deal now, what a difference it is, you know, when you think about what we can bring to the table, anything else you'd add to that.

Jerome Myers 20:44
And there's a lot of places I could go. But the thought of valuation is, is really interesting, right? Because it's only what somebody's willing to pay, right? It's only as valuable as what you can convince somebody to pay for it. But I'd like to go specifically to the apprentice conversation. Because I know a lot of people say, Oh, I'll work for free. And the person who they're saying that he was like, So you're creating a job for me, because you don't know anything. And you want me to come in and teach you the stuff so that you can go off and do your own thing. So I want people to be really careful when they take that approach. Because there's a couple of things. One, when you're not paying for it is not for your benefit. In general, that person's looking, if they're a good business owner, they're looking for ways to make a profit off of the time that you're investing in the thing. And so your trade, you may help somebody create $100,000 in profit. And you'll be lucky if you get 10,000 of that 100,000. So just make sure when you're on the I'm working for you thing, that you're actually doing a great job one and then to understanding that you're losing the upside, which are really looking to gain when they come into a space. And yeah, so that's the only thing I would add that

Andrew Stotz 22:11
makes sense. So let me ask you, based on what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn, what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Jerome Myers 22:27
Be clear about what they want. Right? I think there's a, there's people who know what they want. Most people don't know why they want it. There's even a smaller group of people who know how to do it. Right? So if you know what you want, but you don't know why, or how, then you need to find the person who knows how. And there's a lot of people say they know how, like, it's always fun when I see the social media marketers or gurus are the people who are gonna help you build your social media following they don't even have 1000 people that are following what they're doing. How does that work?

Andrew Stotz 23:11
Pay a pro. So what is a resource of yours or any others that you'd recommend for our listeners,

Jerome Myers 23:19
then I've got a really cool resource, I think people will get a lot out of it. Got a book, it's called your dream should be real and available on Amazon. And it would be amazing if I just sent people to the website and said, Go grab this free resource. But I think that going through that book, if you and it's probably 45 minutes, maybe an hour of it. If you don't find something in there that helps you on your journey. I'd be really surprised. And so yeah, I've been getting a lot of feedback on here recently, probably four or five comments in the past two days. So that's where my heart leads me to send your listeners. So your dream should be real on Amazon.

Andrew Stotz 24:07
Perfect. I'll put a link in the show notes. Last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Jerome Myers 24:14
Whoo. So we've made an adjustment in our coaching practice. And the goal is to add Well, we are adding coaches to come in and work with folks who aren't credit, quite aren't quite ready to invest at the level that it takes in order to spend time with me on a weekly basis and still get them to start making the progress that they want to make towards their worthy pursuit. And so we're expanding it and we're focusing on six areas where people have these blocks they need to overcome these challenges. They need to rewrite the program and I just think it's going to be a transformational world. You know, I had the silly goal of bringing people bring 100 People from work they're not passionate about. I think it's silly because it's so small. So I think this is going to give us the opportunity to really magnify our impact on

Andrew Stotz 25:21
beautiful, go big. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't joined the become a better investor community just go to my worst investment ever.com right now and to claim your lifetime discount exclusive for podcast listeners. As we conclude, Jerome, I want to thank you again for joining our mission. 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?

Jerome Myers 25:53
Your dream should be real.

Andrew Stotz 25:57
There it is. That's a wrap. On another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that today. We added one more person to Rome, to our mission to help 1 million people reduce this risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.