Ep594: Jem Bourouh – Know What You Want to Do and Who You’re Doing It For

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Quick take

BIO: Jem Bourouh is 24 years old and a serial entrepreneur from Germany. With his Google Ads agency Adcubator, Jem and his team have spent more than $318 million profitably.

STORY: Jem’s worst investment ever was enrolling for a Bachelor’s degree without thinking clearly about what he wanted to do with his life after university. This saw him try out many things that failed due to a lack of proper focus. He is yet to finish his degree.

LEARNING: Understand what you want to do and for who you’re doing it. Focus on the journey to get to the goal.

 

“Don’t pursue something you’re genuinely unhappy with just because you think it’s something you need, or you think society will like it.”

Jem Bourouh

 

Guest profile

Jem Bourouh is 24 years old and a serial entrepreneur from Germany. With his Google Ads agency Adcubator, Jem and his team have spent more than $318 million profitably. After being in the direct-to-consumer space for more than 4 years, he’s decided to bootstrap his own e-commerce brands and invest in and acquire other businesses such as marketing agencies and e-commerce brands.

Worst investment ever

Jem’s worst investment ever was enrolling for a Bachelor’s degree without thinking clearly about what he wanted to do with his life after university. This saw him try out a myriad of things that failed due to a lack of proper focus.

His dream was to be a millionaire; he just didn’t know how to become one. So while studying, he started doing different jobs and even tried to learn internet marketing. Jem started his first dropshipping venture and failed miserably after three months. After this, he changed universities and moved to a new city. Jem is still enrolled at this university and is yet to finish his degree.

Lessons learned

  • First, understand what you want to do and for who you’re doing it.
  • Always strive for greatness in life.

Andrew’s takeaways

  • Focus on the journey to get to the goal.
  • Follow one course until success.
  • Maybe it’s worth returning to that thing you’re very close to completing, but you put it aside for various valid reasons.

Actionable advice

If there’s something that you don’t enjoy and are genuinely unhappy with, then there is no point in pursuing that path just because you think it’s something you need or you think society will like it.

No.1 goal for the next 12 months

Jem’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to grow his company, eCom Incubator, and train more people.

Parting words

 

“Don’t stop; you’ve got this. Believe in yourself, and don’t ever quit. Just pursue what you want to do with intimacy, and you’ll make it. You’re gonna be happy no matter what.”

Jem Bourouh

 

Read full transcript

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 risk reduction lessons I've learned for more than 500 guests go to my worst investment ever.com Right now, to clean your spot fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from A. Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest, Jim burrow. Jim, are you ready to join the mission?

Jem Bourouh 00:52
I'm ready Andrew Stewart.

Andrew Stotz 00:53
All right. Well, let me introduce you to the audience. Jim is 24 years old and a serial entrepreneur from Germany. With his Google Ads agency activator, Jim and his team has spent more than $318 million profitably after being in the direct to consumer space for more than four years, he's decided not to not only bootstrap his own ecommerce brands, but also to invest in acquire other businesses, such as marketing agencies and E commerce brands. Jen, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you bring to this wonderful world.

Jem Bourouh 01:30
Yeah, thanks a lot for the introduction for having me. Essentially, what we do is bringing consumers and connecting them to the respective brands, of the of the brands that we're running the ads for, and just kind of helping bridging the gap between someone who is looking for something or just creating a push marketing response, you know, so really trying to help them out with their, with their marketing, and just provide value. We're also running an education company, we're essentially teaching people not only really how to make money, but more. So how to get started with marketing, marketing fundamentals, direct response, because I think with online courses, many, many times there's like the foundation missing, right? And if you don't have the proper foundations, and if they don't talk about stuff, like mindset, and educate them on what books might be helpful, and what is like a great resource to have, and all that kind of stuff, and really be like full stack. It's not really, it's not really spot on, right? And you want to be 100% Sure, on what you want to do and not like, not like some, I mean, at the end of the day, it's about 8020, right? But you want to go as in depth as you can just to get a very wide understanding of the entire space. So we're not only running ads for our own brands, we're not only running ads for other brands, we're also educating people and helping them and training them on how they can do it themselves.

Andrew Stotz 02:55
And what would you give? Let's think about maybe for my listeners out there who have, like me, maybe you have online courses or other products that they're trying to sell. My online course is the Valuation Masterclass Boot Camp, in particular, and I'm good at making content, I'm good at delivering value to my students. I've got lots of testimonials for that and all that. But man, marketing is so hard. And I just kind of an I've, I've kind of given up on Facebook, to some extent. And now, a lot of people have told me Look, you really got to double down with Google ads and that type of thing. But maybe what would be advice that you would give someone like myself? Who really knows nothing about that?

Jem Bourouh 03:44
Yeah, very good question. Let's say you first of all talk about the entire customer journey. So when you are selling, it really depends on the price point, first of all, right? If you're selling something low ticket for $17 $27 $37, that's fine. You want the entry to be as low as possible. So there is no friction for the customer to buy. They're like, Oh, that's $7, I might as well buy, you know, because it might be a cup of Starbucks, coffee, whatever. And then how you're going to be profitable. It depends on the scale, if you want to really scale high. You're just using the tripwire funnel as kind of like, well, a funnel to generate leads, while being breakeven and getting them into into a high ticket funnel and getting them to book calls, getting them to fill out a type form, depending on what the funnel structure is getting them to leave their email name phone number just so you can reach out, set an appointment. Hold them on the call, right? If we're talking about the high ticket side of things, it depends on the price point. I think it's very hard to send people to something where they have to pay $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 $5,000 immediately. So what you need to do, and this is what we do we have a A VSL. So a video sales letter, right with that, within that VSL, we're basically educating the people and nurturing the leads 20 minutes throughout. I have Instagram channels, we have YouTube channels, we're doing content. So we're running cold ads, not like conversion driven, but just like to get out there right on video views just so like we're increasing the amount of reach that we have in our profiles. So there's just more touch points, right. for that. It's not about monetizing. It's just about showing up every single time. So we have a VSL, 20 minutes. And then on that respective page, they can book a call for a strategy session, right? It's it's not really flipped framed as a sales call. But it's more like, Hey, if you need help, and if you do X amount of money, if you you know, because usually we'd like to start working with people who have generally some insights on ecommerce. But we're also taking people who are completely new to this entire space, right? And, and then what we do is we brief briefly ask a few questions in the calendar, where it's like, hey, like, How much money do you have to invest? How much? You know, how much time do you have? Because again, at the end of the day, it's always a trade off? Do you want to invest more time? Or do you want to invest more money? Because you can make it worth both? But you need to decipher one route, right? It's kind of like that way in business, like, do you want to learn the hard way? Or do you just want to rather take a short path and learn from the mistakes of someone else? What people are doing with your podcast right now more than 500 interviews, which is singing impressive, they book a call, they talk to your sales reps, or even you personally. And the main problem is why you cannot really have an order form for something that is 1000 $2,000. If you're not this huge public person, like Tony Robbins, or whoever it is, it's hard to sell an online course because no one knows you. And there's like, no trust at all, right? Because at some point, you're going to hit the cap from the audience that knows you. And then it's going to be like, Okay, well, this is somewhat the warm audience, the hot audience, but I really want to venture into the cold audience, right. So what I recommend, have some kind of lead form, some lead magnet that you can get, get emails, get SMS numbers, create a Facebook group doesn't need to be paid, just like for free value, get all these numbers, emails, send out emails, get them to schedule call, no need for a tripwire funnel. So the low ticket funnel to get leads just an additional thing that we do, you could also have a PDF or something a free guide that you just give out for free completely, and just completely over deliver and value. Because again, this is just creating more trust and everything.

Andrew Stotz 07:39
So what I'm hearing from you is, first of all, you can't trend, you know, you can't do cold traffic, it's not enough just to say, Oh, I put up a website and send everybody there, and they're gonna pay, you've got to do some nurturing. And some you got to show them that you've got value to offer. And so that means some sort of free content, then maybe some sort of low ticket item. And then once they've got to that point, maybe a one on one other types of meetings that could help them understand the value, they're getting it and then that reduces the risk. And then you can vote them into a student does that sound right?

Jem Bourouh 08:21
Sounds about right. Besides the part from the cold traffic, you can make it work with only cold traffic. But if you have an audience, if you have socials, if you have a podcast, if you have people who know you, it's always easier to start with a warm and hot traffic. I'm not saying you should never run cold ads we're running, we're running cold ads running like 90 95% of our budget on cold ads. Because the infospace retargeting makes sense, right, because they're in a different stage if it's for E commerce in regards of the tracking and everything since I was, since I was 14, last year, it's, it's a bit different on the E-commerce side of things, we're not retargeting, but I would focus on cold traffic, it's like a lot harder to master. Because here's what's important to, to, to know, it's like one thing mainly, you have three different spaces where people want to be successful, right? It's either money, it's, it's love, or it's fitness. And these three things are always evergreen, and if it's one of these sub niches, sub niches, you're always going to have a great info product. And then it's really about having a great ad, a video ad on Facebook, that is actually getting them to go on the website and they're actually qualified it doesn't matter if you're paying $5 per click if the click is higher quality than a 20 cent click and you know I'm not talking about oh, like you have double the conversion rate you can have like 100 Excellent the conversion rate if the video sales that are just really really good. And same with the with the video sales that are on your funnel, because how we started was just like with one ticket of one ticket one one height Good funnel with VSL getting them to book a call. And that said that made? I think in the second month we made 800. And sorry, $285,000. Interesting. Yeah. And we were just figuring it out, you know, one of

Andrew Stotz 10:15
the promises that I make in my course is that I can help you become a number one analyst, and I became a number one analyst from scratch, and then was voted number one, it took me a long time. So I've just written a little, a little PDF, saying, Here's eight steps I took to become a number one analyst from zero to number one. And I think maybe that's the type of thing that could be interesting for people that they come to the website and say, Yeah, who is this guy? And what's he talking about? Well, it's pretty, you know, here's my story. And here it is. And here's eight steps. So maybe that's some something to start with on the site.

Jem Bourouh 10:54
So definitely a good idea. I mean, if you haven't been, and have something that you want to give out, then you should do it. It will certainly. Well,

Andrew Stotz 11:03
I appreciate you know, learning about this area. Funny that, you know, I thought when I was in university, that marketing was just an easy subject. And it wasn't very difficult. I thought finance was really tough. But now as I've gotten older, I realized finance is kind of easy. We have a lot of formulas, you just understand the formulas and it all works. But when you think about marketing, you just think about there's so much more out there. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Jem Bourouh 11:43
Going to the fun party. Yes. Okay, here's the thing. Right now I'm 24 years old, I was born raised in Germany, and all my life in Germany, finished school when I was 18. And, you know, just like, just like everyone, so I went to a very, very high prestigious school, it wasn't a private school was a public school, but all of my classmates, you know, like, either their parents were doctors, or lawyers, or self employed consultants, headhunters. So, you know, like, everyone made some good money, there were kids like going back to school with the Lamborghini and everything. And like, you know, like, my parents weren't rich, like, we didn't really have anything. It wasn't like that I never had food or anything. I had food and clothes, and all that kind of stuff. So it's not like I lived on the worst conditions, but not like that I had spare money or anything, or savings, or that kind of stuff. So when I was 16, start to work, start to get a job, you know, just saving up on as much money as I could. And I was really anxious of actually moving away for university. Damn, then I need to get a transporter I need to get I need to get furniture, I need to buy it and you can build it and like, if you know, you're going to do it all alone in a city that you don't know anyone, because they're gonna move away. It's like, wow, like, how do I do this? Right? So 18 moved away in September, from Bremen to a city called MacBook, which is like, in Eastern Germany, one and a half hours from Berlin. got started there, I made good friends. And at that point of time, I was like, oh, yeah, I'll do my bachelor's, master's. And then I will go into a fortune 500 company. Maybe Silicon Valley, something like that, you know? So kind of like, what what you're thinking when you're studying business? economics it's like, yeah, it's like very classic. In the beginning, I wasn't even sure what to study Business Economists lawyer. This I was like, now, this is economics very safe, I want to do business and there is money in inside and you can you can pretty much developed in so many different directions, right. And there was a booklet in in school when everyone was graduating. One of the questions I still remember I don't have the booklet, unfortunately. But I need to I need to get it from one of my one of my, one of my friends. And it said, where do you see yourself in 10 years? And of course, like I give a super monetary and superficial answer. It was like, oh, yeah, I'll be a millionaire in 10 years. Because it was always like that. I knew that I'm gonna be there. But I didn't know like, how do I get there? Because like, the goal and the journey, it's like two different things, right? You have to love the journey. You have to you have to become the man who loves walking, and not only the destination, right? So started studying did this work different jobs again when I was in uni, and it was really in 2016 When I first started to watch YouTube videos on how How to make money online how to become financially free and like stocks and everything. It wasn't like an option, right stocks, it's not something that you're going to become rich if you have no money. Because stocks need a lot of money like it depends you can, of course, it's important to dollar cost average and to just be consistent and, you know, set like a fixed amount of money a fixed amount of someone just put it month on month a month because it's going to grow compound interest, all that kind of stuff. But it's like a few if you have nothing. What the hell are you supposed to investment, right? So start to work jobs. And so remember, in uni that there was one month that I had like, a bit less than five years on my bank account, I was asking a friend of mine for 20 years, just so I could get some food and everything. I was like, something needs to change, right? Because I can continue like that forever. And in that was like early, mid 2017. So even 2015 2016 I was always watching these YouTube videos, but I was just like, so focused on on shiny object syndrome, that I was super overloaded with all the information, right? I've never done, I've never done any of these technical things like buy a domain or register a WordPress account or this or that I was very good with a computer. Right? But like doing marketing stuff, it's an entirely different thing. So got started, went on Facebook, Facebook groups on on forums, Blackhat world YouTube videos and everything and just consumed as much content as I took as many free courses as I could I start to buy some courses on Udemy for $10. Because $10 And you know, if you're working and making some money, it's it's not like a course that's 2k Five catering because I didn't have the money at that point of time. So essentially started learning. Started my first dropshipping venture in December 2017 failed miserably for three months. But it was like, because I did with a friend of mine, he provided the credit card because I didn't have a credit card for Shopify, you needed a credit card, because back then you couldn't connect it with a PayPal account. So did that ran for three more months? So in March, he said, February or March, he said, Oh, I want to continue this. I was like, Yeah, don't worry, they'll just leave your card. I'll do it. But oh, I'll pay you back. Because it saved some money. And it was like 500 euros or something. And it didn't know what the hell it was doing was just like buying fake traffic. I didn't know anything about marketing. Literally. I was like so green the space that I was just like, believing anything when someone said something, right. And I was like, oh, yeah, I need to try this. Try this. I bought fake traffic about influencers shout outs. I didn't. I never really ran ads because I didn't have any understanding of how to how to do video editing video editing up to this day. It's something I cannot do. I have great employees that are super sick at it. But I can't do it. I have no idea how to work it. Not even like a simple tic tock. So up to this day, I'm enrolled in uni in 2018. I switched universities because I studied there two years. I was like, in 2018 Like something, something changed, because 2017 Super unsuccessful. After six months, I was like, okay, damn, this isn't making money, you need to get rid of the store. So I sold the store as a prebuilt store in a Facebook group. So it was like, Yeah, because we had traffic and everything. But it was bought traffic. And I was like, Oh yeah, it's a prebuilt store. And we didn't have the time to run it. And this that, like, boom, like at the end of the day, I sold it within two weeks in May like 215 prophets were in 39 years to be exact, I think return 36 as a damn. Like, this internet money thing really works. There has to be something about it. So really, really in 2018 it was that I decided to Okay, the game plan looks like this, I need to I need to get rid out of my current situation because I kind of feel stuck and and you know, everyone was progressing in their studies and I wasn't really progressing at all. Stogner passing the exams, I was passing the exams. It's not like I passed None. None of the exams passed some really good. But some I failed and this and that was like okay, well. Let me let me give it another shot. Let me switch universities, maybe let me switch to a different city. Let me get a new start because now I know how this entire study thing works. And I know what I need to do for this internet money to become an actual thing. So started to go to a different university moved again, got a transporter at that point of time, I had some more money. I wasn't making constant money. It was making me like two 3k a month. Right? And I didn't know anything about taxes. You know, doing all of these complicated things. later down the line, it gets important. But in the beginning I was so freaking scared of taxes and everything because it was like

19:59
oh Oh, if they catch you if they catch me what? Yeah, okay, what if they catch me like, of course, like, I

Jem Bourouh 20:03
haven't done anything wrong, like, the only thing that I haven't done is maybe register a business right from the get go. But like, no one is going to ask you anything. If you're just starting off, you know, of course, it would be the right way to do it, but I haven't done it that way, which is fine. Whatever I would, I would do it the same exact way up to this day. So moved to different cities started studying again at a different university, and started to take more courses start to do freelancing essentially built an agency and everything. And I don't want to go too deep on what I've done the past 456 years. But it's more so that up until this day, I'm still enrolled in this university that I switched to 2018. And I'm so close to having my Bachelor's done. But I don't have it. Because for the past two years, ever since COVID, I've just been traveling for six months in Sweden, 2020 live two months in Mexico, I live in the US. Living in Bali right now, I think for like five months now. Or like six months out of the year so far lived in Dubai. So for me right now, it's just like traveling, going all around the world making as many experiences as I can, making sure to actually enjoy my life and not be stuck in university in a classroom where we're marketing professors telling me something about marketing, but doesn't actually do marketing. So I'm like,

Andrew Stotz 21:26
so how far are you from? How far are you from completing? Like, if you were to devote yourself to it? How far away? Are you from it?

Jem Bourouh 21:35
I think it's not one even semester, I think it's like 25 credits. Right? Okay. 15 credits of that would be the bachelor thesis. Yep. And then like, one, two seminars or something like that.

Andrew Stotz 21:46
So you're very close.

Jem Bourouh 21:48
And we're close, that's a good finish it within three months,

Andrew Stotz 21:51
the important part of the story, because I know that there's listeners out there that are, you know, you know, getting through their education and asking a lot of questions to themselves, should I continue on this or whatever? So, so let's, let's say, let's ask the question now about like, what lessons have you learned from this?

Jem Bourouh 22:13
So from, first of all, what I've learned from uni, like, I've learned a few things, not the most crazy things, but like, I got really good at math. It sounds like I'm a because before in school, there was one year where I was studying a lot. So I was like, top of my class. And then like, the next year, the last year in school, I stopped studying. So I had a, I developed a really good understanding for math, statistics, and kind of like writing, you know, scientific research on how to conduct something, right. But if we're actually talking about the entire situation, why main takeaways are? First of all, in the beginning, I think it's important to know, what you actually want to do and who you're doing it for. If it's just for like status, if it's for social proof for your parents, that's complete. Bullshit. Why? Why would I do something that is satisfying my parents? Why would I do something for status? I don't care about all these things. Of course, like, if we look at social media, if we look at LinkedIn, if we look at Twitter, like, like, of course, like, I'm active on these platforms, you know what I'm posting. But I think social media for me is just like a well, basically, a platform to build my personal brand, right? Because I think it's not a secret that social media is fake. And I remember one time I was in the, I was in the mountains in Bali with a friend of mine. And I remember that we were essentially there in the mountains, showing a super nice hotel, spending the entire day there. And then at some point, there were like, influences from Jakarta. Just like taking videos and everything that a videographer, they took videos for three hours and like, fake stuff and redoing it. Like we watched him and we felt like how uncomfortable they were in their situation. And, you know, on the one hand, I'm like, okay, like, I shouldn't really judge that because it's maybe they're professionals, maybe their job, you know, but then on the other side, like, the super real part of me is like, What the hell are they doing? Like, why would they take videos for like, two, three hours? That's so freakin fake? Like, yeah, I get it. It's your job, but like, just damaging society, you know? Like, no one needs to see this. But if like, again, if we're talking about the main takeaway is it's more so like, Who are you doing it for and like, what are you doing it for? Are you doing To actually get a job learn something and consulting or like, I think it's important to double down on something and not to, you know, not have the balls, so to say, to kind of strive away from saying no to something in quitting, because, generally speaking, I think quitting is a bad thing. But if you focus on something bigger than that's totally fine, because it's, it's just like, where do you want to put your focus and energy on.

Andrew Stotz 25:28
So maybe I'll share a few takeaways. The first thing I want to mention is something that you said right at the beginning, you said, the goal, the journey to different things. And I think that's a very, you know, important thing for all of us to remember that, you know, it's the journey that we've got to focus on to get to the goal, easy to set a goal, but it's difficult to do a journey. I would also say that I, when I got out of high school, my parents said, time to go live on your own, and I didn't have any money. And I worked in a factory for minimum wage, and it was a tough time and I had to, I went to get food stamps for a short period of time, I also would go to the local church to get like canned goods and things like that to have food. And it was tough, but I was happy, I was happy at the time, I enjoyed my life, and I had a lot of good friendships. So I learned some good lessons from that. But I also didn't start university very well. And I quit the first time I went, and I went back, and then I just, I fumbled around for the beginning of it. But somehow something changed. I walked into a class professor said 200 People in this economics 101 class, half of you are going to be out, by the time we're done with this, and of the remaining 100, there's 10 of you, I'm gonna give A's and I thought, dammit, I'm going to be one of those 10. And that man, changed my life. He set a fire in me that I tried to light in other people to take on the challenges. In that case, it was education. So that just reminds me. And that brings me to a couple of things that I thought about. The first one is, I love what one of my prior guests John Lee Dumas always says is focus. Follow one course until success. So we get off track. And we may be on the wrong course, you know, obviously, you want to follow the right course. But focus is critical. And the other thing I thought about when you were talking about I said, Sometimes you've got to look at the close things that you've gotten in your life that you're very close on. They may not be the best thing, you know, like I really need to work on that. But man, just a small amount of effort will get this done. And so I think you remind me of, you know, what are the close things in all of our lives, where we are very close to completing it, we put it aside for very valid reasons. But maybe, maybe it's worth to go back and do that. And that those are some of the things that I thought about as you were talking anything you would add to that.

Jem Bourouh 28:09
I mean, first of all, I love the analogy that that you just told me in regards to what your professor said, because it was the same thing for us. You know, one guy and university was called, quote, unquote, let me look at what the exact translation of German he was called the X monthly Coolatta. So basically, the guy who's extra tricky leading people, right? Like, I think 70% of the people always feel this class and many people got kicked out because we fail exams for it depends on university to university, but generally speaking, you can fail three times, then you're out. But like, No, I think you summed it up perfectly well, I think, I think it's about focus. You know, if I wouldn't have gone to university, University wise, it was the worst investment ever on my time. But then again, like if I wouldn't have went to university, like, what else would I have done? Right? And I think it was just because I wasn't university because I saw all these other people at different universities and private universities landing these insane internships at what Goldman Sachs and everything, none of my university but like friends of mine, that it was like, like, do I need to step up my game? Yep. Right. Because like, I know, I would make it. But again, because I had that vision. And it's not about oh, I'm going to make a million dollars. It's not about oh, I'm going to become a millionaire. It's, again, like the journey that you have to be on to become the person that you want to become. Right. And I think it's a constant development that each one of us is making because, of course, like we're trying to be the best version of ourselves and, and, and always develop whether it is like eq iq, it doesn't matter because like, of course, you don't have To the most intelligent person in the room, but you should always strive to. I'm not saying you should be the most intelligent person in the room, because it's always better if you have more intelligent people, because you can learn something from them. But you should always strive for, for greatness in life and just strive for more. And

Andrew Stotz 30:18
so So let's imagine, let's go back in time and look at the point of time where you were going on track for the university, and then you decided, Okay, I'm going off track now. Let's go back to that time. And let me ask you this question based upon what you learned from this story and what you continue to learn. Let's imagine the young person right now at that point, what's one action that you'd recommend that they take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Jem Bourouh 30:47
Great question. So here's the thing, if I wouldn't have went to university, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have known what to do with my life, there was like, no plan B for the time being, right. Especially for for time commitment, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was like, well, if I'm going to drop out, everyone is going to judge me, this and that. But you know, like, so the only thing that I needed was really a way out, that I've gotten by working my ass off and just again, focusing and doubling down just continuing to learn. So I think the the message that I want to give here is, if there's something that you do not enjoy, if there's something that you do not see yourself, and if there's something you're genuinely unhappy with, then there is no point in pursuing that path. And going with it just because you think it's something you need, just because you think society will like it. Like from all of the companies that I've worked so far, no one has asked them, if I have a degree, no one cares. Because like, they don't care if I have a piece of paper or not, of course, like, I'm not saying it's going to hurt me. There would be, it would be a nice thing to have, of course, I'd love to have a master, I'd love to have a PhD, of course, right? But it's like, it's a trade off you have to make. So you have to decide, like, what do you want to do? Do you want to? And if especially if we're talking about this particular use case, like do you want to study? Do you want to get a job? Or do you want to do something bigger, something greater, which you can still do later along the line, like later down the line? But it's about like, do you want to commit three years of your life? Do you want to commit another two years of your life for a Master's, which is totally fine. I'm not, I'm not judging people at all for studying or have graduated or anything. It's, it's an amazing thing to do. And it just, in my opinion, it just shows how persistent people can be with something. Because it shows because it shows like, willingness to complete something sticking with something for three for like, after school for another three years, in two years, and then doing a PhD. Amazing, I couldn't do it. So I respect everyone who was doing it, quite honestly. But again, at the end of the day, you really have to know what you want to do in your life and figuring it out. And then the question is, can you make the decision right now? Or do you want to do? Do you want to make that decision at a later point in time, because I'm not saying, Okay, if you're unhappy, drop everything, quit, quit your job, quit quit school, whatever it is, I think the best scenario, and like, You're not gonna believe what I'm going to tell you, a friend of mine, he's from Jakarta. And he was watching these mindset videos of a friend of mine. I met him in Bali this year. And essentially, this 18 year old kid that grew up in Jakarta is the business partner of my roommate, very good friend of mine. So he quit school when he was 14. He dropped out. He's 18. He's made more than $11 million. Right now. He didn't have any access to payment processors, or whatsoever. He dropped out. He was 14, of course, like his parents were I think, or his parents or teachers or something. But like, this guy didn't care at all. Like, imagine dropping out of school when you're 14, like the the willingness it takes to make such a decision at that young age. Of course, like, you could argue that direct close and not thought through. But I mean, it worked out for him at the end. Right. So again,

Andrew Stotz 34:31
so what I'm sorry, let me ask you, so let's let's go to the last question, which is what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Jem Bourouh 34:40
Love it, love it, love it. I'm always thinking about like the five year vision but like so far I've been struggling to come up with something that I want to achieve within the next five years. So I don't have any I mean, I have monetary goals and all that kind of stuff. But I think the number one goal and the number one focus that I want to dedicate my time I'm so is the education company, you come incubator, because right now we're growing really, really fast. And we're trying to because of that story, it's kind of like a nice takeaway. I know how, how draining it can be to go to university and everything. And I know how much I learned there, or how much I didn't learn there. Right, especially in marketing classes. And so what we're kind of doing is trying to reform the entire education thing, especially when it comes to marketing, because there are amazing resources out there, right. But we don't want to just have another oldest how you make money online course. But it's supposed to be like, not not university level quality. But like, super, super high level, like, I think what we teach is better than what I have learned in university personally. Because I know they teach media buying and all that kind of stuff in Israel a lot, because Israel is like media, Vine capital of the world, like you have all these very, very smart people there. But like, this is what we're trying to accomplish, just like grow the grow the company help more people out, and making sure that more people can, you know, maybe make a decision like like I have

Andrew Stotz 36:15
got it. Well, listeners, there you have it, another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet joined the Become a Better Investor Community, just go to my worst investment ever.com to claim your spot. As we conclude, Jim, 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?

Jem Bourouh 36:48
Don't stop you got this. Believe in yourself and don't ever quit. Just pursue what you want to do with intimacy and you're gonna make it you're gonna be happy no matter what.

Andrew Stotz 36:58
Boom. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that. We added one more person, Jim, to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the upside.

 

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About the show & host, Andrew Stotz

Welcome to My Worst Investment Ever podcast hosted by Your Worst Podcast Host, Andrew Stotz, where you will hear stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win in investing you must take the risk, but to win big, you’ve got to reduce it.

Your Worst Podcast Host, Andrew Stotz, Ph.D., CFA, is also the CEO of A. Stotz Investment Research and A. Stotz Academy, which helps people create, grow, measure, and protect their wealth.

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