Surviving the Side Hustle

From Corporate Rigidity to Entrepreneurial Empowerment: JM's Journey of Passion, Coaching, and Purpose-Driven Success

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 84

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Discover the remarkable journey of JM, an accomplished entrepreneur who transitioned from the rigid confines of the corporate world to the liberating realms of entrepreneurship. Find out how his strengths in sales, leadership, and team-building powered him to build and sell three successful businesses. JM opens up about his personal transformation and how a book written for his sons, "Let's Go Win," unexpectedly unlocked a new passion for coaching and consulting, where he now thrives helping businesses and teams reach their full potential.

Gain insights into the art of self-development and group coaching, particularly tailored for those in the financial services sector. JM shares his experiences coaching individuals and businesses, emphasizing the pursuit of happiness, health, and wealth that extends beyond just financial gains. Learn the subtle yet powerful impact of upgrading habits, illustrated by a personal story of helping a friend manage diabetes, as JM prepares to launch a new group coaching program and a self-development project called Self, focused on strength, energy, love, and freedom.

Join us for a conversation about purposeful business growth and the significance of understanding one's motivations and "why" behind business ventures. Listen to JM's reflections on the pitfalls of chasing mere financial success, which can lead to burnout, and the importance of aligning business efforts with personal values. As JM shares his entrepreneurial journey, he offers valuable lessons on embracing failure and using it as a stepping stone towards success, all while expressing gratitude for learning from these experiences.

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Speaker 1:

What's up everybody and welcome back to another episode. I'm really excited to dive in today because we've got my buddy, JM, on, and JM is the founder and sold three businesses and is now helping leadership teams do the same. He's an author, leadership and performance coach, international speaker and the host of let's Go Win podcast, who has been building companies and leading sales teams for over 20 years. Dude, welcome and thank you for taking time to come on today and kind of share a little bit about your story secrets and a little bit more on yourself.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, brother. I appreciate you having me on, and it's always a blessing to be around great people, so I'm fired up and this will be a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

Cool. Well, let's kind of dive in and kick it off with a little bit about your story. How did you get into all this coaching and podcasting? Where did your whole journey kind of begin?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man. So when I got out of college, I actually didn't become an entrepreneur. I started in the corporate world for about three and a half years and I realized pretty quickly that I don't like people telling me where I need to be, at what time and how much money I can make. I realized that was not something that aligned with me. Not saying it's a bad thing, but for me personally, with as much as I enjoy freedom, that wasn't going to be my, my thing. So I ended up, uh, interviewing with the gentleman that ended up being a business partner of mine through three businesses in the financial service world. Now I will tell you, rob, I don't know anything about financial services. I mean, I I know enough to be dangerous. But what I realized real quickly and early on I'm good at three things. I'm good at three things. I'm good at sales, leadership and building teams. And so I did that for gosh, almost 20 years those three companies, and I never expected to leave that world because, honestly, I was kind of on easy street. We'd built something pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

But what happened is I wrote my first book for my wife and I have two sons, 18 and 15 now and it just sent me on this journey of what let's Go Win is today, because the gal I was working with said man, I didn't realize how selfish you were and I said what are you talking about? She said if you only share this book with two human beings, you're selfish. I said cool, and we did it. And now it just led to coaching and consulting with athletes, and then executives, and then, ultimately, where I'm at today, where I really partner with businesses to help them double or triple their revenue, doing some basic things. In my opinion, and it's just awesome, man, because I love watching people win. I mean, again, let's Go Win is the name of my company. I think it's a lot of fun when you can partner up with a company and let them fulfill their potential. And I get to do what I love, like I said sales leadership, building teams. That's kind of a quick story and, yeah, man, it's been a heck of a ride.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's cool. Basically, you kind of kicked things off when you wrote the book, so you wrote let's Go Win specifically just for your two boys, right, and then that kind of launched into so much more. And then that's where you kind of dove in with the coaching or were you already kind of coaching a little?

Speaker 2:

bit before that. Yeah, it's a good question. I coached all throughout the three companies. If you look back at, what I would do is I would build teams around the country and then my job was to make sure that they perform.

Speaker 2:

And so, really, what I do today is same thing. It's a performance coach. It's just, instead of being just one company, now I partner with companies, whether it's profit share or equity or revenue share. I partner with companies to say, hey, we may or may not be a great fit, what do you think? And so, but anyway, to answer your question, yeah, I never expected to do it. I planned on just, you know, growing companies or keeping the third one. Honestly, it was an amazing company, but when I did this, I figured, I figured out, wow, my purpose is a little bit bigger than just one company. So it's led me to what it is, and there's been several iterations, uh, but uh, it's a lot of fun. Every day I get to wake up and work with people to help them live their best lives, which is ultimately what let's go wins all about so it sounds like you were just just from being on the outside here.

Speaker 1:

It just kind of sounds like you were kind of go with the flow and just one thing would lead to another and things would start to kind of change and evolve and grow for you. Did you have like any sense of direction or clarity on how you wanted to go about it? Or were you just kind of like, hey, let me pick and choose, try this out, this happened to work, let me try this, and then this also happened to work. Or were there any like downsides or flops or anything along the way?

Speaker 2:

Oh brother, I fail all the time. So yeah, man, I have absolutely made decisions. So I'll give you an example One-on-one coaching I took on. My second client was a pro golfer and it was a friend said, hey, can you help this guy? He had missed like five or no 12 straight cuts. And I said, yeah, I think I can, you know, just for the mental side of things. And sure enough, we worked together. He makes four out of the next five cuts top 50 in the world next year Fantastic. Makes four out of the next five cuts Top 50 in the world next year Fantastic.

Speaker 2:

But what I realized really quickly is one-on-one coaching isn't exactly what I want to do, and it's not because he didn't do well or the client before I helped lose 80 pounds in six months. I just realized that I want to serve more than just one human being and I'm also not a big fan of trading my time for money, which is ultimately a lot of how the one-on-one coaching space works. So that was one of the first iterations was to say, all right, cool, I can charge people X amount per hour, but ultimately I'm not building equity and that just didn't seem to make sense with me. So that was the first iteration and since then I mean between podcasting, social media, I mean, my goodness, I've been, I've, I've tried about every idea there is, trying to feel out what let's go in is, and what I finally figured out is I love group coaching, I love working with companies to help them grow, and so I just I went back to what ultimately I was doing at my single companies and now I've applied it here.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I will tell you, I've made a ton of mistakes, I've spent a tremendous amount of money and I've loved every second of it because, ultimately, I don't believe in failure. I believe that the only reason you would fail is if you quit, and that's just one of the things that let's go wins, never going away. This is my legacy company. So, yeah, we've had several different iterations and some have lost a lot of money if that's your scorecard but all of them have been awesome, learning lessons and has helped the company grow to what it is today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that because I'm a strong believer in the same kind of mindset there where, as long as you can learn and take something away and continue to improve or at least try to do a little bit better next time around, I feel like you're not really losing, unless you do just kind of give up and end there. But I got to ask you so do you specifically work with, like is your best person, like ideal client? Is it a big company or is it like, because you don't, because you do you still do one-on-one coaching, correct? You're not just only group coaching and business coaching.

Speaker 2:

So I do pick and choose the one-on-one. So if somebody called me just one individual, I do have a couple of those clients. But to answer your question, my avatar quote unquote is really small to medium-sized businesses. So here's the example I do keynote speaking as well. I did one not long ago to Keurig, Dr Pepper, huge company. For me to be a consultant with that company it wouldn't make a ton of sense and the reason is it's just a bit big for the way.

Speaker 2:

I want to see something change and grow and to implement. So really, to answer your question directly, most of the companies I work with are $1 to $10 million and they're looking to take it to the $20, $30, $40, $50 million range and they're looking to take it to the 20, 30, 40, $50 million range, Because what we're going to do is implement some really basic, in my opinion, stuff that allows your business to be put on steroids. So but the other thing is, often people are like well, what's your niche? It's a hard question, because I work with dental companies, I work with just single practices. I work with dental companies. I work with just single practices. I work with staffing companies, I work with restaurants. So really it's pretty applicable to most businesses, but I would say if it's past I don't know 500 employees, it's probably not the best fit.

Speaker 1:

And when you are working with, like, a new client, new company comes on, what are some of the things that, like, you see, or what are some of the I guess, what are the major problems that you fix? What, like that? You see a lot of people that you're like yeah, that's me, I'm the, I'm the go-to guy that fixes this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I asked the same question to every company and 99.9% of the time the answer I get back is kind of a flop. And that is just tell me, hey, what are the cultural values of your company? And most of the time people will scramble around for a mission statement or something they wrote down put in a desk drawer. I'm like, let's get clear, who are you as a company? And I'll ask one executive and they'll give me an answer. I'll ask another, they'll give me a different one. And I'll ask one executive and they'll give me an answer. I'll ask another, they'll give me a different one. I'll ask a third, they'll do the same.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing that I do is I get companies really clear on who are they. What's the culture of values? How do you behave? What are we looking to accomplish? And it's called the one sheet, and that one sheet allows everybody in the company to get in the rowboat in the same direction. You know going for the same thing and it sounds so basic.

Speaker 2:

But, rob, we're not really taught to do this Literally. We start with an idea and maybe we write up some really awesome mission statement, because we heard we should do that and it's way too long and lengthy and then you forget about it because it's too long. And, by the way, I'm speaking by experience because my second company we had six core values and I forgot on stage speaking about these six core values, I could only recite four of them. Now I'm one of the executives that created this and what I realized afterwards is look, there's a law of diminishing return After three.

Speaker 2:

Our brains just can't really remember it. So I really just teach companies to get really clear on who they are, and it's going to be the three core values. Well, that helps us attract the right talent, the right talent. Now we can create what we're trying to accomplish and it just makes everything so easy. And unfortunately, most people aren't taught to do those things, or if they were taught, they didn't actually execute on it. So it's a pretty simple thing that I go in and it helps get the. Once we execute on it, the results take off pretty quickly.

Speaker 1:

Nice. Well, I got to ask you what are your three personal core values then?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my personal core values, or my company's core values.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you personally. No, you personally.

Speaker 2:

Courage, fun and love are my three core values. It's actually my family's core values. My company is happy, healthy, wealthy and what I realized, rob? So after 20 years of coaching, I realized really quickly that people really want three things in life. That's what I figured out. They want to be happy, they want to be healthy and they want to be wealthy. Now, when I say wealth, people are like, oh, they want to be rich and I said, maybe, but it's not really even a financial thing. They want to be wealthy in their spiritual life, they want to be wealthy in their relationships, and so everything that I do specifically for the company is around those tenants. Now, it also helped me write the third book, because here's the other thing I realized in coaching People hate change. Man, when I go to start a coaching, you start trying to change somebody. Well, people resist the heck out of that. But here's the thing they love to do. We all love to upgrade and literally that was the precipice of me writing the third book to say, okay, it doesn't have to be this hard, you can upgrade whatever you're looking to do.

Speaker 2:

My best friend we just recently helped him because he was diagnosed diabetes and I was like hey T, I love this guy. He's been my best friend for over 40 years. I'm like look man, you don't have to take the diabetes medication, he goes well. No, the doctor just prescribed them. I said 100%, but just so we're clear, it's a choice. If you choose to upgrade a couple habits ie eating, working out a little bit we can kick that. And so we're in a 90-day challenge right now. 45 days in, he went from a 10.2 A1C reading to 7.1 in 45 days. In 45 more days he will, in my opinion, be at 5.6 or less A1C reading. All because we upgraded the way he ate. We didn't change anything, man. We just made some slight upgrades.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. That's a great way to look at it is upgrading the small little things there. That's really powerful. And yeah, when you were talking about how people like hate change, it made me think of one of my good friends. He just got promoted to a new position, so he has to work in a different hospital now and he was talking to me how he's like, yeah, I'm coming in and now I'm like walking on eggshells because I don't want everybody to hate me, because I'm basically here to tell everybody that they stink at their job. So he's actually taken on way more work than he needs to, instead of helping delegate and kind of help improve and upgrade everybody else's kind of systems that they've got going on. So that just that ran through my head there. So tell me. So what are you kind of working on as because at the time of recording, we're beginning of december and, uh, new year coming around what are you kind of amped up and excited for?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so well, let me ask you first, before I answer this when does this recording actually go out?

Speaker 1:

this recording will be going out right at the beginning of january perfect so.

Speaker 2:

So my non-compete ends literally de December 31st in the financial service world and that's why I asked that question. As of January 1, I'll be opening up a group coaching, really for people in the financial service world, because I realized how much A I kind of miss it because the scorecard's so easy in financial services, it's like sales money and it's just such an easy thing, and yet I haven't had a chance to help influence people in that space. So we're going to be opening that up and then shortly thereafter, about three months into the year, my wife and I are working on a project called Self. And this is going to be awesome, dude, because my company's called let's Go Win, and I always get the question well, what is winning?

Speaker 2:

And I started to question my own definition of what winning was. So I started just doing a ton of research. When you put in winning, what is it? And you'll find one word that shows up again and again and again, and it's self-development, self-love, self-care, self-belief. This word self shows up in winning over and over again and I was like, okay, that's cool, but what does self mean? And so I've gone down this rabbit hole of what self really means, which is strength, energy, love and freedom. And so I've developed this. It's 12 different areas for each S-E-L-F and focus on the emotional, the mental and the physical side. And, brother, I'm telling you it is, I'm so excited, I can't wait to launch that. So my wife continues to hold me back. She's like can we focus on one thing at a time? And I'm like, yeah, but that one's going to be pretty awesome.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. I'm a huge fan of acronyms, so I love the self. That's really cool. That's pretty awesome stuff. I want to bring it back to uh, a little bit on, like the on the group coaching. Can you share a little bit about what it's like going through your group coaching? Is it a lot of? Is it all in person Do you do like? Is it like zoom kind of calls, and what does that kind of look like, the structure? Because I feel like there's a lot of different ways of going about it. I've been in a bunch of different programs myself that teach different things and I'm just curious to see how you kind of deliver your coaching.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So right now the majority of what I do is a weekly Zoom or some form of a room to be in, and here's the misnomer that I think most people they think when you get into some coaching that it's just the guru is going to sit up there and chat at them for an hour and I just that's not my style at all, because here's the thing I find that the people that are in that call they provide as much, if not far more, value than I can in their experience, what they're going through. So, to answer your question, it really is looking. It's about four. To answer your question, it really is looking. It's about four calls. It depends on the group, but let's just say it's a group of financial professionals.

Speaker 2:

You're looking at a call every single week and we're going to be focused on really various topics, but there will be sales, leadership, building teams and then we'll talk about self-care, self-love, the whole self idea so that they can show up as the best version of them. And it's really a format of about an hour call where we talk about the wins that they had for the week, we talk about the biggest challenges they have, the biggest opportunities they have, and then we hold one another accountable. I've found that to be the most effective way to get people coaching a bunch of people to actually go and execute, because the one thing I don't want to do is charge somebody any amount of money and then not more than 10X whatever I'm charging them. So if you're paying a thousand bucks a month for my group coaching, you should be yielding at least $10,000 plus if you're a sales guy from these lessons, and so that's really the setup that we have, and the results that we have are usually greater than that, but that's really my gauge.

Speaker 1:

And when you're talking about like group coaching, do you have like the whole like if you have one company, is it like a bunch of executives from the company, or do you have different companies kind of together to kind of cross? I guess learn from each other and lean into each other and stuff like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've done both. So right now I have multiple companies that come together and I break it into specific groups, like the CEOs will be together, then the CFOs and then the CMOs would be together and really helping them, talking about whatever challenges they have. I also have specific companies where, let's say, we're doing a sales training. Well, it wouldn't make sense for me to do a sales training with their engineers, so I'm really working with their sales group on that particular thing. Or if I am working with the engineers, then typically we're talking about how to show up as the best leader possible for them, or perhaps communication, some of the basic stuff that maybe they didn't learn along the way. So it does vary per company and it varies per group coaching that I'm doing.

Speaker 2:

But, to answer your question, I do a little bit of both. But what I really, you know, what I really love, is when you get to partner with a company and you get to. I was just doing this for a client and he's up over 160% just money in his pocket month over month. So David's putting over $100,000 more in his pocket every single month, year over year, since we've worked together. And I just look at that and I'm like you know what? We didn't do anything radical, we just slightly upgraded a few things for him.

Speaker 1:

Awesome Dude. That's pretty inspiring. I love to hear that it's cool for David too. I bet he's really enjoying that.

Speaker 2:

I think he's doing all right yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I want to shift it over now to bring the focus on to you specifically. So what are some things, or what are some things that you do to kind of show up, or what are some areas that you've recently upgraded or currently are working on upgrading for yourself?

Speaker 2:

what are some areas that you've recently upgraded or currently are working on upgrading for yourself? Yeah, it's a good question because I don't know if it's you and I talking on my podcast, but we're talking about a morning routine and being owned by that, and that's one thing that my morning routine became so substantial where I was like, dude, it's two and a half hours, like that's taken a lot of freaking time. So I'm actually upgrading that a bit by scaling some of that back and taking bits of that and planting it in the afternoon and then even into the evening. So for me to show up as the best version of me, here's what I know. I know that I need to take care of my mind, my body and my soul every single day before I show up on Rob's podcast or I check an email or I check on the kids. So that's my base of what I need to do Now. Do I do breath work? Yes, do I do meditation? Yes, do I do my yoga? Yeah, I do all those things.

Speaker 2:

But it was all condensed and so I was having to wake up at like 5 or 4.30 to get this done and I finally said this is kind of crazy that I can't show up as the best version of me if I don't get this full two and a half hours done. I said that's not practical Because when I'm on the road let's say I flew overseas I'm not going to get the sleep I need and maybe I don't have all the stuff that I need. And I said this is owning me. So I don't know if that was you and I that talked about this, but that has been my upgrade recently to say you know what I love the morning routine I do. But we need to give ourselves a little bit of grace and we need to cut it down because it's not coachable to anyone else and, frankly, it's impinging a bit on my family time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what are you trying to cut it down to or where have you cut it down to currently?

Speaker 2:

Such a good question, man, because I space it out through the day. So, for instance, this morning I got up and I knocked out my brain games, then I did my meditation and then I did a little bit of reading. So that's the mind, body, soul, cool. Then I go walk the dog, wake up my son and then I start working on more substantial, like now I'll do the cold plunge and my workout, and so I kind of break it up a little bit. So, for instance, I do Qigong every single day. Okay, but adding it to my yoga, it was adding more time. So in the afternoon I decided to just do a couple of things at Qigong to get the energy going. So I don't really have it structured as much as I did before and I think that's kind of by design to say, look, I want to check in everything. So I feel good and then be OK with the fact that you didn't do all these things that you built up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like that, yeah, I like that. And I got to ask you too now, because the whole extra things you got coming out with self and things like that, when are you planning to launch that? Is that going to be like pretty much as soon as the new year hits, or are you still kind of in the development stages of some of that stuff?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I think, based with my marketing firm I'll have to check, but I'm guessing it'll be mid-January with the financial service Self, I'm guessing will be about three months after that. That's kind of what I'm committed to with my wife. So if I were to guess, by February 1st the financial service coaching group coaching will be happening, service coaching group coaching will be happening, and then what would that be? March, april, by may 1st, then self and it's.

Speaker 2:

I'm so excited about this self thing because I'm noticing it. For me, all these things that maybe you and I do, that we think is normal, like I mentioned, cold plunge or grounding or um you or journaling these are things that if you're really into self-development or biohacking, you might be doing this. But often when I bring this out to groups of people that have never gone down that rabbit hole, they're like oh my God, that was life-changing. I cannot wait to where there's 100, 500, whatever the thing is of people and we're talking about the wins they have, talking about their experiences, talking about people losing that weight or getting off their diabetes medication. I can't wait, rob. I feel to the core of my being this will be some of the most proud work that I've ever done. So I want to go on it now. But my wife's like look and which I'm glad you know she does hold me back sometimes to say, look, it will come. I know you're excited, but just keep working on it, developing it in the meantime.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's awesome. Glad she's there to help instill a little bit of patience for you so so you can let things evolve and grow.

Speaker 2:

Need it. Man, I am like any other entrepreneur. There's a shiny object I'm like yes, yes, and oftentimes it leads to kind of poor results.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so how do people stay in touch with you and kind of track and see when everything kind of gets ready and available? Like how do they touch base with you if they're looking? Are you actually taking on new clients at this moment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So with the clients, with companies, I actually have one space left in the fourth quarter. I know we're almost at the end, but I committed to one more. Companies that are like yeah, man, I want to double or triple my revenue. Cool, let me know, hit me up, let'sgowincom. You can hit me up at JM at Let'sGoWincom, and I'm not saying I'm going to be the best fit or that you'll be the best fit, but we can have a conversation and if you go to the website Let'sGoWincom, you can book a free I think they call it a clarity call or a breakthrough call and really it's just to see hey, are we a good fit for one another? And if we are, let's go win. Man, I love the idea of us winning together. That's why I created the whole thing.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Yeah, I love that and I want to be curious over time. So I got to ask you before I let you go here, if you were to distill everything down from all your coaching and all your experiences and you've got this young guy who's got an idea for a business or maybe just some kind of side hustle or something. He's looking to hit the ground running. What would be your advice to him?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. To him or her I would say look, let's get clear on. Why are you doing this? What is your intention? Why is this important? And I think so often people are like, well, I want to make money and I can see this is a big money idea that will wear off, I promise you, because I've done that my second company 100%. This was a big money play and even crushing it financially. It was a freaking nightmare Six years of literally hell. I hated going to work, which I never thought I'd say. So what I would say to them is be clear on why you're doing it, what's your intention? And when you can answer that, now let's proceed forward. Now let's get up every single day and you'll have that.

Speaker 2:

Why that driver? And I think if more people would stop and do that, less businesses would fail. I see, you know, we're in the world of social media, brother, where you see people going on all the time. You can make a fast dollar doing this, blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, cool. A, I don't really believe you for the most part because there are certain basic fundamentals. And B, why do you want to do it? Because I know some people are like yes, money, I promise you, money is important. I'm a fan of it, but that's not the sole reason.

Speaker 1:

Cool, dude. I love it and I appreciate you shining that light on there too, because there's oftentimes where I'm getting unclear on what I'm doing. I got different projects that I'm trying to launch and bring out and I'm like is this really worth me kind of diving into. So I appreciate hearing that as a good reminder and I appreciate you for taking the time and hopping on today sharing some of your story, some of the things you got coming up next year. I'm excited to hear about it. I'll be continuing to follow along and checking things out as it comes along. But again, dude, thank you so much for coming on and I really, really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Brother, it's truly my pleasure. Great job on the show. You're doing amazing things and if I can support you or your show in any way, just let me know.