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Podcast

Building Bridges: How Jerome Myers Turned His WHY into a Career of Impact

Guest: Jerome Myers
WHY.os: Contribute – Make Sense – Trust

In this episode of the Beyond Your Why podcast, Dr. Gary Sanchez explores the WHY of Contribute through the experiences of Jerome Myers, a former award-winning engineer turned business strategist. Myers shares his journey from a young boy inspired by a garbage man’s work ethic to becoming a leader who strives to make a significant impact on the world. His story takes us from a fascination with engineering to a realization that his true passion lies in solving problems within businesses and making a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Myers discusses his corporate experiences, including leading a division from scratch to $20 million in revenue, and his transition into entrepreneurship, particularly in real estate. The episode delves into the importance of aligning one’s work with their core values, the challenges of navigating career transitions, and the fulfillment found in contributing to a greater cause.

  1. Finding One’s Why: The importance of discovering and living by one’s core motivations.
  2. Career Transition: Myers’ shift from engineering to entrepreneurship and real estate investment.
  3. Impact and Contribution: The drive to make a significant difference in the lives of others and the community.
  4. Leadership and Growth: Building and leading teams to achieve remarkable growth in the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds.
  5. Overcoming Challenges: Navigating the obstacles of career changes and the journey of self-discovery.

Tune into this episode to delve into Jerome Myers’ inspiring journey and discover how aligning your career with your ‘why’ can lead to meaningful success and fulfillment.

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02:20– Jerome Myers’ reaction to the Nine Whys
03:44 – Myers’ Why: Contributing to a Greater Cause
04:50 – Jerome Myers’ Background and Early Influences
07:58 – Transition from Engineering to Business Strategy
13:04 – Decoupling Time for Money: A Key Turning Point
15:44 – Leadership and Growth: From $0 to $20 Million
19:30 – The Human Side of Business: Challenges and Responsibilities
22:43 – Myers’ Post-Corporate Journey and Real Estate Ventures
25:54 – Introducing Jerome Myers’ Book: “Your Next”
30:35 – The Founder’s Exit Paradox and Finding Fulfillment
36:22 – Making an Impact Beyond Business Success
39:33 – The Importance of Knowing Your Why in Transitions

 


 

 

Jerome Myers’ Shift: From Engineering to Real Estate Success

 

Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming at your desk about a different life? Well, today, let’s dive into the story of Jerome Myers, a beacon for anyone considering a significant life pivot. His journey from being an award-winning engineer to a pioneering real estate entrepreneur isn’t just a tale of change; it’s a blueprint for daring to follow your passion.

 

Jerome Myers stands out because he dared to question the status quo. He’s the former engineer who looked beyond the accolades and the comfort of a steady paycheck to seek a path filled with purpose and impact. Faced with the realization that his true calling lay outside the confines of engineering, Jerome embarked on a quest for a more fulfilling career. His decision to enter the real estate industry was propelled by a desire to create lasting value in communities and to redefine success on his own terms.

 

In this Episode:

  • The importance of listening to your inner voice that yearns for more.
  • Effective strategies for transitioning between careers without losing your sense of direction.
  • How aiming to positively influence the lives of others can redefine your definition of achievement.
  • Jerome’s Story Unfolded

The Early Days

Jerome was where many find themselves: successful on paper but emotionally uninvested. His engineering career was marked by success after success, yet there was a void that professional achievements couldn’t fill. This sense of longing led him to question his career path, wondering if there was a way to blend success with satisfaction. Jerome’s realization that his passion lay not in the accolades but in the potential to enact real change was the first step towards a new horizon.

 

The Big Decision

Deciding to step away from a lucrative engineering career, Jerome ventured into the unpredictable world of real estate with little more than a vision and unyielding determination. This wasn’t merely a job switch; it was a fundamental shift in his life’s direction, akin to rewriting his personal and professional identity from scratch. Jerome’s story underscores the daunting nature of such a leap, but more importantly, it highlights the exhilarating sense of possibility that comes with pursuing what truly matters to you.

 

Making an Impact

In real estate, Jerome found his calling. His approach went beyond buying and selling; it was about crafting spaces that fostered community and connection. Through his ventures, he has demonstrated that profit and purpose can go hand in hand, inspiring others to consider how their work impacts the broader world. Jerome’s success in real estate is a testament to the idea that when you align your career with your values, the reward extends beyond financial gain to include personal fulfillment and societal contribution.

 

Why Jerome’s Story Matters

Jerome’s narrative is compelling because it touches on a universal truth: many of us crave work that feeds our soul as well as our bank account. It challenges the conventional wisdom that changing careers is too risky or that it’s too late to chase a dream. His journey is a powerful example of how redefining success on your own terms can lead to a more rewarding life, both professionally and personally.

 

Key Takeaways for a Fulfilling Career

Following your passion requires courage, especially when it means leaving behind the familiar.

Embracing change, though fraught with uncertainty, opens the door to unparalleled growth and satisfaction.

The true measure of success is found not in accolades and achievements, but in the impact you have on the world and the fulfillment you derive from your work.

Ready to Make Your Move?

Jerome Myers’ story is an invitation to reflect on what truly makes us happy and fulfilled. If his journey from the predictability of engineering to the dynamic world of real estate teaches us anything, it’s that the first step toward a more fulfilling career is believing in the possibility of change. Whether you’re contemplating a slight shift or a complete overhaul of your career, remember that the path to fulfillment is personal and fraught with challenges but infinitely rewarding.

 

Jerome Myers didn’t just change careers; he transformed his life by aligning his work with his deepest values. His story serves as a reminder that it’s never too late to pursue a path that brings joy and meaning into your life and the lives of those around you.

 

So, ask yourself: What change have you been dreaming of? More importantly, what’s stopping you from taking the first step toward that dream today? Remember, your journey to a more fulfilling career is just waiting to begin. Let Jerome Myers’ story be the nudge you need to take that leap.

Discover your WHY.os now for 50% off! Click here to purchase today or visit whyinstitute.com/why-os-discovery to learn more!

If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you are using. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you in the next episode.

 

About Jerome Myers

An award-winning engineer turned business strategist, Jerome uses his rich experience and innate understanding of human emotions to ensure that your journey from the corporate world to entrepreneurship is a fulfilling one.

 

At the helm of a division of a multibillion-dollar Fortune 550 company, Jerome created a thriving $20M operation with 175 dedicated team members. Now, he employs that expertise to advise leaders across diverse industries, from real estate to healthcare, guiding them to double their revenue, harmony in their work-life integration, and ramp up their charitable contributions.

 

His multifaceted experience also extends to the realm of real estate and academia. Jerome wears the hat of a general partner in a multifamily real estate portfolio and lends his strategic acumen to the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, driving entrepreneurial progress.

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Podcast

WHY Of Better Way With Robert Glazer: Why It Works And When It Doesn’t

BYW S4 21 | Better Way

No one starts as a successful entrepreneur, and the journey to the top isn’t always smooth. Here to share his experience is Robert Glazer, the founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners. Robert joins Dr. Gary Sanchez to share his career and business journey and how he grew his business by innovating the industry. Now, they are the largest agency globally in a specialized field called affiliate and partner marketing. The two also dissect Robert’s WHY of Better Way and how it paved the way for his success while also discussing when it works against his favor and how he mitigates it. Tune in for an interesting discussion and gain business insight and honest advice to help accelerate your journey.

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WHY of Better Way with Robert Glazer: Why It Works and When It Doesn’t

We are going to be talking about the why of better way. If this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator. You are constantly seeking better ways to do everything. You find yourself wanting to improve virtually anything by finding a way to make it better. You also desire to share your improvement with the world. You constantly ask yourself questions like, “What if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? How can we make this better?”

You contribute to the world with better processes and systems while operating under the motto, “I’m often pleased but never satisfied.” You are excellent at associating, which means that you are adept at taking ideas or systems from one industry or discipline and applying them to another, always with the ultimate goal of improving something.

I have got a great guest for you. You are going to love this. His name is Robert Glazer. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency, and the recipient of numerous industry and company culture awards, including Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards two years in a row.

He is the author of the inspirational newsletter Friday Forward. He is the number one Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international bestselling author of five books, Elevate, Friday Forward, How to Thrive in the Virtual Workplace, Moving to Outcomes, and Performance Partnerships. He is a sought-after speaker by companies and organizations around the world and is the host of The Elevate Podcast. Robert, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Gary.

I’m looking forward to this. This is going to be fun.

We are talking about the best why.

Let our audience get to know you a little bit. Where were you born? What were you like in high school? Take us back to that time frame.

I was born outside of Boston. I have a speech that I will give. When I gave that speech, I showed a lot of my report cards. My parents were moving out of the family house and brought them over. I went through them, and they were all on the scene. They were like, “He is capable but we can’t seem to motivate him.” I was very entrepreneurial in marketing or creative. None of that is typically rewarded in the normal education course. I was pretty bored and always told that I was underachieving. I know that has a direct impact on a lot of my why and other why.

It wasn’t until I’ve got to college that I’ve got through the standard core curriculum. I started realizing that I loved business and marketing. I liked learning. I was bored with everything that I was learning before. I was always tinkering with stuff. My mom would tell you. She would ask me to clean my room, and I would rearrange my entire room. I remember one time. I was 9 or 10 years old. I like playing electronics and thought, “I could take my battery-powered game. I could hook a plug up to it and run it.” That exploded in my hands when I did that.

Those were all the things outside the classroom. Those are maybe more now or maybe in a Montessori environment. Those were things more where it was like, “Color in the lines. Stop messing with that stuff and follow this stuff.” To this day, I ended up being diagnosed with ADD later on. I can’t pretend to be interested in something. It doesn’t work for me.

A student, B student or C student, what were you?

B student.

Off to college, did you have any idea what you wanted to do when you went to college?

I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because my dad was a lawyer. I liked the concept of it. I interned at a couple of law firms. I hated the experience and got exposed to the business. I was always running little business things. I remember I had this Now and Later. It was this candy that was super hot in our school. I was ten years old. I figured out how to take the train, buy and resell them for twice as much money. My grandmother found out about the operation. She was like, “You can shut it down or I will tell your mom.”

The things that I was doing that were entrepreneurial were negative in context. I realized that I loved business and marketing. My thinking outside of the box was like, “I’m not the guy you put in the box. I’m the guy you put to destroy the box.” It was interesting. I went abroad. I’ve got done with the core curriculum. I was getting Bs again. Once I started taking the classes I wanted, it didn’t matter how hard it was. I’ve got A’s in almost everything in my junior and senior years. My GPA was 3.0, and now that would be failing. Everyone is at 3.9. It was crazy for the first two years. It was at 3.9 in the second 2 years.

I’m not the guy you put in the box. I’m the guy that you put to destroy the box. Click To Tweet

What did you end up majoring in? Where did you go to college?

I went to Penn. Going abroad for me was a big transition point. I’m opening my mind and understanding that I love business and marketing. These are things that I can learn and get better at. This won’t be surprising to you. None of the majors I liked, so I applied to create my own major within the Individualized Major Department. It’s very on-brand. It was Business and Industrial Psychology. It allowed me to take the Business courses in Wharton with a lot of the Industrial Psychology people stuff. Running a professional organization now for over a decade has probably been the highest thing that I have used.

What was that moment when you realized it? I struggled with that myself. I went off to colleges in undeclared majors and kept that as long as I could. What was the moment that you knew, “Now, I know what I want to do?”

It was after I worked in a couple of those law firms. Honestly, I never like tests. I wasn’t good at the notion of having to study for the LSAT and more school. Also, I learn by experience. I learn more outside of the classroom. I thought about them like, “I don’t think I want to do that. I like this business, marketing, and people stuff.” That was the transition. I encourage everyone. We idolize some things like, “You should do them.” I worked in a law firm pretty terribly. One was okay. The other was terrible. I was like, “I don’t want to do this,” but it seemed fun from the outside.

I thought that was all negotiations and arguing with people. I was pretty good on my feet, and I didn’t even realize. My dad was a lawyer. He did Real Estate Law. He has never even seen a courtroom. Going abroad and being in another country, I was in Prague right after they were dealing with this restitution where they gave families back their businesses, and they didn’t know how to run them. We were doing some cool stuff like working with a brewery. I was like, “This stuff is fun. I love this.” You parachute into a situation. You don’t know what is going on. You’ve got to figure it out. That’s the stuff that makes people crazy but it’s the stuff that I like.

What was your first business? Did you start working for somebody?

I progressively worked for smaller and smaller firms until our firm was growing. The consulting firm I worked for abroad made me an offer, Arthur D Little. I went into strategy consulting for a couple of years. I worked at an incubator during the internet bubble and then a venture firm because I liked being around this company creation. I learned that early on. I liked these fast-growing companies. I was doing a lot of work for other people. I hadn’t figured out the angle I wanted to be around. Eventually, I worked for a startup. I came in outside the founding team.

I came in and made it better. I was like, “Why am I doing this for other people? I ended up finding myself in a very marginalized position helping founders make their businesses better.” I decided, “I would start a business and work with those businesses but I would own my business.” There are also bad cultures in a lot of these high-growth startups. I found a way to expose myself to that type of work but insulate myself from those cultures. That ended up being the better way culture aspect of it.

How do you feel about building something versus maintaining something?

I get bored in the maintenance mode. I’m not your maintenance person. I’m the guy who comes in. I even stepped down as the CEO of my own company because we were getting to a size. The way I explained it, I had a president who was my number two for almost a decade. When you are smaller, the R&D department is the company.

Now, the R&D department is a small piece. Keeping the trains on the track is a big piece, and that’s the CEO’s job now. I even realized, “I want to stay running the R&D department.” I moved into managing new products and services. I’m leading all of our M&A and the stuff that is new. As soon as it becomes monotonous, I’m not interested.

Tell us about your company.

BYW S4 21 | Better Way
Better Way: We are the largest agency globally in a field called specialized field called affiliate and partner marketing. We help some of the biggest brands in the world build digital marketing programs that are made out of partnerships rather than buying clicks and impressions.

Our company is Acceleration Partners. We are the largest agency globally in a specialized field called affiliate and partner marketing. We help some of the biggest brands in the world to build digital marketing programs that are made out of partnerships rather than buying clicks and impressions.

What got you into that? That’s a different angle that people don’t typically talk about. You don’t even hear about it that much unless you happen to be in that world.

It’s a win-win industry. It’s marketing. It’s a partnership, which I was drawn to. I fell into it a little bit by accident because I helped a company build its program that was incredibly successful. It grew to $300 million and sold. People went to all the other companies and called and said, “Can you come to help us do that?” I haven’t met anyone who started an agency intentionally yet. They solve a problem. They hire some people. When people ask them to do more, they hire some more, and then soon they are running an agency.

I do remember being at a conference in our industry and reading this. It was my epiphany moment. As I think about it, it’s a better way. There was a catalog of all these ads of people that could help you with your affiliate programs in it. They were the worst ads that I have ever seen. It looked like they were drawn in crayons. I was like, “If these are the people that are hiring to do marketing for them and their marketing is so terrible, we should be able to crush this.” That was my go-for-it moment because I was horrified at the quality of marketing from people who were being hired to do marketing.

It’s interesting the way you said that because that’s something I say all the time. I’m like, “If that person over there can do it like that, I can do it way better than that.”

In fact, what frustrates me the most is we were talking about a situation like this in the management team. When there’s a company in the right place at the right time, and they seem to do everything wrong, they are still doing well because something endemic to me wants to believe that you have to do it well and good to do well. We try to do everything well and improve. It’s harder to be an agency than it is to be a hot software company sometimes.

People come to you when they want to expand their reach using partnerships versus going out and buying a ton of media.

We use software to build partner programs so that you can have 1,000 partners talking about promoting your product digitally and putting in things. The difference is they get paid only on a performance basis. In some ways, it’s a better way to do marketing. Rather than paying for a click or an impression, you are paying for an outcome or a sale.

If I said to you, Gary, like, “You are trying to get good guests for your podcast. I have the best guest podcast site in the world. I will promote people and send them to you. As you accept them, will you pay me $100 per lead?” You go, “That’s great. That’s much better than the PR service I’m using because I pay them upfront, and I have no idea what I will get.”

If you are a business owner and you have spent any kind of money marketing, it’s an amazingly frustrating experience. You have no idea what you are going to get for the amount of money.

You hear all your friends who have built their business on social media, digital marketing or paid search. If you think there’s inflation in gas and your housing, the inflation in digital marketing and the prices has gotten to the point where it’s very hard to make money unless you are a large player with sophisticated tools.

It’s a massive auction, and the whole world is buying. Auctions don’t tend to benefit the buyers. They tend to benefit the sellers. I always say a little bit about what we do. It’s SEO versus paid search. You need to do the work, put it in, and build a moat. You reap longer-term rewards. It’s not as instantly gratifying but because of that, it tends to be much more sustainable.

It’s really hard to build a competitive, sustainable advantage. Click To Tweet

How were you able to build all these partnerships? You are starting your company fresh. Maybe you already had some connections, and then you put them together and said, “How about if I connect you with someone?”

There’s a known group of people in the industry. They are called professional affiliates. There are people who are known to do this. Part of our thing is building that Rolodex and how to figure out someone who we worked with the one-part program and why they would be good for another program that’s not competitive. There’s a known group of people in this place. We are like matchmakers. There are people looking to date on both sides. Half the group has content, and half the group has the stuff to sell. We are bringing them together.

Are you always adding new partners and products? How does that work?

I’m always adding new clients and partners. Growing our partner Rolodex is a key asset for our business.

To me, from another better-way guy, that sounds like so much fun. It’s connecting people, connecting things, and finding a better, “This would be better if you did it this way.”

The model is like, “Who has figured out Snapchat? Who has figured out mobile marketing? Who has figured out TikTok marketing? How do we go get them and bring them into partnership with a retail brand?” The essence is like sales. We’ve got to find who is new, interesting, and doing something fun.

You have also written five books.

I wrote it all over five years because I’m not good at not doing stuff.

What was the first book? Take us through the sequence of your books.

I had this note that I sent to my team called Friday Forward, that I started years ago. That ended up going outside of our company, reaching a couple of hundred thousand people across the world every week. This is an inspirational and thought-provoking note. I decided to turn that into a book or compilation of the 52 best Friday Forwards. I pitched that to a bunch of places, and they said, “We love your writing but no one buys compilations.” I ran into one agent who said, “I love your writing. These are amazing. No one buys compilations but you have a book here. What is the story of these stories?”

I went back and deconstructed, “What is the framework of this into this thing called? It’s capacity.” I spent a couple of years reworking that into, “Why did Friday Forward work? What had changed my life? What was the whole thing?” I came up with this framework of capacity building. That was the basis of my second book, Elevate, which has still been the most popular. The first book I wrote was called Performance Partnerships to try to explain to the world why our industry was a better way effectively and convince people they misunderstood affiliate marketing and what it could be. That was real like, “We are going to try to turn the industry our way.”

That book has become a default training book in organizations. It was the first book written on the industry, and then there was Elevate. After Elevate, it was a huge success. I ended up going back in writing and publishing that Friday Forward book. Once I had an audience, I held on to it. We were an all-remote firm for over a decade, and COVID hit. We had been doing this for a while, and people started asking us all kinds of questions. I was giving speeches. Every time I give the speech, I would take the questions they ask and tweak them.

BYW S4 21 | Better Way
Better Way: There are people on both sides and half the group has content and half the group has stuff to sell, and we’re just bringing them together.

I have always said like, “My purpose is to share ideas that help people and organizations grow.” I also hate the monotony, as we talked about. I was like, “Why don’t I turn this into a book so I can stop giving the same presentation over and over again and I can answer all the things?” With my publisher, 90 days later, we’ve got it down to an eBook. I doubled and released it as a full book six months later. That was the number-one New York Times, USA Today, and WSJ bestseller.

Which one was that?

That was How to Thrive in the Virtual Workplace.

You had one after that even.

That’s called Moving to Outcomes. That’s my second marketing book. It’s the sequel to Performance Partnerships five years later.

Tell us about Moving to Outcomes.

The first book was meant to explain the affiliate opportunity in the industry and what companies were missing. This is a little more of the shift that I was talking about. It’s about why people are holistically moving to partnerships and why the marketing is moving to direct marketing if you are not a brand. If you are spending marketing directly when you want to do it on an outcome basis, it’s not a click or impression basis. It’s all these reasons in digital marketing that companies need to think about what is next once the Facebook-Amazon gravy train runs its course a little more.

From where it was a few years ago to now, it’s a different animal.

It’s hard to build a competitive and sustainable advantage. You can spend a lot of money. You can get started but it’s hard, particularly as a little guy, to fight a war. You are fighting with BB guns while people have cannons, airplanes, and things that they can do to get better yield. If you think about a stock portfolio, I’m not going to get rich on Tesla, Apple, and Microsoft over the next decade. They are so big that they are not going to 10X. I need to find what is the next company. For a lot of these channels, they have reached the maturity where they are a bond now. They don’t sell your bonds but you are not going to get your huge growth off of your bond.

In this mastermind that I’m in, one of the guys spends the most money of anybody in the world on YouTube ads. It’s fascinating how often stuff changes for him, and he gets shut down.

I’m sure he could tell you it has gotten twice as expensive to buy the same thing.

Within your company, you have utilized the why with your team.

Every strength at 105 or 110 degrees is a weakness. Click To Tweet

I was exposed to this. It’s your framework through a facilitator. It was life-changing for me. I remember he was walking through the example at a conference. Jamie and I had very similar origin stories around this. It’s around how he is coaching a husband and a wife. They were going on their anniversary. She had planned every day of the trip out, and then he tried to figure out how to make every day better. It turns out I’m better way in my wife’s right way. We are the most combustible of the why from a marriage side.

It was game-changing for me and my business. I’m looking at it also for my wife, the family and me. We use the language. She will say like, “We are going to the thing tonight. Please don’t try to make this better.” When she and my son, who are both right-way and can’t pick to see if their life is pizza versus Chinese food on a Friday night, they go back to the store and come back with everything because they can’t decide or nothing. I will be like, “Make a decision. There’s no wrong choice here.”

It’s one of the things I have seen that’s interesting. I have a lot of right-way personalities in my life in the company. While that is potentially very combustible, the problem is they are the people you want to pull the plug to make a great decision but they can’t dumb down that decision-making apparatus to simple decisions. They are paralyzed by pizza or Chinese food but they would be the first person to know whether you should pull the plug or not pull the plug in a life-threatening situation.

That’s interesting what you are saying there because what I found in working with lots of companies is the missing piece for most of them is not having somebody with the right way on their team.

They frustrate the heck out of you but they will slow you down. Our team has a lot of makes-sense people, too. When you throw a big harebrained idea on them and don’t understand what it is, they get so frustrated. I know that we have something good when I’m able to make it clear enough where they are like, “That makes sense. We should do that.” In our leadership team, we joke about these archetypes. We see them all the time. They are the most powerful thing that I have seen in interpersonal communication.

I told you a guy on our team for years. His visceral reaction was like, “I don’t buy this whole thing because you can’t put in the archetype.” Everything he says, “Is it right or not fundamentally?” We have worn him down at this point. He admits it. Even admitting it for right people that you can put people in the archetypes for them, sometimes they don’t think that’s right.

Do you have anybody on your team with the why of challenge?

It’s not on my leadership team. They don’t tend to survive in the company for more than a couple of years. We had one. We are still friends with him. We talked about it. He would throw a grenade into things every six months. We have talked about this openly. It was funny. They can’t help themselves. We have another person now who is challenged. He is challenged and great. He was the one in the session who was like, “This whole thing is BS in this why thing.”

I found that to challenge people. A lot of them almost have to end up working for themselves because they will throw a grenade into a situation if they are hired on that thing. We have another one in sales. He is phenomenal but he does not like to follow the playbook or do what he is told. We learned like, “Telling me can’t do something. There’s no way you could sell in Eastern Europe.” He gets all over it. He works for the right way person. They have to figure that out a little bit.

It was interesting because you were speaking my language. You were saying the things that I say. You have noticed the things that not a lot of people notice but you did notice them. You articulated them in a way that I completely get. It’s neat to have somebody with your why to have a conversation with because you are speaking the same language.

The most powerful thing and why we teach this to our emerging leaders on the core values is interpersonal. More than any other tests, StrengthsFinder and Kolbe, this gets to the root tension between people and their understanding of that. My understanding of what a makes-sense needs, what a right way needs or what people need is the ultimate team thing.

We don’t use the language that someone is like, “That was a very deep thing to say.” What is fascinating with the makes-sense people is they say it all the time. They end sentences with, “That makes sense.” You hear it everywhere. I can tell you where people are going to struggle or do well interpersonally based on what their why is and where there are going to be natural conflicts.

You also hit on something a little bit ago that is what I have been saying about myself and about other people with the why of better way. We don’t necessarily make a good long-term CEO. We’ve got to get somebody else to replace us. We can build. This is what I have found, and maybe this will be even helpful for you. The best why that I know of for the CEO after it has been built is the why of contribute because they are now about everybody else and making everybody else better.

BYW S4 21 | Better Way
Better Way: The most important thing you can do early in your career is work for extraordinary leaders, go to companies with extraordinary training programs, focus on learning.

You were about, “How am I going to get this sucker to where I needed to be? Who do I get to put in place to make that happen?” If you can put somebody with the why of contribute in the CEO position, then it’s going to be phenomenal for them. They are going to love you. Your team is going to love it. Everybody is going to love it. I don’t know what the why is of the person.

He is a makes-sense. We are all very high. He probably contributes as our whats or hows. In our team, there’s a high level of contribution, trying to make people better and improve them. That’s endemic in our culture. I will tell you one of the things is self-prospection. I’m sure that I have had to learn as a better way is that every strength at 105 or 110 degrees is a weakness. I tend to exhaust myself, my team, and my family.

One of the things I have coached people on in their whys or other whys is, “If I want to improve everything in the company, I can frustrate people to the point where nothing gets improved.” I have had to learn to pick my spots of, “I’m going to make this thing better. I can’t make everything better or nothing will get better.” I do it to myself, and I know I exhaust my wife with it. At times, I’m doing family with it. It’s being aware of that. That, to me, is the biggest exhaustion.

Even we bought an investment place for a living, I’m constantly ordering extra batteries from Amazon, so we have them. I’m moving that picture on the wall, and people are like, “How come you can’t sit down and enjoy the play?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I was still stuffed this week.” I go on vacation, and I’m working half the time. It’s not work. It’s on moving stuff around or hanging this picture. It’s an optimization, both a blessing and a disease.

Here is an interesting question. Are you ever satisfied?

It’s probably not, which is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a hard time being present. I have always done these renovation projects. Once I had a new one, I never thought about the old one again. When looking at it, it’s almost like I need a new thing to turn my sights on to close off the old one. That’s the way I mentally detach myself. It’s not necessarily a healthy thing but it is what it is at this point.

Are you able to celebrate wins?

Our whole team is not good at that. We joke, “We are all Gen X leadership team by parents that were not effusive in praise like parents are now.” The pro side of that is we get over difficulties quickly. We don’t linger on it but we are not great at celebrating the upside. That is both my personality and very endemic. We talked about all the childhood upbringing of Gen X versus Gen Y and Z.

I wonder if that’s what it is because I feel the same way. Luckily, I have people on my team that point things out to me. Otherwise, I would be like, “We did this. Now, what is next?”

That is criticism, and we hear that. It’s both our team but also cultures that are changing. You are talking about generations that have grown up with an extreme amount of praise for, in some cases, mediocre effort. We have to be aware of that. It’s tough. We talk about it. We are a high-performance culture. People generally need more of that open praise but we also want to be careful. We probably shouldn’t hire people that want praise for mediocre effort because that doesn’t align with our culture like, “You tried hard.”

I went to my kid’s invention convention. I loved that when I was a kid, not surprisingly. Everyone got an honorable mention. People had theoretical projects that their parents did. I was like, “This is ridiculous. What the heck is this teaching?” I remember the guy who won my year. He figured out how to straw up his bike, and you could drink out of it. He won a prize. Now, everyone gets an honorable mention. Clearly, either the parents did the projects themselves, or it was a theoretical thing like, “This is a food shrinker, and I point a gun at it.” I’m like, “I don’t understand. This is supposed to be kids doing the work.”

What is next for you, Robert? Where are you headed next?

You can’t make everything better or nothing will get better. Click To Tweet

What we are talking about is I’m trying to self-identify and solve a problem. I have been 70/30 for a few years. I have been the CEO of the company. Also, I have a great team. I have been writing books and doing stuff outside the company. The issue is it has been 130% and not 70/30. I physically and mentally exhausted myself. It’s capped off by the global pandemic and doing a big deal with a private equity partner.

I realized I wanted to get down to 70/30. I will turn over the CEO role. I will continue doing the stuff that I love. I will continue writing the books but I’m not going to do it on the weekends. I’m not going to do it at night. I have got some golden years with my kids. Part of the restructure was to give me some space to think and be in the R&D department but also to practice being more present.

Initially, after the transition with new partners in the role, I tried to throw myself into new things, and then I realized like, “I can’t do this. I need to step back and recover physically and mentally from a ten-year marathon of never stopping.” A lot of that was some awareness of what I was likely to do. I’m not letting myself get into fundamentally any major new thing for a while. I’m very invested in my business. I’m continuing a different role but I’m not looking to start anything new or do anything majorly now.

I’m interested to see how that goes because that’s me as well 100%, “Let’s go.” I have not figured out or been able to not do that. I feel like I’m wasting time if I do that.

A twelve-hour day, I have nothing. I’m not bored at all. I’m learning how to do M&A for our business. I have joined some boards. I’m filling in with macro-things. I have recognized I have run myself a little too hard. I’m trying to do all of these things. I’m trying to run a company, write books and speak all this stuff. Dialing it down, it has been healthy.

I don’t think it’s a long-term solution but in some ways, it’s a little meta. I don’t want a second act now. My kids are all in high school and going to college. I want these years. If I don’t give myself some space, I will not figure out some cool things that I could do in 5 or 10 years. I need the space to figure out what that is for a few years but I’m not in any rush to do it now.

I’m going to be very interested in watching you.

You either learn something. You will say, “I told you that’s not going to work.”

It’s how we are wired.

Have you ever exhausted yourself?

For sure. I have exhausted people around me. It will be fun to watch. The last question for you, what is the best piece of advice you have ever been given or the best piece of advice you have ever given?

It’s a little bit of both. I would say this under the context of all the people shifting careers and thinking about something new otherwise. There are good and bad reasons to do that. I see a lot of people in their twenties chasing $500, $1,000 or $5,000 more irrespective of what that situation is or otherwise. The most important thing you can do early in your career is work for extraordinary leaders and go to companies with extraordinary training programs. Focus on learning. You are always underpaid in your twenties.

BYW S4 21 | Better Way
Better Way: You’re setting yourself up for what comes next by working for the right companies, the right leaders, and being in an incredible training program.

The difference to me of people who worked for great leaders, got great training, and focused on making themselves the best they could get, that $5,000 or $10,000 more that the other job offered you is irrelevant. When you turn 30, you start to be an expert in something. I would focus on the environments where you have the most learning and work for incredible leaders. Frankly, learn on someone else’s dime. Everyone is so eager in their twenties to get somewhere and get to the end. I was always underpaid in my twenties, no matter how good of the work that I was doing.

You are setting yourself up for what comes next by working for the right companies and the right leaders and being in an incredible training program. You probably know the amount of sales leaders I know who worked at Cutco. As a simple example, some of the best salespeople in the world went through this Cutco training when they were twenty. That’s what you want to do. That’s the best training and preparation that you could have.

I would add to that because there’s a common theme for many of the people I have had on the show who have done amazing things. When I pointed back to, “What was that turning moment,” a lot of them would say, “It’s when I’ve got into personal growth.”

For me, I joined a lot of people. It could be any of these organizations, whether EO or YPO. When I joined EO, I jumped into this exponential learning. It was like drugs. It was incredible. The only thing I would caution that I found myself going down this road is if you are married or in a partnership, be very careful going down that road without bringing your partner along with you.

That is why groups like EO and YPO have these spousal and partner things around trying to create that same experience. Sometimes you go to these conferences. You are going to this learning like, “In this why thing, my wife was with me there in Buenos Aires, Argentina.” These are the things that either happen together or they happen apart. I have seen it do amazing things for relationships and pull relationships apart.

If there are people that want to connect with you, follow you, see what you are up to, and maybe want to work with Acceleration Partners, what would be the best way for them to connect with you?

They can learn about Acceleration Partners. It’s easier to google it than to spell it, so just google Acceleration Partners. We are doing our job. We should come up with number one. In terms of me, I have everything under one place now, RobertGlazer.com. You can sign up for that free Friday Forward note. The books are listed there. I have got a course on helping to discover your personal core values, which goes well with the why stuff, and I have seen a lot of overlap. Speaking and other stuff is all on that page.

Thank you so much for being here. I was looking forward to this because we have got a lot of people in common that we know, and you have utilized the why so much. I’m going to follow you now because I want to see what happens with this little test you are doing.

You are checking the little wedding clock.

Thanks so much for being here.

Important links

About Robert Glazer

BYW S4 21 | Better WayRobert Glazer is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency and the recipient of numerous industry and company culture awards, including Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards two years in a row.

He is the author of the inspirational newsletter Friday Forward, and the #1 Wall Street Journal, USA Today and international bestselling author of five books: ElevateFriday Forward, How To Thrive In The Virtual Workplace, Moving To Outcomes and Performance Partnerships.  He is a sought-after speaker by companies and organizations around the world and is the host of The Elevate Podcast.

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Podcast

Finding A Better Way To Ignite Lives With JB Owen

BYW S4 13 | Ignite Lives

When you share your transformational story, you create impact and ignite lives. JB Owen, the founder and CEO at Ignite You, is passionate about working with people who have a higher mission and purpose. JB is a fearless female leader and a believer in the power of empowerment. Join in the conversation and witness how JB’s WHY played a huge impact in forming her to be a world-class speaker, 17-time bestselling author, and powerful business owner. She’s helped over 700 authors become international best-sellers. Don’t miss out on this igniting episode!

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Finding A Better Way To Ignite Lives With JB Owen

If you are a regular audience, you know that every week, we talk about 1 of the 9 whys, and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. In this episode, we are going to be talking about the why of Better Way. If this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator, and you are constantly seeking better ways to do everything. You find yourself wanting to improve virtually anything by finding a way to make it better.

You also desire to share your improvement with the world. You constantly ask yourself questions like, “What if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? How can we make this better?” You contribute to the world with better processes and systems while operating under the motto, “I’m often pleased but never satisfied.” You are excellent at associating, which means that you are adept at taking ideas or systems from one industry or discipline and applying them to another, always with the ultimate goal of improving something.

In this episode, I’ve got a great guest for you. Her name is JB Owen. She is a fearless female leader and a believer in the power of empowerment. Her true focus is on helping others, which is why she started Ignite Publishing, the leader in empowerment publishing, in 2018. She’s a world-class speaker, a seventeen-time best-selling author, and a powerful business owner. She has published over 700 authors, turning them into international bestsellers. She combines purpose, passion, and possibility in everything she does. She is truly inspirational, motivational, transformational in the way she teaches and empowers others. JB, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. What a beautiful intro. Thank you for having me.

Tell us a little bit about where you live.

I like to say my furniture is in Canada. I have been traveling for years. I am now on the West side of Canada, and we are experiencing a tiny little bit of snow. We are pretty lucky that it’s the end of November 2021, and we’ve only got a bit of snow. I am enjoying the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada.

Tell us how did you get to where you are now. Where did you grow up? What were you like in high school? Where did you go to school, and how did you get into publishing?

I will quickly tell you the story. I grew up in a small town of 70,000 people. It’s not that small but it felt small to me. I was always an outcast. I was dressing in ways that didn’t fit into the town, doing things, challenging the status quo, planning things, and making all kinds of stuff happen. The town did not understand me at all, so eleven days after I graduated, I moved to Vancouver. I started working in the film and fashion business. I started my own company right out of college, and I have been in film and fashion ever since.

Interestingly enough, when I had my first child, I started a great clothing company. I did that for quite a few years and then had that great self-implosion that many of us have when we entrepreneur ourselves right out of a marriage and our health, so it took a couple of years to ground myself and focus. I started writing and telling stories. I had always been making products and developing things, so it was a natural progression for me to get into publishing, working with private clients, and now, it has grown into this incredible business of Ignite.

Always figure out how you can fix the process, tweak it, and make it better. Click To Tweet

Let’s go back a little bit. In high school, you were that kid that was a little bit different. For those of you that are reading and cannot see us, JB has platinum-colored hair. Do you change your hair color quite often or not?

I have always been platinum since I was seventeen. I say some people are born blonde, and some are born to be blonde. I have been dying my hair platinum since I was seventeen. I always had big jewelry, big earrings and lipstick. I was loving life, and I have always loved fashion and clothes. When I was a teenager, I had purple and pink hair. I had handcuffs on my boots and leopard pants.

I was way out there, and in a small town in the prairies where everyone is a farmer, it was a shocking thing. In fact, people would phone my parents and say, “I saw your daughter at the mall.” It was shocking to them but I wanted to be in fashion. I wanted to be in the theater and walking the Paris runway. I wanted to be out there doing stuff and so much more than what my small town had to offer.

We had JB discover not only her why but her how and what. Her why is Better Way, and her how is challenge, which explains so much of what we heard. How she does it is by challenging the way things are done and doing things differently, and ultimately, her what is what she brings. It is the right way to get results, the structure and process systems around getting predictable results. When you discovered that, what did that feel like to you?

Your process was phenomenal. It touched my heart. I felt verklempt a little bit because I was like, “It understands me so well if this is exactly who I am.” It was beautiful to read it and see like, “That’s what I do. That’s what I’m good at, and that’s what I love doing.” Sometimes, people chastise you, and they give you a hard time for the way you do things, especially people like me who want to find the better way, who want to find the better way again, who keep going at it, and who are never satisfied. It was so rewarding to read it and be like, “That’s exactly me.”

It’s okay to be you.

I love being me, and it’s taken me a while but I will say that growing up with the name JB, in a small town, wanting to be in fashion, in the movies, and doing things like that was a challenge. Interestingly enough, I worked for fifteen years in the film business, and my job was continuity director. I would be like, “The purse-string was on the left side in this scene. It had to be on the left side of the other scene. The button had to be done up. Everything had to be perfect.” I loved it because I always was seeing how to make it better, how to fix it, and how to tweak it. Your gift often can be your curse but I have always enjoyed having that creative mind to be like, “How do we improve the process? How do we make it better? How do we make it more enjoyable?”

What did you like about fashion and movies? Why was that so intriguing to you?

Probably because I’m a Gemini, so I love that diversity but it is the idea of fantasy, creativity, limitlessness and possibility. I love that. Much of what I teach now is what’s possible, what’s capable, what we can do, and what has not been done before, so television, movies, and designing things were always pushing the limits on what hasn’t been done before.

BYW S4 13 | Ignite Lives
Ignite Lives: Story writing allows you to escape into fantasy.

 

What was the turning point to say, “It’s time for me to move on from this.”

I wanted to have kids, so it was time for me to be a mom. I knew this was going to be my last film. I did my last film with Dwayne Johnson. I had a great experience. I knew I was going to get married that fall and be pregnant by the next year. That’s what better way people do. We plan these things. I had my kids, and within five months of my son, I thought, “Boys get ripped off when it comes to clothing, and there’s nothing out here for UV protection. Also, why isn’t there better rain gear?” Within a very short time, I developed an entire kids’ clothing line. Within four years, I was selling in over 60 countries, 600 stores and had made a million-dollar business because I wanted to find a better way for kids and boys, especially UV protection and all those things. That was the turning point in my film career.

I wonder if having the why of Better Way equates almost to no fear. You should have been scared of that. You were a stay-at-home mom now. What are you doing starting a clothing company?

Going to China and doing business on my own as a platinum blonde woman that is a foot and a half taller than everybody else, they picked me up at the airport with a sign that always said, Mr. Owen. I would laugh because it was so unheard-of women going to Asia to do business. Many years ago, that was not something people did. There was no fear. I haven’t told you this story but my husband and I cycled 6,500 kilometers to the Top of the World Highway in Alaska.

I said to him, “Let’s cycle to the Top of the World Highway. I’m going to tell everybody. I’m going to put it on social media. I’m going to announce it.” He’s like, “What if you fail?” I had to stop and think like, “Fail? There is no fail. If I cycle 10 kilometers, I didn’t fail. I’m going to get as far as I get. That’s never a failure.” It was interesting to me because there is this idea that people are like, “What if you fail? What if it’s not possible? What if you can’t do it?” I feel like I have been put on this planet to show people that it is possible. You can do it. It’s always possible. Maybe, you have to take some U-turns and some course corrections but you are going to get exactly where you are meant to get to.

Where you are meant to get to, is that always where you envisioned it?

It’s not, and that’s the exciting part. When you surrender, let go and say, “I know I’m on this journey, and here’s my destination that I want to get to,” but the process of letting go and understanding that the universe wants more for you than you even know what’s possible, and you let yourself weave through that journey, you end up in the most fascinating places.

When my children were 8 and 11, I took them out of school and traveled for a year. We went to 11 countries in 12 months, and all we did was raise money for charity. We’ve always got on the wrong bus, ended up in the wrong place, and met different people in the times but the thing is what was so fascinating was, we always ended up meeting the right imperfect people, taking the right imperfect detour, and ending up in the right and perfect place.

When we look back on it, it was so beautiful and magical. That has led to my publishing house, where I help people tell those amazing stories of those pivotal moments in their life, where at one point, it could have felt like the worst moment ever. You were down on your knees and knocked upside the head but the truth is, in hindsight, it was the silver lining. It was the golden nugget. It was the path you were meant to take, and by looking at it in hindsight and reassigning meaning to it, you now tell the story in a way that benefits others, and it makes a difference for people.

Let go and understand that the universe wants more for you than you even know what's possible. Click To Tweet

What got you into writing? What was the moment that you said, “I’ve got to write a book?”

I was a latchkey kid when I grew up. My mom was a very successful businesswoman, and I would take the bus from school to her office, and then I would sit in her office and wait for her to finish work until I could go home with her. Her secretary would always leave, so I would sit and plunk away on her secretary’s typewriter and write, “The woe is me of JB, having to sit here being a latchkey kid and not being able to go home. It’s 7:00 PM, and I still haven’t eaten.” I would pour out my mid junior high angst on my mom’s secretary’s typewriter but I always loved story writing because it was an opportunity for me to escape into fantasy. It allowed me to think of things that had never been done before.

I will tell you that after my successful kids’ clothing company, I did crash and burn. I did go through that very difficult time of reassigning my meaning entirely, and to your point, why was I doing what I was doing. I would go to China 5 to 6 times a year. I would spend 20 to 25 days in Asia away from my kids. I remember coming home eight days before Christmas. I had been gone for three weeks. No one was there to pick me up at the airport. I took a taxi to my house.

When I opened the door, I could hear my kids laughing with the nanny. They were 3 and 5 at the time. I was jealous that they were having fun with the nanny, and instead of saying hello to them, I snuck up to the guest room, which I had been sleeping in for two years because my husband and I weren’t getting along, and I convinced myself it was okay to go to bed that night without seeing my kids. I was like, “Mommy has been on a thirteen-hour flight. She will see them in the morning.”

In the middle of the night, my daughter woke up in her crib, and she started calling the nanny’s name. I knew right there and then that every single thing in my life had to change, including my why. Why was I making kids’ clothes? Why was I running around the world talking about kids’ clothing, health for kids, and functional clothing for kids, and my own kids wouldn’t even call me in the middle of the night?

My why completely shifted, and I went on a two-year sabbatical. I closed my business 90 days after that moment. I sold everything and walked away. I left $780,000 worth of stock in a warehouse. I took my van and my kids. I left my marriage. I started over. I started completely redefining my why. Why was I doing what I was doing? That was probably day one of the road to the JB that you see now.

What was that like? What did you do to rebuild yourself? What did you do to get to know yourself? How did you redevelop JB?

I will be honest. It’s truly so simple. Know thyself. I went deep within. I did meditate. I went to Sedona. I went in silent retreats. I did all kinds of health practitioners. I did Reiki. I tried everything. I tried drawing myself in circles, painting, dancing, sleeping, and writing. I went through every single thing. What did I like? What didn’t I like? What was interesting to me? What was important to me? Everybody was doing this but I didn’t think that was cool. Everybody thought this was amazing but that wasn’t for me.

I started discovering what I liked. What is my currency of success? As a businesswoman, for many years, I was dialed into what was important to men. I thought, “This is successful.” It was the corporate office, the corner room, and the briefcase. I had to define what success was to me, a woman in my 40s, 2 kids, this experience, and living in this town. What was my currency of success? I went into a deep introspection of me and finding out about me, getting to know me, loving me, understanding me, and then accepting why I do what it is I do.

BYW S4 13 | Ignite Lives
Ignite Lives: Let people know that it’s okay to do what’s proven to be successful so they feel the greatest version of themselves.

 

What did you find as your currency of success?

I love showing people that it’s possible. My currency of success is that if I can do it, you can do it, and if I’ve got to do it first to show you that it’s possible, I’m going to do the work. I love doing the work. I love putting in the grind. I love going after it. I love dissecting what’s done and how do we do it better. I felt that if I could be me 100%, show up in total authenticity, tell my story to the world, and let people know that it’s okay to do exactly the same thing so that they feel the greatest version of themselves, that was my mission. That was what I was going to get passionate about.

I have been doing it for the last couple of years, and I love it. I have the best job in the world. I love waking up every day, throwing back the covers at 4:00 AM, and getting going. People think it’s crazy but I love it because I believe that we are a mirror for the people closest to us and from a distance. If we can be a mirror for them to see what’s possible in them, if we can be the catalyst or if we can inspire them in a way that they haven’t seen before by us being our authentic selves, that will create a big and massive shift.

Me being the fake JB, the businesswoman JB or the power version of a female business owner, that was all a stereotype. That was all something that was planted as a seed in me instead of me being authentically me. It takes so much less work and effort to be yourself. You don’t have to think as much. You get to be you and show up as you. It’s way more fun. As a Gemini and as a person who loves the better way, it’s got to be fun or I’m not doing it.

I’m a Gemini in a better way, too. Let me see if this resonates with you because I love what you said, “If I can do it, you can do it because I believe that top,” but I will also add to that. If they can do it, I can do it, and if I can do it, you can do it, because I will see somebody doing that and be like, “If they can do this, then I’m sure I can do it.” Do you notice that as well?

There are so many people out there doing amazing things, and they inspire me. What you have done has inspired me. Your program and your protocol have inspired me. That’s the lifting of the lid that we all have to go through. It’s that it is possible. There is another option. There are other ways of doing it, and when we surround ourselves with people who are challenging that, it lifts our lid and allows us to see things that maybe we didn’t see before from our past conditioning.

I will never be the JB I am now if I kept being the JB that was born in a small town. We often root ourselves in our stories. We can’t do this because of where we came from, who our parents were, we aren’t smart enough, thin enough or rich enough. That story goes with us as we travel through our lives. It isn’t until we tell our story and see it from that bird’s-eye view or from that new updated version. The new version of JB is not necessarily the version of JB that left this town but I have returned to this town.

My mom had a stroke, so I’m back here, and then COVID has kept me here. Interestingly, I sometimes bump into some schoolmates, some friends or people of my parent’s friends who know me. They still think I’m that same person, and I have to chuckle because it is hard sometimes for people to see you for who you really are.

I was reading in some of your notes. You said, “What’s the best advice anyone has ever given or you have given?” For me, it’s always to be who you want to be known for. Be the person you want to be known for. When my son came here, he was starting a new school. He was like, “I’m nervous about starting school tomorrow,” and I said, “What are you nervous about?” He’s like, “I don’t know if the kids are going to like me. I don’t know what everyone is going to think.”

Be the person you want to be known for. Click To Tweet

I said, “Why don’t you be you? Be you and be the person you want to be known for. If you want to be known for the class clown, be that. If you want to be known for the athlete, be that. If you want to be known for the intellect, be that but be who you want to be known for. Don’t be who you think they think you are and don’t be who you think you think you should be. Be who you want to be known for. If you want to be known for you, then be that.”

That’s the best advice that I have been able to give anyone, and I try to live it every day. Whenever I struggle with a choice, it’s like, “What do I want to be known for? Do I want to be known as the person who made this decision or this decision? Do I want to be known as the person who runs this business or lives this life? What do I want to be known for?” That allows us to step into our greater version of ourselves.

I was listening to a speech by Steve Jobs, and in it, he says, “You cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backward.” That’s what you were talking about. You don’t know where you are going to end up. I wonder if that’s a Better Way thing because I feel the same way. I have an idea of where I want to go but along the way, who knows where we are going to end up?

I doubt that I’m going to end up where I thought I was going but it’s going to be a fun journey along the way, and then when I get there, I can look back and connect the dots like, “That’s why I talked to this person, saw this, missed that flight, did this, and all those other things.” You can only connect the dots looking back and not looking forward. Does that make sense?

Yes, and it’s so true. We don’t know what the masters haven’t worked for us. I was writing. I’m doing a new book called Wisdom for the Back of a Bike, and it’s about my cycle ride. We had a plan to get to the other side of Canada to dip our toe in the Atlantic Ocean, and of course, COVID stopped us along the way because they were not letting people into the Atlantic provinces with the Atlantic bubble. We looped around Canada and ended up being at the parliament building. We decided we were going to make the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa be our final destination. That was going to be our 5,000 kilometers. It was a beautiful experience. It was so full of accomplishment and pride.

That very day was the first time they were ever going to allow public speaking on Parliament Hill and have an open mic, so because of everything that was happening in COVID and the way that things were unfolding in politics, they decided to have an open mic first time ever on Capitol Hill in the Parliament. I threw my hand up and put my name on the list to be one of the speakers. My kids were mortified. They couldn’t believe that their mom was going to talk. I’m in my cycling gear and my cycling cleats.

I went up on stage and started to say like, “I’m JB, and I cycled 5,000 kilometers across Canada. I want to tell people that anything is possible.” It was a glorious experience because when I was eleven years old, I promised my Social Studies teacher that I would one day speak in Parliament, and then I thought, “Here we go. The universe has wrapped this whole dream around years later,” but I had no idea that not dipping my toe in the Atlantic Ocean would lead to me being on Parliament Hill speaking to thousands of people and talking about what’s possible.

What was your first book?

The very first book I wrote in 2003 was called Letters for My Mother. Interestingly enough, I had a difficult relationship with my mom when I was in my teenage years. I ended up leaving college and going to the Dominican Republic because it was about as far away as I could get from her on the cheapest ticket I could find. I lived in the Dominican for three years, and the fascinating part of that was that I thought I had everything growing up in Canada from a very affluent family but I realized I had nothing.

BYW S4 13 | Ignite Lives
Letters For My Mother

Those people in the Dominican had nothing. They lived in shacks and dirt floors but they had everything because they had their dignity, their faith, and they had each other, and they had a family. While I was away, I started writing letters to my mom to heal my relationship with her. I wrote her 200 letters over the three years. She never wrote me back but when I came home, I had such a beautiful relationship with her. I had worked through so many of my problems by writing her letters that I was inspired to write a book about how adult daughters and mothers can heal their relationships. That book is finding a better way on how you can heal a relationship. That was my first book in 2003.

How many books did you write until you decided you were going to a publishing company?

I wrote that single book, and then I wrote about four books that sat on the shelf and didn’t go to print. One day in 2018, I was sitting at a conference. There was a bunch of people up on stage telling their stories. Many of them were crying and losing their resolve because they were telling these emotional stories but the fascinating thing is when they’ve got offstage, people were hugging them, stepping out of the front row, embracing them, and welcoming them. Throughout the week at the conference, people became so close because they told their private and personal stories on stage. They became vulnerable and authentic.

I sat in the audience thinking, “We have something here. Every single person on the planet wants to be seen. Everyone has a story and deserves to be heard. If we could tell the stories in a way that showed the transformation, the growth, and the learning, we could make a difference.” No matter what color you are, what gender you are, where you live or how much is in your wallet, you can relate to the human experience of that hero’s journey between, “Do I become a victim or a villain, or do I take the hero’s journey, and I go for what’s better in my life?” That was the igniting moment where I realized I have to be the person to help people tell their stories.

I have to make a difference. The difference I’m going to make is giving everyone a platform to tell their beautiful and amazing transformational story. I, too, had a story because after I divorced my first husband, I had got into another relationship. It was very abusive, and that relationship was very short but I hid that story for a long time because I was embarrassed by it, and that hiding of that story kept me down. It held me back because I was always afraid people were going to find out that I made such a bad decision.

It wasn’t until I started telling that story that other women came out of the woodwork saying that they too had a similar experience, they could relate or that they appreciated me telling their story because it gave them the courage to tell their story. There was quite a process of me realizing how powerful storytelling is. Now 700 stories and multiple international best-selling books with the hundreds of thousands of people who have read our stories, I realize how valuable that genuine heartfelt story is and how much it changes people’s lives.

Tell us about your publishing company. What is it called, and who do you ideally like to work with?

We call it Ignite Publishing, and it is about igniting lives. I love working with people who have a mission and a message, and people who want to make an impact on others. I’m not the kind of publishing house where we put words on a page, pages in a book, and books on the shelf. We walk you through a transformational experience. As a writer, especially when you are telling your own story, you toggle between the fun, joy, struggles, pains, sorrows, and agony, and then there’s this incredibly rewarding experience at the end.

I work with people who want to tell their stories and who want to make an impact. I work with people who have a mission and have a higher purpose. They want to do something that’s going to benefit others. I strongly believe in the triple win. I win, you win, and someone else wins. Someone who reads your story wins. Someone they work with wins.

There are incremental ways to make an impact. Click To Tweet

The proceeds from all of our books are going towards building schools in Cambodia for underprivileged kids. The triple win is now these kids that get to find out what’s possible for them and how to step into their greatness. We did a book with Les Brown that is all about greatness and igniting the hunger in you. I’m so passionate about the fact that these children who may not know what’s possible for them or may not ever have that deep desire and passion to go after their greatness will now have an environment to do so. That’s the whole thing that Ignite is all about.

Are you looking for people that have a story but don’t know how to tell it or are you looking for people that are already established writers and are looking for a platform? Tell us more about who you are looking for.

I love those people who want a better way to get to the experience. I like people who are potentially not authors but they know they want to be authors. They are people who have a story and want to write it but they want to do it in the most efficient, practical, rewarding, enjoyable, affordable, and pleasurable way possible. I want it to be a maximum experience.

It is people who want to be a part of a community. If you are in an Ignite book, you step into a community of like-minded people. Every book has a theme, so you are with people who are of your peers, and then you use the collaboration of the peers to elevate, encourage, and create great partnerships that are going to benefit you and the whole purpose of the book.

I’m always looking for people who have a story, who want to make an impact, and who understand that there are these incremental ways to do things, and I help you get to the finish line because there are a lot of people who don’t know how to get to the finish line. It’s no different than if I wanted to fly an airplane, I would have to sit in the cockpit, and someone would have to teach me how to use the dials. That’s what we do. We do all the heavy lifting for you, and we show you how to do it. Ultimately because I want you to succeed. We show you how you can do it with your own solo book and with your books to come. I really teach you the business of being an author.

Now I’m seeing a little better. In the background behind JB are Ignite Recovery and a couple of others.

Ignite Female Leadership, Ignite Your Life for Women, and Ignite Health and Wellness.

They are a group book, so it would be like a theme, and then if you have a story about recovery, health, or different things, then you would go in that particular book with a group of other authors that are similar.

Our new book coming out is Ignite Your Wisdom, so it’s all about Ignite stories around wisdom. These are people who are thought leaders, inventors, and who are into the mindset and who have had incredible experiences where something has opened up their lid and evolved their thinking, and broke down their limiting beliefs. They are people who are in that mind space or in that marketplace, so they want to write a book that has other people doing the same thing that would attract a customer that wants the answers to that problem.

BYW S4 13 | Ignite Lives
Ignite Lives: Give everyone a platform to tell their beautiful and amazing transformational story.

 

Do we get multiple stories per book?

Yes, and action steps. Every single author puts not just their story, but then they put in the action steps that they took to get themselves there. As a better way person, I’m like, “Give me the baseline or bottom line of what do I need to do consistently every day to get myself to success,” so every single author writes their action steps at the end of their story.

If there’s somebody that’s reading and says, “I really want to connect with JB. I want to learn more about her books. I want to write a book. I want to be part of this,” what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

Come to IgniteYou.life. That’s our website. You can go there. You can always find me on Facebook and Instagram. I’m the only JB Owen. I would love for you to reach out to me directly. I’m so accessible because I believe like a magnet, all the right and perfect people come to me to tell their stories. When somebody steps into my Viewfinder or into my world, I know that they are ready and that this is their time.

They just need me to help be the midwife to move them through the process. It’s easy to find me. Go to IgniteYou.life. You can go to Amazon and see all of our books are in a series. You can reach out to us that way, and you can get our books on our website. Please reach out to me. I would love to help you share your story.

I didn’t ask you the most obvious question, and that is what does JB stand for?

It’s such a great story. It’s all I’ve got. It’s all my parents gave me when I was born in a small town. My mom was not allowed to leave the hospital without giving me a name but my dad happened to be in Mexico racing riverboats. My mom put JB on the birth certificate, thinking that when my dad came back, they would call me Julie, Barbara, or Brenda. For the whole month that he was away, they called me baby JB because they didn’t know what my name was going to be, so when my dad came home after being in Mexico, he said, “JB. That’s cool. Let’s go with that.”

Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. It has been awesome talking to you. I love what you are doing. I’m excited to read your books, and hopefully, there are people that are reading that are right in line with what you want to do, and they will connect with you because you’ve got a great mission. I’m excited for us to stay in touch as we move along.

Thank you. I would love to reward your authors. I love giving things away, so if they would DM me or send something to me and put the word, “Why,” or we talked about on this episode, I happily will send anyone a link to any one of our books so that they can read the stories and be inspired. I would love to give them a book for free so that they can enjoy it.

Evolve your thinking and break down your limiting beliefs. Click To Tweet

Thank you for being here.

Thank you. You have been a treat to speak with. You are a blessing. I can’t wait to go forward, knowing the why so clearly. It’s beautiful.

Thank you.

It’s time for our new segment, which is Guess Their Why. For this one, I want to pick Elvis Presley. What do you think Elvis Presley’s why is? When you think about his life and the journeys that he has gone on, how he was an unknown, very successful, and then went off the deep end a little bit? He ended up a different person in a different place with a different set of struggles before he passed away.

What do you think Elvis Presley’s why is? I’m going to guess that his why is to challenge the status quo and to think differently. Even the way he danced was different. Everything about him was different. He created so many new things and brought them to the forefront of many people around the world.   He did things differently. People loved it and loved him.

What do you think his why is? I would be curious to see what you think. I want to thank you for reading. If you have not yet discovered your why reading this show, knowing your why will be so much more powerful for you. Go to WhyInstitute.com. You can use the code PODCAST50 and discover your why for half the price. If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review or rating on whatever platform you are using to tune in. Thank you so much. I will see you.

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About JB Owen

BYW S4 13 | Ignite LivesJB Owen is a world-class speaker, 17-time bestselling author, accomplished publisher, and global business owner. She is the Founder and CEO of the Ignite Publishing, the leaders in empowerment books; publishing over 700 authors to date. She owns Ignite Moments Media where she produces transformational television, inspirational content, and life-changing events.