035 Choosing Your Own Path with Jess Glazer

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. Welcome to this episode of the affluent entrepreneur show. And this episode's gonna be a fun one. I'm gonna be joined by a friend of mine by the name of Jess Glaeser. She was a celebrity fitness expert and coach. She is a business coach now. She's traveling the country with her husband in an rv. She went from being a teacher to a multimillion dollar online business coaching business. And we talk about the trials, we talk about the challenges, we talk about the richness of life, the difficulties and that you have. You're going to enjoy this one. So I'll see you in the episode. Cheers.

This is the affluent entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Hey there, Jess. So good to have you here. Thank you for coming on the show, Mel.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Oh, my God. So they'll hear more about you, but just real quickly, where. Where are you coming in from? Where you at?

So currently September 1, we are parked in Quarter Lane, Idaho. Idaho.

Okay. Awesome. Never been to Idaho. Going to have to get there one of these days.

Honestly, it's been one of our favorite places that we have visited.

Wow. Okay, so what I'd love to do, for those of the, those folks that don't know who Jess Glaser is and all the stuff that you're doing, just give us a rundown of who you are, what you've been doing and how we connected. How did you, how did you end up where you're at?

Absolutely. So, gosh, who am I? I'm a business coach, first and foremost. So I'm the CEO and founder of the digital business Evolution, which is home to just a bunch of different online programs, courses, and different digital products. I live in an RV full time with my husband, whom I retired last year, and he came into my company full time. So we're working together, traveling together, living the digital nomad life. But I am a former celebrity personal trainer, former elementary school teacher, former doctorate dropout.

Doctorate dropout to elementary school teacher to celebrity trainer to no band.

Yeah, basically. And somewhere in there was fashion school and living on my brother's couch for a year.

I love it. So that's an interesting. I mean, when you start thinking about a journey because you guys, both you and Mike are true entrepreneurs. I mean, you're living the entrepreneur lifestyle you're living on. You know, I know we can say online entrepreneurs, but truly entrepreneurial lifestyle. You've seen things, you've done things, both of you have done things. What started, what was the yearning? What was the thing that got you to start looking at this thing and saying, yeah, teaching's not for me? Or that got you to start thinking in terms of moving on to doing your own thing?

So funny. Hindsight's 20 20. People will ask, like, when did you start entrepreneurship? So now at 37, I can say it started when I was like 8 and I was painting hair clips with nail polish and selling them to my gymnastics teammates. But when I look at it from like a more direct lens, I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was until just a couple of years ago. I was sort of an accidental entrepreneur my whole life because I always had what I call my quote unquote, cute side hustle. So when I was working as a teacher to make ends meet, I would work as a personal trainer on the weekends or I would wait, I would start my own fitness company, which I had done many times before. So I didn't know what I was actually doing and I didn't know it was an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is not in my family. I was a bit of a failure, more for myself than my parents. But being one of the few who wasn't a doctor, lawyer, or an accountant, dropping out of my doctorate program, I sort of was always considered myself a failure. So when I was a teacher, I had a lot of cute side hustles. And what it was was me trying to fulfill something. There was a void and I was not fulfilled within teaching. I loved my job, I loved teaching. I had a seven minute commute. I was in a beautiful town In New Jersey, I mean, every kid had a laptop and iPad. Like, whatever I wanted I could have as a teacher in my district, but I was really unfulfilled. So the eight years that I worked there, I was doing other things to sort of fill the void. And there was never a moment of, I'm going to leave to be an entrepreneur. I wasn't brave. I didn't jump and build my wings on the way down. And I want to make that clear because people will often say, oh, you're so brave that you had the courage to leave your job. I was so uncomfortable. I was so unhappy. And I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt like the walls were caving in. And it can be dramatic, but if you're familiar with an elementary school, the toilets are small, the ceilings are low. And literally and figuratively, I felt that year after year, like I was just getting older and smaller and my students were growing up and getting bigger and expanding. And I had this moment in October of 2016, listening to a podcast. And I wish I could remember who it was, but I don't. And this man who was interviewing this woman, she was a teacher. She made jewelry and she was selling it on Etsy. She wanted to go all in on her Etsy line, but she was a teacher. You know, pension, benefits, all that great stuff. So he said, if you. I was driving to work, had coffee in hand, like, normal route. He said, if you gave yourself a year on Etsy and it didn't work, what would be the worst case scenario? So she said, I'd go back to teaching. I've been a teacher for 10 years. I might have to go to a different district, but I know I could get a job as a teacher. And here I am driving to work, like, asleep, you know, just totally numbed out, driving to work with my coffee. And his response changed our life. So he said, great. How does it feel to wake up every day and live in your worst case scenario?

Oh, boo.

She was hurt, right? She was already there. She was already living in her worst case scenario. And so I literally pulled the car over. I text my husband. I was hysterical, crying. I said, I can't do this anymore. This was October 2016. That night we started discussing, realistically, what is the worst case scenario? Because teaching wasn't it. It could be worse, but it wasn't my best case scenario. What would it look like if I actually left? What was the plan? Well, I had no plan. I was just willing to do whatever I had to do to make ends meet. And so when we came back from winter break, January of 2017, I gave notice, and that was my last year teaching.

Wow. Now, just out of curiosity, do you have to keep up credentials and stuff, or did you as a teacher?

Yeah, to an extent, but it's all done through the district. Yeah.

Wow. And so you didn't look back?

I did not look back. There were things that we had to figure out. And as you know, with money, it was like, I'm walking away from my pension, because in New Jersey, the state of New Jersey, if you don't teach for 10 years at the time, then you weren't vested. So I can't actually receive the money I've paid into my pension. And so we had to look to see, is it worth it? Should I wait two more years to collect that money when I'm 66 years old? And it just wasn't worth it at all. Yeah, there were things we had to figure out.

Wow. I want to go back to something you said because. Because I think that people coming into entrepreneurship or just in life in general, have to transition us. And so hopefully, hopefully this isn't going to be too painful. You know, you said that you were. You always thought and saw yourself as a failure because you didn't have the. The accountant, the doctor, the lawyer, that kind of. That kind of thing, and you dropped out of doctor school. Does that still impact you? Or how did you transition? How did you deal with that? Because I think that. I think that there's a lot of folks, me included, I left a profession, I was on a trajectory as an accountant, as. As one of the people that you said you should have been, you know, type of a thing and. And walked out. And I. And I know the pressure, not necessarily the ridicule, the concern. Let's just say that I got from my parents going, you did what today when I quit?

Yeah. Yeah. And that was the hardest conversation, you know, at 33 years old, telling my parents I was going to leave my job. And they were like, are you crazy? But they also, at that point, weren't surprised because I had done stuff like that before. So the feeling like a failure and feeling like I had quit so many different things really chewed me up for a long time until recently when I started to recognize actually a Steve Jobs quote. You can't connect the dots looking forwards. You can only connect them looking backwards. And you have to trust that they'll appear. And so for me, these different things which I once thought were failures or quitting, they've actually been dots or stepping stones to get me across this path, across this river. And those are my superpowers. If I didn't go to fashion school, I wouldn't have such a great sense of how to use different CAD programs or graphic design. If I didn't. If I wasn't a teacher, I wouldn't be such a good teacher. I wouldn't be able to read the room or speak the way that I speak. I'm not saying I'm great, but they've given me skills. Right. So everything that I've done, what I went to school for, what I studied, what I did or did not do along the way, it's just been part of the path. And so I don't see them at all as failures anymore. They're my. It's my tool belt.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's really ultimately what comes out of the journey that too often we. We neglect to see. I mean, the reality is that our greatest growth comes through our failures. Our greatest growth doesn't come from the successes. And, you know, I've gone through some tough times. You've gone through your times and everything. And people say, would you trade it for. Trade it in? And I go, would you do it all again? Yeah. The answer is, yes, I would. I would do it all again because absolutely. I just. There's no way that I would be who I am today. You know, I lost one third of my net worth in a Ponzi scheme. You know, do I want to go through the pain again?

No.

But the lessons and how we transitioned and built and rebuilt and everything, they served me today. And I wouldn't be with the lady I'm with. There's so many things with that. Connecting the dots backwards. It's so interesting. But it's. It's good.

Not.

It's not good to hear that. That it haunted you, but it's. It's the reality of it. And so there may be people out there that are haunted by this. This yearning, and I think this is what ends up happening, is that we live in a world of social media expectations, media expectations, societal expectations, family expectations, and how many people take the path of those expectations and then they find this aching yearning inside that is trying to pull them off path and go, nope, this is what's expected of me. And they live a life. You know, the book that Bronnie Ware wrote, Seven Regrets of Dying, and one of the biggest regrets is that they didn't live the life that they want, that that was meant for them. And it's like, can you imagine that?

Well, that's what it was. It was the awakening to, like, whose life is this?

Yeah.

Because I never even went to school to be a teacher. My parents had, like, lovingly encouraged me to get a teaching degree to, quote, fall back on because I was taking all the science classes for my physical therapy degree. And they're like, you're good with kids, you love coaching, so why don't you just get a degree in education as well to fall back on? And it was a good thing that I did. But when I woke up one day, eight years into teaching, because I was pretty unhappy for the last, like, three of those eight.

Yeah.

It was like, this was never even my plan. How did I even end up here? Whose life am I living in? It's great white picket fence, completely house poor, living paycheck to paycheck. The American dream, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm like, but this isn't what I want. This isn't what I want.

You know, a lot of people say, how do you figure out wealth? And I said, you do it in time, not dollars. I said, too often we try to do it in dollars. I said, but the fact of the matter is that I could have $100 million, but if I can't control my time, it's a poor life.

Yeah, I love this. This is a conversation I've been having a lot actually with clients recently because so many people prioritize money over time. And we think that money runs out. It doesn't. Money is cyclical. We borrow it and we put it back into the system. It comes back out again, and quite frankly, they can make more whenever they want. They did last year. But time is finite. It runs out. So when you say, I'm going to do this program because it's free, what you're saying is the hour of time that I'm going to spend, it doesn't mean that much to me. I'm okay giving it away. But the deeper question is, if it was your last hour of life, then what people say, charge your worth. No, don't charge your worth if worth is relative. If it's your last hour, you can't pay me enough money to be with you. I want to be with my loved ones.

Yeah, so true. I mean, God, because. Because that, that's really what it comes down to. I get it. Look, we all got to pay bills. You know, when you started do the transition, everything. You got to look at the math, you got to look at and say, there's a difference between being Committed and being reckless. So financially reckless doesn't make sense. But there comes a time where. Where we have the bills covered. And once we have the bills covered, then the question is, are we living our life? Are we, you know, what are we doing? Because I remember for me, I got in a bike accident, mountain biking accident on the road, and I had a grade four concussion. I couldn't speak. I was stuttering. And I had a dear, dear friend who we call each other brothers because we grew up together. He took me and he had retired at 38, 39 years old. So he took me out for a pastrami sandwich to this great place by us. And I'm in a neck brace, I'm stuttering. And he sits. We get our sandwiches, we sit down, and he looks at me and he said, how much is enough? What are you talking about? And he says, how much is enough? The reason you got in the bike accident is you're stressed. You're not paying attention to details. You're running 100 miles a minute, and you don't even know where the finish line is, do you? And I go, oh, man, I'm glad you paid for lunch, because I'm paying.

For it now.

You know? Yeah.

And how. How often. How we see it in our clients that potentially they don't ever know what the finish line looks like. They don't even know what success looks like. And they're just running a race and they're just gonna keep running.

Yeah. But that's what it is, right? We keep moving the finish line.

Yeah.

So we never actually get there because we keep moving it, but we're so focused on it that we're not in the present. And so that's where I've been the last couple years of learning how just to be more present. And this, this. This is the journey. And you had asked earlier, how did we connect? And I never answered that question. But it's through our mentor and friend, James Wedmore, who's incredible. And he says, the doing is the destination. Right. And it is when people say, enjoy the journey, this cliche, it's on bracelets, it's on all these mantras. But the journey, this is it. So we're so focused. I'm all about goals. But when you get so caught up in the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, you forget that what you have now is what you once currently wanted.

In that thought process, how did you start to come to this space, in this place to start being more present with the journey? And what's Truly meaningful. And I know that, you know, you retired. When did you retire, Mike? Just a few years ago.

No, this. Just this. September 2020.

Oh, so it's recent.

Just a year. Yeah, just a year. All right, Just a year. How? Well, I'm not there. I'm in it. I'm in the learning. I'm in the process. I think I will always be in the process. Again, I don't think I'll arrive at present or awakened or anything like that. I think it's a journey throughout. But for me, in 2018, very similarly to you, where just 150 miles an hour wasn't coming up for air, I had my first sort of round of burnout. And yes, I said first because it's happened a couple times, but it was the one that really shook me, actually, I think it was my second time, but it was a breast cancer scare. And it brought me to a moment where I was in our apartment in New York City on my knees, waiting for this call, realizing what had happened. And I just kept saying, I did this to myself. I did this to myself because I was very conscious that I did. I was stressing myself out, working a million hours a week. Same thing you were saying. How much is enough? Chris Harder is a dear friend and mentor. And he had said the same thing to me just a month earlier. He said, when is it enough? Because at the time I was working in fitness. I was doing a lot of fitness modeling and competitions and writing for magazines. And so I was doing a lot of magazine work and chasing covers. How many covers can you get on which bigger magazine? And he had me pull up my website and he looked at it and it said, as seen on. And it's all these different Today show and magazine things. And he just looked at me, he said, when is it enough? Like what? Which one is going to be the ticket for you that's all of a sudden going to be happy? Right. And not. But four weeks later, I was going through this process of potentially having breast cancer.

Yeah.

And that is where it was like, whoa, what is this all for? Because when that's about to be taken away from you, everything, you're like, what am I doing this for? So November of 2018 was really where things started to move. Ironically, that's also when I went from cute side hustle to Or I shouldn't say that I was. I went from multiple six figure business to seven figure business. And so it was right at the same time when I was scaling into seven figures, everything was exploding. It was great. And my health was just declining. My happiness was declining. You talk about richness and, like, real, true wealth outside of money. My life wasn't rich. I wasn't doing anything to fulfill myself. I wasn't taking care of myself. I had the girl who was competing in it on magazines was no longer working out because I was just behind the computer all day. So that was probably the biggest moment that I had. That started to really wake me up. And then smaller ones after that were very similar. Right. You get this, like, oh, yeah, nudge from the universe. You're like, oh, we're here again. Chronic back pain, gut issues. I'm okay. It's screaming at me, okay, here. Like, I'm doing it again. I see you. I see you.

So that same friend that said it is in the doing also said that if we don't get the lesson, it'll come back to us louder the next time.

100%. 100%. And I'm notorious for not hearing it the first few times, which I think most of us are.

Well, I mean, this is. This is going to be a really sexist comment, but us guys, we don't take subtle hints. So it needs to be a baseball bat across the forehead for us to get.

Get it.

And. And it was. It certainly was for me, too.

Yeah, of course.

You know, it's. Well, so. God, there's so many places to go with that. First off, Chris Harder is a dear, dear. Chris and Lori are dear, dear friends of our. So, yeah. In fact, they are either to thank or to blame for our puppy.

Oh, 100%. Yeah.

Because, in fact, their dog. This has got nothing to do with the show, but y' all are just gonna have to put up with our little banter here for a second. And if you haven't checked out Chris Harder's podcast, you gotta check it out. I'll hook it up in the show.

So good.

Okay.

So good.

But their dog and our dog have the same daddy dog.

Do they?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as we found out. As soon as I said, I think Chris and Lori have a Sheepadoodle, we were in. My wife and I were in Park City, and so we sent them a video, and they send this video screaming, going, oh, yeah. And then they made the mistake of sending us the website to the breeder.

There you go. So you have. You have a cousin of Bananas.

Yes, we do. We have a cousin of Bananas. And I should have thought about this whole idea. They named the dog Bananas for a reason. And so there is definitely, definitely a bloodline there because I see what Budo's doing and I'm going, oh, there's mini bananas right there.

That's really funny.

But I digress. Sorry about that. But the reality is that, look, there's something there because it's those relationships that start to create something that matter in life. If we haven't learned anything in this pandemic.

It really, I think it is this idea that connection is actually the real currency.

Yeah.

And so whether we're online, I mean, you're, you're nomadic, we'll get to that and what that's like in a moment. But you're traveling and, and doing it. And it's easy to get siloed. It's easy to get just kind of isolated in doing what we do. And then we were forced to be isolated indirectly because of the pandemic. And. And now as we move out, I think that all of us are starting to, to look at how do we have more connection, but not just more in quantity, but deeper connection, Something that's meaningful. I just, I was blessed to spend some time with some incredible entrepreneurs. This past week up in Napa, I.

Saw that looked amazing.

Oh, my God. And these are people that are at the top of the game. The top of the top. And when we went around the room, it was as if they all were able to finally say, you know what, pardon the expression, the crap from the two years. It was hard, it was emotional. And so this journey as an entrepreneur, it can be hard. And that's the other reason, I think you look at what you did to get out of teaching and how unhappy you were and that whole thing of you're living your worst case, that we need to find the richness in that journey, otherwise what are we doing? You know, they say, well, do what you love and the money will follow. And that's, that's a mistake. It's actually loving what you do that matters. And so that's an interesting thing. So help me understand you. Then you then transitioned and Mike had a. Had a job at the time?

Yeah, he had a job just up until this year. So he was working full time corporate. When I left teaching, we moved from New Jersey to Manhattan into an apartment there. And we basically said, I said, so.

You went from cheaper to more expensive.

Expensive to more expensive expensive to more expensive. Yes. Yeah. And smaller, Much smaller. But I said, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make ends meet. And so whether I have to take multiple part time jobs or whatever that looks like. When I first moved into the city. My intention was to be in the fitness industry. At the time, I had already been a trainer for about 15 years. So I made my way into the fitness industry. There I was also building, or I had already built, but I was continuing to grow my online business, which was in health and fitness. And I had started that in 2013. And it started with like monthly writing workouts for people. They would mail me a check in the actual mail. Then I did like ebooks, $79 products, super low ticket. I just, I just was trying right as I was a teacher, I was just throwing spaghetti at a wall. I had no idea what I was doing. I did, however, hire my first business coach in 2014, I think it was, and sort of started to get a little bit more intuitive. I started blogging. I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. I was running Facebook groups and stuff like that. So when I went all in, in 2017, when I left my job, I hired a new business coach. I decided to really, like, take things to the next level. And that's when I started transitioning away from just low ticket and blogging to higher ticket programs. But it was all in health and fitness. And I was working, oh my gosh, 20 hours a day, seven days a week. I mean, I was up at 4 o' clock training clients at 5 o' clock in the morning, you know, was getting home at 9 o' clock at night and then first building websites and stuff. So I was hustling and grinding and really thought that it was going to be in fitness. The business thing accidentally happened in November of 2018. It was a really big month. But the what had happened was the online health and fitness business, like I said, it went from, you know, a thousand dollars a month or something to multiple six fig, quite literally overnight. And so a lot of trainers in New York started asking me, what are you doing? This was 2017, what are you doing? How are you building a business? Why are you always behind the computer? Can you teach me? And so the teacher and me just started teaching friends for free. And then one friend turned into three, and then five, and then seven. And then all of a sudden, every Thursday, we're like sitting around my laptop in between clients at the gym and I'm like, guys, I think I have to charge you. So November of 2018 is when I first started, like forward facing business coaching. And by, I guess that summer, maybe it was the summer of 2019, actually, no, Christmas of 2019, I put down training, I finalized my last client. I stopped all of my fitness stuff that I had been doing and went all in for 2020 on business coaching.

Right before the pandemic.

Right before the pandemic. And then we scaled to multiple seven figures. Boom. So in under three years. Yeah. Yeah, it was wild.

And the reality is that this is actually not what you set out to do.

I've never taken a formal business class in my life. Like, I have no reason to be doing this. There was nothing on my path that ever told me I'd end up here. And I now understand that this is how it is, and it's really exciting. So I can't wait to see where I end up next year in five years or 10, because I can't even conceptualize what that might look like right now. And that excites me where it used to scare me because I had to have such a grip and control over everything. But, you know, similar to, like Tony Robbins says, I have a PhD in results. I have a lot of results for myself, and I have even more for my clients. And over the years, I've now invested in coaches and masterminds and programs and stuff, but I had never taken a formal traditional educational, marketing, sales, or business class.

Was there a time where your husband, who I know, looked at you and said, you're killing yourself. Are you out of your mind? How about just, let's just go back to our normal life? Because it's not a normal life.

I mean, you're killing yourself. Go take a day off type of thing. Yeah. That conversation still happens to this day. But his response, his concern always, and I love him for this, but it always starts with, if it's not making you happy, don't do it. Because we committed. When I left teaching, the rule was only do what makes you happy because you didn't leave to go, just replace your job with a different job. And so every decision we made was like, does this make you happy? Does it light you up? And so if I'm ever getting that way, feeling stressed, overworking, it always goes back to, well, are you happy? Is this making you happy? Because you're. We're choosing what we want to do. We create our own reality. Especially in business, when it comes to, like, deadlines and timelines, like, we're creating them, they don't exist. So he always asks, does this make you happy? And one of the most beautiful gifts I was able to give back to him is when he left his job in September. The first couple months of transitioning were difficult and challenging, and he talks about that, but he Was figuring it all out. You know, who am I? What am I doing? What's my purpose? What is my job within the company? Should I have left my job navigating how to live on the road full time? And so I was able to say back to him, and I still do, many times. It's like, well, does this make you happy? If it doesn't, don't do it. But what a cool gift for me to be able to hold down the fort, if you will, for a moment while we're figuring out the next thing.

That's a beautiful thing, and that's having a supportive relationship. I'm not going to say spouse, because it's two people. I look at how Stephanie's been with me, and there's no way I would have navigated the cancer as gracefully if it wasn't for her. My life is much more graceful and looks a whole lot better because of her.

I love how you talk about her. It's so nice.

Oh, man. I mean, I don't know how I lucked out, but I tell people that if there's ever a doubt that I can sell things. I just got to look at the fact that we're on me.

Now. You. Then at some point you decided, you know, forget Manhattan. Let's take the show on the road. How did this come about? And I have a feeling it has to do with the same guy that got me into the dark.

He just small, small piece of it. What had happened was we had a beautiful, incredible. My dream apartment, you know, just incredible. And during lockdown, that's where we lived, was this beautiful apartment 31 floors up in the air. You know, we had everything. But when you live in New York, for us, we lived there because we wanted to experience what New York has to offer. And when New York took all of that away and we weren't able to utilize, what is there. You start to question, why are we paying this much money to live in a very beautiful shoebox 31 floors up? And why are we here if we can't enjoy all the things that it has to offer? Mike's company at the time was letting him work remotely for about a month and a half. And so during that time, we went down and visited, stayed with my brother in North Carolina, and we got a taste of life elsewhere. We got a taste of nature and hiking and just, like, slower. And so we started to play the crazy stupid idea game of, wow, if you can work remotely or don't work for this particular company, we could live anywhere we want. We don't have to be in New York or New Jersey, which we love New York. We are like huge New York City gung ho. And so it just started with crazy, stupid idea time. Okay, great. Let's leave the city. Let's go get a house in Jersey, where I'm from. Our family friends are there. We called our realtor up. This was like, you know, probably May or June. He said, listen, guys, I'm happy to get you a house, but reality is people are paying a hundred grand over asking cash, sight unseen. Do you really want to get involved? And we were like, that sounds terrible. So we started looking at other areas, but we didn't know where in the country we would want to live. So then we toyed with the idea of let's Airbnb Hop and go check out different places we might want to settle. Because 2020. We moved into our apartment basically January 1st of 2020. And we had only signed a one year lease previously. We signed two year leases, but we knew it was going to be our last year. We were ready to, like, move to the suburbs and start a family. So we knew we were kind of ending our chapter there anyway. And so we started figuring out where could we go. But at this time that we were going to airbnb Hop. Yes. Chris and Lori bought an rv, as well as a couple of our other friends. And so, on a zoom call one night with friends, we started talking about, like, wouldn't it be fun if all of us got RVs and traveled around the country, Literally. Mike and I did not grow up camping. We did not grow up in RVs. We had no idea. So zoom call was Friday night. There may have been some cocktails Saturday. Shout out to Light Pink. Saturday, we went to an RV dealership in New Jersey. We rented a car in New York, went to New Jersey, looked at RVs, and we sat down and said, could we actually see ourselves doing this? Could we live here? Could we work here? How does this feel? Sunday, we put a deposit down.

Oh, man.

And we bought the rv. It was like, in hand a week later.

Wow.

Yeah. And we talk about a learning curve. We had. I mean, the first three months now, it was brutal. We had no idea what we were doing.

No idea.

I can't imagine. I have another friend in the valuation space. Him and his wife, they sold everything in Pennsylvania. They've been now traveling. She's a pet blogger. So, you know, and so they've got their dogs and they've got their RV wrapped with their logo, and he's doing Consulting and valuation from the rv. And she's pet blogging and they travel the country. They've been doing it for 12 years now.

Wow. 12 years.

We looked at them, all of us looked at him and said, three months, you guys are going to kill each other. And now here they are, 12 years, loving it. I mean, they showed up to step in my wedding 10 years ago in there. They pulled the RV into the winery.

That's funny.

Yeah.

Wow. 12 years. So we're about to hit 11 months in a week. We're about to hit 11 months, which there was a while I didn't think we'd get past three months or six months. And now there are days where we're like, we could do this for 12 years. And then there are days that we're like, and next week we're done.

But I think that the nice thing is that how has that shifted you experiencing life with the people you care about? With Mike and. And now. And now you got yourself a puppy too.

We did. It's changed everything. I mean, I think both of us. But I'm definitely going to speak for myself here. I've always been super type a, a planner. I had this paradigm, this story that I had to have the perfect office with the white desk with the plants behind me and, you know, the Pinterest office. For my business to be successful, I have to have my three hour morning routine in order to be able to show up for my clients. And this, the last, last 11 months has shown us, like that is completely false. That narrative is not mine. It might be where I'm most comfortable, I will tell you that, but it doesn't have to look that way, it doesn't have to be this way. And one of the things that we've kind of leaned on, we've come up with a couple different words that we use. So when we're having a moment of just like, what is this life? This is crazy. We look at each other and we just say moments. And we know what we're talking about. We say gratiteers because I'm an empath, I cry at everything. So now I have gratiteers. And the other thing that we've said is like a theme of this whole trip or lifestyle has been the in between. So we're experiencing the in between which we never would have experienced otherwise. When you normally, when you fly around the country, you fly to a city, you land there, you go to the thing you're going to, you get back on a plane, you fly home. What we've experienced the last 11 months is driving through the country, stopping in towns that I didn't even know existed, meeting people that I never would have crossed paths with, hearing their stories, connecting with people, learning about their family businesses, stopping at these tiny little shops and restaurants. It's all of the in between. It's the parks that are not national parks, but they're equally as amazing. And it's just opened up a whole. It's. It's just so expansive. It's so. It's like we're so small. We're so small. Yeah.

Ah, so good. So good. I'm gonna ask you some. Some money questions because I think with this. I think it's important. So the first one really just kind of this idea. And, and. And these aren't like, how big is your bank account? Question. Although. Although I got a Google alert and it said, mel Abraham, net worth. People do not look it up because it's not right. It said that my net worth was $299.

What?

Yeah. I don't know where it came from. So I said, I went to my wife and I said, honey, I got a confession. I'm only worth 300 bucks.

So I don't know where they came up with it from. But what does money mean to you?

Opportunity. I think it's just opportunity. I don't know that I would say, like freedom. It's not because freedom is within. And I've learned that. So we say sometimes, like financial freedom, career freedom, location freedom, all these different things. But really the freedom is within. It's the work that you do inside your own head and your own heart. But money is definitely opportunity. We've been able to do cool things. Travel, you know, meet people, pay for stuff. I helped retire my dad last year as well. To be able to write that check and just kind of help out with that last, you know, whatever house payment or whatever it was. It's just. It's opportunity. It's ease. We spoiled the heck out of our friends that were just visiting us the other week because we wanted to.

Yeah.

Not for flash, but it's like, it's okay. We can. We can rent a boat for the weekend and that's really fun. Right. And to have those memories and experiences together. So money's opportunity.

Wow. Okay, cool. This is a slightly different. What does financial independence mean to you and why is it important?

Financial independence. That's interesting. So I used to say I create money out of thin air because when you're in the digital coaching space especially and there's no tangible product. You're like, oh, like, I just tell people about an idea and they pay me. My understanding of money has shifted over the years. And so now, like I said earlier, I'm borrowing money from the cycle. So I'm not actually creating it, I'm borrowing it. However, I'm creating an idea that someone is then exchanging money for energy. And so financial independence for me is raising the bar, removing the glass ceiling, and like, tuning my financial thermostat to a place where it's limitless and the independence of being able to borrow or create wealth and then put it back into the system. So we are huge advocates of giving and we give education to one student overseas for one year of education for every single client that comes through our program. We work with pencils of promise and in doing that, we also donate just money to them and funding. We built a school in Ghana. In just a year and a half of donating. We built and opened our doors. This year, January 2021, our school opened, which when I left teaching, I said, I'm committed to always being involved in education. We honeymooned in Africa. We just felt really called to it. So that type of giving, yes, being able to help my dad, being able to, like I said, spoil my friends, but also I just invested in my first startup company, a big investment, and that company is led by a woman with all female investors, and she is on a mission to empower other women to learn about valuations and raising capital, which I knew nothing about before getting involved in that process with her. And so financial independence is that it's like, how can I just create and borrow, but then also give back and use and recycle and empower other people to understand their finances.

Cool. One more question then. If you had one money message to give your younger self, what would it be?

There's no parade.

I think a lot of people, right, for the longest time, it's like, hit this arbitrary 10k month, which is incredible. It's a great goal to have, and then like six figures and then to hit seven figures and like, nothing changes. There's no parade. There's no, there is no finish line, right? So I think just letting myself know that, like, yeah, go for it, do those things and I will be really proud of you and you'll feel really great and it will give you these opportunities, but also, like, it's not the be all, end all.

So awesome. So awesome. I mean, you're doing such great things. I mean, this is. And I've learned some I had no idea about the schools in Ghana and all that stuff. So I'm going to want to hear more about that when we're together next because I think that's the beauty. When we start talking about entrepreneurship, when we start talking about wealth, when we start talking about money, it's easy to get. Get it demonized. In fact, the media and many folks will demonize it. And most of that's emotional stuff that's been carried up, and I totally get it. But when you start to understand the tool it is to make a difference in other people's lives.

Whether it's the team that we hire or the causes we're behind, man. I mean, I sat in that room in Napa looking around at the reach and the power that was in that room. I said, we can be a tidal wave of change and impact if we just stood together and shoulder to shoulder, walked that path. Forgetting media, forgetting politics, forgetting what side of the aisle, what side of religion, what color, it doesn't matter. And I think that it's the reason I started the show. I truly believe that entrepreneurship is the pathway to solving a lot of probably I'll say entrepreneurship and communication, the two things.

Yeah.

And I love that. So I appreciate you so much for jumping on and having a chance to chat with you, getting to know you more and allowing the viewers and listeners to that. Where can someone that wants to understand a bit more about your journey, what you do, how you might be able to serve them, where can they find you?

Yeah. Well, Mel, I appreciate you so much. So thank you. I am most often on Instagram. Shoot me a DM there. I'm at Jess Glazer, G L A Z E R. But of course, I'm everywhere. Facebook, website, email, all of that. But yeah, Instagram mostly.

The mastermind we're in together gave you a hard time because you're like, you're an Instagram, like, story savant that, like, you just have this innate timing and you nail the 60 seconds like, like that every time. Me, they go, hey, I need a. I need a one minute. And I go, I can't get my name out in one minute. Are you kidding me?

It's just repetition. It's just repetition. It's a lot of stories. I'm on stories every day. Like I said, it's the most fun place for me to connect with you. So.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll hook that up in the show. Notes and all that stuff. And I one, I appreciate you. Keep your travels safe, Keep us informed. I can't wait to see you and Mike again soon and let me know how I can support you.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

You got it. All of you that are listening and watching, check Jess out. Check out what she's doing. Understand her journey. Understand that this is a journey that she didn't choose up front, but she decided to be open to what could be and look at where she is today. And I think that no matter where you are, whatever age or stage that you're in, this is something that you get a chance to do. You get a chance to make a choice and nothing is set in stone. And if there's one thing that you know that I always believe is that we spend our time living in possibility and that we always, always, always try to live our life in a way that it outlives us. So I'll see you guys on the next episode, the next show, or on the road to affluence. See you soon. Thanks. Cheers. Bye. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of building your money machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.