Rocking Business Success with J.M. Fields

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited to be talking to the owner of Mav Mic Solutions, LLC. And what he does is he helps individuals to improve performance in a variety of areas, including business owners and also companies that are looking to for help with cost savings, efficiency, and training.

So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Joe Fields. Hey Joe, are you ready to rock?

J.M. Fields: Absolutely. I can’t wait. Tim. Thank you.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. Tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

J.M. Fields: Okay. I am, as you’ve mentioned, I’m a business coach. I’ve been coaching for a long time, both sports and, and business as well. And, uh. I was working with a client two years ago and I’m still working with him now. In fact, I was on the phone with him this morning and uh, I was hired in the end of September and one of the things that happened to come up is he lost his business insurance.

[00:01:00] Specifically his vehicle. Now, when you’ve got a fleet of 20 plus trucks, that’s a big deal. The quote for new insurance was almost $300,000. Now, this is a, at the time, a $7 million company, $300,000 puts a, uh, puts a hole in the bucket for anybody. I’ve got context because prior to going out full-time coaching, I was the controller for 30 plus years.

So I reached out to some insurance people and I was able to save ’em $150,000 and, uh, yes. And um. Obviously I am, I’m actually still employed by them two years later and, uh, I today, as a matter of fact, we just signed, uh, with a new insurance policy and I just saved him another 20. So, uh, his savings are paying for my services plus, plus plus.

So that’s not a bad, it’s good for him and it’s good for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. You’re a coach with connections.[00:02:00]

J.M. Fields: Yeah. Well, you know what happens if you’re around long enough, you have to, by osmosis, you meet some great people, and I’ve been extremely fortunate.

Tim Melanson: Right on. So now we do talk about the bad notes as well, because sometimes, you know, there are things that don’t go as planned, and I wanna make sure that people who might be listening to this are. You know, a lot of people are afraid to make those mistakes, right? They’re afraid to jump out and do something on their own ’cause they’re worried about failing.

And that’s why I like to bring these things up because, you know, you’re probably gonna tell us something that didn’t work as as planned. And, hey, you’re still here, right?

J.M. Fields: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, one of my earlier jobs as a controller and one of the most successful that I had, uh, I went to a company that was doing 6 million when I was hired there as air controller as. And, uh, when I left, eight years later, they did 30 million. Right now, he, I won’t say the name of the company, but [00:03:00] he’s retired, sold the company for a hundred million dollars and he’s off the coast of Florida enjoying, life’s an amazing family of person.

However, at one point in time, I mean, he was a company that’s cash rich. We were always rolling a million and a half, $2 million all the time. And the bank we were working with. Kept messing up some of the investments, not in terms as you lost the money, but in terms of reporting so that we could see where we actually were.

I knew the money was there, but the notices coming to me kept being confusion. And you know, you don’t wanna walk into the owner’s office and say, oh, by the way, it says you’re upside down a million and a half when you’re really right side up a million and a half. So I let. What I refer to as, uh, arrogance over intellect takeover, and I knew we had a lot of weight with the bank and I knew I had decision making things and I [00:04:00] pushed and pushed and threatened to leave and all this stuff, and I left and we went to another bank and that it turned out that we went to another bank.

Rates were higher, the returns weren’t as good. And at the end of the year when I was sitting with the outside CPA, he asked me, why did you change banks? It looks like? And I said, it was one of those things that was, uh, arrogance over intellect. This is, they still kept me though anyway. They kept me. But you can bounce back.

Uh, most mistakes aren’t fatal. Everybody makes ’em. Everybody. So if you’re an entrepreneur, 90% of the mistakes you make are not going to be fatal. They’ll bruise a little. Just don’t chew. You know? Just don’t let your ego be your driver. Okay? [00:05:00] You know, use some other factors and something that I recommend to everybody.

If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re out there on your own grinding and grinding. Make sure that you’ve got some other voices besides your own. Reach out and talk to somebody that does the taxes for you. Reach out and talk to other vendor. Maybe it’s your wife. Hear another voice sometimes. One of the things that I’ve found with, uh, entrepreneurs, they work so hard to build the business.

They are the masters of their destiny 99% of the time. But no one is an expert in everything. if you watch Shark Tank, and I forgot what the name of it is in Canada, but those of you that are listening in Canada, uh, what’s the first thing you hear them say? If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business, make sure you know your numbers and make sure there’s another voice out there for you.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And sometimes just running it by somebody else, even if [00:06:00] they aren’t gonna give you any advice, helps you to kind of work through it in your own head too. Right.

J.M. Fields: Absolutely. What’s that second set of eyes? You know, if it’s your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever the case may be, you’re staring at. The, you’re staring at something. Uh, in psychology, it’s called a scotoma. When your wife or girlfriend says, Hey, go to the kitchen, get me the salt on the top shelf, and you’re out there going, I can’t find it.

It’s not here. It’s not there. I don’t see it. And she walks right into the kitchen, picks her hand up and grabs the salt. And she said, here you go. That’s happened to me more than once when I was, when my wife was with me.

Tim Melanson: me too. Me too. And, and I mean, especially when you say something like, uh, like some sort of ego decision that you’re making, uh, when you start to like really verbalize that and, and tell someone else, you, you start to hear your own self talk and you’re like, uh, am I really making this decision?

J.M. Fields: exactly. Exactly. Well, [00:07:00] 2020 is hindsight, right? You know. Great.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Okay, so now you were a coach and I assume there were a lot of practices that you, that you got to preside over, and I’m wondering how does that relate to business? Do we practice in business? I.

J.M. Fields: You should. Right on. No matter what it is. Uh, okay. When you, when you were a youngster and your first time, your mom gave you the spoon to eat, okay? You threw it all over your face and all over your shirt and all over the table, right? The same thing happens in business. Okay? Uh, I’m a big sports guy. Uh. I, um, I, the reason I became a business coach was I had a bucket list trip, and I know a lot of your listeners may not know who this is or anything.

Maybe some will. Um, my bucket list trip wasn’t to Rome, to the Coliseum, it wasn’t to the pyramids. It wasn’t to [00:08:00] meet whomever. It was to go to the University of Alabama and see a football game for 47 years. I waited. And I finally got there and it was a magical weekend. It was the biggest thing. I kid, a friend of mine, she tours the South of France and everything and drops probably 25 or $30,000 on this unbelievable trip.

And believe me when I tell you I’m walking outside the stadium and there’s as much joy in my heart as there is in hers. So, you know, um, there’s a lot out there, but one of the, the practice part, because I am a sports person, my father was military. Uh, I grew up on army bases until I was almost 13.

Practice makes perfect repetition, repetition, repetition. Okay. And, uh, as Bill Belichick says, do your job well, the only way to do your job is to be good at it and to practice.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. [00:09:00] Can you think of anything, any sort of practice, anything repetition that you can do that would be helpful for anybody in any business?

J.M. Fields: The most important thing to be good at anything is make sure your actions are aligned with your goals. And when I say something like that, what I mean is, um, I’ll use something that we all can relate to at one time or another. Uh, well, most of us can anyway. Uh. I wanna lose 25 pounds, okay? I, I really need to lose 25 pounds.

The information on how the diet is out there, not a problem. You can have a million diets to lose 25 pounds, however, when you get home at night. Are the right foods on the shelves and in the right foods in the refrigerator? When you go out, are you walking into a pizzeria or are you walking into a place that has some salads and protein and things like that?[00:10:00]

Um, if you are someone starting a new business, um, or you’re spending habits in alignment with saving money so that you have the funds to fund the business, again, it’s so important. Make sure your actions are aligned with your goals.

Tim Melanson: Which probably leads us to the next thing. What are your goals? Like, I don’t know if, I don’t know if everybody really sets goals in their lives and, and I know business people do, uh, but maybe when you’re starting you might not have that sort of muscle of, of setting goals. What’s a good way to get into setting goals?

J.M. Fields: One of the things that, uh, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve stumbled upon some great classes and taken some great courses and things like that. One of the courses I took, um, it’s a course given, it’s called Finding Mastery, and it’s by Dr. Michael Vet. Uh, when I took it, it was given by [00:11:00] Dr. J Vet and Pete Carroll, the world champion coach for the first he was at the United, at USC, he was with the Seattle Super, uh, the Seattle Seahawks rather.

Now he’s the head coach at, uh, the Las Vegas Raiders. So anyway. The, and one of the coaches in this particular course, it was an eight to 10 week course that I took. That’s human psychology and performance and Setting goals. Uh, one of my coaches was actually an Olympic champion, uh, Olympic Olympic silver medalist.

And, uh, she, it was amazing. She’s got her doctorates now. She actually works with my, all these different companies. I mean, Microsoft, Google, all of these companies. So the connection between sports and psychology and business are there. I think the first thing you have to do though, is set a purpose. Ask, you know, uh, Simon Sinek has the book out.

Why you’re [00:12:00] asking, you know, your why and that type of thing. And I, by the way, I also recommend highly reading, reading, reading, reading, and more reading. I jokingly tell my friends, I’ve got my master’s on YouTube now. I can’t do anything. I apologize. That’s my dog. Uh, letting everybody know that I’m on a podcast.

I’m sorry. Uh, but anyway, um, I would do this. Try to find your purpose. Try to get a vision of where you wanna be. Shut your eyes and say to yourself, what is it I real, what moves the needle for me? Where are my skills in that area? What are the things I can do and as, uh, one of my favorite guys, Jalen Hertz, the super winning, the Super Bowl winning quarterback of the Eagle says, keep the main thing, the main thing.

Stay focused. Don’t lose track.

Tim Melanson: What if someone says, well, my goal is to make money.

J.M. Fields: Get a job. [00:13:00] I’m being facetious. Okay? Everybody’s goal is to make money, okay? Where are your, where are your interests? What are your skills? What if, if you knew the job could give you the type of money you, you want? First of all, there’s a want and there’s a need. Different levels. Okay? I want to be a millionaire.

I don’t need to be, so start off in my opinion. Find something that you like and know, and you know, obviously I like football, but I’m 70 years old and I’m not going to play anymore. But you know what? I can, I just opened up, so I am now a brand new entrepreneur, like the rest of some of your listeners. I have a, I just started a card business with my 13-year-old grandson, so we are now in the collect, we are collecting cards and I’m learning that [00:14:00] why?

One, it keeps me with my grandson. Two, you look anywhere, collectibles are just exploding. I didn’t realize how much and it. Gives me the opportunity. It’s something I like. It’s a subject matter sports, and it’s also with someone I wanna do it with and I have a little bit of knowledge. I’m lucky I have business knowledge, so that helps.

Tim Melanson: I think that’s really good what you just said, because like you say, I like football. Hey, well, but there’s a lot of things you can do related to football. It doesn’t have to just be, go out and play, right? It can be a lot of different things around that. And I think that that’s probably some really good advice ’cause something that, that someone’s very interested in as a hobby.

You know, uh, you know, maybe it’s music, you know, whatever it happens to be. There’s a ton of things you can do around it. You just gotta be a little bit creative. And I obviously, the second thing you said is make sure you’re doing with people that you like too, right?

J.M. Fields: Well, it’s, it is [00:15:00] one of the reasons why people, uh, end up starting their own business is obviously they, they think, and you’re a business owner, so you’ll, you, you can understand this. I want freedom. I want all the time in the world. I wanna be my own boss. I have a client who tells me, all I ever wanna do is I want peace of mind.

Get a job. Because if you’re an entrepreneur, peace of mind comes and goes,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

J.M. Fields: okay, you’re going to have to overcome hurdles and things like that. You know yourself. I mean, life gets in the way of business sometimes, and you just have to keep, you just have to bounce back. It’s what I get to do, not what I have to do or should do.

Tim Melanson: I think probably, uh uh, because you’re right, a lot of people when they start a business, when they think about starting a business, maybe their main driver is some sort of freedom. And I don’t know if you really get freedom, but you [00:16:00] do get flexibility. You do get the ability to come in in different hours.

You know, all the things you have to ask your boss for, well, you’re the boss, but in the end, those things still got to have to get done. You’re not free from them unless you have a trust fund or something from somebody else. But, but, uh, but the flexibility is extremely important and it’s very close to freedom, in my opinion anyway. Yeah.

J.M. Fields: I think one of the things, we had a conversation, uh, over the weekend. One of my friends came into town, um, and uh, we were talking about that very thing, freedom where we were at one of her family’s functions and things like that, and we’re all hanging out there. And I said, one of the differences is I said, obviously you’ve got different age groups.

I happen to be a baby boomer. They’re Gen Y, gen Z, blah, blah, blah, blah. All those different gens and everything else. And what drives them is [00:17:00] different. One of the things, uh, one of my clients just recently lost an employee and the employees said to them, they just. It wasn’t a good fit for him. Well, everything up until that seemed like a perfect fit.

He said he needed the job. Well, we found out a little bit later that he was saying, you know, my parents, he’s living home. My parents were really on me because I was studying, but I needed a job. And, uh, so he took a job. So he, it might’ve been a perfect fit for him. However, the thing driving him. Was his parents pushing him out the door, not, Hey, I want the job.

So what drives you to whatever it is you do is a major factor,

Tim Melanson: Yep. And probably even having a really good, clear awareness of what that is will help in making the right decisions. Right.

J.M. Fields: Well, I think yes, a hundred percent. It, it, and it’s gonna come and go. [00:18:00] It’s, you know, people that I, I’ve got a friend who was a lawyer for a long period of time. He’s now involved in the coffee business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

J.M. Fields: Just, you know what? After a while, enough’s enough and your passion and your drive goes in another direction.

Your paycheck or money will only drive you so far. I’ve rarely met the person that was driven completely by money and lasted very long at that occupation,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, eventually it, it, it changes. And I mean, that kind of leads to another point of like just changing directions completely. I mean, uh. I think that, I think that sometimes we get sort of stuck in something that we’ve been doing for so long because we’ve been doing it for so long, or maybe because we’ve got some education in that area or whatever it happens to be, and we’re sort of like doing something we don’t like because we’ve just always been doing it and you’re just sort of scared to move to something that we [00:19:00] would like more.

J.M. Fields: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: But gotta start all over again. Right. However, are you really starting over again? Like, aren’t there some of those skills that are transferable to the new thing that you’re about to do?

J.M. Fields: You know, that’s interesting. Um, I wrote a book called The Bucket List Coach, how to Create a High Performance Championship Culture in Your Business. Um, it took me three years to write. The book, it’s not volumes and volumes of information, but what it is is something that occurred because I went on my bucket list, trip, did what I wanted to do, and felt that there, that I might’ve missed my true calling.

Little did I know that here I am a controller and I’ve been training. People and teaching, uh, CEOs about other areas in their business for all this time. And then on the other [00:20:00] hand, I had coached sports for the majority of my life, whether it be my brother’s teams, my my own teams, my children’s teams, or other people’s teams, and just.

The, those two options melted together be turned me into a business coach. I had the opportunity to realize I’ve got skills in this area, but there’s so much more that I can bring to the entrepreneur because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the winners and I’ve seen the losers, and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what the difference is.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about the band, actually. Let’s talk about your team.

J.M. Fields: Ahuh.

Tim Melanson: Uh, so who is it that you have around you that helps you get success in your business?

J.M. Fields: Well, I’m very fortunate. Uh, I, as I think I had mentioned to you prior, um, I’ve been in business a long time. Uh, today, for example, I was helping, uh, my, one of my clients with his insurance. [00:21:00] Well, I’ve known Mike for 15 years. Mike is my outside insurance, uh, agent. It’s a very large agency. I can reach out to him.

Um. The person that was in town, uh, is not only, this is a lesson on, uh, hiring people. Uh, 30 years ago I hired a credit manager. I was desperate. I was trying to do so much as a controller and as a credit manager, and we were doing $20 million and I had all these jobs and I hired this person. She’s a home run.

So I’m really lucky. Well, little did I know that she would turn out to be my best friend. We have been friends for 30 years. She was up here. She just retired from a company where she was the director of credit of a billion dollar conglomerate. I mean, she’s, she’s a home run, so I rely on her. Sometimes I pick up the phone and I call her.

Um, I have benefit people that I’m able to pick the phone up and [00:22:00] pick their bangs. I know some bankers. So longevity helps you a lot. Um, the other thing is that I rely on some of the people that I’ve met. Um, I was very fortunate, as I mentioned the University of Alabama is I go down every year and I’ve met if.

I’m fortunate because I was able to shake hands with someone who is the greatest in the world at something that, you know, we use that word the goat nowadays so much and well, Nick Saban is our is not argue. He is the goat and I’ve had a chance to meet him. And when you stand in front of 600 people and you ask them, what type of leadership do you look for in people?

And you get a three minute answer. It’s like taking a master’s class because no matter what the subject matter, if you’re the greatest of all time in it, whether it’s worm farming, [00:23:00] you are, uh, Eric Clapton on the guitar. They’re the greatest of all time. You are going to learn something from ’em. So I’m lucky I’ve got people around me, I’ve got friends that help me, uh, and I’m lucky.

My sons are, uh, 46 and 42 and uh, I’ve got a 5-year-old granddaughter who advises me on everything I wanna do.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Well, so this topic of the next are kind of, they’re kind of similar and I think that looking at sports, I don’t know how many times during this podcast, like we use music as analogies. We use sports as analogies. Because you look at sports and you know, you’ve got your team and everybody’s got their role.

You, you don’t try to do everything on your own, right? You’ve got, you’ve got people that are gonna help you get to where you need to be. And I think that that’s really important to think about when you’re thinking about business because I don’t think that that’s necessarily what most people get into business doing.

I think most people get into business thinking, [00:24:00] I’m gonna do it all and, and end up. I don’t know where they end up, but they, they either end up probably burnt out or they end up finally realizing that maybe I should bring some people onto this team. Right. Uh, so you have that massive advantage, I think, number one being, you know, in that field for so long.

Uh, but now when you transition to business, it doesn’t seem like, it seems like you took that transferable skill of finding the right people too. Right.

J.M. Fields: Absolutely nothing worth building is built alone. It just doesn’t happen. Michael Jordan is not Michael Jordan because Michael Jordan alone did it. Okay? If you’re Tiger Woods, you’ve got a swing coach, you’ve got a head coach, you’ve got all these Nick Saban, the goat, as I said, he’s got psychologists that work with him, other coaches that nobody does it alone.

Now, how do I build a team? Well, the first thing you wanna do is you wanna have a common vision and a purpose.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

J.M. Fields: This [00:25:00] is, uh, this is something I’m very passionate about. It may come through in my voice. Uh, I, I believe that the most important thing you can do is have a clear vision, communicate that vision, and by doing that and having transparency, you can build a culture.

You have to have certain standards, and standards are different than rules. Rules. Were meant to be broken. Okay? We all know that. Okay? Don’t cross in the middle of the road, okay? Uh, hey, don’t stay out past midnight when you’re 16 years old and you break that rule anyway. Standards are something you set.

And those are acceptable. Those are things that you wanna reach and it inspires the people around you to be that way too. So I think that’s important. And then the other thing, and this is actually a chapter in my book, you want to [00:26:00] hire the greater fool. The reason I say the Greater Fool is this. This was inspired by a very popular, uh, HBO TV show that we had in the United States called The Newsroom, and there was a separate episode.

And the Greater Fool is someone, and I’m gonna paraphrase it, but I actually believe this strongly, if you own a business. You want a team of greater fools because despite the odds, despite the trouble you’re having, making payroll, despite everything, they’re the people. They’re gonna stand with you. So they’ll be there through the tough times.

You can count on everybody’s there when they’re good. Heck, I, you know, when the New York Yankees are the greatest thing in the world, everybody’s a Yankee fan. Okay? When you’re a seller, dweller. You can’t find anybody wearing the hat. Okay? You want [00:27:00] greater fools, and I can’t tell you enough. Business owners have a, and it’s common.

I’ve worked for a lot of small companies, anywhere from five to a hundred million dollars, and the owner doesn’t understand why the employees don’t feel about it like they do.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

J.M. Fields: Well if you treat them as just an employee. As someone that is pulling a paycheck that isn’t able to contribute. ’cause money only motivates so much and they don’t believe that you’re being transparent.

You don’t have to tell ’em everything, but you need to communicate with them. They’re not going to feel the same way. They’re never gonna feel completely because they didn’t start from the ground and sit at the kitchen table and worry about making payroll. You did. But the more transparent and the more you communicate and the more it’s a common values and goals and standards, the better chance you have to have [00:28:00] employees and a good team.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, I love what you mentioned about, uh, because we obviously know that. Teams, you know, team sports, but you mentioned individual sports also have a team. Right. And that’s important to recognize too. ’cause I think somebody, somebody might say, well yeah, but what about the individual sports?

I’m only competing with myself. But no, you have people around you. Right. And some of those people are your coaches as well. And I’m wondering, ’cause we, we do, we do get that onto that topic a lot where, you know. The highest performing athletes in the world have coaches, so why shouldn’t you right now, do coaches have coaches too?

J.M. Fields: Absolutely. Uh, one of, uh, the reason that I’m on this podcast is because a common, uh, friend of ours, mark Ney, is the reason he’s my business coach. He helps me, not, one of my strengths is not technology. Okay. Uh, because I’ve always worked in companies where the work [00:29:00] came to me, and if I had a problem, I went to the IT department.

I went to the, the, the, it might have been an accounting person who knew technology and thing and cleaned it up for me. Uh, mark helps me in a number of ways, and it’s how I met you because as you well know. I need help in those areas. Okay. You just can’t build it alone, so yes, you definitely need coaches.

Mark is coaching me right now and the good part is he’s such a resource because he is got probably 30,000 people in the coaching jungle. I’m part of his mastermind, so I get the value of other coaches and other people, and I’m part of his VIP group, which. I was on with them yesterday. It was amazing. I get a couple, one of the gentlemen was partners with Anthony Robbins. I mean, the resources that you, I recommend everybody [00:30:00] get out there. It may not be a formal coach, but find yourself some people around you that’ll help. I think it was Warren Buffet who says, you’re the sum of the five people you hang out with. Hang out with Lou. Listen, if I wanna shoot foul shots, I go to somebody who shoots 90%.

If I wanna learn business, I go to somebody who’s successful in business. If I want technology and web building, I go to you, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

J.M. Fields: Okay,

Tim Melanson: Thank you.

J.M. Fields: you’re

Tim Melanson: Well, and and that’s absolutely true. I, I love what you’re saying there. And, uh, I think it’s one of those things that, uh, I, I, first, first things first I think is there needs to be a bit of an awareness of where your, where your strengths are, what you really do well, and where, where are the areas that you need to move into.

And I think, you know, technology is kind of obvious nowadays that you gotta move in that direction. Right, and so finding some people to do that. Now I’m wondering how did you find Mark and how do you find coaches?

J.M. Fields: Okay. [00:31:00] I, uh, um, I was lucky I stumbled on Mark. I was actually reading, I was online looking at some things. I probably have 200 books in my Kindle. Okay. I, uh, I, I wish I had picked up this habit earlier. But as I got later on in life, I just became, uh, I have a reading disability, but I’m a voracious reader. I also love YouTube.

As I said, I got my master’s in YouTube, uh, and I actually came across another coach who mentioned Mark, and I said, let me let everybody can, as my grandson said when he was two, Goggle it, Ty Doc goggle it well. Now Chad, TBT will tell you everything. Even I know that. And that’s how I stumbled onto Mark.

And I liked his message. And then I loved his consistency. [00:32:00] Every day he was out there. He’s the machine. I don’t care who you are and what you do. Eric Clapton probably spent a hundred thousand hours before he was 20 years old on the guitar. He just did. Well, mark is the machine. He gets his message out there and it’s not just, hi, buy this, do this, do that.

It’s always enlightening and thoughts is in it. So I, that’s how I got, that’s how I met Mark. I was lucky that way.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah. I love, I love that because I mean, you can see lots of people online. Like there are lots of coaches out there that are saying, you know, all the right things. Uh, but I love what you’re saying there is just look what they’re doing. You know, if, if you can see what they’re doing and they’re being consistent, like you say that you could see the work that they’re putting out there, then that’s a pretty good indication that maybe, you know, this person really has put in their time where their [00:33:00] mouth is.

Right.

J.M. Fields: exactly. If you were gonna spend, and I’ll use insurance as an analogy again, are you gonna just take your insurance guy’s word for it, that everything’s covered, or are you gonna reach out to other people and see what’s the coverage like? Is it good? How is it rated? You’re gonna do the same thing with coaches too.

Reach out there, see what they’ve done, talk to people, you know that just get some referrals.

Tim Melanson: Alright, Joe, it’s time for your guest solo. So what’s exciting in your business today?

J.M. Fields: Terrific. What’s exciting in my business today? Well, honestly, I like, first of all, this interview is great. I’m enjoying this tremendously. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Um, I’m very fortunate because I’m passionate about coaching. I believe strongly that, first of all, in the United States, I can’t speak for anywhere else, but I’m assuming it’s probably like that.

90% of the [00:34:00] people work for small businesses. So therefore, the impact that I can have because of the years that I’ve worked in these different smaller businesses and that I can reach out to other people, I think is really important to me. At this point in my life, I’m not looking to create, uh, Microsoft.

I’m not Steve Jobs, okay? At this point in my life, I wanna make a difference. I wanna, you know, a popular phrase is serve other people, but I want to coach other people. And, uh, my definition of coaching is teaching, inspire people to learn, and more importantly, to take action. Um, so what drives me and keeps me going at this time of my life, uh, I’m very fortunate.

I have great family around me and I love to coach, whether it be sports, business, whatever. I just wanna see people win. I want ’em to succeed.

Tim Melanson: I heard [00:35:00] you wrote a book. I, I don’t know if this is, does this look familiar to you?

J.M. Fields: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Tim Melanson: Tell me about the book.

J.M. Fields: Ah, the book, the book, I, I, at first, it started as, as something that was inspired from my trip to the University of Alabama. It was going to be all about this because, uh. 2020 had the year before had this special inside the University of Alabama because it suddenly you couldn’t get it. How are they so successful?

How did they win the championship and all this stuff? Well, I finally got there on my bucket list trip and I knocked, I just opened the door and I walked in and I said, I’d like to get a picture of this. Nobody’s gonna believe that I’m here. I’m so excited. I’m, my kids tease me all the time. I’m fan boy.

I’m a 12-year-old all the time. I’m the oldest, 12-year-old there is out there. So I walked [00:36:00] in the door and there were a group of. Men standing there with logos on their shirts and they one, and I said, excuse me, I’m on my bucket list trip. I was talking to the receptionist and I said, I just wanna get a picture of this tree.

It’s November the 15th. I just wanna get a picture of this tree. It’s got all these ornaments on it. I’ll be right out. And one of the coaches. Looked at me and said, you’re on your bucket list trip. I said, absolutely. I don’t wanna get thrown out. There’s nothing worse than an old guy getting thrown out on his bucket list.

Joking. He said, come on over here. And I started to talk to him. He said, I think I can do better than that. And he co and I went into an elevator and I went upstairs. It turned out that crazy as it sounds. He was the assistant head coach at Alabama. I didn’t know this. Not only that, but he had played in college at Nebraska and I had played football against a guy who played with him.

It was just [00:37:00] one of those things he called over what they call a graduate assistant. I got a tour of the facility. I did all these things that you saw on the year before on 60 minutes, a behind the look. And it just inspired me. And I started thinking, ah, business and that and business sports, can I put it together?

And I became a coach. And the book is to help small businesses and individuals. Uh, and it’s, it’s, it’s not meant to be how to you do it, it’s meant to let you know these are areas. Um, did you know that, that you can actually make money by spending money? Well, how do you do that? Well, you negotiate with your vendors.

How can you do that? Well, I always buy from Tim all the time. Why do I have to pay Tim 50% upfront? Maybe Tim is willing to take [00:38:00] payments if I buy from another vendor. Hey, I’m 30, I’m net 30. I don’t wanna be net 30. I buy whatever in volume from you guys. A lot of people knowing a lot of vendors, rather knowing that you’re a good pay.

Because you buy in volume, you can actually spend money and make money because you’re helping your cash flow. And that’s really important when you’re a young entrepreneur starting out, take advantage. So that’s just one thing that’s in the book. Um, another thing is your core values. If people pay attention, there’s a saying that’s very, very, very true in business and in life.

Your actions speak so loud, I can’t hear what you’re saying. If you are treating people a certain way, but you have this sign on the wall that says, these are my values, these are my goals, and your actions [00:39:00] aren’t reflecting these things, it’s nothing but a sign on the wall. Might as well be a picture of Casper, the friendly ghost.

Um. Things like that. So that inspired me to, I wanted to get some of these lessons out there. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, uh, one of the chapters is the greater fool, Hey, you wanna get people to really work with you. They need to buy in. How do they buy in? Create a culture where you can buy in. Things like that.

Tim Melanson: Love that. So how do people find out more and how do they get the book?

J.M. Fields: Well, the book is on Amazon. It’s in Kindle format. You can purchase it, uh, hard copy or soft copy. It’s a paperback. Um, you can go to my website, which is, uh, it’s, it’s up, it’s www the bucket list coach.com.

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

J.M. Fields: And, uh, I’m also around, out there on the internet as well. Um, I am on [00:40:00] Facebook. I am on, uh, Twitter or X depending upon your point of view.

I’m actually on, uh, Instagram and I’m on TikTok, so I know here I am the, uh, senior citizen of social media, but I actually have about 1500 followers on Twitter, and that’s a great, and oh, by the way. I actually have used the fact that I have 15 other a hundred followers in negotiations with a vendor before.

You don’t want me to go out there and talk about your product if you guys can’t give me great service.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow.

J.M. Fields: you never know where your leverage is gonna come from.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. So now, uh, thanks for rocking out with me today first, and I always ask this question, it’s usually a hard one, but I think it might be easier for you. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

J.M. Fields: Ah, my favorite rockstar. Well, surprisingly enough, I live on the Jersey Shore. [00:41:00] If you’re a big music guy who’s on the Jersey Shore in the snow pony, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

J.M. Fields: I, I am a, I got the chance to meet, uh, Bruce once. He is always around the shore. Uh, he’s a very amazing person, philanthropically, so is a John Bon Jovi as well, but I’m old school.

I am a Beatles guy, and my all time favorite would have to be Elvis Presley.

Tim Melanson: Wow. You’re definitely a music guy then. That’s great. Good choices. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Joe. This has been a lot of fun.

J.M. Fields: It’s been my pleasure and thank you for the opportunity, Tim. I look forward to talking to you more.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to Work Home Rockstar for information and to see the podcast.