This week's guest is passionate entrepreneur Jermane Cheetham, founder of Creators Learn. Jermane shares his wisdom on achieving freedom through simplicity, guiding entrepreneurs to cut through overcomplications that hold most back.
Key points covered:
👉The importance of having clarity through vision
👉Executing the vision through partnerships and relationships
👉Creating space and grace to think simply
👉Finding the leverage points using systems
Tune in to hear Jermane's mantra that simplicity is the key to financial and lifestyle freedom for entrepreneurs. Discover how to refine your vision, build strategic partnerships, create space for clarity, and leverage systems over complications.
Connect with Jermane thru the social links below and learn more about his business:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jermane-cheathem/
Website: https://creatorslearn.com/
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
This week's guest is passionate entrepreneur Jermane Cheetham, founder of Creators Learn. Jermane shares his wisdom on achieving freedom through simplicity, guiding entrepreneurs to cut through overcomplications that hold most back.
Key points covered:
👉The importance of having clarity through vision
👉Executing the vision through partnerships and relationships
👉Creating space and grace to think simply
👉Finding the leverage points using systems
Tune in to hear Jermane's mantra that simplicity is the key to financial and lifestyle freedom for entrepreneurs. Discover how to refine your vision, build strategic partnerships, create space for clarity, and leverage systems over complications.
Connect with Jermane thru the social links below and learn more about his business:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jermane-cheathem/
Website: https://creatorslearn.com/
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Welcome to the three degrees of freedom podcast, where we explore lifestyle engineering with our expert guests to bring you in alignment with your own three degrees of freedom, location, time, and financial independence.
Derek:Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we have our guest, Jermaine Cheatham, a passionate advocate for leveraging simplicity and systems to achieve an entrepreneurial freedom. As the founder of Creators Learn, Jermaine helps entrepreneurs build lucrative businesses using a proven methodology that he's honed, closing over 50 million in deals or investments. With his mantra that simplicity is the key, he guides people to cut through the complexities and overcomplications that hold back them. Most from financial and lifestyle freedom. And Jermaine, it's awesome to have you on the show. And I have to admit, as I read this introduction, I feel a lot of myself as people that you are talking to in this audience, because I tend to over complicate and build things that don't need to be there. So I'm super excited for this conversation. Welcome to the show, man. Yeah,
Jermane:thanks, Derek, for having me, man. We all as a human species, we tend to overcomplicate things because we're fed a bunch of things to buy.
Derek:Yeah, for sure. The consumerism thing is for real, especially in the U. S. When, as we get started here, I'd like to ask the same Question to all of our guests when we get started, which is which of the three degrees of freedom, location, time, or financial, do you feel that you're the strongest in right now? And then second parter to that is which one of those would you like to develop further in the future?
Jermane:I'm strong in one. You didn't mention that. I believe is the most important. Is mental freedom and I believe there are four elements of freedom. I believe financials. Number one, number two is time. Number three is location in the last and most essential one is. It's mental freedom. And so I believe that the mental freedom part of it, however, even though I am extremely strong in all four of them, the mental freedom aspect of it is never a pinnacle you actually reach. It's never something that is actually obtained. It's almost like chasing happiness. You don't chase happiness. It just happens. And but I do believe in my hierarchy of financials first. And then you get the time because you have the money. And then once you have the time and the money, then you're like I can just do this from Buenos Aires. And then once you get to Buenos Aires, you start to realize, Oh, everything I thought about freedom, life achievement, things that I wanted was wrong. Because I actually now have space to think about it. And I have context because I'm out of my bubble of friends and family in America. And now I'm all over the world and I see, Oh, everyone's a zombie. Everyone's a sheep. And they're all acting the same way. So then at that fourth level, you can start to think mentally do I want to be a sheep anymore? Do I want to be a zombie anymore? Do I want to think for myself? So that's my long winded answer to your initial question, Derek.
Derek:Sounds good. No, I appreciate that. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here. We're here to discuss. That makes sense. So you're actually speaking to us from Buenos Aires. So before I get started with all the questions that I've prepared, or some of them at least can you talk a little bit about how you actually got there? Maybe it's a longer story, but I'm just curious, like, why Buenos Aires? And is that your permanent location, or do you hop around a little bit? Just wanted to get a little bit more background
Jermane:behind that. Yeah, so I travel usually to a new country every one to three months. And I have been doing this since 2019. I was in Columbia before and I'm sorry. No, I was in Brazil before. And then I came here. So I typically just go to countries that are somewhat close. I don't like the flight 15 hour flights if I don't have to. But the thing I love about Buenos Aires, this is my second time here is. It is the best big city in the world that I've been to, and I've been to a lot of places because it doesn't feel like a big city. It feels like you're in a small community with parks everywhere. You don't really see the buildings, you just see huge trees everywhere. So they call it the Paris of South America for a reason, because it's beautiful. Great food, great people, great weather it's an awesome place. Yeah, that
Derek:sounds incredible. We have my, my wife and I, over the past three years, around the same time that you started to do this traveling, we've also been digital nomads for quite some time until recently. We're still looking to do some of the digital nomadism, but my wife is craving some of that home base ishness things that you get by staying in one place for a portion of the year, but we still plan on going out for at least three or four months out of the year and traveling out from that home base. I think it's amazing what you're doing and you're actually living these three degrees of freedom, which I think is super, super awesome. Now, let's talk a little bit more about. Getting unstuck because I think, mindset underpins pretty much everything that we do as entrepreneurs and as people that are pursuing these layers of freedom. And really everyone in this planet should be embracing mindset as one of the most basic things to help better themselves and humanity. And so can you talk a little bit about how you see Some people getting stuck over complicating things. And how would you recommend them getting unstuck? Or maybe you can draw from your own personal experience.
Jermane:The first thing is clarity and clarity is developed by having a vision of what you actually want. And so I have a. Any of your listeners, if they want, they can go to my website and get my free vision workshop. And so basically once you get clear on what you want in the future and how you want to show up and what that actually looks like, then you have at least some GPS of where you want to go. Because many people, the reason they feel stuck is because they don't know what they want. They think about what they don't want, which is one of the silliest things you can ever do. So once you focus on what you actually want, then you have to realize. Why do you want that? Cause many people, the reason why they want something is not their reasons. It's their dad's reasons. It's their wife's reason. It's their nation's reason. It's their neighborhood. It's their church's reason. They don't really own it. They've been brainwashed into these reasons, but they never sat down and actually thought. Oh, I actually want this for me because I want it. So those are the first two steps. And then I think from there, you really have to execute and execute comes down to desire and it's simple. But really if you really understand human nature is, people would say, Hey, Jermaine, I want your lifestyle. It sounds so great. I wish I was doing that. I wish I had those types of freedoms. I always tell them, no, you don't because you would have them because you don't have the desire. And so you have to really, at the end of the day, have the desire to have whatever you want and make it happen by any means necessary. And if you don't have the desire, then it's not for you or just not the right time. So I really wouldn't beat yourself up about being quote unquote stuck. I would focus on baby steps. Having a vision of what you want and then taking small actions every day or even every moment, every hour, whatever it is. So you start to build confidence because confidence is a snowball. And once you do one thing and you actually do the thing you said you're going to do today, you get a little bit more confident. And so these things start to. Change who you are and you become a different individual. And I would always start with getting unstuck by figuring out where you want to go, why you want it, and then start small and build slowly. Don't worry about trying to, lose a hundred pounds in a week. It ain't gonna happen. You're not gonna make a million dollars in a year. You're not, it's not gonna happen. Focus on the small stuff and then execute
Derek:with excellence. Before we go any further I have to take another detour here just because I'm fascinated. I know that we've been connected for some time, through LinkedIn and some other places. We have some mutual connections, but I wanted to learn a little bit more about your past and how you were able to essentially learn a lot of this stuff and get to the point where you are right now, can you share a little bit about your history and how you got to where you are? Yeah.
Jermane:I've always believed, even as a little kid, I wanted freedom. And the reason why I wanted freedom is because I had a childhood that was mixed of a mix of confusion, a mix of fear, a mix of. And so when you're five, six, seven years old, and you're not sure what the truth is about yourself, about the world, about people. I wanted to free myself mentally always. And so the only thing I told myself is I am never going to be a victim of my own mind. I'm never going to complain about my life because I am the one in charge. And I had fear, a lot of fear. And I realized, how could I challenge this fear? How can I see if it's true about, people and myself? Am I good enough? Are people kind or are they hostile? The old Albert Einstein question. The number one question is the world friendly or is it hostile? And so I said, something, let's get into sales. Cause I'm gonna learn real quick, are people kind? Am I any good? Am I a good communicator? And I realized all these fears about my inadequacies and about the inactive inadequacies of people were wrong. It was all a story I made up. And so as I got into sales and I excelled and I was breaking company records, I was still trapped because I was an employee and true freedom is not in an employee role. True freedom is being an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, if you will. And I had to break free and I had to start my own business because I wanted true freedom. I wanted all four levels of freedom. And so I look at my life through that lens of We never actually get to our goal. It's, it never stops. The journey never stops. There's always something it shouldn't because once you get comfortable, then you stop growing and you actually start to get miserable. And so if you reframe joy and success and happiness from a lens of just making progress. Then it can never stop, but you always have to aim higher for the next plateau, the next stepping stone, which basically means you have to keep going down dark caves that you don't want to go into, but you have to in order to grow. And so like when it comes to like my why I have a exercise called the seven layers deep of why, and at the very bottom of my why I want to be successful, why I want to have freedom, all these things is I don't have any other options, but growth. Either I die literally and physically and mentally and spiritually, or I grow. And so that's my only option. I only have options to grow. And so when I look at life through that lens, it makes my choices in the moment easy because like literally if I think about it. Jermaine, I'm sitting on the couch. I know I should do this. I think, is this a step towards growth or a step towards safety? And you know instantly which one it is, so you put on your sneakers, you go to the gym, or you make the cold call, or you write the post, or whatever it is. I just think of life through a lens of operating from Is it growth or is it safety? And just choose growth.
Derek:That's some powerful stuff there, man. I really appreciate that. Looking back over my years and trying to track your words with my experiences as well in life. I can say that there's two distinct periods, one where I was asleep and one where I was awake. I don't want to use the word woke, but one where I was awake. And I think that you've nailed the difference between those two lives in my. In my experience, right? The one where I'm looking at growth instead of comfort. And I also wanted to underpin something too, that you said about how growth is a journey. Because some of the things that I see is, can you picture yourself as someone who, let's just take sports as an example, because it's easy. It's visible figures. People understand that, right? Can you imagine someone who is at the complete top of their game? And then they end up like. breaking records, or they end up like getting a gold medal in the Olympics multiple times. If they have worked so hard to become that person to achieve that result. But what happens after that what happens after they achieve everything that they've achieved and I'd encourage the listeners to also think about this for yourself, right? You probably have a goal to leave your job right now or to, create a business that can generate a million dollars in net income for yourself and for your family. And I just encourage and take your means. Words of wisdom to think that it's a continuum and not a journey or not a an end result. It's a full journey. You're going to have to go on this and eventually you're going to achieve your goals. And then what's on, what's behind that. And so this is more of you being a specific type of person rather than achieving something. Because once you achieve that, then it's up to you to set some new goals, right? That's fully resonating with who you are as an individual. That's why vision is so key. So I wanted to see if you wanted to comment on any of that. Or I can ask another question because I'm loving what you're saying right now.
Jermane:Yeah, no, I think that's so important because. It's tough though, because you can say to your blue in the face you're not going to be happy once you get the million dollars and someone's yeah. Easy for you to say. They're not going to understand it until they have the Rolex on their wrist to realize the Rolex wasn't going to make them happy. But until you have it, you just don't know it's just the laws of the universe. So go get the Rolex, go get the million dollars, but know that it's not going to make you happy. So that's number one. Number two is to your point about the sports analogy. I made a YouTube video the other day about this kind of concept, and it was about Michael Jordan and the correlation between him and John F. Kennedy, because John Kennedy is a dreamer. And he's talking about, we're going to go, we're going to put a man on the moon, right? We need men that dream of things that were never, that never were. That's one of his quotes. And I think about Michael Jordan as this dominant figure in basketball at the pinnacle of his career. He throws it all away and decides to chase something he sucks at. And he's willing to look like an idiot to get laughed at, to have egg on his face because he wants to go down a dark cave that he has to go down. Because I think he realized when he's a hundred year old Michael Jordan on his rocking chair, He would highly regret. He didn't give it his all to try to be a baseball all star or to be maybe the best in the world at baseball. And so I always implore people to think about that lens of, are you willing to sacrifice a little bit of egg on your face to go after your dreams? Because when you are a hundred years old in that rocking chair and you didn't try to be an entrepreneur or a solopreneur or ask the girl out on a date or. Go to Nepal or wherever, whatever the hell you want to do, you're going to regret that. And like living life with regret is just like we all die. So it's it doesn't matter. Like none of this shit matters. Failures don't matter. Successes don't matter. Nothing fucking matters except for the things you believe matter to you. So if you have an inkling to Do something to go down a dark alley, to go down that dark cave. Think about what Michael Jordan did. Like he gave up everything at the top of his dominance to do something that he got laughed at. But he didn't care because he had to have peace of mind to die in peace. And I think about that all the time. Like I want to die in peace. The only way for me to die in peace is do scary shit that I know I might fail at. And if I fail, okay, because it doesn't matter because I die anyways. Yeah, and it's a
Derek:stepping stone to success, unless you decide to give up, right? And people in that mindset that you're in, don't, just don't give up, right? Because there's a reason why that pursuit is there, because you're super clear about your clarity. Which is what I really love about this whole approach. Now I love what you're saying here. I want to talk a little bit about how maybe the audience can benefit from some of this wisdom and some of the experiences that you've been through. So what do you feel like tends to hold people back from finding the simplicity in building their own vision? You mentioned that you had. A a vision exercise on your website that's free, which don't mind if I do, I'm probably going to go in there and give that a shot myself as well. But because, you can always strengthen your vision always. There's never a point in which you can be like, Oh no, I'm, my vision's set. It's always an evolving thing. Anyways, do you, can you give us some tips or can you tell us what tends to hold people back from building their vision or finding the simplicity? To build their vision.
Jermane:I think people just don't do it. They just don't take the time. They don't sit down for an hour and close their eyes and dream or write down what their ideal day looks like. Like mine is very detailed. I wake up at four 30. I do this. I do this. I watch the sunrise. I swim in the ocean. I do these things. I've worked a couple of it's very clear what I'm looking at. There's marble floor. I have marble floors. I have an oceanfront villa. Like I'm very clear about my vision. So if you don't even take the time, that means you don't care about your future. So I always implore people to at least do this once a year, if not once a quarter, because it's going to change your visions and priorities are going to change. And that's fine. And the simplicity part about. So executing on the vision part is the world wants you to be confused because that's how they make money. That's why they sell you these things in these 18 modules where you really just need probably three modules of the real stuff, right? And so you have to separate the incentive structure of life, follow the incentive structures in your real life. What's real and what's fake, what is fluff and what's core. And so when I think about executing on the vision, I realize business is not technology. Even though technology is a tool, business is not a product. It's just the vehicle, right? Business is done with other people. And once you understand that businesses is executed with other people, then you realize that other people are actually the assets. Those are actually the leverage points. And so when I was building my financial services business, this is just an idea to hopefully give the listeners how I thought about this is I had my vision, but I didn't, I was executing it in a hard way. It wasn't a clear executable strategy because I was trying to offer my financial services to physicians one to one. In trying to reach them over the phone, via email, one to one transactions to see if they need to utilize my services. Doctors aren't available. They're always with patients. I was wasting my life. I was spending all these hours cold calling until I realized there has to be a better way. And so what I decided to do is think holistically and step back and take a little time and think to myself, who has a network of my ideal clients, my doctors that are already in their network already have their trust. And how can I just partner with them? And so how you execute on visions is create partnerships with people that have the trust of your ideal avatar or client already in mind. So I just partnered with medical device salespeople. And so I offered my financial services to them. They had hundreds, if not thousands of doctors in their network that had their trust. So when Dr. Smith is going to buy that device, he's buying it from Todd. He already trusts Todd because he's buying it from Todd. And when Todd brings me into the fold, guess who Dr. Smith trusts as well. I don't have to sell anything. I don't have to try 80, 90 percent of the work's done by Todd. And so when you think about how to execute your vision, think about your business from that lens, create a handful of partnerships and let them. Do a one to many sales strategy instead of you wasting your time doing one to one strategies, because most people are wasting so much time trying to chase these algorithms and trying to, and comment and, be at the top of someone's post. It's a waste of time. Just talk to partners, great friendships that it's mutually beneficial for all parties. I'm looking for win, wins. This is why you're talking because you have an audience of trusted people that are entrepreneurs that want to become entrepreneurs that want side hustles. So if they hear me and they trust you, they're going to inherently trust me. This is a psychology guys. So don't fight against human nature. We're here to help each other out. That's how I think about vision and then execute on the vision.
Derek:Yeah. That was really well said. Thank you, man, for appreciate for saying that I appreciate the simplicity there because it really is simple. Once you understand what it is, like how it all works and you have that, a level of understanding and clarity, you can execute on the simple things like this that can help provide you leverage. So in the spirit of simplicity, can you talk a little bit about. What you think people can do to create some more simplicity in their own lives. I know that vision is a part of it. And so we keep going back to that again, but, if someone is overwhelmed with complexity trying to build the system for things that don't need to be solved, I'm guilty of that, right? How do you help reign that complexity and bring it back into a simplicity mindset?
Jermane:Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the most important things is space. If you don't give yourself space to think, you're never going to come up with good, clear solutions that are simple. And I always believe that a lot of people take action a little bit too soon. It's a paradox, but if you have an inclination to do something, it's probably best to sleep on it. Because a lot of times you'll build a brand new sales funnel or you'll build a brand new landing page and you realize it was completely unnecessary and you were just doing it to distract yourself from the bigger work that was maybe scary to you. So
Derek:I always productive feeling productive and not actually being productive. Sorry.
Jermane:Without question. Yeah it's false productivity. It's like I'm supposed to be writing the newsletter, but instead I'm like, Oh, let me go do the dishes. The dishes can wait. That's not a priority. So the, you need space. And so here's how I structure my days. I have something I call when before noon, I only work from the time I wake up till 12 noon and it's extreme focused work. I'm usually doing one or two things that I know is high leverage. So for me, It's contacting MVPs. I call them MVPs, most valuable partners. And these are people that have my ideal customer in their network and their trust. So in my financial services business, I'm talking to the medical device salespeople. If I'm selling my course that teaches people how to do this business, this financial services business, I'm talking to podcast hosts. That's all I do in that block, those whatever four hours. And then in the afternoon, in the afternoon, I analyze what I did. I think about it. I don't analyze it in the first half of the day because the first half of the day is about execution. The second half of the day is about iteration and about thinking about like, how did that make me feel? Was that the most smart leveraged way to execute that? Maybe I should change the copy on this. Let me listen to a podcast on. Sales copy or whatever it is. So in the afternoon I feed my brain with ideas and I journal, right? I journaled down ideas. How can I refine this? How can I make this easier? How can I do one thing tomorrow instead of two things? This is how you refine and sharpen the sword. And then on Sundays I typically take all of Sunday off. I don't have any devices, no TV. I don't, I haven't watched TV in 20 years, but no, no YouTube, no devices, no nothing. Just a pen and paper. And all day I just write down. I call it the good shit sticks. And so you get so much information throughout the week. What really was important that stuck with you on Sunday? And so I'll write down, write an email to X, Y, Z, write that thing. Like I'll decide what's the important stuff. And so the next week I execute on that and those four hour blocks before noon. So I believe if you work more than four hours a day. You're doing something wrong. You're working on the wrong things. So when you compress time, you're forced to only focus on the essential instead of the trivial mini.
Derek:Yeah, very well said, man. I think there's a ton of gold there for people can pick up on in terms of best practices. Or how they can identify some of their own things and try to reduce the chatter, try to reduce some of that complexity and just focus on the things like you said, the good shit that really matters, right? I think that's most important as well. Now you talked about leverage also. And one of the most things that I'm passionate about is building systems for that leverage because that's what leverage is, I think. And, if you ever heard Brandon Turner talk he talks a lot about how you're either one conversation or one system away from achieving all of your goals that you wanted that you want. The problem is. Building those relationships and then getting the systems in place to execute on them, right? Or to execute on whatever it is that needs to be done. Can you give an example, and you've talked a lot about systems and you can argue that some of the things that you do on a personal basis is a system, but can you talk a little bit about how you identify the system? You built it out of a need and then now you're profiting from it. So I would love to have a real world example if you have one either inside your business or maybe something that's not personal.
Jermane:Yeah. So within the business, the system I built to, to get clients to my course, my equipment financing course is I was trying to find a needle in a haystack, a business opportunity for entrepreneurs that want to have time, financial and location freedom, that's a needle in a haystack. So the system I built was the easiest way for me to get us in front of folks is to find podcast hosts because they have entrepreneur listeners that have your trust, right? So the system I put together was. It's extremely simple. First of all, you find podcast hosts, there's lists you can buy, there's a software that have podcast hosts and you can find out exactly what genre they're in, how many listeners they have, how often they post, right? So I have a list. I'll get a 50 of them, a hundred of them, whatever. Then all I do is email them. I have a nice template that outlines who I am what I'm about, why I'd be a good guest. Then I message them on LinkedIn. Then I email them on LinkedIn. So I hit them three ways. 90% of them respond because not only is my initial system, which is a my sales copy my, what I'm actually saying to them is conversational. It's short, it's direct. It's powerful. That's a system. I get so many messages every day that are just, I can't believe they're sending this. How are they getting any business? If you talk to people like humans, it's unbelievable the responses you get. So the system really for for this example, the podcast thing is really one copy disseminated through three channels. Email, LinkedIn message requests, and then a LinkedIn email. And then I get all these responses. I show up to the show, like we're talking to you right now, Derek. And then one of your listeners. It's in touch with me, goes to my course, buys the course. This is it. So that is just a system. So you can do this in any business, in any even in your personal life. Like I have a system for when I wake up, for example, as soon as I wake up, I start working on my first 90 minute time block within three minutes of waking up because my brain is not even. Awoke yet. It's not even there's no resistance because I'm still basically asleep. So it doesn't make up any excuses why I can't get started now because it's not even awake, but within 20 or 30 minutes I'm in flow, whether I'm writing or whatever my most important 90 minute block is, that's a system. So you can do this all day, every day as far as systems. So that's two like little. I think that's awesome.
Derek:I have one more question for you before we head into our rapid round which is five questions that we ask every one of our guests, but I do want to ask you, this is a world right now with so much noise and distraction. You seem like someone who is extremely focused and can basically keep yourself on the things that you intend to be focused on, right? And that's where true power lies, because if you can focus on your vision and trying to execute on that, The world reacts to clarity, right? Like people, if you start doing the same thing over and over again, each day, you end up becoming more or less a master of it. And then the world responds to that. So with this world of noise and distraction, what do you use personally? Or what advice do you have for people who are listening that may feel like they're distracted and scattered in a bunch of different directions? Do you have any advice for them?
Jermane:I would go back to segmenting your day where there's work blocks and then there's downtime blocks, because if your whole day is just a work block. You're going to be scattered for sure. So I would set up your day the way I have it set up where the first part of the day or the second, you can figure out if you want it to be a second part of day. It doesn't matter, but don't work more than four hours, five hours, whatever it is per day. It's unnecessary. It'll force you to be more concise with the things you're doing. Also make sure you have downtime. Where you're not working at all. Maybe you're learning. Maybe you're reading. Maybe you're just going on a walk. Maybe you're going to the gym. Just have other time because you'll realize all the best ideas and insights come to you during those times. This is, that's the reason why everyone has their best ideas in the shower because they're not thinking about their problem. It just comes to them. So that's a couple of things. Another thing I would think about is. Have a little grace on yourself because, people think like I'm this hyper productive and hyper focused person. I'm not, I am just. I realized life is long and I realized that I have a lot of opportunity if I keep chopping down the tree while I sharpen the axe. And so maybe today I put the axe up, right? And I go on a walk because I can swing at it tomorrow. But if you always just hacking away without sharpening it. You never cut down the tree. So I have these intense bouts of getting stuff done, but then I have intense bouts of doing absolutely nothing. And so give yourself space to be intense, be intentional, have a vision, have a plan, execute on it, but then don't be so rigid where you're not enjoying your life because I always have these two polarities. I have one foot on the ground. I understand concretely how to execute. But also I have my head in the clouds because I realized I have to get away. I have to go swim in the ocean. I have to realize I die. And when I have these two polarities in life where it's finite, but it's also infinite, it gives you the joy, the juice. And ironically, people are attracted to that. So from a sales and a marketing lens, it's. It makes your job easier because you're not really selling anything. You're just being yourself and all, we're all the same. We're all just a mirror look at each other. And I think when you can connect with people from that lens, it makes everyone understand you a little bit better and you understand them a little bit.
Derek:Yeah. Awesome, man. I think that's very well said to summarize. What I heard was you got to give yourself space. And grace at the same time, right? Create the space intentionally and realize that life shouldn't be so serious. There are bits and pieces where, you know you do need to be serious and you do need to really focus on stuff, but in general, like we should spend more time figuring out what direction we should set our sale rather than trying to correct course, right? Like it's like big picture things and then zooming in on details as the world around you helps inform your decision. And so I think that's a really powerful lesson for everyone. And I keep learning that lesson over and over again, man. It's something that I personally have struggled with for many years. I'm getting much better. But it's something that that works. And then the other thing I've, the last thing I'll say about this is that the book, the one thing, I don't know if you've read that. It talks about how you have to live life at the extremes and for the most part, because just like you said, you're never going to move the needle. If. I'm envisioning the page in the book where there's a line down the middle and one side is life and the other side is work, right? Or I guess home life or family what and the other side is work or recreation and work, right? And there's a line down the middle and the energy that you spend in each over time Is like the zags around that line in the middle and I remember that a high performer Has points in time where they're zagging all the way into work and spending so much time there and then they come back to baseline and then go into family, right? And they have these swings to the extreme because you can keep it balanced that way because you can move the needle in both of these areas by doing that. Whereas a lower achiever is someone that never ventures out much from that baseline. And so nothing ever really gets done. There's not enough energy to go do that extra thing for your family, right? There's never that energy or the desire to do that extra thing for your work or for your own business. And so I really love that you hit on all of that with your response. I don't know if you want to comment on that before we head into our rapid round, but I just wanted to throw that out there as a summary of what you said and what I heard from it.
Jermane:Yeah. The one thing is an excellent book. It's one of my favorite business books. I don't agree with a lot of the things he says, to be honest with you, like that whole point about the whole. The extremes, because I believe, again, I believe if you're working more than four hours a day you're doing the wrong thing. And so like he talks about in the book, you have to find your lead domino because if you find the lead domino, you push it over, you don't have to knock over the other dominoes. And so that's why I think if you just focus on one strategy for four hours a day, you can live the rest of your day with your friends, your family, enjoy your life because you're focusing on the highest single leverage activity. That's number one. Number two is, I think it's also the fulfillment, like we were, you were talking about for the audience is actually having grace on yourself, right? But also doing the thing you said you're going to do today. And when you execute on that thing, pat yourself on the back, because that progress is actually In essence, that's happiness when you're making progress, you are become happier. So make sure if you do say you're going to reach out to 100 people on LinkedIn today and you do it, tell yourself you did a good job, go to the gym, have some downtime, and then tomorrow you'll start to build this muscle of confidence. Confidence is built by doing the thing you said you're going to do. And the most important thing to do every day is make yourself proud because you did the thing you said you're going to do. It really is that simple.
Derek:Yeah. Said, man. I love it. I love it. This has been an awesome show and we still have just a couple more minutes left with you here. Before we let you continue your amazing life in Argentina. But if you're ready, we're gonna ask you five questions that are meant to be answered in about 30 seconds each. And then afterwards I'll let you talk about anything you have going on. So if you're ready, we're gonna rapidly ask you these questions. Are you ready? I'm ready. Number one, name any resource that was or is essential in your journey to pursuing your freedom. Essential.
Jermane:All right. So I'm going to give you a couple. Tony Robbins unleashed the power within. That's number one. Number two. There's a book called awareness by Anthony de Mello. Unbelievable.
Derek:Yeah. Awesome. I actually have heard a lot about this one. I'm adding it to my reading list right now.
Jermane:Yeah. It frees you from the conditioning, the programming and number three, read the one thing. Cause it gets you hyper focused on what is the one thing that's the most important. Like even within your health. Like for me, there's so many different things you can do with diet, right? I just fast every day. So I can't eat that many calories if I'm only eating for four hours a day. So it doesn't matter what I eat. So there's so many leverage points.
Derek:Find a system that works, man. I love it. Number two, if you woke up and your business was gone and you had 500, a laptop, a place to live and some food, what do you think you would do first to rebuild?
Jermane:I would start speaking from the heart on every social media platform I could.
Derek:That's amazing because now that I think about it, if you found yourself in that situation where you lost your business, that is one heck of a story, most likely, right? And if you can talk to people who are Potentially facing something like that or have faced like that. Imagine the connections you'd get from that and the rapport and those very genuine conversations that you can generate from that. So I love that
Jermane:answer. But there's a part two to that answer while I'm doing all that, I'm on LinkedIn messaging my next ideal avatar because LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is so easy. It's if you know what you're doing, you know how to. It's so simple.
Derek:Yeah, for sure, man. All right. Number three we talked about this already a little bit, so it may be less applicable, but love to hear your take on it anyway. What does your self reflection and your goal setting practice look like maybe periodically, yearly and quarterly,
Jermane:monthly. My self reflection is I used to journal a lot, but I really. Don't do it as much. I still do occasionally. I'm not super rigid on any of this stuff. My self reflection is I'm hyper aware in the moment. I'm hyper aware of what I'm thinking. I'm hyper aware of my chatter, my internal dialogue. And I just catch myself saying stuff. That's not true. And I realize I'm not my thoughts. I am that those aren't not true. Those are based on fear conditioning and. I always think those are just neutral thoughts. That's really how I internalize life because we all have the same problem. Our mind talks about nonsense all the time about fears, about things that may or may not happen in 99. 9 percent of those will never happen. It's just a waste of energy. So if you can catch yourself slipping into this. Negative chatter and you said, that's not me. Or there are, or sometimes I'll say stuff like this, there goes your main talking crazy again, and it gives me a little bit of separation. And then I realized, oh yeah, this is. It's going crazy. That's how I, that's how I handle it. The
Derek:vast amount of suffering that we have on this world is because of expectations that we put on ourselves and not meeting them or not making progress towards them. And I think that if you can look at the thoughts that you are thinking, um, as well as you can, it's an art form for sure, because sometimes you're stuck in a spiral where you're already down that thought path. And it's you have to be like, Oh man, like I'm. And then by that time, you've already created all of this, like all of this mental chatter and all of these assumptions and plans in your head that aren't true. And you've made these contingency plans for things that don't happen, at least for me. And I've caught myself so many times and I know that being being a meditation practitioner and being someone who's a student of this game has helped a lot for people out there. So I just wanted to add that, but man. I love what you said there for sure. All right. Number four, what are the core work habits or your personality traits that you attribute mostly to your success these days?
Jermane:I would say number one is gratitude. Gratitude is like a superpower. And we take so many things for granted in life. Like literally everything that we have in our current day and age is a gift. I didn't have to build any of this technology I'm using right now. I didn't have to Figure out how to bottle water. I didn't have to, the stakes that come to me. I didn't have, I don't have to prepare them off to cook them out to do any of this stuff. And so one of my key habits is always think about this, how grateful I am, not only to be alive, this opportunity to experience this lifetime, but like to be alive in this particular period of time with all these resources and people and opportunities, I'd be silly. I'd be stupid. I'd be foolish not to take advantage of them. I always believe like entrepreneurship is the ultimate personal development tool. Because you're forced to do things that are uncomfortable. And when you're forced to look at and do uncomfortable things, one of the tricks is to reframe it and to zoom out. So many times when I'm getting upset or my mental chatter is going crazy. I'll just look up at the, into the sky. I'll look at the moon sometimes on a sunny day or at nighttime, look up to the stars. And I'm like, where the fuck am I? Like, why am I worried about any of this stupid ass shit? I. Even the, even the worst case scenario is you die. Yeah, and it's gonna happen no matter what. So it's like when you start to realize like how vast the universe it is and like you're a little speck of nothing. You don't matter. Your opinion doesn't matter. You don't matter. It actually frees you because you can surrender to what is what's happening. Okay, I got fired. Let me find a new job, or I lost the client. Let me get on LinkedIn and message some more people. Like you just take things more lightly because you're not so myopically looking at your feet. You're like looking at this vast universe that you're part of and you're here and you're enjoying it and you're going to die. So it's let me just fucking enjoy the day. So it's just a reframe.
Derek:It's the ego. Yeah, I love that, man. Very well said. There's so many resources on this, and man, we could talk about this for a long period of time, but we'll keep going. Last question I have for you today is what tool or process has become your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic trick that you use every day?
Jermane:I'm always looking for the leverage, so anytime I do anything, I'm looking of how can I multiply the results by me putting a little in and get a lot out? So I always think of everything I do from the lens of leverage, and I think a lot of people just look at things from the lens of leverage. What is quickest and sometimes the quickest thing is not the most leveraged thing. Always look for the leverage. And a lot of people think leverage is like a bad word 'cause they take it as like a financial metrics or debt, but really leverage is this the idea of a pulley system. You put a little in, you get a lot out. And think about that with when it comes to even like your relationships, and maybe just say one kind thing to somebody and you get a lot out of that and it was easy. So there's so many different ways you can apply it. I
Derek:love it. Yeah. The other way I like to think about leverage is okay, let's say that you take your you take a message that you want to spread to the world. You could take that and draw it up on a poster board, which would take you an hour to do. Cause you have to go buy it. You have to get a permanent marker, draw it up on, write it out in a permanent, and then you can stand out in the street. And hold that sign there, right? And that would be one way to get your message out. Or you can take that message and type it in 30 seconds on LinkedIn or on Facebook. And then that message will be seen by way more people. Then you could, then you can imagine just, in your local area, right? Just standing on the side of the road for your time, right? And the time it takes you to do that, to, you can send out five messages for, just doing that one, right? And reach the same amount of people or even more than that. Anyway, just love, love that thought about leverage. All right, Jermaine, dude, it's been an amazing time. And I'm so glad that we got a chance to actually talk and do this podcast together. If people wanted to find out more about you and what you have to offer them. Can you tell us more about that?
Jermane:Yeah, so they should go to the creators learn. com. And the reason why I call it creators learn is a lot of people think creators are like, social media people or whatever. But really, I think about creators is Entrepreneurs are creators. Salespeople are creators. We are all creators really. And it's about creating a life you want, because I believe there's two types of people. There's victims and there's creators, and it's a place for creators to come and learn these business models. And so I have a free course on there that. Give us people access to not only the vision workshop, the why workshop, and also my dream income calculator, because a lot of people think they need 4 million, 5 million a year to be free and to have this dream lifestyle. But when you really put pen to paper, you don't realize it's a lot less than that. We're talking. Yeah. 20, 30, 50, 000 a month. You can, I don't know how you really can't spend any more than that unless you're trying to fill some type of void and that's a whole different topic, but they can access all those things. And then in the course, I also talk about, how I think about, the five musts on any product or service you want to sell. And then the four key attributes to any avatar you want to. Target, and then using my MVP model, how you'd go about doing that. And so I break that all down in the course. So if you ever did want to do your own thing and become your own entrepreneur, this will give you that framework and they can always access my financial services, business opportunity. Because it's a boring business. I'm not going to lie to you, but sometimes the most boring businesses are not only the most profitable, but also they give you this lifestyle freedom that you really want. So if they're interested in checking that out as well, they can check out my 17 minute training on that too. So it's all that creators learn. com. They want to say, hi, hit me up on LinkedIn. It's probably the most active platform I'm on. And I'd love to hear from them.
Derek:Awesome. Jermaine, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was great to have you here and for the listeners who have listened all the way to this point in the podcast, I want to thank you guys so much from the bottom of my heart to listening to this point in the podcast and supporting our show just by listening to it, if you can please like subscribe, comment, just engage with us in general so that we can. Get more and more listeners just like you and then attract more amazing guests just like Jermaine to come on the show. So I want to thank you so much, Jermaine. Thanks again, Matt, for coming on. This was awesome. Thanks, Derek. All right. We'll see you guys next week. Talk soon. Yeah.