Episode 27 - Breaking Free from Work-Centered Identity

In this episode of Beyond Budgets, host Deb Meyer is joined by exit strategist and Dream Catchers podcast host Jerome Myers to unpack the complex journey of redefining yourself after big life changes like selling a business or retiring. Together, Deb and Jerome explore the “founder's exit paradox”—the often-overlooked psychological challenges that come with moving on from a career-focused identity—and what it takes to build a fulfilling life based on who you are, not just what you do.

Jerome shares powerful insights on how to separate your self-worth from your job title, offering practical steps to discover and use transferable skills, build meaningful relationships, and keep growing in new ways post-career. This episode dives into balancing health and wealth, maintaining well-being, and finding lasting purpose beyond work. Whether you’re planning your next chapter or in the middle of a transition, this conversation is full of strategies to help you move forward with clarity, confidence, and fulfillment.

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Full transcript

Deb Meyer (00:02.036)

When you retire or exit your business, what will your life look like? Have you taken some time to really think about your identity outside of work? Today's guest, Jerome Myers is a seasoned business leader. He's also an exit strategist and host of the Dream Catchers podcast. Jerome is renowned for his deep insights into the founder's exit paradox. Although he specializes in working with entrepreneurs who are contemplating a business exit, I think many of the listeners today can find value in the episode because work becomes such a big part of our identity. Jerome is here to help us find meaning outside of work and to address the challenges faced during significant life transitions. Welcome to the podcast, Jerome. Can you share a little bit about your backstory?

Jerome Myers (00:49.614)

My gosh, where do I start it? I think I'll start on March 5th, 1983 at Willamette Garment Hospital. No, I'm kidding. Man, first of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. I think this is such an important topic and one that is impacting more and more people, for the folks who think about retirement as an age and the baby boomers are going through the transition. And this episode is for you, regardless of if you're an entrepreneur or you're somebody that's been in a workforce for a while and you can contemplate retirement.

You know, my dad was a civil servant for the better part of 50 years. He was in the Marines, then he was in the army, then he worked for the post office. And recently he got to the place where he was ready to retire. And my dad showed up at my house one day and he had a scratch on his face. I was like, man, what are you doing? What's going on? You're too old to be getting advice. What's going on? And he's like, well, I was cutting bushes at somebody's house and I fell off the ladder and scratched my face.

I was like, why are you cutting bushes at somebody else's house? Because he doesn't need it. He's got two federal pensions. So that's not why he was doing it. He was like, well, I'm trying to help people who can't do it for themselves. And the undertone of that was he wanted his life to matter.

And this is the exact same thing we find with business owners. We're finding that business owners are out and on the backside of their exit, assuming that they get to the liquidity event and they are trying to figure out who they are without the business. So we identified six centers of doubt and that came from an experience I had. My last role in corporate America had the fortune of building a $20 million a year division of a fortune 550 company.

And so on January 13th, I was employee number two; by September 30th, I had 175 people on the team. That year we did 20 million in revenue, 30 % profit margins. And I got a phone call on December 24th and it was something like this, hey Jerome, I've been thinking about it and I made a decision, we're gonna lay half the team off. And I was like, no we're not, that's not the right answer.

Jerome Myers (02:58.376)

And he said, “yeah, this isn't a debate.” He called to inform me of a decision. I was like, “man, that doesn't make sense. Like we've grown like wild on earth where we put great people on the street. Like there's basically a war for talent right now.” He's like, “look, man, I, I'm not here to debate with you. I've made a decision on where we're going to go.” And this is somebody that I talked to every other week and saw once a quarter. Right. So in my mind, I was like, this is my business. I'm doing a thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And

Deb Meyer (03:20.613)

Mm

Jerome Myers (03:27.264)

He hung up. said, look, man, it's four fifty-five. It's five o 'clock on Christmas Eve. I'll talk to you next year. I hung up the phone and he spent the rest of year with his family. And I spent the rest of the year trying to figure out who was going to stay, who was going to go. And in that experience, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about me. And the first thing was, well, I gave up my agency in a situation where I didn't have to.

Deb Meyer (03:33.086)

Mm.

Jerome Myers (03:52.234)

I basically said they made me do it. And so this is what we were doing instead of saying, I got a choice. I don't have to participate in this if I don't want to, but there were benefits, right? There was a company vehicle. There was the bonuses. There was a six -figure salary. It was all of these things. And at the end of the day, I decided that I wanted a buck to start with me. And so I moved into entrepreneurship, built a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio, focused on housing, apartment buildings.

And then I realized that that wasn't my thing because I got really lonely in that. And, but I was going through all of, we identify eight exits that founders go through. I was going through the exits, right? And so if I was fortunate enough to like truly be the owner of the division that I built, then I would have had my liquidity event. And then when I was building a real estate portfolio, something we call a post -exit portfolio. And it's the thing that you do when you sell and get this big lump of money.

And then you're trying to create income streams because most people worry about running out of money. Like if you think about it from a retirement perspective, it's like, Ooh, I saved up all this money. I've got my nest egg and now I'm going to cut off my income. A lot of people get really antsy when the paycheck doesn't show up. There's this addiction that we have to new money coming in. And so on the backside of an exit or retirement, you're trying to figure out how are you going to get income streams? And so that was the real estate thing. So we kind of figured that out.

Deb Meyer (05:05.352)

Mm

Jerome Myers (05:21.974)

And there's another exit after that. But what I realized was I didn't get any fulfillment. I didn't get any meaning. I didn't really feel like that was my purpose. When I looked at it, nobody really cared about the building. And so when I started doing the searching, what I I miss most was when people would come into my office and say, hey, I don't think we could have done that without you. I don't know how I would have achieved that if you weren't a part of the process or if you didn't help me think through it. And so started

Jerome Myers (05:52.066)

getting back into helping business owners figure out what their next step was. I think every business owner, regardless of where they are on their trajectory, are trying to figure out what's next for them. And we believe you can either exit to excellence or you can exit to an abyss. And so our goal here, or exit to an abyss.

Deb Meyer (06:11.38)

Can you repeat that exit to excellence?

Nice.

Jerome Myers (06:19.278)

I got the abyss word from, and I don't know if your listeners will be familiar, but there's a guy named Rick Alderman who had a really large financial services company. he'd sold that, but he recently had an exit and it was probably the biggest exit of the multiple exits that he's had. And he talked about him and his wife. Knowing that it was coming, knowing that the exit was coming, knowing that they were going to experience some sense of loss.

Even though something amazing happened and knowing that there was basically this emptiness. Another word that he used was a void that you step into when you take out where you spend the majority of your week and you have nothing to replace it with. And so it's our mission to make that void, make that abyss as small as possible by having a plan.

And we take people through a process called your next to help them figure out what they're going to do in this next chapter, whether it's their second or third.

Deb Meyer (07:28.164)

Okay, so I guess I'd like to draw lot of parallels because the audience for Beyond Budgets is parents and they might be in different professions, not necessarily small business owners. So really taking this idea of finding your next, how do you help people prepare for that? Are you working with them before, in the case of a founder, before they're exiting the business and then helping kind of

bridge that gap after they've exited or when's an ideal time to kind of introduce your strategic consulting work.

Jerome Myers (08:03.404)

Yeah, in the ideal world, we're going to enter into the process with them when they think that when they're thinking about exiting, not when they sign the deal to market it, not when they get the check, but when they're thinking about it, because I think one of the worst things you can do is exit to nothing. And there's

Deb Meyer (08:11.454)

Mm

Deb Meyer (08:22.072)

Mm -hmm. Or in the case of general non -founders, retire to nothing, right? To not have an identity outside of work.

Jerome Myers (08:29.004)

Retire to nothing.

and so few people. And so like, that's the litmus test from my perspective. Can you describe yourself without talking about what you do to earn money?

Deb Meyer (08:37.556)

Mm

Deb Meyer (08:44.243)

Hmm.

Jerome Myers (08:44.97)

And if you can't, then we got a lot of opportunity because that is not the reason why we live. We don't live to work. That's not what we've been placed on this planet to do. And so, yeah, we start there. like, well, how would you describe yourself if you can't talk about what you do to make money? And I think this is a bigger deal for men than women.

Deb Meyer (08:56.428)

Mm

Deb Meyer (09:10.27)

Mm -hmm.

Jerome Myers (09:10.43)

historically speaking. And know it's a sweep in generalization, but for all intents and purposes, like we see women, they're most social. Usually they talk about family and maybe pets. Like they've got their hobbies. They've got their interests. And as I've seen it traditionally, many of them don't define themselves as a provider. It's like, Ooh, I go hunt and kill and bring the money back. Like, no, I nurture.

I do this, I kiss boo boos like they have more purpose than figuring out how much money they made. And like, I love that because there's so much that we can learn from that. think guys probably for too long have rested on the laurels of, I bring, I'm the breadwinner. I bring the bacon home. And that isn't sufficient in today's world. I don't think that is.

Deb Meyer (09:41.822)

you

Jerome Myers (10:06.77)

the full embodiment of a man. you'll hear and see a lot of people pass away when they quit working. And so there's so many folks that I work with, a lot of financial advisors. And the first thing they like to tell me is, I'm gonna die at my desk.

Why are you striving to die at your desk? What does that mean? And when we like really peel the layers of the onion, we just find that they are scared. They don't know what they would do if they weren't doing this. And it's not just them, right? I pick on them because I guess there's a sense of pride for being an AD and still taking client meetings. But there is so much truth to that, regardless of what the profession is.

people get trapped in this thought of this is the only thing that I'm good at. This is how people know me. This is where all my prestige and accomplishments are held. And I'm scared to try something else because I might not be good at it. And when we go through our process, the first step, the end is for Nourish. We make it very clear what skills that people have that are transferable. We also decouple

their identity from the identity of being the person that is at or running that business.

Deb Meyer (11:31.774)

Mm -hmm.

Jerome Myers (11:33.654)

we think that it's better for everybody in that situation. And so we want to nourish them though. We really want to separate the two. We want to show them that they have transferable skills, that they can apply against other problems with maybe a different set of people so that they can still have value and have big contribution.

Deb Meyer (11:58.1)

Do you find that a lot of founders get enjoyment from like volunteer efforts after they've had a big exit? Is that a big part of the training and kind of reorientation?

Jerome Myers (12:08.92)

So it's very interesting that you've positioned it that way, because I thought that was the answer too. But when I pull it back, what I find is they want to be in service of others. The issue with the volunteering I found is there isn't usually a determination of value creation when there isn't compensation associated with it.

When somebody becomes wealthy, their time is the thing that becomes more valuable than the money. The freedom to be able to allocate that time and that energy is something that they're very particular about. And so I found that a lot of people, when volunteering, don't take it very seriously. And they're used to performing at a really high level. And so...

I've seen them get frustrated with the inefficiencies of volunteer staff or it's just a hobby or, you know, there isn't anything really at risk.

Deb Meyer (13:13.876)

They're not in the leadership role of the volunteer effort, right? They're in the, hey, I need you to do this or that. not, yeah, not the one being developing the programs and the innovation behind.

Jerome Myers (13:27.79)

So where I see them get the most reward is working with people who they can see themselves in.

and helping them solve a problem that they don't think anybody should have to deal with or experience. When those two things come together with whatever intellectual horsepower solution that they can come up with in order to solve that problem, it is magic. Like they probably work at that harder than they were working in the business that they built that they were able to sell.

Deb Meyer (14:05.46)

Pretty powerful, thank you. for sharing. So tell me a little bit more about that founders exit paradox. I know you use that terminology a lot. What, from a detail perspective, what can you provide insight into? Because I think for a lot of people we have an idea, okay, yeah, there's this strange paradox that you're having a big liquidity event when you exit your business. Is it really just tied to the idea that

you're getting all this financial stability or inflow and then at the same time going through more of an emotional hardship.

Jerome Myers (14:35.63)

you

Jerome Myers (14:41.726)

Yeah, right. So all the people on the outside looking in, unless they've experienced it, will say, well, you should be happy. Or this is amazing. How could you feel sad? And the other piece of this is the person who is going through it says, well, I should feel great about this situation. But they've got this conundrum. It's like, I sold my purpose.

Deb Meyer (14:51.326)

Mm.

Jerome Myers (15:09.582)

And now I have money and the effects of the money usually wear off in less than 36 hours. I've noticed with folks, maybe 48. And so it's like, there's a lot of money in the bank. And so once they get to that point, and it's very much like getting married, it's like, you have the big ceremony or you have the reception and now you're married. And it's like, it's just.

Deb Meyer (15:32.381)

Reality sets in.

Jerome Myers (15:36.928)

It's a new beginning, right? You can exit being single or unmarried and exit into marriage, and you guys can go do amazing things. Or you can think you cross the finish line and all the work is done and watch how the thing unravels and you end up undoing the marriage. You're just beginning. And my encouragement to folks is to really look for the opportunities to

Deb Meyer (15:54.236)

It's just begun.

Jerome Myers (16:07.15)

be great to have, it's not a finish line. Retirement is not the end. The thought that you've been producing and contributing for the past 20, 30, 40 years, and you're gonna exit to sitting on the beach or going on cruises or pick whatever, just taking care of grandkids. I just don't see anybody that is happy with that long -term. Sure, some people need a break.

But even that for a person that's been performing at a really high level is challenging.

Deb Meyer (16:39.476)

Mm -hmm. So even someone like passionate about golf, for example, if they're doing golf every day after they're retired or exiting your business, it's probably gonna wear off a little bit where it's like, this isn't as exciting as it once was when I got to do it once a month and now I get to do it every day, right? That's okay.

Jerome Myers (16:59.33)

Dessert is good because you don't eat dessert for all your meals.

Deb Meyer (17:03.508)

Free day. True. Yeah. And I'm sure some people thrive on having like the same all the time, but I'm not one of those people. And I can imagine most of the people are wired a little differently to say like, hey, no, we want variety. We want the spices.

Jerome Myers (17:10.138)

It is.

Jerome Myers (17:25.003)

I think there's the variety piece, but you know, with that said, and I'm glad you brought that point up because I really skipped over it. When somebody exits, they go from a life of certainty and control to one of uncertainty and no control. when you, the freedom can be a prison. If you think about having a boat and being in the middle of the ocean and not knowing how to run that boat, you can go anywhere in the world you want to go.

Deb Meyer (17:55.144)

You just don't know where to go.

Jerome Myers (17:55.35)

You have the boat. You just don't know where to go. And you don't know how to get there. You don't know how to operate the thing versus if maybe you had a little sailboat or something and you were in a pond or a lake and or maybe a jet ski is probably a better example. You're in a pond or a lake. You knew where you were going. You know how to operate that thing. And that's what people run into on the backside.

Deb Meyer (18:02.354)

Mm -hmm.

Jerome Myers (18:20.972)

And so if you don't have a plan, and this is why we like to work with people before they get there, you can get pretty deep in the valley, right? And so you hit the peak of the mountain, you summit, you get there, and now you're on your way down, but you don't know where you're going after you get down. And for a lot of people, they get down to the bottom and they find quicksand and then they get stuck, especially if you don't have a financial reason to go do something else.

You don't have to, so there's nothing pushing you to actually work on the thing. You just get deeper and deeper and deeper. And some of those folks end up slipping into depression and doing some really permanent things for temporary solutions or situations. And so my goal.

is to eliminate that suffering. goal is to help people. You talked about building a bridge, build a bridge across the valley so they can get to their next mountain and begin climbing that one. And then when they come down that find another one, but it continued to elevate. You know, when we talk about the quicksand and getting stuck, what I really think about is collateral damage. Right. And so if somebody drops a bomb somewhere, it's highly unlikely that they're just going to get the bad guys. There's probably going to be some buildings impacted, some roads.

people might be impacted as well. And so what we want to do is limit the collateral damage that's created by folks when they are exiting. Some people get divorced, they have infidelity, they blow all the money, they get wrapped into drugs, they have gambling problems, all because they're trying to get back to the dopamine hit that they had before.

they don't have a way to trigger it, it becomes really, really, really challenging if we don't have it. Probably the best way I've ever heard this described Deb is if you've got a large breed dog, you'll probably get this. So especially if they're playful, like a boxer or something like that. If you just leave your dog, you don't do anything with them, they'll go out on the flower bed and they'll start digging up your flowers. But if you...

Jerome Myers (20:28.672)

exercise them, if you walk them, if you run them, if you throw the ball, then they're not going to do that. And so sometimes founders just dig holes because they need something to do with all the energy that they have. And so if they're not doing it in a productive way, playing, walking, running, then they dig holes and make other people pretty upset that dirt gets all over the place. And then they want to walk through the house. just a whole mess.

Deb Meyer (20:55.956)

Wow. I like that idea of the holes. And I think for a lot of people in those holes too, especially if someone's preparing for a transition, there can be a sense of doubt that's emerging. And I know you've studied a lot around the different types of doubt that can spring up before making some significant life transitions. Could you highlight a few of those or like what are some of the more?

I guess impactful ways that we can doubt ourselves as we go into this next chapter.

Jerome Myers (21:27.562)

And I love that question. So we talk about six centers of doubt, self image, relationship, work, health, prosperity and significance. And so the self image one is if you haven't, if you don't have an identity outside of what you do to earn money, then when the money earning part goes away, you're going to feel like you lost everything. And so how do you define yourself without the title?

How do you define yourself without that role? Put that one to the side. Relationships. There are some people who will show up just because they know you had a liquidity event. There will be people in your life who maybe you stuck with because you didn't have the financial wherewithal to go do something else. Both of those things come into question. And then there's the question of, well, and this is one of my favorite thing to do on workshops.

When you think about the people, the five people you spend the most time with, more than 60 % of them are usually tied to your work. So what happens when you no longer go to that work?

20 to 40 % of the people can, are you okay with that? Or are you alone? And, you know, one of my favorite images associated with this is, and for the listeners, hopefully they watched it, but it's Pablo Escobar sitting on the swing by himself in Narcos. Like he's the only one, nobody can come out and play. It is just him by himself and there's nobody else there. And you know, that loneliness is something that ends up being a big deal. And it doesn't set in right off the bat that that's what it's going to be. Cause people will still answer your call.

Deb Meyer (22:43.262)

You

Jerome Myers (23:08.752)

first month, maybe two, but about six months down the road, they're busy. You're out. They're still doing the thing and they don't really want to spend the time hearing you talk about golf or your last vacation or whatever the thing is, because that's not the part of life that they're in. For work, we kind of talked about it a lot, but there's this thing, there's fulfillment, there's purpose that comes in from the work that you're doing. And so if you take 40, 60,

Deb Meyer (23:13.95)

That's why I'm here.

Jerome Myers (23:35.982)

80 hours that you were committed to doing something and you don't have anything to replace any of that time with, you end up with a mess. And so the way I like to describe this is if you're driving a car 60 miles an hour and you run into a dump truck, which is something that I did, you're have a pretty rapid start and it's going, things are going to break. And that's what happens when you go from having a 40, 60, 80 hour work week to no work week.

You might still wake up and go to the gym and take the dog out and whatever you did in your morning routine. But then what? There's but so many shopping trips. There's so many rounds of golf. There's so many trips to the spa. There's so much grandkids stuff that you're going to do. Like there's but so much of that you're going to do. You're still going to want to find something meaningful to do at the time. then we move up to health. A lot of people give up their health in order to create well.

Deb Meyer (24:11.913)

you

Deb Meyer (24:16.148)

You

Jerome Myers (24:31.746)

The problem with that is then you give up your wealth in order to try to buy back your health. And for a lot of people, they're not able to do that. And so we really want people to spend time focusing on that. It's like, and the question that they ask is, did I give up too much of my life to build this thing? And if the answer is yes, then we got to figure out how we're going to get that time back, right? And how we're going to improve health.

I was talking to a guy named Bobby Castro a few weeks ago. He sold his company for a billion dollars. And I was like, man, you're looking fit. And he's like, man, PMA every day, baby. I work out. I got my trainer coming over to the house. he was doing some stem cell stuff, but like he was doing a lot of stuff to just try to be youthful and young. And then of course he also gets to spend time with the family and they've got some younger kids or I guess their grandkids. And so, you know, he's staying fresh and alive.

For prosperity, there's two things that I see happen more often than not. There's the, don't deserve this. I need to figure out how to get rid of this money as quickly as possible.

Jerome Myers (25:40.684)

And then they're back in the cycle of having to create again. And then there's the, I'm scared that I'm going to run out of money. I can't do anything with the money that I have. And so they hoard it and they don't enjoy it and they feel trapped by it. Not having money is not a money problem. Having money and not knowing what to do with it is. And so when you have a money problem, we really got to make sure we have a plan. So there's that.

But we don't just think about treasures when we talk about prosperity, we also think about time and the use of our talent. And so if you have the time to do what you want to do, how are you going to invest that wisely? It's the only non -renewable resource that we have. How can you invest that and be a great steward of it? And then the talents to find fulfillment, you got to be able to do what you're good at in order to make the world a better place.

There is no shortcut. is no other way to get to that. And so we want to help people get in that mode. And then the last one is what kind of what we opened up with in this. When I was talking about my dad, it's you really want your life to matter. What I found more and more is that people do not want their business to be their legacy while they're in it. They think that that is it on the backside.

they find out that there's so much more than whatever business they built. And so they want to have impact greater above and beyond whatever they were able to do in the business. And so, you know, how do I know that my life matters and what am I doing to make sure that life matters? And kind of the litmus test on this is, and it's funny because, when we do the exercise to figure out who the five people are, they talk a lot. lot of apex performers would say things like, I don't have five.

So then I, they think they have one or two. I was like, well, you spend the most time with five people. I don't know who they are, but you can look at your text messages. You go to get your call log and please don't say my spouse and my three kids, cause that's cheating.

Deb Meyer (27:34.831)

They have one or two, is that?

Deb Meyer (27:49.777)

That's what I was gonna...

Jerome Myers (27:51.906)

You don't spend the most time. Those are not looking at me. No, man, no, no, it's not them. You might be able to put the kids in one depending on their age. You might put the spouse as another, but come on, let's put some more people in. But here's the thing, right? And it's a setup, believe it or not. mean, sequentially it makes sense, but like when we get to this point,

Jerome Myers (28:17.654)

for the people who aren't going to be cremated, there's going to be a need for six people to carry a casket to the final resting place. And so if you don't have five people, how are you going to your casket from the service to the gravesite? I guess you can ask a stranger to do it. I guess maybe the funeral home could do it for you. But the thought that you don't have six people who are fighting over the opportunity to do for you when you can't do for yourself.

Deb Meyer (28:28.916)

How are you gonna have six? Yeah. Wow.

Jerome Myers (28:46.754)

was kind of signal that there might be something off. Maybe your life doesn't matter. Maybe it wasn't, you weren't as impactful as you would have liked to be. And so in that, you know, we really want to elevate this thought of how can you be of service to other to eradicate the feeling so that people fight over the opportunity to carry you to your final rest.

Deb Meyer (29:12.156)

Thank you. I know as I was hearing you talk about these different levels of doubt, I think what really resonated with me was around the health aspect. And that's something, regardless of what stage of life you're in, at any point, you can choose a healthy lifestyle, and that's going to help you years down the road. So I just encourage you, even if you're not close to retirement or exiting your business, like, if one is going to stick out, let it be health or let it be the relationship aspect, getting those five people that are in your corner that you know you can cultivate a relationship with regardless of what stage of life and other needs from family members and things like that. These are important tools for everyone. Because loneliness, I mean, I don't know the official statistics, but loneliness is at an all time high, isn't it? I mean, just with all the...

social media usage and I know COVID, yeah, COVID put so many people into just, yeah, it's a real concern. I mean, yeah, I just encourage people, my way of getting out and feeling like I have a healthy, positive mindset is exercising regularly. That's a big thing for me too, but it's.

Jerome Myers (30:06.082)

post -COVID, yeah.

Deb Meyer (30:29.928)

It's just a challenge and I appreciate all the wisdom that you offered because I do think these messages apply not only to founders but the other parents that are looking at what's that next step? How do I create a life of significance even today?

Jerome Myers (30:48.034)

That's the magic. And, you know, I encourage you not to wait. And the great thing about all of these things is they compound on themselves. So each new level of you will require a new level of overcoming these six centers of doubt. And what you learn in overcoming the level that you're on is applicable when you move up to the next level. And so, you know, there is no waste. All the work works.

Deb Meyer (31:17.172)

Yeah. Awesome. I do want to also mention, and I know we're not going to have time to go into it now, but I did listen to your Dreamcatcher's podcast episode 240 on the post -exit assessment. And you were talking about some of the archetypes. so I encourage listeners, if you're interested in learning more about some of this, that was a really helpful resource for me as I was getting to know Jerome a little bit more before this interview.

Jerome Myers (31:27.373)

Thank you.

Jerome Myers (31:44.758)

Man, you did your research. Thank you so much for bringing that up. mean, that we believe that tool is the foundational shift for folks who are questioning, well, what am I good at? Or what could I do after all the things that I've done? We think it gives them a tremendous amount of insight and hopefully we can put a link in the show notes so they can get that for free.

Deb Meyer (31:47.28)

Yeah.

Deb Meyer (32:12.712)

I'll definitely do that. And then where can people best find you if they want to find out more about working with you or just some of the resources that you offer?

Jerome Myers (32:22.966)

Yeah, I would love for them to do the assessment. I think that would be more beneficial than learning about me. They'll learn about them and we can continue the relationship on the backside, assuming that we get it right. And we've had a pretty high success rate on people being pleased with the report that they got. And so if they go to theexitparadox.com/assessment, they can get that assessment for free.

Deb Meyer (32:52.116)

Thank you.

Jerome Myers (32:52.278)

And it ends up being like a six-page report. It goes into all the strengths and the weaknesses and even gives them ideas for what they can do in their post-exit life.

Deb Meyer (33:02.456)

I'm glad you put that resource together. Now I want to do it even though I'm not planning an exit anytime soon. I'm like, I love doing those little tests and yeah, just figuring out more. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Jerome.

Jerome Myers (33:12.664)

Please be glad to do it. Yeah.

And this is awesome. You're a great interviewer, Dev. Thank you so much.