Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire Podcast. I?m Jaime Tardy and today we have Adam Mesh on the show. Adam owns Adam Mesh Trading Group and has been seen on Fortune, Fox Business, CNBC, as well as the reality show called The Average Joe. And while I almost never watch reality shows, I remember watching it because Adam is such a likeable guy. Now, I?m really excited to have him on today so welcome, Adam. Thanks so much for being here.

ADAM MESH: Thanks, Jaime, for having me.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So first off?

AM: What?s going on?

JT: It?s pouring so hopefully we won?t get cut off and hopefully people don?t hear the thunder too much as you can hear it rumble in the background.

AM: Nice background music. The ominous softly overhead now. It will be all good things.

JT: Oh good! So first off, you?re an investor. I really want to start off and ask?

AM: Trader.

JT: Sorry.

AM: Trader.

JT: Trader. Then I?m going to ask you what?s the difference?

AM: And I?m happy to explain the difference.

JT: Yes, please tell me the difference.

AM: An investor is passive. An investor will put money away and then check it every couple of months and make sure it?s doing its thing or if it?s not wonder why. A trader is much more active. They?re taking control. They?re managing their positions. They are in for days, weeks and months but they?re not just sitting on their hands hoping. They?re actually taking control so I always encourage people that they?re going to be trading not investing. Investing is what you do with like that money you put away for your kids? college and stuff like that. But for the money that you want to grow at a faster rate, I think trading is more important.

JT: Really? It seems like there?s a lot of risk so tell me how you guys stop that risk because we?ve always heard, you know, you put your money, you let it sit and because the stock market eventually over a long term goes up then we?re good. But how can you guys take away the risk of trading?

AM: By establishing what that risk is, what the reward is in each situation and being comfortable with that so that when you enter a trade you understand what can I lose, what can I gain, does this make sense. So, if I was trading a stock, I would be like oh I could lose a point or I can make a point and a point is like if the stock is at $50 and it goes to $49 or 50 and it goes to 51 that?s a point. On a 100 shares that?s $100 and a 1,000 shares it?s $1,000.

So if I?m entering a trade I don?t want a 1:1. I want a 5:1. I?m looking for big plays. A great example would be Crocs, okay. Crocs, you know those ugly shoes?

JT: Yes.

AM: They?re like the rubber ones and stuff; pretty much only popular in hospitals. Well, that was a stock that used to be really popular then people I guess realized what they looked like. It went all the way down. Then it started coming back and I saw they had some new different kinds of shoes out. That?s like a fundamental idea. But technically, it got above a $10 level and when we looked the last time it got above 10 it went to 20. So, in that scenario, I was like all right, if it goes back up to 9, I?ll get out of it but I think it could go back up and test where it had been before. I was using the previous pattern.

That?s technical now. So I was risking one to make ten. That?s a great scenario that you can?t find in many places. So when you make trades like that and you?re successful even three times out of ten, you?re going to be doing really well.

JT: So how does that work because you?re basing on previous patterns but I mean how can you think that it?s definitely going to do the same thing that it did last time. I mean isn?t it so volatile that it doesn?t do that?

AM: Well, history does tend to repeat itself and the market historically does fall into patterns. That?s what technical analysis is ? recognizing key trigger points. That?s something that we really look to do because no it doesn?t repeat itself every time but the amount of times it does is enough for you to be very profitable by following those patterns. Something I will say though, just even more getting into the risk and stuff, a lot of people work really hard, they want to make money, right? Then what do they do? They give their money to someone else to manage it for them.

Then they hope that at the end of the day it?s growing and when it?s not, they don?t even have the knowledge to ask why. If they ever wanted to buy stock on their own, I?m sure that some of your followers have tried to buy stock on their own from one of their banks like Chase or Goldman Sachs or Smith Barney or any of those places and if you ever did, it costs around $70 to make a trade. So even taking that first step to learn how to place trades for yourself online, you could take that cost from $70 to under $10 just by learning how to hit buy and how to hit sell which is really easy to do.

Now, you start to gain knowledge. You start to understand how the stocks move, what the key levels are. I?ll give you a great example in a second of what?s going on now and once you understand those things and you can make those trades for yourself, you?re in control. And even if you don?t want to do it, even if you get to the point where you say, ?You know what, I?m too busy, I got too much stuff going on, I don?t even like this? at least you know the right questions to ask. At least you can say to the person managing your money why did you do this? What did you see here? What?s your strategy behind this?

Then you can at least protect yourself from putting your money in the wrong hands. But a great example of having that knowledge is even the market this past week, when you look at it, has been in a range and key levels were 12,000 and 12,500. So when we were at 12,300 and we dropped 150 points, I said to everyone it?s not a big deal. It doesn?t mean we?re tanking. It doesn?t mean anything. It?s just in between. If you ever played tennis, have you played tennis?

JT: Yes, or tennis on the Wii, right? That counts too!

AM: When either stays under the baseline or the net, right? But that in between spot that you don?t want to get caught is called no man?s land. That?s where you are too far away from either spot to have to position. The market tends to find itself in no man?s land a lot where it could go up, it could go down. You have no way of knowing so you don?t want to lean too far in either direction otherwise you?ll get burned. So when the market is sitting in between two key levels ? 12,000 and 12,500 ? and it?s going down 200 points, I tell people it?s not a big deal because it?s not breaking through any levels.

So the ability to look at a market that?s down hundreds of points and say you know what, nothing really is happening. Then you see a day like today where the market is up a couple hundred points and say and even now nothing is really happening. It?s just the in between versus the market could be up less and breakthrough a key level and that would be significant. So understanding why things are happening and I?m not talking about the analysts on television saying what happened in Japan is making us go down. Unemployment is making us go up. Housing, no, I?m talking about actual levels, which is really what the market revolves around. That?s what?s going to determine where we move.

JT: Well, I think, anyone getting into investing is so scared of making a mistake and not knowing what the heck they?re doing. So you go in and you make a couple of trades or something like that and you lose your shirt and go oh nevermind it?s not for me. When you talk about it, you?ve been doing it forever, you make it sound so easy. Like if you only know these three key things then you can do it. I mean is it really that easy? How did you learn getting into all this?

AM: I got started trading right out of college. I wanted to become a writer but my parents said, you know, we?re done paying for you to do things, time to get a job. So me going out and living on their dime in California as I tried to become a writer wasn?t in the plans. So I started trading early and I loved it. I loved the excitement, the rush. I felt like a professional athlete going in every day. You know, you said I make it sound easy. I think the key to my success and the people I work with, their success, is keeping it simple but being consistent.

You look at the top athletes, the one common analogy used that transcends sports is that they make it look easy. When Alex Rodriguez swings a bat he makes it look easy. When Kobe Bryant shoots he looks effortless. In golf, when you see these great golfers with their swing it looks like their not even trying to swing. It?s the same thing with the market. If you?re adding all these complexities to your trading, you?re just hurting yourself. You?re creating too much in between. You?re allowing too much room for error but by keeping it simple and consistent, that?s the key to success.

And I believe the outcomes we?re talking about, not just trading but business, I believe that?s with anything. Taking a model that works and repeating it versus trying to break the mold. I think a pattern for failure is when you see something that works and you say what else can I do before you get good at that. I think it?s really important to get good at one thing and then build versus all right this is good what else can I do. You?re not embracing the success.

JT: Yes, that?s huge. I hear that a lot too. Focus is a key thing and not being pulled in all these different directions. But do you think that?s innate? I mean you talk about sports analogies. You know, are they really good at swinging a bat just because they are and are you really good at trading just because you are or can anybody learn? I mean I know your whole thing is the average Joe which is great but are you really an average Joe, you know? Or is it something that?s sort of in your blood?

AM: The nice thing about trading, you know, athletes, sure. That?s going to really limit the field a lot more than traders. Nice thing when it comes to trading and I think that?s what the universal appeal is that you never know who is going to be good. I?ve seen people that never went to college excel. I?ve seen Ivy League stars have trouble. So that?s the one thing I?ve known is that there is no predetermined requisite for who?s going to be good. Someone could start in their 60s or 70s and have a lot of success doing it.

There?s been articles about that. So it?s not like in athletics, I think it?s more of a discipline but not everybody will be good. I?ve seen that. I?ve seen in every group of 20 you?re going to have 3 superstars, 3 people that will never get it but can still learn how to protect themselves and the rest will kind of fall into the middle of the road and be okay.

JT: That?s really interesting. It?s funny, because I have a friend who borrowed lots of money on credit cards, wanted to become a trader and it didn?t work out very well for him. So you are right. I see those stories and then everybody makes it sound so easy to actually do it. So it?s really good that you?re very honest and clear and go not everybody is good at it. What do you think separates the people that are superstars from the people that aren?t?

AM: Discipline, the ability to stick to the plan and be consistent. I think it is very analogous to exercise or weight loss. How many people start to work out for a week, get sore and never go back to the gym for four months and then they start again and quit? Same thing with a diet. How many people start a diet and stop after a week instead of sticking with it? In both those cases, the hardest part is at the beginning.

Your doing something that is outside your comfort zone and you are not seeing results right away. You are not getting muscles in one week of working out. You?re not losing weight your first week of dieting really unless you?re on the Biggest Loser. But, if you stay consistent, then you start to see the results and emotions get easier. The same thing with trading. You can?t say I want to be a trader one day and buy stock and be like I?m rich. It?s not the way it works. You got to learn the skills. You got to stay the course. You got to stick to the plan before you see the results.

So I guess it?s that inner belief that I?m not going to stop until I succeed is what separates people that are successful from people that are not successful.

JT: That?s awesome and that really is something that everybody can have. So it?s not as though you are saying they can never be superstars it?s that they need to cultivate that first. That?s like a first step beforehand. That?s great.

AM: I think with anything there is a learning curve.

JT: Oh yeah, definitely. So how did you start? So you started after college. I mean did you have a ton of money from your college graduation or something? How do you start?

AM: I started trading at a company and the way it worked, it was a day trading company when I started, and I would go in every day and the first day I remember looking at the screen and it was just like a big blur. As I kept going, the screen became clearer and I started trading and what I did was I looked around at who the superstars were in the firm because they had like a leader board where you could see who was doing well every day so you knew who the stars were and I would kind of pick their brain.

I?d walk over to them with notebook and pen and ask them some questions and say what did you do here? Why?d you do that? I would come to all the meetings early and stay late and actually, the first award I won there was most improved trader. I have a history of that. Even when I wrestled in high school I got most improved wrestler. To win most improved it means you have to start off pretty bad. It?s not the best award but it shows determination but I won that and even then when I left after I had been there for awhile and I left to go trade my own money, I didn?t have success right away. I made a little bit of money.

I always tell people the most dangerous thing that could happen in the stock market is a false sense of confidence. Making that little bit of money and thinking you?re good which leads to the big downfall and that?s even what happened to me. I was almost wiped out. I was almost done. I have an article that I send out to my students as a reminder once a month. It?s called ?It?s Going to be the Last Trade I Ever Made? and I remember my back was against the wall and I wasn?t going to have enough money left to even continue trading and I just really had to focus on one good stock, the best rules and I really had to simplify everything. If you have one trade left, it has to be right and I was able to fight out of it and then instead of kind of getting reckless and loose again, I stayed consistent and tied it within what was working and I was able to build off that.

So I started off trading someone else?s money at a firm at a job. It wasn?t great right away but stuck with it. Asked the best people lots of questions then started trading my own money. Still had some setbacks but then was able to go back to the rules and what started it and achieved success.

JT: So how long did that take you? I mean how long were you working for somebody else and how long did it take you to achieve success when you went out on your own?

AM: I was working for someone else for maybe like a year.

JT: Oh wow.

AM: Yes, I was eager to get out on my own. Then on my own, it was a couple years.

JT: So what was it like trading your own money and that?s the only thing that you?re doing?

AM: Actually, it wasn?t really a couple years. It was a couple years until I was comfortable but the turnaround was probably like within six months I went from up to down to up and I stayed up. So that learning curve was probably six months and then after that I was kind of just building. What was the question?

JT: No, actually, I?m going to change topics for a second because I actually read that you had Fortune magazine looking over your shoulder and you made like $19,000 in a day or something like that and I really wanted to bring that up – going from like talking about you at the very beginning to being able to do something that sounds so extraordinary that nobody could do it. Could you tell me a little bit more about what that was and why Fortune was following you on it?

AM: Sure, I was trading at a firm that had probably thousands of traders. It was called Trade Scape and it eventually got sold to E*Trade for I think like $360 million and I was one of the top guys at that firm and so Fortune was doing an article on the trading industry and the owner of the firm recommended he watch me. So he, the guy?s name was Nelson Schwartz, nice guy, and he came and he was standing behind me and during that time the stocks were swinging much more wildly. It?s not as easy to do that now.

I?d probably have to take bigger positions but this was like, these were the fuel cell stocks at that time. The stock that I was trading was plugged power but I didn?t even know what that was. I didn?t know the real name of the company I just knew the symbol. So that?s why he found it so intriguing. I didn?t know a lot about the company but I traded and I jumped in and 20 minutes later I was out and it was like 19 grand.

JT: Great day!

AM: He almost lost it. He was standing behind me. He was like what is this world?

JT: That?s great. Good thing that happened on the day he was standing looking over shoulder! That?s awesome.

AM: They actually did a follow up a year later to see how the company was doing and we were doing well and we actually had a trader who had like, he made money 150 days in a row or something like that; some ridiculous streak. Good stuff.

JT: Yes, great stories. So let?s talk a little bit about how you got into your own business because you were trading on your own. You were doing very well and being very successful. What made you start your own business teaching other people how to do it?

AM: That actually came about because of the television appearances. At that time, I was a partner in a trading firm and I used to train 20 people at a time and the market was slow and one of my friends knew a casting person so I ended up on a dating show.

JT: Yes, I want to stop you right there. Talk a little bit more about that because I actually watched that show. I never watch reality shows and for some reason I watched that one so it was great that I have you here today. But what made you want to go on a reality show?

AM: I mean, the way it was described, I didn?t even know it was a dating show because they were very secretive about that stuff. So the form I got said, ?Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? You?re going to go on a luxury vacation and experience things that you?ve never experienced before with extreme stuff? and you had to agree to go like skydiving, all these things. They had no idea what you were going to be doing but it was just like a crazy adventure and I was like, ?Yeah, I?m in for that!? And so I showed up. I didn?t even know it was a dating show.

JT: That?s so funny. That?s great. Sorry and I totally interrupted you. So being on that show where you were matched up with a bunch of women or something like that and coming out at the end of that it helped your business career somehow and made you want to go into your own business?

AM: Well what happened was it was actually a popular show and it was, I think like 30 million people watched the finale and I was in the finals. Finals of a dating show. We went back to my apartment in New York and that Fortune article that we discussed was framed in my room because it was something I was proud of and she?s like what was this for? I was like trading. So when the show ended so many people had watched and instead of like writing in to ask about like my love life they were asking about the stock market and I was getting thousands of emails.

It was crazy and I was starting to answer them and people just kept asking questions and so I started a newsletter. Right away, the newsletter had a thousand people. If you fast forward now, it?s almost 300,000 people. So I realized that there was a void that people wanted information on how to trade stocks for themselves and they didn?t know where to go for it. So I started doing it and it took over and I actually loved it. That?s how that happened.

JT: Well I mean you?re such a likeable guy. Like I said at the beginning, you?ve got such a great personality and you?re extremely trustworthy, especially seeing you on like a reality show and you were put in a really good light of being this really nice guy. So everyone is like I already trust you, please tell me your secrets. That?s excellent.

AM: Thank you, I appreciate that.

JT: That?s excellent. So 300,000, how did you go about getting that much? I mean you probably didn?t know that much about internet marketing and newsletters and stuff like that. How did you start with all of that?

AM: A good friend of mine was in that industry in terms of the newsletters and stuff like that. So he was showing me how you could get started and he showed me how to write kind of daily copy. I always enjoyed writing. Remember that was my original goal.

JT: I was going to say you turned into a writer.

AM: I think people really connected. I think it is hit or miss when you want to do something like that. I think people enjoyed my voice. It was very downturn. Less focus on proper grammar and more focus on just getting the message across. And I don?t misspell words or anything but I?m not concerned about starting a sentence with but. I?m more thinking about what am I trying to say related to the stock market. So I think it was something that people enjoyed.

As it took over and I sold my interest in the trading company to do this full time, it became more of a business and one of the things you want to do in the business is you want to get your message out there which is who am I, you know, why should you choose me over anyone else. Once I realized that this is what I was going to be doing now, I was like obviously I want to be the best, I want to be the best stock market coach there is. So number one, you want to make sure that everyone you work with is happy. That?s never going to happen. I?ve realized that.

The more people, if you want to have a very successful business, you?re going to work with a lot of people and I?ve realized that there is no pleasing everyone. So what I try to do is take comfort in the fact that I know what we?re doing works. I?ve seen it work now, you know, month after month, year after year. I?ve watched people become successful so I know what the plan is and I can encourage people and it?s something that?s really rewarding.

But one of the best things that ever happened to me was I went to watch David Ledbetter give a golf lesson and David Ledbetter is considered by everyone, this isn?t by me this is by everyone, as one of the top three best golf instructors in the world and I watched him during a clinic and he was trying to get somebody to drive the ball straight but for 30 minutes all the guy did was hit the ball to the right and actually at the end he gave him a t-shirt as a gift for being such a good sport and the t-shirt said, ?I attended the Butch Harmon School of Golf? which is a competitor, because the guy was so bad.

It gave me confidence because at the beginning it was frustrating because if someone didn?t get it I was just like, I would drive myself nuts because I?m a real micromanager. But then I realized that everybody was improving and as I said earlier, not everyone will become a superstar but I want to make sure that everyone was able to go to the next level. That?s what I was able to do. So once I felt confident that I was doing a better job than anyone else and people were really benefiting, not everyone was going to be a superstar, but everyone was going to improve, I was like all right now I got to get the word out there.

It was actually a fluke. I was going to start an advertisement and the ad was supposed to run, like it was an online ad, and it was supposed to go out to a small portion of the list but they accidentally ran it to the whole list and it did really well. Right there I was just like okay so this is how it works. You send your message out and then you have this many more people following you. So I didn?t have to advertise steadily to get the word out there and allow people to get a free feel for who we are. When I advertised it was just kind of inviting people in to join my free newsletter and get a feel for who we are.

JT: That?s sort of what I was going to ask whether it was a paid newsletter or it?s free. It?s free so people can even sign up right now, just sign up to get your tips.

AM: Right. Yes.

JT: Excellent. So how did you advertise? I mean you started with a big jump in subscribers number one because you were famous but what did you do for advertising?

AM: There were online sites where people were interested in, when the right amount of subscribers to any list, like it could be basket weaving. If there is 400,000 people that are on your basket weaving list and you say to those 400,000 people, ?Well how many of you would be interested in the stock market,? even though the two are completely unrelated, you are still going to get a couple thousand people to say I am. I am, I want to learn about that.

That?s really what the advertising is with that. You are going out to different groups that are interested in different things and saying, ?Hey would you be interested in this and if so, here?s a free newsletter, get to know us better and see if you want to take it to the next level.?

JT: Excellent. So what is your business model? I mean I know you have the free newsletter and you also have products for sale, right? What exactly do you sell and I know you have a forum too. Do you have to sign up and pay for that?

AM: The way it works, I could take you from the beginning like the way it starts, so the products that we sell are introductions to the market. We have the beginners guide to the stock market, we have full contacts ratings and these are great ways to get a taste of okay what?s the stock market about? What?s the energy like and see if people are interested. And those products are actually called the loss leader because the amount we make on those doesn?t even offset the amount of cost to advertise. Advertising is expensive.

So you spend money to go out and advertise and of those thousands of people that will now join your list, maybe 40 or 50 will be interested in one of your beginner products which, you know, is a good way to offset your costs and give people a taste for who you are and see if they are really serious about wanting to move forward in the stock market. Then what we?ve became known for is our coaching program in our community. Those are the more expensive programs. They start at $4,500 and what people get there is they get to work one on one with a professional trader which is something that I did that was unique.

The reason for that is I found that most of the companies that were doing this before me would have just college kids reading out of a textbook and what I did, because I had my connections, was I was able to bring in real traders who traded their own money for a living and get them to teach people how to trade. It was a much more advanced level of service and these traders were a little like why should I do it? They?re thinking Warren Buffet should be doing it and these great traders who made a living trading their own money didn?t realize how valuable the information they had was. So they really enjoy doing it.

Then the community was, after you go through the coaching program and only if you?ve been trained by us, you could stay on and get access to our forum and my calls every week and each of the coaches has calls. The forum has thousands of members and they talk about the market each day but what?s really nice about it is they?ve all been trained by us. So you?re not going to have people that are out to manipulate or talk about stocks that aren?t within our guidelines for what we?re looking for. So it?s an educated community and it was pretty much set up the way my trading floors used to be.

Instead of rows of people it?s people online but they?re all coming together and they have the similar training so it allows them to work effectively. So I?m really proud of that. The way we do that is it?s $97.00 a month to get access to the calls every week and the forum but if people, for some reason, have gone through the program haven?t covered the cost of the membership, meaning, you know, because sometimes someone might want to get started with $5,000 and I think that?s great but if they paid me $4,500 they?re not going to make that right away. They?re not going to double their money in three months.

They can. I?ve seen it done but not everyone is going to do that. Most people won?t. So in that case, they just let us know and they don?t have to pay membership dues until they?re profitable. So it?s a nice kind of we?ll train you forever until you get this but they go through the program and they haven?t made money then we?ll continue to provide them with all of our services until they do at no charge. So it?s a great way to maintain a good reputation which is something I really work hard for.

JT: Yes, just in terms of reputation too, usually when I do research I look up bad stuff too. So whoever I?m interviewing I want to find out if there?s anything bad being said about them and stuff like that and I just want to say that I?m extremely impressed by what I found for you guys. In general, I?ve interviewed a lot of millionaires having to do with investing and real estate and there are always people that say bad things. I usually take it with a grain of salt. The funny thing is that I read a bad review about one of your, one, I only found one, which is really cool, but then right underneath it you personally responded and you wrote exactly why. You wrote your phone number, you wrote your email address. You said contact me. That was extremely impressive and me, of course, if I was a consumer looking for your stuff, I mean that would be huge as far as trust for me. So what?s your stance on addressing complaints and issues with your company?

AM: Again, it?s to be a micromanager and it?s funny. If anyone complains and in six years, you?re right, there?s been one complaint and I knew exactly who the person was and the issue was this. Of the 2,000 members, we?ve had we had to kick out one person from our forum and it was a lady that was just really being rude to everybody and so I wrote on there. I said this is what happens. Everybody needed her gone. Nobody was happy with her. We warned her several times and she had to leave.

It was just frustrating because I?m willing to put up my name and number and I?ll speak to anyone about anything. Transparency is key as opposed to her I would use a fake name and a town that didn?t exist to complain. It was like all right, whatever.

JT: That?s really impressive out of thousands of people you?ve had one. That?s crazy.

AM: Well that?s the thing. In this day and age where so many transactions are done online, your reputation is more important than ever because if you mess up, many people will see it. All you have to do, like I?m sure what you did, you go on the internet and you type in my name, there?s 10 million hits. You?re going to go through articles. You are going to see something somewhere. You can read a lot about me. You were able to prepare for this interview. I?m sure like 20 years ago before, however probably less, before there was an internet it was a lot harder to prepare for these interviews.

You probably had to do a pre-interview. Now you just go on the internet and you read everything. So I think it?s really important to be a micromanager because this is another thing that I think would go for any business, you can work a lifetime to develop your name and your reputation and it could be gone in a second. You see that with that designer, that fashion designer who got caught on camera making anti-Semitic remarks and then all of a sudden his career was destroyed. You know what I?m saying?

JT: Yes. Don?t be that person.

AM: You got to make sure that your customers are happy because, if not, people will know. It?s important to me to make sure that I know I am doing everything I can.

JT: As a business owner, so speaking to other business owners and having a group of clients or customers or whatever you want to call them interact with your forum, how do you set that up so it is so educational, interactive and you only had one person that was ever bad to other people? How do you set that up in a way if somebody else was trying to do that?

AM: I love that question because what I did was I did the opposite of negative experiences I have had. You deal with other businesses every day and what I found was that there were so many businesses that I thought did it the wrong way and examples would be Time Warner Cable, Verizon, any phone company, cable company where you get transferred seven times, you have to speak to computer voices, it?s impossible to get a person on the phone. That?s a frustrating experience. That leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth so much so that I almost want to take action. I switched phone companies. I?ve switched cable companies. I switched to Fios.

So what I did was I lather people with personal attention. I have a full team of customer support here. I have a tech specialist so that when someone joins my program they have their personal coach, they have access to group calls of me so I keep an eye on them. If they need help with things on their computer they have someone who can help them with that. If they need help in other areas, they?ll always have a real person to speak to. There?s always someone answering the phone. So I think personal attention is the way to separate yourself.

That?s all people want. Even if you tell someone I can?t help you and even if you say there?s nothing we can do in this situation, as long as it?s a real person and they know every time they call you that phone is going to be answered, that?s something that doesn?t exist ever anymore. So it?s a way where we could set ourselves apart and that?s what we do. So I?m glad you asked that question because that?s really important to me.

JT: That?s really great advice. Yes, you don?t get that anywhere nowadays. That?s excellent.

AM: Right.

JT: So what are some of the obstacles or challenges that you face just, I mean, in trading and in your own business? We like to hear the beautiful success story of 19,000 in one day and yes I now have this wonderful company that has lots of people working for me but I know it hasn?t all been smooth sailing. So what are some of the obstacles and challenges that you faced?

AM: Well, in trading, my biggest obstacle has always been discipline. Sometimes it?s what makes me a better coach than even a trader in that I know what the right things to do are in every situation. I?ve been doing this for so long. There is no gray. It?s black and white. Here?s how you establish it. Here?s what the risk is. Here?s what the reward is. But no matter how long I have been doing it, there?s certain situations where that little slither of emotion comes in and your discipline breaks down and then you?re like I?m just going to hold a little bit longer.

You know what, I?m not going to buy 2,000 shares, I?m going to buy 5,000. Well, we?ve established there?s a risk reward but now you?re risking, at a minimum, a couple thousand versus maybe a couple hundred. So by taking on bigger risks, by going outside my comfort zone looking for action, that?s where I encounter obstacles in my trading. So it?s a constant struggle. The market is really like the ocean. It could be like calm and relaxing and you can have some fun in it on a daily basis and then all of a sudden you let your guard down for a second and it?s down 500 points and you just lost 20 grand.

Just always sticking with the rules I think is important in terms of trading. In terms of business I think the challenge is I guess one would be customers. When you deal with a lot of people, there is going to be some people you don?t want to deal with and trying to demonstrate patience. I?m someone who speaks my mind, tell it like it is so I have the urge to say to some people you are absolutely ridiculous. What you just said to me is the most ridiculous thing I?ve ever heard.

But, then again, you have to realize they?re a customer. I?ve said it sometimes just because I think it needed to be said but trying to maintain professionalism I think is something I struggle with at points just because I wear my heart on my sleeve and it is me running this business every day. It?s not like someone else is running it so if there?s an insult or someone says something I don?t care because it?s not really me. It is me so I do care.

I think growth is something that is always on your mind because if you?re not moving forward you?re moving back. So it?s always how do we stay the best? Is our technology the best? Is what we?re saying the best? Is our team the most prepared? How do we make sure that this year is better than last year? Those things are important because that?s what creates a happy environment.

JT: Yes, definitely. Excellent. So how many people actually work there?

AM: In my office there is, I think, 10.

JT: Like rounding count, right?

AM: And then the coaches, they trade throughout the country. The total team of people that we work with is now over 30.

JT: Nice. That?s excellent. And growth is always a thing of every year trying to get better and better. That?s great to hear. I mean that?s sort of the whole point of having a business and growing it and making it better and that?s what entrepreneurs do best anyway.

AM: Well, going back to what we said at the beginning, it?s that balance between taking the things you?re good at and doing them really well while still looking to grow. So it?s how aggressive do I want to be in growth versus how much emphasis on what we?re doing well. I usually say it?s like 85 percent just focusing on doing the things right that we are good at and 15 percent on what else can we do.

JT: That?s great. So what?s some of the resources that you?ve used? Is there any really good books whether it be books on mindset or books on trading or whatever that have really inspired you and helped you grow?

AM: Well my favorite book, it?s actually one that I sell now and that wasn?t looking to be a plug, it?s part of the full contact trading program, the book that?s included with it is called Reminiscence of a Stock Operator and it?s a trading book but it?s also like a life lesson book. The guy kind of breaks his own rules so he makes and loses millions four or five times over. You see him go from tremendous success to failure over and over. So it was a book that really hit home with me as a trader and what you?re able to do, because it was written so long ago, is get the rights to it and so I include that with my programs and I write my own modern day trading lessons are included with that. That?s what the full contact trading program is. It was all built around that book.

JT: Oh wow, that?s excellent. Awesome. For the last question, what?s one action that everyone can take this week to move them forward towards their goal to be a millionaire?

AM: The obvious one is what you just said which is setting goals. If you don?t have goals, you can?t achieve them. Something I heard once that really stuck with me that I think can apply anywhere is when you look at any business and anyone in any business, there is the way that everybody is doing it and the way to separate yourself. I think the question that people need to ask whether it?s their own business or they?re working somewhere is how do I set myself apart? How am I going to do something in a way that?s different and better than anyone else has ever done before?

When you create your own way, and the story is actually about buckets. If you look at the rental car industry and you see that there?s Avis and there?s Hertz and there?s Budget and there?s Dollar, if I was looking to go into the rental car industry, for me to become Adam Mesh?s Rental Car, there?s already a hundred of them. There?s no way to be different. But then you look at the zip car and all of a sudden there?s a different spin. There?s a new spin on an industry that?s been around forever. They created their own bucket. They stepped into that industry and said, ?Okay, we?re going to allow you to rent our cars but we?re going to do it in a way that has never been done before.?

That?s how I try to run my business. I think even when you?re working for someone else, to go in and say, ?Okay, everyone comes in and does this but who has ever come after hours and made a presentation for how the business can grow? Who has ever stepped up and said hey I took the initiative and look what else we?re doing now?? I think when you look to set yourself apart that?s how you experience growth.

JT: That?s excellent advice. I?ve heard that through the whole entire interview though of you trying to really be the best and trying to do what you can do the best and I think that?s a really key point too that everybody, as long as they?re trying their best to try and separate themselves and grow their business and do everything, that?s really what you can ask for. Excellent.

AM: Yes.

JT: So where is the best place to find you and information on all your products and everything online?

AM: If anyone goes to adammesh.com they can put in their email address and start receiving emails on a daily basis. That?s probably the easiest way to go is adammesh.com.

JT: Excellent and I just signed up to you. So I?ll be one of your 300,000 people that you?ll be sending those to. Excellent.

AM: Enjoy.

JT: Yeah, I really appreciate it. It?s funny, I got into the stock market not that long ago and I?ve just been learning as much as I can. So I really appreciate your information. So I look forward to getting it and getting to know you better from thousands of emails that I?ll get now. Not thousands but you know what I mean, every single day I?ll be able to get one from you so that will be excellent. Awesome.

AM: Right. I appreciate the interview, the way it was done. It?s nice to be able to expand upon your answers. I?m used to now being on TV where you have like three minutes to talk about three talking points so this is more of a relaxing forum where I enjoyed it. It was almost a chance to reflect so I thank you for the interview as well.

JT: Excellent. Well I hope you have a wonderful day, Adam, and thank you so much for coming on.

AM: Take care, Jaime. Bye.

JT: You too.

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