Jamie Meyer is a traveling Entrepreneur from Australia.
Jamie doesn’t shy away from challenges. She asks hard questions. And she wakes up every day to transform the experience we have of ourselves and others mostly because she has spent the last 10 years of her life learning how limited the experiences we allow ourselves to have actually are.
Jamie is creative by nature and believes that we have the capacity to be the artists of our own reality.
She lives to break the rules and design her own. Jamie has designed her entire life around it. And that is saying something, coming from someone who grew up consumed with living by the rules. The problem was that everyone else’s rules didn’t work for her. She found herself in a life that had become a cage of her own, even though it took her until she was 24 to realize why it felt so uncomfortable.
Jamie is the eldest of 4 children. She has explored, laughed in the face of danger, and kept moving forward despite the odds stacked against her. She has more books in her suitcases than in clothes and leaves a trail of reading books behind her in every country she visits.
Jamie will try anything once. Sometimes twice to make sure she doesn’t like it. She has traveled the world independently to countries where she didn’t know the language. Jamie loves deep sea fishing and does crazy things like catch an Uber 7 hours up the coast of Mexico.
After she lives until 103, Jamie wants her headstone to read, “I came, I saw, and I conquered the most remarkable life. And given that opportunity to other people.”
For more details, visit her website here.
Here we sit down with Jamie to learn more about her journey as an entrepreneur.
Q. Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur – how did you get started? What inspired you?
Jamie: I feel like my career started when I was 5. I wanted to be Prime Minister of the World, which you can’t actually be, laughs. I don’t remember being “entrepreneurial” at a young age, I didn’t have a lemonade stand or buy shares on the stock market with my allowance. But I was the upstart 14-year-old with all the business advice for the Owners of the companies I worked for casually. Looking back now, that was probably pretty advantageous, but I never gave it a second thought.
I actually studied Fashion Design, but it was boring, and I didn’t find it challenging enough. So I took my end-of-year exam early and left to start building capital for my own line. I didn’t think too much about what job I took as long as it was full-time. It was only about making money to fund what I wanted. I landed a Receptionist job at a family business. Found that kind of boring and started to redesign all the forms and processes they had been using, mostly to stop me from falling asleep at my desk. The General Manager did catch me doing that once.
When I realized how much I loved the nuances of Business, I kept pushing boundaries for how much I could change and what new areas of the business I could learn and impact. I walked across muddy construction sites in heels. Replaced toilets. Hand unloaded 20ft containers at 4 am in the freezing cold. I’ve driven forklifts and trucks. Traveled 5 hours to make a cold sales call.
I became the General Manager of that Company in my early twenties.
While I was working to flip that company’s business model, I became so frustrated with the limitations when implementing strategies and different visions. And how many amazing People I met in other companies whose skills were being limited by roles and structures. I wondered how I could help move past what was to see what could be.
So I started freelancing, working with frameworks and integration of business dynamics. My Client portfolio grew into coaching Entrepreneurs, which evolved into Organisational Coaching contracts, which evolved into working with individuals.
Nine Carat was born to follow where I could design Success for whoever wanted to find it, and it has developed into an international Success Design Agency. That journey has inspired Projects and Companies that focus on sectors screaming for different opportunities, and that started Jamie Meyer Enterprises. A place for all those ventures to call home.
Q. What are your long-term goals in business? Paint a vision for the future
Jamie: Laughs, I’ve been told I am too ambitious when I am only just getting warmed up. I want to lead us toward understanding higher levels of Success. Not detracting from what has been done but as a different option.
I am focused on developing People, designing ventures and environments for us all to be the most brilliant versions of ourselves and whatever we choose to undertake.
That sees Nine Carat working with more Clients in new sectors. And Jamie Meyer Enterprises is moving into Manufacturing, Property Development, and Education. I once heard a quote, “If you are focusing on a problem that can be solved in your lifetime, you are thinking too small.”
Whatever the future holds, I want it to be long outlive my 103 years.
Q. What motivates you?
Jamie: People do. Living life does. Not just living but really living our lives. Seeing life in different parts of the World. How it is, compared to how it could be, drives me. The kind of drive that gives you goosebumps.
I envision a World where we are all on fire to be a force that enhances our lives and Society. Where we all have the tools to do and be whatever we want.
The most inspiring thing has a front-row seat to the Success others can achieve.
Q. What business-related book has inspired you the most, or what is your favorite book?
Jamie: How long is this interview? Laughs. I will read anything and everything. The key to reading is to read to learn something. It won’t matter what you read if you read everything like this.
Q. What is the most memorable thing you’ve done since you started your business?
Jamie: I would love to say there is just one, but there have been so many things that I will never forget. Clients that have recognized their worth. People that have gone on to live the life they dreamed of. Companies that have made space for the success of ecosystems. People I’ve interviewed have had me pinching myself.
The most memorable thing that ties all of these amazing things together is there was one moment when I decided I wanted this. No matter how crazy or huge it was. That moment. That choice has led me to the most spectacular and memorable places, people, and achievements.
Q. If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?
Jamie: Ironically, I have thought about this a lot, and I may or may not have started writing it, laugh. I keep going between “An Unexpected Series of Events” and “An Unconditional Life.”
Both represent the contrast between where I have been, where I find myself now, and everything I am yet to experience. I have surprised myself, life has surprised me, and I plan for the future to hold nothing less.
Q. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
Jamie: Myself. The end.
When you bet on yourself, you never lose, it may not work out exactly as you planned, and you may not use that investment the way you thought you would when you made it. But it always pays dividends. Consider it compounding interest that does not have an expiry date.
Q. Where do you see the future in your niche/industry 3-5 years from now?
Jamie: I consider Nine Carat a niche of its own. We tried on all the industries and sectors that you would generally apply to, but they don’t fit.
So it isn’t about the future of our niche but what our niche can create for other People.
Q. What is your ‘one-sentence’ piece of advice you’d like to give to someone who wants to become an entrepreneur, coach, or business owner?
Jamie: Someone smarter than me once said, “Jump off the cliff and build the plane on the way down.” I live by this because once you jump, you have no choice but to build the plane, and because you had to, you will really learn what you can.
Google, antitrust and how best to regulate big tech(Opens in a new browser tab)
Realizing what you are really capable of is where the magic is!
To keep up to date with Jamie and her journey, connect with her on Nine Carat Consulting and through her personal account.