Anyone feeling down on his luck should meet Jim Myers.

Myers, a successful businessman who lives in Coeur d'Alene, has been there - more than once.

Last year, with help from his wife, Debbie, Myers started Turkeys for All, a nonprofit that raises money to help the Kootenai County Community Action Partnership food bank provide food to families in need during the holiday season.

He grew up in London, in government-owned housing, the child of factory workers. There were two families living in his house.

"I left school when I was 15, and I don't have any real secondary education," Myers said. "I learned everything that I've learned, not necessarily the hard way, but through a series of stepping stones. Careers to me are a series of stepping stones. You can't get to the next stone if it wasn't for the previous stone."

Myers' first real job was at Heathrow Airport as a customer service agent. He ended up working for a travel company in London, and it was from there that Robert Earl, the founder and former CEO of the Planet Hollywood restaurants and the Las Vegas casino, hired Myers.

Myers moved to the states in 1983 to work for Earl in Orlando, Fla., where the restaurateur opened three large dinner theaters.

"It was a baptism of intensity," Myers said. "On a daily basis, we had 3,600 seats to fill."

Through that experience, he says he learned about vision and entrepreneurship. He gained the ability to make quick decisions - the right ones - and how to deal with pressure.

That was Myers' first rise to success, but it wasn't his last.

He wasn't done learning.

By the early 1990s, Myers was out of work and out of money. He received help from a food bank, and started looking for another "series of stepping stones."

It was during that second climb to build a career that Myers discovered the power of lessons in humility.

Now, many years later, he has a successful career in the finance industry, and he hasn't forgotten where he came from.

If you ask him what kind of car he drives, he'll tell you it's a little, gray car. He won't say it's a BMW.

"I just did this yesterday. I look at it, and I think, 'Oh my God, that's my car. This is unreal' ... I would never, ever have thought I would be driving a car like this when I was at that food bank."

He said he also remembers to always treat everyone with the same amount of respect, whether it's the CEO of a company, or the guy who sweeps the floors.

Turkeys for All helps him keep his feet on the ground, he said.

"It's a passion of mine," he said.

How long have you lived in Kootenai County, and what brought you here?

This is my ninth year living here. It was a lifestyle choice. I was living in northern California and I wanted to be in a more rural, smaller town.

One of the endearing things about this area is ... one time, it was in the winter, and I slid into a snowdrift, and I was stuck. In five minutes, six people had stopped to see if I was OK. That's Coeur d'Alene. The aesthetics are fantastic, but the people make the town.

How did Turkeys for All come to be?

Not long after I got to Coeur d'Alene, I got to know Carolyn Shewfelt (manager of the Kootenai County Community Action Partnership food bank), and she's a very good friend. She should have a halo, actually.

So there was this campaign; the food bank needed turkeys. I was getting commissions and I was doing very well, so I went to Walmart and bought a bunch of turkeys. The next year, the same fire drill happened and I went and bought a bunch more turkeys.

One year, I was volunteering there, and it was the week before Thanksgiving, the pickup day for the boxes of trimmings and everything. It was a really cold day, and I asked Carolyn, 'What do you want me to do?' She told me to go to the front of the parking lot and stop every car, "And tell them we've got no turkeys." With the exception of one person, it was a lesson in humility, those people were so gracious. I just thought, there's got to be something we can do to alleviate this.

Then one night, I was lying in bed, and the light bulb went off. My thought behind Turkeys for All was, let's raise money and make sure she doesn't have that fire drill every Thanksgiving.

Debbie, my wife, helped me found it. She's really the co-founder, too. She helped me with the logistics.

Do you feel you have a personal connection to the people your nonprofit helps?

When I left Robert (Earl), I hit the earth with a big bump. It was the early '90s. I ended up without a job, and I ended up at the food bank because I had no money and no food and a teenage son living with me. I had nothing and I had to resurrect my career for a second time, from nothing.

How did you pull yourself up from that place?

I call it the second part, because during the first part, I didn't like myself. I was cocky and arrogant and I was a womanizer. And then, I hit the floor and I was at that food bank. I was at that place where you've hit rock bottom and the only way is up. So I went and worked a temporary position, for three months in Houston, Texas, working as a res (reservation) agent: 'Hi, this is Jim, can I help you?'

What was interesting about that was now I'm 43, and my bosses and supervisors and superiors were all 21, 22, 23. So it was a big humility lesson, where you turn around and say, are they really going to tell me what to do? And yeah, they are. So my goal, when I took that job, because it was only for their summer rush and it was an entry level job, was just to be the best reservation agent I could be.

I tell my clients this when I coach: "I'm not coaching you to win the game. I'm coaching you to do the right things, and if you do the right things, you're going to win the game."

Within not even 12 weeks, they saw my background and they offered me a position in corporate sales, and I was in sales with British Airways for a while. Then I went from British Airways into the financial services agency, which is where I'm at now.

But I've done many, many things. In the UK, one job I had when I was in the airline business, I worked for Ethiopian Airlines. I went down to Ethiopia three times. One time I was there in the middle of a famine, and I saw things that were just beyond description ... It was an interesting time.

I've worked for a lot of different people, and the key, at least in sales, is to make sure you're selling a product that you've got passion for and that you can believe in.

Do you miss England?

The company I work for, we sell a very, very specialist product. It's an electronic payment program that replaces checks. It's sold in the states. I don't want to mention the companies, but I did one deal that was $4 billion to the company. I was very successful with it. They asked me to go to work in London for six months to sell the same product to the European travel industry, because it lends itself to travel. So I was over there from January to July of 2012.

Then I fly back every year to see my team play. We just got back actually. I took my wife over. She's never been. I took her on a two-week tour. We went to Scotland, and then we made sure we saw at least two games.

When you say "my team," what do you mean?

It's the (soccer) team I've followed. They're called "Brentford" and I've been a fan of theirs since I was eight years old. I've never gone a year since I've been in the states without seeing them.

My casual wardrobe - I wouldn't have anything to wear, if it wasn't for their insignia.

There are four professional English divisions, and they play at second level which is known as the championship. They just got promoted. It's a different system than the one here.

Do you have any future career plans?

I'm still gainfully employed with this company. But I've been fishing around to work as a sales coach, a sales trainer. There are a lot of connections between coaching and business.

To what do you attribute your success?

I'm not religious. I'm more spiritual, but I think you have to have a core of belief. Whatever that belief is, whether it's a tree at the end of your yard, whether it's a supreme being of your own definition, I think you have to have that belief, you have to have that focus. I find it difficult without that. Even in the darkest time, which for me was being at the food agency because I didn't have enough money for food, I still had the belief that I was going to come out of it. I think if you give in, you give in. It's done.

Turkeys for All's annual fundraiser

Turkeys for All's annual fundraiser will take place Friday, Oct. 17, at the Best Western Plus Coeur d'Alene Inn. Donations for the live and silent auction are needed.

The 2014 board of directors is as follows: Jim Myers, chairman; Debbie Myles-Myers, secretary; Laura Younge, treasurer; Caroline Crollard; Dr. Robert Hagen, M.D.

Donations to the organization can be made online at turkeysforall.org or by mailing a check to 213 N. Lakeview Drive, Coeur d'Alene, 83814.