#312: From Rock Bottom to Inspiring Millions: Justin Schenck’s Rise from ‘Least Likely to Succeed’ to Top-Rated Podcaster

0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): Do you know the best thing about finally hitting rock bottom? Because the only way to go is up. Today, I want to encourage you to forget about your past, forget about those challenges, because today, we're focused forward. Today, we're forgetting about the past. We're using rock bottom as a launch pad. And most of all, we're getting all of the inspiration we need from today's guest, Justin Schenk. Today's episode is going to get into the good stuff right away, so you don't have to stay tuned much longer.

0:00:38 - (Kevin Lowe): Just realize this, that you're about to be taken on a journey of discovering how Justin was able to overcome the odds stacked against him to get him to where he is today. My friend, this is an interview you do not want to miss.

0:00:54 - (Justin Schenck): A.

0:00:55 - (Kevin Lowe): This is episode 312. Yo.

0:01:00 - (Justin Schenck): Are you ready to flip the script on life? Cause those bad days, they're just doors to better days. And that's exactly what we do here at grit, grace, and inspiration. Your host, Kevin Lowe, he's been flipping the script on his own life, turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight up inspiration, motivation, and encouragement just for you. So kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin Lowe.

0:01:27 - (Kevin Lowe): Justin Shake. Welcome to the podcast, man.

0:01:30 - (Justin Schenck): Kevin, thanks for having me, man. Dude, I love the fact that we are already. We've been connected for a total of four minutes now, and we've already been laughing, dude. So I'm excited to see where this conversation goes.

0:01:39 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely, dude. I agree 100%. Well, man, I want to start things off. I want to dive into your full kind of journey you've been on, and I would love just kind of start with kind of an interesting question, and you will kind of see where it takes us is, when you kind of look back on this journey that you've been on, what do you feel like? Was that one moment in time, that one event that really was that spark that ended up setting you on the path that's led you to where you are today?

0:02:09 - (Justin Schenck): Dude, that's a powerful question. And obviously, if you really break down the story, I think that it's a collection of little moments that culminated to a big moment which allowed me to kind of look at life differently. So my mom battled opioids for 20 years, and six months before I launched this podcast, it was already in the planning stages. The first year of the podcast, I had a co host, so we were planning everything out. We had the name, we were working on the intro and all that stuff. And six months before we launched the show, my mom lost her battle to opioids.

0:02:38 - (Justin Schenck): And it was in that moment for me that, uh, I started to reflect back on life a little bit more. Right. And what ended up happening when she passed away is I went on a three month bender where I was blackout drunk six nights a week. Like, that whole thing of, like, going out and. And not. And then waking up in your bed the next morning. Right. And not remembering anything that's going on now, obviously, because of what I. What I went through in my life, I was always very self aware, and I knew that I was numbing a pain, right. And I knew that I was just kind of running from the feelings. And I had a coach at the time who called me one day out of the blue. We weren't even scheduled to talk. And she goes, hey, what are you doing tonight? And I said, oh, I'm going out with some buddies.

0:03:15 - (Justin Schenck): And her response was, no, you're not. You're going to sit, and you're going to feel this. And that evening, I allowed myself to feel it and let all the emotions flow. And I actually did an exercise where I wrote a letter to my mom. And I always like to say this part of the story. Like, even though my mom had her own demons and my dad his own demons, I was blessed with very, very loving parents. They just happened to have these things that, you know, that they were battling that made it hard for them to be fully present all the time, but still very, very blessed to have a great mom.

0:03:43 - (Justin Schenck): And so I wrote a letter letting go of some of the resentment. The whole exercise is, you write the letter, and then you set it on fire, letting it all go. And then I woke up the next day, and obviously, I felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulder. And I had two realizations. The first realization was, my mom didn't die because she was an addict. My mom died because she didn't love herself. And I realized in that moment that I also didn't love myself.

0:04:04 - (Justin Schenck): And I began the journey of trying to do the things that society told me, that if I did these things, I will then love myself and I'll be happy. And so, obviously, we launched the show. For a long time, nobody really listened. And then it started to really grow. The audience started to grow. And then Ink magazine listed me as a top eight podcast every entrepreneur should follow. And then it blew up, and then money started to come my way. I was being asked to speak, and I was launching some companies and all these things. And I, you know, I had all the things. I had the car I had the girl. All the things society said you should go chase and get.

0:04:37 - (Justin Schenck): I then realized that I still didn't love myself. And I then began the inner work. And I think that's for me. Even though it sounds like the journey started much earlier, that's where the journey really began for me, of going inward and trying to figure out what is it that makes me happy, what is my purpose, why am I here? And have been able to figure that out over the last six plus years and feel blessed to be in a really great place now.

0:05:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, that's amazing. I am loving the fact that we're getting powerful right off the start today. This is my kind of conversation. So I'm curious to figure out what kind of led to this moment that you've talked about. Would you mind? Let's kind of go and back, rewind things a bit. Just kind of the basic, like where you grew up at what childhood was like for you. Would love to kind of get to hear a little bit of that about that part of your life.

0:05:34 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, I mean, for the first twelve years of my life was actually very, very normal. From the outside it looked normal. Right. My, my parents were fakingly happily married. You know, we lived in a beautiful home. We, we lived by the beach in South Jersey and it was really kind of a blessed life. And when I was twelve, that's when we discovered my mom's addiction. And what ended up happening was it led to a divorce in my parents and there's other things involved in that too, but that was like the beginning of the end of their marriage.

0:06:01 - (Justin Schenck): And so they, my parents split up and we went from living in a half a million dollar home to my dad moved into a trailer, my mom moved into a two bedroom apartment and I had two sisters. And so, you know, trying to navigate life at that point, just really trying to figure it all out and was unsure of where life was really going to take me. And now I jokingly say that in high school, if there was a senior superlative for least likely to succeed, it would have been me. I had a 1.7 gpA.

0:06:28 - (Justin Schenck): Not because I'm dumb, but because I was checked out, right. Life wasn't a great life and I wasn't into school and I was checked out and all the things in between. Obviously at that point my mom was in the middle of her addiction and my dad ended up in jail. And when you look at that, all signs point to you've got no shot, kid. Right? As a matter of fact, they say if your parents an addict, you have a 50% chance of being an addict. And if your parents in jail, you have 50% chance of ending up in jail. Like, if you do the math, I'm 100% screwed.

0:06:53 - (Justin Schenck): Like, I've really got no shot. And then when I was 19, I ended up getting a job in direct sales, which introduced me to this idea of, like, time, freedom, and controlling your own income and all those things. But the most important part about that job was my mentor in that company ended up handing me a book called who moved my cheese? If you haven't read it, highly recommend. It's really quick read or audiobook. I think the audiobook's, like, somebody, I spoke an event, mentioned it last night, and a guy screenshot it that he was listening to. It was like an hour and 20 minutes on audiobook.

0:07:21 - (Kevin Lowe): That is short.

0:07:23 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, it's super short. But it was powerful for me in the moment. The book's all about how no matter what change is going to happen around you, that stuff doesn't matter. What matters is how you react to that change. And it kind of gave me the thought in my head of like, oh, wait, I get to control my destiny. I get to control where I go. I didn't know where I was going to go at 19. Podcasting, first of all, wasn't even a thing, and that's what I do full time now.

0:07:46 - (Justin Schenck): But what I did know is what I didn't want, right? I didn't want to end up like my parents. And so that self awareness of what I didn't want allowed me to explore different things and try different things. And I had tried a couple businesses that had failed throughout the years. And then that led me to the idea of podcasting, which originally was supposed to be about me interviewing entrepreneurs to figure out how to be a better entrepreneur.

0:08:08 - (Justin Schenck): And then ended up being talking about self love and overcoming your rock bottom moments, and how are you happy even when things are going your way and having these powerful conversations with such powerful people? Because obviously, my mom passing away had me reflect a little bit differently on life. And so you asked, what was life like growing up as a kid? Honestly, like, even though it didn't seem right, I was happy.

0:08:30 - (Justin Schenck): I felt loved. And I think that's the most important key to most things. But in retrospect, going through those hardships taught me so much. It taught me a little bit of forgiveness for individuals who are battling things. It taught me that everybody has their own story and their own journey. It taught me self awareness, which I believe is a key part to my success. It taught me so many things. And so, again, like, even though it was not the easiest childhood, I feel blessed to have the journey that I have. Cause I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now and being able to, you know, impact people all over the world.

0:09:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I absolutely love that perspective. How old were you when your mom ended up dying?

0:09:10 - (Justin Schenck): I was, like, 30. I think I was 31, and she was 58.

0:09:13 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, so whether back as a child in high school or twenties, and then leading up to your mom dying, why do you think you didn't fall victim to the statistics that you should be a drug addict also?

0:09:31 - (Justin Schenck): Dude, you know, I get this question all the time, and I don't really have an answer.

0:09:36 - (Kevin Lowe): Right.

0:09:36 - (Justin Schenck): There's that old. That old story of there were two sons whose father was an alcoholic, and the one son ended up becoming an alcoholic, and the other son became very, very wealthy and successful and never fell into addiction. And they asked both of them, why did you end up this way? And they go, because my father was an alcoholic. And so I think the key part for me was always looking at people who I thought had what I would want in my life versus only focusing on where I was, right? I had great aunts and uncles who created success in their life, and I saw their life unfolding in a much more peaceful way than my life did. And I go, well, that's what I want. Right? And I think vision is super key.

0:10:19 - (Justin Schenck): And even at a young age, going, you know what? I want to do something big. I want to do something really, really big. And holding myself accountable. But having a vision as to where you're going, I think, changes the narrative in your head. There's so many stories of people who grew up in really, really bad ways, way worse than me, who have gone on to create so much good in the world. And I think, again, it's. It's just vision, right? Not knowing, like, the idea of, like, knowing what I don't want and then a vision of where I want to go, even though it was a blurry vision at the time because I was young, I think that was the key for me.

0:10:54 - (Justin Schenck): I'm sure somebody else would answer that differently. I think everybody's kind of on their own journey, but it was definitely, like the understanding and the vision of where I wanted to go and then never giving up. Often on Instagram, every. Every couple years, I'll post a similar story, how I had a company when I was 24 years old where we put together events for entrepreneurs, so we'd focus on different things from, like, customer service to sales to marketing, et cetera.

0:11:16 - (Justin Schenck): And that business ended up failing, and I'll cut that story short, but that business ended up failing. And then I was like, I'm never doing live events again. And now part of what I do is live events for entrepreneurs who want to make a big impact in the world, and they're ultimately successful. And I think having that vision of bringing people together who are like minded, who want to grow, who want to become better, I didn't give up on that, that dream. I didn't really give up on that dream. At 24, it's always what I wanted to do. It's just package different now, if that makes sense.

0:11:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, no, absolutely. Wow. Now, when you were in high school coming up, you know, graduation time, was college even something that you thought about?

0:11:57 - (Justin Schenck): So I hated school. Like, I don't, I'm not diagnosed by any means, but I'm pretty sure I have add. And I'm sure in this conversation we'll see my add pop up at some point. But I didn't like school. Now, I applied to one college. I just. I just told you what my GPA was at one point in school. Now, that's not my cum, but that was my GPA at one point. And it was during the heavily weighed year of your high school, which was junior year of high school.

0:12:23 - (Justin Schenck): And I was like, I'll apply. Because my mom was like, hey, you should apply just to see if you get in. Neither of my parents went to college, so it was never like, oh, college is the path in my household. But she's like, why don't you just apply and see if you can get in? So I applied to Temple University. My uncle at the time was on the board of Temple University. So I was like, I gotta get in. I'm gonna get in. Like, my uncle's on the board.

0:12:44 - (Justin Schenck): And guess what? I got waitlisted, right? So they said, hey, go to. Go to community college for a hot minute. They said, go for one semester, get a 2.5 gpA, and then reapply. And I went to community college, ended up going to community college for three semesters, had a 3.5 GPA through those three semesters, and then I just stopped sitting in a classroom, and learning in that way is just. It just doesn't work for me.

0:13:07 - (Justin Schenck): And I think that my vision was a little bit different than the corporate world. Even though I've had success in the corporate world in my previous life, it was just not for me. So. So to answer your question. Right. That was my long answer. But to answer your question, college. College was involved in my life, but it was never really what I thought my path was going to be.

0:13:25 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, okay. Understandable. Understandable. One last question before we kind of move on past kind of like growing up and all that. And it's up to you whether or not you really want to speak about it and how much is, when we talk about these statistics of, you know, when parent is, you know, addicted to drugs or an alcoholic that the kids should be, too, you went the opposite route. What about your siblings?

0:13:54 - (Justin Schenck): Oh, yeah, my sisters are great, man. They. I don't know how all three of us turned out the way we did. They both have, you know, great marriages and children and great careers, and my one sister's a teacher, my other sister sister's a nurse, and they're thriving and living their best life, which I love seeing. I have no clue how we all ended. I mean, don't get me wrong, we're all far from perfect and we all have our own things, but we. We all ended up in really good places.

0:14:22 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, that's. I think that's awesome. Very, very awesome, man. Talk to me a little bit about, so you, you ditched college, you talked about some careers. How did you go even get into the world of entrepreneurship rather than just the route of, you know, going to work for somebody?

0:14:42 - (Justin Schenck): So going to work for somebody and sitting at a desk Monday through Friday, 08:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. felt like sitting in a classroom for me, and I was just like this. It's driving me crazy. I would show up to work at 08:00 a.m. and I'd be done all my work by eleven, but I had to pretend to work till 05:00 p.m. and by the way, anybody who works a 40 to 50 hours job and they claim that they work fully 40 to 50 hours, they're all lying.

0:15:07 - (Justin Schenck): And I was just like this just. It was driving me crazy. Right. And I had success in a number of different jobs, and it was all kind of one stepping stone that led to another. That led to another, obviously started in direct sales, which gave me the skillset to get jobs that they said required a bachelor's degree, and ended up running some marketing teams for a couple companies. And then I ended up in medical sales management, and I did well, but that was all. That was all. I kind of always looked at that as like, okay, this is just going to be a short term thing now. Obviously, that short term thing ended up being from the age of 24 to the age of, of 32. When I officially left the corporate world, 30, I fully left at 34.

0:15:46 - (Justin Schenck): But it was always like, okay, this is not going to be my forever thing, because I just couldn't stand showing up and being at a desk eight to five, right. A friend of mine, and actually somebody who's in my mastermind, he often wears a shirt. This is unemployable. And I felt that way. I just felt like, this is not for me. And always admired people that were entrepreneurs. I remember at the age of, know, 1819, 2021, even back then, reading, you know, reading these entrepreneurial books, you know, back then, it was a different, different take on this man. But, you know, reading Donald Trump's book and Tony Robbins and, you know, all these different things, and I was just like, this is what I want. I want to create something that inspires people to go and live a better life. It was always kind of deep down inside of me, I couldn't vocalize it at that point. I didn't know really what that meant, but I always felt like there was something bigger.

0:16:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I absolutely love it. Kind of goes back to that vision, having that vision for the future, something more that you, you feel like you're made for more. Somewhere deep down inside, like you're supposed to be doing something a little bit more, a little bit bigger.

0:16:50 - (Justin Schenck): It is wild that I've been able to, like, I do some really cool things, and I've had great success, but I'm always humbled by all of it. Like, there's no ego in me whatsoever. And it's because although I had that vision, I didn't really know what happen. I kept trying, right? I kept trying. And then finally, I always say I found my. So I'm a Disney fan, like a Walt Disney, Disney world type of thing.

0:17:13 - (Justin Schenck): And I gave a keynote talk once, actually, right outside of Disney World. And so a lot of the things were kind of Disney themed throughout the event. And my keynote was talking about finding your mouse, right? So Walt Disney drew a mouse, and he was able to build one of the biggest empires in the world. That inspires people every single day, no matter how you feel about Disney as a company, but it truly inspires millions and millions of people every single day.

0:17:35 - (Justin Schenck): And my mouse was the $60 microphone where I started having conversations for the podcast. Right. So, like, what's your vehicle in order to create that impact that you want? It took me a long time to figure out what that vehicle was, and I tried many different things, but here I am. Now, every single person will tell you they feel like they're destined for more. Most people won't take the action, so you have to be able to take the action, get knocked down, get up, and take that action again.

0:17:58 - (Justin Schenck): And I think most people don't have that inside of them.

0:18:01 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. You referenced earlier about a rock bottom moment. Would you talk to me a little bit about that before we start diving into how kind of arise from that? Because I feel like a lot of us have what seems like kind of a rock bottom moment before we can really just expand into where we're supposed to be in life. And I would love to hear about your story.

0:18:28 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, I mean, my rock bottom moment was definitely that time where I was, you know, blackout drunk six nights a week for three months. And by the way, I say six nights a week. It was probably more like sometimes seven. Yes. And that was my rock bottom moment. And when I kind of came out of it, I finally said to myself, I'm no longer going to allow outside circumstances to dictate what is going to happen to me.

0:18:53 - (Justin Schenck): And so I declared that my rock bottom moment. And most people, what they do wrong is they don't declare their rock bottom moment. And what happens is they hit a rock bottom moment. They feel bad for themselves. They might come out of it a little bit, and then they hit another rock bottom moment, then another rock bottom moment, then another rock bottom moment. And then what I say is, they'll do that until it's too late. And that's what happened to my mom, right? There was no declaring, okay, I'm done with this. There was no saying, I'm worth more than how I'm treating myself.

0:19:19 - (Justin Schenck): And I think that if people get into the mindset of, like, I'm declaring this my rock bottom moment, so therefore, that becomes the launching pad for everything you're going to create in the future. Now, this doesn't mean bad things aren't going to happen, because life happens and bad things happen, but how are you going to react to that? Right? Like, I was at my peak in business in the beginning of 2020. My peak. I was speaking all over the country. I was getting paid good money to do so.

0:19:44 - (Justin Schenck): I was traveling like I always wanted to. I was building my brand. My podcast audience was the biggest it had ever been at that time. And I was rolling. And then Covid hit, and I lost 70% of my income overnight. Like, literally overnight, 70% of my income. And as we know that, like, they told me first they told me two weeks to flatten the curve, and then all of a sudden, we were in this spot for two years. I had to completely rebuild everything.

0:20:08 - (Justin Schenck): Right now, a lot of people go, well, that was another rock bottom moment. Well, no, it wasn't. I already had my rock bottom momentous. I just had to figure out how to build something different in a different way. And, you know, it's a blessing for me because now I work less, I make more, I've got an incredible wife, and, you know, we get to spend a lot of time together because of that. And it's just an amazing, it's just such an amazing, amazing gift to have those adversities.

0:20:31 - (Kevin Lowe): Jeff. Yeah, absolutely. I almost kind of look at it like there's a rock bottom moment, but then there's also pivot points along the way. And you basically, with the pandemic, you, you just had to pivot, make a pivot, and, uh, keep headed, headed where you're going. Talk to me about podcasting. Cause podcasting is obviously a big part of the story. When did you really get into podcasting? You know, what year was it? Because I think you've been doing it a pretty darn long time.

0:21:00 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, it's kind of wild how long I've been doing it. When I look back, I've been doing it now for eight and a half years.

0:21:06 - (Kevin Lowe): That's a long time in podcast world. Yeah.

0:21:08 - (Justin Schenck): Like, I mean, to put it into perspective, when I launched my podcast, I would tell people I had a podcast, and we'd go, what's a podcast? Now? They just go, oh, God, you have one, too, right? And actually, I had a moment probably about a year ago. I was sitting in a cigar lounge. I'm a cigar smoker, and I was sitting in a cigar lounge, and it was just in the middle of the day on a Monday. And there was one other gentleman there. He's probably in his eighties, I would assume, or he smokes a ton of cigars. He might have been 70.

0:21:36 - (Justin Schenck): And I was there for, like, 45 minutes. He didn't say a word to me, and finally just goes, so what do you do? Like, probably thinking, like, why are you here on a Monday afternoon at your age? And I go, I'm a podcaster. And the guy's response was, I love podcasts. And I realized in that moment how much this platform of podcasting and this medium of podcasting has completely changed over the eight and a half years that I was doing it. When I launched my show, there was something like 400,000 active podcasts there's now 4 million.

0:22:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow, that's pretty cool. Now talk to me about the whole podcast journey for yourself. The type of show you have, the name of it. Is it the same as when you very first started?

0:22:18 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, so a couple of things, right? So when I started podcasting, I had only listened to one podcast before that. Not one episode, but one podcast that I would listen to. And I remember thinking to myself, well, this guy's taking this podcast and he's built a great life for himself, but I feel like I could do it better than him. Which is like almost like an arrogance. Like, not necessarily an arrogance. It was like a stupidity moment. Right? Like too dumb to know better.

0:22:38 - (Justin Schenck): And so I was like, yeah, so I think I could do that. And I bought a $70 course online on how to, like, how to record, how to do all these things. Because you couldn't just google it then. It wasn't, it wasn't such a big thing. Figured it out. We actually started to throw it back. We started recording podcasts on Skype using an ecamm recorder. And now there's like, platforms, like we're on streamyard right now. There's a bunch of other ones.

0:23:02 - (Justin Schenck): There's just so many different ways to be able to do it. And the reality is, like, I didn't know what I was doing, and so I was like, let me just give this a try. And I decided I was going to commit to 52 episodes. It was originally called the Growth now movement. It is still called the growth now movement. It didn't have a with line because I had a co host. So it's now the growth now movement with Justin Schenck.

0:23:20 - (Justin Schenck): And honestly, the only reason it's still that is because I've built such a brand around it that I've kept it that way. I think that if the brand wasn't built for so long, I probably would have changed it at some point because nobody ever remembers the full name. So I just tell them to remember growth now. But with that being said, I was like, okay, I'm going to do 52 episodes and just see what happens.

0:23:39 - (Justin Schenck): And nobody listened. I was doing 40, 50 downloads an episode. Every once in a while I'd have a bigger name on because I was getting big name guests in the beginning, and I would do like a couple hundred downloads with the big name guests and it'll go right back down. And I remember around the 45, 46 episode mark, I was thinking, okay, what am I doing? I'm just going to wrap it up after the 52 episodes.

0:23:59 - (Justin Schenck): And at that point, somebody from Japan reached out to me and they said, because of your podcast, I decided not to take my life. And I realized in that moment that no matter what happens, even if one person is listening, I'm going to keep showing up. And I think that's the true idea of impact. We think of impact as a million people. But if I can impact one life, the ripple effect of that one life still being here, that one life chasing their dreams, or that one life up leveling their dreams, that's going to ripple effect through the world at such a large level.

0:24:29 - (Justin Schenck): And so I was like, okay, I'm just going to keep doing it. And then my co host had, he ended up having a child. And so time got super tough, and I was like, hey, man, do you mind if I do this on my own? I just want to see what happens. He's like, yeah, go ahead. And probably about two or three months after I was doing it alone, the numbers really started to grow, and I was doing a couple thousand downloads an episode.

0:24:48 - (Justin Schenck): And then at that two year mark is when Ink magazine listed me as a top eight podcast, and 340,000 people read that article and obviously changed the trajectory of what this thing was. And that's when, like, the two year mark is when this vehicle became such a driving force for me to make the impact that I wanted to make. And then from there, it's evolved into a number of different things. Right? I host a live event called growth Now Summit live for entrepreneurs, where I bring in incredible speakers, I host retreats, I have a mastermind. And that all is because I decided to launch this podcast eight and a half years ago.

0:25:20 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely, dude. So freaking cool. Podcasting in with life and all forms of business relationships are vitally important. I feel like podcasting is, it's a really amazing way to form some genuine relationships with people. You're sitting down with them for an hour, talking with them, hearing their story. Talk to me a little bit about some of the genuine relationships that you formed throughout the years that maybe have, have played a big role in getting you to where you are.

0:25:55 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, man. I mean, I would. If I look at my inner circle of friends, most of them at this point, I've met through podcasting in some way, shape or form. As a matter of fact, the guy who married me and my wife I met, he was a guest on my podcast, and it's become the greatest vehicle for me to meet inspiring, amazing people in the world, people that I still get to talk to on a regular basis. Now, you know, whereas people like Ed Milet and Gabby Bernstein, where if I text them, they respond within minutes, and it's just such a blessing. But I think for me, the craziest friendship story that formed from podcasting going back before I even launched the show, or I may have just launched it, I went to an event, actually the same event where I met Adam Shively.

0:26:36 - (Justin Schenck): And one of the speakers was a guy named Fabio Viviani. He's from the show Top Chef, if you watch reality tv, which I don't. And I was flying out to this event to attend it, and my friend was going with me, and I was like, the whole time, I was like, who cares about a chef? Why do they have this guy talking at this event? But, like, who cares? And he spoke on stage and he blew me away. And I turned to my friend and I go, I need to be friends with that guy.

0:26:57 - (Justin Schenck): A year and a half after that moment, he came on the show, and after the show, he goes, hey, this was really great. He goes, who do you want to interview? And I was like, so caught off guard by the question, I couldn't even name people. And he just started rattling people off. He said, people like Andy Frisella, and, you know, kept going down a list. He goes, I'll introduce you. He wrote 50 individual emails to introduce me to these people.

0:27:17 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow.

0:27:17 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah. We're talking about, like, he introduced me to a comedian named Zane Lamprey, who then introduced me to Burt Kreischer. And Burt's been on the show all those types of things, and it's wild. But here's the other thing. He's become not only a great friend of mine talking about Fabio, he's not only become a great friend of mine, he spoke at my event in 2019. We get to check in on each other. He's a mentor in so many ways, and I just feel really blessed. Right? And if I didn't use this medium in order to build relationships, then I'd be lost. I mean, there's so many podcasters out there who will sit down with people for an hour and they'll never talk to them again.

0:27:48 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:27:49 - (Justin Schenck): And it just blows my mind. I get pitched probably 30 to 40 times a day for people to be on my podcast, and they're like, well, how do, if you're not responding to these pitches, like, how do people get on your podcast? I go, just keep doing what you're doing. And when I admire what you're doing, I'll invite you on. And so I only interview people that I admire, respect, look up to, or they're interesting to me in some way. Whether it's a controversy they're creating or something they're talking about interests me.

0:28:12 - (Justin Schenck): But, like, if you're only interviewing people that inspire you, people that you think would be fun to be your friend, your goal there is to build that relationship and see where it goes. And I don't build friendships for exchanges. I build friendships for relationship because relationships, I believe, are the rocket fuel to success. And so I feel really blessed to have the conversations I get to have.

0:28:33 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely, dude. I love it. And I kind of agree more on all accounts with the power of connection of relationships. I personally feel like it is something that is lacking in many parts of our world today, especially when everybody got separated with pandemic and stuff. And I feel like it's made it even more vitally important to have these human connections one on one, not with an AI robot, but with people, you know?

0:29:05 - (Kevin Lowe): And, uh, so I love that, dude. When you kind of look back on, on this journey and all that you've created, what in your mind was, like, the greatest success, whether personally or professionally, that you've experienced?

0:29:23 - (Justin Schenck): Oh, that's a powerful question. I would say being able to overcome my trauma so I can have a healthy relationship with the woman that I love the most, who's. Who's my wife. We've been together for five years now. We've been married for a little over a year. But the thing was, because of what I went through as a kid, you know, it sounds like all sunshine and rainbows, right? Justin reflected, figured it all out, and then he was able to go do good things.

0:29:47 - (Justin Schenck): But I was carrying trauma. I didn't feel like the limiting belief of I'm not enough, right? Because my parents chose their things over being a fully engaged parent. What I ended up finding out was abandonment issues. So I would get into relationships, and then I would do things to purposely mess them up because I was like, this person's gonna leave me anyway, so I'd rather have control over them leaving me.

0:30:08 - (Justin Schenck): And so I wasn't always a good partner, although those people weren't my match at the same time, that was the trauma that I brought into that relationship. And so I ended up hiring a relationship coach and having a therapist and working through all this trauma and being able to do the work to figure out what's going on here and get better at overcoming these thoughts and these limiting beliefs that then led to me finding my wife at a time where I wasn't even looking for somebody, and she wasn't looking for somebody either.

0:30:33 - (Justin Schenck): And now we've built a great life together. I think that's been the biggest win. I love how in the beginning of this, you said on your journey, I'm still on this journey. As a matter of fact, you're probably going to ask me later in this episode, where can people find you? I always say they can go find my podcast, wherever they're listening to this. They can search the growth down movement and they can come on the journey with me. If they're interested, click subscribe and come on the journey with me. Because the end of the day, the reason my show is called growth now is because I believe, you know, what's not growing is dead.

0:31:02 - (Justin Schenck): And so I'm going to be in a constant evolution until the day I die. I just feel really blessed to be able to have the tools in order to overcome those thoughts that lead to such healthy, loving relationships. And I get to live it every day, man.

0:31:17 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, dude, I love it. Well, well, talk to me a little bit about, I mean, we talked a lot today about purpose, a mission, vision. What is life like for you today with what you have created business wise, podcast wise? Kind of tell us all about it. Jeff.

0:31:35 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, man, I probably work two to 3 hours a day because I designed my life that way, right? So I don't work a ton because that's how I wanted my life to be. I wanted, I always say that I work to live, I don't live to work like most entrepreneurs live to work, and it's exhausting. And I was there at one point, so I work two to 3 hours a day, obviously. Well, I'll conduct an interview here and there. I'll be on interviews like this one, which, by the way, I don't look at this as work. I think these conversations are amazing.

0:32:01 - (Justin Schenck): But I also run a mastermind filled with impact driven entrepreneurs who want to grow their impact and grow their income. So we meet twice a month and we meet up twice a year in different places all over the country. I own two companies in the podcast space. The one I talk about publicly because the other one is a referral only type of thing, but the one I talk about openly is a company called Pod brand where we help podcasters be seen and heard a little bit more by creating social media content for them.

0:32:25 - (Justin Schenck): You know, that's something that has become a passion project because I realized how much my podcast has not only changed the lives of others, but also changed my life. And I know that not all podcasts get the heavenly nod of being on Ink magazine and having more eyeballs on them. So we help podcasters be seen and heard more, but my team mainly runs that. And so everything that I've designed is all about being.

0:32:47 - (Justin Schenck): Being impact driven, right? Helping either the impact I want to make or helping the impact of others. And so that's what I fully focus on. I get opportunities all the time, but if it doesn't check boxes for me, I don't do them. So it has to be in that impact world. It can't take a ton of time and it has to be fun. And if something marks those three things, I'll be like, yeah, let's give it a whirl. Let's do this business together.

0:33:07 - (Justin Schenck): Let's partner in this thing or whatever. But I've been fortunate enough to design my life the way that I want, and I can't tell you that I've ever been happier in my life.

0:33:17 - (Kevin Lowe): I love that, dude. I love it. Happy for you to hear somebody be able to say that. I mean it. You have to, you have to smile and you have to, you have to just give you a round of applause for the fact that you've done the work, you've put in the grind, you've overcome the odds, and you kept showing up. I think it's pretty freaking awesome to see what you've been able to create.

0:33:43 - (Justin Schenck): Thanks, man. I appreciate that.

0:33:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, dude. Well, listen, before I ask you my last question, I would love for you to share where we can find you, what kind of things you got coming up that we can look forward to, and all the different ways that anybody interested in feeling like, you know what, I need a little bit more of this guy in my life. Where can we go?

0:34:07 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, man, obviously your social media platforms. But my favorite one that I hang out on is Instagram. My username is there. Isanteeshank. Would love to hear from your audience. Like, you know, obviously, let I always say, like, hey, reach out to me and tell me what you're working on and I'll see how I can support you in that process. Instagram is the best place to do that. If they just want to hear more of my interviews where I've interviewed some of the coolest people in the world, wherever they're listening to this podcast, they can head over to search growth now. My show will pop up first.

0:34:32 - (Justin Schenck): They can click subscribe and come on the journey with me. Told you I'd say that. And what I have coming up, man, I actually have a growth now. Summits coming up in September. So growth now, summit live. They can go to growthnowsummit.com and get their tickets. I would love to see your audience out and full of energy because I'm sure they have it since you do. And it's just an incredible day long rock concert for entrepreneurs and forward thinkers and people looking to level up in all areas of their life. And the speaker lineup is absolutely bonkers this year. And I'm just really, really excited to be able to deliver for the people in the audience.

0:35:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. Where do you hold that event at?

0:35:05 - (Justin Schenck): Yeah, it's in. It's in Westchester, Pennsylvania. So about 20 minutes, 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia. So they would, if they're flying in, they fly into Philly. They can either grab a train or an Uber and head on in. It's a beautiful little town, and it's in this incredible theater called Uptown theater.

0:35:19 - (Kevin Lowe): Dude, that is absolutely amazing. I will be sure that everything you just mentioned, Amor, is easily accessible in the show. Notes for anybody interested. Last question for you, man, is talking to the person who's been listening to your story today. And maybe. Maybe they're not as far along on the journey as you are. Maybe they're. They're a few steps behind. Maybe they're that kid in high school, and maybe things aren't so great at home.

0:35:48 - (Kevin Lowe): Maybe they're in their twenties and they're kind of in that period of. Of life, or, heck, even in their thirties or forties or fifties, when you feel like something needs to break loose and you don't know what you're doing, you feel like you're spinning your wheels. What would you say to that person?

0:36:04 - (Justin Schenck): I would say the key to getting to the next level is acceptance. Right. I believe that you're exactly where you're supposed to be and exactly where you chose to be. Now, the second part of that, exactly where you chose to be, will hurt some people because they're like, well, I didn't, you know, I didn't choose for my parents to be addicts. I didn't choose for my job to fire me. I didn't choose any of these things. Yes, I understand that.

0:36:26 - (Justin Schenck): But actions lead to things that you know where you are in your life, right? And so exactly where you chose to be could be a disheartening thing, but it could also be an enlightening thing and an empowering thing. Because if you chose to be where you are today and you accept that fact, that means you get to choose where you are tomorrow and you get to choose where you are the day after that, and you get to choose where you're going to be 2030, 40, 50 years from now.

0:36:49 - (Justin Schenck): And so the fact that if you can accept the fact that you chose to be where you are, you have complete power over your life going forward. And I promise you that you can absolutely, 100% build a life where you get to be happy every day.

0:37:01 - (Kevin Lowe): So much power in the one word of choice. Justin, it has been an absolute pleasure to speak with you, man, to hear your story, and, uh, it means the world to have you here. And I, uh, just want to extend just the most heartfelt gratitude for you taking the time to, uh, share your story.

0:37:20 - (Justin Schenck): Kevin, thank you so much, man. This has been a ton of fun. I appreciate you. And to the. The people listening, I appreciate you guys for hanging out for the last 40 minutes with us and I. And chopping it up. I appreciate it.

0:37:30 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely, dude. Well, thank you. And for you listening, man. I hope you took some notes on today. Another just masterclass in resilience and so many good insights from this guy. Maybe you thought at first, oh, no, another podcaster we're going to hear about. But no, it's the story of the podcaster, the story of this guy that made today absolutely amazing. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, share it with somebody you love.

0:37:58 - (Kevin Lowe): And, hey, I'll see you next time. This is Kevin Lowe with grit, grace, and inspiration.