127. Creating a Growth Movement from Pain with Justin Schenck

Justin Schenck is the host of the top rated podcast the Growth Now Movement and founder of Growth Now, LLC which is a full service podcast production and coaching company. He has been named a Top 8 Podcaster to follow by Inc. Magazine and chosen as an ‘Icon of Influence’ in the new media space.

What started out as something fun to do in order to connect with top influencers and help one or two people along their journey, has grown to become a podcast that is currently getting played in over 100 countries every single week and ranked in the top 15% in the world.

Justin now works with some of the worlds elite entrepreneurs and business owners like Fabio Viviani, Sarah Centrella, and Cindy Eckert. He is also the host and creator one of the most exciting live events for entrepreneurs and forward thinkers; Growth Now Movement LIVE!

None of this started from greatness. Justin had the deck stacked against him growing up, with difficulties in his family that should have relegated him to being a statistic rather than a success. The inspiration and purpose he found along his journey fuel the message he shares in his work and in this episode today.

As a note, this episode was recorded before the live, in-person event was cancelled due to the Corona Virus. GNM Live was changed to a virtual event.

Key Points from the Episode with Justin Schenck:

• Justin started a podcast four years ago with his show “The Growth Now Movement,” not knowing quite what it would be, and it has become a movement.
• He ended up building a podcasting production and consulting business as a result, too.
• He also ended up creating a live event out of what was coming from the podcast, called Growth Now LIVE.
• Justin has had the desire to be an entrepreneur for a long time, which is what his podcast has allowed him to be.
• He adopted the famous saying, “Live happens for me, not to me.”
• That didn’t come easily when you look at what Justin’s life was like.
• His mother was addicted to opiates, his father was in jail, and he had a 1.7 GPA.
• If you look at the statistics, each of his parent’s situation meant he had a 50% chance of being an addict or going to jail himself. He chose not to live that way.
• He read the book, Who Moved My Cheese, and realized life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.
• At 19, he was working in a direct sales business, had done well in his role, and started to manage people. This is where the entrepreneurial spark was lit.
• An employee came to him and said that, while he would have made more money working in fast food, what he learned by working for Justin was worth far more than that.
• In that moment, Justin realized that he wanted to inspire and guide people full time, and he should pursue making that his life’s work.
• He put together an event company to do personal development events, and had some success. One over-leveraged event that failed to sell enough tickets to pay for itself ended up killing the business.
• What he learned in that experience about what he needed to learn still was invaluable to his future success.
• He also learned that the right response is not to just quit. Justin’s entire life was never just handed to him, so he chose to keep fighting and learn from this failure.
• The learning was not instant. Right afterward, he called his mother and told her he was quitting. She pointed out that he didn’t fail, but was instead heading in the right direction and needed to keep heading there but with new knowledge.
• Just because you didn’t get what you wanted out of the current situation does not mean you aren’t headed in the right direction.
• We talked about his mother’s addiction, and interesting, despite what she was going through, she was still Justin’s rock and there for him through it all, even to her ultimate death at the hands of her addiction.
• She taught him that our rock bottom moments are the start of so much greatness.
• It can also be the end for people because you feel like better is impossible.
• But what actually matters is the choices we make in those moments to make things better for us and the people around us.
• There is choice and direction all around us. The key is that we have to listen (don’t just hear it, but actually listen and take it in).
• On the back of his mother’s death, he went on a three month, black-out-drunk bender.
• He kept going out drinking all night to keep from sitting in the pain, and feeling it.
• He had a mentor and coach who asked him where he was going one night, and when he said he was going drinking, she told him, “No you’re not. You’re going to sit and you’re going to feel this tonight.”
• While it was incredibly painful, when he woke up the next day, the weight of the pain was gone.
• He realized that, when we hit rock bottom, we can go through pain, and we can feel like there’s no way out. But it can end, and it’s up to us to decide when that moment is.
• He chose growth.
• He uses the Rule of 1% – he chooses to get 1% better every day, in his relationships, finances, health, etc. He reflects at the end of each day to see where he made progress, and if he didn’t, what he learned from not making it, and what he can do differently.
• And if he feels that he did nothing in a day, he has compassion for himself and realizes he can still get up the next day and be better.
• If you focus on 1% each day, you end up with exponential growth in a year.
• We look at other people, and think, “I want that. I want what they have.” Justin says we need to stop looking at other people because it only makes us feel bad. It’s a waste of time and our potential.
• What are you cultivating for yourself? Focus on that rather than what the other person is doing.
• Justin’s events were born of his podcast, and spawned a series of seminars in the early days.
• As he and his partner were working to launch the podcast, he got the call about his mother, who he dropped everything, drove 7.5 hours, and went to see her before she passed. He promised her he will make her proud and this will not go unnoticed.
• As the show started, his partner was talking about business, and he was talking about the self-improvement journey and values.
• The show changed into what it is now, with Justin hosting solo, and went further into this purpose that came from the moment when his mother died.
• We talked about the pursuit of money or impact, and Justin firmly believes that money is just a reaction to our impact.
• He said it really well, “I’ll impact a million lives before I have a million dollars.”
• With that intention, it’s not surprising to see that he’s clearly somewhere around that level of impact given that he’s close to his 300th episode, and gets thousands of listeners to each show he does, meaning there have already been over a million times his show has been taken into someone’s life.
• We got into the details about the upcoming Growth Now Movement Live, which is happening on September 25-27th.
• He named a number of seriously impactful people, some of which are doing keynotes, and some are part of panels.
• This includes people like Nick Santonastasso, Anthony Trucks, Justin Wren, Natalie Jill, Adam Schaeuble and others.
• None of them is paid to do it, which means they’re all there because of the purpose of it, which is part of why it makes sense to call it a Movement.
• The big difference with GNM Live is that the speakers are all intertwined in the event and the people, and you see it in the posts people share after the event. They name all the great people they connected with, and that includes the speakers, who they are doing more than just tagging in a post. These people have genuine connections on a personal level.
• As Justin says, it’s what happens in between the margins, where we get to make the direct relationships we thrive on in life.

Links:

• Event website: gnmlive.com
• Website: growthnowmovement.com
• Podcast: The Growth Now Movement
• Facebook: @GNMPodcast
• Instagram: @JustinTSchenck
• Twitter: @JustinSchenck