What if failure wasn’t the end, but the beginning? What if every setback, every mistake, was actually pushing you closer to success? Justin Skinner shares his unexpected journey from shattered baseball dreams to real estate triumphs, revealing the secret to turning failure into your greatest ally. Want to know how he did it? How he learned to embrace failure, trust his gut, and grow stronger with each challenge? Tune in to discover the mindset shift that transformed his life—and could transform yours too.

Justin Skinner: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think, again, it's something you work on, and it's fresh with every new thing you take on. So if you're taking on a new business, for instance, and let's say you've been in the plumbing industry and you buy a garbage disposal or a garbage truck company, like there, there might be some similarities, but they're still different.

So for me, there's gonna be a lot of failures and frustration with that. Like with any new venture. What I've tried to do is just kind of become friends with failure and frustration, which is really easy to say and really hard to do.

I think that if you can do that and understand that, like, okay if I can be in the right frame of mind, and let you know, like Ed Mylett said if I can understand that failure is happening for me and not to me, then it kind of puts you outside of yourself and it's like, okay, this is here to teach me.

He's here to guide you through the complex world of business transactions and growth. Each week, we dive deep with actionable insights, expert interviews, and real-world strategies to activate and equip you to live exceptionally and build exceptional businesses. Now, let's dive into today's episode.

Here's your host, Chris Seegers.

Justin, welcome to the show, brother.

Justin Skinner: Chris, thanks for having me. Also, I didn't tell you this yet, but you have an amazing voice for podcasting. Like it's very it's just very strong, so I love it. So that intro was great.

Chris Seegers: Thanks, man. I appreciate that. I feel like when I listen to myself, I'm like, oh, this is not good. So that's good to have feedback.

Justin Skinner: I felt the same way in the beginning. It's all good.

Chris Seegers: It is a little rocky at the start, but man, welcome to the show. It's been way too long since we've connected. We were in a mastermind together, and just, I grew to love your focus on integrating your faith and your family through everything you do and not having work be your God, but that it's all integrated throughout how you live out your faith.

And then we'll go into, we really want to focus on failure and the benefit of failure.

Justin Skinner: Yeah. Yeah, I'll kind of start - grew up in the country. So I'm from Missouri southwest Missouri. Grew up on a dairy farm. Actually, both my grandparents were in the dairy farm business, so grew up there, learned how to work really hard, and then also worked, or learned early on that I didn't really wanna do dairy farming for the rest of my life, so. I took that work ethic and then started applying it to sports. So I wound up actually playing baseball, basketball, really anything I could growing up. And then wound up playing baseball in college. Thought I was actually gonna turn professional. Had a one-on-one tryout with a major league team.

I won't name their name, but wound up getting like a scouting ID card, or they gave me a name, like, Hey, we'll see you on draft day. So I thought it was a. For sure thing. Long story short, I sat there on draft day and didn't happen. So it was one of those, it was one of the big things where it's like, okay, I just poured my heart and soul into this, and then it's like, it's kind of just taken away.

And after about three months they hired me and I was able to quit the gas station and work that full time. So that was another good lesson. And then from there went into, actually before that, I wound up trying to make it on my own once freelancing and did like, got like a really big job. Wound up freelancing for about three to six months and then everything dried up and I was like, well, I'm not really sure what to do.

Publishing job came along, I took it, and then I worked there for two years, and then actually got fired. And then from that point on, it was kind of like God was like, All right, this is your direction. You need to trust me. So wound up doing that, and then we really haven't looked back since. So from there, we opened our own studio.

Chris Seegers: So, two things I want to pull out and just kind of riff on a little bit. One is, as you transitioned away from athletics, and I think this is a big deal, as I think about being a good father to my sons and. Helping them create the right identity. It's very similar for a business owner when they sell a business that their identity is, I'm a business owner, and oftentimes in high school our identity is, Hey, we're good at sports, or we're good at art, or we're, you know, some specific thing.

And so we identify that way. How did you work through that identity shift? Going away from, Hey, you know, I may go pro, to, wow, that's been taken away. Now I'm working at a gas station.

You're such a great business mind, and that's all you hear.

And if you're not, you know, affirming yourself for me through God or through other actions, it's easy. And the Bible actually talks about like, you know, it's really easy to stumble and I forget the exact verse and I'll probably butcher it, but it's really easy to stumble when you know, with words of praise.

Like when people are constantly praising you,

it's really easy to get caught up in that and be like, man, my identity's in this thing. Instead of man, my identity is like I'm a son of God or a daughter of God. And like. You know, beyond that, whatever it is for me, I think in the last couple years, I it's really kind of become more clear that no matter what I'm doing, I feel called to just, you know, be an encourager.

It's like one of those things where I wake up and I remind myself daily of like, man, what is my identity? And then by the end of the day, sometimes, you know, it can get cloudy and you just wake up and you refresh every morning and kind of remind yourself. But yeah, if that answers your question.

Chris Seegers: I love that man. So we help work with business owners as they transition and really focus a lot on the identity. Because usually, business transitions fail because the business owner gets scared, 'cause they're like, Hey, my identity is this, and I dunno what it is next. So we help 'em map it out.

But one of the frameworks I've utilized is. Hey, I believe we're created in the image of God, who is a creator. And so we're all creators, and our identity is to create things. It could be like you said, Hey, I want to create joy, or I want to create confidence in other people, or I want to bring gratitude.

And maybe we get stuck a little bit oftentimes, or I can say I do, where I'm, I'm stuck on, Hey, my identity is this piece, and God's like, no, it's way bigger than that. So stop shrinking that down. And so if we can continue, I have a phrase that I've used in the book that I wrote, which is Don't Retire Inspire.

So I think we've got this negative framework that society has created, which is, Hey, you make a lot of money, you go retire and then you just serve yourself. So you golf and you eat the food you wanna do, and you travel and you do the things. And none of those are badness necessarily. But when we lose that growth and that creativity, that's when you start shrinking and actually dying.

This phrase it's been super useful to me. It's not happening to me. It's happening for me. And has that been useful in your path, or how did you get your focus on failure being useful as opposed to, Hey, it's just a bad thing you gotta get through?

Justin Skinner: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think, again, it's something you work on, and it's fresh with every new thing you take on. So if you're taking on a new business, for instance, and let's say you've been in you know, the plumbing industry, and you buy a garbage disposal or a garbage truck company, like there, there might be some similarities, but they're still different.

I think that if you can do that and understand that, like, okay if I can be in the right frame of mind, and let you know, like Ed Mylett said if I can understand that failure is happening for me and not to me, then it kind of puts you outside of yourself and it's like, okay, this is here to teach me.

That's what I really try and do with failure. It's okay. What, and I, I ask God a lot too. It's like, okay, I fail.

It's something I'm like, all right, God. What are you trying to teach me here? I think that's been a really good thing for me to lean back on, 'cause again, it takes me outta myself. It connects me to a higher power like beyond myself, that I know can help me. So if I can do that, it's more of, you know, like, okay, I'm gonna learn something from this.

Instead of like, I'm gonna feel sorry for myself. Throw a pity party, or I'm gonna get really angry and not learn anything from it. Which to me is, the only way that failure is actually failure is if you're not learning otherwise.

It's, It's your friend.

Justin Skinner: I've got a good one. I think this was a really good lesson for me. It was a really big lesson but we, it was around real estate and it was probably three or four years ago actually, and Kendra and I had been going through, you know, some things where it was like Well, we were kind of having some arguments within marriage and it was like we weren't seeing eye to eye on some things and there was a basically a deal that came up and I was like, Hey, I think this deal makes sense.

Like it was an, basically it's an owner finance deal, zero money down. Everything made sense, numbers made sense. And I came to Kendra and I was like, Hey, I think we should do this. And she was like I don't have a good feeling about this. I don't wanna do this. I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna do it like. I'm the head of the house. We're gonna make this decision. So I did and. uh,

Chris Seegers: When you play that card.

So we had this like, easy quote-unquote easy deal going, well, they moved out. We try and get someone else in. They're in for a couple of months. They wind up bringing pets in, messing up the house. They leave. We get someone else in. Fast forward, like two months later, well, they wind up letting in some, like basically some. Drug people who take over the house and then stop paying rent. And apparently, I didn't know this, but apparently there's people that do this. They go from house to house, and they said, Hey, we're not paying rent. Well, then we have to hire a lawyer. Then we pay all the lawyer fees, we evict them. Well, then the day eviction comes, the police come that day, they post a note, saying, Hey, you have to be out by tomorrow.

We're like, Hey, finally, we're gonna be free of this thing. Well, that night they burned the house down. We don't know for sure if it was them, but I'm 99% sure it was them. But they burned the house down. So, literally get a call from the fire department head, and it's like, Hey, your rental house is on fire.

Chris Seegers: Yeah, for sure. And I think that points to a bigger lesson of. [00:15:00] Listen to counsel and get good counsel around you. I mean, the whole book of Proverbs, well, not the whole book, but a lot of it is focused on getting good counsel around you and being wise. And that was written by Solomon, you know, the wisest man ever on the planet, aside from Jesus.

And I'm in the same boat man, where it's like either my wife or my siblings who are partners in a lot of our businesses or just other folks that are kind of advisors. Whenever they give me advice, and it's consistent, right? Hey, Tara's telling me maybe we shouldn't do this, and they're telling me we and I go against it.

It's God's kinda like, Hey, I gave you the opportunity, I put these people in your path, and you can do it the hard way or you can do it the easy way. I. But I, I think that's probably a good lesson for all of us. And just to stay consistent, I have a habit of like, oh, forget about that in five years. And then it's like, for some reason, God's given our wives or our spouses intuition, that's part of like the wholeness of being married, that where the two are, one, it's like, all right, we get this impulse where we're like, this is the greatest deal.

So I. One thing we've been seeing. So our mission is to activate and equip others to live exceptional lives. And right now, I would say we're in a season of activation. And so what I've found with a lot of folks, whether it be on our team or outside of our team, or at church or in our community, I. I think there's a lot of people on the sidelines.

A lot of people that had failures through Covid and maybe just like covid created a lot of things that they didn't control that kind of went sideways. And so we've really been trying to speak words of encouragement like you to say, Hey, it's time to get off the sidelines. Like it's been four years.

Maybe your family failed, maybe your job failed, and you're coming out of that really downtrodden. What are some words of encouragement that you'd give to them?

Justin Skinner: Yeah. I mean, one thing I'd say to kind of get going is that just expect messiness. I mean, it's like the journey of business or life or anything. Like, it's not gonna be perfect. And I think I know a lot of people that have good intentions, but they're almost frozen with anxiety or inaction because they think that, like, man, this all has to line up perfect in order for it to work. It reminds me of, there's a graphic I saw once that basically showed like, you know, the cycle of progress. And instead of like this real gradual, you know, line upwards, it's this circle that is just kind of going up, but you're going backwards and. Back and forth, and it's, it's kind of messy.

I'm also not like looking forward to things to, to go badly, but I also know whatever is put before me, I can overcome it. And I think, you know, like you said earlier, how we're built to be you know, creative. I truly believe that I also true that, truly believe that we're built to be like beloved overcomers.

Like I, I think we're called to overcome, and I think it shapes us and molds us. So, man, just dive in and know that like whatever happens and whatever you face, whatever you overcome is gonna become, is gonna make you better essentially in the long run.

Chris Seegers: Yeah, for sure. We were having the same conversation. I've got a dear friend and we were talking about marriage, 'cause man, marriages are still failing at least 50% of the time. Marriage is hard, man. Whether you're a person of faith or not a person of faith, whether you've got somebody that's aligned or not aligned, it's just super hard.

Hopefully, it does get that way. But if you expect that it's gonna be hard and you're gonna fight and you're gonna disagree, and there's gonna be, you know, there's gonna be all kinds of things that are outta your control with kids, with or without kids, with money, all the things. If you have that expectation that, like, Hey, it's gonna be hard.

Then it makes that hardness. I think it, you just I've been using a phrase with my kids and my wife let's not overdramatize things like if, if my, one of my kids come home from school and they're like, oh my God, the whole, the world's ending and this person said this thing, and I'm like. I'm sorry that happened to you.

Paying the toll to being alive. So I love that. And I think if we can reframe even with like business acquisition or owning a business, it's hard as heck. Like it's not ever gonna be easier. People that are on the acquisition side, that are like, oh, you know, Cody Sanchez or whoever, says, it's so easy, and you can be passive immediately.

And that's not what she says, actually, but I think that's how people see it. It's like I tell 'em, like, no, it's absolutely. Terrible. The first three years, maybe less, maybe more, are gonna be really hard. And then after that, it's still really hard to run a business. And that's the toll you pay to get the freedoms you want, whether it be financially or otherwise.

But when you have that expectation, then when an employee quits or you get sued or something bad happens, you're like, well, okay, you know, this stinks. It still stinks. I don't want this to happen, but it's not gonna ruin my day. And we've, we've talked a lot about how do we shorten that timeframe. I.

Definitely not a bad sales week. Not a bad sales month. So like you've gotta shrink that, like that expectation down because as soon as you allow your mind to say, man, it's just a bad month, or it's just gonna be a bad year, it's just gonna be a bad marriage. Or it's just, it's like, no, let's shrink that down to like the minimal amount to say, okay, this thing happened.

It stinks. Let's not overdramatize it. Let's move on and get going.

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Justin Skinner: One of the biggest things I see is just people caring too much about what other people think. And it's like, man, if I go do this and I fail, it's like people are gonna think I'm a failure. In reality, I think people overestimate how much other people actually think about them. Like, I think so many people are so gross with themselves in their own lives that they really don't care what. You're doing, to be honest.

And I've seen that over and over where, you know, we've been doing something we're two or three years in, and someone maybe even close to us, it's like, oh, what, what have you been doing? It's like, well, I've been doing this for three years,and they didn't even know. And it's not like a matter of being upset with them, it just like shows you people get so engrossed with their own lives.

So I would say if you can get over the hurdle of like caring so much about what other people think, whether you succeed or fail I think that will open up a lot of doors that maybe you feel like are shut. There's just so many more opportunities out there.

And I agree, man, it's like. It's so sad, but it's easy, right? It's like, what do your parents want you to do? What does your church expect of you? What does your community expect of you? What does your spouse expect of you? And all these things come into this like a matrix that we're trying to synthesize and say, what does a good life or dream life actually look like?

But they can be big limitations of especially when they're against how God created you to live. Right. It's like your passion with the value creation you can do with, you know, like what you love doing. Like all those things coalescing with your talents. And I think it's so easy just to be like, okay, well now we're in this path where I gotta support my family.

I think that's like incredible. And I will say the little amount of success we've had is because I just, it doesn't even register with me what other people think. And sometimes that's a bad thing, right? I can be a little too cavalier and maybe a little rude. But you know, even with my parents, like half the time, they're like, oh man, you just bought another business or you just built this thing.

I didn't even know about it. Why are you doing that? He, what do you really need to do all that? And I'm like, well, yeah. It's right within our mission. This is what we do. We're capitalist missionaries, but everybody has these expectations of how you should live. And there's a lot of guilt that can be associated unless you release it and say, Hey, I only get one shot at this life.

You've got a journey with me alongside you, but I'm not, you know, that's not my road that I'm gonna be pursuing. So that's really

Justin Skinner: Exactly. And one thing I was gonna add to one exercise I've been doing to kind of try and break out, 'cause obviously I'm still working on all these things I'm talking about. It's not like, you know, you, you breach this Nirvana or Zen where it's like, oh, I've made it. To me, that's just not gonna happen.

Like you're constantly working. But an exercise I've been doing is actually going anytime I'm, you know, in a room, either a networking event or a group thing, like I'm trying to be the most uninteresting person in the room. And by that, like, what I mean is like, you go in, I'm not gonna talk about myself.

It's really hard to do, but I think it's worth it. At least give it a shot once.

Like I have this great thing that could solve this problem. But half the time people are just like, I just need to be hurt. I. Like, maybe they even know the answer already, but I just wanna be heard. I just wanna know that I'm loved. I wanna know that I've got connection and trust. I love that. Okay, so let's change to a little bit of the other side.

What's some really bad advice you've heard along your journey? You're giving some great counsel, man, I think that's incredible. Counsel, just to go into a room and be quiet and ask questions. And honestly, even from a tactical standpoint, that gives you control, 'cause you get to know who that person is and understand their story.

But what's some bad advice that somebody gave you along their along your journey?

I don't agree with that at all. I've seen it. I've grinded and it gets wearing and I feel like you know, the most powerful force on earth is love, and I, and anything I've, I've done that, I've loved it. It's like time flies by. I don't care. It's just something that like flows out. It's almost like the result doesn't matter. So for me, doing the opposite of that, instead of just grinding, feeling like I'm grinding every day, trying to do 00:29:00] something. If I really come from a place of, man, I love doing this. I love waking up, I love whatever it is I'm doing, then it, it kind of, every result takes care of themselves and I'm not, I don't feel drained. I feel like lift it up in a way. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that'd be something I that just popped into my mind.

Chris Seegers: Yeah, man, I think that's super useful. I think the mental model that I've found useful just for me personally is. There are seasons of grind if you're pursuing an exceptional life, but if the whole life is a grind, you're out of alignment. And so we, we talk about, like in our businesses, I want to get all of our members, and I don't know what the ratio is, but let's say 75 to 90% in their unique abilities, right?

Pursuing that love, that passion. But there's also seasons where I'm like, man, we bought a business and we just have to do HR paperwork and we have to retitle vehicles and we have to, and it's like those things absolutely kill me. However, I do know it's a season, usually a three-month season for us before we start really integrating EOS and getting that business.

And then I'm back into that, like, Hey, what do I pursue? But I always have that kind of guiding light of, here are my passions, here are the things that I'm really good at, and I love the StrengthsFinder. I did the strengths finder and then really like, almost put your own words to it, right? Like, I'm a strategic thinker.

I love thinking 10 years out. That's like really where I live is like, I'm already thinking, Hey, in 10 years, exceptional companies will be this. But then it's like, okay, we still need to execute today and for the next 90 days and for the next year. So I love that man. I do think like if you're living a life that's full of grind, there's something off.

Justin Skinner: That's awesome.

Justin Skinner: Yeah, I just had a couple of books, actually three books, recommended me lately that I'm actually rereading one of them. I think I've gone through it twice in like two months. And I'm already like the third time through that book, which is called "Inner Excellence". I love it. As far as from mindset standpoint, it really talks about overcoming frustration failure.

I believe, and I could be wrong on that. Anyway, it's kind of changed the way I've thought about prayer. Even, I think we're halfway through it, but even then it's already, the first chapter was amazing, kind of hooked us, but really talks about like, you know, what a pray in life looks like. How, like what, you know, communion with God looks like, how that conversation goes.

Should go back and forth. And one of my favorite things I've already learned from it is, you know, you, there are times where you get frustrated, you're anxious, or you know, something happens. And one of the things he talks about is just, you know, the word Abba. He says sometimes if he's anxious, he literally just in his mind, over and over, just says Abba, Abba, Abba.

Before this podcast, I was trying to find a cord for my mic. I and I knew I had it somewhere. I'm like, why is it not here like it should be here? So I pull out these chords and I look it outside it and then I. Like sat there and I'm like, okay, fine, I'm gonna pray. And so I prayed. I was like, God, please help me find this cord. Literally 15 seconds later, I look over and one of the chords I had thrown in the corner was actually the chord I was looking for. So to me, that's like the things again, like in your mind, like you think you have things maybe under control, you're seeing everything. But in reality, we miss so many things where wrong so many times.

So that book's been amazing. So, a Praying Life, inner Excellence. And the third one is called A Confident Mind. So I'm really like diving deep in the mental side of things right now. So those would be three resources that I really enjoyed this year.

Chris Seegers: Yeah. Three great books. What about parting wisdom, man, like this has been about overcoming failure, you know, making sure that things happen for us, not to us.

Justin Skinner: Yeah, I'd again point to another book I read called "Forgive" by Tim Keller. I think it was one of Tim Keller's last books before he passed away. Might've been his last book, but anyway, it's something again I've been working on. But I would say if you're pursuing anything, if you're pursuing business, life, marriage, whatever it is, get in the habit of forgiving yourself. 'cause that's something I think that you can often overlook and you know, when you mess up or you fail or whatever it is, or really hard, at least I'm really hard on myself. So that's one thing I think that's helped me over the last couple years is like, okay, I'm actually gonna forgive myself for making this dumb mistake.

So I think that would help anyone in any situation they're in moving forward.

Chris Seegers: I love it. Brother, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure. I know this is gonna be super helpful to our audience, and Hey man, blessings on you and your wife and the journey

Justin Skinner: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Chris.

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