This week on The Grit Show we dives deep into the origin of our limiting beliefs and how they hold us back from reaching our true potential. Be prepared to challenge your self-criticism and rewrite the negative narratives that have been holding you back. Don't miss out on this powerful conversation that will empower you to peel back the layers to see what is at the root of your fears and let you step into the next phase of growth with confidence and authenticity. As we all check into our mindset and uncover how we are holding ourselves back we'll learn concrete ways to move ourselves forward. As a bonus our guest, Justin Schenck, also dishes out the specifics on the five types of people you need in your life for personal growth and success. We all know who you surround yourself with counts, but this was the first time I had someone outline exactly what type of people you need in your life to truly make an impact. You are going to want to listen to this more than once, so be sure to follow so you can easily find this conversation again.

Justin Schenck is an entrepreneur, speaker, and host of the top-rated podcast the Growth Now Movement. He has been named a Top 8 Podcaster to follow by INC Magazine, featured in Thrive Global, and chosen as an ‘Icon of Influence’ in the new media space.

Justin’s podcast has grown to become a podcast that is currently getting played in over 100 countries every single week and he has gone on to help countless people grow their brands and business through podcasting.

He is also the host and creator of one of the go-to events for entrepreneurs and forward thinkers; Growth Now Summit LIVE!

Things we referenced in this episode:

Book: Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Podcast episode: Celebrating Time- The Anniversary of The Grit Show & How to Make/Keep Adult Friendships -54

Connect with Justin

Instagram: @justintschenck

Facebook: Justin Schenck

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-schenck/

YouTube: Growth Now Movement with Justin Schenck

Website: https://www.growthnowsummit.com/

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Are you your own worst critic? It's a phrase we kind of throw around, and oftentimes it's true. Have you stopped to think about the ways you're criticizing yourself and the things that you believe about yourself and the ways they might be limiting you and your success? That perhaps the biggest reason why you haven't found a partner who treats you the way you want to treated is the fact you believe that you're never going to find a partner that will treat you well. Or your belief that you're never going to get that promotion at work because you aren't liked by everyone. Or the belief that you aren't the type of person that good things happen to might be part of the reason those things are what you're experiencing. We have an incredible guest and a very rich conversation today to learn more about where those beliefs come from and what you can do about those beliefs and how they may be playing out in our lives. You may or may not be surprised that it leads to a conversation about the five types of people you need in your life and how that can be part of your strategy to address your limiting beliefs. Do you remember the conversation we had on our anniversary, episode number 54, where we talked about adult friendships and the people you should have in your life? This takes it to a much more concrete level, and I think you'll appreciate it. I'm glad you're here today. Welcome to The Grit Show, where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I'm honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive and how to get the most out of life. It means a lot that you are here today. As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates a friend that thinks of them, and these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections. I am so excited to introduce you guys to Justin Schenck. He focuses on the four pillars of life business, wellness, relationships and spirituality. And today we get to discuss with him a little bit about limiting beliefs. He has a podcast of his own and he'll share with us at the very end, so you guys can listen in and learn about that. He was actually once named by Ink magazine as one of the top podcasts for entrepreneurs. So you know it's a good one. You guys are going to want to check out. But today we get to chat with Justin about limiting beliefs. Thank you so much for being with us today, Justin.

Shawna, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to dive in and hopefully I say one or two things that make sense that's the goal.

That's a perfect goal. If we can each say two things that make sense, we'll be up to four, and the audience will be thrilled. They'll be good to go. They'll be good to go. So I'm excited that limiting beliefs, I think, is something we all deal with more than we realize, possibly. And I'm excited. This is something that you have talked about consistently. What got you to focus on limiting beliefs as something you wanted to talk with others about and share with?

Yeah, I think it happened almost by accident. Obviously, how I grew up, and I'll go back a little bit, and I'll try and make it as truncated as possible, but but growing up, I always jokingly say that if there was a senior superlative for least likely to succeed, it would have been me. I had a 1.7 GPA in high school. My mom was in the middle of a 20 year opioid addiction, and my dad was in jail. And so if you look at that, all signs pointed to you've got no shot. As a matter of fact, they say if your dad's in jail or your parents in jail, mom or dad, you have a 50% chance of ending up in jail. And if your parents an addict, you have 50% chance of ending up an addict. If you do the math, like, I'm 100% screwed, right? Like, there's no shot. And fast forward. I was lucky enough at the age of 19, since there was no college, I got a job in direct sales. I had a mentor within that organization that handed me a book called Who Moved My Cheese? If you haven't read, it's a great read, super quick read, 45 minutes. And it's about the idea that things are always going to change around you, and you can't control that, but what you have control over are how you react to that change. And so it really spoke to me at my core, because I really thought that I was destined for failure. I really thought that I was destined for mediocrity my whole entire life. And that kind of opened my eyes to, oh, no, wait, there's more to life than my past. There's more to life even than just today. And thus kind of began my journey of self development. Reading, know, listening to people like Tony Robbins, and then once podcasts became a thing, listening to podcasts and all those things in between, and just really becoming a student of how do I create the life that you know? And fast forward. I was able to launch a podcast, have great conversations, a lot of wins. Ink magazine listed me as a top eight podcast. I was able to build multiple businesses. And it all came from the idea that my past does not define me. Obviously, it goes deeper than that, right? I had to overcome limiting beliefs I didn't know. Limiting beliefs is a newer term. I feel like over the last couple of years, people really started talking about it. So when I was younger, I was just kind of going through the motions and kind of understanding, like, okay, I have these thoughts. I have these notions that I'm not going to be great, but I'm just going to move forward and continue to try and build something. And it took a long time. I didn't become a full time entrepreneur until I was 32, but I tried from the age of 21 to become a full time entrepreneur and multiple failed businesses and so on and so forth. And honestly, the idea behind my podcast originally was I was going to interview entrepreneurs, pick their brain, figure out how to be a better entrepreneur, then go build a business. And what ended up happening was six months before I launched the show, my mom lost her battle to Opioids. And it was in that moment that I realized that life is so much more than outside things. It was no longer chasing money, cars, girls, whatever society was telling me that I should be chasing. It was really about trying to figure out how to find happiness in those rock bottom moments. And so those conversations started to be about how do you overcome limiting beliefs? How do you bounce back from rock bottom moments? How do you find happiness even though you haven't achieved all your goals? And I believe because I was having those organic, authentic conversations, people started to tune in, started to listen, and it kind of started to grow from there. And so that, for me, was really the beginning of the journey, and we can dive deeper into anything you want from there. But that's kind of the backstory to how I ended up to where I am now.

No, that's amazing. And I love that it was a journey for you, that you just didn't have everything handed to you, that you kind of took things one step at a time. Do you feel like that awareness of the balance of it not just being about money, cars, girls, as you said, that that balance was an important part of you figuring out where you wanted to be?

It was everything. When my mom passed away, I went on a three month bender where I was blackout drunk six nights a week. The good news was, growing up the way that I did, I was very, very self aware. And I knew that I was numbing the pain. I knew that I was running from the feelings that I had to feel. And I had a coach at the time. It was actually a spiritual and a relationship coach. And she called me one day, and she goes, what are you doing tonight? And I said, I'm going out with some buddies. And she goes, no, you're not. She's like, you're going to sit and you're going to feel this. And that night was probably the worst night of my life where I really had to feel all the emotions go through the stages of grief rapidly. And I woke up the next day and I had this huge weight lifted off 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 the second realization was, I had a lot of work to do myself. And actually what happened from there was I started to chase the outside things. I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to prove everybody wrong. This podcast is going to explode. I'm going to build my own business. Everybody's going to say, oh, look at Justin. And then finally I can be happy. So I went and I built the podcast and Ink magazine and then Buzfeed and then Entrepreneur and all these other people started mentioning me, and my face started popping up all over the Internet. Then businesses started to grow, and people were chasing me, trying to pay me money. And I had all the things that I was chasing. I woke up and I went, wait, I still don't love myself. There's no happiness to these outside things. And for me, that's really when the limiting belief work started. That's when I really dove into, well, why am I not happy? I have everything that I set out to have. What am I doing wrong? And that's where I really dove into limiting beliefs and found out that they come from specific places in your life and specific moments in your life, and then there is a process to overcome them. And I was able to really begin to instill them into my life, and I still do it to this day. Right. Like you said, it's been a work in progress. It still is a work in progress, right? Like, it's still putting all the pieces in the right place for the next thing and the next step and the next level. But for me, it's really always focusing on the understanding is that your limiting beliefs aren't factual, number one, and number two, doing the work to then break free of them.

Yes. So how do you even start identifying what things are limiting you or where you're tripping up?

Yeah, obviously. Look, there's so many now, my common limiting belief, and I think a lot of people have this one, is I'm not enough. I'm not lovable. Who am I to right? Like, who am I to have this podcast? Who am I to speak on a stage? Who am I to whatever. We all have those types of limiting beliefs. Sometimes my limiting belief might be I can't be an athlete or I can't be in a strong relationship because I'm toxic or I attract toxic people. That's the limiting belief as well. And so the first thing you need to do is you need to identify where this limiting beliefs comes from. And when I started to really dive deep and do research on limiting beliefs. I found out they come from four different places. So the first place is childhood, right? So it could be as simple as you're walking through the mall back when people would go to know with your mom, and she bumps into a friend from high school or college, and they're so excited to see each other, like, oh, my gosh. And you hide behind your mom's leg, and they go, oh, that's Shawna. She's just shy. That simple sentence could have placed the limiting belief inside of your head that you're shy. And so since you're shy, you can't public speak. You can't climb a corporate ladder, because who are you to speak up in a meeting? You can't be in a strong, healthy, 100% 100% relationship, because who are you to speak up to your significant other, right? So childhood is the first place. Second place is society. Society told me, because of how I was raised and how I grew up, that I shouldn't be successful. Society says minorities can't do what white people can do. Society says women can't do what men can do. Society says gay people can't do certain things. And those limiting beliefs are instilled in us. And we own that, right? We own the idea that, oh, I can't be because I was or because I am, and that's just not the case. The third place is self, right? Like, there's moments in our life where we go through something. You might be rejected or whatever, right? You ask somebody out, and they say, oh, no, I'm not interested, and you go look in the mirror and you go, oh, man, I'm ugly. Well, that person didn't say that. You said that, right? And you start to build these thoughts in the back of your head of, like, I'm ugly. I'm not worth it. I'm all these things, right? And we have to stop that inner self talk during those moments. So Gabby Bernstein's been on my podcast twice, and she talks about something called big T and Little T trauma. The fourth place is our subconscious, and it's usually caused by a big t trauma we went through in our life. And unfortunately, way too many people have experienced this. And without getting too in detail, but it could be a sexual trauma as a child. It could be being abandoned by a parent. It could be these things that we may not remember, but it's literally ingrained into our energy and our protons and neutrons and electrons, right? We own that energy. And so that tells us that we're not worthy or we can just be thrown aside or whatever. And so the first thing is, we need to identify, where does it come from? And so if you're listening to this podcast now, really start to think, like, what's holding me back? What are my thoughts? And where does that thought come from? And then you go through a process of, okay, we have to break that up, right? So I've developed a three step process in order to overcome any limiting belief. So it's super simple, but it's not easy. It's a really hard work, but I guarantee you it's worth it. So the first thing is we have to get uncomfortable, right? So I talk about spirituality a lot. So the idea of spirituality in my head is there's two rules to it. The first rule is there's something more powerful than you, right? Like, you didn't create this. Whatever this is, you didn't create it. So whether that's God, Source, Allah, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, there's something more powerful than you. The second part of spirituality is the idea that we are all energy, right? Like, we're protons, neutrons and electrons, the desks, everything is all energy. And the goal within having a strong spiritual side is to understand that we have to have that energy flowing with us instead of against us. And so in order to break that cycle, we have to get uncomfortable. We have to shake up that energy. So that's the first step. Get uncomfortable, commit to a challenge. If you want to be a public speaker, start speaking in front of people, whether that's a small room of your friends, whether that's live on Facebook, whatever, just start doing it. It's very, very uncomfortable. But you have to start shifting that energy. The second step is you have to surround yourself with the right people. You have to make sure that you have the right people supporting you in this process, because getting uncomfortable is uncomfortable. And so it's very easy to quit or not do what you say you're going to do if you don't have the right people pushing you, supporting you, cheering you on in that process. And the third thing is you have to take action, right? Because nothing works unless you do. And this is a repetitive thing. I'm not here to say that that limiting belief of you are not enough does not creep up in the back of my head still to this day. But I now have the tools to equip myself to get over them. And so it's been a beautiful journey for me that I've been able to really do this over and over again and continue to do it in order to step into who I believe that I'm supposed to be in this world.

That's amazing. And I think that the piece about having the right people that surround you when you get uncomfortable is something that I think people skip over. They don't realize the importance of having that support because it is hard stuff to reckon with and kind of rumble with. To figure out those things you believe about yourself, that you're holding yourself back. You need to find out where they came from and how to unplug them. How do you insert the opposite narrative for those things? How do you get yourself to think differently about them? Do you just tell yourself you are enough? Or do you have to actually give examples? Or how do you get yourself to think differently when you're in that uncomfortable state?

Yeah, I think the first step is really catching your thoughts as you begin to think those things, as you are about to step into the next phase of your life and that limiting belief pops up. Who am I to quit my job and become a full time entrepreneur? Who am I to get on a stage? Who am I to write that book? Who am I to do all these things? You have to catch that thought and understand that you're here for a purpose. I had a guy on my show years ago named Preston Smiles, and he said something by years ago, I mean, I think he was like, episode 70. I'm on episode 500 now. So he said something that's ingrained in my brain. I was asking him kind of about these things, right? I always say the first two years of my podcast were for me. Every question was for me. And I asked him, what would you say to somebody who's too afraid to step into their calling, to share their story, to share their message? And he said, Based off of sheer numbers, this is pure facts based off of sheer numbers that at any given time, there are 75,000 people in this world that need to hear your message specifically from you. I was like, okay, great. That's important. But what do you say to them? And he goes, well, you look them in the eye and you say, well, how selfish of you not to. Right? And so it's a lot easier to overcome your limiting beliefs, to get uncomfortable, to take the action you need to take, when you understand that there's a greater purpose. This doesn't necessarily have to be like, oh, I've got this crazy story of overcoming, and now I have to teach people how to overcome. It could be as simple as, I have this skill that other people need to see, right? And it's just about showing up with whatever that skill is. And so, again, rewriting that narrative in your head every time it pops up. Catch yourself. Rewrite how you're saying it. Change it. Right? And so I do that by tying it to my purpose. Somebody asked me on an interview one time, like, when's the last time you were nervous to do something? I go all the time. I still get nervous when I interview bigger names in my podcast. I still get nervous every time I speak. I still get nervous whenever I have the next business idea. But it's the understanding that I need to step further into my purpose every single day. That includes getting uncomfortable. But I think the key is and I'm glad you brought up the people you surround yourself with, I think that changed my life. When I figured out who those people are and the roles that they play in my life, that's when everything got a lot easier. That's when it got easier to get uncomfortable. That that's when success started to happen. That's when money started to flow. That's when my relationships got stronger, all these things. And so I've actually developed the five people you need in your life, which we can get into if you want to.

I would love for you to get into that. I think that's something that people struggle with once they realize, okay, these may not be the best people of my life, but how do I get the right people into my life? And who are they? So please share.

Yeah, so we all know the quote. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Jim Rohn said it right. Super popular quote. And the reason it's popular is because it's true. But when I heard it when I was 19, I immediately thought to myself, I have to get rid of all my deadbeat friends, go find five millionaires, and hang out with them, right? Because when you're 19, that's what I was chasing millions. And I was like, great. That's what I have to do. And then quickly, I went, why would five millionaires want to hang out with me? And so I completely threw that quote out the window. And every time I hear it pop up, I'm like, that's crap. That doesn't make sense. Like BS, right? And fast forward, I created this success. I found happiness. I went back to that quote, and I said, okay, well, let's look at it. Now. Who were those five people? As I grew and evolved, those five people always changed. But I realized they all filled a need or a role in my life in some way, shape, or form. And so these are the five people that you need in your life to create success, happiness, abundance, all the things that you want. So the first person is your cheerleader. This is the person that, when you get off the phone with them, you feel like you can run through brick wall. They tell you that you're a champion, right? You call me, go, I got a million dollar idea. And their response is, because you're leading. It's a billion dollar idea, right? Like, that person, the second person is your bruiser. Now, just to be clear, it's not an abuser. It's a bruiser, right? So they push you. They challenge you. They question whether you're making the right choices. They say, Is that the right thing to do? Is that the right person to do it with? Are you sure that's where you're supposed to be going? But they're doing that from a place of love. So that's the bruiser. Third person is your softie. So this is a person who the shoulder to cry on. Guess what? No matter how much success you've created. No matter how many things you've done right, something's going to go wrong. And it sucks when it goes wrong, right? So this is the person that's the shoulder to cry on, the person who's there to listen, but they're there to help pick you back up, right? They're not going to enable you to stay at your rock bottom. They're going to help you get back up. The fourth person is a mentor. So I look at mentor a little bit differently. I believe a mentor is somebody who has something innate inside of them that you want more of in your life. So, like, my mentor is a guy named Fabio Viviani. He's a dear friend. Some people may know him from the show Top Chef. His business does $300,000,000.01 of the best Chefs in the world. I don't ever want to be a Chef. I don't need to make $300 million a year. But he is such a giver, and he doesn't have to be. And so my thing is, I believe I'm a giver now, but I want to be an even bigger giver. I want to give more of my time, give more of my resources, give more even more so when I don't need it, anything in return, more and more. So he's my mentor currently. But that's your mentor. And then the fifth person is a coach. I believe at any given time, you should be financially invested in your future, whether that's in one on one coaching, whether that's mentorship, whether that coaches in your wellness, your spirituality, relationships, whatever. I've had coaches in all of them, but I believe at any time, you should be financially invested in your future. And so if you have those five people, it becomes a lot easier, right? They're almost like tools in a tool belt. You call on them when you need them, you support them when they need to be supported, and you all move forward together. So your wins are great because you can celebrate together, and your losses are a lot easier because they pick you back up when you fall down. And it's just been a beautiful journey. Once I really kind of said, okay, who are these people? And then really became intentional about making sure those people were in my life. I feel really blessed to have the five people that I have. And I think that if you're able to find those people in your life, sky's the limit.

I think that's great, and I think it's great to have a way to kind of look around and say, okay, I have four cheerleaders, but I don't have any bruisers. I don't have anybody who will call me out, ask me the hard questions, make me look at things closely. So maybe I need to try to find that person. Or I had that person five years ago, but I got annoyed because I was not able to handle the questioning. And so maybe I need to be able to tolerate that more and get uncomfortable and invite someone like that back into my world.

Yeah, the bruiser is always the tough one for people because nobody wants to be questioned. Everybody wants all of their ideas to be the best idea. I believe my bruiser is the toughest bruiser on the planet. His name's Justin Kavanaugh. Shout out to, like, I spoke at his event not that long ago, and I called him an ahole from the stage. But the reality is he does it from such a place of love. And the thing I say to people is, do you want to be right or do you want to be successful? And that's what the bruiser does in your life. Like, that bruiser is making sure that you're headed in the right direction, and they're not going to sugarcoat anything they say to you, and that's uncomfortable. But because of my bruiser, I believe I have the success that I have in my business. It's really been a beautiful process to kind of peel those layers back. The one thing I always want to say, there's a couple of rules to this. The first thing is, it is only five people. Yes, you could have multiple cheerleaders. Yes, you could have multiple bruisers in your life. Most people don't. Yes, you can have all these types of things, right? But it's really about who are your main five. Those are your go to individuals. In order to say, hey, in these tight spots, you're my number one, right? You're the person I need to go to. The second thing is, one person cannot fill two roles. So one person can't be your cheerleader and your Sophie at the same time. You have to be really intentional with how you're positioning these people into your life. I'm going to use a super extreme model and idea of this as to why one person can't be two. For instance, a lot of people say that their spouse is their softie or their cheerleader or their bruiser. Like, I'm my wife's bruiser, which I don't know how she deals with me because I'm a bruiser through and through. I always say that if you look at the dynamic, say you decide to go back through those five people, write down what they are, and then write down who the people are to the right. If your spouse is your cheerleader and your bruiser, that's actually what we call a narcissist, right? So we need to make sure that that person is not both of those things in our life. I'm not saying they're doing it intentionally, but if you're forcing that person to play both those roles in your life, whether they're aware of it or not, that's going to create havoc. That's going to create a lot of disorder. So there has to be five different people at any given time. Now, again, they can grow and evolve over time. You don't need the same cheerleader. Forever. Although they are usually the easiest ones to keep around, but at the same time, be really intentional about, who are these five people so they can support you in your success.

That is really important because I think in my mind, I was like, oh, is this person this? Maybe they're both no. So we need to make sure we kind of differentiate them. And it helps you know what you need too, because you need to decide, what do I need right now? Do I need a bruiser because I have this business idea or if I'm making this difficult decision about a move or something, and I need somebody to be like, why would you do this? What is your thinking behind this? Why are you choosing this? Or do I need somebody who's going to be like, I'm broken right now because this hasn't gone through and this isn't working, and I just need somebody to comfort me and lift me back up? Or do I just need somebody that's going to make it sound great every single time? So you kind of know what you need and that you get that balance 100%.

If I am at a place where I'm not ready to hear criticism, I'm going to call my softie. But once I get through that moment, I know my bruiser is my next step to say, hey, here's where I'm at. What do I do right? How do I fix this? By the way? This is everything. If you talk about relationships you have in your life to go to your bruiser and go, my relationship is not working out. The bruiser is going to ask you the right questions to figure out if this is something you work through or you work out of. And so it's super important to know who these people are, make sure their intentions are good and just make sure they have a huge heart, and that sometimes takes trial and error, unfortunately. But just be really intentional about getting in rooms with people who are working at a high level, who are making moves in the world to change the world, to make it better, all those things, and you'll find those people very quickly.

Yes, I think my bruiser is actually one of my favorite friends because I think I'm actually a bruiser to a lot of my friends. So that's more my way of looking. I think it was very analytical and getting into all the weeds with it. And so one of my dearest friends is a person that will question all the things and I can think of there was a point in my relationship where I needed that and was kind of surprised at how awesome they were at holding all the pieces and yet really digging in about what I was doing wrong. And you need that person that's going to do that for you because you do things wrong and you want to be called out on that so you can actually get the relationship you want and be the person you want to be in that relationship instead of being told, oh, no, you're perfect, you're fine. It must be them all the time.

No, 100%. Look, and you can be any of these personalities and be a coach as well, in my opinion. I think the best coaches are bruisers, which is probably why you identify as a bruiser, because you're a coach as well. But my cheerleader is a coach to massively successful entrepreneurs. So you can be a cheerleader and still be a coach. I think it just takes more tact. It's a lot easier as a bruiser to be like, nope, you're doing that wrong. This is how you need to look at it. You know what I mean? Whereas a cheerleader be like, oh, my gosh, you're a legend. That's so great. But that's a harder thing to balance. But my cheerleader is a genius at it. So everybody's a little bit different. Yes.

Everyone has their different strengths of doing that piece. That's so good to know. That's very good to know. So in your own journey with your limiting beliefs, what do you think was the easiest for you to kind of recognize as a limiting belief and be able to turn around?

It's a really good question. I don't think any of it was easy. I think they were all pretty hard because these are things that are ingrained within you from a long time ago. Right. Like, I used to stutter when I was younger, not because I had a stuttering problem, but because I thought people didn't care about what I had to say. And so at the age of 19, when I was in the direct sales job and they were forcing me to speak to the other representatives or moving to these regional conferences that I spoke at as well, I was forced into discomfort. But I knew there was something about the stage, there was something about speaking, there was something about telling my story that I thought was important. So I let the discomfort happen. Right. But I think the biggest one for me was I didn't think I could be loved. As a therapist told me I have abandonment issues because of how I was raised. Now, my parents were great parents. They were loving, supportive. My mom was the best mom. She was my favorite person on this planet. Irreplaceable, even though she had her own demons. Right. But at the same time, both my parents chose their demons over being a parent, really? Even though I didn't see it at the moment. I learned through therapy that I have abandonment issues, and so I would get into love relationships, meet a girl, and see where this goes. And I've had a number of long term relationships, and the second I felt feelings beyond like or fun or whatever you do when you meet somebody of the opposite sex, the second I would get those feelings, I would start to self sabotage, although I trusted them. I would pretend like I didn't. I would ask questions. I would be a jerk. I would do all those things. And it wasn't to be a jerk. It wasn't to be a terrible boyfriend or whatever it was because I knew it wasn't. I thought I knew that they were going to leave me, so I'd rather know the reason that they were going to leave me than just feel like I was blindsided. That was probably my hardest limiting belief to overcome. And it started. I hired a relationship coach because I was like, clearly, look, there's a problem in these relationships. Like, I need to figure out I'm the common denominator. Let me figure it out and do the work. And she walked me through an exercise and she said, I want you to write down everything you want in a woman, from looks to attitude to is she supportive? Is she driven? Is she whatever? And I wrote down the list and I read it to her, and she goes, okay, sounds like a great woman. Are you the guy that deserves her? And this was an eye opener for me to be like, oh, wait, I can literally become the man who deserves this woman by doing the work I need to do. And so admitting to myself that I wasn't the guy who deserves the woman I wanted was the getting uncomfortable part. Then I surrounded myself with the right people. I had a great coach and a therapist at the time who helped me through it. And then I did the work. I constantly worked on myself. I constantly worked on those limiting beliefs that kept rising up. And then I met my now wife. By the way, I'm newly married. We got married April 1 of this year.

Oh, congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you.

And April Fool's Day. I noticed that. And you noted it was that. Was there a reason you got married in April Fool's Day?

So our first date was on April Fool's Day four years previous. So we were together for four it was the four year anniversary. But what happened was we actually weren't even supposed to be married yet. We wanted to get married in the fall of this year. We went to a venue. She fell in love with it. She'd start crying when she saw it. And then we went to go pick a date, and she's like, I've got nothing in the fall. And I was like, it'll be a short window because we got engaged in June. And I think it was like the end of June or mid July that we saw this venue. I was like, what about April, May, June? And she goes, I have April 1. She goes, Fools fall in love. And then Lauren started crying again. I go, I guess we're getting married on April 1.

I love it. And it was also the anniversary too, ironically. That's amazing.

Yeah, it was crazy. It was really crazy how it all played out. And it was a beautiful wedding. Honestly, me having to do that work was probably the hardest. It took me years to really do that work and then met my wife, and we always say and she was previously married, she has two kids, but we always say we both went off on our own and did the work we needed to do individually, so now we can do the work together. And that's what I wanted in a partner. I was able to really work through. That was probably the hardest one. But none of them were easy and none of them are ever going to be easy. We're all a work in progress. But I think that's the beauty of it, right? Especially being in the self development space. There are so many people who stand on a stage and go, look at me, be like me. No, I want people to look at me and go, if that schmuck could do it, I could do it too, because we're all a work in progress. I'm not here to pretend like I'm not. I'm not here to pretend like I'm perfect. I'm just a continuous work in progress. And I think that's why I love the word growth. I have a tattooed on me. It's in the name of the podcast because we're all growing until we're not. And that's the end of our life. And so it's just that constant work in progress.

Yes. Well, I love in that entire story, going back to the beginning with your coach, that when she had you make that list and says, do you deserve this person that instead of you adjusting the list of what you wanted, that you had the wherewithal to adjust yourself? Because I feel like the people that in my life that I want to be supportive of, who need to get to the place to recognize their limits, they're bestowing upon themselves that are holding them back, that if I turn that mirror on them, that their first instinct would be to be like, oh, I've got to play this list down then. Then I don't want this amazing woman or this amazing man that I just made a list of. I need to play smaller and I need to play to a different hand and get somebody lesser or that's who they have been dating is that lesser that they think that they deserve. And so I think that as much as you're very great about saying like, this is where I've come from, whatever else but that mindset, that growth, mindset, that ability for you to see, oh, then I need to grow into this. I need to become this to be worthy of what I want and I know what I want. I think that's huge. And I think that's a place where some people need to start with knowing what they want and being willing to grow into what's deserving of that. Does that make sense?

Yes. I'm with my person, and my person. I are getting married next April, april 27, though not the first.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much. And us coming together, we actually met when we were very young and then found each other again now. And so we have quite an epic story. But part of that, us coming together again and doing that, I feel like there had to be those pieces where we did our growing on our own, and we both recognized we're sad sometimes that we lost the 20 years in between, but we're also very glad that we found each other again. But we still had those things that we never would have guessed we would have done to be with somebody. And that would change to be with somebody that happened with us, that were important for us to kind of open ourselves to this relationship and make this relationship fit and to both of us be like, well, I'm willing to fit how this needs to fit. And I feel like with you and the kids, with us, it's not having kids. Like, we won't have kids. And I always thought I would have kids, and so that's like the type of thing that makes sense for us and for this relationship. US being together is like the piece that's most important. And we both said that if something happened and we ended up with kids, we'd be fine with that, but that awareness that that wasn't the most important thing or what needed to be the most important thing, and that the relationship is such that you can figure out those other things together.

Yeah. And if I were to ever have kids in my life, I had to date somebody with older well, just not babies. Right. The step kids are now 13 and ten. We've been together for four years. So do the math, right? They were older, they could communicate. I don't know if I've ever put this on record, but we'll say, I don't like babies. I don't think they're cute. If you're crying and you can't tell me why you're crying, it's just not my thing, never has been, and it's really funny. So I have my mastermind, the skeleton key mastermind, and we're going out to San Diego for a weekend meetup. And I said to all them when we were in Chicago, I was like, look, part of being an entrepreneur is getting uncomfortable. I want to let you guys know that when we're in San Diego, we're all going out to a stand up comedy club, open mic night, and we're all signing up, so get your stuff together. Right? So this is us getting uncomfortable. But I'm like, what am I going to talk about? And there's a certain way that I talk about how I don't like babies. That I think comes across as funny, I hope. And I think that might be part of my little three to five minute stand up act. Anyway, a little side note.

I like it. Yeah. You know, it was so funny because I was a nanny. I think that camp when we were chatting earlier, but I was a nanny. When I was a nanny, I had her out and we met this other little cute kid that were out, and I was like, oh, your baby is so cute. So sweet. And the parent that was with them said they have to be at self defense.

It's true.

Yes. I could see how for certain people, that's definitely how you feel about this, because they are exhausting and they take a lot of energy and all those things. So babies are a lot, and it's important people are aware of that before they have them. And it's a good thing to know.

Yeah. And look, I talk about how being a stepdad, I call them my bonus kids and I'm their bonus dad, which I think it's a little bit more fun, right. But I think for me, it's just a lot of lessons for me and so as we navigate things with them, I look at them, I go, I just want to let you guys know that you're going to end up in therapy when you're older and it's okay to talk about me. And therapy is a good thing, right? Because I think all parents mess up their kids in some way, shape or form. Sometimes it's more drastic than others, sometimes it's small. But I grew up super poor and I think that's affecting me in a sense that I have a work ethic and all these other things. There's kids who grow up super wealthy and they're entitled and they're all of these things. So we all have damage from our parents. You talk about the kids cute because it's their self defense. It's true. Always like to tell them that we're going to mess up as much as you mess up and it's okay to talk about it in therapy when you're older. We'll foot the bill if we need to.

It is part of the process.

Yes, it is.

Yeah. By the way, I got glasses in 8th grade too, for the same reason.

Really?

Yeah. Then the bad grades just kept happening. So it wasn't the glasses.

That wasn't the end all, be all. What was funny, because I did terrible in geometry once I got to high school, so I was just done with math after that.

Anyway, I love it.

Yes. We'll have that in common. We'll have that in common. Well, that's amazing. So for our podcast, the one thing that we do so for the grit show, which growth on purpose is our tagline. So I love that growth is also important to you. We always talk about we call it self maintenance, not self care, because it's like car maintenance. It's necessary to keep you going and keep you being who you are and being successful in life. So what do you do regularly for your self maintenance or to take care of you?

Yeah, so you probably didn't even know this about me, but I have four non negotiables every single day that I do love it to make sure that my cup is full. And I'll tell you kind of where this comes from. So I asked a two part question on my podcast to every single guest. First part is, what is your definition of success? The second part is, what are three things you do every single day to ensure that success for yourself? And I realized that I've interviewed people from all walks of life. I've interviewed Burt Kreischer, who's the overweight shirtless comedian who's got a couple of Netflix specials. I've interviewed the guy from somebody feed, Phil, who's also the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond. I've interviewed Ed. My lead. I've interviewed all these people, right? WWE superstars, NFL Super Bowl champions. So it's hard to find a common thread. And I get the question all the time, like, what's the common thread? So I really kind of do a deep dive on, like, okay, what is it? And I realized that the three things they all do every single day was to take care of themselves in some way, shape, or form. And I realized that in order to be selfless, we have to be selfish first because we can't pour from an empty cup. And so I started to instill, over time, different things every single day that filled my cup. Long answer unnecessarily. These are the four things I do every single day. I move my body in some way, shape, or form, whether that's a walk in the morning with my wife or going down in the basement and lifting weights. I move my body whether it's ten minutes or 45 minutes. I do that every single day. Second thing is, I learn something new every single day because I believe what is not growing is dead. So whether that's listening to a podcast, reading a book, reading an article, just learn something new every single day. Third thing is, I do a deep visualization practice to figure out visualize either where I'm going long term in my life or if I have something going on that day, how do I want it to go? What do I want it to look like, and put myself in that situation? And then the fourth thing is I reach out to somebody I care about every single day with a quick text and say, hey, just want to let you know I'm thinking about you. And obviously worded a little bit different every single time. The fourth thing is funny because a lot of people think that it's kind of for them, like I'm checking in on them fills my cup to know that I can be there for people. And so those are my four non negotiables to make sure that I take care of myself every single day.

I love that. And that fourth one, because I get in different habits with my gratitude practice. And sometimes my gratitude practice is reaching out to somebody that I'm grateful for and telling them why I'm grateful for them. And it feels like almost like that connection piece, but also that recognizing that you're lucky to have those people and that you can be there for them. So I love that you have four you answered that question perfectly.

Thank you. Yeah. And by the way, the reaching out thing has been a blessing for me. I just started it because I was like, I want strong relationships with good people. And I started reaching out to them. And then rarely I dare that we go by now that somebody doesn't reach out to me. You start to create this world of people reaching out, letting you know that they're there for you and so on and so forth. And I think a lot of times that's really just what the world needs, is to know that somebody's there for them. Kind of created a cool little thing in my life, which I didn't know that's what was going to happen.

No connection is key. I love it. That's beautiful. So the other thing that we always do on the podcast is we call it grit wit, but we give something as actionable that people can walk away with and take with them based on our conversation. So I'm curious what your thoughts are. I'm kind of torn between those five people and kind of starting to look at what our limiting beliefs might be. What are your thoughts on what we should have people walk away with?

So here's what I'll say. We live in a world where we feel like we need to constantly be moving, evolving, changing. And that's what we talked about in this episode, and I think it is a necessity over time. But we also have to first kind of care for ourself where we're at and love ourself where we're at. And so where I want to leave your audience is to acknowledge that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and exactly where you chose to be. Now, when I say that to some people, they might be offended because the first time I heard it, I was offended because I was not in a good place, and I was like, I didn't choose to be here. And you can get offended by it, and that's okay. But the understanding that we have complete control over our life by our actions and the things we do moving forward. So the beauty in that statement of you are exactly where you're supposed to be and exactly where you chose to be is that tomorrow you get to be exactly where you're supposed to be and exactly where you chose to be. So the acknowledgment of that today will create the growth that you need for the future, one day at a time. The understanding that we don't have to worry about where we're going to be in 50 years from now. We just have to worry about where we're going to be tomorrow, and we want it to be in a better place than we are today.

I love that, and I love that choice element that you have chosen to be here. And sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow, but it's an important one because it's very empowering. It gives you the agency to realize you can make different choices. If there's something that hits you in the chest or the stomach, the hardest about that to be like, oh, no, I didn't choose this, then that's the thing that no, you did, and you can choose differently for tomorrow. So to figure out what about what you need to choose to make that be what's going to make you happy about where you're at.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't choose my parents choices, but I certainly chose to allow it to make me angry, chose for it to make me lazy. I used it as an excuse. Those were all my choices. So the end of the day, I realized that life is happening for me and not to me. And that's the beauty in the understanding that we get to choose where we're going.

That is beautiful. Actually, that exact quote, life is happening for me and not to me was what I was writing down just yesterday, trying to get myself centered around the moves and the selling of houses and getting my life centered. It's happening as it's supposed to be, and I need to be with that and be okay with that and have my place in that and adjust what I can adjust, which is a lot of my perspective on it, is what you have the most room to work with a lot of times, for sure. This has been amazing, justin, let's tell folks. Tell them more about your podcast, about how to connect with you more, because I think people are like, this man is amazing. I need to be more in connection with him.

Yeah. So first of all, thank you so much for having me. On this conversation has been incredible. So wherever they listen to this podcast, if they just type in Growth now, my podcast will come up, they can go check it out. And I always say, listen to a couple episodes. If you like it, click the subscribe button and come on the journey with me. And then my favorite place to hang out on social media is Instagram. So at Justin Tshank. So learn how to spell my name in the Show Notes, but Justin Tshank, you can find me there and shoot me a message. I would love to hear what you guys thought of the episode.

That's awesome. And we will have links to both his Instagram and to his podcast in the Show Notes, so you guys will have some easy ways to connect with him as well as well as his full bio so you can learn a little bit more about him. But thank you so much. It's been an amazing conversation, and I value everything you've offered us, so thank you.

Shawna, thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to jump on over to Instagram and follow us @the.grit.show. And if you aren't already following Authentic Connections Podcast Network @37by27, you should definitely be doing that as well. Don't forget, you are the only one of you that this world has got, and that means something. I'll be here next Tuesday. I hope you are too close.