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Introduction 0:00
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:18
It's another day for the #piratebroadcast. And we are here again, sharing #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. I just want to thank everyone for the opportunity to share this information, meet a few new connections, make connections, wherever you happen to be. We're on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and also Twitter. So wherever you like to hang out and meet new people, you got it. Today, we're going to be sharing a few little #nuggetsofknowledge with an international global connector. Justin is here to talk about a few things that make a difference and #makeitmatter in your world. So I think that it would be nice to be able to welcome Justin, reach out, make the connection, introduce yourself and say, hey, I'm a pirate. I'm in the pirate community. Justin, I just wanted to drop in. Russ said to tell you hello. Let him know that he's welcome in the community. So Justin, good morning. How are you doing today?

Justin Breen 1:28
So cold here in north of Chicago. 40 degrees, but just another another wonderful day, just dropped my two sons and their friend off at school. They're in person school so life is really good.

Russ Johns 1:41
Oh, that's fantastic. We scheduled this and it's seven o'clock in the morning here. It's not that warm in Arizona yet. However, I know it will get a little bit warmer. So in order to heat it up, I want to have a conversation with you about this idea of international connections, what that means and your organization that you're running is BrEpic. Yep. So that's an interesting name. How did you even, wow, what's the origin story for that?

Justin Breen 2:19
Yeah. So I always laugh when people ask that because lots of companies and folks spend millions of dollars testing and marketing their name. My wife surprised me for... I'm 43, so, three years ago, my wife surprised me for my 40th birthday. We drove up to the American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, which is this awesome five star lodge or whatever. On the way up, I'm like, yeah, I'll just come up with a PR company and name it BrEpic because I like saying the word epic constantly. I think it's the best word ever. Then Br, the first two letters of my, my last name. So you know, it's funny, because once or twice a week I get a message or a text or something. They're like, hey, I saw the word epic, or I heard and I thought about you. The funniest thing ever, but yeah, it's all about living life in an epic way. I certainly try to do that every single day.

Russ Johns 3:22
So give us an example of what what that means in terms of outcome, and results?

Justin Breen 3:32
That's a really interesting question. So the way I communicate and live my life and run my company, it's like a magnet. It actively attracts folks with a certain type of mindset, which has three attributes and that's: abundance, visionary, investment mindset. People like that live life in an epic way. People like that are, they fit into two types of buckets? It's really interesting, because I talked to some of the most successful and wealthiest entrepreneurs in the world all the time, hundreds and thousands of those people and people with that mindset, those three attributes fit into these buckets. One thing is they're running high six figure to 10 figure businesses, they see their family whenever they want to, and they're doing what they like to do and what they're good at. So that's one of the buckets. Yeah. And then the other bucket is they're not in that first bucket yet, but they will because they have that mindset. So me communicating and talking like this, those are the people that reach out to me just organically and then I just connect them to other people like that and then they connect me to other people like that and it just grows and grows, which is really exciting to see how that happens.

Russ Johns 4:42
It's interesting to see how that unfolds because I find that when you start working in a certain area and a certain mindset or a certain certain way of thinking or putting yourself out there and adding value at every turn, different people show up in your world.

Justin Breen 5:01
It's amazing.

Russ Johns 5:04
When you're in a scarcity mindset, you're struggling and everything like that, it's just the opposite. I don't think people really understand that it feels counter intuitive. You feel like the struggle is real, I gotta get up and hustle and, you struggle every day. It's like when you find your groove, and you find out what it is that you really are meant to do every single day. It just seems to flow and happen easily.

Justin Breen 5:35
This conversation is a perfect example of that. This the first time we've ever talked, hearing each other, we've talked on Facebook messager or whatever, and the other message, but I mean, I feel like I've known you forever because you mentioned the key word with scarcity. Everyone in my network, 10s of thousands of the brightest, most successful, wealthiest people in the world, they all have investment, visionary, abundance mindset. That's the very, very rare minority of people overall in the world, but within my network, it's 100%. So most people have cost scarcity mindset. When you have that mindset, it just attracts other people with cost scarcity mindset, because you attract other people that have your mindset, it's again, it's very, I simplify everything. I just focus on what I like to do and what I'm good at and eliminate all noise and nonsense. When you do that, it attracts other people that are doing the same thing. It's really been fun to watch it grow and grow. And really, it's only a company that just started. It's only beginning. I talked to between five and 10 incredible people like you every single day. There's no limit to it. It's just limitless.

Russ Johns 6:46
It's interesting how when you talk to those individuals, certain personalities, they kind of almost pop up in your mind and say, hey, this person needs to meet that person.

Justin Breen 6:58
That's 100%. You and I are so similar, oh my God.

Russ Johns 7:03
It is giving me chills thinking about it because, yep, you're one conversation away from doing something amazing, or helping someone else become incredible. With that talent, and that ability, it's really an amazing and powerful tool to make things in the world a little better.

Justin Breen 7:29
I mean, we might have been separated at birth. We look we look exactly alike, too. Sarcasm, duly noted. I don't believe in randomness. If one or two things happen randomly, maybe it's randomness, but when things are just meant to be, you're meant to meet people. I have two superpowers, in terms of like high genius level, world class level. One is connecting people on a global level, and two is getting people in news at a high level. So I just stay in my zone of genius 100% of my day. What you just said about connecting people, how someone will say something, you can connect them, that's how my brain works. I mean, that's how I can explain it like, so I'll talk to someone in Australia, they'll say something random, I'll be like, oh, I know someone in Arizona that thinks like that. And then I'll just connect them. Then a week later people, they'll be like, how did you know how to do that? I'm like, I don't know. I just know how to do it. So people are born with these superpowers. Then what I what I found is, because when again, you talk to super successful people, you see patterns, and then you see the opposite pattern. I think a lot of people are miserable, or in that cost scarcity mindset because of two things. One, they're there. They haven't found what they like to do and what they're good at. So they're working eight to 10 hours a day, and something they're either not good at, or they don't like to do or both. So of course, they're miserable. So that's one thing, but then if they actually do find out what they like to do, what they're good at, they don't do anything about it. So I just do what I like to do and what I'm good at.

Russ Johns 9:11
Well, I love that I love the statement that you made, eliminate the noise and the nonsense. However, Justin in all fairness, if you're unable to identify your zone of genius, and you're right in the sweet spot that you need to play in, it's really difficult because you're always searching for that other thing that just happens to be better. So you're very fortunate in respect to, you've identified it, you've accepted it, you understand it, and then you live it. How long did it take you to get to that point in your life? There's the early years where you're like, testing and experimenting a few things to see what you like and what you don't like and it's kind of like going to the buffet,. You got to test a few things out to see what what tastes good for you. So when you're at the buffet of life, how do you go about doing that? How did you journey down that path to find your zone of genius?

Justin Breen 10:15
Yep, good question. So I like being the dumbest person in the room, I really don't like being the smartest person in the room, or at least the middle, smartest, whatever that means. I'm not that smart. But I'm in numerous very high level international entrepreneurial groups. One is Strategic Coach. One is Entrepreneurs Organization. I just joined Abundance 360, which the minimum to get into that is normally 10 million threshold revenue, which I don't care about at all, but they let me in because of my visionary whackadoonis. When you surround yourself with people like that constantly, and I do mean constantly, you just become one of them. You just learn. I'm always learning, always, always, always learning. Strategic Coach, in case folks don't know what that is, we'll pretend we're not in COVID right now, it meets quarterly in LA, Chicago, Toronto and London. Dan Sullivan co founded it. He's the master of all masters. Dan's, he's my hero and I don't say that flippantly. I legitimately mean that. So you meet quarterly, I'd go to the Chicago group, I'm the only one from Chicago, my group or Illinois and my group, everybody else flies in. It's all founder CEOs, they're all at a certain revenue threshold, very high level. So that's really helped me focus on my unique ability, meaning what I'm good at and what I like to do. Again, eliminating the noise and nonsense. When you're just constantly learning and meeting all these great people, you just take little tidbits, squirrel it away, and then you're just constantly evolving.

Russ Johns 11:58
Yeah. Are you also a fan of Masterminds and surrounding yourself with people that keep you in alignment?

Justin Breen 12:10
That's essentially what these groups are. They're just masterminds at the most genius, high level. Abundance 360, in case people don't know what that is. Dr. Peter Diamandis, founded that and he's the guy that created SpaceX. So Elon Musk will speak at that. I was talking to this guy, recently, because I literally just joined like five days ago, and he's building like, Tesla has electronic cars, this guy's building electronic neighborhoods. That sounds crazy, right? But now he's actually doing it. When you're with people like that, you're going to become a person like that. Attract abundance and you become abundant.

Russ Johns 12:56
Yeah, it's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. Hey, Justin, we got a few people in the room. I just want to give a shout out to and say hey, Michael Baker from Florida saying hello.

Justin Breen 13:07
Hey, Michael.

Russ Johns 13:08
It's within you, life coaching and being of service and definite purpose and so Gabriel's here. He's another live streamer that I love to hang out with Good morning. Happy Friday, everyone. Hiett Ives is from Houston, he says, just got off the phone with Brian Bearden. He says hello, and will be in touch. Okay, fantastic. Then Gabriel says Good morning, fellow pirates. Welcome to the conversation. This is always a good way to collaborate and connect with interesting individuals. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Cathi Spooner says, good morning pirates. And then Hiett chimes in it says, make things simple.

Justin Breen 13:53
Yep. So Hiett, I can already tell is a high level thinker.

Russ Johns 13:57
Howard Kaufman, great discussion. Cathi Spooner says, love the mindset. I found that surrounding myself with other enthusiastic people who are nerds because the synergy from the conversation is exciting. We have an opportunity in life to understand and appreciate what our skills are. And we have an understanding, once we get there that we can help others and pay it forward and do these things that allow other people to actually improve their life as well. That's why I support #kindnessesiscool and #smilesarefree. It's not just a flippant marketing statement. It's how I live my life and, it's really important to me to do this and share it with other people. The one thing that I love to do and the reason that the #piratebroadcast was generated was, just like yourself, Justin, you would drive down the industrial district of any city in the US and you see these logos and these labels on buildings that say, we do something. It's often that we don't know what they do. And people are the same way. It's like, okay, I can read your page on LinkedIn, I can see a resume, but you don't know the person behind the person. You don't know the individual behind the label. It's really nice to be able to have a conversation like this and inspire other people to to do something great. So what's the process that you went through in order to evolve into this superpower?

Justin Breen 15:49
People are like, oh, wow, your company's so successful. You have clients around the world, you only work with the best people on the planet with the right mindset. Well, it didn't just magically happen and I always think that's funny. So entrepreneurial life is, again, very simple. If you can't handle overwhelming rejection, likely depression, high levels of anxiety, traumatic experiences, potential bankruptcy, don't become an entrepreneur. But if you can, if you've never give up, and you have the right mindset, then you can have this life like I've built, sitting in your backyard, making a ton of money working with all these amazing people, doing what you like to do and what you're good at. Again, I just talked to people. And when I say people, I mean, these are some of the top most brilliant people on the planet. What happens when you do that is you see these patterns emerge. The pattern that constantly emerges every single time is that it's actually a surprisingly simple formula for building a successful global company. You see a problem, you create solution to problem, problem solved, successful global company. That's all I've done in the PR space, I was a journalist for 20 years, created my entire business model based on how PR firms annoyed me for 20 years. So solve a problem, create a solution to problem, solve problem, successful global company. Because the solution works for any business size, any location, any vertical problem solve, and then, and a lot of entrepreneurs get into trouble because they try to be everything for everyone and I'm the exact opposite. My firm is one genius, high level thing for one type of person. That's it. So you can do it. If you don't want to do it, fine, but the people that are part of this network, either are some of the most successful, brilliant people on the planet or they're going to be because they have that mindset. So it eliminates everything else.

Russ Johns 17:47
Yeah, all the nonsense and noise.

Justin Breen 17:50
Yep. It's funny, but here we are. I mean, again, so some people talk a big game, but I'm all action, I'm actually doing it and then the people I surround myself with are the ones doing it. You can tell pretenders right away? Like with Hiett, I saw how he wrote messages. I know he's the real deal. I could tell immediately. I recommend he reaches out to me or I'll reach out to him.

Russ Johns 18:15
He's one that will definitely be calling you.

Justin Breen 18:19
Yeah, again, you can just tell.

Russ Johns 18:22
Meshell Baker. She's in Austin. She's doing Coop space. #Kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree.

Justin Breen 18:27
Hey, Meshell.

Russ Johns 18:29
That is awesome. Russ. Also, we have Wendy. Wendy is out of Chicago. She's in your neighborhood. Welcome to the Pirate Posse, Justin. So she's doing well. Meshell says, whaaaat! It wasn't magic?

Justin Breen 18:47
No, no magic. It seems like it right. Abracadabra.

Russ Johns 18:51
Meshell also says, persistence, perseverance! Absolutely. Wendy says, where there's a need, there's a seed.

Justin Breen 19:02
Well, that's all this is, it's planting seeds. Planting seeds and waiting for it to grow.

Russ Johns 19:07
How many times have you had a conversation a year ago or two years ago...

Justin Breen 19:10
3-5-10. That's the exciting thing, man.

Russ Johns 19:14
And it doesn't nurture until at the right point at the right time,

Justin Breen 19:20
Right. Again, nothing is random. Here's the exciting thing. So my company is a little over three and a half years old, so I talked to some of the most brilliant people in the world. What some of them have told me is, like at the five year mark, that's when it really gets interesting because some of these bigger companies are really high level thinkers. When you start a company, they just kind of sit back and wait. Then at the five year mark, they're like, okay, this is the real deal. Then that's when they reach out and so again, the seeds I'm planting, especially in 2020, most of the seeds I planted are with folks running high 6 figure to 10 figure businesses. I've helped them tremendously and they've helped me tremendously. When those seeds really blossom and bloom, it's gonna be unbelievable. So again, when you have that abundance mindset, you realize there's no limits. It'll just keep getting better and better and that's what's happened. That's what's happening. That's what will happen. I'm just excited to see what happens.

Russ Johns 20:19
That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So when you're doing this, I would anticipate the year also, you have clients that you coach or you mentor or you guide along the way

Justin Breen 20:39
Good question. Yeah, yeah, it's a good observation.

Russ Johns 20:46
What's that opportunity look like? I know, because at some point in time, there's capacity of time. Physical limitation as the day is long. Obviously, don't fill your day with...

Justin Breen 21:00
nonsense?

Russ Johns 21:00
Nonsense, right. So what's the typical day look like for Justin?

Justin Breen 21:06
A typical day, yeah. I always laugh at that, because...

Russ Johns 21:12
Nothing's typical?

Justin Breen 21:13
Yeah. So the question I get a lot is, like, where do you see yourself in three years? And I always answer, well, where do I see myself in three hours, because every day Monday through Friday, I have between five and 10 conversations with some of the most amazing people on the planet. All of these opportunities come from that. But in terms of what my company, if you look at things in black and white, what it actually does, again, like...problem, solution, solve. I was a journalist for 20 years, hundreds of times a day, I received press releases that were useless from people I didn't know, so that's a problem that annoys you. So my firm solution to that problem is that my firm creates newsworthy stories similar to what I did, as a journalist. It becomes a link on the client's website under news or blog or whatever. So it looked like a story you see in the LA Times, or New York Times or whatever. Then I take that link and pitch it to media locally, regionally, nationally, and internationall. If the media's interested, I put them in touch with the clients. So I spend some of my day doing that for clients, and then talking to other people and then introducing them to other people at a super high level. So there's no sales funnels or gimmick nonsense. It's just create value for people, they create value for me. Create value, create value, create value.

Russ Johns 22:26
Great conversations taking place.

Justin Breen 22:30
Endless.

Russ Johns 22:34
There's a lot of controversy or a lot of rumblings in the PR and the media firms and advertising. I've been in advertising since '85, so I've seen the changes. I've seen the evolution. There's always the next big thing. Ultimately, and you've been stating this the whole conversation is it still boils down to people, meeting people and having a conversation.

Justin Breen 23:02
That's it. So again, there's two ways I'm gonna answer that that are both extremely exciting. One, podcasts like these are in the process of replacing mainstream media in terms of importance and relevance for three reasons. One, the host is almost always an entrepreneur, as opposed to a journalist, so the host understands the entrepreneurial brain and can ask questions that a regular journalist would never answer. I'm an entrepreneur who happens to be a journalist, as opposed to a journalist who's a journalist, there's a very big difference. Two, you can do a deep dive on someone, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever. So you can really get to know the person and it's not a drive by interview where you don't get to know the person. Three, the audience, although likely smaller than mainstream media, it's far more qualified. A regular person's not going to listen to this show. Why would they? They're not attracted to it, but a high level thinker will be. So that's been very interesting how media is evolving in that direction, and people are like, ah, is media dying? I'm like, no, it's just evolving. And it will just continue to evolve. So podcasts are just going to keep going in this direction, and then something else will take its place. And that's called progress. So people that tried to scale back on that are the ones with cost scarcity mindset, that doesn't impact me at all.

Russ Johns 24:25
J. Longmire Harrison says, first time listener. Had to stop what I was doing and truly engage and listen, love it! That's when...

Justin Breen 24:37
magnet,

Russ Johns 24:38
magnet attraction, you know, this attraction factor and building it out. It's not to say that we don't also experience moments and in that hesitation, were you thinking, is this the right direction? I mean, when you're breaking paths that have never been broken, you have to understand that, yeah, there might be some changes. That's the entrepreneur, you know, you can't fear the failure. You've got to fear the not doing more than the failure. And because there's gonna be...

Justin Breen 25:14
the word failure, it doesn't even exist. There's no failure. You're either winning or learning, winning or learning, winning or learning. So I'm either winning or learning, I don't believe in the word failure So there's words that I don't even believe exist anymore, even though I'm about to say them. The word cost does not exist to me, anyone who asks me what do you cost or charge within the first five or 10 minutes is automatically disqualified from being in my network because I know they're thinking in a transactional way, as opposed to a real relationship? The word competition to me does not exist, even though I just said it. It's all collaboration. There's no such thing as competition. Failure doesn't exist. That's not a word to me. It doesn't exist.

Russ Johns 25:51
Eliminate the noise and the nonsense.

Justin Breen 25:55
Yep. I'm the highest Deion dis you can imagine and boredom to me is worse than death. That's the actual personality type. So when you talk to people at a certain level, and they just say, hey, go do this, or go join this organization, or write a book, because you'll be a thought leader. I'm like, okay, I'll just do it. Yeah, I just do it and then every time I've made a significant investment, when I say significant, I mean over 10k, you know, 10-15-20k, it's an immediate...payoffs, the wrong word, but it's an immediate gain in my brain. The byproduct is profit blows up exponentially, but it's my brain and mindset that improve.

Russ Johns 26:43
So the profit changes the progress, right?

Justin Breen 26:48
That's an interesting question. I think the progress changes the profit. Profit is a byproduct of having the right mindset. Again, if someone asks what do you cost or charge, they're just thinking in a transactional way. I have real relationships with people, byproduct is they want to invest a significant amount of money in my firm, it's very simple and folks that lead with a transactional way, they're 100% in the cost, scarcity mindset, and they just don't understand this mindset.

Russ Johns 27:24
And also, it's a side effect of instant gratification. They don't understand the investment of time and experience in understanding what the relationship actually means.

Justin Breen 27:39
That's right. 100%. And again, so what's really exciting about these podcasts is the other thing is that it might not have a large audience at first, but as time goes, as it builds, the audience grows and grows. Then maybe the host interviews former President Obama or something, and then all of a sudden people subscribe or whatever. Then they go back into the archives and binge listen or binge watch. Then five years later, they'll reach out to you. So Voila.

Russ Johns 28:14
I've been doing this for over a year, with five days a week, I got over 250 episodes in of amazing people doing this. I do it because I love doing it and I see the progress.

Justin Breen 28:27
Oh, it will be amazing.

Russ Johns 28:28
I'm preaching this for five years, over five years that we're in a different era. Like you said, Justin, it's different, an evolution of what is taking place

Justin Breen 28:39
Every day is different.

Russ Johns 28:40
Yeah. So you are the media, you have the opportunity, the ability to produce exactly what you want to produce. That's what's the most beautiful thing about where we're living right now. It's amazing times and I truly appreciate you taking the time out and sitting in the 41 degree weather.

Justin Breen 29:01
Can tell I'm kind of shaking, shivering a little bit.

Russ Johns 29:04
I'll let you get back to the world of relaxing and thinking big thoughts and eliminating the noises and the nonsense.

Justin Breen 29:12
You hear the plane over my head? That's noise, but you know what? I live by an executive airport, so that's definitely a millionaire or billionaire in that plane for sure.

Russ Johns 29:22
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. I look for many more in the future. If there's things that you want to share or you can add value to your day,

Justin Breen 29:33
This is my book, by the way.

Russ Johns 29:35
Yeah, get your book, Epic Business.

Justin Breen 29:38
Chris Voss wrote the foreword man, Chris is the man. So there it is.

Russ Johns 29:42
Chris Voss did? Very cool.

Justin Breen 29:43
Yeah, you either do things or you don't do them. And if you do it, you do it right.

Russ Johns 29:48
Yeah, there you go. Pretty simple equation, right? Well, thank you so much for the time today Chris or Justin.

Justin Breen 29:59
That's awesome. I'm gonna tell him you said that.

Russ Johns 30:03
I gave him a shout out on the #piratebroadcast.

Justin Breen 30:05
Chris is a great guy, man.

Russ Johns 30:06
He's awesome. He's always welcome on the #piratebroadcasts. Thank you everyone for being here. I know that I appreciate you. Go out and live with abundance. Appreciate what you have, look forward to finding your genius zone and set some examples. Go out buy the book, where can people find the book, Justin?

Justin Breen 30:27
Amazon, Books a Million, Barnes and Noble, Walmart. It's on Audible. It's very weird having a professional actor read your voice or read your book. Very strange. Still haven't gotten used to that. But now it's an international bestseller in six countries. Number one for entrepreneurship in the US. So like, here's how I did it. It isn't magic. It's not magic, Meshell.

Russ Johns 30:49
Fantastic. Well, thank you, everyone, so much for being here. As you know, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday. Appreciate you.

Exit 31:09
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