Justin Lukasavige trained with Dave Ramsey and his team early in 2006 and immediately launched Lukas Coaching. Soon other businesses were asking him how they could launch coaching companies too. Thus began his work helping people start and grow a business they really cared about. Justin now spends his time creating audio and video for his community. He speaks around the world – remotely and in person – and has worked with clients around the globe.
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Resource Mentioned:
- Your Big Idea: Successful Entrepreneurs have One Big Idea. Follow JLD’s FREE training & you’ll discover Your Big Idea in less than an hour!
Success Quote
- “I used to be afraid at failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I am more afraid at succeeding at things that don’t matter.” – Bob Goff.
Business Failure
- Justin made a HUGE realization in life. When his wife challenged him to sit down and make a list of what was holding him back from launching into his dream, you won’t believe what he wrote down…
Entrepreneurial AHA Moment
- Whether in person or virtually, Justin knows building any business revolves around engagement. Engaging your customer, peers, and role models MUST be a major part of your every day life. Find out Justin’s tactics…
Current Business
- Coachradio.tv sounds super interesting. Find out what Justin has in store for us budding entrepreneurs!
Lightning Round
- Justin goes in-depth here, and stays on his theme of engagement. Invaluable advice.
Best Business Book
- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller.
Interview Links
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!
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Full Transcript
John Lee Dumas: Hire Fire Nation and thank you for joining me for another episode of EntrepreneurOnFire.com, your daily dose of inspiration. If you enjoy this free podcast, please show your support by leaving a rating and review here at iTunes. I will make sure to give you a shout out on an upcoming showing to thank you!
John Lee Dumas: Okay. Let’s get started. I am simply overjoyed to introduce my guest today, Justin Lukasavige. Justin, are you prepared to ignite?
Justin Lukasavige: I am.
John Lee Dumas: Alright! Justin trained with Dave Ramsey and his team early in 2006 and immediately launched Lukas Coaching. Soon, other businesses were asking him how they could launch coaching companies too. Thus began his work of helping people start to grow a business they really cared about. Justin now spends his time creating audio and video for his community. He speaks around the world, remotely and in person, and has worked with clients around the globe.
Justin, I’ve given a little overview of your business. Why don’t you tell us a little more about who you are, what you do, and if I pronounced your last name correctly.
Justin Lukasavige: [Laughs] You got it. You got it right, John.
John Lee Dumas: Yes!
Justin Lukasavige: Thanks for all the effort. I know you’ve been up all night working on that. It shows.
John Lee Dumas: Thank you.
Justin Lukasavige: I work in a tiny little shed – an 8×12 shed in my backyard. Actually, a 10×12 shed in my backyard at 8,500 feet in the mountains of Colorado. It’s a place that inspires me. It’s a place that I love to be. I’m staring out the window right now. It’s sort of drizzly morning, but I can see the sun right behind this, and I’m sure it’ll be out here by the time we’re done.
I do marketing and operations predominantly for startup businesses. So it’s a lot of flexibility. It allows me to work every so often with folks who are local here in Colorado. We’re pretty close to Colorado Springs, which is about 600,000 people. But predominantly, my clients are scattered throughout the US, and then around the world. So I do a number of things, but it all comes down to doing things that really impact other people.
John Lee Dumas: That is wonderful. Thank you for giving us that visual of where you are right now. That truly is inspiring with the sun trying to break through the clouds.
So at EntrepreneurOnFire, we like to start every show off with a success quote because it’s kind of our way of getting the motivational ball rolling, so to speak, and get our clients and audience and listeners really pumped up for the rest of the content that we’re going to provide. So Justin, what do you have for us today?
Justin Lukasavige: So a guy by the name of Bob Goth says, “I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid at succeeding at things that don’t matter.”
John Lee Dumas: That is quite a detailed quote. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.
Justin Lukasavige: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: Can you give us an example of how you’ve used that quote in your lifetime?
Justin Lukasavige: Yes. Let me break that down because so many people have come to me over the last – I started my business over six years ago, and have been doing it fulltime as my sole source of income for the last four years. Over that period of time, I’ve gone through this transition in my business, but I’ve had a lot of people come to me that have gotten really good at doing things that don’t matter to them.
When they realize the predicament that they’re in – I mean, imagine a lawyer who’s making a quarter million dollars a year that is the best in the world at something they don’t even like. I mean it’s heartbreaking when you start to sit back and think through. Wow! I mean, here’s something that this person is good at. They don’t even like it. They could be using their skills to do something they’re good at that changes the world that has an impact on other people, but they’re not.
So the people that I’ve heard that from throughout the years, I mean it’s just heartbreaking. So when I saw this quote by Bob, “I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid at succeeding at things that don’t matter,” I would wager to guess that as Americans, most of us are in that predicament, and most people don’t know how to get out of it.
John Lee Dumas: I would definitely agree with that, and thank you for breaking that down specifically because I do have my head totally wrapped around that now and I could not agree more. Looking back on my life and some roads that I’ve started down and pulled back out of, which I’m so thankful at this moment, but I can just see the path that was before me and that people have continued down in other ways, shapes and forms. How have you actually applied this quote at the ground level to you and your practice in your life?
Justin Lukasavige: Well, I mean this really can revert back to where I was when I started my business. I was doing something that didn’t really matter to me. I was great at it. But the schedule, the travel – all that got to me. While it was having an impact on people, it wasn’t manifesting itself the way that I wanted to. Then at the same time, I didn’t know how I wanted that to manifest it. So I just started doing something.
You mentioned that I trained with Dave Ramsey and I started helping people with their finances. I’d give them a plan to get out of debt. I’d give them the tools, the motivation and the inspiration to figure out why they’re doing it. It was through that that I started building my business, and then other people were asking me, how did you do that? It really came down to marketing. I gave them some ideas and I said, “Do this and this and this and this.” So long story short, that’s what I do now. I’ve been doing that for about four years, specifically in marketing and operations.
So it was just this transition of doing something that I was really good at that didn’t matter to me. I would go to work and it was kind of a mindless thing. I would go to work, I would sit down and I would do it. I’d be gone for three or four days at a time, and I’d come home, and then I could live my life, and it was just compartmentalized and it wasn’t good.
John Lee Dumas: Thank you for sharing that. We’ll use that to transition to our next topic because here at EntrepreneurOnFire, we really tell the story of the entrepreneur. Justin, you’re our spotlighted entrepreneur today, so we want to hear about your journey.
Every entrepreneur that’s had a journey, that’s experienced life, has also experienced failures or obstacles or challenges, however they want to define it, and it’s just part of who we are and the life that we lead. As entrepreneurs, we try not to let those failures or obstacles define who we are and propel us forward. So can you take us back to a time that you’ve come up to a challenge or an obstacle or had a failure and how you reacted to that?
Justin Lukasavige: Yes. This is a question and it’s a powerful question, and I think it’s different for everybody. But one of the biggest obstacles for me was just getting a new business launched and then doing it fulltime. So many people want to do that. I don’t remember what the stats are, but something like 80% of Americans think that they have a book in them. They want to write a book. And most of them never will. It doesn’t even matter if it’s good. Most of them never will even start.
Business is sort of like that too. I think a lot of people have ideas, and a lot of people have great ideas that they will never act on. It’s really a shame. So my biggest thing was just doing something.
I was walking around the house and I wanted to get out of my previous job for a long time. My wife was one of my biggest proponents of that because she wanted me home. We had two young kids at home and we wanted at least one more. That’s where we are now. We’ve got three girls.
I was walking around just sort – I was probably whining a little bit, but saying, “Man, I wish I could do this. I wish I could do this.” At some point, my wife just got tired of it, and Christine just said, “Why don’t you?” I was prepared, or I thought I was anyway, with I’m going to give her like 250 reasons why I couldn’t…
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Justin Lukasavige: Because things are in my way. But John, there wasn’t one. I mean I sat for a couple of days and I was like, “Okay. She said that,” and I know she said it in passing, but I took it as a real serious thing, and I thought, I’m going to make this list and I’m going to say, “Here’s why this won’t work,” and I couldn’t come up with one valid reason. If I was honest with myself, one valid reason why it wouldn’t work.
So for me, it was not knowing that whole plan 100% laid out, it was knowing the next step. Here’s sort of my vision down the road – which visions are great and I think you need to have them – rarely does that vision come to fruition because you learn – and that’s a good thing. It’s because you learn things along the way that make that vision change.
So while I knew here was my vision, I didn’t know how to get there, but I knew what the next step was. Then when I did that, I knew what the next step was. Then I did that, and I knew the step after it. So I got to doing that.
That was the biggest thing. I mean it’s scary when you’re out there and you’re trying to launch something, and it never ends. Right? I mean I’m an entrepreneur now and I’m working on an idea that as near as I can tell, nobody in the world has done it before. Now, it’s not the biggest thing out there. I don’t know. I guess it could be a multimillion dollar business. It’s not necessarily my vision for it. But I think that nobody’s done it before, and so there’s no plan to follow. And it’s scary.
John Lee Dumas: So in a way, your obstacles that you had in your mind were made up, because when you sat down and actually analyzed what was holding you back, you found out that there was nothing. That was very powerful. Thank you for sharing that.
My question that leads from that is what was a specific lesson beyond these fake obstacles that you had created that you truly pulled from that moment?
Justin Lukasavige: Oh, and this was a really important lesson and it’s one that I learned stupidly. It took me 12 months to learn it. It was that I couldn’t do it on my own. I mean you mentioned that I trained with Dave Ramsey and his team, and I went out to Nashville and I spent a full week just sitting down, and it was intense. [8:00] AM to [5:00], [6:00], [7:00] PM, and it was just a fire hose and here’s how to do this.
I took that and I went back and I said, “Alright. I’m going to build this thing.” And I did. I got it to a point where it was up and running. It wasn’t very much income. It was like $800.00 or $1,000.00 a month, and it plateaued for months. Like four, five months, that was it. It wasn’t going anywhere else. I was like, “What? Okay, I need to work harder. I need to work harder!” and there’s a certain part of that where I couldn’t work any harder. I needed to know what I didn’t know. I needed somebody to help me solve my blind spots. What am I missing?
So my big realization, this lesson that I learned, was that I couldn’t do it by myself. As soon as I learned that – in fact, as soon as I – I don’t really call myself a coach because it’s sort of an overused term. But obviously my website is CoachRadio.tv. It’s sort of ironic there. So I was this coach who was out there trying to help other people, and I didn’t see the value, or maybe I was blinded by it, I didn’t see the value of hiring a coach for myself. That hit me like a ton of bricks, and I was like, I am the stupidest guy in the planet right now.
So what I did was as soon as I learned that, I went out. I spent two days with my coach. I flew halfway across the country. I spent two days with him. That was a few thousand dollars. Then I hired coaches for everything. But it was that one thing, John. Learning that lesson and then overcoming it just spoke volumes for my business. All of a sudden, things just took off. That was 12 months into my business. By the time I hit 20 months in my business, I went fulltime. So that was only eight months later.
John Lee Dumas: That is a powerful lesson. I’m looking now at CoachRadio.tv. What does your team look like?
Justin Lukasavige: My team, on any given day, could just be myself, or it could be a handful of other people scattered around the country, doing different things. Sometimes, I work with people locally here. By that, I don’t have any employees. I guess I’m an employee, but I don’t even like to consider myself one. I’m an employee of my own business.
Depending on the project that I’m working on, and sometimes I’ll go in and I’ll partner with other people, especially when we’re doing startups. Right? If I’m doing marketing or I’m doing operations. That could look like, well, how do we pull this website together and how do we put an e-commerce platform together for it? How do we make the website work so that when people come to it, they know what they’re supposed to do? There’s a call to action. Then how do we grow revenue and increase our sales? That can be a really big deal with a lot of startups, whether they have capital behind them or not. Usually, it goes beyond just me. Sometimes, I’m sitting down and I’m working with solopreneurs. When it comes into the bigger businesses, that’s, alright, identifying what needs to happen. Again, what is that vision that you have as a business? Where is it that you want to be down the road? Maybe it’s three to five years. Then where are we right now, and then what team do I need to assemble to make all of these happen?
So I’m not great at doing things on my own. I mean as a coach to look at somebody’s business and say, “Do this, this, this and this and let’s create a plan for that.” I can do that. That’s not a problem. But when it comes to making things happen, I need to surround myself with other people that make up for my weaknesses. I think I’m decently good at that.
So from any given day, it’s myself working on one project to three or four or six, or up to 10, 15 people that are all coming together trying to launch an idea or make something happen.
John Lee Dumas: Words of wisdom. So Justin, EntrepreneurOnFire is about your journey. You’ve shared an obstacle that you’ve come across and you’ve shared a couple aha moments that you’ve had through that journey. This is really where we’re at right now. We’re at the aha moment. Again, thank you for sharing some lights that have come on. As entrepreneurs, we’re always having small, medium, large aha moments throughout the course of our journey, and that light bulb can really be a source of inspiration for our listeners.
So beyond what you’ve already spoken of, have you had a light bulb moment where you just said, “Aha! This is it. This is going to resonate with my clients, with my audience, with people who I interact with”? Have you had that special moment?
Justin Lukasavige: Yes. I mean obviously, the biggest one was I guess about five years ago when I realized I couldn’t do it on my own. But I’m still having those. Business continues to circle back, and some days it feels like I’m just starting out. And I realize again and again, “Wait a minute. I’m not here trying to do something on my own. I need to bring in other people.”
I’m working on a project right now that involves a lot of video. I won’t go too in-depth into this, but I had some ideas on this on how to make some things happen and how to monetize an idea. Just thinking through it, there were some missing pieces and I spent time thinking, and then I left it alone, and a week later I’d come back and wake up in the middle of the night and I just keep thinking about this.
Then I realized when I had a meeting with somebody, just talking through this idea again, I was like, “Wait a minute. You’re the missing piece to this.” I need other people and I keep coming back to that. It’s like I need to write that on a piece of paper, in fact, and put, “You can’t do this alone, Justin.” I mean constantly, John, I’m having these flashbacks almost to, “Wait a minute. Here’s why it’s not working. You’re trying to work in your strengths, which is great, but what needs to happen here is there’s a missing piece to this and it’s an area where I’m weak at it. So I need to bring somebody in to make up for that, or it’s not going to work.”
John Lee Dumas: That’s great. Maybe the next time we have you on the show, you’ll have your own personal success quote. Have you had an I’ve made it moment?
Justin Lukasavige: It’s an interesting question. Right? I mean this I’ve made it moment. Yes and no. I mean, yes on when it comes down to there’s small projects where I’m like, “Wow! This is going to work. I can make money. I can get this idea spread out,” and it doesn’t even necessarily have to relate to money. It can just be this idea is taking off. This is great. Maybe you put something on Facebook and you get thousands of people to share it or even hundreds of people, where before it was like three people, and most of those were your family. You’ve had these little wins.
I think it’s a question that entrepreneurs constantly struggle with – getting their ideas to make money, and then just getting their ideas out there. I think that if I ever have this, “Wow! I’ve made it. I’m set,” I think that if that ever happens, to me in my mind, it’s sort of like I’ve reached a plateau to where it’s not going to be fun anymore, because as an entrepreneur I’m constantly chasing that. Then when I think I’ve made it, which is I think I’ve reached a goal in my mind, I’m going to go after something else.
You hear people that say, “Well, I want to do this. I want to launch this idea that’s going to make millions or billions of dollars. I’ll sell it for one-and-a-half billion dollars.” Sort of like Zappos did. I mean with Tony Hsieh, Zappos was like a $1.2 billion sale to Amazon, but it’s something that Tony, the CEO, was so passionate about, that it was contingent on we will sell the company to Amazon if you continue to let me run it just like we’re running it now, because it is something that he was so passionate about. It was so here’s the sale of the company that’s $1.2 billion, and it’s sort of off on the side, right? “Okay. Yes, we sold it. Let’s go back to work,” because I’m constantly working to get to that next goal.
So while it’s okay to think that you’ve made it, in my mind it’s alright, I’ve accomplished this goal. What’s next? That’s the thing that keeps me going.
John Lee Dumas: I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head when you just said that. As an entrepreneur, it’s really a blessing and a curse. I mean we just have this internal drive to get to this certain level and the goals that we’ve set for ourselves. Then once we reach that, the lucky ones, we might take a deep breath, smile and appreciate it, but then we continue to push that goal to a higher and higher level. So we’re never just at this completely satisfied moment. Your example with Zappos was great, and his book, “Delivering Happiness,” is very inspirational. I would recommend anybody reading that book. It’s just a great lesson of how to do entrepreneurship correctly. I really take a lot of guidance from that. So thank you for bringing that up.
Justin Lukasavige: It’s a good book.
John Lee Dumas: Justin, we’re going to now move into your current business. You have a lot of exciting things going on. We mentioned CoachRadio.tv. That’s exciting. I’d like to delve into that. Before we really delve into the full parameters of it, what’s one thing that’s really exciting you about your business today?
Justin Lukasavige: Well, it’s the same thing honestly, John, that excited me when I first started it. That is being able to have an impact on one person’s life. It’s scaled a little bit since I first started it. When I was doing financial coaching, I would sit down with one person or one family. A husband and wife sitting across the desk from me.
Moving in, it’s been a long transition, so I won’t make this sound like it happened overnight. But now when I can build an e-commerce platform and something that – one of my recent clients was a company called Story Company, and it’s StoryCompany.com. You’ll go there and you’ll find some really interesting, high quality and unique handmade goods from people around the world.
What we were doing when we started the company and launched it out was to find these people in other parts of the world that want to get out of just bad situations. Right? They’re living in abject poverty and they’ve got skills and they can make things, but they sell them in their village. They don’t have access to global markets like we do here in the US. We can start a business and put it on eBay and Amazon, and you can take PayPal payments tomorrow. You can’t do that in Rwanda. Right? It doesn’t work.
So what we did at Story Company was open that up and give them access to those global markets. Now, when we make a sale of a t-shirt or a bracelet or a handbag or a purse, I know when that money comes in, I can see the person that that’s going back to and it’s supporting their family. So it’s the very same reason that I started my business so many years ago, and that’s to help people.
John Lee Dumas: Well, that is exciting. Thank you for making an impact on the EntrepreneurOnFire audience. That’s a way that you are continuing to further your goals and your aspirations by helping people, and that’s such a worthy endeavor. I’m really interested to learn more about your company. Is it StoryTime.com?
Justin Lukasavige: StoryCompany.com.
John Lee Dumas: Great! StoryCompany.com. We’ll absolutely put all of these links in the show notes for our listeners to go to afterwards.
So we’ve talked about what’s exciting you right now, and that is very exciting things. What is something that’s exciting you for the future of your business? What visions do you have?
Justin Lukasavige: To me, it’s open doors. Right? When a door opens, do I have the guts and the courage to go through it? So I don’t know what ideas are out there. I mean for me, it’s not, “Alright, sit down and here’s the vision of where I want to go and I want to accomplish these things,” and it’s not – I’m trying to describe this right. It’s not, “Okay, I want to build a store that has 50,000 unique skews and has this number of sales.” It’s not that at all. I mean if the right idea comes around, maybe it’s something I jump on, but for me it’s recognizing when the doors open and put myself out there. And that’s not something that comes naturally to me.
I mean I’m the world’s biggest introvert. And for me to go out and to talk to people and to network and do that sort of thing, I mean I’m definitely not the life of a party. If you see me at a party, I’m probably on the side or in a corner somewhere, talking to one person. But when I see those doors, I want to run through them.
Specifically right now, I mentioned a video project, and it’s not being done anywhere in the world, and that’s something that scares me. I mean you always have to ask yourself the question, “Alright. Because this isn’t being done anywhere in the world, does that mean that it’s such a great idea that nobody’s ever had it?” Which I think is doubtful. The other side of it is has somebody tried it? Maybe multiple people, and they failed at it. That’s a little bit scary. But I think if you do your due diligence and you sit down and you work out a plan, and you start talking to people, it’s either going to come together or it’s not. The future for me is constantly looking at what are the open doors, where am I being pushed, and will I fall if I’m being pushed and stay there, or will I take a step and walk through that door?
John Lee Dumas: Great. Well, I look forward to following your progress through those doors.
Justin Lukasavige: Thanks.
John Lee Dumas: So Justin, you’ve been very transparent with the EntrepreneurOnFire audience, and we really do appreciate that. I’d like to take that one step further because the word entrepreneur is a mystery to most people. At EntrepreneurOnFire, we really try to pull back the curtain and kind of show that we’re just normal people too. So I know that no day for you is exactly the same and you have different days, but we always do go back to those common tasks that do take up a good portion of our time every single day. What are two tasks that seem to occupy a good portion of your day?
Justin Lukasavige: Well, half of it doesn’t directly make money for me, and yet it does. A big part of that is marketing. Everything you do is marketing. If you work in a business, if you’re an employee, if you have other employees working for you, everybody is in marketing. Everything you do is marketing. From the way you answer the phone, every single email that gets sent out is marketing. When you’re in the grocery store and you run into somebody and have a conversation, even if it’s something that doesn’t relate to your business, it is marketing. You never know where that’s going to go and what’s going to come from that. So marketing is a big thing for me.
Then the thing that doesn’t directly make money, and yet it does, is social media, because it’s just talking to people. In fact, yesterday, I was helping a friend move. And I met, I don’t know, three or four people. We live in a small town, so it’s a big deal when you meet three or four new people. We were helping this guy move and we had a great conversation going and talking about what everybody does. There may or may not have been some business that resulted of that.
Now I don’t go and help somebody move, I don’t go to church, I don’t do any of that because I expect to meet somebody and make a sale, but sometimes that happens. It’s kind of an end result sometimes, but you’re constantly marketing. And not in a bad way. In a very, very good way. You’re going to be putting yourself out there and talking to people and making relationships, and I do that both online and off.
So when we talk about social media, it’s just – to me, Twitter is personal, and yet I also use it for business. The same with Facebook, although Facebook for me is mainly personal. It’s more difficult – not that it’s difficult for everybody – but it’s more difficult for me to do business things on there, and so I don’t, or I do very few.
Social media is just talking to people. Right? That’s all it is. If I’m talking to a guy about whatever, his holiday weekend, and we’re talking about plans and about fishing or he’s going out boating or camping with his family, who knows where that’s going to lead? It’s the same whether you’re doing it in social media or offline. So I’m constantly talking to people and building relationships. Again, it’s that community part of this. You can’t do any business or any project on your own and expect it to – maybe you’ll make some money and you’ll be profitable, but it won’t ever be as big as you want it to be. So just getting myself out there and talking to people is really what occupies a lot of my time.
John Lee Dumas: In this day and age, engagement is so key, whether that’s face to face, whether it’s virtually, face to face on social media, whatever platform you use, if you’re not engaging, you’re really not maximizing the potential of your business. I totally agree with you. Thank you for sharing that.
So we’re going to move on to the Lightning Round. This is my favorite part of the show. This is where I get to ask you a series of questions, and you get to come back with amazing and mind-blowing content. Does that sound like a plan?
Justin Lukasavige: It sounds fantastic. I’m sure my answers will be mind-blowing.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] What was the number one thing holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?
Justin Lukasavige: I think it was fear. I’m going to back this up in a different way than I think a lot of people expect to hear it because people say, “Well, I’m afraid. How do we face the fear?” I don’t think there really is fear. I think there’s fear, but it’s not the negative fear that a lot of people think it is. For me, it was fear of success. I think that’s what a lot of people think as well.
That job that I was doing that I no longer am was a job as an airline pilot. I was a captain and my fear was that I would succeed in my business and wouldn’t ever be called an airline pilot anymore because I would leave. People are deathly afraid of success because it disrupts their life. I mean it’s valid. Right? It’s a valid fear that, Wow, my life is going to change! I hate what I’m doing, but I’m comfortable. I’ve got a paycheck, things are okay. I am afraid of doing something else and having to relearn that.” That was definitely true for me.
John Lee Dumas: That is powerful. I often refer to T. Harv Eker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Have you read that book?
Justin Lukasavige: I have not.
John Lee Dumas: It’s a great book because it really addresses the mindset and how it’s our mindset that sometimes limits the amount of success – financial success or happiness that we attain in life. It’s a great, well-rounded book. It was written a long time ago, but it’s still so relevant today that it’s incredible. I would recommend it to anybody who is just really engaged with Justin’s answer here.
So Justin, what is the best business advice you have ever received?
Justin Lukasavige: Well, I don’t know who said this. It’s more of a general thing, but do one thing every day that scares you. It’s super good advice. Here’s my thing to put on top of that. If you do that one thing every day that scares you in the very beginning part of your day, you’re going to have an awesome day. Now there’s a chance that you’ll have a bad one because you’ll do something that scares you and you’ll fail at it, but you’re going to learn something from it. Really, it’ll change your life, if not just your business.
John Lee Dumas: Yes. I can’t attribute this to anybody. I’ll probably be able to do it in the show notes, but his quote was “swallow the frog first thing in the morning.” That basically just says that exact thing. When you first get going, whatever you don’t want to do, swallow that frog first and you’ll feel great the rest of the day.
What is something that’s working for you or your business right now?
Justin Lukasavige: Building relationships. I mean I don’t advertise, so referrals are key. I mentioned helping somebody move and just meeting people. You never know what’s going to come about from that. In fact, I would say that all of the local business that I have done here in Colorado has just been from meeting people. You meet somebody and they introduce you to somebody else, and somebody knows somebody that knows somebody, and all of a sudden you’re doing a big thing.
My family and I went to a wedding in California, and the father of the bride, we just got to talking. I mean he was a great guy, really interesting, and he had to retire from a business. A number of times he tried to retire. He lives in Silicon Valley in San Jose, California and he had been the CFO for four different startups that just all made it big. All four startups you’ve heard of. He’s working with another one right now. He came out of retirement. They pulled him out. They needed some help with marketing and operations. We just started talking.
I mean it was just fascinating. I don’t know if anything will come of it, and I certainly didn’t go to that wedding because of, “Well, I could get some business if I go to this wedding.” It’s not that at all, but naturally, I enjoy finding interesting people to talk to and learning what their stories are. Then sometimes, just amazing things come about.
John Lee Dumas: I love the theme so far of this little chat we’ve been having, which is interact and engage because that’s so important, and I’m really glad you’re getting that message across.
So Justin, what’s the best business book that you’ve read in the last six months?
Justin Lukasavige: Well, I’ll tell you, I haven’t been reading much nonfiction, which is this is maybe surprising to a lot of people. If I would have heard myself say this six months ago, I would be amazed too because all I’ve ever read is nonfiction. Since starting the business, books have been imperative to me. Yes, it was probably about six months ago or so that I just sat down and I said, “You know what? I want to get out of this. I don’t ever want to get stuck and okay, the next business book, the next business book, the next business book.” Then I said, at least for the next three months, I’m going to read nothing but fiction.
There are a number of reasons why I wanted to do that. One of the most important ones was because I wanted to be a better writer. I wanted to be a better storyteller. That comes through not just in writing, but in a number of ways. So I started reading just fiction.
Gosh, I got to tell you. If you’re just stuck in nonfiction like I was – I mean if somebody recommended a fiction book, I’d say no way. There’s just no way I’m doing that. But I did get out and started reading a lot of fiction, and it’s changed the way that I look at a lot of things.
I’m going to throw a book out here that is a nonfiction book, and not necessarily a business book, but it’s more of a life book. It’s written by an author. His name is Don Miller. The book is called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” From a business and from a personal perspective, I think those are the same. Right? Your business is your life. If you’re going out there just to chase something that’s going to make a lot of money, it’s probably not going to work. You’ve got to be doing something that you’re inspired by. This business is your life because you’re so excited about it. In fact, that you would do it without the worry of how am I going to get paid for this?
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is a super boring title, but after about 50 people told me to read it, I read it, and I’ve read it a number of times now. I read it again within the last six months. It’s a book that just gives you a different outlook on your life and how you’re doing your business to be sure that you’re doing the right thing. I mean at the end of the day, it’s are you living a story that you’re proud of? When you get to the end of it, is it something that you’re going to want people to about as your eulogy, for instance? Right? Justin did this, and they’re really proud to talk about it. So A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is a great book from that perspective.
John Lee Dumas: Great! I have never heard of that book, which is rare because I am an avid reader. So I really look forward to delving into that.
Justin Lukasavige: I love it.
John Lee Dumas: Justin, this last question is my favorite, and it’s kind of a tricky one. So you can take your time, digest it, and then come back at us with an answer.
Justin Lukasavige: Okay.
John Lee Dumas: If you woke up tomorrow morning and you had all of the experience, knowledge and money that you currently have today, but everything about your business had completely disappeared, leaving you with essentially a clean slate, which is where most of our listeners are finding themselves right now, what would you do in the next seven days?
Justin Lukasavige: A lot of people that are in business, John, would think about this and say, “Oh, I’d do all these things differently.” I think that I tend to do business a little bit differently than most people. I’d work to rebuild. I mean this is what I’m doing every single day. You know those open doors that I mentioned earlier, is just looking for them and pushing myself out of the comfort zone to walk through those doors.
With the same experience and everything that I have right now, I’d be doing exactly what I’m doing and chasing down opportunities and figuring out where can I work, how can I fine tune this so I’m working more on my gifts and more on my strengths, and surrounding myself with other people who can make up for my weaknesses to where they’re using their strengths and we can really build something that matters? Again, I don’t know what that is, but I’d continue to work and rebuild it.
So it’s an interesting question. I mean a lot of my business, I’ve been there. I get sort of tired of some things and I say, “I want to do this a little bit differently,” and I just sort of blow things up. Right? I start from scratch and I say, how can I rebuild this? How can I make it better? Given what I know about myself and business and what I’m good at, how could I do more of that? Where could I work that’s going to have more of an impact on people? That’s what I do.
John Lee Dumas: Great! Thank you for being so specific on that. Justin, thank you for joining us today. You’ve given us some great actionable advice, and we are definitely all better for it. Give Fire Nation one last piece of guidance, give yourself a plug, and then we’ll say goodbye.
Justin Lukasavige: Well, John, I appreciate you having me on the show. I love these questions. I love where you’re coming from to really get at the heart of all of these. I’d say our conversation comes back to don’t chase an idea just because there might be some money behind it or because it’s a passing fad. Do what it is that you’re truly excited about and passionate about, and is something that keeps you awake at night.
I mean just last week, I got up at three in the morning because I was so excited about an idea. I laid there for about 20 minutes and I said, “Forget it. I can’t go to sleep. I’m just going to work on this for maybe an hour, and then go back to sleep.” Then an hour turned into [6:30] in the morning, and then I had to go get the kids up for school.
That’s the thing that people should be chasing. Not another moneymaking opportunity, not the latest MLM or franchise out there. They should be chasing the thing that they’re truly excited about.
John Lee Dumas: Alright. Then give yourself a plug.
Justin Lukasavige: So I’m at CoachRadio.tv. You’ll find everything on social media. You can contact me on Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff. CoachRadio.tv, I do a show there and a blog throughout the week, and you’ll find links to a lot of other stuff that I’m doing.
John Lee Dumas: Justin, once again, thank you for your time, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.
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