34: Justin Peterson of LegalShield: Surround Yourself With Who You Aspire To Be

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:25 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, I'm joined by Justin Peterson, who is the top executive at LegalShield under 30. And thanks to Ryan Alvord, who was the star of episode 32, uh, for getting Justin and I connected. Welcome to the show, Justin.

0:39 Justin Peterson: Thanks, Scott. Glad to be here.

0:41 Scott Ingram: So let's kick this off like we always do in an effort to front-load some serious value in what I'm sure will be a rather lengthy conversation like they typically are. So Justin, what do you believe are the top 3 things that have allowed you to get to the top at LegalShield?

0:57 Justin Peterson: Sure. Um, well, you know, we talked a little while ago, and I think that the first thing that popped in my head was the ability to observe the masses and do the opposite. I think it's really easy, you know, especially with human tendencies, to want to fit in. You know, it comes from an evolutionary psychology where we really want to be included in the herd. And if you're doing something that's different from everybody else, it's like you almost feel excluded. And so I like to take the philosophy of observing the masses and doing the opposite, because oftentimes you find that you can get ahead. And there's, I mean, there's so many silly examples. For example, you know, whenever you're driving down the road, maybe through like peak traffic hours, and there are 2 right turn lanes whenever you get off the highway, most of the time everybody gets in the right of the 2 right turn lanes. And so there's this line of cars and whenever, whenever you're looking at it, you're like, well, there must be something blocking that first turn lane because otherwise people would be in it. But oftentimes we just overthink it and we have this herd mentality that allows us to just get in a line of traffic for no reason. So if you allow yourself to observe the masses and do the opposite, I've found that helps quite a bit as it relates to my business. I just simply changed the conversation. And Scott, of course, we're going to get into a little bit more about the product that I represent and the company that I'm with, but Ultimately, I just, I took a completely different spin on what it was that we were representing. Uh, and it gave me some great success. You know, number 2, uh, I think that finding a group of mentors that number 1, have what you want, but number 2, most importantly, have been where you are currently. You know, it's one thing if you want to say amass a huge real estate portfolio and be worth billions of dollars, you know, Donald Trump would be somebody who you would want to take advice from, but the The catch is that he didn't start necessarily where you started. Unless you started with millions of dollars worth of inheritance, he can't teach you how to get there because he hasn't started where you are starting. So, mentorship is huge. And then, the third one is having a tight inner circle. I think it's so crucial because we hear often in the personal development world and in the success world that You are the average of your 5 closest friends, or you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with. And so, if you're looking at a hack to success in life in whatever area you're trying to improve on, simply find the 5 people who have what you want and try your best to be around them at all times. You don't want to be the smartest person in the room. You don't want to be the richest person in the room. You want to be the person who, whenever you walk into the room, you're absorbing things from people who have more than what you have. And I just found that one trick alone, I think, is probably the best of all. It's kind of like a cheat code in a video game. If all you have to do is just find the people who have what you want and spend as much time with them as possible, you can't help but have their habits rub off on you. And so I love that one, man. So I think that, Scott, those 3 would be my, my answers for you.

4:14 Scott Ingram: I love it. And when you… what does that look like in actual reality for you? What, what is your inner circle? Who are those 5 people?

4:22 Justin Peterson: Sure. Well, you know, I love what I do and I think that it's really important that in life what it is that you're working on is a passion of yours. Um, and what that allows you to do is wake up every day, not feeling as if you're going to work, feeling as if you're just doing what's fun. And what that allows you to do also is work with people who you enjoy being with, you know, because if the area in which you're working is a passion of yours, well, you're going to work with other people who are also passionate about what they do. And so in my, reality, you know, I work with my best friends and my best friends are always growing in life. They're always progressing in life. You know, it's almost like the opposite of what school was like where, you know, most of the time it's not quote unquote cool to do your homework and get the best grades and read extra. You're an overachiever there. But the reality that I've made for myself is that my inner circle is made up of people who are overachievers, who are humble and hungry. You know, they are people who challenge me every single day and I challenge them. They are people who, you know, it is not only acceptable, but it's celebrated to find, seek and find progress in their everyday life. And if that's not something that is part of somebody's everyday life, I'm not interested in being around them. And it's not because I feel as if I am better than anybody else. It's just a matter of a standard that I've set for myself that if you're going to get my time and if I'm gonna give you some if I'm going to take some of yours, you know, we have to have a mutually beneficial exchange socially where you're going to make my life better and I'm going to make yours. And so I think it really comes down to monitoring who your friends are. And I think it's really important to know because especially for, for the listeners who may be in their beginning chapters of maybe a sales journey or just a journey into success in general, the people who you start your journey with won't be the people you end your journey with. And you, you will have to level up your friends, you know, and it sounds like unfortunate or, or maybe a little, um, uh, surface level, but you have to make sure that you're policing the people who are taking the most of your time. Um, because otherwise it's just a drain, man. That may be the people around you that, that you might be trying to start this journey for, maybe the ones holding you back the most. So, that's my reality.

6:50 Scott Ingram: Nice. And when you think about that, is it the whole package in the person or are you looking for kind of specific traits? And what I mean by that is, do you have one friend that's super fit and one friend that is really rich and another one that's really productive? Or how do you think about that?

7:08 Justin Peterson: Yeah. That's an awesome question. I think it's all the above because if you're waiting to find your inner circle of people who are 10 out of 10s on every category of life, you're going to be looking for a long time. Because, you know, even the, even the most successful people in life, they, they are better at some things than they are of others. And that's what makes them successful is that they have self-identified where their strengths are. So I think that if you think about all the categories of life and you can select people who have extraordinary results in the category of life that you are seeking to advance yourself in, you know, I think that is wonderful because as a portfolio of friends, you become a well-balanced person. So, you know, you're right, man. I have a a fitness junkie who's a friend of mine, Sam Miller, right? I have a health junkie who's a friend of mine, uh, Sharif Fuad. I have a, a financial friend, Frank Acquoin. And, and once you create that portfolio of people, again, if you're the sum of your 5 closest friends, as long as you select them correctly, uh, you can't help but adopt those traits and become successful in the areas in which they're successful themselves.

8:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. And, and what do you bring to that? I mean, what's, what's your biggest area of strength?

8:20 Justin Peterson: I think depth of vision and conviction. There are a lot of areas that other people are better than me in terms of what we do as a business, but I've always been the macro thinker. I've always been the big picture, you know, 30,000-foot overview, probably a dozen times a day. That's like my thing because I can see the whole picture before it comes together. And I think it's really important, especially in the area of success, that you're able… that there are the visionaries that, that can kind of chart the course before you embark on the journey and then have the ability to communicate, uh, that charted course to a group of people and to get their, their emotional buy-in, their conviction to the destination we're all going on collectively. Um, and so yeah, I think depth of vision, Scott, and, uh, and conviction, my ability to articulate that charted course for a group of people.

9:19 Scott Ingram: Cool. So speaking of articulation, let's provide some context and maybe talk a little bit about what your role is and what LegalShield does.

9:29 Justin Peterson: Sure. So I oversee a sales force of promoters at a company called LegalShield. We represent… technically it's not an insurance product because it doesn't pay out dollars, but for all intents and purposes, imagine a product that is insurance-based that revolves around the legal industry. So it's just a membership where you pay a subscription fee and you will become a member of law firms in every state in the country and 4 provinces of Canada where if you call in, they're at your beck and call. And instead of paying an hourly rate for when you need them, you're paying a small monthly premium in case you do. So it's the same concept as car insurance. Instead of not having car insurance, which of course we can't do, but if you had the option not to have it and you get in a car accident, well, you're paying 100% of the damages on your car versus the alternative, you pay a little bit every month. If you get in an accident, then the insurance company takes care of that invoice for yourself. And so my role is promotion, it's production, and it's also recruitment. We have an ever-expanding sales force of people who choose to either promote it through B2B, where they will offer the product as a voluntary opt-in employee benefit that's payroll deducted, and then also people who will just sell it one-off, maybe at a coffee shop, to a small business owner, because we have small business plans, and then families and individuals as well.

10:55 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So what's your origin story? Where and how did you get your start in sales?

11:01 Justin Peterson: It started second semester, senior year of college. I got an opportunity to work in the life insurance arena, and it was really appealing because they painted the picture of an environment where I could own my own business inside of their business. And, you know, I'm 29 years old at the time. When I graduated, I was 23 years old, I guess. And my generation, the millennial generation, they're really known for wanting to live life on their own terms. And some people say it's entitlement, laziness, or over-demanding, but the reality is that, hey, look, we've seen generations before us go through the path in which they say was the right way, and a lot of people in their 50s, 60s, and sometimes even 70s are still working to create the life that they want to live, ultimately to retire. Okay? And I wanted my freedom from the beginning. I didn't want to have to work for 40 years to have my freedom. Wanted to have it from the beginning. So it was appealing to me to work a job where I could dictate my own hours and I could dictate my own schedule and I could dictate, you know, what I put in versus what I got out. The reality was, while I was 1099, it felt a lot more like a W-2. You know, it's like you had to show up at a certain time, you had to do a certain amount, you know, metrics of calls, of sales, of production, of prospecting. And, you know, the feeling of a manager breathing over my shoulder versus a mentor leading from the front, you know, I didn't like the environment that I was in and I wanted something a little bit more appealing to me. And so that's where I sought a mentor. They taught me networking, and I found the industry that I find myself in today. And I transitioned from something that is relatively applicable, the life insurance world, to legal services. And man, it's been a blast ever since, Scott. You know, I'm kind of going against the grain working in an industry where, you know, a lot of the focus on building versus just personal sales and production. But I love it to death because I have the ability now, like we talked about in the beginning, to surround myself with people who have what I want, and it's just been a blessing ever since.

13:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And you are probably already headed down this course, but I always like to ask, if you were starting over today knowing what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently?

13:12 Justin Peterson: Yeah, actually, so I'm actually at a sales conference right now, and I had the opportunity to speak on a panel a couple hours ago, and that was the last question. And what I said was 2 things. One, I would have given myself permission to rid myself of guilt because whenever, you know, anybody in an entrepreneurial type venture where, you know, maybe it's conventional sales where your effort to dictate your outcomes, which I love to death, it's so easy to fall into a feeling of guilt. It's like, oh, I should have done more calls, or I should have gone to more meetings. And, and that feeling of guilt, man, it's just… there's nothing productive that comes from it. And that has been a consistency in my career because, you know, as a lot of the people that you have on the show, including you yourself, you know, there's a lot of, you know, highly ambitious people. And one of the themes that highly ambitious people, you know, get trapped in is the, the cycle of always wanting more. Which is great. It's healthy unless you're always wanting more and not happy where you are. And so, you have to find that place where you're happy no matter what, yet you're never satisfied. It's like if Steve Jobs was satisfied with the first version of the iPhone, if he was satisfied with the first version of a computer, we'd never be where we are today. But I'm sure he was happy with where he was and the progress he made the whole time. So, number one was ridding myself of guilt. Number two was creating systems that forced me to stay outside of my comfort zone. Anybody who's found any level of success knows that it's very tempting to fall into complacency and to rest back and say, yes, you know what I mean? Like, I did it. I achieved that level. I got that promotion. I got that raise. I got that bonus. Like, I did it. But as soon as you do that, even for a few days, it's like pedaling a bike uphill. As soon as you rest, I mean, you don't just slow down, you stop. And momentum is such a fragile thing that you have to treat with the utmost respect and know that you have to continue progressing. But again, the trick is to be happy no matter what, because I truly believe that everything is perfect in the moment that it is, always and no matter what. By adopting that philosophy and that outlook on life, it's so freeing. It's liberating. It's like if everything happens, if everything is perfect in the moment that it is, always and no matter what, then things that we perceive to be negative, things that we perceive to be a drawback, are perfect. It's like you were supposed to miss that sale. You were supposed to get rejected from that bid. You were supposed to be caught in traffic and miss an important meeting that you thought was critical to your career. That was all perfectly planned. We just have to program ourselves to find the reasons why. So in short, number one, rid myself of guilt, and number two, create systems that forced me to stay outside of my comfort zone so I always stayed on the leading edge of my business, my production, and all the things that I want to advance in life.

16:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so talk a little bit more about what is the system that keeps you out of the comfort zone?

16:30 Justin Peterson: System for me are the people that I talk to on a daily basis. So at the beginning, it was me and just a few of my business partners, and we didn't have a system. It was just go, go, go, do the best you can, and we'll just figure out where we land. But now, knowing, uh, some of the, some of the highs and lows and kind of, you know, being in the industry that I've been in for a couple years now and riding the ride, so to speak, I know that I need constant accountability. So I have daily morning mentorship calls with somebody who's changed my life forever. His name's John Gardner. And this is a gentleman who's achieved multiple millions of dollars worth of personal wealth. I mean, he's written multiple books, including one that you're probably familiar with. He co-authored Chicken Soup for the Soul, entrepreneurial book, Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneurial Soul with Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield. And just somebody who I admire. So, every morning at 10:15, I have a call with him that will range from 2 minutes to an hour, just depending on what's going on. And I'm always checking in, and he always constantly reminds me to plan tomorrow today. That's what he… and he just says over and over and over, Justin, plan tomorrow today, in his Southern accent and slow drawl. And so that one system, because of the respect and admiration I have for that gentleman, you know, I have no choice but to do the things I say I'm gonna do because the The consequence of not doing it is letting down somebody who I respect, somebody who's taking time out of his day and morning every day to make sure that I'm progressing because he has an interest in seeing my success. So, it really can be as simple as that, but I'll be transparent with you, Scott. There's so many more systems that I intend to put in place because I'm sure a lot of people can relate. As soon as you really feel like you're having great momentum in one area of life, it feels like it's inevitable that another area sacrifices. And for me, I was in such great physical shape. I was craving healthy foods all the time. I never slacked on the gym, but as soon as my financial success, my professional success went up, it was like my health and my fitness success declined. And so, what I intend to do What I will do, not what I intend to, what I will do is I'll create similar systems in all categories of life so that I police myself and allowing me to get myself out of the way because so often that's the biggest roadblock. That's the biggest bottleneck is just us. It's like Jordan Belfort's quote, the biggest thing keeping you from your own success is the BS story you keep telling yourself over and over.

19:15 Scott Ingram: So quantify your results for us a little bit. What does it take to be at the top there at LegalShield?

19:21 Justin Peterson: Sure. So, you know, to be at the top, you know, it's always going to depend on where the company's at based off of, you know, where their production recruiting numbers are. For me, I mean, some of, some of my accomplishments are that I'm in my 23rd month in the company, so February will be my 2-year anniversary. And we have… I actually was just pulling up the numbers before I got on the phone with you, Scott, because I figured that a question like this might come up. But, you know, really to boil it down, I have helped oversee a sales force of people that collectively we sold 5,400 legal memberships, legal policies. And what has put me, I guess, at the top of the charts is twofold. Number one, the growth of my organization, we equated to 10% of the entire company's growth last month in December. Myself and all of my associates directly equated to 10% of the company's growth. And then of course production numbers as well, which I would say that the vast majority of my sales force, we focus on individual sales as well as selling to small business owners and the arena of B2B. The arena of group benefit is something that we have really yet to take hold of. So our actual production numbers are not necessarily the same as some of the teams inside of the company, some of the agencies inside of the company who solely focus on that. Because you can go into, you know, for example, like a Johnson Johnson, and you can have 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000 membership sales, boom, in one meeting. Whereas for us, It's a lot like, you know, if you were to liken it to the real estate industry, you know, there are brokers in charge. My mom, in fact, is one. She started a small agency about a couple years ago, and her main focus is finding and attracting quality talent and agents to build her agency. And that really, in terms of how we're finding ourselves at the top of the leaderboard, that's how we quantify it. You know, last month, we, just myself and my organization alone, grew by 318 associates all across the country. So, you know, those are people in all, you know, all 50 states and a couple provinces of Canada for us. And anytime we help them create a membership sale, there are override dollars that, that we're able to, to realize as a result of helping the team grow. So yeah, man, 5,400 policies in the last 20 23 months, and in total we're at 2,230 active associates building and promoting this membership with us.

22:12 Scott Ingram: Cool. And when you say 10% of the growth of the company, I mean, this is… LegalShield is not a young organization.

22:18 Justin Peterson: Yeah, yeah, it's cool. So 10% of the growth of the company in terms of the associate base, that's how many people, you know, basically took a job with us and starting work started to work as promoters. But yeah, you know, on that topic real fast, it's not a, it's not a young company. It was established in 1973 as a business solutions company only. There was no aspect of networking. And what's been really cool is that we call ourselves a 45-year-old startup because just in the last 3 years… so think about it, the company's been around for 4 decades… just in the last 3 years, the, the company was bought off of the stock exchange, bought off, they were public, they were brought private, and we hired the former vice president of Microsoft, the gentleman who actually launched the Xbox, and since then he's completely revamped it. And what's cool, just for the listeners, is that what we're doing, so just kinda keep your eye out for it 'cause it's gonna be a really, really cool story, is that we're doing the same thing to the legal industry that Uber did to the taxi industry. You know, we've launched an app, we've simplified the process of getting access to your legal rights, just like Uber simplified the process of getting a ride. Whenever you think about it, you don't even have to know where you are. You know what I mean? It's like you could just be dropped anywhere, kidnapped, dropped anywhere, as long as you have your phone, you press a button, and magically you summon a car from the internet to come and pick you up. So we simplified the process, we've disrupted the price from $200, $300, $400 an hour for an attorney to about $1 a day for this membership. Same thing with Uber, they disrupted the price. And the app itself, the digital disruptor, you know, we're changing the industry. So yeah, sorry, I got off on a tangent, but it's just really cool to see that even though the company is so old, we are operating in a culture that's very much like a startup culture. Everyone is incredibly excited every single day. The company is seeing record-breaking growth month after month after month. In fact, the last quarter we were up 30%, which even for a new company is crazy. Better yet, you know, a company that's been around for almost half a century. So it's exciting times for us, and definitely keep an eye on what LegalShield's doing, 'cause, you know, in the next couple years, we will be a household name. It'll be just like Uber is now a verb. Instead of grab an Uber, it's like, I can Uber there. You know what I mean? So we're going in that same direction. It's really exciting.

24:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So from an accomplishment perspective, what are you most proud of?

24:45 Justin Peterson: That's a great question. And it really wouldn't be anything financial. I think in the company, people know my story because I shot up really quick in my first 5 months. Um, you know, I earned well over $100,000. There was a $106,000 bonus check that I was, uh, grateful to, to earn. But man, the thing that I'm most proud of probably would be allowing other people the same success that I've had. You know, I, I want to be the person who, you know, in like, for example, Scott, whenever you interview other people, I want to be included in their story. I want more people to say, well, you know, I was, I was doing this, I was doing that. And then I met a guy named Justin Peterson and, uh, You know, he changed everything for me. Just that one sentence. I want to be included just in one sentence to as many people's testimony as possible. And the thing that I'm most proud of is that I'm growing that list of people month after month, just because, you know, I think it's a characteristic that every leader needs to have, to be selfless. You know, you need to take the light and shine it on other people, because the more people you help get what they want, the more that you get of what you want. You know, and that, I think it, man, I think it's just, what the country itself is lacking. I think that we have run ourselves into a way of thinking that it's only the strongest survive. It's like you just look out for number one and forget about everybody else. But just think about the ripple effect if we reverse that. If we reverse that and we said it's about how many other people we can help. And that was the first step. In our thinking, that was the first thing we thought about whenever we woke up in the morning, how many other people can we help? I think it would just change everything about the world. That butterfly effect of that one small paradigm shift would be magnificent. So, my biggest accomplishment, man, is that every month I am adding to the list of people who can point at me and say, because of Justin, I am in a better position than I was before I met him.

26:52 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's look at the flip side now. What's the hardest part? What's the biggest challenge that you face?

26:59 Justin Peterson: Rejection. Rejection is inevitable in pretty much anything in life, but no matter how good you get at what you're doing, rejection still isn't pleasant. But what I liken it to is whenever you're in the first phase of your journey, rejection is like a smack in the face. It hurts, it's embarrassing, it throws you off guard, it shakes you up. But the better you get at what you're doing, it becomes less like a smack in the face and more like a mosquito bite. It's just annoying, you know what I mean? And it hurts for a second, and then you scratch it and it's gone. Like, you know, who cares? You just move on. But definitely the hardest part is the rejection because it's something you have to face on a consistent basis. And then the second thing is consistency. Because we're humans, you know, we're not perfect. And it's like what I talked about earlier, whenever you ask me what's one thing I'd do differently if I could start over, it would be, you know, creating those systems of accountability that kept me outside of my comfort zone. So the hardest thing, man, is just staying outside of your comfort zone because again, we're humans. It's like temptation is everywhere. So how do you constantly remain focused and distract yourself from the distractions You know, that's something that you have to continuously work to master. But once you do, it's like, man, the heavens just open up. And it's like Napoleon Hill says, as soon as the money comes, it's like it's, you know, you just wonder where it's been all along because it just comes in masses. So yeah, man, hardest part, rejection and consistency.

28:31 Scott Ingram: Well, let's, let's talk about consistency. I mean, what do you consistently do? How do you structure your day? When does your day start? I mean, walk us through that.

28:41 Justin Peterson: Sure. Uh, so my day… I'll tell you just a real quick story about manifestation and attraction, because, uh, if we did this podcast 2 years ago and you said, you know, what is one area of life that you want to strengthen the most, I would say having a concrete, rock-solid champion's morning routine, you know, because, man, I mean, dude, I'll wake up at 4:35 in the morning and just go hit the gym and crush it. I'll do I'll do all that stuff if I have those systems in place to police myself. Without them, I'm asleep till I want to wake up. You know what I mean? So that was something that was, that was always in my mind. And what do you know, my wife and I got pregnant and now I have a child. So what happens first thing in the morning is I wake up to my 13-month-old son, which is anywhere from 6 to 7:30 in the morning, which is fantastic. And the first thing I do is start my morning with gratitude and spend it with him. I make him breakfast, I read books with him, play with his toys and stuff for a couple hours until he takes a morning nap, and then boom, I am in momentum right there. What's beautiful is that I can work from home, I can work from Starbucks, I can kind of work from wherever I want. I don't have to go into an office all the time. As soon as he goes to sleep, it's like boom, now it's game time. I really think, and we can talk about the how-tos all the time, but really if there's one thing that we've taken away from this interview so far, it's really the philosophies. Mindset, it's the outlook, and gratitude is bar none the most important thing you need to start your day with because that creates the inertia for the rest of the day. So, boom, number 1, start with my son, feel gratitude and appreciation for where my life is today. Boom, number 2, go to the gym. Structured it so that the gym that I go to, while it's not my favorite one, it is less than 2 minutes from my house door to door, so I have no excuses. Once that's done, I come back and that's about 10:15 with my morning accountability call with John Gardner. And then from there, I go into my list of things I do that I planned the night before, a lot of which is calling my team. It's calling my top producers, calling my top recruiters, and being the accountability to them to help them hit their smaller goals that combined create these bigger goals that jointly we accomplish together. And then on top of that, it's prospecting. You know, just like in sales, I mean, it's always about the pipeline. You know, as soon as you have a drought in your pipeline, man, that can really slow down your momentum. So it's always calling on new prospects, creating new lists, being out in any opportunity to be around other people that you possibly can be, just never missing an opportunity, trying my best to always be on the move and adding people to my prospect list every single day. And then of course presentations, you know, just presenting the product itself, whether it be at events designated to recruiting, events designated to actual membership sales only, or of course, you know, my favorite, just the one-off at a coffee shop meeting an old friend and catching up and sharing, you know, what it is that I do and helping protect him and his family or her and her family with the benefits of the product. And it all goes back to prior preparation. You know, the 5 Ps: prior preparation prevents poor performance, prior preparation prevents Yeah, so 6, the 6 Ps, which goes back to planning your planning tomorrow today. That's kind of a runoff real quick of how I operate, but the cool thing about it is those are really the guidelines for my day. As long as my morning starts like that, how the rest of the day goes is kind of fluid, and I really go with the flow. And, and I try to do to create an environment of a work-life integration rather than trying to master the dance of work-life balance. Try to integrate it because I just found that gives me so much more peace of mind to know that everything is happening in the right timing and I don't have to have it so rigidly structured where I have this amount of time set aside for work and this amount of time set aside for family. It all flows together. My work is my life and my life is my work and it's all a beautiful flow together. You know what I mean?

32:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So walk us through, give us some detail around what that planning process looks like on a daily basis.

33:06 Justin Peterson: The planning process happens at night. So it's really the last thing I do before I go to bed, as long as I'm perfectly on top of it. And it is the old school. I've got just a journal that my wife bought me from Target. I don't even know what the brand is, but it's just an old school journal with a blue pen because for some reason, I don't remember who said it, but the subconscious benefits of using blue ink is significant. So I always use blue ink. I trusted whoever that source was, and it's helped quite a bit. And I just literally make a to-do list. There's nothing fancy about it. Brian Tracy's the old school. He's like, look, just, you know, yellow legal pad, just write down what you need to do in a, in a just a to-do checklist kind of a thing. And of course, I put the bigger ones at the top because I know that if I knock off these larger tasks first, that the rest of them can, you know, it's not as chronologically important. So, I put the things that are most important and the things I just don't want to do at the beginning so they top the list literally and figuratively. And then, throughout the day after I wake up with my son, feel gratitude and appreciation for the life I have today, look back and appreciate the progress that I've made, go to the gym, knock out the gym, come back, have my morning mentorship call, boom, I am in momentum and I have that list in front of me of exactly what I need to do. And so, you know, again, if you're looking for specifics, a lot of it is phone work. I try to make my outbound calls, as you know, way more than my inbound calls, because most of the time the inbound calls are, you know, the fires that you got to put out and the problems you got to solve. But the outbound calls are those money-making activities that you want to be doing as much as possible. So I'm not sure if that answered your question, if that was where you wanted me to go with it or not, but that was what came out.

34:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally. I mean, it helps. I think, you know, what I'm curious about is, are you accountable to completing the, the list or the top priority things on the list, or is there some other metric that you're using that you're holding yourself accountable to in terms of knocking out on that daily basis?

35:06 Justin Peterson: No, it's a list. I try to keep it as simple as possible and not try to overcomplicate it with… because no matter what business you're in, there's so many different metrics that you can look at that it becomes really complex. And I think that one of the biggest inhibitors of people's success is is whenever they fall into analysis paralysis. They pull up their back office and their weekly, monthly, annual reports and their growth and decline and all this stuff. And it's like, look, just what do you need to do tomorrow that is a retroactive list of goals that by completing them day after day make up your larger monthly goal, which make up, after you're doing month by month, your larger annual goal. It's just break them down into baby steps. So yeah, no like big complex like metrics or anything. It's just a matter of checking off the things that I wrote down to do the night before and knowing that… and so this might be where you're going with the question. You know, I make my… right now I'm working on an 8-year plan because I think you've got to begin with the end in mind. And a lot of us, we just think on 12-month segments. But I mean, think about like how quickly college went by. Boom. You know, for those of us who are parents, like, think about how quickly our kids grew up. Boom. You know, a year is like a month, you know, and 4 years goes by in the blink of an eye. So, you know, wouldn't it be smart that we plan out as far ahead as possible? So I guess where you're going with this question is the things that I write down the night before, they are all extremely, you know, premeditated based off of the larger goal that I have in mind, and then breaking them down, working backwards so that I know on an annual basis, on a monthly basis, weekly basis, I have to do a certain amount of things. And that's what dictates the things that I write on my to-do list the night before. I hope that answers your question, Scott.

36:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it does. I'm totally curious about why 8 years. That seems like a unique number. And I also want to know what's at the end of that rainbow.

37:10 Justin Peterson: Yeah, man. So I actually haven't talked about my ultimate ambitions with anybody publicly. But to stay general, I feel that I have an obligation to work in a public sector for the greater good of the country. So whether that be a more public philanthropic arena, maybe it'd be politics, that's really not what I want to do, but if that might be the area that I'm most effective in, that would be it. But 8 years just happens to coincide with a certain year. Of transition in the country that I'd like to position myself to be able to, you know, go down that route if that's something that I want to do. So 8 years just happens to be, you know, coincidental for the year in which I want to be able to accomplish the major financial goals, professional goals, and personal branding goals. Like, you know, I admire, you know, with what you're doing with this podcast, I want to be able to knock those out so that I have the financial freedom to really do what I want to do regardless of where, you know, the destination in my life seems to be drawing me to. So it wasn't crafted to be 8 years, you know, whenever I started. That just… whenever I found the destination, the accomplishments that I wanted to do, and it happened to be 8 years into the future. And so that's how I started working backwards.

38:33 Scott Ingram: Got it. So positioning for an event timeline, and you wanted to be in a certain position at that point, and then you just work backwards.

38:39 Justin Peterson: Yep, that's it. That's all it is.

38:40 Scott Ingram: Yep. Perfect. So what does your information diet look like? What are you reading, listening to, and watching?

38:46 Justin Peterson: So, you know, it's funny, I get a lot of my personal development, as disorganized as it seems, from YouTube. I think that's really the direction that a lot of things are going in because it's easy to search whenever you have YouTube Red. You can listen to it in the background. You know, you find a lot of podcasts rebroadcast The recordings on YouTube. You know, some of my daily input is Gary Vaynerchuk. I think he's a brilliant mind in terms of branding and entrepreneurship and startups. Also Grant Cardone. He's just a ruthless entrepreneur that just tells it how it is. You know, I am… I really enjoy the teachings of people like Bob Proctor who talk about, you know, this category or this this realm of attraction, this law of the universe that what you think about comes about. Like Napoleon Hill says, another one of the people that I like to read, whatever the mind of man can conceive and bring himself to believe, it can achieve. And so, I've become a student of the law of attraction because it's fascinating to me. You look more into it and there's so many celebrities and public figures and politicians and athletes who believe that. What you think about the most, you know, is what creates your, your reality. So Bob Proctor is huge, you know, I love his stuff. And also Tony Robbins, just because he's such a badass, you know. I mean, what that man is able to do to an individual or an entire audience in person or, you know, through the internet is he's just not even human, you know what I mean? And so I love seeing him transform somebody with his techniques. Most recently, I just read a book which I think is phenomenal called Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani, and it talks a lot about the concept of being a culture hacker. And this like speaks to my soul, Scott. Like, I love people who observe everything that's going on because I think so often people don't slow down, not because it's our fault. It's not like people, people are stupid. I mean, it's just that we have so much information just being inundated on us all the time that it's hard to ever be able to slow down, get in a quiet space, and just think. Not react, actually think. And he talks about how there is this evolution of consciousness, and one of the levels is… he kind of nicknames it culture hackers. And all it is is people just observing the trends in society and in culture and in business, politics, economy, and saying, wow, Why is it this way? Because it's not acceptable to say, well, that's just how it's always been. Precedent doesn't make it perfect. It's like I say that because it is precedent, we should challenge it more. Because if you just go off of precedent, you'll never have progress. If you never have progress, you die. That's just whether it's nature, whether it's society, it doesn't matter. Without progress, you die. And so, the idea of a culture hack, which is brought up in this book, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani, is so prominent because He says that there's these things in society that he calls BRULS, and it's short for, pardon my language, bullshit rules of society and of culture. And if you can recognize that a lot of the things that we do, including, Scott, goal setting, are a result of BRULS of the culturescape that he calls it, then you realize that you really have more control over your destiny than you think because oftentimes we make rules with a so that statement at the end. It's like, I want to go to school and get good grades so that I can get a good job. I want to do this and that so that I get a promotion. I want to achieve this and that so that something. And whenever you think about it, the so that are usually dictated by a larger, almost indoctrination of culture where people aren't thinking for themselves. They're just doing as they see other people doing. Again, herd mentality. And all that does is prevent our potential as even a human race. And I know we're getting really, really big picture thinking here, but it's something that you don't hear about in mainstream media. You don't hear about it a lot in anything that you're reading or watching or listening to, but it's so important. And all it is is just questioning what you know to be true. And figuring out the origin of it. Because just like Steve Jobs says, everything you see in life was made up by people no smarter than you and I. So, if they can create the reality that we live in today, then why can't we? But the only reason why they were able to create the life that we live in today is because they stopped and questioned why things are the way that they are. And then, they found better ways to hack the system and they took action on it. And so, again, a lot of that is referenced in The Code of the Extraordinary Mind. And it's a long-winded answer to your question, but man, I just think it's so important that no matter what journey people are in, whether it's sales-specific or just any journey of personal advancement, you have to have personal development. You have to be reading, watching, and listening to things because ultimately, I mean, your life is what you read, what you listen to, what you watch, what you say to yourself and others. I mean, that is… those are the actions that create the outcomes of your life. So whatever comes in is what goes out. So garbage in, garbage out. And yeah, man, through books and like what you're doing, like what you're doing is contributing to the positive change we need to see in the world by this very podcast itself, by finding the people like we started the interview with who have what you want. You know, you are helping so many thousands of people by going out of your way to find the people who are having extraordinary success and highlighting what has helped them do that. And by listening to this, you know, not this, but all of your podcasts, you're helping be the change you want to see in the world. So you, I mean, you yourself are a culture hacker that's contributing to the positive change. So it's exciting, man. I get excited about it. Obviously, I can go on tangents here, But it's just so cool to see progress, um, you know, no matter what area of life or who it is.

45:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And lots, lots of great resources there. So for you listening to this, um, we always, uh, with these episodes put together a very detailed show notes page with links to all of the books and videos and things that Justin has mentioned. So you'll always find that at top1.fm. And if you, like Justin, are a YouTube fan, I typically Obviously these conversations tend to be rather lengthy, so thank you for investing the time. But if you're looking for some more bite-sized pieces, I do typically pull a dozen or more kind of quotes and clips from each of these episodes, and you can find those on our YouTube channel at top1.fm/youtube. Will take you right there. That's a lot easier than typing all the other stuff. So Justin, speaking of more resources that we're probably gonna link up, I'm curious about kind of the, the core tools and apps that are central to your world. We've already talked about your notebook and your blue pen. What, what else is central to the way that you operate?

46:20 Justin Peterson: Man, this is gonna sound silly to say, but I really leverage Facebook as a business building tool. The only reason why it sounds silly to say is that most people use it as leisure. They use it as an escape, but But it's really only a distraction if that's how your expectation of it is. I use it to stay in touch with people who I have fallen out of touch with because your net worth is your network. Your net worth is your network. And Facebook is the most comfortable way that I have found to strengthen my network. LinkedIn has a ton of phenomenal advantages for me. It's too kind of suit and tie. I think that whenever you're posting just your resume and professional things versus pictures of you and your kids on vacation, it's just a completely different dynamic. And on Facebook, people's guards are down. If I like a picture and comment and say, hey, it looks like you're doing great, family's beautiful, then the next time I reach out to them, the last thing they remembered about me was that I commented on a picture and complimented them. So I really leverage Facebook in an intentional way to always be increasing my network so that it affects my business. Let's see, on top of that, I am… I'm not going to proclaim this, but for the longest time I have been known to be very disorganized. So I use just the simple iCalendar that comes with an iPhone, and I set 2 alarms, an hour before and 15 minutes before, baby, because I want my phone to be buzzing all the time with notifications about what I have going on. And then, and then lastly, I got this from Brendon Burchard. I use the actual alarm feature on my phone, and I have it set to go off at different times throughout, throughout the day to remind me of certain personal goals that I want to always have top of mind, which, you know, sometimes gets annoying if you're not by your phone and it's vibrating off the hook forever. But, you know, you cannot ignore it. You have to acknowledge it by turning it off. And I think, again, that's one of the systems that distracts you from the distractions and keeps you focused on the main thing.

48:37 Scott Ingram: I love that… distracts you from the distractions.

48:39 Justin Peterson: Yes, sir.

48:40 Scott Ingram: Always got to have a technique. So let's switch gears a little bit, and I'm curious about your thoughts on motivation in general and specifically what it is that motivates you.

48:51 Justin Peterson: Sure. So who was that? I think it's Jim Rohn that says motivation is like a shower, you need one every day or something like that. I think it is something that people should, you know, we all should adopt it as just a part of our routine. Motivation itself is not enough, it's just an ingredient in the entire recipe of success. You have to help yourself be motivated all the time. What was the second part of the question, Scott? What I felt about motivation and what?

49:22 Scott Ingram: And what motivates you Okay, great.

49:25 Justin Peterson: What motivates me? So what motivates me, and I've done a lot of reflection, is that I have found that I have, and I think a lot of people really can, whether they admit it or not, can relate to this. I have a small mental fear of failure, and it is something that has been embedded in the way that I think from childhood, from a couple of different things that happened. And this fear of failure is something that pushes me to, to break through. And so, it's something where I've designated a number to it that reminds me to always be pushing through this mental barrier because the worst thing that you can die with is regret. I mean, that's miserable to have any level of regret left in your life. And so, what motivates me is my ability to break through that that glass ceiling mentally that I have and accept the fact that I'm good enough. You know what I mean? I am good enough. I think it's so often we underestimate ourselves and overestimate everybody else, and it's just so unhealthy. But again, human instincts. Human instincts because it's just so much easier to overestimate the things that you can't tangibly realize. So, what motivates me is breaking through that mental barrier that I have unpleasantly allowed into my mind, breaking through that, and then ultimately creating a lasting legacy like we talked about earlier, creating a lasting legacy and then having uncommon freedom. That's a phrase that I got from another mentor of mine, Chris Hughes, who I love dearly, uncommon freedom. I mean, literally, money is so important and I won't go down this rabbit hole, But I just, my 2 cents is money is not the root of all evil. Poverty is the root of all evil because that's where desperation comes in. And so, I want to, what motivates me on top of those other 2 things is creating, think about this visual, creating a financial wall around me and my family that is impenetrable to the dangers of the world, a financial wall. I want to have the ability to, without a second thought, thought drop cash for life-changing surgery. You know what I mean? That for whatever reason healthcare isn't taken care of. I want to be able to, boom, fly myself and my family out of the country if we're in danger of an attack or something crazy, right? I want to have the ability to know that no matter what, I have the ability to protect my family from any of the unknowns in the world. That's uncommon freedom. You know, I want to be able to buy a plane ticket, you know, with a moment's notice to anywhere in the world for as long as I want to because I know that the money that I have coming in is residual and it is unstoppable. I want to have that uncommon freedom where I'm able to actually achieve the dreams that so few people actually find the finish line on. It's like we grow up with all these dreams and aspirations, then as soon as life smacks us in the face a couple too many times, we give up and we just accept that it is what it is. I don't want that, man. What motivates me is that uncommon freedom to eat whatever I want to because I'm looking at the left side of the menu versus the right side of the menu. You know, I'm not looking at what it costs first. I'm looking at what I want. And I'm going to the restaurants that I want to because I want to. I'm living where I want to because I want to. And I am a beacon of, I guess, you know, success, saying that, look, if this dude can do it, then y'all can do it. You know what I mean? If this dude with whatever it was, maybe a 2.3 GPA in college, you know, if he can… if he can go out and do this, then you can do this. You know, if he can go through ups and downs and the struggles that he's gone through and made it… made himself out out, then you can too. That's what motivates me, man, because, I mean, how often are people really transparent about the bad things in their career and in their journey? We only see the highlight reel. You know, ESPN is nothing but, you know, top 10s and the top, you know, the top 10 worst is just for comic relief. But you don't see the struggles from the come-up, you know, and that's really what motivates so many people. So, I want to be able to create that Uncommon Freedom story Protect my family with a financial wall, you know, so that people can look at me and say, man, if he can do it, I can do it too. And not only that, but me be able to have the ability to reach down directly and help pull these people up. That's what motivates me, man, because if you do that, I mean, your ability to make a positive impact in the world is completely unlimited. You know, it is incalculable how many people you can affect because it just starts to compound. And by doing that, everything else that I want to have accomplished… for example, being the best husband and the best father I possibly can be… will as a result be accomplished as well.

54:19 Scott Ingram: Perfect. Well, let's keep talking about some of this belief stuff, and I'm curious if there is something you believe that the average sales professional would think is crazy.

54:31 Justin Peterson: Ooh, that's okay. That's awesome. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, there definitely is. Let me, let me think. I'll tell you the first thing that comes to my head because usually that's, that's the best answer, but I know there's something else. It's that you can literally do anything, and not literally in a figurative term, literally in a literally term. You can literally do anything. The only thing that slows us down is our inability to conceive things. I referenced this one time before, but man, one of the, one of the freaking greatest books that everybody should read is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. 2 steps: one, think; 2, grow rich. You know, it's like, we think, might as well grow rich. Read that book. He talks about how whatever the mind of man can conceive and bring himself to believe, it can achieve. And he talks about the richest people in the entire world, literally the richest men and women who have ever lived and how they believe this concept that as long as you can believe it, bring yourself to believe it, you can achieve it. And I think that that's a concept that's just abstract enough that most people in sales don't believe it. You know, they think it's some frou-frou voodoo stuff and, you know, they'd rather just stick to their more tangible, realistic number figures. But look, if you can just allow yourself to understand that you don't know what you don't know. As soon as you accept that, like, look, we don't know what we don't know. But what we do know is that 3% of the world's population controls 97% of all the wealth. And if all the money in the world was all of a sudden instantly distributed to every single human on earth, it would just be a matter of time before the same people who controlled all the wealth got it back. And it's because they are doing something that the rest of the world is not. They're employing a philosophy and a mindset that the majority of people are not. And that's oftentimes is that you can achieve anything that you set your mind to. And it's not just a saying that you hear, you know, from your parents, if they're good parents, like, you know, hey little Johnny, you know, whatever you dream about, you can do. No, it's like literally, man, literally write it down on paper and viscerally believe it. Like, feel it in your blood that you can do it and it'll happen. Write it down in the present tense. I am so happy and grateful now that I have now that I am. Again, it sounds silly to a lot of people. You know, the question was phrased that most salespeople find it hard to believe, but man, if you write it down, like I can tell you multiple different scenarios, whenever I have written down a statement, put it on a goal card, carried it in my wallet every single place that I go that says, I am so happy and grateful now that I am blank, with a date behind it, It happens in freaky accuracy, Scott. I mean, I'm talking about, like I said at one point, I'm so happy and grateful now that I'm a Platinum Executive Director. My team is stable and growing, dated June 30th, 2016. Platinum Executive Director is the top commission structure in my company. And what do you know, on exactly, and I mean exactly, 11:59 PM on June 30th, we put our last policy through. Is put me to that rank on the exact date I wrote down that I was working on for 5 months prior. I mean, you get goosebumps thinking about it. If you, if you really believe now, if you really can conceive the fact that you can do whatever you want to do and all you have to do is write it down and feel it, that it can come true. Of course, if you take action on it, man, it's like, it's, it's It's a little intimidating, honestly. It's a little intimidating because you realize that there's nothing you can't do, and so it's scary to look back and think about all the things that you should have. Yeah, right. Well, so that would be it.

58:23 Scott Ingram: Let's look at the complete other end of that question. So the way that looks is, is there something that the average sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

58:37 Justin Peterson: Yeah, yes.

58:39 Scott Ingram: Choose one.

58:40 Justin Peterson: Average Yeah. Okay. Choose one. I'll be brief for you, man. I know you're long-winded on this. The average sales professional believes that they're… that the top producing person in their space is the top of their potential. You know, they… the common salesperson falls into the trap of comparing their goals, their expectations, and their results to everyone around them. Again, that's the hack. That's the hack. If you can, you can surround yourself with only the top-performing people, you can't help but become one of them. So the average sales professional, they set their standards based off the people around them, and I think that's crazy. But again, I understand why, and I sympathize with it, because again, it's just human, it's just human instincts. But I think it's crazy to set your standards based off of what the person to the left and the person to the right of you is doing. Who cares what they're doing, man? Because again, most people unfortunately in life and in America, they're not living their dreams. They're not fulfilled. A study came out by the New York Times a couple years ago that said that 70% of Americans claim that they hate their job. And that's not dislike, that's hate their job. So why would you base your expectations off what other people are doing if you know the majority of people aren't happy and fulfilled and they don't have what they want? Again, it goes back to the very beginning. Observe the masses and do the opposite. That'd be my answer for you, Scott.

1:00:09 Scott Ingram: There you go. Well, let's keep going on that. So what advice would you give to somebody who's just starting out in a sales career today?

1:00:18 Justin Peterson: Yeah, it would be… trying to think about the right way to say, like, keep the blinders on. But it's really, it's really your filters. That's what it is. I would tell somebody who's starting out to create your filters so that you're only allowing input from the sources who are credible. Because if you allow your input to be, you know, the person that you share an office with, or, you know, the person in the cubicle next to you, or your manager, even somebody who is there specifically to help you grow, if you allow them to be your inputs, then that dictates your expectations, which dictates your actions, which then gives you your results. So have the filters. Again, this is one big common theme here, you know. It's like there's not a lot of complexity to what's allowed me to find my personal success. It's a matter of what I let in, you know, and who I allow my time to be shared with and the people that I allow to be in my inner circle. So I'd say keep it simple. Have your filters, make them be really, really strict. You know, do not allow yourself to take advice because opinions are plentiful. You know, they're the cheapest thing in the world because everybody has them. So, so, so make your filter so that you're not taking advice and opinions from people who don't have what you want. Unless they're paying your bills, it really doesn't matter. You know what I mean? Because ultimately it's up to you. And that'd be it.

1:01:48 Scott Ingram: There you go. So what about somebody who is further into their career? You know, it's, it's been a few years. But they're not at the top. Maybe they're struggling or they're, you know, they're doing well, but they're nowhere near number one. What's your advice for them?

1:02:03 Justin Peterson: Yeah. Create a… not create, but proclaim an intention to the world and back it up with a consequence that is fear-based. So if you, you know, if you're at a rut, you know, you're hitting the same production numbers every year and you're just getting sick and tired of being sick and tired and you're seeing, you know, younger people come in and outpace you and outshine you and you're like, you know what, it's about time I draw a line in the sand. Proclaim your goal to the world. Stand in front of the company and say, hey, by the way, my name is Justin, I've been here for 15 years, and by the end of this year, I'm gonna triple my production, watch me. To book a meeting with the president, the CEO of your company and say, just wanna let you know, this is what you can expect from me this year, and if I don't, I want you to fire me. I mean, some crazy stuff where you give yourself no excuse. It's like the military strategy. As soon as you get on land, around and burn the ships. You don't have failure as an option. There's no way for you to fall back because you have eliminated the option of failure. So, you can do silly things like, for me, I'm scared of heights. I would never jump out of a plane. But if I were to be in a rut like that, I'd say, look, I'm going to do this or else I'm jumping out of a plane by this date. And I'd put it on Facebook and I'd tag a bunch of people and I'd have a whole bunch of people hold me accountable to it because there's no way in heck I'm jumping out of the plane. So, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it happen. So, while it's scary to create a consequence that is fear-based, that's exactly the point because you got to have something that grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you out of the rut that you're in and spurs you into action, growth, and momentum that otherwise you wouldn't have. You have to because if your willpower alone is not cutting it, you gotta, you gotta give your willpower, you gotta lend it to something else. And so proclaim your goal and create a consequence that's fear-based. That usually does the trick.

1:04:01 Scott Ingram: There you go. Well, I really appreciate your earlier comments about the filters, right? I think that's a huge reason and driver of this show, right? There's so many quote-unquote sales experts out there who may or may not have had a lot of sales success, right? Those are different things somehow. So, you know, we really try to bring out the stories of those who are at the top. So I'm curious, applying that filter, what would you want to know of the most successful salesperson in another organization?

1:04:38 Justin Peterson: I would want to know their failures, because you can learn a lot from successful people, but you can learn even more from, from, from people who have failed at things. And almost without exception, and everybody who has achieved a top-tier level of success, like the people who you filter to get onto your show, they have setbacks. And so I would want to know about those things. What was the hardest thing for them to overcome? What was the thing that really brought them down to tears, made them want to quit? What were those darkest moments? And what or how did they bring themselves to go through it.

1:05:19 Scott Ingram: And Justin, what was that for you?

1:05:24 Justin Peterson: It was about 3, 4 years… 4 years ago now, whenever I really… I made a career change and I started down this route of, you know, being an entrepreneur. And the girl who I thought I had a future with broke up with me over the phone so unexpectedly that I really and truly thought that it was just a bad joke. I laughed on the phone whenever she said it. I really… it was so out of left field that it shook me to my core and brought me to my knees. And it was such a traumatic event in my life that I really had to dig deep down and figure out what I was truly made of. And I am forever grateful for that event because it created such a fury of vengeance inside of me, man, that I told myself, I will never, I will never position myself to be in this type of pain ever again. And the next time that I see her, she will not be able to recognize the man that I am because I will have transformed myself so much that I am unrecognizable. I am a completely new person. And I did drastic things. I got rid of my wardrobe. I took my savings, went to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought… I went to the saleslady, man, and I said, hey, look, dress me like a 25-year-old millionaire. I want to see the price. Give me outfits. And I bought whatever she thought looked good. I got myself out of my comfort zone. I changed my hairstyle. My hair was pointed forward. Now it's pointed back. It was like a… for a visual, it's like a Leo kind of look, right? Leonardo DiCaprio. I hired a personal trainer. I was in the gym almost every single day. I did everything I can so that now I walk different, talk different, I think differently. And of course, of course, as a consequence or as a result of that, my life is so much better. And those were some of the darkest moments of my life, but I realized, look, I'm in complete control of this. And that fury of vengeance, which again, whatever your motivators are, sometimes they're positive motivators. Motivators. Sometimes they're quote-unquote negative motivators. I mean, for me, it very much was that. It was that, you know, of course I want her to have a great life and I only wish her the best, but, you know, I want the next time she sees me, she thinks, damn. That's all I want. I just want her to think, damn.

1:07:48 Scott Ingram: Fantastic.

1:07:49 Justin Peterson: And so that, even now, man, even now in a beautiful marriage that I'm in now with truly the girl of my dreams, with a beautiful son, and I live my life happy every single day. While I'm not emotionally attached to that, it is still a relevant contributor to my motivation every single day because I'm not done. I'm still not done. And if it wasn't for that, seemed like a setback, I never would have had the comeback in my life that put me in the position to be talking to you on the phone today again, which I'm very grateful for.

1:08:19 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. Fantastic. Well, thanks for sharing that. And I don't have a great transition from there, so I'm just going to ask the next question. Which is, you know, who's the best sales professional that you know personally?

1:08:32 Justin Peterson: Uh, his name's, uh, uh, his name… well, I mean, it's hard to beat Grant Cardone. I mean, he is, he is the godfather of sales right now. But, uh, me personally, it's a gentleman named Brian Carruthers who would be fabulous for your podcast. Uh, he's a gentleman who makes, I don't know, $5 million a year or something. And I mean, even his investment portfolio, he just told me the other day he made $75 grand in one trade. Like, he is just a wizard, but, um, he is also a sales trainer, you know, so he sells training courses and packages and seminars that teach other people what he's been able to do. Um, and he's also a phenomenal person. Again, a trait of successful people are good people. So short answer, gentleman named Brian Carruthers.

1:09:18 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. So I am one that likes to… ideas are great, uh, but we want to try and make this actionable for the person listening, and there's been a ton of ideas. So I'm hoping you can summarize this and come up with some type of challenge that the person listening to this can take on over the course of the next 2 weeks until we launch the next episode and have a great new challenge for them. What would you have them do starting right now?

1:09:47 Justin Peterson: Yeah, I think that what we just talked about, about proclaiming a goal and creating a fear-based consequence behind it, would be great homework for them between now and the next episode because that's something that anybody can create. And it'll give them such great positive inertia because as long as you do it right, as long as it's something that there's no way in the world you're going to allow yourself to do that consequence, you'll achieve whatever it is you put before that. So, figure out what your goals are, stretch them just a little bit, make sure you feel good about them. They need to scare you a little bit, but they shouldn't terrify you. They should excite you, right? Create that goal, proclaim it to whoever your circle of influence Proclaim it to people who are gonna… you're gonna feel embarrassed if you don't do it. And then also proclaim your consequences. You know, one of my friends did what they called the Alpo Challenge. I'd never do this one just because it'd be disgusting, but if he did not do a certain amount of things before a certain time, he would… it really was the company was creating an incentive trip to Las Vegas, and out front of the casino where everybody would be staying, he he would eat a can of Alpo dog food. No one wants to do that. So he, of course, completed his task. So that would be my homework for everybody.

1:11:02 Scott Ingram: Man, and talk about comfort zone. I'm not sure that I could get through an entire can and keep it down.

1:11:08 Justin Peterson: Me either. No way.

1:11:12 Scott Ingram: Well, Justin, this has been fantastic. And you gave me such a huge opening in the beginning when you were talking about your inner circle. But I decided not to take it kind of intentionally. Wanted to speak to at this point the people that are still here, right? I, I'm not as interested in the folks who listen to the first 5 minutes of the podcast and get distracted and are off to other things. But if you've been committed and you're still with us after an hour, you're the type of person that I want to have at our Sales Success Summit that we're holding here in Austin in May, May 7th and 8th, where I'm bringing together many, um, of the best guests who have been on this show, and they're going to be bringing their best stuff. And so this really is… I mean, the… Justin, the, the reason I did it, uh, was to bring… to create that, that effect, right? To surround yourself with the best of the best. That's who these folks are, and they're all in, and they're completely committed. And if that's what you want to yourself with, if that is going to get you to the next level and motivate you and inspire you and help you build the type of network that is going to impact your net worth on a go-forward basis, then go to top1summit.com. It's the number 1, although if you spell it other ways, it'll still probably get you there. And I've got a… if you put in the referral code SSS for Sales Success Stories, you'll save $150 right off the bat. So get in there, do that, join us here in Austin in May, we are going to make a huge difference for each other. And again, if you're still here and you're the type of person that takes action and doesn't just listen to this stuff and go on to the next one, then we want to see you there. Justin, really appreciate your time, and hopefully we'll see you in, in May as well.

1:13:12 Justin Peterson: Thank you, Scott. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode, and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.