Ep. 57: Justin Schenck: Embracing Wonder and Overcoming Adversity Artwork

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Passing The Torch

Ep. 57: Justin Schenck: Embracing Wonder and Overcoming Adversity

July 11, 2024 • Martin Foster / Justin Schenck • Season 1 • Episode 57

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Ever wondered how a simple family trip to Disney can teach you about joy, gratitude, and resilience? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Justin Schenck, the brilliant mind behind the Growth Now Movement podcast. Justin opens up about his unique experiences as a stepfather, the magic of Disney vacations, and the profound importance of embracing childlike wonder. From heartfelt stories about Father's Day to the enchantment of staying on Disney property, this episode is packed with wisdom on finding happiness in everyday moments.

Discover the transformative power of gratitude as Justin shares deeply personal stories, including the impact of losing his mother to opioids. Hear about the exceptional service at the Boathouse restaurant in Orlando and how encounters with memorable individuals like Ricky the waiter can create lifelong impressions. We also delve into the exhilarating world of WWE's Money in the Bank event, using it as a metaphor for seizing life's opportunities and living in the present moment.

Podcasting isn't just about hitting record—it's a journey of persistence and personal growth. In this episode, we explore the host's real estate ventures, the therapeutic process of overcoming childhood trauma, and the joy of building lasting relationships through the podcasting medium. Listen as we reflect on the significance of genuine curiosity and active listening, and find out what keeps us motivated to produce content that resonates. Finally, we discuss ways you can support the "Passing the Torch" podcast and join our collective journey of self-development and growth.

Conversation:
Intro
1:26 Justin Schenck I'm glad we're finally making this happen. We've been back and forth a couple of times. I know we had some things scheduled, but I'm excited to have this conversation with you and thank you so much for that intro, man, and you made me sound better than I really am, especially about the most interested.

Advice for fathers taking their family to Disney?
2:38 Justin Schenck Disney World is a place where you can just go and let it all go. You're in this Disney bubble, you get to enjoy the whole entire process, you get to have fun, you get to almost relive a childhood. Even if you didn't go there as a child, it's almost like this childlike tendency, and so for me, if you're going to go with your kids for the first time, for the fifth time, for the tenth time, enjoy the little moments. Let the kids be kids, be a kid with them. Enjoy the little moments, because their eyes are going to be open to a whole new world they've never seen before. The magic is constantly happening around you, and just see them. Take it in, right.

Obviously, the first time we took the kids they were right around the same age as your kids now. So we took them two years ago for the first time, and so they were 11 and nine at the time. And to see even the 11 year old, who was just getting to the age of like I'm too cool for school, he was just blown away by the little nuances. So figure out what your kid likes and turn their interest to that. Obviously, the nine-year-old girl was more into the fantasy side of things, where the 11-year-old boy, who's a creative, loved the fact that every time you transition in a new country in Epcot, there's a different sound and a different smell. So really lean into that and just enjoy the process with the kids.

How he draws inspiration from Disney
5:49 Justin Schenck I was talking about how they create. They create magic. It's all about experiences in Disney. They don't call them roller coasters, they call them attractions. They don't call them rides, they're attractions because they transport you into a new world. And so I take a lot of what they do and go, How can I take this experience and put it into an event that I'm creating to have people walk away going, WOW I feel amazing at the end of the day. What's the difference between Disney and Six Flags?

It's the theming, the how you feel when you're there and when you leave. And so I'm constantly thinking, okay, how can I take something, obviously, I'm not going to have Mickey Mouse, I'm not going to have fireworks, I'm not going to do any of that stuff but it's the idea of okay, they're doing these little tiny things that make the difference in how I feel and how everybody in this park feels. So how can I do that with my events, with any experience that I do? How can I make people feel a certain way? And that's the different things that I may draw from time to time.

I believe smells are super important. I would have never thought about that until I realized in Disney. They purposely pump in different smells in different places. Main Street USA smells like buttered popcorn because they pump it. Not because they're making popcorn, which they are, but like because they pump in that smell. And I go well, your sense of smell is tied to memories, it's tied to all these things. It's one of the most powerful senses we have.

So how can you manipulate the smell of the room that your event is in and what do you want it to smell like and feel like? And I literally do those things. I have a mastermind called the Skeleton Key Mastermind, and I give them a candle when they come on and it's a custom scent to people in the mastermind. It smells like this is going to sound weird, it smells better than what it's going to sound like, but it smells like the wood section of a Home Depot, and the reason is because we are building our businesses, we are building the impact we want to make. So the idea behind that is like this is why the smell is we need wood to build. Those little things I do on purpose, and I would not even be thinking that way if it weren't for being able to go into Disney and experience those things.

Ricky the waiter from Boathouse restaurant
8:15 Justin Schenck He's a good dude man. It's funny. I have a friend who loves Disney, but I always say I'm a fan of Disney World but I'm not a Disney adult. There's a difference.

I'm not wearing the ears, I'm not doing the matching shirts with my family, but I have a friend, John Beebe, who is a Disney adult and so he gets into these places and he's a great connector of people and he ends up meeting Ricky. Ricky's one of the servers at the boathouse and he's got a great personality. He's been there forever. My first experience with Ricky was my mastermind had a meetup in Orlando and we all went to dinner at the boathouse and Ricky was able to set it up where everybody had their own check. Delivery was top notch.

It's really funny. You bring this up because, obviously, interviewing Matt Cardona, before you interview somebody, you do a deep dive, and I'm deep in his Instagram and I realized that he shouts out Ricky on a post outside of boathouse because he's also a Disney adult. He's more of a Disney adult than I am, Matt is, but he's somebody who just over delivers. That, again, is the Disney magic that you're talking about of like, how can you over deliver? Now, not everybody's perfect, but he's been doing it for so long that he's pretty spot on with how he how he serves individuals and make sure they're taken care of.

WHY the quote An Attitude of gratitude is the heartbeat of happiness resonates
10:16 Justin Schenck I'll be honest, gratitude is the thing that changes everything. When I think about my journey through my life, I always say that I was least likely to succeed in high school it would have been me at a 1.7 GPA. My mom was on opioids for 20 years and my dad was in jail, and I realized that I allowed outside circumstances to dictate how I felt every day. If things on the outside were bad, I was unhappy, I was all these things. But when you're able to switch into the mindset of gratitude, it changes everything. It literally can put you in a better place, even if your circumstances haven't changed yet.

Now the true test of gratitude for me is can you actually be grateful in a moment of lack? And this is when people, most people, miss the boat. They're, I'm grateful for everything, yeah, when everything's great. But are you grateful for everything when everything's bad? And I realized, although losing my mom to opioids and going through the struggles that I had and all those things, I look back now and I'm grateful for every single moment. Now would I want my mom back, a hundred percent. I would trade everything to have my mom back, but I can't change that right. So I have to find gratitude in the moments that I've had. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if my mom didn't have her struggles. That's just the truth. Without my hardships I wouldn't be able to speak on stages and have a podcast where I get to interview the coolest people on the planet and do all these things. So you find gratitude even in the worst moments. And when you live in that mindset, opportunity presents itself.

If he could cash in a WWE Money In The Bank (MITB) contract on anything in life other than a WWE championship, what would it be?
12:47 Justin Schenck That's a really good question for a wrestling fan. Yeah, it's a really good question. Don't ask people who aren't wrestling fans, because they'll be like what are you?

That’s such a great, great, great question and it's kind of hard for me to answer because I really love my life the way that it is. I'm going to take this as a, this is going to be a selfish cash-in because when I think of money in the bank it's selfish. You cash it in for the biggest prize in wrestling, I would say I would cash it in. So me and my wife just recently started investing in real estate and we have a couple properties now and we want to grow that so we can replace my wife's income in order for her to be full-time in her passions. So I would cash it in on however many properties we would need to replace her income so she can focus in on her passions more full-time.

I probably should have said like world peace or something.

Developing storytelling ability
16:03 Justin Schenck It's the reps. Like anything else you want to build muscle, you got to put in the reps over time.

I think the greatest downfall to most people's success is the fact that they don't do it long enough, they don't get to hit enough, they don't put in the reps enough. I look at what I did. I started a podcast back when podcasting was not even a thing. I would tell people I had a podcast and they would go what's a podcast? And now they just go oh God, everybody has one. And I started and what I said to myself right off the bat was okay, I'm going to do it for a year. I'm going to do 52 episodes and kind of see where I'm at and decide if this is something that I want to keep pursuing.

And I'll say this nobody listened for a long time like I was getting 30, 40 downloads. If I had a bigger name on the show, I'd do a couple hundred downloads, so on and so forth. And because I started getting bigger, get bigger name guests on my show fairly early on, and so around episode 44, 43…I was like what am I doing? Like nobody cares. I wasn't hearing from anybody. I knew nobody. Not many people were listening. I was like what's even the point of this and somebody reached out to me from Japan on Facebook and said because of your show, I decided not to take my life and I decided in that moment that I'm going to keep showing up, even if one person listens.

And so I always say to somebody don't start a podcast unless you're okay with doing all the work, if only one person is listening and I really believe that, because that's what's going to get you good is constantly showing up working on your craft, being truly curious. I talked about this when I was interviewing Bogert. Curiosity, I think, is what makes me a good podcast host because I truly care about the conversations that I'm having. I sit there and I actively listen and I look at myself, and I think this is something that most podcasters don't do. I look at myself as the director of the conversation, very much like a director of an orchestra or the director of a movie. You know the end goal.

My job is to make sure I direct it in a smooth way to get us to that point, and most people miss the boat on that. They're not actively listening, they're just worried about their next question and that's going to hurt. Now I can only say this because I was that person. I was worried about the next question I had written down, so that's where I was going to go and I realized this isn't effective. My goal with my podcast is to hopefully build high level relationships with the people that I get to interview. I'm friends with Chris Van Vliet because he came on the show and we just built a relationship over time. Like my goal is that. So I can't do that or be that person to build a relationship if I'm just worried about myself and the next question that I want to ask, and so I think that's one thing and again, it's just the reps. When I first started publicly speaking, I was terrible.

And so when I'm speaking from a stage, I used to be terrible, and now I don't actually really prep, I kind of know where I wanted to go and I allow myself to flow and read off the energy of the room. I was speaking at an event a couple months ago and I said to my wife I go, I guess I should, it was like two days before, and I was like I guess I should really start thinking about what I'm going to say. And she's like no, you're better when you don't know what you're going to say. If you see me speak and I have slides, it's terrible because I'm so worried about hitting my next point.

So I think it's just the reps getting comfortable in your own skin and delivering from that standpoint. But most people quit too early. I think it's 75% of podcasts don't make it past the first seven episodes because people think that they're going to launch the show and millions of people are going to listen. First of all, you're not that interesting. Second of all, there's a lot of competition now, a lot of competition, so just keep showing up and people will find you that need to find you, it's great.

When dredging up past memories is painful and draining, what he does to cope with it all, and why does podcasting seem to be such a different experience from expressing it in some other way?
24:03 Justin Schenck Yeah, it's a good question, I think, for me when I look back at my childhood now I can be grateful for what I had. My parents had their own demons, but they were amazing parents. They supported me, they loved me, all those things in between and I couldn't have asked for a better setup to live this life that I get to live now.

With that being said, I can only say that, after many coaches, many therapists, many deep conversations, many wounds being healed, there's something that I say pretty often about how, if you become a speaker or a teacher or somebody who's in a position of power, a lot of people try and teach too early. They try and teach from their pain too early. I always say that an open wound is for you to learn from and a scar is for others to learn from, and over time, through therapy, learning different types of modalities to help me through those thought processes, you know simple things like if I'm feeling a certain way about my mom and how it affected me, write her a letter, write her a letter and then set it on fire and let it go. Just putting things on paper is a great tool in order to overcome some pain and some trauma and all it go, just putting things on paper is a great tool in order to overcome some pain and some trauma and all those things. Now, it doesn't work all the time. It's something that I only had to do once with my mom because I loved her to death, but obviously there was some resentment for certain things.

I let that go and it began the healing process. I had a therapist. His name's Roger. He was amazing. He opened my eyes to the real reason I had the trauma that I had.

I thought a lot of my trauma manifested in my relationships. I was not always a good boyfriend, I was not physically destructive, but I was a mess and so I had a therapist and I was working through that stuff and he goes we're working through all the things and he goes oh, so you have abandonment issues and I was like abandonment issues no, I was never abandoned. He goes, I understand that your parents didn't leave you on the side of the road when you were a baby, but they chose their demons over being a fully focused parent in their life and I was like, damn okay, that's spot on.

And so when you find out where your pain truly comes from, that's when you can actually begin to do the work. If you don't find out where it starts, you're never going to be able to figure out how to heal it. An alcoholic isn't an alcoholic because they're truly addicted to a drug. They're numbing a pain. If you can heal the pain, I truly believe that you can actually heal an alcoholic. Although my dad has been through AA and they have a great program, I don't believe once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. I think that if you handle the trauma that you're running from, you're able to then put down the bottle whenever you'd like, and so that's really the difference. You have to figure out where it began and then you can do the work to heal it. But it takes time, man, Like it really, really takes time.

Oh, and then the second part to your question about podcasting. It's the only long form medium that exists, everything else is soundbites. Everything else is highlight reels. I always say if you're feeling depressed, put your phone down and stop watching everybody's highlight reels. They're going through shit too. Even the people who look like their life is perfect online, they're going through shit too, and so podcasting, I believe, gives individuals an opportunity to truly share versus just be a soundbite. If I was a celebrity and I went on David Letterman I don't even think he has a show anymore, but I went on David Letterman right, I'd get five minutes, but if I get on a podcast, I've got 60 minutes an hour, three hours.

Nostalgia becoming so real
29:26 Justin Schenck Dude, that's actually a great question and I think I have an answer Now. Obviously, I'm not an expert on this.

I'll be 40 in August, you're 42. Think about all the shit we went through in our lifetime, starting at like 9, 11, to the next thing, to the next thing, to covid and all these things. I believe covid fueled the nostalgia because people became more depressed, people became more dependent on substances, suicide rate went through the roof. And I think what nostalgia does? It hits the happy button. It takes us back to the time before all the nonsense, all before social media, before politicians were so blatantly corrupt versus privately corrupt from before.

And so when I look at that, I believe that's why nostalgia has become such a thing is because it's an escape from all the crap that's happening in the world and that we've been through. Like there's memes about it, about how, like we've been through so many different things 2008, everybody lost their job, and the stock market crash and all these. It's just, it's absolutely wild, the things that we've been through in such a short amount of time that I believe that's why nostalgia is such a big thing. It's also probably why I love Disney and wrestling like I'm just a kid at heart. That nostalgia button needs to be hit.

Why is curiosity important to growth and purpose
32:00 Justin Schenck I think curiosity is a tool in order to improve yourself. I have four nonnegotiables every single day, and one of them is to learn something new every single day. Whether that be a conversation, whether that's something I read, something I listen to on a podcast, something I watch on YouTube, I just want to learn something new every single day. Curiosity is a superpower from a standpoint of if you can ask the right questions without judgment, that's kind of curiosity asking the right, asking the right questions without judgment. It allows people to come together and learn from one another versus hate.

This country is more divided than ever right now, and I really believe that if people were more curious as to why individuals think the way they do, act the way they do, react the way they do, instead of just judging because they're not the same as them, the world would be a better place, and then we'll all be smarter because of it, we'll all be wealthier because of it, we'll all have better friendships because of it. Without curiosity, there's nothing but hate and divide, and people just aren't curious enough to figure out why things are the way that they are.

A recent friendship from the last 2-3 years and how that friendship came about
33:26 Justin Schenck Yeah, man, I'm trying to think. Actually, Brian Bogert's a really good example of this. He was obviously like you said, he was just back on my show a second time and it might be, it might be more like three or four years, but you get the gist. It's a newer, it's a newer friendship, but he's somebody who he I don't even know how I got connected with. Oh, we actually talked about on the show another guest that I had introduced me to, Brian Bogert, and I interviewed him and I remember thinking, as I was interviewing him, this guy is one of the most genuine human beings I've ever met in my life. It was just a thought in the back of my head and then we ended up staying connected. He sent me this after he was on the show. It's like it had, like I think it had cookies in it originally, but like this is my old logo for my podcast, it's like this wooden box and that's why we reconnected. So he sends me this, I get in the mail, I reach out to him like, dude, this is so nice, thank you so much for sending this. You didn't have to do that, blah, blah, and he's like, oh no, it's just something we do. I appreciate you having me on, and then him and I have just stayed connected from a standpoint of reaching out to each other, making sure we're good, yeah, making sure that the others still got their head up, because what we do from a, we're both in the self-development space and what we do it can be heavy at times and it can be lonely at times, and so he's somebody that I think will always be in my world and a friendship that will last a long time. Again, that was through the podcast.

Chris Van Vliet's another guy. He was probably about 4 years ago too just somebody who's genuine. I've always enjoyed Chris's interview style and I was never really sure why, but when I got to know him on a personal level I realized it's because he's just himself. Too many interviewers try and be somebody. They try and be a news anchor, they try and be Joe Rogan, they try and be whatever but he's just himself and he's a guy who is just truly curious, and he's somebody that will just stay connected. We've had a number of times we've gotten to hang out. Obviously WrestleMania he came to some random show in Hamburg, Pennsylvania wrestling show in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, which is 20 minutes from me, so we got to hang out for a night there and he's just somebody that will always, always be around, and so I feel blessed that the podcast has become an opportunity for me to create these lasting relationships with people that I admire and look up to and want to keep in my life.

If there was a GIANT BILLBOARD that he could place anywhere in the world with his message on it for the world to see, where would the billboard be and what would the message say
36:11 Justin Schenck Where would I want the billboard? I would probably times square right. That's got a ton of foot traffic, so a lot of people would see it and the billboard would say you are exactly where you're supposed to be and exactly where you chose to be. It's a thought that I love sharing with people, because the first time I ever heard that you're exactly where you chose to be, I didn't like where I was in my life and I was pissed about the quote. I was pissed that somebody said that to me but then the flip switched or the switch flipped and I was like wait, that means I can control where I end up. That means I can control what my life is going to be like. And I think people need to hear that more often Because, again, if you're in a place where you don't like to be, it's exactly where you're supposed to be, because you're supposed to learn from those lessons and build a better tomorrow for yourself. And the idea of where you chose to be it means the choices that you made got you to where you are today.

Now there are people that are going to hear that and go well, no, my circumstances dictated what happened. I got fired from my job, my parents were addicts. Well, no, it's how you react to those things. And so I think that's what my billboard would say, man, because I think you got to shine a light on that thought process of you have complete control over your life. Stop with the excuses. One of my favorite quotes. I'll share this really quick and I know there's more than the answer. One of my favorite quotes is excuses are the nails to build the house of failure, and yeah it's a hard one to hear a lot of times but I always go down.

And the follow up question is how’s your house standing?

If he could only be remembered for one sentence what he would want that sentence to be?
39:23 Justin Schenck It didn't matter where he came from. What mattered was what he did every single day to create a better tomorrow for himself and the world.

(On the initial question)It's so great, you know what it does. And I realized this more recently and I've been asking I actually used to ask the question all the time and then I stopped for a long time and then I brought it back. But here's what I really realized about this question it shows somebody's true nature. I had a guy on I won't say who. I had a guy on who was very money. He was very money focused, which is fine, that doesn't bother me, I think money's important. But he was very money focused and his answer was around like the financial support of what, like it was like around his finances.

I'm like, okay, well, that's, that's your whole holy grail. You idolize money. Then I've heard people say an answer to that and I go well, they're not going to think that of you because you're not living that truth. And I think the people who answer that question confidently, they are truly living in that truth. But I think it shines a light on people like, hey, what do you want that sentence to be? And if you want the sentence to be something and you're not living that life, it gives you an opportunity to reflect and change course and start to change your daily actions in order to have people say that about you when you die.

Growth Now Summit
41:51 Justin Schenck Growth Now Summit Live is my live event, which I'm honored that you're going to be there. I think it's going to be a life-changing event. It's my third in-person event where I get to bring amazing speakers onto the stage and share them with my audience.

And I'll say this the original idea behind the first Growth Now it was actually originally called Growth Now Movement Live, and then everybody was messing up the name so I changed it to Growth Now Summit Live, but the first one ever the idea behind it was I realized how fortunate I was to have the conversations that I get to have with the people I get to have them with.

I also understood that not many people have been able to or are able to build a platform like I have where you get to have those conversations, and I wanted to be able to gift that to individuals to go, here's an opportunity for you to learn from them, be in the room with them, meet them, build a relationship with them, just like I have through my podcast. And so every single time, one of my favorite things to do is to build the ultimate speaker lineup that's going to pour into an audience. It's going to help them learn how to grow their business, their relationships, their life, everything in between. And so this year, so far, we have Amberly Lago, Jamie Hess, Brian Bogert, and I'm missing somebody, Jonathan George, who's one of the most incredible humans. Ethan Lasher so there's a number of, we'll have panels throughout the day too. Who those individuals, they're actually my mastermind, and so they're going to be on panels. They're amazing human beings who are just killing life and excited about them too. Brittany Rogars, she went from doing $30,000 a year in her business to over $40,000 a month. Simona Constantini. The speaker lineup is absolutely amazing, but here's what I think my event is different from others. This is not about the audience and then the speakers. This is about everybody coming together, learning from one another, connecting. It's not this red velvet rope where the speakers are over there and you can't get to them. We all hang out together, we have a good time, and I always say it's a day-long rock concert for entrepreneurs, forward thinkers and people looking to level up in their life, and so I'm honored to have you there, man, and anybody who wants to come. They can go to growthnowsummitcom, grab their tickets, and I'd be excited to have them there too.

Justin's info:
Growth Now Summit: https://www.justintschenck.com/growth-now-summit-tickets
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@justintschenck
IG: https://www.instagram.com/justintschenck/
More Links: https://linktr.ee/gnmpodcast

Mentioned:
Ricky the waiter from Boathouse restaurant
Brian Bogert
Matt Cardona
Chris Van Vliet
Amberly Lago
Jamie Hess
Jonathan George
Ethan Lasher
Brittany Rogars
Simona Constantini

Quotes:
“An Attitude of gratitude is the heartbeat of happiness.” – Jamie Hess on The Growth Now Movement podcast episode 515

“An open wound is for you to learn from and a scar is for others to learn from”

“Excuses are the nails to build the house of failure”

My Links
Podcast: https://www.passingthetorchpod.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC04suOPTX3ny_M0aDxmBAXQ
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torchmartin/