How To Live an Epic Life

Hello, Ruckus Maker. We are here with an honorary Ruckus Maker, for sure. So excited to connect with Justin Breen, who’s the founder and CEO of the exclusive connectivity platform Brapic Network and global PR firm Graphic Communications. His newest book, Epic Life, features a foreword from Dr. Peter Diamondes and has been the number one overall book for sales on Amazon Kindle. It also recently made The Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers share a copy with me in preparation for this interview, and I highly recommend that you check it out. Justin, welcome to the show.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Ill I and I so we have a lot of connections. We’re just chatting about portillos before the conversation hits record and I am very tempted to turn it into a full portillos podcast but I am not going to do that. They haven’t started sponsoring me yet so that’ll be my first reason to stop. But I want to start with how you serve. You help people build collaborative global companies while keeping their loved ones first. And I know that Ruckus Makers struggle to prioritize themselves and their families before they work at school. So what advice Justin, do you have for them in terms of changing their priorities around like you have?

Justin
Well one, I appreciate you having me on the show, I’m very grateful and honored to be here. And it’s interesting, we grew up within 15 minutes, 15 miles of each other and people like us are usually aliens within their own family or Ruckus Makers are usually aliens within their own family community and verticals. The only people who understand us are Ruckus Makers. So Ruckus Makers spend their whole lives not finding many other Ruckus Makers. My purpose in life is besides hanging out with my family is connecting visionaries to serve humanity. So not humans, not business owners, not consultants, just visionary Ruckus Makers like a Ruckus Maker connector.

I spend my day with my family or talking to world’s top visionaries and talk to one to two of them every single week that have let entrepreneur or ruckus life destroy their family life or prevented them from having a family. So that’s a bad idea. I wrote a book about how not to do that, how to put family first. To directly answer your question I think the first step, well I know the first step is making the Ruckus Maker aware of what ruckus they’re actually creating and how it’s making a ruckus in their own lives. Visionaries what a visionary is again, not a business owner, not a consultant, definitely not a human employee.

But a visionary is the most damaged person with the best coping skills, the most damaged, so most bankruptcy or potential bankruptcy, most depression, most anxiety, most trauma as a child or young adult, but then they have the best coping skills, so they have the highest IQ, highest EQ, most courage, most hustle. Regular human employees cannot be capable of building a global company. I mean they’re not, if they were they would do it and then the Ruckus Maker creates the global company with their coping skills and then torches their family and never has a family in the process. I see that time and time again one to two times a week. First question is what game are you winning? That’s one of the chapters in Epic light winning the wrong game. The Ruckus Maker without exception has a high IQ and or EQ, I mean they just do. So asking that question, realizing what game they’re winning is the first step because many times they don’t even realize what game they’re winning and at what game they’re not winning, at what expense they’re not winning at.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
An awareness I hear is a piece understanding the game that you’re playing and winning at. And there’s always a cost to winning. Cost to winning at business or school leadership could be the cost of your family and being present and building that, nurturing them at the same time. Would you agree? And I’d love to hear what you say here, but winning at family, and winning at nurturing yourself. What you need as an individual human, is not having as much time, or ability to focus on the business or the school life. Is that a trade off that you’re willing to make? It’s interesting. I don’t even like saying the word cost, I just don’t.

Chief Ruckus Maker:Okay.

Justin
It’s interesting I mentioned that because everything to me is an investment, everything. There is no cost. When you just keep making the right investments, the word cost disappears. And business, they look at things as cost. Cost and time. I make big investments in my family and then I only make two investments, one in my family to network on a global level and then connecting visionaries to serve humanity. Again, very simple life, simple questions. There are only two questions that I ask myself every day that matter. Only two. One, did I have a good experience that day with my family? Two, did the network grow on a global level? And I found all this business owner stuff takes care of itself with those two fundamental questions asked.

I think the other thing is because we just talked about it, everything to me is an investment. There is no cost. So when you’re investing in family and network, then that doesn’t cost you anything. That is only an investment that never stops growing, ever.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
I think that was in the time vampire chapter. I want to bring them into the conversation because ruckus thinkers certainly interact with those. I’ve grown there’s energy vampires, time vampires in my life. I’ve had to learn how to create better, stronger boundaries and then honor those. Creating them was kind of easy. Actually following through was where I was messing up.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
I think the school context may look different than us because we do have services that we offer. There is an investment there in terms of financial means, but in a school context, maybe the investments around time or energy. And I don’t want to give too much away. But in terms of time vampires, I think you had a checklist of things that help protect you from those time vampires and yeah, anything you want to add to that? What are those warning signs?

We could look out for the number one, by far. The number one. If someone asks, what do you cost or charge again, going back to cost within the first five minutes of a conversation, I’ll never talk to that person again, because a cost person. And to your point, I see the world in numbers and keywords. The most important number for me is someone’s Colby score. Kolbe.com it’s not your personality, it’s how your brain takes action. And then most visionaries are like your 3393 score. In fact, that’s like the average score of the people I talk to. In the human world, a 3393 is really rare. In the visionary world, it’s very common. In fact, again, it’s the average score of someone I talk to. So nine quick starts, ten is the highest. So nine quick starts is ideal. Idea. Shiny objects. Shiny objects. Shiny objects. Idea. Oh, a squirrel. Oh, wow, a squirrel. So that’s what that is. Nine quick starts are not afraid of risk. Humans have lower quick starts. Most folks in higher education play not to lose their lower quick start. Endlessly debating something without actually doing something, you’re the opposite of that. Do it. And then most people I talk to are like you. They have little to no follow through. So that’s Add diagnosed or undiagnosed, it’s not a disorder, it’s a sign of genius mislabeled by humans. So people all over the place need humans to follow up for them. And so that’s why they need structures in place for humans to structure them, to actually follow through. I mean, that’s why you are having trouble following through, because you don’t have to follow through. That’s what that means. I’m the very rare visionary that has a high quick start and high follow through. So it’s like I’m my own system structure. If you combined you with, like, an integrator backstage person, it would be me, which is really rare. I’m like two people in one. But most visionaries, they need assistance, multiple employees, humans, to help them. And then they need systems and structures in place to keep them from straying. So that’s what many times their companies are. That’s their own system and structure yeah.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
To help them be successful in a team, to help them be at their best. What is your Colby again? It’s a periodical because I know you’ve started Brepk Network with Mark. Do you know Colby? I’m sure.

Justin-Yes, I know Colby’s. That’s how I see the world in someone’s Colby score. So he’s a 1596, so he’s a nine visionary. He’s full backstage, but he’s a bigger visionary than I am. He’s a nine. Interesting. And he has no fact finder. None. Like, it’s a zero, which is you’re a three. He’s one. If there was a zero, he’d be a zero. But he’s a six implementor, meaning he sees the world in visuals and can build stuff with his hands. So he found the team to build the platform. I’m an implementer. If a zero existed for that would be me. I can barely hold a pencil. I don’t see anything in the visuals. I can see connectivity in space. So that’s why it works, because it’s collaborative.

And then my wife, who is the COO of the company onboarding machine, she’s an 8742, so lower. Quick start. But once she actually starts with something, her factfinder follows through, it never stops. So she’s just a machine. Just a machine. Your wife is probably like I would guess your wife is probably like that as well.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
I don’t have hers memorized, but her first two numbers are super high.

Chief Ruckus Maker: She’s the opposite of me.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Totally brings balance to the yeah. If the Ruckus Maker is listening, check out the Colby. An assessment is what we’re talking about, and everybody on my team has taken that because I want to understand who they are and what they bring to the table and then build, hopefully, the Avengers sort of team right. To bring a ruckus to education. Yes, in the one context I don’t want to lose this thread, but we’re talking about time vampires. Again, I think in the context of school, they might not ask what it costs, but they might ask, what do I need to change? How much effort or time will this take? Type of thing. The question of the challenge might be how far away from the status quo you might be getting as a leader.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
I think that’s what you might hear in terms of resistance and a warning.

Justin- I don’t hear that. The further away from the status quo, the better. Visioners are usually aliens within their own family community, vertical. So that’s completely away from the status quo. That’s exactly what I want to hear.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Obviously, like talking about the Colby here, I think that’s one tool that’s helped you show up confidently knowing the value you bring and the value you create. Did it start there? Are there other tools that help you figure out who you are and what you bring to the table?

Justin-It’s an interesting choice of words there. I’m very low in context, but I’ll relate to your brain and your audience with this. The other two are Gallup clifton strengthsFinder. Most of the people I talk to are high in futuristic or ideation, with a mix of Activator Maximizer, Achievers. They’re off in the Future world, but they’ll actually do something about it now, because if you’re off in the future world and don’t do anything, that’s a horrible life, frankly. And then I’m very low in futuristic, very low in ideation, but if I hear something in the future or a good idea from someone, then my top three are Activate, Maximize, Achieve so immediately. Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll do that and then never stop doing it. So that’s one, then the other one is Print P-R-I-N-T which is similar to enneagram that’s unconscious motivators. Not all, but most great visionaries have either an eight, seven, or three as one of their two numbers. And those are like doers. Those are not feelers or overthinkers. They’re executed. Do it. Just do it. So I think you’re a seven something in print, and I’m an 83. So that’s strong and self reliant. Succeed and achieve. Those are the actual tools. And then the other way my brain interpreted what you said about tools is I spent most of my life talking like this, and no one understood what I was talking about. So I look at that as a tool as well. If you’re talking to people and they’re just staring at you, a true visionary will never stop, and they won’t make excuses. So I just kept talking like this. And then most of my life, people would just stare at me.
And then now only people that I really talk to are top visionaries on Planet, or those who will make the investment to become one of those people. And they love it because they’re aliens, and they’ve been waiting to have this conversation most of their life.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Yeah. To add to what you’re saying, so in print, I’m a 74. You’re able to call these you should maybe launch a personality prediction business, because you do it pretty well. That’s what all my companies are.

Justin No, because I connect people through numbers and keywords. That’s all it is.

Chief Ruckus Maker:And in terms of Clifton strengths, I’m strategic, maximizer, futuristic, learner, and achiever.

Justin: So we said the same thing in a different way. And then when you see the same pattern over and over, oh, here’s the answer. Focus on the answer and eliminate the non answer. And then here’s a whole book about a list of answers. It’s a guidebook for visionaries for Ruckus Makers. That’s all it is.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Again, I highly recommend picking up Epic Life. And let’s pull on the Recognizing Patterns thread. That’s one of your superpowers, and you’ve already started demonstrating that with Colby and Print and Clifton. But can you bring us to a moment too, maybe a different one, where you have recognized patterns and it’s really helped you out?

Justin
Well, you’re a great listener. I can see your strategy. You’re welcome. And you’re a feeler, so that you appreciated that compliment. Okay, you’re welcome. My wife taught me how to say thank you and you’re welcome. All right, so I’ll relate to your strategic feeling. Okay. So my whole life is a pattern. It’s all recognizing patterns. More importantly, the great visionaries that I see, they recognize the patterns, but then they create their own patterns with them or use those patterns to create companies or whatever that is. It’s really interesting when the patterns become your own patterns and then you do that. So I’ll explain what that means for the learner part of your brain and your audience, because I’m guessing there’s a lot of learner strategists. So two favorite patterns that I’ve seen, that I love, that are essential to my life and I know other visionaries’ lives. So Ruckus Makers. So number one by far is the right mindset attracts the right network and creates right opportunities. So the right mindset creates the right network and then the network creates the right opportunities. So you’re either born Ruckus Maker or not. I’m convinced that most people aren’t. But if you are then you can work on your mindset every day focusing on abundance and vision and investment and gratitude and that attracts abundance, vision, investment, gratitude and then repels, arrogance, cost excuses, it actively repels that it’s the right mindset tracks right network creates right opportunities. 2nd 1 second is I just keep making bigger investments to be in smaller rooms but people in those rooms are making a bigger impact. That allows me to spend the biggest investment which is in the smallest room which is my family where I can make the most impact. So bigger investment, smaller room, bigger impact, allows me to spend a bigger investment in the smallest room family where I can make the most impact. Okay so those are the patterns and then you create your own patterns with it. You create your own room, epic network, big investment, smaller room, biggest impact. It’s a room connecting visionaries to serve humanity that continues to evolve as a larger and larger room with more impact, with bigger investments. So it’s the same formula and again a visionary will recognize the pattern and then do something with it. They’ll create their own pattern or own room or own company with it and then that attracts other right mindset, right network, right opportunity. It’s very simple. Just most people won’t do it.

Chief Ruckus Maker: Why?

Justin
Because they’re not visionaries. So there are four things. Four things separate visionaries, four, bankruptcy or potential bankruptcy. Two, depression. Three, highest level anxiety you can imagine, four likely and or possible traumatic experiences as a child or young adult humans, business owners, small business owners, consultants, those are excuses. Top visionary figures in the last three years-ish COVID. We’ll say since COVID I think I’ve talked to three or four folks that are under less than three of those four things. Almost everyone I talk to is at least three of those four. The really quote unquote successful ones are usually all four. Usually all four. When I first started my first company six years ago with zero business background. Zero like, I still don’t know what an S Corp.

Is because I don’t really care about that stuff, but I was talking to ones and twos, sometimes zero, those four things because they were small business owners or employees or consultants, and now it’s all threes and fours for the most part.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Interesting. Well Justin, I’m really enjoying our conversation. We’re going to pause here just for a second to get some sponsor messages in and when we get back I want to talk about the difference between selling and buying. All right. And we are back with Justin Breen, founder, CEO of the exclusive connectivity platform BrEpic Network and global PR firm BrEpic Communications. And we’ve also been discussing some of these ideas on how to live an epic life from his book Epic Life, which I highly recommend you check out before the break. I was saying I’d love to talk about the difference between selling and buying. I like your take on it. You say you don’t sell anything but you are a buyer. I think that’s a helpful riff for the Ruckus Maker listening. And I’m going to tell the listener why right now.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Because you may think you’ve inherited your staff, right, and that kind of thing. But I want to say you’ve bought them, you’ve decided, you’ve made a conscious decision that this is the team you’re building. And I think what Justin’s about to say is going to help you maybe think about that team a bit differently.

Justin-If it’s okay, I’ll answer it. The way I see the team.

Chief Ruckus Maker:Yeah, sure.

Justin:All I do is talk to people like us and connect them. Connecting visionaries to serve humanity. So my team, my world is just people like us connecting. So I don’t care about employees or anything. I would electrocute myself, blow up the company. I’m not a manager. And then my wife, who is a COO of the company, and partner, Mark, they’re the backstage. So my wife hired an assistant. Mark found the team to build the platform. Mark runs the meetings with my wife. I barely even talk during our virtual meetings. I just listen to what the members need or what they can offer and then my brain can immediately connect them to other people who can help them do that. So that’s what it is. What I think of as a team, what I’ve seen from Ruckus Makers or visionaries, however you want to call it, I’ve seen a four step journey that I think everyone goes through. I haven’t seen someone not go through this. So I think everyone goes through. So when starting a company, however you want to phrase that, one is to get pure selling. I started my first company after my job. Salary as a journalist was cut in half. I couldn’t find a job so I reached out to 5000 people to find the first five clients while I was working full time at half salary. Okay, so that’s perfectly fine. Pure selling, that is not my expertise but hey, you gotta start somewhere. So a lot of people stay at that forever. Cold calls, Cold emails, which is kind of weird to me, but I don’t even understand that stuff. So that’s step one. Then there’s getting to give you a little bit. But you’re mostly still trying to get that’s still definitely selling. Then there’s give to get. That’s where 99.9% of the world stops. That’s where business owners, consultants, humans, that’s where they stop. So you’re giving mostly, but you’re still trying to get a little bit, you’re still trying to sell something. Then you get to the true visionary, pure buyer mindset. And then that’s given to the people who get it. So I’m endlessly giving to people like us, regardless of whether I get anything back. And then people like us are constantly investing.
If you want to look at it in a human way, paying to be part of the companies I helped start gladly investing, one, because they get it. Two, because they want to be around other people like us. But it’s not selling anything. It’s just buying the people that I want to hang out with that actually get it. Because if you don’t get it goes horribly wrong. And the people that give to the people who get it do not want to be in a room where people don’t get it. They do not want to be with people like that. They just don’t.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
I appreciate that. It sounds a lot, too. Have you read Simon Sinek’s the Infinite Game, by any chance?

Justin:I have not, but I’m certainly aware of it for sure. And he’s a pure give to the people who get it.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Yeah, that’s basic. I’ll save you the read. Contrast the finite game versus the infinite game. But are you seeing the world in scarcity versus abundance?

Justin 100% yeah.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
In schools who compete over resources.

Justin: Yes. So basic schools are literally the opposite of exactly what we’re like, everything that we’re talking about. It’s the exact opposite. But I talk to the visionary. Correct. So I’ll talk to a visionary who owns an education company. I’ll talk to a visionary who runs a financial firm, a visionary who runs a law firm, a visionary who’s in healthcare. I don’t talk to the worker in healthcare, I don’t talk to the financial advisor because they’re not the visionary. They’re not the ones who are creating the thing that employs everyone else. But I will connect and talk to the visionary who is creating the thing in education that helps everyone else. But I don’t think about everyone else. I think about the visionary who’s helping everyone else.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Got it. I think it’s being really intentional with your time.

Justin Why would you? Right? Yeah. Because, again, it’s a simple pattern. It’s a very simple pattern. Someone like you endlessly will talk to you because you get it, you understand. And people like us allow me to spend more time with my family. It’s very simple. And people who are not like us, who ask, what do you cost or charge, who argue endless meetings to do something, I just stop talking to them. One, because they don’t understand what I’m talking about. Two, more importantly, they just take time away from me and my family. So why would you keep talking to someone like that?

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Pointless conversation, being clear what you want and not apologizing for it.

Justin: No, I’m not going to apologize for hanging out with my family.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
It’s very popular in school leader circles to choose one word to set the tone for the year. And I know that you name your years. We’re recording it’s late 2023. This is going to be released in the beginning of 2024, sometime in January. Have you already decided?

Chief Ruckus Maker: How you name in?

Justin: Century Club. Century Club.

Chief Ruckus Maker: Century Club. Okay, tell me more.

Justin: So Breathic network. I’m very grateful. We’re about to be named one of top five Masterminds on the planet. I’m endlessly grateful for that. It’s going to be awesome. And then the Sentry Club has 100 members. It’s starting to scale itself already. I think when we hit that number, and we’ll do that well before the end of 2024, I guess I should say this year, because this comes out in January. And then just to give context or learning strategy for your brain and the audience’s brain. So every year I name the year. So 2020 was global growth. So every day global growth. Global Growth. Global Growth. 2021 was no limits. When you have no limits, there are no limits. 2022 was Epic Life, which became the name of the book. So epic life this year is. Networks. I’m sorry. 2023 was Networks.
So, wow, how about that? Breathic Network is off the ground and running and scaling quickly. Networks. And then 2024, Century Club. So what I found is by saying that one thing every day for an entire year, well, it does. It manifests itself, it becomes a reality, and it’s a really great way of simplifying the year. And that’s something I definitely agree with education leaders. Is that one word or one phrase to simplify everything and have that focus? For sure.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
Beautiful. Well, Justin, if you could put one message on all school marquees for a single day, what would your message be?

Justin: Know? And I appreciate you preparing me for this question, and I gave it a lot of thought. I gave it a lot of thought. And I’ll give you some background first, if it’s okay.

Chief Ruckus Maker:Of course.

Justin: All I do is talk to people like us. All I do is and then not all, but many of the people like us were put in special education classrooms or given a hall pass just to leave the school. They just didn’t fit into any sort of classroom at all. And and it’s very painful because you’re surrounded by people who don’t understand you, and since they don’t understand you, they just put you somewhere where you really don’t belong. So school as a whole, most schools, they’re just conforming services for employees, which is that’s fine, but for people like us, it’s not. So my school, if I actually had a school, would be misfit toys allowed here. Misfit toys allowed here.

Chief Ruckus Maker: Yeah, I could see how that would be meaningful based on. The context you shared. Let’s talk about that school that you’re building. And if you weren’t constrained by any types of resources, your only limitation was your ability to imagine what would be the three guiding principles building that school.

Justin: Visionary, abundance, investment. Yeah. And that’s what BrEpic network is. I mean, it’s really interesting because we have 90 minutes of monthly Mastermind virtual meetings a month, and then we’re doing our first in person, big in person meeting this year of 2024 in May. And it really is a school. Now that I’m glad you brought that up. That’s what it is. It actually is a school. It’s like relearning. It’s really fascinating, actually. It’s relearning or actually being around the way misfit toys like misfit toys allowed here. That’s what it really is. That’s literally what ‘s really fascinating. So thank you for you. This is how I learn in real time, these types of questions. So thank sure.

Chief Ruckus Maker:
For sure. Well, we covered a lot of ground, Justin hit on a lot of topics and identified a lot of patterns of everything we discussed today. What’s the one thing you want a Ruckus Maker to remember?

Justin: Well, if you’re not a limit test for people you serve, that’s hypocrisy. So I’m a dad who happens to be an entrepreneur, not an entrepreneur who happens to be a dad. And I would never let entrepreneur life destroy my family life. So I think for a Ruckus Maker, if you destroy your family for the ruckus you’re making to change the world, then might not be the right ruckus to make.