To Grit with Grace, Episode 6 — Justin Breen: No Excuses
Randy: Hello, I’m Randy Kaufman, and this is “To Grit with Grace”: stories of perseverance to jumpstart your month.
I got my start in wealth management in the heady days of Boston, circa 1998. The town was rife with entrepreneurs of all ages who ended up with vast amounts of money, often represented by a single stock position, post-IPO.
It seemed easy, it reeked of overnight success, and many thought it was sheer luck — not skill. Boy, was that wrong.
That’s when I was first intrigued by minds and not wallets. It’s when I first began to wonder, and then study, what separates successful entrepreneurs from failures? Was it genius-level intellect? Was it undue risk-taking? Was it sheer luck? Or, perhaps, a mindset — and if a mindset, what mindset was that? How could I get some? How could I give some to my clients?
Justin Breen, founder of BrEpic, was born with a story. He found out he had what it took to make it as an entrepreneur when his career came to a halt. A Chicago journalist, he was told one day that his salary was being cut in half for no reason. Over the course of the next several months, he reached out to 5,000 people. He got five clients, he resigned the next day, and thus, his company was off to the races.
Justin works with the top .1% of people in the world. He describes himself as “only barely human,” and he has boiled down successful entrepreneurship as four main elements. Listen to find out what they are.
Where I Come From
There’s a famous speech — there’s a famous speech — the Jim B.V. speech, the Jim B. Valvano speech, which I think is number one. To simplify it — all I do is simplify things — that speech, he talks about, you know where you come from, you know where you are, and you know where you’re going. So I just know where I come from.
My father was 61 when I was born, and my mom was 27, so, 34-year difference. So I was just born with a story — I was just born with a story.
My father was a hero in World War II. He was shot down nine times in combat, and many times he was in a plane without a parachute because at the highest level, you don’t make excuses, you just get stuff done.
When my dad was driving in his late 50s, he was on a highway, and a drunk driver went across the median and hit him head-on. The drunk driver was killed instantly. My dad broke every bone in his body, and my mom was his nurse.
I spend most of my days talking to the world’s top entrepreneurs, and I’ve never met anyone in my life with more hustle than my mom — ever. I’ve never met anyone in my life with more hustle than my mom.
So you combine those two, that’s — I’m here. I’m just the result of that.
I just know where I come from.
Basically, my litmus test for my life, no matter how successful I get, I’m not gonna F it up for my dad. That’s basically what it comes down to. I’m not gonna F it up for my dad, I’m not gonna F it up for my wife and my children.
I will never use anything as an excuse. At the highest level, there are no excuses, only investment. Making an excuse is messing it up for my father, who never made excuses.
The Birth of BrEpic
I was a journalist before I was born.
There’s a photo of me sitting in my mom’s lap when I’m six years old, reading the Chicago Sun-Times. I would read the Chicago Tribune’s sports section for years when I was a child. That’s what I did for fun.
So, in journalism, what will happen almost without exception — almost without exception — you'll either get fired, or riffed, or have your job salary cut in half. So, February 10th, 2017, had a five-minute conversation with the company’s owner and managing editor, and they cut my job salary in half. I had done nothing wrong, but it’s journalism, cut your job salary in half.
So, 20 years of work, five minutes, done. Over.
Tried to find a full-time job, couldn’t find a job. April 16th, 2017, incorporated, company’s called BrEpic. Over the next six weeks, reached out to 5,000 people to find five clients. So one out of 1,000 people said yes. 999 No’s for every Yes.
So I got my fifth client June 1st — today’s June 1st! Hey! Today’s the anniversary of getting my fifth client. How about that. That’s awesome. I don’t believe in randomness, by the way. I don’t believe in randomness.
So got fifth client on June 1st, resigned June 2nd, and June 5th, Robert Feder, who’s the top media columnist in the midwest, did a story about how I started my own firm. So that was just to start the firm.
Entrepreneur Life
By the end of 2018, I’d made more money than I’d ever thought possible in a year, and I’d never been more miserable in my life. So I’m like uh…doesn’t make any sense.
One plus one didn’t equal two.
I leaned heavily on my wife, started seeing a therapist, started talking to my mentors. One of my mentors, he’s one of the top political consultants in Illinois. He’s 10 years younger than me and he’s a mentor. I’m like, “This doesn’t make any sense,” and he says every entrepreneur he’s ever met has gone through something like this. He’s like, “You’ll go through something like this again, but the key is how you learn from this, and realize it’s gonna happen again.”
That’s one of the most important things anyone’s ever told me in my life.
I learned that these ups and downs, this rollercoaster, that’s just entrepreneur life. I have not met one entrepreneur at the very highest level — I’m not talking about nickel and dime businesses, I’m talking about the highest-performing people — that has not overcome one of the following four things:
Bankruptcy or potential bankruptcy
Depression
The highest level of anxiety you can imagine
Likely and/or possible traumatic experiences, child or young adult
So, you’re basically talking about a damaged human being. A damaged human being who does not make excuses. What separates entrepreneurs at the highest level from humans, or nickel and dime businesses, is that other people just use those as excuses. There are no excuses at the highest level. And what I’ve overcome is nothing compared to why my mom had to overcome, or my dad.
One of my newer clients, her grandpa was murdered, her sister was murdered, her aunt was murdered, her uncle was murdered. I mean, okay, terrible, but…entrepreneur life, figure it out.
Most entrepreneurs at the highest level are aliens within their own family, aliens within their own community and aliens within their own vertical. So we’re basically just floating around by ourselves.
I partner with basically the .1% of the world. So, most people think that’s a small number. There’s 8 billion people on the planet, so .1% is 8 million. That’s a lot of people, and those people create the companies that employ everyone else. I work with those people, because that actually helps everyone, but humans don’t understand what I’m talking about. (My wife has made me barely human. Just barely.)
But that .1%, overall, it’s a very small number. So this is a very lonely world, because most people don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. That’s what’s been great about my current company, and the new one I launched, is I was just trying to find people that understood what the hell I was talking about. Now I know thousands of them. And most entrepreneurs, if they’re leading a company of 500 people, they’re the only ones who understand what they’re talking about. Those other 500 — they don’t understand.
I talk like this because I don’t know how else to talk. I’ve never — this is how I communicate, so the only people who understand what I’m talking about are the people at the highest level, who are gonna make the investment, they’re not gonna waste my time with nonsense. They’re gonna make the investment. That’s it.
And then those people just hang out with other people like that. That’s it.
Impenetrable Mindset
Now I just work on my mindset every day.
Just build an impenetrable mindset.
If you have the mindset, it attracts the right network, and creates the right opportunities. It just repels people who don’t think like this, and it attracts people that do. And the people that think like this are the highest-performing people on the planet. That’s it.
But to get to that point, without exception, you have to go through something like that if you’re gonna become a high-level entrepreneur. Most people, they are not born to become the highest-performing entrepreneurs on the planet. Because if everyone could do this, they would do this.
If you said, “Hey, option A, do whatever you wanna do, work with whoever you wanna work with, make as much money as you want to, work zero hours every week, just enjoy your life, spend as much time with your family…But, you have to go through depression, you have to go through endless anxiety, likely a traumatic experience as a child or young adult, and possible bankruptcy,” most people would take that first thing, but they wouldn’t be able to do it.
I have found that entrepreneurs, the really high-level ones, they’re children. I’m in a 44-year-old body, and I have the childish mindset as a…I’m maybe…five. My wife has three children, our two sons and me.
That’s why, like, no matter how old I get in body or age, I will always be a child. There will always be investment. There will never be, like, sailing into the sunset — “Let’s just do some fun little thing and not make investments.” No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. There’s no going off into the sunset.
My wife and I, our first date was the day before she started medical school. So if there’s anything comparable to entrepreneurship, it’s going to medical school. Our children are [laughs] the combination of me and my wife, who’s a very high-level doctor, performing doctor. My sons definitely do not make excuses for anything, it’s really interesting.
Our sons are six and eight, and they’ve both started businesses. The eight-year-old, he started a looming business, like looming necklaces. One of my entrepreneur friends in Canada bought two of the looms for another of my entrepreneurial friends in Utah. So he made an international sale [laughs]. Then the six-year-old, he’s basically doing a garage sale by himself. It’s very interesting to see him do that.
With those businesses, I didn’t tell them to do anything. I’m like, “You figure it out yourself.”
Most children grow up without even knowing this life is possible. They don’t even know it exists. I didn’t even hear the word “entrepreneur” until I was 40, basically. So the best part is, my kids get to see this, and then they can do whatever they want with it. But at least they know it exists. At least they know.
A lot of entrepreneurs don’t believe this, actually, but I believe in a higher power. Things are meant to be the way they’re meant to be. I was meant to be this person. I was meant to have my job salary cut in half. I was meant to meet my wife. Something’s guiding me along.
When you have that belief in something bigger than you — much bigger, way, way bigger — that really clarifies and simplifies a lot of things.
I mean, people meet my wife…people meet my wife. My wife’s amazing. That’s the ultimate, I don’t believe in randomness, I was destined to meet my wife. Thank God. Thank God. That’s the ultimate example, but I didn’t randomly meet her. I was meant to meet her.
In my book…in acknowledgements, people come up with these long acknowledgements, blah blah blah blah blah. I have two great kids, great company, started another one, very happy about that. So my entire acknowledgements are, “To my wife, who has given me a wonderful life in every way imaginable.” That’s my entire acknowledgements.
Without her, I’m probably in a ditch somewhere. So, everything to her. Everything.
Randy: It was wonderful for me to hear Justin’s story — his grit, his grace, his emphasis on family, his unwillingness to compromise on what matters most. Money and power often make family dynamics volatile, and it takes concerted effort to keep the peace.
He reminded me again why I so love working with entrepreneurs. Justin’s case is like many, in the sense that entrepreneurs are bred by nature and nurture. They’re born with certain natural qualities that get tested by their environments. If they come out the other side intact, they tend to come out as successful entrepreneurs.
Thank you so much to Justin for sharing your entrepreneurial observations about life. Thank you also to Dustin Lowman for producing and editing, and to you, my dear listeners, for listening. We’ll be back next month with another speaker’s tale of struggle and perseverance. Until then, I say goodbye with grit, with grace, with growth, and with so much gratitude.
While you’re at it, check out my recent blog post, “Field of Dreams: Cracking the Mind of an Entrepreneur.”
Click here to listen to past episodes of “To Grit with Grace.” And, click here to subscribe.