Jolie Shapiro00:02.923
live stream. The hell are you talking about? Oh, no, it's not. That was I don't know what it's doing. Okay. Anyways, I'm a start. Thank God I have an editor. Okay. Welcome to revenue mind a podcast where revenue leaders talk all about mental health. I'm Julie, your host and with us is Justin. Welcome, Justin.
Justin Rowe00:06.67
Let's take this live. I thank you for having me and happy to be here.
Jolie Shapiro00:29.607
Awesome, yeah, thank you so much for joining. I know it's been a little bit on my end with the scheduling, so I really appreciate you making it. First question that I don't really prep people for for a reason, I know it's a fun one. So before we get started with the questions, what makes you you?
Justin Rowe00:49.09
That is a good question. I'm sure I could take this a variety of different routes, but I guess my first response would be I'm a product of a few things. The home I grew up in, the parents, kind of my surroundings, but at the core of who I am, I guess my essence, I'm a very logical, motivated person. I'm a very much kind of, I would say a defender. don't have a ton of deep relationships, but the people that I am close with, I would defend with my life. I'm very loyal. Integrity and honesty is something that's very important to me. I'm very sarcastic and kind of, I probably don't take enough things seriously enough. I make jokes about things I probably shouldn't, but I'm a very, very logical person, very much a few relationships, but deep and... And then, yeah, I guess very self-motivated, self-driven. I'm an obsessive. I latch onto things and move, you know, once I'm latched onto something, I go deep and can't let it go, which probably was why startups make sense, why tournament poker before that made sense, why video games would, you know, get deep into. But I would say roll that craziness into a ball, and that's pretty much the essence of Quorum.
Jolie Shapiro02:18.123
I was laughing because I'm like, my God, we're the same person. get so deep into things that I care about. It's crazy. I feel like that's definitely a founder's mentality. I've talked to, who did I talk to about it? think it was Mac Redden. We all have the same founders, just you're obsessed and it's like a drug. And it's just.
Justin Rowe02:43.896
Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro02:45.087
But I love the essence. That's awesome. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, we're not alcoholics. We're just drug addicts to our founding startups. There we go. So moving on. First question, let's dive in. You ready? Cool beans. All right. So speaking of restaurants,
Justin Rowe02:48.046
trying to use our drugs for good instead of bad. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Mm-hmm.
Jolie Shapiro03:12.307
You left the restaurant after a burnout crash. Can you pinpoint the exact moment that made you say, enough, it's time to set healthier boundaries?
Justin Rowe03:21.278
Yeah, I can pinpoint it to, it was kind of building up. So the restaurant industry in general is kind of intense. You're, you know, locked in a building for, you know, eight to 10 hours on a good day, 12 to 14 hours on a bad day. I was a restaurant manager and so I was the restaurant general manager and I was the training manager. So I was responsible for training salary managers around me and helping staff other stores. It got to the point where they were. taking people from my store and putting them in other, other stores, which felt great at first, but then over time that became a cycle where I felt like I was just being used for spare parts and I was constantly being short staffed and I was constantly compensating to the point where I think, yeah, my breaking point was I think three or four 18 hour days back to back to back, in a restaurant that basically didn't like was open 24 seven. So was there from like five in the morning till about three a.m. the next day and then back in three days in a row because of how epically short staff we were. And, you know, kind of like contributing to my own problem to some degree by letting my people go to other stores. So after that, you know, my aspirations of moving up in that company were pretty much done. I really just wanted to focus on rebalancing my life there. I started saying no to my boss on a regular basis, which I had never done before, which took promotion paths off of my plate. But at that point, I just wanted mental sanity and to not feel the way I did. But yeah, that was kind of an extreme. And another combination of things, was that path I on plus at that time I was an immature leader. So I believe I was viewing people as kind of numbers on the spreadsheet to achieve a goal. and running, know, not being able to keep maybe the top talent or not being able to keep and attract people on top of everything else that was going on. So that was probably the roughest. And then after that, that kind of reframed everything of what am I willing to do? What am I willing to say yes or no to? What are my boundaries? How do I protect myself? But yeah, that was up until then, I was just saying yes to everything. I thought that was the, and that had gotten me to that point in my career of never saying no to my bosses. not having boundaries, being that company person. So that's kind of when and where it changed for me.
Jolie Shapiro05:49.932
That's amazing. When I was at Sixth Sense, what was the phrase? It was something along the lines, Latin used to say it, say no to say yes. Are you writing that down? Nice. Yeah, feel free to steal it. Just, mean, just credit her, I guess. But yeah, I love that phrase. I've talked to lot of founders and what I've learned from all of you is just how to set boundaries because
Justin Rowe06:02.464
Yeah, just dropping that. I like that.
Jolie Shapiro06:19.851
Time is the most precious commodity as corny as that saying is, but I feel like that really, you really embody that, which is great. know you post a lot of amounts of health and boundaries and all that, but which actually brings us to our next question. I'm getting so good at segues. You should be terrible. You should be like pivoting a little bit. Here's a completely separate topic. But this time it's flowing. All right. So speaking of.
Justin Rowe06:43.054
Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro06:50.303
You've carved out time islands on your calendar. What's one instance when that protected slot, let me start again. Speaking of, you've carved out time islands on your calendar. What's the one instance when that protected slot saved your day and your sanity?
Justin Rowe07:08.05
I think it's almost on a weekly basis because what I, what I feel like is if your calendar is just open, it'll get filled up with stuff and then you're just kind of a slave to your calendar. And, especially, yeah, time is precious. And I think that's always been true. And that sounds corny, but especially when you're either a leader of a team or a founder of a company, like you need, you need some protected time away from the day to day operations. to be able to take a step back with some perspective and space to think about things on a higher level. And if not, you're just gonna be in the weeds, you're just gonna be... So I think one of the things I did was I started building these little buffers on Wednesdays. I typically don't take any meetings internally or externally afternoon. And then on Fridays, usually end my day early as far as I stop having calls. after a certain point and on Mondays I try to give myself some buffer in the mornings to not take calls or have things so that coming out of the weekend, getting started, I'm not just thrust into the week, I have some protected time to maybe help plan or to take some of that buffer. So a lot of times, yeah, I would say that has saved me and probably more times than I can realize because up until I started doing that, I really felt like, yeah, during the day, you're just doing what you have to do and then you come back nights, weekends, doing all the stuff that maybe actually moves the business forward. And so any way possible, I'm not saying that is actually still how it is for the most part, but any time that I can actually try to bake into my actual daily schedule to have more of that balance or just mental sanity, then that works great. it's made a visible impact on myself for that. I would advise others to. do something similar, like curate your weekly experience to something that makes sense. I guess the other thing I did was, I try not to have three days in a row where I'm just open to have calls from open to close or whatever. So if I have one day that I'm completely taking a lot of calls and Tuesdays tend to be a really busy day, on Wednesday should be a light day. Thursday can be a heavy day again. Friday should be a light day. And that balance, I think, has had a big mental difference for me.
Jolie Shapiro09:31.36
That's awesome. I had, I call it Dr. Chat GPT at this point, with the deep research component. It's just crazy. But I had it create M1 through M6 blocks optimized for ADHD, which is really cool. And it took like,
Justin Rowe09:36.302
Hehehe.
Jolie Shapiro09:52.108
all the things I needed to do. So it had M1 through M6 for weekdays, and then it had like a midweek reset, and then it had weekend reset. It was awesome. I'm trying to, yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, I had to figure out how to make it more public, but testing it out for now.
Justin Rowe10:01.582
That's kind of I like that.
Jolie Shapiro10:12.753
I'm happy I'm giving you some ideas. Yeah, usually I'm the one taking notes.
Justin Rowe10:15.822
The best part about talking to other founders is they have good ideas.
Jolie Shapiro10:20.971
Exactly. Oh, thanks. Well, you too. part of the reason I reach out is your posts are ridiculously good. Great. So speaking of LinkedIn, this is so good. I'm loving these transitions. That'll be edited out. Speaking of LinkedIn, your world revolves around high-impact LinkedIn ads. How do you keep your edge performance and well-being when the pressure is on?
Justin Rowe10:33.29
you the big thing I realized is if I'm, if, there's this pressure to like keep cranking out like posts and ideas and creativity. And if you're, and I guess like, yeah, if, if that's the task and that's how I'm thinking about it, you can get burnout on that. You can get like just crappy ideas flowing out of you because you, you, your heart's not in it. So And I think I'll credit Finn Thurmeyer, I probably butchered his last name, but he's pretty active on LinkedIn. One of his mottos is about like philosophizing on how to keep a consistent organic motion on LinkedIn. He says, do cool shit and write about it. But basically the essence is like, if you're doing the work, you're, I'm tinkering in accounts, I'm experimenting, I make time to be able to run experiments, try things that... creates endless opportunities for content. But if I'm not hands-on, if I'm not experimenting, and then I'm literally just trying to think of cool stuff to write about without inspiration or without hands-on practicality, yeah, that becomes an unmanageable chore. But if I'm doing stuff, and I guess I'm stealing this also from Gary Vee, documentation versus content creation, that's way easier to think about. And so yeah, all of my best posts, I would say, isn't like... me sitting in a dark room trying to come up with some clever idea. was like me working on my own business, figuring something out and then writing about that. And it happens to help other people facing the same issue. So that would be my best advice as well.
Jolie Shapiro12:20.821
That's awesome. like we're learning so much from each other. Yeah, Adam from, I think it's Fibler. I think that's his new company. Builds in public. Yeah, can't, I'm not even gonna try his last name. I think it's Holmgren, possibly. I'll ask him. But what do you, actually this is more of a side question, but what do you think about building in public? Like, especially if you've like a stealth started, like what's your opinion on that?
Justin Rowe12:23.0
Thank Yeah, home grabbing or something. Sorry, Adam. Yeah, sounds better than mine. It's a bold move, but overall I think it's if you have thick skin and if you can take constructive feedback because the best and worst part about building in public is that you'll get called out when you're wrong. ideally in a perfect world, you're building in public and you're making great smart choices and you make yourself look great, but be prepared for when you're building in public and you make stupid decisions when you say something that shows your immaturity in an area and don't take it so personally when someone points out. because I've run into that. I came from the restaurant industry and then I came into the marketing industry and on, on some levels by my own right, you know, I'm an expert in certain areas and on other levels, I am an absolute amateur, figuring things out. And so, you know, some of that can get exposed and I have to be open to that feedback. And then how I handle that or how you handle that in public when you're getting that feedback on your post. can say a lot about you and either turn people on or off to you. So I do like it. And overall, if you commit to that, I think it's a net positive as long as you as an individual handle the situation respectably over time because it could get dicey.
Jolie Shapiro14:00.523
Yeah, for sure. I completely agree with that. I like to consider myself like an ideas person. Like I'm very, very good. Like I mean, not that everything's unique and every like a lot of things been made before, but Like I'll be talking with like a friend, you know, quote unquote on LinkedIn. And we're like, that could be business stuff like that. But when it comes to some really good strategy, really good at teaching myself and studying, but actually the hands on keyboard and actually doing the tools I never learned. So theoretics all day strategy all day ideas all day. But I wouldn't be able to write like a ebook on how to do technical implementation. But I know that about myself. And I think when you know your limitations to your point, like you can hire people that are smart in those areas and are very proficient, and then you can stand out in what you're best at.
Justin Rowe15:01.71
Yeah, I'd agree with that. yeah, lean into your strengths, I guess, as another startup superpower, because you can't be good at everything. You can be a good coder. You could be a good marketer. You could be good at business ideas. You could be good on the financial side. It's very rare that someone's even good at two or three out of, you know, that dozen things that are necessary in any given field. So knowing what you're good at and leaning into that, because over time, like I consider myself now A lot of people know me as the LinkedIn ads. I consider myself a broad marketer. Yes, I go deep on LinkedIn ads. I know enough to be dangerous about the other channels, but then in each of those channels, there's deep experts who have more knowledge on any given channel, but I pride myself on, I can put those channels together better than any individual expert and better than most broad spectrum marketers. So trying to figure out where your center of genius is and focusing on that, I think is great advice.
Jolie Shapiro16:01.599
Yeah, for sure. And as we both know, mine's under your NDA, but being a founder can be incredibly stressful. What's one unexpected habit you swear by to manage stress during those high octane revenue crunch days?
Justin Rowe16:17.198
I guess one of the things that I would say is you do need to find ways to disconnect. It can be easy to just stay almost just in the grind in, you know, whatever the weeds of it is. And from that perspective, things always seem, you know, a lot more dire. So sometimes just disconnecting, going for a run or walk out in nature, just trying to really disconnect and spend time somewhere else, playing a video game, doing something to try to segment your mind away from that business. I'll play, I used to play video games all growing up. I came from a gamer family. I don't play computer or console games really anymore. I have mobile legends or something, a five on five strategy game. And if I play that, I literally disconnect from whatever was stressing me out of the day and have that disconnect. And I really enjoy walks and runs outside in nature. feel like that's highly therapeutic for my brain. It's almost like a green scrub of my brain, I imagine. But finding some way to disconnect, finding some hobby or enjoyment or something outside of the work that you can disconnect. Because a lot of times that will help you reset, help you rebalance. And also a lot of times you'll have better perspective to come back and tackle a problem. Whereas if you never leave the zone, Sometimes you just go in these inefficient cycles and you're just taking three or four times as long to solve a problem because you're just like too close to it and not taking a step back.
Jolie Shapiro17:53.932
Yeah, I feel like that's the zoom in, zoom out approach. And it's so hard. I mean, even though I said, you know, I'm very strategic and not super hands on keyboard, I tend to hyper focus. And when you're so in the weeds, it's so hard to be like, wait, let me back up. What was my vision? Where do I want to go? Who do want to be? What do want to do?
Justin Rowe18:15.618
Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro18:19.025
And some things that I mean, I've already talked about this in podcasts, but I'll just repeat it. Like having a life outside of work, I feel like is so important. I was talking to Jason, but and he actually says in his interviews, what do do for fun? And if they don't have a hobby, he doesn't hire them. which I found really awesome. Yeah, I that was really cool. Because you want, mean, life is so short. It's amazing to have a mission-driven or purpose-driven or something that you're really passionate about like you or me or XYZ founders that I've talked to. But if we don't have life outside of it, what's the point?
Justin Rowe18:41.922
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. It also adds like context and character and perspective, like someone who doesn't have other things going on. Like I think, you know, like having family and having kids, like that has taught me a lot about perspective and time management, even more ruthless time management than I had to have before. And also just like perspective too, like, you know, like from my kid's point of view, like dad works and... pay for these things. Like they don't necessarily care what I do and this side of my life is not that important to them. And yet, you know, this can be all consuming and all, but you know, like, yeah. And it's a little different, like if it's your startup, like, cause you can't just say like, you know, I work to, I work to live and instead of like living to work, like running a startup can feel like you're living to work sometimes, but it's yeah. The balance is that you're, you're, making conscious decisions and trade-offs. for future payouts or accelerated knowledge. And also, yeah, I guess the way our brain is wired, like having such full gripping engagement into what you're doing is somehow weirdly satisfying for us versus like a job that's nine to five and like they wouldn't miss you if you were gone. you like that's, you know, that, yeah, they can be different.
Jolie Shapiro20:25.087
Yeah, for sure. No, I'm right there with you. Well, I mean, with with with startups, I forget, are you this might be cut out, but are you venture backed or are you bootstrapped?
Justin Rowe20:38.254
Um, so I was bootstrapped originally. It was a LinkedIn lead generation agency. was acquired about three years ago, majority acquisition. now I'm my minority owner. Um, and, and that investor, uh, yeah, continues to, so now we're, uh, investor backed and he's, you know, funding this plus, uh, kind of a SaaS tool, uh, that's bolted on and some other stuff. yeah, started out bootstrapped, now, uh, investor backed, uh, at this point.
Jolie Shapiro21:06.795
Nice, nice. I was just curious because with investors, especially VC and, is it VC or PE? I think that's private equity and VC. Yeah. I think that's the right term. Put 10. Yeah. Okay. I'll just say equity backed or investor backed. Well, with a lot of startups when they're investor backed, I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but when targets loom large, how do you force yourself to choose a good night's sleep or a nature break over the endless calls?
Justin Rowe21:17.71
I so. Yeah. And I would say, yeah, that is, that is, it is, it is different. It's not. So I remember like when I was bootstrapped and it was just me, like I would have sleepless nights, like trying to figure out payroll, trying to like wonder, you know, if this dip is gonna, is gonna stick or if we're going to come out of it. you know, I was taking out, some PayPal working capital loans and then, I feel like it was never ending roller coaster. And then the, you take that and then. either if you're investor backed or PE backed or whatever, the goals get bigger. It's almost like for my poker days, it's like you're staked at a table that's at a much higher level than what you're normally playing at. So the stress and the risk and the everything is at a different level. So I would say that contributes to that and just raises the stakes on everything. And I guess sometimes I might have to take take a walk or disconnect in order to be able to get a good night's sleep because otherwise, sometimes you just lay down and your mind will not stop racing. And so it just can't shut off and you feel like there's critical problems you can solve. So I guess some of the stuff that I would do in those scenarios would be like, I almost just have to tell myself, you are not going to solve this problem right now. There is nothing you can do right now. Spending another hour in the dark thinking about this will not solve it. And if I thought you could solve it, I'd let you continue on this road. You will not solve it. This is pointless. Like force yourself to think about something else and drift away to sleep because you're not helping your situation right now. And sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If it's a critical problem, it can be really hard to like talk yourself out of obsessing over that.
Jolie Shapiro23:22.527
Definitely, what is that quote from House that my fiance always says? I think it's when you're, I'm totally gonna butcher it, but it's like when you're asleep, you solve problems that you can't when you're awake.
Justin Rowe23:36.414
I've heard that. And a lot of people would say like, that's what dreams are, is that it's your unconscious mind trying to like solve the problems of the day that we're lingering and working through some of those things. And I can't remember ever like popping up with like a critical solve to my previous days like problems, but I would say more often than not, a good walk or a run has led to more breakthrough moments than almost anything else. Like if I try to disconnect and I take a walk with my dog or take a run, like sometimes I will have my absolute best ideas out there.
Jolie Shapiro24:15.307
For sure. I have a really random question. I might haven't put it like for the beginning or the end, but do you like video games? It sounded like you did.
Justin Rowe24:24.814
I grew up playing, I grew up, my dad was an IT specialist for, or a network specialist for a school system. We had LAN parties, he would bring home the computers. We play Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, Starcraft, all those games. And then I got big into consoles, played Need for Speed and all the fighting games and all of that. And then in my adult, I played World of Warcraft and I was really big into that for a decent chunk of time. And that's actually where I learned automation for the first time. I learned how to bot characters to levels and I started selling them for cash. And that's kind of one of how I stumbled into automation for Legion that led to my first company. But then now I play Mobile Legends on my phone or tablet, five on five strategy. I feel like it engages my mind, but yeah. I would say I fit in that category.
Jolie Shapiro25:23.029
That's so cool. Have you heard of Hearthstone?
Justin Rowe25:25.414
I have, yeah. It's like that card strategy game that's back and forth, yeah. You play that.
Jolie Shapiro25:30.995
Nice. I don't. No, my big passion is music. That's my thing. Cool. So I might have to do the pivoting a little bit. So we talked a little bit earlier before about saying no. Tell us about the boldest no you ever gave at work and how that single moment reshaped your leadership style.
Justin Rowe25:33.876
How about? Okay. Yeah, I go back to my restaurant days. So after I had that breaking point, I had never told my bosses no to anything. And then it came to a point where there was a general manager at a restaurant that had dropped off and they needed someone to go step in and fill that gap for an unknown period of time. it was 45 minutes away. So it would be a 45 minute commute. My normal commute was five minutes. And then the store was probably twice the volume because it was new and in a big whatever district and and you know, he teed me up. Actually, it was my birthday. Teed me up and said, hey, this is what's going on. It wasn't even an ask. It was I need you to do this. I'm not sure for how long. And then this is the plan because, know, to his his point, like I had never said no. So there's no reason to like think I would have said. But after that, because of everything I'd gone through at that point, I was over it and I said, no, I'm sorry, but I'm going to stay here. I have someone that would be willing to go help out there for a little bit, but even then I don't want to loan them out of my store. He was completely speechless, did not expect that from me. It really did start to fracture our relationship. And you know, they got a little petty at first for a little bit of time, like eventually everyone like calmed down. But yeah, that was probably the biggest one. And I felt terrified to say no, because they always position these things like, hey, this is you're going to be so helpful. Everyone's going to love this. This is going to look great on you, whatever. But I had heard that so many times over the last year and a half. Yeah, just so I said no. And then it was like a domino. There was like a handful of things over the next four weeks or six weeks. you know, hey, we need a shift lead for this store. Hey, we need a manager. And like they were asking, okay, if you're not willing to go, can we still continue to have like your people moving on? And I basically was saying, no, these people are going to stay in my store. We're going to work on our numbers. We're going to focus on, you know, building our, you know, our environment here. And I didn't know what the consequences were going to be. didn't know if they could just force me to do that or if they were going to force these people to go. or if I was going to get removed or pushed into some village. So that was really scary for me, but it kind of worked out. mean, it killed my career with that company, but it all kind of worked out because from that and with that sense of confidence, had this, eventually it all settled down and I'm like, oh, they can't make me do this and they're not gonna do anything about it and I can just stay here and my team can stay here and we can build our own store and that's an option. I mean, sure, I don't get promoted now, but I don't even care about that anymore. So it eventually worked out beautifully and that mindset carried on after that. And I give people the same advice, like almost any job in the world, they need you more than you need that job. And so you look for your points of leverage and how you can leverage that because guaranteed, like if you're a decent person, they need you more than you need that job or that company. So use it.
Jolie Shapiro29:09.899
Yeah, I'm all about leverage. It's probably a little devious, but that's why I'm doing my own thing right now. Great. So how did that help you build a team culture at your own company, Impactable, that shows everyone their well-being matters?
Justin Rowe29:15.405
Yeah. Yeah, so I guess that's one of those things coming from the restaurant world where I didn't have levers such as like being able to pay very competitive wages to build a team. The only thing I had was kind of culture and flexibility. So if we treated people as decent human beings, if we were as flexible as humanly possible on their needs and schedules, and if we, you know, helped give people experience like, yeah, because I didn't, I didn't have pay as a leverage. had to be really creative of how I could. keep and maintain a talented team to help me achieve goals. So that mentality now, when I came over into the marketing world and I started hiring and I started seeing like, you know, what other agencies are charging for these services and okay, well, geez, like I didn't realize how much, you know, money was being thrown around in other industries coming from service or restaurant and everyone's getting paid minimum wage. You go into the tech world or the marketing world. And it's like, I could afford to hire decent, talented human beings and pay them a competitive wage. And then on top of that, I can treat them like good human beings and provide flexibility with schedule. And then, yeah, I've always had this one philosophy with building the restaurant and then with the Legion agency and now in the ads agency, like most skills can be taught. The big thing that can't be taught is like, are they decent human beings with integrity? that you can trust and will treat clients and each other with respect. And if I can find that, I can teach them the necessary skills to be successful with our business. But that's been one thing that I've latched onto and we have a great team, good culture, people treat each other with respect and that matters a lot with us.
Jolie Shapiro31:09.737
That's amazing. That reminds me of, I don't know if it's, it's probably, it's been said by someone. I just don't know the original, but it doesn't matter really where you come from. You can be any income, any job title, any seniority, any type of company, any type of person from a janitor to a CEO of a, you know, of a, I'm trying to think, I don't want to UnitedHealthcare, I'll cut that out. Yeah, the person I got shot. But, you know, CEO of XYZ company, but you can't teach class. And I think that sort of integrity and...
Justin Rowe31:36.91
Hahaha. Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro31:52.96
Just being a good person, I think there are a lot of people that are good people, but they're really out for themselves and are mostly selfish. But there are a lot of people that are selfless and they want to get back. And I think what you're doing is awesome, building that, fostering that culture where, you how do I put it? that culture. Or you foster a culture where team members are also inspired to be those type of people.
Justin Rowe31:59.086
Yeah. Yeah. And I'd agree. There's a lot of people who are good human beings, but there's also like a big group of people who have good intentions, but are still kind of really toxic in like work environments because like they don't have tact, don't have self-awareness. They're kind of a little too self-involved and they, and it's really hard to discipline them because it's like, you know, you know, they're not, they don't have bad intentions, but almost doesn't matter because they do so many things that just like are like toxic clouds that create these like problems for people. So those are the ones, I'd rather them just be bad people and be easily identified, but the good intentioned people who are kind of toxic, that can be a challenge to deal with.
Jolie Shapiro33:02.931
Yeah, seriously, like you, and it's so, they're not, these people aren't devious because they don't mean to be, but they have good intentions, but they, I don't want to say can't get their shit together. They, they like, it's almost like, yeah, that's true. wait, sorry, it's my dog. One second. She wants out.
Justin Rowe33:08.984
Yeah. They kind of can't get their shit together.
Jolie Shapiro33:33.1
She was really fun. I was getting distracted because she was like on her back in my bed. It was really cute. Yeah, she was yeah, pretty. Oh, oh, she'll like glare at me. She'll do like this, like this really depressed, like you are the worst mother in the entire world. Why aren't we going on a walk? And I'm like, I take you and walk six miles a day like. Oh, yeah.
Justin Rowe33:37.614
Take me out. Love me. Mm. time. Spoiledog 6 miles.
Jolie Shapiro34:00.488
She they're totally spoiled. We treat them yeah if I had kids they'd probably be 600 pounds.
Justin Rowe34:07.624
We have two blue healer mixes. They're 10 and 13 years old. So they're very energetic. Early on now, they mostly lounge around and cry when we change the trash or ice cubes or whatever they get anxiety about. They need to be on a mental health podcast. They got issues now in their older stage of life, but they're good dogs.
Jolie Shapiro34:11.012
Aww. You just gave me a business idea. Thank you.
Justin Rowe34:33.934
Mental health, I mean, my older one, she's got some kind of mental issues, but you know, yeah, that could be a thing.
Jolie Shapiro34:45.631
Yeah, because there's therapy dogs, but there isn't therapy for dogs.
Justin Rowe34:50.466
Yeah, and people really care about their dogs if there's legitimate help or work that can be done to make their life better or ease some of those problems, people would probably pay good money for that. Business idea. Boom. I'll take 2.5%, thank you.
Jolie Shapiro35:01.707
That's my next NDA. Thank you. I told you it's so weird. Oh yeah, I'll give you equity. I'll give you some equity maybe like on a deferred basis. Oh, thank you. Awesome. So now I actually have to pivot. That was funny.
Justin Rowe35:16.142
Yeah, 5 % and I'll help with marketing. Yeah, I'll put in some work.
Jolie Shapiro35:31.295
So this is a question I don't know if I've asked before, but on a podcast, but if mental health were a secret KPI on your dashboard, what would your perfect day look like and how does it fuel your creative edge?
Justin Rowe35:44.944
man, yeah, if that was like, and I'm kind of taking it back to like the video game, if there was like a health bar and you're like, mental health critically low, do something. Yeah, so first, if I could curate a day that keeps me in like the maximum green zone, it would be having the morning kind of protected to be able to not just jump right in, but have some kind of time to plan. I'm not talking like ice baths and whatever, just. Having an hour or two before the chaos ensues to kind of mentally prepare for the day and plan instead of jumping in, it would have an actual separated lunch, not a working lunch or not, you know, just taking calls through lunch and then getting a snack. Having an actual lunch, having a, you know, one or two walks during the day where I can get out, separate from my desk, get out into nature, be surrounded by something that's green and growing. for, mean, I'm sure there's tons of studies, like actual, and I live in the Midwest, so we have actual seasons like spring and fall and beautiful nature. My wife's from Arizona, getting out and seeing the cactus and the fake grass doesn't quite do it for me. So, and then, maybe even having some time at the end of the day, but my work day to reflect and plan versus like, yeah, what normally happens is you dive in, you. you're eating crap in between calls, you wrap up with back-to-back calls, and then maybe 9 p.m. you're reflecting and planning and catching up. So yeah, if I could carry out my day, it would look more like that with the breaks and the easy start and the slow end and some nature walks would be nice.
Jolie Shapiro37:28.875
Yeah, I definitely got to build that M1 through M6, or at least show people how to build it with my doctor, ChatShipET. But I'll add a disclaimer that this is not replacing professional psychiatric help.
Justin Rowe37:33.614
Yeah. I think that would work. Yeah, this is not a cure for depression or...
Jolie Shapiro37:48.94
anxiety or any of the mental health issues, just to guide. Maybe you gave me another idea of what you're saying. Shit, this is ADHD going nuts.
Justin Rowe37:52.034
Yeah. curating schedules for busy business professionals is another great idea.
Jolie Shapiro38:06.741
Yeah, right. Ooh, bring that down. You might have to...
Justin Rowe38:08.59
Yeah, that actually would be good because I honestly people schedule like, you know, founder schedules. I'm sure there's there's a like, I'm not that there's a right solution, but if you could spend time crafting a masterpiece that is your weekly flow or your weekly work schedule, that's probably a very worthwhile investment. And the worst part is no founder has the time to do it for themselves. So paying X amount of thousands of dollars for someone to understand their needs and curate something that keeps them in their zone of genius the longest and in their most productive state, yeah, that would pay huge dividends to a business. That's better than the dog therapy, I think. If we're ranking ideas, I don't know. They're all good ideas, but.
Jolie Shapiro38:55.499
I found my new business partner. I gotta get... Yes, yes. I'll just run my crazy ideas by you and then you'll be like, okay, no, that's really dumb or yes, I'll take 10 % to 15 % equity and help you.
Justin Rowe38:57.314
I think this one we could get buyers for a lot easier. Yeah. You Cause the marketing side of me is like, okay, how do we find audience data sets of people with money, like business professionals with dogs so that we can market this. yeah, busy business professionals who need their schedules curated. That's probably easier to find. We got this.
Jolie Shapiro39:34.796
I'm not an editor, take literally all this shit out because I actually want to add this to my NDA. I feel like don't do any of this. Not the dog therapy though. Whoever wants that, take that. Cool. So thank you so much for sharing that. There's actually, I talked with Vlad from Full Funnel. He was one of the first episodes and he had a physical ailment and he
Justin Rowe39:44.736
Yeah, you can have that idea of who everyone's run with it.
Jolie Shapiro40:04.285
ended up walking and walking and walking. And when he got outside, actually, I mean, didn't cure it, but it definitely helped. there are studies, I actually read a study a while ago about hiking and being in nature and how it actually relieves anxiety, which is really cool.
Justin Rowe40:11.032
Yeah. I believe it.
Jolie Shapiro40:22.091
for sure. All right, a couple more questions and then I know we find you on LinkedIn, but it's gonna ask it anyway. Cool, so what would you say if you could write a note to your burnt out self?
Justin Rowe40:35.455
So one of the biggest things I think I would say is that, you you have value, everyone has value beyond your current status, like beyond your current title, beyond your current income, beyond that, like you have value. And I think that not having perspective on that leads to a lot of actions that cause burnout. And I would say, you know, your job needs you more than you need that job. That's true for 99 % of people. And that inspires confidence and gives power. And I would say, you can say no. You can say no and you can create boundaries. And because they need you more than you need them, they will, you know, might argue over those boundaries, but you will be able to protect boundaries that give you the space that you need to, you know, function properly. And then I guess I would also say in all my experience, you know, the best thing you can do for your career or for your business is to take care of your mind and your body and get enough sleep and drink enough water. Like those fundamental things actually do contribute to success. And so if you think, if you're neglecting all of those things to chase success, you're going to be, you know, barking down the wrong tree or you're going to be down a very inefficient path to get there. So yeah, I guess I would, I would probably incorporate some of those elements, just kind of empower and put things in perspective.
Jolie Shapiro42:03.203
that seeing them in the opposite camp being laid off three times in a row over the past three years I definitely feel like I'm the first thing to get cut to stay at the bottom line. I don't think I'm the only person that feels that way but I think when you're especially with it I mean it really wasn't so I've definitely made some mistakes but you know with the tech recession and what's going on right now and the thing is just really really tough for people.
Justin Rowe42:16.151
Thank Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro42:32.139
But I like your perspective of if you can prove yourself to be invaluable. You might have a shot.
Justin Rowe42:45.336
Yeah, I guess that's a different perspective in the face of like, yeah, all the tech layoffs and whatnot. Like that message doesn't quite hit the same for that group. And then we are, what do you, what would you tell that group? Because yeah, I'm sure at some point it does start to feel like, you know, I am just, you know, insignificant or I am, you know, maybe there is something. And I would say like, yeah, I guess from that perspective, like these companies who do these layoffs, like, you know, They don't have, it's managed chaos at the best and they don't have their shit together and humans do pay the price and that does have an impact on those humans' mental health. And I guess, yeah, I would still come back to like, that does not define you. You're in a tough industry where these things happen and you're at these companies who have to make these hard decisions because they miscalculate and you're paying the price. So you're actually paying the price for someone else's mistake, not your. inferiority or something. And yeah, I guess that I'd have to give a lot more thought to that. But that's different perspective. And that's something I was a part of too. I guess I didn't factor in or shape mine. But that's a really good point that my message probably wouldn't resonate super well with people in that group. just kind of, I had to adjust on the fly here because you really put me to the task of that because yeah.
Jolie Shapiro44:03.413
Well, that one did.
Justin Rowe44:12.894
I hadn't considered it like that.
Jolie Shapiro44:15.719
no, this is where we have my brilliant editor. Ooh, I will tell you a quick story before we wrap up. So out of 14,000 people, have you heard the invisible string theory?
Justin Rowe44:29.676
I feel like maybe invisible string. It sounds really familiar, but I can't say the actual concept.
Jolie Shapiro44:36.051
It's like, yeah, I just learned about it from my, from doing a beauty day. So the person who was, who was doing my nails was like, you heard the invisible, invisible string theory. I said, I've known you were talking about, and she said it's when people are kind of like parallel throughout their lives, but they don't meet until the right time. So a lot of, a lot of different things with my fiance that I won't get into like very weird coincidences, but
Justin Rowe44:55.245
Hmm. Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro45:03.817
This is where I'm like, I think I need to marry you. So and this the guy who's editing this will really appreciate it. So out of 14, maybe 15,000 people, I post a, hey, I need help with podcast distro. The guy reaches out to me. wait, I need help with podcast editing because I freaking suck at a script. Like everything is just like terrible. I'm like, I need to redo this because so the guy so there was one guy that I used who charged like $500 for six hours and I'm like, no. I mean, it's people I don't have. I just don't have the funds yet. Like it's just not I'm not there yet. I know that like hatch is like 1500 a month or I forget what all the pricing is, but I need like I need scrappy. So the guy that my podcast, my podcast distro recommended
Justin Rowe45:36.718
again. Yeah. Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro45:57.612
I talked to you and oh you're from Miami, owe me two, I want you to F. Where did you graduate? And he said 2004. I said you know Brian Weisberg. He said he was my ex-bandmate in college. That shit is crazy.
Justin Rowe46:12.28
hehe That is. And that's just a coincidence? Seems unlikely.
Jolie Shapiro46:23.839
I know, so it's like invisible string man. Okay, so let me, I know we're, have two minutes left, so let me, let's wrap this up until my dogs start barking, maybe. Hey.
Justin Rowe46:26.595
Yeah.
Jolie Shapiro46:37.077
think there's someone here, I don't know. my God, me one sec, I'll be right back and we'll wrap up.
Justin Rowe46:39.894
Okay.
Jolie Shapiro46:56.275
They actually say some of the best podcasts have babies in the background and dogs in the background. It's not just this perfectly produced podcast. Maybe I'll keep the barking dogs. Cool. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate your time. Where can we find you?
Justin Rowe47:14.478
You can find me on LinkedIn, Justin Rowe. Should be one of the more visible ones there. You can also visit our website, Impactable.com, LinkedIn Ads Agency. We offer support in some other channels. And also our YouTube channel. If you look up Impactable or Justin Rowe on YouTube, I think I have like 300 plus videos. There's how-tos to do all of the LinkedIn stuff that people pay us to do. There's explainers of how to do that yourself. It's a really good knowledge source there. So yeah. Probably those three are the best places to find me.
Jolie Shapiro47:46.079
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I think our users, users, Jesus, they're not users. Thank you so much. I think our listeners are going to get awesome insights out of this. I really appreciate you being on.
Justin Rowe47:51.224
Thank Hope so, was great to be here and I felt like it was a good combo.