Be it in your business, career or personal life, all success is intentional and you can only get there through willful change and persistence. Once you create that intentionality for yourself, you are all set to follow the path of intentional creation. Speaker and author, Justin Prince drives this message home in this inspiring conversation with Dan McCormick. Starting out in the oddest of odd jobs, Justin Prince never gave up on his desire to live a significant life. Even a big failure at the start of his business career did not stop him from pursuing his dream, which he did with the help of a strong faith in God, supreme devotion to his family and unbreakable will to persist. He now runs four multimillion-dollar businesses and shares his story to aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world. What does this intentionality mean to Justin? What roles do persistence and discipline play in it? Listen in for more.

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Change Your World With Intention with Justin Prince

The Greatest Systems Salesman In The World

St. George, Utah brings us my good friend, Justin Prince. Justin, how are you?

It’s great to be on. It’s weird to say St. George. We’re new down here in Southern Utah, but I’m honored to be on with you. You’re one of my favorite people on the planet. I appreciate you inviting me on.

It is an honor. I know you’ve got a lot of family, friends and fans. We’ll have people across the globe reading. If you’re reading six weeks or six months or six years from now, we look forward to bringing you the show. Justin, going from selling Bibles to selling billions of dollars of goods and services, if you could start us off with a value proposition, what are the three things that shape your life for each and every day?

We were together in California when you said that you like those type of questions like, “What are the big overarching things?” I’ll give you three. First is I believe in God. That simple statement has shaped decisions in my life. It’s a reason I do a lot of things that I do. The second is, I believe that no success outside the home can compensate for failure inside the home. I’m a family man. I got four kids and that is a life philosophy I try and live by that shapes a lot of my decision.

The third one is more of a business philosophy and that is always do more than you’re paid for as an investment in your future. You know my story, no college education, no real professional background, making pizzas and doing construction work. I used to work at a mall kiosk selling animated Bible movies. What I did have was a lot of hustle and I always did more than I was paid for at that time as an investment in my future and in the person I was becoming. Those would be the three things that I look at as key core life philosophies and perspectives that have guided and shaped my journey.

Intentional Life: No one owes you anything. Not only should you do what you’re paid for, but do more than you’re paid for.

It is an absolute grounding thing. In every conversation and every situation we’ve ever been in together, I can feel those three things come from you. Let’s expand on number three if you could for our audience. “Do more than you’re paid for,” what does that mean to you?

We live in an interesting time where entitlement can root into your system. Entitlement means someone owes you something whether it’s your parents, government, city, state, business or somebody, your job and employer. The fact is no one owes you anything. Not only should you do what you’re paid for, but do more than you’re paid for. Remember there’s a value ladder. A value ladder down would be this idea that we’re not paid for the hours that we put in. We’re paid for the value that we bring to the hours that we put in. Someone might make $10 an hour. Someone else might make $100 an hour. Someone else might make $1,000. The hour didn’t change but the value that those people brought to the hour changes.

When you’re building your career, you’re not only saying, “You owe me this $10 an hour or $8 an hour,” whatever your situation is. You’re saying, “I’m going to put in $15 or $20 worth of value to this hour even when I’m not paid that right now, as an investment in my future, my skills, my relationship, my work ethic, and my ability to produce in that hour.” What my experience has been is you become more valuable to the marketplace over time. I did construction work for my dad growing up. My first formal job was making pizzas. I think I made $5.25 an hour, maybe in $6.25 or something.

My point is that’s about where it was. That’s probably below what you would make these days, but that’s what it was back then. I look at that now and I make more money than that per hour. What’s happened? What’s changed? What changed is I am more valuable to the hours now than I was then, but I showed up early. I stayed late. I worked as hard as I could. I try to have a good attitude. I try to have a good perspective. I didn’t think that the boss owed me anything. I try to invest more than I was paid for at the time as an investment in my future and in the person I was trying to become. That’s been a core philosophy. I remember many times as an entrepreneur, and Dan you’ve lived this as well, oftentimes you do a lot of work for a lot of time for very little as you’re getting a business up off the ground.

You’re grinding and working. For me, my first business failed. At one point, I moved my pregnant wife and our two babies into the loft above my wife’s parent’s garage. I’m working two part-time jobs, trying to chase the dream to be free as an entrepreneur. I’m like, “What am I doing?” This is a lot of work, a lot of grind but as I look back at that now, all of that effort ultimately caught up because I was growing and my skills were getting better. I was sharpening the saw as it were and I was improving. You always do more today as an investment in your future tomorrow. Always do more than you’re paid for as an investment in your future. It has been a core philosophy I’ve tried to live by.

That is a tremendous piece of wisdom. It’s a great principle and you’re right. We can look at entitle mania and say, “How much more can I bring to this hour right now?” I love what my friend Nathan Ricks used to say, “Is this the highest, most effective use of my time right now?” When my eyes woke up, I start opening up the wisdom literature and I get going on this stuff. I got all of Og’s priceless pieces right here and it never stopped. Thank you very much. That’s fantastic. If you’re new with us, we love to get the show started with three things that are profound for an individual, which makes them the greatest salesperson in the world. You’ve got God in your life. You’ve got no success outside of the home that can compensate for what would go on in the world, and then adding that value to every single hour the best you can. Do you remember the first time The Greatest Salesman in the World was put in your hand?

It was first on audio cassette tape. When I first heard The Greatest Salesman in the World, it was on an audio tape. I was selling animated Bible movies in Arizona. It’s true story. I was in my car and I had it plugged in. It was late one night. I’d finished selling. It was about a ten-day sales trip. I was driving home late. I went from Mesa, Arizona to Kanab, Utah. That drive was about 6 or 8 hours and then I had another few hours to get home. I was listening to this. The story is taught in a parable. It’s part of the reason it’s so brilliant. At the end, as the story goes into full circle, it was like lightbulbs. If you haven’t read The Greatest Salesman in the World, it’s one of the fundamental classics of personal development and taking your life to the next level. I remember when I first read it, I was reading those scrolls as I was selling that week. I was out of town selling. It’s all commission. If I didn’t sell, I didn’t make money.

I was away from my family. This is in that period where my business had failed, so I’m trying to hustle. I’m below zero financially, back on taxes, back on credit cards, and trying to make the whole thing happen. Those were fundamental scrolls of fundamental life philosophies that helped to shape a lot of who I am now. “I will persist until I succeed,” that is the ones that I could chalk up a lot of my experience too. People say, “Why did it pan out?” That’s the word, “Until I guaranteed my success.” I remember that vividly. I remember I could taste it. I can remember I wanted success so bad. I’m not in my car listening to sports radio. I’m not in my car listening to music. I’m in my car listening to Og Mandino pouring the scrolls with that scruffy voice. I remember where I was when I first heard those.

It’s an interesting thing. I was standing in a parking lot. I was a nineteen-year-old punk kid. No self-esteem, no self-worth and no net worth. This guy says, “This book changed my life.” I was $53,000 in debt and I made $75,000 in my first 90 days in business with then my future wife. It’s always good to marry your upline. That’s what I did. It’s interesting because the scrolls are unique and personal to everybody. Because of my upbringing, it was scroll number two. I didn’t have a sense of what love was. I didn’t know what philia was. I didn’t know what brotherly love was. That scroll, “I will greet this day with love in my heart, muscle can split a shield and even destroy life. It’s the only unseen power of love that can open the hearts of men and women. Until I master this art, I will remain no more than a peddler in the marketplace.” Virtually for 38 years, those words echo in my mind at 4:00 AM, 5:00 AM, and 6:00 AM. I’m always curious to see what scroll strikes you. I have the cardstock scrolls and I knew you were going to pull that one out. I pulled the cardstock scroll out. I don’t know if you have your book handy. When I look at this scroll and I see this, it’s just sheer poetry. “I will persist until I succeed,” you brought that out to me unlike anybody I’ve ever listened to. Why do you think that struck you so uniquely?

My wife and I moved to Southern Utah and my son, who’s sixteen is playing high school football for the first time. For those of you that have children, you know how it is. As a parent, you want them to be healthy and you want them to be happy. He goes out for football. He moved four hours, new community, new school, new kids and new sport. He never played in his life. He goes out to play and he’s the new guy. He doesn’t know what’s going on. Long story short, I go to one of his practices. I’m the only father in the bleachers and sitting there watching. They only had helmets on. They didn’t have pads on. They were running a drill where he’s playing linebacker. For those of you that don’t know football, linebacker are the guys who are supposed to hit the guy with the ball. They’re running through these drills. They’re going about 90%, meaning they don’t have pads on. They’re still trying to get used to how it all works.

Intentional Life: With persistence, your success is not only possible, or even probable, but 100% guaranteed.

The running back comes up who is a senior and my son’s a junior. The senior’s last name is Stone. This kid’s a fantastic athlete and super built. He comes running up and I was noticing that as he would run through the line, every play was a touchdown. They’re going through the motions a little bit, but no one would hit him because the linebackers were holding these pads. If you can imagine, the pads were about the size of your chest and you’d have two handles in the back and you’re supposed to go up and hit the guy. No one would hit this kid. My son goes in, he’s the new guy and he’s playing linebacker. They’re saying, “Prince, hit him. When he comes up, you pop him. You’re supposed to. We’ve got to get him ready and all of us ready to play.” They’d run the ball. Here comes Stone coming up and my son comes over and blasts this dude, which is what he’s supposed to do. The coach was like, “That’s what we’re talking about.”

The Stone kid flips around and throws the ball right at my son’s face. He’s wearing a face mask but he still hits him in the face. I know my son well enough. He’s wired a little different than me. I used to be a fighter back in the day. I was a golden gloves boxer. For me, I would have been like “What?” My son has got a lot more of my wife than me. He’s a softer sweet kid. I could see him reach his hand out almost to say, “I’m new and they told me to do this. I’m not trying to be a jerk.” I could see the contention of that moment was stressing him out. I could tell watching from the stands. I walked up to him on the field after. They’re all sweaty and taking off their helmets. It’s dusk, no kid even sees the red rocks behind us.

I said to him, “I saw that kid throw the ball in your face.” He goes, “Dad, everyone told me don’t mess with Stone. Don’t hit him. If he comes up to you, slightly turn the pads because he’ll knock your teeth out. He’ll run you over. Turn your pads so he doesn’t hit you.” I think back to that scroll and I think back to the way that I was raised and whatever. I said, “Son, we don’t turn our pads. When someone comes at us and your job is to hit him, you hit him with everything you’ve got from whistle to whistle. Before the whistle and after the whistle, it’s all sportsmanship. When they blow the whistle and it’s time to hit. You don’t turn the pad.” What makes me emotional is I said to him, “You have Prince blood that flows through your veins. I don’t turn the pad, your grandpa didn’t turn the pad and his grandpa didn’t the pad. If we could hit them as hard as we could every play, as you relate that to your life.” He’s like, “What if you get run over?” “You get back up and you hit them again as hard as you can every play. You persist until you succeed.”

Dan, imagine if we had a quarter. I want to do this with your audience. In the United States, you have heads and you have tails. You have a quarter, $0.25. Let me ask you a math equation. The math equation is this, “What are the odds that I could flip the quarter, catch it and land ten heads in a row?” Is it 50/50 because remember it’s heads or tails? Is it 1 out of 10? Is it 10% odds because I have to land ten heads in a row? What do you guys think? As you think about that, you say, “What are the odds I could land ten heads in a row?” The answer is it’s a 100% for sure guarantee that I can flip ten heads in a row. Why? It’s because I didn’t limit how many times you could flip the coin. You can flip the coin until you land ten heads in a row. It may take you 100, 1,000, 1 million, but you can persist and flip until you succeed.

As I look back at my career, the times I got knock down, the times I wanted to be like, “I’m out, I quit, I give up, enough for me. I don’t want to do this anymore.” You get your teeth kicked in. You lay there on the ground and bleed. What are you going to do? You’re eventually going to pick yourself up, pick up the rocks, dust off the dust, get back on the horse, and persist again and keep going until. What most people do is they persist until it gets hard, until they get hit, until it gets hot, until the team member quits, until the company does stupid things. They persist until that happens and then they say, “I’m out.” They feel justified because they have enough reasons to justify the quitting versus enough reasons to keep going.

Here’s what I’d share. I was keynoting in Seattle for a wealth management firm. I was one of the youngest guys in the room. The median income of the room was $750,000. There were a couple of folks in there making a few million dollars a year. I’m the keynote speaker. I taught this, “Persist until you succeed.” I said, “You can guarantee your success with the word until.” Think of how powerful that is. It’s not make your success hopeful, not even make it possible, not even make it probable, I’m talking guarantee your success. You can guarantee it by, “I’ll persist until I succeed.” I had a guy in the back. He’s probably about 65 years old. He has his legs and arms crossed. I can tell he wanted to ask me a question, but I could also tell he was going to call me out in front everyone. He was debating. He should be the guy that calls out the speaker in the middle of the speech. Instead of avoiding the guy, I pointed out, “Sir do you have a question?” I can tell, you can almost read body language a little bit.

He goes, “Let me ask you a question. There’s a difference between persistent and crazy.” In other words, you’re doing it over and over and you suck at it. You’re going to keep persisting. He said, “You’re telling people they can guarantee their success if they keep persisting?” When does it turn into Einstein’s definition of crazy, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? I said, “You’re right, sir. Do you want to know what the word is? Write this on your notes, ‘adapt.’” I will adapt until I succeed. I will change until I succeed. I will grow until I succeed. I will persist until I figure this thing out. The word until still guarantees your success. I will get up until I succeed. When I get knocked down, I get up and I’ll recalibrate. I’ll learn new skills until I succeed.

The word until if properly applied, will guarantee your success. As I look back at my career, I apologize for getting all emotional about my son’s story, but I look at him and I was like, “We’re not pad turners. You don’t freaking turn the pads.” I look at my business career like the challenges because you say billions of dollars. That was an opportunity fraught with difficulty equal to success. All of that was persisting until, getting up until, and not being a freaking pad turner. We live in a society with too many freaking pad turners. Too many people act like they’re in the game and they turn the pads so they don’t take the hit and don’t look bad. I’m telling you, even if you get run over, stand back up, pick out the rocks and the dust, dust yourself off and go again. Keep persisting, adapting, growing and changing until you hit your goals and dreams and become the person you’re trying to become.

First of all, I want to say thank you for sharing a personal story. I have my daughters with all the grandkids. We have a 12th grandchild on the way and four married daughters. I remember going to those basketball practices with my daughter. I remember going through that kind of an emotion, but it’s interesting how you brought it out and you made it so real for family. It can be real for business. It can be real by reading the scroll. Let me share Og’s last few words of that first paragraph of scroll number three that we’re all going to be studying a little harder because you’re teaching us so much. He says, “If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed.” It was such outrageous reminders and the granularity of the detail for you to be able to share that with us here and all the audience is fantastic.

That scroll resonated with you at such a deep level. You can feel it every day of your life. He’s Justin Prince, everybody. You can go to IamJustinPrince.com. I did not even know you had a book because you didn’t promote your book to me. I read the book all online, Change Your World: 5 Steps for Unapologetic Success. You can go to his website and get your free copy. What we’d like to do is give you a brief little free nugget from the Og Mandino Company. If you want to scientifically measure your thoughts to see if you are willing to persist until you succeed, you can go and get a free online assessment at HabitFinder.com/Justin.

Change Your World: 5 Steps for Unapologetic Success

I asked the owner, Dave Blanchard, what could be something we could add that we’ve never added before? I know Justin’s going to bring a lot of people. We have this entire section on Dream Creation. The whole world is about creation. That word starts in the Bible about the creation in Genesis. Everything in our lives starts with creation. What if you could know exactly how to do it, how to apply those principles of creation in your life? Take that assessment and request for your free consultation. You will get $199 value, the Dream Creation Course.

I appreciate you doing that for my audience. I didn’t know your team’s going to do that.

It’s the principle of giving away free stuff. You know how it works. You give away as much as you can. I look at this signed trilogy set that I have from Betty Mandino. I look at the signed The Greatest Secret in the World I have from Og Mandino. I look at the history of these scrolls and what they’ve meant to my life. Everyone I talked to, “Who do you know is the greatest salesperson in the world? When did you read The Greatest Salesman?” You answered that question. Thank you so much for being here again and all of you who might be joining us. I have a question about your book because I do love this word that you use, ‘intentional.’ I know it’s something you’ve given a lot of thought to because you write about it.

I was $5 an hour building tennis court. You’re $5 an hour making pizzas and working for your dad in construction, etc. I think about what Og Mandino did in each and every scroll like the way Ben Franklin did in each and every virtue. There’s an intentional point to reading these scrolls three times a day like Daniel in the Bible pray three times a day. Talk to us about that because you’ve created something. For those that don’t know you, you have generated an organization that does millions and millions of dollars in volume monthly. You see people on your teams create astronomical successes very quickly. You’ve got an intention for your success and your contribution.

We live in the most distracted time in human history. It’s never been worse than it is now. We’re all addicted to our phones. You say, “I’m not addicted. Are you kidding me?” Don’t pick up your phone for the next seven days and tell me how you’re doing. You can’t go five seconds without it. How many of you know where your phone is right now? We’re addicted to this digital download and this digital distraction. Most of us are living in a world of reaction and distraction versus intentional creation. We’re not intentionally creating a life. We’re reacting to the distractions of our life. What I would share with you is when you can make this shift of, I’m going to leave the world of distraction and enter the world of intentionally creating my life by becoming the person I want to become.

One of the things I’ve had a chance to do is work with another amazing author which is John C. Maxwell. Inc. Magazine says he’s the world’s foremost authority on leadership. Thirty million-plus copies of his books have been sold, with a hundred books total. John and I are an advisory council. We went at one point to Costa Rica to do what’s called a country transformation. They’ve done a couple of different developing countries where they’ll teach fifteen leadership principles, fifteen leadership values to developing nations but they start with the seven pillars of influence in the nation. For example, politics, healthcare, sports like soccer, military or police. They start at the top and then work leadership down because they start with a key center of influence in those different business, etc. One of the stops that we made was with education. We went to one of the local universities, about 500 students out in the audience. We’ve been watching John teach all over. We’re part of maybe 7, 8 or 9 of us that are in this little group traveling around Costa Rica with him.

We went to the US Embassy. I’m sitting next to the US Ambassador. Me, the US ambassador, and John Maxwell. I’m like, “What am I doing here?” One of the stops we make is this university with 500 students. Now you think of a college student, 18, 19, 20 years old. Have you ever seen or listen to John Maxwell teach? John Maxwell typically nowadays will teach from a stool. Sometimes he’ll sit down and he’ll have a highboy table and he’ll have an iPad up there, and then he’ll have this stool. He teaches from the stool.

His content is rich that he doesn’t have to bounce around the stage. You’re just enthralled with his content. Long story short, we’re in Costa Rica. John’s on this side of this little table he has. On the other side is his interpreter. The guy that’s interpreting in Spanish. John was teaching and suddenly he stops. He reflects for a second and he says, “If there’s only one thing I could teach you, it would have the most impact in your life.” He sat stops midstream and the interpreter interprets. He stands up off his stool and walks right to the edge of the stage of this little auditorium with these students and some teachers in there. Everyone’s like, “What’s the one thing?” Everyone’s got their pen out and ready to write their notes.

He stands there and he holds his arm up in the air. Five, ten seconds have passed and he hadn’t said a word to a point where it’s like, “What’s up here? It’s awkward.” The interpreter walks over and he stands right next to John, puts his arm up like this. Neither of them were saying a word. Fifteen, twenty seconds have passed. We haven’t seen him do this on all his speeches. Thirty seconds have passed, nothing. He’s just got his arm up. Forty-five seconds passed to a point where people are looking around the room. One of the Costa Rican students, a young woman, maybe eighteen years old, stands up in the audience and puts her arms up. Then another student, another student, and another one. They all put their arm up. The whole place stands up. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. They all put their arms up. I’m thinking, “What’s going on? What’s he going to say?”

He held his arm up and he says, “If there’s only one thing I could share with you that would have the most impact in your life, it would be this, live an intentional life. All success is all uphill all the way. You won’t accidentally go uphill. You must intentionally go uphill. Most people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. Commit to living an intentional life.” That simple concept of saying, “Today, I’m going to live an intentional life.” Og’s scroll number one, “Today, I’m going to begin a new life.” What if you began a new life today saying, “In this new life I’m going to live today, I’m going to live with full intention.” Meaning I’m not going to get lost in the scroll. I’m not going to go through the motions at dinner with my kids. I’m not going to pick the kids up from school and not use that time. I’m going to focus that time that’s important to that child. I’m going to live with intention today. I’m going to build a business with intention. I’m going to control my emotions.

Intentional Life: All success is uphill. You can’t go uphill by accident.

Dan, you live in California and I live in Utah. The state you live in is not where you live. Where you live is the emotional state that you live in. If you’re pissed, frustrated, ticked off, angry, entitled and grumpy all day, that’s where you live. Most of us have a freeway to piss. If something happens, freeway ticked off. We have a dirt road to grateful and a dirt road emotionally to centered, perspective, context and to living an intentional life. I tell people, you want to be a thermostat not a thermometer. A thermometer reacts to the temperature of the room. A thermostat sets the temperature of the room. A thermostat sets the intention of the room. As a leader, a mom, a dad, a business owner or someone who’s trying to make a difference in the community, church, charity or whatever it is you’re passionate about, live a life of intention. Most people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. All success is all uphill all the way. You won’t accidentally go up the hill. You’ll only go up the hill intentionally or purposefully. That’s my thought.

We live in this distracted world where we’re almost a little bit like zombies. Wayne Dyer once said, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” There’s another way to look at it, which is we don’t see the world as the world is. We see the world as we are now. What I want to share with you is we don’t see the world as the world is. We see the world as the algorithm says the world is. We’re living this reality through an algorithm. We go online and you think that’s reality. That’s not reality. That’s what the algorithm served up to you as reality. We’re living in a world right now that talks about how divided we all are from our politics, races or different ways of looking at life. What I’m sharing with you is there’s only one race, which is the human race.

We are all human beings that care deeply for each other and love and want to lift each other. We’re more connected than we are divided. You’ve got to remember, you’ve got to snap out of this stuff. Sometimes I’m like, “What am I doing.?” I’m not going to let the algorithm changed my emotions. I’m going to see the world the way that the world is, which is it’s full of a bunch of people like you and I that care about people. We’re doing our best to raise good families and build good businesses. We’re less divided than we realize that we are. Live a life of intention. Get control of your emotions. Remember that all successes are all uphill all the way. It’s not supposed to be easy and you’re not going to go up the hill accidentally. You’ve got to do it all with intention.

I love one of our guests here that said, “I hope I’m not the only one holding my arm up.” Our audience are blown away by that. Got to HabitFinder.com/Justin and you too can take our free assessment. See if your thoughts are aligned with the scrolls that Og is teaching and what Justin is teaching. It’s truth and principles. I tell people that the origin of the word principle is “prin.” It’s almost like Prince. Prince is a strong channel moving you forward as PLE. That is living life with intention. I thought that we might have an entire training class just on that word with you. It’s going to be an unbelievable thing to see how many people leave their comments continually and share this with their favorite page. I know when you think about The Greatest Salesman and you think about John Maxwell, you are living with intention every day. Where did you decide that being well-read was going to be a value for you? You are well-read. You’ve got great command of the language, your quotes, and the people that you’ve studied. Give us the one about the people that you shared with me.

George Bernard Shaw said that 2% of people think, 3% of people think they think, and 95% of people would rather die than think. You talk about living with intention. Living with intention is being a thinker. You don’t go with the crowd just because you process, think, rationalize, ask questions and critically process information. To answer your question, I can’t remember a time where I’m like, “I’m going to read books.” What I can share with you is when I was twelve years old, my parents were going through a divorce. Divorce is tough. It’s tough on the folks. It’s tough on the kids. I get the some are tougher than others but they’re all ugly. My parents were going through this divorce. I remember I was in seventh-grade. I was almost thirteen years old. I’m in middle school for the first time and I’m sitting in the math class. It was almost like I’m having an out of body conversation with myself.

I had the good little angel on the one shoulder and the bad little devil angel on the other shoulder. The bad little devil angel was like, “You can have sex with girls. You can drink beer. You can smoke pot. You can be an idiot in school. You can drop out of school for all I care. For the rest of your life, you can blame it on your parents for blowing it. You were this victim of their blown marriage.” I was like, “That sounds interesting.” This other little angel was like, “That’s true. You can do everything that he said but it’s your life live. If you choose that, that’s fine, but you’re going to have to live that life. Those decisions, you’re going to live that life. It’s your life to make and it’s your life to break. If you want to blame it on your parents and be a victim of their failed marriage your whole life, you can do that. You’re the one that has to walk around in those shoes. It’s your life.” I was like, “That’s a good point.” I’m going back and forth with these little devils on my shoulder.

I look back now and I am thankful that I chose the little good angel, the little good Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder that said, “Go live a life of intention. Make your own decisions. Don’t blame other people. Don’t be a victim of circumstance. Be a victor of decisions you make.” The word decision, “cision” means to cut and “de” means off. An incision is to cut in and a decision is to cut off. What does a decision mean? It means you cut off all their possibilities. Every decision that you’ve ever made in your entire life has you reading this now. You’re not here by accident. You chose to be here through all of your decisions. The decisions you make leaving this will shape the rest of your life. You can make new decisions, which cut off all other possibilities and lead you down a new path. That’s what I would encourage you. If you’re not proud of your past, today is tomorrow’s past. You start stringing some good todays together and you build a great past. You make new decisions today and you start growing into that person that you want to become.

There are biblical terms about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I have hungered and thirsted for success. I’d go to the gym when I was 18 or 19 years old. I would be listening to Tony Robbins and my brothers would be listening to AC/DC. They’re like, “We’re at the gym. You don’t listen to personal development at the gym. What’s wrong with you?” I look at all of those years of intentionally pouring stuff into my mind. I can recall some of that stuff because I both did it then and I do it everyday. Dan, I saw you one day and I go, “How are you doing?” “I’m up since 5:00 AM pouring positivity in my mind.” I’m like, “No wonder you are who you are. Living with that level of intention, pouring that level of positivity in your mind, no wonder you’ve turned into who you’ve turned into.” I’ve done that ever since I can remember. I look at my kids and my six-year-old son is doing it. He’s got all this positive stuff pouring into his brain. He’s so far ahead on wherever I was.

I was cleaning my office and I was doing an intense decluttering of my books. Behind a bookcase of more books, I found the books that I bought and the date that I bought them all for my daughters. I bought four of these at the big gigantic bookstore in Denver, Colorado. It’s awesome when you start plugging that into your kids. We think about many of these amazing people that are reading that are leaders of organizations. It’s going to be the leader of your house, the leader of your mind. First thing, mind over mattress starts from me at 5:20 AM almost every day. That’s the latest I’m going to get up. Mind over mattress, the day has to start in order to lead the people. You got to prepare. Live life with intention and be prepared.

I had this thought when you were telling that story about the angels. We could have a repeat of this and we could call it Outwitting The Devil with Justin, not Napoleon Hill, which is one of the iconic interviews in the history of the world. For people that might find themselves a little bit stuck, Og was an alcoholic. He needed to make a decision, “Today, I begin a new life.” Maybe someone’s reading this that is in a different situation. It could be pornography, the marriage, or whatever. What do I have to do to make that decision? You speak to many audiences all over the globe. If you were giving a thought or two to the brand new people or the people that maybe are a little stuck not they want to be, how do you close that seminar?

Intentional Life: All success is uphill. You can’t go uphill by accident.

I’m known for my straight talk. I’m going hit you straight and I’m going to hit you the way I’d hope that you talk to me. First of all, never quit on a bad day. Don’t let emotions rule your life. Don’t quit your marriage on a bad day. Don’t quit your business on a bad day. Don’t get quit your life on a bad day. We all have bad days. It’s always darkest before dawn, the sun’s coming up in the East tomorrow, we’re going to get through this. If you’re going to move on from something, then move on when your head’s clear, slept on it a little bit. Your thought through it. Be strategic in your life. Live a life of intention. Part of the intention is strategy. It’s like, “I’m going to move forward in a more strategic way,” versus just being an emotional wreck all the time, reaction and distraction of your emotions all the time.

The second thing I’ll share with you is this. Jim Rohn said, “For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better.” Don’t keep doing the same crap all the time and expecting things to change. What do we need to change? What do we need to do better? What can you own? Take extreme ownership. What can you say? “I do need to improve here. I’m not going to blame it on them all the time or blame it on the marketplace all the time or blame it on the customers all the time. I’m going to take some ownership. I can’t control this. What’s in my control?” Get strategic and make some changes.

The secret to business, the secret to life is momentum. You don’t have to get Mach 2 momentum or a speed of 1,000 miles an hour on day one. The foundation of success is believing in yourself. The way you begin believing in yourself is by keeping commitments that you make to yourself. I tell people, “The easiest way to gain momentum is start stringing wins together.” A win for you might not be customer purchases. That may not be a win. The win is the next person you talk to make them feel like a million bucks. Smile and remember their names. Speak in terms of their interest. Give them a sincere compliment. That’s something you can control. It’s within your power. Once you keep that commitment to yourself, you build some momentum. Make another commitment and keep it. Start stringing some wins together. Get proactive in your mind versus reactive. Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. I look back at my little career. At all those times you got knocked down, you get up and you say, “What can I win at next? What’s something I can win at?”

You start stringing wins together. You start stringing momentum together. You get to point in your life where you could put 2 inches of concrete on a train track of a full-blown locomotive that’s at a dead stop and 2 inches of concrete would prevent the locomotive from even moving 1 inch. You could put steel-reinforced barriers of concrete on a train track, give the locomotive 55 miles an hour and it would bust through it like steel. What’s the difference? The difference is momentum. You can get through all this stuff, but you’d get through it by making commitments to yourself and keeping them. Don’t pick stuff that’s out of your control, but stuff you can control, your attitude, your perspective, your work ethic, how you show up. Never quit on a bad day, keep commitments to yourself, and string wins together to create momentum.

I wonder if you would talk about the systematic approach to life and business. We hear a lot about biohacking. People want to sleep less. They want to produce more. They want to biohack everything they can. You have biohacked and leverage for time. I’ve been fascinated by the concept because you’ve systematically figured out how you live with intention with your family, your people, your business. It’s systematized down to every moment of the day.

Let me start by saying, I don’t want anyone to read this and be like, “This guy is different than me.” Brendon Burchard wrote the biggest study of high-performers in the history of humanity. It’s called High Performance Habits. One of the things that he found in the study was that high-performers don’t do the right things all day. They do the right thing 67% of the day. In other words, 67% of the time they’re dialed in. The point that I’m sharing with you is, you don’t have to be like, “I’m never going to have fun for the rest of my life.” You can do Netflix and chill. You can go for a walk. You can live a life, but you need to get dialed in way more often than you probably are dialed in now. Aristotle said, “Excellence is not an act. It’s a habit.” Therefore, we are what we repeatedly do. I tell people you’re not what you did, but you are what you repeatedly do. We all make mistakes, but you can’t keep making the same mistakes over and over or else that’s what you are. What you want to do is you start to build better habits, better patterns, better routines.

One of them I call is avoid versus resist. When you wake up in the morning, you say, “I’m going to build habits and patterns where I pour positive into my brain.” Your brain works on wave cycles. It works at 10.3 wave cycles per second early in the morning. You may feel groggy when you wake up. Your subconscious is the most alert and the most awake early morning when it’s rested. Even though you may feel a little bit like, “Here we go,” your subconscious is like, “I’m ready to roll.” You start pouring in positive very first thing. According to research, the first thing we touch in the morning is our phones. The second thing we touch is our coffee. The third is our toothbrush. We haven’t rolled over and touched our spouse or our kids and we’re already into our phones. We’re already in reaction and distraction mode. The first thing you touch in the morning, if you’re going to touch your phone is you’re pouring positive in your brain.

The first ten minutes a day, listen with relaxed belief, believing it’s possible for you. You start pouring water into the well. A well that has no water can’t give water. You can’t nourish your family with no water in the well like an empty place don’t feed starving kids. You can’t give what you don’t have. Start pouring into yourself. You get into this pattern, this habit of saying, “What can I do to show up with intention and what habits can I build that are easier for me to do than to not do?” Build the right habits, the right patterns, the right routines. People are like, “That’s rigid. I like to be a free bird.” The more disciplined you are, the more free you are. It’s counterintuitive.

I have more professional and personal freedom than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s because I built habits, patterns and disciplines that I did over a long period of time. The more disciplined you are, the more free you’ll become, not the less disciplined you are. Create habits of success, create patterns of success. Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Habits is a great name. What are the habits that high-performers have? You don’t have to do the right thing all day. You do have to do 67% of the day or more. The second thing is creating systems or habits where it’s easier to do.

Avoid versus resist is this. If I have chocolate peanut M&M’s in a dish in my kitchen early in the morning, I’m not going to eat any chocolate peanut M&M’s. I’m going to resist them. At lunch, I’m still resisting them. I’m going to eat my chicken and broccoli. At 11:30 at night when all the kids are asleep and my resistance level is low, I might take a few and I might take a lot. The point is, I avoid them. There’s no chocolate peanut M&M’s in my house. I don’t wait for willpower to kick in. I don’t wait to be motivated. I build systems around my life like if I want to eat chocolate peanut M&M’s, I get in my car, drive to the store, pull up money and pay for it. At that point, I’m like, “That’s too much work. I’m not doing that.” I built systems so I can avoid it versus resist it. What are the things you can do in your life? I build systems in all areas of my life. It’s not even hard anymore because it’s just not even around. It’s not that I’m so motivated. It’s not even an option. You’re doing the right things repeatedly over a long period of time.

Intentional Life: Avoid. Don’t resist.

I’m sure somebody is going to put that book, High Performance Habits, by Brendon Burchard. I remember a book I read years ago, Peak Performance Principles For High Achievers by John Noe. I remember those kinds of things you pulled out. It’s powerful. Your comments, your feedback, your willingness to share an hour of your life for many people that are on your team, that are maybe new to the show. There are people that we’ve never met. It’s an honor to be here with you to talk about what Og says at the beginning of The Greatest Salesman, “It’s only principles that endure” and you laid that out well.

I like to say that it’s principles and habits. There’s this one word that this remarkable and one of the greatest, most successful men in history, his name was Spencer W. Kimball. His favorite word was remember. That’s why Og wants us to read the scrolls three times a day. That’s why we read, Think and Grow Rich more than once. That’s why we listen to the scrolls. That’s why we have this show, to be reminded of what we already know. Justin, it’s been a joy. It’s been a thrill. This is very much more enjoyable for me doing this than being in the boxing ring with you. You’ll love following him. His comments, his videos, his social tribe is amazing. Thank you so very much for your time. I look forward to sharing the success and the journey with everybody.

Important Links:

• Justin Prince
• The Greatest Salesman in the World
• IamJustinPrince.com
• HabitFinder.com/Justin
• The Greatest Secret in the World
• HabitFinder.com/Justin
• High Performance Habits
• Peak Performance Principles For High Achievers
• Think and Grow Rich

About Justin Prince

Justin always had the desire to live a significant life. He finally got the courage to start his first business at 25. He put all of his blood, sweat, tears, and savings into his first business, and after almost two years, it abruptly failed. This left Justin and his young family in debt and scrabbling to figure out what to do next. After getting over the pain of failure, Justin moved his pregnant wife and two kids into the loft above his in-laws garage. He found two part time jobs and started another business. He remembers many sleepless nights where in the pitch black he would say to his wife, “Are you awake? Am I crazy? Am I chasing a ‘fake dream’?”