Yo, what's up people? I'm your host Jay Wheel. This is Inspire Guys, people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. This is episode 191.
It's time to pivot. I'm going to be joined by Justin Carter. Look man, I tell Justin if you want to call it virtually backstage that there are times that I look selfishly forward to these interviews. He's a super impressive guy doing some amazing things.
So let me give the proper, you know, I got some notes here. Let's give our proper introduction. He's an owner and operator of pivot business services. I'm a person, coach of CEOs, executives, and solo preneurs to grow and scale their businesses to six figures.
And he also helps high performers develop incredible mindsets. So if you're a high performer and executive of a CEO or a solopreneur, then I'm telling you we're going to have some exciting information for you today. Exciting because you should be super passionate about receiving information from anyone who can add value to what you're doing. I know I am selfishly.
As we were continuing to build this platform of Inspire Guys, people, one of the things if I'm being real, which I kind of feel like I'm cheating. I get to hold these amazing successful people to come on the show and I get to have a one on one conversation with them. And today the goal is really for you out there who are looking to grow your business or to grow in business. And that is a really key thing to point out is that yes, if you're an entrepreneur, there's something in here for you today.
But also if you're a person who's trying to grow your career through corporate America, we're going to be able to talk about some things to help you as well. So if that's you, please sit back, relax, enjoy the inspiration, tell somebody about the show. As you know, we are fairly new to the YouTube, the video world. So I'm enjoying it, continuing to grow this platform and to get to know y'all in a new and different way where y'all can see my face and all that stuff.
And also appreciate still the people who've been rocking with us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for the past four years. So check out Inspire Guys, people in all those places including YouTube. But today it's time to pivot, baby. When I come back, we're going to have Justin Carter here to kick it with us.
And we all going to learn something. I'm looking forward to learning something and hopefully you do as well. So I'm saying what you're going to do what you said. When you go get that body, what you do what you read.
You feel the beat to yourself. The promise, they're not inspired. Be inspired. I can see beyond the tears you cry.
I saw every hill you have to climb. Just a minute here. When you say you ain't afraid to die. And just like that, guys, people, we are back.
Welcome to episode 191. It's time to pivot. I have my guest here, the owner operator of Pivot Business Services, Justin Carter. What's up, bro?
How you feeling today? Good. Honor to be here. You just set them up for failure.
You set me up for failure. I don't know if I can live up to those words, man. But truly it is an honor to be here and be on your platform. No, man.
I'm excited to have you. I appreciate you kicking with us today. You have, hey, I just want to say to the people out there, you have an amazing platform and the work that you do. What's super impressive to me is the presentation, of course, as we know, aesthetics.
That's typically the thing branding that gets people attention on the front end. But there's a lot of times where the branding is a front, right? There's kind of like people know how to edit. We all got access to these tools.
But as I kick it to you, man, there's a lot of substance there. My go today is really to learn and to dig as much as we possibly can to get some wisdom and some insight from you. Justin, I like to start with who people were to find out who they are. So I want to jump into this conversation and understand it.
Who were you as a child? And you can go wherever you want in your childhood, whatever age. Some people go to elementary, middle school, some go to high school, talk about your family, like whatever it may be. But if you can just give us a little idea before we jump into the business aspect of who you are.
What's your childhood? And who were you? What was your reputation as a key runner? Yeah.
Yeah, man. So for me, I kind of grew up not necessarily in the best of the neighborhood. My father wasn't necessarily present in my life. He went on to pass away when I was 12 years old.
And man, I for the most part, like, yeah, no, it was actually one of the, like now in life, I could say it was probably one of the best things that could happen to me. Sounds kind of weird. But, but yeah, man grew up. And for me, like my mom, pretty much a single mom, and just grew up in a house full of women for real, like grew up youngest of two sisters.
And man, I was just like the football guy. Like I for me, I started playing football at seven and literally played all my life. And so for me, through just kind of the challenges of growing up, you know, seeing kind of some crazy stuff in inner city, not necessarily coming from the best background or the best start for me, like football kept me out of the spaces and kept me out of the wrong spaces at that time. So that was me, man.
Like I was just a kid always outside. Man, like I remember, you know, drinking out of the water hose, you know, we used to get locked out in the summer, you know, you couldn't come in the house unless you was going to lunch, and I was it, you had to go right back outside, you know, playing fly football, you know, like just curve curve ball, like all that stuff, kickball, man, just like a normal 90s kid, man, just outside having fun. And yeah, man, just trying to figure out life. I really didn't know what I grew up in.
And so I kind of aged and I'm like, wow, like we were, I realized there's a thing for me. I realized that I didn't know I was struggling until like I got to college and I would tell people like what my favorite foods were and they were all struggle meals. They're like, wait, that's your favorite food? I'm like, I was like, Oh, wait, I was struggling in.
So I was like, so try me double one of those struggle meals. Like what's an example of my dogs? Yeah, I was like, yeah, I was crazy with sugar dale. Not no, like not no name, but I got to be like one of those grocery storey or storey hot dogs, but that's probably my favorite.
Like that's my goal to now. I still want my favorite. So, so, you know, where I'm probably different and I've gotten a little bougie is I haven't had it in quite some time. And the crazy thing about, you know, hot dogs and pork and beans is like, I don't even like beans.
Really? Yeah, hot dogs and pork and beans went crazy though. So it was kind of like, I miss with that, but yeah, it's been a minute. I've gotten bougie and going away from my roots as a relates to that.
But I had a little, Vienna sausages used to go a little crazy as well for us. But probably sandwiches, you know, okay. I'm a little, you got a pop in the middle. You know, I'm saying you got a, it ain't done until I got the little hump in the middle.
Goodness, dude. That's a mustard. And you know, it's crazy. Oh, why bread?
Oh, why bread though? You got to be right. I'm telling my, I'll be really until I was about 30. If you were to hit me with some wheat bread, we was gonna have a problem.
So, man, that's cool, man. Like, you know, it's funny because I don't know if I ever really thought about it like that from like just from like, you don't even know you were struggling. It started describing what was on the menu for dinner. But what I love about what you said, it's kind of like a gift and a curse in the sense to me is that you didn't know.
And I'm pointing that out because I think in some regards it's good to not know because you're just kind of grateful for life itself. But then as we get older just now, I talk to people now where I'm trying to convince them that there's better. Wow. And so it's like you has dope that we didn't know and I feel like God's grace is in that where we could go through life and just be grateful.
And then it's like, how do we like transition? I'm going super side bar. So I want to throw the conversation. This is good.
This is good. How do we, how do we transition from not knowing to knowing? Yeah. What do you think about that?
Man, it's exposure. It's exposure. And I realize that you, it's not really taught. It's got to be caught.
Like it's unless somebody catches the difference, it's like you saying it, it's not gonna like it doesn't really hit as well as it does when you see like when somebody that had grown up with some level of security or stability or even wealth, how they process through things and then how you do it. For example, I remember when I got to college for me was that was like my first time being in environments of people that didn't come from social economically, the place that I came from. And so I will talk to them and you know, they're like, hey, what do you guys want for holidays? Oh, like we're going to my grandfather's house.
Like he owns 100 acres. I'm like 100 acres. I can't even calculate what does that really even mean? Like my city is that like, that's a large and I'm like, wait, so wow, that's like your family.
And I will find out like, oh, so I was I was the first generation college. Your great grandfather was the first generation college. And you know, like, and they would talk about something called an inheritance. What the heck is an inheritance?
Like, so that's oh, so you're going to get money. So if your parents or your grandparents pass away, oh, so you didn't you're not going into debt to be here. Oh, so you got your grandparents will pay for you to be here. Wow.
Like, so you don't fill out the same applications to get all the debt to be here that I realized. I was like, well, we're not playing about the same game. Like we're playing a different game. And so for me, it wasn't until I began to have conversations and see that, yo, like we were in the same spaces, but we weren't in the same.
Like, I was there going in debt and they were there with grandparents, you know, will or trust money, you know, like they had they had an entry into a corporate. They just needed a degree to get them to check the box. Like, I didn't have I didn't have a recent references and recommendations to get into a job right out of college. I just see like, oh, it's different now.
Like we're playing a different game. And I think that's for me when it started to show like, wow, like, okay, I didn't come from where I thought I did. Yeah, that that exposure piece is kind of crazy when you say it that way. I've had like several of those moments, they almost happen in phases for me where I'll get exposure to something that like, you know, how something make you do a double take and you have to kind of stop like, wait a minute, they just say what I, what I said, I'm gonna give you actually one of them happened when I was about 15, 16 years old.
Okay. Right. So I'm 15, 16 years old and my stepmother was doing hair and somehow, some way she started doing the hair of one of the wives that paid play for the Pistons. So we were some of my men play for the Pistons.
I live in the hood, but because my stepmom does his wife's hair, we are now going with her. Right. I'm sure the first time she showed up by herself, right? And you know how it is.
Once people start finding out all of a sudden, it's kind of like me, my cousin over this, about five or six of us going through for the, but what was crazy for me was, hey, I'm at a players house that plays for the Pistons, my hometown team that I'm only used to seeing on TV. Wow. I'm chilling around. You had a son that was like maybe a year or two younger to me.
So I'm chilling with his sons, but I'm getting exposure to all these minor things of like, this was not a star player as an example. Yeah. And in his basement, there was a refrigerator full of Gatorade. I was trying, that was the moment just in it.
I realized, oh, the stars aren't the only ones that get endorsement deals. Wow. You open a door in the basement like a storage room. It was filled with one shoe brand.
I don't remember if it was Reeba Caddida's. I don't know what it was. It wasn't Nike. Yeah.
But the neighbors outside would just walk in and out of their basement and just grab Gatorade's and it, and that was like a situation for me. When you think about, we all want to be the star. We all think we all want to be Michael Jordan, but there's so much value in being Scotty Pippin. 100%.
Scotty don't have commercials. So like the dude who house I was at, he don't have commercials. So I thought only the star. So like that's just one example of that.
And I do agree with you on this idea that like exposure is an important part, really of growth and success. But all right, a follow up question today. And again, like I'm going to little sidebar, just because this is like such an intriguing topic to me. How do you get that exposure if you don't have it?
Because I think what happens just is people from communities like us have legitimate reasons to complain and you pointed out some of those legitimate disadvantages. And I know just from your story and your background like, okay, you were able to flip that by the grace of God I was. How you get that if you don't already have it. Man, I'm about to say something that's probably going to be really controversial.
Let's do it. Let's do it, man. Let's do it. So here's my answer.
I'm going to just say I'm a preference that where here's my answer for what and how it happened for me. Why people got me in rooms that I couldn't get in? Okay. I had like if I look at my story and I look at how I got in certain rooms and how I got put on, it was people that didn't look like me that got me in certain rooms.
And here's the thing like it wasn't even like it's because some people like, oh, that's tokenism, right? And people were trying to get you in certain rooms. And from my point of view, it didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like, oh, like I had something to contribute.
I believe like there was something I was really contributing to get in certain rooms. But when I say that is like there was a, there was, there was, I think so many people, they grow up with such a disdain for things that are not like them that energy transfers and people that could be putting them on will not put them on because they know that you don't even like them for real. Like you, you, you, like you grew up in the hood or you grew up in an environment that didn't have. You didn't see certain things and maybe you don't have experience with people that don't look like you or people that don't come from you come from.
And so you don't know how to relate or you don't know how to feel comfortable in those spaces. And, bro, like if I'm honest, man, like some of my biggest like levels up has come not by a black person. It has it come from somebody that came from where I came from that grew up in the same community that I did. But it came from, no, realizing that man, there are gatekeepers out there that unless you're okay with getting uncomfortable and getting beyond what's natural to you and where you come from, you will never experience it.
And so for me, as long as we're trying to like, and you could be like, as long as you're only trying to do it in the way that you think it should happen. And you're only trying to like go and increase in a way where you're not, you're not like okay to get uncomfortable. Like, yo, do you know any country artists? Like, do you have you have you, like there's there's a whole world out there that you don't even know about.
And so if you would just find yourself being curious in these spaces, at least for me, that's how I gained exposure. I gained exposure from from people that didn't look like I did, letting me in rooms and me having conversations with people that didn't look like I did. They were asking me questions. I was asking them questions.
And that's for me, those are like my biggest parts of exposure and levels up was people that didn't look like me. Well, I tell you, first off, the comment isn't that controversial for this show. So you kind of came to the right show for that comment. That is 100.
I'm trying to show you. I don't know, you know, I don't know how far I can go. So I'm trying to still weigh on the goal. You can you can talk like so.
So I'm gonna be all the way real like number one, you know, we have quite a few white listeners on this show. And they kind of know like what art what what I've tried what I believe in Justin is especially as a believer, I don't believe in I believe in reality. So as an example, reality to me, we just talked about the pork, pork and beans and the hot dogs and coming from this community. And I think what happens in the world today is that so many of these realities have been politicized.
Yes. That when you say it, it turns people off. But if we all just sit back and accept reality, so for a person with white or even black people, whatever, if you if you grew up and you do have the inheritance and all that, we're not promoting the victim mentality, but there is a reality to the fact that we go into culture shop. And if you black, there is reality in what you said, Justin.
And the fact that like you got to stop thinking that every time you cross a bridge or extend to him or an olive branch that you sell out or you know, you being fake or something like that. So, and this is why your experience experience is so powerful. I was I was kicking it with someone today about an hour ago and I don't think they might be saying this and I'm not sharing what it is anyway. But there's a friend of mine.
I always, you know, encourage him through growing his career. And he's a person that came from where we came from and he's going through a lot of culture shop. And I told him that today at the entry level position, the problem is he's seeing the whole world through entry level. And it's not going to be you almost are not even going to understand what I'm saying until you take the next jump.
And I say that to say, Justin, one of my biggest challenges in mentoring people as it relates to the business from where we're from is getting them to even want to go to the next level because the existing level is so comfortable because it's all they know. And, and people, people can find solace and comfort in like brokenness. And so like, I don't know if you ever know anybody that's been in prison for a while, but like there is a culture where people rep their prison. Like they, they will, I'm from such and such.
Yeah. You know, the prison I grew up in. And what they're really saying is I've got pride in my bondage. What they're really saying is, man, I became to connect my identity.
Even though it was the bottom of the bottom, I connected my identity to that and I made that my home. And so people will see something and what they're saying is that's not actually for me. That's for someone else. And I agree, I think one of the biggest challenges is for people to see like, no, you can win at this level and it doesn't, and it doesn't make you a sellout.
It doesn't make you a coon. It doesn't make you a lot of the things that culture will try to say you are as you're trying to literally change your legacy, change your family tree and level up. And I think that's one of the biggest tricks of the enemy man is to get you to think that that that equality and sameness have to go together. I love that.
They don't, they're not, they don't have to go together. We can, we can be equal without being the same. 100%. There's nothing, a quality, we could be equal, but like you can listen to different music.
I listen to you. You can come from a different background. I come from. And I think the minute that we're okay with getting outside of that, like it, that was, if I were to give one, one, like key area or any level or amount of success I've had, because it's, I've been, I've been okay with being in rooms, being the minority.
Like I've been okay being one of a thousand, two of a thousand. That's been my, like a lot of my growth and success has been walking in rooms like that with context and culture. And like not only did I know my world, but I knew their world and I could be in both and I could be agile enough to talk to the dude that's on the corner and talk to the guys on the head of the board table. Ruh, like that is dynamic.
That, that realness that comes through, you know, I, I, you know, for me, professionally, you know, sales was my thing. And that realness will come through. Like it, I would, I would just have to break stuff down. Like listen, man, I'm just kind of too straight.
I'm not going to hit you with the, you know, all the spin cell stuff and all the, I'm not about to do the hoops and try to overcome objection. I'm just, I'm just kind of too real. This is like, man, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
Genuine. I appreciate you coming to me straight. Um, and so I've been able to use that man. And like I think that to me, that's exposure exposure was, and I'm still being exposed and that context, like I'm still, I'm being exposed to people that got boats.
My people that come from them will have boats. I don't know anybody that got a boat, you know, I mean, I suppose. It's a new lady, not even that. And learn with like Salt Lake City Utah is like and how people are winning at crazy levels and you just like, Oh, wow, there's a bunch.
There's a huge abundant world that I'm just not aware of. And just because it's not your reality, doesn't mean like your inferior, just not your reality. I love that. You look, you said something proud and bondage.
And I want to unpack that a little bit because, and then I promise, we're going to get to like more of your story. I'm like, I got some questions or we can learn more about what you've done in particular that I think is also going to help people. But I think this is important because that pride and bondage, you know, I, last year, last couple of years, I spent a lot of time like, you know, getting better about studying black history. I read Frederick Douglass, autobiography.
I read up from slavery by Booker T. Washington, one of my favorite books ever in the world up from slavery because I really wanted to understand, I love hearing it from the people who were there because I think what happens is we romanticize things. The further you get away from something, even like you said, that pride and brokenness and bondage, you can romanticize what it was. But there's something key when I listened to up from slavery by Booker T.
Washington, one of the things that he wanted to do was build a school, right? And he needed the support of white people in order to do this to build a school for colored people. And he successfully did that by being able to, in a genuine way, speak to both sides. And that's how he was successful.
But one of the things he came across just in that's so interesting to me is that he came across when he had the school, the school was about teaching you agriculture, teaching you how to work and all those things. By this time, you know, people started coming out of slavery. And the problem he had was that the former slaves did not want their children to do jobs that were based on labor. Because to them, labor represented slavery.
So they didn't even want to put them in that school. Why am I saying this? What I'm saying, one of the challenges in the black community, in my opinion, is that we, the devil has tricked us into taking pride in things that kill us. So why is it that I'm keeping it real?
If I rap about killing black people, if I rap about sleeping around and destroying homes, and that's keeping it real. But if I go out and I diversify myself, so what I'm saying is like, why can't we take pride in blessings? Like we got to take pride and bond yourself. I love that you talked about that.
And I hope that doesn't go over people here. And because one of the things I'm trying to figure out is like, how can we continue to further that where people understand, like, I'm just a cyber, like, you know, my cousin got murdered this summer, 36 years old. Wow, I'm sorry. No, and thank you.
And I'm saying that because to some people, this stuff is just a song or it's just a game. Like I come from the East Side, Seven Mile and Detroit. And I ain't never been a thug. I tell people in a minute, like it's harder to survive in this environment when you don't have a gun.
Like everybody brag about being a thug. It's a game to y'all. It's 20 y'all. Like, that's the easiest thing you can do is get involved in that criminal activity.
But imagine surviving that. Imagine going to war. And you don't have a fatigue. You ain't like, just a billionaire.
Yeah. Come on, bro. Yeah. So anyway, I'm sorry to kind of go down that path, but, um, you know, unless you got something else to say we can jump into more of your story.
No, no, let's stop. Yeah, we good. Oh, hey, Bridget, how you doing? Um, so, so this is what I want to talk about.
I know that you have a degree in entrepreneurship, which was super interesting to me. Um, they didn't like at my university, they didn't have that degree. I probably would have majored in that, but it's kind of a two part question. I was curious.
What is the earliest that you can actually remember? Like thinking, like, I want to own a business. And then like, let's start there. Like, yeah, was entrepreneurship something that was that somebody would have looked at you as a kid and saw or like, you know, how far it was to go?
Honestly, man, like I wasn't like, I know a lot of people are like, you know, I was selling snacks on my book bag and fifth grade and I was selling lemonade on summers. Yeah. I wasn't really doing that kind of stuff. Again, for me, I was all like football and all that kind of stuff.
Uh, for me, it was like, it was, it was in college. It really wasn't until college and I was taking a major. I started off with computer technology and I liked it. I'm very, I'm very into tech, but as I started going on, of course, work, I just really, I couldn't see myself standing behind a computer programming on it.
Like I was, that just wasn't me. And none of the other degrees really fit me. Like I was trying to find, I was like, oh, that's not, but I'm for Nord ship stood out to me, man. Like it just, and when I took the first class, uh, so for me, I was still kind of stumbling and even knowing if I really wanted to go that path and I was like, let me take, it was like intro to entrepreneurship or something like that.
Yeah. And, uh, man, I took the first class and it changed my life. It was, it was like the first time in college that I felt that I was learning something that I could use outside of college. It was like, wow, this is really helped.
Like we read the book, who moved my cheese? That was like our first book. I don't know if you ever read that book. I'm not really done.
Phenomenal book, but pretty much the book talks about how the cheese is always moving. Pretty much the story is there's two mice and the cheese was in the same place every day and they should go out and get the cheese, go back home call it a day. And they got so used to going to get the cheese that they weren't realizing the cheese was getting smaller and smaller. So one day they went out and the cheese was gone.
One of the mice was like, no, I'm going to keep showing here. The cheese has got to be able to show up. Like it's going to show up at some point in time, which I keep coming back and it's going to come here. The other mouse was like, man, some might maybe, maybe I should go, maybe it's moved.
Maybe somebody moved the cheese and the mouse just, like it pretty much represented two paths. Of thought there's some people that they don't pivot enough. Like that's also kind of like my pivot story is like they don't pivot enough in life. And they try to go put new in and old wineskins, new wine and old wineskins, right?
Like they try to, man, let me just keep doing what I did last year. Let me keep doing what I've done for the last five, 10 years and they don't pivot enough to go where the cheese is moving. And like that was our first book that we read in that book. Like open up.
I was like, okay, this is and we just kept learning. Like I was learning about business. I was, I was, we had successful entrepreneurs come into our class, tell us how they grew a million dollar businesses. And like it was one of those things that man, once I once I tapped in, I was like, okay, this is it.
And the rest of history, really. That's dope. That's dope. And like I think it's funny, like just how much a book can change our lives.
Like I love book. I love reading because of that. Like most of the change that's happened in my life starting with the Bible is like reading. Like I've read something and it was intriguing and beautiful and challenging.
So that's cool. Like you mentioned, you know, pivot, obviously, you know, you only operate pivot, business services. What does it really mean? Just since you mentioned it, like, what does it really mean for someone to pivot?
And maybe whatever obstacles or challenges in our lives that is stopping us from pivot. Yeah, man. So just kind of background story. I came up with pivot really on the backside of a business that didn't go the way that I thought it would go.
And essentially had a bunch of success in real estate and really business got to a point where we were growing really fast. We had a seven figure portfolio and there was a couple of bad deals that just really, like it was like one domino that failed that affected a bunch of other dominoes. And I kind of found myself almost needing to start over. And what what what killed me was I knew that I was better than the results that I was in.
Like I knew that I was actually way better than the money that I had, the disappointment that I experienced. And man, I was just like in this point of man praying and thinking like, man, how do I get up from here? Because like, you know, I'm giving you in like a couple of seconds what happened over probably two or three years of and this business didn't go the way that I thought it would. And now having to pick myself up and it took me like a year and a half, maybe almost two years to really like get back in the game.
So I just began to get this heart and passion for it, like to get back on the horse, like to really get back in the game. And I was thinking like, man, what can I do from here? Like what can I use with what I've got? And man, I'll tell you like God just dropped the word pivot on me like something crazy.
And to me, and this is this is I talk about this in the podcast, but I say that life is all about the pivots and those who decide to make the pivots decide to become successful. And if I'm honest with myself, every level of success that I've had has come on the backside of a pivot. It's like every win was on the backside of a loss. Every mountaintop was on the backside of a valley.
And if I never want to go through the valleys, I'll always forgo the mountaintops. And if I'm if I also think that life has to be constant, I'll I'll miss the opportunities to pivot. Like to me, pivot sometimes means you quit. Like I know I know it's not a like a sexy topic.
You know, a lot of people are like, yo, never be a quarter. I'm not that like I will tell my son in a minute, the minute that something like I'm all about the pivots. Like the minute that something is sitting right with you, quit and change and go another direction. Because a lot of people they stay in stuff, relationships, jobs, locations, way too long for the sake of just sticking it out, for the sake of not being a sellout, for the sake of wanting to finish.
And like for me, all of my successes have come on my ability just to pivot. No, I'm like, man, you know, you can make that adjustment and you don't have to wait. Like you could do it now. Like you can make the decision today to live a completely different life, have completely different results.
You don't have to wait till a new year. You don't have to wait till the first of the month. You don't have to wait till your cousin come out from out of town. You can make the decision now.
And so it's really that mentality that life is all about the pivots in the minute that you are okay with making them closer. You'll be to success in having everything you desire. Man, it's crazy because, you know, I don't think you know much about my background at all, which is funny. You just described a lot of it.
I had a fashion brand, Bill with a fashion. Obviously in the back right there is one of my hats that Bill with her. I mean, I think I stopped into that business maybe in 2017, 2016. I did it for about four years.
Christian rapper did that for, I mean, probably for 10 years straight into the pandemic, I put out a project every year. Wow. The reason I'm saying that because as you were talking, it's like if if someone were to ask me, you know, about how I obtain any level of my success, it is exactly what you have described with the fashion business. I'll tell you this.
No, I'm saying this because I love giving practical examples on this show. What's up, Jen? How you do? Yup.
There you go. See, Jen is a faithful long time listener. I had an episode talking about failing fast because sometimes we waste too much time trying to do something that's already dead. And I had the fashion business just and what happened was Instagram, if you go back, Instagram, 2013, 2014, that's pre algorithm.
I post a hat or shirt and literally within minutes, half orders across the country. It's crazy. Florida, Texas, Cali, the Netherlands, Africa, I have sent clothes in fashion everywhere. And so it was a great few years of that Instagram inserted the algorithm.
And I remember being devastated because my business was so dependent online and I wasn't prepared for it at all honesty. So I'm not blaming anyone. But I got to this point where I spent like four years doing this. I was really deep in it.
My wife supported it, but I was kind of like long term. I don't see how this is going to deliver. Like there's a certain amount of revenue for me or like, I'm like, I don't think this is going to deliver that and I made a pivot. So yeah, so your appointment, sometimes that next thing is better than the thing we're holding on to, but you will never actually even experience it until you pivot.
Yeah, you would never. And that's Bishop, Bishop Jake says it like this. He talked about a story of his son and his son was trying to figure out like what he would do next in life. And his son was kind of like struggling with it because he's like, yeah, like, what if this isn't the thing, though?
Like, what if this isn't the thing that God has called me to? He said, son, if this isn't the thing, it'll be the thing that leads you to the thing. And I think so often we just don't take action. Like we stay in an action and we just sit and we're like, all right, God, like give me a vision.
Give me a sign. Show me the way. And he's like, yeah, you got to do the thing. And there it might not be the first business might not be the one that I had for you.
But it's going to be the business that leads you to the business that I have for you. Like the first relationship might not be the one that I got for you. But it's going to be the relationship that leads you to the relationship that I've got for you. And if we never okay with making those pivots, we will hold on to things way too long.
And that's just the piece, man, is I try to make sure I tell myself continually that Justin, like what pivot can you make? How do you make a pivot? Like if I'm honest, it's a way it's a mindset, right? Like it's a way of thinking.
It's a hey, I'm never out of the game. Like I can always make an adjustment. I can always shift. It's like it's a mindset that says, okay, I know what I don't have.
But what do I have? I know what I lost. But what did I gain? I know who I don't have.
But who do I have? I know the amount of money I don't have. But what can I do with the money that I've got? Like it's always looking for that next lane, like that next pivot, that next adjustment.
And like that's really just my like, that's my message to the world. It's like, man, like we cannot be afraid to make the pivots that literally everything that you probably are desiring that you don't have right now is on the opposite side of a pivot you get to make. Often that pivot is very clear to us. We know you knew three years ago that you should have been left and did something else.
You should have been relocated. I'll put that vision in you that, you know, you're supposed to travel somewhere and do this, but you just didn't do it. And it's like, that's the permission. It's like always giving people a permission.
You can never, you can never, like you could always be okay making the pivots. No, they'll take care of you. In a lot of ways, it sounds like a pivot mindset is really a mindset of gratefulness. Like, because when you talked about this idea of like, yeah, I know what I lost, but what can I gain?
What did I gain? Even when you talked earlier, you had just kind of briefly mentioned your father passing when you were 12. And I don't know if you could touch back on that a little bit. You said that that was one of the best things that ever could have happened.
And obviously that's a from outside looking in. Something so presumably tragic and emotional, just to even hear you be able to say it with that type of, you know, thought process and perspective, I would love to hear a little more about that. Yeah. Yeah.
So that's it's a really a mindset thing. So here's, here's how I think about it is I'm committed to live in a life wide open. And if I'm committed to live in that life wide open, if I'm committed to live in a life that God has called me to live, I've got to know when I'm in purpose and when I'm out of purpose. And I feel 100% in purpose that what I'm doing now and that the life that I have is the life that God desired for me to have.
So it's not just my father dying was the best thing that could have happened to me. Every single thing that has happened in my life is the absolute best thing that could have happened to me. If it wasn't, it would have happened. Like everything that has happened to me, good, which people would consider good, what people would consider bad.
All of it is the best. This is really just coming to me now, by the way, but all of it is the absolute best thing that could have happened to me. And so that's really what I mean when I say it's the best thing in that I don't know what other life I would have had, but I just know that this is the best one. Like I don't know what my life would have been like with my father, but if God, if that was the best one, God would have kept my father here.
And so I've got faith that that wasn't my best life, that the one I'm in now is my best life. And so for me, it was tough growing up and just hearing legacy and hearing who he was as a person. And as you continue to grow and mature and develop, they're like, man, you just like your dad or my mom be like, man, you just like your dad in that way. Or you sound just like him or you wear that hat, you look just like him.
And you bump into that, I'll bump into that all the time. But I think for me, it's being okay again, knowing like, man, this is God's best. And I've just given my life to the fact that, I don't know what's best for me. And I serve a God who I believe does.
If I really say I serve that God, I must also say that I know that everything he has allowed to happen in my life didn't happen to me, it happened for me. And so it's like, again, it's kind of the pivot mindset. It's like, man, okay, this is what I've got. There's clearly, this is clearly the best thing for me.
And sometimes we don't later learn that in life. I know 100% that the father that I am today is because I didn't have my father. Like the way that I hug my children, the way that I look at them, the way that I have thoughts about man, like I wonder how my dad was when I was this age. Did I get the same kind of hugs that I'm giving my son?
Did I get those when I felt just that awareness? I wouldn't have had that had my father been there. Have my father been a great dad? Yeah, there probably been other things I would have.
But the person that I am today, I just wouldn't be it. I wouldn't have the kind of passion of fire that I've got. I wouldn't, I experienced a lot of challenge early in life. And I think that propelled me, that propelled me like in my college years because when people were like, for them, they failed a college test and all hell have broke loose.
And I'm just like, come on, man. Like this is, this is, this made you a bad day. Like you got a bad day because of that. Like you don't understand, I just see my cousin get shot or like I just had a gun pointed in my face like three weeks ago.
That was a bad day. And so it was all context. But I think when I think through it, again, I go back to like, man, whatever got allowed, I just believe it's God's best. I think that is powerful.
Because it's like the anti-victim entirely. It's really what I hear. Because, and this is why I'm such a realist. In reality, we all have problems.
We all have issues. And even when we come from the same communities, let's be real like, this is my problem with these monolithic group titles that they try to put on us all and all black people the same, all white people the same. We are not culturally. Yeah, you come from a certain place.
There are a lot of similarities. But when you allow yourself to believe that extreme through and through, you also kind of disrespected what other people have went through. And like the victim mentality would give you every reason, losing your father at the age of 12. To give up, to become a criminal, to not try or do your best.
And what I love about what you describe, which I believe is the Christian way. I believe the Christian way based on the Bible and what I read in biblical principles is that we should be empathetic, which is essentially the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. So we should not be dismissive of people's issues and problems that are different than us. But we also should not elevate our own problems because the way I view it is that, if I always tell people if you change one thing, you change everything.
And then other thing is that what can you name me that Jesus going to the cross was not powerful enough to overcome? Yeah. There is nothing, so the victim mentality really elevates our own problems above Christ dying on the cross. You never worked, actually.
Go ahead. Like you don't win from it. Like I just had a coaching client session, like literally right before here. And the homework that I gave this client was write down everything that is not working, like everything that you just aren't satisfied and you just don't like in your life, write that down and write next to it.
I want you to be very detailed on how it's all your fault. He was like, what kind of a secret is this? Right? Like what are you?
And I said, if you don't learn to always look for fault and things, you will miss opportunities of growth. And so you realize that often, this is an extremely, I'm not saying that everybody can do this. This is like coaching, like very intense and with support and all that kind of stuff. But pretty much the exercise was for her to be aggressively looking for ways to take ownership.
Because when you aggressively look for ways to take ownership, you aggressively find ways to develop yourself. And find, like my grandma used to say, boy, there's still some meat on that bone. Like you look for the meat on the bone. Like it's like, yo, I know you think that that was such a bad scenario and that it was all there fault.
And looking from the outside looking at, yes, absolutely, that was all theirs. But is there anything that you could find that could be potentially your fault? Because if you could find a way to blame yourself on things, you now put yourself back into control. And now you say, man, if this was my fault, I can change this.
And here's the thing, when it's your fault on the negative, it can also be your fault on the positive. It's not one side. It's like, yeah, everything that bad, man, that's my fault. I take that.
I learned that in football. I learned like, yo, when you messed up on a plate, you called it my bad, y'all. That's me, I'm my bad. Like you took ownership of the ball being dropped.
Are you missing a tackle? But then when you won, are we gonna celebrate an in zone? Like we gonna turn up. So it's like, but you can't have one without the other.
Like you can't not say, yo, I take that, that's my bad. And then always celebrate. And then you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how we move.
I think if we treat our lives like that, man, we find so many ways that we can grow and get better. Ownership and accountability. All right, we got a couple of minutes. I didn't get everything.
I'm gonna be so good. I got a two. I got a, I got a few more. I'm at, this is.
Okay, go ahead. I'm good, you go ahead. You sure, bro. I'm only going with 10 minutes, 10 extra minutes.
And I get you out of here. Thank you so much. Cause you said so much dope stuff. I'm like, I want to, I want to dig into that.
Like, so one of the things that, you know, a this, this conversation around ownership and accountability really makes me think about like, I know you have a lot of experience in corporate America, right? And this shows about faith and business and some folks listening to the show are trying to grow a career. Like I said, the person I was talking to today is trying to figure out like just inner corporate America entry level coming from where we come from culture shop. I've been there still in some ways, always put myself in uncomfortable situations.
Like a what role has corporate America play in shaping you into the entrepreneur that you are today? And then I would, I want to know from there what advice you would give someone who's at the start and point in corporate America, maybe rough around the edges and wants to grow your career. Man, corporate America has been everything for me. Like that to me, that is, that was, that's been my training ground.
I've got the ability to learn on other people's dime. I got the ability to get trained on how to, how to, how to be in big, in big corporate business and learn systems and learn structure and learn onboarding. And like I got the learning kind of things, but the biggest thing that I would say though is, and I'm a quick story. When I first graduated college, I took a job at HP, Hewlett Packard, moved out of California and it was me and it was like a group, it was a group of 18 of us, right?
And we go to, we don't like, it's a big corporate campus. It's like two, three thousand people working at that campus. Cafeteria, games, it's like everything you see on TV, like it's all that, right? We get there and it's us, me and like 17 other students that just graduated college.
We all green and they came from way bigger colleges than me. Like Alabama, Clemson, like way bigger schools. And our, our manager walks up to us and he said, you are all sheep, but there's probably one, maybe two wolves among you. And we just like, this is, this is day one, like we're in the lobby still.
We, we get our badges, you know, we take our photos, we put on our badge. Yeah. Like all of you are sheep, there's probably one or two wolves among you and I'm trying to find the wolf. And like this wasn't even like a, you would think this was like Wolf of Wall Street, like we cold call in and banging on door, like this is what it was like that.
Like we were, we were selling technology solutions to companies that already had our product. It was just like very armor like, but I'll never forget it was me and two other guys, two other black guys and the hiring manager was a white guy. And he pulled us aside like day two or three, we're in the middle of training. He pulls us out of training and he said, Hey guys, I'm not going to act like I don't see your reality.
And I'm just like, what are you talking about? He said, I know that there's not many people that look like you guys here. I realize that. And he's like, there's nothing that I personally can do to change that.
He said, but what I can do is I can connect you with people that look like you that are in upper leadership. So you can see that you can win here too. White guy don't know me from a blade of grass and Arkansas. Wow.
Seeing like man, these guys, they, they stand, they still got like a sort of thought. And again, this is a campus of 2000 people. There's probably like five black people on the entire campus, right? And it's so like that was one of my first entry level corporate experiences where it's like welcome to the corporate, like welcome to, welcome to this world.
And what it showed me that like we talk about, you know, like, Hey, people have opened up doors for me, like I have introduced themselves to open up doors, not even I asked and they opened. So for me, I think it's extremely important because there's a lot of things that people run from in today and today's day and age. I think there's a lot of there's a lot of discipline and structure that people run from when they run from a job and they think they don't have to have it when they start a business. And so people are like, Oh, I didn't like that job.
What they really were saying is like, I didn't like being on time and I used to get wrote up every time that I was late. And so and then I had this bad relationship with my boss because he was annoyed that I was always late, but I'd use it as like, they don't want me to win. It's like, no, no, no, no, you're just, you're just not disciplined to be on time or you're just not a high performer. And so then we roll that into business.
And so I would say whoever is listening, if that's you, kill it and corporate, kill it and level up and do as much as you possibly can. Because if you can do that, now you're able to transition skills into an entrepreneur endeavor and whatever source. And here's the thing that you realize, at least in my experience, is the higher that you would climb within the organization, the more free time and the more time, the more time control I got over my schedule. And so when I, when I began to develop people, I wasn't in sales calls every day and I was just kind of waiting back to make sure people were good answering the phones and I didn't have to be here for my computer typing all day.
And so now with that time freedom, I got to invest in my business. I got to be a little bit more flexible. And so you get to the point where if you kill it corporately, if you're killing your corporate thing, you can, you can, there's a book, there's a book, pretty much the book talks about like why you shouldn't follow your passion. I can give you the reference.
But the book talks about like why you shouldn't follow your passion, why following your passion isn't a good strategy for success. And what he's really saying, what is a better strategy is your passion change. The better strategy is becoming the top 1% and becoming really good at something rare and valuable. And now when you become something, when you become good at something rare and valuable, you become the top 1% and you can name your price.
Everybody in the NFL, everybody in NBA, everybody in corporate America, that's top 1% in their industry, they name their price. They name their flexibility, they name their schedule because they're the top 1%. And so that, like that would be my advice is kill it there and then you can eventually transition. But don't run from corporate because you're not disciplined because you don't have skills and you haven't built the resources necessary to jump into to run a business.
You know what that make me think about my, you know, I've checked out a lot of your content on Instagram, which, you know, everybody check out Justin on Instagram. If you listen in on Apple Podcast and Spotify, it'll be in the description of the show. It's at Underscore Justin Carter, my favorite video that you have on Instagram is actually one of the pinned videos. So it's not hard to find.
It was about winging it. And I feel like it made me think as you were talking about that, like some people want to be an entrepreneur because they want to wing it. And they think that like the structure of corporate and having a job frustrates them. And they think by going to wing it, that is going to be, they're going to lead success.
But they can win with that. Yeah. And they're like, oh, you don't get it. Like if you listen to any successful business person or entrepreneur, whether they are a CEO or a founder or, you know, an entrepreneur, whatever it may be, that like what I found is like, oh, the principles are the same.
Like it is the same principles that drive a person to the top of corporate as it does to be a successful entrepreneur. And if you run from those principles, you're not going to become successful. So can you talk a little bit like with that video, just if you could just summarize the idea of like why winging it is not a strategy for success. Yeah.
Like, people winged life. Like most people, like they just wing it. Like they don't have it really, really the push that was trying to get people to realize was that you don't, you don't have to go throughout life without a model or example or being connected with people that have one in the areas that you are pursuing, especially in 2023. There's so many consultants out there, coaches out there, mentors out there, people that are willing to give you resources and information to help you win.
And what I pretty much tell people is like, if you're winging it, what you're really telling me is you're committed to building a small business. Like if you're, if you're winging it, what you're really saying is I'm committed to this thing staying small and I'm committed to this only being me because when you are really serious about growth and success, you realize that, man, there's not really one person that builds a business. And what most people do is they call what they have a business, but it's really, they just own a job. And if you're going to own a job, it's super risky.
You might as well go and work a job because owning a job, you don't get the benefits, you don't get the pay, you don't get the work way more hours. So if you go, if you go and trade hours for dollars like that, you might as well just go and work, you might as well get a job. But if you really about building a business, you got to have systems, you got to have, you know, you got to have like SOPs, you got to have like processes that identify what, what good looks like. You got to have a company culture, you got to have a mission that helps drive the people that are within your business.
It'll just come from like, oh, like, what today I feel like this, like, no, when you got people on payroll and you got staff, they need a mission that they can go run behind. They need a reason why they should continue to show up to work tomorrow. And so winging it never really gets people where they want to go long term. You might be able to have a pocket of success, but studies show like it's not going to be scalable.
And the minute that you get to a point where you're not overwhelmed, it'll either die because you can't scale or you'll begin to frustrate people that you try to bring into the business because you just really been winging it. Like nobody wants to work on a winging environment. I love it. All right.
So before we get you out of here, Justin, I appreciate you standing a little over time with us. Of course. You know, you've obviously you talked earlier about, you know, having your first business and growing it from zero to having a million dollars in assets and having some failures with that business. And you talked about, you know, why you started your pivot business services.
So can you talk, tell us now just before you get out of here, like, tell us like, what are you doing? I know you have the pivot mindset podcast, which is also on YouTube as well. And I definitely recommend the listeners go and check out the pivot mindset podcast. But can you just tell us a little bit about the podcast and, you know, other things you're doing in business today and how people can stay in touch with you and find out what you have coming next?
Yeah. Yeah. So pivot business services is really my implementation of really helping people live pivot lives. And what that for me looks like is being able to monetize their purpose.
And so for me, I specifically work with Christian entrepreneurs who are looking to build six figure plus businesses online. And so really it's using what I learned and what I experienced by the growth and failures that I've had in business and being able to help people shortcut, take the fast lane, like in a good way, like being able to miss some of those like steps and being able to skip the process in a sense of they get to leverage my experience. And I watch yours, right? And so for me, it's all about empowering helping entrepreneurs make those pivots.
What I realized is that there's a hunger, especially in the Christian community of people that really want to build businesses. I believe that entrepreneurship is a God thing. In the Bible, you don't see workers, you see slaves or you see business owners. There was no in between.
But yes, culturally, we live in a different culture. And so yes, you've got a working class economy. But I think everybody, no matter what you do, you should have something that you own. You should everybody, no matter what job you work, you should have a piece of this pie that she works that can be passed down, that you should have something that you're building.
And so that's what I hope people do is I help people monetize their purpose. Everybody has a purpose. And I believe that in the Bible is true that people monetize their purpose in the Bible. Biblically, when people like they monetize their skillset, they monetize their gifting.
And so what I want to do is I help people monetize their gifting. And so that's pretty much what we do. That's displayed within our podcast. And really knowing that when it comes to the building business, that it really starts at the mind level.
We can give you strategy. We can give you structure. But if you don't have the mindset, everything else is rooted on that. And so I really try to help people first make the pivots mentally before they can start to see the pivots financially, emotionally, and spiritually in their lives.
I love it. Justin, one last thing before we get out of here, I'd have to get to this when we got a minute. But when we were talking in last week, we connected, and usually, man, I'ma be real, usually when I tell people that I met my wife and we were teenagers, you know, usually it's kind of like, you know, you kind of Trump them a little bit and then your response kind of threw me off about when you met your wife or how you met your wife. So, hey, just because I want you to, you know, you a podcast or you a business person, I know how to go, I want to make sure your wife get, you know what I mean?
I'm sitting you up and you want to see some love, but also can you just talk this a little bit about when you met your wife, where you met your wife, your food dynamic. Yeah, man. So like my wife, man, we met in middle school. We met in the eighth grade.
So we dated in eighth grade. And like we literally had the same middle school graduation, high school graduation and college graduation, like day, same day, middle school, high school and college together. And man, it's special because like, what I've been able to be blessed by is the cheat code of my wife, hands down the pivots that I've been able to make have been because she supported me in those processes. And like she's she's she's wild for thinking like being okay with some of the pivots we've made.
Like she she's just always supported it though. And so she's seen the bottom like she knows what the bottle feels like. And I'm glad that I can show her this journey to the top because for me, like that's been my cheat code. Like I know I couldn't have done this without her in that like I think today in our generation, there's some people that think that it's like more advantageous to win by themselves.