David Horsager: Welcome to the trusted leader show it’s David Horsager and I am I am so excited I say this a lot, but I am so excited about this guest.

David Horsager: He is a friend. I’ve known him for a long time. His name is Justin flom I got to tell you about him. You might have seen him on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. You might have seen him as a star and

David Horsager: Wizard wars or other shows his own, you know, YouTube TV show. This is fascinating right now. Justin was one of the top five Facebook pages with the highest worldwide reach even beating Donald Trump and Fox News.

David Horsager: weeks leading up to the election. So, it’s amazing. But you know what I like is Justin is the same as we say onstage and offstage, he’s a down to earth guy and a brilliant innovator and Justin. I’m just thrilled to have you on

Justin Flom: Thank you so much. Well, we go back decades, you and I, and this is going to be a very fun conversation. I’m looking forward to

David Horsager: It is, in fact, your dad credits me with helping lead up to one of your biggest mistakes in

David Horsager: Your career.

Justin Flom: Yeah, it is, it is your fault. That’s right.

David Horsager: I think, I think I was even named as the executive producer very kindly at the time on your show.

David Horsager: Their grandson, but boy, have you done a lot since then.

David Horsager: What let’s start out with what you know what are, what are three things everybody that’s listening today should know about Justin, they might know of you, or even see you but just

Justin Flom: Give us a

David Horsager: Sense, you know, Justin.

Justin Flom: That’s a good place to start. I guess the top three things are is at one point I would have considered myself a magician.

Justin Flom: And now, whatever. I consider myself doesn’t really matter. But during pandemic. I’ve had the chance to be in front of about 4 billion eyeballs.

Justin Flom: And that’s billion with a B which is just bonkers. To me totally crazy. And yeah, you might have seen me on daytime TV or late night TV or maybe even

Justin Flom: Man, I was in a Super Bowl commercial two years ago, leading up to this big reveal of a show called world’s best and was a finalist on that show which doesn’t matter as much because it never it tanked. It didn’t do any anything beyond the first season, but now I get to

Justin Flom: Create video content online and once pandemic is over, assuming everything goes back to normal. We’ll go back on the road where I work with companies like Walmart and Heineken Dollar General

Justin Flom: Benefit cosmetics, all of these different things where I create magic to share messages for companies and I also do the same thing in churches.

David Horsager: Sure, and you’re doing it online. You’re you’ve done it live. I’ve seen you. You’re amazing something nobody knows I guess I’ll reveal it today, but

Justin Flom: Yeah.

David Horsager: I talk about trust, and some of you don’t know that 20 some years ago. I actually was mentored by one of the best magical loosen teachers in the world. I did shows half times of NBA games and

David Horsager: 54 shows and in 27 days in Japan. At one point, but you and I were kind of interested in it in a similar time

Justin Flom: And I think it’s a it’s a fascinating part to the conversation because you have a background.

Justin Flom: Way, way back years ago as a magician. And same thing for me. But more recently, but, you know, since 2020 has been such a crazy year

Justin Flom: Magic has really taken a backseat, and the freedom that I feel is incredible. We haven’t talked at all during 2020 and and you I think you’d be fascinated to know because

Justin Flom: I mean, when I was sharing with you. I was obsessed with magic tricks card tricks deception, all of it and really almost to the point where

Justin Flom: I don’t care what else matters. I just wanted the best magic and that focus allowed me to do things like The Ellen Show and James Corden and and Late Night with Seth Meyers and things like that, but

Justin Flom: Since then kind of breaking away from just the magic and focusing on storytelling or entertainment or any of any of these other things that I’m doing now.

Justin Flom: The freedom is intoxicating. It is so cool. And so much fun to stretch my wings and do things beyond just magic tricks and it’s been quite a learning year. It’s very cool.

David Horsager: Well, I want. I want to hear more about that, but because I just kind of unveiled myself and nobody that I work with knows I ever did those things, you know,

David Horsager: That I don’t know if I was bored and some college calculus class. So I was started vanishing you know 50 cent pieces in my own hand or what

David Horsager: But I think it is interesting for both of us. Because you know out of the Institute, we do one of the biggest pieces of research on trust and leadership at least that North Americans global study

David Horsager: A whole we do here is you know our whole mission is about building trust and leaders and organizations we work with everything from corruption issues in East Africa to, you know, pro sports teams to business, but I think you and I do have a special angle on trust.

Justin Flom: And in fish to

David Horsager: People don’t get you’ll understand this, but actually to be a good magician. You have to be exceptional at building trust.

Justin Flom: Yes, very much so.

Justin Flom: Yeah, that’s true. You know a lot of people say that in within magic, the magic being a magician. You are an honest deceiver, because you tell the audience are going to lie to them and then you do

Justin Flom: It’s, it’s sort of a pact that you have with the audience where we’ve said, all right, so within these rules. I’m going to do a lot of lying and deception.

Justin Flom: And you’re going to trust me not to break kind of these rules that we have these unsaid unspoken rules of a magician with an audience. So once you’ve built up that trust.

Justin Flom: Then you can, you know, deceive for fun. It’s the same trust that we have built in with Hollywood or with TV where we understand

Justin Flom: That they’re going to deceive us with camera tricks and and you know we know that Steven Spielberg didn’t find dinosaurs. Those are fake and we trust him to take us through a deceptive.

Justin Flom: sort of journey for entertainment. So magic is kind of that. And I think what’s really fun is is seeing

Justin Flom: How its evolving with this new generation of social media where things are, are moving quite fast and the secrets of magic or maybe not quite as precious as they used to be certainly to me.

Justin Flom: Because the internet has just shown that the audience has they’ve had access to the secrets for a while and magicians are

Justin Flom: They still haven’t gotten the word I’m looking at the data and can see that and it’s changing the way that I’m performing magic.

Justin Flom: And I’m actually bringing in the audience, more into a trusting relationship with me where I’m exposing more and more secrets to them because I’m finding that that’s what the audience wants, and I would prefer to give the audience what they want.

David Horsager: I love that because, well, first of all, one thing I would just back up one step and then

Justin Flom: We’ll move

David Horsager: On from magic. But the backup one step is you know I think understanding illusions.

David Horsager: At least it’s psychology, so much of how you know you don’t actually float. Something you only appear to float something you don’t actually Vanna something you appear to vanish something so

David Horsager: But what I think it’s helped me do it, whether it’s in the boardroom or our company, whatever is actually see what actually can be trusted. And what can’t because you get so good at seeing what is actually deceptive so

David Horsager: That’s actually, you know, have people that joke with me that know me well from years ago, they say, oh, you used to be, you know, a magician illusionist now you know you you build trust for living right you know used to deceive.

Justin Flom: People are

David Horsager: Living. Now you do trust and most people don’t, you know, know that normal, but actually it’s helped because it’s so much psychology of reading people and helping them but but helping them, you know,

David Horsager: Building trust with them and and and nowadays. We’re trying to, you know, lower deception in the boardroom and politics and global governments.

David Horsager: And whatever is it we’re trying to go for authentic trust, of course, that’s what we’d call it

David Horsager: But I think what’s what I really love about what you’ve done is you have cared about the audience.

David Horsager: what the audience wants because you know there’s a lot of artists and you and I know them that are starving that want to

David Horsager: That’s, yeah. But it’s art. It’s whatever comes to me and you said, well, actually, I’ve got to care about what they want, I want to use my gifts and people that don’t know you. I mean,

David Horsager: You’re from a brilliant family, your dad is one of the most amazing innovators. I know. And you’ve gotten a lot of that gift as an innovator and of course he’s, he’s very successful in his in his own right.

David Horsager: And but but anyway, I think, tell me more about that because we talked about the marketplace actually is really valuable because we have to deliver that what they want. If we want to be around and use any of our gifts.

Justin Flom: This is the first year where I was really able to listen to what the audience wanted because I had to. And it was about following the data. You know what’s what’s working, what’s not, and

Justin Flom: That’s a big piece of what we try to do in business is is an artist wants to do what they want to do and I’m I would not consider myself an artist anymore.

Justin Flom: My job as an entertainer is to find out what the audience wants and to give it to them. So I’ve been doing more research this year into what the audience wants than ever before in my life.

Justin Flom: And what I found is, yeah, they don’t necessarily want magic tricks. The way that I thought that they did so that changed a big piece of how I’ve, I’ve worked things

Justin Flom: Well, they want to learn. That’s a big piece of it. People want to feel like they’re learning something, even if they even if in reality they don’t really want to learn. They want to feel like they’re learning

Justin Flom: That’s a big piece for the audience that at least on my side of things. So what I’ve done like one of my big hits this year with like 300 million views. Is this it looks like I get sawed in half. So you’d go, oh, that’s just the old classic illusion. But actually, no, we start

David Horsager: Next, you did get sawed in half, actually.

Yes.

Justin Flom: I what we actually did is

Justin Flom: We expose the secret at the top. So we let the audience in on I’m hidden inside of this secret compartment. These are fake legs. But when we move them this way.

Justin Flom: It looks as though I’m a whole person and then we’re going to, and the audience is suddenly like man, we’re learning

Justin Flom: Something here and then they are able to see. Oh man, we’re going to see this trick really mess with somebody. This is going to be fun.

Justin Flom: So that’s I think the audience likes that sort of thing, which is pretty different than what I was doing before, which was creating messaging for companies which I mean I’m still doing that, but just less so like after we finish up here. I’ll hop on a zoom call with

Justin Flom: A company that does antivirus computer software and I’m using magic tricks to communicate their message for the year, which is about time. So I’m creating magic with time and things like that. So it’s it’s juggling, a lot of different things.

Justin Flom: That all of the different stuff.

Justin Flom: I think you like

David Horsager: That, though, and I think

Justin Flom: Yes.

David Horsager: I will name i don’t know what i can or can’t name as far as the big, big, big brands. You’ve done some advertisements for some big ones that I know of that were amazing and and connecting but

Justin Flom: I think one thing that Coca Cola. One is interesting and

Justin Flom: And the way it came about is is interesting, just because it has to do with

Justin Flom: Building trust, but also just doing something for free, that you wouldn’t usually do.

Justin Flom: So I got to do an international ad campaign for Coca Cola, which was absolutely amazing. And the bit that they wanted is they wanted

Justin Flom: To do all of these magical changes revealing these Brand New Coke bottles that they were going to have internationally.

Justin Flom: But to do it without camera tricks. So the text played on the commercial. This was one that was big and movie theaters internationally and it would say there’s no camera tricks here. This is magician Justin flom and all that. But the reason that that Coca Cola getting came is because

Justin Flom: I was doing something as a charity for Walmart.

Justin Flom: I went down to Arkansas to visit with Walmart for free. Just out of the goodness of my heart just to hang out with the executives. Say hello to some of the employees and their big meeting.

Justin Flom: And I was there with Gina Davis and Nick Cannon, and just, just for fun and kind of as a favor, which is I’ve found nothing but success from doing

Justin Flom: Just a kind favor, even for a big corporation like Walmart and I got word from a very nice lady at the company. She said, Hey, you know, the Coca Cola executives are in town and they’re all in the front row.

Justin Flom: And I thought to myself, strategically great this morning. I’m only going to do Coca Cola magic tricks and I did.

Justin Flom: So everything I did use Coca Cola in some way and it was still very powerful magic still very good. But that meant that six months later, our phone rang from an advertising agency. And they said, Listen.

Justin Flom: We don’t know who you are but Coca Cola asked for you by name. And I got to do their campaign. After that, and it’s just because of a free favor that I was doing for Doug MacMillan and Walmart pretty amazing.

David Horsager: Something interesting about that I wrote about your dad in my first book to trust edge and talk about how he really built his business by giving

Justin Flom: As a generous given and talk

David Horsager: About him. And I think you you’ve taken that on yourself. You know, it’s, it’s pretty interesting.

Justin Flom: Yeah. Nobody can out give my dad that’s that’s 100%, true, true.

David Horsager: I think something interesting here.

David Horsager: Well, speaking of giving. I just have to put a shout out because Mike, I have a leadership group a mastermind kind of an accountability group. We’ve been meeting together for 28 years or whatever, since college, and 30 years and we meet at your family lodge up

Justin Flom: Yeah.

David Horsager: You know, on the lake in northern Minnesota. So, and that’s a gift. Your every time is like, Nope. GO TAKE THE GUYS MEET there, do your stuff. And that’s been one of the many, many huge gifts. So

David Horsager: With that, I’ll just tell everybody. Everybody should call Mr. Fleming use the CAP.

Notice

David Horsager: But I want to jump here. And I think, you know, what you doing now, at least tell me that this is true because we talked a lot about story how you build trust with

Story.

David Horsager: But you know you more and more, I think, at least in all of the stickiness you’re creating online really what you’re doing is inviting people into a story is that, is that what you’re trying to do. Is that what you’re doing. Tell me about that.

Justin Flom: Yeah, it’s I don’t know necessarily because the online thing moves so fast. Whatever I say today will be different tomorrow.

Justin Flom: Because everything is about what the viewer wants to see. So, you know, earlier this year the viewer wanted to see

Justin Flom: Science and different science experiments with me and my wife, and then later became you know puzzles were really big. And this is all for video content online that’s being passed around and

David Horsager: Well,

Justin Flom: By the way,

David Horsager: We just see the show notes trusted leader show.com we’re going to put links to this YouTube channel his

David Horsager: Law, everything you got to see some of this. If you haven’t seen all these videos that that’s where they are. Go ahead, Justin.

Justin Flom: Well, they’re very, they’re very silly videos and that’s that’s what I mean. Earlier, my, my content was more serious and and and really professional looking and and the public wants, you know, they wanted more.

Justin Flom: Authentic just a family at home hanging out, so that’s that’s what we’ve been doing

Justin Flom: But within each of these things, whether it be science or magic tricks or puzzles. The, the true subject of these things was story.

Justin Flom: And relationship. So my dad. He said that his business was all about relationships. It wasn’t about insurance sales, which he was the number one salesman in the company or is but

Justin Flom: That it didn’t have to do with prices or business that had to do with the way that he created relationship.

Justin Flom: And I think the same thing that people are peeking into these videos is about relationship they like my wife, they like me or or they don’t like us. And that’s a relationship to

Justin Flom: Whatever’s happening in these videos, there’s a relation that I have with the viewer and and and focusing on that is quite something. Yeah, it’s, it’s very interesting.

David Horsager: Well, how do you keep. I mean, this is something you kind of have created a dragon here that needs to eat or they’ll

David Horsager: Blow fire on. Yes. And, you know, and whether it’s your advertising. You know, people that will hire you. You know, you got to keep almost as an entrepreneur solo printer, you know, you’ve got to keep this engine going, how do you keep end of innovating today. How do you keep

David Horsager: Yes, creativity, how do you do that.

Justin Flom: It was it was a complete change of of mindset when your traditional magician, you would create a 12 minute act for your entire life, and you would perform it forever until you die.

Justin Flom: There was a great performer. His name is Marvin Roy. He went by the name Mr. Electric he created an act with light bulbs back when light bulbs are still a novelty and he would

Justin Flom: Pull 100 light bulbs out of his mouth and his wife would appear in a light bulb was great. And it was 13 minutes that took him around the world and he performed it everywhere.

Justin Flom: That doesn’t exist anymore. And that act that that this elderly gentleman created an untreated so preciously is not a system that can work in today’s day and age, so

Justin Flom: The, the complete shift was not to create anything and to be treated as precious nothing I create is precious. Now my job. So I’ve just today I’ve edited, I can look at my laptop and see 12345 pieces of content.

Justin Flom: And none of them are precious until hindsight shows later. Oh, this was something that you did. That was really good. It really resonated it made a lot of money. It had a lot of us.

Justin Flom: That’s going to stick around for a while. So my belief is that when the Beatles showed up into the studio to do Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Justin Flom: They just that was just what they were writing that day. They did not set out to create the greatest album of all time. They just showed up to work.

Justin Flom: So my job now is to show up to work every single day right something brand new. And this muscle has gotten really strong.

Justin Flom: Because I’ve freed myself from thinking that you can only create one thing for a term for your life. And you’re going to do that act forever.

Justin Flom: And now I’m like all right. Today I’m going to create three brand new pieces, new ideas, new little nuggets of something and I’m going to put them out and

Justin Flom: That brings the bar a lot lower, because you’re not trying to create something that is of lifelong value.

Justin Flom: And just because of that you will cross that bar and you will create things of lifelong value just by accident.

Justin Flom: So I sit and. And the other thing is I don’t waste time at all time is the most precious commodity. I have so like I finally convinced my wife yesterday.

Justin Flom: To bring on an assistant for her because she is used in a lot of my video content and just anything that someone else can do and that doesn’t require you or your personal imprint hire it out. Get rid of it, man. I was so

Justin Flom: I remember when you this is this is 20 years ago I REMEMBER WHEN YOU BROUGHT ON SOMEBODY TO ANSWER THE PHONE FOR YOU. I thought, wow, oh my goodness.

Justin Flom: Mr horse soccer has like a staff. This is the most impressive thing. And now here I am. Years later, I’m late to the game. I’m finally hiring on all of these things to give me more time doing what I’m supposed to be doing, focusing on my strengths

David Horsager: It’s pretty cool. I think that’s really cool. You know, I heard one time, way back when I started you know created my

David Horsager: First business 1999 but I heard someone say hire it done and and that can be a little bit arrogant sounding I had, you know, I started my first business so that dollar 4060 cents in my home account.

David Horsager: At since I can’t move back from being a direct this organization put everything into my first business lived in the basement of an older ladies home with my wife.

David Horsager: No windows bathroom or kitchen. We’d go upstairs and share her bathroom and kitchen and we lived there for two years. And that’s how we started. I felt like at the time. If I could make $700 a month, I could pay all my bills, you know,

David Horsager: Right, but

David Horsager: Even then, I just as soon as I could. I heard my first person and then I could leverage my Time, and I heard my next person and was what one I’ve, I’ve come to love giving people jobs.

David Horsager: I’ve also love building a team, we’re looking at a kind of for us at least six significant hiring the next few months.

Justin Flom: Yeah, so, but it’s it’s

David Horsager: It really does allow us to be our best and hopefully get people that they get to be their best in that role too.

Justin Flom: Because earlier you mentioned my biggest mistake and and and it’s your fault. And here’s what it was just for your listeners. This is, I think, will be interesting. So there’s this little sleepy showbiz town called Branson, Missouri.

Justin Flom: And in Branson. They’ve got 150 shows and they’ve got only 6000 people live there. So it’s very small town, but at the time I was there 8 million visitors a year were coming through.

Justin Flom: But still at 150 shows in town, each with, you know, there was, I think, 60 theaters and that’s like full fledged box office theater seats everything

David Horsager: Some of the most beautiful city in theaters in the world are there.

David Horsager: That’s right, people in them.

Justin Flom: That’s right man and the the Andy Williams theater is my favorite venue on the planet. I love it. I saw

Justin Flom: So many shows of him and Petula Clark and and Margaret. It was amazing. But I had my little show there and I could not make it work. I did five years.

Justin Flom: And the reason I couldn’t make it work is I was not allowed to focus on my strength because my strength was just putting on a good show.

Justin Flom: But instead, I had to focus on payroll and then concessions and then running a gift shop and then marketing and all of these other things because we didn’t budget. We didn’t have the deep pockets to hire any of that out. We had me and

Justin Flom: Two nice old ladies helping out who were very, very sweet, but it was it was a burden on our shoulders that we could not handle and then partner that with the town is very politically run and the, the older shows really get the things it’s a whole mafia type thing, they’re

David Horsager: Very different. The bread.

David Horsager: I haven’t heard that the brands and mafia. Yes. Yes. In fact, I was having a very nice conversation with

Justin Flom: A senator from that particular state and you know even she as a senator knew of the politics of the town. It was quite something. But I did five years. And then finally, just said we’re not. Why are we breaking our backs to break even.

Justin Flom: And and really, we weren’t breaking even we were losing. We ended up losing about $500,000 total

Justin Flom: And you know, we looked at that we said well we could have lost it in the market to great learning experience. I never again need to sell tickets to a stationary show

Justin Flom: And that allowed me to move to Las Vegas with my new bride and not have any desire to perform on the strip instead living in Las Vegas allowed me to create a brain trust of creators and thinkers

Justin Flom: And really it gave me the most cutting edge magic at the time, which allowed me to get on LM and and create this TV show called wizard wars and all that, because

Justin Flom: The smartest brains were two blocks away from my house and we were always spending time together, always working always creating and that was the strength to focus on

David Horsager: Well, I think that speaks to another one, and that is team, you were really good at getting around the right people building relationship with the right people authentically and giving in those relationships.

David Horsager: I’m going to end that you know you said the word authenticity while ago, we’re big on that, hey,

David Horsager: Gina studio four or five here can’t is my producer can I do one that shows you in it. Oh, there is

David Horsager: Can’t add 10 smart and he’s producing the show. So I just want to be like if you have a question, just shout it out. Kent and you

David Horsager: Love right and he’s got a mic.

David Horsager: Right there, he might jump in and say something to

Justin Flom: That’s great, please.

David Horsager: About your generation. So

David Horsager: You know, who knows what what he’ll come up with as we go. He might jump right in.

David Horsager: But let’s go to that, you know, what did you learn whether it’s you learn some things from your kind of, you could say failure there. But these shows. I mean, what I’m interested

David Horsager: Also in, you know, we talked about trusted leaders and trust is a long term thing, and you’ve built trust because you’ve you figured a plan a routine for creativity. Are there other habits or routines that you have that just kind of

Justin Flom: Hundred percent

David Horsager: What are some of those because what you do is you just consistently. Now you’re part of Ellen. She has you on off and now you’re you know you have some of these things that

David Horsager: But some of these things. Yeah. Job Is It might be a one and done, but you have to keep at it right

David Horsager: What are some yeah life personal or not.

Justin Flom: So the routine that I think is helping me a lot right now is being able boy I get so distracted.

Justin Flom: I don’t know if it’s actual add or just a creative mentality. But if I’m working at my computer as soon as something has to load or there’s a little bit of time where I can’t be moving

Justin Flom: What I’ve done now and I’ll even show you if you’re watching this on camera. I’ve got this this book stand and this sits next to my laptop with the book, open, it’s, it’s got pages specially

Justin Flom: This. And speaking of failure. This is an incredible book by Scott Adams, how to fail at everything and still win big an incredible book really about not it’s funny.

Justin Flom: It’s about not following your passion and it’s changing my life right now. I really love it because it’s it’s about following what is working and what’s successful rather than following your passion.

Justin Flom: And that’s where I felt the most freedom is is in creating a system of success, rather than wanting to do what I want, which is quite a selfish thing that US quote unquote artists have have done for years. So that’s a new habit.

Justin Flom: I like

David Horsager: To call that out because I think that’s a problem for people, they think, well, I should just do what I want. I’m only authentic if I do what I want for myself that makes me feel good. And I think that’s not it. We have to think about what did they need

David Horsager: What would help them. What do they want. And so, by the way, we’ll look it up, and maybe get a link to that if you’re just listening to the podcast. It’s a really cool idea. The, the little stand you have there to read, we know

Justin Flom: Yeah, it’s great for my job because my job requires a lot of

Justin Flom: Uploading and waiting. So I finished the video set it to upload. I got five minutes to sit here where if I try to start another project, then I’m never gonna then

Justin Flom: Then, everything’s going to be messed up. So I have to sit here. Well, this thing uploads, how am I going to be productive. I’m going to do this reading and the real synopsis of the book is to say

Justin Flom: You’re worried that you’re not going to work with passion. If you’re not working at what you’re passionate about. But I promise.

Justin Flom: You will be passionate about what you are successful in. So if you start finding success in

Justin Flom: I don’t know, managing a plumbing company you’re going to be passionate about it because it’s it’s bringing in money and you’re finding success at it so

Justin Flom: That’s, that’s a new total freedom for me is to be passionate about something that’s successful and to chase that rather than to chase some desire that I had when I was 10 years old that I never let go of

David Horsager: I love that. I love it and so on. The you know you’ve got a plan there for learning. I mean, we know great leaders are great readers. We’ve heard it a lot. I remember

David Horsager: Not too many years ago looking at the data and finding the number you know average american watches 1200 and 87 I still have in my head 1200 and 87 hours of kind of junk TV, which is kind of what you create right now. Just kidding, but

But

Justin Flom: But it’s like

David Horsager: Watch TV. That’s kind of entertaining or whatever value and the average American reads and we know you can gain a lot of reading, right, especially a good, a good book. And the average American reads

David Horsager: In their lifetime. Not annually 12 underneath them in their lifetime as far as books over it was over 200 pages so Goodnight Moon to your kids doesn’t count. Right.

David Horsager: So it right average number of books and American reads in their lifetime after their formal education, whether that was a PhD or high school degree. What do you think the average is

Justin Flom: So I’m not going to give away the answer, because I know the answer to this, because I’ve read your books. Okay, the answer is

David Horsager: One and is that not incredible it’s

David Horsager: One. And so what happens is you’ve got people not learning. You got people not growing and it’s it’s getting this this mushy kind of mindset that isn’t growth oriented and I’m proud of you and seeing you there, you know, keep keeping learning, but it is sad.

David Horsager: It’s really sad news for

David Horsager: An author, by the way, that’s bad news or not.

Justin Flom: It’s bad news for an author. It’s why I haven’t written a follow up to either of my books because I did the book thing. Happy to have done it. I don’t need to do anymore because yeah there’s, it’s, it’s

Justin Flom: That’s, that’s a difficult outlook for an author, but for me I just, there’s no time in the day. I don’t know how

Justin Flom: I don’t know how people do it. I have no idea how people find the time in the day to get everything done because I could work 18 hours every single day and still have things to do at the end of the day.

Justin Flom: Which is an amazing thing for my job that that I it’s up to me what how much money I want to make for the day because I can just continue on it. So then that

Justin Flom: I have to sit down with my wife and and really try to balance out. What’s the. How much time should I work. How much time should I take off for the family. I don’t have the answer to these questions yet. I’ll let you know.

David Horsager: I don’t either.

David Horsager: I’ve got teenagers and I don’t have them any other habits or routines that you have just in life that that make you better. I mean, you still as healthy as can be. I know your wife looks healthy, you’ve got, you know, kiddo haven there and you got like life is going crazy. What

Justin Flom: You know, yes.

Justin Flom: It all has to do with flexibility, it’s, it’s, I want

Justin Flom: You know, if I told you. Hey, you get to take a nap today. You’d be like, Oh man, I’d love a nap. But if I told you your nap was only going to be an hour before bedtime. Let’s kind of worthless. Like, that’s not a

Justin Flom: Because the you want to be flexible with where you put the things that you enjoy otherwise you might not find enjoyment in them a fine meal is only good if you’re hungry.

Justin Flom: So the flexibility in my life has been very important to just work out whatever I can do to be flexible because I know that happiness will come from myself and from my bride when we have the flexibility so

Justin Flom: We have been very intentional about creating a life that is when I was when I used to do missions trips. When I was younger, with my church, the pastor who was

Justin Flom: Who would take us around and we do a dozen shows in a day. We jump around from orphanages to parks to soccer stadiums doing shows all over

Justin Flom: Peru, Kenya, Egypt, and he would, he said, folks, what I need from you today and he was talking to the crew. He’s talking to choir and magic team children’s team. It’s a rigid flexibility.

Justin Flom: We have a plan, but I need rigid flexibility from you here because things are going to change things are going to happen and when you hold all those things loosely

Justin Flom: And it’s another thing that came from my dad when you just understand that life is going to throw curveballs at you daily

Justin Flom: Then you don’t freak out when they come because you just know that they’re, you know, oh, well, this is the curveball for today. All right, good. And you just have to be rigidly flexible.

Justin Flom: With it, and then I think the other. I think the other habit which I’ve kept up now for the last two years is writing every single day. Now that’s important for me and my job.

Justin Flom: Because I’m creating content. So I need ideas. I need you know funny things to communicate or or whatever. But whatever you’re doing, I, you just have to

Justin Flom: Do the new thing every single day. So Seinfeld put it to. He had his, his way of thinking about it was perfect for me because I’m sober now 12 years

Justin Flom: So, and the way sobriety works for me. Is it gets easier. The longer it’s been because I’ve built up this

Justin Flom: Amazing point system of 12 years do I want a drink more than I want to have this amazing accomplishment of 12 years of sobriety. No, I don’t want that more I want I want this more

Justin Flom: So so Seinfeld’s routine was called don’t break the chain, which was wake up in the morning.

Justin Flom: And right, doesn’t matter what you write. You just gotta right and then you get to go to your calendar, you put an X through that day in the calendar.

Justin Flom: Next day right and put an X in the calendar, pretty soon you’re going to have a chain of x’s in your calendar.

Justin Flom: Where you’ve written every single day. And what’s really exciting is you don’t break the chain and pretty soon you’ll have a year where every single day you’ve written and I’ll tell you the truth.

Justin Flom: I’m not a very good writer. I’m not the best, most creative guy.

Justin Flom: I just in my batting averages for writing, whether it be jokes or ideas or tricks or whatever my batting average is pretty low, but I’m going to show up to work more than you.

Justin Flom: And that’s why I’m gonna win because that’s that’s the secret to it. I don’t think Seinfeld is the best comic of all time by his brain. He’s the best comic of all time for his work ethic.

Justin Flom: That is a good

David Horsager: That’s a true statement. Do you have a certain time that you like you always do it at this time. Like, do you have any other rhythms that make that happen, or is it just like I’m not gonna go to bed before I do

Justin Flom: Yeah, it would be. I’m not going to go to bed. That was what it was. I’m, I’m working on the time thing, because I would really like to know what I’m going to do 9am on December 17 2021 but i don’t i don’t know that I wish I did.

Justin Flom: But for right now. What it is is just, I’m not going to sleep until I finished this task, which isn’t the healthiest way to do it.

Justin Flom: But what it did mean is that there was times I remember I was up in Canada. I was on the road. We didn’t show in the morning, we drove to the next show.

Justin Flom: We get there. I’m not pulling into my hotel until 2am and I hadn’t written a page yet that day. No. Well, I’ve got three months at that point built up of days writing

Justin Flom: I don’t want to throw that away. So I quick spent 45 minutes writing before I went to bed because I would rather have have written match.

Justin Flom: The discipline.

David Horsager: What’s right it, you know, what is it do you give yourself a break at one sentence one page or five pages. I know for for Rory Baden, he made it, you know, he made it four and a half years, and his was basically it’s 12 minutes, but all I had to do was I just got to break a sweat. I’m gonna

David Horsager: I’m gonna work out every day.

David Horsager: It might be six minutes, but I gotta break a sweat. It’s got to be a real sweat. So I can, I can always go to the gym I can do sit ups in my hotel room, whatever. But I gotta break a sweat. So four and a half years.

David Horsager: And you know he’s a good friend of mine and you wrote you know procrastinate on purpose. And so, and you take the stairs and some great books and but but I think it’s interesting, he just he knew what that meant.

Justin Flom: What, what’s it mean to you right for me it was a page, it was just get a page of ideas down

Justin Flom: And even if they were bad. And really, man. I heard a great piece of advice from john mayer where he said write bad songs or sorry, finish bad songs and what he was saying.

Justin Flom: Yeah, he was speaking at Berkeley and a kid asked, you know, he’s like Mr. Mayor, what, what do you do if all of your songs that you’re writing sound the same.

Justin Flom: And he said, Well, are you finishing the songs and the guy kind of sheep asleep. He was like, well, no, he says, you’re not writing songs that sound the same. You’re trying to finish one song.

Justin Flom: Right. The bad song. Get it out of your system and then move on, you know, so for me.

Justin Flom: If the thought is running around up here. I gotta get it down on the paper. And if it sucks. That’s fine. Now it’s out. Okay.

Justin Flom: And and you have to get the bad ones out because otherwise you’re, you’re going to constantly be revisiting it in your head. And I thought that was pretty good.

Justin Flom: Piece. So now I treat it that way for videos like I will just do the bad video because you don’t know you have you have no idea if it’s good or bad, just get it out. Get it out of your system.

David Horsager: So you got it. You know, this is fun. It’s so fun to see how you’ve grown up to because you like, but let’s let’s just take you have a massive amount of influence today. Some people would say, leadership is influence

Justin Flom: We believe

David Horsager: That something to do with it, too. But, but with influence comes massive responsibility, I believe, of course, some people don’t believe that. But what do you, you know, when you think of a key to leadership, you’re leading now or at least you’re influencing a whole lot of people

David Horsager: Do you feel any weight of responsibility. You certainly bring a lot of joy you bring a lot of

David Horsager: Fun. But is there any framework for responsibility that you bring to this role.

Justin Flom: You know my dad was talking about it with me and he’s, he would like me to use the influence for good sooner. Like, like, get on it right now. This all feels very new to me.

Justin Flom: Because, well I was successful for the last decade, you know, I was on tour with Florida, Georgia line doing arenas like Madison Square Garden. It’s probably the highlight of my life up until this year and

Justin Flom: And, you know, talk shows and TV shows and all of that. But it still felt like I was building. It didn’t feel like I had any sort of real audience because in in the modern world of the algorithm, you have to earn the audience’s eyeball every time.

Justin Flom: It kind of is this trick that the big social media companies played on us where we all consolidated our following or our fans to these pages.

Justin Flom: Thinking that we would have access to them like an email list and then

Justin Flom: So, you know, you’re a company like Coca Cola, you get all of your fans to like your Facebook page by putting like us on Facebook on your TV commercials.

Justin Flom: So you got millions of likes. Now you post a commercial and it goes to 20,000 people. Well, why is that, well, Facebook is holding your fans hostage essentially

Justin Flom: Only going to show them what you’re creating if it’s good, well that’s that’s a totally different.

Justin Flom: Different things so I have never felt to answer your question. I’ve never felt like I have the large audience to influence because

Justin Flom: Each time I step out to put something in front of the large audience. It’s so dependent on the algorithm. So I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with said influence. I know the important things are to me is faith. Faith plays an enormous role in my life and

Justin Flom: I think there was one way that I saw it played out that I really liked. So this was right after my TV show wizard wars. So the whole season was up on

Justin Flom: ITunes, I believe, and here’s, here’s how the show when is we would create

Justin Flom: Interesting magic tricks out of ordinary objects, kind of like Iron Chef or chopped where they give the cooks, you know, random ingredients and say make a meal, we would do that. But with magic.

Justin Flom: And it was on the Sci Fi Channel and Penn and Teller or celebrity judges. It was really cool and I was the lead wizard on the show so

Justin Flom: This lady who was stuck in her hospital bed. She couldn’t do anything all she had was her iPad. She binge, the whole show watch through all that and

Justin Flom: I’m happy to say I was her favorite so she goes and she finds me on social media, and she sees in all of my BIOS on Twitter and Facebook and stuff. The words Christ follower.

Justin Flom: And she didn’t really know what that meant. But she knew she liked

Justin Flom: Everything I did on TV and then she liked everything she was seeing online with this family dynamic and these backyard parties that I would throw for friends.

Justin Flom: And she’s like, I don’t know what this guy has but it’s something special. So she calls the hospital Chaplain over

Justin Flom: And says, what is this mean Christ follower. What is this and there that hospital pastor led her to faith in Jesus Christ.

Justin Flom: Now that’s an amazing thing for me because that’s something that’s important to me and I didn’t do it. I had the part I had in it was just by pointing with the lifestyle.

Justin Flom: To that and you can look at that for anything that you have, whether it be just a

Justin Flom: Morality, or a faith in in a particular higher power or sobriety or anything like that. If you’re living out that attractive life and you are shining bright within it.

Justin Flom: That’s the influence that you can have. And that was for me a really cool story she wrote me a nice letter and thanked me for it and and here it all happened without my knowledge. Well,

David Horsager: That’s a great. That’s great story. So what’s what’s what’s next for you, what’s what’s exciting up up up in front of you, these days.

Justin Flom: Boy, I don’t know, it’s a we don’t know what’s going to happen with live entertainment in the future. We just have no idea.

Justin Flom: You know, I was watching my buddy Justin Wellman do a live zoom show. And it was amazing. He showed me a setup and he’s got the amount of re education that I went through back in March to creating online content.

Justin Flom: My buddy. And he has a Netflix magic show. So he’s full on magician still and he he went through the same amount of re education.

Justin Flom: But for to become a broadcaster so suddenly now he’s got a standing desk giant monitor showing all the zoom rooms that he’s doing. He’s got video switcher three camera setup. It looks kind of like the room that you’ve got there for all of this. It’s, it’s incredible.

Justin Flom: I, I could see something like that being an option. But I think the way the future’s looking for me as I am just having so much fun creating silly content online that the audience.

Justin Flom: Following the whims of an audience, the freedom that I felt writing these sorts of things has been a lot of fun and

Justin Flom: And we’re still pitching TV stuff. There’s, there’s some fun scripted television stuff in the works that still have a one in 100 shot of going someplace, but you know 100 is is actually pretty good odds and TV. So we’ll see what

David Horsager: What do you, where do you get inspiration. These days, like

David Horsager: You gotta stay inspired and

Justin Flom: Yeah, the inspiration comes from my little girls. I got a four year old and I got a one year old and they said Haven and holiday we call her Holly and and it is just

Justin Flom: So much fun seeing them go through stages of life. Now that I remember going through when I was, you know, a little kid, so that that inspires me the most. And I want to, I want to showcase

Justin Flom: Real life in that way. That’s, that’s a really fun thing. And the next thing that inspires me is just doing new things, man. I think variety is the spice of life. So the fact that I get to do a different thing every single day.

Justin Flom: Is just an absolute blast because I figure it goes back to what I said at the beginning, I don’t have to do the same magic show every single day. Now I get to create something new every day and knowing that that’s possible.

Justin Flom: Is and and I don’t know why magicians don’t think it’s possible, because you look at scripted television, you look at comic strips. You look at almost any other art form.

Justin Flom: And you have to create it in a serial fashion new every single day. So that’s what inspires me is doing something new every single day and just building that muscle.

David Horsager: I love it. Is there anything if you’re going to give you know we talked about doing the work here. You’re doing the work. You’ve got to do the work. You don’t get successful, you don’t have an influence you don’t lead well unless you do the work.

David Horsager: Is there anything else I know the habit for you, probably the biggest one is writing every day.

David Horsager: Is there any other tip or advice that you’d say for just everyone every leader every person to be more productive or effective would be like, this is something you could do every day that would, you know, could help anybody

Justin Flom: Yeah, that’s uh yeah you know

Justin Flom: Exercise because and and that’s the most boring sounding one people, man. The there’s people who clicked off the podcast right now. As soon as I said that

Justin Flom: Because they’re like oh come on the endorphins that are released when you exercise, they give me such a productive mentality, it, it is. It’s like a magic trick.

Justin Flom: Your brother, by the way, your brother.

David Horsager: Puts both of us to shame we don’t want to stand next to him with his shirt off but

Justin Flom: He’s got some great tips you talk about a guy that’s created incredible

David Horsager: Business and light and, you know, but what’s your favorite exercise. What’s something you can you do. Are you like to do

Justin Flom: I just like lifting. I like any kind of thing. I hate cardio and

Justin Flom: All and I like finding research that says that cardio isn’t good for you, even if I’m like, I’m like, even if I’m looking at you know bunk research. I’m like, Yeah, I just want to lift.

Justin Flom: Because what I do is I is I THROW IN. I DON’T THROW IN MUSIC I throw in podcasts Ektron talk radio

Justin Flom: And I’m listening to that and I get those endorphins going and now I feel ready to conquer the world. So I tried to do that in the morning.

Justin Flom: And then go and be productive after that because listen, whether you’re an author, a writer, whether you’re a leader in your particular business.

Justin Flom: Or whether you’re an employee with a boss. All of us have tasks to do during the day that if we come at it with ingenuity and creativity, it will get the attention that that you want so that you can move up. And the other thing I’ll say that is interesting is

Justin Flom: Is really about following success, instead of your passion. So I’ve kind of reached the top of this ladder on the social media landscape because

Justin Flom: Like you said at the beginning, the in the week leading up to the election my Facebook page had higher reach worldwide than than Donald Trump and Fox News Forbes covered it and Facebook released it and that’s crazy.

Justin Flom: And if if I had been climbing the ladder. I wanted to, which was a ladder of a famous magician with TV specials every year, you know, and we both know

Justin Flom: One particular individual who had that all throughout the 80s and I wish he was a nicer individual, but that doesn’t matter. But I climb that ladder.

Justin Flom: I thought, I thought I was climbing the ladder of famous TV magician, and I get to the top. And I’m standing on the building at the top of this ladder and I look around and I realized

Justin Flom: I’m not there. I’m actually at the top of this new social media game sort of thing. What, what does that look like and I look across the street.

Justin Flom: At the ladder. I thought I was crawling climbing of TV magician and that building is demolished doesn’t even exist anymore. So it’s really good that I was climbing this ladder over here because I’m happier for it.

Justin Flom: I don’t know, it’s just a word picture I like about you don’t know if you’re following your passion, if that’s the right way really you should be following success.

David Horsager: Yeah, we’re gonna ask. We’re gonna ask you just for the fun that he can edit anything so. So Justin I you know I’m

David Horsager: Big on research big on you know I sit on the board of a university. And of course, you would probably say, hey, forget college. What say you,

Justin Flom: I like my doctors and my lawyers to go to college, but beyond that most people we live in just the information age and you can learn anything outside of school.

Justin Flom: I think if it was 30 years ago, different story. But what universities and colleges look like today, I think you’re going to go into a lot of debt when you

Justin Flom: Win, more likely, you could learn everything you need to know at a trade school or just online, so I don’t encourage many people to go to college, depending on what they want to do.

Justin Flom: Myself, I skipped college and immediately went to losing money on a theatre in Branson, Missouri.

Justin Flom: And what I ended up four years ahead of my competition because I didn’t go to college, but the main thing was is a gentleman in Minneapolis there. He told me a great piece of advice. This is Bill Arnold an actor and comedian.

David Horsager: I called him. Yes.

Justin Flom: I know how grey.

Justin Flom: Yes. So Bill told me burn the ships. He said, if you have a backup plan, you’ll use it. But if you burn the ships and and show business or whatever is the only way to make it work.

Justin Flom: Then, then you’ll make it work. And that’s kind of what I did is, is really that only only plan, but I’ve modified the plan. Since and seeing that it doesn’t have to be magic that’ll work. It can be any kind of entertainment, but I’m making work.

Justin Flom: Yeah, can burn the ships, they’ll learn. Oh, by the way, I’m ahead.

David Horsager: Yeah, Bill Arnold, you know, became very successful they produced triple espresso the show and had shows go

David Horsager: Over the world at one point he’s a he’s on a radio station as a host. And he also still performs and what it wasn’t inspiration to many, but

David Horsager: Um, yeah, I love it. It’s interesting because, you know, you aren’t the only one. Your sister BECAME, YOU KNOW, SHE SKIPPED college right. She said, I’m making

Justin Flom: She was

Justin Flom: She was in it. She was over at crown and she got an offer from the University of Minnesota to shoot a magazine.

Justin Flom: She’s a photographer and show and she saw that as a sign of, like, you know what, I don’t think I need what’s here, I’m just going to go for it and

Justin Flom: Within the year she had booked six figures of weddings and portrait shoots and different things.

Justin Flom: totally changed her life, being able to drop out of college and do that and and then in the same way.

Justin Flom: We her best friend has dropped out of her regular job and started creating content with my sister and myself for these online things. So I’m all into dropping the traditional job or education and going into the unique. I love it.

David Horsager: There you go. Well, both ways can work, I think, and certainly there’s truth in that, so that the number one takeaway, I would say is keep on learning, keep on innovating.

David Horsager: Well, I could talk to you all day. We got to have you back sometime. But we got to get to the lightning round here so you can

Justin Flom: Answer.

David Horsager: As quick as you can.

David Horsager: Let’s, let’s try to go. One of you might already answered. I’m going to answer it again in case you have a second book. But let’s go for what’s your favorite book or resource right now.

David Horsager: We talked about Scott Adams, if that’s the one. But maybe there’s a secondary favorite book or resource podcasts something right now.

Justin Flom: Yeah, that would be the one. And if you’re in speaking or entertainment at all the other would be a book called maximum entertainment and really is about

Justin Flom: Bringing a professional mentality to speaking and an entertaining. It’s by a friend of mine named Ken Weber and he just rewrote it

Justin Flom: You know, you wrote about 20 years ago, he just read it at all with brand new things coming from internet and social media maximum entertainment mess with people. If you’re into any sort of public work like that.

David Horsager: We just did a different podcast we talked to the one of the greatest speech coaches of all time. Patricia Fripp, but we were talking about how Warren Buffett said you

David Horsager: He said, If you want to increase your value your worth by 50% get good at communicating

David Horsager: Or speaking that’s, you know,

David Horsager: Key way that motivate inspire get anything done. It doesn’t matter if it’s our five year old teenager or boardroom right so let’s do the next one, what anything. You can’t live without.

David Horsager: Something yes without

Justin Flom: This cup of coffee right here. I cannot live without the coffee and then that’s, that’s it.

David Horsager: All right. What if you have any like you’ve had you’ve given several quotes. Any quotes you can live by or any thoughts that you think this I want this is my mantra or a quote or thought that I live by.

Justin Flom: On Boy, what a

Justin Flom: finish strong. I had a teacher in high school named Mr. She and he’s passed on, we lost him to cancer. But he had just about finishing strong man. There are there are days when you’re lagging and you’re like, I’m not in but if I can just power through and finish strong

David Horsager: That’s it goes from days, it goes for the years, it goes for life.

All right.

David Horsager: What is your favorite. You know, my favorite food is ice cream. What is your favorite ice cream flavor.

Justin Flom: Man. So that’s your favorite food, boy.

David Horsager: Well, what’s your go to your favorite food. If you don’t like ice cream.

David Horsager: But, you know,

David Horsager: At your parents place this reminds me right before code.

David Horsager: I was flying. I had to speak and Marco island.

David Horsager: And I had to

David Horsager: I had to. Speaking of generosity, your dad again. So I had Isaiah with map and bring one of the kids and we just said, are you there. And yeah, we’re here. Come on over. So, so he gives it. What is that 1940 Porsche or whatever he said.

David Horsager: Yes, that with your son my son’s just getting his license. You know, he says, so we we drive around and go over to get my favorite brand of ice cream. If it’s not homemade vanilla we drive over and get something you can only get in the South, not in Minnesota. Unfortunately, but Blue Bell.

David Horsager: Ice old fashioned middle and then we went back to your parents. After that, and we had more Blue Bell ice cream because your mom said, Let’s all have it out of the bucket and she had like three different buckets. So

Very

Justin Flom: Surprisingly, my you show your favorite ice cream is only available in the South. My favorite ice cream is only available in Minnesota and Wisconsin and the Dakotas.

Justin Flom: Which is New York City vanilla New York vanilla and it’s just it’s by Kemp’s and you can’t get it anywhere else. It’s just my favorite. It’s such a disappointing thing that I can’t get it out here in Las Vegas.

David Horsager: It’s got that golden tinge to write

David Horsager: That. No, I love it. Well, this has been an amazing conversation can anything you wanted to just say, but I’ve got one more question to end with

Justin Flom: In a moment. Yeah, please.

David Horsager: I’m going to give a recap, Ken. What are you thinking, okay, I was just gonna, I think, a question I had was

David Horsager: You know you’ve been very innovative, especially this year as a lot of people have tried to because of coven

David Horsager: So I was just wondering if you had any kind of advice for people who maybe feel a little more stuck. They don’t know exactly how to like pivot from where they are. They’re kind of what they’re doing isn’t working. Do you have any kind of tips or advice to be

David Horsager: Yeah, get past that mindset of not wanting to change.

Justin Flom: Gosh, I wonder if this is the right way. This probably isn’t the right way to say it, because this is going to sound unkind, but what it is is that

Justin Flom: Most people don’t care about you.

Justin Flom: This is the way I’ll say it and let me clarify what that means, which is just you imagine whatever risk you’re taking whatever silly thing you’re doing whatever new pivot, you’re trying

Justin Flom: That the entire world is looking at you and judging you. And the truth is, is they’re not thinking about you at all. They’re too busy thinking about themselves in their own pivot.

Justin Flom: So that understanding that really freed me up at the beginning of coven to make a hard pivot and I mean like a really hard pivot. If you were to watch content that I created.

Justin Flom: In November of 2019. It was my most artistic creation. I’ve ever done it with something called Magic mixtape. I wrote music for this thing.

Justin Flom: And created original magic and it has an average watch time of 20 SECONDS, AND THIS IS FOR A 20 minute piece of content. So that’s what we would call a failure, even though it’s my proudest

Justin Flom: Artistic little piece and then just four months later, I’m doing what some people would say is the most artistic thing I’ve ever done. But I’m seeing the most success.

Justin Flom: And that was only possible because in this hard pivot. I did not think at all about what people thought about me.

Justin Flom: And and really I’ve zeroed in all of my focus into my immediate trust group of friends and family. And if I oh I only care about what they think.

Justin Flom: I it’s it’s really an us versus them sort of mindset now because I it’s it’s so it’s so new to not care what the magic community thinks or to not care what

Justin Flom: The elites think and to really only focus on. Here’s my trusted group of advisors and here’s my family. What do they say about what I’m doing right now. And if I’m good there that I’m good.

David Horsager: I love that. You know what else I love about that, by the way. Did you have a follow on with that. Okay. I think what I like about that is that you don’t care what anybody else thinks, but you do care what some people think

David Horsager: And that yes, you have some accountability.

David Horsager: I think there’s some renegade and they just kind of selfishly, or actually in authentically say I don’t care what anybody thinks. Yeah, you do.

Justin Flom: Yeah, but

David Horsager: That you care. The key there is caring about with the right people think. So having an accountability a trusted advisor having your family having you I often think what would grandma. Think about this.

David Horsager: You know, sure, like, well that that helps me think about it. Right. But I’m not caring about what they think. Yeah. I love that so

David Horsager: This is full of all kinds of what a great conversation. They’re just so many things here. I mean, I just wrote some things down as we’re talking. Most people don’t care about you. I think that’s a truth success from kindness wins.

David Horsager: They, they want the when talking about the audience the audience wants story relationships and authenticity must not create anything as precious

David Horsager: You got to do the work daily time is the most precious commodity. These are just a few of the key takeaways today if you failed because you couldn’t focus on your strengths. At first, that was in Branson rigid flexibility right every day.

David Horsager: Variety to doing new things sparked your creativity.

David Horsager: Or there’s a whole lot more finish the bad songs finished strong and this I’ll leave with this one. Don’t break the chain.

David Horsager: That’s right, the habits, but I before I get to our final question, where can everybody find you, Justin.

Justin Flom: Right now, most people would find me on Facebook. Facebook is where the wealth of content is going

Justin Flom: You can just search my name. Justin flom there. I mean, we’re posting, not just my own content, but I’ve got a whole team of people creating silly things and they are

Justin Flom: All being posted underneath my name. Pretty, pretty fun. Bunch of content or just if you want to contact me directly. Justin flom calm.

Justin Flom: And there you can see some of the professional stuff I’ve done for Heineken or Dollar General or you can reach me directly, and maybe see about creating a custom magic message for something you want to do.

David Horsager: Sounds great. Well, it is the trusted leader, by the way, we’ll put all that in the show notes. And we’ll put all the links to anything talked about just, you know, also, just to remember trusted leader show.com

David Horsager: We have everything on Justin I love. I mean, the thing I said at the very beginning, you’re the same onstage. Is your offstage authentic and

David Horsager: Just super fun down to earth but brilliant and innovative and it’s just it’s a treat to have you on. It’s a treat to count you and your family as a friend. And so here’s that last question. It’s a trusted leader show who is a leader you trust and why

Justin Flom: So I’m going to go with the guy who I’m working with most often now and he’s a gentleman named Ricky lacks or Rick lacks

Justin Flom: And he is a leader now have a group of individuals here in Las Vegas. Who’s creating the content that I was kind of just talking about, and he

Justin Flom: Is the person who really kind of changed my thinking on what entertainment.

Justin Flom: Is and and what this generation wants to see, but beyond all of the smart things that he did as far as this pivot in and what entertainment looks like the reason he’s a leader.

Justin Flom: Is the community that he’s been able to foster i don’t i don’t know what leadership’s books he was he was reading. He’s definitely looking at things like a network head. I know he was reading Bob Iger Disney biography and and things about like

Justin Flom: I forget other personalities like that, but

Justin Flom: The community that he fostered was not just

Justin Flom: For himself taking risks and doing new things and not caring what other people thought, but really instilling that in a dozen people around him.

Justin Flom: And I and

Justin Flom: There’s an old thing in improv called yes and and yes and is just basically an improv game.

Justin Flom: And you’d see it in sketch comedy and many other things where, when somebody comes into the scene with an idea and they go, hey, my brother was just abducted by aliens.

Justin Flom: You as the actor playing opposite say yes and and then you add to it. The reason being is you never want to say no because that’ll stop the momentum right in its tracks.

Justin Flom: And also you want to be able to build this positive creative energy towards some crazy new idea and saying yes will bring you someplace that you didn’t know that you could go to

Justin Flom: So we don’t just play. Yes. And on camera, which we certainly do. Because most of these videos are very improv sketch type things. We also say yes and in life the way that we

Justin Flom: The way that we brainstorm. The way that we work together the opportunities that are coming. I say yes.

Justin Flom: And what about this. And yes, and what about this. So obviously there’s, there’s a lot of wisdom into saying no to a lot and you can gain your profits by saying no.

Justin Flom: So that’s not we’re not knocking that there’s I’ve said no to more than I ever have this year, but in a mentality of

Justin Flom: community building a company which is what we’re doing essentially is we’re taking several dozen people trying to create a new company here in Las Vegas. We are all saying yes and

Justin Flom: To what we’re doing. I don’t know if that makes sense. But as a leader Ricky lacks

Justin Flom: Fostering that that’s who I would say, and you can see his content online and he’s the only other face. He was the only Facebook page beating me as a personality in that top five pages leading up to the election is you’d see Justin flom and then just above me. Ricky lacks

David Horsager: Oh, that’s an

David Horsager: Interesting well

David Horsager: You know, it’s been said many times, you’re the same about creativity success wealth and everything of the people you hang out with

David Horsager: And I’m probably and even character.

David Horsager: And waistline of the people you hang out with. So

David Horsager: Hang out with people that are if you want to be healthy hang out with people that helped the of you, you know, if you need innovation and hang out with people, you know, hang out with people.

Justin Flom: Like you, and I don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room.

Justin Flom: I want. I want to be learning from somebody else who’s smarter than me in that room.

David Horsager: Well, there’s a lot more smarts that we could gain from you and a whole lot of insight and inspiration today and just a fun conversation but

David Horsager: With that you can check out trusted leader show.com if you want any of the notes or connect with Justin and thank you for listening to the show today, keep on building trust and we’ll see you next time.