The Biz Dojo

S3E19 - Peek-a-boo with serendipity w/Justin Perkins

December 14, 2021 Justin Perkins Season 3 Episode 19
The Biz Dojo
🔒 S3E19 - Peek-a-boo with serendipity w/Justin Perkins
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Subscriber-only episode

This week in The Biz Dojo, we chat with Justin Perkins, Founder of New Edge Coaching... and Seth's personal coach.

In the first part of our two part conversation with Justin, we get into some pretty interesting stories that include connecting with Richard Branson (and Virgin Airlines), owning a rickshaw, handing out nuts, advertising, unintentional exercise in NYC, and much, much more. (and lots of bikes!) 

Hear the incredible path Justin has taken to uncover and build the career that fits him.

So, pull up a chair and pour a nice warm cup of   Biz Dojo Coffee (Masters Medium - OR - Dojo Dark). It's storytime, kiddos! 

You can also visit us at the links below to join the discussion:
Website      |      Facebook      |      Instagram      |      LinkedIn      |      Twitter

The Biz Dojo - Podcast, Production & Professional Coaching
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JP Gaston:

Hey, you should be listening to us on the news ileap. Just visit newsleave.me to download today and listen to the entire internet, including podcasts like this one. You can also check out our conversation with founder Jani season three episode eight.

Voiceover:

This episode is powered by airdry DQ grill and chill owned and operated by local entrepreneurs. Check out one of their three Airdrie locations today and pick up a blizzard ice cream cake for Dilly bar. The Biz Dojo is also brought to you by beyond a beaten path. If you're on the lookout for a personalized gift had to be on the beaten path.ca and get started on your custom creation beyond the beaten path. Personalize it, because everything else is boring.

Seth Anderson:

So something is recently come to my attention, JP,

JP Gaston:

just one thing. Just one thing. There's one item

Seth Anderson:

recently read some somewhat recently at least in within this calendar year. Yes, lives in the land of No, I might have heard this once or twice on the pod. Wow. You know, it's a pretty powerful statement. Although Do you know, it's weird? We know what comes to my mind when I say that? I have no idea why mine is.

JP Gaston:

Because as you said, I think the movie Yes, man.

Seth Anderson:

No, it's actually Cubert.

JP Gaston:

Oh, not what I expected.

Seth Anderson:

On the left field every time I say that, I think of Cuba. Okay, oh, no, I don't know why. But I think of Cubert as like the Yes. And like a land of like, knows.

JP Gaston:

Okay, I gotta go, I gotta go play some Cubert and see what it feels like, if I think of it in that context.

Seth Anderson:

There you go. So welcome to welcome to my brain. But, you know, in the over the last year, we've shot a lot of shots, I would say. And that's another thing we've talked about quite a bit on the pod. And I'm just curious, from your perspective, you know, does anything stand out of the shots that you shot and sort of that yes, living in the land of the no theory kind of come into life, I

JP Gaston:

think one of the first ones that we did, so Bill Baker was a bit of a shot. I've known Bill for a little while just having attended his courses and whatnot. So he kicked off season two, which I think like, for me, that's kind of when the trajectory of the show started to tip into more and more of a J curve is like, season two, we started strong. We just kept getting stronger. And I think it was our third episode with Nicole and Francine like that one for me, was a shot that I was like, I don't know if this will happen. But let's see what what happens if we reach out to it. Top Chef champion.

Seth Anderson:

Yeah, and those were two pretty unreal episodes. And in that same sort of time period, we had Mike Morales, which was like an Instagram message and like, I've probably sent like 500 or LinkedIn messages. And like when he replied, Yes, I was like, well, now what?

JP Gaston:

Know that. That's exactly how I felt when when Nicole replied, because I'd like that was totally, first of all, love the show. Secondly, the chicken mid clucking cleaver is just so delightful. Let's Yeah, let's see what happens now.

Seth Anderson:

So there was that one. And then the other one that comes to mind was with Walter and the TED talk. And I recently reshare that on LinkedIn this week, but again, that was one where I was like, so nervous. I was like, trying to write the email perfectly. And like, I'm like, you know, there's no way he's gonna reply to it. And then he's like, thing in the middle of the night. I'm like, I think I mentioned on the day for him, middle the day for him fair enough in Belgium, but

JP Gaston:

he got up at three, he was like, "I must reply to this now."

Seth Anderson:

I just, I remember being so excited. Yeah. But I don't know. Like you tell me like I don't know if I would have that same level of excitement. Without all the notes. I think that's what I've come to appreciate. The noes are the no responses or the not follow throughs. And it's not like negative to anyone. It's just like, people are busy. Things don't happen, whatever.

JP Gaston:

People don't feel like they align with our show sometimes do and that's okay, that's

Seth Anderson:

cool. And it could be a show could be life could be whatever, but like, I think the I've come to a place where it's like the yeses are so cool. Or they you know, they're they're so fulfilling. But the noes help make that happen, which is kind of like this beautiful like thing.

JP Gaston:

It's also so accessible now getting a no or a yes, it's so much more accessible. Like if I think back to other places where a yes has felt good because of a no like, certainly sports teams, you know, and even I still remember in like grade four, being the last one cut from the grade five, six volleyball team. But then making the team in grade five, I was just like, Yes, like this feels so good. I was so close last time and like same with applying to schools. You know, you're going through high school you apply to schools and you're just nervous. about all the knows you're gonna get who's gonna say yes.

Seth Anderson:

And I think even like, sometimes the yes isn't the yes, we think it's gonna be right. And I think that's why we're telling, you know, we're kind of starting here in this episode with Justin, he, you know, crazy story I'm not gonna, you know, spoil it too much but like, just a little, no, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna say, you know, you will be amazed when you put yourself out there, what can happen. And, you know, it may not end up being what you wanted it to be or what you hoped it would be. But like the stories and the journey, you know, it's all setting up for whatever that next thing is. And I think that's a lot of what, what you can pick from this episode, and putting

JP Gaston:

yourself out there in a way where you have your hopes, like, of course, you put yourself out there you have your hopes, but without setting it as an expectation of the outcome. I think that's one of the things I took away from this conversation in particular is like, put yourself out there, but just know that the outcome might not be what you're thinking, but the outcome is gonna be cool, but there's gonna be an amazing outcome from it at some, at some point in some juncture of your life. Something cool is gonna come from this, let's make it happen.

Seth Anderson:

And I would say, enjoy the process. Yeah. All right. Take some notes, and you'll have a great story for your grandkids. If nothing else,

JP Gaston:

enjoy the journey, not the destination.

Seth Anderson:

Shout out Jason Krause destination itis Anyway, now that we've called out like every person that came on the show,

JP Gaston:

there's gonna be a lot of tags in this episode.

Seth Anderson:

Let's get into it. Justin Perkins in the dojo. Welcome to the Virtual dojo. Justin, I really appreciate you making the time to join us up. So obviously, your name is Justin Perkins. And maybe we'll just dive in if you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure.

Justin Perkins:

That's great. I'm really excited to be talking with you guys. And it's funny that that's how you and I initially met, we were supposed to talk about doing a podcast interview about a year ago. So I'm really pleased to be here. And I've listened to several of your episodes and really enjoy the quality and the care that you guys have put into curating this wonderful space. So many thanks for letting me be part of it. So I've been, I think, probably what's relevant to to this podcast in this audience, I've been an entrepreneur for many years started my own company, the nut snack company, not jokes, totally fair game. I've been listening to them for 15 years. And before that, I was involved in a lot of different industries, you know, trying all kinds of different experiments. One that you probably don't know about Seth is decided it would be a good idea to buy a bicycle rickshaw off of eBay back in, oh, circa 2007.

Seth Anderson:

You're not sure this one with me. So

Justin Perkins:

and the first one came in a box, somehow it got lost by shipping service. So they sent it again from China, and open up this gigantic box of metal with no instructions. And put together this super janky rickshaw, but it was it was it was really fun. I just pieced it together off of the picture that was kind of this funky like photocopied picture in Chinese, and like, you know, a few arrows with parts pointing to different parts of the bike. So it took me a couple weekends to build that thing. And then I decided to give people rides from the subway stop in Washington DC, just about a mile from where we lived. There's this really awkward mile or so distance, which is really hot to walk in the summer. And it's to this neighborhood called Adams Morgan, which some of the US listeners might know. So I thought it'd be a great idea to give people rides in that awkward distance where there was no subway stop. They had to walk it or, you know, catch a cab or whatever. So I would after work, I'd have a day job, I would just hop on that thing and ride back and forth and get people free rides, free rides, rides. And what was cool is that everyone except the lawyers would tip generously.

Seth Anderson:

Like you're doing a social experiment, really more than anything.

Justin Perkins:

Well, by accident, it then turned into a social experiment. But I ended up making, I don't know 30 bucks an hour as this little fun side hustle.

Seth Anderson:

On the rickshaw Did you have a name rickshaw, like did You have like me, or was it just like, Dude on a metal bike from China like

Justin Perkins:

pretty much dude on a metal bike from China and it had a handbrake. That was the cool leather strap to the rear hub that you would pull and just hope it worked. It was totally janky. So I knew it was not a long term bike. It was kind of an experiment, but the vision that evolved was advertising. And so I saw the potential for, you know, advertising inside of rickshaws building a fleet of rickshaws, etc. That never happened, but other people did that.

Seth Anderson:

Was there. Is there like a fleet of rickshaws in that area now like, is that a thing? Or I guess you probably haven't been there in a while.

Justin Perkins:

I think there are still rickshaws in DC. I can't claim that I started that.

Seth Anderson:

I mean, you can claim it just just put that flag down, man.

Justin Perkins:

Well, okay, let's see. I mean, I will claim that I started the samba soccer shoe fad that I will claim that's

Seth Anderson:

a big claim. That's pretty bold. Tell me more. I was

Justin Perkins:

the first kid in junior high school to wear Somba Adidas soccer shoes as street shoes.

Seth Anderson:

And what this is this in Colorado or wherever you're at

Justin Perkins:

Colorado. Yeah. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. And yeah, I was a soccer player and I got a sweet pair of indoor soccer shoes from my older brother and loved them. So I started wearing the school. So I'm pretty sure I started that fad.

Seth Anderson:

Nobody else would they have had cleats on them at the time. Or was it? These are like the old

Justin Perkins:

school indoor soccer shoes precursors to the I think they're called sambas. Yeah, came? Yeah.

JP Gaston:

So like you were crazy. Like, you were the you were pioneering new shoes in the school space where people look at you like you're not playing soccer right now. What are you doing with those?

Justin Perkins:

I don't know. I was always a little bit of an odd duck a little bit of an outsider, but I was like surf the cool kids and surf like a different cliques. So I always kind of did my own thing. But I mean, I'm just looking at history like that took off. So I'm going to trend Yeah, there you have it, folks. And to the sand to sandals. I was first one where TV sandals to school.

Seth Anderson:

Just trend Trend setting from

JP Gaston:

trend setting. Yeah.

Justin Perkins:

I digress. Yeah. No.

Seth Anderson:

Actually, like, before I forget, I would you know, you talked about being in the nap business. And you have a really cool Richard Branson story. And I just want to dive into that because I think that's like one of the coolest stories I've ever heard.

Justin Perkins:

Okay, so I was raising capital for my company. We were making a go of it. The brand is called all of Momo. It was this really cool. Brand centered around this character of a Monkey God that we created named hola mama. So he was the monkey god of adventure. Kind of a descendant of ozomatli is this really cool character you'll see in Mesoamerica also really good band. So I am, you know, carrying the torch role of them as the founder, I've got a day job. At the same time, I was working for an awesome company called care two, which is the one of the first social networks ever launched back in 98. And under the radar focused on environmental activism. So I was carrying a bag for them as a biz dev person. I started this note, not company on the side, my wife back from Washington, DC to Boulder, Colorado, set up shop at the farmers market with a few bags and nuts. It was a hit. It kind of took off. We got pregnant in the middle of that. It was supposed to be my wife's job. And she was like, hell no, this is terrible. So I fell in love with it. We kind of kept it alive for five years at farmer's markets. And then the brand actually grew locally, organically to being you know, way bigger than the sales were. So we attracted a couple of people who were experts in the industry and they're like, Hey, you're onto something here. I entered this pitch slam contest last minute and no classic like back of a napkin ideas like hey, maybe I can distribute these things and coffee shops ended up winning this business plan contest a several months later. And you know, that was kind of the origins of this potential brand. And so from that point, it got real. And we started to attract investors. Found a guy who could be full time in the business as CEO and started to kind of piece together this house of cards. So it was really taking off and then we have this nonstop need for capitals. As the founder, I ended up doing a lot of the fundraising, which was super fun, but hardest thing ever, because you just, you know, is like, pulling rabbits out of hats nonstop. And so I didn't know I was going to be doing that for four years on top of a day job. So very, very long story short, we had a running joke between the CEO Mark that I hired and myself, which was, we got to get nuts on the planes. And so we had thrown this party to kind of launch a new product that we had. And we created these postcards with Richard Branson, pointing at the Virgin America airplane, little thought bubble that said, let's get nuts on the plates. Okay, so that was the back. That was the backstory. I found myself a year later in New York City, during un week, and it was packed. And I landed a meeting with an investor, an angel investor, who worked at a major financial fund. And so he was doing some side investing, as an angel was like, in the heart of the financial district in New York. And it was pretty intimidating. So I had a nine o'clock meeting, get in a cab with plenty of time, I had no idea it was un week. So the traffic was not moving at all. And there's no way I was gonna make it to this meeting anywhere close on time. So being a self respecting kid from Boulder, I look out the window and I see one of those bike racks, you know, to like rent a bike, or city bikes. And, you know, I looked at the cab driver, and I don't think I paid him. I think I literally just hopped out of the cab and said, Thank you, I gotta go. Yeah, I only feel slightly bad about that. We only want to block so he I think he was good. But you know, I happen to have the app on my phone, run over grab a bike, and haul ass for 20 blocks, you know, dodging and weaving through traffic in my business suit with my shoulder bag. And it was like one of the funnest 20 minutes I've ever had. I felt like that scene from Star Wars, you know, or they're like, going between the two towers. I'm on a bike with no helmet going between these semi trucks, you know, at full speed

Seth Anderson:

bend in New York, like that would be intense. Like, the streets are Pat. Oh, man, I could imagine that would

JP Gaston:

experience was pay it off.

Justin Perkins:

Like that, that trained me for that moment. Yeah, it was one of those moments where it all came together, like like all the training. So I get to this meeting 10 minutes late, I hate being late. I'm sweating, like mad. And I've gotten to the top floor, you know, I'm in the heart of the power center of the universe, walking in late to ask for money. It's like, couldn't be worse. I go in and sees to two guys, one had already invested a little bit of money. So the premise of the meeting was he was going to get his partner who was in Long Island on video conference, to put some money into our business. And I walk in and he's sitting in the conference room waiting for me this, you know, the biggest, fanciest conference room ever seen. I've been in a lot of meetings. But you know, this is like top echelon money. And it occurred to me when I walk in the door, and I said, you know, I apologize for being late. But No self respecting boulder right would come here without a bike. And for those of you who don't know about Boulder, Colorado, it's known for being like, you know, everybody that rides a bike. Nowadays, everybody has a food company. Everybody does yoga. And everybody is known for being a hippie and smoking pot. I won't deny or confirm those things by case.

Seth Anderson:

But the boulder starter pack or starter

Justin Perkins:

pack? Yeah. So it was the coolest thing. So walk in. And you know, these guys have more letters behind their names than you can imagine. Like, full pedigree, Long Island raised from money all the all the country Mall. And they laughed. I'm like, Oh, my God, I can't believe this. So we ended up having this great conversation. And I realized in that meeting that they were jealous of me. Wow. What a

Seth Anderson:

paradigm. Is that a paradigm shift? Or like, what does that mean? I don't have to Yeah,

Justin Perkins:

I mean, it was it was really eye opening to be like, Wow, what I'm offering of value here is you know, these guys are bored out of their minds. And I'm offering them a vicarious ride on a roller coaster that they can only dream of because they don't have the balls to go do what I've done. How much does like

Seth Anderson:

that realization or that moment come from, I'm just thinking of like everything leading up to that, like your adrenaline must have been, like 10 out of 10 going walking in there like, is that presence or like how you showed up there, like, if you would have just got off a cab and come up the elevator sort of nervous and in a different, like space is that meeting go the way that it goes.

Justin Perkins:

I had done a lot of meetings at that point. So I mean, the luck was I'd done a lot of business development, and carried a bag as a salesperson, so I wasn't a stranger to meetings, per se. I was definitely nervous, because this had a lot of weight to it, right? Like it, every dollar that we raised, was already too late. Right, so the internal pressure was really high. But at a certain point, it was just, you know, there was nothing I could do except go with it, and improvise. And so I just connected these guys. And we had a great conversation. And, you know, I forget how much money it was wasn't a lot as five or 10k. But you know that that led to the next conversation. And every one of those, we ended up with 50 investors over a four year period. And, you know, I can't tell you how deeply grateful I am for every single one of those people who put their faith in me and my partners for you know, giving it a go. So we can kind of come back to that. But to follow through on on the story. I walked out of there pretty high, because it was It shocked me that they would, they would respond in such a positive way. And it was just fine. And you know, it's three guys hanging out, no letters behind their names, no titles just connecting as human beings. And I kind of remember the feeling of that being really nice. And just, you know, I just was, didn't have anything else to do in that moment, except be myself. So walking out of there, pretty high, not sure what to do next, I realized it was a un week. And through my day job, one of my clients had been the UN Foundation. And I remember they were hosting this event called the Social Good Summit. So I pulled it up on my phone to see what was going on, I realized it was that day it was happening right now. I hopped on my bike and rode to where the event was wasn't too far away. And I didn't have a ticket. So I was kind of sitting there thinking, Alright, how do I get into this? Now it's sold out or whatever. So I did ponder for a moment using my like teenage Jedi mind tricks to try to sneak in because once in a while that may or may not have happened at certain concerts. And, and then I remember, you know, a guy I knew who worked for the UN Foundation, I called him and said, Hey, I'm happy to be here. Is there a way you can get me in? He calls me back five minutes later, your tickets waiting at the counter tweet, no idea what I was getting into a walk in. And Richard Branson just started speaking on the mainstage I kid you not literally the moment I walked in. So go, I go in. And I'm like, This is awesome. You know, I'd read his autobiography just appreciated his story as an adventure. And so go in and listen to his talk. And then at the end, I'm like, kind of get nuts on the plane, man. So that's what I did try to channel my teenage Jedi mind tricks, and I beeline for the edge of the stage like it would have had the YouTube concert and almost got to him. And then the security physically blocked me. So I was like, and I noticed there are some bloggers. No. And back then I don't know if this still happens. But bloggers walk around with their laptops open and they're like typing with one hand while they walk. So I'm like that guy's a blogger, I'm gonna follow him in. And the blogger went back to the green room where the press was waiting. Just happened I knew the PR agent who was managing all the celebrity speakers. So this is a global stage. They have, you know, high caliber speakers from all over the world. Coming to this event hosted by the UN is good. So I had one bag of nuts left in my backpack, and one business card left because I'd had a bunch of other meetings. So wrote on the back of the business card, Richard, hope you like my knots. Let's get nuts on the plains call me I'm raising money. And I saw Caleb and I said Caleb, he looked over me, he recognizes me. This is the middle of Total Mayhem. I said Caleb, you've got to give my nuts to Richard Branson. It busted him up. He stopped dead in his tracks. He looks at me. And he's like, Well, you know, his facial expression was priceless. I kind of said it loud, you know, it's like, above the den. So he comes over, grabs the bag of nuts, goes backstage disappears. I'm just hanging out like a well, he comes back out, gives me the thumbs up. Now it's

Seth Anderson:

delivered. So Richard Branson, how's your nuts at this point?

Justin Perkins:

He has them. So the rest of that day was just like that just weird. I, five minutes later, I turn around in the greenroom. And one of my older brother's best friends who I hadn't seen for years, was standing right behind me. Ben, Ben, what are you do here? So I went up, and I flicked his year and gave him a hug. And then we ended up hanging out the rest of the day. And it was incredible. So totally magical day, okay. A year later, Thanksgiving in the US. I wake up, Richard never called me. Um, but I was like, Hey, I'm gonna write a blog post about that story. It was just funny. So I get up and just knock out this blog post. I had a picture of the postcard and a picture of the business card that I had given Richard. Just put it on the blog, put it out to the universe. Sunday night, three days later, I had a dream that Richard Branson gave me business advice. Monday morning, I wake up, I had an email from some woman who was on my email list for the company. And it turned out that she is good friends with Richard Branson's sister. She read my blog post loved it, forwarded the email to Richard Branson, Sr. Unfortunate, it's Richard Branson. And Monday morning, wake up and Richard Branson had tweeted a direct response, I think we'd put it on Twitter. Let's get nuts on the planes. Loved your blog post, open CC or whatever they say on Twitter, copied in the Head of Brand at Virgin America, I kid you not five minutes later had an email from Virgin, America's VP of brand, and we're in the game. Now the paradox was of the way that whole system works, we we would have had to pay a ton of money to get onto the planes would not have been a great a great deal the way that that system set up the distributors etc. We didn't have the capital to do it. So never happened. But but the rest of the story is true. So so that's the Richard Branson story.

Seth Anderson:

See, JP JP and I were talking before the show, but what angle to take and what you know how to kind of hop on here. And I'm like, just, we're just gonna get into it. And Justin's got stories for days like, but what a and that's a cool story. I don't know JP, I want your reaction because I kind of heard it before. So I knew where we were going. But

JP Gaston:

I don't know when you said Richard Branson. I thought okay, there's some sort of meeting of Richard Branson here, I did not think it would involve I gave Richard Branson my nuts. That was That wasn't the the path I was expecting to go down crazy how you mentioned off the top that you were kind of involved in one of the first social media startups crazy how social media has evolved to a point where someone can post something from years, or a year earlier, I guess. And it can find its way through this intricate network of people to get to the person you were trying to get to in the first place. And then all of a sudden, there's all this like rapid change.

Justin Perkins:

Yeah, it's super cool. And I think in this case, it was actually more real time. So the, the event of the real life almost meeting Richard Branson happened a year earlier than the blog post. But from blog posts to Richard Branson responding was three days, huh, which was insane. And, you know, for me, that just gave me a lot of other stuff like that has happened, where you put it out there. And the right people get attracted to it, sometimes not all the time. But I've had some really wonderful things occur were actually one of my first coaching clients came about because of a heartfelt post that I wrote on Facebook. And this is a woman I'd worked with 16 years earlier, who happened to be looking for a coach. And you know, we had really nice report back in the day and turned out she had been carrying around some email that I had forwarded to her back in like 2005. And this email, had some career advice on it that been on this wonderful article journalist written back in 2003, or something. 16 years later, she shows up because of Facebook, and no end up working together. doesn't currently keep

JP Gaston:

an email straight from a week ago. I don't know if I can carry around for 16.

Justin Perkins:

Yeah, you gotta imagine this too, like she moved probably, I don't know, 10 times she was working in doing like post reconstruction, peacekeeping stuff and, you know, civil service and like, conflict resolution for the United States International aid agencies. So this this letter had made it into the backpack that she carried around for 16 years, you know, 100 different moves or whatever. So it's just cool. I just love that stuff. You never know where the seeds of your life are gonna lead.

JP Gaston:

And that like the other piece of that story that caught my attention was how quickly Richard Branson commands work to get to go from tweet to response type doubt ready to go from VP of brand? In five minutes. I feel like that guy's just refreshing Richard Branson's feed constantly to be like, Okay, what do you sign me up for now? What am I have to do for a guy

Seth Anderson:

like that shows up in your life a lot, Justin, just getting to know you. For those of you don't know, I mean, I've been talking about it all season long. Working with Justin as my coach. And even just us getting connected is kind of a trip if you think about all the stars that had to align for that to occur. You know, like it all started, really, six months earlier, when I went for a hike with my son on a whim because it was a nice day. COVID lockdown, not much else to do. And then in that moment, when we were out here, having such a great day, I decided, You know what we need to move out here, which led to listing our house for sale, it's selling on the first set, viewing, not having a place to go but then finding this house and then ending up being neighbors with a lifelong friend of yours. And like, I don't know, man, it's just such a trip when you start connecting dots on how all these things come together. And, you know, working with you has been one of the most enjoyable things that I've ever experienced. But it's also led to other meetings like Marius, which That in itself. That's like a whole story that you could get into like a random encounter in South Africa when you were in your early 20s leads to this lifelong friendship with just an amazing human being.

Justin Perkins:

Yeah, life is Life is funny that way. And I mean, it's I mean kind of awe of what's going to happen next, just based on some of those serendipitous experiences, the guy we're referring to, was my roommate in college, wonderful guy who, you know, probably shouldn't have been at the college that I went to, so that, you know, the chances of him going to that college are rare, let alone us becoming friends, let alone actually we became friends because I stole his bike

JP Gaston:

seemed to involve a bike just

Justin Perkins:

he was kind of this tough looking football player. And he was super quiet. So you wouldn't. I think everybody was pretty afraid of him. And we were in the same dorm. I didn't really know him that well. But I was running late for class and we lived we were at this very small school where nobody locked their bikes. So it wasn't uncommon just to borrow bikes, you know, like there was a bike karma thing happening. I left a note where his bike

Seth Anderson:

three stories deep, but everyone involves like, stealing a bike or like

Justin Perkins:

I borrow borrows bike and I say, wrote a note and left it where the bike was apparently. And this guy's also from from Canada. Yes, from the Sioux Sainte Marie. And we're

Seth Anderson:

like the nicest people in the world. So like, I'm sure he was super understanding that you had borrowed his bike.

Justin Perkins:

Well, when I wrote sorry, I borrowed your bike, please don't kick my hiney we've been friends ever since. He's a he's one of my favorite human beings, incredible artists. He's an incredible athlete back in the day, he creates these, these paintings based on he discovered in the last five or six years that he's made tea. And so his paintings are these incredible stories based on like archetypal animal characters. You know, really the vivid colors. It's based on a first peoples tradition. I don't I don't know enough about the background to do justice. But he has done some incredible, incredible paintings in that genre.

Seth Anderson:

He actually, this year he turned all of his paintings into Christmas cards. Yeah, super cool. I bought so that's what our Christmas cards are this year his paintings and they're just they're beautiful. Like that's

Justin Perkins:

what Gary Sutton dots Yeah, I think is your website. But anyway, that I just love one of my favorite things is how life connects us serendipitously. For me, it's like this massive game of peekaboo with serendipity

JP Gaston:

might be the title of the episode serendipity thank you for tuning in. part one of our two part conversation with Justin Perkins. Make sure to subscribe and catch part two of our conversation later this week. In the meantime, visit the biz dojo.com To get your merchandise or contact us about coaching and consulting services.