How do we overcome challenges in business and obstacles as an entrepreneur? In this episode of Super Power Kids, host Neva Lee Recla talks with Justin Womack about how to overcome a big challenge and apply it to business. Justin is a digital marketing specialist, copywriter, speaker, and the co-host of the podcast “Marketing Geeks.” His journey from working behind-the-scenes to running his own business fast-tracked after a near-fatal accident where his car rolled upside down, underwater, and he spent two months in the ICU. Listen now to overcome your challenges with Justin’s great advice on how to face challenges in life.

Hey Neva, how are you?

I’m good. How are you?

Good and excited to be on your show today. This is a lot of fun.

That’s awesome. And we’re going to have a lot of fun today. So I can already tell you have a lot of superpowers, but can you name a few of them?

Yeah, sure. I guess the strongest superpowers that I have are probably in my writing. From an early age, I was always recognized for the ability to write concisely and effectively and then now I’ve kind of adapted that to be persuasive, which is what copywriting is. Copywriting is essentially advertising, writing or taking your writing and selling things through writing. And so a lot of my superpower comes to my ability to kind of write copy and be persuasive with it. Beyond that though, I love podcasting. So like you mentioned, I’m a cohost of a show called Marketing Geeks. I’m looking at potentially starting my own solo show also. So it’s really getting heavy into that medium and I know you’re having a ton of success with it on your side. So yeah, those are my kind of tools.

Yeah. That’s really cool. I think that writing is really awesome. I wrote a book, so it almost is a superpower to be able to write passionately about something and to be persuasive about it and all that. It’s really cool when you can see people do that while still staying in high-frequency and staying in their hearts.

Definitely. And that’s a skill. Not everybody can stay in that higher frequency and actually be persuasive without being salesy or cheesy. So there is a skill set in actually storytelling and doing it in a way that’s congruent to how you want to be.

Yeah, I definitely agree as well as it also comes in, especially in podcasting. It’s how do you stay connected without going into, “Oh, it’s work and it takes a lot of power because for some people the idea of writing or the idea of doing business can be really challenging because it does take time.” But then when you actually get into it and you show that you care about it and you’re passionate about it. It’s really cool what the outcome is.

Yeah. And there’s that saying that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I think that’s true for people that really love their work. Before I went into my entrepreneurial journey, which I do love, I love everything that I do now. Every day, I worked in Corporate America and it was the exact opposite of that. So I was miserable and I hated what I did. I could tell you that it drains your energy. It’s like soul draining it. It was rough. It was rough emotionally, it was rough physically. So I’m very, very happy to be where I’m at now and to have escaped that kind of, in my opinion, for me it was like a trap. 

For some people that works, but not for me.

Yeah, I definitely agree. I’m not old enough to have an actual job yet, but I’m homeschooled. So when I was younger, I went to school and it was really draining for me. But then I decided that homeschool was what I wanted to do and it kind of called to me. So I think that’s the biggest part of entrepreneurship is finding what you love, because if you’re not passionate about it, people aren’t going to see that. It’s finding what you love and it’s finding how you want to do it. That’s the greatest part about being an entrepreneur is that there’s endless possibilities. So you can do whatever you want while still doing it, how you can help people and staying true to yourself.

Yeah. And as an entrepreneur, you’re going to face challenges. So again, if you don’t love what you do, it’s hard to kind of overcome challenges and be resilient. But if you love what you do, you can survive and weather the storm and then continue on your journey and become stronger as a result of those things. 

So again, loving what you do is a critical component of this whole thing.

I agree. And especially in business, you’re going to experience challenges because sometimes you are going to meet people and you may try to work with them and it may not work and you may build relationships, but then they may fall apart. But then being an entrepreneur, you have to be flexible on that. It’s actually a huge gift because like you said, if you love what you do, in my opinion, if you’re passionate enough about it, you will do whatever it takes to get through. That’s really awesome because it’s inspiring to people and it shows that you can pretty much do anything. What would you say to somebody who’s having challenges maybe starting up a business or they’re having challenges figuring out what they even want to do?

Yeah, I mean, for starters, if you’re having challenges, take a step back and look and make sure that you’re doing something that you love first and foremost. So let’s make sure that what we’re doing is something that we’re passionate about, like you mentioned. Something that we can get excited about, something that drives us personally because we have to have that fuel to continue. 

Every business is going to have struggles regardless of whether you start out strong out of the gate or you have them later on, you’re going to run into these kinds of critical points where you’ll want, I mean, trust me, it can get bad where you want to give up, but as long as you have some sort of a passion, you’re going to be able to, again, endure through it.

One of the things that I found a trait of successful entrepreneurs as well is that they tend to be lifelong learners like myself.

So if you’re truly passionate about a subject that you’re doing business on, you should also be wanting to learn more and more and more about it. As you do that, it’s almost like compound interest where your skill is has just continued to develop exponentially over time. As your skills develop, things get easier automatically also. So in the beginning, I don’t care how much you think you know about the industry you’re getting into, you don’t know as much as you think you do. It tends to be the case 99% of the time anyway. There’s still a ton to learn and there has to be a will there because there’s a lot of work that’s going to go into this and you’re going to be putting in more work than I think most people realize, especially in the beginning.

If there’s no fuel behind or no energy behind the source there, there’s going to be problems. So I just say take a step back, look at what you’re doing and just make sure the fuel is there. If not, then it’s time to reassess. I don’t think we have a ton of time to talk about strategies there and that’s not necessarily my forte. There’s a lot of people that will help you kind of find your why. Simon Sinek has a whole thing about finding your why, but you want to find your why because you want to find that thing that again, why do I want to do this? What’s in it for me? What’s in it for the planet? What’s in it for my customers? How am I contributing on a greater scale? That needs to be discovered, in my opinion, to be successful in the long term.

Yeah, I definitely agree and I do want to keep on talking about this more because I really think that’s great advice, but we do have to take a quick break. So will you let our listeners where they can go to find out more about you?

So you can listen to my podcast Marketing Geeks. You can go to marketinggeekspodcast.com or you can go to my website which is jmackmedia.com. I have a free opt in there where you can get a guide to top influence tactics. So if you want to go check that out and authority building tactics, you can get that for free.

Awesome. Definitely go check him out because he is so awesome. 

So we’ll be right back after the break. We’ve been talking with Justin Womack about overcoming challenges in business. We’ll be right back.

To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.