Justin Roethlingshoefer: Cracking the Code to Entrepreneurial Success
Small ball is about the little things that add up to big results. In concept, it originated on the diamond but in practice, the impact goes well beyond.
Baseball fans recognize the term small ball as prioritizing incremental plays over power hits. The Kansas City Royals are well known for putting this strategy into play, so to speak. Over the course of nearly 20 seasons broadcasting for the franchise, it’s led to countless stories to tell.
The world saw results in action as the 2014 Royals went from wild card hopefuls to championship competitors, before watching it all slip away in Game 7. The team returned in 2015, this time to clinch the victory it had so narrowly missed the year before.
I learned a few things about dodging buckets of Gatorade those seasons that continue to serve me well today. But I learned even more about the trust, teamwork, resilience and more, the small ball, it takes to win.
They’re lessons that actually laid the groundwork for my entire business that now includes two books and a keynote series, in addition to my weekly podcast, Rounding the Bases. Regular listeners know I ask every guest what small ball means to them. One recent guest found a way to leverage the little things for even bigger results.
His name is Justin Roethlingshoefer, an industry-leading human performance expert who has cracked the code to winning in business and in life. For nearly two decades, this author and TedX speaker has driven consistent change by living differently.
Using holistic data mixed with real-world experience, he empowers high performers to own their success and add life to their years. Not by working more, but by working right.
SINGLE: Like Everyone is watching
Certain things will always be home runs. But when you’re playing small ball, some of the most defining moments are had without an audience.
Today, Justin is internationally in-demand founder of Own It, an elite health system built to help business leaders stay on top of their game. But a few years ago, things looked quite different.
He was in New York hosting a launch event for his first book at Lululemon’s headquarters in Times Square. He had secured sponsors, invited media, brought in caterers and hired a videographer for the 7p event, which RSVPs suggested would draw a solid crowd. But by 7:15p, not a single guest had arrived.
“I said, I don’t think anybody’s coming. I guess it’s time to start,” he remembered. “I literally gave the talk as if the room was full.”
When you find something you know is worth sticking to but don’t get the right encouragement, it can be easy to question whether you’re actually chasing the wrong thing. But when you play small ball, even the smallest steps get you closer to your goal.
Justin finished his presentation with tears of embarrassment in his eyes and a pit in his stomach. The camera guy was leaving when he asked why he did that, and Justin told him he did it for himself.
“I knew that I was going to be somebody who had a major impact on peoples lives. I knew that we were going to build a movement that was going to really help people,” he said. “Just nobody knew it yet.”
A few years later, he gave the same talk again. Only that time, it was to a packed house.
DOUBLE: the great surrender
One of the reason’s I love the Lululemon story so much is that it’s such a powerful example of resilience. Justin’s commitment to his vision is small ball at its finest.
Interestingly, though, the purpose he has found at Own It was only realized after surrendering his original plans of becoming a professional hockey. It’s a classic story of one door closing and another one opening, without having any idea how good it is on the other side.
As a kid growing up in Canada, hockey was life for a young Justin. But by the time he finally found his way into the NHL, it was as a trainer, not a player.
He brought years of experience as a health optimization expert that he intended to use to transform the way athletes’ performance was treated. Instead, he was met with resistance that cost him his first career, and set him on a path towards a better one.
“There’s a big level of humility that came about with this,” Roethlingshoefer shared. “A great level of surrender, releasing the control that I want my life to look a certain way.”
It really illustrates the essence of my book, Small Ball Big Dreams, which is about the path to your dream being completely different than what you expected it to be. The challenges are humbling. But they’re also the best teachers.
“There’s 90% of things that we don’t know we don’t know,” he said. “If we can ultimately be open … my gosh, doors can open left, right and center that we didn’t actually even believe were possible.”
TRIPLE: compounding impact
Since founding Own It in 2019, Justin’s priority has remained steadfastly committed to purpose over profits. Playing small ball along the way has helped him win big.
“We have this equation in our company,” he explained, “We say that consistent actions done with incredible intentionality becomes inevitable outcomes.”
So what does this look like over time? It begins with a routine that creates non-negotiable space in his week for all of his top priorities.
By putting things like faith, health, family and relationships first, he ensures he remains sharp enough to give his best to his clients every day…a strategy that has paid dividends repeatedly.
“I’ve stopped making goals,” he said, “Because at the end of the day, I want to just be focused on making sure that every small thing compounds over the course of time.”
HOME RUN: when less is more
As a business owner myself, I at times find myself falling victim to the idea that more is better. During the madness of baseball season I become better at saying no out of necessity, but it can still be challenging after years of believing that the more times I say yes the more opportunities I create.
As true as it may be, it also creates a detrimental sense of pressure. And for what?
Using the example of five cups and a pitcher of water, Justin was able to explain why saying no is actually the key to even greater success.
“I see it in business a lot of times when people have these five great ideas, and they try to do all five of these, but none of them ever take off,” he explained, painting a picture of the limited water supply being distributed between them. “Even though each one of them could actually be a billion dollar company if they just focused on one.”
The key to his productivity, achievement and success, it seems, lies in prioritization.
“When we don’t have clarity . . . we don’t know what to say yes to, and we don’t know what to say no to,” Justin said. “Because when you know what your non-negotiable are, every question or every situation becomes an easy answer, because it’s either going to help you get there, or it’s not.”
Neither business success nor World Championships are earned in a day. But when you focus on the small ball, the wins come easier, on and off the field.
Listen to the full interview here or tune in to Rounding the Bases every Tuesday, available wherever you get your podcasts.
LEARN MORE ABOUT small ball FROM JOEL
Book Joel Goldberg for your next corporate event. He draws on over 30 years of experience as a sports broadcaster. In addition, he brings unique perspectives and lessons learned from some of the world’s most successful organizations. Whatever your profession, Joel is the keynote speaker who can help your team achieve a championship state of mind.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Joel Goldberg 0:09
Hey what's up everybody welcome into another episode of Rounding the Bases presented by Community America Credit Union: Invested In You. I cannot believe it, in terms of podcast calendar, and I know you may be listening to this when it comes out, or you may be listening to it in some other month, in some other year, I don't know. But as we release this, it is April 2025. That means baseball season has begun. We do have a sports theme to today's podcast, which will apply to all sports, baseball, but so much more than that as well. Quick shout out to my friends at Chief of Staff Kansas City: Making Connections That Matter. And if you're in the hunt for a job in and out of Kansas City, looking to to hire, whatever it might be, a good resource, check them out. chiefofstaffkc.com. Making Connections That Matter. I love the connection that I have today, a guy that I first got the chance to meet back in, I think November. I just, I can remember where I was, because I was visiting family in Chicago. I was at my in-laws place, and he was walking through an airport. And I think we even, we even talked before and after he went through security. I just, I went through the X ray machine with him, and I think we had a great connection. I also think that he is a guy that is just great at connecting with people from so many different backgrounds. He's a human performance maverick who has cracked the code to winning in business and in life. It's a blueprint that begins with the power of ownership. His name is Justin Roethingshoeffer, an industry leading health and optimization expert, author and TEDx speaker, who has spent two decades driving consistent change by living differently. Using holistic data mixed with real world experience, he empowers high performers to own their success and add life to their years, not by working more, but by working right. I feel like I need some of that right now from Justin, because, you know, as baseball's starting, it's like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I do believe I've learned how to slow things down a little bit. And as a former athlete, I should say, probably forever an athlete, for that matter, with the way he goes. I know Justin that you you live that, that world. All right. How did I do on the last name? Did I get it?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 2:21
You nailed it, Joel. Absolutely nailed it.
Joel Goldberg 2:24
I mean, nobody knows that we were practicing for an hour in advance.You probably get the little clips of intros that you've had with with people butchering your names? I think it's fine. I'm always fascinated by names, especially because I'm a guy that is not afraid to get it wrong before I get on camera, but feels that it is always important. I always heard was, and you're, you're a former pro hockey player and a Canadian. And so I say this to you because I used to always think when I was doing some minor league hockey games, or I was told, that there, there may not be anybody watching, or there may be but someone's mom in Saskatchewan is watching, and you better get the name, right.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 2:59
That's so funny. I've got a little speaker's reel that I've got that goes out right before I go up and speak anywhere now. And there's about 10 clips that are pushed together really closely. And it said, This is Justin Rowan Gardner, Justin Ruten Drew Sir. Justin's Rothens...I don't even know what this says. And then I come in, I go, Hi, I'm Justin Roethingshoefer and so it's, it's long been this pun. And I think it's kind of cool, because going back and looking even when I was a young boy, right, is I joke around and I say I knew the alphabet when I was in kindergarten, because there's 16 letters in my name, and I there was this. All I wanted to do is be able to memorize my last name. So I'd come up to my teacher and I go, Hey, I'm Justin R, o, e, t H, L, N, G, S, H, O, E, F, E, R, and just say it really fast and but, yeah, smartest kid in kindergarten. And then just went downhill from there, I guess.
Joel Goldberg 3:53
Well, and then it went uphill again. Because you really, I know, at an interesting time of your life, had maybe, I'd call it an epiphany. A life changing moment in terms of work that changed your path. I love these stories because, you know, when I when I released my new book,Small Ball Big Dreams in February, it was meant not to just be a here's how to achieve your dreams. It was really meant to to highlight the grit, the resilience that we all deal with, and the change of paths, the fact that nothing ever goes as planned. Look, I wanted to be a television broadcaster when I was growing up, so maybe I'm as close as it gets to realizing that dream, but to realizing my dream, but it doesn't look anything like I thought it would. I would argue it's better. But the amount of purpose that I found in life, the different paths that it's taken me on that I could have never predicted. How could you? Yours is more drastic than that. And so I want to get into the path and the life changing moment that you had. You've had a lot of life changing moments, but really what sent you down on this path and in a moment, but tell, tell my audience a little bit about Own It and the work that you do.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 5:07
Yeah, so at Own It, our biggest mission and purpose is to keep tips of the spear sharp. And what do I mean by that? Tip of the spear people?People who are on mission, people who are on purpose, people who are doing the work, the entrepreneurs, the business owners, the creators, the people who are out there, they've got this vision, this dream, this servant heart that wants to actually make people better, serve people in a powerful way. And I think what we often forget is people who are tip of the spears, people who are out there doing the thing as much as they're on mission and on purpose, and really being able to drive the boat. Tips of the spears get dull, and if they get dull, that's when all of a sudden, illness sets in, fatigue, sets in burnout, sets in their fulfillment starts to wane. They feel like life becomes very difficult. They sometimes resent what they're doing. And what our mission is is ultimately to help people take ownership of their health so that they can ultimately stay on mission, stay on purpose, and keep themselves sharp and in the game, continuing to serve help and have greater influence and impact.
Joel Goldberg 6:11
This is, by the way, this applies to any walk of life, any profession, right? I mean, it's, I think it's, it's something you could just hone in on the sports world. But I, you know, I know it's so much more than that, too. How did, how did you get here? I don't mean the actual path and the hardships and all that, but, but like, this sort of mental space, I don't know if I'm going to say that, right, that you're in, like, I just my conversations with you like you're thinking on a different level than a lot of other people. And I'm guessing it didn't start that way. Okay, you could rattle off a lot of letters from the alphabet, you know, at six years old or whatever it was, but what? What? When did, when did your brain, for lack of a better way of saying this, when did your mindset change?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 7:01
It's a great question, and it's, to be honest, it's very recent, and when I say very recent, it's within the last five years. And what happened was, I think there's a deep level of humility that I've had to abide by and develop and learn from, the level of arrogance, where I knew everything. I was, it was about me. It was about, how do I stay in the spotlight? How do I be seen? How do I create more influence? And there was, there's a big level of humility that came about with this, a great level of surrender, releasing the control that I want my life to look a certain way. I want to be in a certain place. I want to be doing a certain thing and truly just surrendering. But it all really started with just, again, a deep connection with with God, and like just trusting that I'm in a place where I'm supposed to be, and what is that relationship look like. And when that relationship really got deep and and focused, everything else started to come into focus as well. And the funny thing was, is when I think and talk about priorities, right? I look back at that point in my life, my business was my biggest priority, my health was maybe my second priority, my friends and family, my marriage and faith was somewhere in the mix. It was kind of when it was convenient. And for me in particular, there was a health scare that I had. It was the time in which I was managing the health of some of the best hockey athletes in the world between the NHL and the American Hockey League. And at this point, really this health expert, seen as this health expert through my undergraduate degrees, master's degrees, postgraduate doctoral work. And I only say that because I continue to pursue education, because I really never understood why I was learning certain things. But when I was in this place, and after being in the this field for about a decade, I started to have brain fog. I started to have bloating whenever I ate. I started to fall asleep and not stay asleep. I started to have these massive type of energy lulls throughout the day that were never present in my life before. And I had this epiphany as I was laying in a bed in Chicago, and I woke up in this hotel, and it was like there was a lightning bolt that struck me, and it said, why don't you start doing the same testing on yourself as you do on your athletes? And I was like, my gosh, this is so intelligent. So I started to look at some things, and what it found was actually that I had precancerous ulcers in my stomach and precancerous polyps in my colon, and I was told I wouldn't see 35 and that overnight shift caused me to think, man, what I'm doing is not just an athlete problem, but a human problem. And that's when my priority shifted. It's when faith became number one. It's when my health became number. Two, it's when my marriage became number three. It's when friends and family became number four, in my business and purpose became number five. And before anybody goes, Oh, that's so easy to say. It's so self righteous to step into that it's easier to say than actually practice. It was an epiphany that became this concept that priorities do not equal time spent, because I equal I've easily spend the most time on my business still to this day, but nothing takes the place of Sunday morning church or my Monday night men's group. Nothing takes the place of my morning workouts or my evening sauna routine. Nothing takes the place of my date night with my wife one day per week and the five dinners we have every single week together. Nothing takes the place of my calling my mom on my on Monday and my dad on Friday, and then there's still enough time to get done what we need. And so to answer that question, in that mindset, it was really about a five year ago period where this started to really shift for me, but there's such a level of humility, there's such a level of surrender that has ultimately continued to create this, and just a love for knowing that people and relationships are what make the world go around, and I don't desire transactional relationships. But rather, what does it look like to be meeting somebody at a heart center?
Joel Goldberg 11:13
Yeah, and I mean, gosh, to find that? And obviously you can, everybody's different. But you know what you found that those priorities, I mean to me, that all sort of makes sense as the right order of priorities to make this work. But it might not work for everybody, I don't know. But to me, what I hear is that when you could figure out what that is, I'm not great with structure. Actually, baseball season starting helps me with structure, because it forces me to just rule out parts of my calendar, and it enables me to hone in, and then when I get to my off seasons, and it's like, you know, podcasts and speaking in this and this, and, oh, by the way, don't forget about the family, and don't forget about, you know, the spiritual aspect. And you know, I am better every day when I have time to meditate. And while I should have time to meditate every day, right? So it's like, once I get into baseball season, it actually forces me to to push a lot of the noise away and to be better at saying no. But I think that once you find out what works, it gives you the blueprint to be successful every single day, or at least, maybe it enables you to to focus more of your energy on what it takes to be successful and control all the other stuff is that, is that right?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 12:37
Yeah, so you bring up a couple of unique points, and I think for people listening to this, they may have the same thought process you or even the same belief set as you, is that I'm just not an organized person. And if you came and you looked at Justin and what his tendencies were, I'm not an organized person either. But I will tell you that all of a sudden it's just like Jocko Willink said: structure equals freedom. And so as we create structure in our life, what we actually get to see now is, what are we saying yes to, and what are we saying no to? Because anything we say yes to means that you're automatically saying no to something else. And I think even as Alex Hormozi talks about, if he laid out these five cups in front of you and you had a pitcher of water, all five of those cups could be great ideas or great things or really or really emotionally fulfilling things, whatever you choose those five cups to be, but you only have so much water, so none of those cups are actually going to be full. They're all going to be maybe half full or a quarter full, and thus you're at never actually giving any some level of attention to that. And so I see it on business a lot of times when people have these five great ideas, and they try to do all five of these, but none of them ever take off, even though each one of them could actually be a billion dollar company if they just focused on one, it was actually able to develop. And so the same thing comes with us, is until we actually know what our priorities are, and we know what cups we're going to actually say yes to we can't do this. And so I myself, am even in a season of pruning. I go through these ebbs and flows where I'm in a season of adding a season of pruning, and I'm in a season of pruning right now where, taking a look back at last year, I ended up being on the road for 167 days. It was way too many that I was not as present as I needed to be in certain things. And so this year made a goal hit say, hey, no more than 80 days on the road, and we're going to start to prune some of these things off. And everything that I get the opportunity to do is going to come back to these three questions. Is, is it going to impact somebody? Is it going to disrupt my family dynamic? And number three, is it going to be something that grows the business? So those are the three things. And if it's a no to any of them, it's a no. Not to mention that I the first thing I always do when an opportunity comes is go to prayer. What does this look like to slow down, to be able to then actually speed up?
Joel Goldberg 14:59
And, and I think that for people that aren't there yet, like there are a lot, I know I'm not the only one, but there are a lot of us out there that we don't like to say no. I mean, by the way, it's been for me, one of the secrets, I think, I hope of getting the respect of the athletes that I cover, and I was never a good athlete, so I'm not in their fraternity. And by the way, if I haven't played major league baseball, I really am not in their fraternity. I'm not saying they treat me that way. It's just my respect for their group and what they have and but I understand that people are uncomfortable having to tell you no. So for me, what I try to do with them is never put them in a position to have to say no, like understanding when the right and wrong time is so that I make it a comfortable situation. And so if they're constantly in a spot where they're willing to say yes, I'm gonna, very rarely put them in a spot where they have to say no, unless it's an emergency. And I'm like, I gotta go all in on this thing, and then I'll let them know that. And so my point to that is we all to some level or another could be uncomfortable with no. It's uncomfortable. It's a lot easier to have somebody else say no. For you, it's a lot easier. But what I've done to the point like not everybody may be in a position right now to say, Look, I can't afford to go to 80 events here. I can't afford to say no to say no to business I can't afford it, and we all should hope to have that freedom at a certain point and get to there. But we can be detrimental to ourselves by saying yes to things that don't make sense and putting that pressure on ourselves. And so one way to prune you might be in a position, you know, financially or whatever it is, spiritually that look, I'm comfortable saying no, and others might be listening saying I don't have that ability right now, but there's no doubt that we all need to prune. We all need to remove the things that like to me if I say yes to something now and two weeks, four weeks, six weeks later, I'm still dreading completing it and putting it and putting it off and putting it off because I realize it's not something I wanted to do, then the question becomes, why did I say yes in the first place? And oftentimes it's because I was just trying to please somebody. And so I've tried to have this mindset of for the most part, when somebody asks you to do something, they expect you to say no a lot more than you expect yourself to say no. So why? Why are we holding ourselves to that standard? Right? If they're because that, I'll hear from a lot of people that will respond to that by saying, you know, if I say no, they'll say, Well, I figured, but it was worth trying, right? Like so I'm the opposite. I don't want to put position in I don't want to put people in a position to say no if it's going to be uncomfortable, unless something I really, really, really, really need. But there are a lot of people out there that that will ask you to do something, because, hey, it's a shot in the dark. Mike, you never know. And then we put the pressure on ourselves that somehow we have to make this happen. And so that's been a great starting point for me, as I started to prune a little bit of saying everything, all the criteria that you just went through, but also saying, You know what, it's okay to say no, and they're not expecting a yes. So why should I expect a yes? That's just been my perspective change.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 18:09
It's very good. And I think the thing that comes back to this, too, is you go back to yourself, because we talked about a little bit, asking somebody else to say no, nobody else is gonna actually give you back your time. Nobody's ever gonna say, oh, Joel, you know what? We're taking too much of your time. They're gonna say, Hey, can I just have one more minute? Can I just have one more minute? Can I just have one more minute? So it actually isn't anybody else's problem. It's nobody else's problem to solve. It's actually more of a reflection of how you see yourself. And so when you come back to this, is it? How do you view your core values? How do you view what you truly desire? And often, when we don't have clarity to either one of those, we don't know what to say yes to, and we don't know what to say no to. Because when you know what your non-negotiables are, every question or every situation becomes an easy answer, because it's either going to help you get there, or it's not. Which goes into the second place for me, is why I said I value these deep, deep relationships, because oftentimes what we find is that relationships are transactional. So you might have met somebody a couple times and they come up to you and say, Hey, are you able to do, can you get like, I'm sure you get it all the time. Joel, can you get me tickets for this? Hey, Joel, can you get me down behind the scenes for this? Hey, and it's like I've met you once. I'm a nice guy, but at the same time, there's a level of building a real relationship. If you and I, Joel, had built a great relationship and built a rapport, and you invested in the relationship, I invested in the relationship. We were here simply to serve. I didn't need anything from you. You didn't need anything from me. And it was just, how can I help Joel win? And we built it over time, over time, over time, and just giving and supporting one another, investing all of a sudden. Then when a question comes up, the likelihood of you being able to say, yes, of course. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, but we live in this transactional world, and what transactional world does is it creates transactional relationships. And so so many of us actually don't have real core relationships. And when we don't have real core relationships, this is actually a core factor, as we've started to look into health metrics, longevity, deep levels of connected relationships of five or less, you actually see a significant increase in fulfillment, longevity and holistic overall health. And so what does this actually look like in a culture that is more connected now than ever, actually being more disconnected than ever?
Joel Goldberg 20:39
I love every bit of that in part, because, you know, of course, we live in a transactional world. But to me, and this is true in any profession, including In sports, the transaction is the result of the relationship, maybe not always across the board, certainly from a fulfilling standpoint, it is. But I mean to me, one has to proceed. The other sometimes you stumble into a transaction and it works and it's just transactional. And that's fine, that could sometimes be business, but we so often forget the relationship before the transaction. I mean that like people say, Why do you go to the stadium so early every single day? Well, some of it's obvious to collect interviews and information, but most of it is, it's relationship building. But, yeah, it doesn't matter who it is. It's the coach, it's the trainer, it's the video guy, it's the player, it's it's the Usher, it's the whatever. I mean, it never stops and and I that's one of my favorite things to do. I mean, it's just that's, that's the business. So let's go back. I referenced a turning point. I mean, you were a hockey guy. You were one of the things that I love about your story, and again, it's the essence of my book, is that that your your dream and your path ended up being completely different than what you expected. And it took a really difficult and humbling moment to see it. And I think it's probably hard to see when you think you're where you're supposed to be, right. Like, wait a minute, I made it. You know, I'm working in the NHL, I'm doing all this stuff. Take me back to that kind of changing moment that, if it never happened, and I'm sure at the moment was awful, maybe you never go down this path, or maybe you do and it looks different. I don't know.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 22:23
Yeah, I think there's really two moments I'm going to speak to and I'll tell a couple lead up stories so that it kind of paints the picture a little bit better. As a kid growing up in Canada, all I ever wanted to do was play in the NHL. I want to be, I want to be the guy right? Like, that's That's it. I've dedicated my entire life to it. Came down to the States on a hockey scholarship, and as I'm playing down here, there was a time when I realized, hey, you know what, the playing career is over, like it's done. And I had, I was, I was blessed and fortunate that I had an elite passion for health and health optimization and performance. And what does this look like? It was instilled in me as a young boy. I knew that that was a calling that I had, but I had a hard time, because my identity was wrapped up in the player. I wanted to be the player, and so transitioning from the player to the coach was a very hard transition for me. It was a humbling transition. It was something that I wasn't willing to give up easily. It was something that I kept fighting for, something that I kept actually, even if I'm being completely honest, was something I played make believe and pretend in my mind, sometimes, just to make myself feel fulfilled. And as I went down this road and ended up as a performance coach in the NHL and performance coach in the American League and in the NCAA and in the NCAA and in different places, and really started to get a name for using data and having a holistic, integrated system and really just being able to do things so differently and see things differently, that different level of sight of what I saw myself was I transferred that identity from player, yes to coach, but still attached to the league logo, still attached to what was there. And there were things that were happening around me that I just knew were not right. I still remember in my master's degree program, I was sitting in class and they were giving options right? Like, where you could go and do these careers. There was the private sector, there was general population health, there was sports and performance. And people are kind of asking, hey, where do you want to go? Where do you want to find a career? And everyone was saying, like, general pop looks interesting. I'd like to open my own business. I'm like, no, no, I'm going to the NHL. Like, that's where I'm going. Like, it's NHL or bust, like anything else. Like, why would I even want to play with regular people? Like, regular people, I have zero interest in touching, being around them, talking to them, because they just don't want to be healthy. And I look back on that guy and like, man, you idiot. Like, you dummy. And I stepped into the league and was doing. What I was doing there, and I started to just see things. You talk about, Small Ball Big Dreams, where I started to see the push of the opioid epidemic, and just the way that we treat players as machines and assets, not as human beings, not as people, not building relationships, not seeing that there's a consequence to the ways and behaviors and decisions and lifestyles that we choose. And I really just started to take on a player first mentality in a team oriented approach, and it ended up costing me my job where I was not willing to compromise my values. We go back to having clarity on what you say yes and what you say no to. I wasn't willing to just stand by. And so I started to really push and talk about, what do these ulterior motives or ulterior modalities look like? What does a CBD lotion look like over an opioid? What does a red light and hyperbaric oxygen chamber look like over some type of surgery? How do we start to change some of these things? And there was just this tension that ultimately was made the choice of, are you on our team? Are you on theirs? And I said I thought we were on the same team, and it ended up costing me my job. And when I look back on that, there was also another moment about probably two months prior to that, where my mom was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. She was really struggling. And she said, Justin, I know you're so smart in this area. I know you you help all these people get healthy, and you help them with aches and pains and different things. Is there something you can do? And I still remember, and it brings tears to my eyes, even saying, this is I still remember. And she goes, Can you help me with this? I was like, Sorry, mom. I've got to go left after my NHL guys. I don't work with regular people. And my God, like, even as I say that, it just like, gives me goosebumps.
Joel Goldberg 26:48
Yeah.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 26:49
Because what I learned as I left the league is that my and during that moment that happened for me, when not only did I get fired and it cost me my job, but it was right in around that same time that I had that precancerous polyp diagnosis in my colon and with that ulcer that I had just big wake up call, and I just heard God's voice say, like, when is it kind when are you going to realize it's time to start serving the audience that I've called you to, and not the one that you really want to serve, the One that you've attached your identity to?
Joel Goldberg 27:22
They're the one you think you need to serve.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 27:24
Yeah, or you believe you need to serve. And so it was this full circle moment where now we look at what Own It does, and who we serve, and it's the tip of the spear, people, the people who are out there serving, giving, and we're in general, pop the place I never wanted to be. And it couldn't be more fulfilling, it couldn't be more impactful, and it couldn't be more purpose driven. And so it's just looking at that concept of where you are. And that goes back to why giving up control, surrendering, being humble, has just been the gateway to blessing.
Joel Goldberg 28:02
So good. And, you know, easy to say now, but looking back at it, it's like, what a what a blessing, right? I mean, it's just, it's that classic. You know, when one door closes, another opens, but how could you possibly know how much better that other door was going to be? You know, you were where you're you were where you thought you were supposed to be.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 28:21
Well, Joel, and I'll give some context too for your listeners, because I think too, if people see, okay, you got fired, and then you start the business. And now it's awesome. It's not how it went. There was about 12 months of fear, 12 months of anxiety, 12 months of being just pissed off, quite frankly, because I'm sitting here thinking, Man, I screwed up my life. Like, I was there and it's gone, it's done. And not only did that, did that have an impact on me there, but also it was a massive change in our country, in our culture, actually, in our world, because it was also over COVID. And so what was traditional of being in person with people and just going getting another job that didn't exist? And so I literally didn't work for 12 months, and it was ideation every single day. It was trying to figure out a solution every single day, while nobody was doing anything, nobody was making any moves, nobody was spending any money, nobody was getting into anything new. And it was, it was July, and I my wife had been sick of me for about two and a half months, and she goes, I need you to stop being angry, and I need you to go be with God in the kayak in the lake. And I was like, I don't need to be in the kayak. I need to figure this out. And I still remember sitting in the kayak as I pulled it out. There was this download that I had never had before that I just opened up my phone and started writing and writing and writing, and I ended up going and printing off what I wrote, and it was a 20 page manifesto of what ultimately Own It started with. It was the foundation, and it was just, it was, looking back on it again, it's if we are willing and able to submit to the process and being willing to surrender and be humble to know that, hey, there's 90% of things that we don't know we don't know, and if we can ultimately be open to playing in that lake, my gosh, doors can open left, right and center that we didn't actually even believe were possible.
Joel Goldberg 30:19
So powerful. It is. And there's a lot more too. I mean, you have so many powerful stories, and so I don't want to steal any of them. You'll go where you're going to go. I want to get to my baseball theme questions. If none of this comes up in the baseball theme questions, I've got four that I round the bases with at the end. So I just want to make sure that we tell the Lululemon story, and it might, it might be a home run or a swing miss, and if it's neither of those, I will hit it when we're done. But, but professionally speaking, what's the biggest home run that you've hit?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 30:49
Professionally speaking, I would say biggest home run.
Joel Goldberg 30:53
It might have been what you just talked about. I'm not sure.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 30:55
Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, it was probably when, I mean, if you think about this, it's something a little bit more superficial, but going with Alex Hormozi and being able to close with him during a stage. Like that being one of my biggest speaking engagements to this date, Alex Hormozi, obviously a internationally known individual when it comes to business, and now just being able to be on a stage and speak next to him was was kind of cool.
Joel Goldberg 31:29
Yeah. Swing and a miss. And what did you learn from it?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 31:35
Yeah, swing and a miss. So I would say this was probably more in, like, the leadership role where I got so tied up in building a business and then stepping back and going on to the next thing and saying, okay, these guys have it. They've got it, and not worrying about actually building them up. And so it's actually changed my thought process of how we do things. I mean, Own It's now a team of 50 serving people across North America. We've got some open up in Europe now. And when we sit here and we start talking about, like, health optimization at the end of the day, what my mind has a vision for, nobody else has a vision for. And so if I can coach my coaches, if I can build up my team, my team can serve the people. And so that's just completely transformed my thought process, because before it was like, Hey, I built it for you. It's here. Go and now operate it. I'm gonna go do this over here. I'm gonna go do the speaking and the book writing and all of this stuff, and I'll come and check back in. And you can't do that as a leader. It's the worst thing you can do. And what we started to see was that there was a disconnection between what I was talking about and the mission and purpose we were on, and actually what was happening. And so that was, I think, one of the biggest misses that I made as a leader. And one of the things that I had to come back to was making sure that I was pouring myself into my team and helping develop them. And if I can develop the people, ultimately they can serve the clients.
Joel Goldberg 32:57
Love that. What about small ball? What are the little things that have got the big results for you?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 33:03
Oh, man, it's not I. People always ask me, what's your what's your goals? I've stopped making goals because at the end of the day, I want to just be focused on making sure that every small thing compounds over the course of time. I don't care about if I ever become $100 million business. That's it there. That used to be a thought. It used to be, man, I want to be a big business. I want to be because if I'm a big business, I'm making a big impact. And somebody said to me, not all big businesses make big impacts, you know? And I was like, my gosh, you're right. And so when it comes to making big impacts, man, we are focused on one client at a time, one person at a time, and being where our feet are. And so when I talk about focusing on this small ball, small ball is how I play. I know every morning I'm waking up, I know the first thing I'm doing is getting to my Bible. I know the second thing I'm doing is getting to the gym. I know the next thing I'm doing is getting into the sun. I know the next thing I'm doing I'm getting on my leadership team meeting. I know the next thing I'm doing is getting some deep work in. I know the next thing I'm doing is having, some meetings with our key components of our team, I know the next thing at night I'm getting with my family and being able to enjoy some time together. I know what I'm doing. And so when I can do these things consistently, my gosh, it's inevitable that the outcomes become what we're looking for. And so we have this equation in our company. We say that consistent actions done with incredible intentionality, become inevitable outcomes. And so what does this actually look like in terms of the small things we do daily to create compounded interest over time?
Joel Goldberg 34:35
So good. It's so good. And by the way, with all that structure, I'm glad to get on your calendar multiple times now. But you're you're a man that knows what you're doing. It's a company that knows what it's doing. It is a wife and incredible partner in life and in business that knows what she's doing. I know that without having met her. So let me get to my four final questions as we round the bases. I'm going to get to Lulu. In a second. But let me start with your wife, and I'm assuming that the brain's behind all of this, but certainly a big part of it. But her story is pretty incredible too, because her career path changed. And look, there are some people Justin that can work with their spouses, and there are others that can't. My wife and I have said, but it just it wouldn't work out. And we enjoy all of our time when I'm not working together, and I've got the most amazing wife that that knows how to support everything that we do as a family, which involves this crazy world that I'm in of traveling in sports and like it wasn't always that easy. I say to people all the time that in my profession, doing what I do in television and traveling with teams. You either, you either part ways with your spouse, you quit your job, or you figure it out. And we figured it out. She's figured it out and but she'll also be the first to say, No, we're not working together. You guys have that part figured out. Tell me about your wife.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 36:03
My wife's incredible. She's my best friend, and just somebody who we've continued to grow with. I think that's what I love most about her, is who I married is not the same woman that I'm with today, and it's because she's just continued to grow, continue to develop, and neither I'm not the same man. And so it's been, it's been so cool. You look at my wife's journey. She was the youngest executive for one of the big four fashion houses. She was the Executive Vice President for Christian Louboutin, and she was basically next up, was president of the company. And it was actually during COVID, when she saw what the business was becoming, what I kind of developed over the course of that time with Own It. And she came to me one morning and she said, hey, you know what I'm I'm just tired of giving people a moment of fulfillment, and I'd actually love to help serve them in a bigger way in their life. I'm seeing what you're struggling with, with structure and running a business and building systems, I'd love to come over and help build the business. And I was shocked, because, I mean, you got somebody who's stepping away from a seven figure salary and first class tickets to Paris and all their fancy parties and everything that goes on six times a year. And it was, it was a big step and a big risk. And you now see what she's created here, within Own It from the team, the systems, the processes, the client experience. Everything is her, her brain child, if you will. And she continues just to lead in such a powerful way. And I will say it was not always easy figuring out what our dynamic was within the business. But again, like you said, we figured it out. We got coaches, we got therapists, we've got teams to kind of help us figure out what that looks like. And my gosh, after four years, it seems like we've gotten into a little bit of a rhythm where it just feels like we're winning. It feels like we've got this good component. And I come back to it. It came to a sense of humility, where I was like, You know what? I'm not the CEO of this company. I'm not the best person to run this. Actually, you are. And being able to do that and build it up our executive team and take more of a founder role has been such a blessing. And so I've, I couldn't, couldn't imagine doing this with anybody else.
Joel Goldberg 38:24
Okay, by the way, congratulations to both of you. I mean, that is just such a beautiful story, and how fulfilling to be able to do this together at such a high level. My second question, I always like this for you know, the high level athletes, you could say whatever you want about yourself, but what was the scouting report of a young Justin Roethlingshoefer?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 38:46
Too small, too slow, not strong enough, but works hard and is a great locker room guy.
Joel Goldberg 38:56
That's not, I mean, there's some good in there. But you wanted to be, you wanted to be who in the NHL, in your dreams when you were little, who did you want to be?
Justin Roethlingshoefer 39:05
Oh I was, I was, I was Curtis Joseph all day long.
Joel Goldberg 39:08
Little Kujo. I figured it would be a goalie, because you were a goalie.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 39:10
Yeah.
Joel Goldberg 39:11
And the last question, just because, I mean, I'm, I'll forever be a hockey guy, even, even if I could never skate. Minimally at best. Did you have a nickname? I mean, you know, like, the most hockey names are so basic, but every now and then you get but, I mean, with the name like Roethlingshoefer, there could have been something good in there, I don't know.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 39:28
Yeah, it was Osky. O-S-K-Y.
Joel Goldberg 39:32
O-S-K-Y.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 39:33
So there's a big story to this. One of my coaches when I was young, he would just give the most obscene names you could ever imagine. So he would always call me Roethingshoefer Oskiwhich and Heimerov. Like he just played an absolute fiasco on my name, because he said I was Russian. And I was like, I'm not Russian. It's like, and so it was Rothlingshoefer Oskiwhich and Heimerov. And then it become Oskiwhich. And it was Oskiwhich for a long time. And then the Hamilton Tigercats had this cheer. It went, Oski Wewe. Oski. Wawa. Let's go Ti-ats, eat them raw. And then it just came down to Oski. And Oski was my name. It went right from when I was, gosh, I think 11-12, years old, right up. But there's still some people to this day that call me that, but it's only people from when I was really young.
Joel Goldberg 40:21
I love that. I just, I love hockey names in part because most of them are so obvious. They're just boring and simple. But like, you'd only ever really know the guy's first name, and so like, you know, I would be Goldy. It would just that, that's what. But then, every now and then you get, you know, I covered the St Louis Blues for a lot of years. So Chris Pronger was Prongs and, you know, it was that. But you know, Keith, Tkachuk was Walt because there was a player no relation generations before him.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 40:46
I think Big Walt.
Joel Goldberg 40:47
Big Walt. Or Walt. No one ever called him Keith. That's true to this day. I love that, because you gotta dig a little bit like, Wait, why is he Walt? And then my favorite was a goalie. We had him briefly in in in St Louis, and then I think he was up in Calgary and other places. Fred Brathwaite was Bhady B. Like, I just like, I like that stuff, right? Or Jamie, Jamie McLennan, another goalie was Noodles. That's right,
Justin Roethlingshoefer 41:14
That's right. Yep.
Joel Goldberg 41:16
Those are the Ray Ferraro was chicken parm. Right? All it would take was like, what your go to meal was, or something like that. I love hockey nicknames because they're either as basic and boring as they get, or they're totally out of nowhere. But very rarely is a guy called by his first name in the sport.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 41:35
That is 100% true.
Joel Goldberg 41:36
All right. Stick to the athletics before I get to the Lululemon story. You are still an athlete to this day. What's the most recent or upcoming big thing that you're accomplishing? Because you're one of those, what I would call one of those crazy people that does things that most of us can't do.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 41:52
Yeah, so, I mean, I'm running at least three or four High Rocks events a year. So High Rocks, it's very similar to CrossFit, and so we've got the High Rocks World Championships coming up, and that's what I'm training for currently, and excited about did an ultra marathon back in January. So that was kind of most recent have just passed. But those are the those are two things I'm leaning into most other than a couple men's league hockey nights couple days a week.
Joel Goldberg 42:21
Yeah, perfect. Okay, the walk off. I wanted to save this to last, just because it's such an inspiring story and a reminder that when you start something that you know it's worth sticking to, that you might not always get the right feedback, the right encouragement, and that doesn't mean it's the wrong thing. When, when I learned about this piece of your story that involved being in New York, Lululemon, it reminded me of, actually, a story I saw somewhat recently on 60 minutes about the comedian and and talk show host John Oliver, who was doing a comedy set in Scotland, I think, when he was young. And it's one of these, this big event where you you pull people, it's like a month long thing, and you get a little stage time, or whatever your deal is, and you can pull people in and try to get people kind of carnival barking style to come in. And he tells the story. I mean, here's a guy now that has a big show weekly on on Max HBO, whatever it's called now. And and is very, very successful. And he had four people that showed up. And then one left while he was going, and it was down to three, and then another couple left, and it was down to one, and then the last person was just sitting there, and he's performing his act to one person, and that person looked at her phone, and he's like, are you leaving? And she says, Yes. And now he's like, it's just down to me and the audio engineer who turns and says to me or yells out, do you want to keep going? And he's like, no, no, there's nobody left. And now he's, you know where he is. I just when I heard about your story or when I saw his story, I'm like, boy, that like had to have been the loneliest, hardest feeling, and yet, here you are today. So tell me what happened.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 44:07
Yeah, so it was after I had come up with the concept of Own It. I knew there was a book there, so had been working on this book for a while. I kind of put it off to the side, but this is how I was going to launch it. This I was going to launch everything. And so we had my wife and I, we were going back and forth between Naples, Florida and New York City, and we had a connection at Lululemon headquarters. And so I was like, You know what? It's a lifestyle brand. How awesome would it be to launch the book at Lululemon? And so I went in there and we talked to them. They were like, yeah, we've got this great big back area. We can set up a bunch of chairs, we'll send it to our email list, and we'll get this going. So it was set up for a Saturday night at seven o'clock. I had somebody that was going to open for me. So one of my mentors came up to New York. I had a couple sponsors fly in. I had some people sponsor it for food. I had a camera guy. I had a videographer just to kind of get it for content, to be able to kind of show the story. And we show up around four o'clock in the afternoon. We set up all the chairs we had, I think 35 people, RSVP, just from the email list that had gone out. And then obviously some people I had invited. So I'm like, yeah, there's going to be at least 35 to 50 people. And it'll be great. We'll have, we'll be able to show, show the story, right? And so 6:30 rolls around. We're kind of just chatting. Nobody's there. We go and check the front doors. Everything's open. There's people walking up and down. 6:45 rolls around, seven o'clock, still, nobody there. 7:15 nobody there. And I walk out, I open the door, a homeless man walks in, and I said, Oh, are you here for the book launch? He's like, No, is there any food? And I was like, Oh my gosh. So he handed him a bar and a protein drink and the book and sent him on his way. And I looked at everybody and I said, I don't think anybody's coming. I guess it's time to start. And as I started, I literally gave the talk as if the room was full. I've got this pit in my stomach the entire time. Tears kind of welled up in my eyes. And at the very end, the camera guy looks at me and goes, Can I go home now? And I said, Yeah, you can go. And he goes, Why did you do that? I said, that wasn't for anybody other than myself. Because I'm going to tell you, there's going to be one day that this room is going to be full. There's going to be one day that I get paid to try to travel around the world and do this, and there's going to be one day that the message that I just delivered is going to have a massive impact on people in this world. And it was something I believe that day, I knew that I was going to be somebody who had a major impact on people's lives. I knew that we were going to build a movement that was going to really help people, just nobody knew it yet.
Joel Goldberg 47:06
and that that right there is it, that's there's so much inspiration and and I hope people can take something from that story, and because here you are all these years later, not too much, too many years later, by the way, just crushing it, doing what you were meant to do, what you love, to do with the person that you love and that extension and that family beyond that. For more information about Justin, we will have it in the show notes. I'm not asking you to spell this out, but it is Justinroethlingsofer.com you can go to Own Its website as well, and within there, you'll see about Justin speaking in the Own It services, the multiple books that he has written and so much more. And there's so much inspiration, and you're doing so much good. I'm so grateful for your time, Justin, thank you very much for hanging out with me and lending all of your insight and inspiration here on Rounding the Bases.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 48:03
I appreciate you. Joel it was so great.