Justin Demaree seemed to have it all - a successful corporate career, loving family, and active social life. But when the pandemic hit, it sparked an existential crisis that led Justin and his wife to ask themselves "are we living our best lives?" The conclusion that the answer was no launched Justin on a journey to pivot careers entirely, start creating YouTube videos, move his family to Florida, and ultimately leave corporate America behind to become "Bearded Tesla Guy." Justin shares his incredible story of change, risk-taking, fearlessness, and what he learned about finding career fulfillment along the way.

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living". Nelson Mandela

Show Notes/Timestamps:

2:38 - Justin and Dr. Anna's memories from his MBA program
4:09 - How Justin's passion for Teslas started
8:00 - The conversation with his wife that sparked major life changes
10:38 - Taking the leap and moving from Indiana to Florida
15:14 - Learning to balance being excellent at work with not sacrificing family time
21:18 - What prompted Justin to start a YouTube channel
25:22 - When the YouTube channel began making real money
27:25 - The best parts of Justin's life now
33:13 - Tuning out the news and negativity
37:14 - The supportive community among YouTube content creators
42:19 - Examples of Justin's leadership style and mentorship
43:53 - The difficulty of an individual contributor role vs. leading teams
45:56 - Prioritizing community service
47:55 - Justin's favorite podcasts and people to learn from
55:40 - Justin's future plans and new channels
58:39 - Justin's key pieces of advice for others
1:07 - Anna's Collective Challenge

Now that we've heard from Justin, your collective challenge this week, is to set aside as much time as you possibly can, maybe 30 minutes every day, try it for a week, figure out whatever passion project, new hobby, something you've been wanting to explore, don't put any judgments and no expectations on yourself. This is just an experimentation phase, your do not have to be perfect. As we talked about multiple times in the episode, you could just be doing research online, maybe starting a mini project, maybe a tiny piece of content, whatever it is that you've been wondering, and think about like atomic habits, that great book, little small pockets of time just to build on. So just start something that's all Justin said for us to do. Let's make that our collective challenge this week.

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Music by Music Unlimited from Pixabay

Shifting Gears: From Corporate to Content Creator with Bearded Tesla Guy