Chicago Event 2013- The ‘Short Jump’ from Poverty to Prosperity Justin Verrengia Explains his #1 Success Factor
From where you’re standing, the distance between your life and the life you want probably looks like a canyon, years wide, full of everything you don’t know and can’t afford. Justin Verrengia closed out the Chicago “Get Money” Event in 2013 making the opposite claim: it’s a short jump. And the bridge isn’t money, contacts, or talent. It’s one thing you can start building tonight.
They introduced him as the Hippie Jedi, and he lived up to it immediately, delighted that the schedule had him speaking at 4:20. He’s also the guy who tears up at every other speaker and doesn’t apologize for it. His explanation to the crowd: when my spirit recognizes truth, I get emotional. What followed was less a lecture than a guided tour of the bottom, delivered by a man who spent years living there.
How far down does this story start?
First job: flipping burgers at McDonald’s. School: barely passed, summer school for failing Spanish, which he finds funny now because he lives in Colombia and still doesn’t speak a word of it. He went to college wanting more, got pulled into real estate instead, and ended up half a million dollars in debt while he was still young. His description of that place is worth keeping: cold, cold, cold. Because you know a job will leave you in debt for the rest of your life, a job isn’t even an exit.
In 2006 an uncle lured him to a restaurant with the promise of a free dinner, where about twenty people eating found themselves watching a presentation on how to make some money. Justin was in no position to be picky, so he got started. And then he struggled in network marketing for six years. Not lazy struggle, either. He’s the type, by his own account, to work until he passes out for something he believes in, and he worked at it full time with almost nothing to show for it. The saddest part, he says, wasn’t even his own results. It was that his team never had a chance. The math of the old model guaranteed it: when a company pays you roughly a dollar fifty per bottle on an autoship product, you need a team in the thousands before the numbers mean anything. He was grinding around the clock and his people had day jobs. He knew they couldn’t win.
How much lower does it go?
Lower. Three years before this talk, Justin and his wife moved to China to teach English, because they were broke and it was a way to get by. His decision, he admitted from the stage; she didn’t want to go. And this wasn’t tourist China. It was one of the poorest cities in the country, a place no other foreigners would move to, where the menus were characters with no pictures and he’s a vegetarian, so plenty of nights he simply didn’t eat. Locally, a teacher’s pay ranked alongside a doctor’s. Set against half a million dollars of debt, it was still poverty. They stayed thirteen months, saving so they could afford to move back to Costa Rica, a country they had already been priced out of once.
Then the phone years. When he joined Empower Network he brought the only method he knew: prospecting calls, three to four hundred dials a day, five to six days a week, mostly to strangers, powering through migraines to do it. He told the Chicago crowd he still doesn’t own a cell phone, because he has nightmares about it. That’s not a joke he wrote for the stage. That’s what six years of the wrong hard work leaves behind.
What actually flipped?
June of 2012: he and his wife attended their first event, in Atlanta. He’s precise about what changed there, and it wasn’t a tactic. Before that weekend, after years of scraping, he genuinely could not picture his business producing much more than it ever had. The ceiling in his head was low because his own experience had built it. Then he spent a weekend surrounded by ordinary people succeeding, people no different from him, and the ceiling moved. The month after Atlanta, their business did more than it ever had before, and he waved off the applause when he mentioned it, because the result wasn’t his point. The cause was. Belief, he told the room. Belief is the number one determining factor to your success.
Then he stress-tested that claim with people who had better excuses than anyone in the audience. His teammate David Godici is deaf, and building. A brand-new teammate named Ollie, sponsored by Justin’s longtime friend Jin, is blind, and showed up in Chicago fully committed, cane in hand. Justin talked with him for five minutes and came away saying Ollie has more faith than anyone he knows. When he asked why he’d committed so completely so fast, Ollie’s answer was the success formula in one sentence: I believe I can do this, I’m following your footsteps, and whatever you and Jin tell me to do, I’m going to do it. Find people who are succeeding. Do exactly what they say. And Christina Munoz, the member whose illness won’t let her sit up without excruciating pain, let alone travel, was building her business anyway. At some point, “I can’t” starts sounding different in your own mouth.
Everything in life happens for a reason. Every struggle, all the bullshit was for a reason, because if we didn’t struggle in China, if we didn’t struggle in Costa Rica, if we didn’t struggle in network marketing, if I didn’t struggle my whole life, I wouldn’t be able to share this with you and let you know you can overcome it.
That’s the frame he put around his entire history, and it’s the one worth stealing. The struggle isn’t the interruption of your story. It’s the qualification. It’s what makes you able to reach the next person standing exactly where you stood.
What was his actual topic supposed to be?
He confessed near the end that his assigned topic was marketing daily, and that everyone in the room already knows they need to market daily. So he spent his minutes differently. His real intention, he said, was to transfer his belief into the audience. He had everyone stand, left hand in the air, repeating it out loud: I believe. I have faith. I can do anything I set my mind to. Then he had them turn to the people on either side and say, I believe in you. His wife stood beside him on stage while he told the room the hinge of his own story: she supported him for years without truly believing in what he was doing, and the moment she believed was the moment things turned.
Belief sounds soft next to a marketing plan, which is why most people underweight it. But look at the sequence of his story with cold eyes. Same man, same relentless work ethic, same industry. With the phone and without belief: six years of nothing. With daily action pointed at a bigger picture of what was possible, learned from people already living it: a different life within a year. The action always mattered. What changed was what he believed the action could produce, and who he let himself learn from.
What do you do with this tonight?
This talk is one session from the Chicago “Get Money” Event 2013 recordings.
Then run his exercise, alone, no crowd required. Say what you’re building, out loud, and say that you believe you can do it. Find the nearest person in your world who’s struggling toward something and tell them, plainly, that you believe in them, because the short jump gets shorter every time belief gets loaned across the gap. And tomorrow, do the thing he was actually sent out there to say: market. Daily.
Full lesson transcript
Lightly edited from the original recording — fillers removed, nothing added. Income disclaimer.
We have some very special things planned for you, but first we're going to bring up your final speaker. He's banked, so far, over $380,000, he's internationally known as the Hippie Jedi, let's give it up for Mr. Justin Baron-Guea! Wow, I love you all, I just got to say that. You know what's really cool?
Like I got my itinerary from the awesome planners, they're telling, you know, when you're going to speak, and I was looking at that itinerary, and it said 420, and a hippie got happy, I'm like... That's how I know it was meant to be, right? Wow, I'm so impressed by the speakers, anyone else here impressed by the speakers this weekend? Mike's story with his family just had me, you know, had me in tears. Do you know every single speaker here puts me in tears, does that happen to anyone else or am I weird?
And I recognize that's a good thing. I always wonder why do I get teary-eyed, because I'm very emotional, kind of like a woman, right? I'll cry a lot, like I don't plan to cry, but I realize what it is and the reason why, and I just wanted to share that. Something that I recognize is when my spirit recognizes truth, I get emotional. So you may see me get emotional at night, anyone else that way?
And actually, last time I spoke in Austin, who was in Austin? Raise your hand. Wow! Yeah, up there too, if you were in Austin, raise your hand so I can see. I remember being on stage, the largest crowd until now, right?
And I brought up a teammate who happened to be deaf, his name is David Godici, anyone remember that? One of the most transformational moments in my life is just seeing the success of everybody transform from event to event to event to event, and I had the privilege of meeting a new teammate. I didn't even sponsor. One of my homeboys, one of my best friends I've known for a long time, his name is Jin Hua. Where are you at, brother?
Somewhere around here. And he introduced me to somebody that he sponsored, right, because now he's stepping up, going to the events and become a very phenomenal leader like I always knew he would, because now he believes he is because he is, because he's here. Does everyone here believe that they can do this now? Yeah. So, Jin was telling me he had a teammate that he just personally sponsored, and this teammate happens to be blind, and I just had the privilege to meet him, and you know, he has like a walking stick, and I'm like, that's maybe him, so I'm like, hey buddy, you know, are you Ollie?
And he's like, yes, Justin, and I'm like, yes. And what's so magical about this particular story is not only is he here, and he's blind, he's all in! All in! So, Jin sponsors this guy, right, due to the awesome leadership from my homeboy, and then he rolls up to me at the 15K level and the Master's level, which I'm so grateful for, and I appreciate you for that. And so, I was talking to him, and I must tell you this.
After talking to Ollie, and I don't know where you're at, brother, just raise your hand if you're in the crowd right now, and I had a conversation with him for about five minutes, and he has more faith than anyone. More faith than anyone I know! And he's blind! You know what I mean? That's powerful.
I know you're a leader, Ollie, wherever you are in here, and I'm impressed at the fact you had no excuses, and I'm like, what made you decide to get here? You just joined. He didn't join last year. He just joined, and I'm like, you're here, you're all in, why'd you do that? And he says, I believe I can do this, and I'm just following your footsteps, and whatever you tell me to do, Justin.
And whatever Jen tells me to do, I'm going to do it. So that's the success formula. To become successful, just follow successful people and do exactly what they say. How many people here want to be a millionaire? I do too.
I'm not a millionaire yet. I'm on track. I'm sure by the end of the year, my wife and I will make over a million dollars, no doubt in my mind. But because I'm modeling after people like Vic, because he's making a million dollars, I have faith that I can become a millionaire, right? You can become a millionaire.
Because now you know the secrets of the universe, right? That's how simple it really is. I remember growing up, I was just so different, you know? So I was made fun of my whole life. I'd start sharing how meditation was changing my life, and people just make fun of me.
Like, why are you meditating, you know what I mean? You're not getting what you want, you're just wasting your time. And it was just like, it got to the point where I didn't want to convince somebody to meditate anymore, because I found meditation, I'm not trying to force something upon anyone. But you know what's kind of funny? And I just wanted to share this.
Now that I'm making money, I get about 100 emails a day, how do you meditate, Justin? How do you meditate? I knew the same thing I did back then, right? So it's just really funny how you gain influence and how the Empower Network has gave us influence, right? And that's a powerful phase or place to be when you have influence over other people, because you can help people have breakthroughs, the same way you're having breakthroughs this weekend.
If you've had a breakthrough already, raise your hand, I've got to see. So just about everybody here has had some breakthroughs, right? That is powerful, and that's why we're at these events. So I remember growing up, and I got into real estate, you know, I dropped out of high school, not high school, maybe I was high in school, actually, that's a fib though, yeah, that's not true. But nonetheless, I go to high school, and I barely passed.
I just got by. I remember going to summer school because I failed Spanish, right? And it's kind of funny, I wish I'd paid attention, because now I live in Colombia, and I don't speak any Spanish. We've lived in Costa Rica for years, I still don't speak Spanish. But I think it's kind of cool that you don't have to know a lot of things to live, you know, the lifestyle that maybe you want to live.
But I had a passion, and I wanted something more in my life. Does anyone here have a passion, and you know your calling is more than like a nine to five? Yeah, everybody here, right? And I remember working. That was my first job at Mickey D's.
Anyone been to McDonald's? You ever see the guy flipping the burgers? That was me, you know? That was my first job. And the reason that I actually, I went to college because I wanted something more, but then I got introduced to real estate.
I got in the real estate industry. Long story short, because I don't have a lot of time, and it's kind of sad, but I ended up a half a million dollars in debt about six years ago. And I was very young. Anyone in here ever been in debt before? Anyone been in debt a half a million dollars?
It's a cold, cold, cold place to be, because you don't know what are you going to do to pay it off. Because you know if you get a job, you're going to be in debt for the rest of your life. So that was not an option, right? So I got into network marketing. About 2006, my uncle invited me to a restaurant.
Anyone done a restaurant meeting before you got suckered into? They're like, why don't you go to McDonald's? I'm like, no. I'll come for dinner. I'll buy you dinner.
I'm like, really? You'll buy me dinner? I'll be there. You know what I mean? We get there.
There's about 20 people eating dinner, and then all of a sudden, they're showing us how to make some money. And I'm like, OK. I was actually looking to make money, right, because I didn't have any other options. And I didn't know nothing about network marketing. So I got started.
And again, long story short, I struggled in network marketing until Empower Network. I'd get my highest ever, what actually my highest ever was at the Sears Tower. We were just like. It's the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. And it took me two years working full time.
I'm the type of guy that I'll work 24 hours until I pass out if I believe in something. So I would work my ass off. And the saddest thing in life to me when I was in network marketing was not the fact that I couldn't break through and I'd have to start over. Most of the company owners, as Dave Sharpe says, they break a nail and they go under, right? And it's kind of sad.
But what was the saddest part for me, I could relate to Mike a lot, is the fact that my team wasn't succeeding. And how can they succeed, right? How can your team succeed if I'm working 24 hours a day and they have a job? I knew right there they had no chance. Anyone know that?
Right? And so you'd have to build a team in the thousands, in the thousands, just to make a few thousand dollars. So that's the sad part. So here I am, a half million dollars in debt, and I realized my only out was network marketing because the job wasn't going to do that for me. And then we're going to fast forward to three years ago, me and my wife decided to move to China.
Actually, I decided we're going to move to China. She didn't want to go. I'll just be honest with you, right? I didn't want to go to China because I was struggling to make money online. I just couldn't crack the code.
And so therefore, we had an opportunity to teach English just so we can get by. So we went to China, we taught English, and it was a great experience because we did a lot of growing in China. You have to grow if you're going to live 13 months in China and you don't speak the language and you don't understand anything they're saying. And when you look at the menus, it's in Chinese characters and there's no pictures and you don't even know what you're going to eat. And I'm a vegetarian.
So a lot of times I didn't even eat. Right? Is that true? So, and also I didn't want to eat dog. And the town we lived in, that was famous, okay?
They actually had a restaurant where they cut the paws of the dogs off and they would eat that. And that's not typical in all of China. That's just the city that we happen to live in, which is one of the poorest cities in all of China. Why? Because no foreigners were brave enough to go to that city to teach English.
So they, you know, paid you. They paid you a little good. And by the way, where we lived in China, that's the same as a doctor. It's actually pretty good. But for us, it's poverty, right?
We're still a half million dollars in debt. So that is total poverty, right? So it was a tough time for us. And my wife was also teaching English because we wanted to save enough money to move back to Costa Rica. How many of you know we've lived in Costa Rica before?
Yeah, we've lived in Costa Rica and then we couldn't afford to live there. Even though it's a lot cheaper, we still couldn't afford it. So we went to China to save up for 13 months so that we can live back in Costa Rica, which is where we wanted to live. And that was only three years ago. Now I want to take you a little, you know, a little down to about a year ago, right?
Actually a little over a year ago. I joined Empower Network and I was sick and tired of struggling. And many of you know the story. I was one of those guys that would just pick up the phone and prospect because that's what all I knew. That's how I knew you can get someone in your deal.
You just call as many people as you can. And at one point I was calling three to four hundred people a day doing prospecting calls five to six days a week. Maybe on Sunday I'd go to the beach or something like that. So I was really, really struggling. Want to know how I had my breakthrough and how my wife had her breakthrough?
Yes or no? We went to our first event in Atlanta. But guess what? I'll just be honest. I was still using the phone.
That was my primary means of closing and prospecting, right? I would get leads, do some scheming things, get some leads and call people. And I would just call enough people until someone said yes. And typically you got to talk to about a hundred people that actually answer the phone before someone's even willing to look at what you have. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. Because a lot of times I would call people who were absolute strangers, didn't know who I was, right? So that's where I was. We get to Atlanta back in June of 2012 and that's when the transformations began.
And you're going to have that same transformation if you haven't yet already had it. Why? And the money's not important, so I don't even need a clap there, but want to know why we were able to do it? Belief. Belief.
Belief is the number one determining factor to your success. That was the original intention. And the only factor is your belief because I look at David Godici who just so happens to be deaf, his best day is $1,000. I look at Ali who is blind, I look at Christina Munoz who, God bless her soul, can't be here. As bad as she wants to be here, she can't because she can't sit up for four minutes without excruciating pain.
But now thanks to Empower Network, she can. And that's powerful because by the time of the next event, she's going to be there with us, all thanks to the Empower Network. So that's where we were and now today we fast forward just one year from the past, right? So we've come a very, very long way in a fast time. Think about that.
I want you to digest that. Struggle in the industry for six years, burnt out. You know what I mean? I still have nightmares about the phone. I don't own a cell phone because I have nightmares about it, to be honest with you.
Ask anybody. They're like, what's your number? I'm like, I don't have a number. You know what I mean? My wife uses a phone, you know, so that's cool.
But I don't want a phone. I don't ever want to be on the phone because I was so sick of it. I'm one of these weird people that would get a headache when I was on the phone in about 30 minutes, but I'd still be on the phone for five hours and try to go to sleep with just, you know, a migraine. Anyone else get migraines when they're on the phone too long? I guess there's radiation called EMF.
I don't know if anyone is aware of that, but it's true. You know, the cell phone's not good for your head. You know, now we got a little smarter and we realize that they have these hollow tube phones that don't transfer the radiation for sensitive people like myself who can't stay on a phone too long. But nonetheless, we don't want to be on a phone. Right?
And I want to bring up my wife just real quick, baby, if you can come up. And I want to bring up my wife because it's not just my wife and best friend, but it's my business partner. And as you know, prior to my first event, like, you know, she support me, but she didn't believe in what I was doing. And you know, it's ironic. The moment she believed in me, the moment we're successful.
So what I need you to do, honestly, right now, everybody, I don't care if you're all the way up there or down here. I want everyone to stand up just real quick. Please just stand up on your feet. And I want you to put your left hand in the air and just say a few things from the heart. I believe.
I believe. I have faith. I can do anything. Anything that I set my mind to, I can do it. I deserve the finer things.
I am here in Chicago in the freezing cold, even though there's floods and bombs and, you know, probably fake terrorist attacks for all we know. I don't trust CBS, right? I turn on CBS and I see BS, CBS, right? See bullshit. But my intention here today, like I didn't pre-hearse anything and my topic I didn't talk about yet.
Just so you know, it's to market daily, but everyone here knows they need to market daily, right? If you want to make money here, you got to market daily. But the main intention that I had was to transfer my belief into you. And I want to just look you guys in the eyes right now, every single one, because you're looking into the cat or, you know, in the screen if you're up there and just tell you from the heart that I believe in you. I know you can do this.
You're here for a divine reason. Everything in life happens for a reason. Every struggle, all the bullshit was for a reason, because if we didn't struggle in China, you know? If we didn't struggle in China, if we didn't struggle in Costa Rica, if we didn't struggle in network marketing, if I didn't struggle my whole life, I wouldn't be able to share this with you and let you know you can overcome it. So what I want to tell you is your struggles are good.
Your struggles are where they're supposed to be. You know what I mean? Everything you experience, it has a divine purpose. And now you have an opportunity to help people get through their struggle. And I can tell you this.
There's nothing more powerful in life than watching somebody transform because you believe in them, and then they start to believe in themselves, right? And I ain't a Christian, but I love the teachings of Christ, okay? Because I curse and do weird things. But I love the teachings of Christ, and I don't know the exact chapter of the parable, but I know along the lines when I was reading the Bible back in the day, Jesus said this and it stuck out with me. He says, one day you'll be able to do or perform miracles.
Miracles greater than I, and I believe each and every one of you can perform miracles. So because time is up, I'm just going to end it with this left hand back in the air. I can do anything. I believe, I believe in myself. And look to the left and look to the right and say, I believe in you.
I believe in you. See, I believe. Some of you have a similar belief, and it don't really matter what your belief is, but I believe we're spiritual beings having a human experience, and I started to look at life as a dream. I believe life is a dream and a dream is reality because I'm weird, but here's the deal. If you learn how the universe works, you can manifest your dreams in a very fast time, and the truth is you all know the secrets of the universe, right?
Each and every one of you know the secrets of the universe because we've been pouring our hearts out to you this weekend, right? And how many of you are pumped? And one last question. How many of you are going to be on stage at our next event? Yeah!
I believe in you! You can do it. You can do it. Each and every one of you can do it straight to the top, straight to the top. I love you.
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