44: Start Saying YES to Life, Opportunities and Your Business

Behind Their Success: Ep 44

Justina: [00:00:00] The things that you say yes to and the places and people you put yourself in front of with these opportunities is incredible. You know, I would never be in rooms with people like that if I didn't, say yes along the way. Yeah. 

 Welcome to Behind Their Success. This podcast is for people who are feeling stuck on their entrepreneur journey or in their careers. It's for people who want to scale and grow their businesses, learn about the power of mindset, or they just know there's more out there and they want to start making changes.

I'm Peyton Squires, the host of the podcast. I was never cut out to be an employee, and when I was an employee, I was bored out of my mind. So I made a plan. I studied and passed the CPA exam in eight months while working, all with the end goal in mind of quitting my job and starting my own business. I did that in 2014, and it has been an amazing wild ride since.

So now let's hear from other entrepreneurs, and what mindsets, and probably more important, what actions they have taken that have created and led to their [00:01:00] success.

Paden: Hello everybody. Welcome back to Behind Their Success Podcast. I am Peyton Squires, the host, and today we have Justina Dial. Justina is a mortgage loan officer at Central Bank of Boone County, and she has been there for 13 years. She has lived in Columbia, Missouri for over 21 years, where she went to Columbia college, which, is also my alma mater.

Paden: Go Cougs. 

Justina: Yeah. 

Paden: I actually, that was my alma mater and I used to teach some adjunct classes there. but that's where she found it at Columbia College. She found her soulmate and stayed here and settled down. They have a 2 together. currently Justine is also the chair of the Columbia chamber of commerce, women's network division.

Paden: Justina, good morning. Welcome on. Good 

Justina: morning. Thank you so much for having me. This is exciting. Yeah. 

Paden: Yeah. Justina. So,I gave a little bit of your background there. Just kind of, add some more color to it. tell us your story a little 

Justina: I got two degrees at Columbia [00:02:00] college business management and then in marketing. And, as with a lot of. Kids, getting out of college. They don't really know what they're going to do. They don't know what they want to do. I graduated college during a really tough time in the economy and there more jobs were being laid off than they were hiring.

Justina: And it was Menards actually that they had a manager and training program. And so I was with them for about four years and, helped open the store here in Columbia and then moved up and opened the store in Jeff city and worked there and then. Started opening stores in Wichita and Sedalia. And at that time just, I needed a career more or less and better hours, we were at that age where we were going to start having a family and.

Justina: those hours are crazy. So found a job at central bank and was a teller, was a customer service rep, moved my way up on the retail side, assistant manager, and then I managed [00:03:00] the branches for about six years. And then, I found my home and lending about four years ago. And it's just, you don't realize until you get into banking, how many different careers there are too.

Justina: Cause there's so many. different aspects of banking. And so, you know, I'm more of a people person. I love connecting with people and hearing their stories and building those relationships. So I'm more on the sales side, but there's so many operational aspects to where if you're not, if you're not into that, you're not, you just want to go in, do your job, go home.

Justina: There's so many, there's so many positions within that. yeah. 

Paden: And another I guess connection probably being you have is I, I worked at Central, St. Bank, for a couple years, right outta college. And that was kind of more, I would say my first real ish job. I was a teller there at the downtown branch, coming Right.

Paden: And outta college. So,yeah. there's not a ton of people still there from when I was there, but there, there's still some holding. 

Justina: Yep. [00:04:00] Yep. I heard you worked at the bank for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. 

Paden: Yeah. it's been a minute. I used to, so funny. Yeah. I started as a teller. They're, moved up into consumer lending.

Paden: It was like a assistant or what have you, just processing paperwork. And then I got into collections, which that was fun. Oh 

Justina: boy, that's a career. Yeah. I, 

Paden: used to send out all kinds of threatening letters. calling people. 

Justina: I bet you have some stories 

Paden: calling people that would never answer my phone.

Paden: phone call, but you know what? It was amazing. It was like,they would never would answer. I'd call the same phone number over and over again. Laden voicemails would never answer. And then, their car over the weeke enough, I'd have the voic from them. 

Justina: Oh yeah. 

Paden: But y of wild stories. 

Justina: oh m 

Paden: what do you think led to do that? what, yo Not everybody just zooms up the corporate ladder per se. Like what do you think your kind of best skill is that's helped you accomplish that? 

Justina: I would [00:05:00] say being very personable, when I was on the retail side, the more that you do and the more that you learn and the people that you connect with, even within the bank, they think of you to do different stuff, So at that time I was teaching. Training classes to the whole bank. calls classes, cause we, there's, we make calls to our customers, referrals classes. And so I think the more that you get involved and you say yes to things, I've always been the person that if someone asked me to do something, I say yes, because I think, I'm losing out on an opportunity that someone else gets.

Justina: Gets to have, and so I've always been a yes person, there's a lot of people that say, work life balance,you should only do what you can do and what makes you happy. But what makes me happy is saying yes and trying new things. this is a first for me to ever being on a podcast.

Justina: So this is awesome. if I didn't say yes, I'd never get to experience this. 

Paden: and I love that answer it's a common theme. And [00:06:00] something we talk about here is just just general curiosity. that kind of being a superpower, right?

Paden: Curiosity,you're being curious. I'm wanting to try new things. Step out of your comfort zone. yeah, it would, It would've been just as easy for you to just say no to all and 

Justina: Right. 

Paden: what all would you have missed out on? 

Justina: if I didn't say yes and take this opportunity to go into Mortgage Lane, I never would be probably talking to you, honestly.

Justina: Yeah, I may not be the chair of Women's Network. I 20 

Paden: under 40 as well. 

Justina: And 20 under 40. Yeah. it's just, it's amazing what. The things that you say yes to and the places and people you put yourself in front of with these opportunities is incredible. I sit on the board at the chamber and I see the CEO of MU healthcare and the head of Columbia college and MACC and Stevens.

Justina: And I'm, I would never be in rooms with people like that if I didn't, say yes along the way. Yeah. 

Paden: yeah, [00:07:00] for sure. And that's, that's a hundred percent. My experience is even, I started this podcast at the beginning of this year and to start it, your first few episodes or whatever, it's like nervous and like, how am I even supposed to do this?

Paden: But now that, once you say yes to those kinds of things and I'm, 40, 50 episodes in or whatever, this is, it becomes like a habit. It becomes easy, it becomes a thing that is normal. But you don't realize like you're trapped in your daily life and you don't realize that, you think it almost has to stay that way or it needs to stay that way.

Paden: But like as soon as you change something, you just give yourself a little bit of time and then you just adjust to that and that becomes the new normal. I don't think people realize like how adaptive people are, right? 

Justina: when I accepted the position as chair, the first thing I thought of was like, I am going to have to get up and speak in front of 100 people, 100 plus people.

Justina: And that just terrified me because that's something that I had never done before. other than 20 under 40. And so, you know, as I'm up there talking to [00:08:00] all these, especially it's intimidating that the group of people, yes, all these incredible community leaders. People who I've never even talked to, but I've seen across the room and always wanted to meet them, so to be up in front of those people at first, I know my voice was shaky.

Justina: I was you start to see these smiling faces in the room and you're like, Oh, I know that person. I know that person. I got rid of the script and just started talking halfway through and just, that was just a moment of growth for me because it's just something that you've never experienced, but you're right.

Justina: We are adaptable. 

Paden: Yeah. that's what you got to do. You know, like, and of course around public speaking, yeah, that's one of the number one fears of like humans, the stats show, like people, and now you hear this jokes, like the stats, like people would rather be in the casket at the funeral than Like the stats show is you'd rather be dead than have to give that speech. 

Justina: But 

Paden: it's true. Like I've, I never thought, 10 years ago or something, I'd be capable of doing that. But yeah, now I [00:09:00] got a real estate conference here in a month. And I'll probably be speaking in front of three, 400 people.

Paden: And 

Justina: Yeah, 

Paden: it's amazing. Like it's amazing, and that all comes from me saying yes to all kinds of different things in the past and going under. But, like 10 years ago, that would have scared the everything out of me, but now, it's not like you walk up there in front of 300 people and you're not, you have some sort of feelings, right?

Paden: Your stomach, but the cool thing is, you got a history of a past. You can look at that and going, yeah, I can do this. Right. I've done this. Do it. And you get up there, you start, like you said, you get a few. Sentences, paragraphs in, and then the kind of nerves fall away. And you can, as long as you were prepared, the nerves fall away.

Paden: And you just, you hit that flow zone, like where you said, you got rid of your script and just started talking. that's the natural and what people want to see and what people connect with, not reading a script, It's okay, she came out right now.

Paden: and, it's speaking. 

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And it is through the tax planning process where all the value is found. I'm Peyton Squires. I'm a CPA and owner of WR Tax Planners. We work alongside entrepreneurs and high income earners, helping them pay the least amount of income taxes, both legally and ethically. We have saved our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars through specific strategies, and we guarantee we can find multiple tax saving strategies that your current tax preparer hasn't told you about.

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Paden: know, along your way, would you credit as the b made on your care I would say really, yeah, what's one of the I would 

Justina: the [00:11:00] best deci professionally was takin Changing careers.

Justina: when you go on the retail side,your customers are your employees, right? Like you have your everyday customers that come in that, and love, but then your customers are your employees. And so when I took that leap of faith and went into a whole new career path, I mean, it just changed everything.

Justina: Probably for the first year. I was like, I am never, I'm never going to get this. I'm never going to remember all of this. And,I look back and think I'm never changing careers again. that's one lesson I learned was, I'm happy and I love what I do so much that, helping someone with the biggest purchase that they will ever make in their life.

Justina: There's so much emotion in that, it's different than when you buy a car, right? this is where they're going to bring their children home to if they're a first time homebuyer. this [00:12:00] is a, milestone that they will always remember. And so just getting to be a part of that and help them through that process.

Justina: It's just that's so rewarding to me. 

Paden: I like what you say there, in the mortgage side, it's not, it's not like it's just a transaction, right? it's, it's much bigger than that. And you're right. most people, buying their house is going to be the biggest.

Paden: transaction they have of their life and one of the biggest things they did. And yeah, and especially like first time homebuyers, right? your whole hands and like they're scared, they have no idea what they're doing and all those things. And, and, knowing you a little bit and talk to you a little bit, I know you have that high social ability.

Paden: that's probably what you're really good at. 

Justina: I just love it. Yeah. So that would probably be the biggest decision I've made that has just opened my world to, even not just helping everyone, but,outside of that, getting involved in other areas, to get myself out there.

Justina: Like I need people to know who I am so that I can help them. And so what I do outside of work is [00:13:00] just as important as, as helping everyone. in the moment. So,became a member of woman's network in 2015 and I never really did anything. I just went to the luncheons. I never really met anyone.

Justina: And then there was this one person I sat down at their table and she's like, come to a committee meeting. And I was like, really? And she's like, yeah, come meet with us. You know? And I was like, well, you know, one of my degrees is in marketing and I've never really got to do anything with that, you know? So That was my outlet for like the last six years is I was just helping them on their marketing and social media and doing their newsletters and all of that stuff.

Justina: And so just that one asks from someone. Changed my world six years later. And now I'm the chair, I never would have thought of that, you know, 

Paden: and how easy it would, how easy it would have been for you to just set there for another six years and not get involved in that would have been just as easy for you to do.

Paden: and we've been on a totally different path. that's [00:14:00] the wild thing about. things are fairly simple to do, right? like things generally aren't too complex. Like how are you going to grow your network? You would start going to chamber events and doing all this stuff. And it's simple to do, but the problem is it's just as simple not to do.

Paden: Soit's just all those little decisions piled up. And as you've done that and done that over the years, now you have become a person like, Oh, okay. People know who Justina is. And that, that allows you to help and serve more people. 

Justina: And I think just looking back, that makes me want to do that more for others, bring others into the room with me.

Justina: that may not have that opportunity. Maybe I'm that connection now to help someone else get there. Yeah. And so I've been really mindful of that, especially for women's network in the chamber of just making people know that they belong and they're welcome. 

Paden: Yeah. we talk about on the show, personality test quite a bit.

Paden: It's called the culture index. And every time I have a guest on, I'm [00:15:00] trying to like size them up, trying to see what you're certainly very high social ability. I can tell. Just by what you do and your past and the way the adjectives and stuff you use is very like feel and it just means you're a high social person for me.

Justina: Oh, okay. Thank you for diagnosing me. 

Paden: Yes, my armchair diagnosis. I'm sure it means nothing. Butbut yeah, you have the skill to connect with.and then also I guess you might think the con of that, of being a very social person. It's that you care very much what other people think.

Paden: and I'm a very social person, so Yeah, I, I, I struggle with that too, but when you were saying, someone asked me and that's what prompted you to do it, that people that are super social. it's, they don't necessarily do things because they want to do them. Sometimes they do it because they want to please somebody else.

Paden: So you get, you do have to be careful there as a high social person, all of the like people pleasing and doing all these things you regret and whatever. so it's a slippery slope. 

Justina: I can see [00:16:00] that. Absolutely. And I do worry, when you said that, I do worry at times, like what people think of me, like I did a good job.

Justina: Do they think that I helped them through the process enough to, purchase their home? Like I hope I get to help them in the future and they think of me next time So Never really thought about that. But 

Paden: yeah, that's interesting. I'll have to get you the, personality test.

Justina: Yeah, absolutely. 

Paden: It's cool. It's amazing. Like you, you go through that. And it'll give you a, like a little like narrative, like it kind of gives you a four or five different like data points on you. just in basic charge, but then it gives a narrative and you'll read that narrative and you're like, this absolutely nailed me.

Justina: I remind them 

Paden: like, wow, they know exactly who I am. And it's like a five minute thing. You five minute thing. You've fill out some stuff and you're like, 

Justina: okay, 

Paden: it's pretty good. 

Justina: and then, have you taken that one test? It's the, the gallium book of personalities. 

Paden: I'm not familiar with that [00:17:00] one. 

Justina: It's a book that basically you take a long test. It's about a hundred and some questions and then they give you your top five personality characteristics and the goal there is to focus on those. Focus on what's easy for you instead of the worrying about the things that you're not good at because you're going to be way more successful if you focus on the things that you're good at that come naturally to you.

Justina: Oh yeah, 

Paden: And yeah, and that's, another topic we always talk about here is just being as self aware as possible, right? Self aware as possible around your strengths and your weaknesses. And like, yeah, plan your strengths. You should double down on them. Because Generally your strengths, you have some natural ability in that area that if you really double down on those, you get like what I've called like outsized returns, right?

Paden: Because if you really work hard at your strength, you're going to get bigger gains than like a normal person. And then I'll see, understanding your weaknesses, right? Like those things, the weaknesses you need to like automate, delegate, eliminate, figure out how [00:18:00] to just get those things off your plate so you can just lean your strengths and not distractions by it.

Paden: stuff. It's a 

Justina: good way to put that. 

Paden: Yeah. 

Justina: It's called strength funders. I just thought about it as you were talking about. Yeah. I 

Paden: actually, now you say strength finders. I've heard that. I've heard that before. so Justina, what, you know, kind of flip side, we talked about your best decision to make.

Justina: what's one thing, you know, a mistake you made or something, you know, looking back, a lesson learned, from something you, you might've done differently. I would probably say

Justina: professionally I am not, I'm not a great operational person. I'm not, I'm more of,I want to be in front of people. I want to meet people, I'm just, I'm not on that processing kind of,administrative side. and I did, I had a job one time. I was a security guard.

Justina: I was a security guard for, a big like factory in Jeff [00:19:00] city. And it was like, it was in between like Menards and the bank. And, honestly it didn't really have anything to do with operations or anything, but it was a job where I just really sat there and answered phones. And I felt I just didn't have purpose. You know, I felt like I didn't have purpose. And I was like, why did I leave? Why did I leave this job? And I knew I wanted to leave that job because it was just not feasible for our lifestyle. But this job, it was, eight to five. So I had the hours down, but I did not, I was not happy, you know, I just say hello to people, answer the phones, transfer calls.

Justina: And there was just, there was no purpose there for me. And so you've kind of find, as you grow in life and you learn different jobs, or maybe you're, maybe you've had one job your whole life and you know exactly what you want to do.but I got out of there pretty quick. I was there last year and I was like, this is not [00:20:00] what I need to be doing, so you kind of just learn as you go in life and figure out what you like and what you're good at and what you're not good at.

Justina: And I'm terrible at phones. not my thing. So I would say that was probably one lesson learned that I learned what I did not like. 

Paden: Well, and that's,that's fantastic. And, you know, and it's that you.we're self reflective enough or just be like, Hey, this feels terrible.

Paden: and then you did something about it though, you know what I mean? A lot of people just sat there and not necessarily do anything about it. So yeah, that's definitely a positive. So got one more question here for you. Just, so if you could go back to that girl that's sitting there answering those phones, 

Paden: what piece of advice, if you give her one piece of advice, what would you tell her? From your perspective today,

Justina: I would say to do what makes you happy. I think you, as you go in life, you meet new people and you experience new things and you have to be true to yourself and know what you want to do in [00:21:00] life because, or figure out what you want to do. Keep figuring it out. there's probably people in their fifties and sixties still figuring that out.

Justina: there's going to come a time where I'm going to need to figure something out too. but if you're not happy, you're not happy in your day to day life and what you do, You're not going to be happy at home. And that's going to bleed into your children and into your spouse.

Justina: And, we spend most of our time at work than we do with our families. And so you have to be happy before you can make everyone else happy around you. 

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. yeah, that's good stuff. it is so true.

Paden: It's like, you know, life, life's way too short. and the saying like everything affects everything. So, yeah, I mean, anything you have going on in your life affects everything else.and you're, it's true. It's like our work. And, you know, I guess for just humans in general, we're all kind of wired to work, right?

Paden: Like just evolutionary, like we get rewards out of that, even just like dopamine and all kinds of [00:22:00] different things. so we're wired to work and like when you say you were at that, just phone answering job and you had no purpose, or felt like you had no purpose, right? And that's something that is very important for humans to, try to feel like even content or even somewhat happy is they have to have a purpose.

Paden: And it doesn't really matter what it is, like, you can just make it up in your head. But, if you'll be much more, much more happy. But you have to have that story of that, what I'm doing is So generally, I don't know if you ever list, Impact Theory as a podcast. I list it too, Tom Ballou.

Paden: It's a cute podcast. But, He talks about, the only belief that matters, right? is that you believe that you are capable of growing and doing new things. and growing, it's like with enough time and energy, I can learn and pick up some new skill. And as long as you believe that, anything is fixable, anything solvable, everything is like a skill that you can learn.

Paden: but once again, it goes back to learning all those skills is, a simple process. Mostly it's just going out and exploring, asking questions, being curious, 

Justina: [00:23:00] Right. 

Paden: And it's just as easy not to be. 

Justina: You're exactly right. I think about just conferences I've been to and speakers that I've listened to.

Justina: And I, think about, Maxine Clark story who started Build A Bear like in her forties. And it was just, she was going into the store with her daughter and that was like when Beanie Babies were popular. Right. So. they were sold out. Her daughter was upset. Well, she was a crafty person. And she was like, her daughter was 10.

Justina: She's like, well, let's go home and we'll try to make her own. So as they're in their basement, trying to sew together these little bears and making them, it was that moment where her daughter was like, mom, why can't we make these? We could do this. And that was the start of Build A Bear, you know, and you just never know what's going to change in your life.

Justina: You never know what's going to spark something. And so, [00:24:00] you know, I love to hear your entrepreneurial story because it's just so cool that you have that drive and that ambition and that,that the guts to do that. Cause most people will be like, I'll just go work at the bank or I'll go work at an insurance company.

Justina: This seems too hard. And so being at the chamber to the chambers made up of 85 percent of small businesses. it's just so we're fortunate that we live in such a great community like that. We're so diverse. We have all these small businesses. Yeah. And even in 80 percent of Columbia is made up of small businesses.

Justina: it can change. Your purpose can change, 

Paden: And 

Justina: it's to make you happy. 

Paden: I think it's cool. And it's, especially as, I've gone down the entrepreneur journey and shared and talked with a lot of different people.

Paden: It's, it's having people like you on the show here. It's where it's like, people want to give back, right? They want to share their story. And you've learned some things, you learned how to operate, how to move up in, your career path.

Paden: And now you want to give those lessons to other people. [00:25:00] Right. And it's like, it's like, Hey, figure out what you want to do. It's to take a little bit of time to just sit there and think, get intentional about what do you want? You know, if you, you ask, you know, the amazing thing is you ask like a room full of third graders, like, what do you want in your life?

Paden: And they'll be able to name off a thousand things. Like, you know, you have a list, unbelievably long, you ask a room full of adults, they won't even be able to answer the question.just generally,they were like,I don't. 

Paden: and, you're not going to hit a target.

Paden: You don't know where it is. So you're not just going to magically show up to where you want to be. so you got to do a little time thinking. 

Justina: You do and work, it's. And again, then work towards 

Paden: it. Right. Justine, it's been a great conversation. what's the best way people can connect with you, especially here in Columbia, what's the best way, uh, they can, uh, get ahold of you.

Justina: absolutely. Through the bank. I've got a website, central bank board slash Justina dial. It's my website. It's got all my contact information on it. You can find me on [00:26:00] social media too. personal page or my business page on my, my mortgage lending page. 

Paden: very cool. Yeah. Yeah. You guys check her out, you know, especially if you see her, you know, out of the chamber, great leader to seek out, especially if you're a young business person.

Justina: Yeah. I'd love to meet you. 

Paden: listeners, thanks for, uh, listening and Justina, thanks for coming on the show. 

Justina: Thanks so much for having me, Payton.

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can follow us on social media by searching for me @padesquires  or going to www.padensquires.com On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth, and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.


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