Collaboration is all about coming together for one specific purpose. This is what the world is lacking right now with all this division. Collaboration is also the key to success in running your business. You have to find the right people to work with, and for Justin Recla, it was his family. Justin and his family are considered the first family of inspired personal development. He is the Operations Director at Super Power Experts. He also used to be in the army and work for the government as a counterintelligence agent. Join Susie Carder as she talks to Justin about his journey from the government to entrepreneurship. Learn how he and his family help others with their podcast network. Discover why his faith and communion with God are so important. Know the power of collaboration today!

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From Government To Entrepreneurship: The Power Of Personal Development And Collaboration With Justin Recla

Welcome to this episode of the show. I am so excited to have my guest, Justin Recla. He is an Army veteran and former counterintelligence agent. Justin, Tonya, and Neva are considered the first family of inspirational personal development and live their lives with the testament to the power of synergy, love, and communion with God. Justin’s message is simple, “Help others do things better and have self-domination in everything that you do.” Please welcome my guest, Justin.

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Justin, thank you so much for joining us. I am so excited to have you and to introduce you to my community. I fell in love with you when we had our call and we talked. I was on your podcast. It was a great synergy. Share with people what your magic is, what your sweet spot is, and how is your business different and unique from anybody else’s?
First and foremost, as my bio said, my wife and I are both former counterintelligence agents. We come from the government and we come from a sector of government that most people never leave. They are usually in it forever, but we got bit by the entrepreneur bug and got called to do something different, to do something better in the business world. From what we are seeing in some of the curricula that we taught at the counterintelligence special agents course was our doorway to that. We now operate an inspired community called Super Power Experts. We have a podcast network that has sixteen shows on the network, all in the personal development, feel-good business space.
You were on my Incorporating Superpowers Business Podcast. We offer programs for those who want to move from being creators but moving from coexisting into collaboration and the creator space. We serve those that typically pour into others and help train and teach collaboration so people can become better leaders. Collaboration is the way we do better in this world. That is what we do. We exist in that space and we take a woo-woo personal development twist to it, but it is all from a space of love and pure guidance.
What does counterintelligence mean? I know in my head what I am making it mean, but I do not know what it means in your world.
I used to joke around a lot with our students as we were training new agents and counterintelligence. I tell people, “I work with a bunch of stupid people.” Counterintelligence is the form of intelligence that is very dependent on human sources. The whole purpose of counterintelligence is to identify the risk to our resources, our military units, not only figure out what the enemy is collecting, but then counter it with other information. When you hear stories of espionage and spying, those are the realms in which counterintelligence falls in.
If anybody has seen a Jason Bourne movie or Spy Games, you have a hint of it what it does. Tonya was one of the few agents in the world that has testified in Federal court on an actual espionage case. She was doing surveillance and investigations on people that were committing espionage in the United States. That was her path, but we met teaching at the counterintelligence special agents course. To boil it down, counterintelligence is understanding people, what makes them tick, what makes them work, why they do the things they do, understanding people why and how they deceive. All of that has been translated into our personal development body of work that we uncovered during our time as agents.
If you think you have personal development, you have not had it until you start working with Justin. That is amazing. There had to be a huge challenge going from the government because people have a hard time going from a job to entrepreneurship, but you went from government to entrepreneurship. What were the challenges that you faced in that transition?
The fact that I knew zero and jack about business was the biggest challenge. We knew nothing about the business world. We knew that we were set out to make the world a better place. We wanted to do that for ourselves first. We knew that we had information and something valuable to offer. Our very first venture was in the corporate counterintelligence space. We were doing due diligence embeddings for business-to-business transactions.
[bctt tweet=”Collaboration is the way you can help people do better in today’s world. ” username=””]
We translated the skillset directly over, but what we learned along the way is that we would be more effective in helping people get to that space of understanding themselves, understanding themselves as leaders, and all the work that we did as counterintelligence agents. We would be more effective in that space to affect change than looking into the frauds and scams.
We finally stepped away from that, but that was one of our biggest challenges. We did not know what we were doing. During the first nine months of our venture into entrepreneurship, I went to Afghanistan as a civilian counterintelligence agent because we had no idea. We went from a cush paycheck to not making a single dime. We walked away from $300,000 a year to go do our own thing and had no clue how we would do it, but we were operating in faith. When I left for Afghanistan to pay the bills, Tonya was the one that dove in and figured out the business world and got to the point where she was like, “I think I got the field. I understand. Let’s go build and create now.” I came home and we have been at it ever since. That was 2012.
I did the same entrepreneurial journey. I am like, “I am quitting that job. I am launching this.”
The biggest lesson I learned when I talk, train and teach people now and they want to take that leap, unless you got a solid foundation in faith and you know your walk, you do not burn the ships. Step into it, walk into it and get to the point where the business is generating enough income to where you can now step away from what you were doing and focus on this full-time. Tonya and I burnt the ships. I ended up in Afghanistan and it took 9 or 10 months before I was able to finally come home.
I always talk to my students. The nice thing is they have a back door, meaning a job or a spouse that is working and you do not have to hustle. When you burn the ship, there is no back door and you are like, “I’ve got to make this work because I am not going to go back to a job.” There is a blessing in that. It is hard. I do not necessarily recommend it, but if you have that backdoor, you never have to have that drive to make that happen.
Tonya and I took to each other by the hands, put our faith in God, and jumped. We have been at it. We had no safety net, no job. We had top-secret security clearances. The minute that we stepped into that space, I knew I was never going back. That is something you cannot get back easily. Once it expires, it is nearly impossible to get a job back in that space without a clearance. We set the ships ablaze and full speed on this path that we have been on.
The power of being a couple because I worked with my husband for many years, and that was not an easy job. We have a lot of students that are married and work together. What is your guys’ superpower in managing that? Do you guys have both distinct roles? It can be a big entanglement versus a strong business.
We did a coupling workshop around a similar topic of how you work in a relationship, not just in your marriage and in your life, but how do you do it full-time with your spouse? It is the most challenging thing that you will ever do because you have to be husband, wife, business partner, CEO, and whatever roles you play. You have to set them aside to do your own different containers. For Tonya and I, we focus on managing our emotional, physical, vibrational, and energetic containers. We are constantly checking in with each other in those spaces and making sure that we are connected in each one of those levels before we communicate.

We slip and fight. We have everything going on in the world that every other couple does, but in the end, we make it through because we love each other. We have our faith in God. We trust in that, knowing that we do not have to figure it out ourselves. We can figure it out together time after time. She has been my continual lighthouse along this journey. What is our secret? My wife is the secret because she is pure magic.
I love that you are speaking so clearly about your faith in God. I believe that my gift from God is my life. What I give back to the world is my gift back to God. You guys both represent that. It is so funny that at events, people go, “Are you a Christian?” They are whispering. I am like, “Yes. Why are we whispering?” If they do not like that, that is okay. They are not my ideal client. They are not my community, not my tribe. I am not pushing my belief on them, but as Christians, be that stand so people can see that there is something different. You are walking that walk and talking that talk. Not that we are perfect, but it definitely is easier when you have got God as your alliance.
Tonya is the CEO physically. We make God our CEO. It is not our business. It is not our money. It is His. We listen to what he says. We tap in and tune up, and we do not have to make decisions because we are constantly shown what to do next. The only time it ever goes bad is thinking that the counterintelligence agent who knows nothing about business has the answers.
When I am asking God is, “You want me to do that?” I am not obedient. I hated that word for years. I sound like I was a dog. I am like, “Obedience is just following.” The messages that you get, you can call it your intuition. We call it God and the Spirit. When I listened to it, I was like, “I do not know how to do that.” You have to surrender and trust. That is one of the hardest things.
Especially us entrepreneurs, we have a lot of skillsets. We know how to do a lot of things. We have experienced a lot of things, but even along the way, you find little points of light of that. We were like, “I have not done that yet. That seems big, bad, and scary. I am not sure if it is going to work.” If we try to logic our way through it, we will never get anything done.
I worked with Lisa Nichols. She was in The Secret. When the whole Secret came out, people would say, “I am praying. I am putting it in the universe.” Yeah, but you have got to get off the couch. You’ve got to go be in action, show up at events and do the work. It is not a genie in a bottle. If you are not doing the work that needs to be done and being in the environments that can be the catalyst for that, that is where I find the miracles happen. That meeting you go to, that person you sit next to, our relationship is like, “I needed you today.”
We were on another call with this company called the Funnel Cures. My client was saying, “I was praying that I needed this solution.” It was so great and divine, but she had to show up for that call. She had to show up for the work. She had to be obedient to go, “I am going to do this. Susie keeps emailing me. I am going to show up.” I love when that happens. You and I see it with clients. Many people are still in the struggle with our economy and the pandemic. What has been your guys’ secret sauce in staying in action and growing?
For us, the pandemic was a huge boost to our business. The podcast network almost tripled in size. Everything picked up for us in that space. For us, our secret sauce through it is recognizing that at the end of the day, you are okay. The concept of money, while it makes the world go round and it makes life easy, ultimately, at the end of the day, nobody has ever died of lack of money. They have died of lack of food and water, but they have never died of lack of money.
[bctt tweet=”Make sure to manage your emotional, physical, vibrational, and energetic containers when working with your partner. ” username=””]
Understanding exactly how money works, what it is, and the fact that it is energy, not physical, you cannot touch it, has been a huge part of our journey in the work that we do with our clients. If you are not good with yourself, it does not matter. All the money in the world is not going to make a difference. I know billionaires that are miserable in their relationships. I know millionaires that are miserable in their relationships. You cannot fill that gap with cash. It does not work.
Realize that the money does not fill in the void. If you are only chasing the money, if the void is there, the void is there. It does not matter how much money you have. One of the things I love about your guys’ business is this is a family business. You put your kid in the corner and said, “We are going to work.” Your daughter had her first business card at two. I have always brought my kids. My kids would stuff my binders. Back in the day, I would pay them to stuff the CD cases. Talk about that and how you brought her in. She is doing her own deal now.
She is on fire right now. She is doing an online event. She is hosting. She does Oracle card readings for people through our community. She is absolutely amazing. She is starting a little young, but that is good. She had business cards at the age of two. When Tonya and I started venturing into the business space, we needed a pact because part of the reason we got into business was to spend time with her so we could be with her. We did not want to be apart from her. We made the pact that she was going to do everything that we did. If she could not participate, we did not do it. God put the right communities in front of us. We were able to take her to business conferences. She sat in on meetings. Bob Proctor mentored her for a day at four.
She was four years old when she sat down and had the conversation with Bob Proctor. God bless him. He came here to do some great stuff. He passed some of his knowledge on to her. She is going strong. In her first podcast, Super Power Kids, she did over 100 episodes and interviewed all sorts of celebrity types. She has retired that podcast and she is getting ready to do her next podcast called Leave it to Neva.
She is pure magic. She runs three of our sections in the podcast production. She oversees our workers in that space. She is a manager and she probably knows more about business systems and processes than a lot of adults do. She is also one of my biggest teachers because she is so close to source and her faith walk with God has been a mirror for me along the way. The girl is wise beyond her years.
Isn’t it great when you bring your kids along? I look at my children and I am inspired by who they are as women now. It was because of my community. I brought them along. They played a big game inside of our communities. I grew up in a day where children should be seen, not heard. I love that. I want people to hear that so that you realize you can bring your family and your business with guidelines, support, and boundaries, not just giving people money and a paycheck. She is earning her paycheck. She is earning her seat at the table at two.
She even had an elevator pitch. David Corbin did a little five-minute interview with her when she was 2 and a half, maybe 3 at the time. He interviewed her and she had a whole snap. She was so cute with that little girl’s voice of, “Hi, my name is Neva Lee Recla.” She has grown so much since then. She is not only leading sections of our business, but she coaches some of our clients, especially in the space of when somebody comes along and needs to heal that inner child. She is absolutely magic in that space.
Imagine if you had this education at two, sitting with Bob Proctor and people that they can get inspired by. That is delicious. What is the biggest challenge that your guys are facing in your business? Part of my mission and what I am committed to is people think that we do not have challenges when you get to a certain level. I might have more zeros in somebody else. I might have less zeros than somebody else, but we are still having them. There is the, “I am not alone.” I want people to hear that the bigger you play, the bigger the breakdown. What challenges are you facing? How are you tackling that?

For us, we went through a huge rebrand. We are still in the midst of it. Everything is still getting shuffled around. Part of that challenge is figuring out what that looks like. We had a founder’s meeting going through some of these things, but we are managing and dealing with it because we recognize that we are not alone. We have got a collaborative coaching program. It is not just me, Tonya, and Neva coaching. We have a team of coaches who work with us and our clients coach with each because each of our coaches brings something unique to the middle. It is something that Tonya and I do not have experience in.
Sometimes it takes a tribe to help, especially when you are teaching collaboration along the way with personal development. Our biggest challenge has been the huge rebrand. The rebrand is set, but what is next? How do we leverage this and that? What is the pricing here and there? Do we need to change this? Do we change that?
The core of who we are seeing the same, but it is how are we presenting it to the world that has changed because the rebranding completely upgraded all of it. We thought we were going here and, “Back over here.” There it was. The beautiful thing is when we stopped, the rebranding of the website and the logo came together super quick because we did not hesitate. We just listened and took action.
If people would listen and take action, life would be so much easier. Suffering is optional. You realize, “It does not have to be this hard.” It is systemic. Part of it is listening, taking those notes, taking radical action and not sitting and waiting. I love that. Let’s look back. What has been one of your biggest challenges or failures in your history of being an Army veteran, counterintelligence agent, and entrepreneur?
Some people do not like that word. What did you learn from it? What was the biggest thing? I never liked it. I call them the gifts that are wrapped in sandpaper. They suck when they are happening. I do not want to talk about it when it is happening. I talk about it afterward, but not in it. What was that biggest failure? What did you learn from it?
This is an ongoing lesson for me. I imagine it will be until I disapparate from this planet or get put into the dirt. It is constantly reminding myself that I do not know anything. It flares up, the ego kicks in, and I have had my ass kicked more times over the years by God than I care to count. That has been my biggest challenge. How do I constantly become better? How do I come more like Christ? How do I become a better leader, a better father, and a better husband? How do I do all that knowing that I am still human, knowing that I carry all my fears, but how do I do it so that it does not vomit all over my wife or my children?
How do I do it to maintain who I am without destroying everything that I have been given? For me, it is a constant checking in with God to make sure that Justin is not getting in the way because, at the end of the day, Justin is talented. I am a great little puppet monkey that does stuff on the keyboard, technically knows this, and knows how to talk to people over here and do this. Justin, the human, does not know anything. He likes to get in the way sometimes.
We spend our teens or 20s or 30s trying to be perfect, trying to be good enough, trying to get it right, trying to look good, try to have all the answers, and be smart enough, “Let me get this education, that education, that degree.” You realize none of that matters. What you are speaking to is die to self like my ego or she-go, if you are a woman. How do I tap into my God-given talent and be humble enough and surrender? That one is harder for me. Obedience and surrender are hard for me and to keep doing it daily.
[bctt tweet=”At the end of the day, if you’re not good with yourself, it doesn’t matter. All the money in the world is not going to make a difference. ” username=””]
That has been my challenge, as well. It’s the constant surrender. I am fortunate because I married a woman who exists in that space. She is in constant connection with the divine. She lives in the abstract and she is constantly visioning forward from a space and a perspective that I typically do not carry because I am the Operations Director. I am down in the weeds. I am making sure all the systems or processes are working in our teams are working and so forth.
I do not always have the same perspective she does because I am typically down in the weeds, but I am fortunate enough to know that that is where she exists. I can always lean into her in that space. I can always trust that she is there. She knows that I am here in this space, holding the community and holding the containers that I hold so she can do her work. It makes a remarkable experience. It has been a phenomenal journey so far.
You are still speaking of her as if you are dating, which is magical and beautiful. I love that. The Superpower Network has become the number one podcast. How did you guys become the number one podcast in personal development? That is pretty amazing. How did you all do that so quickly?
We can see across the field that we are the only podcast network that is focused on personal development. There are so many other individual podcasts out there. When Tonya got the guidance to put together the podcast, it was not hers. She got told what to do. She started her first podcast and then Neva had a podcast, and then we had a third podcast.
What we saw is that through the power of collaboration, we were multiple voices coming, working and marketing together. On the network, we are over 1,600 episodes and 16 shows. We can get there and are ranked in the top 1.5% of all podcasts globally because we got there through the power of collaboration.
We were not just trying to do it ourselves. We brought other people into it and they shared their voices. We shared their voices and it became like a domino effect because the guests I have on my show are tapping in and listening and sharing the network with their circles. It means that the other shows are getting exposure and so forth and marketing. You can see the domino effect of having a single podcast, trying to fight against the sea of millions of podcasts. We brought everybody together, put them onto a single podcast channel, and broadcast from there. It has been magic since.
What I love about what you guys are up to is there are a lot of charlatans in our industry. I spent a lot of money with the wrong people, doing the wrong things because they had a good shtick or might have been a persona, but the persona does not produce the result. You help people. We can create a podcast. They can create a podcast with you and your company. Let’s talk about that because when I look at the investment and time, there are people charging $15,000 to $40,000  for a service. They are chatting at them versus giving them the tool.
How do people get to play with you on that? A lot of our community is looking for the answer. My job is to bring them the best people I can. They have to do their due diligence. Everybody, do due diligence. I am just bringing you my badass friends. I want you to share how they can come and play with you. What does that look like? It is a full package. It is not like, “You should have a podcast.”

We take a slightly different approach to podcasts, not only in the collaborative space but also in those $25,000, $40,000 programs that you are seeing out there like, “Come get a podcast and we are going to show you how to make a ton of money on it.” That is where we see a lot of charlatans because not everybody can do that. Not everybody is that persona who can carry that. Now they spend all this money and then they do not monetize their podcasts. It creates this negative feeling and this ugliness.
We take podcasting from the space of, “It is transformation work.” Transformation through podcasting is where we are at with it. You get a podcast, but we are going to teach you how to podcast, where we give you the ins and outs of podcasting. We are going to be personal with you and get real with you. We will let you know that unless you have got the convergence already on the backend systems, a podcast is not going to monetize your business.
Your business should already be monetized. Podcasting is just a broadcasting mechanism for you to continue to further monetize your podcast. We take a different approach to it. It is not a money-making device. It is a marketing device. It is a way to connect with your audience in a real authentic space where they can hear you, feel you, and grow with you. That is how trust is built because, by the time they get through purchasing on your site from hearing you and listening to you on a podcast, they already know who you are.
Our process is transformation through podcasting. We do all the training. We do all the setup. We do all the production. It is a done-for-you system as well as we have accountability calls with our podcasters to make sure they are on track and not getting out in their own way. It is not the full coaching intensive that we offer, but it is a, “Are you where you need to make sure you can produce the shows you need to produce so you are conveying the message you need to convey to the world through podcasting?”
I love that you said it is one arm of your marketing. It is about the know, like, and trust. It’s the consistency factor. Keep showing up and showing out and they find you. You are the overnight success. We also have the Super Power Experts Membership. What is that? What does that look like? What do we do in that?
The Super Power Experts Community is a place where our hosts and our listeners can come connect with one another. We do a monthly vibe call where anybody can come join us. The monthly vibe call is free to join. We have a different theme every month. March’s theme is conscious collaboration. We have three levels of participation in the monthly vibe call. We have the outer circle, which is come receive it. If there is something that you do not resonate with or you do not agree with, just receive it with love, leave it in the container, and let it be. The second one is the middle container, which is the participants. Come play with us, contribute to the conversations that are going on, share community, and participate in our activities.
The third one is the co-creator space, where people can co-create within the ecosystem that we have built. The monthly membership is awesome because we sell the individual events online, but as a member, for $50 a month, you get access to all of the events and recordings. We do workshops, classes, and new moon ceremonies. We do all sorts of fun stuff. That is one of the events that Neva is doing. She is doing Kid Clarity, her Oracle card readings that she is doing. It is a fun place to come, reflect, connect with others, and step away from social media and connect with people in a real way.
If you are looking for a community that speaks your language, I am always looking for those people who are the real deal. I can definitely say that you guys are the real deal. In closing, what is one thing you wish I would have asked you on this show?
[bctt tweet=”Suffering is only optional. ” username=””]
I am here to serve. What is one thing you think your clients or readers would want to know about me? I am an open book.
You are an open book and I love that about you. What is one thing that you want to be remembered for? At the end of the day, at the end of the road, what is that one thing that you know you have lived your life aloud, Justin?
That I did good. I already got proof of that because my daughter is amazing. Tonya and I win. If I fail and fall on my face and die tomorrow, I win because anybody that has ever met Neva, interacted with Neva, and had a conversation with Neva, you know what I am talking about. From that space, I win. I’m good.
I love the whole conversation. Do not grow alone. We are in business for ourselves. We do not need to be in business by yourself. My goal, my passion is to bring you the people who can support you, have high integrity, have ethics, and are willing to support you and go that extra mile. I believe that is what you guys are about. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time and generosity and, more importantly, your love for God and your family. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you.
Thank you. Take care.

Important Links

• Justin Recla
• Super Power Experts
• Incorporating Superpowers Business Podcast
• Super Power Kids
• Leave it to Neva
• Super Power Experts Community
• https://Twitter.com/justinrecla
• https://Twitter.com/powerxprts
• www.Facebook.com/JreclaSPE
• www.LinkedIn.com/in/justin-recla-7b55197/
• www.LinkedIn.com/company/super-power-experts
• https://www.Instagram.com/superpowerexperts/

About Justin Recla

Justin Recla is an Army veteran and former counterintelligence agent. Justin, Tonya and Neva Lee Recla are considered the first family of inspired personal development and live their lives as a testament to the power of synergy, love and communion with God. Justin’s message is simple: help others, do things better and have self-dominion in everything you do!