Justin grew up in upstate NY, about an hour north of NYC. He lived in NYC for most of his twenties, where he spent the majority of weekends partying and drinking with friends. It’s also where he met his now wife, Kaela. She bartended at a restaurant near Madison Square Garden where Justin’s brother, Tom’s girlfriend worked. One Monday night when the Jets were playing on Monday Night Football, Tom was at that bar with a friend and he asked Justin to stop by. He was at the gym, only about 5-6 blocks away. Like most Monday’s, Justin was depressed and very hungover from a weekend full of drinking and sometimes drugs. It was extremely rare that he was even there since he never went to the gym on Monday’s. He had absolutely no desire to stop by the bar. However, Tom was relentless in asking him. He wouldn’t stop or let it go. Eventually, Justin gave in and said he’d stop by for just a minute, since it was so close. He walked in, saw Kaela and thought “ok, I can stay here for little while longer”. He was instantly enamored and fell in love with her. Maybe Tom knew or felt something particularly important about him going there that night. Shortly after that night, they went on their first date and were inseparable. They’re now married with 2 children, Violet and Sol. Justin credits the true beginning of his evolution into love to Kaela. He would not be the person he is today, on a mission to spread love and shift the consciousness of the planet if it wasn’t for her.

For a while after their relationship began, Justin was in a constant state of euphoria and immense love. Kaela showed him a love that he never knew existed. She opened his heart and filled it with love, it was pouring out of him. At the time, he was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and his work office was in Manhattan. To get to work everyday, he would walk over the Pulaski bridge, which connects Brooklyn and Queens. As you walk over that bridge, it is the most remarkable and breath-taking view of the NYC skyline you’ve ever seen. It’s about a 12-15 minute walk over the bridge and you see the skyline the entire time. So he’s walking over this bridge twice a day for work and again he’s in this state of euphoria, looking at the most amazing view of one of the greatest cities in the entire world. As he’s doing this everyday and love is exploding out of him, he started thinking “I have to share this, I have to spread love”. So as he’s walking over this bridge daily, he let his mind go and be open as he’s thinking of how he can make a positive impact and spread love to the world. He wasn’t rushing or putting pressure on himself, he was just allowing it to be and seeing what came in. Over months and months, the idea for Spread Love Movement came to be.

Shortly after that, when he was 30, him and Kaela moved to Ocean Beach, San Diego, and he started Spread Love Movement. This is also where his journey into spirituality began. He discovered yoga, meditation, his gratitude practice, and a much healthier diet and lifestyle. Here, his drinking began to decrease and currently he rarely drinks alcohol at all. He began to dive into spirituality and discovered universal knowledge from different sources like The Secret, The Untethered Soul, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, and The Surrender Experiment, to name a few. These books showed him a completely new and beautiful way to live. He began to change and people started noticing a difference in his outlook on life, how he showed up, and his overall energy/being. Justin credits this as one of of the most important and transformational times of his life.

As the social media pages for Spread Love Movement and his own spiritual practice continued to grow, his real purpose started to develop. He came to the realization he was here as Justin in this lifetime to help shift the collective consciousness of the planet to be more loving, kind, peaceful, empathetic, understanding, forgiving, and accepting, essentially a consciousness that is ONE. He also started to develop a strong desire to expand Spread Love Movement and to spread love in a new and different way. He wanted to talk to people who were doing good in the world and making a positive impact AKA people who were also aiding in this consciousness shift. He decided to do just that and he started The Spread Love Movement Podcast. It’s now globally ranked in the top 10% and he’s been honored to have guests like Neale Donald Walsch, Danny Morel, Kute Blackson, Kristina Kuzmic, and IN-Q, to name a few. As Justin’s passion and expression for spreading love continued to develop, he started to feel very compelled to become a speaker. It felt very aligned with who he was and the impact he wanted to make on the world. It just felt right. He thought, what better way to connect, love, and help people, then to be with them in person as a speaker. He now gives a 60 minute speech and workshop about The Power of Gratitude and Starting Your Own Gratitude Practice. Justin has been practicing gratitude daily for over 5 years and did “365 Days of Gratitude”, where he posted about something he was grateful for everyday for an entire year to his hundreds of thousands of followers. He uses a tool to help him stay incredibly consistent. It’s his gratitude bracelet and he passes one out to every member of the audience during his speeches.