Order of Man - J.R. MARTINEZ ｜ How Your Scars Shape You

00:00:00.000 Men, we all have scars. Some are visible, some are not, some are physical, and some are mental

00:00:05.200 and emotional. But regardless of the scars you carry around, the stories behind them

00:00:09.700 have the ability to shape you for better or worse. My guest today, 101st Airborne Division

00:00:15.240 combat veteran J.R. Martinez, has easily seen external scars, but rather than use those scars

00:00:22.220 as an excuse to self-destruct, Martinez has instead decided to use the stories and lessons

00:00:27.060 he's learned on the road to recovery to make himself a better man. Today, J.R. and I talk

00:00:32.320 about deliberately changing your perspective on life, what he calls God, winks, and how

00:00:38.020 to use them effectively in your life, how to get over perceived emasculation and make yourself

00:00:43.280 into more, crafting a new identity for yourself when the old one is ripped from you, and how

00:00:48.540 a man effectively deals with persecution from others.

00:00:51.680 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:56.380 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:01:01.820 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is

00:01:08.460 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and

00:01:13.500 done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:18.080 Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am Ryan Mickler. This is a movement to help

00:01:23.600 you reclaim and restore masculinity, and not just you on the micro level, but on the macro

00:01:28.920 level, recover, restore, reestablish, whatever term you want to use, masculinity in a society

00:01:35.900 that is increasingly dismissive of it. I was talking with a friend of mine today, and she

00:01:40.380 had said that over the past five years, it just seems life and the world is going haywire.

00:01:45.560 And I would agree with that. And I think part of the reason that we see that is because

00:01:48.600 we're lacking true, authentic, masculine leadership from the walls of our homes to the boundaries

00:01:56.700 of our community. And frankly, even at the federal level, when we see what is happening

00:02:01.420 in the world of politics. So whether we're talking about entertainment or media or podcasting

00:02:06.620 or social media, or just in your community and at the federal and state levels, it is apparent

00:02:11.780 that we are struggling, struggling as men. And it's my goal to give you the tools and resources

00:02:16.440 you need to be able to come to become the man that you're meant to be. Now, guys, I've got

00:02:20.700 a very, very powerful conversation today, one I've been looking forward to for quite some

00:02:25.400 time. And I'm going to introduce you to my guest in just a minute. But before I do, I

00:02:30.180 just want to mention my very, very good friends over at Montana Knife Company. The founder, just

00:02:37.020 the other day, his name is Josh Smith, put out a post on Instagram telling how he was going

00:02:43.060 to be and his company is going to be impacted by the supply chain issues that we saw from

00:02:47.860 the shutdown of our Eastern ports. And obviously, it was a joke because all of the knives they

00:02:54.520 make are 100% made in America. So the supply chain from China, India, other parts of Asia,

00:03:01.400 wherever they're made, it does not impact a company that is 100% made and sourced in America

00:03:06.720 like Montana Knife Company. So guys, if you're looking for a great knife, which you should be

00:03:11.280 if you don't already have one, and even if you do, you can't have too many, then go check

00:03:14.900 out Montana Knife Company, support America, support Americans, and let's blow this business 0.78

00:03:21.360 up. MontanaKnifeCompany.com and use the code ORDERMAN at checkout. Now, guys, with all that

00:03:26.400 said and out of the way, let me introduce you to my guest. Again, very excited for this one.

00:03:30.700 His name is J.R. Martinez. He is an Iraq combat veteran. And in 2003, while in Iraq, his Humvee

00:03:37.540 was hit by a roadside bomb. Long story short, it engulfed him in flames, inflicting severe burns

00:03:44.120 to over 34% of his body, external and internal. And he spent 34 months and underwent 33 surgeries,

00:03:52.360 including skin grafts and cosmetic procedures. But instead of wallowing in his own self-pity,

00:03:58.140 which he did a little bit, and he'll talk about that today, J.R. decided instead he would use his

00:04:02.900 ordeal as fuel to improve not only his own life, but the lives of others who were impacted

00:04:07.760 by injuries like his. He is not only a combat veteran with the 101st Airborne Division, he

00:04:13.220 is an incredible speaker working with organizations like Delta and Wells Fargo. But he's also a

00:04:18.940 Dancing with the Stars performer, an actor on All of My Children, All My Children, excuse

00:04:23.640 me, and a New York Times bestselling author of his book, Full of Heart, My Story of Survival,

00:04:28.540 Strength and Spirit. There was a lot of like, I mean, listen, we'll probably get into this,

00:04:34.660 but there was like some some life stuff as well in regards to, you know, where the relationship

00:04:39.520 between my wife and I, you know, we split up when my daughter was a year old. And it was like,

00:04:45.940 it was a legit split up, man. It wasn't like, okay, we'll just take some time away. No, like,

00:04:51.700 like, we went through court, we got made sure it had custody, like it was like legit.

00:04:56.260 Oh, um, I was playing child support. Like it was legit. Like it was not a joke. And I was,

00:05:03.360 this was a pretty much at the height of everything in my life. And I was just busy every, you know,

00:05:08.360 flying all over the place and, you know, just working. And I would go see my daughter. She was

00:05:13.900 at the time she was in New York and I would go, you know, every month I would go and either spend

00:05:18.820 a week with her in a hotel room in New York because I didn't live in New York at the time,

00:05:23.180 or I would take her and go to my mom's house down in Georgia and we'd spend a week together.

00:05:28.700 And, um, so it was, it was legit. I mean, and, and, you know, just, and again, if it matters,

00:05:35.320 it matters. If not, no big deal. But essentially, uh, finally my wife and I, you know, just co-parenting,

00:05:42.220 spending a lot of time together, just co-parenting, you know, the feelings were still there. And we

00:05:48.060 identified that, you know what, there are some things that I needed to work on and there were

00:05:52.520 some things that she needed to work on. And once we understood that and came to that place of where

00:05:58.920 we can truly listen to one another versus, you know, operating from this place to listen, to respond,

00:06:05.780 then we were able to then say, okay, I now understand what you were saying. I can actually

00:06:12.360 repeat back to you what I heard. And it's exactly what you just said, because I'm spending time

00:06:16.940 listening and we were able to get our family back. And then, you know, then, then there was a couple

00:06:21.640 of years of trying and it wasn't kind of working out and you just kind of realize and say, you know

00:06:26.960 what, it's all God's timing. And, um, you know, and then our son, we found out where we get here.

00:06:34.400 Listen, this is how I get down, man. All right, Ryan, you've probably seen a little bit of me.

00:06:38.400 I got to, I got to give you a little buffer here real quick. Cause I want to, I want to hear your

00:06:43.260 story, but I just want to say, I just, I already hit record. Cause we like, we already started

00:06:48.660 talking as soon as we jumped, we already got into it. So I already hit record. So I just want to make

00:06:54.920 sure I tell you that, but I want to hear what you have to say. We've got a lot of stuff to talk

00:06:58.960 about today, man. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting because, you know, we were, we were talking about

00:07:03.020 when we logged on right before you hit record about like links and logging on and all that stuff.

00:07:07.780 And it just reminds me of, you know, when 2020 went down, right. COVID and it changed everybody's

00:07:14.240 world. Um, you know, I was no different, right. For what I do from a speaking standpoint, I'm

00:07:19.160 traveling, I'm in front of people. I'm at conferences, large gatherings that clearly wasn't

00:07:23.080 happening, but there's been so much over the course of 20 years that has conditioned me,

00:07:28.280 that has prepared me that when that moment happened and everybody else was panicking in my space on my

00:07:33.160 team, I was like, calm. And I was like, you know what? It's all good. Let's figure something out.

00:07:37.780 And I was one of the, I don't want to say one of the first, but I, I, I remember like on my team

00:07:43.000 on, on, on the agency that I work with, I was one of the first to say, what about virtuals?

00:07:47.940 And we leaned into it and listen, it was one of the busiest couple of years of my life,

00:07:51.800 to be honest. And I was knocking out virtuals every day and sometimes two in a day. And the

00:07:58.200 convenience that it provided was, so my wife and I were trying for a couple of years and it just

00:08:04.860 wouldn't happen. And then we had a miscarriage and, you know, and, and, uh, and then finally

00:08:10.100 we were like, you know what, we might need to get some help here. And there was a whole component

00:08:15.420 to that as a man that I had to sort of wrap my head around that she, as a woman has, you know,

00:08:20.960 had to wrap her head around about the fact that, is there something wrong with me? And she's asking

00:08:25.420 herself, is there something wrong with me? And we're both sort of navigating that. Like me,

00:08:29.740 me as a man, I'm like, I can't take care of business. Like what's going on here. Right.

00:08:33.940 And, um, we go to the doc and the doc's like, you know, that's no big deal. Like, you know,

00:08:38.680 we'll give you a little help. And so IUI and you know, the, so you got to find that window

00:08:45.180 of when my wife is fertile and you got to find that window. So then my wife comes to me, 0.66

00:08:49.540 she goes to the doc and she's like, all right, so here's the date. This is the date that I,

00:08:54.300 that I have the appointment. We are going to conceive on this date. I'm going to make it

00:08:59.660 happen. And I was like, what day? And she tells me the day. And I was like, oh, I'm slammed on that

00:09:05.980 day. I got, I got virtuals. I got like a couple of pods. Like I got all these, I'm slammed. And

00:09:12.860 she's like, I need it to happen this day. Cause I have the appointment at X amount of time. And it

00:09:17.580 has to be within like X amount of time. And it has to be like, now you're performing. You're no

00:09:23.740 longer engaged. Now you're just performing at this point. A hundred percent. So she gives me a cup

00:09:28.100 and I'm like, what the, so then I'm like, well, I do have about 15 minutes in between this virtual

00:09:34.660 and that virtual. Oh, it's wild. So this is when your son was conceived. This was my son. He was

00:09:43.380 good. And, and you know what? There was something about it that just kind of like, it just felt,

00:09:48.120 you know, and, and it was fascinating, man. I'm, I'm a very, I like to believe that I'm a very

00:09:52.440 self-aware and in tune guy. And I had been seeing up until that point, I've been seeing the number

00:09:59.520 one a lot. I don't know why, man. Every time I'd look at the time, it'd be like, there'd be like

00:10:04.240 ones, a lot of ones in it. Um, I just kept seeing one a lot. And I remember asking somebody, I was

00:10:10.600 like, man, what's the significance of that? And apparently it's like new beginnings. That's essentially

00:10:15.600 what the number ones represent. Well, the day that this all went down with my wife was November

00:10:22.380 11th. So 11, 11 veterans day. And that's why I was so busy. Cause it was vets day, man. Like

00:10:29.660 that's our day. And I was rocking and, and then, you know, our son came in, you know, it was conceived

00:10:35.200 that day. It worked out. And, uh, here I come out of the bathroom, like, here you go. And she

00:10:39.500 like gets in the car. She's like, I'm off driving like this talking about, you know, people that

00:10:44.880 drive, you know, your meal or a lung or a heart. I mean, there was no sense of, there was more urgency

00:10:50.920 her within the passenger seat with this little cup of mine. And this is a wild story. And my son,

00:10:59.940 you know, listen, he came in and, um, you know, I'm 41, my wife's 42. So we had them, you know,

00:11:05.580 in late thirties. And we had thought maybe we'll have another one after him. And I tell you about

00:11:10.640 48 hours after he was born, we looked at each other. I'm like, you good? Cause I'm good. We're

00:11:15.060 good. Like we knew this dude was going to be a lot. So we're like, you know what? There's a reason God

00:11:19.740 spaced it out. Um, you know, we, our daughter was able, who's 12 was able to get a lot of time by

00:11:25.860 herself. And now he's going to get some time by himself, you know, when, when she kind of gets out

00:11:31.860 into the world. And so it's been good for us, man. It's been great. I mean, just truly blessed.

00:11:36.840 There was a lot. I can't tell you how many times I pause in the midst of my days and, you know,

00:11:42.740 on weekends when you got some free time and as a family, you're doing stuff. And I can't tell you

00:11:46.620 how many times I pause. And I just, I look at my wife and I look at my kids and I'm like,

00:11:53.080 man, this is like, if I, if I can just freeze frame this time in my life right now, cause this is

00:11:59.180 truly special. It's just truly beautiful. And I almost didn't have it.

00:12:04.840 Is so when you said in God's time, I'm spiritual myself, but I'm also a bit of a skeptic.

00:12:11.280 So it's a, it's a weird dichotomy for me. And so I hear guys say like, if it's God's will,

00:12:17.220 God's time. And like, I'm not trying to be dismissive of what you're saying or invalidate

00:12:21.360 what you believe, but also what does that even mean? Like you said, so, you know, you could have

00:12:27.200 time with your daughter who I think is now 12, 13 years old, obviously as they get old,

00:12:31.960 I have an 11 year old daughter myself. So I know what it's like as she gets to that stage where

00:12:36.100 she wants to hang out with her girlfriends and maybe boys are getting cuter and that sort of thing. 0.82

00:12:40.940 Is that what you're talking about in God's time that gave you time with her independently? And then

00:12:45.500 also with your boy at three years old independently? You know, I think yes. But I'll take it a little

00:12:51.860 deeper and not only giving me time with her, it gave me time with myself. It gave me time to identify

00:13:00.860 some things that I needed to address in me. And whether I wanted to, whether I wanted those things

00:13:08.920 to carry over and bleed into my relationship with my daughter or not, like things were like things that

00:13:15.740 I hadn't really worked on, things, trauma triggers, all those things were essentially affecting

00:13:20.500 at times my relationship with my daughter. Listen, my mom, you know, and that's a whole other story,

00:13:27.020 but my mom did everything she could with what she had. She didn't have a lot. She, and what I mean,

00:13:33.280 not even just from a resource standpoint, she didn't have a knowledge of what it meant to be

00:13:37.120 like this type of parent versus that type of parent. Unfortunately, she was given up by my

00:13:41.640 grandmother. Her father wasn't in the picture. She unfortunately suffered a lot of abuse at the

00:13:47.200 hands of, you know, just, it was, it was bad. And my mom would lose, she lost a lot. Like she just,

00:13:56.340 people would come in and out of her life. Then one of my sisters passed away from an illness she was

00:14:00.460 born with. So my mother is just, just by the time I was like a child, like a, like a toddler,

00:14:05.340 she had experienced so much loss. And what my mom's defense mechanism was, let me almost control

00:14:14.000 him, me, because I was the youngest. I was the only boy and let me sort of control. And because of

00:14:21.420 the fear of possibly losing him one day. Right. And you take care of yourself. Is that what you're

00:14:27.020 saying? No, no. Her like sort of really sort of putting me under a microscope and like, you know,

00:14:33.020 and then it turned into like, almost like guilting, right? Like guilting, you know,

00:14:37.760 don't leave. So she was overprotective. Overly, overly. So when you experience,

00:14:43.760 and I've noticed this and not with all, but I've unfortunately have been around some parents that

00:14:48.260 have lost some children. And what you then realize is that a lot of times what happens is they become

00:14:53.580 almost overly protective. And, and so my mother was like that and my mother would guilt me a lot.

00:14:59.220 And then when I got into my twenties and I was sort of out in the world, my mother would then guilt me

00:15:03.860 like, Oh, you're not living here with me. You're not with me. You know, like it's just a lot of that

00:15:08.020 stuff. And again, I had been conditioned in my youth, not because she told me like, I'm going to

00:15:15.720 do this. It's because I just inherently just like, I knew that that's how I had to respond. And I was

00:15:21.620 always there to like, how can I make it right? How can I make it better? How can I fix it? That's,

00:15:25.960 I think part of, you know, it's funny cause Will Smith, the actor, um, I heard him years ago talk

00:15:31.520 about, you know, his father and his father was a very, you know, angry man. And, and he, you know,

00:15:38.700 Will always felt like he had to like make him laugh. He tried to make him laugh all the time.

00:15:42.800 And he says, that's part of why I'm so much of a jokester, right? That's part of the reason why

00:15:49.080 when there's like serious situations, I joke because that's your, what you're, he's, he was

00:15:55.120 conditioned to do that. I'm no different. When I walked into my house and any given day, I sensed

00:16:01.560 that the energy, I can feel it. And I immediately started to walk on eggshells. And there's a great

00:16:06.300 book called walking on eggshells. And I read that book in my late twenties and it really just clicked

00:16:12.140 for me because it felt like in some cases, like I was in a relationship with my mother, like, you know,

00:16:18.360 not like that, but you know, in that relationship, but it was toxic. Cause she was treating you 1.00

00:16:25.600 not like your child, but like a partner. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Like, it's like,

00:16:30.140 I had the same, like I had my responsibility, like, like, don't leave me. Don't ever leave me.

00:16:35.920 Like it was a lot of that. And then when in twenties, like I said, I was out in the world sort of

00:16:41.800 going and experiencing and navigating. And that clearly took me to other parts of the country or world

00:16:47.780 that she was not in. It became, you don't love me yet. Like in sort of, that was her mechanism.

00:16:55.200 That was the way she tried to prevent loss by guilting people to never leave me because you'll

00:17:03.500 hurt me. And, and so eventually through therapy, traditional and untraditional forms, I learned,

00:17:12.200 like, I remember this therapist, um, she was probably in her mid, mid, mid-ish sixties,

00:17:19.920 a white woman, very soft-spoken. And like, she said to me one day, she said, J.R.,

00:17:26.780 you got to set up boundaries with your mom. And I was like, what? And she explained.

00:17:32.980 And I remember, cause every time, man, my mom, we would get on the phone. It was always

00:17:39.100 like going backwards. It was always like, my mom would blame me for a long time that

00:17:44.160 because I joined the military and because of what happened to me, like she had to ask you

00:17:48.000 about that. Yeah. She, she blamed me a lot. Um, you know, even though when I joined, I had

00:17:55.300 a blunt conversation with her. This is what I wanted to do. And it was important for me to

00:17:58.560 get my mom support. I was 19. As you know, I could have just went down to the recruiting

00:18:02.700 office and sign the dotted line and like, I'm out and sent you a letter from basic, right?

00:18:07.480 Two weeks later. Um, but I wanted my mother's support and my mother did not want me to join

00:18:13.260 because of that fear, because it was after nine 11, we were already in Afghanistan. There

00:18:18.780 were rumors of us going somewhere else. So we were already in combat and my mother was

00:18:22.900 just afraid. And I understand that as a parent, I, I, I understand that. Um, I hold space for

00:18:28.740 her, uh, in that regard. And we sat down and we had a honest conversation about this is

00:18:35.400 why I want to join the military. This is what I think it's, it's good for me. And she said,

00:18:39.840 okay, I'll support you. And she did.

00:18:42.020 She did. That surprises me actually, based on what you've said.

00:18:45.300 And it's, but, but see the reason I, like, this is the pattern that I started to learn from

00:18:49.780 my mom is like, as long as everything was work, like, okay, then she was cool about it.

00:18:55.180 Right. Like the minute that things got flipped all of a sudden, like, for example, my mother,

00:19:00.300 I grew up going to church a lot with my mom and my mom, Catholic was very big into like faith and

00:19:08.440 God. And, and, and, and that's cool. Like, I'm not knocking it. I, I, I, I feel the same way,

00:19:13.040 but what I learned from my mom was that when things were great, it was easy for her to talk

00:19:20.460 about her faith and what it does for her. The minute things went a little, I think that's

00:19:24.680 pretty common, right? Exactly. And, and so for me, I started to become frustrated as a kid. Cause

00:19:31.280 I'm like, like, okay, once you hang on to that faith that you talk about, right? Like that,

00:19:37.420 this is the time to hang on to that, to lean into that, because this is what's going to help us

00:19:41.220 navigate this. Um, and so of course, after I was hurt, it just triggered everything. So then my mom

00:19:46.620 just completely flipped a script and just started blaming me. It took her 10 years, Ryan, 10 years

00:19:52.180 after I was injured to finally put up a photo of the way I look now up in her house.

00:19:57.880 Well, so let's, let's talk about that for a second. Was, was she ashamed? Was she ashamed?

00:20:04.660 Okay. Let me say that this way. Was she ashamed of you? Was she ashamed of herself? What, like what?

00:20:10.560 10 years, man. That's a long time to actually come to terms with, and we'll, we'll get into the

00:20:15.480 injuries and all that kind of stuff. But that's a long time for somebody to come to terms with it

00:20:20.420 and feel comfortable posting a picture of their damn son for crying out loud. 0.99

00:20:24.380 Well, here's the wild thing too, is that when you talk about 10 years, within those 10 years, 1.00

00:20:29.720 I had already done media. I already been on an actor on a show. I'd already been on dancing.

00:20:36.620 I already read the book and it became a New York times bestseller. I mean, I was everywhere and

00:20:41.720 you're still telling me that there's, there's a, there's something. Well, the reason it, what it,

00:20:46.980 what it came down to was that, and this is essentially the pattern that my mom fell into a 0.98

00:20:51.780 lot was she, there's one, like she had never accepted it or she hadn't accepted it for 10 years.

00:20:58.880 She just hadn't accepted it. Right. And the problem with my mom is that she would stay in that space, 0.87

00:21:04.500 always looking back. And she never truly gave herself the opportunity to grieve because you

00:21:11.000 have to grieve, even though I'm alive. And listen, I would say to my mom, mom, I'm alive. Like, you

00:21:15.800 know how many moms are out there that lost their sons and daughters? Like I'm alive. I'm here. You

00:21:21.200 can hug me. You can talk to me. We go on trips together. We do things. And for her, it's, she hadn't

00:21:28.000 gone through the grief process, which then you have to go through. Like I had to go through the grief

00:21:32.600 process, even though I'm alive, I still had to grieve that what I look like is not what I look

00:21:37.780 like for 19 years of my life. I have to grieve the loss of that identity. And then eventually get

00:21:43.940 to a point where I'm like, you know what, I'm going to now have a clean slate where I can sort

00:21:47.980 of lean into what the possibilities could be. And my mom never did that. And so she just truly,

00:21:53.780 she just stayed in that space of grief and never tried to get herself out of it. And I tried and

00:22:00.220 listen, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. I mean, I'll tell you, like, again, I

00:22:03.680 started establishing boundaries with my mom every time we'd get on the phone. And I remember

00:22:08.680 the first time when, when I said to her, I was like, she called me and she started, you

00:22:13.660 know, you made me feel this way. And you know, you created this, you know, problem pain in

00:22:18.100 my heart and blah, blah, blah.

00:22:19.600 And after, after your service, this is after this is, this is, I was injured in 2003 and I'm

00:22:26.360 just going to give some, some, some dates here. So for context, this is about 2017, 2014

00:22:32.980 years after I was injured, I'm on the phone with my mom in my house and I'm talking to

00:22:38.760 her and she's just triggered by something. And I remember like telling her, I was like,

00:22:45.100 mom, I was like, I have to establish boundaries with you. And I said, I love you. I'm always

00:22:51.240 here to help you. I'm always here. If you want to look forward and how you can move forward

00:22:56.200 and how we can move forward. But if you're always going to call and try to guilt me and

00:23:00.620 blame me and all this stuff, I can't do that. That's not healthy for me. Cause I'm now not

00:23:06.280 being able to show up for myself, let alone my wife and my daughter and my mother's, these

00:23:11.380 are my mother's words. Okay. Well then I'll tell everyone I don't have a son and hung up,

00:23:15.880 but that's, but honestly, that was a pattern I was accustomed to. And from, from literally

00:23:22.240 after I was injured till that point, 2017, which I was at that point, 35, six years old,

00:23:30.780 four years old, maybe like my mom had done that so much. She would threaten me and say, 0.99

00:23:36.040 well, I'm going to tell people I don't have a son. And like, that's the way she, that's

00:23:39.780 what she would do. And so I became accustomed to that, to that behavior. And I just thought

00:23:44.860 it was okay to do that. Like that's the parenting style I was, I was presented with.

00:23:50.220 So then when my daughter was little and my wife and I were not together, I'd go pick up my daughter

00:23:56.280 on a Friday and we'd be in my apartment hanging out. And then like, you know, we're going through

00:24:01.540 the routine, going to bed and everything. And my daughter would say, I miss mommy. And I would

00:24:06.420 immediately go into this, what my, what I was taught, I would go into this, but you just got

00:24:13.240 here. Don't you miss me? You don't love me. So you were trying to guilt and manipulate her

00:24:18.940 because that's what you learned. The same thing. And I remember my, my daughter who was about four

00:24:24.960 years old at the time when we had this interaction. And I was like, and she started crying. I do love

00:24:30.820 you, daddy. Four year old. I do love you. I do. And, and I, God, it makes me feel horrible. And she,

00:24:38.260 and I'm like, no, you don't, you don't love me. And I put her to bed and we'll get into this too.

00:24:45.180 But I called my best friend. Who's, who's my guy, man. I called him. He's 17 years older than me.

00:24:50.260 And, uh, I called him. I said, and I, I was like, man, I did it. I did it. I, I, I, I repeated the

00:24:57.980 behavior. I did it. Oh my God, I did it. And he said, it's okay. He said, you're aware of it. He says,

00:25:03.800 now what do you do about it? And so I think when I, it's a very long explanation to get to the back to

00:25:09.800 this, this, this point about for me, the God's timing is so that I don't continue the same cycle

00:25:17.080 and the same patterns that I was part of. And I can work on my own insecurities and I can work on

00:25:22.820 my own healing and my own wounds. So that way, if I do bring in another child, then I can show up in a

00:25:29.240 different way. I'm still going to screw some things up, right? Because we're just humans. But at the very

00:25:34.040 least, I don't try to repeat that same thing and that same pattern. Um, and so for me, I'm just

00:25:41.300 very connected, man, with, with, with, with like, I have these, like, I'll give you a silly example

00:25:49.240 at this stage of life that I'm in right now. I've been coaching my daughter who plays travel club,

00:25:54.140 select, whatever people call it softball. And I've been coaching, I've been head coaching her team

00:25:59.500 for the last couple of years and it's a lot. And, um, you know, finally over the summer, it was like,

00:26:05.320 you know what, maybe, you know, players are aging out and maybe a couple of players moved on. And I'm

00:26:10.320 like, you know what? All right. Maybe it's time for me to take a step back. Well, there was a,

00:26:14.420 a, another coach with another team that tried to get me to merge with her. And I was like,

00:26:19.160 ah, no, no, I'm going to, I'm going to try to run my team back. But then a couple months later,

00:26:23.840 I started seeing pieces fall apart. And I was like, you know what? Maybe this is a sign because I've

00:26:28.920 sort of been neglecting my own health. I've been neglecting my own life, my business. Like I need

00:26:33.860 to get back to that. And I'll just sort of hand, turn the keys over to somebody else, let my daughter 1.00

00:26:38.660 and I'll be a dad and just rock it. Right. And, uh, ultimately she joins this team. The team she

00:26:45.720 ends up joining is with the coach that wanted me to coach with her and merge. But I was a dad

00:26:50.940 because they had coaches. Well then literally about two weeks into the season, I get a call from the

00:26:55.460 head coach and she's like, Hey, so the coach left. So will you step in? And I was like, Oh my God.

00:27:02.100 And so I was like, yeah. And the first practice after that conversation, she, I show up and she

00:27:07.280 laughs and she looks at me. She's like, CJR, you should have just, you should have just, and I was

00:27:12.200 like, you know, like that was one of those moments where I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm aligned. Like I'm,

00:27:19.640 I'm aligned. Like months ago, the universe was trying to tell me, Hey, maybe this is an opportunity

00:27:25.200 for you to take a role, to take a different role, but still be coaching and still be out there on

00:27:30.500 the field and whatever. But you don't have to be the head coach and manager and do all that stuff.

00:27:34.900 And I know, but then the universe, God, whatever was like, literally I was trying to, all these

00:27:41.340 things were not just working against me. And eventually I ended up where the first option

00:27:45.380 was presented. And so those are moments that I started paying attention to in my life that I'm like,

00:27:50.300 okay, I'm, I'm where I'm supposed to be because let me ask you this, JR, if I, if I can interrupt

00:27:57.440 real quick, cause again, this is my skeptic side coming out and I, and I already know,

00:28:01.540 cause a lot of guys are like me. It's like, okay, well what makes, and again, I'm saying

00:28:05.300 this with respect, so I hope it doesn't come out disrespectful, but what, what makes you

00:28:09.980 think that's God and not just happenstance series of events, you know what I like? Cause I

00:28:18.380 wrestle with that myself. I'm like, is this God's will or is this just life? And it is just a bunch

00:28:23.540 of coincidences. Yeah. So I don't personally believe in coincidences. I believe, you know,

00:28:28.460 so the way my belief goes down is that I like in my, in my opinion, I'm like all this stuff,

00:28:37.220 everything you mean like all this stuff, this, this, who did this? Like, where does this come

00:28:43.440 from? This isn't just a coincidence that you and I are here, that we've gone through these series of

00:28:48.660 events in life. And then yet we're at this particular moment in life, you and I are having

00:28:52.840 this interaction. And like, like to me, there's just sort of a bigger power that's, that's responsible

00:29:00.400 for that. And to me, that's like, God, I'm like, I'm like, I just believe that, that, that God is

00:29:07.140 essentially orchestrating a lot of these things and guiding us and navigating. Like, that's the,

00:29:11.400 that's what I believe. Now, from a coincidence standpoint, I don't, I believe that those are,

00:29:16.820 as we say in the South, cause I was born and raised in the South, we call those God winks,

00:29:21.500 you know, God winks. God winks. Those are, those are coincidences that people would say,

00:29:25.520 I call those God winks. So for example, six months after I was injured, a nurse asked me to visit a

00:29:31.960 patient who had just arrived, was having a difficult time. And I was like, no. And I just sort of like

00:29:36.500 resisted this idea of me going in at 20 years old and trying to talk to somebody.

00:29:41.400 And finally I just said, okay, fine. I'll succumb to this idea of me going in. And I remember

00:29:46.200 walking into this patient's room and it was completely pitch black dark, man.

00:29:51.260 And it felt heavy. And because of my trauma, not my injury in Iraq because of my childhood.

00:29:58.520 And every time I walked into the house and if it felt that way, that triggered me six months after

00:30:04.260 I was injured, that feeling was familiar because it reminded me when I would come home from school

00:30:08.880 and I'd walk in, I'm like, is my mom in a good mood or is she in a pissed off mood? Or sometimes

00:30:13.460 I knew it immediately. My body would just alarm me and just tell me. There's another great book that

00:30:18.540 people should read called The Body Keeps the Score. It's an incredible book because what it talks about

00:30:24.440 is it talks about how our minds, our minds forget a lot of these events that take place, but our body

00:30:30.280 retains all the trauma and you hold it in different parts of your body. So for some people,

00:30:35.040 you all of a sudden get a pit in your stomach. For some people, they get a knot in their throat.

00:30:39.120 For some people, they start kind of getting antsy and started tapping and started fidgeting a lot.

00:30:43.880 So there's different ways that it shows up, but it's essentially your body saying to you,

00:30:47.940 hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, alarm, alarm, alarm, alarm. And so I opened this door to this patient's

00:30:53.200 room and all my alarms are going off. Like, don't walk into this room. It's uncomfortable. It's too

00:30:57.400 familiar. We don't like it. And I had to then re, like reroute my thought process. The same

00:31:04.760 way you would do it with a toddler, honestly, a toddler that's throwing a fit, you got to reroute

00:31:08.760 their thought process, their focus. And I had to reroute my mind and say, in this moment,

00:31:13.600 I got to show up as a human being. Because when I was in that position, all I wanted was another

00:31:19.040 human being just to be there and just show up. And I remember-

00:31:22.660 You didn't want to be left alone?

00:31:24.360 Nah. Well, I did early on. I did early on. Yes. No, there was definitely the initial,

00:31:30.800 I'd say six weeks after I was injured, I didn't want anything to do with anybody, including my

00:31:36.400 mother, including the doctors. There was nobody that I wanted to talk to. I was in that very dark

00:31:42.040 place. As I learned that one, I looked different. And two, I couldn't stay in the army. Like that was

00:31:47.700 devastating to me. And so I remember walking up to this patient's room and to his bed. And I just

00:31:53.760 asked him where he was from, what unit he was in, what happened to him. That was it. And then 45 minutes

00:32:00.300 later, like we've been having this, chopping it up, having this really cool conversation.

00:32:05.600 And I said to him, I said, Hey man, I'm going to come back tomorrow and check on you. Do you need

00:32:08.800 anything? This is 2003. He says, no, I don't need anything, man. I just need a visit. And I was like,

00:32:13.920 cool. And I started to walk out of the room, but before I can leave the room, I, something caught my

00:32:19.940 attention. And I turned around and looked back into the room and he had turned the light above his bed on

00:32:25.200 and he was actually getting out of his bed to open up the curtain to the big window in his hospital

00:32:33.240 room to let natural light in. Again, some people would say that's a coincidence to me. I leaned in

00:32:38.800 a little bit more and I said, okay, that's one of those God winks. And I was like, I was able to do

00:32:44.220 something for him. Like this metaphorically, like I was able to shed some light on this dark road. And so

00:32:49.800 what I did instead of just simply ignoring it and chopping it up is like, again, a coincidence to

00:32:55.120 me, I was like, let me continue this. There's that to me, that was a sign for me. And honestly,

00:33:02.480 the, and I went to the head doctor of the burn war and I say, Hey, can I visit patients every day?

00:33:06.140 He said, absolutely. And what that ultimately did for me, the more rooms that I would walk into and

00:33:11.880 visit with these patients and their families who were there a few months down the road, I remember one

00:33:16.680 night walking back to my, honestly, the, the hotel that you have right across the street from the

00:33:21.060 hospital. And it's around 830 at night. I remember just reflecting on these visits and thinking to

00:33:27.640 myself, ah, I know what those visits have been doing. I know the purpose of those visits. Those

00:33:35.860 purpose gave me my identity back and that identity that I was starting to discover about myself that I

00:33:41.220 loved in the military, which was being of service. And I was like, I can serve. I can continue to

00:33:47.520 serve. It's going to look different, right? I'm not wearing the same uniform. My new uniform, as I

00:33:52.820 say, are the scars on my body. I don't have the same military issued weapon. The new weapon now are

00:33:58.900 the words that come out of my mouth is my body language. That's my new weapon now. And I, and, and so

00:34:04.640 to me, I can't tell you how many, again, I'll give you another quick one, man. And I'm not trying to

00:34:11.360 like persuade you or anything. I'm just, I'm just, for me, like, this is how my, this is how my brain

00:34:16.840 works. So when I found out about the, all my children opportunity, and I know I'm jumping around a

00:34:23.480 little bit. And so I'll, I'll let you guide me where you want me to go. But essentially when I found out

00:34:28.920 about that opportunity, I was in LA, I was in LA, I was in LA for a meeting, um, related to like

00:34:36.460 veteran stuff. And that night I was taking a red eye to New York because I was going to attend a

00:34:41.660 speakers conference. And this was a speakers association. This is a young 24 year JR trying

00:34:47.200 to break into the speaking industry. And, um, I get an email about this opportunity. Well, I call the

00:34:56.240 phone or I just, and open an email, call the phone number. I get ahold of the casting director,

00:35:01.400 not the assistant, not the casting director, right to the casting director. And I said, hi,

00:35:07.380 this is who I am. You know, as I heard about this opportunity, she says, tell me about yourself. So

00:35:12.080 we have this conversation. And then I say to her, I asked her, I said, excuse me, where are you based?

00:35:17.580 And she says, I'm in New York. And I was like, well, I'm actually flying to New York tonight.

00:35:23.300 And she's like, Oh, how long are you here for? I was like, I'm there for like three days. She's

00:35:26.920 like, can you come in? I was like, of course I can. So the next day I go in and meet with her.

00:35:31.640 She pulls in the executive producer. We have the three of us have this conversation and it was a

00:35:36.380 great conversation about an hour long. And then they said, we'll be in touch. Fast forward a little

00:35:42.120 bit. I get the job opportunity, right? I have to move to New York immediately. Well, the year after I

00:35:47.540 was on all my children, the show announced that they were going to move. They pull all of the

00:35:53.020 cast crew, everybody into another, into one of the studios. And we're all sitting there and

00:35:58.340 everyone's on pins and needles. Like, Oh my God, we're getting canceled. And I'm sitting next to my

00:36:02.720 co-star and the, the, one of the execs for, you know, ABC for Disney comes in and we're like, Oh my

00:36:09.860 God, he's here. This isn't good. And he says, in order to save the show, we're going to have to make

00:36:17.820 some, you know, some moves. And the moves are, we're going to move the show to Los Angeles.

00:36:24.200 And he said, because obviously it's still, you know, the cost is still high, but you get more

00:36:29.680 like whatever you can stretch the dollar more than New York and everyone. And he says,

00:36:35.140 but everyone's not going to go. I immediately looked at my co-star and I said, I'm going.

00:36:43.520 And she looked at me, she's like, how do you know? And I said, I know I'm going. And about two

00:36:50.820 weeks later, I get called into the office and they're like, Hey, we want you to come to LA.

00:36:55.440 And not only do we want you to come to LA, we're going to sign you to a new deal for three years

00:36:59.360 to be on the show. This is why I paid attention to that, man. When I found out about the opportunity,

00:37:05.140 I was in LA, right? When I got the call that I got the opportunity, I was ironically back in

00:37:13.500 LA. So now to me, the way my brain works and the way that I look at things, when he says,

00:37:22.780 we're going to move the show there, I'm like, all signs are pointing. I need to be in that,

00:37:27.540 in that place for some reason. It was in LA when I got dancing. It was in LA when my wife and I,

00:37:35.280 who we worked together for two years, we were friends in New York. And then we moved to LA,

00:37:40.740 we started dating. It was in LA when my daughter was born. It was in LA that it sort of my life

00:37:47.340 sort of really took this turn. And I was able to sort of allow people to see that I'm so much more

00:37:52.480 than what they envisioned in me, which was just a vet. And people just box you in because you're

00:37:57.060 just a vet. We can't see that you potentially could bring anything else. How could you know you're just

00:38:02.020 a robot? Like, no, like, no, people then saw that I was so much more. And that's the way my brain

00:38:07.380 works, man. And there's so many countless examples of that, that to me, I'm like, these things are in

00:38:14.120 my world, in my mind, these aren't coincidence. These are God wings. There's, there's something,

00:38:19.980 somebody recently said something to me. They said, your DNA could be changed by your environment.

00:38:26.780 And after this person said this, like, I remember like really reflecting on it. And it was on my mind,

00:38:32.960 I was just spending a lot of time thinking about it. And I thought to myself, it makes sense.

00:38:38.040 Of course it makes sense. Like, yes, it makes sense. And this is how it makes sense for me.

00:38:44.800 When I was around three, four years old, my mom was dating this man and he would sit in the living

00:38:50.820 room of our apartment and he would play the piano and he would sing these Spanish love songs.

00:38:56.420 And this was the closest thing to a father figure that I had, because my dad bailed when I was nine

00:39:00.420 months old. And, and so I remember sitting next to this man and watching him like do this. And I

00:39:10.620 started singing in Spanish and doing these Spanish love songs. Well, because I was born and raised, I

00:39:16.820 was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, but I was essentially raised in Bossier City, which is right 0.88

00:39:20.860 over the bridge. And we're down literally a block away from our apartment. It was like this hole in the

00:39:27.860 wall bar. And he would take me down there every now and then. And I would sing to the bar and I would

00:39:35.620 literally sing and dance and sing the songs about heartache and Spanish and dance. And all these

00:39:42.380 people that are intoxicated are like, Oh my God, he's so amazing. They loved it. All the ladies loved

00:39:47.360 it too. I'm sure of it. Yeah, exactly. That's how people end up on American Idol because people,

00:39:51.660 you know, I'm like, well, the intoxicated person said I was good. And so, and so. Is that what it

00:39:58.140 was with Dancing with Stars? They're like, ah, we're drunk. He's probably, he's probably a pretty decent

00:40:02.720 dancer. He'll be fine on that show. And so, but my, that, that was, that was my DNA. I've always been

00:40:12.740 this personality, this person, this high energy, loves people, loves to talk to people, loves to interact

00:40:19.380 with people. But there have been all these experiences in my environment, tried to change

00:40:25.040 that. And it almost did. And sort of the biggest one was obviously my injury, but then it's taken

00:40:32.220 these people that I found, whether they're still in my life or not, they, they, we came, we were at

00:40:39.720 this intersection at the right time in life where those people help give, sort of give me a little

00:40:44.580 bit of that hope to get me back closer to that DNA. So when I went on Dancing, that was just,

00:40:50.440 in my opinion, I was born for that. I was born for that. Like, like three, four year old JR

00:40:57.260 dancing and singing in front of a bar, at a bar, like that's my DNA. And so I have these moments

00:41:05.160 where I'm just like, no, no, I have to go around the world a little bit to get back to where I'm,

00:41:11.000 but you just, you just got to trust. And so for me, that's why when shit goes down, man, like I 0.98

00:41:19.640 honestly remain probably, probably the calmest, um, that I'm ever because I know that there is 0.98

00:41:26.760 something bigger that I need to be paying attention to. And if I allow myself to get so hectic and

00:41:32.500 overwhelmed with it, then I'm blocking the ability to see the opportunity and the lesson that lies in

00:41:38.820 that. Man, I'm going to step away from the conversation. I know it's enthralling. I know

00:41:44.140 we're going to get right back to it. I get all that. Um, but I wanted to share something with you.

00:41:47.460 When I started this movement in 2015, I built my own website. I did everything on my own because

00:41:53.360 I didn't know any different. So I just figured it out. And I think that's what a man does. He just

00:41:58.300 figures it out. But over the years, technology advanced and the old ways of doing things were

00:42:03.400 replaced with newer, better, and more efficient. And I've known for a long time that we needed an

00:42:08.520 update to our website, uh, to accurately reflect who we are and what we do again, to reclaim and

00:42:13.720 restore masculinity. So I am happy and proud to announce that we just launched our first ever

00:42:19.900 website upgrade in over, or excuse me, just under 10 years. And my only ask for you today is to go

00:42:27.080 check it out and let me know what you think. We've got some new features and programs available,

00:42:31.320 and soon we'll be rolling out some exciting new courses and programs on, uh, wealth, marriage,

00:42:37.460 fitness, and so much more. So go to order of man.com, see for yourself. And if you feel

00:42:43.080 inclined, signed up, sign up for our order of man dispatch. So you'll never miss an announcement

00:42:47.440 on events, courses, programs, and resources that will help you become a better man. Again,

00:42:54.260 head to order of man.com. Check it out. Let me know what you think for now. Let's get back to it. JR.

00:42:59.060 Man, I, I, I don't know if you see me, I put my head down. I'm taking notes and stuff here. And I've

00:43:05.380 got so many questions. Uh, we're, we're like 35 minutes deep into this thing. And we do, we haven't

00:43:11.220 even talked about, cause a lot of people know they recognize your face and, but they don't know the

00:43:16.580 story. You know what I, 2003, um, I found myself in Fort Carson, Colorado about to deploy to Baghdad,

00:43:23.620 Iraq. I ended up going in 2005 to Ramadi, Iraq. Um, but they had us, um, training ROTC cadets,

00:43:31.720 uh, cause we were supposed to go to Iraq in 2003, but they said, no, you're not going anymore. I

00:43:35.680 watched from the chow hall as they pulled that big statue of Saddam Hussein down in Baghdad. And they

00:43:41.320 said, no, you're going to train ROTC cadets in Fort Lewis, which was significantly better duty than you

00:43:45.860 had in 2003. But I actually want to hear about your story. I know you've shared it a lot. And, um,

00:43:51.980 you know, part of our unit experience, some of the things that are similar to what you went through,

00:43:55.660 but as far as I understand it, you guys got hit by a roadside bomb, uh, as, as you were caravanning,

00:44:02.700 maybe I don't really actually know, but obviously you were hit and I'd like to hear that story.

00:44:07.900 Cause that might give us some framework for the rest of your life, which that was a moment,

00:44:12.500 but it's not the defining moment based on what I know about you. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So,

00:44:17.980 you know, I joined right after high school or a couple months after high school. And I was one

00:44:23.660 of those young recruits that, you know, talking to a recruiter and I was like, man, you know,

00:44:28.380 sort of kind of in this stage of my life where I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. Um, and

00:44:33.900 you know, listen, I'll say this, you know, my mother's from Central America, El Salvador,

00:44:39.460 and I would go to El Salvador as a kid. Um, we went a lot and, you know, when you're a kid,

00:44:48.740 you start comparing, right? You just trying to figure out where you fit in, where you belong,

00:44:53.380 what role, like, and, uh, I started to really compare myself to my peers and we didn't have a

00:44:59.700 lot. I mean, this is again, you know, the nineties, my mom made no more than $35,000 a year.

00:45:05.220 And granted I was growing up in Arkansas, but still like, that's, that's nothing. Um, and

00:45:11.160 what got her to Arkansas? Sorry, detour a little bit, but what got her up there?

00:45:16.780 No. So I, you know, we lived in Louisiana until I was nine. And then my mom got a job opportunity

00:45:21.300 in Arkansas at, uh, Tyson foods. Um, and so she got a job opportunity there. And so she, we,

00:45:29.460 we moved at nine and that was what brought her to the States though. Opportunity. I mean,

00:45:34.960 honestly, honestly, the stereotypical story of an immigrant looking for an opportunity.

00:45:41.940 So here's, here's, here's really what it comes down to is. So as I mentioned earlier,

00:45:46.140 my mom had lost one of my, one of her daughters passed away from an illness that she was born

00:45:49.980 with. Well, my sister, Annabelle, that was her name. Uh, she was born with an illness. I don't

00:45:54.960 know exactly what it was because where my family lives, it's incredibly rural. It's not the city.

00:46:01.100 I mean, they live in the woods. There's no electricity. There's no running water. You use

00:46:06.160 the restroom outside. You wake up when the sun comes up or you hear the roosters, you go to bed

00:46:11.880 when it starts to get dark. I mean, literally you lit, they live their houses on the side of a

00:46:16.460 mountain. And, um, and so my sister needed medication and my mother just was like, I need to

00:46:24.640 come to the States. Now she came to the States and she's like, her plan was to make a couple thousand 0.98

00:46:29.380 dollars. That was it because my sister, whatever it was that she suffered from, it affected 0.90

00:46:34.100 her legs. So her ability to walk. So my sister would essentially crawl, just drag her legs 1.00

00:46:39.300 around the house. And my mom was like, I want to buy her a wheelchair and I want to buy, I

00:46:44.180 want to have medication for her. Well, then she met my charismatic dad. And then all of a

00:46:49.940 sudden that changed the whole plan because here I come. Right. And then my sister passed away

00:46:54.660 when, uh, I was three, she was six years old from complications from that. And so my mom,

00:47:01.220 you know, and so then like, honestly, my mom, when she had me, she was sort of stuck. She was stuck in

00:47:08.520 this space of like, what do I do? Do I take JR till Salvador? And at least we're all a family or do I

00:47:15.300 stay here? And she, from what she shared with me, she struggled with that decision, you know, because

00:47:21.140 of course she missed her daughters, but she also felt like, well, this is your, you deserve the

00:47:25.880 opportunity to, you know, she had other daughters back in El Salvador. Yeah. Back in El Salvador with,

00:47:31.340 um, with my grandmother and my aunts and uncles and every, and the whole family, but she elected to 0.90

00:47:38.400 stay here. And then she said, potentially over time, either we'll go till Salvador, depending on how

00:47:44.280 things are shaking out in the States. Cause at that point, my dad had already left and she was left by

00:47:48.500 herself. Or maybe one day if she decides she can try to become a citizen of the U S and maybe bring

00:47:54.140 my sisters over, man. I re I remember, I remember reciting, like quizzing my mom on the capitals of

00:48:03.260 the States, uh, of, of the pledge of allegiance of the national anthem, like U S history. Was that

00:48:10.240 test? Was it tested? Did she need to learn? Cause I don't, I can't imagine you need to learn those

00:48:14.320 things. Do you still, I don't think you need to learn those things now, or maybe I don't know if you

00:48:17.960 have to learn them now, but I know back then I remember literally standing, standing in the

00:48:24.100 living room with a piece of paper, like the guy that they gave her. That makes sense. Like we need

00:48:29.120 our immigrants to assimilate to our way of life. So that makes sense to me. Listen, you gotta,

00:48:34.280 you gotta know where you're going. Like it totally makes sense to me. Exactly. And so, and so, you know,

00:48:40.980 I would go to Central America, man. And I got this different perspective. I got this different

00:48:46.640 perspective, man, where I was like, God, like I'm sitting here comparing myself to my peers who

00:48:53.280 have the nicest, newest pair of shoes who have multiple outfits. I'm sitting here with my clothes

00:49:00.540 on layaway and my mom's pain every other week to eventually get those pair of clothes or the jeans

00:49:07.500 or the shoes out five months from now. And yet, you know what I have? I have freedom. I have the

00:49:16.960 ability to go to school. I have electricity. If I wanted to go to Mickey D's and grab a burger,

00:49:22.400 I could. Like I, I, were you thinking that as a kid? Were you aware of that? A hundred percent.

00:49:27.560 And so when 9-11 took place, I was a senior in high school. Like everybody that was in this country

00:49:36.680 was angry, was afraid, was confused, but I felt sort of an heightened version of that because

00:49:43.820 I'd had this different perspective and I knew what this country had given to my mom. I knew the

00:49:49.460 opportunity I'd given to her and then to me and then to my family in El Salvador because my mom would

00:49:54.620 send money back. And so after high school, I was like, you know what? The military is a great

00:49:59.980 opportunity for me to give back. The military is a great opportunity for me to go to college,

00:50:04.320 a great opportunity for me to travel. I've been born and raised and lived in these small towns in

00:50:08.520 the South. I wanted to leave and go see the world. And so it was essentially a one-stop shop for me.

00:50:13.840 And I, I decided I was going to be an infantryman. I was like, you know what? If I'm only going to

00:50:17.980 do three years, I'm going to do, I'm going to, I'm going to do it. I'm going to get in it.

00:50:22.280 And I went to basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia, graduated after three, three months,

00:50:27.100 got assigned to my unit, which was 101st out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky to the second and 50 deuce

00:50:31.320 Delta company. And, you know, I remember, man, like I'm 19 years old. I remember my platoon

00:50:37.220 sergeant one day telling me that I needed to be prepared because we're going to deploy sometime

00:50:40.760 soon. That's what he said to me. And my response, cause he saw me cutting up. He saw me, man. I was

00:50:45.540 like, man, this is life. You're 19. You're a punk kid. I'm living in the barracks. I'm on my own. I got my own

00:50:51.140 car. Like I make about $50 a week. Every, I mean, every other week, like this is great. Right? Like

00:50:57.260 got my meals paid for my lodging paid for. Like I got to drive all the other guys to the bar. Like

00:51:03.080 I'm their DD. This is fantastic. And this was my response to my platoon sergeant. After he told me

00:51:08.920 that I said, sorry, I just got out of basic training. I just got here. I'm not going anywhere

00:51:13.000 yet. And I told him to relax. I told him to relax. So, and I tell people, I was like,

00:51:20.400 the reason I said that is because it clearly shows that I was naive. And I was like, it's

00:51:26.180 no different than like, you know, like you see natural disasters that happen all over the

00:51:30.960 country, all over the world. You don't think those people like, yes, that there's a pattern.

00:51:35.620 There's been history. Those, those storms come through there.

00:51:37.920 Yeah. I mean, some in Florida, Florida, North Carolina, just this past weekend. Right. But do

00:51:42.400 they stop and think like, Oh, that'll, you know, you're like, you are aware of it, but you're like,

00:51:46.280 yeah, it's not going to happen to me. And I was no different. I raised my right hand like you and so

00:51:50.640 many others and families that did it. And I just, I knew war was a possibility. I never thought it 0.98

00:51:55.040 would be my reality. And sure enough, man, um, two months later I was on a plane going over to the

00:52:01.080 Middle East and I was like, what the hell? And I can tell you, and just to really spend a little bit

00:52:05.700 of time on this because I think this is so important because this really plays a role in

00:52:10.200 like how I like to show up even as a person today. But I remember being on the plane and they played

00:52:15.580 the movie. We were soldiers by Mel Gale. Like it was like on the way to Iraq on the way. It's like,

00:52:21.780 that's crazy. The wildest movie to play. Like, and I'm sitting there as a 19 year, like, holy shit.

00:52:29.700 Like, this is what, like, this is what's going on. That's hilarious, man. I mean, 0.99

00:52:34.000 it's hilarious and like disturbing at the same time. This is what's going to, this is what I'm

00:52:38.680 going to do. And I remember just freaking out naturally. And I'm like, I don't know what the

00:52:43.940 hell I'm doing. I don't know how to, I don't know. And I remember looking around at the aircraft

00:52:49.660 and seeing all the guys on the aircraft and just thinking, I just got to follow them. I just,

00:52:55.320 that's all I can do is just follow them. And, you know, to sort of, you know, condense this a

00:53:01.100 little bit, I remember being in country and we're still in Kuwait before the conflict actually began.

00:53:05.880 And, you know, we got our base camp set up, which, um, you know, it was called Camp New York at the

00:53:11.500 time. And, and I remember one day there was a guy that took his shirt off and I saw that he had a

00:53:18.120 tattoo on his chest of the unit crest. Right. And I asked him, I said, why do you have that tattooed on

00:53:23.060 your body? And he said, cause I love this. This is a brotherhood. And I was like, no, it's not.

00:53:27.140 I don't feel like it's a brotherhood. I don't think anybody cares. And he said, and my Lieutenant,

00:53:33.880 my LT overhears this. And my Lieutenant takes me outside in the middle of the desert and he smokes

00:53:37.860 me. And the whole time he's smoking me, he's lecturing me on how this is a brotherhood, how

00:53:42.260 we'd look after one another. We're bonded forever. And I was like, did you say that to him? Or how did

00:53:47.240 he know that you were kind of, he, he was walking on the same plane? Oh, okay. He was walking by and

00:53:53.380 overheard me say that to this guy. Got it. The reason I said that is because leading up to that

00:54:00.020 comment, when we would get briefings, I had a lot of questions, man. And, and, you know, when you're

00:54:05.920 a private, you don't speak, you don't ask, you just do, but I'm private Martinez and I'm naturally

00:54:12.380 curious and I'm naturally going to ask questions. And I would ask a lot of questions. I would ask my,

00:54:16.360 my, my squad leader and I would ask my, you know, I would ask everybody like, what do you,

00:54:22.660 just think about this. I mean, you, like, like I know who I'm speaking to, you understand this,

00:54:27.880 but I was like, I'm 19 years old. Three years prior, I got my license. And the most basic thing

00:54:33.800 they tell you when you test for your license, that when pedestrians are in you, they have the right of

00:54:39.080 way, period. Yet I'm now in country and my squad leader is talking about when you're driving,

00:54:46.360 and there's people that women, kids get in front of your convi, you don't stop. 1.00

00:54:54.100 And so naturally as a 19 year, I'm like, hold, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I need to

00:54:58.720 wrap, but what do you mean? Don't stop. And I asked a lot like, oh, Hey, if something, if something

00:55:04.360 happens to Ryan and he's wounded, you don't just run in. We, we have to set up a perimeter. We have,

00:55:10.260 and I was like, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, if Ryan's wounded, I'm running in there to help him.

00:55:16.280 Like, what are you talking about? Wait. And just simple things like that. Like I didn't have the

00:55:22.560 luxury to go to Fort Irwin and get that extensive training. I didn't have the luxury of other

00:55:27.020 deployments. I didn't have, I'd never been out, out like in this environment. And so, and, and so I

00:55:33.440 just, what I started to experience my squad leader was every time I asked a question, dude, the body

00:55:38.380 language was horrible. He was just like, you'd get annoyed that I was asking questions. And so all

00:55:43.920 that did was allow me to be disconnected. I was like, man, nobody gives a shit. Nobody cares. 0.99

00:55:49.000 And I just started going through the motions. So for me to say that to this guy that I don't

00:55:54.240 believe anybody cares, it came from a place where I felt that, like, that's the way that the environment

00:55:59.860 was making me feel. So my Lieutenant smokes me. I come back in, I apologize, you know, to my, to,

00:56:06.900 to, to, to, to, to the guy and all good. We move on. Well, on the 5th of April of 2003,

00:56:12.700 we were escorting the convoy. Cause that's essentially what we did for the, for the early

00:56:17.280 days of our deployment. We were escorting different MOSs from point A to point B. And we would

00:56:22.140 essentially provide guys coming into theater or supply routes or supply routes, guys coming

00:56:27.140 into theater. I mean, we were escorting people in the medical field to get to whatever camp they

00:56:32.560 needed to get to, to set up. Um, I mean, that was essentially what we did. And I remember getting

00:56:38.800 a briefing from one of the commanders. Um, and I remember this guy standing up on this really

00:56:45.420 makeshift podium and he stands up there and this guy looks like a GI Joe, man. It looks like you just

00:56:50.360 went to the store. Sergeant slaughter. Oh my God, man. The hair I'm like, how's, how's your,

00:56:56.740 how's your, uh, deserts like press that, that, um, that clean. We had a couple of guys like that

00:57:02.900 too, for sure. I was like, what that like do was fit. Like the way he commanded the little small

00:57:08.700 little stage. He looked out, he talked about everybody's job and everybody has a role. He

00:57:14.000 talked about all this stuff. And, um, and it was like, I remember he was the first one to

00:57:20.860 introduce this concept of service. He introduced his concept of everybody having a role and everyone

00:57:26.680 playing a vital role to accomplish in the mission. And I remember going on a mission later that day.

00:57:33.200 And I remember like really paying attention to the mission and whoever we were escorting,

00:57:37.500 we got them to their destination. And I was like, Whoa, like, this is what he's talking about. Like

00:57:42.680 I'm a private on this, on this team, but I, I nonetheless, I'm on this team and I played a role

00:57:48.680 and, and all of a sudden that one individual changed my perspective about the military because prior

00:57:55.620 to that conversation with the way my squad leader, like, I was like, man, I'm just going to do three

00:58:00.020 years. I can't wait to get out of here. This isn't for me. That commander restructured my mindset.

00:58:05.000 And now I was thinking I wanted to do this for the rest of my life until the 5th of April of 2003,

00:58:09.660 when we escort a convoy to their destination. Um, then they're like, Hey, we have to go North.

00:58:16.640 We have to go to Karbala, uh, because we have to go secure this area. We pull over to the side,

00:58:22.240 wait for a route after a couple of hours. They're like routes clear. This is the route we're going

00:58:26.640 to take. Everyone getting your Humvee Martinez, your turn to drive. No big deal. I jump in a driver's

00:58:31.200 seat. And man, you know, I always tell people when you're away from freedom and family and friends,

00:58:35.420 the thing that sort of fills that void is humor. And you just find ways to sort of just laugh,

00:58:39.860 right? And sometimes it's dark too. You have to man. Like, it's like you, you have to pull from the

00:58:46.260 weirdest places just to kind of distract your mind. And that's why like, we develop such a dark

00:58:52.280 sense of humor. Why just why civilians are like, should I laugh at that? Or should I not? Right? 0.86

00:58:57.840 Like, you're like, what are you talking about? You just wasted a practically great joke. Like,

00:59:03.080 and so, you know, I'm driving man. And then all of a sudden, boom, I mean, it didn't take that long.

00:59:09.880 All of a sudden, boom, three other guys in the Humvee pass the commanded passenger of the Humvee

00:59:15.400 guy sitting behind him, the gunner all thrown out to the guy staying country with some shrapnel and

00:59:20.720 hand face. They treat it there, keep them in country. The gunner injures his leg because of

00:59:27.100 course he shot up in any land. So he comes back to the States. I'm trapped inside of the Humvee

00:59:31.700 gunner survived. Was that gunner survived? Everybody survived. Yep. Everybody, everybody survived.

00:59:38.980 Um, and I'm trapped inside. And anytime, you know, this, anytime you left your base,

00:59:46.900 at least we did, we took everything because we didn't know if we were going to make it back to

00:59:50.520 that. So we were like, just take it all, man. This was the days when we had like the tow missiles

00:59:55.360 in the back of the Humvee. I remember, I think we had like two or three in the back. We had 7.62

01:00:00.520 rounds right behind me, sort of in the floorboard. I mean, as you know, this Humvee was jam packed

01:00:06.100 with everything. We had our personal gear. So this, this, this bomb goes off. It essentially

01:00:12.440 designates that like just everything. And what was the bomb hidden disguised as? Was it? So it was,

01:00:19.820 it was a landmine. It was a landmine. Okay. It was a landmine. Pressure plated landmine. Yeah.

01:00:24.320 Pressure plated landmine. And so it goes off, it detonates everything. Um, within a matter of

01:00:30.260 seconds, this Humvee is engulfed in flames and man, let me, let me tell you something. Like I

01:00:35.300 can get pretty detailed about the day because I remember it and it doesn't affect me. And for a

01:00:39.880 long time, when I would talk about the 5th of April, um, 2003, I would always sort of talk about

01:00:45.960 how I remember like having to breathe heavily and in between every breath screaming for someone to

01:00:51.220 help me and pull me out. And that was essentially, can I ask you a question about that actually?

01:00:56.260 Because so, I mean, obviously visibly, you know, people are very aware of the physical external

01:01:02.900 scars, but I think what people overlook, because I've had conversations with men like yourselves and

01:01:08.260 others, heroes who have been exposed to these types of things, the internal damage and scars as well.

01:01:16.340 So was breathing, were you, was that like breathing fire? Was it okay at that point? What was that like?

01:01:21.840 So I, I broke, I broke some ribs. Um, and if you've ever broken a rib, you know, it's hard to

01:01:28.420 breathe. It's hard to catch your breath. And so you're kind of like deep inhales to try to get some

01:01:32.880 oxygen and that's painful as itself. Right. Um, but I also had a lacerated liver and maybe in trapped

01:01:39.980 inside the Humvee, what I was doing every time I was gasping for air, I was, I was doing that. And

01:01:45.540 essentially I'm inhaling the smoke from the fire, which was actually doing far more damage and

01:01:49.760 threatening whether I was going to make it or not far more than the exterior, the burns on the

01:01:54.880 exterior. Um, and even though there were third degree burns, didn't matter. It was, which is

01:01:59.700 sort of that metaphor, right? We talk about mental health and you're like, yeah, the inside, the

01:02:04.540 inside, which you got to treat that, that's the thing that's going to get you right. If you don't

01:02:08.600 lean into that. And, um, you know, there was for five minutes, I was in and out of consciousness.

01:02:14.960 And I remember that when I would lose consciousness, I would, my eyes were closed and I, it's so

01:02:22.360 fascinating, man. I still remember it as if it just happened. But I remember that when my

01:02:28.100 eyes were closed, I didn't hear any of the chaos. I didn't feel the pain. The only two things

01:02:37.220 that I can like pay attention to that I was aware of was my thoughts and my breath. And

01:02:45.000 I can actually like hear myself breathing. And then I, my thoughts of like, Oh my, I'm

01:02:50.600 going to die. I'm going to die at this age. I'm gonna die in this way. Like my mom's worst

01:02:54.980 fear. My mom's worst fear is becoming a reality. Like you just have those thoughts. And then

01:02:59.840 I would tell myself, Jerry, you can't keep your eyes closed. If you keep your eyes closed,

01:03:03.920 you're giving up straight up. That's what I would say. And, and I would open my eyes

01:03:10.920 and, you know, it's, it's, it's, I always, I like to believe that, you know, people say,

01:03:17.000 you know, JR, you know, you, you, you know, um, you represent hope. And I was like, you know,

01:03:23.500 for a long time, the early stages of my recovery, everything was based on hope because I didn't

01:03:28.740 know what the outcome was. I had no evidence. I like to believe that I've sort of progressed

01:03:32.940 beyond that hope stage. And I'm now more of an optimist. Like I'm now an optimist in

01:03:37.940 the sense of where, how can you become an optimist? Well, because there's so much data,

01:03:41.260 everything we do, we ourselves, our brands, we ourselves are collecting data every single

01:03:46.440 day. No different than the biggest brands that all of us utilize, love, whatever they

01:03:51.020 collect data. It sounds like faith to me, actually. Yeah. And it is, and it is. And it's,

01:03:58.240 and so for me, it's, I'm now at this stage in my life where I have that faith. I, I am,

01:04:05.800 I have so much evidence and so many examples where I'm like, I have no other option, but

01:04:13.180 to believe that this is, this is where it's going, how it's going to frame out. And, and

01:04:18.100 I remember like telling myself to open my eyes and just, and all that did, man, was just allow

01:04:24.080 me to fight and hang on. And five minutes later I was pulled out, but here's what I focus on. Yes.

01:04:29.420 I saw my hands changing, uh, my, my, my squad leader. And, um, and the reason why I focus on

01:04:40.680 that is because even, you know, here we are 21 years later, life gets hectic, right? You're in

01:04:49.140 the storm of life, kids, wife, work, people, like just everything, right? There could be

01:04:56.900 health. There's all sorts of things that become overwhelming. And you know what I do, man, when,

01:05:03.200 when I feel like things are starting to get a little out of, out of control, out of hand,

01:05:06.920 I exercise the very thing that I did on the 5th of April of 2003, I close my eyes and I could be

01:05:14.000 anywhere. I could be like, you know, if I'm in a car and I'm driving, obviously I'm not going to

01:05:20.460 close my eyes there, but I'll sort of kind of be, be present with myself. I'll, I'll, if I'll stop at

01:05:26.660 a light, if I'm out on a plane, I close my eyes. If I'm sitting in my office, I'll just close my eyes

01:05:32.380 and I'll just connect to my breath. And all I'm telling myself is as I'm breathing and I'm paying

01:05:36.420 attention to that breath work, I'm telling myself, you're alive, man. You're good. You're good.

01:05:41.580 You're alive. That breath to me is a reminder. I'm alive. Everything's going to be all right

01:05:46.240 because I'm alive. And that's the thing that keeps me showing up. And I have to tell my body,

01:05:53.780 I have to tell my, I literally talk to my body and I tell my body, Hey, thank you for trying to

01:05:58.640 warn me of this and that, but we're good. I got this. We got like, I do that type of self-talk

01:06:05.700 and I listen for a long, I love running, but my body is starting to tell me like, Hey, maybe you

01:06:11.560 shouldn't be running as much or as long as, as far as you normally used to run. My body said that for

01:06:15.820 as long as I've been alive, don't run so much. And like, and so now I'm in a place where I'm like,

01:06:22.480 all right, well, I got to pivot a little bit. What do I do differently? What I started doing,

01:06:26.380 man, is yoga and I've done yoga in the past. And, uh, I started doing more, more yoga, man. And it's

01:06:33.600 really cool because in yoga, they, the, the first thing they tell you to do when you start

01:06:40.200 classes, they ask you, what's the intention? What's the intention? What's your intention for

01:06:46.420 the next 60 minutes? And then they encourage you to breathe and they say, it's going to get

01:06:51.420 difficult. It's going to get uncomfortable. How you get through it is your breath. And all that does

01:06:57.320 is just sort of validate what I've been doing for the last 20 years where the 5th of April taught me

01:07:04.820 to just breathe and close my eyes and be connected with that. And we don't spend enough time

01:07:08.940 pausing, reflecting. We don't spend enough time doing that. And so, you know, it's like, um, I don't

01:07:16.480 know. Do you know Dan Nevins? I don't. Yeah. Okay. So this dude sharp, man. Um, this guy was in the

01:07:23.180 National Guard, um, ended up deploying a double amputee, um, below the knee. I forget, but, um,

01:07:32.640 sharp dude came back struggle as well. And somebody challenged him to do yoga. And he was like,

01:07:38.840 typical, you know, military guy. We're like, yoga is that going to go lift? Um, like exactly. Yeah.

01:07:46.280 Let me throw on a rock right now and let me run around the neighborhood, you know? And so

01:07:51.020 he's got blades too. So he could probably be faster now.

01:07:54.840 Exactly. So he, he starts, he, someone challenges him and he's like, fine, I'll do it. Cause of

01:08:02.680 course that's the way our brain works. It has to be a challenge and then he'll do it. And so he did

01:08:06.920 it. And this dude then became, he was like, wait a minute, this is doing something differently for me.

01:08:11.780 And he leaned in so heavily that he started like traveling in the world, learning under these like

01:08:17.060 gurus. And, and this guy, like when he speaks, he, he incorporates like some yoga practices,

01:08:23.020 some simple things. I've been on a couple of retreats where he's there and he's like guiding

01:08:27.400 the yoga, you know, exercises and breath work and, and all that stuff. And it's a, it's just a

01:08:32.720 awesome, powerful tool. And, you know, for me, it's just a matter of after I was injured,

01:08:39.320 I started the medevac process, um, because of the internal damage, they put me into a medical

01:08:44.880 induced coma. And from there I was taken to launch till Germany. Once I was stable, they put me on

01:08:51.840 a plane and brought me back to the States. And I ended up in San Antonio, Texas, which is the burn

01:08:55.460 center for the military. And I was in the coma. I was going to ask you weren't at Walter Reed. You

01:08:59.620 were in Texas. No, I wasn't. I was in San Antonio Fort. Oh, well, Fort Sam Houston, but it was used to

01:09:04.900 be called Brooke army medical center. Now it's called San Antonio military medical center, but yeah, I was

01:09:10.200 there, man. And then, you know, so I was there, I mean, I was the third patient to arrive from the

01:09:16.240 conflict in Iraq and at Fort Sam third, the third. Yeah. And, uh, and, um, man, I remember like,

01:09:25.900 just, I remember coming out of my coma and asking the doc, I was like, all right, cool. So when can I

01:09:31.120 get out and when can I get back to my guys? And that was before I saw my face and my body. And he,

01:09:39.160 that's when he told me, you're not going to be allowed to stay in the army. He says, you're going

01:09:42.920 to be medically discharged. And I was like, what, what was it like when you saw your, saw your face

01:09:48.100 for the first time? Oh man, that was, that was tough. Um, cause you know why? Because my identity

01:09:58.500 prior to that injury was all wrapped up in, in my looks, everything about me, like that's how I got

01:10:08.180 validation. Like I was clearly a kid that, you know, was navigating some things at home and, you

01:10:14.420 know, everything was about my looks. Like I was called like, you know, the pretty boy or, you know,

01:10:19.180 I had this curly hair and the girls liked it and everything about me was all about my, my identity was

01:10:25.560 all about my looks. So then all of a sudden I'm looking in the mirror and I'm like, who in the,

01:10:30.060 who is that? And honestly, like the only thing I'm 41 years old. And so the only thing that I can

01:10:36.400 attribute it to, I was like the, the movie and the character that I would see movies of, that was the

01:10:43.140 first thing that popped in my mind was like Freddie Cougar. Like, I know that sounds dramatic,

01:10:47.180 but that's all I knew. I never seen anybody that had this type of burn. And although I did have a

01:10:57.040 interaction when I was a senior in high school with a burn survivor and it was a small one,

01:11:01.200 but, um, but I, I, in that moment, I don't remember that. And in that moment, I'm just thinking to

01:11:06.200 myself, I'm the first one in the history of, of, of earth that this has ever happened to. And I'm,

01:11:11.520 and all I can think of, man, I literally lean into this narrative of like, and I tell people where

01:11:15.740 where your focus goes, your energy follows. And essentially my focus went to, I'm never going

01:11:21.460 to be able to walk amongst normal people. I'm never going to be able to meet someone and have

01:11:27.780 a relationship, let alone have a family. I'm never going to be able to get a job. Like, who am I?

01:11:33.360 What am I? I have no resources. I have nothing. And I'm literally like, my life is over. And as you

01:11:38.320 can imagine, my energy just followed. And I just fed that narrative. It's like this seed. I just kept

01:11:43.320 watering and watering and watering. And it was just consuming all of me. I could see no positive

01:11:49.120 in this. And I would lay in my hospital bed at night and look out these big windows, uh, that

01:11:56.180 looked out into downtown San Antonio. And I would just, I would just literally say to myself, and I

01:12:00.980 would say to everybody, you should have just left me in the Humvee to die. Like, just let me go out

01:12:07.160 that way. At least, why are you saving me? What life am I going to have? And I was in this space for a

01:12:12.960 long time, man. Um, like I said, it probably about, you know, easily about five, six weeks.

01:12:18.900 And it was one day, a real intense conversation with my mom that turned it all around. And what,

01:12:25.840 what, what it did was my mom, she literally challenged me. She just said, I just want you to

01:12:30.340 try to be JR, be the positive kid. I want you to try to believe that something good will come from

01:12:36.820 this. She, she encouraged me to have some faith. And, uh, and in that moment I had nothing else.

01:12:43.600 And I was like, I might as well. And I, what I, I didn't realize this is what I was doing until

01:12:49.780 later where it, it, it, I tell you, this is the power. I mean, the mind is such a powerful thing.

01:12:56.900 The next day I remember I was, I woke up and I had to sleep on my back and I'm not a back sleeper.

01:13:03.080 Like I'm, I'm a, I'm a side, a stomach guy, but I couldn't because of the wound and everything was

01:13:08.380 fresh and open. So I had to sleep on my back. And I remember that morning I woke up and I went to sit

01:13:13.880 up and I couldn't, there were like something tugging like resistance. And I was like, man,

01:13:18.200 what is it? And, and I finally just kind of pulled through it. And I felt like something tugged,

01:13:24.740 like on my, like the back of my head or side of my head. And I was like, well, when I sat up,

01:13:29.360 I turned around and looked back to see what it was. And it was part of my left ear that was stuck

01:13:34.400 to the pillow. Oh my gosh. That had pulled off. Yeah. The cartilage, like, because I had slept in

01:13:43.660 that position and essentially, and let me tell you, man, you would think that that moment would be 0.97

01:13:50.500 like, Oh shit, where is he going with this? And instead I looked at it and laughed and like, yo, 0.97

01:13:56.820 that's my ear on the billow. And I just laughed about it. And, and then every day I started to

01:14:04.480 reframe my mindset because see, we're force fed this narrative from when we're kids. I mean,

01:14:09.580 think about it. You have kids, like, I don't know how, I don't know what your youngest is,

01:14:13.300 but you've been around kids and, or people come up to your kids. How many times do people go to kids

01:14:19.440 and like, what are you going to be when you grow up? Like the kids five, like the kids five were force fed

01:14:24.840 this narrative that you have to have everything figured out. And so naturally, when you go into

01:14:29.640 this moment where you're stripped of your identity, you immediately go to this long-term

01:14:35.380 because that's what we, we're supposed to have it figured out. And what I realized, the more that

01:14:40.100 I focused on the long-term, the more that it was just eating me up. And so I was like, well, maybe I

01:14:46.220 should stop focus, focusing on the long-term. Maybe I should just focus on the short-term, the now,

01:14:52.820 this moment. And so I recalibrated my mindset that every morning when I woke up and every night before

01:14:59.140 I went to bed, I was going to find one positive thing that happened that day. One thing I could

01:15:04.820 be grateful for. And I started practicing gratitude and a simple practice like that, man. I mean, it,

01:15:11.200 it changed everything for me because then I was able to just sort of like show up and just be open to

01:15:18.400 things that were around me that essentially were God winks to like navigate me and guide me.

01:15:26.420 What, what, um, man, it's like, it's, it's hard. I'm trying to be sensitive to it, but also like

01:15:32.260 people need to know the real stuff. So what was it like going out in public? And I'm sure you still

01:15:40.180 get it to this day, the, the looks and the sneers and the pointing and the whispering.

01:15:44.600 Yeah. What is that like? Yeah, man, that's tough. Right. Um, it was infuriating. You know,

01:15:52.900 I try to go out in public and, you know, try to put on this face of like, uh, and nothing affects

01:15:58.360 me. Nothing bothers me. And I would go back to, to, cause at the time I was, I was staying at the

01:16:04.140 Fisher house and I would go to the Fisher house. I'd go to my room, dude. And I would just cry. And I

01:16:09.460 would just like, honestly, like I would just like swing at the air. I was just so angry, man. And,

01:16:16.880 uh, I could be honest. Like I, I never, I never contemplated. I never, I never had that thought.

01:16:25.360 Um, for me, it was just like, I was just mad at life and I was mad that I was in this situation.

01:16:33.140 And because you're right. I mean, I would walk out, you know, and people would just stare and

01:16:38.660 people like, I would, you know, and when they were, if they were younger, you would see people

01:16:43.300 like, like stare and like laugh, like to each other. And if they were older, they would just

01:16:47.940 stare and then kind of go in each other's ear and, you know, kind of like that whisper stuff. But

01:16:52.400 you sort of kind of develop this ability, I guess, maybe like celebrities do when you're like,

01:16:56.920 yeah, I can tell when someone's talking about me. I can tell when someone's staring at me,

01:17:00.680 I could tell. And you just develop that. And I just started becoming very resentful and angry.

01:17:06.280 And then at times I would, every now and then depends on, you know, sort of the space, the day,

01:17:10.680 the people I was with. I remember vividly, you know, I was at dinner with some other wounded guys.

01:17:15.940 So man, then we sort of got some joy out of just kind of walking in public, all of us, you know,

01:17:20.900 with, you know, missing arms or, you know, one of my boys missing an eye and another guy having a,

01:17:27.780 you know, a little bit of TBI and, you know, and half of his skulls like taken out. And,

01:17:33.220 you know, all of us are at a bar. Like my buddy would, I'm like, take out your eye and he would

01:17:37.140 take it out. And I would grab his eye and I'd start running around the bar. And, and imagine like,

01:17:42.620 he's chasing me, like, give me my eye back. And I'm like, like, I mean, people would freak out,

01:17:47.760 but it was our way of coping. And I remember one day this lady was staring at me and it just made me

01:17:53.020 really uncomfortable. And I just like, God, it's pissing me off. And, and, and, and I just decided

01:17:58.960 like, I'm not going to give this woman the power. Like, I'm not giving her the power. And I was like, 0.99

01:18:04.460 you know what? I decided I'm going to walk up to her. And I walked up to her and I asked her, I said,

01:18:10.280 I just, I just simply said, hi. And she, and it was like, I was in a movie and I just came through

01:18:16.180 the screen. And she was like, startled. Like I broke the fourth wall and she was startled. And

01:18:20.620 she was like, she was like, oh, oh, hi, hi. And I was like, well, I just wanted to come over and say

01:18:24.840 hi, because I saw you, you were looking. And she's like, oh, oh, I'm yes. I'm so sorry. I just was,

01:18:30.680 I was just wondering like, what happened? And this is how observant JR is. I said to her, I was like,

01:18:36.980 I said, well, what happened was I was smoking a cigarette and then I stopped.

01:18:43.540 And the reason I said that is because she was smoking a cigarette at the time and immediately

01:18:49.980 her like hand goes down and her eyes get big and I walk away and I just let her just marinate on that 0.98

01:18:57.640 for like, honestly, probably felt like forever, but it was maybe on the minute. And then I came back

01:19:02.220 and then I was like, no, I'm just messing with you. I was giving you shit. I was like, I was in the 1.00

01:19:05.260 military and she was like, oh my God. But then I started to realize, yeah. Like I was like, okay,

01:19:11.840 I can use this humor thing to like diffuse and remove the awkwardness, but don't get me wrong.

01:19:17.620 It wasn't perfect. It didn't happen overnight. Like it still was a challenge and it was, it was

01:19:21.540 infuriating. And then, you know, you're going out, you're 20, 21, 22. You're trying to, you see an

01:19:27.980 attractive lady. You want to talk to her. Um, you walk up to her and she sees you and she's like, 0.99

01:19:33.300 oh no, thanks. You know, or you talk to her for a second or two and then she's like, okay,

01:19:38.240 have a good night. And she walks away. It could have easily been simply like personalities wise,

01:19:44.680 you know, maybe it just wasn't a click. Right. It could have, it could have been a variety of

01:19:49.560 things, but no, in my mind, it was all because of my, the way I looked like, that's what I kept

01:19:56.660 telling myself. That was my, how could you not think that? Right. Yeah. Like that was my out.

01:20:00.920 Like, no, it's because she, she walked away. She doesn't want to talk to me anymore because it's the

01:20:05.160 way I look. Maybe it was, maybe, maybe, no, it couldn't have been because we have different

01:20:09.580 tastes in music. Maybe because like my jokes are, you know, different than, you know, like there's

01:20:15.300 all sorts of things, but I just kept telling myself that. And so I'd constantly be triggered

01:20:20.620 and I'd go back and, but you know, the thing, man, the thing that always sort of got me back

01:20:26.020 was I would go back to my room and I'd be pissed off. I would sit there and I would cry.

01:20:30.900 I would write and I would play Metallica. Like, that's what I did. I would like literally

01:20:36.900 What would you write about? Man, it was just gibberish. Just, just gibberish about just being

01:20:42.000 mad at life. Why do, why did this happen to me? Why do I look like this? All I want is to feel this.

01:20:49.380 All I want is this opportunity. All I want is to figure out what I could do with my life. Like all

01:20:54.100 those questions. And it was mad at the fact that people walk away, mad at this, mad at that. It

01:21:00.660 was all that stuff. And, um, and literally like just sitting there writing, but then there's only

01:21:07.180 so much crying you could do. And I was just like fatigued. And I, I like no joke. I remember being

01:21:15.900 at this point, like a Fisher house and in the barracks. I remember like, I would just sit there

01:21:20.860 and I would just go, and I'd literally just wipe my eyes and be like, God, I'm so tired.

01:21:27.780 And I was like, I'm just going to walk outside. And dude, I would literally just walk outside.

01:21:34.160 And for me, what that served as is I clearly didn't have all the answers in my room,

01:21:41.640 listening to Metallica and just writing. I needed to put my, I needed to put myself out in the world

01:21:47.080 because the world was going to give me what I needed. You see, we're conditioned to believe

01:21:51.760 that every time, you know, Ryan comes up to me in public, I'm like, Oh, Ryan wants something for

01:21:57.300 me. Well, now my mind has been recalibrated to where like, no, maybe Ryan and I are having this

01:22:03.040 conversation because he's given me the things that I need. It's not about me doing something for him.

01:22:08.080 Maybe he's doing something for me. And it comes in these unexpected ways and unexpected forms.

01:22:12.920 Like I, a few years ago, man, I'm traveling home from an event. I just did this two dates keynote

01:22:20.020 for this big, for Delta airlines, love Delta airlines. And I get the chance to go to the

01:22:25.680 headquarters and speak. I'm like, this is money. And I feel good about myself. And I'm flying back

01:22:30.340 home and something triggers me on the plane, man. I don't know what it was. I can't even tell you.

01:22:35.120 And suddenly I'm in a sour mood and I get off the plane. I don't even text my wife that I landed.

01:22:39.760 I don't call her. I just get in a car and I'm like, I'm just going to drive home. And I remember

01:22:44.020 getting to the, the gate to the booth and I hand my ticket out the window. I don't even look at the

01:22:50.480 gate, like the gate, the cashier, the attendant. I just like hand my ticket out and I can feel

01:22:56.620 someone grab it, but no, she doesn't take it. The person doesn't take it. They just, they're

01:23:00.460 holding onto it. And I'm like, what? So I turn and look and it's this older lady,

01:23:04.540 older Asian lady. And she, she says, um, she says, what happened to you? And I was like,

01:23:12.740 I was in a car accident and she's like, were you burned? And I was like, yes. And she was like,

01:23:20.180 was it most of your body? And I was like, yes. And she's like, can I pray for you? And I was like,

01:23:28.080 sure. Like that was, I was in that, I was not in a good mood. And I was like, sure. This is five

01:23:33.920 years ago by new, this isn't like 20 years ago, 15 years ago. This is five years ago. And I was

01:23:38.600 like, sure. And so she closes her eyes and I'm like, okay. And I'm watching her. And then she

01:23:43.760 opens her eyes and she starts writing and I'm like, okay, now she's going to ring me up. I'm going to

01:23:48.600 pay and I'm going to move on. Well, then she hands me a ticket. And as she's handing me the ticket,

01:23:54.460 which is not the normal process, she's handing me a ticket. I grab it. And she asked me, are you

01:23:59.520 familiar with Buddhism? And I was like, no, not really. And she says, well, within Buddhism,

01:24:05.380 there is a Buddhist called Amitoba. And Amitoba represents infinite light, infinite wisdom. And

01:24:11.660 she gives us deeper explanation. She says, when I see you, I see Amitoba. And dude, I paid. She 0.92

01:24:20.960 rung me up. I paid. And then sort of like that metaphor of life, right? That gate, that arm is

01:24:26.220 there. You can't go through until you pay your dues. I paid my dues. It lifts. I pull through.

01:24:31.980 I call my wife. I'm like, babe, Amitoba. She's like, what? And I was like, I'll tell you when I get 0.99

01:24:36.880 home. And the whole drive, 35 minutes driving home from the airport, I'm sitting there thinking to

01:24:43.260 myself over the course of that very short interaction, which felt like five minutes, but it was

01:24:48.000 probably realistically only two. When she asked me what happened, I could have said, uh-uh,

01:24:53.040 not engaging. Because she asked me, was I burned? Was it most of my body? Could she pray for me?

01:24:59.000 Am I familiar with, but I had all those opportunities to shut it down. And instead, life has taught me,

01:25:05.940 has conditioned me that sometimes I don't have all the answers. And what I need to do is open myself up

01:25:11.320 to the world, to different people, to different experiences, because that situation is going to give

01:25:16.420 me what I need. And that's what I've learned. That's why every time I have an interaction with

01:25:22.800 a stranger or anybody, I try to show up 100% because it's that moment that I'm either giving

01:25:29.580 them something they need or they're giving me something that I need. And I don't want to miss

01:25:33.300 that opportunity because that is an opportunity. Now, it can be exhausting to always approach everything

01:25:39.120 in that way. And so for me, I have to do inventory on myself, man. I have to like check myself and

01:25:43.880 where am I, where am I at? Where, like, what do I have in stock? What can I give to people? And if I

01:25:48.720 feel like I'm pretty depleted, I have to do some things that are going to get me back to who I am

01:25:54.780 and what I'm capable of showing up as. And that, and, and literally, you know, man, I just kept

01:26:02.680 just building on these small victories. It was never like this big, huge splash of life and things.

01:26:09.980 It was all these little things that kept happening that would just give me a little bit of life and

01:26:14.660 a little bit of hope that would carry me for the next two months, four months, six months until the

01:26:20.140 next little thing that happened. And then, Oh, that would give me a little bit more life. And then

01:26:24.860 when my battery started depleting, I had something else would give me a little life, but I was still

01:26:29.740 struggling because I'm gonna tell you something. When I got out of the army, when I left the hospital,

01:26:35.660 it was almost three years. I was a 20, I was 22 years old. Now I turned 20, 21 and 22 in a hospital.

01:26:41.400 When I left, um, I got into the world and I knew I wanted to be a speaker. I knew I had something.

01:26:48.940 I, it wasn't just the story. I knew I had more to offer people. And the more that I approach people

01:26:53.940 for an opportunity, people just kept boxing me in and telling me, Oh, well, you're just a vet.

01:26:57.920 Why don't you just keep talking to vets? Like, and I'm like, no, like, I'm not just a vet.

01:27:02.840 We're not just vets. Like we're people navigating the same shit you guys are navigating, like 0.96

01:27:09.000 same family dynamics, the same responsibilities, the same feeling overwhelmed, the same, like 0.98

01:27:14.720 we're just doing it in a heightened environment, like the military, like it's just different, but

01:27:19.260 it's, we're still feeling and experiencing the same things. And I was just, all that did was just

01:27:25.200 trigger me, man. And I started drinking. I started drinking heavily. I started becoming very angry.

01:27:31.800 I'm not proud to say this, but I would, I would go out, I would drink and I would drive

01:27:38.000 and there'd be times, man, I like, I'm not proud of this in San Antonio. There'd be times

01:27:44.800 I drive separately from my boys and like, I would just leave. And they're like, well, we're

01:27:51.240 going to follow you. And then they would say, we, they're like, they lost me. Like I just

01:27:58.040 lost them. And I would, I remember one time waking up on the other side of San Antonio,

01:28:02.880 nowhere near where I lived, where the bar was. And I was literally outside of my car,

01:28:08.040 like passed out. And I'm like, but that's the, that's the pattern. That's where, that's

01:28:15.280 where I was going. Like my environment, my experiences were changing my DNA. And I was not

01:28:21.520 allowing myself to be who I was always destined to be and what I was capable of being and what

01:28:27.360 turned my life around, man, after a couple of years of being in this space. Like I would,

01:28:31.140 like if you and I would have had a conversation, then if you would have said one thing, I would

01:28:35.100 have called you. I would have like, just, I would have just went at you. And I have this incredible

01:28:40.080 gift, right? Like I had this incredible gift to be able to communicate. Like it's a gift that I

01:28:45.020 have to be able to communicate, but it also could be used if not used appropriately. Um, it, it, it,

01:28:52.080 it could do some damage to people, man. You can cut people down. I understand to a degree for sure.

01:28:57.460 My boy tells me, he's like, you're like a pit, like, which is unfair because pits have that

01:29:01.660 stereotype. But I mean, he's like, you're like a pit dude, you clinch and you don't let go. Like

01:29:06.220 that's how you are. And when you're in a bad place and what turned my life around, I'll just sort of

01:29:12.840 keep this short, man. Like, so my boy, Dan, my Dan was an air force vet, did 20 years. Um,

01:29:19.640 and, uh, you know, he was now out of, out of the air force and we were both working in this

01:29:26.060 nonprofit. So we, you know, we knew each other and we hung out and they got to a point where every

01:29:31.760 time we would end the conversation, whether in person or over the phone, he would always say,

01:29:35.640 I love you. And I thought that was so odd. And I would always respond with like, all right,

01:29:40.840 cool. All right, bro. Like that was like weird. And I could tell you that it was me, Dan, and I

01:29:52.440 think two or three other vets, all wounded vets. We were in Indianapolis. We were there for the

01:29:57.940 NASCAR event. That was a fundraiser. We go out to dinner the night before we have some drinks. We're

01:30:03.440 driving back to the hotel. Somebody says something in the car. I make a snarky remark. Dan's driving.

01:30:08.760 I'm in the third row and I make a snarky remark and Dan tells me to chill out.

01:30:15.000 And I didn't like that. He told me to chill out. So of course I started snarking back and tell him,

01:30:18.980 pull the car over. I'll whoop his ass. So Dan pulled the car over. So now here I am trying to 1.00

01:30:24.560 get out of the, out of the, the back, the back door of this, of the passenger side to come around 1.00

01:30:30.060 the car and whoop Dan's ass. And you got the vets that are in the second row. Like, no, JR, 0.99

01:30:35.120 no, JR. This is the dark sense of humor. You can laugh about this stuff now.

01:30:39.480 Oh, for sure. I get it. It's hilarious.

01:30:41.100 My boy is a double amputee below the knee. He like grabs me.

01:30:47.120 No, no, no. This is another guy. He grabs, Dan's the driver. So this guy grabs me around

01:30:53.820 my waist and he's like, no, no, no. I'm so mad. I'm dragging him. All of a sudden you're,

01:30:58.760 his prosthetics pop off. So I'm carrying half of a body of the upper torso. Like

01:31:04.600 finally he lets go. He drops. And then he's going over there, crawling back to grab his

01:31:11.540 prosthetics, popping back in. At this point I'm to the driver's side. Dan's gotten back

01:31:17.280 in the car. Dan's like, I want no part of this shit. This dude is like, there's like fuming. 1.00

01:31:21.720 You can see you're crazy. 0.96

01:31:23.620 So he locks the door. Dude, I'm so mad. I punched the window to try to break it. 0.99

01:31:28.140 Like, that's how, like, just hurt I was. And then I got humbled because the window didn't

01:31:33.840 break. So I was like, shit. I walked back to the passenger side. I get back in, I go to 1.00

01:31:40.980 the third row and it's like the whole, the mood, like it was like, holy, what just, and

01:31:46.600 I'm in the backseat, just like deep breathing, man. We pull up to the hotel. Everyone gets out.

01:31:51.840 I get out. I walk in front of the car and I'm walking into the hotel and Dan puts his driver

01:31:56.960 window down. He says, JR, come here. I come, I walked back over to the car. He says, sit

01:32:03.120 in the passenger seat. And I don't know why, man. Like there was just no hesitation. I sat

01:32:07.680 in the passenger seat. He says, man, listen, like you need to cry. And I was like, what?

01:32:14.360 He's like, you need to cry. He's like, you've healed physically. You have not healed emotionally,

01:32:17.700 man. You need to cry. And I was like, man, I don't need to cry about anything. He's like,

01:32:21.200 yes, you do, man. And he kept talking to me. And before you know it, dude, I started crying.

01:32:24.380 Man, like I literally just like bawling. And I'm sharing all this stuff, like things that hurt me,

01:32:33.020 things that I'm frustrated with about life and people and all this stuff. And at the conclusion,

01:32:40.380 let me tell you how powerful this moment was, man. I was the first one that looked at him and said,

01:32:44.600 I love you, man. And he says, I love you too. And he allowed me to be vulnerable.

01:32:52.400 He allowed me to, he created a safe space where there was no judgment. There was nothing. It was

01:32:59.080 just pure love. And this is coming from a guy that literally probably 20 minutes before that,

01:33:04.440 I was literally trying to just rip his head off, which thank God everyone laughs at that story 0.99

01:33:09.340 because they're like, oh, you were going to tear Dan's ass up. And I was like, no, I'm five, nine, 0.99

01:33:14.680 205. Dan's six foot four, 280 pounds. He did me a favor by getting his ass back in that car.

01:33:22.400 Trust me. Like dude could have worked me instead. He showed up with love and didn't and chose not to 0.99

01:33:29.040 meet me where I was instead said, I'm going to do something different. And so for, and honestly,

01:33:33.880 that changed the course of my life, man. From that moment on, I understood that I could be vulnerable,

01:33:39.160 that it didn't have to be perceived as weakness. It didn't have to be perceived as anything other

01:33:43.980 than at that point. Like I started to test being vulnerable with different people. I started

01:33:50.960 speaking, started to take off. I got the entertainment opportunity. My life literally

01:33:55.280 just did a complete one 80 and I was on this trajectory. And I went to therapy shortly after

01:34:00.780 that, just because I was like, all right, let me continue this work and figure this stuff out.

01:34:05.300 Um, and it's been dope, man, because I could tell you one of my boys who we met in basic training

01:34:10.360 and we were, we were boys, but he was, he was stationed in Korea after basic. And like

01:34:16.420 I said, I went to Campbell. So we lost touch. He didn't know I was banged up until his year

01:34:21.980 in Korea. He gets reassigned to, um, for Campbell. And he's thinking, I'm gonna go see Martinez

01:34:28.780 and my boy. And he shows up at Campbell and he starts to see some of the guys. And they're

01:34:34.260 like, nah, man, Martinez got banged up. And they're like, he's like, what? And you know,

01:34:39.940 he did almost 20 years and he had his, his, his struggles with mental health. And I could

01:34:45.180 tell you about three years ago, um, around Christmas time, one morning I wake up, I got

01:34:51.340 a DM on Instagram, a DM on Facebook. I got a message through my website. I got a, an email.

01:34:58.900 From him. And he's saying, Hey man, it's, it's so-and-so if, if like, I need to talk to

01:35:05.020 you. I immediately called him and we had been, you know, we've talked over the years, but

01:35:10.020 sometimes he would just sort of pull back and, uh, he was struggling, man. And let me tell

01:35:14.800 you what's really cool just to kind of give you the progression. I spoke to him the other

01:35:18.620 day. He called me. He's like, Hey man, I want to pick your brain about something. He's

01:35:21.120 in a great place with his son, going to school, like trying to figure out what he wants to

01:35:24.840 be when he grows up. Right. And, uh, at the end of the conversation, um, he was the first

01:35:30.620 one. He said, all right, man, appreciate it. Love you, dog. And I was like, love you too,

01:35:34.960 man. And we hung up and it was really cool. That was a moment where I paused and I was

01:35:39.800 just like, man, that moment that Dan, the way he showed up for me as a human being, forget

01:35:44.460 man, like as a human being, straight up as a human being, he showed up and he said, man,

01:35:49.740 I love you. I've been able to pass that down with some of my boys and it's been just, it's

01:35:55.020 this beautiful thing to experience. And I think that's the thing is that when you think about

01:36:00.180 what we're all navigating, it's easy to get caught up in saying to yourself and doubting,

01:36:06.800 man, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. And the most important thing you

01:36:12.300 need to do is just show up, just lean in and just, just create space for somebody, um,

01:36:19.280 just to sort of navigate what it is. And it's been, it's been, listen, man, above all the

01:36:25.520 titles or whatever that I've been blessed to do. I could tell you the coolest and the

01:36:31.400 most, the title that I'm most proud of, man, is I'm a cycle breaker. My dad wasn't in my

01:36:35.740 life. Um, I met my dad for the first time about two and a half years ago.

01:36:42.300 Um, and found my dad, found out that he's homeless, found out that he had some other

01:36:49.280 kids and left them. Um, yet my whole youth, all I did was question why I wasn't good enough

01:36:56.040 for him to stick around what was wrong with me. And I live with that pain because I wanted

01:37:00.500 my dad in the picture. And when I met him and I learned of where he is now, it all made

01:37:08.100 sense to me. It made sense that God removed him from the picture because if I like, as

01:37:17.520 Dan was with me, which is Dan is like my dad, my brother, like he's like everything. And

01:37:23.160 Dan was with me and we talked about it. And Dan said, and he's the one that pointed out,

01:37:26.900 he said, man, have you ever thought about this? That maybe God removed him because that way

01:37:33.040 you wouldn't have two parents that were potentially a little toxic. You had one, like he, at least

01:37:38.600 one, even though despite her faults, she still was a loving mother, still loved you, still

01:37:44.300 cared for you, still took care of you. Took care of you. Yeah. Like if he was in the picture,

01:37:49.180 that would have been the example you would have followed. And I'm like, yeah, it's crazy

01:37:53.940 that it took me literally 30 something years later for me to get that answer. And sometimes

01:37:59.700 you just gotta, you just, you just gotta, you just gotta stay the course, man. Stay

01:38:05.300 the course.

01:38:07.980 JR, tell the guys where to connect with you. I'm sure there's tons of men here who've listened

01:38:13.320 in, who have been inspired, want to know more about. You've got your books, you've got your

01:38:16.980 speaking engagements. Where do the guys go to connect with you and how to learn more about

01:38:21.780 your message and what you're up to?

01:38:23.420 Man, I would just say, hit me up on social media, on Instagram. Like, you know, I'm on all

01:38:28.260 platforms, but probably the most active on Instagram. I am JR Martinez. If you want to

01:38:34.640 kind of do a deeper dive, you can go to JRMartinez.com, my website. But listen, man, I encourage people

01:38:39.800 to reach out. I love these conversations, man. I think it's, it's, it's more about being

01:38:43.720 able to support each other as, as men, as human beings and allowing ourselves to identify

01:38:50.340 that, you know what, listen, man, there's some imperfections in all of us and it's okay to

01:38:55.520 lean in to identify those things. But most importantly, like, what do we do about it

01:38:58.900 now? And I could tell you that, like I said, I'm still screwing things up as a dad. But

01:39:04.980 I can tell you one thing.

01:39:05.720 How's that are we all?

01:39:06.680 Yeah. But I'm not repeating the same mistakes that I was making when my daughter was four

01:39:10.940 years old and guilting her. I've learned my lesson from that. And so, yeah, man, listen,

01:39:16.700 I appreciate the platform. I appreciate what you've created. I appreciate the opportunity.

01:39:21.540 It's important for us to be able to show up this way authentically and just being honest

01:39:26.360 and raw and open and just saying, listen, man, I still get pissed off to this day, you

01:39:33.020 know, and I still get, because I feel like people aren't accountable and I feel like people

01:39:37.500 don't take ownership. And my whole mindset is like, the military is like, no, accept responsibility,

01:39:43.320 take ownership, that you dropped the ball here. And, you know, and I still sort of get pissed

01:39:49.220 off and triggered by that shit. But at the end of the day, I realized, okay, maybe I need 1.00

01:39:53.460 to be the one that changes the way I respond and the way that I, because I don't want it

01:39:57.260 to reflect on me. I want to find a diligent way to sort of respond to people and say, hey,

01:40:02.260 X, Y, and Z. But life is beautiful, man. And I can tell you, Ryan, I show up every single

01:40:13.200 day as best as I can, even if that's only 40% today, I, 40% is what I'm going to give

01:40:20.180 you. And I show up because one, I understand what it's like to almost lose your life. But

01:40:25.600 at the same time, I've lost some boys and I've lost some boys to the fight overseas and to

01:40:31.680 the fight back at home. And it's my responsibility, I believe, to be one of the examples of how we

01:40:38.820 can make it through. We just got to be willing to, you know, to receive that hand and to be

01:40:46.080 able to say, all right, we're not going to figure it all out immediately. It's going to take some

01:40:49.680 effort. It's going to take some work, but we can get there, man. So I just appreciate you,

01:40:53.420 brother, for creating this, for doing what you're doing, man. I think this is, these are dope

01:40:56.900 conversations and conversations that need to happen. And I just appreciate you for the time, man.

01:41:02.760 I appreciate you. You showed up today and I know it's going to impact a lot of people,

01:41:05.760 myself included. So thanks for sharing the message today.

01:41:07.840 Of course, brother.

01:41:10.880 Man, what a, what a powerful person. I mean, I've been excited to have JR on the podcast and I've

01:41:16.300 been somewhat familiar with him and what he does and a little bit of his ordeal, but having the

01:41:21.640 chance to talk with a guy like this is not only a hope powerful for you, but it is really powerful

01:41:27.300 for me too. It gives me a frame of reference and helps me to become a better man myself. So

01:41:32.200 please support JR. Go hit him up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, wherever you're doing the

01:41:37.340 social media thing. Take a screenshot right now of this episode and tag him, tag me, put

01:41:43.440 it in a story, put it in a reel, put it in a post, let other men know what you're listening

01:41:46.860 to. And the last thing I would say also with regards to JR is go support him by picking

01:41:52.160 up a copy of his book, full of heart, my story of survival, strength, and spirit. Outside

01:41:58.080 of that guys, go check out the order of man website at order of man.com. And those are

01:42:02.280 your marching orders for today. We will be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until

01:42:08.320 then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

01:42:14.980 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your

01:42:19.260 life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - October 08, 2024

J.R. MARTINEZ ｜ How Your Scars Shape You

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