Jonathan Rivera | Why Work is the Enemy, Reprogramming our Paradigms, & Letting Go to Move Forward

“We need to ask ourselves regularly, Are the things we’re thinking our thoughts, or someone else’s programming?” - JR Rivera

EPISODE OVERVIEW: 

Have you heard the one about the young man who watched his mom die from suicide, and her reason was all to common, yet mind-blowing? The one where this final interaction with her radically changed his life forever, and can change ours too.

This episode is full of great content on how today’s guest was able to pull himself back up time and time again by reshaping his paradigms, focusing on what really matters, and learning to let go to move forward in life. You’ll not only hear his true life story and journey, but the practical steps of how to stop doing life on your own, caring about other people’s opinions, letting go, and living the life you were intended to. Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to the JR Rivera story!


GUEST BIO:

His teachers said he would never amount to anything. But God had another plan for him. From High School dropout, to faith-driven entrepreneur living a life of limitless possibilities. Jonathan will take you on a wild ride turning failures into freedom and having fun the entire journey.

SHOW NOTES:

• Website: ThePodcastFactory.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/riverathan/
• JR’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/results-leader-fm/id1536191919
• JR’s Podcast Network: https://ResultsLeader.FM
• Episode David appeared on Results Leader Podcast: https://thepodcastfactory.com/rlp-176/
• Book mentioned: Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood

Transcript

Jonathan Rivera | Why Work is the Enemy, Reprogramming our Paradigms, & Letting Go to Move Forward

Hello my Remarkable friend. Welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast. Today we have a powerful packed episode. It's with our friend, JR Rivera, Jr. Is going to talk about the importance of letting go so you can move forward. He's gonna talk about the practical. Steps he takes in his life, the highs, the lows, the everything in between.

But he's also gonna talk about the [00:01:00] conversation that changed his life. The last conversation he he had with his mother. She attempted to commit suicide, and when he asked her why it's gonna blow you away, what her answer is, and the programming that's in her mind is sadly in so many of our minds. So listen to find out not only what that statement was, but how it radically changed Jonathan's life, and it can change yours and mine too.

I know already after going through the episode with Jonathan, I'm gonna listen to it again, pray and meditate on it, and apply everything I can to my life to make sure that my purpose and movement forward is exactly as it should be. So this is a fun episode. Jonathan and I are friends. We talked about how there's so many technical issues before, during, and after the podcast, but it all came together.

So you can hear this episode. So get out your pen and paper, [00:02:00] take notes, and like our slogan says, don't just listen to great content, but do it. Repeat it each day so you can have a great life in this world, and most importantly, attorney to come. So check out the episode. Leave John and I feedback on what you thought.

Let us know how we can help you share this with your friends and family so we can help more people. We're not trying to get famous. We're trying to help people come to know God. To be loved, to have victory and success and just enjoy the fruit of life that God gave us. So I'm David Pasqualone. I'm so thankful you're here and enjoy this episode of the podcast, the JR Rivera story.

[00:02:40] INTERVIEW åS8 E803 JR Rivera 26 June 2023: Hey, Jr. How are you today, brother? I am here. I am excited and nervous to be on Remarkable. People with you nervous. Don't be nervous. I just told our listeners a little bit about you, what to expect in this episode and they are pumped. [00:03:00] And to add to this, you and I have been talking over the last few months.

We've talked on a professional level, on a podcasting level, on a personal level, and I let the audience know already that they're in for a fantastic episode. And just as proof of that, after four years of podcasting, eight seasons of the podcast, hundreds of applications from people to be on the show, and about 150 record and released episodes.

You and I still had technical issues before the show, right? So thank you for your patience. We're hide that. We're supposed to hide that man. Nobody's supposed to know about those things. No, man. It's all transparent and real transparent and real. So whether you're listening through your favorite podcast player or whether you're watching JR and I on YouTube, this is gonna be a fantastic episode, Remarkable even, and Jr.

We're gonna go through your life story. I know it's gonna have huge value, plenty to deliver, but if our listeners were gonna hang through the episode from start [00:04:00] to finish, what's one major concept that you're gonna make sure they glean and walk away with to better their lives? Well, I'm gonna challenge you to keep, hold me to this since you are the, the shepherd of the conversation.

I'm gonna throw it back on you. So I've got no responsibility, but what I would like to lead with and, and with and, and, and give our listeners perspective on is. Sometimes letting go. I is the best way to go forward. And I think you and I have talked about surrender and grace and those things, and I know they're gonna come up today, but sometimes just letting go, letting God drive I is your best option.

And maybe we'll make a case for that today. Amen. And that's something that so many of us, I think everybody does at different times in their life, but so many of us need it today. So this is serious, this is important to you. This is something that drives not just your [00:05:00] personal world, but your professional life.

How did you get to this point though, jr? Let's go back to your birth. Where were you born? What was your upbringing like? And we'll go through your life chronologically. The good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly and the pretty ugly. Pretty ugly. I like that. I mean, I grew up to a lower middle class family in I was born in, in Bronx, New York.

And It was really bad around that time. Anybody that knows New York in the seventies remembers the Bronx was burning. And so my parents wanted to get us outta there, so they moved us on up to, to Brooklyn. And the way the city works, if, if you guys aren't familiar with cities, is like two blocks can change everything.

And so we were just two blocks away from the nice neighborhood, but we were still in a pretty crappy neighborhood. Luckily we were right by a, a church and that's why they moved us. There was it was called Our Lady of Perpetual Help and there was a Catholic school there. And I started my first few years of [00:06:00] school going to Our Lady of Perpetual Health and having them plant the seeds of virtue in me and, and tell me what was right and what was wrong.

And, and I just chose to, to follow the path of wrong for a lot of my youth. That was, that was pretty much, you know, me. I was always getting in trouble, always fighting, always. Being a knucklehead. And it took many, many years for me to break free of that habit. And you said you had mom and dad in the home?

Mom and dad, they both worked a lot. I was a, I didn't know the name of this before, but I was what you would call a latchkey kid. And when I think about it, I was probably in third grade, same age as my son right now when I was watching my little brother, because my parents weren't home. And that was just normal.

Right. Watch a lot of tv, eat a lot of cereal, don't do any homework and get up and do it again tomorrow. We were being babysat by the, by the government. [00:07:00] Well it was, it was a private school and then our parents were just trying to keep food in our bellies and a roof over our head. So it was it was an interesting time and they did the best, absolute best that they could and they definitely took care of us.

And it was you and your brother, you said? Yes, sir. And then you said three years younger. Four years, actually. Four years younger. Okay. So now you're growing up, you move and you're in a better space. There's not ideal, let's say, but still better than you started. Parents are working a lot. What's your teenage years look like?

Man, that's where it really that's where it got off the rails, bro. I so my parents were always trying to give us a better, a better life. That's why they moved us outta the Bronx. And then the area of Brooklyn that we were in was not, not the hottest. They wanted to move us away from there. And they bought a place in Florida, a place called [00:08:00] Deltona.

And if you've never heard of it, it's between Orlando and Daytona. It's a a, a big heap of nothing, just a bunch of houses. But imagine going from a city like Brooklyn where you could just go down and your friends are outside and you go out and play and run all night. I, I, I think you probably grew up like I did.

They, they set you outside and just be home before the streetlights are on. Like, that doesn't, I don't know if that happens anymore, but now that I look back at it nostalgic, I, I'm like, wow, we were so lucky to have that cuz I wouldn't let my kid run around until the streetlights come on. There's no way that's gonna happen.

But that gap and my parents always working a lot, just got bigger. As they were trying to provide for us. And when we moved down here, we moved down with dad and mom stayed up to finish affairs up there and come down here you know, get, get through the rental and the job and all that stuff. And so dad, all he did was work and all I did was get in trouble in school the [00:09:00] whole time.

Suspended, suspended, suspended D student. I think all my teachers passed me just to get me outta their class cuz I was so bad. Nice. And was your little brother likewise, was he fall in your footsteps? Did he take the alternate path? What was that like at the home? Man, he he's always kind of done his own thing.

He's kinda like a, a, a loner. But he was bad in his own way. Like my brother was bad in a totally different way than I was in that before he was outta high school. He already had a kid. I didn't, I didn't go that far. You know, I was punching kids and getting in fights and cursing, but I wasn't, at least, I don't think I was.

Doing anything that would totally change the trajectory of my life. Gotcha. Yeah. And then for your parents, they got two sons. They're working all the time. Were they just like exhausted, like, Hey, you guys are on your own. Were they still trying to keep you on in balance? What was that like? It was I mean, it was hard for [00:10:00] them.

When I think back about how hard my dad worked, especially now that I'm about the age that he might have been when I was a teenager, I would've killed me. But he was just wore it out from, he, he put in all those hours at work and then he'd come home, eat, and then put in hours and hours into the garden and the yard and taking care of the house and mowing the lawn, and all that stuff that my brother and I didn't help him with.

And he didn't demand that of us. And I think that's one of the things that I, I look at it now and I think that my dad did the best he could. But I don't think he was that father figure that really was, I. Taking charge, especially with two boys in the house, I think you'd need a certain character. And the thing is, my dad grew out with, grew up with all girls in the house.

He didn't have a dad, he had like four sisters. And his mom, he was surrounded by estrogen, so he didn't have a, a, a strong father figure in the picture. And maybe that was part of it. Maybe part of it was that he was just young and just [00:11:00] trying to make things happen. Just put a roof over our head. And he was probably still a little immature when it came to, cuz he's totally different.

I have a little sister now. My mom died, my dad got me remarried and he was totally involved and been totally involved and she's 16 now. Beautiful young lady. And he had a whole nother opportunity to actually be there, be involved and put priorities into family before finances first. And so he got a second chance at it.

Yeah. And I think that, I think what you said JR is completely proven and legitimate that like one. Boy doesn't grow up without a father, and especially in a home with multiple women, he just doesn't know how to lead. It's not that he doesn't have the ability or he is not smart, it's just he literally has no model to follow other than what he sees around him on tv.

So he might have been just like, I don't know what to do, so I'll just do it myself. I mean, that's what I'm spitballing based on what you're saying, brother. I'm reading [00:12:00] a book now, which is crazy. I think it's called How to, how to Raise Modern Day Nights. And, and the guy who wrote the book, he says you know, there was a first Adam and the last Adam.

The first Adam was Adam, Adam and Eve, and then the last Adam was Jesus, right? He's got these two Adams that are basically the, the two archetypes in our faith in Christianity. And, and he talks about the first Adam being a putts because that first Adam, Adam and Eve in the garden, he let. He let Satan talk, his wife into taking a bite outta that tree.

Tempting her, let her do that, right? He was passive. He was, no man. He was a chump. That's crazy to think about it. But then he says, then fast forward to Jesus to final Adam, who saved us all when he was out there in the desert, 40 days, 40 [00:13:00] nights, hallucinating, thirsty, hungry, Satan offered him everything.

And he told him, nah, I'm, I got stuff to do. Like, get outta here. Like why didn't he? He was standing up for all of us. Jesus was standing up for all of us. Meanwhile, Adam couldn't stand up for his woman in the garden. Right. So, which Adam do you wanna be? No, that's a great point. I mean, and throughout the Bible you have man after man, after man.

I can say in my own life, we followed after God and then we allowed a woman to derail us from what we know is right. And that's like the backwards model. A man and a woman are equal. But there is a hierarchy, and that's a beautiful protection. God protects us, we protect our wives, we all protect our kids, right?

Yeah. And when you go outside of that model that God designed, things blow up and bad things happen. But as men, who again, I'll, I'll take full responsibility. I didn't follow that model at times. Juror read the story of Sampson in the Bible. Yes. It's like, how do you keep Leonard [00:14:00] cut it? Like, oh, what's your weakness?

What's your weakness? What's your weakness? Of course, duh. She's trying to hurt you, man. And then I remembered after certain things happened in my life, this is one passage in one verse and says, because he loved her. And you look at all these great men in the Bible that failed because they loved her. Eve, Sampson, Delilah.

It doesn't matter who it is, but that's the backwards model. You're putting a woman before God. And a woman could have put a man before God, and that's no bueno. So that, that's interesting. I'm gonna try to check out that book and see what it says. Are you all the way through it? No, I just be, Hey, believe it or not we did work optional June this year, and so I have not been working too much and I've been reading, I came home just to record this interview with you though, because I didn't have a studio and I've been waiting too long.

But no, I've read a couple books. I'm still in the middle of that one, but it's really it couldn't have hit me at a better time. And, and just [00:15:00] thinking about what is important, and you said it right there and I wanna highlight it, is like God, first God, first God lays out the rules. God lays out the foundation.

God gives us the W wisdom. And then us as men, we are here to execute on that. And so for me, I see Satan trying to tempt my wife. I'm gonna go beat his ass. That's what I'm gonna do. And I hope that's okay to say you can bleep me out, but that's, no man. We're good. No edits. It's all good. That's my role here, right?

Is to protect, like you said, God's protecting us. We're protecting our, our wife, and then together we're protecting our family and our community. And so it, it's my job when I see things like that. Not to be passive. I'm not supposed to be passive. I was put here to follow God's word and enact it in everything I do in my life.

And that includes leading my family, leading my wife, leading my team, speaking to you. It's all in God's [00:16:00] name. Amen. So talking to young fathers or fathers with children in the home, or even fathers who've they've been past that age and they're looking back with regret, if you were to say, Hey, whether you're there about to be there or you've been there, at least know, learn from the past and move forward to teach others.

What do you think it takes to make a great dad a great man of God? It, I don't think it's ever too late cuz I read stories all the time o of redemption. And in fact, our Christian religion, i, I is built on, on the, those foundations of redemption. Even the readings this past weekend where do not fear if you have God in your life, right?

God is, is here to protect you. And so I would say, and, and I'm seeing it right now, even watching my dad, right? My dad is now all of a sudden in, in a, a men's group, small, small group at the church We [00:17:00] just signed up to do a retreat together. When he and I get together, we talk about the Bible, and he wasn't, he didn't have time for that when he was younger and just trying to make ends meet, right?

He was just trying to do what he was supposed to do, and now he's 72 years old, and now he's in the Bible an hour or two each day thinking about these topics, and most importantly, sharing them with his family, sharing them with his friends, and, and sharing 'em. And so I, I don't think it's ever too late to get God in your life, get the word into your mind and start processing it, using it and sharing it.

And I think that's really where it all starts, because once we know ourselves and we know God, we can share God with other people. And I think that inside of the book the Bible, it lays out all the virtue, all the foundations, everything that we need to be good men, good leaders, and, and good stewards. What do you [00:18:00] think?

For the people who didn't grow up with a father, for the leader who wants to be great, what do you think? Some, just some, obviously there's a ton, but what are some core characteristics of male leadership? So, I mean, integrity is gonna be at the top of the list for me, and I think that's an overused word, but doing what you say you're gonna do, and also knowing that what you do in private or behind the scenes is still who you are.

And it'll, it may not come to the surface with your family, may not come to the surface with your friends, but God's gonna see it. Right? And so, being true to our father and the word, number one, and living that word. I think the other thing is living the word, because I think we're all chasing wisdom. I mean, if you're, if you're satisfied with your life and you're not growing, And you're okay [00:19:00] with the status quo.

And maybe, maybe this doesn't apply to you, but I don't believe that if you're listening to this show, I believe that you want more. And if you want more, then you're constantly growing. And part of the growth path and, and gaining wisdom is reading the word, putting the word into practice. Actually doing the deeds, whether it's taking your kid out to, to help the homeless or whether it it's volunteering at, at an old age home or whatever.

Live the word, we can't just talk the word and then do different actions. Our children, everybody's gonna pick up on that. So integrity, doing what you say you're gonna do, being in the word and then actively taking that out into everything that you do are a, a, a couple things that I believe make for a, a, a good leader and make for living a life of purpose.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that's biblically based. You know, you can study your Bible all day, but it's like blowing [00:20:00] air into a balloon, blowing air into a balloon blowing air into the balloon. Eventually it's gonna pop. You gotta use it. And it says, you know, be not hearers, be doers of the word.

So if we're just hearing the word and going to church on Sundays and acting like a scumbag, you know, seven days a week, that's not impressing anybody. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's doing the opposite because then people think that we're all hypocrites because of that person's actions. Yeah, no, I agree. And I, I have a big thing, like I hate, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ in any way, shape, or form, but I try to make a conscious effort not to call myself a Christian.

Cuz in the Bible they said, you know, when acts was the first time that phrase was used, and it was people who observed the Christians for a year. And said, you are Christlike. So it's like a huge high compliment. But I don't think there's any reference in the Bible where the apostles or Jesus, like, I am a Christian.

I'm Christlike. You know? They're like, they're not that presumptuous. Right. Yeah. Peter, he's awesome. But he was a screw up too. Right. You know? So going back to your childhood, from your [00:21:00] birth through your teenage years when you get up to high school, is there anything we missed that was significant in developing the man you are today?

I don't know, man. I think that I got into so much trouble in those years that maybe I got my fill early, thankfully. Right. Maybe I, I, I was like done with that when I got outta school. But I think that my parents not being around being able to get away with high jinx in high school is pretty much what I can remember from that time.

And I don't know how, how that shaped me in. Well, I think the only thing was I'm like, all right, well I don't wanna be like that anymore. Eventually. Yeah, no, hey, that's a good lesson in itself. So where do you go? You graduate from high school and you're in a weird position cuz your brother's younger and you said, you know, here he was having a kid in high school.

Maybe it was after when you left, but where does JR go from post high school? I did what my parents told me to [00:22:00] do. My parents, well my mom, my dad was very passive. Now that I'm thinking about it. He didn't tell me to do anything. My mom actually was the one who told me to get a trade and her words I'll never forget, get a trade.

So you always have something to fall back on. And that tells you a little bit about her programming was thinking that life is a series of fallbacks, so you need fallbacks. And I don't really think that's a path to success now, but it's good to be able to review that. But I did it. I went, I became an electrician.

I worked nine years building parks, like Universal Studios, a GM test track all this stuff here in, in central Florida. And that was my, my my teenage years right outta high school. And 18 to maybe 26 or so before I finally had the big epiphany and, and changed everything. All right. Now let's do this before we get to the big epiphany and the change.

Right. [00:23:00] You made a statement today looking back at the past, but it's something that, you said it beautifully. You, you talked about how somehow this was programmed into your mom's mind. There had to be a plan B, a fallback. Talk about the perceived benefits of a Plan B fallback and the real dangers of a plan B fallback.

I think it's a mindset thing because. When we analyze it, like today, it's easier for us to analyze. I mean, if, if you've spent years working on yourself like I have, then you can analyze these things. But when you're living them, it's a little bit harder. So I think the the first thing you need in life I is awareness that maybe the things that you're thinking aren't yours.

And so that was something that my mom was thinking that wasn't mine and there's this this plan b something to fall back on. But how do [00:24:00] you ever like move forward? If, if you go as I did and you become an electrician and you work 40 hours plus overtime, where would you find time to do anything else other than that?

And the problem is then you develop comfort in that. And that's what I did, right? I worked nine years. I knew what my paycheck was, I knew what my hours were. I knew when I left the job, I didn't have to worry about it until the next day when I came back. And, and none of that. Really would help me to grow or live the life that I live today.

That would just put me into the rat race, rat trap. Keep me imprisoned and impoverished because I, I'd fall into that whole thing. But plan B in the way that my mom described it, something to fall back on was like, oh, things don't, don't work out. You have to have something else in your back pocket. And I think today, we, we can think of, in terms of pivot, maybe not, [00:25:00] I'm not falling back.

If, if my plan is not going according to plan, then maybe I need to break right. Or I need to break left or go out and, and do a button hook or something. I need to change, but I'm still making progress forward. I never think about, Hey, I'm gonna fall back. I don't believe in falling back. I only believe in falling forward these days.

Yeah. And her generation, she's coming out of a different generation than us. We're certainly coming out of a different generation than the kids today. And it is a mindset that's ingrained in there. So I think that's great how you said it's more of an audible in football, like a pivot. You're just saying, all right, that didn't work out.

Let's go this direction. Right? Yeah. All right, so now you're 26, you're working to trade, you're getting things done, but you're just in the rat race as you said. Where does this epiphany come in? What happens to JR and where do you go from there? Yeah. Mom dies [00:26:00] Jr. Questions everything he thought was true, which is when, when you start breaking free of the reality, you've been given what your teachers told you, what your parents told you, what everybody told you was supposed to be, and then you start saying, Hey that doesn't seem to be working out too well.

Maybe I need to try something else. And, and what happened was I didn't know this, but my mom apparently had some, some mental issues and she was depressed and she took her own life. And it was actually dude, it's weird that we're talking today cuz it's about 20 years ago. 20 years, and one week ago that this happened it was right after Father's Day dinner.

I can remember it. And my mom didn't want to live anymore and I got to see her in the hospital as they were wheeling her by when they first brought her in and all that. [00:27:00] And it was the last time, time I would ever say any, hear any words from her or say any words to her. And I asked her mom, how could you do this?

What I mean, why, why would you do this? That was my only question to her. And her answer is, what changed my life? And so I say, this is the greatest lesson I ever got from her was, her answer was, Work's been hard. Are you freaking kidding me? Really? Work has been hard. Is work worth your life? That's when I started questioning everything went downhill into this, just this cave of despair as I tried to understand what was going on, who I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do.

The one thing that I knew was work was not gonna kill me. And so that I already knew that I had to get rid of work. Yeah. [00:28:00] I mean, wow. And that was the last conversation you had with your mother? Yeah. That was, I mean, because they were wheeling her by, she had taken some poison or something. I don't remember what she did, but that was the last time she could talk before she was on ventilators and everything else, man.

Okay. So now you, your father, your brother, did anybody see this coming? Like, did your dad know and keep it private or was it just like shocking to everybody? So it's hard to say, right? This is 20 years later. I don't know how much my dad knew. I, it's not like she left us a note or anything, but he did tell me a little while later that she had tried to do something similar when she was like 14 or 15.

And so my mom already had something wrong with her, and she went all those years from 15 to 52. But apparently that that escape hatch was built into her. [00:29:00] But I don't know. I don't, I don't know, like I've never been able to get that information. Like I have a feeling that she was on antidepressants, although dad won't admit it to me, and I think that probably made it worse.

But I don't really, I don't think about. Like why anymore? I I, because my, my belief, I changed my belief, right? My belief as, as it happened, I could have been crying to God, and why did you do this to us? And why are you punishing us? And all that stuff. And I didn't have that in me. I, all I had in me was why did this happen and what do I need to learn and what do I need to change?

And that's what I decided to do with it. And that's a healthy way to process that. So that's fantastic. Quickly, again, I say this on multiple episodes, but I forgot to tell you in the pre-call you're talking some very serious and sharing your heart [00:30:00] openly. You're seeing me on my phone, I take notes during the interview.

So what you're saying goes directly into our system, so I don't want you to think about you're sharing your heart and I'm texting somebody for pizza, so I apologize for not telling you that I, this point I thought we were having a pizza party. Yeah, man. No, no. We'll get together and smoke a oggi down south, but I, right now, I got some, I got some, I just saw that I'm sitting here typing notes fast and furious, and I'm like, I hope it doesn't think I'm texting somebody.

All right. So did that affect your father and brother the same way it did. You, did They just numb up and go on the same course of direction of life, you know, was it a wake up call for everybody or where'd your family go from that point? Yeah, things, things changed. Like I said, my, my brother's a a rolling stone and he, hi, his way of dealing was it dealing with it was just distancing himself from me and dad, and so he just disappeared.

[00:31:00] And did his own thing. I I ended up moving back in with dad cuz I didn't wanna leave him in the big house alone. I was living like 15, 20 minutes away and I ended up moving back in with him to kind of keep him company. And yeah, dad took it like dad was just shell shop for a while. I think he had P T S D after something like that where I, I, for a while I worried about him.

I was like, this guy seems like he's losing his mind. Like he wasn't all there, but he's resilient. He pushed and I remember I, I've been with my wife now 19 years and I remember when we were first dating it was it was always three of us. Dad was always the third wheel. It was me, cupcake, my wife Rachel, and, and dad.

And we would do things together because we wanted to keep an eye on him and keep him around. And eventually, very quickly, his mom introduced him to [00:32:00] a woman who is now, my, my I guess my stepmom just call her mom. But they've been together ever since. And dad started the new family with my little sister who's now 16 or going on 17.

And, and he recovered, but he did it differently, right? He's like, all right, well, I'm, I'm, I'm married. I'm having a kid now. I'm gonna be more involved in my kid's life. I'm not gonna worry about work as much. And so he got a second chance. He got a chance to, to redeem whatever he thought maybe he missed out on when we were kids.

Beautiful. So now going back to your story, Jr. We talked about how you said you questioned many things and you talked about how, you know, the main thing is the work, you know, the last message from your mother. What else did you question? Did you question the existence of God? Did you question like, what's worth life?

What's anything worth? Like what were the things that were going through your head at such a young [00:33:00] age? Man, I think that I didn't really question the God thing, but I will tell you what, I leaned into it more and my dad helped there and that was dad stepping up at the right time and bringing me back to the church.

Cuz at that time I hadn't been confirmed yet. I went to Catholic school, I did my first communion, I did everything, but I never got confirmed because I wasn't in Catholic school around eighth or ninth grade. And so dad brought me back to the church because he is like, Hey, we gotta pray. Like, all we can do is pray.

And I, I think that was a good answer at that time, because what else are we gonna do? So we would go to church together. He sponsored me to get my confirmation. And I, I feel that it was a great time for me to say, as an adult, yeah, I want the church. I want God in my life. I want scripture. I want this.

And so it was good that I got to do that. [00:34:00] And the cool part was that, like I said, I was dating, she's my wife now. She was my girlfriend at the time, but she got to be a part of that, so she got to be there for my confirmation. We also got married into church, and so our spiritual journey has been growing through the time that we've been together.

But yeah, man, it was more about making the decision that I want this, I, I wanna lean into it. And owning it. But I never really questioned, I just didn't, I don't know why I didn't have that in me. Like, why, God, did you do this? Or why did this happen? Or any of that stuff. I made a decision instantly that work was the enemy, and I was gonna do whatever I had to do to get away from work.

And we can see that right now in the fact that I, I said, Hey, we're doing work optional June, right? How could you do that if you had a job? You couldn't do that. And so I went, I went to war with the idea and the identity of [00:35:00] being a worker and being present for 40 hours and working for someone else that was, that was who I turned into my enemy at that time.

And talk about that journey because

so many people who put a conscious effort into changing their mindset, to shifting their paradigm to growing. It's very, very difficult to go from the rat race, you know, your day job to your dream job, so to speak. Even if they achieve starting a business and being successful financially, it's so common to them to feel guilt.

Wow, I'm only working two hours a day and I'm making all this money. I have to work 12 hours. I'm doing something wrong. I'm not. Right. So during this transition, what were some of the things you faced and how did you overcome them? Well, what you're describing is [00:36:00] society's bad programming, and we're accepting it because we, most of us went to school, it was like seven to three 30.

How's that different than, than my job as an electrician or the nine to five thing? Right. We're, we were conditioned to think that that's what we were supposed to do. That's what the school system is a, a conditioning device to make good little factory workers make, make you obey, make you do what you're told and not step out of bounds.

And I, I, I just, I don't like, I'm grateful that I didn't, I was such a a rebel in, in high school and, and even in, in my younger years cuz I rebelled away from all of that. But that's a mindset thing, right? That we were given. That's where you start have to start questioning whose ideas are these anyway?

Like whose idea is it that we can't have a work optional June? Whereas as you described, whose idea is it that we can't work two hours and [00:37:00] produce amazing results that move the dial for our clients and not have to work anymore and enjoy your day. Those are other people's ideas. Even, I'm putting my ideas into you right now.

You need to think your own ideas and question everything. No, I, you know what's funny though? I mean a lot of people think I'm crazy and my kids thought I was crazy, but I said the same thing about school as you did. You're the only other person I've ever heard say that to be blunt school conditions, you to be a mindless workaholic.

Get up, go to school, live with people. You can't stand, jump through hoops to follow rules that are not just arbitrary but actually asinine in many aspects. You're forced to consume bad content and then when you're done, you go home and you have to do four hours worth of homework or more sometimes because the system's so broken and then you just watch TV cuz you're so fried [00:38:00] and then go to bed and start the next day.

It is absolutely brainwashing our society and that's why we have. That's why we have the culture we have today. It's completely been, men have been emasculated, emasculated. The system has programmed us to not ask questions, to do what we're told and to basically be mindless zombies. So I, everything you said, man, I agree with you wholeheartedly think it's a broken, broken system.

We're not alone, brother. This is something that is catching fire right now. And in fact, it's one of the reasons we decided to homeschool our son is because anybody's gonna do the programming. It's gonna be me. I, I, I'm, I feel like I'm better equipped with the Bible and with my experience to program my son than any school system could ever be.

And that's why we've taken that back. And that's more being a man, [00:39:00] stepping up and saying, here's what I stand for and I'm willing to do it. Like, When I say homeschool, a lot of people think, oh, your wife's gonna do the homeschooling? No, no, no, no. We're a team and we're splitting it up, and we're both gonna be involved in that so that we can enjoy it together, make sure that we're both moving, or all three of us are moving in the same direction and make sure that we get to all learn together.

I, I think that's, that's part of the fun. But yeah, I, I'm not, I'm not putting any stock in the system. No, no, no. It didn't work for me. No, I, I think that's wise for all you listening. Just ask questions. I'm not saying you have to question everything, but ask the question. You know, there's a difference between questioning someone and asking a question.

Every situation, there's one truth. So either you're right and I'm wrong, I'm right and you're wrong. Or we're both wrong. We need to find God's truth. Right? Yeah. So asking questions is super, super important. So [00:40:00] now you have your mom pass. Leaves a huge impact in your life. How did you make the transition and what did you do to make the transition?

Man, it wasn't like, it wasn't like instant. I wish it was what? It wasn't overnight. Overnight, boom. Snapped my fingers. Everything was different. Yeah. And by the way, that's deep sarcasm if you're listening to the podcast and not seeing our faces. That was total sarcasm. It was I, I struggled, man.

I went into a, a pretty, pretty deep depression for at least, I'm gonna say about a year if I'm thinking about it correctly. It's, it's been a while, but I still remained at my job, but I was not performing. I was doing terrible and just going to collect a paycheck while I figured it out. And I had one, one idea that could set me free and it was real estate.

And interestingly enough, it was [00:41:00] An info product that my mother purchased for me at least two or three years before that. One of those 3:00 AM infomercial, you can buy real estate with no money down Carlton sheets, man, the king of no money down. And I had it sitting on a shelf for a couple years and after mom passes and after I've had some time mourning and sitting at that job, I hate it.

I'm like, maybe I can do this. I, I mean no money down, that's me. I got no money, so it's perfect. And I studied, studied, studied, and decided to take my real estate exam so that I could have a real estate license and perhaps make commissions while I was figuring out the investment thing. And one day I just quit my job.

It was, it was probably around, yeah, around this time in summer I quit my job and I had like 500 bucks in my name and a credit card, and I told dad, here's what I'm doing. He was like, are you sure? All right, [00:42:00] then do what you gotta do. And that was it, man. I was in real estate. And were you married at this point or still single?

No. And here's the, the, as big as the decisions we make that give us a life and, and taking the risk and the chances. I didn't meet my wife till I was in real estate. So I was doing the blue collar work. Quit got my real estate license. And it was about maybe three months into having my license, maybe a little bit longer where I was buying my first investment deal with my dad.

We partnered up to buy a rental house and my wife was, well, she wasn't my wife, I didn't even know who she was. She was the girl that came to do the closing. So she was closing my first my first investment property with dad. And I was like, oh man, this girl's hot. I gotta take her out, man. That's the best property purchase ever.

Yeah. Yeah, that's my old I, I closed two [00:43:00] deals that day. Nice. So where's your life? Go from there, man. It, it went into gutter. No, it went, it went to new heights cuz at that time we were able to buy or leverage into a bunch of properties. And I think within a year we had about a million dollars of real estate, single family homes and the market turns and we lose everything.

Right. It's a nice lesson there. And before you go on, so people have a frame of reference, we have listeners from all over the world and even within America, different, you know, different age groups. What year was it when you had a million dollars in real estate that was around Oh seven, maybe oh 6 0 7 when we were acquiring.

Okay. Yeah. So like today, a million dollars in real estate's, like two average houses. Back then it was like, you know, 10, 15. How many properties was that? We had a handful. Yeah. Less than 10. So big difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. It, it has appreciated quite a bit, hasn't it? [00:44:00] But yeah, we, we were holding a bunch of rentals.

Then we saw that the, the game was about flipping, so we flipped out of our rentals cuz there was really not much money to be made in the rentals. And then we ended up leveraging, leveraging, and we had several projects going at the same time. When the market turned in oh eight, we got stuck holding properties.

Got slammed with foreclosures on our own personal properties as well as the investment properties. And began the long road to rebuilding that business. All right, so talk about what did you learn from that and how did you move forward? We started off the episode talking about letting go is the best way to move forward.

Yeah. Anybody I know, myself included, who's had something hard happen and financial especially, it's always like like I, I need to make all that money back and more. It's like you keep track. How did you learn to let go, man? I, I think it was forced upon [00:45:00] me because that was, that was my biggest, greatest failure to date, and there was real consequences, right?

When we're talking about losing houses and losing money and investors and all that, it was pretty ugly. And it took me a couple years to recover from that because I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the experience, didn't have the perspective that I have now, which nowadays I say, yeah, if I lost it all today.

I feel like I can rebuild it quicker with who I know, what I know and what I can do. But back then I didn't have that. I had little devil sitting on my shoulder saying, I told you so you didn't deserve that. Who did you think you were trying to break free? And I had to deal with that for two years, man.

And if it wasn't for my beautiful wife cupcake and her loving eyes, and her looking at me and [00:46:00] believing in me when I didn't believe in myself, I wouldn't have made it. But she always thought, oh yeah, we're, we're, we're gonna do this. We're gonna make it back, and all that. And I couldn't let her down. And so I had to borrow her belief in me and step up and become, become that man that I was supposed to be, to take care of her and protect her.

Right. But it, it took two years and it, I, I've been hit hard. Even recently, and it doesn't take two years anymore, but that time, man, the first time it was brutal. Yeah. And I think that's great. And then when you're hearing those demons in your head, the satanic voice is like trying to keep you down. You know, saying that's two objectives.

Keep you from knowing God. And once you know God, keep you from telling other people, render you useless, steal your joy. So what are the practical day-to-day tips Jr. That you use to stay positive and move forward? So we're talking to a guy who is more evolved and, and it's a lot [00:47:00] easier to talk about it now than it would've been back then because I didn't even know what was going on.

It was all new to me. But I will tell you that when I have those demons creeping up on me, even now, these days where I am today, I have found the most powerful tool other than obviously my faith starts my day, right? Faith is is so important to me. And getting in the word and. The idea that we talked about surrender, letting go and letting God drive, like that's in the last year that I really figured that out.

But when, when you're first getting into this, and even now, all these years later, I think a journal, it sounds so silly, man. A journal is a very powerful tool and, and the way I use, it's quite simply, if I'm having one of those days, I write down a date, what's today's date? And then I just write everything I'm thinking.

I write it all down. One page, two page, three page, doesn't matter. Now it's [00:48:00] out of my head and off of my back. And I can come back to that a day or two later because now it's not gnawing at me, right? Because when we keep it in our head, it just stays gnawing at us, gnawing at us. So I download it to a piece of paper and let all the feelings and emotion go into that piece of paper.

Then I can come back a day or two later objectively and look and question. Am I thinking correctly? Is this thinking serving me? Is this moving me closer or further from what I wanna be, who I wanna be, what I'm supposed to do? And I can look at it objectively, but without faith, knowing to let go and knowing to let God drive and, and that journal, to dump it, physically dump it and get rid of it.

I would be in a lot of trouble.

I, I couldn't agree more. One of the key things that I did in my life was exactly what you're doing. Do you ever have those nights where you wake up and you just keep thinking about all your problems? Yeah, of course. Who hasn't? [00:49:00] Yeah. Yeah. So what I do is I do the same thing. I get a piece of paper and a pencil or a pen, and I just puke everything outta my head.

It doesn't matter if I wrote the same thing five times in a row, if it's on my mind at that moment. I puke it all out on paper. Then I pray over it and you know, there's that verse, cast your care, Jesus talking about cast your cares upon me cuz my burden is light, right? My yoke is easy, my burden is light.

As soon as like God these are my problems, I need you to take care of them. And then I'll go back to bed, I sleep like a baby and then I'll go back the next day or that morning and I'll write down, this is the lie that singing's trying to torment me with what I wrote on that paper. Cuz you know, nine, I know 99% of the time it's lies.

It's either taking a grain of truth and making a big, big mountain out of it, or it's just all lie. And then I write down God's truth next to it and then sometimes when I'm done, I burn the page, it's gone. Right? Yeah. So did you ever when you go back, like you said a couple of days [00:50:00] later and look at it, do you ever look at it as lies versus truth?

Or how do you process that? I don't think in terms of lies as much as I think. It's just not true. All right? I'm just like, well, that, that doesn't make any sense. Or man, that's silly thinking or that doesn't really jive with who I am or who I'm trying to be, or who I need to be to get to where I want to go.

But I, I, I look at it and I find it empowering, and this is why I like to journal. In fact, at my office I have, I think I counted 14 journals, so it's like the last five years of journals. And I can go back and look at my thinking at any time and see was I doing good? Was I doing bad? What was I thinking around that time?

What was I doing to analyze my life? And I think that's one of the most powerful things about having that record, is to be able to use it [00:51:00] and reference it in the future. And I hope that. I don't know if it'll make sense or not, but maybe one day my son will wanna go in there, reach out and hey, I remember this time that we did work optional June, what was dad doing?

Oh, nothing cuz he hasn't written in his journal for a month.

That's awesome. Now how old's your boy today? Nine. Nine years old. Oh, that's so awesome. You got plenty of fun ahead of you, man. That teenager is my favorite. I'm looking forward to every little bit of it. That's why we decided to homeschool. We designed our life to first we were together for, for eight or nine years before we had a kid.

And we designed our life to be able to enjoy our child and that's why we're able to do this homeschool adventure that we're doing. And I am just grateful to be living today and have these opportunities in front of me. Beautiful. So between your Birth JR and today, Is there anything significant we missed on your journey before we transition to, where's [00:52:00] JR Today and where are you heading and how can we as a community help you get there?

I think the, the big thing that we talked about, and it really came to me in, in the last year as I had a struggle even in, in, in the company that I run today had a struggle where cost of goods went up. Client client count went down, which meant revenue went down and, and we had a year of torment.

Man, everything was costing more. We're making less money. I'm having to run everything on the credit card and run up the credit card like crazy to a point where I was struggling to figure out what am I doing wrong, where I had like a six month slump that was bad. And in that time, the thing that stayed consistent was I pray a rosary every morning I read my Bible.

So my faith. Has been stronger than it's ever been. And realizing in those times, kinda like you [00:53:00] mentioned on your journal, praying over it, I started praying to the Lord for answers. And that's where I discovered that I needed to let go. I was where I discovered that I wasn't actually driving and everything I did to try to drive was just pushing me further away from where I needed to be and letting go and giving your problems, sharing them with the Lord, like you said, man, I don't know that I ever really believed that, right?

Till the last year when I was suffering and I said, I'm going to make a conscious effort to share these with him and to share the pain and see what happens. And I let go and my life has been better and that's why I, I keep joking about it. Half joking with work optional, but work optional is another way of.

Surrendering and letting go because last year when I was into struggle, I worked [00:54:00] harder. When my wife told me, balance sheet bad, we need money. What did I do? I was supposed to have July off, and I said, book the calendar. Boom, 2030 calls went into a bad sales slump. Why? Because I tried to take the wheel and drive, and I knew that this year I wouldn't do that.

And this year we, we've been able to let go. My wife's like, this has been the most you, you're funner than you've ever been. Funner. I don't know if funner is a word, but you use that work, you're funner than you've ever been because I let go, man, I just let go. What am I supposed to do here? God's guiding me, God's lighting the path, and I am a tool.

To bring his light to the world. And so if I'm doing the things that I'm supposed to be doing to bring his light to the world, like this conversation was important to me. This is why we're here talking, being with my kid, being with my dad, being with my, my wife. Those things are important to me. So the letting him guide me and letting go has been the most [00:55:00] powerful lesson that I've learned in the last year and the one that I just wish I would've known 20 years ago.

Well, that's why we're here today. We learn it, you know, we're gonna learn everything. We're either just do it the easy way or the hard way. So now you're helping others around the world learn. But I'm gonna challenge you. If someone's listening and they wanna start this process, everybody's different. But there's fundamental things that are the same.

You know, all truth comes from God. Foundational principles. What are ways like a 1, 2, 3, try these three steps. Try these two steps. Try this. Five or one. It doesn't matter. But what's something Jr that you would tell the listener today how to let go? Because some people that's very difficult just because of their background, their makeup, and the things that have happened to 'em.

It's almost like protecting themselves. You know, when they say poison kills the vessel, that's in not everybody else around you, right? Yeah. But sometimes letting go of even that poison [00:56:00] is hard. So what are some practical steps of letting go? I'm gonna give you, and we mentioned some that you've used, but if we were to summarize it, start here, try this, what would that be?

I'll give you the one thing that got me started on this path, and if you used this one thing every day, what happens is you get filled up with positivity and you have less room for those negative thoughts. And so if you get in this habit, it also leads into the other things that we're talking about, journaling, time and faith and all that.

And it's quite simply what I call the gratitude exercise in the morning, in the night. Every day when you get up, five things you're grateful for before you leave work or before you go to bed. Five things you're grateful for. And the reason why this is so important is because, number one, we all focus on our problems and our problems become bigger.

So now I'm asking you to change your focus twice a day, to what's [00:57:00] good, to what you like, what you love. And what I've found by doing this exercise is that you begin to realize who you are, what your core values are, what's important to you. For me, what I figured out was I, I, I did this for at least six months and I kept repeating some things over and over again.

And if you're repeating things, those are that, that, that's the things that are most important to you. So for me, it's faith, fitness, family, and finances. I was always grateful in those zones and that's how I figured out my pillars of purpose. And what you do is when you're thinking of these positive things, this is gonna sound woowoo, you start attracting more of that to you.

And I don't mean like law of attraction the secret, I just mean that you start recognizing when you look up the things that you like that are coming at you and you grab more of those into your life. And as you're doing more of that positive work, you're filling up your heart with more positivity and that [00:58:00] opens the door for you to be able to get rid of or combat those negative thoughts.

But the first step is a gratitude exercise, I would say. Yeah. And I agree with you. Everything is balanced. A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just wait is his delight. And if you go all new age and you're like, I'm just gonna think everything into existence, that's crazy. You know what I mean?

But there are strong, strong truths to that positive thinking. And you know, the Bible talks about you reap what you so. How our words breed life or they can breathe death. And you know, as a man, think of, so is he, there's so many biblical pre premises, but it's like everything else in life. God creates beautiful purpose with balance.

And sin tries to bring you to the left or the right. You know, if you're all liberal, you're crazy. If you're all conservative, you're crazy. You need that balance. So I think what you said is super wise and attitude of gratitude has never hurt any human. It's only helped. Yeah. It, it has that, that's the a blessing, man.

If you can start doing that, then you can start [00:59:00] getting into the habit of journaling. And that's where my journaling really expanded from, was the gratitude exercise, which takes five minutes, no excuses. Yeah. And you can do it while you're driving if you had to. If you had to. It's better to be alone, right?

Yeah. But if you had to do it, you can multitask that one. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. All right, man. Well, let's do this. Where's JR Today? What are you up to? Where are you heading? How can we help you get there as a Remarkable community? The thing that I'm working on that scares me to say out loud, but I have to keep saying it out loud, to keep myself a accountable, is changing lives.

I wanna be changing 10 million lives a year. And the way I do that is through my work at the Podcast Factory, through conversations like this with you and the Remarkable people who are listening to us and, and through the work I do with my hosts who have amazing messages, uplifting messages, who are doing things to make the world a better [01:00:00] place.

And I feel blessed because I figured out that I'm supposed to be a fisher of men. I figured it out. And the way that I'm fishing men to the light is by the work that I do at the podcast factory with these great messages, with these great experts who are bringing the light from all different.

Perspectives, different ways of life, different upbringings, but bringing good positive messages to help our listeners live a better life. Be be part of the light instead of in the dark as most people spend their lives. Awesome. Well, if somebody wants to get ahold of you, if they wanna listen to your podcast network, if they want to reach out to you, talk personally or professionally, what's the best way for people to connect with you, JR.

So I would say this, that if you're looking for more Remarkable people, more uplifting messages [01:01:00] people who are gonna lift you up, go to the podcast factory.com. Look for the client showcase. And there you'll find 90 to a hundred different podcasts, different hosts, different ideas, different perspective for you to go find some more Remarkable people who will uplift you, who will give you a new perspective, who will help you be a better version of yourself.

That's one. The other one is if, if you've got a message, if you've got a mission and you wanna get it to more people, that's what we do at the podcast Factory and you can go to the podcast factory.dot com, book a call, and we can discuss how a podcast might be able to help you in your mission. Excellent.

So you mentioned earlier, if I could go back and say something to my 20 year old self before we go on from your birth through today, is there anything we missed in your life? And if there was one little gem you wanna share with your 20 [01:02:00] year old self, really all our listeners, what would that be? JR. I said it to my son today.

I, I have to constantly remind him about this. And it's something that I wish I would've known cuz it would've put me in a, in a better position. But God gave us two years in one mouth. Why? Because we're supposed to listen twice as much as we talk. And if you're talking, you can't learn. And so the, the one piece that I would give my 20 year old self is S T F U, putting it nicely and listen, just listen to the people around you.

And so that, along with one other piece, get around more Remarkable people because Jim Rohn says, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. So if you're spending time with people who bring you down people who don't encourage your dreams, people who are. Just [01:03:00] leeches of time and emotion.

Get around better people. Uplift yourself by getting around more Remarkable people like on this podcast and like our host over at the podcast factory. Awesome. Well, JR I consider you a friend. It's been an honor having you on the show. You truly are a Remarkable man, and I hope if you ever need anything, you reach out to us and let us know.

Ladies and gentlemen, reach out to jr. As you know, check out the show notes, all the contact information, whether you're on our website, your podcast player YouTube, everything is in there. You connect with JR and continue the conversation like us. Rate us, review us. You know what to do. Makes a big difference because when people are looking for a podcast just like you are, you look at the star rating, you read some reviews, when those are strong, people will read.

The purpose of our podcast, the purpose of jr's network and podcast isn't to be world famous and to make tons of money. It's to [01:04:00] bring the light, it's to connect with people. It's to help you have content that's gonna act as a catalyst to help you grow and be the man and woman God intends you to be. So like us, rate us, review us, share us.

Reach out to Jonathan and Jonathan Jr. Thank you again so much for being here today, bro, brother, thank you for making it so much fun. I'm grateful to be here with you and the rest of the listeners. Thanks. Oh yes. So like our slogan says, ladies and gentlemen, don't just listen to this great content from JR.

But do it. Do it each day. Repeat it, right? That's do it each day and do it for life. All your days on this earth. It's a short job. Interview little speck of sand off a speck of sand. The rest of attorney though, right? You wanna have a great eternity with God and with one another. So I'm David Pasqualone.

This was our great Remarkable friend, Jr. And we will see you in the next episode. Chow. I.

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