Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / From Federal Prison to $78M Business: PJ Jensen on Addiction, Discipline & No-Excuses Recovery

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From Federal Prison to $78M Business: PJ Jensen on Addiction, Discipline & No-Excuses Recovery · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:00
Everyone's screaming at you the whole time.
0:01
You're so selfish. You're so selfish.
0:03
You don't care about anything except yourself, yourself,
0:05
yourself. And the second you raise your
0:07
hand, Brent, to get help, everyone goes like this.
0:10
Listen, man, you got it. You got to take care of
0:11
yourself. You got to be selfish.
0:13
You got to be got to work on yourself because you're you're
0:15
so focused on your addiction just completely clouds your mind
0:19
and and makes you into a person that you're not that it looks
0:22
like you're being selfish, but the disease that addictions
0:24
eating you. And then when you have a chance
0:26
to address it and take time out, then I went right back into my
0:30
prison mode. I went into that mentality, get
0:32
into a routine, get into the rehab.
0:33
I was out on the I checked in Thursday afternoon at 4:00, at
0:36
5:30 Friday morning, I was outside, didn't have a gym.
0:39
I would say lied about. I was on the website.
0:40
They had a gym and had horses in a pool.
0:42
I got there, I go, where's the gym?
0:43
They go. We closed it down.
0:44
I said, where are the horses? They go.
0:45
We had to bury it in the pool and where's the beach?
0:48
It's 20 miles away. I'm like, this is bullshit.
0:50
But I locked down, started working out every day and I got
0:54
serious about it. I got serious, just like I did
0:56
about going to prison and being in prison.
1:00
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
1:02
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
1:06
Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
1:09
nightmares that set yourself free.
1:12
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
1:14
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
1:18
These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
1:22
There's some humor, but hopefully you can come away with
1:25
a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
1:27
prisons you built up in your own mind.
1:37
All right, welcome back nine more successes or not,
1:40
listeners, where you come from, What happens when your worst
1:42
fear becomes reality? How do you adapt, survive over
1:44
calm, set yourself free head folks, don't forget, don't
1:48
forget to follow, subscribe, share this thing out, like it
1:51
up, comment. It helps the show and I really
1:53
appreciate that. So who are we talking to today?
1:55
Well, we've got PJ Jetson in the house.
2:00
I was just, I was just telling him I was on his show.
2:03
This is the last week or the week before.
2:05
I always like interviewing people after they've interviewed
2:08
me. It's kind of fun.
2:10
So a little bit about PJ. You know what happens when
2:14
control slips and your life starts to unravel?
2:17
For PJ Jensen, it wasn't just one moment.
2:20
It was a series of choices fueled by addiction that led him
2:22
to federal to a federal prison sentence.
2:25
The prison didn't break him and forced a decision.
2:28
Stay the same or rebuild everything.
2:30
Today, PJ is the voice behind the LFG Live podcast built on
2:35
discipline, accountability and the belief that no matter how
2:38
far you fall, you can fight your way back.
2:41
So the question is, what does it really take?
2:45
Turn your lowest point to your comeback.
2:47
I can't wait to jump into all this.
2:49
Before we do, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Auto
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If you've ever wondered what it takes to rise from the darkness
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4:16
PJ, how are you doing, my man? Welcome in.
4:19
Alright brother. Welcome in.
4:22
I went easy on you and our enemies to go easy on me.
4:25
I always go easy. Forget it, give me the hard
4:29
stuff. I always go easy.
4:31
This is this is your stuff. I can't ask you anything you
4:34
don't know. It's all about you.
4:36
Yeah, well, you know what it's it's, you know, one of the
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things that we talked about even prior to our podcast and, and,
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and we know what the bar, the brothers and sisters that are in
4:46
the community of having the the unfortunate.
4:50
And you're going to shock some people with this word fortunate
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opportunity and experience to be in in federal prison, in the
4:57
federal system, all the people that have spent time in federal
5:01
prison. And then, you know, it's funny
5:02
because you know, when you say for, you know, experts on that
5:05
subject. And yeah, you know, I was always
5:08
taught that when you know, whether you're down for 10 years
5:10
and down means when you're in prison, that's kind of an inside
5:13
word. Yeah, for how done on the Cayman
5:15
Islands. Yeah, or how long your bid was,
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right. Like how long your time is that,
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you know, we all walk the same walk, but it's a different walk.
5:22
So you can even micro it down to like if you were in for a year
5:27
and I was in for 10 days, it's still prison.
5:29
Something clicks inside your brain that changes the way you
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perceive everything in life, whether it's only for the time
5:39
that you're inside, right? Because a lot of the things that
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I've learned, that I learned inside that I share with you, I
5:45
take to the streets because like for instance, stress is
5:49
manufactured, right? I told you that stress is
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manufactured because when you're in Euro control, I'm an A+
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personality, go getter football professional football player,
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free age when the New York Jets Giants played in Europe, Arena
6:01
football, Europe, blah, blah, blah, and highly successful in
6:04
business had it all lost it all had it all lost at all, you
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know, and, and have it all again because of my experiences, you
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know, and certainly getting sober almost eight years ago is,
6:14
is a huge part of that. But when you, when you lose
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control over everything, like you can't even, you can't even
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be there for your kids, You can't be there for your your
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family. And what you find out, I found
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out real quick, is that stress is manufactured because if you
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have no control in it and you're like, well, I got nothing in the
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game. I can't really do anything.
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And so you that changes the perspective of time and really,
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you know, the, the environment of what you're in, which is
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prison. So it was a it was a wild thing.
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So I take that, I take those lessons that I learned in there
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and appliance in my everyday life.
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You know, I I share with you that, you know, if I'm in a
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business, me anywhere, you know, stressful situate, whatever the
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situation is like people say to me now they go when it's a 10.
6:59
I'm always P JS always out of one in terms of best level or
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the the the the the moment of of what's happening right the.
7:08
Well, let me, let me ask you something about that because.
7:11
Because stress is something that everybody deals with.
7:14
Yeah. So like when you were a kid
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growing up, were you a guy, a kid that dealt with a lot of
7:25
stress? Like what was your life like as
7:26
a kid growing up? Yeah, great question.
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We go with my mom and dad and my my two sisters and then my
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little brother came along later. But great family life, you know,
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parents were divorced, you know, travel, we traveled around a lot
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and we moved time to town just as my my mom was finding her way
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and and so we stayed together. But my father was a bartender,
7:47
which was great because where my mom took us, my father would
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come and hang a shingle of town over.
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And so I was never without my dad and or my mom had great
7:56
parents and they they really did a great job considering the the
7:59
situation so. But as a kid, though, you know,
8:03
you say you move around a lot that I, when I talk to people
8:07
who have moved around a lot, you're always put into new
8:10
situations. So you have to figure out how to
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assimilate. You know, where do I fit in?
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Who the people I hang out with? I think, you know, it's funny
8:19
because as you just said that I never really thought about where
8:23
myself esteem issues came from. And you just nailed it.
8:26
Like this is the power of, of, of therapy, right, of talking
8:29
things out. So when I went to prison and I
8:31
did took the RDAP program and I learned about for the first time
8:36
because I was medicated like what, what, what I had self
8:40
esteem, self, self or self esteem issues.
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I'm like, I'm a quarterback man. I've been, I was, I was always
8:45
excelled in everything. Hottest girlfriend, cheerleader,
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kick ass in the football field, made marginal grades, you know,
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the but I was like, you know, I was, there was no self esteem
8:55
issues. And then, as you said, that
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that's probably and I didn't even do this into my rehab.
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I didn't even we just said that was probably because I was
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moving around because one of the things that part of being having
9:05
self esteem issues is that you don't like change.
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And you when you just said that I just like, holy shit, man,
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that that's just that that's where it came from.
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So, man, thanks Brad. I appreciate that.
9:15
Well, you know, the reason I say that though, DJ, is that I was,
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I was 14 years old and I was so just enthralled with the fact
9:25
that I was getting ready to go to this high school that I
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always wanted to go to. I was 6 foot 1, you know, in 8th
9:31
grade, which was like A7 footer. I couldn't wait to get in and do
9:34
the sport thing in high school and then boom, all of a sudden
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we move. And you know that that
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readjustment thing. Now, if I did that like a few
9:44
times, maybe I'll get used to it.
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But man, as a kid, that's something that you know, you've
9:49
got to, you know, establish yourself all over again because
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as you're a kid, you're growing up, you get your friends, you
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got this, you're hanging out, and then all of a sudden, boom,
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you're going to another place, going to another place.
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I think. I think though, because of my,
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you know, a lot of the stuff I, I look at in my life and because
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because of the leader I am in life, whether as a father,
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whether it's a business is because of, you know, play
10:10
quarterback. And so playing quarterback and
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being a starter and quarterback wherever I went, I was that.
10:16
Yeah. Getting a similar it was
10:18
getting. Well, sports is a big thing to
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be able to get jump right in. And if you're good at sports,
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yeah, all of a sudden the acceptance is there.
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And then my God, thank God he showed up and right that that
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makes that makes that transition a little bit easier.
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I and I used to. So, so you're saying that for a
10:37
reason, the stair step, because as I went down to town, I was
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plugged right into all, you know, to football and hockey.
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You know, if you could punch a kick and throw and hit it, I
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could do it right. And so I was always the top
10:46
player picked in all, you know, whether it's dodge or whatever.
10:50
And then so yeah, that was a big thing.
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I also use that same technique, though, when I went to prison,
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you know, as soon as I walked in, I went to prison at 51.
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I'm sorry, 46, 46 years old. And as soon as I the low where
11:04
the, you know, the towers are and the sniper, sniper, all that
11:07
stuff got processed out, walked across the street to the to the
11:10
camp was met at the at the, at the, at the gate by some people,
11:15
some inmates that were in there that I, I hired a prison
11:18
consultant before I went in. So he had clients in there.
11:20
So I was met with the shower shoes and the, the you know,
11:24
some 20 tuna fish and blah, blah, blah.
11:27
I walked right to my bed chains, put some Grays on, put some
11:30
shorts. I went right after the
11:31
basketball court, found the white boys playing, got on their
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team next day got on the football team.
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You know, in the camp I was in Miami was, it was FCI Miami,
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right behind the zoo, 2 football fields, 2 soccer fields,
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racquetball courts, outdoor racquetball, 2 basketball
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courts, bocce ball. So, you know, there were some
11:49
big things. If I'm a positive standpoint
11:51
there I was on every sport. So the day I went out to the
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there was a funny story the day I went out and played football,
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there are guys that were in there for a while and they were
11:59
like, you know, I said, you mind if I we're down like 3
12:01
touchdowns? You modify quarterback and the
12:03
guys like who the F for you, man?
12:05
I, this is my show brothers, my team.
12:06
And I was like, OK, all right. And so like all of a sudden
12:09
there's like 2 minutes left and the guys like, hey, hey, what do
12:12
you want to give it a shot? And so I was like, yeah, sure.
12:15
So it's a true story. So there was a Puerto Rican kid
12:18
on on the team and he was playing defensive back.
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When I said, I said I didn't speak Spanish, I said, OK, come
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here. I, you know, I got him in the
12:24
huddle. I said, just run down and you
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play offense, run as fast as you can.
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I threw him two touchdowns in like, you know, 30 seconds and
12:30
we got the ball back and we winded up losing the game by
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1:00. But that was it.
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That was game changing. That was like I was walking
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around to prison on campus, so to speak.
12:38
Like there he is. Who is this guy that's.
12:39
The new guy, Yeah. And the quarterback guy?
12:42
Right. And then the, you know, the,
12:43
the, the correction officers, they have access to Google and
12:46
they do some Googling and they find out that they are they.
12:48
I want to talk about that though, because you just
12:50
casually just drift over that. That's a pretty big deal that
12:53
you played in the professional world when you got out of high
12:57
school. How did you step in?
12:59
What? Where'd you go after that?
13:01
Well, I was out in eastern Long Island at West Hampton Beach.
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Not a lot of not a lot of big press out there.
13:05
And social media wasn't what it is today.
13:07
It wasn't that social media at all.
13:09
If you were good, hopefully they found you.
13:11
So I, I had a Division One arm, certainly an NFL arm.
13:14
That was my thing. A little bit a little bit
13:17
immature on the mind, but did get recruited by University of
13:21
Miami out of out of high school, but just didn't have the grades
13:24
to do anything. And then went wound up going to
13:26
a Division Three school. But in in two of them, one in
13:30
New Jersey, one in New York, 2 in New Jersey, two years in New
13:32
Jersey, two years in New York. So I got, and I was all
13:34
American, got the local look from The Jets and the Giants
13:37
because I had a bazooka arm and went to all the camps, met all
13:40
the right people. And when you have a good arm
13:42
like that, they want to bring you in and, and you know, you,
13:45
whether you're a third or fourth string quarterback, which I was
13:47
forced fourth string and, and some of the, and the drills and
13:50
stuff. But then, you know, I came out
13:52
when the roster went from unlimited to 82.
13:55
And so they like that teams weren't carrying 5-6
13:58
quarterbacks like they used to, right?
14:00
And you become, it's, it's a meat market.
14:02
So got a deal. I signed a contract over in
14:05
Europe in 88, Giants probably back in 91 after their second
14:10
Super Bowl, got a look with them that I ended up in the Arena
14:12
Football League down in Orlando. But you know, again like.
14:17
We had a pretty good arena football quarterback here in
14:20
Saint Louis for the Saint Louis Rams.
14:22
Yeah, you had one. Yeah.
14:22
Kurt Warner. Yeah.
14:24
Quarterback in Orlando was really one of my one of my close
14:28
friends in life. His name is Ben Bennett.
14:30
Ben was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when I was a senior
14:32
in high school. Drafted by the Bears, went to
14:34
University of Duke. He went to Duke University and
14:38
so he was the starting quarterback with Orlando and
14:41
that the time they're only three quarters.
14:42
There's only three quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame that I know
14:44
of in the Reno Hall of Fame. Kurt Warner, Ben Bennett and Jay
14:48
Groot. Jon Gruden, brother.
14:51
So what was that like? I mean, because not very many
14:55
people step into that world like being suiting up and actually
14:59
putting on an NFL uniform, whether you're on the first
15:02
string or the 4th string. Look, I didn't I didn't get on
15:05
the field that you know, so it was it was a free agent
15:07
situation. But you know, it's, it's it's
15:11
great at any level, you know, and with the thing that that
15:14
about football were that, you know, my from the time I
15:17
remember playing Pop Warner, every coach would be like,
15:20
whatever you learn in whatever you learn in football, you're
15:22
going to take to life. Whatever you learn, you're going
15:24
to take to life. And I was always like, what's he
15:26
talking about? How you going to play football
15:28
in life? And it wasn't until, you know,
15:31
my last paycheck and getting paid.
15:33
How old? Would you have been then?
15:35
I'm sorry, how old would you have been then when you when you
15:38
realized you weren't going to be playing football?
15:41
93 So I was about 22/21/22 right around there.
15:47
OK. I remember feeling like my life
15:50
was over. I completely failed.
15:52
You know, that's probably where the party and started increasing
15:55
more as I'm as I'm sitting there getting therapy from from you,
15:58
Brad. But the thing was it was cool,
16:01
though, is that you know, I didn't realize, you know, I had
16:04
that thing. I can I can always apply what I
16:06
learned in football into life. Well, I didn't understand it
16:08
until one day I was in a meeting, a business meeting, and
16:11
all of a sudden the guy who owned the company was pitching
16:15
somebody something on our deal. It was a perfect swing trainer,
16:19
big white round PVC tube. And the guy I was talking to
16:22
didn't buy it. And I was like, shit, man, if my
16:24
guy just changes it, audibles just changes the the
16:27
presentation, he could get the deal on that.
16:28
So I called the time out, called my guy over said, Hey, listen,
16:31
what if you do this? And he's like that great idea.
16:33
Went back and close the deal. And from then, Brandon was like,
16:36
boom, all right, now I can do what I always I can come.
16:39
In you know, what I think is really funny about that and you
16:42
just hit on something that guys that are have played sports
16:47
sales is a you know, it's a different lane, but there's a
16:51
lot of the same feels. You know, it doesn't matter how
16:54
old you are, if you're good, you play and and if you, if you do
16:59
really well, you can, you know, you know, get all these
17:01
different commissions and, and rise to whatever points because
17:04
everybody wants a guy that can win and close.
17:07
Correct. Yeah.
17:08
So, so as soon as that happened, it was like the light went off
17:11
and then, you know, I was always in football.
17:14
And you have a scoreboard, by the way.
17:16
Yes, you're winter. You don't.
17:17
What you like that you? I got that from our interview
17:20
same way. And so, yeah, it was good
17:23
because, you know, I was able to apply what I loved my passion,
17:25
which was was football. So when then I just applied
17:28
that's, you know, coming in early, leaving late, making sure
17:31
I was prepped. Like, you know, I knew the game
17:33
plan, knew how to execute, execute, knew my audibles where
17:36
I was able to get in and out of a business situation.
17:39
But sure, I took my I took my losses just like I took my wins.
17:42
But one thing about playing quarterback, and you talked
17:44
about this early, asking the questions that I've got a very,
17:46
very short memory, right? I can go out and throw 3 picks
17:49
and come down and win the, you know, I've had someone out here
17:52
put it this way. I've had some of my best games
17:55
and my worst games in the same game.
17:57
Like I've thrown five, I've thrown 4 touchdowns, ran for one
18:00
and thrown 44 interceptions with the last pick to lose the game.
18:04
So I've got, you know, but I, I never think about that the
18:08
situation that just happened. If it's a negative, I can
18:11
overcome it. I I, there's no way I'm going to
18:13
let that be my defining, you know, I.
18:15
I read something, I read something recently, PJS exactly
18:19
what you're talking about, that the guy talked about that he
18:22
always had stress, always had these things that were in the
18:25
front of his mind. He said he he analogized it to
18:27
riding a car, but the car, he let this crazy thing in his mind
18:31
drive the car, change all the radio stations and, and, and
18:35
scramble his mind. And he said one day he just
18:38
decided, OK, I'm not getting rid of that.
18:40
It's just going to sit in the back seat.
18:42
I'm going to drive. I'm going to change the radio
18:44
stations. It's still there, but it doesn't
18:46
get to drive anymore. It's in the back, Yeah.
18:49
Well, how about what we did when we went to prison?
18:51
We had to do that. We had to put in the back or put
18:54
something from the back front because in order to survive,
18:56
like, you know, we, we see all these podcasts and I've done a
19:00
lot of podcasts and I do a lot of interviews and you know, we
19:04
don't glorify what happened, but because it's a fucking war.
19:07
I don't care what anyone says, it's 10 days or 10 years.
19:10
It's a, it's a war when you're when you're told what to do,
19:13
when to get out, when to pee, when to eat, when not to eat.
19:17
How about that? When not when not to do that,
19:19
when to call your family that that's prison man and it and
19:23
there's nothing glory glorified about it, but the the survival
19:26
part of it is what you're talking about like you know, and
19:30
this goes for anyone because if you're not if you're never put
19:32
in that situation, you don't know what you're you're capable
19:35
of, right. What you don't know, you don't
19:36
know. But when you're put in a
19:37
situation where your mental survival leads to your physical
19:43
survival, your spiritual survival, and then they kind of
19:47
all interchange and take places throughout your incarceration,
19:50
right? But we, you know, we, when we,
19:52
when we're in there, we got, we, we have a routine and we have to
19:54
stick to that routine. If that routine varied 1°, it
20:00
screwed my head up. If I could get to 10:30 in the
20:04
morning every day with going to RDAP, getting my workout in,
20:07
returning my emails, if I got to 10:30, that was a day off the
20:11
calendar. The rest of the day it was, you
20:14
know, working out, playing the reading whenever I was doing it.
20:17
But that was a day off the calendar.
20:18
But if it was interrupted by a lockdown.
20:21
Yeah, lockdowns were horrible. Yeah, lockdowns were horrible.
20:23
You know a guy gets caught with. Throws everybody off.
20:27
Yeah, like contraband, right? Like contraband.
20:29
Cell phone, drugs, too much, too much food or clothes in his
20:33
locker. I mean, there's a whole bunch of
20:34
things that fall under the umbrella of contraband.
20:37
Well, PJ, let's talk about, because you, you're talking
20:40
about we, when you've kind of realized that this was going to
20:44
work for you business wise and that you can figure out how to
20:46
do, how did the, how did the addiction piece fall into the
20:51
all that equation? Yeah, like you said, I didn't.
20:54
I didn't. I wasn't in prison because of
20:57
drugs and alcohol. I was in there for tax evasion.
21:00
But geez, I was in there because of drugs and alcohol.
21:02
Like I wasn't in there because I was dealing drugs and alcohol,
21:05
but I was in there because of the decisions I made and didn't
21:07
make on drugs and alcohol. So the battle that I had at this
21:12
point in my life, Brent, was that because I was in there
21:17
because of drugs and alcohol, but I was able to get out 18
21:20
months earlier because of drugs and alcohol, right?
21:23
I had to raise my aunt. I took advantage of a strategy
21:26
in the federal prison, which is RDAP residential drug and
21:28
alcohol program, which knocks off 18 months of your sentence.
21:31
The judge hit the gavel for 31 months.
21:33
I was, I was like, wow. But I knew if I can get to the
21:36
RDAP program, which we strategized to get into, I was
21:39
going to knock off 18 months. So I walked out of federal
21:43
prison after a year and four days and then six months, three
21:46
months and a halfway house and three months at my house with an
21:49
ankle bracelet on, then three years of of probation slash
21:53
paper after that. But it yeah, it it's, you know.
21:59
Well, you talked about how you the, the, the, the drugs and
22:03
alcohol decisions and things that you made or you didn't
22:06
make. Did you know when, when it when,
22:10
when this nightmare landed on you that you were going to get
22:14
indicted? Did you know have a feeling that
22:16
this was going to happen or how did that happen for you?
22:20
It happens in different ways for everybody.
22:22
Well, you know, I was active in my addiction, which wasn't, you
22:25
know, I didn't accept as an addiction yet.
22:27
Obviously all those around me knew my friends, my, my family
22:30
and my friends. But my thing was the more
22:33
screwed up I get, the more drugs and alcohol, the more successful
22:35
I made, the more money I made. It was documented.
22:37
I mean the more up I got. More confidence, yeah.
22:40
I don't know if it was that it was, it was, it was, it was
22:42
crazy. So I played into my mind.
22:44
So going back to what you're saying, no, I didn't know.
22:46
So I was partying and, you know, doing my thing and that, you
22:49
know, I I3 airplanes, the boats, the house, the house in the
22:52
water, 10,000 square. I had 26 TV's, you know, 4 bars
22:56
volcano. Wow.
22:58
We didn't leave my house for days.
22:59
What? What was the business?
23:01
What were? You doing and an online travel
23:03
agency and we did 3 billion in sales and it was and I literally
23:06
have my own limousine parked out front of my house full time
23:09
driver Valentino, he was with me for five years.
23:13
He actually drove me in my limoized chair with you to
23:15
prison on myself surrender classic story.
23:18
Just drove over with him and sat in the back and made phone calls
23:21
got to the roundabout. He pulled up and let me out of
23:24
the back. I powered my phone down threw it
23:26
in the back said Valentin I'll see you later and that was it
23:28
off to the off to the races. But so, yeah, it was so.
23:34
But what happened was, so my first real experience with
23:37
sobriety was in prison. And then you know, that in
23:40
prison there's more alcohol and drugs and corruption going on in
23:43
prison than there are on the streets.
23:44
So I couldn't partied every day and I had money.
23:46
It wasn't like, you know, most people in prison don't even
23:48
money and you're cutting deals, whether it's putting money on
23:51
other people's books, on the commissary, you're, you know,
23:54
have your, you know, full time cutting deals.
23:56
Yeah, cutting deals. So.
23:58
But I was, so I had to stay sober because of our dad.
24:01
That was my that was my ticket out of there 18 months earlier.
24:04
If I got caught doing anything wrong, I I lost that would have
24:06
to serve 31 months. What am I going to tell my kids?
24:09
Yeah. Daddy had two beers with 400
24:10
guys or and. Lost it.
24:13
Lost 18 months. So I was like, OK, wow, OK, so I
24:16
don't have a drinking problem. I'm controlling it.
24:18
But the risk and the reward, the consequences of law and order,
24:21
right? I was just like, the consequence
24:23
was so high of not getting out of prison that I that I was
24:27
like, you know what? I'm not the risk.
24:29
I'm sorry. The risk was too high or the
24:30
consequent, right? I didn't drink.
24:32
So I'm man, I don't have a drinking problem.
24:34
So I come out three months halfway house, can't drink.
24:36
Three months after that ankle brace was at the house the night
24:39
they cut my ankle bracelet off. It was October 31st, Halloween
24:42
night. They snipped it off at 4:30 in
24:44
the afternoon. I picked up a six pack of Coors
24:47
lights out of my 2500 square foot dock on the water and and
24:50
started drinking. Went to a party that night and
24:52
then took over a wine club of all things.
24:56
Took it to the third largest wine club in in in the world,
24:59
direct sellers. And 2 1/2 years later or maybe
25:04
3. I'm sorry, 4, 4 1/2 years later,
25:09
4 1/2 years later, family popped an intervention on me.
25:12
Thank God they love me enough to do that and I got sober.
25:15
Sold. Why I want to I want to take a
25:17
break there because I want to talk about that moment because a
25:21
lot of people who go through recovery and have interventions
25:24
and that it because they have to come to it themselves.
25:27
I want to talk about how your mindset was getting into that.
25:31
And then you know how you are. You know, we talk a lot about
25:34
the rebuilding after incarceration on this show,
25:37
finding a job, contributing to community, finding purpose.
25:39
But I recently came across a book that reframes the entire
25:42
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26:01
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26:05
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26:08
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27:12
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I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group, and I can tell
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prisons.org. That's prisoners.org and we're
27:34
back. So DJ you you, you kind of
27:38
covered a lot of stuff there. So I on the prison side of
27:44
things before you got out, before there was the
27:46
intervention and all those different things.
27:48
Did you think then that there was really no issues because,
27:54
you know, you kept drink, you kept or you stopped drinking,
27:57
went to R adapt. You said that people knew around
28:03
you before you went in that you, you might have been someone that
28:07
had this addictive situation. But did you think that when you
28:12
were in prison, like when you were going through the, the, the
28:14
months that you were in there, the years you were in there?
28:19
You know, I, I was in denial as I like I have to, I have to
28:24
answer that question from before I went in and and while after.
28:29
So, because, you know, I no, I didn't think I did because I was
28:33
able to make the money. I justified I was, I was making
28:37
tons of money. I was my kids were well taken
28:40
care of limos to school, you know, stuff like that.
28:43
But the limos to school was bullshit.
28:45
That was me because I couldn't drive the next day right behind
28:48
the wheel. I was very adamant about not
28:49
ever drunk, drunk driving. So I would just make these,
28:53
these, you know, judge and lapses in judgment.
28:56
You know, I'd be at every game, every practice.
28:58
A matter of fact, that was the only father at the games.
29:00
So you were a very functioning guy as far as.
29:04
But I'm on my cell phone. I'm not present.
29:06
I'm not, you know, but then, but I was there.
29:08
So as much as I would, you know, my, I had some big, you know,
29:11
big screw ups with my family. You know, I also was a big
29:15
provider and never got fired, never got arrested.
29:18
How many kids did you have in this whole scenario?
29:20
And Olivia and Dylan and so, but again, you know, I, I, with
29:25
Dylan, I was at every football game, every, you know, I was
29:27
just, I was very, very there then.
29:29
And when it comes to that? How did they handle because I
29:33
I've meant to cover the I mean, how did they handle the your
29:36
situation going into prison? Because how?
29:39
What age would they? Have been so Dylan was Dylan was
29:45
probably 1819. Olivia was 14.
29:50
Yeah. So they were kind of my kids
29:52
ages when they went in. So they knew what was going on.
29:56
How, how, how did they, did they come and visit?
29:59
Did they? How did that all work?
30:00
For you. Well, no, I saw that, yeah.
30:02
I was, I was kind of strict on the rules about what I wanted
30:04
because I, I, I, my incarceration, I planned out.
30:08
I planned every of it out. You know, as I share with you,
30:12
I, I made sure we were, we were redesignated from Pensacola to
30:16
FCI Miami because I had an RDAP program.
30:19
I, I delayed with a massive toothache that I, that I needed
30:23
surgery on to go to myself surrender day and I was able to
30:26
postpone the serenity 30 days to get into the RDAP.
30:29
A lot of things I did and I was also very particular about
30:33
visitation and things like that, even though it's better for the
30:36
fat, But I was like, you know, it got loosened as I got in
30:39
there, but I didn't want people to see me in there.
30:41
I didn't want people that and my kids to see it.
30:43
But you know, they need to heal. They need to be there.
30:46
And I wanted to say one thing before I get into this about
30:48
what I was saying about although I was at the games and I was
30:51
providing financially and I was all that stuff.
30:54
That's the biggest mistake people make that I made that I
30:57
thought that was enough. It's not.
30:58
The kids need us emotionally. They need us like to be
31:01
listening and your wife and stuff like that.
31:03
So I take full responsibility for that lack of presence of
31:08
that car 100%. So when I broke it to, you know,
31:13
Dylan's my boy. So we, you know, and we, we, we
31:16
share some similar traits. Let's just put it that way.
31:18
So, you know, I knew it was going to be good.
31:23
I knew I was going to be OK. I was like, you know, because I
31:25
was still under investigation and I knew I was going to be
31:29
going away. And then I sat her down at the
31:31
couch and I said, hey, honey, I got Daddy needs to talk to you.
31:33
And she's like, what? And she's, I said Daddy made
31:36
some big mistakes. And yeah, he's got to go away.
31:38
And she's like, what do you mean go away?
31:39
And I just try not to say that we're prison.
31:41
But she's like, where do you mean go?
31:42
And so I have to go away to prison.
31:44
And her eyes swelled up big, beautiful Belize, this big tear
31:48
came down and she started crying.
31:50
She laughed at me. And she goes, what about my
31:53
volleyball? Because she uses her world.
31:56
Yeah, that's her volleyball. She's an AAU, you know, travel
31:59
team. Every weekend we go to a
32:01
different city. But and I knew and and and so
32:04
that was that was tough. But once I again, once I own
32:07
that a big part of what, like what I teach people is that, you
32:10
know, own your shit. Like as soon as I owned it with
32:12
her and them and the family, then then things, then the
32:15
light, the load gets lightened, right.
32:16
And you know, from your wife and your, and your, your kids,
32:19
instead, we go through phases of it, right?
32:21
You go through of, of dealing with it from blowing your head
32:25
off, which which I certainly did couple nights on the dock.
32:29
I was like, forget this. Because when you don't know,
32:31
when you're not sentenced, that's like the worst part, the
32:35
speculation of the unknown, especially with, you know, guys
32:39
like you and I that are, you know, athletic, A+ personalities
32:41
that have been control on control of our lives.
32:44
And so, yeah, a lot of a lot, a lot of things.
32:47
So I get out. So I'm in there and I like I
32:49
said, I don't think I have a drinking problem.
32:50
Then I get out and I'm on the loose again and I'm making more
32:54
money. I'm making more money than I was
32:56
before I went in the wine club. Third largest wine club in the
32:58
world and and let's. Talk about that, because this
33:00
goes into 1500 prisons on the Atobo platform.
33:04
Yeah. How did you do that?
33:07
Because you you got out of prison re entry is not easy.
33:11
Everybody knows that, right? How did you do that?
33:15
Because that sounds like a big thing to create.
33:18
Yeah, So one of the things that, you know, there are some do some
33:23
some fellow inmates in there, drug dealers, brilliant,
33:28
brilliant guys, right. So do you sit in these meetings
33:31
and you'd hear them like, oh, how the hell am I going to work
33:33
at McDonald's and live off an hourly salary?
33:37
And so I would, I went to one guy and I was like, hey, man,
33:41
you're in here for like I was, I was moving a lot of weight.
33:44
I said, all right, cool. All right, so you, you a smart
33:46
guy? No, I'm just, I'm just a drug
33:47
dealer. I said, all right, let's talk
33:49
about this. So still in this classroom.
33:50
So get on the white board. And I said, all right, how much
33:52
weight were you using? He's like X amount of pounds.
33:55
I said, so for you to take a kilo and turn it into, you know,
33:57
a pound of Oz and down, down to 8 balls and the O ZS and you
34:00
know how to charge, right? Yeah, numbers like just like
34:03
this. Then I said distribution, let's
34:05
talk about the distribution. He would say, yeah, I had this
34:08
guy done. So you were in logistics, right?
34:10
Because you know how to break down the whole the whole these
34:12
guys are brilliant. Probably had commissions.
34:14
Right. And then I said, I go, what's
34:16
your burn rate? Here's the here's the thing.
34:17
What's your burn rate? So what do you mean?
34:19
What do you mean burn rate? What's the burn rate?
34:20
I said burn rate. Like what does it cost for you a
34:22
month to live before you get out of bed in the morning, before
34:24
your first foot hits the floor? What does it cost you to get out
34:27
of bed? I knew my burn rate one time was
34:29
like 60,000 a month. It was ridiculous.
34:32
And he's like, he's like $40,000 a month.
34:35
So I said, all right, let's get rid of the baby Mama.
34:37
Let's get rid of the baby Mama. Let's get rid of the entourage
34:40
while you now you're looking at your burn rates like $3200 a
34:44
month. And that's a lot, right?
34:45
And so then it, it triggered I had to take, take him back that
34:49
he can live off of a regular legal pay, you know, salary
34:55
until he can figure something out.
34:57
So again, besides these hiccups, you know, the, the tax evasion,
35:02
I'm a pretty smart guy. So I, you know, I knew that when
35:05
I was in prison, I went in there with, I wrote a book, I started
35:07
two companies. I went in there, I lost.
35:10
I went in a 26% body SAC came out at 9 and it.
35:14
Looks like you've maintained that, PJ.
35:16
Yeah, because I I learned a lot about nutrition, so make sure
35:20
you ask me that. So I went in there with a plan
35:23
in there and I learned about, yeah, I wrote the book.
35:27
I wrote the book for on purpose because if you and I were in a
35:31
in a in a business relationship. Did you write the book while you
35:33
were in prison? I hadn't started it before that,
35:35
but I I finished it in there because I wasn't coming out of
35:38
prison. I was going to have people hold
35:40
this over my head. On your story.
35:42
Holding it over my partner's heads or saying like, listen, we
35:45
want to do the deal, but we can't do it because P JS got a
35:47
felony. Yeah, my book is right here.
35:50
And they say, well, you didn't talk about it.
35:52
I said, well, I you didn't ask me about it sells on Amazon.
35:55
And so and that defuses like everything and so, but in our
36:00
DAP getting to the intervention question, our DAP everyday you
36:03
watch the videos on drugs, alcohol and interventions.
36:06
And so literally every day I will get pounded every day on
36:10
the for nine months straight on drugs, alcohol, videos,
36:13
interventions and domestic violence and everything.
36:15
And the day I come out, well first of all I came out and got
36:20
involved with the wine club and, and.
36:22
We talked. You've been involved in wine
36:25
before this ever. Happened.
36:27
No, never that that. Was So what?
36:28
What was the genesis of the idea?
36:31
Two weeks before I went in inside a a guy I knew came up to
36:36
me and said, hey, I got this great idea, I want to start a
36:37
wine club. It's called direct sellers.
36:40
I want to I want to network market a multi level market it
36:42
and that's what I've been doing for 30 plus years.
36:44
And I said that's a great idea, no pun intended, but I'm not
36:47
winding things up. I'm winding things down.
36:49
I'll see you like peace out. And I said I'm going away for
36:53
hopefully a year in prison. Good luck.
36:55
I go away. I come out, remember I did a
36:58
year, 4 days, six months on halfway house, six months on
37:01
halfway house and then six months later after that I'm
37:04
flying back to New York for my class reunion and my friend
37:10
David Chase is picking me up. The guy who on the wine club,
37:14
his name is David. I hit the wrong David calls him.
37:16
I see a call my hang up. He calls me right back.
37:19
He's like, hey man, what's up? I was like, hey, what's up?
37:21
I can't believe you just called. I was praying to God last night
37:23
that somebody would call with with your type of skills and dah
37:26
dah dah dah. And I was trying to blow him off
37:28
the phone and he said to me, he goes, no, I said, so how's the
37:32
wine club going? And he goes, because I didn't
37:34
really go too well. We only have like 150 members
37:37
after two years, and we didn't have you.
37:38
And I said, well, that's very nice of you.
37:40
And he goes, yeah, and and and he goes, you know what's really
37:43
weird? PJI go what he goes.
37:46
Of the 150 members we have in two years, 149 are still paying
37:49
their monthly auto ship. I go, you have a 99% retention
37:53
rate. Yeah, like all nonchalant.
37:55
I go, I go, where are you right now?
37:56
He goes, I'm here from town. I go, hey, maybe in my office
37:59
tomorrow. I'll bring all your agreements,
38:00
bring you QuickBooks, bring everything you have.
38:02
I vetted it out. Love the name.
38:04
Direct sellers with AC and direct sales.
38:07
That's what we did. And so I said, let me let me
38:10
take over the top spot. I'll redo everything.
38:12
Do you have any? Do you have money to do this?
38:14
He's like, yeah, yeah. So what happened was there was a
38:18
cast call like 2 weeks later to, to move forward.
38:21
They didn't have the money. So me and my partners, we said,
38:23
you know, we'll fund it. And we wound up taking a huge
38:25
equity position and took it off the off the streets for four
38:30
months. I redid everything on the
38:32
contracts, the whole marketing brand and changed the comp plan,
38:35
the Commission structure. And in in 18 months, we took it
38:38
to $78,000,000 in top line revenue, opened up Australia,
38:42
United Kingdom, Germany. 3rd, I was doing deals with Richard
38:45
Branson. He was my backbone for with
38:48
Virgin wines over there. We were the we were the third
38:51
largest. And the the day before I was
38:55
going to be the keynote speaker. We had sold out events in Vegas,
38:58
sold out events in Manhattan or you know, we had our top 2003
39:04
thousand reps would come in. We have the biggest party and
39:07
then I was the dead, the supposed to be the keynote
39:12
speaker in front of 5000 people in New Orleans on a Friday.
39:17
And I was leaving my garage on a Thursday and all of a sudden I
39:21
see a bunch of people walking towards my house in my
39:24
development and I didn't recognize anyone.
39:26
So I was coming off A5 week. I'm sorry, five day Bender.
39:30
And I would always get sober two days before I did an event.
39:33
So I didn't screw anything up like this.
39:34
So I was always on top of my game.
39:37
And so all of a sudden I see and I don't recognize anyone, but I
39:39
see like this little real estate guy.
39:41
I'm like, there's nothing for sale in my neighborhood.
39:43
And then by what I make out my sister Jen's for our face and I
39:48
go and I just all of a sudden I go, I'm done.
39:50
Like I knew because of the videos, like I knew it was over.
39:53
I knew my drinking days were over.
39:55
Now I have a decision to make based on the patient that's
39:58
coming through the door because. They're going to hit me with
40:01
everything they have. They're going to read their
40:03
letters and it's the good and the bad letter.
40:05
Now that intervention letter will rip your heart out.
40:08
It's tells you how great you are and how much they love you and
40:11
appreciate you. And then they go at it and they
40:13
unload the things you've done said trying to get emotional
40:21
because these are people that you love that came in from all
40:23
over the country. I had 15 in my living room,
40:25
friends and family that my sisters and my cousin Melissa
40:29
Pan picked the team that they wanted because you know, I'm a
40:33
I'm a, you know, you, you, you come at me.
40:36
I'm nine out of 10 times I'm coming at you and I'm going to
40:39
fucking roll you over. And then that and everyone knew
40:42
that. So they were very particularly
40:43
who was there and they caught me on a damn day.
40:46
I was beat up. I was, I was so I was so, so
40:49
sick of being everything I would ever want to talk about was my
40:54
drinking. And so the noise that got so
40:56
loud. They did their, their, their,
40:58
their pitch, the presentation about how much they love me.
41:02
But if I continue to do this, they couldn't, they couldn't be
41:04
a part of my life. I couldn't be a part of their
41:06
life. They couldn't be my mom, they
41:07
couldn't be my dad. They couldn't be my daughter.
41:09
And you know, at that point in time and when it's you have a
41:13
choice and the choice is to tell everyone, hey, you know, you can
41:17
go after yourself or you can say, yeah, I accept your gift.
41:21
And your gift is the car sitting outside your house waiting to go
41:25
to work, to a pre pre planned rehab.
41:28
And the guy came up to me, the interventionist, and he said to
41:33
me, I said, I need to take a break.
41:34
And I was on my land island out of the water.
41:36
And he goes, you thinking about running?
41:38
I said, no, man, they, they, they, I can't disappoint them
41:42
anymore that I'm disappoint them.
41:43
I said I'm not. So I'm, I'm flattered that and
41:46
humbled and blessed if they love me this much to do this.
41:49
So I went inside and they said, you know, what's it going to?
41:53
No, I actually said, no, I go, can I just go?
41:54
Let me just go to my event. Let me just speak and I'll come
41:57
and go to rehab on Monday. And I knew the answer because
41:59
I'd lost all the all the two. Nine out of 10 times that a
42:01
person refuses or says I'll go the foul day, they either that
42:07
they're either dead because they have overdosed because they know
42:09
they're going to go, or they just never make it there and
42:11
they die anyway. So I was like, yeah, he I said,
42:14
let me go say, you know, that, you know, the chances are I
42:16
said, yeah, you're right. Went back in, took my lumps,
42:20
called my, my team at the wine club, said, hey, I'm working on
42:24
me. And what's funny about, you
42:27
know, alcoholism and addiction is that when you're actively out
42:31
there partying, drinking, everyone's screaming at you the
42:34
whole time. You're so selfish.
42:36
You're so selfish. You don't care about anything
42:37
except yourself, yourself, yourself.
42:39
And the second you raise your hand, Brent, to get help,
42:43
everyone goes like this. Listen, man, you got it.
42:45
You got to take care of yourself.
42:46
You got to be selfish. You got to be.
42:47
They got to work on yourself because you're you're so focused
42:51
on your addiction just completely clouds your mind and
42:54
and makes you into a person that you're not that it looks like
42:58
you're being selfish, but the disease that addiction's eating
43:00
you. And then when you have a chance
43:01
to address it and take time out, then I went right back into my
43:06
prison mode. I went into that mentality, get
43:08
into a routine, get into the rehab.
43:10
I was out on the on. I checked in Thursday afternoon
43:13
at 4 O clock at 5:30 Friday morning.
43:15
I was outside, didn't have a gym, which they lied about.
43:18
I was on the website. They had a gym and had horses in
43:19
a pool. I got there.
43:20
I go, where's the gym? They go.
43:21
We closed it down. I said where are the horses?
43:23
They go. We had to bury it in the pool
43:24
and where's the beach? It's 20 miles away.
43:27
I'm like, this is bullshit. But I locked down, started
43:30
working out every day and I got serious about it.
43:33
I got serious just like I did about going to prison and being
43:36
in prison. I got.
43:37
Serious. So do you think, do you think PG
43:41
with that, with everybody saying what they said, were you already
43:45
there? Did you already feel that that
43:48
this was this was a reset for you or were you or did you feel
43:52
like when at that moment you were doing it for them?
43:59
Man, you're asking good questions because you these
44:01
these emotions are flaring up. Like I knew like when when I got
44:05
indicted and then I was in denial.
44:07
I didn't do it. I didn't do it and do it.
44:08
And when I accepted that I did fuck up on whatever level I did,
44:12
I put myself in that position. I made the mistake.
44:14
I'm the one going to federal prisons.
44:16
And when you do that, the pressure just goes off, right?
44:22
Yeah. So when I, when I, when I knew,
44:25
I don't think I knew until I got to rehab and I introduced myself
44:27
to the people that were there, right?
44:29
And I said, Hey, it's PJ and I'm a, I'm a question ask, ask her
44:33
because I want to know how I want to know how the fuck I'm
44:35
getting out of here, right? Hey, Brad, what do you feel
44:37
about this being your first time?
44:38
Because it's my first time. You're like, Nah, man, this is
44:41
my fifth time I go down the list 6 * 7 * 20 * 8 * 30 times.
44:46
I'm like, whoa, I said, hey, man, I myself, I'll never
44:49
forget. I was like, hey, God, I'm not
44:52
going to be coming back here. Just like I'm not going back to
44:54
prison. I'm one and done.
44:55
Let I sat in the front row, got right below the 12 steps.
44:59
Read the first step. If you admit that you're, that
45:02
you're powerless over alcohol and that your life's
45:05
unmanageable, that's and I read that and I was like, that's,
45:08
that's read past tense because if I don't drink, I'm, I'm in
45:12
power and I, my life is manager. I have all the power.
45:15
I am a student and you know, by the grace of God and, and you
45:19
know this, I'm at 7 1/2 years. I don't do one day at a time.
45:23
I do a year at a clip because that's just the way Mike, I'm
45:25
wired and you know, get close to my 8th year in September and
45:29
that's. Incredible.
45:30
I mean, it's it's it's. Crazy.
45:34
You know, I was watching a podcast of yours.
45:36
If you you had your your best friend's son on.
45:39
Yes. And which I think probably had
45:42
to be really kind of crazy surreal for you to to be in that
45:46
situation and you guys being able to talk about the way.
45:49
But you guys talked about something that I thought was
45:52
interesting that he said, I don't do it that way.
45:55
And he said, hey, I don't care. You do it however way you want
45:58
to do it. It doesn't make any difference
46:00
to me. What do you think people get
46:02
wrong about recovery because is there?
46:06
A question. I was.
46:08
What do you think? Well, first of all, it's, it's
46:11
it's a great question. And his father, as you, if you
46:14
watch the video, was also on my intervention team, which made
46:17
that interview even more incredible.
46:19
I was able to pay it forward right and talk a odd moment.
46:25
The problem with anybody that has an addiction is that the
46:28
first thing you're telling us that they can't do what they
46:30
want to do, which is drink or or use right.
46:32
You try to take away that mistress that that love bear
46:38
that is going on that we have with drugs and alcohol and, and,
46:41
and everyone that's addiction as an addict knows that.
46:44
But then you come into a situation where if it's a a
46:48
right and a a gets a lot of shit, but it's it's the first
46:51
one that was, you know, kind of out there and the first
46:55
movement. Now there's different variations
46:57
of this smart and there's Dharma and there's EMDR and now there's
47:00
Ayahuasca. There's a but you know, it's so
47:04
my personal opinion is that you need a baseline.
47:06
You need a baseline and everything.
47:07
Well, it's baseline, religion baseline and business baseline
47:10
on your fitness baseline and whatever.
47:11
And so once you establish A baseline, at the end of the day,
47:15
no matter what you do, as long as you don't drink that day,
47:20
then hey man, congratulations. And I'll even tell you this, but
47:24
a lot of people don't know this people that are in a, a, the
47:28
people that are in NA Narcotics Anonymous, they do not want you
47:31
go into each other's meetings. The NA people think they're
47:35
better than the a, a people and a, a people think they're not as
47:37
fucked up as the NA people, right.
47:38
And cross marketing. They don't want you going to
47:41
meetings. And, and a lot of the old school
47:44
that are in there that have been sober for a while, they, they,
47:47
they, they make it known. Well, when I was in my rehab,
47:51
this guy a counselor, he said he goes, hey, man, he goes listen,
47:53
if you ever encounter that situation where you walk into a
47:56
sex, you know, an essay meeting, sex anonymous meeting and a
48:00
meeting, a a meeting, whatever GA gambling anonymous and
48:03
someone gives you shit, All you do is say, hey man, I'm just
48:07
trying to save my life. And so whatever works for you
48:11
and and and and again, what works today is not what I work
48:14
tomorrow. But if you about being sober and
48:16
overcoming addiction, is that the only person, the only thing
48:20
that can help you 1000% is the person in the mirror.
48:23
That's it. If you're not ready to make the
48:25
change, you're not ready to go all in, then guess what?
48:28
You're going to be a menace to yourself, a menace to your
48:30
family and menace to society. And so that's also giving me a
48:33
chance to micromanage that stuff.
48:35
Like if people come to me and they want help and they go, hey,
48:38
I think I'm ready. I got you're not ready.
48:40
Yeah, because when it going back to what you said, you know, you
48:43
know when you stole, when you want to give it up because
48:45
you're just it's taken everything from you.
48:48
So not a great question. And you're, you're in incredible
48:51
shape. When when you were going through
48:53
all this and with the wine club and everything, were you still
48:58
in great shape? Because I mean, I'm wondering if
49:00
that also is a way that you can, you know?
49:04
Yeah. Mindset stream right through to,
49:06
you know, being at the age you are.
49:09
I think you and I are pretty close to the same age, but
49:11
you're in incredible shape. Yes, thank you.
49:14
And I and and and I, the answer is, you know, because I was a
49:18
high, you know, high performing athlete.
49:20
I always stayed in shape, but not I'm in better shape now, but
49:23
physically. Whenever.
49:25
How I looked and ever in my entire life.
49:27
I mean, I'll be 9 next month. I know you play pickleball like
49:30
a madman. Pickleball like a madman, but I.
49:34
You know, I eat once a day. I don't drink.
49:35
Obviously that's a big thing, but yeah, being in shape is a
49:41
big part of my recovery because that's, you know, if and I, I, I
49:44
want everyone that that's part of the, the, the one of the pots
49:48
of the pots at the end of the rainbow.
49:50
You know, when you're, when you're sober and you got, you
49:52
got all that BS behind you, There's your capacity for, for
49:56
things from smelling, touching, feeling to work, not to do it.
50:00
It just frees you up. You can do so many great things
50:03
and it's just an amazing, amazing world.
50:05
What do you do to because I get into so many different
50:09
discussions about, you know, people, especially when prisoner
50:11
with like going to social events, everything's always
50:16
geared towards drinking. Everything is you go to a
50:19
wedding, you go to somebody's next door party for Labor Day.
50:22
You go, you know, you go down to the lake.
50:25
How does how do you calibrate that to redirect it to where I
50:31
don't need that? And then and then if anybody
50:32
asks me about it. It's an easy one, Yeah.
50:35
So there's an easy one. I just wait, like wait like 30
50:38
minutes. If you ever urge to drink, wait
50:39
like 3035 minutes and watch everyone start to unfold.
50:43
Watch the same story being told. Lovely.
50:47
The same, the same thing like, you know, my family's they love
50:51
their big no judgement. My family's a big drinking
50:54
family always has been. We're all, you know, Irish and
50:57
German and and so when I go to the events, you know, I'm, I, I
51:00
did, I first want to dip out and the sale.
51:03
Everyone thinks that I'm dipping out because I have to like that
51:06
I'm like, like, like I want to drink.
51:08
It's completely opposite. I just don't want to be around
51:10
it. Yeah, you know what I mean?
51:12
And, and so and that goes for if I go to a football game, if I go
51:18
to a bar, I mean, you know, I can say I, I love going to a
51:22
bar, sitting down, having like 3, you know, two or three
51:24
Heineken double Zeros, non alcoholic beer.
51:26
And then I know I'm walking out. I can drive and do whatever I
51:29
want. I get, I get a kick out of that,
51:31
like especially during the day if I knock down to at lunch or
51:33
something and I just feel like amazing, I'm not buzzed out
51:36
there's. A lot of rewards for that, yeah.
51:37
Yeah, it's cool, man. And, and drinking's down 39% in
51:41
Vegas, alcohol sales down 39%. Being over is cool.
51:46
Being a Christian is cool. Being, you know, it's, it's
51:48
just, it's all, it's all together.
51:50
Well, let's talk about how how did you come up with LFG Life
51:56
Podcast? Well, Tom B, I'm a huge Tom
51:59
Brady fan who's, you know, obviously the, the GOAT, the
52:02
best. Yeah.
52:03
And so his thing was he has LFG, which is let's fucking go.
52:07
And so I, I started a brand called LFG 24/7 365, which is
52:13
let's, you know, let's and again, being, you know, I'll be
52:16
59 in May. I'm sober eight years.
52:19
So in my mind, I'm, I'm 7 1/2 years old and I'll be 8 years
52:22
old and my, my sober date. And I say that because I attack
52:25
life like I, I, I attack and I attack my, my Christianity, my
52:30
faith, my, my relationships with my, with my kids, with my
52:33
family, business partners. I, I attack it all because I
52:36
have so much to give and so much to for me in my mind, so much
52:39
time to make up. And when I turned 50, I remember
52:42
looking online, I'm like, man, there's not no one's talking
52:44
about like what it's like to be 50 and be like in shape and be
52:47
like, I'm not on the I'm like taking ass.
52:49
I'm still, you know, when you get all your earning years, your
52:52
prime earning years are from, you know, 35 to whatever,
52:55
whatever, 25 to 40. Like I've been more money in the
52:57
last 10 years than, you know, most people make it a lifetime.
53:01
And I say that because it's not over, like, you know, right,
53:05
Gary Breck, a great friend of mine, he says, hey, anyone
53:07
that's alive between now, like it today in 2030 has the
53:10
opportunity to live to be 120, a 140.
53:13
Well, if I'm going to be living to be 707580, I'm going to be in
53:18
the best shape of my life. And in order to do that, I have
53:21
to do that now. I have to put the foundation in
53:23
place. I've got to be eating the right
53:25
things. So the LFT laughs.
53:27
Yeah, it's it's let's fucking go.
53:30
And so we started the podcast, obviously for recovery and
53:33
addiction, then it morphed in the people in prison, then it
53:36
morphed in the high level successful people.
53:37
And now it's about like just interviewing people like
53:40
yourself, like me, that are living their life with a
53:43
purpose. And we know.
53:46
Don't you think that's maybe the the secret ingredient?
53:50
I think listen, man in general, and I'll speak for on behalf of
53:54
you and I as men, men, men and man mankind, we need hope.
53:58
And hope is purpose. If you have purpose, you have
54:01
hope. If you have hope, you have a
54:02
purpose. And so that's the driving
54:04
factor. Yeah, I I know that's and that's
54:07
a that's a great, a great point to make for young men and and
54:11
guys our age, right, That that you have purpose and you're
54:14
doing something that means something, especially we do
54:17
something that means something with the guy upstairs.
54:19
And then, you know, you should attack it and attack your your
54:22
wife, a lover, tell you love her, attack, you know, that
54:24
there's a girl, that tight husband, that he's cool.
54:27
And and then, you know, I love this new thing.
54:29
I just hear the six second kiss and the 32nd hug like you know.
54:34
Next. Second kiss, 32nd hug, But you
54:37
got to watch out for that 32nd hug, man, Someone's going to be
54:39
like what? You're weird.
54:40
Like a long time. Well, I always ask everybody
54:45
this question. I'm curious what yours is, PJ,
54:47
what? What do you think is your
54:48
biggest take away from all this that you've experienced and
54:51
lived through? Which part?
54:53
The president of Rehab the. Whole thing.
54:55
What would you take away from like?
54:58
You know, you got to go back to like growing up to the rocky
55:04
movies, right? And then the major these are
55:07
these are movies and lines in the movie that's just impacted
55:09
my life. And then, you know, there's
55:11
obviously the one where Apollo creates us to the rocky.
55:15
There is no tomorrow. There is no tomorrow.
55:16
You got to fight. And then and then and thinking
55:19
Rocky's 27. It's Stallone has a great one
55:22
when he's he's saying about it. How many times you get up?
55:25
Yeah, when he's talking to his kid.
55:27
Yeah, he's always got very, very power up chills.
55:29
One of the most powerful. Yeah, it's it's it's so.
55:33
Monologues. I want people and more
55:36
importantly, I want, I want, I want my, my, my kids and my
55:40
friends and my family that like to say that, Hey, you know,
55:44
Peter PJ Jensen, he, he's just a bad ass.
55:47
And he and he and he did it the right way.
55:49
He did it under God. He did it with with passion.
55:53
And he was there for all of us when we needed them.
55:56
And I love my saying that I learned from from one of my
56:01
great mentors, Coach Tomer, you know, he said, hey, if I'm if
56:04
I'm standing, you're standing. If I'm standing, you're
56:07
standing. And that's what I live by.
56:09
Everyone knows my guys, that my guys and my family know I'm ride
56:12
or die. If they need me, I'm there.
56:13
Doesn't make a difference. You know that movie from another
56:16
one from the town with Ben Affleck, right?
56:19
You guys say, Brent, listen, I can't tell you where we're
56:21
going, but we're going to we're going to try to hurt some
56:23
people. And you say, whose car we
56:26
taking? Oh, you got to ride or die.
56:30
That's who I am for. The that's a good PJ take away.
56:33
I like it. I like it if people want to get
56:37
a hold of you, PJ, I know you got the LFG podcast, the.
56:42
LFG Life on YouTube. You can Facebook me Peter
56:45
Jensen. I'm pretty easy to find.
56:48
You know, my again, my, my, my chapter that I'm in right now.
56:51
It's not my last chapter for sure.
56:53
It's my next chapter. And that's the one about getting
56:55
and showing people that there is a a significant difference in
57:01
your life for being sober. We have pathways to get you
57:03
sober if anyone needs help in recovery, addiction.
57:06
And then on the family side too, I know we talked about this,
57:10
that there's a side to that. The families of of addicts, We
57:13
they need a pathway too. And then also the families of
57:15
people that got incarcerated. They absolutely.
57:18
Yeah. We cover it all, Brett, Brett
57:20
and I and and you and I met through a mutual friend of our
57:23
Steve Dean. Got to give Steve.
57:24
Yeah, we got to give Steve Dean a shout out.
57:26
Big shout out. He's like one of my dogs.
57:30
And that's just amazing how I saw my daughter that yeah, I'm
57:33
on a podcast today with a, a friend of ours that we met, that
57:36
I met through Steve Dean. She's like really, she's at
57:38
home. She loves Uncle Steve so.
57:41
Yeah, he would probably be a pretty interesting interview
57:44
with Steve Dean. Oh, he's, he's the best.
57:46
Dude, yeah, he's a good guy. He's great.
57:49
He's a great athlete too, which I love.
57:51
Great competitor. And he loves the pickleball.
57:54
Yeah, wait, 2 days ago, Oh yeah, we heard his biceps so he's not
57:58
into reserve right now, but. He's that's what happens to the
58:00
old people. Yeah, he's actually, he's in
58:02
great shape. He's in.
58:03
He's. In good shape.
58:04
Yeah, good guy. I want to give a shout out to
58:07
Homestead Financial too. Let's me use this podcast frame
58:10
with all the lights and cameras. If you're looking for a book out
58:15
there, I've got one nightmare success, loyalty, betrayal, life
58:17
behind bars, adapting, finally breaking free.
58:20
Hey, if you got time, I know it's a hassle, but if you can
58:22
leave a review on an apple, those those really helped the
58:25
show and I love reading them. You want to know what I'm doing?
58:27
Sprint cassidy.com. I spell it wrong with ATY out of
58:32
DY, as I used to say to my people when I was writing my
58:35
emails back and forth from Levin where stay strong.
58:37
I'll do the same. PJ Jensen, man you are you are
58:41
attacking life, man. I love it.
58:43
Love it. Thanks man, I appreciate that.
58:45
I want to go. I want to go out and do
58:46
something. Well, you're already doing it,
58:48
man. You have me going and you know,
58:52
keep hope alive, man. I appreciate it man.
58:55
Live your success in and out.