Latest / Callis Mindset with Kannon Callis / CM 22 From Prison to Redemption: Jimmy John on Second Chances, Faith and Building Relationships

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CM 22 From Prison to Redemption: Jimmy John on Second Chances, Faith and Building Relationships · Callis Mindset with Kannon Callis

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite things about hosting Callous Mindset podcast
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: has been hearing all the stories and everyone's different paths
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to success.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I've had people on this podcast who have.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Experienced starvation, homelessness, losing everything, starting over and overcoming circumstances
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: most people simply couldn't imagine. But today's story is another
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: one entirely different. My guest today, Jimmy John, has a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: story about addiction, prison, second chances, and completely rebuilding his life.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Jimmy John went from battles to spending time in prison
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to turning his life around and becoming one of the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: most successful insurance professionals and top producers in the Treasure Valley.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: That's only part of the reason I wanted to have
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: him on the podcast. Since meeting Jimmy John, I've also
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: witnessed the way he operates. He's becoming known as one
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of the best networkers and marketers I've met recently. He
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: seems to know everyone that I've met recently, and he's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: consistently building relationships. And he understands something that I think
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of people in sales miss. Your network becomes
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: an asset. And when you genuinely care about people and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the people in your network, it works for you. Today,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I want to understand both sides of that story, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: is why I'm having him on. I want to know
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: who he was before the experiences and the hardships. but
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: also how he bounced back and rebounded to become the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: person he is today, the producer, the marketer, the networker.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Because success really looks different when you know someone and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: when you know them from the outside versus the inside
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and them telling their story. Jimmy John, welcome to Callus Mindset.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm pretty excited.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And yeah, thanks again for Your vulnerability, just being transparent,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: telling your story, it really does touch lives. And from
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the moment that we met in person, we grabbed coffee.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I could just tell we were going to get along.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: You're a supercharged type of personality, you know, the high energy.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I really thrive off that, too. But I want to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: look all the way back. Where are you from? Where
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: did you grow up? What was your childhood like? You know,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: we're not going to tell your whole story, but I
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: think that's a great.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Place to start. Yeah, man. Absolutely.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: So I'm an Idaho native. I was born in Boise.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Mountain Home, Idaho. I can say
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: a lot of words to answer all those questions there,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: but I'll try to make it quick. I was born
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: in Boise, grew up in Mountain Home. I have two sisters.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: They were both born in Washington. My mom... I have
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: a dad, my mom pregnant, and then he left. And
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: so my mom was, it was just me and my mom.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: And then she met a man who's in the Navy.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: And that's, you know, who I call my dad. He's
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: my stepdad, but that's who I call my dad my
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: whole life. We moved to Washington. He had orders to
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: go to Washington. And so we lived in Bremerton, Washington.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Both my sisters were born there and Rainey and Lindley.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: They're my everything. They're my, I consider my real sisters or,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: you know, people say they're halves, but they're, they're my
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: real sisters. uh, three years apart. And, uh, yeah, my,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: and then we got orders to go to, uh, Virginia.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: We moved around a lot in Washington, went to Banger,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Washington and Port Orchard and then Bremerton. Um, then he
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: got orders to go to Virginia. We went there, um,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: and it's normal household, strict dad, all that. Um, and
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: when we got to Virginia, things kind of changed a
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: little bit. My dad, you know, he was very aggressive,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: went through, uh, you know, all the different abuses you
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: can think of. If your brain can think of it,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: I've been through it. My sister's too. The sick part is,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: you know, those are his daughters. You know, and as
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: time went on, you know, I was, I was kind
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: of in a culture shock too, because I went from Washington,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: felt like I was safe and everything. And then we
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: moved to a RV park and we were there for
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: eight months and just the culture was different. And then
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: we ended up going to a trailer park, which I loved.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: And that was, that was an amazing time in my life.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I learned a lot of the bad stuff there. I
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: didn't really dabble with drugs and stuff then. It's just,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: I saw it and ran around. I had my license young.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: And so I was always driving people around. They were
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: like doing things and I had to keep my mouth
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: quiet and sort of getting those little seeds planted of like,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: not that I was a gangster, but like the gangster mindset,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: you know, of like keeping your mouth shut, you're doing this.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: And I just be like, okay, and do it. And
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: then years later, I just got tired of the abuse,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: tired of things happening. And I wanted to come back
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: to Idaho. My grandpa, he was in his late eighties
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: at the time. And I worked at Taco Bell, dropped,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: you know, wasn't really doing well in school. I didn't
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: think I didn't have the mindset of like college or
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: any of that. Mine was, you know, got to work,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: got to provide. I have to have my own money.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: And so I worked at Taco Bell. I saved up
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: enough money, got a bus ticket and came back to Idaho.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Back forward, backwards a little bit. When I was 15,
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: my real dad contacted me. And so I did go
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: to New Mexico for about three weeks and he was
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: shooting meth and doing all this stuff. And back then
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what that was. I dabbled with marijuana,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: but I didn't know what the hard drugs were. And
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: then I ended up going back to Virginia. I was like,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: screw this. And I was out and I went back
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: to Virginia. And then that's when everything just got crazy,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: more chaotic. My dad was messing with my sisters and
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: using my mom and cheating on my mom. And, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I just didn't want to be there no more. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: I took the selfish act of moving to Idaho to
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: run away from it all. When I came to Idaho,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I was staying with my grandpa, but I was underage,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: and I went to a pasture event. It was a bonfire.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: A lot of us kids from out in home, we
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: hung out at this pasture place, and I had a
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: dog named Yogi, and I showed up in this pasture.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: He goes... You can't be here with that beast. And
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: at that time, I had no belief of God. I
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: didn't believe in any of that. When they said beast,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I made the association to like the devil. And he
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: was like my best friend. So when he said that,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, hell no, dude. And I used
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: to have an anger problem. And, you know, I end
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: up having an altercation with them, beat them up pretty bad.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: And cops got called and I went walking and they
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: grabbed me. They're like, hey, what's going on?
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Who's your guardian?
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I was like, well, my parents live in Virginia. I'm
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: staying with my grandpa. And, uh, then I just broke
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: down in tears and just told him everything that has
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: been going on in my household. And what that did
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: is it started an investigation in the military. And, uh,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: my mom, she was just staying with him. Cause that
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: was her love. That was, she didn't know, you know,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: she grew up on a farm in Glensbury, you know,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: she's just wanting to be taken care of and. But
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: she worked up the courage. She was on the James
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: River in Virginia. She was crabbing and fishing, and she
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: saved enough money, and she came to Idaho and brought
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: my sisters. So we're all back together. I had started
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: doing drugs here and there, different kinds, meth, marijuana. Didn't
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: really soak in. It was just kind of a fun thing.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: And then I remember I was working at Subway in
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Mountain Home, and my aunt came in, and she's like, hey,
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: I need to talk to James. And the manager's like, Well,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: you can't, he's busy and we're shorthanded. And she's like, no,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I really need to talk to him. And, uh, she,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I go out there and she's crying and my aunt
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: were crazy. Uh, she's crying. That's not good. Well, she
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: told me my dad had taken his life. She said,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: your dad's dead is what she said. And so I
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: went over to, um, my mom's and that's when the
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: military guys were there. And my dad had taken his
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: own life and it was, uh, You know, last words
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I told him, he came out when my mom moved
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: out here and I told him I hated him and
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: that he was a bad person. But I also told
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: him I loved him. It was really a weird conversation
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: and that I wasn't going to change. And, you know,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: and after that happened, I had all the shame and
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: regret and remorse and all the stuff from my past.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: You know, at the time, I wasn't thinking of that stuff.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: It was just in there dwelling. Now I can, in hindsight,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: see what those feelings are attached to that. But then
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I just thought I was having fun. And boom, I
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: went real hard on the meth. I just kept doing it,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: kept doing it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: How old were you at this point?
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: I think this, I was 17. Okay.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. 100% man. And, and I just continued to do.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: And then when I was 20 years old, I ended
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: up getting arrested for delivery charges, mountain home. They gave
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: me five years fixed seven years in the terminate. Um,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of this is kind of foggy and I'm
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: starting to remember more and more, but I did, I
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: did that five years, you know, uh, everything. And I,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: you know, I did five years and I got out
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: and I thought I was going to conquer the world.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: I was going to get out, change my life, do things. And, uh,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: that's not what happened. I just started using again. And
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: then they violate me. I did another two years. Uh,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: this time I'm going to get out of mountain home,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: go to Boise, change my people, places and, you know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: friends or whatever. Well, that didn't work. As soon as
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: one little stress happened, I start finding out where the
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: dope's at. You know, and then I would just chase that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: I got another violation, another two year violation for Gertie U.A.'s.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: I got out again. I was like, all right, this
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: time I'm really going to do it. You know, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: back then it's kind of like I go to a
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: rising sun halfway house here in Boise and I pay
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: my first month's rent and then I'd wait after I
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: pay it. I'm like, oh, my God. How am I
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: going to pay my next rent? Oh, no. And then
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: the mind just plays these tricks on you. You got
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: that voice yelling at you saying you're dumb. You're not
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: going to do this. You're just going to fail like
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: you always do. But you got your other brain saying, no,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I got this. But that old brain just keeps on
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: conquering you with a big old hammer and you push
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: yourself down and you let that take over. And I
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: end up getting federal charges. Started using all that. And
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I went to federal prison for seven and a half years. And, uh, yeah,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: my relationship with my sisters was strained because they keep
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: seeing their brother come out saying he's going to change
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: and come out and do the same thing. You have
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: a mom that's destroyed. Her husband took his life. Her
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: oldest son is just can't get his life together. Um,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: you know, those are the perceptions that they have because
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I get it. I mean, I'm on the outside now
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: looking at other people going, man, I get it now.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I was able to get out. I
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: got out five years ago, actually like just a few
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: days ago, September 21st, 2021 is when I got out.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And my wife, who's my wife now, we knew each
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: other back in 2008 and we used to use together
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: and she'd done her own, you know, run in with
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the law. And we reconnected and it was just, she
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: likes to tell people it was the wrong heart or wrong,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: right heart, wrong time back then. And so, man, we
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: just conquered it. We just figured out, you know, we
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: just got to conquer this world. This last time in
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: federal prison, I don't know if you want me to
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: keep getting into more of it, but, uh, this last
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: time in federal prison, I told myself, man, I know
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I'm a good human. I didn't like rob people. I
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: wasn't stealing people. Yeah. Drugs are bad. I shouldn't have
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: been doing them. I shouldn't have been driving over state
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: lines and bringing drugs back here and all that. And
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: I totally understand that. On the flip side, I didn't
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: do all the stuff I saw other people do. And
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying I'm better or anything, but I used
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: to think those things. And that's what made me think
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: I was better than others in that world. And I wasn't.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I was still doing the same stuff. And I told
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: myself this last time, OK, I'm going to figure this out.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: So I started reading these books. In the federal system,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: you don't have a TV in your cell like you
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: do in Idaho State Prison. And it's just unlimited amount
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: of books. And so I started reading. I would read
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: a self-help book. And then in between that, I'd read
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: a fiction book. I started, there's two that I, there's
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: two that made a huge difference in my life. One's
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: called Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. My whole life,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I was told, like I was diagnosed with borderline split
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: personality and schizophrenia because I used to be, I used
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: to be wild. I would think people were thinking things
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: about me and then I would react off what I
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: thought they thought when in reality, they're just standing there.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: The truth was a man was standing there, but I
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: was so messed up that I was thinking thoughts that
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: he was thinking, even though he wasn't, but I would
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: react off those. Absolutely crazy when you think about it now.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: And so when I read this book, it describes your
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: old brain is trying to protect you from things you've
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: been through in your life. You don't consciously know that
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: is what it's doing. So technically you're living in the
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: past from present events. You're judging what's happening in front
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: of you because of other things. You're not taking it
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: for what it is. And so when I read that
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: book and really realized like, man, my brain is just
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: trying to protect me. How do I dig into that?
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: So I read more books and I was reading like
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: science books and learning about how we share 70% of
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: DNA with all living things. And you know, the stars
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: and just how we're all clusters floating through space. And
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: I'm a very science guy. I was atheist my whole life.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: And just like, you know, I was like, wow, just
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: my mind was opening up to things. And I read
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: another book called You Are a Badass by Jennifer Sincero.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: That book is amazing, man. The biggest part of that
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: book was I remember sitting there reading it, going, man,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I don't agree with none of this stuff, man. This
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: is garbage, you know? And then the next line on
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: there somewhere, it said, if you don't agree with what
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, apply it. Well, I was locked up in
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: prison and one of the white dudes, he got out
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: and he gave me the barber position where I can
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: cut hair. And so, you know, in a prison setting,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: you have face value. You're selling, you're pretty close with,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: but face value. It's like, what's up, man? You know,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: everything's cool, but no one really gets real on the inside. Well,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: when you're the barber, you're able to talk to people.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: You're able to find out like, you know, what they
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: did in their life or whatever, because you're sitting there
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: cutting their hair. And so I started just like talking
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: to people, man, and kind of getting deep with them
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: and they were getting deep back. And I started realizing like,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't matter if you're 18 years old
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: or a hundred years old, we're all just on this
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: earth trying to figure out life. And the big thing
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: I like to say is, you know, a lot of
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: these people, a lot of people would work their life
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: away or work their life away, but their family had everything,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: but they had no emotional connection. Then there's other guys
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: who didn't really have any money and they barely worked,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: but they had great family connections. So it's like, okay,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I got to figure out this balance. And so I
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: just brought that. I saved every single dime I could
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: when I was locked up. And I just got out
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: and I told myself, I'm going to make it. Reconnected
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: with my wife. I got into the car business. And
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I was really good at it. Then I ended up
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: going to another place that was even better. I was
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: able to buy a house two years out of prison.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: That was in 2023. And I was able to, I
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: had my first son. I'm a stepdad to a seven-year-old.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: She's seven now. I mean, I, I'm, and I ended
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: up getting an insurance because, you know, I was selling
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: all them cars and I had her insurance guy to
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: refer people to. And, you know, and, uh, he's like,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Hey man, you ever thought about doing insurance? And I
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: was like, no, man, I'm not leaving this job to
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: try something, but in the car business, I'm working 70
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: plus hours. Well, here I am living in my past
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: about the people that worked their life away. Yeah. You're providing,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: but are you present? I was like, Oh man. So
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: maybe I should take this risk, you know? And, um, yeah.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: So I, uh, you know, took the risk left. Actually,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: my wife actually started at first cause I was so scared.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: And when, when I saw the potential of it, you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: and she wanted to be stay at home mom, we
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: were able to switch at that time. And then I
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: kind of took it over from there. And I mean, uh,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: now I'm able, now I'm in a position where I'm
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: able to just talk to more people and just learn
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: how people take and just be myself and, and encourage
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: others to be themselves. You don't have to be any
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: kind of way, but you. And so, yeah, man. Uh, yeah,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, first off, for sharing all of that.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack there. And I just have
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: two things stuck with me during that conversation. And the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: first thing is, is that victimless crimes and drug charges
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and in the state of Idaho. I actually done some
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: research on this recently because I saw a statistic this
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: week that said the state of Idaho has the highest
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: female in prison population per capita in the entire country.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: And I was like, how is that? How is that?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Like, that doesn't make sense to me. We're so small.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Like how like where are all these crimes happening? Because
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not seeing them. You know, we're 50 out of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: 50 in the country for burglary, property crime, vandalism. Like
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: it's a very high trust society here compared to where
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I've lived. So I'm like, where are these crimes happening?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So I dug deeper into it. And it's drug crime.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: It's Idaho is one of the most strict states in
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the country for drug crime, especially possession crime. 65% of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: females in prison today are in prison in Idaho for
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: possession crime, simple possession. And a lot of it's marijuana
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and cannabis weed. You drive 30 minutes West and on
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Idaho street in Oregon, they have a bunch of dispensaries.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You can just go buy it recreationally. But when you
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: bring it over state lines, it becomes a federal crime
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: because now you're trafficking. It's not just about personal use,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: it's possession. And they try to get you as much
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: as they can. Well, I looked at the prison sentences
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: for simple possession in every other state compared to Idaho.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And the average Idaho possession charge is about 22 months
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: in prison, where other states are about 13 months. So
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: it's close to double for the same exact crime. And
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to me, that's just, that's not just to me, that's,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it's punishing people for the wrong things. And it's, you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: feeding the prison population. And like you said, you know,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: when you've been to prison, it doesn't matter if it's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: state or federal, your chances of being readmitted are like
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: 300% higher. Like you're like, there's, it's a sad thing
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to say, but the revisit is such at a high
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: rate that people almost expect you to come back. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: so my question comes to how was it like, at
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: what point was it that you were able to exit
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: that system and get out, you know, for, for the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: last five plus years, like, What changed in your mind?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I know you're reading a bunch of books, but how
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: did you get clean and kind of what was that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: experience like?
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of hard. I'm in a weird
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: position with all that because, you know, I've been out
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: five years, but two years ago, I just, you know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I realized God's real. But to go back, I guess,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: because I'm trying to, that's a question I ask myself
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: because I have no answer. That's, you know, but if
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: you want me to, you know, brainstorm it and kind
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: of think what my human brain can think is, you know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: during this case, because of my state felonies, when, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I had nine years in Idaho, I have so many felonies.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: And so when I got the federal offense, the way
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: the federal government works is they have career criminal or
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: career history points on the side and career level on
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: the top. It's a grid. So you go here and
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: here and then in whatever it lines up on is
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: your sentence. Well, because of how much, you know, I
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: got caught with 86 grams of a mixture of meth
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: and basalt. So that's 86 grams here. And then you
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: have the amount of felonies. Why? Because I have so
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: many felonies, my box was 360 months. So when I
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: found out I was looking at 360 months, I was devastated.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: When I was locked up, I started finding where the
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: weed was at. I was smoking weed. I was stressed out.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: I was, you know, it wasn't fun no more. It
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: wasn't cool. I was, my neck started hurting. I was
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: walking forward and kind of slouching and I just thought
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I was getting 30 years, you know, 360 months is
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: a long time. Um, and so I was pretty depressed.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: The thing that's, there's a couple of things. So the
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: first one is my federal public defender. So it's like
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: a state public defender is an appointed attorney that the
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: state gives you cause you can't afford an attorney. So
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: they appoint one on the federal level, same thing, but
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: it's a federal attorney. I've never had one help me before.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I just think they're garbage. They just put me through
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: the process. They have lunch with the judges like that's
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: the that's the concepts in the mindset that I had. Well,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: this one was different, man. She was like trying. She
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: brought up my past. She had my sister do an
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: interview during my sentencing from Washington State at the time.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Because she had gotten sober, you know, her trials and
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: tribulations she went through, she was able to overcome. We
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: dug up my past, all my stuff. And I had
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: a guy, his name was Shane. He was in there.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And he's the only person I confided in with my case.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Because I learned quickly in the state when everyone was
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: saying federal is better. But to me, it didn't feel
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: like it was better because I was looking at 30 years.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: And I was like, I don't know if these guys
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: know what they're talking about. But this dude, Shane, he
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: was there. And he did federal time as well. And
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: he's like, hey, man, I'm not going to BS you.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Show me all your stuff. Show me everything you have
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: going on. It's not like state where you can wiggle
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: down and they can drop something and give you a
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: lighter sentence. Wherever your box lands is where you're going
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: to be unless you're a rat. And I wasn't a rat.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: So I showed him all my paperwork and all my stuff. And,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: you know, I was hoping for like something. And he's like, man,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: with the amount of felonies, he's like, this is what
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: this is what it's going to be. You know, and
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I was just devastated. And I remember I was sitting
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: in my cell and my cell at the time, he
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: was a crazy dude, man, taking psych meds, all kinds
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of stuff. And one day he goes, Hey man, I
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: really want to go to church. And my reaction was,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: hell no, I'm not going to no make-believe weird stuff
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: where the gay people hang out in the back and
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: jerk each other off. I'm not going there, man. And
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: he's like, well, I just don't feel right today and
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: I feel like I need it. And I was like, dude,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: I'm not going there because I have anger in my heart.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: If that thing is there, why are people dying? Why
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: are people getting shot? Like that was the perception I
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: have of what God was. You know, I didn't realize
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: what I know now, which is he's just pure love
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: and all the other stuff is not him. But at
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: the time, that's what I thought. And so... I gave in,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: was like, all right, man, I can't remember his name,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: but he was a cool dude. He was kind of crazy.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: But I was like, you know what? He's just asking
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: for help for someone to go with him. So I
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: went and I still remember this, man. And this is
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: where I think things started changing in my life, dude.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: The more and more I think about my life is
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: I go walk in there. I'm a dude against all this.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Never did the Bible studies. I see people do Bible studies,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: find God. And then they get out, come right back.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: And they're even eviler than they were before. That was
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: my perception, right? So I go in there and bro,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I went in that room and they hadn't even started yet.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I started crying. And I could not stop. It was like,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: and I looked over at him and he's like, you
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: all right? And I was like, I don't know what's
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: going on, man. Tears are just falling down. And I'm like, what?
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: It was an experience I've never really, I'm not a crier.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? So I was just like,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: what is happening? And it's just these tears. And I
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: don't remember the service or any of that. And I
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: remember I walked out with them and around the corner,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: there's a little bulletin. And it said, do you want
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: to get baptized? And it had all these slots and
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: there was one available. And it has a little pencil
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: with a string on it. You know what I mean?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: So I grabbed it. I'm all James John. I put
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: my eight, six, seven, five, five, my IDOC number. And
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I put it on there and, you know, and never
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: been baptized or nothing. And so anyway, I go, so
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: I go and I go get baptized. Thought I was
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: going to feel something. I get dunked in some water.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: My hair was wet and stuff. And that was it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: But what had happened, like I'm trying to piece it
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: together for you to understand is that federal offender, She
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: freaking calls me on an unexpected attorney visit, which is
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: sometimes not good. So I go and she she looked
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: in the federal handbook and she found a clause because
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: on the first sentence I did get a writer. But
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: which is where they suspend your sentence and then you're
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: able to go do a program. You get out on
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: probation and I had 10 years probation because my other
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: charges that was still probation. But I had other charges
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: in the way. But technically, when I violated, I got
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: sentenced on that same one. So she found a clause,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: if you get sentenced within two days of two felonies,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: that counts as one felony. And she found that clause,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: which dropped my 360 months down to 97 months. And so, yeah, man.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: And then so from that day on, my head lifted higher.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I had a specific job that, you know, it's my
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: little work job that you do. Anyway, it's a thing
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I had to do for the fellows. And I went
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: up to the dude and I was like, hey, man,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going through
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: a tough case. I just want to come to the gym.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: I don't want to shake nobody's hand. I just want
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: to come in here, do my workout and get up
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: in the morning, go to my job, come in here,
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: work out and go back to myself. And so that's
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: what I did, man. And that's when reflecting started happening.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I had another chance. I had another chance at like,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: you know, even though it was still eight years, you know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: because I did a program called Art App in prison,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I was able to get a year off. But it
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: was eight years, you know, and way better than 30.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: So I knew I had another shot and another chance.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: So that's, I think, the turning point. And then I
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: decided I want to figure this out. And it all
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: came from within, man. That's all it was. Wow.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like that federal appointed, was it federally
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: appointed defense?
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, attorney.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Attorney. She was more than that.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: She was almost like a guardian angel. I mean, like
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: we really think about I mean, 360 to 97. It's less,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's just insane. I mean, that's like, it's,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: it's just, it's a clear sign that you deserve another chance.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that's what you're doing right now is
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: you're taking advantage of that. And it's incredible to see.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm, you know, I'm glad to have met you.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: One of the reasons I like having people on the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: podcast that have sometimes a rocky past or some, sometimes
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a really hard upbringing or, you know, things that are
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: outside their control that they got either positioned into, or
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: they found, you know, fell into, is that this podcast
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: isn't about being the perfect golden person, you know.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Your entire life. And none of us are that way.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: It's about bounce back.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: It's about finding, you know, in your darkest time, the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: ability to keep taking steps forward when you're losing family members,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: when you're losing your business, when you're losing your spouse.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many stories that we've told on this podcast.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just, it's so cool to see that And I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: definitely want to get into like the next chapter, like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: what happened after that and tell some of the success story.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: But the decision to change is really that pivotal moment.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter what it takes to get there.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It might be a best friend betraying you or somebody
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that you love telling you something that is just a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: really brutal truth or a lie. And your reaction to that,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: it could be you found yourself starving to death. I mean,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: my brother has been in that position forever. I've had
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: my last podcast guest was facing homelessness. You know, I've
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: had a couple of people like that and now they're
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: absolute rock stars and killers in real estate. I want
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: to talk about the path after, you know, like how
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you got into car sales, you were, you know, slinging
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: car sales, doing good at it. You saw the opportunity
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: cause you're, you know, you're, you're referring insurance referrals to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: an insurance agent, your wife, also met you on that path.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's such a cool story that you're both
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: having these different things. You, at the same time, you
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: found each other, you're still together today. She showed you
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that it was a good point, proof of concept for
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the insurance. And now you're in it and you're excelling.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little bit about what
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: you're doing today.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. What I'm doing today is, you know, I
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: do insurance by day. I'm a, I'm a family man
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: by night. I like my private life to be kind
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: of private, but in the marketplace, it's, You know, I
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: try to be everywhere and just get to know people.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: I love being a huge referral source for my clients.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I also love teaching people about insurance. I have found
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: 90 percent of people don't even know what any of
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: this stuff means. And that's a problem because you're paying
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: for a service. And the craziest thing is you're paying
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: for a service and then a time, you know, time
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: of a claim, it's denied or something. And it's something
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: stupid that you didn't even know about or whatever. you know,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: and my, I've made it my mission to, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: it's three things, educate people. If they're clients, educate them
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: on insurance, share my story and bring up God. Those
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: are my, my three things, man. And, uh, I do
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: it in the marketplace. Uh, so yeah, I have my
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: own little office here. Um, I, I'm actually in a
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: collective with another agency. Um, they gave me the opportunity
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: where I have, and I manage this whole office, uh,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: I have one person here, my wife, she's actually in
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: the works of starting a nonprofit because we told ourselves,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: because I have a side project too. We actually just
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: got approved with the SEC for our public company and
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: we should be getting our symbol in about a month.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: It's a little side thing. So we always talk about
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: each other. We're like, hey, if we started having all
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: this money, because we don't come from money, but if
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: we started having it, what would make us still be
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: pure and good? Because we see what happens sometimes when
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: that happens to people. And sometimes we're not able to
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: manage our money correctly, and we just go crazy, right?
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: So we had that conversation, and what fills our cups? Well,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: mine is going out to the prisons and speaking to people.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Going out and showing them there's a better life. Showing
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: them that society lies to you. Don't even listen to
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: none of that. All you have to do is be
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: true to yourself. Be good. Present yourself right. Someone will know.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: And always move forward and overcome obstacles. Don't ever stop.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Any thought, feeling, and emotion associated to anything negative is
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: not of you. You are a God's creature and you
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: are yourself and just pursue it. That's my big thing.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: And hers is she's been through the domestic violence stuff.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: She placed her first daughter for adoption. She's been through
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: a lot of trials. She was sex trafficked. She's got
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of things she's been through herself. And so
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: our thing is our community. She's really big with Napa
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Family Justice Center. She's actually doing an event right now
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: in December that's with them. Um, that's, what's going to
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: fill our cup. And then, um, being a disciple of God,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: which is just showing people that God's there. He's got
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: your back. He will train, change you from the inside out,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: which is what I'm in the middle of right now.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And I want other people to see that because someone
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: like me that on the outside always looks great. And
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: this side's kind of just stayed to now, all of
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: a sudden my perceptions of reality is changing and my
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: concepts are changing, not from me doing it, just from
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: me interacting with this spiritual thing that I used to
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: think was nothing when it actually is something. And so, um,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: That if any of this stuff was to hit all
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: that would go just to pursue these, to keep the fill,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: keep our cup filled, because we just want to be
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: good people on earth. We've had, we're supporting this community
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: and we just want to give back to it. Well,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: if that answers your question, I kind of got on
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: a rant.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: There, but that's okay.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Um, I, you know, I, I don't share this with
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: most people, um, especially on a podcast, but I was
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: raised very, very Christian. like church all the time, like Wednesday, Sunday,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: sometimes Saturday, my parents were involved with the church.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: They volunteered.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: But when I was 18, I fell away from that.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And my parents, they moved across the country. We were
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: going through a bankruptcy and some really hard times. It
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was right after they lost their house because of the,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you know, the housing crisis, 2008, 2009 timeframe. And I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: went from being like super sheltered and really raised in
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a good environment, but also still seeing some hypocrisy to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I'm completely out, I'm considering myself I didn't call myself
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: an atheist, but I called myself agnostic. Either way, I
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: was that way for a few years and I dated
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: someone who was the same mindset, you know, the same
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: belief structure, no real initiative to go to church or
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: anything like that. But when I was 22, 23, and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I got out of that toxic relationship and I kind
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of got out back on my own again, I started
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: praying again just because I had nothing else.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I was alone.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I moved from Texas to Colorado by myself with what
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: was in my car.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any money.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I gave her everything I had in my bank account
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to sign the divorce papers.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: It was a mess. And it was a short one.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: It was, I was married for six months. You know,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: it was like a, why, you know, like why God?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: So I went to a depressed state as well. Um,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: restarting in a different place, not knowing what I was
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: going to do. I knew I was good at sales.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I kind of latched onto. But when I
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: started really praying and just realizing that there's something, there's
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: gotta be something bigger. There's gotta be something better. There's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: gotta be a divine purpose or something or else what
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is this even worth? That's where I started finding God again.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And every year since then, I've been able to reflect
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: on my own life and forgive people, including my parents
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: and other people that have just you know, from abuse
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to other things that are just not okay. The only
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: way I was able to really do that is to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: recenter myself and realize that, like you said, why would
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: God allow all that to happen?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: It wasn't because of God. God is pure love. God
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: is this.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Universal force that wants the best for everyone and, you know,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: us to be living our divine and fulfilled purpose. But
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: there's that alternative force, you know, and I've learned in
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: life that there's, lot of evil for a lot of good.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: And sometimes when I'm hitting all-time highs in my life
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: on a professional level, I'm hitting all-time lows on a
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: personal level or vice versa. And there's always this yin-yang
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of give and take. And so I've had to recalibrate
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: myself and my expectations of blaming other people, blaming God
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: for things that I probably could have had a lot
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to do with myself. And it does kind of lead
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: into the sales and the The extroversion of being a doer,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the type of person that wants to go out and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: do good things and separate yourself, not just as a salesman,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: but helping people through offering things that they're going to
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: get anyways. You know, it could be cars. It could
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: be computer programs and software. It could be insurance.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: It could be real estate. It doesn't matter.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: It's how you deliver that message that reflects on your
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: relationship with God, whether people know it or not. You know,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: like from speaking with you, I can tell you're fired up.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I can tell you're charged up. You're going to prisons.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: You're giving speeches. You're trying to save people because, you know,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: maybe you didn't have that for you and you found
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that yourself. I'm doing the same thing for other people
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in different ways. And I think there's just something, there's
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: something noble to that. So, you know, from you speaking
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: at prisons and trying to share the message that you
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: could be something better, you know, share the word of
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: God that there's something bigger and that thing cares about
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you more than anything you could imagine.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: And you know, your emotional experience that.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: You had just, it kind of just adds up to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: realize like, this is, this is your story. So thanks
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: for sharing all those vulnerable moments and, you know, your
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: personal life. And, um, I know you've, you've joined Farm
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Bureau Insurance in the last few years. Can you tell
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: me a little bit more about your success so far
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: since joining that office?
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, um, when I first started, my wife was
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: doing it and, uh, You know, she's she's actually a
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: pretty big boss in the marketplace, too. She grew really
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: fast and, you know, started getting referral sources. And when
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: I started over here, I was kind of her backup.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I was you know, she'd get the referrals. I would
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: quote it up and, you know, and then I would
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: call and present the quotes for her and then she
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: would bring business in. And then when she decided to
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: go home and I had to do it, I got
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: a little nervous because I never really went out and
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: marketed like at a dealership. People come to you. Um, I've,
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: I'm a construction dude, you know, I've done all the things, construction,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: mainly asphalt, uh, concrete, you know, stuff like that. I
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: have a CDL, you know, like that's kind of the
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: stuff I've always, I used to have calluses. I don't
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: know what happened to them, but that's what I used
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: to have. Like, that was my thing. Never really did
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: the marketing thing. Um, And so I was getting tips
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: from her and then I have a, you know, Steven,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: he's a, he's, he's the one that gave me this opportunity.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: He's given me a lot of tips. And so I
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: had to go out and meet people. I had like
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: figured out, I, I first went at it as, Hey,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: I do insurance. Oh, here's all the cool things about
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Farm Bureau. And I like, let me quote your stuff,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: you know, and it didn't really get anywhere, you know?
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: And I didn't, I felt like I was the annoying guy.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Cause all I talked about was the insurance thing and
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: didn't really understand it. And then I don't remember what changed,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: but something happened. I don't know, somewhere along the line,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I think it was my wife. She was like, look,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: when you meet with people, don't talk about their stuff
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: or don't talk about your insurance. Get to meet these people,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: get to know who they are, you know, all this.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, I took it to another level, man.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I don't even, I probably talk about insurance 5% of
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: the time. All I do is figure out what people do.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: If they ask me, I'll answer the question, but I
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: try to always go back to what they do and
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: get to know them. One thing that I think that, well,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: actually there's several things. One of the biggest things I
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: think that's changed everything for me is always remembering in
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: my head that I got a guy. When I go
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: to a conversation, I can think and go, hey, I
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: got a guy. I'm going to remember the other people
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I met with. Also for my clients, I'm the guy
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: that's got a guy. I want to be able to
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: be the guy that says, hey, I'm looking for this.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Do you got somebody? And I want to be able
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: to say, yep, I got a guy. And that's the
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: whole purpose of that. So clients like, you know, hey,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: I'm looking to buy a house. Hey, I got a guy. Hey,
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: I'm looking. The weirdest one I got was a guy
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: had some brass sculptures from Italy and he needed someone
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: to appraise him. Well, I didn't have a guy. but
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: I reached out to people that might have a guy,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean? So then I reached out
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: and I ended up finding a guy and he got the,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: got him appraised and it was done, you know? So
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: I'm a resource for my clients. I'm a resource for
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: other people. Um, I always keep that in the back
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: of my mind because I want to help because people
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: are always looking for something. And as long as they
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: can trust in you to be that service of that,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: that means the world. Um, so yeah, I started off, uh,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: getting dealership referrals like every insurance place does and they
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: all cancel and just want their insurance for today. And
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: then they cancel and then they get charged backs and,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: And then I started meeting more people. And then I
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: started getting clients. And then I started going to clients' houses.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Then I started meeting lenders. And I started meeting real
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: estate agents. And then I started meeting all this real
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: estate stuff. I became part of the Veterans Association of
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: Real Estate Professionals. I became part of all the chambers.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I started just meeting people and just figuring out what
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: they do. And they all became resources for my clients.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: I couldn't use them. And I wasn't going to tell
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: them I did insurance and say, hey, man, let me
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: quote your stuff. I stopped doing that. I started just
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: being a resource for my clients and being a middleman
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: for them. Well, that really blew things up. I also
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: made it a priority to share my past and bring
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: up God in all my conversations. That has really boosted
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: a lot. I really don't have an answer. There's a guy,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: his name's Josh. He's a super cool dude. He goes, hey, man,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I've never met a producer that produces as much as
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: you do. And I didn't have a frame of reference
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: to go off of. I didn't know what insurance offices did.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that $ 50, 000 a month was a lot
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: for an office. And I'm over here doing over $ 100, 000
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: a month in new premium. I don't ask for referrals ever.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Even when I'm calling, hey, I'm not trying to get
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: your policy, man. I don't even need it, dude. I'm
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: just here to help, educate. So I don't know. So yeah,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I'm able to you know, go to my kids MMA classes. Um,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I have a T a team that backs me up.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: I'm learning all the ins and outs of everything. It's
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: a stressful, it's hard, uh, but it's also very rewarding
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: and makes me feel good that I can, you know,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: take my family, um, and just be us to go
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: do something, you know, do the things I wasn't able
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: to do. I get to relive my life through my kids.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: And it's, it's just amazing, man. Uh, I don't know
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: if that answered your question, but yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: There's something special about that. And I think you kind
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: of cracked the code. Have you ever seen the documentary
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: called The Secret?
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: No, but I read a book called that.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you the thesis of it, but it used
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to be on Netflix. I don't know if it still is.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It's about the law of attraction.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And it's about being the person that people need, not
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: just trying to be who you want them to accept
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you as. Almost like Kind of like you said, you're
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: not just trying to sell policies and that's not your
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: go-to conversation track. You're getting to know people, a personal connection,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: building a relationship, a human-to-human experience. You're being able to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: help them solve problems, become the center of influence, and
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: you have a guy for everything. So you're just solving problems.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: People need that desperately. So it's like you're a super
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: connector because of it. It's skyrocketed your business. And it's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: kind of like I used to do when I was
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: first new to sales. I first started in real estate
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: sales and I didn't last.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't last that long. I had two years in
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: it and I was like, I can't do this anymore.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Going to software, it's easier. But when I started in
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: real estate, I was like, hey, here's the house. You
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: want to buy it? I do real estate. Do you
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: want to purchase real estate? There's not a reason behind
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: of why.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not finding the people that are already motivated to
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: do it and just kind of using that leverage of
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the relationship. And I think that's what's really the differentiator
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: in successful entrepreneurs salespeople, whether it be insurance, real estate,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: any other type of sales that it's relationship based, you
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: solve problems, you build relationships, you show that you care
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: about everything else that's not related to your industry. And
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: then when the time is right, oh, hey, by the way,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I got you on your insurance. I got you on
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: your house or your rental or whatever it is. And
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I think that's something a lot of people, they don't
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: realize the paradigm change when you start Building relationships and
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: solving problems and helping people, even with your time, versus... hey,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: do you want to buy something? Hey, do you want
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to buy something? Like, it's just people get over it.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a huge, huge factor in the success,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: just from what I'm hearing, because I've observed so many
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: people doing it.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, where do we want to go next?
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Your relationship with God.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: It happened in an unexpected time.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: You weren't, you weren't planning to go to that service.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: The service hadn't even started.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And you felt that deep, something, something emotional, a trigger,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: a connection. A lot of people, I used to be
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: on the youth worship band. I play guitar and I
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: used to lead worship when I was a teenager for
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the youth. And I got to do it a couple
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: of times for the big church, for the adults. But
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: there was something about leading people to the altar. leading
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: people to release everything they've been holding on their shoulders,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you know, like they think it's their fault. It's not
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of the times it's not, and just letting
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: go and forgiving. It's, it's a spiritual experience.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: It's, it's emotional. It's spiritual.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: It's, it really does change your chemistry. I think in
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: your brain, it makes it where you're everything you do
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: from that moment period, you know, forward has a different purpose.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: And if you stick to it, you're going to, you're
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: going to stand on the shoulders of God, right?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Like the giants.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: So there's, you know, when everything happens in life and there's,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: we're out of choices, you know, whether we're in a
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: good scenario or a bad one, I just, I say,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: you know what, this isn't about me. I take myself
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: away from the equation. Like, how can I serve a
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: bigger purpose? It's one of the reasons I do this
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: podcast too, is to spread the word of God.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: It's not just to.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Talk about all these crazy things people been through and
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: just who's got the craziest story.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, but Thanks for sharing all that.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to second chances and personal responsibility,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: it's hard.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: It's really hard, especially when.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: You feel like you're already a failure or you feel
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: like you already messed up and there's no way out
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: of this. So what are some of the messages that
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you share with the populations that you go speak with,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: trying to give them that hope and that encouragement and
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: that motivation to just turn a new leaf and just
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: keep going day by day?
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I kind of want to back up a little,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: if that's okay. Yeah, so that time when I was
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: in prison and I went into that church and was crying,
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: you know, that was the only experience I ever had.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: Then I ignored it forever. The whole prison, the whole
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: seven years I was in prison, all that. While I
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: was in there this last time, I also started through
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: that Jennifer Sincero book, I started developing exactly what you're
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: talking about, that law of attraction. I would let nobody
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: help me in my life. And what I was doing,
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: I was blocking the universe from providing to me. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: so I developed a universal guidance system. So when I
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: had gotten out, I forgot about this part. Sorry, man.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: So when I had gotten out, I lived by that.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I pretended like I was a bag floating in the air.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: And as long as I made decisions and with a
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: good heart and I moved forward, I was not responsible
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: for the outcome because my heart, I feel, was in
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: the good spot. So I wasn't feeling any shame or
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: anything from an outcome if I made a bad decision
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: because decisions are to be made and you're not going
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: to make the right one every time. I used to
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: reflect and be mad at myself if I made the
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: right decision and didn't go how I thought. And I'd
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: be mad at myself if I made the wrong decision
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: and it just destroyed a lot of things. And I
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: would have shame in both of them. So when I
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: adopted this new idea, that's what I did with my life.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: I just started saying, thank you, universe. Thank you for providing.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you for these customers coming in. Like that's what
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: I placed, right? Well, two years ago, October will be
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: two years. My wife is like, hey, I think we
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: should start. Let me back up. I have a friend
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: that when I was running around, he got he didn't
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: get in trouble. I did. There was three of us
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: doing the drug thing. And two of them moved away,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: North Idaho, and they got sober. I end up going
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: to prison, you know. Well, they found God. And my
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: wife was like blown away at how their life had changed.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: And my wife was a believer. And I wasn't. And
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: she knew I didn't want to indoctrinate the kids. I
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: didn't want to do this make believe thing and have
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: to go to church. And I didn't like church people. And,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: you know, that was just my perception. Well, after visiting them,
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: she was like, hey, I really want to go to church.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, my God, for real. But
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: I knew she really wanted that. You know, so I
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: was like, you know what? I'm open. Let's let's go.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: I don't remember how many it was. I think she
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: said 11. I think it was nine. But we went
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: to nine different churches across this treasure valley. And I'd
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: go to one and I was like, oh, no, this
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: guy's full of crap. You know, dude, I'm not coming
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: to this one. Look, they're trying to get our money. Oh,
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: this one's way too big. I don't even feel this
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: is just weird. I feel like I'm just like walking
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: around here. This is weird. You know, and then one
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: of my one of these people I knew when I
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: met him in the marketplace. Well, so one of my
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: clients invited me to a church in Boise. And I
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: was like, bro, I live in Caldwell. I'm not driving
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: to Boise to go to church. And, uh, but my
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: wife wanted, she's like, okay, let's just try one more,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: one more place. And I was like, all right. So
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: we went and it was one of my clients invited me. Well,
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: when I showed up there, I saw people from the
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: marketplace and I was like, dang, these guys aren't weird.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: They're actually pretty cool. Like, you know, so I go
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: to the service and, uh, I'm telling you, man, that,
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: that pastor dude was talking straight to me and that's
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: how I felt. And even my wife was like, Hey,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: to the guy that invited us, she goes, did you
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: tell the past year, all this stuff we were worried about?
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Because it was the first time when I leaned over
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: and said, hey, babe, let's come back to this one.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: But not only did I go from not wanting to
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: go to church, I'm driving all the way to Boise
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: when I live in Caldwell to go to church. What
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: this church has done for me is made me realize
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: that I'm the one in my own way. I didn't
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: have a personal relationship. God's not up there. He's in here.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: All these things I was thinking are just excuses for
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: me not to do it. And it's just all the world.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: since I've been able to give up things like November
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: will be one year off marijuana. Uh, I didn't, I
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: wasn't trying to not smoke weed or eat edibles. You know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: that's what I used to go to sleep. That's what
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: makes me feel good at night after the kids are
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: in bed. It's my little thing. Well, one day we
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: went to the altar and my wife brought it up
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: and then we didn't touch it since. Um, you know,
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: like these little things, my perception, my music, I used
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: to like gangster rap, you know, like struggles and bag
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: of hoes and all this, you know, and like, I
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: don't know about three, maybe four months ago, I put
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: on some nineties hip hop. I was just going to
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: jam out. You know, I did not relate to any
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: of it. My, my mind, they say in the Bible,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: your scales from your eyes fall and things are changed.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: That's what's happened to me. All I see is love.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: It's so weird. And I've learned love is not a
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: thing where I'm just in love with somebody. No love
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: is a thing that exists. You just become a part
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: of it. So interesting. And then now that I'm doing
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: the supernatural, I never believed in miracles. I watch broken
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: marriages come in and be restored. I'm watching, you know, addiction,
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: people coming in with addictions being, you know, freed from addiction.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: I'm watching people go through poverty and become successful. And
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: it's all about brotherhood and having a spiritual God that
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: controls everything. And, you know, it just loves you. And
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: that's it. A big thing that the church that made
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: me continue to come is because I had a problem
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: with tithing. I'm not 100% all on it. I get it.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: I get the idea. But what I really liked about
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: the church I went to is none of them take
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: a salary. Nobody there takes a salary. And I was like, well,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: what do you do with all the money? They buy
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: buildings because they want to spread God and they build disciples.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: I'm like, whoa. So now I go to Tuesday morning prayer,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: 150 dudes in the Treasure Valley show up. We pray
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: for our community, all our people. They teach us how
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: to pray out loud. When we struggle with something and people,
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: two or more people come into agreement to wash that
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: stuff away. I serve in my church and I, in
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: a smaller group where men, 20 to 30 guys, talk
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: about real things, marriage, life, kids. Us dudes, we're simple, man.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: But when we isolate, that's not good. We self-medicate, not good.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: We need brothers to be able to hold us, to
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: put us to another level. Um, yeah. And so I
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: don't know, I wanted to rewind to kind of give
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: you the journey of that. Um, and honestly, I forgot
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: what the question was.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I did too. That's okay.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: That's okay.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that, that input and that insight. Cause it's,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: it's awesome to hear it. It's just, it makes me
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: happy to hear it.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: And I also want to talk about, you talked about
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: you're starting a company or some type of nonprofit, maybe.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my wife. So we don't have the nonprofit yet,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: so people can't get donation slips. But she started something
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: called Warm Hearts. It's a this year with Warm Hearts
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: is what it's called. But this the event she's doing
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: is the Warm Hearts Festival. It's in Caldwell, December 5th.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: What it is is she's got the Nampa Family Justice
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Center and the Idaho Veterans Home that's in the stateside
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: that houses the veterans and, you know, for later in life.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: She partnered with them. She's got the Canyon County Fair,
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: their center, that 45,000 square foot building. They did an
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: in-kind sponsorship for three days for free. There's already people
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: starting to sign up left and right, but it's a
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: free thing for kids and families to come through, have
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: hot cocoa, write letters to Santa. They can fill out
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: a passport, look at trees and lights that all these
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: businesses donate. They take and they donate a tree and
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: we light it all up and they write letters to
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Santa and Canyon County is going to reply to all
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: those letters. Um, and it's just a way to, uh,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: get families and people together. We're going to do fill
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Jimmy's truck. We're going to fill it. There's a bunch
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: of needs that Napa family justice center have for like,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: you know, battered women or just whatever they're, you know,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: troubled things. And she has a list online and all that.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: And it's that way we can fill the truck up
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: and all proceeds are going to those two places. And so, yeah, um,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: that's the one thing that she's working on and she's
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: a stay at home mom. And we are extending the
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: daycare because it's getting so busy that she's got so
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: many people helping her. It's kind of mind blowing. And
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: then my other side project, when I was in prison,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: I met a guy named Frank and he had family
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: recipes for Italian food. And he really took a liking
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: to me and he was like, 60 years old, and
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: he was a hard worker. Well, he liked how I worked.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I didn't care I was making 15 cents an hour.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: I don't care about that. I care about my work
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: ethic and what I am as a man. And so
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: I worked hard, and he saw that in me, and
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: he's done over 100 successful public companies. But he he
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: was in federal prison, you know, so it's kind of like, huh? No, man.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: But I got to know him. He's a great guy.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: And I read all his stuff and he all pretty
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: much he secured a deal without the right license for
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: the SEC and they got him for it. So, yeah,
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: he gave us these recipes. Me, my wife put together
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: a cookbook, a lot of events in the valley. A
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: lot of people have my cookbook because I just give
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: them away for free. But we've sold over 2000 copies
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: out of my house. It's on Amazon and all that stuff.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: And I'm not here trying to sell it because honestly,
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: it's I'm getting so low on it because it's it's
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: led to the public company. So it's called Mob, Bursting
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Optimism Beyond Borders. It's a play on the mob. It's
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: got mob stories. It's got Frank's history, my history, my
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: wife's history. And it's got real Italian food and cookbooks.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: We actually won a competition on TikTok. A lady ordered
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: a book. She reviews cookbook versus cookbook. And we won
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: the steak against the Emeril Cook guy. And that was
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Emeril Tagassi or whatever. And she said our steak was
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: better than his. And I was like, wow, dude. And
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: my wife took the pictures in the book. So she
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: made the food and took the pictures. It's pretty cool.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: But that led to Frank reconnecting with a lot of
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: his old people. And now we have, and he's just
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: putting me in these things. And there's a device that
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: goes on HVAC. So there's 100 Walmarts and 100 7-Elevens.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: And what it is, it's an AI device that hooks
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: onto the HVAC system. What happens is that if the
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: power goes out or the HVAC system fails, they have
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: huge insurance claims. Well, during his test period, a different
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: section of Walmarts had a $ 600, 000 claim that So now
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: he has 200 Walmarts and 100 7-Elevens. It's a device
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: that can detect when things aren't going right with HVAC
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: systems to pre-warn you so it doesn't fail for insurance costs.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: So he has got our company public. It's been approved
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: with the SEC, and we're going to vet in that
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: tech company. He has another tech company that's going to
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: be vetted in, and what it's doing is it's an
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: app that elderly people get scammed all the time. Well,
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: what this is, AI device that tracks the live caller,
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: the way the words are said, everything to give an alert.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: And then there's a call center that will say, hey,
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: it'll interrupt the call and say, hey, you need to
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: get off this call. We believe it's a scam. And
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: it's to help stop elderly from being scammed into things.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: Because when I saw the public drafts and stuff, it's
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: pretty interesting to see as you get older how you're
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: still smart and you still know things, but you're more
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: gullible on things too. Even though your brain level is
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: still high, there's you care about people more. So you
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: believe in what they say, you know, it's not saying
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: you're dumb cause you're not, it's just saying things decline
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: over time with trust because your heart's so soft and nice,
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: you know? So those are the two little projects I
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: have on the side. Um, you know, I try not
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: to act like they're going to do anything, but I
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: think they will. And my life could change, you know,
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: but I'll always do this insurance thing because this relationship
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: stuff I'm building is what, where it's at. Wow.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: That was, man, you are just like working on as
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: a serial entrepreneur, uh, It's through the connections and the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: relationships that you've fostered and built over the years, no
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: matter where your circumstance, you still have the mindset that
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you want to do the right work. And people recognize that.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I recognized it immediately when you're like, Hey, let's grab
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: a coffee. And you like, like a couple of days later,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: we're doing it. Then you're like, Hey, I'm open to
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: doing a podcast. We scheduled it. I had to reschedule
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: and here we are already. So, you know, I can
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: just tell that it's really, it's not about anything about
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: what you've done in the past.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: It's who you are in the moment.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: How you make people feel, how you're treating them and
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: also how you're respecting them and God. And so, you know,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: spreading the word and just doing anything you can to
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: enable other people to lift them up, the nonprofits, you know,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: helping the elderly. I've done a lot of scam jams
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: in the past where I partnered with AARP and I
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: gave presentations to the elderly to avoid them because it
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: is true. Most of the scams are successful through more
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: trusting people.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Of the technology that's come out over the last 40
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: years is previous generations, they didn't know it.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: It didn't exist. And so now what looks credible is
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: a scam or what sounds very credible.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: It sounds like it's a government officer or somebody that's
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: trustworthy from your Google or from your Apple account that's
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: here to help you, but they're really here to take
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: you and steal your identity. There's just so many vulnerable
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: people that we can help. And it's not something a
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: lot of people think about of how can I give
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: back or how can I help? Or once I do
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: make money, How can I keep it and apply it
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: in a way that ripples throughout society? So I commend
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you on that. I, you know, I'm really proud of
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the things that you've been doing and just even hearing
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: the things today, it's more than I was before. So
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I want to congratulate you and thank you for what
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: you're giving back because a lot of people, they, they,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: you know, they go, they serve time and.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: It doesn't go this way.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: You know, it goes the opposite way. And so, you know,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: it's just a Testament to God and also you. So,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: With that being said, I only have a couple more questions,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: you know, and then we'll close out here. But I
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. As
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: far as your outlook and your mindset today, how would
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: you compare it today to even just, you know, maybe
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: 10 years ago?
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Man, I would have never in my wildest dreams ever
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: thought I'd be where I'm at right now. Um, 10
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: years ago, I mean, I don't know exactly where I
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: was at 10 years ago. What is it? 2026. So 2013, well, 2000. Yeah. 2013.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: I was dude. I, I don't know, man. Uh, I
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: would have never thought I'd, I'd be married to the
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: love of my life. I would have a son. I
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: never thought I could have kids. So that was really cool. Uh,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: never thought I'd be able to be in a position
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: where I could be, uh, someone that people can lean
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: in that I can call a client and talk to
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: her for four minutes. And then she tells me, Her
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: daughter died two months ago, and that's why she's buying
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: this new house and that people open up to me
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: and I'm able to pray for them. Ten years ago,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: you told me I was going to put my hands
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: on my clients to pray for them in here. Hell no.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: You know, to be able to be a person that
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: returned back to the prison that I spent time in
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: and be able to talk to people about inspiring them
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: to do something different and that if I can do it,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: you can do it. Never would have thought. To have
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: children that look up to me that I can speak
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: life into and that I can pray over and lead
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: my family? No. To have somebody that I trust as
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: my wife, that I trust fully 100%? Hell no. To
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: have the things that I have that I just, I
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: would have never, no, dude, there's That's the difference, bro.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: I was not in no kind of trajectory. I was
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: always driven. Every job I ever got, I excelled in,
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: but I was always on the inside, just destroyed. And
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: I would be quick to fight anybody for any kind
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: of thing I thought they were thinking. And that's just
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: not good. But now I just love, man, I'm in
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: the love bubble. I'm in there to help. Sometimes, honestly,
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: I feel bad. Like I'm, my struggles are different now. I'm,
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: I'm struggling because I'm so busy, you know, and I
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: feel bad saying that. Cause I know some people aren't
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: doing some people's things have gone down. You know, a
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: lot of people have gone up. And I, and sometimes
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: I feel like alone in that aspect to where I
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: don't want to tell somebody my successes. Cause I feel
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: like it would make them feel bad. Like how come
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: he does and I don't or something, you know? And, um,
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: but I am starting to find those people and I
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: am reaching out and I'm, and you know, and, and,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: you know, life's not, I'm not saying it's all butterflies
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: and rainbows, but I can tell you this with God,
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: my back and me remembering that my thoughts and stuff
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: that are in my head are all lies. And that
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: I just center myself as the name of Jesus and
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: stuff just goes. And it really helps man. And it just,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: And then surrounding myself around other people that are like-minded.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: But man, 10 years ago to now, bro, you could
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: ask anyone in my family or anybody, no one would ever,
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: even I still get people, how are you doing this? Well,
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I stopped being negative. I stopped complaining. I stopped whining
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: about the government. I stopped whining about the news. I
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: stopped whining about everything that's gone wrong in my life.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: I just started moving my step forward and started creating
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: my own thing and going forward. And now that I
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: have God on me is amplified by a million. I
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: don't worry about this stuff or that stuff. It has
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: nothing to do with me. All I know is I
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: got this thing I'm doing and I'm going forward and
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: I got this superpower that's got my back and that's
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: what I do. Yeah. And I share.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: It's an amazing story. Um, you know, God doesn't use
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: perfect people to tell their stories to uplift other perfect people.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Like it's, it's that broken road. It's that story that
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: hurt people, you know, that have been hurt, that have
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: been cast aside. They've been outcast. Maybe they've been left out.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe they've been in bad situations in prison, whatever. It's
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: those stories that he uses, you know, you look at
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: the Bible, he did, He tells stories of whores. He
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: tells stories of people stealing other people, murderers. There's people
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: that have comeback stories. There's no different today. It's the
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: same exact thing. It's the same God. So I want
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: to just thank you first and foremost for telling your
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: incredible comeback story on Callous Mindset. We've talked with people
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: who've experienced homelessness, starvation, financial collapse, circumstances that just it's
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: hard to even imagine rebounding in the direction after that.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: And today we got to hear a different version of
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that story from you. Addiction, prison, getting out, starting over,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: taking responsibility, taking God and taking it seriously and just
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: building a life that people are still baffled.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: How are you even doing it? Because it doesn't make sense.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: It's not a human plan. It's his plan. You know
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: So there's people that are going to listen to this
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: and they're going to be like, whoa, like that's a
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: story that I was here today to hear. And so
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I want to say thanks again and the past is
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: just a starting point. You know, like we always have
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: another chance and what happens next is still yours to build.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: This is the callous mindset. We'll see you on the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: next one.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: One.