Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Reinventing Your Personal Identity | J.R. Martinez - Bestselling Author, Speaker, Veteran & Actor

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Lessons - Reinventing Your Personal Identity | J.R. Martinez - Bestselling Author, Speaker, Veteran & Actor · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how to navigate career reinvention and rediscover purpose,
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  even in the face of adversity.
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  Gain insights on aligning your passion with your work,
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  finding fulfillment through serving others, and embracing the power of listening deeply
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  and trusting the process to create a meaningful life.
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  So the last thing I actually really wanted to get your feedback and your perspective on
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  is reinventing professional identity, because people struggle with this at all stages in their
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  career. You were forced to do it, but a lot of people aren't forced to do it, but they're just
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  hating their life and they don't know where to go. They hate the job that they're in.
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  You literally had to, because you were never allowed to go into the military ever again,
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  and you created the life speaking motivational speaker. Now you sort of spread the message,
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  you help people sort of upskill themselves, understand how to deal with adversity,
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  all these different leadership topics that are great, but obviously that's not what you
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  thought you were going to be doing when you were young. So you come out of the, you know,
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  you come into the hospital, how do you, how do you find out where you want to spend your time?
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  How do you reinvent this professional identity that was taken away from you?
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  So I follow my passion. That's, for me, what's my passion? So six months after I was injured,
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  I was going through the motions, appointments every day, you know, doctors there,
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  be all that stuff. What are the nurses asked me? Hey, will you go in and talk to this patient
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  that six months ago was injured and is now in a horrible place? Will you go in and talk to him?
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  And I said, no, she said, why not? I said, because I'm 20 years old. What am I going to offer to him?
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  And she said, just go on and talk to him about how things have gotten better for you. I was like,
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  no freaking way. And she kept insisting, insisting, insisting, and finally, I was like, okay,
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  fine, I'll do it. Right? Now hindsight, looking back at it, that was the universe telling me,
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  hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. So I finally, I like fine,
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  I'll do it. Just to get her off my back, that was really the reason I decided to do it.
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  I opened the door to this hospital room. It's completely dark in this guys room and I'm like,
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  it gives me that pit in my stomach. Oh, he's not in a good place. I was like, I can't leave.
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  I open the door. He knows I'm standing there. What would that look like if I just walked out?
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  So I walked them to his bed and I introduced myself and it was in that moment, man, that
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  my definition of a conversation was redefined. I asked him about four or five questions,
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  right? The tour of the general stuff. Where you from, how old are you? What unit were you in?
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  What happened to you? What do you like to do? Stuff like that, you know, surface stuff.
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  And all of a sudden, dude, took it from there and just started talking. Then 45 minutes later,
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  I was like, hey, man, I cool. It was good talking to you. Hey, I'm going to come back tomorrow.
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  Are you okay with that? He's like, yeah, man, I love that. And I started the walk out of his room,
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  but before I could exit the room, I noticed something. Remember when I told you when I walked in the room,
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  it was completely dark. As I was starting to exit the room, he turned the light on.
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  And then when I looked back into the room, he actually was out of his bed open in the curtain.
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  He was letting some light in their room. Again, it's not always these big reveals and signs that we
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  should be paying attention to looking for simple things. That's a simple sign. And what I did is
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  not ignore it. And I said, huh, I was interesting, but I liked the feeling that I got. And so what I mean,
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  real quick, my definition of a conversation was redefined. I learned in that moment that a conversation
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  does not consist of you speaking for 50% and me speaking for 50%. It means that if Scott's going to
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  talk for 75% of the time, then I'm going to spend 75% of the conversation listening. And if I
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  always speak 25%, that's okay. I spent 75 listening. So I exit the room. Instead of ignoring that,
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  I go up, find the head doctor. I ask him if I can visit patients every day between my appointments.
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  He says, of course, that'd be great. You have something that we don't have experienced. You're
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  living this. So yeah. So I went every day. And in the afternoon into the evening and visited
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  patients, I went knock on doors, I would walk in, I'd introduce myself, we'd start wrapping. And
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  literally, I'd, I'd, I was just, I was just like a walking, talking guy to this recovery process.
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  This is what I've experienced. This is what this is what's going to happen. This is what you have to do.
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  That's all I did. But the thing as much as I felt like I was giving them something, the thing
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  that I discovered, they were giving me a few weeks into doing this. I discovered one evening when
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  I was walking back to my room. I had this really good feeling in my heart, man. And I just, I just
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  remember smiling. And when I got to my room, I sat down. I just started thinking about, you know,
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  the visits and the conversations and the feeling and I just thought, they gave me the thing that I
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  thought I lost. The ability to serve. They gave me my purpose back. It's going to look completely
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  different, right? I'm on the military anymore, but I don't need to be in the military to, to serve
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  people to be of service. Okay, cool. So for me, it literally came down to my why is service to people.
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  I like to serve people. I like to give back to people. So when I got into the nonprofit sector,
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  and I became a spokesman for a nonprofit to raise awareness for troops, it was about I'm serving
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  people. This is an opportunity for me to serve. When I got into the speaking space, it's about my
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  way of serving people. When I got became an actor on a soap opera called on my children, it was an
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  opportunity for me to serve people. I was always operating from I'm serving people. When I got on
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  dance with the stars, it was my way to serve people. When I wrote a book, it was my way to continue
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  to serve people with more of my story. As I've continued to speak, virtual, I'm still serving people.
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  So for me, it always goes back to for people that are like looking for, I'm not happy or this is
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  a pretty joy. Well, what does make you happy? And when you identify the thing that makes you happy,
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  also identify why does that make you happy? Because it's not to say that you can't work in this job.
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  It's just maybe you have to then realize that this job gives you the opportunity to, for example,
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  if I'm all about people, this is no knock on account. So I'm just going to throw something
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  random out. But if I'm an accountant, right? And I've talked to accounts and a lot some of them
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  will say like, Oh, I just kind of mundane is going to, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
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  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the same thing,
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  right? Right? There's some of her people say there's no adventure. Yeah. But for me,
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  I love serving people. So if I was an accountant or if I'm a teacher or if I the barista or the cash
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  year, I know everything that I do is about people. It's about serving people, impacting people.
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  So you could take JR and log me off right now, drop me in the middle of a coffee shop and say,
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  that's your job now. And even though I don't like the barista part of it, even though I don't like
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  pushing buttons on the cat on the register, whatever, I love the interaction with people.
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  And so for me, by me showing up in that way, it's going to allow everything else to
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  essentially just take off. It's going to sort of paint this picture that, hey, what you're doing
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  is clearly right. So what is your passion as the biggest than I ask people? Stop waiting around
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  for this like for, for, for, you know, for, for this big reveal the sign. It's like, what do you
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  enjoy doing? What do you love doing? And maybe your career doesn't give you the opportunity to
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  fulfill that thing. But in most cases, it does. You just have to identify what it is that you
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  actually love to do. And so that's why people have said from a virtual standpoint, they feel the
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  same energy that they would feel if I was in person. You and I, me, man, in person, you're going
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  to see, you're going to get the same dude, the same dude. I'm the same guy. By the way, we've got to
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  do some time when you come to Florida. That's a whole hey, I'll do it. Let's do it, man. Let's go.
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  You got all the spots now that you've been there for a little bit. So, you know, yeah, all the spots.
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  Oh, I got all the, I got the studio. I got the studio Miami. I got all the food. Dude, you're
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  going to have a good trip. Not a good trip. So you know what I'm saying? Like it's just, so for me,
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  it's about you got to understand what it is that you're, what it is that you do. Why do you do it?
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  What do you love to do? And then from there, you just got to trust. You know, you just got to be
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  willing to trust. I mean, you know, you just got to be willing to trust, man. Trust yourself and
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  trust at the university, be willing to try something because you're never going to be able to get
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  where you want to go and identify some things about yourself if you're not willing to exercise a
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  certain part of that muscle. And the biggest thing is I would just tell people, leave people with
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  this is, you know, as you move through life, you just, if there's one thing you remember from
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  from my story is that I was willing to always lean in, that I was always willing to listen,
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  whether someone who was listening to me or I was listening to the universe of paying attention
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  to what signs were being presented to me, I was always paying attention. And so, but all of us
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  have the ability to do it. All of us. I've told you my life. Like there's nothing. So it's not like
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  I was born to these really scholarly parents and, you know, influential academia is like, no,
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  like I'm just kind of a normal kid, you know, you know, just low sports and goofing around and
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  being silly, but also I had to do some work. And I still have to do some work in order for my
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  relationship with my wife to evolve if it to be what it has become and for hopefully to be what
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  it's going to be, I have to also be willing to do some work. So I have to identify there's
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  things that she says or does that trigger me. Why do they trigger me? Maybe it's more about me
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  unless about her, but I can't communicate that to her if I'm not willing to find out why that
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  triggers me. Why that bothers me? I have to be willing to do the work myself and then I can
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  convey that to her. If she then does does nothing with it and doesn't care, well, that's a separate
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  conversation. But I first have to be willing to do the work. I can't just tell her, stop doing that.
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  Why? Well, find a way.