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Empowering Veteran Resilience: Jon Cobb's Journey from Homelessness to Harvard and Jiu-Jitsu World Champion · Your Thoughts Your Reality

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to your Thoughts, your Reality with Michael Cole, the podcast that shines a compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Michael is a dual elite certified neuro encoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post-deployment life.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles procrastination, self-doubt, fear and more.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Hello, hello, hello everybody.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Hey, so sorry for a little bit of a delay, but you know we are here with an amazing gentleman.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I am so excited for this show, so we have John Cobb on here.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: He's a Marine Corps combat veteran who served in Iraq, overcame homelessness, unemployment to achieve success, and it's an amazing, inspiring story.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to dive into that.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I graduated from Harvard after attending community college and working minimum wage jobs.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt master, world champion.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: John, do you have time for anything else?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Four kids in one on the way too there you go Fantastic.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And he's a renowned leadership coach and LinkedIn top voice for leadership, providing valuable guidance to top companies.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: So, john, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I think you summed it up.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: It's been a crazy journey.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I joined the Marine Corps when I was 17, signed my contract and ended up going over to the Middle East several times, left the Marine Corps and thought I had a great job lined up.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: It didn't work out.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Ended up living out of my car.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I lived out of an abandoned barracks on Camp Pendleton for a while.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Sorry, marine Corps, I shouldn to say that out loud man.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's been like you know, it's been a few years, so I don't think they'll come after me now.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: But I really had no idea where I was going in life and what I realized was that whatever I was doing living out of my car, working, you know, this like minimum wage job was not what I was created to do.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: It's not the end, all be all for my life.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: And so I started looking for something better and found people that could help me and, little by little, took those baby steps in the right direction, built those relationships, did my research, ended up going to a couple of great community colleges first.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: My research ended up going to a couple of great community colleges first, and then got my undergrad and worked my way up to go to Harvard, stanford, berkeley and Vanderbilt.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: So I mean, that's really my message in a nutshell you have to take those baby steps, you have to have the vision for your life, you have to believe that there's something better out there waiting for you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: And every time that I took a step into the unknown, things got worse.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: That's, I think, the trap, like the speed bump, where everyone gets stuck.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: It's going to probably get worse before it gets better, but it always got better on the back end.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and it's important to remember that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: You know those speed bumps or walls we run into, depending on the way we look at it is that's how we learn yeah that's how we move forward in life.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, when you're a baby, when, when or when, when someone's a baby, the parents don't scold them because they didn't take their first step, right, you know, they, they celebrate it, they love it, all those things.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: That's what makes the baby keep moving forward, all the serotonin, all those good hormones, that that move them forward.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: So I guess I'm a little cynical about it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: You know, if you look at life as like a video game, you're trying to get from one level to the next.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: The boss is at the end of every level, right, and so you put in all the work and then you have to go through the hardest point right before you graduate to the next level.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: That's where most people quit.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: They say, oh, this boss is too hard, this challenge is too hard, but you've got to push through that to get to the next level.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I really love that analogy, man, because it really puts it in place for this generation.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: And you know from ours we played what Atari.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Ninja Turtle is what I was thinking of.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Actually, you got the boss of the end.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Literally, literally.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So before we really get started and I just want to remind everybody on the top right-hand corner of your screen there's a blue QR code.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It takes you to empowerperformancestrategiescom Again empowerperformancestrategiescom for people listening later on, podcast forums and there are all kinds of resources and books.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I've written some Facebook groups and all kinds of good stuff for veterans and their families, so please check that out and John is going to bless us with three tips at the end to help get veterans and their families further faster.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: So make sure we stay tuned until the end for that.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: So you ready to get into this?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Awesome man.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So can you share some of the pivotal moments, or maybe that one pivotal moment when you got leverage over yourself and really made a change?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I know you touched base on it, but can you get a little more detailed on what said no, this is not enough and this is enough of what I'm dealing with now.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Can you share a little more about that?
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: So let me describe my rock bottom moment for you, which is always, you know, fun, not embarrassing at all.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I was driving home from my dead end job and I was actually working at Macy's.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know how I ended up at Macy's after the Marine Corps.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: It wasn't exactly the macho, you know job I had envisioned.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I was waiting for a paramilitary government job to go back overseas after I left the Marine Corps and ended up working at Macy's for like $9 an hour.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: And I was driving home just like trying to understand how my life had gotten so far off track, like I lived.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was living in the wrong movie.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: You know a nightmare in a sense.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And uh, and just like really sinking into that feeling that something was terribly wrong with the direction I was headed.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: And that was the moment that I totaled my car.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know like having this deep moment of frustration or a realization that I was on the wrong track, and then I totaled my car, so that was my boss for, I guess, level one.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: And from there I found this video by Les Brown, called it's Possible.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I'm a huge Les Brown fan, had the opportunity to learn from him in person firsthand and really changed my life.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: So I believe that God used Les Brown and other great leaders and speakers to help me develop a new vision for my life.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: It wasn't about me.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: That was the key for me, you know like.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: It's about me being in a position where I can help other people, because when I was down and out I couldn't help anyone and I've always been a protector.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I was a lifeguard in high school.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I became a Marine.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I was a bodyguard for a while.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I did presidential nominee detail for John McCain when he was in Baghdad, presidential nominee detail for John McCain when he was in Baghdad.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: So I've always been a protector and I found myself in a position where I wasn't able to help anyone and that was part of what was the most frustrating.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: And so once I got back into alignment that the purpose of my life is to help other people, then I found the motivation and the inspiration to move forward.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: So that was really important for me and, I think, for a lot of veterans and first responders leaving service, to realize that there are other ways that they can help people and that is an important part of their life and they're not going to be happy if they're not doing something really meaningful in a deeper way.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely love that and thank you for being vulnerable and sharing.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: You know your level one.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: You know it's funny, I just had spent some time with Les.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Brown a few months ago.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: So life be life and man, that's for sure.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: He's incredible.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he really is.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: He's an incredible soul in the way he speaks and he's just, he's just an amazing man.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: So, um, I'm glad you, I'm glad you're, you're a a fan or he's a mentor for you as well.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic, yeah.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: So, um, so you went from the military and in your ear, uh, most people and this is what I focus on with my coaching and so on is really the transition period, because what I found is that's when the trouble really starts, and if you can get on track with that transition period faster, with whatever, finding that purpose, finding that fulfillment, which I think a lot of us, whether you're a soldier, whether you're a first responder or just a human being, we have to find that for ourselves, right, would you agree with that?
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: ourselves right?
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Would you agree with that?
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to find what's next, and that takes a lot of research and soul searching and I think people skip that step.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: They think they have to go directly from what they're doing now to the next thing.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: You know, the next day they have to start the next job and they don't take the time to reflect and do their homework and talk to people as much as they probably should.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: I think a lot is what do you want?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Everybody goes to how before?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: What do you want?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: That's what I have found.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: How about you when you're, when you're, I know you, you know, obviously you have a coaching business.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: What have you found?
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: You have to know what you want, and that's not always easy because our lives are full of distractions.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: You're worried about how you're going to pay the bills and your social status, you know, are you growing in your career?
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: You might actually have to take a step back in your career to get into alignment with what you really want.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: You have to think about the type of life you want.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Do you want to be a tech CEO or do you want to have a lifestyle entrepreneur type of career?
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Do you want to play a role within a larger organization, public sector, private sector?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: You've really got to dig through these things, and it's not so much realizing what you want to do as much as forgetting about all the stuff that you don't want to do.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: That pulls us in different directions.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: We live in an attention economy, as Gary Vee says, and you've got thousands of things that are pulling your attention in different directions and you need to eliminate all of that noise from your life to remember what's most important to you.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I love that, thank you, thank you.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: So a few years ago, I tried to start a tech company.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: I built a social media platform I don't know if you knew this.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: I built an entire social media platform launched.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: It wanted to be the next Mark Zuckerberg and did everything I wanted to do in that company up to a point and realized I don't want to work 100 hours a week in San Francisco like some of these tech entrepreneurs.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I want to be in a position where I'm impacting people's lives in a more direct way, I guess I would say and being the father that I wanted to be.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: So I found that balance.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: It wasn't easy, it took time, but I found it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fantastic and that's A lot of people don't take the time to be present for themselves, I think, long enough.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Like you're saying, figure out what you want to really do the research and figure out what really calls to you and what your purpose of fulfillment is.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And it's so important to really be present with yourself and do the research, play a little bit Right.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're not just going to go and go full board, create a tech company and it just automatically be exactly it.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I mean same with me, you know, I mean I'm in the construction field most of my life, but this is my passion, yeah, so I think that's a very valid, valid point.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much and I love how you're doing both Right, because you can be in a position where you're not ignoring the realities of your life, your responsibilities, your family, all of that but you can be working toward what matters more to you.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: And that, I think, is the great litmus test for which direction you're headed in life.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Are you doing more and more of what you care about over time?
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: If you do this black and white test where you say, am I doing only what I care about 100% of the time, I think most people are going to fail that pretty miserably and that's going to be depressing and feel defeating.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: But are you headed in the direction where you are?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: 1% a month, 1% a year?
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Maybe headed in the direction that you really want to be in?
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I love that and I tell people a lot you don't have to go 100% or 90% or 80% just to a 2% shift in steering your ship and it's amazing the destination and, quicker time than you imagine, you end up in that island that you want to be at instead of I don't know, I can't even think of it Not the place that you thought you're heading, but very, very small, two millimeter shifts and your life changes.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Everything changes and you can do experiments too.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: I challenge people to do small experiments.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: You don't have to quit your day job.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: You can start something on the side.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: You can start to do the research on the side.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Don't get stuck in that planning and research phase, because a lot of people get stuck there trying to have the perfect plan.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: But be honest with yourself, start taking action.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Those micro movements, those two degree shifts, will change everything over time.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: for sure I love that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: You know it's funny because people, because of fear of failure, fear of rejection, you know the 10, the 10, the 10 things that stop people from moving forward in life, you know, and they just sit there and aim and aim and aim and don't shoot the gun.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be perfect action, but take, take the action and shoot the gun.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: So, love, love that man.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Hey, so what role did the military experiences?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Because I really want to kind of move in.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: We're almost halfway through the show already, want to kind of move in.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: We're almost halfway through the show already.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: What kind of experiences did the military and your experience with resilience and your conditioning and training help with moving into, obviously, going into Harvard and all those things?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I know you've gained so many different skill sets in the military, so what role did that play moving forward into the rest of your life, if you will, because I really want to focus on.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: You know you're on level one.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: How do we beat the game?
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: So I learned to enjoy the journey.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: That is something people talk about, but it's really underestimated.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Boot camp's a great example.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Boot camp is the worst experience of your life.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: You know you're treated like dirt.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: You're not even allowed to refer to yourself in the first person.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: You can't say I or me or mine in Marine Corps bootcamp and you're treated like a nobody.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: That's part of treating like a nobody.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: And at the same time, it was one of the best experiences.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I learned to love it, despite the pain and everything, the lack of sleep.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: So enjoy the journey and every day felt like progress.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: They say that you should go from meal to meal.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: You know, sleep to sleep to get you through something like boot camp.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Know what baby step you're looking forward to.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Know what the reward is that you're going to get in the short term.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Don't worry about the big picture, Don't be thinking about graduation, and I think that as we're working towards our goals, it's the same.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: You have to appreciate every little step along the way.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: So that was number one.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: And then two was, you know, realizing that failure is not an option.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Right In combat, you give up and you fail, you're dead.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: So you have no choice but to keep pushing forward, and sometimes you're holding the line, but you can't go backward.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It's so funny how we don't look at those smart goals I call them but because so they're measured but those little goals so you can enjoy that journey and say, yeah, I did it again, woohoo, celebrate, right, so it's really really fantastic.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Tip there Can you discuss the importance of building a support network, especially when you're coming out and transitioning, and how you did that and how it contributed to your post-service success?
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so honestly, I could have done a much better job.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that I needed help initially, and one thing that defined me being stuck when I was essentially homeless was that I was alone.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: And when I was in the Marine Corps I was on a scout sniper team and I was never alone.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: I always had someone watching my back.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: We call it fire watch.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Someone is up all night long making sure that you're safe, and I love that feeling that we are taking care of each other.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Somebody's always got your back, and that's what I lost when I left the Marine Corps.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And so you have to find your new squad, your new tribe.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: A great book there called Tribe by Sebastian Younger Definitely recommend that for anyone in the veteran, you know, first responder community.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: You have to know who your tribe is, and for me, part of that was jujitsu.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: I've got a great jujitsu family around the world.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I really think everyone who's deep in the jujitsu world has a connection.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: So that's been cool.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: I go to Costa Rica on vacation and I run into someone who says you know, hey, you got a jujitsu shirt on, can you come roll with us?
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: And I spent a lot of vacation, you know, teaching and training in jujitsu, that happened in the Bahamas too and stuff, so that's been fun.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: But that jujitsu that happened in the Bahamas too and stuff, so that's been fun.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: But that's part of my tribe and you have to have a tribe and you have to find the experts who've kind of been there and done that, because you're not going to understand what to do.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: The civilian world is completely different.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: The interview process is different and you have to become an expert and how to be successful in that?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Just like military, you have to become an expert in your skill set.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Well, getting hired, getting into the education programs that you want to, all of that requires a certain level of expertise.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: And if you're just going off of what you heard or what somebody told you or a couple of articles you read, that's not enough.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: I've read hundreds of articles on the GI Bill, how to get into top programs, how to interview.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I took job interviews just for practice.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: You know I was interviewing them too.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: I would have considered the job, but I looked at them as practice and I tried to become an expert in the things that I wanted to be successful in.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fantastic.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So can we talk about the GI Bill, since you brought it up?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I think it's super important.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: How do you maximize, if you can, since you did the research and obviously were successful?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: How do you maximize your GI benefits?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: You know, what advice would you give veterans looking to make the same move?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: So somebody a lot smarter than me would have gone straight to like Stanford for their undergrad.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: But I'm a Marine.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: We like to do things the hard way, and so I started off going to community college, used my I used a little bit of tuition assistance when I was in the Marine Corps.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I was actually paper mailing assignments back from Baghdad, uh, making like almost no progress whatsoever, but it felt like I was doing something right and I got addicted to that feeling Right.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: So then, when I actually had the chance to go to school full time, I took triple full time credits.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: At one point I took 36 semester credits in one semester to graduate faster and the school that I went to had the yellow ribbon program, so they paid for everything that the GI Bill didn't and that.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: So I found a way to maximize the benefits that I was offered and really finished my undergrad in about a year and a half, most of my undergrad in a year and a half, so that saved a lot of GI Bill.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I used part of that GI Bill to go to the Orange County Sheriff's Academy for my time as a police officer, and so that was six months.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: I used it for a six-month graduate program at Stanford in international security and then I used it for my MBA at Vanderbilt.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: So I spread it out over quite a bit by just doing as much as I could with it and finding those programs, finding Yellow Ribbon program really helped.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Are there any other programs, since you bring that?
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: up that pop on the top of your head for people to look at.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, vocational rehab is great for people with certain disabilities, definitely worth looking into.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: There are also different states that have benefits.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: I think in Texas, if you have a Purple Heart, you can go to any Texas state university for free.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: California has a similar program for disabled veterans.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: So I don't know all the details for those off the top of my head.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: But you know there are ways that veterans can go to school for free and, in some cases, get paid to go to school.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: You know, like when I, when I applied to Harvard, I had no idea how I was going to pay for it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I was out of my GI Bill at that point and I applied for a couple of scholarship opportunities, fellowship opportunities, and I got accepted to one and I said, hey, I don't think I'm going to be able to come to Harvard because I don't know how I'm going to pay for it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: I appreciate you giving me this fellowship, but it's not going to be enough.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, we're actually giving you a full tuition fellowship and we're going to pay you a stipend.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: They're going to.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: They gave me $30,000 to go to Harvard for free.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: Wow, so that's I, and I bring that up because you have to have faith.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: I applied feeling like it was the direction I wanted to go in, having no idea how I would pay for it, and it worked out.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: So that's what I challenge people to really take the leap of faith.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: And that's what a leap of faith looked like to me putting hours and hours into that application and the fellowship applications, having no idea if I was just wasting my time.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And it all worked out and you have to believe.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I I mean, if you don't believe, you stop, right.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: If you don't have faith, you stop and you don't go anywhere.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Right, would you?
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: agree with that.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people think it's easier to give up, and because faith hurts it's more comfortable to stop.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know Les Brown.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Going back to Les Brown, he said many people choose known hells over unknown heavens, and that's been true in my life.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: We are, as a race, you know, human beings so afraid of the unknown that we assume it's going to be worse than where we are right now, when in reality there are countless opportunities out there and the odds are that there are many of them that are better than whatever you're doing right now.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Amen.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: And you know, just to add to that, just, you know, stop and really realize what the truth is instead of your mind and your thoughts creating your reality, if you will, because they can go good or bad.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: You see every day kids from the same family.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: One becomes a billion dollar superstar or CEO or whatever that is for them, and one goes into drugs or, you know, suicide or whatever the case may be.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: It's literally those thoughts really do become your reality.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: There's a reason, the name for the show.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: So really take precedence and really stop, be present and think about is this?
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: What is the truth here?
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Before you go and say, oh, it's just too hard, or it's this or it's that, sometimes just taking that one extra step keeps that momentum moving forward.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: That's excellent advice.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: I love the podcast name.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: You have to take your thoughts captive.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Because they lead you down a path.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, our brains naturally are there to defend us and protect us and help us survive, so 90% of our thoughts really are the same thoughts going over and over again in our heads, instead of the other thoughts that you can redirect.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: And we won't get into all that right now, but just know Powerful stuff.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, thank you.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you so okay.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So I just realized the time.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: How was your journey from?
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I'm really enjoying the conversation, so time gets away with me when I'm doing that.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Just good, organic conversation.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: How's the journey really from homelessness to Harvard influenced your approach to leadership and your coaching?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so everyone's at their own level of challenge.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: I talk to people every day who feel like they are in over their heads, people that have imposter syndrome and they feel stuck because they see what's next and they're not there yet.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: There's always a period of time where you see what's coming before you're there and you have to keep moving forward.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: So I try to break things down for people so they're not focused on, you know, 10 miles down the road they're.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: They're focused on what's next and it's great to have that big picture vision, Um, but what's like the immediate baby step?
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And so you talked about smart goals.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Um, I break that down into two extremes.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: One extreme is the long-term, the best outcome you could possibly have, your really big picture goals and the other is what is right in front of you that you can do, like today, like in the next five minutes, to make progress.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: And that's how you get momentum, you know, like looking at your toes, to take those baby steps.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: So I challenge people really to break things down in that kind of way and to look back at their own past and see where they've been successful.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Before I was talking to an executive at a fortune 100 company and she was doubting herself and I made her like write down all of her successes that got her to the C suite level position, you know, at one of the best companies in the world.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: And she looked at that list and she said, holy cow, I've overcome everything that has ever gotten in my way.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: How could I doubt myself?
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Now that's your brain playing tricks on you.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, success leaves clues.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And when you take the time, I just got chills.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I love when that happens, when you, when you just sit there for a minute and you just look back on your past successes and, even more importantly, celebrate them as they're happening, when you realize, oh man, I was successful here, or hey, I got up today and didn't just lay in bed and watch Game of Thrones again, lay in bed and watch Game of Thrones again, you know, whatever the case may be.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: But when you celebrate that stuff and just really just stop and think and make that list or whatever the case may be, I love your advice.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Make that list and just realize damn, my success rate at pivoting or my success rate at moving forward and finding a new job or whatever that is that your goal is.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: If you can just do that and just see the success, it changes the game.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Man, I love that advice.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I truly do?
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I did a poll recently on LinkedIn where I asked people if they felt like they were better off now or worse off than they thought they'd be at this point five years ago and not politically, it's not a politics thing and the majority of people said they're actually better off than they thought they would be.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Um, and I thought that was really cool.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: You know, if we have to, we have to keep that in mind, that, um, there's always gonna be stuff that we want.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: There's always gonna be stuff that we feel like we don't have.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: But things are maybe better than you even hoped they would be, prayed they would be a few years ago.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I love that man.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So really, I'm going to ask for your three tips in just a minute, because we're about out of time here.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So, first of all, how do people reach out to you?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: How do people get a hold of you?
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: So my website is johncobbcoachingcom John with no H.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: So my website is johncobbcoachingcom John with no H.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: My email is help at johncobbcoachingcom, and you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: I spend most of my time on LinkedIn, John Cobb, and also starting to put more videos on Instagram and other channels, but LinkedIn is really home base for me.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: So, people, again, if you're called to Johnbased for me, fantastic.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: So so people, you know again, if you're called to John, you know, reach out, he's, he's fantastic.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: So can you do our three tips to get veterans further, faster, and their families, of course?
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: So tip number one is create white space in your life.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: Go for a backpacking trip, take a week off to reflect a backpacking trip.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Take a week off to reflect, get rid of all that noise and remember what's most important to you.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Number two is do your research, you know, read every article that you can find to become the expert on what you want to do.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Once you understand what your purpose is, what you feel called to.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: And then, three, build your tribe.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Find people who have been there and done that maybe other veterans and start to build this network that is going to pull you and help you really get toward that goal.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: So there's three things, but I mean the biggest one is don't do it by yourself.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: I see so many people you know, smart, ambitious people who are trying to do it all on their own and, specifically, if you want to be an entrepreneur, that can be a very lonely road, so you actually need to have a team.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: I think of myself as an entrepreneur as part of a team.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: I've got a bunch of people on LinkedIn that I work with.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: We're all helping each other.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: So life is a team sport.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Business is a team sport.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Don't do it by yourself.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely love it, man, and it is so true.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: It is so true when you are not in a tribe and you're doing it on your own.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: It's a lonely road and again the thoughts start creeping in right.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: So absolutely, I love those tips, man.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Appreciate that, thank you.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: So I just want to thank you again, john.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: This has been truly an honor to have you on.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Time is the most resource or most precious resource we have as human beings, man, so really truly appreciate you spending the time with us.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: My pleasure.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: It's an honor.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: And everybody.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you for tuning in and we are out of here.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: All right, take it easy.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on another insightful journey of your Thoughts your Reality podcast, with your host, michael Cole.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: We hope the conversation sparked some thoughts that resonate with you.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: To dive deeper into empowering your thoughts and enhancing your reality, visit empowerperformancestrategiescom.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Remember your thoughts shape your reality, so make them count.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Until next time, stay inspired and keep creating the reality you desire.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Catch you on the next episode.