Ep. 15 - Why Listen to True You and Java

In this episode we talk about WHO this podcast is for and WHY you should listen to Java. We understand that we are one of many podcasts out there. This podcast is for anyone that is a self-aware individual seeking self-improvement through character building qualities. Learn about Java's experience in character building and why he has a wealth of knowledge to help YOU grow as a person. 

Transcript

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Welcome back everyone. This is Java coming at you. It is so good to be back today. I am so excited cuz we're gonna take a step back and we're gonna talk about true. You. We're gonna talk about this podcast. Why you should listen to this who should listen to this? The journey, destination and me here. We welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back everyone. It is so good to be back coming at you. I know it's been a little while. I wanna apologize for. Had a baby had a lot going on, but you know what? I am back full force. I will tell you right now that I am back full force. I will tell you that there's a lot of updates, lot revisions. Um, this is just the beginning. I really look at this as a new beginning and you'll see, um, there's a number of things I wanna go through right now to talk about where we're gonna take this podcast, but not only just this podcast, but also true you. And so let's get into it. Let's get into it right way. I hope you guys are all having a great summer. Hope everyone's doing well. You know that I wish you guys all the best. Uh, so let's go ahead and talk about this podcast. So first off, as you know, this is all about character billing, right? Character billing has finest. We are trying to help you build your true self, help you find out what qualities can help you build your true self. And that's what we're gonna get into today. I really wanna get into nitty gritty of what this is all about, and we're gonna talk about, because that's what I. Have I really taken a step back to really talk about this podcast, the journey, the destination of this podcast, and true you and really like, why, why should you listen to me? Right? Like, why is Java someone that you should listen to? And I'm, I'm gonna talk to you about that. I'm gonna really spend some time on that and that's where we're gonna go today. And I'm gonna tell you right now that I do plan on having another podcast. If not this week, definitely by next week to start hitting on more character building topics like we've been doing and get going with that. But yeah. So let's give you a couple updates. First off. I am so excited because I, I have a speaking gig coming up, a presentation gig in front of a big conference coming up in may. I just found out about that. Very excited about that. Looking forward to doing that, and it's gonna be in Savannah, Georgia. It's gonna be a wonderful opportunity for me to make a differe. In people's lives and yes, if you wanna get me on board to speak anywhere, Hey, I am absolutely here for you. I wanna listen. I wanna work something out. It is a very exciting time here at true U. It really is. And I'm excited about where we're gonna go. Um, but everything is gonna be new. Everything's gonna be updated. Like I said, um, our artwork, our website, if you go into our website, you can see, especially over the next couple days as my webmaster finishes. We're gonna have a brand new website with the exact presentations I can give. With a podcast page I just, I've spent so much time over his last few weeks, getting this all revved to go like the engines running on and just so excited to get going here. I'm just, I'm so excited that I'm like getting ahead of myself here, so, but let's get into it. Let's get into it about today. So again, today is about why listen. To true to true you then. Why? Listen to me, why? Listen to Java. So let's go ahead and break that down. So first off, what is true? You, what is this character building? What is this podcast in my presentations? What is it all about? Well, if I wanna sum it up, it's about exploring character building qualities to help build your true self. If I was gonna sum up what true you, what character building, what? Everything. That I'm doing here is all about it's about that. It's about exploring character building qualities to help build your true self. And that's what we're gonna do. So the next question is who is this for? Who is the audience that should listen to this? And, and let's be real here this, I mean, and I'm gonna be completely honest with you. This is probably not for everyone. Some people may be like whatever, and that's totally cool. I get that. I mean, we have billions of people in this world. Absolutely. But there are people out there, and I know there are people out there such as yourself that are all about this. And so to me, I really had to sit down and think about who is the show for And when I really break it down, I think this is what it comes down to. It's about self-aware people. Who are actively working on self improvement so that they can grow in their careers and in their relationships. It's so true. Right? I think, I think that that's the essence of the people that are gravitating towards what I'm doing here with my character. Building here are true. You self-aware people and that's, and we're gonna spend a whole session on self-awareness, but. Software people that realize like, you know what, I have room for improvement. Who are actively working on self improvement so that they can grow in their careers. We absolutely talk a lot about careers as you know, going back to my previous podcast, whether we talk about success, whether we talk about integrity, whatever it may be. It like respect so much of it. I relate back to your career world to your working. Interacting with people. And then that's the second part in your relationships, right? We're talking about, yes. Your spouse. We're talking about your significant other, we're talking about your children. We're talking about your friendships. We're talking about your, your coworkers. We're talking about your family, your parents go on so forth. Cause that's life, right? That's that's our world. We live in day. We have careers, we have relationships and we create a world of that. So yes, this is the essence of the people that are here to listen to my podcast. And you know what? Welcome a board. Let's do this. We're only gonna keep rolling from here. I promise you, so now let's talk about the, how, how we're gonna get. Where are we taking you to talk about the journey and let's talk about the destination, right? So when we talk about the journey, what is the journey that we're gonna go on here? What is the transformation, the journey, the, the process. If you wanna say that we're gonna do going through here. Well, you are self improving individuals that are working on your values that are working on your growth that are working on your integrity. To build the strongest foundation. So that negative forces that you come across in life do not influence you in that negative way. Absolutely. And, and this I'm definitely coming back to this in a very near future podcast, talking about these three that I feel like are the pillars. If you wanna say the pillars of life, which we'll talk about your values. Growing as an individual and your integrity, those three things, all really all other charact, inqu qualities fall, fall under ethos, but you are self-improving individual working on those three pillars to create this strong foundation so that when you come across negative influences life, you know what, they can't knock you down. They can't bring you. You have too strong of a foundation and that's what we're doing here. Tru you, we are building that foundation with all these character building clients that we're talking about. They all go back to those three things, values, growth, integrity. And when you have that foundation, nothing can bring you down. So what's the destination end. Once we go through this whole process as we're building and building and building this foundation. So here's the Destin. At the end. Hopefully you are a self-aware individual with a solid foundation because you truly understand what your values are and you have a fulfilling career with meaningful relationships. Absolutely. That's our destination, right? That's our goal. That's what we wanna get to as we continue to go through these session. Is that we want to be self aware individuals with a solid foundation that truly understand what we value in this world so that we have a fulfilling career and meaningful relationships. Oh, just saying that just gets me so fired up. It really truly does. So how are we gonna get there? Next question is how well, of course, each episode of true U we're gonna cover at least one comparable inequality. and we will go in depth on that quality to understand how it can have an impact on your life and how you can improve as a person with that quality. Right. So that's, that's the gist of this podcast, right? And of course, in my presentations, I give, I'm gonna expand on this and, and yeah, even in my presentations, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and, and go back to my podcast and say, Hey, if you go listen, Podcast 13 or podcast eight or podcast, hopefully 57. As I keep going here, I'm gonna be like, yes, I go in depth into talking about respect or integrity or regrets or listening, or as we go through all these different topics, but that's what we're gonna do here. We're gonna talk about different topics and I hope that you take time to really process and build that foundation. So you can have that successful career and those meaningful relationships. So, when am we gonna do this at least weekly, right? We gotta do this at least weekly. If not twice a week, I'm gonna make a commitment to you that I'm gonna be on top of it. So now the next question you have, is why me. Why listen to Java. Why? I mean, there are tons of podcasts out there at this point. Thousands even I, I would even go as far as maybe even millions, right. Cause podcast again is growing. So why take the time to listen to me? I'll tell you why. And I will go ahead and tell you about my background and my, my origin, my origin of character, building of true U of my background. So what does it all come back down to? Well, I wanna start off by saying it's all about making a difference in the lives of people. That's me, that's me in nutshell. If anybody knows me, if you know, probably out there that know me, I, I think that you agree that that's, that's the essence of me. That's why I've always been it's it's about making a difference in lives of people. So let's go back when I was younger, when I was in high school, I. I will be honest with you. And, and for any of those of you that are out there, they're in the same boat. Please listen. This. I had no idea what I wanna do with my life. I was in high school and you know what? I was just a high school student, a teenager, having fun living my life. And I would, I would even go as far as to say, like I was a good student, but I did not even push myself to be a great. I did not kick myself in the butt enough to be a great student and, and looking back on it, it's a regret mine. It absolutely is, but you know what? That's, that's where I was at time. Right? Like I was having fun with my friends. I was really enjoying high school. Tell you a quick story, Mr. Fieldhouse, my chemistry teacher. So I was all my group of friends in high school. We were all on student council and I remember it was towards the end of my senior career. We had this lunch outside. and me and my friends were all singing in circle, talking, laughing, having fun. Mr. Vio comes over, he knees down right next to me. He says, anus, I got a question for you. I said, shoot, Mr. Vio, go ahead. And he goes, you know what, me and the other teachers over there, we went through each and every one of your friends here in the circle. And we decided where they're all gonna be in about 15 years. You know, we're like lawyer politician, doctor, nurse, blah, blah, blah. Then we got to you. You know what? We couldn't put a finger on it. We had no idea what, what you're gonna be doing in 15 years. And he looks at me and he says, do you know what you're gonna be doing in 15 years? I, I, I'll never forget. I looked up at the sky and I thought about for a minute. And I looked back down Mr. Fieldhouse. And I said, Mr. Fieldhouse, I have no idea what I wanna do. That's the truth here. I am 18 years old about to enter college. No idea what I, what I wanna do with my. Please keep that in mind, if you are in my same boat or if you've struggled to figure out what you wanna do in this world. So what happened? So I went to college, I went to university, Illinois at champagne, and I went in completely undecided and I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? What am I gonna do? And I started to have experiences experiences. We're gonna spend a whole character building session, whole podcast on that as. I started to have experiences and I started to have experiences in my life that helped me figure out what I wanna do. For example, I started taking anatomy classes and I remember taking this kinesiology class. Oh man. I love this. I found myself never missing class. Always going in college, you know, that's a big deal, right? because you and I both know, Hey, eight o'clock class, like who wants to get up for an eight o'clock class? I think I'm gonna skip it. Hit the snooze, right? No, not me. I got up with bells on and I ran the class. I know what's wrong with me. Right. But that's how much I loved it. So yes, I figured that out. But I also was a summer camp concert during the summers. And I also started coaching football and, you know, I realized through all that, I love making a difference in people's. Like in football. Yes. The Xs and OS that was fun. That was, I loved that creative side of being a football coach and trying to figure out what's the best defense or offense to run, to beat this team. But really it came down to the relationships I made with the players and how I was impacting them on a one-on-one personal level. That's what I loved. Same thing with being a summer camp counselor, like, oh my God. I had the best summers up in Wisconsin as. It was great, but looking back on it, it was about the individual relationships, which by the way, I still have so many of them. In fact, one of my former students, a campers just reached out to me and we're gonna talk about my podcast and I can't wait to talk to them. Right. Zach, can't wait buddy. And that's what it came down to. And so I'm, I'm having these experiences and I'm realizing like, I love making a difference in people's lives. I love being in a position where I can do that. So I thought to myself like this, this is where I want to be. This is what I wanna do. So I started thinking like, okay, what's the route to do that teacher. I can become a teacher, but you know what? I looked into that, oh my God, more, more school, more classes, more time, more money. There were barriers. There, there were, there were definitely barriers there. And at that time when I was 21 or 22 years old, I was not willing. To challenge those barriers. I was not willing to climb over those walls and confront those challenges. I wasn't ready at the time, but I had a big aha moment. I'll never forget. When I was down at U of I, I had this friend of mine. She was a year older than me. She was in a class that graduated at Rockford Gilford high school, where I went to high school and me and her were really good friends. Trish, I'll never forget. She called me up one day and she's like, Hey, I wanna take you out to lunch. And I said, okay, why? She's like, well, my professor here at U of I wants me to do an interview and someone that I feel is a good person. And the first person that came to mind was you. And I was like, whoa, I, I was totally taken back. And I, and I said, I was like, I'm, I'm completely humbled by like, I, I, yeah. I mean, I'd be, I'd be honor. And I was, I was honored to be the person that she interviewed. So I'll never forget. We went out to Chili's and we sat down, we had lunch and she had a whole list of questions that she had to go through. And here I am, I, I believe I was like 21 years old, 20, 21 years old at the time. And she's asking me questions that I don't think I ever took time to really reflect on that time. Of course, now here I am years later, and 100000% into character building and self improve. But a time, like she was asking me questions like about my morals, about my ethics, about my integrity, about what drives me to be the person that I am. And I really found myself figuring myself out through these questions and I'll never forget her last question. And this was the big aha moment cuz she asked me, she goes, how do you want to live your life? How do you want to be remember. And I said, I just, I wanna be someone that just tries to do the right thing in life and live, live life with morals and integrity. And I remember like, that's what came to me and that's what it was. And I, and I said it very confidently, it was such a self realization and such a self reflective time for me through this lunch with Trish. And it was really amazing. I realized after that meeting with her that, yes, this is what I'm all about. Trying to build my character to be the best person I can be. And that's really who I've been the last 45 years of my life, except it took until the age of like 21 for me to really realize that and have this self realization. So at the time I realized, you know, After going through and I did and we'll talk all about, but I had a rollercoaster ride this time in my life. I got a job in Milwaukee, in Milwaukee. I was a director of education. And besides therapy school, after a while, I was like, what am I doing? This is not what I'm passionate about. I wanna make a difference in lives. So at the age of 27, after having two jobs up in Milwaukee, I switched, I quit one. I went and got another one. I realized that, you know what, I am not doing what I'm passionate about. I am not doing what I was meant to do. So I went back to school at the university of Wisconsin, Madison at the age of 27. And I decided, you know what, no matter what it takes, I'm gonna follow those passion of becoming a teacher and making a difference in the lives of people. And that's what I did. So I started teaching anatomy physiology. I got a job here in Naperville at beautiful Nico valley high school. And it was. And I'll never forget. I'll never forget my first day. I'll never forget my first year, no teacher ever will, but you know, what's funny is that I always said, I'm like, okay, I'm become teach. I'm gonna teach science. But I also want teach about life. Like that was always my thing. That was always, I was like, I'm gonna take time out of the class once a week and I wanna teach him by life. So I I'll never forget that first year. I just start bringing up topic. And I remember I started this actually take a step back. I even started this during my student teaching going all the way back to mass in Wisconsin. When I was student teaching at the high school, I'll never forget that. That's where I started these quote unquote character building sessions. But of course I didn't calm that. I didn't realize that that's what they were at the time. I was just like, here, I'm a rainbow life topic. We're gonna talk about it. And this started to happen my first year at. and man, did it create a life all on its own? It got to the point where my students in my class were chopping at the bit for the day of the week that it came to talk about these life topics. I will never forget one student, Steve Caz, God bless him. He was, oh, you wanna talk about somebody that was completely into it? He just, some days he would just walk in and be like, Java. We need something. We need some life motivation. I'll never forget. He was so, I mean, here God, he was one of my first students I've ever had my first year teaching and he just, he wa he just wanted, and you could see it in him. Like, God bless him. He just wanted to self improve. He just looking back on it. That's all he wanted. He just wanted guidance and help and advice. And he wanted to take what we talked about and break it down for himself in his own mind and take away what he wanted to. And that's, that's the beauty of this is that there is no right or wrong. Right. And I've never said that. I never said like, oh, just is the way you gotta do it. Oh, that's crap. That's garbage to me. Everyone's different. Everyone will take away from these sessions, what they want that work best for them. And that's the beauty of all this character bullying. So anyway, so was my first year. So it really developed a world on its own. And I said, myself, I gotta keep doing this. So my second year, my third year I kept doing it. I'll never forget. I believe it was my third. I had these two students come up to me at the end of this at the end of the year. It was even my third year or my fourth year. And they came up and they presented me with this Google side. And at time, you know, this was, I mean, we're talking 12, 13 years ago, you know, Google and all that. Wasn't advanced. So I remember they print out a hard copy for me and they said, Java, this is, these are all the, and they called it this, they were the ones that I will give them a hundred percent credit. They said, Java, these are your character billing. And I remember stop him saying, what, what, what did you call them? They said character building. That's what we were doing. Job all year. We were doing character building sessions. You were helping us build our character. And I totally took a step back. And I was like, they're right. That's what we've been doing. And they create this amazing Google side of all of our caregiving sessions throughout the year. And what these two wonderful students took away from. Wow. Like, I mean, guys, that was 11, 12 years ago. Now I remember that vividly and I will never forget that moment. As long as I live, cuz it showed the impact I had on these individuals and it was amazing. Well then at that point I knew like, okay, I'm all in. And so every year from that point on we ran character building sessions. And not only that, but over the years I spent tons of time doing research. And creating some Google sides and, and working on what other topics could we cover and looking at videos and et cetera. And I, I cannot tell you the amount of time and after I've spent on this. Yes, cuz this was, this was really like another curriculum to me. I mean, my science curriculum was so important and anybody can tell you as a, as a teacher, I, I really took pride in that. I really took pride in my science curriculum, but I took just as much pride in my character building CU. And that's what I looked at it as I looked at it as another curriculum. But what was beautiful about this is that as I kept on doing research and as I kept on pointing time and effort into this character building curriculum, when we would have these sessions, there would be like workshops and it'd be so interactive. And the kids would just be coming at me with what their thoughts were on the topics of the day. And what I realized is that every single character building session that I was running. I was taking away something from as well. And that was the beauty of this is that I was growing just as much as they were growing. And I loved that. I loved it because I will be the first to tell you that I am a work in progress. And I am always trying to self-improve. So this went on 15 years. For 15 years, I ran I've run hundreds of character, bullying sessions, hundreds, I mean, five classes a year. You know, once a week, you know, like it, you, the math, I mean, it's crazy. Right. And it was just awesome. And it just really, again, it, it developed a life, all its own, where the student looked forward to it and then here's what happened. So I ended up having kids and that time I had a couple side businesses in ultimate and I was really like, totally engulfed in coaching ultimate Frisbee at the time. And then I had kids and I decided to give up ultimate. I was like, this is too much for me. I wanna give this up. I think I'm ready for the next part of my life. And so I gave it up and that's when I made true you. Cause I'll never forget me and my wife sat down and I said to her, I'm like, you know what? I, I need to take all these years of character that I've gained all this knowledge. And I have all this knowledge I want to give to others and I wanna give them outside of my four walls of my classroom. And so we created to. God, bless my wife, always supportive. We created true you. And that's what this is. This is an opportunity for me to take all these years that I've spent researching and learning and talking to others about character building and it's my opportunity to influence them outside my classroom. And that's why I've been doing the last couple years. And there was a little bit of a glitch called a pandemic that the guy came in and, you know, uh, pull little. Little gap. If you wanna say in what I'm doing here, but as you guys know, I'm back better than ever now, but yeah, I, since then I've done presentations. I've gone up, I've gone back up to my camp and done a presentation there. I went back to my ultimate Frisbee. I had the presentation coming up. This may in Savannah, Georgia, and there's gonna be many, many more. There's gonna be many more as I continue to go here. And that's what, this is this, if you wanna know. Bringing it all together, coming full circle. This true U character building is my avenue. My vehicle that I can use to help spread the wealth of knowledge I've gained over the last 15 years in character building. And that's why, that's why I think that I hope that you listen to news podcasts, and that's why I hope that you listen to what we have talked about. I hope that you reach out to me. I hope that through social media email, whatever it is, reach out to me and talk to me. If you have questions, if you want to have more discussion about one of my sessions, reach out to me, let's do it. Let's talk about it. I think that'll be awesome. And that's what we're all about here. Thank you so much for listening. Let's go. Thank. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to us today on this beautiful podcast, about to you, what we're trying to accomplish here and about my background. If you enjoy this, please subscribe to our podcast. Leave a review, keep listening to us. I'm always willing to do any presentation or workshop. I got some coming up. Love to add to that. You can. Find more at our website. TrueU character.com. You can email me Java TrueU character.com and as always we're crushing it. And so are you take care?