.png)
Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto
Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto is a podcast dedicated to inspiring intentional living, personal growth, and transformation. Hosted by design expert and lifestyle guru Sabrina Soto, each episode dives into conversations about wellness, mindset, home, and self-improvement with leading experts and thought leaders. With a mix of practical advice, heartfelt storytelling, and empowering insights, Redesigning Life is your go-to space for creating a life that feels as good as it looks—one thoughtful choice at a time.
Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto
Finding Purpose Through Adversity with J.R. Martinez
In this conversation, J.R. Martinez shares his inspiring journey of overcoming adversity after a life-changing explosion while serving in the military. He discusses the challenges he faced, the importance of mindset, and how he learned to celebrate small victories. J.R. emphasizes the power of gratitude and mindfulness in navigating life's difficulties, ultimately leading him to unexpected opportunities, including a successful career in acting. In this engaging conversation, J.R. Martinez shares his journey from a challenging past to a successful career in entertainment and motivational speaking. He emphasizes the importance of embracing change, practicing positivity, and trusting the timing of life. J.R. reflects on how experiences shape our purpose and the significance of grieving and moving forward. His insights encourage listeners to recognize the signs from the universe and to remain resilient in the face of adversity.
CONNECT WITH J.R. –
https://jrmartinez.com/
https://www.facebook.com/iamjrmartinez
https://www.instagram.com/iamjrmartinez
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jradapt/
Hi, I'm Sabrina Soto. I believe the best conversations are with friends who are really able to open themselves up and share their lives, both the good parts and the bad. You're going to be listening to some of those candid conversations and hopefully gaining some insight to help you redesign your life from the inside out.
Speaker 2:JR, thank you so much for joining me today on Redesigning Life. I think a lot of people probably know you from the motivational speaking and everything you've done from your background, but also because you won Dancing with the Stars. What 13 years ago?
Speaker 3:It was a while ago and, trust me, if people were to ask me to try to do that again, it wouldn't look the same as it did when I was on.
Speaker 2:I know that you do. I mean, obviously you've been through it. You have been through it and I know you do a lot of keynote speaking on motivation of my listeners really love discussing that, because I don't know about you, but everybody in my life is in some sort of like in between stage where they don't know where they want to be, but they know they don't want to be where they are now. And you know, I think, given your background and and the explosion and how that changed your life instantly, right, you have been able to overcome what some people would imagine would be like. I think people would give up, a lot of people would have, and you didn't.
Speaker 2:And you've made a huge career and you've motivated and changed so many people's lives. So I know you've probably talked about this a million times, so please forgive me, but not everyone's heard your story, so just pretend you're telling it for the first time. But when you woke up after that explosion and obviously your mom you said that your mom was there how did you find the strength to get up and go? Like, how did you find the strength to rebuild your life when everything seemed to have fallen apart?
Speaker 3:Yeah, listen, first and foremost, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here and have this conversation and connect on your platform and for sharing a little bit of me with your audience. But you know, and secondly, you know, it doesn't offend me or bother me. I know this is my story, this is, this is I'm always going to be tied to that moment, um, and I'm okay with it. It doesn't affect me, it doesn't bother me. I understand.
Speaker 3:Not everyone's aware of the backstory of JR. They may know pieces of it. That may you know. You know they may, they may know components of my life and my story, but you know, so I'm okay with it. Um, but you know.
Speaker 3:So, just to go back to your question 19 years old is I mean, if you could remember being 19 years old and remember just trying to be in the world, whether you were going to school, whether you were getting a job, whatever situation you were in. You're just trying to figure out who you are, where you fit in into society, into whatever organization you're a part of, and a lot of times that organization consists of your family, your immediate family, your circle of friends, your circle of acquaintances, and I was no different, 19 years old, trying to figure out where I fit in within this huge organization of the military of the United States Army, military of the United States Army. And you know, something that was introduced to me prior to my injury from one of my leaders was this component of service, was this idea of service when I joined the military? It was not, for I didn't. There's no history in my family of serving in the United States military. I graduated the year after 9-11 took place. We already had troops in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3:That was a part of the reason why I wanted to join the military. It wasn't exclusively, it wasn't like a generational thing, it wasn't like somebody in my family, it was just hey. That seemed like a good alternative to the situation that I'm currently in, where I just feel a little lost after high school. And so when this individual introduced this concept of service, introduced this concept of teamwork, introduced all of that, all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, now I have a purpose. Right Now I feel like I'm starting to have an identity.
Speaker 3:And then my injury, you know, happens and I wake up three weeks later after my injury from my medical induced coma and within the first week I tell people all the time I lost both of my identities, and what I mean by that is when I looked in the mirror for the first time, the person that I saw was not somebody that I had known for 19 years of my life. Right, I looked at somebody completely different and someone that immediately my mindset went to there's no possible way that I can live. I'll be alive, but I'll never live. And there's a difference, there's a distinction between the two, and I just immediately just understood my life was over, like 19 years old. I'm never.
Speaker 3:Of course I'm interested in the ladies. Of course I want to date, but no one's going to want to date me. Of course I thought about maybe one day having kids and having a family. No one's going to want to get down with me and do all that do life with me. I is going to want to get down with me and do all that do life with me. I'm never going to be able to have a job. I'm never going to be able to honestly just walk in public amongst quote, unquote normal people. I'm not going to have that life and I just immediately, just fell into this dark space and then I was told that I would not be allowed to stay in the United States Army. So imagine-.
Speaker 2:Wait. Why is that? Just because?
Speaker 3:of. So my job in the military was 11 Bravo is infantry, it's front lines, it's combat, it's physical. Um, I had to learn how to walk again. I learned I couldn't grab a fork, I couldn't feed myself, I couldn't go to the restroom by myself, I couldn't do anything by myself.
Speaker 3:And I'm incredibly fragile, like my skin even now, like it's 21 years post, and I could tell you that there's times I'll look at my hands and I'm like, oh, I'm bleeding and my grafts are just so fragile that I can just hit them on the side of the door or the kitchen counter and it just, it just breaks the skin and it starts bleeding and I lost some range of motion to a degree. And so at that time, early on, they're looking at me. They're saying, no, this is you can't do, you can't be in the army anymore, and that's the second identity that was taken away from me. So now I'm really sitting here thinking what am I going to do with my life? And you know, ultimately just to fast forward a little bit, what I tell people is like where your focus goes, your energy follows. So if I'm focusing constantly on this concept of like my life is over because of all these things that I'm feeding myself. There's no facts, there's nothing to support that thought, it's just my brain creating a narrative. My energy follows. So, of course, I was in this negative space for a few weeks following that and one day my mother and I had this heart-to-heart, intense conversation.
Speaker 3:And my mother is from Central America, el Salvador. I'm first born, I'm first generation. My father's from Mexico. My father wasn't in my life. He left when I was nine months old and it was just my mother and I and my mother instilled a lot in me and a lot of times as parents, you don't realize your kids are always watching you, they're always paying attention to you and I I witnessed the way my mom would show up and the way that she navigated a lot of the challenges that she experienced. When I was a kid, my mother was involved in abusive relationships experienced when I was a kid, my mother was involved in abusive relationships physically verbally mentally, emotionally, you name it.
Speaker 3:And did you, did you witness that as a child? A hundred percent, yeah, a hundred percent. So I so it it. It is one of those unfortunate stories of where, or like whatever, triggered this man at the time to start putting his hands on my mother. It was my job to pick up the phone, dial those three numbers and I would go right into a closet in the house we lived in and I would tell them where we were and they'd come pick him up and they'd take him away and then you know, guess what? He'd be back at the house in a couple weeks and then, you know, it was a cycle for a couple years.
Speaker 3:But he was probably the closest thing to a dad that I've ever experienced and I remember my mother saying something to me when I was a kid, after one of those you know experiences, the next day, and I said to her and he even hit me one time where I he was on top of her and he was hitting her and I came and grabbed his arm and I said and I called him dad and I was like, stop hitting mom, and he turned around just to get me off of him and he's ended up hitting me and I fly onto the ground and and he actually put both of us in the car that night and he started driving around and and you know, we're in the backseat of the car, we can't get out, and it was just one of those scary things and I remember how we ended up ultimately getting out. Was he stopped at a store to get to buy more beer and he can't? We didn't run out of the car at that point and finally, like he gets back in the car, he drives a little bit, then he just stops and he says get out. And we just got out. And then we were, we were, you know, gone, but you know it. Those are the things that I experienced.
Speaker 3:And I just remember my mother, the day and the next day after one of these events, my mother was just smiling. I mean Sabrina, my mom's just walking around, my mom's four foot 11, little Latina you know with but but a big attitude and big personality and big laughter, and um, you know she's walking around as if she just won the lotto. And I remember like I was sort of just taken back by this approach and I remember asking her I was like why are you smiling like that. There is nothing to smile about. I know what happened. Why are you?
Speaker 3:And she said something to me that at the time didn't make sense and it always just kind of stayed with me. And it didn't make sense until after I was injured and I started navigating my own adversity and she said I smile to invite the blessings. If I'm not smiling, I can't receive the blessings that are around us, that are coming to us. So, of course, as I got, as I got through my own adversity and I was facing my own, that started to make sense to me. And it what? Essentially what she was saying, in my opinion, was she's focused on what she can control, or what she can control is how she showed up despite that adversity. And I remember just that was one of the examples that I just followed. My mom, just I just witnessed it. I, I, just I just it was a film I was watching for 19 years of my life.
Speaker 3:And then there was a lot of adversity I experienced prior to my injury and I always tell people that I think all those things I moved around a lot. I mean, I just I struggled in regards to, you know, finding a community that would embrace me and accept me, where I saw a little bit of myself I was one of. I was born and raised in the South and the town that I grew up in and a small town in Arkansas called Hope probably had at the time maybe no more than 5,000 people really spread out, so it feels really rural and predominantly white and black. It just kind of felt a little isolated and just. You know, like, I think, everybody, no matter who you are, what we want is to feel unconditional love.
Speaker 3:We want to feel like we're part of a community even if the community consists of your parents and your siblings and your aunt or an uncle or grandma, or maybe just some friends, some neighbors, whatever, just feel like you're part of something and I lacked that and I was looking for that my entire youth. And so there are all those things for the first 19 years of my life that I experienced, that prepared me for this major adversity in my life. And I tell people you know, resiliency isn't something that just it's like a light switch. You just come in and you just you know resiliency isn't something that just it's like a light switch. You just come in and you just you know there's it's not. You don't just decide you're going to be resilient, right like you.
Speaker 3:There are things that you don't, you don't realize in this particular moment there, but there are so many things that have prepared you, that have conditioned you, that have micro events that have taken place, micro adversity that maybe in the moment when you're going through it's macro, it's the biggest thing you've ever experienced. But in hindsight, when you really look at your life later down the road, you're able to say, wait, in comparison, that was not as big as what I've experienced later in life. So all these micro events essentially create this foundation that you essentially end up kind of sitting on and you just kind of build on and and so I had somewhat of a solid foundation. Yes, there were some cracks in my foundation, but for the most part I had that instilled in me and that's one of the things as, as far as like being Latino, I'm so proud of my culture and proud of the experiences and what I was exposed to, because my mother came here as an undocumented immigrant.
Speaker 3:My mother I remember reciting with my mother in the living room, like quizzing her to take the test to become a citizen of the United States. I mean, whether I wanted to or not, I was going to have a different perspective. Whether I wanted to or not, I was going to witness what resiliency and how you showed up. And so listen for me. After I was injured, my mother and I had this real intense conversation where I was stuck in the phase of asking this question why, why, why? Listen for me. After I was injured, my mother and I had this real intense conversation where I was stuck in the phase of asking this question why, why, why, why, why, why? Which I think all of us as human beings, we fall into that trap of like why does this happen to me? And I was no different. And ultimately, my mother just.
Speaker 2:Was anybody else with you when that explosion happened. Did anyone else get hurt? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:So there was three other guys in the Humvee with me and they all walked away. They all survived. One of them was actually medevaced back to the stage because he had injured his leg based on being thrown out of the vehicle. The other two guys actually stayed in country. They had shrapnel in different parts of their body but they stayed in country. But I was for that particular incident, I was the more seriously injured, just because, honestly, it wasn't even the burns to my exterior, it wasn't even the third-degree burns to my head, face, arms, hands, portion of my bag, portion of my legs. The biggest thing at the time that was threatening whether I was going to survive or not was the fact that the five minutes that I was trapped inside of this Humvee I was inhaling the smoke from the fire that was the.
Speaker 3:Thing that was really, you know, threatening whether I was going to survive or not, and you know, just to fast forward. But when my mother and I having this intense conversation, when I'm sitting here talking about my life is over, she challenged me and she just said listen, I don't know why this happened. I don't know why this happened to us. I'm just asking you to try to be JR, be that positive, funny kid. I'm asking you to believe that something good will come from this. I'm asking you to have a little bit of faith, and you know, we grew up Catholic and so my mom was very big into praying to every saint, that that that was ever mentioned.
Speaker 2:My mother, would pray to Listen. I'm Cuban. I'm also first generation. I understand what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like my mom would be, like I'd get so confused. I'm like wait a minute, I thought Nina La Tocha was for this. And they're like no, no, no, that's for something else. And I'm like okay, and Señor de los.
Speaker 2:Milagros, now I needed like a saint dictionary, like when, when this happens, you pray to this saint.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, come on, man. And so you know, in that moment I was willing to say to myself you know what? I got to just try something different. I just got to try and see. And so what I did is I remember actively making the decision that I was going to stop thinking long-term and overwhelming myself with that thought of the long-term because we're so conditioned, we're force-fed this narrative that we have to have things figured out.
Speaker 3:I mean think about it when people come up to. I've done it, people have done it to my kids. When you come up to kids, I mean, what do we ask? What's your name and what do you want to be when you grow up? That's like one of the first questions we ask kids is like this kid's like I'm eight, I don't know. And so what I did is I had to. I realized thinking of the long-term and not knowing what that was going to look like was almost a setback in itself. It was causing too much stress and overwhelming me. So what I did is I just eliminate that thought process. I eliminated that that pressure of having to have life figured out and I focused on the short term.
Speaker 2:I just focused on the now.
Speaker 2:It's so funny because I think if somebody would have come to your hospital bed at that moment in your life and said, in X many years you're going to win dancing with the stars, in this many years you're going to get married and have children Like you're going to have children, you're going to, you would have thought there's no possible way.
Speaker 2:But I think that you're right that we get so caught up in the future and the planning and no, that's not possible. I was with a friend yesterday having lunch and she is trying to have a baby and she was just worrying and worrying and I said to her you, you are one connection away from changing your entire life and you don't know if you walk out of this restaurant, if that's going to happen now, like we just don't know. And I think to your, to what you're saying, is like it's your mindset that creates the possibilities to open your life to to good things. But it's hard when you're looking in the mirror. It's you and you see what you see. It must have been difficult for you to know that these things were possible.
Speaker 3:Of course. And so for me, when I say that I had to pivot, then I had to celebrate small things, small victories. I had to find small victories to celebrate throughout the day. And I would wake up in the morning and I would look at my hands that at one point in time there were like claws, because of the skin, the burn skin, it contracts and so it limits a lot of your range of motion. So you do a lot of OT just to get that range of motion but you can end up having a graft or something on your hand that all of a sudden now they sort of go back. So it's a constant job of doing a lot of OT. And I'd wake up one day and I'm like, oh you know what, today I can actually grab the fork. I still can't feed myself, but I can grab the fork, I can hold it. Okay, that's positive. Oh, yesterday I could do maybe a quarter of a lap around my ICU room, today I could do half a lap. That's progress.
Speaker 3:And listen, in some days I felt like there was nothing and I had to almost trick my mind to find the positive. It's almost like I have a little bit of this OCD. I've never been diagnosed right, but it's almost like I have a little bit of this OCD or maybe it's called something else actually but where I have this thing with when I count things. When I was a kid I would take steps or I would count stuff on the wall and it would always have to end on an odd number. That was my thing. It would always have to end on an odd number. It never got where.
Speaker 3:I think there was a show on MTV where people were like severe OCD and it was really infringing on their life. It never got to that point. I never had to necessarily flip the light switch 101 times or 109 times my mom would kill me. But, like, essentially, I would always have to like train my mind to just kind of count and so we can end on that thing. And that was the same practice that I had to do in the hospital. It was like I had to trick my mind to find these things to celebrate. And I think that when you do that, it helps you get through the day and that's okay. That's okay to just say I'm just present and I'm just getting through this day right now and I'm getting through tomorrow and I'm getting through the day after that and it's okay, and the more of these little days that you learned, because what it did is it taught me how to practice gratitude.
Speaker 2:Right, that's what it really taught me. Can we talk about the power of gratitude?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean but, but. But in order to practice gratitude, you have to be okay and understand that. It's important for you, in this scope of life, where everyone's trying to operate at a hundred miles an hour, or 110, if you're trying to like, exceed everyone's trying to operate at a hundred, you know, miles an hour or 110, if you're trying to like, exceed it and trying to bypass everybody else, that to pause and to stop. One of the things like for a long time.
Speaker 3:Sabrina, when people would ask me about the day that I was hurt, yeah, I can give you details. I remember it vividly. I remember exactly what I was thinking, how I like my life was going to end. I remember exactly what I was feeling, the pain. I remember all of it. You never forget that right. But the but in for a long time. I would just talk about that, the trauma from that event and over the years, it took a decade or so after I was injured for me to finally, when people started asking me about the 5th of April of 2003, instead of focusing on the trauma, I focused on telling this story, and I was only able to really remember and recount this story simply because I spent a lot of time just being sitting, pausing, being intentional, reflecting, like that's what I did and what I recall.
Speaker 3:What I remembered from the five minutes I was trapped inside of that Humvee was there were moments, over the course of those five minutes, my eyes would get heavy and I would start to get sort of lose consciousness and I would close my eyes. And in the midst of me losing consciousness, my eyes were closed. I'd felt no pain. I didn't hear the chaos that was outside of my Humvee. I couldn't see anybody in front of my Humvee running back and forth frantically trying to identify where everybody is. The only thing that I can connect with was my breath. I could actually hear myself breathing. Now it was more of a gasp because I had broken ribs and it was hard for me to breathe.
Speaker 3:But I can feel that and I can connect with that and at the same time, my thoughts. I can hear myself thinking certain things. I can hear myself tell staying like Jr, if you keep your eyes closed, that's it. You're giving up. Open your eyes, keep fighting, hang on. I would hear myself say my mom's worst fear is becoming a reality. My life's going to end in this way at this age, I would hear myself. So what do you think I carry with me now? When life gets overwhelming? Because it does right, with kids, with family, with jobs, with all these things that we're all trying to do, life gets overwhelming and you end up giving so much of yourself, and so what I've learned to do is, when I start to feel that happening, I just close my eyes and I simply connect with my breath and I connect with my thoughts, and that's why yoga, for me personally, has been so, so beneficial, because it forces you in at the beginning of the practice. What do they ask you? What is your intention?
Speaker 3:for the next 60 minutes that you're here. Yep. What is your intention?
Speaker 2:You know what JR I used to hate? When people the instructors used to ask that it puts so much pressure on you. It's not just that. I'm like just let me work out, yeah. But what's funny is when I think about what the intention is and then they say bring you know, go back to your intention. I do and I realized this is what I'm here for Stay present, stay here, stay on the mat, instead of what our minds constantly do, of getting out of it.
Speaker 3:And you know, when you, when you mentioned earlier, like, if someone would have come into my hospital room and mentioned that I was going to do all these things, I would have been like no way. But here's, here's. So I believe in yes, I have long-term goals, of course I do, but I also I still, to this day, almost have this sort of day-to-day approach, sort of this practice, gratitude, this short-term view on life. Like that's kind of like look at the micros, not always looking for the big macro reveal, the big lotto billboard, mega million, like I'm like I'm just looking at the, celebrating the five bucks that I got today from whatever that is right, like I'm just celebrating that. But another thing that I've started to piece together and this is again, I'm only able to really pay attention to these things simply because I pause and I reflect. And it is such a big thing for me that about two and a half ish months after I was injured, I'm still in my you know, in the hospital, hadn't been discharged yet, and every evening at this point I'm a little bit better. I'm probably maybe 45 days away from from being allowed to be discharged, go to my hometown for a month before I have to continue my care. So I'm excited about that, so I'm doing a little bit better.
Speaker 3:And my mom and I our routine was in the evening we'd watch novellas which for those of you that aren't familiar Spanish soap operas and listen. Whether you speak Spanish or not, if you put on a novela, you're going to get hooked and you're going to know who's pissed at who. You're going to know who backstabbing, who. You're going to know whose man is sleeping with, like you're going to know it all. You're going to know what's going down on the novelas and this check this out. I told my mom one day and I said to her in Spanish I said and you were I told her one day I'm going to be on a soap opera.
Speaker 3:There was no basis for me to say anything like that. That was me just kind of being a jokester and clown. And my mom said oh really, what's the storyline going to be? And I said I don't know, I haven't thought about that. I'm just going to have a beautiful love interest. I just threw that out in the world, just just jokingly, not because I had any aspirations to be an actor, never wanted to be on TV, never thought of those things. It was just one of those things I just threw out. And five years later I found myself auditioning to become an actor on a soap opera called all my children.
Speaker 2:So you have to tell me how that came out, like, how did that even come about? How did you even get the audition to be on a soap opera, which, by the way, soap operas are notorious for being, you know, based on looks? Oh yeah, like again who, if you would have been on your the hospital bed and somebody had been like you would have been, you're gonna be a hunk on a soap opera. You'd be like, yeah, sure, and you were yeah yeah, and you know it's funny.
Speaker 3:So how it happened was I was at this point prior to. You know I identified that I wanted to be a speaker. I was doing a little bit of it. I was mainly doing a lot of philanthropy work, a lot of advocating work on behalf of veterans and just really educating the public about the difficulties that service members and their families experience when they transition out of the military and their families experience when they transition out of the military. And that was a lot of the work that I was doing. But I was trying to get more opportunity. I was trying to get people to see me for more than just the title that was over my head, whether I liked it or not, and that was disabled veteran, that was burn victim, and I was trying to just scream from the mountaintop that I'm so much more like yes, I'm proud to be a veteran, I'm not disabled, I'm proud to be a veteran, and I'm so much more like yes, I'm proud to be a veteran, I'm not disabled, I'm proud to be a veteran and I'm not a burn victim, I'm a burn survivor. And that's what we say in our community. And so it was.
Speaker 3:It was tough, it was challenging, right, you're always trying to, you know, convince people and try to. People's biases and past experiences are factoring into you know that, what they think and what they see in you. And ultimately, my best friend sent me an email one day and he said and this might be a stretch for some people and I can, I, you know okay, maybe, but I'm just going to break this down real quick. So I was, I happened to be in LA cause I was having a meeting again for the veteran stuff and I was flying to, I was taking a red eye that night to go to New York and I was going to New York to attend a speakers conference and this was for people that aspire to be speakers and learning the industry and all the ins and outs of it.
Speaker 3:Right, and my best friend sends me an email and then he starts ringing my phone and I, I, I'm, I'm sleeping, cause I'm like I'm trying to get as much sleep as I can, cause I know I'm not going to sleep on the red eye. I answered I'm like, dude, I'm trying to sleep. And he's like do you check your email? And I said no. He says check your email, call me back. So I checked my email. I call him back and I said what? What is this? He says, man, it's an. It's an email. It's the casting director for all my children. They want to launch a storyline about veterans and they want to see if there's a veteran with some acting experience. And I was like, man, I don't, I'm not an actor Like I've never taken wait, was this before?
Speaker 2:after dancing with the stars.
Speaker 3:This is before.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And and I was like no way, no way, and he's like man, he's like no, gerald, what's the worst? They're going to tell you Right. And so I hung up with him and I just called the phone number on the email and I called it and I landed. I ended up talking to the casting director, which is usually you're going to go to a assistant.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so I'm talking to her and I'm saying I say, hey, this is who I am. I got this email. She says tell me more about yourself. We start talking.
Speaker 3:And I asked her. I said where are you based? And she said we're in New York. And I said, well, I'm flying to New York tonight. And she says, oh, how long are you here for? And I said, well, I'm there for a few days. She's like can you stop by? I was like, of course, so I stopped by the next day. So I stopped by the next day and literally I stopped by and as her and I are having this conversation, she calls and she brings in the EP of the show, the executive producer. So the three of us are sitting in this room having a conversation and it feels like it's going well. They said, hey, we'll be in touch. And I said, cool. So I went home and I cleared out my schedule for like the next month and I watched novellas and I worked out because I was like, if I get this, yeah, you have to be TV ready.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and so I ended up coming back Fast forward. I come back a month later, I do the audition, my screen test. They say we'll be in touch. I had to go back to LA for a follow-up meeting and when I landed in LA, like this is like two, three days after the screen test, I got the call that I got the job. Now they're like we need you to move to New York right away, et cetera. Now, okay, so I fast forward. I ended up being on the show for a year, right, so I go from three months to six months to nine months and a year. And as I'm approaching that year, all of a sudden one day in the studio we all get called actors, crew, right, everybody gets called over to the studio that we was our neighboring studio, the view. And we all go sit in the the, the audience seating, right, like, and we're like everyone's panicking like, oh my God, we're going. And we're like everyone's panicking like, oh my God, we're going to get canceled. Everyone's stressed about it, and so we're sitting there?
Speaker 2:Why were they calling you to be in the on the in the audience.
Speaker 3:Right, like well, we didn't know it wasn't for the view, it was just, we were just using the view space and to, so we can all fit in there.
Speaker 3:And, uh, and all of a sudden, the big wig of ABC Daytime comes in and we're like, oh no. He comes in and he starts explaining like hey, from a financial standpoint. And of course this is like, oh my God. And then he says in order to keep the show on the air, we're going to have to make some changes. And what we're going to do is we're going to move the show to LA. And what we're going to do is we're going to move the show to LA. And he said that'll help us save some costs. You know, et cetera, et cetera. And immediately I'm sitting next to my co-star, her name was Shannon.
Speaker 3:And I'm sitting next to her and I look at her and I said and he said, mind you, he said, unfortunately, not everybody is going to come to LA with the show. I look at Shannon and I said I'm going to go to LA. And she was like, how do you know? And I was like I know, I'm going to LA. Now, the way my mind worked because this is what life had at this point kind of conditioned me, the way to think of things, this is the way my mind works.
Speaker 3:When I found out about the opportunity, I was in LA. When I found out that I got the opportunity, I was in LA. When I found out that I got the opportunity, I was in LA. And now the show's moving to LA. There is something tied to LA for me. There is something that's pulling me and that LA keeps popping up that I need to be there. And, sure enough, when they moved the show, I went with them. And not only did I go with them, I signed a brand new contract with them to be on the show for three years.
Speaker 3:Now, the show didn't go for an additional three years, but I was going to be there for the next three years, which, at that point, when the show went off the air, is when dancing presented itself and it was like dancing was my opportunity to show the world that I was so much more. It's when my wife and I, who worked on all my children, not as an actress, but behind the scenes, when her and I started dating and we started to get serious that's where my daughter was born and so clearly, like LA at that time, served a purpose for me in my journey and where it was going to give me this life and it was going to propel me and allow it. And something I think about too, sabrina, someone said something to me recently where they said your DNA can be changed by your environment. Yeah, and I remember that after this person said that, I really marinated on this and then I started thinking about that and I remember this man that used to put his hands on my mother.
Speaker 3:He would sit in the living room and he would sing these Spanish love songs and I would sit next to him because Spanish was my first language, even though I was born in the States. That was my first language and and I would sit there and look at him and just admire that he was singing these Spanish love songs, and so then I'd start singing with them. Well, he would take me down to this hole in the wall, bar, and I would. He would play the piano and I would sit there and sing and dance in front of all these people, right, and you know, and I, and I just think about that's who I was born to be not necessarily born to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and not necessarily in the sense of like to be famous or have any sort of notoriety, but to be this personality or this person that could walk into a space and be this energy for people and and not be afraid to talk to people. More of an extrovert. That's who I am. But there were all these things, experiences and environments that I was in that tried to slowly change that and take that away from me. And, luckily for me, after I was injured, there were people and experiences that I had that slowly started getting me back to that DNA.
Speaker 3:So when dancing presents itself, when all my children and then dancing presents itself, I'm like, of course, like this is what I'm supposed to be doing, like this is part of my DNA, which is why when I went on dancing, I was never nervous. I was never nervous, I was excited and I couldn't wait to have my 90 seconds on that stage on Monday night to perform and to tell a story and to make people feel something at home. I loved it and that's why, for me, when life tends to get a little shaky and unpredictable and there's a lot of change and a lot of unknown, I don't tend to honestly really panic about it a lot. I tend to kind of look at it and say, okay, like let me, let me look backwards and look at some pieces and let me just trust that that something's going to work out, because I've spent so much time pausing and reflecting and life has kind of proven me, like it's kind of shown me, like we got you, as long as you're paying attention to the signs.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I always have to remind myself that the universe always has my back and it's always worked out until now. So what makes me think that all of a sudden the universe is going to turn its back on me, Like I just? But it's hard. You have to remind yourself constantly when you're worried or things start falling apart. You know it takes work, it takes work, it takes work.
Speaker 3:That's why I tell people like, listen, I may be the guy that people bring me in to be positive and come inspire people, and I'm like, listen, I practice positivity daily. Yes, practice positivity daily, like I have to practice this. It is a practice you have to condition your mind and your body no different than anything else in life, no matter what you're trying to excel at. It takes practice. Like, some of us have a little bit more natural ability for some things than others, but don't be mistaken, you still have to practice if you want to have longevity, if you want to be at the highest level doing it. If not, then your talent, your natural talent, will carry you to a certain point and then you'll sort of fizzle out and then the people that are putting the work in will then, you know right, surpass you. We started recording. But you were asking me as far as, like, my family dynamic and everything and my you know married, my wife and I was. I was telling you and you asked me. It was like is your first, is your second marriage, or you know, and I was like no, but my wife and I had a rough stint at the beginning of our relationship, where my daughter was a year old, we broke up and it was a, it was a 100% a breakup. We were not together. Yes, there were still feelings for one another, but we were nowhere near together. And it was like that for a few years and then, finally, we were able to one day come together and really kind of identify that we still had these feelings for one another. And you know, and I had gone and you know done some work and you know some therapy, traditional, untraditional, a little bit of all and she had kind of done her own work, and we were able to identify some things that we both needed to work on and address and that would make our unit stronger. And we can try this again. And here we are, you know, have another, have another kid, and you know like life is great, um, but essentially, like for me, the thing that I feel that so so, so just gonna fast forward a little bit.
Speaker 3:So my daughter moved to New York City because that's where my wife is from. So and I was traveling all over. At the time I was filming a show in South Africa and I was there for four months out of the year and I was thinking I might go back, and so I was just kind of all over the place and I didn't realize where I wanted to be. So in 2015, the speaking industry started to slow down a little bit at least for me, right, there wasn't a lot and I started to panic and oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, why are things not kicking off?
Speaker 3:Why am I not getting all these calls and these emails and these offers? Why aren't my agents reaching out to me as often? And I would call my agents and be like what do I need to do? Like what needs to happen, like you know? And they were like we don't know, we don't know. And what I identified is that, after dancing and I got all these opportunities to travel all over the world and speak to all these different groups and these brands that we all know and use and great opportunities what I realized at a certain point I started to see how much money was coming in and what I got away from. I got away from my purpose.
Speaker 1:The reason I wanted to be a speaker from the very beginning.
Speaker 3:I literally then started pursuing the money. I started pursuing the attention, the accolades that I'm one of the best in this industry.
Speaker 2:And I'm this young and the universe said jokes on you, bro.
Speaker 3:The universe said, oh, let me pull this rug real quick right from under your feet and watch you face plant. And I'm over here, panicking, looking at external, like what did I need to do? What do I need to change, what needs to happen? And honestly, you know how. What got me back is I would go to the park with my lab, my black lab, and I would go to the park and I would sit there and I would just write and I would just be and I would just think.
Speaker 3:And what I realized after, honestly, it took a couple of months and I I went from. Honestly, I'm going to be honest with you I went from having all this money to literally, almost literally, being broke, like I'm not even, I'm not even BS and you or your listeners, I went from because I bought my mom a house, I was taking care of my daughter, I was taking care of all these other people, I was doing all these other things with the money, and then no opportunities were coming in. And also, now I'm like I got no money and but what I realized is that, oh, I need to get back to my core, to my purpose, why I got away from that. And then I started to figure out well, what is it that I want to do? What, what, what's going to make me happy?
Speaker 3:And there were two things. I was like one I want to be with my daughter, and so you know what. I need to figure that out. And I want to go to school. I want to go to college. I don't need college for what I do, for a profession, but it was always a goal of mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I at the time I was living in Texas, um, staying with a buddy of mine, my best friend, um, as I was kind of in this transitional period to kind of figure out where I was going to go in the world. And I was like, well, maybe do I stay in Texas and I can go to the university of Texas. Like, maybe I do that and I just go and visit my daughter and she comes down, whatever, so I go to UT. It doesn't work out right. They're like, well, maybe now, and that's not a good fit here. And I was kind of like, oh, interesting, okay, and I kind of took it a little personal Cause. I was like like, like you wouldn't, I can't come to school here, why, right? And so then I get connected with somebody and they say, hey, we can connect you with some schools in New York. And so they, I have a conversation with a couple of schools in New York. One of the schools like absolutely we'd love to have you, and it's Fordham university. And I was like, oh, this is great. So then I said you know what? Okay, well, I'm going to move to New York. Perfect, because I'm going to be closer to my daughter and I'm going to be able to go to school months of really leaning into that.
Speaker 3:And then all of a sudden, opportunity started presenting themselves again. So then I'm like okay, so I start accepting and start doing more and doing more. And then I get this entertainment opportunity on this show about the possibility of filming in a show in georgia, and so I go and I audition and it got pretty far and then towards the end, they decided they were going to go in a different direction and I was okay with that, like I'm fine with that, like I'm a big boy, I can take that. But I asked them I said, well, just out of curiosity, is there any feedback? Like I'd love some feedback, maybe some areas that I need to address.
Speaker 3:And and the lady said, honestly, you were great, you, you, you, we liked, we liked, we liked what you were about, we liked this. We just decided to go with somebody else who had a bigger social media following, which was another kind of rude awakening. That that's the world we're in right now. Yep, and what I realized at that time, literally my wife and I, at literally about a month before that opportunity presented itself, we started having these conversations and exploring could we try this again. Everything is about timing.
Speaker 2:That's what I was just going to say. I was not supposed to go to UT. Everything is about timing.
Speaker 3:Yep, all those things, sabrina, in the last. I'm 41, and I would probably say more the last 21 years of my life, since that injury, I have taken all this evidence and all these experiences right. You, me, everybody listening you have to treat yourself like the big brands that we love, the big brands that we follow, that we're loyal to, right. What do they do? They base everything off of data. Everything is based on data In order for them to be efficient and effective and continue to grow. It's based on data, data of the customer, data on what they like, data when they like it. Data, data, data, data, data, data data. Well, we're no different as individuals. We have to equally be collecting data and to look at that data, and so that's what I have trained myself to do is to look at like wait, ut didn't turn me down because I'm not good enough to go to university in Texas because the universe was like.
Speaker 3:You're not supposed to be here, bro. I didn't get the opportunity in the entertainment industry, because I'm not supposed to be in Georgia, I'm supposed to be here, getting my family together and getting the thing that, at the end of the day, is what makes me happy and makes me whole and completes me.
Speaker 2:But it's funny that you say that, because I think what I'm taking from the story is it's important to be able to understand also the universe is guiding you and that that timing is important, what you just said. But when a lot of people would get would not get admitted to their school of choice and then everything would break down, where you have to be able to allow the universe to guide you yeah, yep, a hundred percent, and and, but the way that you, when people ask because I've had people ask, well, but how do you do that?
Speaker 3:and I'm like like you have to, I, and this is what I believe you just have to stop, stop, reflect and think of all these scenarios that there've been, signs that you've potentially have missed because you're stubborn, we're all stubborn, or we don't think there's no way that that could be my life, right? You think I? You, let me tell you about this dancing thing real quick. Let me tell you how, the how the universe plants his little seeds.
Speaker 3:So, when I was on all my children, um, you know we do these fan events and, um, and I remember being at one and you know I was one of the newer characters, so I didn't get a lot of the questions from the audience. You know they were asking the Susan Lucci's and the Alicia Minshew and the Cameron Matheson's, like all the big actors at the time on the show, the Michael Knights, all those guys. And I remember somebody asked me JR, would you ever go on Dancing with the Stars? Now, the reason this person asked me this is because the night before it was a party. And listen, you bring a party and some music, I'll get down. I will get down.
Speaker 3:And I remember when she asked this question, I just kind of smirked. I was like, oh yeah, that'd be fun, that'd be fun. Now, I was familiar with the show, but I wasn't a loyal watcher or viewer. I just kind of like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be fine. I just kind of that's all I did. It just kept it moving. Fast forward 2011,. All my children announced that they're going to cancel the show later that year. I now started getting texts and you know calls from friends and people, and one person in particular texted me and said, hey, whatever happened to that dancing thing? And I was like, why does this keep coming? Up.
Speaker 3:And so instead of ignoring that which I think a lot of us probably would do but at that point life had already kind of taught me and conditioned me that I was like, well, I can't just ignore this. So I went and asked the executive producer of all my children Everybody was in her ear Can you know what do we do? Where is there other opportunities on other shows? And I just approached, I said listen, I'm not going to, I'm not going to stress you out Like I've had a great run here. I don't know where life has taken me, but I do have one question. I keep hearing this pop up dancing with the stars. And she was like, oh, my God, you'd be amazing, I'm going to make an introduction. And she made the introduction to one of the producers and the cast of directors over at dance with the stars and literally the rest is history. But again, I could have easily just kind of heard that and just kind of dismissed it.
Speaker 2:But you have to pick inspired action in life.
Speaker 3:You do 100% Listen. When I was 16 years old, my mother came into my room and I was crying and she said what's wrong? And I said sometimes I think about getting into a car accident just to see who loves me, who would show up at the hospital. Now this is 2024. I think all of us, if we heard a 16 year old echo those same words, we'd respond differently. Now I don't think I was at that point, but essentially I was clearly feeling a lack there of having any sort of like community or outside of my mother community support connection, like I clearly lack something. Be careful what you throw into the universe, because three years later I was in essentially a car accident.
Speaker 3:I was in a Humvee where it almost took my life. Three months after I was injured, I told my mom I'm going to be on a soap opera. Guess what? Five years later, I'm on a soap opera.
Speaker 2:I said this to my friend yesterday your tongue is a wand.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, a hundred percent%. And so you know, listen, it's hard for us to understand, it's hard for us to process. My wife and I we didn't want this big gap between our kids my daughter's 12, my son's three. We would have loved to have a closer gap right. However, for us, what has made sense? Because we tried for a couple of years, we tried Before our son was born. We were trying, trying, trying and experienced a miscarriage and there was that.
Speaker 3:Then you get into this thought process of she's questioning what's wrong with me. I'm questioning what's wrong with me. I can't get my wife pregnant. She's questioning what's wrong with my body. You start kind of going down that road and unfortunately, my father-in-law was struggling with some health stuff and then he ended up passing and he was, I mean, the head of the table, if you will, head of the family and you realize like there were some things my wife identified that she needed to lean, and again, it wasn't just her, but she realized there were some things that for personally, for her, she needed to lean into. And once she started to lean into those things, like from a therapeutic standpoint and really addressing some of these, you know the emotional wounds and the stress and all that stuff um our son, boom we get right and and and and.
Speaker 3:You just don't know, know, and you just got to trust timing and I know it's hard because we all are so conditioned to we see other people, they have what they have and we want what they have, or we want more of what we've already had, and the challenge is being able to get to a point where you can just trust and say you know what, I'm not putting any pressure on anything. There's clearly a reason why this isn't happening for me right now.
Speaker 3:Right or maybe, maybe it will never happen, but there's also a reason for that and I just got to trust and be paying attention and I'll get that. I'll get that answer, I'll get the direction and the guidance that I need.
Speaker 2:And so it's taken me 47 years to figure that out, I think like 20, when I was in my twenties, when something didn't work out, it would devastate me. Now, if something works out, I say there's a reason why this didn't work out. I just don't know what the reason is right now. It'll be told to me, it'll be shown to me in due time, but right now I don't know why. But I have to trust that the universe is like like prolonging it or postponing it for some reason, for my highest good.
Speaker 3:For sure, and you know, and that's why you know my mom, my mom again, it was just my mother and I, and I remember one day asking my mom for I don't know what it was, it was like the latest and greatest thing, but my mom made no more than 30, it was like $36,000 a year. She didn't make a lot of money and I remember my mom sitting down with me at the kitchen table and she put her paste up there and then she said okay, this is how much money I brought home. She said this is how much rent is. This is how much we have to have for food. This is how much for utilities, this is how much, right? She's like simple math subtract all that from so I do. And she's like how much is left over? And I I'm like not a lot. And she's like, yeah, and she's like so when you ask for these things, you got to understand it's not that I don't want to give them to you. You got to understand that just right now I can't. So back then, layaway was the thing, was the thing right, and she'd be like but we could put it on layaway and I'd get it for you in four months, when I pay my $20 every other week or whatever it was, but I would get that item More.
Speaker 3:So the reason I tell that story, what's so important, is I love that my mother. I can appreciate that as an adult. I can appreciate that now as a father. And so I think for me, as a father with my daughter my son's still young, but with my daughter, who's 12 and understands and comprehends all this stuff is to be able to have these type of conversations with her. Because when you said you were in your 20s and something didn't work out, oh my God, life is over. We're not. There's never a lot of conversation around us that if something doesn't work out, how do you adapt or what do you learn from that? That that is not. That is not something that is introduced to our lives at a young age. We have to learn the hard way and over the course of years and decades, in some cases right, and so with my daughter, I'm very intentional. Like my daughter, um, she wanted to be part of student council. Well, she found out she didn't get in, but her best friends did and oh, she was devastated and she was 10 years old. She's devastated, I mean, and she's crying and whatever. And I remember telling her I was like, listen, it doesn't make sense. Now there is a reason why you're not in student council. There is a reason. I said I know it's hard, but we will get the answer later down the road and I said but you're allowed to be upset and to grieve, you're allowed to do that. That is a human response and that is how I didn't listen.
Speaker 3:I'm one of the most confident dudes in the world. I'm not going to lie, despite my scarring on my face and on my body, on my face and on my body, like I like listen during before my wife I'm some bad honeys. I got it. I got it. You get what I'm saying. You know my, my wife is a. That's a. She's a knockout, she's a beautiful woman, right, and I'm a confident dude. But before I got to that point where I could accept and be that confident, I had to grieve. I had to grieve the loss of the LJR and that was okay and it took whatever time it took. That was my process and I can't take that or put that on anybody else. And so, with my daughter, fast forward this situation later down the road. Guess what? She's now playing softball and she's like loving softball and she's more.
Speaker 2:And that's why it allowed her the time to be able to do that.
Speaker 3:She's like loving softball. She's more, and that's why it allowed her the time to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:She's a select softball player.
Speaker 1:She is a pitcher. She is. She wouldn't be able to do that had she been on student council.
Speaker 2:What I'm taking from this entire conversation is in life, you're allowed to grieve, but you need to move on, and I think you are an amazing example of that. For anyone listening, I will, in the show notes, have all of GR's information so that you can get in touch with him, follow him, watch his YouTube channel with all of his motivational speaks, speaking engagements, and I know you have like a little journal there too. Gr. Seriously, thank you so much. This was such a great conversation.
Speaker 3:No, this was fun. Thank you so much. This is a lot of fun. Again, thank you, as always for you know, for sharing this little little this, this this little bit of me with your platform, with your listeners, and I just appreciate the conversation and, um, you know, just uh, I just want people to just keep showing up just as best as you can. If there's anything you could take away from this episode, despite what state of life you're in, just smile because there's blessings around the corner waiting for you. Thank you.