322. The Power of Practicing Gratitude: An Iraq Veteran's Path to Healing with J.R. Martinez

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness coach, Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello and thank you for joining us today. I'm so happy you're here. Happiness solved is the place where we explore everything you need to become the best possible version of you. This is Sandee Sgarlata. And today I've got some exciting news for our dedicated listeners.

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We've just launched our exclusive members only portal. This is your ticket to a world of additional content designed to deepen your understanding and engagement with the happiness solved mission. To learn more about all of the exciting benefits, stay tuned until the end of the episode where I will explain in greater detail. For those interested now, head over to happinesssolved dot supercast.com. today is another amazing conversation, so let's get started.

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JR Martinez, what an honor and a privilege to have you on my show today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. How are you on this beautiful day? Well, I'm doing well, thank you very much.

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And that is, that is flattering. You know, that introduction, it's one of those that we don't spend enough time reflecting and appreciating our journey because we're too busy and conditioned that we have to look forward and go to chase the next thing. And when I get an introduction like the one I just received, it forces me to pause and reflect and have that moment of, oh, wow. Like, I have come a long way and I have done a lot. And I think all of us need to have those types of introductions because it forces us to remember and appreciate the journey we've been on.

00:02:05
Well, for those of you tuning in, and if you don't know who JR Martinez is, I love your bio. And I'm telling you, you are a man after my heart. From the battlefields of Iraq to the dance floor of Dancing with the Stars, which you won. Hello. Thank you for your service to this country, which incredibly just chills going down my spine because while I never served, my brother passed away while serving in the army when I was twelve years old.

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He was 19. And so that kind of set the tone for, you know, my life. And we weren't, I was not, I was forbidden from joining the military because of that. Yeah, no, I understand that. But then again, it probably was a good thing because I graduated from high school in 1983 and it probably was not the best place for a young girl to be during that time frame, you know?

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But let's talk about, like, dancing with the Stars. I have a gold medal in ice dancing. And so my whole dream has been to be on Dancing with the Stars. And I was like, okay, but, like, I need some sort of celebrity status, which, you know, so maybe I'll be the first podcaster on Dancing with the Stars. But I did the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing Brooke Burke on my show.

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Oh, yes. Love her. Love her. And that was so, so this is like a full circle moment, you know, like, she was the host and was on it, and, yeah, what an experience it was. It was an incredible experience.

00:03:55
And Brooke is obviously so lovely, as you discovered in your conversation with her, but such a beautiful energy and a beautiful light and, you know, going on dancing, I mean, listen, you could say you got to develop some celebrity status. I mean, I could argue that in some regards, I didn't have any when I went on the show. I mean, although I was an actor on a soap opera on, on the, within the network, you know, nobody really knew my character that well quite yet. And, you know, it's a soap opera, so not everybody was watching, which is why the show went off the air. So I was, I was more promoted as the veteran.

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I wasn't really promoted so much as the speaker, the actor. And, you know, there's something about that that I think was, is important. And I didn't quite realize and understand the reach. I knew Danson was a big audience. I didn't necessarily understand how big of an audience and the big of a reach it would have, but I think, and I didn't really quite understand this, and I didn't go into it with this intention, but that show gave me the opportunity to show the world that I was so much more than what they perceived me as.

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And for years prior to me joining that show, which was eight years after I was injured, for eight years, I was walking around labeling myself as a disabled veteran and as a burned victim. And that's because that's what I heard other people say about me. So I just inherited that and said, yeah, that's what I am. I didn't know any difference. And probably about two years prior to being on dancing, I discovered a community of burn survivors.

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And they educated me and they said, no, we're not burn victims. We're burned survivors. And that's an organization. Yeah. And, you know, the burns.

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Burns, the Phoenix for burnt Phoenix Society for burn survivors. I mean, taught me that. And then as I slowly started to get into the world and start to share a little bit more my story prior to going on dancing, I then started to realize, wait, I'm so much more than a disabled veteran. And the more that I'm able to eliminate these words that people tend to gravitate to, because naturally, we tend to gravitate to the chaos and the negative and things, and people are going to focus on the disabled and the victim word. And if I just remove those, all in all and just tell people, I'm a veteran and I'm a survivor, I'm a burn survivor, but I'm also this personality in this person that enjoys this or that, then maybe we get somewhere, and maybe there's not this awkwardness of, like, how do we communicate?

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How do we connect? Where do we connect? And you start to realize there's a lot of intersectionality between all of our lives and in our journeys. And so dancing was my opportunity to really test that and really see, okay, is this really gonna work? Would people really, on the masses receive that?

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And sure enough, as much as I was able to dance, and yes, the show is a lot about dancing ability, but it's more about a popularity contest and how many people you can pull to vote for you, to pull for you. And the fact that I was able to not only win the competition, but I always jokingly say I was able to beat a Kardashian, I mean, that right there is an accomplishment in itself, because, I mean, even though it was Rob, you know, poor Rob, the brother, but still, like, it's the Kardashian machine, the empire. And they have a lot of people that support them and follow them, and they'll do whatever they. They ask them to do. And so for me to have enough people reach out and vote for me, for me to take home that trophy, right.

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There was everything for me. And it just really proved to me that I needed to be authentically who I am and what I am. And if I always operated from that place, people will receive it. You said so many beautiful things right there, Junior. And the one thing that stood out is that, yes, bad things happen all the time to people.

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Right? And we are victims many times. Right. And it's okay because you want to feel the pain. You want to feel all of the emotions that are wrapped up in it, right.

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And then there comes a time when you have a choice to make, right? You can either choose to stay in that victim mentality, this happened to me, or you can say, you can rise above it and be a thriver, a survivor and say, this happened for me. And that's a hard place to get to. Yeah, it takes a lot. It takes a lot of work to get to that place.

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I mean, it takes a lot of silence it takes a lot of pause. You know, happiness is an inside job. And I have. I personally know from my own experience as far as, like, me personally, but I also know people really close to me that in order for them to be happy, it's as if they were in a. In a.

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Think of a river and they're being kind of. The current is just kind of pushing them down. And they know there's nothing they can really do to fight that current. And all they keep doing is, as they come past, like this tree that kind of hangs over the river, they just try to reach for a branch, and they hold on to a branch, and they're just trying to hang on to external things long enough to just get them through in order for them to survive, in order for them to, you know, be able to breathe a little bit. And what I notice is that instead of me looking for these little branches that eventually will break, because those branches represent people.

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And not everybody is in a place, emotionally to be able to be what you want them to be. And if you don't really quite know what you need or what you want someone to be, then all I'm doing is going to the same source over and over and and over and over and asking them to be a, b, c, d, e, f, be everything, fulfill everything, constantly, make me happy constantly. Bring me validation, constantly. Well, guess what's going to eventually happen. That branch is going to break, and it's going to say, I can't support you anymore.

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There's too much weight. And so you're just going to find yourself back in that water, back being pushed down that river and trying to find something else to hold on to. And so for me, there was a lot of my life where I felt like I was just doing that. I was just essentially like I was 19 years old when this happened to me. You know, I talk about identity a lot, and I think identity is something that a lot of people can relate to in the sense of, you know, all of us have an identity.

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All of us have a career or a role within our families or an organization that really identifies us. Our appearance, our race, our gender, our beliefs, our values, all those things come up to our make up our identity. And just think about what it was like when you were 1920 years old, getting out into the world looking, quote unquote normal, and how challenging that was to figure out where you fit in the world, let alone now. Throw this on top of it at 19, and also throw into the fact that I'm not going to be allowed to stay in the United States army, something that I actually kind of grew to love and was like, you know what? I think I want to do this for the next 20 years of my life.

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So my entire identity was stripped away from me. My appearance, the career that I thought I was going to have for myself. And as I struggled, because there were years I struggled mentally and emotionally, and I would have waves. I would have waves. And what I would do is.

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And this is where it's kind of a little contradicting, and I don't want to make it seem like it's a contradiction, but it's a balance, right? And there would be times, as much as I talk about that branch, there were times over the course of my journey where I had a beautiful experience, an interaction, a conversation. I witnessed something, whatever it was. And that experience gave me what I needed to. I held on to that, and it just gave me enough life to just.

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To just carry me until the next thing happened. So, as you notice, like, I'm looking for this pattern. I'm looking for something to hold on to. I'm looking for external things. I'm not understanding that happiness is an inside job.

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I don't quite get that, but I'm lost. And, you know, finally it got to a point where I identified that I was really kind of burning some bridges and I was hurting some people on the process. I was hurting myself. I was essentially just on this vicious cycle of going to the same source. And then, oh, the minute that that person maybe tried to show up for me because this was the right person for me in order to be able to show up, it was too close.

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It was too close. I couldn't be vulnerable, and I couldn't be intimate, because intimacy is also something you got to establish with yourself before you can try to establish intimacy with anybody else. But anytime I got, I wanted that. But the moment that it got close. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

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All triggers and alarms went off. No, no, no. I push people away. The minute somebody did something push you away. Go away, go away, go away.

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I'll start over fresh. And part of that is a lot of what I inherited as far as, like, learned behavior from my mother. My mother was a hurt woman. My mother was someone who experienced a lot of trauma in her life, and that was the way she operated. And other parts of it was just my own trauma that I was carrying, and that's the way my body responded.

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And so in order for me to turn to page, if you will, like, you know, Bob Seeger says, but it was a lot of silence. It was a lot of inside work. It was a lot of me being honest and vulnerable with myself. It was a lot of, you know, tell. Being completely honest with myself about a lot of things that I did not like, things I did like.

00:14:10
And then it also took a little bit of me just doing a little, like, research in a sense of where, you know, you talk to brands, and everything in our society these days is all about gathering data, getting data, getting data, getting data to better understand the customer, to better understand how efficient we are, to better understand how we can monitor, like, all these things. Data, data. Everything is data driven. But the one thing that I started to realize is that I, too, am a brand, and I, too should be gathering data from all these experiences I have in day to day life. And so the more data that I collected from me being out in public and me sharing and me testing the waters every now and then and seeing how people would embrace that and receive that, all that did was condition me to say, you know what?

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Okay, I can, I can lean into this a little bit more. And there's going to be a community of people that are going to support me. So it was no surprise, by the time I got to dancing, I was 100% comfortable with, like, I'll tell you everything about my life, I'll cry on national television because I've done the work. I've done a lot of that work. And, um, you know, I still do the work.

00:15:17
I mean, there's a lot of things that still trigger me. There's a lot of things that still, you know, have not healed completely and they may never heal right, though they'll always be a component of that wound that exists. And for me, it's then now understanding. I have the tools and I have to remember, I've done this before many times over, and this is no different. Yeah, yeah.

00:15:38
Wow. You just, you just unpack so much in your wisdom, which is so incredible because I'm like, okay, yeah, let's come back to that. Let's go back to that, and I'll probably forget about it, but that's okay. We'll just, I love these organic conversations because we just kind of let them flow as they will. Yeah.

00:15:54
So a lot of what you were talking about is just what's in our DNA. It's the fight or flight, right? Yeah, it's in our DNA. And, and humans are just naturally conditioned in our DNA to lean towards fear. And so when anything comes up, the alarm, there's alarm bells start going off.

00:16:14
And it's like, fear, fear, fear, fear. You know, I just had a vision of that old show with the, the robot. What was it? Lost in space. The lost in space robot.

00:16:28
Danger. Danger. Yeah, yeah. No, and listen, there's a lot. I mean, you know, it's like that book, the body keeps the score, right?

00:16:36
I mean, yeah. I mean, that book is, is telling you, you know, your body is constantly. Danger, danger. Your body's constantly. We forget.

00:16:48
Like, I remember in a classic example of this is when my wife and I started dating. My wife, her biological father was not in her life, and her stepdad raised her, and he was very much her father. And when we started dating one day I made a comment. There was something that I just, I witnessed, and I just said, I said to her, I was like, you know, it's like, it all goes back to your biological father. And there's like a level of, like, somewhat of insecurity, and we all struggle with that on some level.

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And she said, what do you mean? I don't, I don't even think about him. I was like, well, you don't have to think about him. I was like, because your body, I mean, your mind forgot a lot of it, but your body remembers the experience, remembers the feeling. And, and I was like, so, you know, when you have this feeling that surfaces in your body, when you, you interpret something as, like, for example, like, oh, my God, here she comes.

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She's gonna. Oh, no, she, oh. It's a confrontation, and your body starts to send all these signals and starts to shoot all these alarms through your body. I said, that's. You're interpreting that as a, as a, as a conflict, and it's not.

00:17:59
That person is probably approaching you to have a conversation. And so, and she was just like, for years, she's just like, you're crazy. You don't know what you know. What are you talking about? Blah, blah.

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And of course, I'm not a, you know, a therapist, a licensed anything. And so I'm like, I don't know, I'm just basing it off of what I, you know, learned and what I've been around or whatever, my own experiences, and fast forward. I mean, now we've been together, God, how many years? But this is probably a maybe two years ago. Two years ago.

00:18:31
So this is already after us being together. God, maybe ten years, maybe twelve years. Um, we have a daughter and we now have a son. And my daughter and my wife were going to go plant. They last minute were like, hey, we're going to run errands together.

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And my daughter plays travel softball, so she's always gone. I'm the head coach. I'm always gone with her. My wife was with our son, an infant, and so I was like, hey, why don't you guys go do some. Something together, and I'll stay back with a little one.

00:19:06
So my wife is excited. Well, then my daughter comes to me secretly. She's like, one of my friends invited me over to, like, hang out and play. And mind you, my daughter probably at this time, is like a nine years old, ten years old, maybe. And I was like, okay, well, what do you want to do?

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And she says, I want to go over there. And I was like, well, talk to mommy. So she goes to my wife, and she tells my wife, and my wife is like, she's disappointed. Yeah. And she.

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And my. And my daughter now starts to feel bad, and. And she's like, okay, fine, then I'll go with you, mama. And I said, no, no, no. I said, no, let's not do that.

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Right? So I kind of let it work out as much as I could. And then I kind of interjected because I didn't want my daughter to inherit. Now, this. This trait of, like, okay, I'll compromise to make you happy, because I did that.

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And that's what I was taught, and I had to break that, and I'm still learning how to break that. And so I said to my wife, I was like, that might be something you want to talk to your therapist about. So she brings it up, and I'm in my office, and after my. She's doing a virtual therapy session, and my wife gets off, and she comes into the office. She's like, you got a second?

00:20:20
I was like, yeah. She's like, oh, my God. Just. I realized why I was so upset, and I was like, what is it? She's like, so I was talking to my therapist, and I was telling her the whole thing.

00:20:30
So then they did. Oh, my God. They did the. What's the practice? I'm blanking right now.

00:20:40
The practice where essentially, like, you close your eyes as the client. Right. In a therapy session, you close your eyes, and you are now just. You're guiding sort of what you're feeling, what you're thinking, where you are, you're placing yourself. It's almost like EDm.

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Edmr, right. I forgot exactly what the practice was that the therapist did with my wife. And so my wife closed her eyes, and she just kind of went. And she was like, tell me about a time and, and she's starting to unpack all this stuff. Well, guess what it goes back to?

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It goes back to the biological father. It goes back to when my, my wife, who her biological father was kind of in and out of her life up until she was a teenager. And then, but she remembers vividly, she ended up remembering vividly. There were numerous times when she would sit on her porch because she grew up in New York City, and she would sit on her stoop and she would, her biological father was supposed to come pick her up, and then the phone ring in the house, and she would hear her mother say, no, you tell her. And then her mother would come out and say, he's not coming.

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And so she forgot that. But the body remembered that level of disappointment, oh, I'm not good enough to hang out with. I'm not good enough to. So even though she would never harm our, intentionally try to harm our daughter, but her body immediately went into this, the mode of, well, we have to survive. And right now, you, daughter, child disappointed me and triggered all this trauma.

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So, you know, if it means that we have to make you feel bad and you're going to do it, then, okay, that'll be our survival mechanism. And when you start to really have compassion and understand that a lot of us are walking around operating from this place, you can understand that people aren't intentionally trying to hurt. They are hurt people hurting people. Right. And that's where you have to be able to, as an individual, do your own work, not only for yourself, but also so you can show up as a human being and to be able to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, where is this coming from?

00:22:52
Well, let's get to the root of it, or let's help you find someone that can help you get to the root of it. And that was something that I had to learn with my rel, I learned a lot of this from my relationship with my mother. As I said, my mother was someone who experienced a lot of trauma. She never dealt with it, but she experienced it. And there's a difference.

00:23:12
And a lot of people will say, oh, yeah, she's dealt with a lot of trauma. Well, has she dealt with it or has he just experienced it? Has he dealt with it or did he just experience it? Because all of us are experiencing or any of us really dealing with anything and because we're afraid. I mean, God, Covid was a great indication of that.

00:23:33
And politics and everything aside, the idea, the practice of stopping, the practice of staying in one space, the idea of being in that space, for long periods of time with people in your home, like, and granted, I understand there's some circumstances like, this doesn't apply to everybody. I don't want people to start writing me and saying, well, you didn't understand. Like, no, I understand that there's a lot of different circumstances for everybody. But the practice, the idea that we couldn't be busy and be distracted and look for different things to give us our happiness and our joy. Oh, my God.

00:24:12
It almost ruined earth. Like, it literally almost ruined human, the human race, because we just did not know how to respond to that. And they were. And I was fine with it. I was like, I'm cool.

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I'm at home. Oh, it was the best thing that ever happened because I'm a homebody. I was like, oh, thank God I don't have to leave the house. Well, it's. It's.

00:24:33
And I'm an. I'm an extrovert. I'm an extrovert introvert. Right? Like, I love.

00:24:37
I don't. I love being out. I love. I love all that. Like, that.

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Like, I grew up that way where I was like, let's go do something. And so I am that person, but I had no problem that if it meant that I had to stay home and be in a space, you know, and not look for distraction, I was fine with that. But because I had done so much of the work. Yeah. Well, speaking about doing the work, here's the deal.

00:25:00
You know, most people don't want to do the work because in order to grow, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and it really sucks being uncomfortable. And, you know, my listeners, I hear me talk about all the time. I've been on this journey for 34 years, and I can't believe some of the stuff that still comes up. I'm like, when is it gonna stop? It's not.

00:25:21
As long as I'm breathing, I'm still peeling the layers away, you know? And I spend a lot of money on coaches. Yeah. You know, and I'm working with one right now who's just off the charts, probably the best one I've ever. They've all.

00:25:36
They're all great, but, you know, you. It's just a different level. It's a different type of, um. And we're doing a lot of stuff in working with the quantum field, and, um, it's just incredible because you're like, wow. I thought I.

00:25:51
And I did deal with things on a certain level, but they, like you were saying, they're stored in the body, and, uh, I for. For decades, I didn't understand why around the time of my birthday, every year, I would be so sad. And what finally dawned on me was that my brother died two weeks before my 13th birthday. And, you know, I'm going to be 59 years young this year and it still happens. But see, once you become aware of it, you're like, oh, it's September.

00:26:28
We're leading into October. Okay, you know, he died on September 30. So it's like your body starts to come up and for you, and we haven't really talked about your big tragedy, which happened in 2003. My God, you had a roadside bomb. Your Humvee had a roadside bomb, which is how you became.

00:26:56
Had your burn injuries, which was more than 34% of your body, which is incredible, incredible that you survived. I can only imagine the type of, you know, I never like to use the word PTSD because I feel like that word, that that term is solely for individuals such as yourself. Right? Yeah, yeah. And then I learned that because I was twelve years old, you know, going on 13, having, you know, my brother die and not understanding.

00:27:34
And this was in 1978. Nobody went to therapy. It was voodoo. You know, just, just check yourself in and don't come back out if you're going to go see somebody to talk about your feelings. I lost my mother for a solid ten years.

00:27:54
My biological father died when I was 18 months old and I had a stepfather very much very similar to your wife, and I didn't have that support, so no wonder there was some PTSD involved there, right? It was a very traumatic, very traumatic thing. And then it's, you know, once you have the awareness, then you have the tools, you can start dealing with it. But I'm curious with you, because that's, that's, you know, something that a very, very, very small percentage of people on this planet could even relate to. There's more people than we would like to acknowledge, obviously.

00:28:29
How does that show up for you? Because it's. It's only been, I mean, what is? Well, it's been 20 years, but still. Yeah, yeah.

00:28:39
So, you know, there is a process and part of the healing process is you have to grieve. And even though I was alive, I still had to grieve. The loss of what I knew, the loss of what I thought I would be, the loss of all. All of these things that I sort of created in my mind, that this is one, this is how I look, this is how I get attention. It's based on my looks, based on my appearance.

00:29:04
Hey, just, just for the record. You're incredibly handsome, man. Thank you so much. It's just like, that's what I was hoping for. I was fishing for some compliments right here.

00:29:14
I mean, I hadn't received enough.

00:29:18
And your smile is to die for. So, you know, thank you very much, I appreciate that. And so that was essentially like, that was my identity. And then, of course, my identity taken away from me of being in the military. Well, I had to grieve that.

00:29:33
I had to grieve that loss. And we don't talk about this grief process because everybody was telling me, you're alive, and that in itself is the blessing. And I'm like, yeah, I'm alive and I'm never going to live. And there's a difference, right? Like, you could be alive and not live.

00:29:52
There's a lot of people that are alive today that aren't living. And so I was like, what's the point of being essentially a shell? Just kind of moving through, you know, society in my day? Like, I'm going to be empty, I'm going to be hollow on the inside. And so that was my thought process.

00:30:08
And then I realized, like, it's okay, you can grieve. You can grieve losing that person. You can grieve losing a lot of your simple abilities that you once had that you no longer had. You had to learn again. Like I had to learn how to, you know, feed myself, bathe myself, dress myself.

00:30:24
I mean, I remember the first time I traveled by myself and I paid for some, something at a, at the airport, at the store. And the whole time I'm dreading that this lady's gonna give me change. And I don't mean like dollars, I mean like literally change, pennies, dimes, quarters. And, and I'm dreading this. And the reason I'm dreading it is because my hand at the time, I'm gonna pull back a little bit.

00:30:50
I couldn't fully supinate, so my hand would only turn as much and I couldn't really make a fist. So I was sitting here dreading the fact that she's going to put change in my hand. I'm not going to be able to hold it and it's going to fall on the floor and I'm going to be embarrassed. Well, sure enough, she gives me change and I could do a whole podcast, literally, on all these instances that I've put so much emphasis and thought into and worry into, and they never came to fruition or the very thing that I did overthink actually did happen, right? Because you put where your focus goes, your energy follows.

00:31:27
And so, sure enough, she puts that change and some parts of the change drop. I take my other, my other thumb, and I pull my pocket open as much as I can. I drop that money in my pocket, and that. Oh, I just saw. Did you see that?

00:31:41
Yeah. How did it do that? I don't know. Zoom does some crazy things. I don't know.

00:31:47
Like, it just did, like a. It did. Like, let's make sure. Let's make sure we don't cut that part and use that for promo purposes because they're going to be like, this conversation was not good. I'm like, no, trust me, it was great.

00:32:00
I don't know why it comes down in a bubble. A little dumb's bubble that popped up, but. So here I am now in the airport, and I'm left with a decision. What do I do? Do I leave the change and just run away and go to my gate, or do I try to pick it up?

00:32:15
And I try to pick it up and. And I struggled and people watched me. No one helped me. And I struggled, I struggled and eventually got it up. So I had to grieve.

00:32:27
All of that. All of those things. I had to grieve. It's no different than, you know, somebody that's older and they had to grieve. Like, man, I used to be able to do this.

00:32:35
I can't do it anymore. Like, you have to, like, go through a process. And so there is a time and a place in a period for post traumatic stress disorder, because there is. There is the complications that come with it, the reality of the grieving process and all the stages that come. But for me, I now replace that with PTSG, post traumatic growth.

00:32:58
I mean, PTG, post traumatic growth, that's what I replace it with. So it's not post traumatic stress disorder, it's post traumatic growth. So now I'm in a stage where it's like, okay, I've evolved because I've grieved that process and I've been able to now see the other side of it. But now I'm in a place of growth. And so I don't look at when things happen in my life.

00:33:19
I don't immediately go to, that's. That's stress disorder. I go to, there is a growth opportunity. And as much as that is scary to see right now, because. And that's what happens is, like, now I'm around people that when they experience certain things that change in their world, my training is ahead of them in life.

00:33:44
And so I'm immediately coming to them and I'm careful because, you know, not everybody's ready to hear this in the moment, but I come to people and I said, yeah, but you gotta think of this as now potentially what's on the horizon. You gotta think. And people are like, they're not ready for that, right? And they're processing. And I was like, oh, totally, 100%.

00:34:04
Your process, you should be processing. But the work that I've done now, in the mix of me going through something, I process, I immediately go through it. I feel it, I'm present with it. Whatever. That emotion that surfaces, I let it surface.

00:34:20
And then from then on, I move into the growth aspect. So I refer to the day that I was injured as my rebirth. A lot of veterans refer to it as the day that they're alive day. I call it my rebirth. And the reason I call it my rebirth, because that's what I truly believe it was.

00:34:35
I truly believe it was a rebirth. Meaning parts of me died on that day, which left room for other parts of me to be born. And all of us experience rebirths over the course of our lives. I mean, think about a parent, right? Think about your mother.

00:34:47
You talked about how, you know, I mean, she was devastated and lost for years after your brother passed away because her identity. Her identity shifted from being a mother of two, or, I'm assuming two. I mean, at least having five, you know? Okay, well, at least having the brother is there as well. Right?

00:35:07
Right. To identity of five. To identity of four. I mean, that there's a rebirth component, right? She.

00:35:14
She lost something. And, you know, you'd like to think that, you know, you're going to gain something, but that's a really tough position to be in. And no parent ever wants to be in that. Um, but people have jobs. Jobs come to an end, right?

00:35:30
Roles change. I mean, things constantly. Things end. And the problem is we've become fixated on the end. The end.

00:35:42
That's what. That's the period. That's the exclamation point. That's the end of the sentence. And we're like, that's the end.

00:35:49
And then we start reflecting backwards on why, how it ultimately came to this end. I'm in a place when I know something ends. I'm like, okay, it ended, all right, grieve that, process that. Okay, but there's something on the horizon. There is an opportunity coming.

00:36:08
There's something there. And it might not make sense right now, but it's going to make sense later down the road. So I just got to keep showing up because the growth opportunity is there. Incredible. You are also a New York Times best selling author, which is no small feat.

00:36:29
Your memoir. It's your memoir. Full of heart. My story of survival, strength and spirit. Incredible.

00:36:36
Incredible. How was that process for you of writing that memoir? Yeah, so it's interesting because I think after I wrote the book, it really hit me, because in the mix of writing, you're too busy writing, right? You're too busy just unpacking and, you know, making sure everything's correct and all that stuff. And for me, I wanted to write the book because I, you know, a lot of times when people ask me to come on podcasts or ask me to come and speak, a lot of times people like, can you begin on the 5 April of 2003?

00:37:11
And I say to them, I said, yes, I can. However, you have to remember that I was 19 on that day. Yeah, there was 19 years of life that happened prior to that day. And you can't just begin a story, a journey in the middle.

00:37:31
You have to understand that 1st 19 years of my life conditioned me, prepared me for this very traumatic thing that took place in my life, that challenged me. You have to understand that. And so the book essentially was that extension where how could I give more details and allow people to understand the things that I've been through in the first 19 years of my life that prepared me for this very traumatic event that took place. But, you know, it wasn't until I was completely. The book was complete that I think that I had a moment to really breathe and process a lot of conversations I had with people, a lot of revisiting that one, it made me realize for a lot of my youth, I thought I was by myself.

00:38:22
And the reality was that, yes, there were some areas in my life that maybe it was actual factual, but there were some other areas of my life that, no, I had. I very much had a community of people around me. I just didn't see it, didn't appreciate it. Maybe I was looking for something else, who knows? But there were people that loved me and cared about me outside of my family.

00:38:44
But it also just gave me the great appreciation to just reflect and just think about how many people had hands in this journey. Like, to say that I did it by myself is foolish. I didn't. There's people that had a hand in my journey, and whether it's the person I had one conversation with, and there's plenty of those I could do another podcast on just one off conversations I've had with people, but how they've left an imprint on my life to phases of my life. I mean, just the simple thing of, like when I was injured and I was transported from the battlefield back to the states to get treated.

00:39:27
I didn't realize for ten years how I got home. I never even stopped to think about how did I get home? How did that, how did that transport happen? Never crossed my mind. And just by accident, I happened to be visiting the military base and ended up in the room where all of these individuals are in charge of the handling the logistics of helping you get from the battlefield back home.

00:39:54
So they're in charge of making sure you have the right, uh, transport, whether it's an ambulance, whether it's an aircraft, making sure you have the right, uh, personnel. So the type of injury you have, making sure it's a doctors and physicians that can treat that, making sure you have the right equipment on board. I mean, they schedule everything. I mean, put any travel agency that we use and know to shame. Yeah.

00:40:20
Because they got me home and everything was seamless, and I just never thought those people have a hand in my journey. And so what it with writing this book, what it really did is allowed me to reflect and allow me to appreciate the journey and the people. And then also really just, like I said, really paint the picture for people to understand that, you know, there's not a lot of differences between myself and a lot of your listeners. There's not. I mean, yes, okay.

00:40:50
The way the event that changed my life was different, of course, but I've equally moved around a lot. I've been trying to be accepted. I've been trying to figure out who I am. I've been trying to figure out what role I play in this world, in the organizations that I'm in. I'm trying to figure out, you know, like, I'm trying to figure out all these things.

00:41:13
Yeah, we all are. And aren't we all doing that? Like you said, you're about to have a birthday later this year, and you're still trying to figure that stuff out and you're still peeling things back. And I'm like, all of us are constantly, like, we're all feeling these things. And I think that's why I've been able to be.

00:41:32
From a speaking standpoint, I've still managed to have some sustainability and some longevity in my speaking career because people can see, can, can see themselves in me. They can, they. Oh, that feeling, the emotion, that process I went through that junior a very different way, very different circumstance. However, I remember what I went through. I felt what you felt.

00:42:01
I felt that. I felt this. I felt that. And that is what, that's where the connection lies. That's where we all as human beings are able to continuously show up for one another and be like, aha.

00:42:14
Aha. Now you're not just someone that has not experienced what I have. So there's no way we can ever have a connection. Now you're somebody that can, I can relate to that, you can relate to me, and we can connect. Now we're connected on a human level and we'll always be connected on a human level because we can show up for each other and be honest and receive that.

00:42:33
And that, that is the purpose of life. Oh, so beautiful. My gosh, I could talk to you for hours and hours, but as I always say, I'm not Joe Rogan yet. So, yeah, yes, yet, yes, I like that. So, yeah, so I'm not going to have a have, you know, long, long conversation.

00:42:54
What would you like to leave the audience with? Is there one thing that if somebody can apply to their life right now, what would that be? If life feels overwhelming, if, if life feels like things aren't going your way, if you feel like, you know, sort of, you're, you're kind of up in a corner, you know, you're just, things aren't flowing the way you would like for them to flow. I want you to practice gratitude. I want you to, I want you to, I want you to eliminate this pressure of thinking of long term, of thinking of the macro, the big vision of what life is supposed to be and where is it going to be and whatever timeframe you're putting on it.

00:43:38
And I want you to just go to the micro and I want you to practice gratitude within that, within today. That's the micro. Today. Find something to be grateful for in this moment, in this day, in this experience, find something to be grateful for. So, you know, like, I mean, listen, I can, I can go on and on, but for the sake of time.

00:44:01
But I think that's the thing that I have discovered and I've tried to help a lot of people in my circle reframe, you know, when they're going through something is to, okay, in this moment, in this moment, you're folk, you're worried and you're creating anxiety about my life is not going to be this and I'm not going to have that. And oh my God, what about this timeframe? And I got to have it all figured out, you know? And it's like, no, nope, stop, stop, stop. If that feels too overwhelming, too daunting, too out of control right now, let's stop it.

00:44:34
Let's practice gratitude. There's something to be grateful for today in this moment. And I think when we pivot and we put our energy and our focus into that place, now we are now starting to live in this space of where, okay, we're present and we're alive, and now we're starting to really be connected with our own selves because we have to. In order to practice that, you have to really connect with yourself. Once you start to connect with yourself a little bit more, guess what?

00:45:02
Now the obvious answers start to surface of like, ah, this is what's going to happen. This is where I'm going to be shaped. Because you may think in your mind, I want to do this thing, and then in reality, that's not what you're supposed to be doing. It's maybe not the idea that being, whatever, executive, that's not the. That really isn't the thing that you love.

00:45:27
You love being in a leadership role. You love serving. That's probably why you like being in that executive role. It's not the role itself. It's like what the role gives you the opportunity to do.

00:45:39
And so you can still do those things in a very. In a very different way. And maybe you find yourself working with a nonprofit, and you're helping facilitate funds and movements and campaigns and helping people, and guess what? You're still doing the same thing that executive would do, just in a different organization. But it's fulfilling you more because you're in tune with what is it that I want and I love to do.

00:46:08
And so I think, um, that's a very long explanation, but I think ultimately, I think that's the very thing that we need to be sure that we're practicing on a day to day basis, not just once a week. I mean, listen, our lives are busy, and for those of you that have busy lives, I get it. And if you. Once a week is fine. Absolutely.

00:46:27
If it's once a month, if it's once every two weeks. The key is you have to slow down. You can't get too far ahead. And then trying to remember and appreciate something that happened six months ago, let's really try to appreciate it now, because then you get to appreciate the people that are a part of that as well. And you don't wait to tell that person that.

00:46:46
I appreciate that you were there for me. I appreciate that you're in my life. I appreciate that you're, you know, whatever it is, you're going through this with me. You don't wait to tell them that. You could tell them now as you're going through it.

00:46:59
Love it, love it, love it. Junior, where can people. What's the best place for people to follow you? I believe your Instagram because I just pulled you up before. This is.

00:47:10
I am JR Martinez. That is correct. That's right. Yep. So social media is always, always, social media is always a good place.

00:47:20
I am JR Martinez on my handles on all platforms. But if you want to dig a little deeper and, you know, dive in and get to a little bit more, then you can always go to my website, jrmartinez.com. and I just encourage people, if there is something that, you know, sort of struck a chord with them during this conversation that you and I have had, that they reach out and they share that. I mean, I, you know, there are some instances where I find myself in spaces and people have a tendency to, I call it trauma dumping, and there is that. And that does happen and, you know, and I receive it and there's times I identify, like, I don't know if I have the bandwidth to support that.

00:47:57
So I don't really try to put myself in a space because I don't want to be a disservice to anybody else. And so I'm always kind of doing inventory on where I'm at and how much I could show up for people, and that's important as well. But I always say that, hey, living, if someone shares something that really resonated with them from this conversation, if I don't, if I don't have the energy today when it comes in, I'll get back to you tomorrow or the day after. But let's expand on this conversation that we've had. And so I just want to thank you for the opportunity for creating the platform, for allowing me to be part of the process and hope, you know, not only you, but I hope that the listeners enjoyed it and we're able to take something away from it.

00:48:39
Thank you. No, this is incredible. Junior, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And thank you, everyone.

00:48:57
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00:49:19
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00:50:14
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