Lessons - Reinventing Your Personal Identity | J.R. Martinez - Bestselling Author, Speaker, Veteran & Actor

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