From Soldier to Soap Opera Star: An Identity Rebirth with JR Martinez

Josh Wilson (00:00:00) - Ready? Rock and roll, bro.

JR Martinez (00:00:01) - Let's do it, brother.

Josh Wilson (00:00:02) - Here we go., we're already recording, so I just pause for a second. Good day fellas. Welcome to Uncensored Advice for men. Today I have a special guest on my show. You might have seen him dancing with the stars. You might have read his book. He's a New York Times best selling author, motivational speaker. He's an actor, which we're going to talk about. And,, fellow podcast host. So welcome to the show, Mr.. J.R. Martinez.

JR Martinez (00:00:30) - Thank you so much. Josh. It's a pleasure to be here, man. I really love the title of the podcast. And that's what got me excited about jumping on because of the curiosity in me of like, what's this uncensored? Like, I love this. Like, this is these are the conversations that I think I've been really diving into in over the last 21 years is an understanding who I am as a man, who I want to be as a man, essentially kind of debunking a lot of the things that I was exposed to where I believe that a man should be.

JR Martinez (00:00:57) - , so it's great to be here, man, and kind of unpack this stuff.

Josh Wilson (00:01:00) - Yeah, man. So it's good to see you for people who might be listening in., I'm looking and we're just going to, like, address the elephant in the room as I'm looking at you. You're a beautiful dude. Beautiful smile. But you've got some scars. Your scars are visible. Whereas a lot of us men scars are not as visible as yours. Kind of describe. Describe to people who might just be listening in to the podcast,, about what your scars are and how you,, how you earned those.

JR Martinez (00:01:28) - Yeah. Well, when you started saying addressing the elephant in the room, I thought you were going to talk about this big ass plant that I have right next to me. You know, it's like.

Josh Wilson (00:01:37) - There's a huge plant behind you. It's one of.

JR Martinez (00:01:39) - Those things where, like, if I get too close to me, it starts tickling the back of my neck. And then I'm, like, doing this in the middle of the podcast, swiping it away.

JR Martinez (00:01:47) - I think it's my wife. But then I realized, no, is the tree that's, you know, sort of tickling me in the back?, but no, that's my 2020, you know, and Covid, when everyone was at home and I started doing virtual from a speaking standpoint and started doing the podcast, and then everyone became set directors, you know, for their spaces at home where we all evolved from, like the books in an unmade bed in the backdrop to all of a sudden now plants and like stands and lights and all this stuff. I mean,, so at first I was like, that's where we're going with this. But then you pivoted and I was like, okay, he saved me from it. But of course, that's one of my biggest things about life for me is just humor. And I know I listened to a couple of your episodes that with previous guests, you know, just to kind of get a feel of you and your style. And I was able to listen to Scott,, the what is it the, the, the what was the name of his book, the positive dude that the life's too short positive guys.

JR Martinez (00:02:47) - Something like. Yeah. Yes. And, listening to that and he was just kind of talking about like, you know, just humor how important it is. And it's so true. And that's essentially the biggest thing that, you know, I remember the 5th of April of 2003 driving a Humvee through a city called Karbala. When you know you're away from freedom and family and friends, the thing that ultimately kind of feels that void is humor. And you hear that from all service members. You know, you have nothing else to kind of keep you going. And so you just kind of find a way to cut off joke. And and it's just you develop a dark sense of humor. You develop this weird sense of humor for a lot of people, they wouldn't understand. But you're pulling from things that you know are in your environment and you're just trying to create something, some sort of normalcy to some degree. And I remember driving a Humvee and there was three other troops in the Humvee with me, a passenger who was the commander of the Humvee.

JR Martinez (00:03:39) - There was a guy sitting behind him, and then we had a gunner up top who was manning the 50 cal. And,, you know, we're cutting up, man, and we're just kind of going through a routine mission just, you know, kind of just another day. Another day in country, another day in combat and trying to make the most of it. And we're just laughing and joking and just kind of throwing out punch lines and all these different things. And then all of a sudden, boom. What happened was the front left tire of the Humvee that I was driving ran over a roadside bomb, and the other guys were thrown out of the vehicle, and they all walked away with minor physical injuries. Yet I was trapped inside for five minutes, completely conscious, screaming and yelling and fighting for my life. And,, 19 years old man at the time,, fighting and, you know, and luckily, after five minutes and there's so much that I can unpack about that if you want to go into that detail.

JR Martinez (00:04:28) - But, you know,, you know, those five minutes, of course, anybody that has been through a similar experience can can attest to the fact that those five minutes felt like 50 minutes, felt like five hours, felt like an endless amount of time. And you have plenty of time to really think, to be present with your own thoughts and to reconnect with yourself. And after five minutes, two of my sergeants courageously pulled me out of the Humvee, started the medevac process. So the biggest thing at the time, when you talk about my scars being the external, but a lot of other individuals have their wounds on the inside and visible wounds, you know, it was interesting because the thing that was threatening my life, where I was going to survive or not, was not the third degree burns that I sustained to my head, face, arms, hands, back, chest, back, legs., you know, it's honestly, it's all the internal stuff. It's all the smoke that I inhaled.

JR Martinez (00:05:19) - So my insides were damaged. And that was the thing that was almost taken my life that was literally threatening whether I was going to be able to survive or not. So they put me into a medically induced coma. They intubated me. I was in his coma for three weeks. I went from Iraq to Germany, Germany, back to the States, and three weeks later come out of my medical induced coma. To what, you know, I tell people is my new norm, my new reality. And that's when the real road to recovery began.

Josh Wilson (00:05:45) - Wow. All right, so five minutes. How do you know it was five minutes?

JR Martinez (00:05:50) - , they told me they later they later told me it was five minutes., when they looked at sort of like the timeline, the way things kind of went down., it was five minutes, which is interesting because one of the things they also share with me, that it was around 230 in the afternoon. Now you can't really tell on camera, but I have this tattoo on my wrist of I watch and everyone's like, they love the tattoo.

JR Martinez (00:06:09) - They're like, oh, that's so cool. That's so creative. We're going to get a tattoo of a watch. And I'm like a little bit of a story behind this., you know, before.

Josh Wilson (00:06:16) - You get this tattoo, you might want to hear why. Right. Yeah, yeah.

JR Martinez (00:06:19) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't like one of those, like, I live in Austin, Texas now, and it wasn't like I was hanging out at sixth Street and, you know, maybe had a few and then decided to go one of those tattoo parlors and just say, yeah, I'll do that. It wasn't one of those. It was a little bit more backstory to it. But essentially when I joined the Army right out of high school, I could not figure out military time. And my sergeant knew that. And so he was giving me so much shit, man. He was like, constantly just on me. Martinez, what time is it? And I'd be like, I don't know, 1:00, you know, 4:00, you know, 11.

JR Martinez (00:06:46) - I was always wrong. And so it became a thing. Part of this is just being the young guy and just kind of paying your dues or whatever. And he said, all right, every time that I just look at you, I want you to get down to do push ups every single time. So I started doing push ups. He just look at me and I'm like, I had to do push ups because I couldn't figure out military time and then finally,, I was able to save up enough money to to buy this really inexpensive, inexpensive Timex watch. And I said of that 24 hour time. And so I had no more push ups to do. Well, the day that I was injured, I was actually wearing that watch. And if you look at my body, you look in my hand. It was burned. And his graphs, if you look at my arm burns and graphs, but my wrist isn't burned all the way around that really inexpensive watch save my wrist for being burned.

JR Martinez (00:07:32) - It wasn't a Rolex. It wasn't one of these, like, high end, like watches that a lot of us spend a lot of our money on. And no, like a collector's item. It was inexpensive and this inexpensive item actually protected me. But anyways, so I, you know, I, you know, years later, you know, after I was injured, I learn about the details, more details, and I learned about the time that I was injured. And I remember asking my mom, what time was I originally born on the 14th of June of 1983, and she said at 230. And even though it wasn't exactly to the day. Right? Because this was April 5th when I was injured, in my mind, it all sort of come together. And unlike a lot of service members who refer to the day that they were injured as they're alive day, I actually call mine my rebirth. And the reason I call it that is because I believe parts of me died. And those five minutes that I was inside of that Humvee, parts of me died.

JR Martinez (00:08:27) - The old identity, the old J.R. The old ambitions, the old goals, the old. Oh, all those old things that I had for 19 years had developed habits or traits or beliefs or whatever things that I wanted to attribute or sort of strive for, those were gone. That was done. That was done. Even my physical that was done. And I had to learn that to accept this new identity and that was the rebirth. And in order for me to get to where I am today and have done the things that I've been able to do, it literally took me accepting this concept of a rebirth. And when I got that time of 230, it only validated the point that, oh, okay. Yeah, it might not have been to the day, but at 230 the same exact time, I was literally reborn and given a second chance at life. And that's the biggest thing that fuels me, that drives me. I know you and I talked before we went on, and, you know, you talk about the the reason you do this podcast.

JR Martinez (00:09:26) - Well, the reason I do the work that I do is is all operating, operating from a place of service, I love service. I was introduced to service while I was in the military. It was a foreign concept to me. And when I got in the military, I understood like, oh, this is what I want to do with my life. And so, you know, this is my way of leveraging and using my scars and using my experiences to be able to serve other people. But let's not let's be clear. And I'm going to I'm just going to address this real quick and then just sort of bury it, because we're going to spend more time on the other side of it. But I spent almost three years in a hospital recovering. I underwent over 30 some odd surgeries. And, you know, the physical recovery. Yes, it was difficult. It was challenging. I had to learn how to walk, feed, dress myself, go to the restroom by myself, all the stuff.

JR Martinez (00:10:10) - , but I did, and I and I was able to get it and I was able to to, to to have range of motion and flexibility and, you know, all that stuff, the thing that was really and this is the misconception when you see people that have physical scars, you think the physical was the most difficult part of it. And the reality was there was a mental and emotional and spiritual process that I had to go through as well. There was a component of my there was a piece of my life that when I got out of the military, I was drinking and I was angry and I felt completely isolated and alone. Even though I would log on to this podcast with you, Josh, and sit here and be like, hey hello everyone. Yes I'm J.R. Yes, this is what I love to do. This is what I'd love to do. And then guess what? I turn off the camera. I close my computer. I'd be in my house. These four walls will start to collapse because I start to feed myself these narratives.

JR Martinez (00:10:57) - And then guess what? Now I'm going down this rabbit hole. And so trust me, I put myself in some scenarios when I say I'm lucky and blessed to be here today. I'm not just referring to surviving what happened to me overseas. I'm talking about the things and the situations I put myself into since I came home. And so I was reckless. I, I ruined relationships with people. I was on the verge of ruining other relationships with other people. But it wasn't because simply of the challenges that I was experiencing from my injury overseas and recovering from that. A lot of it, which I didn't realize until I got into my 30s, had to do with the first 19 years of my life, that all the trauma and all the things that I've been exposed to, I was carrying with me. I didn't I didn't know that I wasn't aware of that. But all that stuff, all that stuff and the weight just became too much for me to carry on my own.

Josh Wilson (00:11:50) - Yeah. In military time.

Josh Wilson (00:11:54) - What time is 230? Oh, God.

JR Martinez (00:11:58) - Let me just get down to do push ups for you right now. Just do some. 1430 14 1430 right now. 1430 40. All right. Cool.

Josh Wilson (00:12:06) - All right. So in in your story, man side of buster balls. Busting balls is like a love language that I, that I share, right? Because when you're going, you know, when you're in the fire truck, go into a scene or when you're driving and, you know, going, going to stuff and you're and you're with your crew, like, you talk about this sense of humor and you're, you're cutting jokes and you're one lining and you're busting balls, but it's a way to it's a way that you learn to cope with the chaos around you. Yeah. Right.

JR Martinez (00:12:36) - It's a it's it's it's it's coping and it's also survival mechanism. Right. Like it's like I mean, you know, even though you know, what you did and, and and what your peers, what you guys did was, is incredible.

JR Martinez (00:12:48) - And how you served your community and were willing to actually go into situations where, again, just like the military are, people are running away from and you guys are running to it., it's so honorable. And, you know, just I'm grateful for, you know, now just being a quote unquote, you know, just a civilian and being able to understand that, you know what? Yeah, there are first responders. There are people out there in my community that I probably get pissed off because they're sitting at the red light for too long, or they're taking her sweet ass time at the grocery store in line or whatever it is. But those are the people that are willing to put their lives on the line for me and my family. And so I just, you know, just want to say thank you and your peers for your service and your continued service, because you're still doing it, too. But, you know, it's it's not only a way to cope., but it's it's a survival mechanism.

JR Martinez (00:13:37) - And it's like, you know, when you're in the military, you don't have time to feel like you don't have time to really process emotions, to be present with your emotions. I mean, there's a good book called, you know, the Body Keeps Score. And so many of us actually forget the trauma that we're exposed to. We don't remember in some cases details of this or that. But you know what doesn't? Forget the body. The body remembers that trauma. The body retains that. And the body is always alarming us in the sense of where it'll surface. And oh, I can't breathe right now. Why? Because you saw someone's name pop up on your phone and you're like,, there's conflict there. Yeah. Or, you know, you have to have a difficult conversation with somebody or you know, that maybe something needs to come to an end, but you just can't find yourself. You're so worried about if you end it, where are you going to be now? Like, what's your identity? Because your identity is so attached to that thing where there would be a person, a relationship, whether it be a career, whether it be your role in your family and your organization, etc..

JR Martinez (00:14:37) - And so we start to get like shortness of breath. We start to feel this pit in our stomach. We start to and our throat like we like so many of us have different responses, but that's our body literally saying, hey, I remember this from before. I remember this trauma, I remember this thing, and oh, let's not do this again. Avoid, avoid, avoid. And so humor is a way to also oppress like ignore those emotions, ignore those feelings, and actually just, just move forward because there's a mission that we still have to cater to. Because if you find yourself feeling too much, guess what? You die. And if you don't die, guess what? The people in your unit, they die because you're too busy over here feeling. So. We're just trained and conditioned naturally as human beings, but also as military personnel. We don't have time for that. Maybe we'll do it later when we got some downtime. But then what happens? Like everything else, you procrastinate.

JR Martinez (00:15:34) - You put it off because it's uncomfortable. It's not something we feel like we have the tools to address and deal with, so we never get it. We get around to it instead. Like someone and I use this a lot in my house Ohio, Ohio, Ohio only handle it once. Just lean in and just go right? Like now, mind you, when you're talking about, you know, mental health or and feelings and emotions and I know it's not just once but it takes that initial and you know, and I think that's the biggest thing that I've been trying to debunk because of my own personal journey. And I know we get into it. And I think,, humor has served me in so many ways. Like it's also allowed me to honestly allow civilians when I got into the world and allow people to see me and not be threatened or alarmed or confused of how to approach me or how to talk to me, I use humor and I clown and I'm I'm joking around until so much to the point where people are like, you should be a comedian.

JR Martinez (00:16:34) - And I'm like, I don't know about all that, but I just think, naturally, my day to day life is I. I'm just a funny dude that just loves to laugh because life is too short. I sound like they do. Scott. Now you should write a.

Josh Wilson (00:16:46) - Book with him.

JR Martinez (00:16:47) - Hey, I should read part two J.R and Scott together.

Josh Wilson (00:16:50) - All right, so here we are two. Oh three. Prior to April 5th. Right. You and I are cruising. I'm sitting shotgun. Right. And you're driving along. What kind of shades did you wear?

JR Martinez (00:17:03) - Dude, I don't you know, I wasn't. This is 2003. So, you know, I'm 40 years old. And it's funny because I never forget when I was in a hospital recovering, I would have these older vets come up to me and they would know why I didn't recover in this hospital. I recovered in the original hospital and I'm like 20 years old and I'm like, okay, like, why are you angry about this? You know, and you know, and then when I left the hospital in 2006, man, because I recovered in San Antonio at San Antonio Military Medical Hospital.

JR Martinez (00:17:38) - And it's I mean, it's crazy what they've done now. And I mean, it's the hospital is expanded. They got all these different resources around the hospital, which is great., but I remember when I would after I left, like a few months later, I came back for a visit for something. And when I came back, I was like, My God, this place is so different. And then I was going up to the younger guys and I'm like, wow, wow. I don't I remember I was, I remember when the hospital was like this, you know. Yeah. And so suddenly I became that old vet that was just kind of grumpy about how much things have changed. But, you know, so it's funny, like when I had these moments and I really think I'm like, man, there's 2003, I, I'm sure, I'm sure I was not cool enough or aware enough that I was just probably picking up some shades that I because, you know, you don't have a lot of money in the military, especially in my rank.

JR Martinez (00:18:29) - So I probably when I bought that Timex watch, maybe it was a kit, maybe it was like a, a, a starter army kit that had a Timex watch and maybe some shades in it that were really inexpensive that you can just buy, you know, at the end of an aisle at target, whatever, right now. So nothing cool, nothing really to brag about.

Josh Wilson (00:18:46) - Yeah. The reason I, the reason I'm trying to picture, like sitting next to the old JR. Right. Timex up on the steering wheel, right. You know, riding 1:00 shades on, listening to some music, maybe cruising with the boys. Right. Oh, let.

JR Martinez (00:19:03) - Me, let me, let me paint that scenario for you because this is what I vividly remember. Literally one hand on the steering wheel, left hand on the steering wheel, have a little bit of a lean right, have the window halfway down because, you know, you gotta, you know, and the Kevlar, which is this big helmet you have on your head to protect your head from, you know, shrapnel impact, whatever.

JR Martinez (00:19:23) - I have it literally like a ball cap, like I'm wearing a ball cap. So for those of you that are watching this video, you can see I got this ball cap just kicked up on, you know, I am running out and you just throw it on like that. So my Kevlar was literally waiting here, you know, so it makes it look like I have this massive forehead and literally the windows halfway down and I'm leaning and there's not a lot of space in the Humvee, man. You jam packed everything into that Humvee when you go on a mission, because you don't know where you're going to end up for that day. And literally I'm leaning like this and I'm just like. And I tell people I was like, if you saw me driving this Humvee, you would have thought that I thought I was driving a Ferrari down Sunset Boulevard in LA. Like, that's how cool I thought I was. But it also just validates the point that I was 19 and so naive, like, so naive, so oblivious.

JR Martinez (00:20:15) - Yeah. And just just thought I was cool and just kind of going through the motions and. No, me and the boys are on a camping trip. That's the way I perceived it. I was so oblivious, man.

Josh Wilson (00:20:28) - Yeah, I, I bring that because I got a picture the old JR because you talk about this rebirth and I think that if men. Like look over their life. There's given opportunities of rebirth. Some more traumatic than others.

JR Martinez (00:20:43) - Absolutely.

Josh Wilson (00:20:44) - But life gives us opportunity to die. To the old, born to the new. And some men take that opportunity and some men have to learn it. Like me. I had to learn it 3 or 4 times because I'm stubborn, right? You get out. You survived mass trauma five five minutes in a burning, you know, sardine can filled with diesel fuel and then outwards. You get out, you recover, and then you start drinking, and you're and you and you go through this process, right? So you for guys like you and me, sometimes we have to learn that same freaking lesson a few different times.

Josh Wilson (00:21:20) - Yeah. Why did you have to.

JR Martinez (00:21:22) - Give yourself grace for that? I mean, listen, I mean, it's everyone has a way of processing, and I think that we're so conditioned that one, that we don't address our emotions, we don't lean into them. But then when we do, but then when we do, it's one time only. It's the Ohio only handle it once. Once is the key word in that. That's what people pay attention to. So I should talk about this one time. I should go to one therapy session. I should do one exercise, whatever that works for me. And then all is going to be good, right? No, literally it's you know, I'm a sports guy, I love sports., football is my jam. And I remember growing up, there was a guy Randy Moss played for the play for other teams. But when he was with the Vikings early in his career, he was playing against the green Bay Packers and a division rival, and he scored a touchdown.

JR Martinez (00:22:13) - And he his touchdown celebration was he pretended to moon the crowd the the. And so of course he got fined for that. So he gets fined. And then a reporter walks up to Randy as he's leaving. Like I think the Vikings facility a few days later and it's it's Minnesota. So it's cold and you see how like how cold it is. And and they ask and they're like Randy you know you you know you got fined for that touchdown celebration. He's like yeah. And he's like how did you pay it. And he turns out it looks. And he says straight cash, homey straight cash. It is such a good soundbite. It was such a good soundbite. But the reason I bring that up is because there's only very few of us in this world that when we want nice things, we could just pay straight cash. Homie, most of us have to have an installment. Most of us have to make payments. If you want a nice house, you have to make payments for X amount of years.

JR Martinez (00:23:06) - If you want a nice car, payments for extra money, whatever the thing is for you, it takes time and you have to continuously make payments in order for you to have that thing. Well, the thing that I'm talking about in this particular case is not those material things. I'm talking about your happiness. I'm talking about unconditional love. I'm talking about connection. I'm talking about community. And in order to find those things, you have to continuously make a payment. It's not a one time occurrence. It's not a one time payment. It's not a one time you lean in and you deal with it or you talk about it, and now you should be good. No, that one time. Now it should give you enough data and feedback to allow you to realize, oh, this. Okay. All right. Let me go into two. Okay. Only handle it three times. Only handle it four times. Only handle it. And each time all it's doing is just building and preparing you for the next one.

JR Martinez (00:24:00) - Because all of us are skeptics, especially guys, we're such skeptics. I mean, there's a guy, he's a badass dude. And if you can ever reach out to him,, Dan Nevins, he was,, in the military, and he lost both of his legs injured overseas. And this guy,, I got a chance to spend a few days with them, and,, Jackson Hole, and we were there, and it was a it was a really cool because it was a bunch of like,, like rock stars. I mean, rock star drummers. I mean, you talking about the 70s, 80s like rock star drummers. I mean, these dudes got stories,, Def Leppard, guns and roses. I mean, bands that you're like, oh, I forgot about those. I mean, literally these dudes are badasses, and it's literally them. It's a bunch of vets. It's a bunch of other people. So there's probably, I don't know, I'm just gonna throw a number, maybe about 100 of us that we were there for a few days and just kind of like this retreat.

JR Martinez (00:24:52) - And they, they call it a drum circle, and it's through the Raven Drum Foundation and,, it's Rick Allen,, is foundation. And so Dan is brought in to come and share a little bit about his life, but also to kind of do like an icebreaker exercise for all of us. So he he stands up there. And he says, everyone partner up. So we partner up. He said, with somebody you don't know, preferably. So of course we partner out by partner. My wife was with me, but of course can't be with her. So I go with another woman. Ha! Whoa! Did you see that kind of party? I promise, I promise. But,, so I'm I'm, you know, and so the exercise was going to be this for three minutes. For three minutes, all we were going to do is just look into each other's eyes. We could not speak. We could not do no movement, no giggling. None of that. And you just literally look at each other for three minutes and, you know, of course you start the timer and everyone's like, so immature and like kids, it is so uncomfortable.

JR Martinez (00:25:54) - That's what it really is. Is that how often do you really look at somebody in the eyes? I mean, honestly, and after, you know, a minute people start to settle in and all of a sudden now people are connecting and it takes a tremendous even though you're not saying anything, it takes a tremendous amount of vulnerability and strength to do this exercise, because as much as most of us want to be seen, like, a lot of us are afraid of being seen because of the judgment, because of what's going to come from that. So let's not make eye contact. Let's avoid eye contact. So that way we don't we don't have to expose that. But it's the very thing that we need to be doing which is actually making eye contact. So anyways at the end of these three minutes, like the lady that I was, you know, like I, you would have these moments where you just suddenly like, you just smile, you just smile and you could kind of feel like what that person is potentially carrying, the lady is now she's crying and, and and then the practice is over and Dan's like, okay, everyone come out of that.

JR Martinez (00:27:00) - And everyone's like, Holy shit, holy shit. What what just happened? And people start sharing and guys and girls like, everyone's sharing about like how powerful that was. And such a simple exercise. I've been married to my. I've been with my wife or God knows how many years now. Literally. We went back to the to our hotel and she was like, man, we were talking about that exercise and she's like, let's see if we can do it. And even my wife. I mean, I could look at her, but even my wife was like being all get, you know, just like kid, like, fidgety and moving around. And she's like, oh my God, I can't do it. And I was like, that's my wife. Like, that's, that's that's who I have my children with. That's who. Like, that's what we're building our I mean, we're still building our like that's my wife and and and so the point is, is that Dan is such a badass and such a great practice.

JR Martinez (00:27:53) - And he came back and when he was going through his difficult,, journey to, to reintegrate, somebody suggested to him that he should try yoga. He's like, typical dude yoga, doing yoga. That's silly. Whatever. Plus, I'm a double amputee. I can't do those things. Those moves, those poses, like whatever. So sure enough, it was presented to him as a challenge. So he does it. And all of a sudden this dude's like, wait a minute, I just experienced something. And that class that it embarked him on this journey where he literally started traveling the world and essentially training, studying under all these gurus that are out there, that this guy, this is what he does now. He like talks about yoga and talks about this spiritual work and, you know, but again, it took only handle it once to lean in for him to get that data and say, oh wait, something about this felt good. I think I'm getting a little bit of what I've been seeking my entire life.

JR Martinez (00:28:51) - Now let me build on that. And until we reframe that, until we reframe that thought process and eliminate this timeline on our healing and our journeys, we're just going to be on it for the rest of our lives.

Josh Wilson (00:29:04) - . Yeah, J.R., you talk about, you know, you talk about the rebirth, right? There was a physical rebirth. The side by side, J.R.. Then now two different people. But you talk about a spiritual one and an emotional one. And I don't think a, I don't think us guys talk about the the spiritual rebirth or the emotional rebirth., as much as we were given an opportunity. What what emotionally died that day? What spiritually died that day? That had to be rebirthed.

JR Martinez (00:29:41) - So nothing necessarily on that day. It didn't happen immediately. I think what that day and that and the accident. The event. Essentially was the trigger to now bring all those things to the surface. And over time, I started to identify. So I'll just kind of give a quick abstract.

JR Martinez (00:30:04) - So for 19 years of my life, like my mother's from Central America, my father's from Mexico, my father left when I was nine months old, raised by my mom, by herself. My mom experienced a lot of trauma in her life prior to having me,, a lot of loss, a lot of people in and out of her lives., how to how to an in and out of her life., she also lost a daughter due to an illness that she was born with my sister. My middle sister., and so my mother's experienced a lot of trauma. Now, mind you, I said experience. I didn't say my mother dealt with a lot of trauma because she's experienced that. She hasn't dealt with it. And again, my mother also taught me this, whether she realized it or not. She also taught me the best way to sort of deal with that. Adversity is kind of honorable in the sense of where focus on what you can control and how can you show up despite what happened last night when this man decided to put his hands on you and, you know, he got taken away by the cops, but he's going to be back here on Monday morning when he posts bail, and then he'll do it again in two weeks.

JR Martinez (00:31:03) - And then we're just repeating the cycle, because that was our reality. That was the environment that I grew and grew and grew up in. And,, but my mom, like, had this big smile as if she was in a happy relationship, like a happy marriage. And it was so healthy and, and,, and she told me one day she's like, I smiled to invite the blessings. And I was like, what does that even mean? She's like, If I'm not smiling, then all the good things that are coming my way are way. I'm not able to receive them. So I smile to receive them. And I thought, you know, obviously as a kid I was like, what the hell is she talking about? As I got older, I was like, wow, that is so powerful. She's essentially saying, how can I show up despite, right? But as I've learned, there's also,, there's also something in that that is not the healthiest way of approaching life because as I've seen with my mother now, is you can see her and smile and receive all those blessings, but you're not able, in really cases, to be able to really marinate and understand where the blessings are.

JR Martinez (00:32:03) - Right? You're constantly looking outward. She never did any end work. And as they say, happiness is an inside job. And all she kept doing was looking out, looking for happiness and validation and everything outward into the world. And she just had this fear of of losing more and,, and so anyways, I was born in Louisiana. I grew up there for nine years, moved to Arkansas when I was nine years old, grew up in Arkansas until my junior year of high school, and then moved to Georgia my senior year of high school. And over the course of that, there was a lot of difficulty, man, just not feeling like I was a part of a community, not feeling connected to a group of people. Like I just felt incredibly isolated from a mental health standpoint. I struggled, I got into a lot of trouble at school., I got suspended from school a lot. I would find myself being removed from school three, five, seven days at a time. My mom half the time didn't even know it.

JR Martinez (00:32:55) - What I would actually do because my mother worked the graveyard shift and at nine years old, I had to get myself up in the morning. I had to get myself to school. I had to get myself home. I had to get myself to bed., I had a lot of responsibility as a kid at that age. And when I would get in trouble and get suspended from school, I would just literally get up in the morning as if I was going to school and leave the house, like, as if I was going to school. But I just go walk around town literally for eight hours. And my mom half the time didn't even know. I don't think my mom knows to this day that I did that. I'm just roaming around, roaming around in the park. And guess what? When I would go back to school and then they would start talking about the curriculum and what they learned and what they unpacked, I was like, I was so far behind, and my defense mechanism was to say, that's dumb and that's silly.

JR Martinez (00:33:43) - Nobody cares about that. And I would be a class clown. And so no one ever interjected and said, why are you acting out? What is going on with you? No one actually sat down and asked me that question. Instead, it was easier for everybody to just sort of push me down and push me, just push them to the next grade, push them to that. There's no reason I should have gone from third grade to fourth grade to fifth grade to 10th grade to 11th grade. I should have not been allowed. I should have been held out, held back many, many, many, many, many times. But it was easier for for me not to be anybody's problem and just move them along. Until my senior year of high school, when I moved to Georgia, and this was the first time where I actually felt like, okay, I feel like I'm I have a community. I feel like I'm, I'm somewhere where I can connect with people in my community. Within the first two weeks of being in this school, the counselor actually called me into his office and said, hey, what's going on? Let's talk about your grades.

JR Martinez (00:34:36) - Let's talk about your credits. Let's talk about what's going on with you, what's why. And that was the first time anybody from an educational standpoint ever interjected and said, tell me what's going on. And I told this man, man, listen, honestly, this and this and this, and I've just been mad and just frustrated. And he said,, all right, do you want to graduate on time? Do you want to get your GPA up? And I said, yes, sir. He said, this is what we have to do then. And we put a plan together. And I was able to get my GPA up. I was able to graduate on time. I wasn't suspended from school anymore like my senior year of high school. It took one person to sit down and actually do what most of us perceive as an inconvenience and actually asked me, what is going on, young man? And that's most of us. That's all we want is we want that question like, what's going on? And I felt that this man was being completely honest, and he cared enough that it wasn't just sort of a surface level question, and it wasn't something that we did prior to Covid, where most of us were.

JR Martinez (00:35:29) - Every time we interact with somebody, we were like, hey, how are you doing? I'm good. Cool. Have a good day. All right. Cool. And the reality is, that person you just asked, they're not doing good, but they don't believe you. So why are they going to sit here and, like, offer one? They're not taught one. They don't feel like they trust you or the space that they're in. So why are they going to and and then in Covid during Covid on everyone's social media was the perfect hashtags. Hashtag you know listen hashtag have these conversations connect hashtag self-care all these beautiful keywords. Guess what happened. We got a taste of our freedom back. All those words. We threw them out the window as we're driving down the highway onto our next thing. And now we're back to our old ways. And so for me, I think I had I brought a lot of that trauma with me. For the first 19 years of my life, I was carrying that.

JR Martinez (00:36:17) - My mother listen again. As I said, I'm 40 years old. My mother, she worked my ass like, and I know a lot of guys that are my age or older would be like, well, that's the way it was, and I get that. But my mother was a hurt woman hurting me. Yeah. And my mother, when she would me my mother took out all of the anger that life, what she had been presented with unfairly. She took it out on me because that was the constant thing in her life. I was the only constant thing. And so she felt that she could attack that constant thing, because where was I going to go? I was always going to be there. My mother as a woman, my mother as a Hispanic woman, didn't have the resources, did not believe in talking or, you know, being vulnerable or didn't have the resources. She didn't. So instead, she just took it out on me. And I carried a lot of that resentment and that anger, the way that she sort of acted with me and the situations she put me into.

JR Martinez (00:37:16) - And so honestly, and this is how fast forward a little bit. So I get out of the military and I'm 2006 and beginning of to the early 2006, and it was late. It was it was like late 2007. And at this point now I'm doing a lot of philanthropy work. I'm a spokesman for a nonprofit that helps service members and raise awareness and funds and all that stuff. And I love the work. I love the work, and I'm around a bunch of other guys that I recovered in the hospital with., and I meet some other people that I work with at the organization. But there's this one guy, his name is Dan, and he's 17 years older than me. He was in the Air Force, and the only reason we met is because he was stationed in San Antonio and he was non deployable. So he couldn't deploy because he had developed Mis. And so he wanted to do something. So what he started doing on his own is reaching out to local like events in, in San Antonio, like concert venues, sporting events and saying hey can you give me some tickets and I will go pick up some troops from the hospital and take him to.

JR Martinez (00:38:23) - This event. And they would say, of course, and they would give him tickets. And so he came to the hospital and he actually invited me to go to a Toby Keith concert. And I was like, hell yeah. And this was Toby Keith, you know, the patriot, the patriot as he was when when he was the highlight of his. I was like the high point of his career, but because he's had many of those, you know, and,, recently obviously passed away. But, you know, when he was doing a lot of the patriotic music and,, so I went and we connected with this dude. And, you know, we just kept running into each other. Then we worked at the nonprofit together, and all of a sudden one day. It turned into like he would. He started like, ending conversations over the phone or in person by saying, I love you.

Josh Wilson (00:39:06) - Yeah.

JR Martinez (00:39:07) - And I'm like, and Josh, I was like, man, this is so weird.

JR Martinez (00:39:10) - Why is this guy saying he loves me? Like, because again, nobody, no male in my life ever said I love you to me. So I was like, why is he saying this to me? This is so odd. He trying to kiss.

Josh Wilson (00:39:21) - You, right? You're like, why? Why do you tell me this?

JR Martinez (00:39:23) - Like I'm like, I mean, I, I mean, we talk and I know he's interested in, you know, the opposite sex. Why is he coming at me like this? You know, like, I'm not sure. And and and and we're traveling in Indianapolis. And there's probably like 4 or 5 of us and we go out to dinner. We're having drinks. Just a bunch of vets goofing off, talking shit, you know, just getting by, getting ready for the event the next day. And on the way back to the hotel, somebody in the car says something and I forgot it wasn't anything like insulting. It was just somebody that made a comment about something.

JR Martinez (00:40:01) - But because I again, was hurt, I'm naturally going to be triggered by anything and I'm going to hurt other people. And I have listen, I have this gift, man. It is a gift of mine that I have the ability to communicate. And I can actually, you know, sort of break down people's barriers and guards and allow us to have a real honest conversation that I believe can be very productive for you and me. However, I also understand that that gift can also be a curse and can be the biggest weapon that I have and the worst weapon that I have, because I know that sometimes if I'm triggered by something and I haven't dealt with that, guess what? I'm now I'm just venomous. And I come for you and I come for your throat. And I don't let go. And I hurt people and I identify that about myself. And so now, at this stage of my life with a wife and kids and the people I have around me, I have to be very, very careful.

JR Martinez (00:40:58) - And I understand that because I still still get pissed off, I still get triggered. And I have to in that moment, just like I gotta find other things for me to sort of deal with that before I bring come back into this space. But anyways, I lash out to one of these troops in the Humvee. Dan, my best friend is driving the the the the car and he tells me to chill out. And I said no. And we started this back and forth. I'm in the back row, the third row of this Humvee, this this Humvee, this SUV, and, and and I'm we're mouthing off to each other. And I told him I wanted to fight him. And so he pulls the car over. I get out the back, the back of the car, and I come around to the driver's side. At this point, he's got back in the car and he locked the door. He drives off. Peace out bro. Yeah, you want some? Come on, come on.

JR Martinez (00:41:48) - Oh, no. No. Oh, shit. Shit's getting real. But, you know, and I tell people the reason I set it up that way. Because I want people to understand as much as, like initially the reaction is like,, he punked out. No. My best. I'm five, nine, £200. My best friend is six foot five, £275. This dude can literally wash the car with me if he wanted to. But the powerful thing about that is, instead of him engaging because he was going through his own stuff in life and so he could have easily just taken it out on me the way other people had in my life, including my mother. And again, this is not to sit here and throw my mother under the bus. She did a lot of incredible things for me. But it is it is my truth and it is my reality. And he could have done the same thing my mom did is just take out how life is being unfair to him on me and what my ass and put me in a hospital.

JR Martinez (00:42:38) - Possibly you know what he did. Instead he got back in the car, locked the door and said, man, just get in the car. I got back in the car. I'm like fuming. I'm fuming, I'm fuming, I'm fuming. We get back to the hotel and when we get back to the hotel, I'm just so upset and we all get out of the car. Dan tells me, hey man, why don't you sit in the passenger seat once again? He could have literally just said, man, I'm going to get away from this kid. Like kick the can down the road, let it be someone else's problem. Instead, it was uncomfortable. He leaned in and he literally said, man, you need to cry. And I was like, I don't need to cry about nothing. And he says, yes, you do. And I was like, what do I need to cry about? And he says, you, you've healed physically. You haven't healed emotionally or mentally.

JR Martinez (00:43:18) - You have to cry. And before you know it, Josh, I started crying, man, and I had no idea why. And let me tell you, the power of that moment of him showing up for me. I was the first one that looked at him and actually said. I love you, man. And that's when it was really instilled. And I understood one unconditional love that I understood that somebody who was a complete stranger in many ways up to a couple of years ago, could actually love me for who I am and what I am, even with my faults, even though I want to fight him and punch the window out of this car just so we can fight. Like at the end of the day, this person is still willing to be there and show up for me. Shit. And that literally that level of me willingness to be vulnerable. That changed the whole scope of my life. I'm telling you, I was on this path where I was, I was I was destructive to myself.

JR Martinez (00:44:13) - And I could have I could have really hurt myself or hurt anybody else. And instead, from that conversation, I identified the importance of me realizing I can't do this by myself. And I realized in order for me to find the very thing that I've been seeking my entire life, which was community and connection, that I needed to also do my part, and that was me be vulnerable. And through that, I got the opportunity to act. I got the opportunity to go on dancing. I got like, my life literally turned around immediately after that conversation with him.

Josh Wilson (00:44:46) - Yeah, that's good man. To have a guy who is my my friend Michael would say this a guy who's orientated, right. Like he he knows who he is, he knows where he's going. He's a solid dude to take a guy who's wailing, ready, ready. Oh, he's a war ready to happen, right? Yeah. For him to be stable in that moment and go, hey, bro, I love you.

Josh Wilson (00:45:09) - It's like what? It disarms, man. It's like, no, no, we're supposed to fight. Yeah. And he's like, I'm not going to fight you. I'm not going to engage in this. I love you. You're like.

JR Martinez (00:45:18) - Well, it also makes me think about, you know, he instilled that in me. And now I'm able to be that for other guys. Yeah, like a couple of my boys. I served in the military, you know, with me, you know, we connected years later and I'm able now I got I mean, I was one of my buddies who didn't serve in the military was and then of having to be in the hospital, having a procedure done. And literally I went and visited him. And, you know, this guy played professional football like he played in the NFL for years. And so I'm hanging out with him in his room and just to go shoot the shit, like just kind of a little distraction with form. And because he's been in the hospital for a couple of weeks.

JR Martinez (00:45:59) - Penis reduction. How much longer was that penis reduction?

Josh Wilson (00:46:02) - Is that what he was getting in that surgery? Who's that player? All those.

JR Martinez (00:46:06) - Steroids.

Josh Wilson (00:46:08) - Sorry, I blacked out for a minute. Go ahead, continue the conversation.

JR Martinez (00:46:12) - There's a joke in that as well. When you say you blacked out because he is black and I'm like, there's a joke there. But, you know, I'm like, we can go so many.

Josh Wilson (00:46:21) - True story.

JR Martinez (00:46:23) - You know what they say? It's true., and so, you know, here I am with him. And dude, we just start connecting on life and we just, like, start with first. It starts with sports. You know, the stuff that kind of like, typical guys break the ice, whatever. And we're just. And then we just start getting into life. He starts telling me stuff about his upbringing that I didn't know about, and I started telling him stuff about mine that he didn't know about. And and then and then it turned out because he lives down the road for me.

JR Martinez (00:46:53) - So it turns out he's getting discharged. And I was like, dude, I'll take you home. And so I bring him home and I, you know, drive him to the house and his wife's there and, and and,, and I was like, all right, help him in the house, get his stuff out of the car and everything. And then, right when we were leaving,, he he goes to give me, like, a hug, and, and he says, I love you, man. And it was because we literally had that conversation in the hospital. We had this conversation and he he I've known to do for years. We've never said, I love you to each other. And in that moment, he realized, you know, here's a dude that played at the highest level that most boys, young boys strive to play at, but they're conditioned that they have to be a certain type of mentality in a certain way. And yet here he is. He looked at me and he said, I love you.

JR Martinez (00:47:42) - And it kind of threw me off because I wasn't expecting it. And then I was like, yeah, I love you too, bro. And gave him a hug. And then we dipped out and I, you know, I left and but it was just like such a powerful moment. And I think, you know, even when I lived in New York City for a period, I remember one day I was actually going to get on the train and I was coming down the stairs going to the, you know, to catch the train. And I can hear the train coming, but I wasn't in a rush. I had time. So I was just kind of slowly going down the stairs. But I was off to the right, far, far right, as far as you can go. And then all of a sudden I hear somebody behind me, like running because they hear the train and they're trying to catch it. And this dude literally, like, bumps me, shoulder checks me as he's going down the stairs.

JR Martinez (00:48:24) - And I, you know, I don't fall, but I lose my balance a little bit. And I was like, man, what an asshole. And so literally he goes, I go, I get around the corner, I swipe my card and I go through the little turnstile and he's standing right there. He missed the train. So he's like this. Oh, he's like, he's fuming. Like he's upset. So of course JR has to run his mouth. And I said to him, I said, well, you know if you would have knocked me down you probably would have made the train. But because you only shoulder checked me, that's why you missed the train. And he was like, what are you saying? So I said it again and he says, man, get out of my face, man. Get out of my face. And he was pissed. And I was like, man, you asked me what I said. So I just told you. And he's like, man, just, just, just get out of my face, bro.

JR Martinez (00:49:10) - Like like that. And I said, listen, man, like, I get it, life is hard, I get it. Some shit's going down right now in your life, but that's not my fault. And that's nobody. Nobody else's fault. I said, you can't take that shit on anybody else. And I walked away and I went and stood on the other side of the train. Well, the train comes, I get on the train, he gets on the train. But we're in two different cars now. The where? I was just staring.

Josh Wilson (00:49:33) - At you through the window. Right? Oh, dude.

JR Martinez (00:49:35) - Well, I was staring at him because the way that I was, because the way I was raised and the way I grew up, like my environment has taught me, like, you never turn your back. And so I get on the train, but I'm like, turn to a point where I can see him through, like the window. And this is what I noticed.

JR Martinez (00:49:50) - I noticed he had a backpack on, but I notice on the backpack on the side pockets, he had boxing gloves and I was like, of course JR picks a fight with a dude. Even if you're an amateur boxer, he's gonna like like this is sensitive, fragile skin here on my face. I can't nobody could touch this. Like, I can only imagine if I took a punch where shit would shift. I mean, it would be ugly. Like, I mean, UFC fight times, like it would turn into a documentary at some point because it would be like this. It would be ugly. So anyways, the train goes, we get to the next stop and he gets off the train and I'm like, all right, cool. So I'm kind of like relaxed, like, let my guard down. Well guess what? He walks onto my car. And I'm like, oh, and I'm sitting. I'm seated and I'm like, oh. If I have any chance at all of just surviving, I can't be seated.

JR Martinez (00:50:43) - I have to stand up. So I stand up and I just stand up casually. I don't make it like, hey,, you know, like we're, you know, confronting each other. And he walks right up to me and he says, I told myself that if you were still on this train, I was going to come over and talk to you. And I was like, what's up? And he says, I want to apologize.

Josh Wilson (00:51:03) - Boom.

JR Martinez (00:51:05) - And I said about and treating him like a like a child. Tell me you sorry for what? Did you spell it out for me? And I was like about. And he was like, you're right, man. He's like, life has been kind of shitty lately. He's like. And today there was something else that went down. He's like, but you know what? You're right. It's not your fault. It's not anybody else's fault. And all I'm doing is just walking around and taking it out on people. And do we actually connected for a few minutes after that? We connected and it was like this dope conversation.

JR Martinez (00:51:36) - And then he was like, man, I appreciate that. We shook hands and he went to the other side of the car now. I'm Hispanic. This gentleman is a black guy. Now, I'm not saying that this is not true. And other you know, not to bring race into it, but not in other communities and other cultures. But I know specifically in ours, we are conditioned that the only way that we settle this is we duke it out and someone's going to get their asses whooped. And it might be me, it might be you. But regardless, at the end of the day, we're going to fight. But nothing gets solved from that. Absolutely nothing. All you're doing that for is because you're just trying to get all this sort of energy that you have inside of you. You're just trying to get it out and you're just using another person and as a punching bag. But there's what I've learned. There's other healthy ways of essentially, you know, getting that stuff out.

JR Martinez (00:52:26) - It's through writing. It's through running. It's through literally having these type of conversations with people that you trust and feel comfortable with that you know, they look after you 100% through and through. And so it was it was such a dope experience, man. And it's not the only one I have. And it's it's really cool to see that what Dan did for me, I'm now able to do for others.

Josh Wilson (00:52:50) - Yeah dude. Super cool man. Even your interactions in a subway is that is a plant attacking you that that plants. It's going for you.

JR Martinez (00:52:58) - I'm like, this is the this is the problem. When you do stuff from home, it's like like, let me vacuum right next to the door and like, let me not only just let me not just like, oh, do one swipe. It's like, let me do 14 and and like in the same spot. And I'm like, you know, I had to like do that eye contact. Like, do you see I'm on an interview love on video right now.

JR Martinez (00:53:23) - And oh, and then it's a slow pull back of the vacuum. Dude, I want to hear something after when I started, as soon as I might not even log off just because I'm afraid to go into the house, I may just stay on with you.

Josh Wilson (00:53:37) - You just hang on with me. We got some business calls after. Just hang it. Hang out with me all day. Sorry, honey. I'm working with Josh now. We're building some business stuff over here., hey, man, I we got a few,, few more minutes, but I want to say, man, I love you. I love your energy. I think I think what you're doing is really cool., I've got a few more questions to ask. You got a few more minutes to.

JR Martinez (00:53:58) - Spend with this man? Yeah, I got time. We're good.

Josh Wilson (00:54:00) - All right. I want to talk about dancing, bro. Like, are you a good dancer? I saw dancing With stars. Like, are you naturally good? Like, you got the samba.

Josh Wilson (00:54:08) - You got the Hispanic side. Like, you can. You could dance. Or is it something like, dude can't dance and they had to teach, you know.

JR Martinez (00:54:14) - So listen, you know, I've always had rhythm. Yeah. And what I didn't know until I got on the show and my partner Carina pointed this out. She says you have musicality. And I was like, the hell does that even mean?. And she was like, whatever you you have that. Now there's also and I don't, I don't, I don't somebody mentioned this the other day and it's on my list of things to look up, and I just haven't had a chance to do it. But somebody was telling me that there is a book, or there's a person that speaks about how your DNA shifts based on your environment, like literally your DNA. And as this person was sort of breaking down what what it was, what it entailed. So with this work, it made sense to me. And so I'll say this.

JR Martinez (00:55:01) - When I was when I was growing up, there was this guy my mother was dating who was very abusive., and, but listening to a father figure was.

Josh Wilson (00:55:10) - That I said, fuck that guy, man.

JR Martinez (00:55:12) - Exactly. But you know what? I needed that guy. I needed that guy, like, you know, I need, like, like needing him. And so, you know, I remember he would sit in the living room of our apartment and would play the piano, and he would literally sing these Spanish love songs, and he would have a cigarette, dude. Like this, like, you know, those people like that are so cool that a cigarette is literally the ashes are literally like, there. I mean, you couldn't it's almost like like it's a hook. Now at this point, the way the acid is hanging on and I'm like, damn, the amount of balance that it takes, like to be able to, like, not move. So those ashes don't drop on your lap, on your shirt and burn the shit out of you or whatever.

JR Martinez (00:55:53) - But this dude was sit there with these damn ashes like a cigarette in his mouth, and I would come over and grab the cigarette, dump the ashes, put the cigarette back in his mouth, and I'd sit there and watch him and like. And I'm like four years old and sing these Spanish love songs because Spanish was my first language. And,, what he would do every now and then, he would take me to this hole in the wall bar in Shreveport, Louisiana, and all these drunks there. And I would literally sing 2 or 3 Spanish love songs and dance and just get down all these drugs like, yeah, you know, like, yeah. And the reason I say that is because my DNA, who I am, I was always meant to be that person. Always, always meant I had that ability to sort of be in front of people and be comfortable in that setting and not be not be terrified and worried. Right. Like, I, I, I've just born this way, like genetics, gift, whatever.

JR Martinez (00:56:52) - That's what I came into the world with. That's my superpower. And over time, all the stuff that we slowly unpacked, my environment started to kind of change my DNA, where I was no longer like this happy kid, this kid that wanted to dance, this kid that wanted to sing, this kid that wanted to do all those things. I started to kind of go into a different direction. And then luckily, that conversation with my best friend Dan finally turned my life and got me back into that space of going back to who I've always been. So going on dancing and and again, our environment is constantly changing our DNA. And so it's going to fluctuate. And so you just gotta ride the wave and keep showing up and keep finding your people. Keep looking for them though, and you can't expect everyone else to show up for you. You equally have to show up for yourself, but then also show up for them as well, right? In order for them for this connection to happen and for it to have sustainability and longevity.

JR Martinez (00:57:44) - Well anyways, so I go on the show on dancing and listen, I'm a dude that was raised by a single mother. I had to dance with my mom all the time because she didn't have a dance partner, because she was not in a relationship. So I was I was her dance partner. So I learned a little bit of moves, but I had to learn almost everything. The only thing was I was athletic, I had some rhythm, and I had some musicality, and the thing that really took me, put me over the edge and allowed me to win that competition was honestly. And this is so this is important for everybody. That for 90s that I danced on that show, man, I was present for 90s that I danced. I didn't care about the cameras. I didn't care about the people on the other side of that camera. All I cared about was the people in this studio that is watching this live recording, this live taping of this show, like I just was present and and by me just naturally being present in my natural ability just to love this space.

JR Martinez (00:58:45) - Dude, everything else was just elevated, like my my, my ability to dance and and to entertain people. It was just elevated. So,, well, it was surprising to me, though, like, to be honest, like, I was like, man, the military community, they're going to eat my ass up because they're going to be like, oh, look at you wearing these two inch Latin heels. Now look at you wearing all these little rhinestones all over. They're gonna eat my ass up and the. And don't get me wrong, they did. They did. But it but that's also the way we get down. Right. You know that especially being in the firefighter you know that's the way you get down. Like if they're not giving you shit, they don't look like they don't respect you. That and so they were giving me shit. But at the end of that, man, I had all the military community, you know, just voting for me, pulling for me.

JR Martinez (00:59:32) - And honestly, that was the thing that allowed me to win that competition. Because it's not just the ability to dance, it's also a popularity contest. I mean, and you got to see how many people you can get to root for you. And so I got a lot of people to root for me, and it was my opportunity to show the world that I was more than what they thought I was.

Josh Wilson (00:59:50) - Yeah, I think that there's some songs that, like hit the rhythm of like, your DNA of some sort. Like there's certain songs for me, man, that, like, I could be in any mood. I put on that song and I started, like, it just changes my emotion and change my energy. Do you have a song like that for you? Like you just put it on if you want to dance, if you want to laugh, cry. Like, what's your song?

JR Martinez (01:00:11) - It varies. It really varies for me., it depends on the stage of life that I'm in.

JR Martinez (01:00:17) - I mean, I go through phases where I'm listening to, you know, artists that I grew up listening to, the Hispanic artist. Right. And no one would ever think that I'm listening to, like, banda and cumbia music. And I'm sitting here screaming and in my car, you know, about how this woman that I love left me and cheated on me. And meanwhile, my wife is at home, happy as could be. I'm happy as could be. But I'm saying, like, I like, I want to throw a couple beers back because I'm like, hell with her. But then I walk in the house and I got a happy home, right? Like no one would ever know that I sing those type of songs. No one would ever know that I'm actually jamming out to, like, Otis Redding and just sort of get real soulful.

Josh Wilson (01:01:00) - On the dock of the Bay is.

JR Martinez (01:01:01) - Sitting on the dock and yeah,, like all the the hits that he had was listening to, like, Lynyrd Skynyrd and and and Simple Man and and just playing that in my head.

JR Martinez (01:01:12) - And it's not like this thing that's going to get me hype. It's a thing that's going to sort of reset me and allow me to sort of go into a reflective state, because that's what I do a lot of now. I do a lot of work in order for me to get to where I am and to continue to grow and evolve. I spend a lot of time reflecting. I spend a lot of time practicing gratitude. I close my eyes and I connect with my breath, and I actually breathe. And I remind myself in that breath and every breath that I can hear, that I can feel. You're alive. You're alive. Whatever the hell it is. Remember this. You're alive. You're fine. You've done. You've done so much. You've overcome so much. You'll be all right. And I think that's something that all of us need to practice more of. And it doesn't have to be this traditional, meditative sit and. And it can be a walking, it could be a driving,, just sort of disconnect from, in some cases with music, with podcasts, with phone calls, with busy work and just be with yourself.

JR Martinez (01:02:11) - And so I tell people, it's like I had to learn this joke that can go in here, but, you know, you had to learn how to be intimate with yourself. And I'm like, I'm I'm really good at it, dude. Hey, hey, hey., but what I mean is, like, you gotta have the emotional intelligence and to have that emotional self-awareness and be able to be comfortable with your own emotions, with their own thoughts, with their own feelings, before you can actually start doing that for other people and showing up in that way. So, man, it just varies. Like, I mean, godly, I mean, I love I love all kinds of music. I mean, I'll literally I coach my daughter's softball team. And last night, right now he's hot. And I was sitting there as we were going through pitchers and catchers, and I'm sitting there and I bring the music and everything. And, you know, I'm sitting there listening to Zach Bryan and I'm just like, just I'm like, and it's a beautiful it's 7:00 in the evening here in Texas.

JR Martinez (01:03:00) - And, you know, the sun, the cloud, I mean, the sky is beautiful. You see these birds just flying and just hovering, and it just seems life can't get any better than this right now. And yet, on the drive home, still with the windows down, I'm jamming. Out of some other crazy shit like, let's go. And it's just listen. Our emotions are constantly like changing and our feelings are constantly changing. And so depending on the mood that I'm in will determine what I'm rocking with. But I rock with everything, man, I really do.

Josh Wilson (01:03:30) - Yeah, yeah, I gotta, I gotta know about your acting thing. I did not know this about you. And I want to know, like, tell me about your acting career.

JR Martinez (01:03:40) - You want to hear about how this crazy shit happen? Let me tell you about this. So my mom, I grew up watching Spanish soap operas. Novelas. Yeah. And I grew up in the era where my mom would be like, hey, I want you to record.

JR Martinez (01:03:54) - And I had to, like, pop in. I was, I was DVR before there was DVR. It was me. And I would push in the, the, the the the cassette, the the cassette, the.

Josh Wilson (01:04:05) - VHS.

JR Martinez (01:04:06) - Tape, whatever, and push it in, hit record and then sit there and watch it. And God forbid if I hit, if I got a little bit of a commercial or missed the first part after the commercial, my mom would chew my ass out. I'd be in trouble. And so, you know, like, we should have known that DVR people were going to get spoiled with DVR later down the road, but,, I used to watch them. Well, when I was in a hospital recovering every evening, that was the thing that we did. We watch novelas together, and,, I remember about two and a half ish months into my recovery, one day I said to my mom, check this. I said, one day I'm going to be on a soap opera.

JR Martinez (01:04:47) - And she said, O'Reilly. And I said, yeah. She said, oh, what's the storyline going to be? And I was like, I haven't got that far. All I know is, I'm gonna have a beautiful love interest, right? I'm just being JR clown and throwing stupid shit out into the world. Yeah. Five years later, the show on My Children is launching a storyline about a veteran, and they think, what are the odds of us potentially finding a real veteran that has some acting experience that can help tell the story? So they sent out this huge casting call, right? They got over 500 applicants. I think that's what they told me. It could be more, I forget. I didn't hear about it. You know who sends me the email? Mama. My boy Dan. Oh, really?

Josh Wilson (01:05:29) - Dan? I love you, guy.

JR Martinez (01:05:31) - Yeah, I love you, guy. He sends me the email. He says, hey, he calls me. He says, did you read the email? And I was like, no.

JR Martinez (01:05:37) - And he's like, read the email, check your email reading, call me back. I call him back and I'm like, dude, I'm not an actor. I don't want to be an actor. What are you talking about? And he's like, dude, you could do this. And so literally I finally was like, fine. And this is where you got to really pay attention to, like, life. And you can't just think of things as coincidences. I don't believe in coincidences. Everything is happening for a reason. Now, it might not make sense to you right now, and that's fine, but you still have to carry that with you. There's it's going to make sense later down the road. It just so happened, man. I was actually flying to New York for to attend a conference. That's where the show was shot. I called the number on the email. I actually didn't get the assistant. I got the casting director of the show, the casting producer, Judy Blye Wilson, and I said, hey, I got this email.

JR Martinez (01:06:28) - She says, are you a vet? I said, yes, I said, I was injured overseas, but she's like, I was like, where are you based? She said, New York. And I said, well, I'm actually flying in New York tonight. And she's like, well, can you come in and, you know, meet with us? And I said, yeah, sure. So I came in the next day and had a meeting with her, and she ended up calling the executive producer down to the, you know, to to talk. And they said, hey, we want to bring you back in a month to do your screen test, so put you on camera, I'll give you a script, see what you look like. And this is what this is what I did. I ended up clearing my schedule as much as I could. I went home and I watched all my children every single day. Because I wanted to understand the storyline. I worked out every single day because I was like, I'm my ass is going to have to be on camera.

JR Martinez (01:07:15) - I got to be a ripped. I got to be ripped because, you know, they're going to do some raunchy stuff on those soap operas, man. And, and, and those scenes, they drag them out like, I think I gotta they're going to get all the angles. And so I gotta be in good shape and came back a month later, did my screen test. A week after that, they called me and they said, you got the job. I said, how long am I going to be on the show? They said, three months. And I was like, damn, that's that. I'll take that literally every day. Josh, what I would do in between scenes, I would go and sit on set and I would watch the other actors, and I would just learn from them. And I started to integrate different things into my own scenes, and literally went from three months to six months to nine months to a year to three years of me being on that show until I went off of the year, until it was finally canceled.

JR Martinez (01:08:04) - , that's how that's how I got it. But I'm telling you, like, that's that power of manifestation. That's the that's what I tell people is like, you got to throw the wildest thing out there. Be careful, though, which you throw out in the world. We didn't touch on this, but when I was 16 years old, I felt so isolated. And I was honestly probably depressed. Yeah, but I actually told my mother that I think about getting into a car accident because I wanted to see how many people would actually show up at the hospital to show me that they care. Three years later, in 19 years old, I was in a car accident. Right? Guess what? I found out how many people actually give a shit about me. And so you got it works both ways. You can throw the good stuff out and be prepared because it can happen. But also you throw that other stuff out there as well. Be prepared because it also can happen. So it's just the power of words, the power of thought, the power of just throwing things out into the world and you know, the universe in the way I believe God will reward you.

JR Martinez (01:08:59) - And,, you just got to be willing to actually show up for it.

Josh Wilson (01:09:03) - Yeah. That's cool. So did you get shredded? Like, did you look good on camera? Like.

JR Martinez (01:09:09) - You know what happened? It's kind of like when I joined dancing With the stars, I was in great shape. And then,, you know. And then when you know, you're dancing all day long and you're like, oh, hell yeah, I'm gonna get cut after this three months of being on the show. And then I started in my mind, I was like, well, you know, I'm I'm doing a lot of activity., I'm on my feet a lot. I'm sweating a lot. Rehearsing 8 to 10 hours a day, every single day., you know, I probably should have a platter of cookies. That probably would be.

Josh Wilson (01:09:42) - Good for a roll of Oreos. Dude, I could.

JR Martinez (01:09:44) - Probably should have this, like, family style pasta all to myself. So when other people come out of,, Dancing With the Stars and they're like, yo, I'm.

JR Martinez (01:09:53) - Ripped, I lost £27.

JR Martinez (01:09:55) - I'm like, I think I gained like £15 because towards the end I was just like, validating eating all this junk., what's crazy? So when I joined All My Children, I was in decent shape. But honestly, I, I just kind of turned a corner because my body, because of my burns. Like, I can't sweat normally the way anybody else sweats. Right. Like, so my graphs or my graphs are I don't sweat through my graphs. So my body has a really difficult time sometimes regulating, figuring out when to sweat, when not to sweat. Also, the fact that I lost so much weight, so much fluids when I was injured, one of the things they had to do was beef me up. So they were just kind of constantly calorie pumping me. The problem was, is I just continue that regiment. But I got out of the Army. Yeah, you.

Josh Wilson (01:10:40) - Kept it going.

JR Martinez (01:10:41) - I kept I mean, I was like the doctor said, I need to have a number for extra large, you know,, and I need to do it again in three hours, right? Yeah.

JR Martinez (01:10:52) - Like. And so I got up to £240, like five, nine, 240. I mean, that tells you I was not in a healthy place. And right before my children, I started working out and I kind of turned my life around and started like, you know, paying attention and stuff. So I got a decent shape, but I and that was the other thing, dude. I mean, here's the thing. You know, listen, I mean, I got a t shirt on right now, like, I, I, I don't show my scars above, like my, like my, my shoulders, like my grass, my back, my chest. I don't show that stuff, man. I mean, it took a while for,, like, it took a while for me to actually, like, show my, like, whoever I was in a relationship with like that, that part of me. And then you're all of a sudden now I'm going to show it on camera.

JR Martinez (01:11:41) - And of course, they were like, yeah, let's write a scene. Let's show the skin graph on his ass. That'll get us good ratings. And did you.

Josh Wilson (01:11:48) - Show your ass on TV? No. I'm not going to search it. Dude, I I do not want to see you. I'm just asking if you.

JR Martinez (01:11:57) - Oh, dude. It's great. It's amazing. I mean, it's a it's a such a great ass patch. I mean, it's like, literally so amazing., it's only on one cheek, though. I don't know how I got on one and not both, you know, but,, because you were leaning.

Josh Wilson (01:12:11) - When you were driving. That's why. That's what.

JR Martinez (01:12:12) - It was. Yeah, that's what it was. I had that cut up exposed. So. Yeah, man, I remember the first time I had to do, like, a scene, an intimate scene. I had to take my shirt off and it was like, talk about being vulnerable.

JR Martinez (01:12:26) - , and, and but, you know, yeah, there was some people that were like, you know, like a lot of the actors were like, we'll tell you one thing, one piece of advice, do not go on the message boards. And I was like, why? They were like, just don't go in the message boards. Did you do I of course, of course. I go out on the message boards like, yeah, like, you know, don't go to these websites. I'm going to go to those websites, why can't I? And, needless to say, like I ended up like seeing people saying like, oh my God, why would you have this guy look at his face. Look at his body. Oh yeah. Right. There was a lot of a lot of the internet, a lot of that shit that was going on. Yeah. And yet I still showed up and I was like, you know what? There's going to be more people that are going to receive this, embrace this, love this, versus people that are going to be like these jackasses out here.

JR Martinez (01:13:15) - So I'm just living my truth, man. And if you like it, cool. If you don't, that's fine. There's millions of other people to pick from. I don't sit there and have to alter who I am to try to cater to you like I got to live. Authentically. You know my truth and who I am and never allow anything or anyone to, you know, you know, waver from that.

Josh Wilson (01:13:36) - Yeah, so many other questions and fun chats. You are captivating. Like I enjoy chatting with you.

JR Martinez (01:13:44) - This is fun, man.

Josh Wilson (01:13:45) - Yeah. You're good., for dudes who want to check in on your work, check out your book. Check out your stuff. For big companies who want to hire you for movie sets that want to hire you. What's,. What are you working on? Where can people find you? Where can people buy your stuff?

JR Martinez (01:14:01) - I'm working on my glutes, so that way, let me see for the next film. Like for the next TV opportunity, when they pan over to that ass graft, they could be like, that's a nice, nice glute, nice graft.

JR Martinez (01:14:14) - Tight., you know, I actually do Pilates and that's yeah, I do, I do, but I do hot plot. He's talking about a burn guy in a hot room. Yeah., but it's like I'm reliving the 2003 all over again. I'm. I'm in the only one. I do.

Josh Wilson (01:14:29) - Not have enough.

JR Martinez (01:14:30) - Of that. Everyone's like, oh, is it hurt that much? Oh, that's a fire., no. I'm joking. You just develop a very dark sense of humor when you go through something like this. But,, jokes for days, my guy jokes for days., no. You know, what I would say is I would just, you know, listen, I love conversation, which is why I've enjoyed this conversation with you, man. Thank you for having me on. Really appreciate you sharing your space with me. And,, I just encourage people to hit me up on social media. I am J.R. Martinez. Whatever platform you use, I'm on it.

JR Martinez (01:15:05) - , if you want to dive a little bit more deeper into, you know what I'm doing, what I'm, you know, where I'm going, etc., you can always go to my website JR martinez.com. And, the biggest thing I just hope is I just hope you know, that, you know, people, whether you reach out to me and share it or not, just just feel a little bit more just feel. And I think that's the thing is that connects all of us is that all of us can relate to a feeling. We know what it feels like to be in this, in this situation, that situation. And so you always have to think that other person, yeah, I might not be able to relate to their trauma, to their experiences, but I can relate to that feeling of feeling out of control, the unknown, losing somebody, losing part of my identity, whatever it may be. So,, yeah, this is fun, man. I really appreciate it.

Josh Wilson (01:15:52) - Yeah.

Josh Wilson (01:15:53) - One final question. All right. So now I'm going to be supporting actor. You're going to be the the lead we get to be in any movie you want, right? Any type of movie, any genre, any period of time. It's going to be me and you. We're putting this out in the universe, right? And,, I love you, Guy. Dan, he's going to call us up in five years and be like, hey, I got a gig for you and Josh. We're going to do it right. We're going to be old guys, but we're going to do it. What kind of movie do you want to be in? Like where you're the lead actor and I'm doing that supporting.

JR Martinez (01:16:24) - I want to do like a superhero. I want to, I want to, I want it like so. Dan always says the I love you guy. He's always says, he says, if you were a superhero, you're Deadpool. And I was like, is it because of the facial stuff like that kind of hold it.

JR Martinez (01:16:44) - He's like, no, he's like, because of your sense of humor, because of, like your person. Like the things you've had to work like. Deadpool is such a headcase and he's like a mess, but he like, says crazy shit and he works through it and but yeah, he means well. And, you know, and he has like his own abilities. And so for me, I've always thought of like, that would be so cool because, you know, like you and again, just you got the Deadpool, you know, character, you got other characters that are out there. And a lot of that is cosmetic stuff, right? Like, of course, like that's all hair and makeup that make that stuff look amazing. But I've always thought like how cool it'd be to actually have a representation of someone that that has that wears it every single day. Now I gotta get ripped, though. That's the thing is, I gotta I that guy's shredded.

Josh Wilson (01:17:28) - Deadpool.

JR Martinez (01:17:28) - He's dude, Ryan is like, that dude is like.

JR Martinez (01:17:31) - I mean, I'm into it. Like it just tells you, like, that's how.

Josh Wilson (01:17:35) - I mean, it's it's not gay if you look, but.

JR Martinez (01:17:39) - Exactly. Right. I mean, what's wrong with that? Like, just like, man, I can honor the art. I can respect the craft. The art like that is beautiful. Art like, I mean, I just respect it, man. But. Yeah. So I don't know, like, I think let's just do a superhero, dude. Like a movie where you and I could just go and like. Like we can. It could be all about essentially this podcast. Like what? This podcast, the premise of your podcast. But we just put in a superhero movie and we just go around and help all these all these dudes and say the most inappropriate jokes. And but at the end of the day, that gets people to break their barriers down. But I gotta get rip first. Let me get rip first. But you know, but of course, like, this is the way I do things.

JR Martinez (01:18:20) - I'm like, yeah, I want to get ripped. I'm like, okay, so if I'm gonna tomorrow, I gotta go eat real quick. I gotta go eat, I gotta. Number four, because I'm not going to be able to eat that for a few months, but then I'm going to go eat in a couple of weeks.

Josh Wilson (01:18:33) - So I got a carb load and sugar load for the next six months before I start training.

JR Martinez (01:18:37) - Validates it. But.

JR Martinez (01:18:39) - Yeah, but that would be ideally what I would love to do. I think. Let's do it, man.

Josh Wilson (01:18:44) - All right, so I'm putting it out into the universe. We're going to be in a superhero movie. We need the I love you guy. We need Dan. We need the I love you guy. We got. You know why.

JR Martinez (01:18:53) - We need him.

Josh Wilson (01:18:54) - To. Why is that?

JR Martinez (01:18:55) - Because. Because his personality is is like, opposite of ours. Yeah. Like he like I said, he's six foot five, 275.

JR Martinez (01:19:05) - He's just very chill, very mellow. My my energy's like,, let's go. And he's like, oh okay, let's go. So we need that personality to that. That makes it fun, you know because you got that guy. That's the voice of reason. And like, hey, maybe we shouldn't do that. And he's not the wild guy. But then we get him, you know, to do crazy shit too. So it's just fun. Just fun.

Josh Wilson (01:19:31) - We need the boxer from the the subway.

JR Martinez (01:19:33) - Yeah. You really you need the penis reduction.

Josh Wilson (01:19:37) - Friend from.

JR Martinez (01:19:38) - The.

Josh Wilson (01:19:39) - From the NFL. We got to get Randy Moss. Who just. He's going to pay for it. Straight cash, homie.

JR Martinez (01:19:44) - He's going straight cash, homie. He's going to pay for it.

Josh Wilson (01:19:46) - I think we got a crew, man. We're doing it. Oh, are you in.

JR Martinez (01:19:52) - Are you in production, guy? Yeah.

Josh Wilson (01:19:57) - All right, I'm in. I'm committed. I'm in. I got to figure out what my my superhero power.

Josh Wilson (01:20:03) - But I'm. I'm in with you, dude. All right, let me close this out. Hey, guys, I love you. And I'm so thankful that you joined us today., fellows. As always, fellas, as always, if you need help, head on over to Uncensored Advice for men.com., I can connect you with some of our past guests. We've got a lot of people on standby just wanting to help. Dudes., I love you. You're not alone., if you are out there in your mission is to help and serve men, and you want to come on the show and talk about it, maybe bust some jokes., head on over to Uncensored Advice for men. Com they'll add a quick form, maybe get you on the show next. Till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. See you guys.