Perseverance Principles: Overcome Your Past to Claim Your Future

This episode discusses sensitive topics that may be triggering for some individuals, including suicidal ideation and childhood trauma. If you are struggling, please reach out to the National Suicide prevention lifeline at 9:88 for 24. 7 support.

So here's the thing. Entrepreneurs, leaders, salespeople, we all want to create consistent, repeatable and scalable ways to grow our business and our income. And we want to do it better, faster, and more seamlessly. Why? So we can actually enjoy our lives, take vacations, and spend the quality of the time we want with the people that we love. How do we do all this without spending a fortune or running ourselves ragged? That's the big question, and this show is dedicated to the answer. So if you're anything like me, you've had a time in your life where you simply had to persevere. You had to fight the fight. You had to get through the thing that was stopping you. And I know I've been there. I know you've been there. And I know the guest I have today has been there. And not only has he been there, he's written the book, the Perseverance Principles. Jj, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

I'm so pumped that you're here. I mean, obviously, you know, we've created a relationship, a connection.

Obviously, for the person that doesn't know who you are. You know, one of the most commercially successful mortgage lenders, a leader. Give them just a little bit of the backstory of your professional life. And then I want to get into maybe two or three of the principles to help my friend listening today. Whether they're watching or listening, everybody has something to overcome. So I want to get into some of that stuff as well, but just kind of high level. Tell them who you are and what you're all about.

Got into the mortgage business when I was about 19, 20 years old around here in Orange county, which is where I'm from, it was the mortgage capital of the world. More mortgage companies than anywhere else for sure. So started in a call center. I think the first product that I sold was a 9.9, 100% first mortgage. Four points on the front, four points on the back. I didn't know any different.

God bless.

Yeah, it was terrible, but it was what it was, right? It was the market and call center. Internet leads just started coming out. The Internet had just come out. So call center. And we're buying the lendingtree.com leads. He was faxing them to us out of his garage. Super cool story. And yeah, just I Pounded the phones. And ultimately I was. It was all I had. I barely graduated high school. College wasn't an option for me. And so I really stuck with that for about 15 years until the 0809 crash. And then I had to reinvent myself after the 0809 crash, like many people did. I had to stay with the industry. I mean, I could have detailed cars. I was good at that. But that wasn't going to pay the bills for the family. And switched it over and started building a business that was referral based after that. And for the back 15 years of my life, that's what I've been doing ever since.

So in the world of, like, commercially successful lenders, like we talked about, even though you work with cross country, this huge company, your. Your personal team in production would make you one of the top 100 lenders, like, companies in the country. So you're succeeding at a really high level. And that immediately has people think, well, that guy's got no problems. Yeah, he solved it all. He's fought all the good fights. This concept of this book, perseverance Principles. I mean, I've read Ray Dalio's Principles, Right. You sent me an advanced copy of your book. Help the listener understand, like, why did you write this book? What is it you're trying to accomplish? And then I really want to get into some gritty details of, like, how do we do it? Because the person listening right now, myself, everyone sitting inside this studio, we will all face tragedy, we will all face hardship, we will all face what feels like an impossible scenario going back to 2007, eight, nine, or even the last three years in residential real estate, right?

Yeah.

Six and a half to seven and a half mortgage rates made perseverance a thing again.

Yeah, so.

So. So maybe just. Let's just start with why did you write the book?

Yeah, for me, it was a God thing. I mean, it was a thread that I pulled. I was going through some branding exercise with brand builders and. Rory. Yeah. And as we did it all done, there was this, like, foundation for this book. And because of what we've been going through the past three and four years, it reminded me a lot of the things that we went through in 0809. The difference was, is I had the tools this time to persevere through these market conditions, whereas before I hadn't. And so I'm looking at this going, okay, you know, this could really help a lot of people from the real estate and from the mortgage side of things, but it also can help anyone that ever has gone through hard things. And I think so many people are looking for inspiration, inspiration from other people today, like podcasts and all of that. And I asked myself, I was like, people have already gone through so many hard things in their own lives that they should be taking inspiration from themselves. But it's something that we talked about earlier, right? Especially guys, we tuck it down deep. It never happened. I don't want to think about it. Yeah, suppress it. Which creates a whole nother issue in itself. But that's also fuel that people can realize and motivation be like, hey, I've gone through this already. This in front of me is just a different version of that. What did I do to get through that? I need to apply those same principles to get through this. And so these were really just the principles that I've used to get through a lot of the stuff in my early childhood, most of which I've persevered just in the past five or six years through a lot of that. And the things through 0809 that I think a lot of people in our industry can really relate to.

So you just said something that I want to pull the thread on, and that is we know in human psychology, something happens to every human being somewhere between, like, 6, 7, 8 years old. And I've told the story for me, like, my parents got divorced, and I remember my mom hanging up the phone and saying, your dad has left us. Right? Like just that. That moment, Right?

Yep.

And I remember saying, how can I help? And I haven't stopped now. I'm 55. Right. And I'm still in that same how can I help? But there was behind that tremendous amount of insecurity, a tremendous amount of fear, a tremendous amount of things I had to ultimately get over in my life. So maybe just for the person listening, give us an example of one of the principles if somebody was really being honest with themselves. The people listen to my show are people like you and I. Like, they. They want to get out there. They're go getters. I'm like, the number of times I get, you know, a snapshot of something, they were on a run, they're walking their dog, they're outside, they're riding their bike, and hey, I'm listening to the Tom Ferry podcast. You know, like, that's. That's very typical for, you know, the people that are listening to the show. Give us an example, a few of the principles you found that helped to maybe get through some of those. Either early childhood memories or even just the memories of going from 2021 to 2024 in residential real estate.

Yeah. I think it's principle one which is the most important. That's your discomfort zone. It's working through the discomfort zone, not suppressing the discomfort zone.

Man, why'd you start with the hardest one?

Because that's where it has to start. Otherwise you just. Otherwise you just keep falling backwards, wondering why it is that you can't keep, you know, can't keep getting ahead where you want to go. It's because you haven't pushed through that discomfort zone.

But can I just fake it till I make it?

Yes, for a little while.

Yeah.

You know, and that. That's. And that was me as well. So, you know, one of the things I said, I recently unpacked a lot of the stuff that happened in my early child. Lots of death, lots of losses, sexual abuse at younger age. Just things that I had to unpack that I didn't do except for the past five years. Been working in therapy for a while, but when I did, I lost 75 pounds. I got really, really healthy. Like, all of those were things on the outside that were reflecting what was truly going on the inside. And I was really disciplined in my business, but I wasn't disciplined in my personal life and in my health. And so what I had to do was, all right, well, how do I take this discipline and apply them to these other areas of my life? I know how to be disciplined. I know how follow a system, know how to follow a plan. Well, I've got to work through this discomfort zone first. And once I did, man, unpacking it just lightens the backpack to allow you to go and run further and do things you weren't able to do before.

So how do you define the uncomfort zone? Give us an example. What does that mean?

Well, we just. You and I just did this exercise, right? It is. What is the thing that really. That really you're scared of? Like, what is it that scares you? What is the action that scares you? What is the result that scares you? What's holding you back? What is it when you think about the past that you're avoiding in the past? And the past could be last week, could be last month, could be last year. It could be when you're six, right? Just all of that. But it's that avoidance and then just hitting it head on. What's amazing about it is when you hit something head on and embrace it, it dissipates. It no longer has a hold on you anymore, and it releases a lot of the anxiety. I mean, I was on anxiety medications daily and you know, all of, I was self medicating, you know, all of those things that I think people do to suppress that. But as soon as I was able to slowly but surely work through each of those layers, it didn't have a hold of me anymore. No more medication, no more self medicating for those reasons.

So the thing that was it Joseph Campbell who said, the thing you want the most is, you know, at the, the very bottom of the cave, you fear to enter. I totally butchered that. But yeah, so, so how, how do I like for my friend? If you want more information about this episode, including my show, notes, mentions, links and everything else, make sure you visit tomferry.com podcast. That's tomferry.com podcast. Thanks again and talk to you soon. You suppress yourself out of fear because that's the, that's, that's the discomfort zone. Yeah, once, once they identify it though, you say just run into it. But are there, are there some tactics or questions or have you found like inside of that that it probably doesn't ease the burden?

No, I think.

What do they do?

I think it goes back to confidence. Right. So a lot of times we're not doing them. It's not out of just fear. It's shame, it's guilt, it's not being good enough or worthy. Right. All of those things are mixed in there. For me, it was more shame worthy than it was fear. The fear was the byproduct of the shame and the not feeling worthy. So you have to do harder things. So I think doing hard things consistently over time, what it does is it builds confidence. Confidence is the number one driver of performance and professional athletes. So, you know, a lot of times, you know, you have this false confidence. It will take you so far and it'll look like, you know, at the top of the world, but sooner or later you crash and you burn. Right. And so how do you generate like true, real confidence? It's just addressing and getting true, real confidence with yourself and in doing so. So an example would be like if you're afraid of heights, then probably jumping out of an airplane and going skydiving might be a really great way to just open your eyes. I'm like, wow, this is pretty amazing. Or cold plunging. Like I cold plunge every morning when it's really, you know, really freezing water. Why? It's hard. It's how I start my day. So I think taking things, if you're afraid of making cold calls, the fear of rejection Then every day you got to make five cold calls every single day, no matter what. Well, in about 30 days you're probably not going to be so afraid of making cold calls, right? So I think those are just little examples, but especially in sales, I think there's so much fear around the action and activity that we do in sales. By just taking bite sizes over long periods of time, you'll realize like when you think about when I had to think about losing 75 pounds, I never lost 75 pounds. When I just thought about waking up, going to the gym and doing what I was told to do that day and that moment for that hour and then focus on it the next day and the next day and the next day, the 75 pounds comes off over time. Yes.

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We all in our lives, myself, everyone you know, you listening, you and I having this conversation. We all have these demons that we have to like work through, right? Demons, issues, old beliefs. One of the things that I always found is if I would write it out, you know, I'm afraid of this. And then I write down like I just honest about it. Here's the issue. This is what's going on is this, is the relationship going to end? You know what I mean? If I ask that person, what if they say no, it's all that stuff. The thing I always go back to is like three questions for me and I don't know who gets the credit for this, so I'm not taking credit, but I use it all the time is I literally start with, okay, so what's the worst case scenario? What's the worst case scenario? And then I'm like, like I. So I had a deal I was working on recently and it could have been a really big windfall, could have been a really big opportunity. And you know, I'm excited about. My wife's excited about it and the deal goes sideways, right? And it wasn't like Horrific. But when you're in the middle of it, it, like, for my friend that's watching right now, like, have you ever had something go sideways, you wanted it to go left, and it started going right. Have you ever had that experience? Do you know the anxiety that creates the emotion, especially if you're massively attached to the outcome?

Yeah.

And I was. I, you know, I try not to ever fully attach myself to anything other than, like, my wife, my children, you know, my closest friends. Everything else, like, you know, you can find something new. So. So I felt attachment to this, and in that. When all of a sudden it goes from left to going right. I was laying there in bed at 11:30, like, I'm all by myself. I can't call my wife. I can't, like, talk it out with somebody. So I'm in my head, jj, and I'm. I'm reeling. And then I'm like, fairy, stop. What's the worst case scenario? And I wrote down, well, this isn't going to kill me. I'm not going to die.

Right.

And then I'm like, what's the most likely scenario? Well, the most likely scenario is, you know, we. We shop this to another. You know what I mean? That's the most likely scenario. And then someone else gets it, and, you know, maybe they'll take advantage of this and, you know, we can ride off to the sunset together. What's the best case scenario? They change their mind, right? Like, they change their mind. Maybe. Maybe we. We missed something in the pitch. Maybe we didn't, you know, demonstrate what it is we said we could do, you know, that kind of thing. But. But I'd always start to remember the first one. If I can accept the worst case scenario, then I'm, like, free of it. So that. That helps me work through that, helps me persevere rather than have 24, 72 hours or 72 weeks or too many years.

Right.

Of just being miserable over it. Does that make sense?

It makes total sense. You know, I. One of the questions I'll like. An exercise all people go through is write down the top three things, top of mind, that you've ever gone through, ever in your life. And you write those three things down, and when you really look at those things, and then next to that, you go, okay, well, what. What came out the other side of those things? And you write what comes out the other side of those things.

Hold on. So you mean like, someone I love died?

Correct.

You know, I lost my job.

Right.

You know, whatever.

A relationship ended a relationship Divorce. Right.

Okay. So now we're getting to the meaty stuff. Okay. So I write down the three things that have happened in my life that I had to persevere through.

That you already have persevered through.

Okay. And then the second part is what.

Came out in the other side. Correct. So maybe there was a divorce, you lost a relationship, and now you're in a new relationship and you're super happy, or you're not and you're super happy. Or there was a death in the family, but, you know, it was because that death in the family. The rest of the family was brought together because of that. Right. These are examples of things that it's like when we think about, like, I thank God every day that I didn't. Like, if I think about the two or three ex girlfriends that I thought the world was going to end because we broke up, and I think about being married to them. Oh, my gosh. Like, I could not imagine. God gave me my wife. Thank you. I thank God every day for that. Right. And I think a lot of people can relate to those things. And then it's just when we're going through something in the moment, we compare them to those three things and we go, well, it's not that. And I already. If I could go through that, then I can for sure go through this. And it goes to the mountain and the molehill. I think a lot of times we set the wrong expectations for ourselves about what's happening and look at it as a mountain when it might be a molehill and it may be a mountain, but you have other mountains you've already conquered. You've already come up with the tactics to go through it. And that's where this book came through. It's like, these are the principles that I've used to be able to push through it. And I think others can, too.

So the thing that's going through my head that. That I want to do coming out of this is I want to list out. It's almost like the. The stories of perseverance. Of my own life.

Yes.

You know, mom and dad getting divorced. What did that mean? You know, getting kicked out of this high school and that. High school and that. High school.

Yeah, high school.

And then, you know, meeting my wife for the first time and then her totally ghosting me.

Yeah.

And me following up. We've all experienced loss and hardship and things that didn't go our way. But what do you say? I like. I'm going to do that. I like the idea. Maybe you do, too. Right. Like, I'm going to list out all the things I actually have done. But what do you say to the person that says, but jj, on the other side of it, it actually got worse.

A lot of times it's going to get worse before it gets better. But I would argue that it always gets better. It always turns into something better. And every time I don't think like or I always wonder how, it just does. And I think as a man of faith, for me, I can always rely on that. And if you don't have that, I would agree it's going to definitely be harder. But there are things that ultimately that start out bad that always end up good. And most successful people that I talk to, like yourself and others that I've coached, is they all have these stories and things are usually better on the other side where you think they're the darkest. And I share one of those stories in the book about, like, it was one of two things. I was either going to end my life or I was going to push through it and give it all I had and fight. It was one of those two things. And I decided to fight. And it could have gone either way. And I think, you know, God for thank God that I decided to fight because it would have just ended there and then afterwards would have been, who knows? But I would have hoped that maybe my. My girls would have persevered through it and they could have talked about that. But instead it would have been, instead it was my story to be able to push, survey and then be able to build what I built.

So what happened that caused you to.

Actually consider suicide at this point? Everything up to that point, I hadn't unpacked. I hadn't unpacked any of my early childhood abandonment, things like that that I had gone through. So it was a lot of that, a lot of shame and guilt and worthy that was built in there. But at 0809, we went when we lost everything. So our house was foreclosed upon. The cars were taken out of the driveway. You know, I was the top subprime loan officer for lendingtree.com and so arguably the worst job in the country.

You did this?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was like, what do you do for a living? You're like, gardener, you know, is anything but what I did. And I was something. It was something I was proud of. I worked really hard for. Right. And so. But we lost everything. The last car, we thought. I thought the lease was safe, but in the bankruptcy, the car, they can take a leased car. So in the little lease contract it says it doesn't matter if the judge says you can keep it, we can take it. And they took it. And that was kind of it for me. And I was really, really just sitting there and just contemplating everything around me. I had a baby that was just born, really weeks or months, and then I had a 2 year old. My wife and I were married just for a couple years. And so it was just the weight of failure. And then it was like gasoline on the flames of shame, so to speak. And at that point, then I even had my bike. I had a bike that I drove to work. I rented a little cubicle and then a homeless guy stole my bike. Right. All in perspective. But it was like, dude, I didn't know if I had what it took to be able to fight through it. And then that's just. And I had a lot of mental illness that I was still working through because of the lack of working through the early stage thing. So that was that, that moment. And so I still attribute that definitely to a God thing who picked me up and pushed me in the right direction. I still made lots of mistakes after that, but that was the fork in the road for me to decide that, hey, I'm going to fight. I have something to fight for. I have something bigger than myself. Because up into that, up until that point, I was just fighting for myself, my worth, my ego, success. I had a baby, I had a small child, I had a family now. So it was, it was a lot at that time. So it wasn't just 0809. And you know, I'm in the mortgage business.

I appreciate you sharing that.

Yeah.

Because that's, you know, we talked sort of off camera in our little coaching session talking about, you know, the ego and how easy it is to just become so self absorbed.

Yeah. Big time.

And I see, I don't see.

Let me restate that.

Sometimes we need to be so inwardly focused, that's what will get us to persevere. Right?

Yeah.

But on the other side of that, if you're just so self focused, it's hard to sustain momentum. I don't see a lot of people that are joyful or happy in that state. I see a lot of sort of mental abuse that they put on themselves in that state. So. So if there's someone listening right now who is just like they're, they're really listening like this, this message was for them. What do you say to that person to get them to just keep fighting?

I think the best thing that they can do. The best thing that happened to me is surround yourself with the right people. You know, get. Get with someone that's already paved the.

Path before back in like 2008.

What'd you do in 2008? In that moment? What did I do? That's. Honestly, I started hanging around with different people that thought differently, that were doing things the way that I wanted to do them. You know, you hang out with clowns, you're gonna get a circus. And I hung out in a lot of circuses up to that point. And so I made a decision to truly go find the people that were persevering already in through what I was going through and spend more time with them.

Even. Even if it's like they're like 10 days ahead of you in the crisis of 2008.

Yeah, 100%.

They're still 10 steps ahead of you.

10 steps ahead. They had a better attitude. They weren't so, you know, they weren't so, you know, maybe victimized, they were just in a better head space, or maybe they were still doing really, really well. But it was that. That was really, really important was getting myself around something different than the environment that I was in. Because you' your environment. So I didn't need more of that.

Yeah, it's so interesting. We, you know, we talk about it like I environment really is like. When I look back at the greatest gift my pops gave me was exposure, which is just another way of saying the environment, who you spend your time with, and how much that can shift the challenges. And again, I'd love for you to speak to this. When you are in that dark place. We're still on principle number one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are there any more principles in this?

Yeah, it's the. It's the most important one.

Yeah. When you're. When you're in that dark place.

You don't feel worthy of even talking to those people. You think. You actually think those people are talking shit about you the entire time. So why in the world, when I go talk to them, I don't need to reinforce it. I'm already in my head, right? There may be only one person that needs this message. What do you say to that person to get them to just get over the fear? Because that's all it is. It's the self worth. It's those three questions we talked about, right? Like, do I believe it's there? Do I believe I'm capable? And will it be worth the effort? Will it be worth the effort to go say, I need some help?

Yeah, 100%. I think it's setting so to push it through. Like ego is such a part of it. We talked about like there's this fine line between confidence and ego. Right. And there's a healthy ego and an unhealthy ego. Up to that point. Even after that point, I had way more unhealthy ego than anything else. And so ego is something that held me back from seeking help, seeking counsel. And that's where you have to start is asking and whether that's with God, just because he's accessible. If you're a believer, he's accessible all the time, or a friend or someone at work, it's going out and seeking counsel and asking for help. And people, man, the one thing I've realized is anyone will help you if you ask for help. If you really ask for help, a really good human is going to help you any way they can. Whether it is connect you with someone who can help you better, guide you, give them, you know, give them some advice, send you to the right, send you to the right group of people, they will help you. So it all starts with seeking help and seeking counsel.

Yeah, I agree, I agree. We were talking, we were talking offline about every time I get in my head I actually just try and help other people.

Right.

Like, like that's my strategy, that's my go to and, but I get, I've had to wire that in. I've had to condition that as a way to. Look, we all get into our heads. I mean, you know, what do they say the average person on an airplane has like 4 thoughts of death and dying per hour? Yeah, well, I was on like 200 airplanes last year. That would be a lot of time of thinking of death and dying. I've, you know, I don't have that anymore. Like that was the early days of flying. But we all have those like triggers and cues that bring us back to that, that fear based spot. So I, I love the insight of that's where you have to be courageous enough to ask for help.

Yeah.

To be able to say to someone, a co worker, a pal, a buddy, man, I'm in a dark place right now.

Yes.

Because when you're in your head, it's cliche. When you're in your head, you're dead. Right. I always say your head is a scary place to be. Like don't go there alone.

No.

So, so let's, let's flip gears. What's, what's another principle coming off, number one that you think would help the person Listening right now like, they're okay, I'm gonna start asking for help. I'm gonna. I'm gonna fight through the demons. I'm gonna get after it. Right. I'm not gonna Bill Burr. I'm not gonna keep suppressing all this nonsense. I'm gonna attack it. What's the next best one? Is it number two or is it number 12?

No, I mean, I would think it's probably putting plans into practice. You know, when you're able to. When you're able to work through a discomfort zone and you start going, okay, I have some plans, I have some ideas. Well, they don't go far unless you actually put them into practice and have some accountability around doing them right. So it kind of goes to when you were asking me earlier, what are some things that people can do to kind of get themselves out of that discomfort zone? It's literally putting plans into practice and doing hard things. And some things are not going to be hard, and some things that are hard are going to start feeling a lot easier after you've done them for a period of time. But it's like anything. When you take some time off, then they get hard again. It's always having something to go back to your compass. In the book, you'll see the compass everywhere because those type of habits and things are going to be the compass that you can always go back to. But I think that's inaction is like I always say, indecision is just a decision somebody else is making for you. So if you can take and make the decision of what it is that you want and what it is that you're going to do to get there and who it is that you're going to seek in order to help you. I think putting the plans into practice are some of the most important things.

I agree. I think, you know, for my friend listening, too, I think we're saying the same thing, maybe just using a different word. I think it's like. Structure. Yeah, structure. When I'm. When I'm in that dark spot and I'm trying to work my way out, I have this tendency. I use this example of, like, if you ever take your daughters right to bowl, right. Bowling. And I tell the story of, like, taking my son to go bowling and my wife is with her girlfriend. She's like, you got the boys. I'm like, oh, okay, great. What do you guys want to do? Let's go bowling. I'm like, I don't like bowling, but all right. You know, I try and be a Good dad. And, you know, it takes 30 minutes. Just put the shoes on, pick the right ball, get the right weight. Then we get over there and my younger son, Steven, like, through his legs, throws it right in the gutter. My younger son, Michael, throws it into the next lane and they look at me like, bowling sucks.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I'm a bad dad. Okay, hold on. But then I look down the way and I see those, like, lights, the little, you know, like plastic bumper things going down, like the lights. And I'm like, hey, can I get, can I get one of those lanes? Right? The guy's like, you should have asked. Let me go down there. The bikes throw the ball and it goes bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And eventually it knocks down a couple pins and they're like, oh, they're loving it.

Right. And I use that, that bowling example of when I'm. When I'm trying to take on a new project and I don't know how I'm going to get there. When I'm going through a deal that's going sideways and I have to accept the worst case scenario. I now need to now fight to revive that deal as an example or start anew. I'm like, how do I get those bumper rails up?

Yeah.

Right. Because what I need to do is I've got to have forward motion. I've got to be going this way towards the, you know, the compass, the right way, whatever it is. But it's so easy to get distracted.

Yeah.

So. So what do you say to the person that, you know like me? It's like, oh, yeah, it's it. I get the metaphor. But like, it's hard. I'm an independent contractor. If no one, If I never sell a house again, nobody cares.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Totally.

How do I put that structure around me to keep moving forward until I get into momentum? And then you start to get the success.

Yeah. I think the most important thing is discipline. It is discipline. Because if. And if you don't have discipline, then you can create discipline or put disciplines around you. Right. So those, those bumpers you talked about, those were disciplines that you were putting up for the ball so that the ball could only go the one direction. And so whether that is. And this is where I love accountability. Right. Because accountability is an extension of discipline. So if you don't have discipline, then great. If you're just calling and asking someone to be your accountability partner, then that's discipline, believe it or not. Right. Just making that call and then let them Take over the discipline from there. So you know, I have my trainer, she's at my house 6am every single morning. Why? Well, because I know that I'm not going to let someone sit out in front of my house at 6am and I'm not going to be there. That's my discipline to make sure that I'm there, make sure that I'm doing the things properly, right? Not just doing a half arse push up, but a real push up because that's why we're there. So I think setting up discipline in any way, shape or form in their lives. So when I do my call, my power hours, I have my call list prepared for everything. So my call lists are already prepared so that I'm disciplined. So I don't have the excuse. Who do I call?

Jj, you still making phone calls?

All day, buddy. All day. Never. No, no, gotta do that. At the top. I write what my go to conversation is. So maybe it's something I'm inviting you to. Maybe it's a new loan product that goes right at the top. So now I have no excuse because I know what I'm talking about with all of these people. And then instead of sitting at my office and my computer where I'm going to be distracted, I get in my car, I drive down to Dana Point Harbor, I park it right there. So I just have nothing but cool stuff to look at and I just make calls in my car until I'm done. And so those are all disciplines that I put in effect. Not because I'm super disciplined, it's because I lack discipline to just go ahead and go, okay, here's my call block. And not know what I'm going to call or who I'm going to call or what I'm going to say and then get distracted by everything around me. So just setting up those disciplines is key.

I love it. I love it. And discipline can be people. It could be. Hey, a buddy. Hey, can we do this together? Making phone calls. What? You know, whatever the thing is. Okay, so when does the book come out?

October 7th. So it's pre. Sales are available currently and October 7th it'll be in stores.

Where do I, where do they go?

If they want to buy a copy, buy a copy. Amazon, Barnes and Noble or a perseverance dot com. Perseverance principles.com. no, no, man, I couldn't get that one. Perseverance principles.com.

Perseverance principles. So yes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. So I'm buying a bunch of copies. I would certainly encourage you to get a copy or three or four. And I like in this book already, so I got advanced copy. What I like about this is I feel like it's a book that I can give to just about anyone because everybody has either has or will go through something that requires perseverance. Yep. I mean, that's. That's the entire planet. We were talking off camera, like, you know, we've never been more socially connected, yet more lonely.

Right.

We never had access to the right kind of things that we've. And yet suicide is at its highest.

Right.

Like, there's. There's all these things. Don't even get me started with the political insanity for people. Right. People are focusing on the wrong stuff, and they need perseverance to get out of it. That's why I'm a big fan of this book, and I think you should get a copy. All right. As we. As we get near wrapping this up, of all the principles and to put you on the spot, what's the one that you were, like, maybe nervous about sharing?

I think the one that I was most nervous about sharing is the legacy, which is the last one, because it's what we're working on, which is like to think about a legacy when, first off, I'm still in the middle of it, right. I'm still in the thick of it. But to think about that legacy is like, man, you know, what does that look like? And how. Does. What does legacy look like for my family when I'm gone? So it really takes you going, okay, I'm gone, and here's my family or my business or whatever else is still left behind. I think that's the hardest one for anyone to work through. Because when you're going through hard things and you're thinking about the grind today, you're not thinking about legacy. And so I'm still going through hard things all the time. And so to think about legacy or, like, I don't know, it goes back to, am I worthy? You know, am I being a little presumptuous here? Like, what legacy do I have? I'm not Elon Musk. I'm not Benjamin Franklin. Right. But we all have something, and we're all here for a purpose, and we're going through these trials in our lives and persevering through them so that we can leave a legacy that's everlasting, that's good for people around us. Who those people are, that's not necessarily our business or choice, but we do have to think about that, because I think when we're thinking about legacy, then everything in between and all the hard stuff we go through make it all that much more worthwhile.

I love that. Have you ever read the poem the Dash?

I haven't.

So the poem the Dash for my friend. I don't know if we could put it in the show notes. It was first given to me at a client who.

She like Thanksgiving Day, her 18 year old daughter and husband go out and dune buggies separately and she flips it and lands and dies instantly. 18 years old, right. Like I even just thinking about it now, like my heart just breaks. And I remember calling a mentor, saying, I don't know what to say to her. What, you know, what do you say to someone that just went through something this, you know, just, just heart wrenching. And he said, you should Google right now the Dash. And the Dash was this beautiful poem that's written about like the day you're born and the day you die and it's the dash in the middle. And the significance of this was like to remember that though her dash was cut short, the Dash is exactly the same length. You just got to look at everything that she did, the light that she was. And I've used that in example of like when I think about legacy. Yeah, it's, it's like that's the dash, right? That's the dash of my life now. What's the imprint I want to have on the people I love, the people I care for, the community that I serve, the business that I'm in, the industry that I'm a part of, like that's the dash. And I've always found like, even in my hardest days, it's interesting you bring it up like on my most chance. I have challenging days too, in case you're wondering. In my most challenging days I go to my 20 year vision. That's one of the things that I can do to pull myself out of it. Because my 20 year vision, which you and I have talked about and worked on, it doesn't say he had no issues, he had no challenges, he had no problems. Everything for Tom Ferry just works out automatically every time. No, it's like against all odds. Kathy and Tom Married now for 43 years. More in love today, battled through the, you know, la da la la the boys turned out to be. And I talk about all these like, for me, like courageous things I felt we were going to have to go through.

Yeah, right.

Not that I wanted to have to go through them, but that's, that's the journey that's Life. So I actually. I actually really appreciate, like, when you said that, like, that was. That was meaningful for me. Like, it is about legacy.

Yeah.

Like, that's a way to pull yourself out. But also, gosh, just don't. Don't minimize the legacy. Legacy. Because when you're into fire, it's hard to dream big and to think about.

Like, what's possible 100%. That's the motivating factor. You've got to have that hope, that fuel, that motivates you. So I really hope this is more tools and a playbook to help people get from the discomfort zone to get to the thinking about legacy part, which was something that almost didn't happen for me and something I never thought was possible. And if I can do it, then for sure, anyone else can do it. And it was just putting this together to help them.

I love it, man. Well, I appreciate you and thank you for being vulnerable and sharing on the show. So. Hey, perseverance principles. Check out that book. I think it's, like, maybe the fifth time I've actually talked about a book on the show.

Well, thank you, man. I'm honored. Thank you.

So buy lots of books and give them to all the people that, you know that maybe need a message like this. One thing that I love is following you on Instagram because, you know, you're. You're just. Your videos just always resonate for me.

So thank you.

Jj M A Z, Z O. Is it just that? Is there an underscore?

There's an underscore after it, yeah.

Okay.

JJ M A Z Z O underscore.

Okay. So I would definitely follow him on Instagram, too. And, oh, by the way, he does do mortgages also. Side note.

Right?

Side note. All right. Okay, man. Well, thank you so much for being a part of the show and sharing your thoughts. I can't wait to, like, really actually have the physical book and read it. And as I mentioned, I'm gonna buy a bunch of copies and give them some people that I know that also need to persevere. So let me know in the comments below. Are you gonna follow them on Instagram? What was the insight for you? Go back to that first principle, because that's, like, the one thing I think, as all humans, we need to overcome that. I mean, that's. It's biblical. I mean, it's been written. It's the hero's journey. It's totally Star Wars. It's the Matrix. Right. It's everything.

Right?

So. So I wish you nothing but the strength and courage to persevere. Enjoy the show. Thank you so much for being a part of it, jj. Thank you. We're out.

Thanks, brother.