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 nine eighty eight for twenty four seven 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 nineteen twenty 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 nine point nine one hundred percent 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 dot 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 fifteen years until the zero eight zero nine crash and then i had to reinvent myself after the zero eight zero nine 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 fifteen 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 one hundred 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 the studio we will all face tragedy we will all face hardship we will all face what feels like an impossible scenario going back to two thousand seven 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 zero eight zero nine 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 zero eight zero nine 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 six seven eight 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 fifty five 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 twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four 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 seventy five 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 dot com podcast that's tomferry dot 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 and 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 thirty 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 seventy five pounds i never lost seventy five 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 seventy five pounds comes off over time yes hey it's.

Tom ferry question what's your favorite social media platform are you big on insta do you love to tweet no matter where you answer i'd love for you to connect with me there's a all you gotta do is just type in omferry and follow and let's you and i connect i want to be able to deliver the right content the right ideas the ways to help you grow your business stay fired up keep moving be in action and run plays that work and the platform that matters most to you so subscribe and i'll see you there soon i think about it too 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 eleven thirty 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 twenty four seventy two hours or seventy two weeks or too many years right of just being miserable over.

It does that make sense it makes total sense you know 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 on 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 zero eight zero nine 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 dot 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 two 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 zero eight zero nine 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 two thousand eight what did.

You do in two thousand eight 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 ten days ahead of you in the crisis of two thousand eight yeah one hundred percent they're still ten steps ahead.

Of you ten 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 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 one hundred percent 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 four thoughts of death and dying per hour yeah well i was on like two hundred 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 twelve 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 thirty 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 six am every single morning why well because i know that i'm not going to let someone sit out in front of my house at six am 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 seventh so it's pre sales are available currently and october seventh 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 dot com no no man i couldn't get that one perseverance principles dot 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 i had a client who she like thanksgiving day her eighteen year old daughter and husband go out and dune buggies separately and she flips it and lands and dies instantly eighteen 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 twenty year vision that's one of the things that i can do to pull myself out of it because my twenty year vision which you know you and i have talked about and worked on it's 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 yeah kathy and tom married now for forty three 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 one hundred percent 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.