No Exit Door: How Jonathan Berryhill Turned Military Combat Into $500M+ in Closed Deals

I do not want to be a loser or a victim. I want to be a winner and a victor. I tell my kids this all the time. You cannot be a victim and a victor at the same time. Pick one. Also, it's hard being broke and it's also hard creating wealth. Pick your hard.

Welcome to Big Hitters. I'm Larry Weidel and this show is for people who are done playing small. Each week we break down what it actually takes to win at a high level. The decisions, the discipline, the adjustments that separate those who almost do it from those who do it. No theory, no fluff, just straight talk from someone who spent 50 years building winners. If you're serious about momentum, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. Hello everybody. We're talking with Jonathan Berryhill from Northern Alabama. Hello, Jonathan.

Hey, hey, how are you doing?

You know, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about winning today. As just as a way of introduction for the world at large, this is kind of a public service thing I do as representation of our Big Hitter Group. And, you know, we— all of my coaching I do other than this podcast, I do inside that the big hitters. And so we like to let people get a, you know, flavor of what we do inside there. And hopefully, uh, you know, a few months down the road, Jonathan, we're gonna be asking you to come back in for our— one of our locker room, uh, sessions we do to kick off the week. If we could— I could get that as a tentative, uh, request, put it on your calendar for somewhere down the road. You know, it's exciting to win The world— the reason I'm doing this, everybody, the reason Jonathan is doing— the world needs more winners, darn it. And we need more people like you that are listening to get going. And whatever the missing pieces you— let's face it, inside your heart and your bones, you know what you're capable of doing and you know if you're on track to do it or not. And That's where the satisfaction and enjoyment and peace of mind comes from, is being on track for what you were designed by your creator to do. And when you're in that world, Jonathan, I don't know about you, but I'm unapologetic on my track. You know what I'm saying? That's right. I don't need anybody to challenge me about or get me to apologize. I'm a man on a mission, you know, and I'm not going to be here forever. And I know you are, too. So let's talk to Jonathan and find and pick his brain on what he's learned about winning and making, you know, how to decide, you know, the right choices when he comes to the forks in the road in his life. And we all— I mean, we're going to have 14 forks in the road by the end of the day, all of us. And so, you know, you lean this way or lean that way because of the way you think, because of patterns you set up, principles that you you've learned that work. When you start to move in your life, things happen fast, and you got to be your own best self-coach, and you got to go with your instincts, you know. And, uh, you know, if you're wrong, you make a correction. You learn something, you make a correction. And, uh, anyway, you're stacking the odds for success. So on behalf of the Big Hitter World, uh, welcome Jonathan. And those of y'all that are going to be listening today and get excited about what you hear and you want to know get more involved in our world, see us at joinbighitters.com. And so, Jonathan, what in the world are you doing with yourself? You started off with— what I liked about your— you figure something out that hundreds of thousands of people, I think, men and women across the country would love to figure out, and that is how to go from either a bureaucratic job or a military job or some kind of thing where you're in employee world and break out of that and get your own thing. And, uh, is my— are my notes correct that you were in the military?

That is correct. I did 7 years in the Army, uh, got out of ex-infantry sergeant, um, went to combat, went— did the tour over in Bosnia in the late '90s, right after the Bosnian War. We went over there to enforce the peace. And so loved my time, got out of there and went into law enforcement.

Yeah, and let's talk about that.

Yeah, so I got out of the military, banged up pretty rough, and so joined— got into law enforcement. The only thing I learned how to do was shoot and chase bad guys overseas. So I thought, heck, I'll just get in law enforcement. So that's what I did. I had to pay the bills. My wife was pregnant, so I had to figure something out real quick. Like, so that's, that's what I did. I went to police academy, got out, did a total of about 4 years in law enforcement and Quickly lost some friends, got shot and killed doing search warrants and stuff. And so my wife— my— yes, sir, my wife begged me to get out of it. It was about tearing our marriage apart, honestly. We actually had filed for divorce, and, uh, the Lord woke me up one day and said, I'm about to wreck my life. I'm from a broken home as well. I've been on my own since I was about 15 years old. And, um, so I woke up real quick, uh, you know, from a nightmare that I could see the future, that it wasn't looking good for me. So I had to make some changes.

Well, a lot of people have that come from rocky— not everybody, of course, but, you know, you know, the military is an option for a lot of kids that come from rocky home situations. How many years was it from 15 to when you got in the— you signed up for the military?

I went in at 18 years old.

Yeah. And in that period of time, what were you doing and how did you How did you survive for those 3 years?

You know, so I was living with friends and, you know, I'd be with my grandparents a lot. I played football. I was a great athlete. I was recruited by Alabama and a number of— Mississippi State, number of schools. And I just didn't have the grades. I barely got out of high school with— back then you had general and advanced diplomas. I think if there was one level below general, that was me. So I got out and I realized real quick, like, I was not going to be going to play college ball. And my girlfriend, her dad was a retired colonel of the Army, Colonel Mike, and I wanted to impress him. So I first went to enlist in the Marines. And then when he told me about Airborne Ranger and all this stuff in the Army, I said, oh, that sounds even more exciting.

So it sounds fun. Yeah, yeah.

So at 18 years old, I went to Fort Benning, Georgia, and started my military career. Woke me up big time.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing looking back on the things that sound fun to us at 18 years old that don't sound so fun now.

Well, I'll tell you this, at 18 years old when I showed up at Fort Benning, Georgia at 1 o'clock in the morning and them RIs and drill instructors— and this is the mid-'90s— they were screaming and jerking us off that bus. I thought, oh good gracious, what have I got myself into?

There's no exit door at that point. I mean, you're in, right? They got you.

That was it.

That's just, just like they slammed the door for behind you if you got into prison or something. I mean, you're not going, you're not going back out.

No, sir.

What was the impact on you? I mean, how did you, you know, you've gone through a lot of tough times yourself and football players, you know, you go, you got a lot of yelling. Yeah. Everybody plays high school football, gets yelled at a lot and does a lot of wind sprints in the hot August sun, getting ready for kick off the season, you know, those suicide drills, all of that stuff. So you've been through stress, you've been through challenges, you've been through good torture. But when you— so you know how to adapt, you know how to, you know, handle things. You weren't like a— what they call these snowflakes, you know, you didn't— you know, there was no mama you could go run home to. So you know how to absorb the thing and bounce back. Think back at that time. How did you— that first severe or second severe challenge, I guess the home breaking up at 15 was a big challenge, but how did you get back on your feet getting off that bus, getting into basic training there?

Well, I'll tell you, you know, one of the reasons I picked infantry was, you know, my dad, he served some time in prison and jail a lot growing up and My dad would joke around about, "Hey, if you're going to do it, you might as well do it right." You know? And so I was thinking, what's the most intense thing in the military? The infantry. You know, then from there you go to becoming a Ranger or a sniper, Special Forces and stuff. And that's all the stuff I wanted to do. So, you know, I just jumped in. And one of the best things it did for me was it gave me structure and it created this identity in me that, hey, I'm a warrior. You know, I can do this. You know, I was told what to do. I could do it well. I was, you know, I pushed myself. I saw other people doing it. A lot of people were failing. I think we graduated 50% or less of who we started with.

Yeah.

You know, I just made my mind up that I was going to do it, that I wasn't going to fail, wasn't going to quit, just like in football. And so I needed that structure. I needed to know who Jonathan Berryhill was. And that was the start of it.

You know, you can't say enough about this, about team sports for kids growing up. You know, you learn so many lessons. You know, that's his— is kind of an education unto itself. And in our business where we're commission sales for 50 years, you know, almost every time you got in a room and of the higher achievers, you say, how many of y'all played sports in high school? Almost the whole room would raise their hand or the band or something like that. Some kind of competitive arena where you learn how to compete. You learn how to— basically, you learn how to get beat. And bounce back, you know. And so you're out there in the Rangers, you're looking around, you've done well in sports, so you, you kind of felt like in a physical arena, I can do well. How long did it take you to get established and start standing out in that arena?

Not long. Um, I knew right away the first few days what I was going to have to do to succeed, and that was going to, you know, discipline myself. You know, I came from being able to do whatever, although I wasn't a kid that was out doing crazy bad things. Not saying I did everything the right way, by no means. I had my fair share. But I knew right away what it was going to take. Number one, I had a purpose, and my purpose was I wanted to impress that little girl back home, her dad and her, that I was someone not just from a broken home, but I was someone capable of achieving something.

You go in there, how long before you get overseas?

I was— I went into Fort Benning, Georgia, the 1st of June, 1996. I left Fort Benning, Georgia, the 1st of November. I weighed 100— I weighed 165 pounds when I left. I went in weighing 210 as a 6-foot-1 college linebacker. Wow. Came out weighing 165 pounds, and I reported to Fort Riley, Kansas, the middle of November. Was getting ready to go to airborne school, and our orders got changed right before I went on leave for Christmas. They said, "You're not going to airborne school when you get back. We'll tell you when you get back where you're going." So I was like, "Huh, wonder what happened." So I get back the 1st of January, and they said, "Hey, everybody report." We went to formation. We got told that we're getting deployed to Bosnia and we're going to start training. This was January '97. So I went to my first sergeant and I said, hey, if we're getting deployed, you think I could go marry my high school sweetheart? Of course, he harassed the stew out of me, but he ended up letting me. I went January 17th, 1997, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division. I married my high school sweetheart, and shortly after there, I went back to Fort Riley and was shipped out to Bosnia in February.

Yeah, and so a lot of changes going on in a young man's life in a short period of time, but you were doing things to get yourself anchored down and positioned to get your feet underneath you to where you could take a stand in life.

Yeah, you want— you know, when you go in the military, you better learn real quick that your goal is to achieve rank. Um, and so I went in as an E-1. There was all these things that other people were in. They came in at E-2, they came in at E-3, and here I am at E-1. I only have a stripe on my side. I'm like, what the heck did I do wrong? I went from E-1 to E-5. Uh, I became a sergeant as quick as I could because I knew that was the guys barking out all the orders, and I needed to be that guy. And so I think in about 26, 27 months I was an E-5 Sergeant, which is very rare nowadays. It takes most people 5 to 6 years to get that kind of rank. I did it just a little over 2 years, right at 2 years from the time I got to my unit, I was getting E-5 Sergeant stripes pinned on.

You know, it's the second big motivation you got there. The first motivation was I want to impress the people back home. The other thing is, like, when you start a business, I think that's something we need to say. You need to win. You need to distinguish yourself. You need to get some customers. You know, it's like, you know, like we used to say, it's great to have the good principles and the good work, but at some point you need to get some wins on the board. You know, you need, you need to just, you know, you need to distinguish yourself. You need to get some rank.

Yeah, that's right. Get some rank, get some bigger pay, get some more, you know, leverage.

Well, the thing is that I don't know where I got this, but I got this early in my life that everything is better. Whatever you're doing, everything's better at the top. That's right.

That is for sure. That is for sure.

And everybody got 24 hours in the day. And it really doesn't matter how you start because hard work is the great equalizer, you know, over time and over time, you know, any kind of advantages, some whether they're prettier or they're smarter or they're, you know, more athletic or whatever, you can outwork your way past A lot of times that's a terrible advantage for people. You know, that's a terrible advantage because they never learned early on, they never learned how to dig into the ground. And those of us who weren't especially gifted, I, you know, I thought I always went to small schools and I always thought my father was Air Force, by the way. So we moved 27 times by the time I was 21. And so, but we always went to small schools and I thought, you know, I was always in the top of my class, always played all the sports. But that was because it was always small schools. And so I graduated, you know, I like top of my class or president of the school, this or the other. But the funny thing was calculus, you know, it was up in the Hamptons, up in Long Island. And so we took all these college courses, everything, took college calculus for all my senior year. So I'm thinking I'm pretty smart, you know? So I go down to Georgia Tech and get down there and the first year you gotta take calculus. So I get the book, I said, this is the same darn book I've had all year, you know? I got this knocked. First of all, I'm pretty smart. And then the other thing, I've had this whole course for a whole year. I'm going to knock this out. And then I had my first test and I got a D on it, and I was lucky to get a D the rest of the whole year. The thing was, in high school, I could memorize stuff and get away with it. You know, when they gave the test, you just burped things back, but you actually had to use this stuff and understand it. And Georgia Tech, and I had no clue what to do with calculus, you know. So, but that when you get to these higher level real world situations, uh, you get reality smacks you in the face and you're either going to stand up to it or you're going to move on to something else. And, uh, it sounds like in the military, you know, you made a major stand, like, I'm here for now and I'm gonna make a stand. That —did have to make the— you know, the other thing is people say, is it worth it? What would you say? How much— describe how it was worth it for you while you were in the military being an E-5 rather than an E-1, you know, going over all these assignments and everything.

The big difference in, you know, from E-5 Sergeant and from E-1, especially in the infantry, you know, where we're in combat, you know, we're shooting, you know, we're leading soldiers, is leadership. Leadership Winning, as you said, when you're in the military and you're overseas, you do not want to lose because losing means your life is gone or your buddy's life is gone. And so that really instilled to me that discipline will overcome motivation every day. The days I don't want to get up and run, the days I don't, I still do it anyway. And by doing that, having that mentality, I'm going to be better. And better is winning, as you say. And so the military gave me that. You know, leaving the military, I went into law enforcement, went to the police academy. I graduated in top 10 of my class and I got into law enforcement and, you know, did that stuff and had some crazy stuff happen there as well.

By the way, if you're still listening right now, you're different. You don't just consume content. You're actively looking for an edge. And that's who I built the Big Hitter community for. Not people chasing motivation, people chasing momentum. Momentum, not theory. Proximity. Proximity to operators who are actually in the arena making real decisions and winning at a high level. Inside Big Hitter, you get conversations we don't have in the podcast, direct access to people who build what you're trying to build in a room that holds you to a higher standard every single week. This isn't a hype group. It's not networking for the sake of networking. It's where serious people go to sharpen their thinking and compress their timeline. If you're done just listening and you're ready to be in the room where it actually happens, head to joinbighitters.com or click the link in the show notes. The right room changes everything. I'll see you inside. What was the big shock for you other than everybody around you dropping like flies? You know, how— what was the big surprise for you in law enforcement?

I think the biggest surprise there was not realizing that every night I went to work, I was in combat. Somehow, you know, whereas in the military, you know, we deploy for 6, 8, 10, 12 months at a time and we're over there, but then when we come back, we're training to get better to go back and do the same thing. You know, here in the States, you know, our law enforcement guys, every time they leave their home, you know, they're going to a combat zone that who knows what's going to happen. You guys see all the media today, crazy stuff happening. So that was the biggest shock to me, was, wow, every night I'm facing some kind of craziness. And it literally was almost every night. I was, you know, some reckless driving, DUI, drugs, narcotics. I quickly got into a narcotics drug task force and did that for a while. And, you know, it was insane. I mean, you don't think about it, you know, because we're safe. We do have men and women in blue that are out there, you know, sacrificing and It's every day.

Perverse way is kind of like how the Lord uses everything to your advantage. Having that situation you went through coming out of the military to where that stage where you were in police kind of probably prepared you to a little bit for business transition because every day was different. All the challenges were different. You had to figure it out. There was no bailout. You know, you're the guy on the scene. And then there's this weird weird crap starts happening and somehow you got to make— bring order into chaos and live to fight another day. And that's pretty good training for business, isn't it?

A very good training for business. Because let me tell you, when I left law enforcement, one of the reasons I left law enforcement was we were— my wife was pregnant with our second child. My first son, my first child when we left the military was my daughter Mabel. And then my second child was Levi, my first son. We have 4 boys, 2 girls. I left. I walked on to play college football. I was 25 going on 26 years old. I walked on to play. I played linebacker at the University of North Alabama and got my degree in biology and chemistry, pre-med. I was going to go become a doctor or surgeon. And so I Finished up at Athens State University because I needed to hurry up. I needed to make money. I was in my late 20s and I was like, man, I got to make some money. And so my wife was carrying a lot of the weight. She had graduated college to become a teacher. And so I made up my mind that I was going to figure out and get in the business world and make some money. I wasn't going to live paycheck to paycheck. That was getting old. And so, you know, that's what I did. I just made up my mind and off we went.

Well, there's a lot of people out there that have done what, you know, I've wanted to do what you've done and be a success at it. So I'm sure they're very interested in how you looked at things. What, what are the biggest challenges you remember, how you sorted through your options and how you got, you know, got a toehold on the mountain? To get started on a new direction and a new career. How did you go through that transition?

Well, the first— I got into healthcare first, so I got into medical device sales because of all my injuries from the Army and from playing college football. I'd been hanging out with an orthopedic surgeon a while, so I actually went to work with him as an assistant to an orthopedic surgeon. I saw the medical device sales as an opportunity to really get in and make some money.. And I knew that I could do that. And one of the biggest things that I tell everyone, especially if they're ex-military or law enforcement, is, hey, listen, going and asking a doctor or surgeon for business, I have no problems. I don't care. I'm not getting shot at. I'm safe. I'll go ask anybody for business. So I just had that mentality of, listen, as long as no one's shooting at me, or, you know, I'll walk in and ask anybody for business and I'll educate the stew out of them on this product and why they need to buy that product. So that's what I did. So I got into that first. Um, and then I was at a conference one day and they started talking about government contracting. Hey, do we got any veterans in here? Of course I raised my hand, you know. And, and so that kind of led me to the government contract world where I started a company. We got a GSA FSS schedule for contract to sell inside the VA hospitals. And so I started selling orthotic and prosthetic devices in the VA hospitals while keeping my other healthcare company, medical device company, going. And then we ran that. I had 3 more boys and another girl. And just, I thought, you know, I was right before, right during COVID I saw a commercial about real estate and I thought, man, I can do that too. So I thought, you know, another stream of revenue wouldn't hurt. So, you know, I got my real estate license, did 2 years as an agent, top agent in the brokerages that I was with. And I only did it part-time. I then I started 3 years ago. I started my own real estate brokerage. Fast forward to now, I've got 3 real estate brokerages. We're in multiple states. I got over 50 agents and, you know, we're doing millions and millions of real estate transactions each year.

I think we show that you've got over $500 million in business acquisitions, closed deals, things like that. You know, and if you talk to somebody who's a soldier, a sergeant in the, you know, in the Army and there are Air Force and they're thinking about getting out and starting a business. And the idea of doing a million in sales in a year, you know, or, you know, ever, ever having a sales, you know, I remember when I got in sales, it's like, is, you know, is anybody ever going to buy this stuff? You know, is that right? Exactly.

Somebody please be my first. Yes. Yeah.

I, I used to go around telling myself they can't all be stupid. If I keep talking to people, I'm going to find somebody with a brain eventually. And But, you know, I don't know about your experience, Jonathan, but it seems like so many things in life I've tried that you go through this stage where it's just not going to work, you know, it's like, and I laugh about it. I say, yeah, here's another thing I proved I can't do. But then if you stay at it and try some of this, try some of that, you find yourself at a point down the road. You don't really even know how it happened, what the thing was, what the door, you know, the door you opened or the corner you went around. But all of a sudden you're like, 100 times further down the road than when you started. And you look back, you say, how did that happen? You know, you— but you got to keep— what I hear out of you, what I'd like people to lock in on is, first of all, you took, you know, you realize the reality. You want to live your life. You know, you're, you're still what, you know, you're, you got your wife, you want your life, and you want to make things happen. You know, you can do well, you know, and, uh, uh, you've proven that to yourself. So you got a backbone, you've got some confidence, uh, you're, you're an achiever, you know how to get rank in a bunch of different things. So when you get out there, what you did was not take 10 years off to find yourself and say, what really motivates me? What's my dream? Do I want to be a musician? Do I want to be a poker player? Do I, you know, do I want to be an artist or whatever? You kept moving with what was in front of you. And from your injuries, you turned it to an advantage. You use the injuries, you're with orthopedic surgeons, you're in the offices, you look around, see the equipment, you say, hey, you know, I can get in. This is a way to get started. And it's, by the way, it's much like Mark Cuban did coming up through the ranks. You know, he was— he got a job at a computer store. You know, he was just like the customer service guy when people come in. And, you know, he would say, well, what's the problem? You know, what's, what's work for what? You know, he would get himself all— he learned everything he could about what— from the customers. Then he'd go back, learn everything he could from the people who are working in the back. And he used it as an educational thing. He's looking like he's had his mind open to take advantage of the opportunity. And then he wound up Larry Weidel, you know, building that app, that program that he sold for so many, you know, billion, hundreds of millions and launched himself. But you're in the same kind of thing where you're going along. This is how it happens, folks. You do— you take advantage of the opportunities that are in front of you. Yeah. Do not be blind to what's right in front of you. And you took that, you said, you know, you didn't immediately say to yourself, Jonathan, oh Lord, what could this turn into? This is never going to be a big deal. You know, like You know what? What? Where could this go? I need something with bigger, you know, tens of millions of dollars potential or whatever. You took it and you, you know, you got as much out of it as you could. And then you— that opened some other doors. And then you said, well, how can I expand out? It's just like a progressive— it's like root systems grow with plants. You get in the ground, you start growing your roots, and then you expand over here, expand over there. And pretty soon you got an incredible root system. You got into multiple income streams. How many income streams do you have right now?

We have 3 real estate brokerages, a government contracting business, and still a healthcare durable medical equipment company. And then we raise Quarter Horses. We do performance horses, reining and cutting horses. That is not an income, but part of the reason I wanted more income was to fund that expensive hobby.

Yeah, I've got, I've got 16 years of riding horses. And so I know that you're not making any money in horses. No, no.

We show, you know, we go and show them and do performing. We love riding them and racing them too. Yeah, we've got a breeding program here at the farm or up at the farm. And so we love that. But, you know, we've got 5 streams of revenue coming in and thankful. And, you know, we're always looking to grow and add something else, you know. And that's the thing, you know, we're, as we say in football, keep your head on a swivel. We do the same thing.

Talk about the B&B Health Services exactly, because that, you know, that has a valuation into the millions now. What actually is B&B Health Services.

So it's a government contracting business that holds a GSA contract and a federal supply schedule for the federal government and for military bases, Department of Defense, or VA hospitals to buy some of our medical products and healthcare products. And so it also is the parent company to our, what we call HAL Medical, H-A-L. And so that is durable medical equipment where patients come in, come into facilities, they get a bone growth stimulator, maybe a knee brace back brace and we bill their insurance. And so, they're the parent company. They actually, our real estate division is up under B&B Health Services as well. And we have other few little shoots of divisions underneath B&B Health Services, but it started as just, you know, a small company and we, you know, generated a lot of revenue and added as we would see a need. Always say, be a problem solver and you'll make a lot of money. As we see problems that need to be solved, we try to create that solution for it underneath the B&B umbrella.

Putting notes together for this, the podcast team went in and looked at all your social media and your bio and this, that, and the other stuff. From Warrior to Wealth, you know, turning discipline into deal flow. What I like about what you've done, it's so easy to get stale, isn't it? Imagine if you just stayed in that one business right there. Now, it could probably have been, you know, probably, you know, been much bigger right now if you only did that one thing. But when you follow these, your natural curiosity and opportunities that come, it's amazing the kind of things you learn, people you meet, skills you develop in the process, and other doors that it opens. Are you glad you pursued those things?

Oh, absolutely. You know, I've heard the saying many times, conversations create contracts. And so, you know, networking and talking and meeting with folks, you know, have created multiple opportunities. My daughter, her husband, my son, his wife, and my 20-year-old son who's about to turn 21 this week, they all work for the family companies. Uh, we spent— they all live on our farm. We have houses for them on our farm. We built houses. Um, so, you know, we joke around, but we have a family compound. We really do. We live on a few hundred acres in North Alabama, just south of Nashville, Tennessee. And that's what inspired me to write the book. It's actually a book that I'm writing called Warrior to Wealth. I'm hopefully going to release it July 1st. And so part of that was I wanted to be able for my sons and my grandsons, because I have 3 grandsons right now and about to have another one.

Wow, congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. And so I wanted them to, uh, they call me Papa John, and so I wanted them to, uh, be able to see where Papa John came from. You know, I came from a rough living. Uh, we haven't always, you know, had all the things that we have and get to do the things we, we love to go on family trips. We took the whole family, all 12 of us, to Germany for Christmas for 2 weeks, went to the Christmas markets. Uh, and so we love The year before that, we went to Italy for a couple weeks. We take them to Disney World probably twice a year because everybody loves Disney World, even my grown-ups, my kids. And so we like to do those things. And so part of the reason was I wanted my grandkids to see where the legacy that we're still building with my boys now, it came from the drive, the mission, my why. As you hear people say, what's your why? That's a big determination factor on where you're going in life is if you don't have that mission set in front of you of why you're trying to do these things, then on the days where it sucks and it's hard, you're not going to have that fuel to push and say, you know, I'm doing it anyway because I want to impress. I still want to impress my wife because, you know, I gave her a pretty rough life in the beginning and filed for divorce and was unfaithful and, you know, just a dirtbag. And so once I fixed all those things, I knew what my mission was and I I knew clear that discipline was going to have to be instilled in me. Motivation comes and goes, and then I was just going to have to get after. So all these things to say that, you know, Warrior to Wealth is so important to me because I want to inspire other people to be able to step out and take that leap of faith. I've done a few guys and gals that have— I've helped get them from, you know, making $12, $14, $15 an hour to making six figures and some even well in the six figures. So, you know, that's very pleasing to see people change their lives from just giving them maybe just a little bit of belief and hope.

You know, I didn't give you any chance to prepare, but maybe you put them in the book since you got time. Non-negotiables, things you've— you have figured out. Dadgummit, I'll put up with a lot, but I'm not going to— I'm not going to tolerate this. If you got 50 people, you got all these kids and grandkids, it's like in our world, no, we don't do that. We don't tolerate that. Do you? If, if I would ask you, you know, what, what non-negotiables might pop in your mind, would anything come in there? Absolutely.

We don't do— we don't do negativity. So there's no negativeness. So any time that someone tries to go into this down spiral, we stop it. You know, we fix that. We're like, no, no, no, that's not how you win. You don't fumble the football and just dwell on fumbling the football for the rest of the game. You correct it. It and you move on. There's no one in life that doesn't face challenges. I mean, some of the biggest names out there, you know, Tony Robbins, you know, these big guys that's been doing this for a while, uh, they'll tell you, you know, they still run into, you know, issues. They still get sick. Their people still die. But, you know, we stop. We don't do that. One of the other big things is every morning, you know, I wake up, I encourage my family, my kids, is, you know, to have a a heart of gratitude. Start saying things the moment you open your eyes. You know, thank you, Lord, for that I woke up. Thank you, Lord, for this beautiful day. Thank you for the woman laying next to me. I just try to say as many things as I can think of that I'm thankful for because I'm a big firm believer, a heart full of gratitude, you can't house anger, you can't house jealousy because I'm being too thankful for all the things that God has blessed me with.

You know, the thing about overcoming negativity and learning to be grateful, those are really skills. That's a mindset. It's a decision. It's not natural. It's natural to be a bitcher, groaner, whiner, complainer. You know, it's natural to be a dead, dull, disillusioned crybaby. You know, that's— I saw, yeah, I saw this great short thing on YouTube or Instagram yesterday where this guy was talking. He was in with his therapist, and he was talking about, you know, this happened to me and down in the dump. And I went in here. He was just whining on and on. And he said, turned around to the therapist. She was taking notes very professionally. He said, does that make sense? Did you get that down? She said, oh, yeah. She said, I've got it. She said, let me, let me just tell you what I heard. Wah, wah, wah, wah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So that's a skill that, you know, a lot of people— you got to be woken up to the fact that I get you dragging your butt around here. What are you going to do? What are you doing to yourself? And a lot of people don't have somebody in their life who could teach them that.

As you said, it's easy to dwell on the negative, you know, and— but in anything in life, whether it's athletics, you know, even some of the most negative people that I've ever met in my entire life, I don't get around them. Even they are fans to something. It may be a football team and they're cheering and they want their team to win. And then as shortly after the game's over, they're back whining or moaning and, you know, groaning about life or something like that. Then do something about it. You know, that's, that's how, that's how people win in every athletic sports there is. If they lose a game, guess what they do? They don't quit and dwell on it. They try to fix it and then they move on. Same thing in the mission, in the military, same thing in law enforcement, same thing in your marriage. Hey, if you broke it, guess what? Life's not over. You're still not over. You're still breathing. Let's fix it and move on. Let's make it better.

Yeah. And so that comes over to kind of wrap things up on this public portion of our interview is like principles that maybe you heard even from your football career, from coaches and, you know, you know, principles of winning or concepts, you know, from the military, from reading books, from being, you know, you know, in all kinds of different situations where you hear the concept that you locked in on that. Is there— are there concepts and ideas and sayings that you find yourself locked in on using your whole life?

Just the fact that I do not want to be a loser or a victim. I want to be a winner and a victor. I tell my kids this all the time. You cannot be a victim and a victor at the same time. Pick one. Also, it's hard being broke and it's also hard creating wealth. Pick your hard. Yeah.

Wow. Fantastic. Well, thanks so much. Now, Jonathan, I'mma put you on the spot, but I always curious, you know, because I think it's a great privilege to have a person of your achievement sit, sit down and talk honestly about things What do you want to have? What do you want to get out of this, this hour we're spending here?

You know, I just want to be able to give someone hope or inspiration that, hey, you know, if this old country boy can do something with his life, that anyone can, you know, you just have to have belief in yourself and you have to focus on the life that you want and quit focusing on what you— the situation you're currently in. Focus on where you want to go. Again, when we're driving a car, we're looking ahead at where we're going. We're not looking at where we are now and where we've been, or you'll have a head-on collision.

Yeah. And what, you know, I've kind of heard that theme in your story all the way through. You know, you came in, you focused, you know, at every stage you're focused on people that are doing well. What does moving up mean? You know, how can I get, you know, the rank? I've got to follow a path. I'm going to follow the path of not the people out there going down the tubes and, you know, goofing off with the people that are moving up. You got to focus on the positives like that. So fantastic. I'm looking forward to the book and it's probably going to be called Warrior to Wealth. Or is that— that— that is it. Yep.

It's called Warrior to Wealth. We've got a website, JonBerryhill.com. It's J-O-N-B-E-R-R-Y-H-I-L-L.com. You can go sign up, get on the email list that— and I dropped some emails every week to encourage folks. And I give a little bits and pieces about the book, you know, coming from a broken home to, you know, going to Bosnia and then, you know, being on top of the mountain sometimes, but also being in the valleys, you know.

Fantastic. Thanks so much. And Jonathan, I'm going to look forward to seeing— checking the quarter horse world and seeing— what's the name of your— do you have it? What's the ranch that they are— the name they compete under there? Berry Hill Farms.

Berry Hill Farms. We came in, uh, 9th place in the world at the AQHA show in cow working horse, uh, last October.

Congratulations, congratulations, very exciting. Yeah, the horse world is very seductive. I, I've just got to keep myself away from it because it takes a lot of money and a lot of time, but it is so much fun, you know. So I wish you the best. I'm glad you're able to be involved in it. Thanks so much. Good luck with the book.

Thank you, buddy.

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