Journey of Resilience: J.R. Martinez on Embracing Change and Inspiring Millions

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Welcome to Mick Unplugged, where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves and game changing conversations. Buckle up. Here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And we've got a great one for you today. From a soldier's battlefield to the dance floor spotlight, he's shown the world the true meaning of resilience and reinvention. As a motivational speaker, bestselling author and Dancing with the Stars champion, he inspires millions with his story of overcoming adversity and embracing life with purpose. Get ready for an empowering conversation with the resilient, the inspiring, the unstoppable. My man, Mr. J.R. martinez Jr. How you doing today, brother?

Man, that introduction was money, man. Appreciate you so much. You know, I feel like everybody should have somebody that just like reads their quick bio or LinkedIn profile, whatever, like when they wake up in the morning, everybody should have the opportunity to hear that. Because I think, you know, in the, in the world we live in, man, it's just so fast paced and there's so many things that are happening and changing constantly from our profession to our families to our feelings to just everything that we don't have an opportunity. We really don't give ourselves time to sit back and reflect and appreciate the journey. So when I, when, when you, when you were saying what you were saying, I was like just kind of had a moment of like, just like massager reflecting and just thinking about like, I guess he's talking about me. That's me. I've done those things. That's fine.

Yep. No guesswork, man. That, that really is you. And like I said, I'm honored to have you on. We were talking a little bit offline, man. Like, I get inspired by people like you and, and more importantly, I get inspired by you, by J.R. martinez, man. Because your story is, is more than storybook. It's more than, you know, movie theater esque. It's real. And to know that you are the person that lives that journey is freaking impressive, bro. Like, like freaking impressive and so, you know, on Make Unplugged, we talk about your. Because that reason that's deeper than your why. Like that true purpose that you have that makes you the person that you are. So if I were to say JR Martinez today, what's your because, brother, like, what's your purpose? What's that reason that that motivates you every day to inspire the millions that you do?

It all boils down to service. It really does. My military career was. Was cut short due to my injury. But in the short amount of time that I was in the United States Army, I was introduced to that concept of service and really started to, like, understand what that really meant. And then after I was injured, I was still obviously around the military community and around a lot of my friends that I met who are equally wounded and had served. And, you know, the more that I learned about it and kind of listened to other people's journeys regarding service, it just really was something that resonated with me and I fell in love with. And I think that was why for me personally and so many of my friends that have equally been injured in the military and had to medically discharge prior to the time that they wanted to. I think that's why we struggle when we get into what we call civilian life, because we feel like, you know, their. That ability to serve, to give back, to be part of something. I think it's. We believe it's taken away and then we're not going to be able to ultimately fulfill those things. And I think for me, I think that's the same thing that I navigated for a long time was, you know, is. Is what's my purpose? What am I doing? Like, like, why was my life spared at 19 years old, despite this horrific injury that took place and during a lot of, at the time, journaling, a lot of quiet time, a lot of real deep conversations with myself and a couple of people, not as many people, but a couple. It really got to the root of, you know, what I was. I. I can use my experience and what I've learned to serve other people, to help other people. And the way I. The way I used to say this early on was if I can pass on to an individual the things that I've learned by. Man, I've learned these things by having to go through something tragic. But if I could pass these on, these things on to people and prevent them from having to go through something tragic, but they can essentially learn these things and implement it into their life, isn't that the goal right Isn't it the goal to try to help one another to, to you? I mean, that, that. So for me, like, that's just my motivation, man. It's just to try to serve people as much as possible, try to learn as much as I possibly can. They say knowledge is power, and you know, I do believe in that. However, I believe the knowledge applied is power. You can have a bunch of knowledge, right? And that's fantastic. But if you don't apply, what's the point of having all the knowledge? Then it's just cocktail talk. Then you're just a person at a cocktail hour that can pretty much hold a conversation about anything with anybody. But at the end of the day, do you really understand? Are you really either, either living that? Are you rooted in that? Have you applied it? And so for me, it's just really been about like collecting data, knowledge and then trying to pass that data and knowledge onto other people. What has worked for me, what has not worked for me? You know, I never intended, man, I never intended to be an inspiration. That was never the goal, right? I, like, I was a young 19 year old. Like I didn't have the mentality of. I think it was, I could be wrong, but I think it was like, maybe Charles Barkley was like, I'm not here to be a role model. It's not my goal to be a role model. I'm a basketball player, right? And I don't think my goal was ever to be an inspiration was to, to be this figure. But what I started to see is that people. There was something that I was doing, something that I was saying that that that sort of became sort of the lifeline for people. And when I realized that pattern, it was like, okay, I don't have to force this inspiration. I don't have to force this motivation. I could just keep being me. And if I just keep operating from that place, clearly people rock with that. And that's, that's essentially kind of been what I've always tried to do. Now there's been things that have swayed me away, but for the most part I try to stay solid in that.

That's amazing, my man. That's. That's amazing. And so a couple of things I want to unpack there. You talked about, you know, your military career ending and obviously the commitment that you made to the United States army, right? The commitment that you made to US civilians to, to keep us protected. One, I want to thank you for your service. I appreciate that too. I want to go back to your decision to join the military, right. Like, what was the driving force for Junior to say, I want to go.

Protect my country, you know, and I appreciate that. And just, you know, you know, just to kind of, if I can pivot real quick for a second and just kind of. I want your listeners to. I want to challenge them. And so I want to challenge them that anytime we come in contact with military personnel, whether they're active or retired, we have a tendency to simply say thank you for your service, and we end the conversation there. And what I would love to challenge people, and I have been challenging people, is to think differently. Instead of simply saying thank you for your service, why don't we approach those individuals once we've learned that they served in the military or in any capacity of serving, whether it's a first responder, you know, anything, and just approach them and say, tell me about your service?

Right.

Because I think when you approach it that way, then when you say thank you for your service, it ends a period, right? And there's no follow up conversation, dialogue. If there's a tell me about your service now, you give the microphone to somebody else and give them the opportunity to vocalize as much as they feel comfortable. They may not be a lot, it may be a lot more than you expect. But I think it's. The reason why I think that's so important is because then it creates this intersectionality and this connection that you often don't see and we talk about is missed too often when it comes to military, to civilian personnel. So anyways, that's just that quick bit for, you know, just everybody out there. But, you know, I had like this big dream, this big goal. I wanted to go to college and play football. And, you know, it wasn't kind of panning out the way that I wanted. And I was kind of just going through the motions after I graduated from high school and the military was, was, was my senior year of high school just kind of like was sort of in this sphere, if you will. Like you would see the recruiters, you know, at the school, you know, a couple times. You obviously passed them all the time. You went to the mall, you know. And then one of my football coaches was in the military at one point in his life. And so I just kind of heard about it. So it wasn't sort of this foreign concept. You know, I'm a first generation, you know, born in the U.S. like, my mother's from Central America, my father's from Mexico. You know, I am that story and I am that story of immigrant parents Coming here, looking for a better opportunity and then, you know, me being born here and I just kind of felt like, you know, what, what do I want to do now? Not to draw this out too long. So I used to go to Central America a lot as a kid to visit my family. And, you know, growing up a single mother, you know, I know, I think you grew up the same way. Like, my father wasn't in the picture and, you know, it was just my mom and I, that's it. And so needless to say, like, I remember going to El Salvador as a kid several times and just looking around and just saying to myself, like, wow, like, where my family lives in Central America, it's, it's rural. I mean, they're, they're, they're living on the side of a mountain. Like, I mean, it's, it's, you're going to the creek to get drinking water, to bathe, to wash clothes and dishes. Like, you're going to the restroom outside, like in the woods. I mean, that's how it, it's very much what we would consider third world country. And so that was a, that was a pretty rocking experience for me. But it was probably some of my best memories, as in my youth, come from that time of being there, you know, for the week or two weeks that we would spend there, because it was just so simple. Life was simple. It wasn't about, you know, electronics, it wasn't about the fast pace of going here, going there. It was about, I mean, I love coffee. And one of the reasons why I love coffee so much is because it reminds me of going to El Salvador as a kid. When you woke up in the morning, not because an alarm went off, but because the roosters. And that's when you got up and then you had this smell of coffee. And then, you know, my grandmother and my uncle and aunt and my mom would be sitting on the porch and sipping coffee, straight up black coffee, because to get milk, that was a luxury. And I like, can I have a small cup of coffee? And I'd sit there and drink my little black coffee with them. And it was just something that just meant so much to me. But what that did is that gave me perspective because the growing up in the United States, I was at that point in my life as a teenager that I was comparing what I had to what my peers had. And I didn't have a lot. My mom made no more than $40,000 a year. I had, I mean, we barely had enough to get by and. But I started to look at and say, you know what? This country is giving me freedom. This country's giving me the opportunity to go to school. If I want to go grab a burger down the block. That's why my mom could give me five bucks to go to Mickey D's and grab a. A meal, right? Like, I mean, I. I still had a lot of freedom and a lot of beautiful things that I needed to learn to appreciate. So when 911 took place, I was a senior in high school, and, like, I think a lot of people all over the world were, like, confused and scared, and I was one of those. But equally, I thought to myself, after graduating from high school, when I was like, what do I want to do? I looked at the military because I was like, you know what? That's an opportunity for me to give back. That's an opportunity for me to travel the world, for me to get some experience. I grew up in small towns, man. I think. I think there was some root as well, where I was like, let me get out of these small towns a little bit. Let me. Let me get out into the world to see what the world has to offer. But that was essentially like, the driving force, the motivation behind it all. And when I initially joined, it was only supposed to be three years. And then soon into my deployment, I started recalibrating that thought process and thinking, I may want to do this for a longer period of time. And then, of course, life decided to interject and said, nah, not yet. Nah, we're not going to do this. We're going to go a different route.

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Every style, every home. Yeah, so let's talk about life interjecting man, like talk to us about that. Like take us, take us to that moment and the mindset and the, the resiliency that followed, brother.

Yeah, so, you know, on the 5th of April of 2003, I was driving a Humvee in Iraq when my front left tire ran over a roadside bomb and you know, immediately was trapped aside, was engulfed in flames and you know, completely conscious in and out of consciousness for five minutes. And once I was pulled out, started the medevac process and I ended up in San Antonio, Texas. There's a big burn center for the military there and that's where I recovered. And I just remember, you know, 19 years old coming out, coming out of my medical induced coma and just kind of like, man, what, like what is going on? Where am I? What happened? And I think the biggest blow at the time, the biggest challenge was yes, the injury, of course, but the reality that I was not going to be allowed to stay in the army, that I, I was not going to be allowed to go back to Iraq and finish online deployment with my unit. That was the thing that really weighed on me and, and yeah, man, I mean to say that I fell into a very dark space, I think it would be somewhat of an understatement, right? Like I was incredibly angry, you know, at life, at people resentful, you know, and you know, that was my grieving process. And even though I tell people like I was alive, yes, my life was spared, but I still had to grieve. And I think that's something that we don't give ourselves enough ability is space to do is to grieve. And everything that we do, we have identities right? In our physical is part of our identity. And when suddenly I looked in the mirror and that was not there, I didn't recognize the individual based on the burns and you know, the third degree burns to my face, body, hands, I mean, you name it. In my mind I was like, I'm a different person. So I had to grieve the loss of the old me, what I look like, like, and what I thought I was going to do with my life and the, the loss of all of that. And now try to embrace this new look and this new world and this new possibility that existed, which honestly I didn't even know what possibility there was besides the fact that I was just going to be put out into the world. So it was a very difficult period for me. But I'll tell you the thing that really changed my life. There were a lot of these cool little moments over the course of my life. And six months after I was asked to visit a patient who was having a difficult time recovering, essentially accepting the new norm, right, for him, right, the, the, the. And, and embracing what has transpired in his life. And I was asked to visit him. And I was 20 at the time. And I was like, no way. And they were like, why not? And I was like, because I'm 20. What am I gonna say? Like, I, I'm 20. And so finally I just decided, hey, I'm just gonna jump in there, see what's up. And I went into the room and I ended up. It was really uncomfortable when I walked into the room, man, it, it, it felt heavy. You could feel the, the, the, the weight in the room. And I still approached that individual's bed and having the conversation with him for about 45 minutes. And then when I walked out of that room, sort of a light bulb went off. And instead of ignoring that feeling of wait, I did something that was, that felt really difficult, it really hard. And, and I leaned in and had a great experience. And what I did with that information is I was like, I'm just going to start visiting patients every day. So I started visiting patients every single day at the hospital while I was recovering. And what that did is that gave me my sense of purpose back. That gave me a little bit of that identity that I started to create for myself in the military. It gave that back to me and that, you know, I always talk about like, you know, my daughter's 12, she plays select softball. I've been coaching her now for about four years. And you know, and that's what I talk about with the girls at the team. I'm like, gotta be willing. You gotta look at celebrating the small victories, right? Because they may be small in the scope of your life, right? And when you read my resume, when you read the things that I've accomplished, no one's gonna pay attention to me going into that room and visiting that patient. But in the grand scheme of my life and what I've accomplished, But that moment was so pivotal, so big, that it helped give me life and carried me and allowed me to say, hey, there's something potentially to this life that I could be living. And I just continued to just stay. Stay the course with that. And there are a lot of other things. I mean, listen, you know, there would be things, you know, small victories that I would celebrate. And then, guess what? Life would kick in. You know, the underlining trauma would start to resurface. I would be triggered by something. And then guess what? It would sort of be a setback. And then I would be this angry person. I wouldn't be a pleasant person to be around. Um, and I sort of dabbled in that roller coaster of emotions. And it was my best friend, about four and a half years after I was injured one day was like, hey, man, as A man, he's 17 years older than me. He was like, man, you need to cry. And I was like, what? I don't need to cry. My father wasn't in my life. I never. Crying was not something being Hispanic. We don't cry. We don't talk about our feelings. Right? There is a lot of communities that. That, that. That follow that same, you know, belief system, right? And so. And he told me, he's like, man, I love you. Like, and I was. And. And like. And not like, hey, man, I love you. Like, out of nowhere, he'd always been telling me, every time we get off the phone, he'd be like, hey, love you, man. And in person, give me a hug. Love you, man. And I'm like, why is this dude always telling me he loves me? And then the night that I really had a breakdown, he. Instead of pushing me away and running away from me because it felt uncomfortable, instead, he leaned in and he. And he told me he loved me. And he told me it was okay, I needed to cry, and I started crying. And you know how pivotal that moment was, man is right after that conversation, I was the first one I looked at him and. And I said, hey, man, I love you. I appreciate that. Thank you. And it's because I felt safe, and I felt like I'd been vulnerable and I'd been seen and. And been heard and hadn't been judged, and that's unconditional love. And my life turned. My life changed after that, man, in a different way, like, I got involved in the entertainment industry, got into some acting, and, you know, then another big opportunity presented itself, and then life just kind of took off from there.

I love it, man. And I want to give you the floor to give advice to the listener, the viewer right now that's at that moment of needing to reinvent themselves, right? Because I think of all people that I know in the world, you're. You are the. The authority for this message right here. For the listener, the viewer, that's like, all right, junior, what are the first two or three steps that I need to do for this reinvention process? Because I've seen a ton of your speeches, I've seen a ton of your interactions, and that's the message that you have about reinvention. Because a lot of people think it's like, okay, I need to start over. Well, starting over isn't just enough. Sometimes there's a core thing inside of you that needs to change, that needs to reinvent. So, J. R, for the listener, for the viewer, like, what are two or three steps people can take to start the reinvention process?

Yeah. Thank you for that. And I think it's. It's. It's obvious, and it's an easy narrative to follow about. I'm starting over, right? I'm starting over. And listen, you know, if we've all are aware of what's been happening in California with the fires and how people have lost, you know, in some cases, lives and their homes and a lot of personal items and just essentially been displaced, right? And, you know, when you look at the aftermath of all of the devastation that the fires, you know, caused, you see the structures of those homes that are burned to the ground. But, you know, what you still see when people are posting videos, you still see the foundation intact. And what I mean by that is, is that there are a lot of things like the structure of the beams and the stucco, whatever your home is made of, right? All this stuff that we like to see and look at, you know, that stuff gets rocked and damaged right through all the storms that we navigate in life, you know, but at the end of the day, is your foundation. How is your foundation? I think that's the bigger question for a lot of people. What's your foundation like? For me, my foundation was cracked. I didn't realize it was cracked. I didn't realize it had this. This. It was unstable. There were a lot of emotional things that I experienced in my youth that I never addressed. Didn't. Didn't. Ever lean into again. My mother, you know, we're Hispanic again. I can't express that enough. We don't talk about our feelings, and we just kind of, like, hug each other, tell each other we love each other, and go eat a good meal. Right? Which was. It worked back then, but you can't. That's not sustainable. And I think so. I think the biggest thing for me is. Is changing that narrative and that mindset of, like, yes, I understand. It's easy to go to this place and say, we're completely starting over, but you're really not, because there is a foundation of things, of how far you've already come. You don't realize all these experiences have created this really strong structure that you built everything on. That's. That's still there. It might need some work, but for the most part, that's still there. So you're not completely starting over? Just. Just. It's not completely. I had to start over, but I didn't completely had to start over. I had a foundation. A lot of what prepared me to overcome what I overcame came from my youth. The good and the bad. It all was part of my foundation. So, Ellis. So, you know, with that being said, I think the biggest thing is people have to be willing to grieve. You have to be willing. It's okay, right? It's okay. Like, I. It. I was grieving, My mother was grieving. People that loved me grieved as if I passed away. And yet I was in front of them, hugging them, talking to them, hanging out with them, making plans for tomorrow. And there's a lot of men and women that never got that opportunity to do that with their loved ones. But we needed to grieve, and it's okay to grieve that things have changed for us. So give yourself grace. Right? That's the first thing, I think. The second thing for me is I practice a lot of gratitude. Gratitude is important. It's easy when you get caught up in this. This space in life, when you're looking around and you're like, I've lost everything. I have nothing, man. Mick is killing it. I'm not on the same scale of him. So clearly my life is not, you know, doing as well, or I'm not. I'm a slacker, or whatever term, whatever creeps into your mind. You look at people on social media all day long, and you'd be like, yo, this person is living their best life. I should be living my best life. What's wrong? Why am I not living the way that they're living. And when you pause, when you pause, truly pause, not pause and look at your phone and pause and look at a computer pause and put a podcast in. When you truly pause, disconnect from electronics. Whether it's for five minutes, whether it's 10 minutes, whatever your capacity is, whatever life allots you is in that moment is practicing gratitude. What do I have right? What is in my life that is that. That I should be grateful for, that I do have? And because you lose those things when you're too caught up trying to compare. So practice gratitude. I think that is key. I think in that moment of silence, it's equally a great opportunity that if there are things that come to light that you're not happy with, well, guess what? I think that's an invitation for you to say, okay, what do I need to change? Right? That's what I had to learn how to do in my life, is that I had to sit here. In those moments of silence. I realized there was a lot of emotional things that I've been carrying that I needed to, like, heal, I needed to address, I needed to work on. And the more that I leaned in to, like, heal those things, guess what? Now my foundation is solid. Now I can go out to the world and build. But I was trying to build a home with a rocky foundation, and everything that I was trying to get up, it couldn't hold it. It would just fall, and it just would fail, as people would say. And so I think, you know, you equally have to be honest with yourself in those moments of. Of silence. And when you're practicing gratitude of what it is that you want, what isn't working, what are you feeling? And then I think the, the. The. For me, probably the toughest thing, I think, although all sitting with yourself is really tough for a lot of people. I think we learned that during COVID People cannot sit at home or, you know, be themselves for five minutes. We need distraction. We live in a world of distraction. But I think the next thing for me, I think, is, is you just really can't. I'm sorry, you just really can't give a. About what other people are thinking. There comes a point in your life where we got to stop playing this game where I'm like, I got. I need everybody's approval. And it's like, listen, you know, it's okay for people to give their opinion. I'm fine with that. Give it to me in a constructive way. I'll listen to it. I'll look at it. I'll see if, you know, if there's some truth to that, so some weight to the, to what you're saying. But I'm not going to walk out of my house, and I'm not going to live my life every single day to sit here and try to impress other people. I'm doing what makes me happy. And if what makes me happy is making $70,000 a year and, you know, I'm with my family and I get to do a job that I love or I get to have quality time with my family, my kids, or I get to cool if, if it's whatever it is, right? I don't do anything. I don't operate from this place because the moment that you start, you know, comparison is the thief of joy. And, you know, and so when you find yourself in this space of always trying to please and compare yourself to others, you're gonna fail, because now you're not even speaking from your voice. You're not even acting the way you would. You're trying to. I'm trying to do what Mick's doing or speak the way Mick's speaking. That's not me and makes not me. Right, and that's why you have your success in what you're doing, and I have my success in what I'm doing. Right, but, and we can respect each other for the, for what you're doing for and what I'm doing. But at the end of the day, I don't need to be like you, and you don't need to be like me. And so I think that the moment we stop trying to, you know, keep up with the Joneses, as they say, you know, and I think we just kind of live in this space of, like, I'm just going to live my life. Guess what? I think things start to flow for you, and things start to look a little bit differently. And so, you know, I, I, I used to care a lot, and, and I still do. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm just dismissive of what people say and what people think. And, yeah, I don't want to, you know, I want to, you know, put my best foot forward, but at the end of the day, like, I'm just not going to operate from this place of where I always need to, like, please, please, please. And for a long time. And, and I'll tell you real quick, so I've had a lot of surgeries, a lot of surgeries. Now, one of the things, if you look at one of the first major interviews, I did. It was about eight months or so after I was injured. It was on 60 Minutes. I was on 60 Minutes. They came to the hospital, interviewed a 5. 5. Interviewed five troops. I was one of them. And when I go back and look at that interview, there's something that I say in that interview, when the host, when the. When the reporter asked me, he says, you must notice that people, when they look at you, they take. There's. When you're out of public, they do like a double take. He said, how does that make you feel? And I said, I do notice that, but I know why I look like this. I know what happened to me and that that's all that matters to me. And then I go on to tell him, and the doctors have said that there's procedures that can help me get back to what I used to look like. Now you listen to that. Now I listened to this probably about four or five years ago when I heard that, I was like, oh, my God.

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This episode is brought to you by. Oops. I've got a box of Cheez it crackers staring at me and I just wanted that irresistible Cheesy crunch. Sorry, that was a total snackcident.

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What was I supposed to be talking about? So salty. So crunchy. So cheesy. Whoops. Lost my train of thought. I've heard of brain freeze, but brain cheese?

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I'll just have one more cheese at Cracker and then I'll get back to it.

I've had so many surgeries. And part of the reason why I've had so many of those surgeries is because whether those doctors, I guarantee those doctors never said to me, we can get you looking like you used to look like before. I guarantee they wouldn't make that guarantee because it's.

It's.

It's not going to happen, right? But in my mind, my identity, in the way I was embraced and accepted by people was on my looks. So in my mind is I. That's what I heard, and that's what I needed to hear. And that's what I Needed to tell myself to survive. So I started. Yeah, Doc, can we have this surgery? Can we do this? I heard you guys talking about this procedure. Let's do that procedure. Did I need that procedure? No, no. Like, no. But I was stuck trying to go backwards and just hold on to who I used to be instead of grieving, embracing the new jr. And so here I was, just constantly delaying this growth opportunity in this process because all I was doing was looking back. Because in my mind, I was like, the only way I could be accepted in this society is I have to look a certain way. And I'm at the point now, I mean. I mean, I walk out of the house and I'm like, I mean, this is what I got on. Whatever it is. I like to dress up. I like to look fly. I look like. To look nice. But you catch me day to day. You gonna see me at the grocery store. And I'm like, yo, that's like, look. He's. Look like, you know what? I'm like, that's me. That's how I get down. And I'm cool with that. And I just. Because I've let go of that pressure of needing to be this. I'm gonna be me. And I've learned that people have learned to accept me and embrace me because of who I am as a person and not what I look like.

Absolutely, dude. So I want to talk about Dancing with the Stars now. So talk me through the process of. I don't know if you audition. I don't know if you got a phone call. Like, walk me through the. I'm going to do this part of. Of that, and then we're going to go into some other stuff.

Yeah, check this out, man. Like, I'm. I'm. You know, I was born and raised in the South. I know you live, you know, in the south as well. And in the south, and a lot. A lot of times, you know, a lot of places, people say those are coincidences. In the south, you know, we would hear. You know, we call those God winks. And, you know, there's no such thing as coincidences. And I've learned to. To really, really lean into that and kind of like, say, yeah, there's. There's really no such thing as coincidences. And so what do I mean by that? So there's been. Man, we can do a whole episode where I could tell you all these moments where people have said things or I've had these experience where things just kind of aligned. Right. And that's data. Right. We Think we hear constantly companies, brands, talk about collecting data, Data, data, data, data. Everything is driven by data. And what we have to start doing as individuals, we have to start looking at as ourselves, as brands. We ourselves are brands. We're product. Right. We are the brand. And we as the brands are collecting data. We as people collect data every single day with our spouse, with our partners, with our kids, with our best friends, with our colleagues, with people in our. In our communities. We're collecting data all the time. And so what, the more data you accrue, you start to kind of say, okay, well, this is a pattern. This thing works. Let me keep. Let me keep following this, or this ain't working. Maybe there's something I need to pay attention to. That pattern, right? And so it works both ways. You just got to be honest with yourself and which one are you going to be willing to do? So, needless to say, dancing. So somebody said to me about a year ago, they said your DNA could be changed by your environment. We had this conversation, and when I got off of the call with this individual, it really resonated with me. And I was like, wait a minute. That. That. Okay, I think. I think I can rock with that. I think I understand where that's coming from. And I said, but not only your environment, your experiences as well. Let me tell you a quick little story before I get into the dancing thing. When I was growing up in Louisiana, because that's where I was born, when I was growing up in Louisiana. My mom was dating a man at the time who played the piano in the house, and he was singing Spanish Love Song. I was about 5, 6 years old, and Spanish was my first language. I actually didn't learn English until I went to kindergarten, although I was born in the United States. And I would sit, you know, next to him, and I would watch him, you know, play the piano and sing. And I'd start singing with him, too. And he started noticing this. So he would take me down to this Hole in the Wall bar in Louisiana and. And. And he played the piano. I would sing a dance, talking about heartache and heartbreak and how this girl. This girl left me and cheated on me. And I'm five years old. I don't know nothing about that. The only love I know is my mama, and she was at home. And. But I'm. But. But the reason I tell that story is because that's who I was born to be. I. That's who I was born to be. That energy, to be that presence right in any space that I occupy. And there are these things over the course of my life that tried to take that away. These experiences that. Right. Not only the injury, but things that I experienced in my youth and et cetera. Well, dancing. How that came about is in 2008, I was auditioned to become an actor on a soap opera called All My Children. I got the job and they told me it was going to be three months. That was it. And I was like, oh, three months on All My Children. Like, I watched All My Children as a kid, like my mom watched All My Children as a kid. Like, I'll take it it. And my mentality was, if it's only going to be three months, I'm going to make it the best damn three months. So when I wasn't on set working, guess what I did? I stayed on set. And when the other actors came up to do their scenes, I would watch them and I would study them and I would say, oh, I like what he did. I like what she did there. I'm going to try that in my scene. And the more that I tried and I asked a lot of questions of like, how to do this better. The storyline kind of took off. People said, hey, we like him. Well, guess what? The crew kind of took notice of this. And I mean, like the producers, executives, and they were like, let's extend you another three months. Okay, six months. Let's just send you another nine months, another year. I was on that show for three years. When the show finally announced that they were going to go off the air, you know, I was actually at a All My Children fan event and, and I was sitting up on a stage. Nobody was asking me any questions, you know, because I was still like the young storyline in the show. Everybody was talking to Susan Lucci's and the, you know, Michael Knights and the, you know, Darnells and all the big actors. And someone looked at me and said, you're a question. Would you ever do Dancing with the Stars? And I was like, where'd that question come from? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it'd be fun, you know, haha, you know, just kind of laughed it off, moved on. Well, fast forward 2011 when the show announced that they were going to cancel All My Children. I reached out to the executive producer, I said, hey, quick question. I keep hearing everyone talk about this dancing thing. What are your thoughts about that? And she was like, oh my God, I think you'd be, I think you'd be great on that show. So she called up the casting director of Dance with the Stars made an introduction. I had a meeting, and then they kind of drugged me along for a while. Because at the time, I don't know if you knew this, but there came a point in our society where not everybody was watching soap operas, and so they weren't really popular as they used to be and are as popular. And so they were trying to find some other talent that they could potentially, you know, cast for the season. And I guess they kind of, like, fell as, you know, some dead ends there. So they said, you know what? We got this. This guy Junior. Let's just call him up and see if he'll do it. So they asked me to go on the show, and I immediately said yes. And I knew it was going to change my life. And this is why I knew it was going to change my life. And I remember, like, crying. I remember calling my uncle and crying, just. And the reason why was not just because of the excitement of the opportunity was because I said to him, I said, this is going to allow me to show the world who I really am.

Yes, sir.

And because prior to going on that show, I had been boxed in, being labeled as a disabled veteran, being labeled as a burn victim. And I, the whole time, was trying to scream from the mountaintops, and I'm like, I'm not disabled, and I'm not a victim, like. And so trying to change that narrative. And it was just really hard to get people to see that. And dancing was gonna be the opportunity. That show was gonna give me the stage to show the world that I was so much more than that. And honestly, I was never nervous. I was never sweating it. I took it one routine at a time. I was. I'm pretty competitive, so I always, like, challenged myself to really go all out, rehearse, and. And. But again, the reason I tell the. The story about the DNA is because. The reason I think I. I excelled on that show is because I just got back to my DNA. I just got back to who I was born to be, who I was when I was five years old, just to be this energy. And I just leaned into that energy and the energy in the space, and it carried me, man. And I end up winning the freak competition, which was why this is what.

I know about Junior. There's an opportunity to win. He's going, right, right? If there's judging going on, if there's a score, right? I'm going for the top.

Yo, yo. My. My wife is always like, you know, she's like, you know, my big supporter, and she's always Like, I, I just, she's like, I don't doubt you, I don't doubt you. And it's just. And I think part of that comes from when you come from where I come from and people like, you know, the same, you know, backgrounds and youth that, that, that, that I had. When you experience near death experiences, man, it's like, life is short. What am I going to sit here and like, worry about this or worry about that and spend time overthinking? I'm, I'm going, let's go and let's have fun and whatever happens, happens. And I'll live with it. As long as I'm having a good time and doing the best that I can, I can live with the results.

There we go. Joe, you've been gracious with your time today, man. I know you're very busy, but I don't want to overlook what I think is one of the greatest pieces of, of work. And that's your bestselling book, man. Like, talk to us a little bit about when you decided to write it. And then what I feel like has been one of the, the greatest responses, right? Like the response that you've gotten from the book, bro.

Yeah. So, you know, I kind of had a little bit of that imposter syndrome, right. Even though before that was a popular term when I wrote the book. But like, me write a book, do I? Am I qualified? Am I? You know, all the questions that you, you fill your head with, you know, regarding that process and ultimately what motivated me to do it was because I really wanted people to truly, because I was still getting the question of how did you survive what you survived and overcome it. And I want, I really wanted to lay it out and again, really talk about those moments that transpired in my life prior to this big event that helped shape me and condition me, to prepare me for the biggest test of all. And so I just really wanted to lay it out and I just, I leaned into it. I was pretty vulnerable. There were some things that I identified after the process that, ooh, maybe there's things that I should, I could have been a little bit more detailed and vulnerable about. And maybe that's the second part. I don't know what I end up doing life, you know, the fact that the response that I got, and I remember when I got a call and you know, from the, from the agent and was like, hey man, you're on the list. And I was like, what list? Like, that's how naive and just, you know, unaware I was. And I Was like, what? Listen. And he's on the New York Times bestseller list. And I was like, wow. Like, for me, that was kind of like the ultimate. What got me into the speaking space? You know, Mick was back in 2000, so I was injured in 03. So it was, like, early 04 when I was asked to speak at an event on the military base here in San Antonio. And. And I remember when I spoke for about 10ish minutes, and I was so green. And I had. After I spoke, people come up to me and say that they could relate to me. And I was like, wait a minute. And I'm looking at these people that look on the exterior, look perfectly fine. And I'm like, have you been burned before? And they're like, no. And I, like, was raised by a single mother. They're like, no. Both of our parents were in the. And I'm like, so how can you relate to me? And what I. The more that people explain what I realized, it wasn't the actual event that people could relate to. It was the emotion that people can connect with, the feeling. Right. Like, when we're all navigating what we're navigating, change, uncertainty, you know, the identities, like, you know, like, all these things, we all understand those feelings. I don't understand the feeling of losing someone you love. Right. But I understand the feeling of losing something that I love. Right. And. And. And it's not the same, but. But I understand that. Oh, I know how it hurt me. So I know how you must be feeling. I can only imagine how you must be feeling. Right? So you could. It's the emotion that brings all of us together. And the book, I think, was the solidifier of that. When I'm getting people that are, you know, burn survivors didn't make this a New York Times bestseller, you know, alone. There were a lot of burn survivors that supported me. Them alone didn't make it. The military community alone did not make this a New York Times bestseller. There were ordinary, quote, unquote, ordinary people out there that purchased this book because they connected with it on some level. And that was the ultimate, like, solidifier of doesn't matter what I've been through, what you've been through. We can connect on the human level of what we felt as we navigated what we both had to equally navigate.

Amazing. So, again, Junior, you've been awesome with your time. Where can people follow and find you? And, you know, we're gonna have to do part two, because there's so many places I want to go.

Right, let's do it, man. I'm always here, brother. It's been a fun conversation. There's been a, you know, that I think that's, Yeah, I think that's probably the challenge you run into from a podcasting, you know, from a host standpoint is like, you start talking to people and you're like, oh, there's so much more that we can lean into. Where do we get it? Where do we start to unpack all the rest of this stuff? But, yeah, listen, man, you tell me. I'm always down. If people feel like they want to know more, I'm down to lean in. But, you know, where people can connect with me is obviously my website, jr martinez.com. that gives you a little bit more in depth detail about who I am, what I'm doing, how to reach out, if there's any, or if you just want to connect, obviously, social is a great way to do it on Instagram. I am J.R. martinezo. Yeah, I just encourage, if anybody takes anything away from this, you know, feel free to, you know, share with me on social and obviously tag you as well. And, you know, just. I just love hearing from people and love connecting with people, man. That's what life should be about.

Yeah, we're definitely going to make all of that happen. I'm going to make sure in the show notes, in the descriptions for listeners and viewers, you're going to have links to, obviously, JR's website, his social media also links to the book, because I promise you, it's gonna, it's gonna move you. You know, one of my, my mentors, Les Brown, says people don't, you know, remember the things you say or even all the words in a book, but they remember how things make them feel. What I got from your book is just the feeling of connection that I have with you. The same thing that you just said. A lot of people tell you, right? Like, the book really was a way for me to say, I know, junior. Right. So then when we get to meet, it's like I'm talking to one of my brothers. Because I know you, man.

Yeah, 100, man. 100. So. But you're absolutely right. And I think if we can all sort of move through the world as all the challenges that present, you know, in society, that if we could just all move through the world with a little bit more compassion and empathy for one another and love and understanding and patience, you know, we, we end up finding a bigger community than we ever thought we knew we could have.

Absolutely. Absolutely. To all the viewers and listeners. Remember your because is your superpower, Go unleash it.

Thank you for tuning in to make Unplugged. Keep pushing your limits, embracing your purpose and chasing greatness. Until next time, stay unstoppable.

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