The Greatest Story
Our lives are woven from stories—those we hear, read, and tell ourselves, shaping our future and potential. Often, just one story can pivot us from a downward spiral to a transformative paradigm shift.
Our struggles are rooted in the stories we choose to believe. It's a delicate balance between being realistic and maintaining hope. Unfortunately, many people end up abandoning their dreams.
"The Greatest Story" exists to bring to light the untold stories that energize individuals, families, and communities. Our podcast delivers empowering messages, urging you to discover your purpose and unlock your potential, inspiring you to craft your own success story. Welcome to "The Greatest Story Podcast."
The Greatest Story
#3 – Jesse Petrilla – Encounters Faith, War, and Wisdom
Join us as we talk with Jesse Petrilla about his exciting journey, from selling rocks as a kid to crashing Adam Sandler's wedding.
With a unique blend of humor and wisdom, Jesse's story paints a vivid picture of a man who has lived multiple lives in one.
Discover the defining moments that shaped Jesse, as he connects biblical teachings to business ethics, and sparks a conversation on our responsibility towards the world we will leave behind.
Jesse Petrilla's experiences offer a unique perspective to examine our entrepreneurial aspirations and the values we hold dear.
Check out Jesse's upcoming book: If It Takes a Thousand Years
All right. So today we have Jesse Petrilla with us. He is a friend of mine and a local Auburn California resident. He's an entrepreneur, a business owner and, recently, an author.
Speaker 2:Congratulations on that.
Speaker 1:Founder of Petrilla Technologies. He served in the military and also as a council member in Orange County, married two boys, jesse. Yes, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. Of course, you know, this is my first podcast that I've done in ever.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, You're the first as I foray back into politics. Thank, you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming on. I really, really appreciate it. It's nice to have you on. Give us a little bit of your background, your story, where you grew up, what you do.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, I'm from here in Northern California. This is my old stomping ground Spent the last 20 years. First I couldn't wait to back it up a little bit, I couldn't wait to get out of this town, and then I spent the next 20 years figuring out how to get back and how to afford it. And so I finally did it. We moved our family up here to the state of Jefferson, as it's called, we're for anyone that's not familiar with that, it's the fun protest against the policies of Sacramento. So it's a nice conservative area where people I wouldn't even say conservative, I'd say logical, because it's really the difference between logical and illogical at this point.
Speaker 1:Are you talking about specifically Auburn?
Speaker 2:The conservatives versus the leftists? Yeah, are you talking about specifically?
Speaker 1:Auburn, auburn, the whole area, I would say the foothills, yeah.
Speaker 2:Virtually California is being pulled by the nose by two cities, and it's really just Los Angeles and San Francisco that lead the rest of the state, and it's a very conservative state, and so I was very happy to get out of Southern California. We had fled behind the Orange Curtain for a while. I lived in Los Angeles before that and we were hiding out there in a nice little conservative area in Southern California and then it got taken over through shenanigans, ballot harvesting and whatnot. It didn't have a single Republican representative in the Congress, represented any of Orange County at one point.
Speaker 2:And so we left up here. We'll never leave, though, california. To the people that are considering leaving, I would say don't be a coward, stay in fight. If you all leave, who's going to stay to fight?
Speaker 1:Well, you had to have some positives living there. I mean, does the weather nicer?
Speaker 2:California, I think, is a fantastic state.
Speaker 2:The weather is great. We have virtually every climate except for tropical. And I mean, here we are in the foothills, we've got wineries and the oceans a couple of hours away, we've got ski resorts 45 minutes away and we don't have to deal with the snow ourselves. It's just a wonderful location. But yeah, so I spent 20 years dabbling in a little bit of whatever I could for the first half of that, trying to find my purpose in life, and I got Hasis plans and everything was for a purpose and I think it really helped shape me into who I became. I tried different business ventures. I thought I was going to be a video game designer when I left. That was my goal and about halfway through a computer science degree I wanted nothing to do with computer programming. So I was very tedious and I'm just too much of a people person to be around a bunch of introverts.
Speaker 1:And isn't Adam Sandler your friend?
Speaker 2:No, have I told you that story?
Speaker 1:I think that's a whole story, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I had fun. When I was a teenager I first moved down there, the first place I got was a guest house, which was a step up from the Ford tourist that I was in when I lived down there for a couple months. But I lived in a guest house in Malibu and was just hanging out at the beach crashing parties, and one of the parties I crashed was Adam Sandler's wedding. So I heard that he was getting married down the street from where I was staying and I saw all the craziness and I thought let me go in there and schmooze a little bit. I mean, I'm not trying to sneak cameras in or anything, so I just was one of the guests. How old were you then? Oh, I was 19, I think, 19, I think.
Speaker 2:And I jumped the fence and came out of a bush and I remember one of the security guards saw me. It wasn't a security guard that saw me, it was one of the guests saw me and I quickly turned around and acted like I was taking a piss in the bush, because why else would I be in the bushes? And so I just pretended like I was zipping up my pants and then I'm like oh man, there was a line in the bathroom and they just kind of snickered a little bit. And then I was in and I walked right up to a woman like I mean it felt like true lies. And I walked right up and I was like how have you been, how have you been? And I look in security. He's no longer looking at me.
Speaker 2:And then I was in, I did the bump with Jennifer Aniston next to the dance floor. I did ask her to dance, but she Jennifer Aniston, yes, but she said no, she's like I don't dance hun. She called me hun. So I made it mostly almost to the very end. And then, unfortunately, I made the mistake of congratulating Adam Sandler on his wedding and he was like, oh, that's great, thank you very much. I'm sorry. I was looking at you and that was it.
Speaker 1:Oh man, he personally kicked me out, so you would probably stay there if you hadn't come up to Adam Sandler it was another five or 10 minutes left of the party anyway, but it was. Oh, so you stayed for the whole thing, I stayed almost the whole thing. Oh, wow it was fun.
Speaker 2:But no, I was having fun. I was going to clubs and I was trying to market video games. At the time that I made online. It was a little bit too early. This was circa 2002 or three somewhere around there, and I remember I made a video game called Quest for Saddam, so it would have been 2003,. That was when the invasion was and we had to download, enter your credit card, download the game type, situation set up and it was just too early. People didn't feel comfortable giving their credit cards online and the game, frankly, wasn't that good, but it was what's?
Speaker 1:Saddam. Is that what you're?
Speaker 2:saying yes. So this was the sequel. So, backing up a few years, in 2002, early 2002, I released Quest for Al-Qaeda, the hunt for bin Laden, which was a shooter video game where you fight bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and you're going through caves, and it was just a total conversion, which was a modification of the game Duke Nukem, and I got two million downloads off the internet actually.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I was like, let me start a video game company. That was always my dream. So I released the sequel, quest for Saddam, and I was marketing that it was exciting times, but I never saw a really dime from it and I was starving. I mean I was. It was terrible because I realized very quickly that, although moving to Malibu, surrounding yourself by rich people, doesn't make you rich, and so watching them and learning from them, yes, and so I was a computer technician at a store there just fixing people's computers, but one of the big things I did was go to people's houses, so every person that I asked- Like sneaking in, like like to have a sandwich.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't have to sneak in, no, but although one of them was Linda Hamilton too, so that was kind of cool Wow look at that, the journalist Sarah.
Speaker 2:Cotter from Terminator. But no, there was a number of folks whose houses I went to, but every single one there were only a few celebrities that were there actually in Malibu, Most of them, in fact, almost exclusively, because every person I would ask how did you get your money? So I was the kid with Hutzpah that would be asking them all these questions there while I'm fixing their computer in their house. Every single one of them virtually said they were a business owner, and so I realized okay, the way to get here is to start a business. I'm not going to work my way up. It's very few people work their way up in a company and become millionaires it's almost all.
Speaker 2:somebody starts a business, or you have the few lucky folks who know somebody that come into the entertainment industry or something like that from the side. But even that you don't work your way up. I realized it's all about relationships and so I didn't know anybody.
Speaker 2:And I mean that was the big reason why I was so poor was that I had no skill and I didn't know anybody and so it takes time. I mean it was tough. I mean those years were really hard financially and then went to school. That was the poorest I ever was, right before I started school. But I finally said you know what, screw it, I'm just going to take out the student loans and go to school and start chipping away at it.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 2:Cal State Fortune. Well, first it was junior college and then Cal State Fortune, so it saved a lot of money at the JC, but it was. I started working my way up and just at faith, faith in God and faith in the plan and God has a plan for me, and that everything was that song he's making it with. When the pressure is on, he's making diamonds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like that's it. It's my daughter's favorite song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great song and it's totally true. I mean I had. I had, yeah, I mean real tough times before that. I mean I found God when I was 17 and he didn't grow up?
Speaker 1:No, not at all.
Speaker 2:I was very atheist household and I just single mother. But I, yeah, I found myself in juvenile hall. Actually, I mean, I was in and out of trouble and so I mean I'll tell you a story about how I. What got me started is is I, somebody gave me a Bible in the juvenile hall and I just wanted to get out of my, out of my cell. I was there 17 years old and they didn't. They were poorly staffed and I was only out of the cell for a couple of hours a day because of that and I thought, you know, I'll just get out.
Speaker 2:They had a Bible study going on and some lady was was there and she she was asking I mean, she, I was asking her questions. I was giving her just a hard time saying no, why? Because my family's Jewish. So I was. I was like, yeah, I'm Jewish. Where's the rabbi? Why? Why is it only Christian stuff here? And so she says, well, if you're Jewish, here's a, here's a Bible, read the Old Testament. I learned the history and I'm like, okay. So she gave me a bookmark and she said by the way, I just got back from Israel. She gave me the Bible and a bookmark from Israel and it was very unique bookmark. It said from the garden tomb and it had laminated mustard seeds in the parable in the Bible that said if you have faith, as small as a mustard seed you can tell this mountain to move from here to there and it will move.
Speaker 2:Super unique bookmark. So fast forward 20 years. We moved back. I had started my own company, served eight years in the military, got out as a captain I mean, never gotten in trouble since then, very, very blessed. And so we moved back here to Northern California and I felt the Holy Spirit really pushing on me, saying find this woman. It was like, and I'm thinking, how do I find this woman? I've never. I don't know what she looks like, I don't know her name. And I even told my wife I was like I'd like to find this woman, it'd be really cool. And she's like how are you going to do that? But if you did, it would really mean a lot to her, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:And I had closed my Facebook at the time. I was even thinking of reopening it and saying hey, does anyone know anyone that volunteered in Auburn area circa 2001 in juvenile hall and that maybe gave me this bookmark? But two weeks into it and two weeks into moving here, we signed up. We signed up for a church retreat up at Lake Tahoe and we're non-denominational, so it was just a random Protestant church up here that was hosting it. So the first night they had a bonfire down at the lake and I go down to the fire pit and there's three people sitting around it. There was a couple and some other person. I talked to the lady that's sitting there. She asked me within a minute, how do you become a Christian? And I told her the story and I told her about the bookmark. Now I've told, up to this point, two people about this bookmark before I'm not going up to people saying hey, you know what they gave me the bookmark.
Speaker 2:It was her. It was her the third person that you thought she was the one that gave me the bookmark. She still volunteers in juvenile hall.
Speaker 1:Did you recognize her or she?
Speaker 2:No, I told her the story and I was like you know, this is how I became a Christian. Somebody gave me the Bible in juvenile hall and gave me a bookmark. You know, I'd really like to find out who it was, and it was her. Oh my wow, how was that, oh, we couldn't speak for like 15 seconds or cried, and she was just saying you know, this is instant vindication of her life's work of trying to reach the kids, and it was just so cool.
Speaker 2:What a story, and then our husband backed it up and was like, yeah, we went to Israel in 2001 and bought a stack of bookmarks for her juvenile hall ministry and our name's Pam Harley and we had her and her husband, larry over for dinner at her house and it was just so cool. I mean, it was like God is real and that's the foundation of everything. When it comes to business, when it comes to life, I mean that's the litmus test. I mean, if anything you do in business should always reflect the Bible, you know, the best business book there is out there is the book of Proverbs, in my opinion, oh yes, so many principles and all the values that are.
Speaker 1:They're universal throughout life business. You're right, the best book is if someone just reads that book alone and really follows. They'll be on the good ground.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, I mean it's. I'm currently rereading through the Bible right now. It's the first time I read it it was 25 years ago, something like that and it really I mean it's interesting reading it from a perspective too. I mean, I still do Bible studies, but I'm talking starting at Genesis and reading all the way through, and now that I'm rereading it as a parent, your perspective changes so much too, and there's so much you miss, and it's just really I mean I feel recharged like a battery when you read it when you study it and when you discuss it, I mean it really is powerful.
Speaker 2:I think that the Holy Spirit's real God is real and that's what drives me, that's all the blessings that I've received from Him, because we can't take and we don't want anything. This is all. That's what I say. People say, oh, look at what I've built, look what I've done. We haven't built crap. It's all. Everything is through God, it's all from us, and I mean he gives us the power, he gives us the energy, he gives us the wisdom and the guidance, but yeah, if we don't follow it, I mean, and it could all be taken away in an instant. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:It's really it's been quite a journey, so so how was?
Speaker 1:Let me let's talk a little bit about your military service. So what made you want to go into military and how old were you when you joined?
Speaker 2:So I was. I went through the RTC program at Cal State, fullerton, and commissioned in 2010. So it was fairly recently. Recently, I mean it's. I wanted to go in much earlier, but then I got in trouble and so it was not really in the cards at the time, and I it's interesting because I was planning on going career enlisted and I was just going to be a grunt and I ended up being an officer. It's interesting how what appears to be such a setback at one time, because I remember I was following my eyes out when I got in trouble when I was 17. I was thinking, oh no, no, I can't be in the military. This is what I dreamed about, and you always wanted to be yeah.
Speaker 2:And who would know that? What was it? Seven years, eight years later, I'd be an officer. I mean, this is like, yeah, I mean going from being a. Yeah, I mean I would have just been a private and worked my way up. But yeah, I was. I went to Afghanistan in 2012. I was a tanker and they, I wanted to join to fight the jihadists. I mean, when September 11th happened was really my welcoming to adulthood, I mean.
Speaker 2:I was 18 years old when 9-11 occurred and I really, really wanted to confront these guys that attacked us, and so I just I couldn't be in the military, so I just went all in on studying the jihadist mindset, on fighting them at the grassroots level. I worked with various non-profits. I even started my own non-profit at the time that I ran for a few years where we did different, just fun and serious actions against the jihadists and trying to wake America up to the threat that we face. I travelled all over the world through those activities I mean through that activism to Jordan, kosovo, bosnia, egypt. I mean all these different places, just really on fact-finding missions, trying to learn the research, the mindset of the jihadists before the military, and so just on my own, and one of the most eye-opening trips that I took was to Europe in 2009.
Speaker 2:And that was really scary because I hadn't realized just how many inroads that the jihadists had gotten and why they got it. And it was largely from the leftists in Europe who had opened the door for them, because they won't get an inch if nobody's there to open the door for them. I mean, look at our southern border now is wide open. And not only that you have policies in place. You can look at Europe. That's always been a window into our future and, sadly, most of the things that I saw there in 2009 came true about a decade later here, with the riots on the streets, with just unchecked immigration. All these things happened in Europe a decade ago.
Speaker 2:And in France, for example, we went to a Hezbollah rally that we heard was going on. They were protesting against Israel, as they always are, and I thought let's go to this Hezbollah and Hamas rally that was going on there and let's just do it undercover. And so it was right in front of the Louvre. They marched all the way from the Louvre to the Opera Square there and they were burning Israeli flags. Then they started rioting. There was a McDonald's that we ate at and they had destroyed the McDonald's about 15 minutes after we left Just broke all the windows and they started burning cars and we got out of there, but it was probably about 20,000-30,000 people that were marching in the streets chanting genocidal chants against the Jews.
Speaker 1:So when we were talking about borders and what happened in Europe, I actually had a friend of mine from church who visited Germany a few years ago and when he came back he said this is not the same place like I remember or my parents remember, and there are multiple stories of local people, like families. They do not allow a girl, a young girl or a woman to walk down what used to be very safe streets because they would get either kidnapped or they would bite the people by these horns. And this is in Berlin.
Speaker 2:Yes, I believe it. In France, out by the airport, there's these areas that they call the no-go zones, where, if you're, for example, they don't want, it's very dangerous for non-Muslim ambulances to go in there. I've seen videos of people tracking ambulances with bricks excuse me if they're not a Muslim-owned ambulance company, that's the kind of stuff because they don't want non-Muslims touching their wives or something like that. I mean, it's different. There's extremists that have taken it to such a level in the middle of Europe where, for example, there were reports.
Speaker 2:I talked to somebody, one of the deputy mayors there, of Nuit, one of the suburbs of Paris, and he said that they have started enacting corporal punishment in some of these neighborhoods where they won't take a supposed crime, an alleged crime, to the authorities. They'll say, no, let's take them to the EMOM and let's give them 10 lashings in the courtyard of the projects. I mean it's really gotten bad and this was 2009. There was one of the police chiefs that I talked to that they said he went in and had. Or I talked to one of the police members. They said their chief went in and said I'm not going to tolerate these no-go zones, we're going to go clean house. And they pulled up to one of these big 10, 15-story project buildings and they went inside and when they were inside, somebody pushed a refrigerator off the roof on one of the squad cars, and I mean that's the kind of stuff that they deal with. It's just. I mean there was a number of stabbings that go on if somebody's wearing a Yarmulke or something like that. I mean it's just gotten dangerous.
Speaker 2:I mean you remember Charlie Hebdo, where they went in and killed the editors of the newspaper that published cartoons that they deemed to be offensive?
Speaker 1:So is this something that in Europe right now they are trying to address fix? Is this just because of hey, we're so nice, we need to welcome these refugees, or is this, you think, maybe done in some ways intentionally?
Speaker 2:It's a mix. There's certainly people that know the damage that they're doing and they want to cause chaos because they can't rebuild the nation or the world. Rather, in their socialist utopia image, if there's something in the way and in our case it's the constitution that's in the way In Europe, it's, it's they're using. I mean, there's other governments there, so they've got a they can rebuild from the ashes, but it's it's, that's, that's the goal of some. The goal but I think a lot of it is is born in ignorance. I think it's naive people who do think the best and they, they, they think that other people think like them, and I think that's one of the most dangerous concepts that somebody can have in their, in their mind is the concept of cultural relativism, the belief that all cultures are equal, because the fact is that all cultures are not equal. There are some cultures that are just backwards and that have horrible backwards beliefs, and and Western Judeo-Christian values are far superior to any other culture in the world today, and and it it's, it's just how. I mean, you can look at at how Afghanistan is versus here, and it's not to say that other cultures don't have plenty of good things about them, but there's, there's. You just look at how, how we live, how you can have 300 people sitting on an airplane from 300 different tribes sipping their ginger ale and nodding each other's throat. That's just not possible without Judeo-Christian values, the values that everybody is is creating in the image of God that we're. I mean, I mean, it's just this, this these barriers were broken down 2,000 years ago when that started, and and and yet it continues in places like Afghanistan, and and that's that's the danger is that people believe. There are people that believe. Oh, why they? They must think like us, they must be like us. But I mean, I'll give you some examples if you want to go into what, what I saw in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2:There, there's a tribe in the north called the Neurostanti. These are. It's a smaller tribe, but but I was a city councilman in in, as you mentioned, in one of the cities in Orange County. This is the prerequisite to become in the equivalent of their city council, which is the tribal, a tribal or one of the village elders, one of the village leaders. In America, we just run for election and we we get elected. Well, in a Neurostanti village, you have to.
Speaker 2:There are three things you have to do in order to be a tribal village leader, you have to be a good orator, so you have to speak well and and you have to host the entire village I forgot if it's three times, but a number of times provide a good banquet and have it host the whole village, and you have to murder five rival tribe members. You have to what? You have to murder five. See, it's like did you, did you? I really hear that correctly? You have to murder five rival tribe members. That's exactly it. That's that. It's so crazy that it's just, it's like.
Speaker 2:That concept is just not in our, in our belief, like, come again, I mean, but it's, it's, it's ridiculous. So think about it. That, and not only that, those rival tribes also believe in the blood vengeance, and so it just continues forever. And and so that's, that's one example, and that's something that's just ingrained in their, in their, their tribal mindset. There, in that particular tribe, the Pashtuns in the South, they, they believe in there there's, there's a culture, a cultural tribal belief where, when a woman is married at the wedding ceremony, they have to consummate the marriage. They go into a tent and they consummate the marriage. Well, if it's determined at the ceremony that the woman was not a virgin, then it is the obligation of the husband to murder the bride at the wedding. And then it gets worse than that. It's then the bride's family is obligated to put up a another female relative, so a sister or a cousin, to replace her at the same wedding. And then they do this ceremony again and the same thing. And so what's?
Speaker 2:happening in our time, this is in our times and this is, and and I remember talking to a Pashtun guy that I worked with there and I asked him I thought you know, this is a guy, he's wearing a suit, albeit an 80s suit. They all look like they stepped out of the 80s, it's great. But but they, but he seemed, I mean, I wouldn't say professional, but the least, the least of the unprofessional Afghans that I worked with, and he, he, he, he. I asked him because I've been working with this guy for several months. I was like, hey, what do you think about this? Like, like you're normal guy, like what do you think about these things? And and he got all angry and was like those, those are our, that's our culture. How dare you like question our culture? It's like, okay, this is, it was just, really it goes.
Speaker 2:There was another guy, very similar. This was this was on the, that's more on a tribal side of things, but on an Islamic side of things. There was somebody I met in Los Angeles. Actually it was a protest that we held at the, the King Faud Mosque in Culver City. We actually had a that was the mosque, produced two of the 9-11 hijackers, and so we we thought, you know what, let's, let's go hold their feet to the fire and let's, let's condemn bin Laden, and let's, let's encourage them to issue a fatwa and the Islamic edict against, against bin Laden. And so we, we went there. They said, no, we don't need to do that. And and so we thought, you know, let's hold their feet to the fire. And so we, we held a public hanging of bin Laden in Effigy and we invited them to join with us.
Speaker 2:And we were like come and join with us and we did it across the street and, and so it was. And the shoes are the big insult in much of the Middle East and so so it was a hanging and shoeing. We were like bring your shoes. And we were all over John and Canon KFI radio, which is the big radio station there, and promoting it. We're like bring your shoes, come and come to the hanging of bin Laden. And we got I don't know, it was probably a thousand people there, but it was. It was we actually had a number of Shia Muslims that showed up, because they they don't get along too well with the Sunnis and so it was a Sunni mosque, but they they came with us and a number of normal, just guys who were born in a Muslim family, or women that were, they showed up. So we had a few, we had Muslims on our side and we're like, hey, join with us, join with us and and that was one of our chants actually and and so.
Speaker 2:But at that event, one of the guys he's like foaming at the mouth, yelling like death, death to the infant, just like a crazy jihadist, and I was like I want to talk to that guy. So I went across the street and I was debating with him and I asked him I was like, look, you're American. Like, do you, do you actually believe that somebody who changes their religion in this country that where we have free thought, should be killed? Because the Quran, actually it's the Hiddith that says he who changes his religion kill him. And it's like and I'm talking to him like rationally, not thinking, this is a rational guy and he just gets all angry veins popping out and he's like those are God's laws that say we have to kill someone who changes their religion. It's man's law who says we don't. And who are you to argue with God's law? So I mean, that's the mindset that we're going up against.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's very different. So these people come to a country like America, right Like, what can you expect when you got? I mean, do you think there's a chance that some of these people are in our country right now?
Speaker 2:I met one of them there. At that event, I mean it's like yeah, I mean like more right now, now that the border is 7, 8 million that came through. So, even if it's 1%, I mean it's, even if it's 10,000 people, even if it's 100, I mean it was 19 people that carried off nine. They carried out 9, 11. And and there's just so many opportunities for it, I think it's unfortunately only a matter of time.
Speaker 1:Are you afraid something might happen soon?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not. I mean, I think. I think the we just need to remain vigilant. That's the big thing. And and people are waking up, I mean thanks to a more connected society, which which is really been put on overdrive, I think, now that Twitter is, excuse me, x is a little bit more open than it was before.
Speaker 2:Everybody sees things in real time and I think one of the things that saved us that that you can look at what's happened in France and I'm not just talking kinetic terrorist attacks, I'm talking, I mean, changing our culture. That's the real threat, is the stealth jihad is is is you have people come here and if, if somebody and a lot of these people from the Middle East, they've come from as long backgrounds that just they just want to live their life like anyone else and if they want to worship God, however they want to worship.
Speaker 2:That's that's, god bless. I mean, that's that's their, their life, and and that's what America should be all about. But when you come here with the idea that you should kill somebody if they change their religion, I mean that's taking it another step further. And so there's, there are people like that that maybe are not actively engaged in terrorism, but they want to start to erode at our society and intimidate us from speaking out that sort of thing, and and I and it's, it just takes more people standing up, and I think, yes, back to what I said about what separates us from Europe.
Speaker 2:That's really different is that we have the 14th Amendment, which I think has saved us, and I know a lot of people have thought, oh, birthright citizenship is not not so great. What if I mean? But but in reality and I used to think that too that if somebody's here illegally, or if, if somebody somebody is, I don't know if they're isolated and they, they're, they're, they're, they're born to do illegal immigrants, that they shouldn't be citizens is what that's what a lot of people think, and I used to think that. But the 14th Amendment, the way that it's currently interpreted, says that they're Americans if they're born on American soil. And now, after visiting Europe a number of times since then, I firmly believe that that the way it should be is if someone's born here, they're an American, because that is the difference between here and the Netherlands, or in France, because if somebody is born from from Moroccan parents in the Netherlands, they hold a Moroccan passport and they're looked at by the Dutch as a Moroccan.
Speaker 2:They're not looked at as a, as a Dutch individual or same. Within in France, they're not looked at as French. They're looked at as Senegalese or as, and so what it does is it creates this incredibly unhealthy Balkanized state where you have these no-go zones where they all try to, they just coalesce to each other and they're, they're all hanging out and and and. In America we don't have that. Nobody cares what ethnicity you are, nobody cares what religion you are, nobody, nobody pays any attention it's like caring just recently.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, because the left makes you want to care. I mean, they're like yeah, that's the thing is there. There are sinister forces out there that want to highlight race, they want to highlight religion, they want to highlight gender and and that's the opposite direction that we need for unity and and here we don't really see it stick. If, if, if, two, let's say they're they're not just Muslims, but they're jihadists. Like there's two, two jihadists that come here and they have a kid and and the. The kid is born in America and they're wearing a burqa and they're because their parents are forced them to and they're. They're going to school and their friends are like you're not going to the mall dressed like that, like that's kind of the bread that's kind of the because and they're not gonna want to, they're not gonna they're gonna see what's out there and what the alternative is.
Speaker 2:They're, they're gonna want to be Americans and after two, three generations it disappears they're just Americans, and it's like, and so we don't really see that Balkanization happening here as much as you do in other, in other parts of the world, and and I think the 14th amendment is largely, largely responsible for that.
Speaker 1:Did you see recently I think it was last year there was an article written in the Wall Street Journal about actually I have it right here basically, there was a study done on American values and the article was America pulls back from values that once defined it. They did this poll. They compared to 1998 and 2003. So they were measuring patriotism, religion, having children, community involvement and money. So, from 1998 to 2023, patriotism went from 65 or almost 69 down to 30 as of like how much do you value that right? Religion from close to 60 to 40. Having children this one is crazy because it's a. It's a sharp decline from 60 to 25. Community involvement had a drastic drop, but the only thing, the only value that actually went up is money, which shouldn't.
Speaker 1:Which shouldn't, yeah. So why do you think that is? Do you have an idea of what's causing this kind of shift in our culture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a meme that explains it all. It's the hard times creates strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times creates weak men. Weak men create bad times. So we're in the. I mean, you see, we're at right now and there's really no hardships out there that are not. I mean, granted, there's individual things that happen here and there to people on a one-on-one basis, but as society is concerned, there's really nothing you can't bounce back from and the way that it's set up currently, you can walk outside and go get a job, start a company, go start over. I mean, there's, there's, there's. Our biggest holdups are usually self-inflicted, whether it's addiction, whether it's holding on to something in the past that happened to us. Mindset, mindset yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you have a lot of these kids that are growing up now, and I put kids all the way up to 30. And so I mean there's because the thing is, people don't grow up fast here anymore, they don't. You have people in their 20s that were 100 years ago. They're from China.
Speaker 1:Say again I said compare them to China.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, just in Europe or even just down in Mexico. It's like you know someone in their 25s, like they're in their mid-20s, rather they've. They've got to be working, they've got to be thinking, they've got to be, they're raising a family, they're and here I mean usually people are pretty lost until they're about 30. There's no mandatory military service. There's no, no real wars going on. There's nothing that that. There's no economic depression. You can push a button. Even the poorest of the poor people living on on welfare can push a button on their phone and get a pizza. And it's like and that's something only a king could do a thousand years ago.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like, oh, give me a pizza. I mean it's just not. And and so you, you go work a minimum wage job and be fed and have a roof roof over your head. I mean maybe not in some parts of America, but in most.
Speaker 2:I mean it's really it's. It's a everything is out there. I mean God gave us everything that we need and this is the way that this government is structured enables that to actually be a reality. That we're, we can go, take what we want, build what we want, and nobody's going to take it from us. I mean it's. It's like I mean we complain about the taxes, which I want to keep the taxes low, but France is paying like 60% or as we're paying like in our 30s, and so so I mean you got, you've got. I mean we're, we're heading that way. I mean when you have people say no, we want to give me more, give me more, give me more. And it's this give me attitude that these younger generation have Giving entitles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this entitlement exactly they don't.
Speaker 2:They don't understand how good they've got it. Most have never set foot out of, out of even California. I mean, they're the ones here, the, the, and if they have, they've never set foot out of America, and certainly not to go visit the slums in Mumbai or something like that and see how real poverty is. I mean, it's really, there are so many countries like in in North Korea or you don't even have to go that far, you go to France or something there, where it's like you go, where you try to start something and they just, they just chip away at your ability to succeed.
Speaker 2:It's just whether it's it's just paying absurd taxes or in China, if you start to get any, any measure of success, you're going to get a knock on the door from the CCP and they're going to say, hey, congratulations on your success, we're now half owner, and so it's kind of. I mean, that's, that's the reality, and and so we don't have any King that's taken it away from us. They can just just just plunder. I mean, we, what we have, what we earn, is ours, and and and so a lot of people don't realize that. So you have this entitled generation of weak individuals that didn't have to grow up in any amount of of of stress.
Speaker 1:I mean it's all it's.
Speaker 2:The stress that they feel is is like oh, I don't have enough followers on Instagram. Oh, no, I can't believe. Jamie de-friended me and like.
Speaker 1:I mean, these are yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean these are the types of things they're dealing with, whereas I mean in the 1930s they were standing in soup lines and it's like you see people getting over getting all bent out of shape over what pronoun that they're supposed to be called, whereas I mean if there was actual, real problems going on then, then I mean you go up to somebody in the soup line in the 1930s and say, hey, what pronouns would you like me to call you.
Speaker 2:I don't think you'd get, I don't think you'd get far without a black eye, and so it's really that's. That's what's caused it. That's where we're at, and I think the unfortunate reality is it's probably not going to change until there is some kind of economic hardship that hits us.
Speaker 1:Something difficult that will form.
Speaker 2:And it's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, it's a cyclical. It's a cycle, yeah, and we've been on really high waves since.
Speaker 1:World.
Speaker 2:War II. I mean there was the recession, but even that was not anything compared to the Great Depression and certainly not anything compared to some kind of to the Civil War or something like that. I mean this is and we're not immune.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I you know, this podcast is. We try to talk about entrepreneurship on this podcast and I'm really interested to hear, like, what was your thinking behind when you decided you're going to start your own business? I mean, there's risk, you know. There's fear of failure. It's it's not easy. How did you come to first of all, like deciding that I'm going to do this, and how long did it take you until you knew that a whatever I'm working on, I now see results, because I know that results don't come right away. And right now, people have this thing where, like instant gratification, you want to see results right away. You want things now. When somebody tries doing something they don't succeed, they turn away from it. They try something else. Easy money, bitcoin, let's invest. What's the latest stock? What's the latest thing to invest in to make money? How was it for you starting your business and going through that process of beginning just a thought of I want to start a business until you saw that, hey, I think I got something going here.
Speaker 2:I think. I mean it's certainly. You ask anybody who's successful. The business that they're successful in is very, very unlikely to be the first business they ever did. They usually failed many times before I failed. I started a video game company that didn't do well and I started other. I was always doing something trying. I remember when I was in high school I was one of the first nerdy kids that got a CD burner, and so there I was and hopefully the piracy agency isn't watching, but I don't know what the statute of limitations is.
Speaker 2:But in 1996, 97, I was making copies of people's music CDs and charging them 10 bucks. I was greedy, cds are $20. And so this is before. I was a Christian, so I'm forgiven. So there I was, 14 year old Jesse, making copies of CDs, and I had to. I would charge people I think it was like it was like $5 to duplicate one of their CDs, to make them a copy, and then I'd get the copy of it.
Speaker 2:And then $10 for it. I had a big list and I'd go around school and I was selling CDs and so that was my, I guess. Well, that wasn't even my first business. My first was I would pick up. I remember I was like 10 or 12 and I'd go down to the river and I'd pick up a bunch of like just cool rocks and I set up a booth on the side of the road in front of my house that said Rocksale, and I was selling rocks and I remember it was the funniest thing because there's.
Speaker 2:I'd put up signs around the neighborhood Rocksale with arrows, and people would be like what's Rocksale? And they'd stop by and they see some cute kid, a 10 year old, sitting there behind the table and I'd be like, oh, this here, this is. And they'd be like how much do you want for this? And they'd be like this is some quartz, this is nice, this is $5. And so I was selling rocks and I mean they're just rocks, they did not worth anything, and then it was. It was funny.
Speaker 2:But I realized that, like it's all about sales, it's not. It's not about the product. And so once you learn how to do sales, you can sell anything and it's really, and you can move, you could pivot, and the world works on people. And so sales are people and if and so. So that's it. Whether you're selling real estate, whether you're selling a widget, whether you're selling service, it's all sales and it's all people. So so you take people to lunch, you talk to them, you make them laugh, you get to be their friend, and then they buy it for me, what do you know? And so it's really. I mean, that's that's. I learned that pretty early on, but I didn't have any formal training in it, and so when I graduated from college, I got a dead end job in sales at a terrible company. That was a terrible boss and it was. I hated it there. It was, the pay was garbage, but I learned how to sell more and I learned more.
Speaker 2:How was the boss Say again, you said a terrible boss.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was somebody that, exactly somebody that was looking for for get rich quick, the next scheme that they could do, and it was. It was like but they were burning bridges for me and so it's like, cause I'm this guy selling the product and they're doing switcheroo's and unethical stuff, and I really saw that and was like man, that's really not how to run a business and so, but along the way I was learning it more. One thing I will give them credit for is they gave me a book. They gave all their sales people a book. It was the Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gittimer, and so if you haven't read that, I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:It's a it's. It's a little book, a little red book, and it's it's not very long. I think it's like 70 pages or something. It's called the Art of Selling, the Little Red Book of Selling, and and I remember I read that over and over and over again and it was just, it was. It was like gold, cause it's stuff that I already knew some of, but but then it just like shaped it all together. I mean it had it had so many lessons in there and and and just, and I started learning that another. Then I realized you know what I got to? I got to get more training for this if I want to be more successful in sales, and so so I also bought a book another very popular, famous book how to Win Friends and Influence People. Dale Carnegie yes, carnegie, who actually changed his name the spelling to match the Carnegie, the famous Carnegie from Carnegie Steel.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's yeah.
Speaker 2:It wasn't even spelled correctly. It was spelled the same, I should say, and so he did that just for marketing.
Speaker 2:And so, but it but it's. But that's another great book. I started learning all I mean all these these, because the doctrinal, how to sell, there are lessons out there. You don't have to start from scratch. And so so once I learned that I mean I already knew I wanted to do something. And it didn't matter what, I just wanted, wanted a business that was successful. And so I ended up I was selling cables for the cell towers and I said, okay, I saw the need for cable management for the towers and so now that's, that's my business.
Speaker 2:As I make the little clips that clip the cables to cell towers, like it's such a weird thing, but it's, it's it. And I never thought like, oh, what do you want to do when you grow up? And the firefighter policeman, I want to sell the cable hangers that clip the cables to cell towers, like it's just not something that's on the radar. But the way that I got into that was when I got fired from that job. I went to go visit somebody in the industry and the next day I went to their warehouse and I said can we walk around the warehouse and I want to see what you need. I don't have anything to sell, I want to see well, what do you need? So they walked me around and they said you know, what we really need is we got these cables and we don't have these new cables. We don't have any way to hang them, we're using zip ties and I'm like okay, there it is, there's my business, and that was it so you invented.
Speaker 2:Well, they already had some things. It was just modifying it to fit that cable. So it was like, because the cables are always changing the technology, is changing fiber optics. We're getting new, so it was a smaller hanger and I mean there's little things like that. That it's like okay, you never sell a product. You say okay, what do you need? I mean that's-.
Speaker 1:Just solve a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, solve a problem, yeah you don't come up with a solution, looking for a problem. That's the biggest mistake that people make in starting a business. You got to go find the problem, even if it's something that's not sexy, like I mean cable hangers like who cares? It's not something that I'm going to be putting on my gravestone, like this guy made the best cable hangers Like it's just, but who cares? It pays the bills and it's fun and it's-. That was my first product with our business since branched into all sorts of things since then related to the industry. In fact, if you go to the Giants Stadium, you'll be talking on every call, every tweet, with San Francisco Giants Play is going over our equipment there now, so it's like that's the kind of stuff that we're branching into is more high end equipment in the industry.
Speaker 2:So who knows? I mean all industries, all businesses. It's like a river. You're just looking for the next thing, that of where things are going, and you're not the one that's really driving it. The industry, I mean there's some people that are, but like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or folks like that, but you're not gonna be one of those and don't try Like that's the biggest thing, he's crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm reading his book, Elon Musk's book.
Speaker 2:These people are amazing. I mean, they don't sleep. These are brilliant people and most of us are not that brilliant, and so the fact is that. But plenty of us are super smart and able to figure out and see okay, well, what scraps did they leave behind?
Speaker 2:And so it's like or ideas yeah, cause I'll tell you the cable hanger was something that the guy that I met with there's an $8 billion market evaluated at the time competitor of ours. They were their valuation was $8 billion at the time, 10 years ago who made the similar item of that and they actually sent. They were talking to their sales rep and was like we need this size of cable hanger and they told them to go pound sand. They says it's just not worth it enough. A few million dollars is just not worth it for us, and so they wouldn't do it and I was like I'll take it, so it's like. And then we ended up capturing such a huge chunk of the market share For those that virtually every AT&T tower in on the West coast has our hangers on it.
Speaker 2:Now, at 10 years later and so you know it's funny it's about five years later that company came out with it was exactly the same as our hanger. They took the mold. Only it says Petrilla. On the side where ours says Petrilla they have a little black box like it's been erased from the mold and so it's and that's the $8 billion competitor. It took them about five years to knock us off and it was like it was and I was laughing my butt off when I saw that on the table at a trade show of those folks, I was like this is ours, this is the one you turned down. And what do you know? We already have such a chunk of the market share of that that we're still selling them.
Speaker 2:And it's like because it's taken its 10 years of relationships that we've built up, of lunches and handshakes and those things that people are like, okay, why am I gonna switch to these other guys now that it's like I've already been buying it from you, and so that's the thing is, people don't wanna deal with an $8 billion monster. They wanna deal with the mom and pop shop that where they can see that. It's like okay, I placed an order with you. I've met your kids. I see that the kids are like they come into the office and when somebody stops by for a will call like they'll see the kids running around sometimes and it's like wow, like okay, my dollars are going to help like that kid's college and it's not going to satisfy some shareholders.
Speaker 2:And so that company, by the way, the $8 billion company. The last I saw the market cap, it was like 800 million.
Speaker 1:So it's gone down quite a bit. Well, you know, like that's something about the what happens with these big companies. Look at, like Blockbuster, Kmart, right, when they get so big they get complacent. You know, it's like Goliath and David's story, right, Like nothing can touch us. We're so big, we got so much of the market share, and then there's somebody who's willing to work harder and outwork, outmaneuver, and then time goes by and then they end up losing the market share because at the one point they were, you know, they didn't really care.
Speaker 2:So yeah, now they care. I mean, they care enough to knock off my little part.
Speaker 1:So you guys sell like in California or it's worldwide. It's worldwide, yeah, we sell all.
Speaker 2:Most of it's West Coast but we've got a big distributor in the Midwest. But I did some work down in Chile in South America. We're doing some cool stuff down there, Awesome. I've tried Europe but they're too cheap. They just everybody is buying from China direct there for the most part and it's really difficult to get in there.
Speaker 2:It's also very incestuous. There's not a lot of, I found, in so many countries. There's bribery, there's people appointing their cousins to different positions in the industry. I mean it's just we don't see that as much in America. I mean it certainly exists, but it's nothing to the level that you see in other countries where they're going to be buying from their uncle or whatever. I mean it's so the market is here. I don't need to turn this into a billion dollar company. I mean I'm very happy being a mom and pop shop.
Speaker 2:I had some great advice. I heard a consultant that I learned a lot from for about five years that he was. He was just before retirement. He said you know, I'll give you five years. And he used to run a company that was very similar in the same industry, the same, pretty much the same business plan, only much, much bigger. They had about 6,000 employees at their peak and just shy of a billion dollars a year in revenue something like 957 million a year. But they went out of business in 2013, the same year that I started my company, and that's another kind of like divine story. That's just so weird. I mean people say it's weird, but I think I think things happen for a reason.
Speaker 2:I was picking up some patio furniture, of all things, and I missed my street. This is down in Santa Ana, in Orange County, and I and I'm like, okay, I'll cut through here this, through this vacant parking lot, and I'm going through and it's it's obviously there's like weeds growing up through the, through the cracks, and I'm looking at it's just some beautiful corporate office building and I'm just dreaming. This is still early on in my career before I realized it's going to be not that important. But I was dreaming like someday I'm going to have a corporate headquarters like this and it's like I wonder what this used to be, like this is. This must have been some kind of amazing company and I I Googled it and I couldn't believe it. It was. It was the most famous company in our industry, in our small industry, that I didn't even know had been based in California, cause I was already in the industry for a couple of years prior to starting my own company and I knew they went out of business. I remember it was a big deal and and I was like that's crazy.
Speaker 2:I got out of all the places in the whole world that I actually turned into the old headquarters of this company and and I was like you know, I'll bet they lost a lot of talent a couple of years ago when this company went out. I wonder what their executives are doing. So I put it in park I'm still there in the parking lot and and I go on LinkedIn and I find their CEO and I send him a message there While I'm in the parking lot. He responds instantly and says hey, I'm, I'm actually going to be in your area tomorrow afternoon and I guess, stop by your office, I'm doing consulting now and I'm like hey, so so he was in my office the next day.
Speaker 2:I retained him, he was my consultant and he said I'll give you five years and I'll I'll help you build the company. And and it was like I mean it gave me a great rate, came in a couple of days a week, that's it. I mean I can only afford two days a week for him. And but he, he, he brought so much and the biggest thing that he brought, I think, was stopping me from growing it as big as I wanted to, he said. He said you don't want to do that, you want to carve out your niche. You want to keep it small.
Speaker 2:Because, I'll tell you, when I was running the company with 6,000 people, I never slept, I never saw my family. I was on a plane every day dealing with the most crazy stresses. He had factories all throughout Asia and and and other parts of the world. He said that he would. He would fly to these, these countries, in in the middle of nowhere, some factory in some rural area and have to quell riots of of workers and just different things that were just. It created such a level of stress that probably took 10 years off his life. And how old was he? When you talked to him, I think he was pretty young, he's mid 50s probably. So, yeah, this, he would have been in his 40s when he's doing this and and so he from spending those four or five years just chatting with him and learning from him, I really realized the importance of taking it, of taking it just to that level, to where it's successful.
Speaker 1:But you're not you're not so stressed.
Speaker 2:And that it's cause. What's the point? I mean, we can't take it with us and the only point of being past that threshold of, of, of of being wealthy enough to not have to worry about, about your kids, college, not have to worry about food, not have to worry if something happens tomorrow, that you want to have enough in the bank, like beyond that threshold, happiness really goes down. There's actually been studies that have that have happened. I'm sure it's been updated with the, with the amounts, but I remember when I read it about 10 years ago it said it said it showed, it showed they did surveys of happiness and and and it showed from zero, like unhappy money, increased happiness up to about 50 grand at the time, which is probably double now but, but, but it increased.
Speaker 2:It was about 50 grand. It went way up and then after that it kind of plateaued a little bit and then it went way down and people that are made were making two, three, 400 or even more, were incredibly unhappy. Depression was through the roof. It was just like, because those jobs create so much stress to have that, or and not just that they start to, you start to lose a side of things. People. People are, I mean, out to get you. The more money you have, the more attention you have, and it's it's just like people, people start getting jealous. I mean it's just really there's no point, and so I think the only point that that would have to have to be like a multi, multi-millionaire, a billionaire would be to do philanthropy. I think that's the only thing that would be would be beneficial of that Cause. Yeah, we can't. I mean I don't know if you've seen that. They heard the saying that I once met somebody who was so poor that all they had was money.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I, like I said I was reading this book right now by Elon Musk. Well, it's not, it's about him by Chris Isaacson. He wrote a lot of books about Benjamin Franklin. I think he wrote one about Stevie Jobs, and you know, I'm beginning to kind of understand that somebody like Elon Musk, his mind is always going.
Speaker 1:He could never really keep a relationship with a woman for a long time. He is so committed to whatever he is doing, whatever his building, that I just honestly like I don't really think that he's a very happy man and and I think that maybe one of the reasons why he decided to buy Twitter and be like the promoter or whatever else word that you can put in for, like free speech, was because he's maybe he's searching to do something for a bigger cause than just Like everything that he's doing, like even like the rockets, everything it's more than average person is thinking about doing in their life. Right For him, spacex is hey, we're gonna create a civilization on Mars. Who thinks like that, you know? Oh, by the way, did you hear that? I think just a few weeks ago, I heard the story that the first person already got the micro yeah in the brain. Yeah, and they're with thinking. They were able to move the mouse, the cursor, the mouse. We're like, we're just with thinking.
Speaker 2:Creepy it's. Yeah. Well, don't count on me signing up for that.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know, it's very similar to like the thing where, when Internet came out, you said earlier about the credit cards and people were hesitating paying with credit cards. Right, it's like, oh no, no, not me, not me. And then you look at decade later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody's storing it. It's like they just tap things. It's all stored, Everything is yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean I've heard today on a podcast, on PBD podcast, tom Ellsworth. He was talking about how he saw some guy who wasn't able to move his hand. Or he said, after doing something like that, he was able to eat. Because of that, you know, some kind of signal in the brain, because I guess they can go and zoom in on the area of the brain that is not firing. I mean, I don't know how it works, I wouldn't even know the right terms, but if someone, let's say, has some kind of a disability maybe they were in the military, they got injured, right, and it's helping them regain some kind of function I mean, maybe they have a different perspective on that, us healthy people saying, yeah, we don't want anything on that, but who knows where it's going to lead. And if someone has or takes control of this kind of technology, what's the result? Where is this going to go?
Speaker 2:No, that's the type of entrepreneurship though that can take a course that's very good for humanity. Like you said, if you're trying to make somebody walk, again they can't walk. Or see, I mean I've seen, I've heard about implants that have fixed people's lives. I mean there's stuff, the technology, that they're working on that, and if somebody does invent the cure for cancer, for example, then they should be rewarded. I mean that's rewarded financially. I mean it's so cool when you can find something that is productive, that's not detrimental to society. I mean you could go and start a cigarette company or you could go and start something that we discussed.
Speaker 2:I mean there's entrepreneurship that's for good, and I think what Elon Musk is doing you said it before that he's focused at the time was two things he wanted to focus on energy independence and on creating like the cars in Tesla, and on making us a multi-planetary species.
Speaker 2:So because that's the thing is this there's Earth killer asteroids, there's pandemics, there's all kinds of stuff that can happen that have wiped out huge chunks of the Earth in the past, and we know it's finite and it's an infinite galaxy out there. So that's, we shouldn't be investing and investigating the possibility of getting off this planet when the Earth killer is like a few days away. It's like we don't always see these things coming. So I think it's great what he's doing, and I think the third part of it that he's kind of been forced into is connecting the world. That's the element that I've been steered in toward with IntelliC Communications I thought you know this is something because I had always known that I want to start a business and I've always been searching for purpose, as everybody else is. And another great book the third one that I'll mention is the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.
Speaker 2:We actually went to Saddleback Church for about five years, oh wow, and so lived right across the street from it and I mean it was really. The impact that that book has had on the world is just tremendous. So, because everyone's looking for purpose and it really talks for those who haven't read it about finding your purpose in God, that God has given us all unique talents and abilities and our place in the world, no matter what it is. Some people are great artists, so they should go pursue a career in art. Some people are great at math, so they should go work for NASA or something. I mean, there's so many people. Whatever they're good at is what they should do, and so it's about finding what you get and when you're good at something, and if you love doing it and you enjoy it, you're going to flourish in that environment, but if you're doing the wrong thing, I mean I'll give my uncle as an example.
Speaker 2:he was a lawyer, my grandfather was a lawyer. When he came to America he went to law school. He was like I'm going to be a lawyer, and then he was very aggressive to his kids and was like you will be a lawyer.
Speaker 2:And so he never wanted to be a lawyer, he wanted to be a music composer and he was more of an artsy guy. The guy had a heart attack in his 30s and I mean, and he passed away several years ago, pretty young I mean, I think it was early 70s, but still this guy had Hodgkins along the way. He had all kinds of health problems his whole life and I don't think any of that would have happened if he was pursuing the career that he was supposed to, that was, using his God-given talents. But he was an unhappy lawyer, very depressed his whole life, and it killed him. And so I think that happens every day. People were in the wrong job, they're not fulfilling their purpose, and so, if they are, they're going to know it and it's going to show, I mean, they're going to be happy.
Speaker 2:How does someone start, or figures out what their purpose is or find that purpose Well there's 40 chapters in the Purpose Driven Life that explain, but I'll tell you the impact that that book has had too. I was amazed I didn't realize just to the level until I visited Rwanda a couple years ago and I was absolutely impressed with. I mean, you go to visit churches there and they've got Purpose Driven whatever all around and they're just all at it and I actually met with some of their government leaders and it was amazing. I met with the minister of telecommunications there and she loves Rick Warren, she's good friends with him, he's come there numerous times and I'm just like, seriously, like our church, what's going on? Well, I knew he's famous, obviously, but it was just really the impact that this guy has had and this book has had.
Speaker 2:Because what happened was President Kagame in Rwanda came in just after the genocide there, and so you had two warring factions that just came out of a brutal civil war where the Hutus were doing the genocide against the Tutsis, and so now you have a guy from a Tutsi background that's in charge and he read the Purpose Driven Life and he thought you know, this is it like we're all children of God?
Speaker 2:And so he used that as the template and he had Pastor Rick come over to help come up with the reconciliation plan and he essentially based it off the book between the two and it's really incredible to see the impact that that has. And just, I mean, I was in one church and I asked him too. I said you know, you've got a few hundred congregants here. Do you have members that took part in this genocide? That facilitated it? Because he said we're all Rwandans in this church and he said yes, they do. He has people that he knows and he hacked up people and they took part in this and he said what do you do? His own family was many of them were killed in this and he said I hug them, I welcome them with open arms and hug them because we can't let it continue. And it's like wow.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I can do that it's really.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that book had just such an impact on that country and I know that President Kagame he makes the foundation.
Speaker 1:God, yeah, well speaking of books, tell us a little bit about the book that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I just signed a contract with Bombardier Books and, excuse me, you signed a contract with who again? So I just signed a contract with Bombardier Books. They've got a number of pretty good authors in there Jerome Corsi, robert Spencer. They've got Dan Bongino is another one that they've signed with.
Speaker 2:So it's a book about the jihadist threat and what we can do about it. So it's the mindset of the jihadists. So I talk about. The name of the book is If it Takes a Thousand Years and it's not out yet. You can't buy pre-sales, but you can go to ifittakesathousandyearscom and enter your email address and so you'll get alerted as soon as it's available.
Speaker 2:But those words were told to me by a Taliban commander when I was in Afghanistan. My job was to facilitate the interrogations of the Taliban and it's funny it didn't start out that way. When I took the tour I raised my hand to go to Afghanistan and here I had just come off of a decade of fighting against the jihadists at the grassroots level and they said you know how? Would you like to be the personal representative to the Taliban detainees? And I'm like what are you talking about? Personal representative? That was the actual title that I had on my orders. I said personal representative, your job is going to be to make sure that they're not being tortured, make sure that you're going to make sure their needs are being taken care of. It even got down to the point where there's like arrows in their cell and you need to make sure that's facing Mecca and that they have.
Speaker 2:It was like out of all the people and they said I didn't have to do any of that. It was like that, but that's the stuff, because somebody had already done it all before I got there. But they said your job is your main job is going to be to represent them in the trials. So you're going to be like their defense attorney and I'm like what are you talking about? I'm a combat arms tanker. Like you're going to make me the defense attorney and who's the prosecution? And they were like those are the Jagged attorneys.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like so I go there. Out of all the people in the world, they chose me. It was so funny because every single hearing they called them the detainee review boards, the DRBs. They would say does the personal representative have anything to add in the detainee's defense? And I'd always stand up and say I have nothing to add and I'd sit down, think I'm the wrong person. So it was awesome. I had an all-access badge to the detention facility in Parwan. It was virtually unrestricted, like I mean, I could talk to the detainees any time I wanted, I had all the access to them, and that only lasted about a month. And then my boss walks over and is like okay, how do you want to go to the other side? How would you like that? And I'm like, okay, sure. And so they made me on the prosecution side. They made me the liaison officer to the Afghan prosecutors. So it was their equivalent of the KGB, the agency that I was liaisoning to.
Speaker 2:And so it was called the NDS. But yeah, one of the guys was actually a former KGB agent. It was really cool talking to the old guys, because they all like a lot of them were from the previous Russian government or they lived in Russia during the Taliban times and then they came back.
Speaker 2:But it was really fascinating because my job from that point on, for about four of the six months that I was there, was to facilitate the interrogations of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and other detainees that were there, and so every day I was meeting with them, I was talking with them, I was drinking tea with them, I was their friend, and so it's not like the movies were pouring water on them and they're like no, it was like you're drinking tea and you're like, oh, tell me about your family and that kind of stuff. So I got to know these Taliban commanders and I was talking to one of them and he said, yeah, you've got me in a cage, my war is over, I'm not fighting you anymore, but my children are out there and they will fight you and their grandchildren. If they don't win, they will fight you and their children will fight you. If it takes a thousand years, we will defeat you, and so those were stuck with you.
Speaker 2:He meant the West, you the West, yes, and so if it takes a thousand years is the name of the book and it's really I talk about. I've got a couple of chapters about Afghanistan there. We've got chapters about my times in the Balkans and in Egypt. Just a different, different.
Speaker 1:Just what I've learned from all these backfire missions. Yeah, it's really good. I'm looking forward to it. You've read one of the chapters I did. Yes, I found it fascinating. I don't know, like, how did you learn to write like that? Or you had some help. Yeah, I just felt the story. Yeah, I said people like Christmas stuff.
Speaker 2:Like just just they like personal experiences. I mean, it's really there's no substitute for a firsthand account.
Speaker 1:You know, in our podcast it's called the greatest story podcast, and my thinking behind it was you know, in life sometimes we can be one story away from changing our trajectory, whether in a positive or a negative way, and earlier you shared a story about the Bible and the bookmark. Is that a story that had one like the biggest impact in your life, or maybe there's something else that you'd like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's the start. I mean up to that point I was lost. I mean I really really didn't know that there was a plan for me. I didn't. I was just kind of shooting at the hip like everyone else is, and so, as at that age and not really knowing how, what there was out there, I mean. I think that's. I grew up in a broken home, as all too many kids are this day and age, and I think that's. The real epidemic in this, in this country, is fatherless homes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And when I realized that I have a father in heaven who loves me and has planned for me, I mean that that changed everything. And, and I think when you're working for an audience of one, which is God, it changes your perspective on the world.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Completely and you're no longer trying to satisfy everyone else and be a people pleaser, and so that's that's definitely. That story is is the biggest Now. That story only happened a couple of years ago, so if you had asked me before that, I don't know what story. I would say but it probably I think, yeah, that's, that's it. I mean just just thank you. Thank you very much for sharing.
Speaker 1:How can people find you?
Speaker 2:If it takes a thousand yearscom go check it out. Put your email in if you want to check out the book. It hopefully later this year. It's in editorial right now and hopefully they don't change too much on it. I don't think they will, but we'll see Well, jesse.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. Thank you An honor Appreciate it.
