Your Story Matters: Faith, Speaking, and Finding Your People with Jesse Cruz

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:01)

Jessie, welcome to the show.

Jesse Cruz (00:03)

Thank you for having me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:04)

You have been quite a speaker, and you have quite an experience. I saw that you worked in the military. Do you want to share anything about that first?

Jesse Cruz (00:15)

Yeah, so I joined the military in 2007, was there until 2011, and I was in the army, and I was deployed in Iraq for a year.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:27)

My goodness. Tell me anything about that.

Jesse Cruz (00:32)

Yeah, I mean, it was one of the scariest things of my life. I had a child that was just born, and then within 72 hours, she wouldn't see me again for like a year. So she was born, and then I left. And that was really hard for me to deal with, is leaving so soon after she was born. And then being there for a year was tough, but I couldn't wait to come home and...

So I decided when I got back home that I would get out of the military so I could be involved and be around and be in her life because being away from her for that long was not fair to her, and that's not the kind of dad I wanted to be.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:18)

Absolutely, a whole year. So what did you do to change your life and to create freedom after a year away?

Jesse Cruz (01:29)

Yeah, well, I mean, most importantly is I returned back home because I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, for a while. got back and came to New York State, where I'm from, and got involved in my faith and my church. Very important to me. Started hanging out with different people, different friends and started to surround myself with a different environment of people upon returning home so I could kind of leave behind like a wild life that I was living because I was not living maybe like a really good life at that time and I realized that I needed to do better for her and for me and so I really had to change the people I was spending time with.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:14)

Okay, so you were surrounding yourself with faith-based people and people who are responsible, and it sounds like it was a wild time. said, what was it about the, what happened? What can you share about the year away?

Jesse Cruz (02:30)

I mean, that year away, I was, I just felt so lost. You know, I spent so much time away from the people I cared about the most to do something I didn't fully love or have the passion to do. And so I felt like a complete, like a failure, really, because I wasn't fulfilled. This wasn't my purpose. I didn't have meaning in it, you know? And so just being there.

I was blessed with the opportunity to have some great guys I was with. I became very close with and care deeply about until this day. We're still very close. But it was a big learning time about me, about who I am and what I want out of life and what I don't want out of life, because that's also extremely important as well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:23)

I'm wondering what words of wisdom do you have for people who are starting or ending a journey with that sort of work?

Jesse Cruz (03:32)

Yeah, I think it comes down to knowing how you're And until you've learned how you're uniquely gifted, you'll wander from thing to thing trying to find where you fit in this world. And so that's why it's so important to really learn about the great gift that you've been given. I like to use the metaphor of like, it's like the gift of life under a tree, everybody has a gift with their name on it, under that tree.

And some of us are too scared to go to the tree and open up the gift. Some of us are excited to open up the gift and can't wait to see what's inside. But then there's other of us who are so consumed and concerned with what everybody else got in their gifts that we get so distracted by the gift that they have, we don't get to appreciate our own. And so just what do you want to do with the gift you've been given, and don't focus on what other people have. Don't be concerned with their gift. Just be thankful that you have one and then open up that gift and then share it with as many people as humanly possible.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:45)

Right, find your thing and don't worry about what everybody else is doing.

Jesse Cruz (04:49)

Absolutely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:51)

Absolutely. So you got into speaking eventually, but after the military, did you do some sort of mainstream work or what did you end up doing?

Jesse Cruz (05:04)

Yeah, so I was a youth advocate. So I was mentoring youth and families in the communities which I was from. And so I started to do that, and that was extremely rewarding. I was really making a difference. I am making an impact. I was helping kids who, you know, maybe had a lot of disadvantages in life and being there to support them along the journey. So that was a huge change of scenery for me that I'm thankful for, and being able to help the next generation in that way was a huge blessing.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:38)

What do the young people need to know now?

Jesse Cruz (05:41)

They need to know that not everything that you see on social media is actually real. I just had this conversation with my daughter just yesterday, and I had to remind her, don't ever compare your chapter one to somebody else's chapter 20. It's easy to look at someone's highlight reel and look at all the followers that people have and all the great posts that people have, right? No one's in there really posting their losses. They're just not doing that. And so we gotta understand that, yeah, some people are going to win big, they're going to do well. They may seem further ahead than you, but you don't know what they had to go through to get to that. So my encouragement to the youth is stop comparing where you're starting to where somebody else finished. And just only comparison you need to make is the comparison with yourself. That's it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:30)

think we all need to learn that.

Jesse Cruz (06:32)

Yeah, most definitely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:33)

Definitely. Especially anyone who's trying to build a career and then seeing the end result of someone else for sure. So, sorry, how did faith play, sorry, how did faith play a part in changing?

Jesse Cruz (06:54)

Mm-hmm. Yeah well, I spent most of my life not having any and I realized that there has to be more like the emptiness that I'm feeling the depression that I'm experienced the anxiety that felt never-ending there had to be something else there had to be something greater and I had a lot of struggles a lot of addiction a lot of pain a lot of problems

And I realised that I was trying to fix it myself. And I thought that by my own willpower, I could literally just do all the fixing. But then I got to the point where I realis]ed that I can't live like this no more. And then I had a conversation with God, and I said, you know what? If you're real, I'm gonna give my life to you, and we'll see how this thing goes. And when I said that, it was like the first time I felt peace in my life. Now that doesn't mean I still don't have challenges and problems. But what I learned in that moment is that you can have peace and still have problems. I just had all the problems. But if I can learn how to have peace through a problem, that's a different level of happiness that I had never experienced before. And so faith is the number one thing in my life. It is what gets me through everything.

And it is the foundation of what I build my life, my family, and my business on.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:26)

It sounds like part of having faith is detaching and letting go from the pressure to put everything on our own shoulders, and you can hand things over to something else.

Jesse Cruz (08:40)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, most people and I'm included in this is. I didn't come to the faith sooner because I wanted to be in control. Because I think I know best. Because I think I have the answers. I had a serious problem with pride and ego to believe that I couldn't just figure this all out. And then eventually, I just got too tired of just trying to figure it out. I tried everything to fill the hole in my heart, and nothing worked. And only thing that was able to really give me that peace and fulfilment was God.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:21)

So it was letting go of the ego, partly.

Jesse Cruz (09:25)

Yeah, think that's a daily battle for all of humanity, but I think you have to die a million ego deaths to actually come out the other side of being the person you're supposed to be. I think every day is a test of the ego. And some days, I'll do well. Other days, I may fail miserably. But I just get back on the saddle again and keep going, because I know that eventually I can improve, I can make progress, I can get better.

Letting go is one of the hardest things to do, but it is also one of the most freeing.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:00)

Do you think that your military time would have been different if you had faith?

Jesse Cruz (10:05)

100%. I lived a wild life while I was in the military. God was not a regular part of my life at all. And that's when I was at my worst, you know, I was mentally unstable, emotionally impoverished. It was a really dark season in my life, and I didn't have any faith, and I do believe if I did have faith at that time in my life, even though it was a challenging season, I would have been able to make better decisions along the way.

I do believe I would have been able to make the best of a hard situation.

I can't go back and change it, but I can only reflect on it now. Going forward is the more a person has faith, which I believe is one of the most important decisions anyone can make, the more peace they will have. And I do believe all of us want more peace in our life. We want more freedom in our life. We want more joy in our life. And you can have those things without faith, but it's a million times harder.

So I've just decided that I wanna have those things, so they're probably gonna have faith.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:27)

Fair enough. So it was that much of a wild time, and you need the thing. You need it. So what's, what's your key message? Are there any other key messages you normally give to everybody aside from don't compare yourself to other people on social media? What else do people normally need to know?

Jesse Cruz (11:49)

I would say people need to know that they have a story and that story matters. I think sometimes people go through dark seasons of life, and that no one can relate, or they're very different, or they don't fit in, or their story doesn't matter. There's this like belief that no one would want to hear what you have to say. And I've been blessed with the opportunity to train hundreds of podcasts or speakers authors coaches and business owners on how to share that story effectively from stage and it's changed their life because when you share your story it gives you permission to heal and It gives permission for the people and the audience to heal and I do believe we are all just one story away from healing this world together We just got to have the courage to share our story.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:43)

Stories really do make a difference, and I completely agree. I think we were all conditioned to think that we have enough authority when we have reached a particular point in a career, but we all have a personal story that people can learn from. And it's amazing you're teaching that to so many people. Have you seen moments specifically when people have heard a story and had that moment of realization or that recovery.

Jesse Cruz (13:14)

I had a very dark season in my life, and I went to college, and everybody knew I had gone through a significant challenge in my life. And my professor said, Jesse, we all know what you've just gone through. Would you like to share about what's going on? And you don't have to. And then I shared what I went through.

And then he, you know, sent us off to break. And when I was walking to the bathroom, one of my classmates came up to me, and he shared something with me of a deep, dark personal secret he had kept.

And when he said it to me, I was like, wow, he doesn't even really know me that well. And for him to share so boldly with me about what he went through, I was like, wow. And I said, thank you for sharing that with me. Who else have you told? And he said, other than my wife, you're the only person that has ever known this.

It is something I've kept to myself for decades. And then he walked away. And I was just like, wow. The lesson I believe I learned in that moment is that you never know what other people are struggling with. And they just need to see another person have the courage to say out loud what they've gone through and how they're making it out the other side, how they're getting through it, how they're dealing, how they're healing, how they're coping.

And he taught me a very valuable lesson. And I think I did for him as well. I know that when he saw me share my story, it inspired him to share his with me. And so I know that we all have the capacity to share stories that transform lives.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:03)

We really do. And that's totally aligned. I totally agree that you never know what someone is experiencing. So this is an important question for speakers, and it, or anyone considering sharing something: where do people draw the line? Because people sometimes want to share something, but they can't share everything. How do you encourage people? How do you encourage people to say just anything or find the bit of the story that's going to help others without feeling maybe more vulnerable than what they can handle?

Jesse Cruz (15:33)

Thank you.

Yeah, and there's a fine line in that, and I remember before one of our events before when I was training some of the speakers They had a similar question. He was like Jesse like I've gone through so many traumatic things, and I just know that if I go to share that on stage, I'm gonna be an emotional wreck. I'm gonna be up there crying. Should I do that? And I said well You don't want to start trauma dumping on people and just sharing all your trauma on stage because then it becomes all about you. Now there is a way to share your story about your life that doesn't make it about you. You always want to connect your story, the pain of your story, to the audience's pain as well. And so my encouragement to people who are debating or they're hesitant to share their story is that you want to share your story from a place of your healing, not from a place of your woundedness.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:41)

That's the key there. Talk from your healing, not your wounds.

So does that mean it's crucial for people to make sure they are working on themselves and trying to heal themselves as they pursue storytelling?

Jesse Cruz (16:57)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You gotta do the inner work, the daily process of Dealing with what you've gone through, and that doesn't mean that you still don't have rough days and painful moments. That's okay But it's like how do I get up on this stage whether that's a physical stage or a virtual stage and how do I Share a story in a way that brings hope and healing to the world That means you have to be focused on the hope and healing from your life that you've dealt with that that you've cope with that that you learn from that. I tell people you gotta have a coach, hire yourself a coach. Whether someone hires me or they hire somebody else, just hire someone who can help you process some of the things that you've gone through, and that will help the person feel equipped and competent enough to share their story on stage.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:53)

Get some help for sure. Get some help. I'm wondering now, I'm wondering what advice do you normally give to people who are forming a bit of a personal brand that would be tied in with their story? Because it seems like you have a bit of a personal brand around storytelling. If someone is already linked with something else, maybe a business that they made, where do they get started?

Jesse Cruz (18:19)

Yeah, because I have so many speakers, authors, coaches, all these people reach out to me about storytelling. That's the question I get the most, like where do I start? Right? Like so, if someone is not in a position to hire a coach and like they're not there because not everybody can, is that you also have been blessed with the opportunity, is that if you have a phone, you have a stage. So what you do is you take out your phone, you hit the record button and you start speaking. And no one is stopping you from doing that. And then what you do is you take that message and you want to upload that to your social media channels because pretty much everybody I know has a social media account. And so whether you have 100 followers or 100,000 or 100 million followers, you have people in your audience who would be willing to listen to what it is that you have to say. But do you have the courage to put it out there? And then also do you have the determination to hire the right people when you get to that point to help you share that story anyway that changes your life, changes your family's life, and then changes your business.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:29)

Start with just talking online and then hire people.

Jesse Cruz (19:36)

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:36)

Okay, so the old talk to the camera. That is an early step.

That's something I'm coming to terms with because it has been easier to have conversations with other people on the podcast than just talking alone to a camera. But I'm wondering, how did you get started with what you do online?

Jesse Cruz (19:57)

Well, first and foremost, it's first understanding. It's completely awkward and uncomfortable to speak into the camera and I've been doing it for years and I still think it's weird and that's okay, but what I realized is that It's not about me and so it's about the message It's about the people and if I make it about how I feel about it Then it's really just about me and then I'm not able to serve the people I'm called to help and so what I've learned is when I'm coaching my clients is that they hesitate so much on sharing their story. They hesitate on going live on social media. They hesitate on uploading the video, creating the reel, making the post. There's this hesitancy. And we process that and where that actually stems from, where that comes from. And what I've seen, one of the challenges is...

They don't care enough about the people they're called to serve. They care more about the opinions of people they're not called to serve. And that is the problem. Because we fear the judgment, the opinions of family and friends. What are they gonna think? What are they gonna say? And they're not even your assignment anyway. And so what happens is we actually replace our assignment in calling in life with fear of opinions rather than the obedience to your assignment.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:16)

My goodness. Okay, that is something everybody needs to remember because everybody probably worries about what people think of them. We all do. It has to be part of human nature.

Jesse Cruz (21:29)

It definitely is. And once the person gets to the point where they're more focused on serving the people they're meant to serve rather than the judgment of critics, then they can finally have some peace in their life.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:43)

Find your people? How did you, how did you find your people?

Jesse Cruz (21:48)

Well, I've been blessed with a great family, great wife, great children, and they inspire me every single day to become the man that they need me to be, so I can set the example for them. I prayed to God for him to add the right people in my life, also to remove the wrong people from my life. I've learned that getting in rooms, going to conferences, investing into communities, hiring coaches who are in alignment with.

My mission is one of the best things that I've ever done. Because sometimes we stay in environments for a long time because they're comfortable and familiar. Then we outgrow them, and then we still stay in that environment. And every time we step back into that room, we have to shrink again to fit the mould of the people in that room. And I got tired of shrinking myself to fit the mould of these family members and friends because they just wanted me be the person they always thought I would be.

But then I started to grow and then because I was growing, I was ⁓ intimidating them. So when you change, family and friends don't look at you and say, man, you've grown. They don't know how to say that. They say, man, you've changed. That's because they don't know how to say you've grown. And so I want to get in rooms constantly where everyone in that room is better than me. Like those are the rooms I strive to get in constantly. It's like, I want everyone in this room that I'm about to step into.

be smarter than me, be better than me, be further along than me, because I want to be the one that's the furthest behind, because I have the most room to grow. I think I have an advantage when I get in rooms like that. And so I continuously seek out rooms where people are further along than me that I can learn from.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:32)

It is better when we are a small fish in a larger pond instead of being the big fish, because then there is room to grow in a better, in a better space. And honestly, I think you said something that I'm normally too shy to say, which is that family and people who knew you a long time will not really understand your growth.

Jesse Cruz (24:00)

For sure, they definitely won't and not only will they not understand it, they may also ignore it, they may also criticize it, they may stop talking to you over it, and they may never support you about it, but that's okay; they're not part of the assignment.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:15)

That is so encouraging, knowing that happens to other people as well. That's why I like hearing from speakers and anyone who has had that experience, because it can be really isolating. I think this is something to address when people are growing, then there is potentially a bit of isolation in that growth. And then having a bit of distance from family can add on to that isolation. So that brings us back to what you said about how it's crucial to find our people.

Jesse Cruz (24:50)

Hmm, yeah, most definitely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:53)

Definitely. I'm keen to ask if anyone is getting into the military now. Do you have any words of wisdom?

Jesse Cruz (25:01)

Say I mean if someone's gonna get in the military now make sure you have a good plan of leveraging the benefits that they offer take advantage of every benefit there there's so many benefits that I think most military members they just don't know about and some of them are across for all branches some of them are certain branches some were federal benefits some of them are state benefits but you just want to have a good mentor when you get into the military, someone who's been in a long time and has helped other soldiers become successful. And be preparing for your life after the military from day one. Because most people are only thinking about their time in the military. They think that time is gonna be a forever thing. But guess what? It's not. And so what are you gonna do when you leave? know, so you always wanna begin with the end in mind.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:50)

Begin with the end in mind. Do you think that lesson translates to other work as well?

Jesse Cruz (25:55)

Yeah, yeah, because I mean everything has an expiration date, you know, so we got to be thinking about life after that expiration date. What does it look like?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:05)

Definitely. I'm curious about paid speaking. It seems to happen a lot in America, hopefully in other countries as well. What do you normally say to people who are looking to make a career out of speaking?

Jesse Cruz (26:18)

If you're going to do, you know, hire a coach. One of my biggest regrets is I was trying to figure out everything on my own. It was highly frustrating. It was aggravating. was discouraging, even depressing at times, because of how challenging this industry can be. But if you hire a coach that can show you the path and the steps to take, it really is a shortcut to success. And so if you're going to be getting into the speaking space, hire yourself a good coach. Be specific on the problem that you solve, the audience that you serve, and your unique solution on how you make that happen.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:53)

Okay, good to know. A lot of this is coming back to Finding Coaches. That's a lesson for all of us. Are there any three lessons for anyone who's listening, wherever they found us? Three lessons everybody should keep in mind as we wind up.

Jesse Cruz (27:01)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, number one, God is the most important. Number two, utilise the gift that you've been given to make the world a better place. And then number three, invest into yourself daily because that pays the highest dividend.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:32)

First, invest in yourself.

Jesse, thanks for your time. know it's a busy week, and it has been a real privilege. I learned so much more than I expected because I didn't know what exactly how it was going to unfold. And I know that everybody who listens to this nice little half hour will learn so much about how to grow. So I really appreciate your time and your wisdom.

Jesse Cruz (28:02)

It's my pleasure, thank you for having me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:04)

Thanks.

Okay.