129. How to Practice the 4 Pillars of Purpose | JR Rivera

JR Rivera is the founder and CEO of The Podcast Factory and the host of "The Results Leader" Podcast. His teachers said he'd never amount to anything. But God had another plan for him. From high school "drop out", to a faith-filled entrepreneur living a life of limitless possibilities. Jonathan will take your listeners on a wild ride turning failures into freedom. 

His podcasts has 5,630,608 Downloads. He has helped 117 Experts Launch Podcasts, appeared on 1,457 Episodes, and is the CEO of 4 businesses in Real Estate, Media, eComm, and The Podcast Factory® Agency.

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Transcript

Cartwright Morris: 0:02

All right welcome in the men are forged podcast man, I'm stuttering my name here. Men are forged podcast. I got a great guest today Jr. Rivera, Jr. is a podcaster himself. He is his podcast is the results leader. And he does this with the podcast factory, I welcome you to check out the podcast factory.com. Well, Jr's Well, it's great to have you today.

JR Riveria: 0:28

Brother, let's make sure that we start this on the right foot because I didn't warn you. But do not call me a podcaster. All right, businessman with a podcast. Let's get

Cartwright Morris: 0:38

les right. I shouldn't by looking at your website. I should have known that. I should have known that. But yeah, he's a businessman with a podcast because this is just a great marketing tool to great way to get out your message. As someone who's in podcasting, who's also would rather be a businessman with a podcast. i Hey, I like that. I like that man start. We are we're starting on the right foot here. Well, Jr. I mean, you know, before we just dive in your story, you know, we talked about lists a little bit on camera. You just got back from a ski trip with your family getting your son on skis, you know, as a stone war. I know that's, that's hard a little bit. But I would love just Just curious the value of taking your kids and having them experiences outside of their normal. And how is that a value for you as a father,

JR Riveria: 1:27

man, so we're going right into that and to be perfectly transparent. It's mildly offensive that my son is on skis, because I spent the last 10 years snowboarding. But it was a valuable lesson for us because we we love getting on the mountain, my wife, I'll call her cupcake, and cupcake, and I love getting on the mountain. And it was our dream to have our son on the mountain with us. And we spent the last three to four years and 1000s and 1000s of dollars, investing in snowboarding lessons only for the kid to throw tantrums, be upset and never get on the mountain with us. And I had this epiphany one day brother. I was I was praying on it and thinking about it. And I asked myself, what matters. And the only thing that matters is the boy on the mountain with us. So does it matter how I get their skis or snowboard or toboggan or whatever, as long as mountain with us. And so that was a pretty interesting lesson that we had recently and was so fruitful when we put them on the mountain and we had our first ride together. We're like, why did we wait? Four years? Why didn't we just do this the first year and that was ego? Yeah. Ego holding us back. We're a snowboard family. Right? Right. Who cares? We're a family. And so I've got four four pillars of purpose. And they go like this. Faith. Yeah, family, fitness, finances. And so if I'm right with the man upstairs, then I can take care of my family, the guy my family, right? I can take care of my body, my temple that I used to serve. And I found that when I have those three things taken care of the finances seem to work out. And so I think all the pieces fit together, but you got to know what your priorities are.

Cartwright Morris: 3:27

Yeah. And that's good. You just recognize that. I mean, how many people just have not having a self awareness? You know, I'm sure many all the snowboarders out there listening probably know that feeling. And they're like that, that it's in the back of their brain like alright, fine. Because they write the value of them getting being on the mountain with you all is needs to be higher than an he'll kick and get into snowboarding. I got it. I snowboard the first time when I was 26. So, you know, thankfully, it was a powder day. So uh, so Jr. I mean, so you talked about your four pillars there of of purpose. I, you know, I know that wasn't always the case for you and your life, valuing your relationship with God, and family and all those things. So yeah, how would you? How would you describe your story of coming to faith in your in your history with God?

JR Riveria: 4:21

I'm blessed. Okay, because my parents did the best they could. And they Sunday Catholics put me in Catholic school. I went to Catholic school and learned the virtues until I got kicked out in fifth grade. So, the good news is,

Cartwright Morris: 4:39

is their story there.

JR Riveria: 4:41

I was just a bad kid, my parents. My parents worked really hard. And they moved us like we lived in New York. And we were in the Bronx in the Bronx was really rough at that time. And they moved us to Brooklyn to to the edge of a nice neighborhood to the edge because that's what they could afford. Word, and there was a Catholic school. They're in a church. And they worked a lot. I was a latchkey kid. And so because they were so busy working and providing for us, they weren't really involved in what was going on in school. And so I Wildling. And I remember one year when we were going from fifth to sixth grade, they told my parents, yeah, we don't want to back. No, we don't want your money. And that's a lot, right. We don't want your money. You know, they love money. I had to go to public school. But I think the seeds of virtue were planted early. And I feel fortunate for that. And of course, there's ups and downs in life, and we go away from our faith, and we come back. And it wasn't until many, many years later, when my mom passed away, that I had got back into my faith, because of my dad's example. He's like, I know, you're confused. I noticed a hard time. We need to pray. We need to get to God. And I was, okay, dad, whatever you say, I don't know how to deal with this. And fortunately, that brought my father and I much, much closer. And around the same time. I met my wife, and one of the things that she loved about us, right, because you're getting the whole family when you get married. What she loved about us was I was close with dad. And we went to church, and she was seeking to get back to church. And so it started there. And it's just been snowballing over the years. I mean, I've been with my wife, I don't know. 1819 years, just snowballing closer to God closer Gartland UPS downs back board. But I've found that when I have my faith, right, I can serve as I was meant to serve. And that's the duty that I have to my family to duty. I have to my clients duty. I have to do the work and my mission in this world.

Cartwright Morris: 6:59

Yeah. So was there. Would you say you're still Catholic?

JR Riveria: 7:05

Still? Well, yeah,

Unknown: 7:06

yeah. Yeah.

JR Riveria: 7:07

I'm 100% Catholic.

Cartwright Morris: 7:09

That's awesome. That's awesome. So what was the turning point in your life? Would you feel like there was a mid 20s? Was there a low point that was kind of the breaking point? Or was it just constantly, like just improving keep God continue to draw him back to himself? How would you describe that?

JR Riveria: 7:27

Yeah, I mean, the thing was, when my mom died, I went back to church. And at that time, I hadn't finished my confirmation. So I got firmed. And then soon after that, a couple years later, I got married in the church. And we did the same thing that our parents showed us, and that we grew up with, okay, church on Sundays. And that's what you do. And it's a thing. And that was it for a while. And when we decided to have children, we were together nearly what, eight years, before we decided to have a kid. And we tried naturally, vigorously for two years, and didn't get anywhere. And we decided, love is love. And we're going to adopt. And we decided to adopt from the Philippines and through a faith organization. And one of the things was, Hey, you gotta be practicing. That was one of the caveats of going through this organization. And we're like, Okay, well, we need to practice a little bit more. And ever since that boy has been here, I find that I've learned empathy. I don't think I knew before, just wow, it is. And I found myself seeking wisdom, and seeking virtue so that I can instill it into this boy, because I think that a lot of people get this wrong. And here it is. Listen closely. People say they're raising kids. And I think that's wrong. We're not raising kids. We're raising adults, productive members of society. And in order to raise an adult, you need to instill virtue in them. And in order to instill virtue in them you got to be practicing and so I gotta be in order to give this kid what he needs, just like my body, right, I work out hard. Yeah, because I want to be able to lift him up and carry him and show him what a man is.

Cartwright Morris: 9:28

Man, that's good. Yeah, what is what is the saying that I keep hearing and it's so true as more as I get as, as the older I get more is what is it more as seen versus taught like your child tends to absorb what they see versus what they are being actual taught and actually seeing a man of virtue. And you talk about showing you what your and what a man is. And this is something that the metaphors that we're really I'm trying to get in this conversation is like, what how do we define I know what that is, right? Because we've got we've got a lot of definitions out there in culture. But I think, as especially our belief in God, he's talent of something of what a man should look like, especially a man right now. So how would you define that?

JR Riveria: 10:15

We're leaders. Yeah, we're leaders. And we're leaders in every area of our life. And that's why I've got those those pillars is like, I'm a faith leader. Just the other day, I got the most beautiful gift. And my wife and I don't know if you've ever heard of the Hallo app, love this app. It's a great app. It's a Catholic app. And there's prayers and meditations and music and all kinds of things. And my wife listens to the the daily gospel now. It's one of the things and she wanted to get into the daily practice. Because me I've had the daily practice. I get up in the morning, brother, and it's a rosary. I'm banging out a rosary. That's right, then I'm getting into my Bible. And I'm getting into that quiet time because I need to get my head right for this day. And I need to armor myself for what's coming. And so I've been doing that she sees a change in me, she wants to do it too. And the guy's name is Jeff cavan's that we listened to he's he's very entertaining fella and Rita daily gospel and then preaches on it and gives you a message. And one of the messages recently, at the end of it, he said, Go, thank whoever brought you back. And she came over, she gave me a hug and kiss. And she said, thank you for bringing me closer. That's what a man is. A

Cartwright Morris: 11:42

man, that's really good. That's fascinating. So where do you see that? translate into? Man, other areas, your life? How do you see that actually, now as a, like you said, a businessman with a podcast. You know, I know you have such a high value for podcast and because of just the message you had to share and growing a business. So take us a little bit on the journey of you know, why you see the value in business and and specifically podcasting.

JR Riveria: 12:15

I, so I went through the downturn in 2008. And I was in real estate. And I got slammed. Yeah, I lost. I mean, it was an incredible beating that we took, dad lost his house, I lost my house. I lost myself, I didn't know who I was. And it took me a while to rebuild, it took me a while to, to get back into the swing of things. And one of the tools that helped me get out of the funk, luckily, a friend put me on to Audible, because I didn't read much at that time, you can imagine because I didn't graduate high school, right? You can imagine a voracious reader, I must have been although now there's books behind me books around me books everywhere. But at that time, I wasn't a reader. Somebody put me on to Audible. I was enjoying that I wanted more. And I found something called iTunes and they had podcasts. And these podcast had education in them free education on topics I never heard of. Yeah, entrepreneurship, internet business, marketing. And so I went on a deep dive into podcasts. And I, I realized the who has so much I didn't know. And there was so much information there. And this is way back like 2000 678. So it was a little different than it is today. Liberation and podcast, we can get them in our car. Now it's easy to it's a different thing. You have to work for it. But when I got into the idea of diversifying my income, because I got slammed in real estate, I didn't want that to happen again. So I wanted to another stream of income. And I heard about this internet, business type of thing. So I started looking at how I could do that internet business thing. And part of building your brand at that time was to be a thought leader doing air quotes for people who are not watching us, either. And in order to be a thought leader, you had to have a blog. So the guy that can't read, ain't gonna write. But I did see this podcasting thing as my way to do it. And so that was exactly what I did. I learned how to do the podcasting, the technical thing, get the message out there, connect with people and build a brand with podcasting.

Cartwright Morris: 15:23

Man, okay, I got to put a pin in that because that's, I mean, that's really good. We need to come back out. Forgive me, Jr. We need to backtrack. You didn't graduate high school. So you grew up in Brooklyn. got kicked out of Catholic elementary school. You You didn't graduate high school. So tell it's a give me a little bit of the teen years what happened. So your parents so your parents, they didn't let you tell you you didn't get to go back to elementary school. You know, give us a little bit of story of and you didn't learn how to read helped me help me.

JR Riveria: 15:56

I wasn't a good reader. I could read. Right? Not let's not make myself illiterate right. Now in the book like I do now, like now I can, oh, right, read a book a week or two books a week. But back then reading was like reading each word and slowly going through it where an audiobook was much, much easier. I was in the same way that my parents were doing their best to provide for us, they had a very narrow focus of what that meant. And that meant food on the table. Yeah, a roof over your head. Education didn't really play a part in that, and sentinels. I was oddly fortunate when we moved to Florida, because this is how broke we were. I came down, my brother came down, my dad came down and my mom was going to join us. We didn't even man, I've never told anybody about this. Like we slept in the master bedroom on blankets on the floor. We had a TV that somebody gave us on a five gallon bucket. And so we didn't have a phone. And so when they enrolled me in school,

Cartwright Morris: 17:07

and this is before cell phones, yeah,

JR Riveria: 17:10

right? Yeah, we didn't have a phone. So when they enrolled me into high school over there, we had no phone number. And that didn't change the entire time. I was in high school, so I could act as badly as I wanted. get suspended as much as I wanted, misbehave as much as I wanted. And I'd be home to get the letter.

Unknown: 17:29

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Cartwright Morris: 17:34

And what do you feel like? What about your behavior? Like what what you feel like you're I mean, now that you've looking back, do you feel like you understood why that kid was acting out so much? And why he didn't value education, or he just figured, you know, he was going to end up having a minimum wage job anyway, what's the what was the devaluing? And what was the acting out? What do you feel like I came from? I think

JR Riveria: 17:57

that part of it was just teenage angst. Yeah, I was that my parents moved me from Brooklyn to deltona. I mean, I went from a city to nothing but woods. I wasn't happy about that. I didn't make that decision. They made it for me. But they did it for a reason. They were trying to give us a better life, because Brooklyn had specially the area we were in was on the edge of a tough times to get us out out of there, pronto. But there was that that resentment. There was, I mean, think about this, acting so badly in school, and all the school does is send a letter like, do they really give a crap? Yeah. Letter. Right. So nobody really cared. And I think that was part of the acting out. And then the challenge, right, I wasn't challenged or interested. And I didn't really see the benefit. And here, here's the weird part. Yeah. So I mean, straight, these would have been great. There weren't a lot of apps. And there was one class all four years that I was there that I had straight A's in. Yeah. TV productions. editing video, doing the news, putting together scripts. Oh, the only thing I'm using right now.

Unknown: 19:18

Yeah. How about that?

JR Riveria: 19:22

I think that I wasn't challenged, I wasn't focused. And like now, the some of the things I know about myself is I need to work out like today before I got on with you. I just did an hour to orange theory burned nearly 900 calories to get myself centered. I wasn't doing that when I was a kid. So the acting out was also part of not knowing any better than I needed to take care of myself physically. So it was a combination of things.

Cartwright Morris: 19:50

Yeah. So you weren't in any sports or any activity whatsoever. Nothing organized like that. Yeah.

JR Riveria: 19:57

Dude. I was. People say, I was a rebel in high school because I just did my own thing. I was a reject. That's what I was. I was an outsider.

Cartwright Morris: 20:08

Yeah. Okay. So let's go back to podcasting. And getting to that, and iTunes and figuring all that in the world where it was really, I mean, it's still relatively new even today, right? But I mean, it was even I mean, YouTube was kind of coming around a little bit around then all that. So yeah, what made you go man, I could get really good with this great a business and help others get their message out.

JR Riveria: 20:38

None of that. None of that.

Unknown: 20:40

None that asked the But

JR Riveria: 20:42

no, that happened. What happened was, I needed an avenue to create that personal brand. And the avenue I found was I got my first Mac computer. And I found GarageBand on there. And I realized, oh, wow, I can I can record audio. And I can do this podcast thing I've been hearing, I like him, so other people will probably like them. And I did that. And I built a brand off of that. I met new people from that. And eventually, as I got more mature, and the business evolved, I got stuck at a certain point, where couple years the business didn't grow. And I thought, well, I don't I don't know what to do. I don't have anybody to help me. So what am I going to do? And I joined my first mastermind, and it was super expensive. At that time. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And when I told cupcake about it, she's like, You are insane. Please don't do it, which is a common common thread in our life. But I joined this mastermind and I wanted to work on my I had created a real estate training business, showing agents how to get listings, how to get appointments, how to do marketing online, because I was doing it. And in that mastermind at that time, people were not interested in real estate at all. It's not like it is right now. Where it's super hot. And on the brakes. People would come to me and say, Hey, I heard your podcast because I was doing podcast with some of my friends. I had multiple podcasts at that time, just talking with friends and sharing good words and good messages and trying to help our listeners and Hey, I heard you doing a podcast with this guy or that guy? How do you do that? Can you help me do that? The opportunity came to me I was just open and listening. And I'm not gonna take credit cupcakes like, well, if everybody's asking you about the podcasting, shouldn't we be doing that? Oh, yeah.

Cartwright Morris: 23:05

That's great. Leave it to a wife right to just steal that dagger like, Oh, yeah. So you say that I've seen you know, in different avenues you say this up, you know, believe that the right words from the right person at the right time can change your life. You know, one, you know, how are you helping others do that with podcasting? But also like, where did that happen in your life? Has it happened multiple times? Yeah. I would love just to hear your story from that. So that's why that's such a tagline,

JR Riveria: 23:36

bro. We just told the story. Yeah. Why don't you go like this happens all the time. You just gonna have your ears open. But yeah, that that. That's actually my mission, my life's purpose. And what God put me on this planet for. And there's, alright, let's give. I have so many examples. But I want to give one from my buddy, who I did the making agents rich show with. And I did 180 shows with him. And that was our first big hit. Or that we had tried a couple other podcasts that never really got anywhere or got any traction. And I remember, it was around 2012 I think when he got married, and I went to his wedding, and we were doing a podcast together. And I told him I'm out. Like, dude, we're spending money. We're not making any money. We're not making any impact. I can't, I'm out. And he told me. And this guy has saved me multiple times. But he's like, Dude, we're so close. podcast is so close to breaking through. Don't get out yet. Just hang on a little bit longer. Let's give it another shot. And I said, Man, I don't want to do this. But you sir, have helped me out so much in my life. And I am going to listen to you and we're going to try this right. So we had this podcast that went on for I don't know, a year or so. Or half of yours. 20 episodes, we burnt that down, took us a few months break. He talked me back into it. And we create the making agents rich show. And that's when I started figuring out what I call direct response podcasting, podcasting with a purpose podcasting that leads listeners to taking action, whether that's buying your products or booking appointments, and we planned it out. We had a framework, and before we knew it, that thing was was spinning off for grant in mind And I'm like, okay, all right, I guess I guess the podcasting thing works. But if it wasn't for him telling me Don't quit. Let's do this. Let's give it another shot. I wouldn't be speaking with you right now. And I might be doing something totally different.

Cartwright Morris: 25:57

Yeah. So what is and I'm asking for a friend, what is the secret to podcasting?

JR Riveria: 26:05

I don't know that there's a secret. I have a framework that I use, that works for us. And there's a couple pieces that need to be in place. And I think this is where most people mess up when it comes to podcasting is, and I've done it. Okay, this is how I know from firsthand experience people who like they have the Field of Dreams mentality, build it, and they will come and build a podcast and all of a sudden, all my problems are solved, right, wrong. That's not what's going to happen. And in fact, you're probably going to get burnt out, spin your wheels, and think that podcasting doesn't work. So I've developed the direct response podcasting framework in where the first thing that we need to know number one, we have to get crystal clear on who this podcast is for, who do we serve? Who are we talking to? It's clear to everybody who it's for number one. And if you tell me your podcast is for everybody, and you failed, so yeah, be aware. Okay. So number one, we do an exercise called the client Cloner. And the idea is to get crystal clear on who we're talking to. That's number one. Number three. And this is another one that people just mess up all the time and it hurts to look at. And that's what do you want the podcast to do for you? Nobody really thinks about that. Yeah, oh, I want to I want to share good messages. I want to I want to talk I want to be Joe Rogan, whatever. You're not him. Forget that. So what do you want that podcast to do for you, really, and I like to simplify things. Like I said, do we want to sell more products? Do we want to book more appointments? What are you trying to do with this tool, because if we know what we're trying to do with the tool, then we know how to instruct our listeners to take the steps to take that action, we call that the client matrix planning that journey out from listener to appointment or listener to buyer, whatever the goal is. So that's one and three, what's in between? We know who they are, we know what we want them to do. And now it's time to convince them.

Unknown: 28:27

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

JR Riveria: 28:29

Number two, is the content vault. And the content vault unlocks all the value from your listeners in that it eliminates objections. It pre sells them, it gets them ready to speak with you. And so that's where you start planning your episodes. Because you know who you're talking to, you know what you want them to do? Now you got to plan out episodes, to convince them to take that action that is good for them. Right? Man,

Cartwright Morris: 28:57

that's good. That's pretty simple, straightforward. And that's good. And you take your clients through from beginning to end. Starting creating a podcast to developing and getting is really awesome. Backwards,

JR Riveria: 29:13

I take from what do you want? I need to know, there's two things that I look for in my clients. And this is why I can't help everybody. Number one, more important than anything is what is their mission? What are they trying to accomplish? Is it something that I can get behind? Because that's what I'm doing? Right? I'm, I'm going to amplify your mission. So it better be a pretty darn good mission for me to get involved. So that's not that's the one thing I look at. And the other thing, which we started this show with is cash register, how do we make the cash register ring, so you got to have a business, you gotta have something going on. And I can help you build a bridge from those people out there in cash register, whether that's appointments with selling products, selling books, getting booked on stages, I don't know what that is. But I need to do that you have a business and a goal. And you have a mission. And then I can help you put those pieces together. And then we talked about building the podcast.

Cartwright Morris: 30:16

Yeah, that's really good. That's interesting. Well, Jr. You know, I think your story is fascinating. Especially just the with the education piece, and I do like this question for my podcasters especially those who you know, don't all have all the degrees on the wall. And I feel like you can really encourage them. So what would you what would you tell that your 25 year old Sell from what you know now

JR Riveria: 30:46

there's a few things. Number one is I'm going to be nice here and say S T Fu. Shut the door. Little cognitive funny. Johnny thought he knew everything. And what I've realized as I'm getting older is that I don't know anything. And that's why I have a search for wisdom that will last my entire life. So number one is just be quiet and listen, be quiet. And listen, that's important. And talk less. listen more. Right? So all that right there. Number two. Stay curious. Stay curious. And that's where I've been blessed that I didn't do what they told me to do. And this is the difference between cupcake and AI. And I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying that. She went to school, she's got the college degree, she's got the MBA, and she is burned out still to this day on learn. He's like I would I would study, study, study, put the information in there, download it from a test and not retain it. And she got a doubt on that. And I feel bad for her because she participated in the school system the way you should. I did not. Yes. So the blessing that I have is staying curious, dude, if I want to know something, I'm going to read a book, I'm gonna listen to a podcast, I'm gonna look up YouTube videos to learn. And my search for wisdom is never ending. Because when I get interested in something, I can research it with books, I can spend time on it and and if it serves me great. If it doesn't, I can just move to something else. And so staying curious is the second one. The third one. And I think this one actually brings the other two together. Jim Rohn merican entrepreneur, pretty popular guy. If you don't know him, look him up said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. A lot of us. And this is another blessing since I was bad in school, a lot of us cling on to those old relationships or high school, college friends, people who are going nowhere. And people who sometimes don't want you to go anywhere, either. And so I would say that be very, very protective about the people that you keep around you make sure that they're good people, people virtue, people who will lift you up and cheer you on and want you to win and want you to go bigger. And that's hard to find in your local neighborhood, or at a PTA meeting or even sometimes at church, you might not find that. What we have to do is be on that search that quest to find those people. And that's why join mastermind. So I get coaching. That's why I read books. There's no excuse not to elevate the people around you, even if it's going to the library and getting a biography. So shut up and listen, stay curious and elevate your environment to elevate your results. And that's

Cartwright Morris: 34:12

so great. Man, I feel like that's very consistent with a lot of the leaders that I know in my life like yeah, just constantly stay in a student van surround yourself with great people. That's really good. Well, Jr, man, I appreciate you coming on. This has been amazing. I loved hearing your story. What's the best way for people to find you.

JR Riveria: 34:31

So a couple things. I mean, you want to get inspired if you want to get uplifted. If you want to hear the right words from the right person at the right time that can change your life. Go to the podcast factory, we have a little tab called Client showcase. Find your mentor, elevate your environment. Listen to one of the shows. I think at the time we're recording this, there's at least 80 or 90 shows on there. Different people. That's number one, and you my friend, if you've got a message if you've got a mission, if you've got a purpose, and you want to get it out to more people connect with me at the podcast factory.com There's a place to book a call right on there. Awesome.

Cartwright Morris: 35:12

And ask book and call with you. Wow with the man Jay our man. Well, thank you for coming on, man. It's been a blast talking to you,

JR Riveria: 35:22

brother. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the fun conversation and thank you for your generosity and the work that you're doing.

Cartwright Morris: 35:29

Yeah, well thank you. Appreciate it.