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I think that happens for a lot of people. I think a lot of people don't realize why they're being so reactive or angry or emotional or upset because they're not taking time to deal with what's really going on in their day-to-day life.
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Welcome to the Ownership Game with Gary Montalvo. What would it take to get into the driver's seat of your life and leave your mark? The Ownership Game starts now.
This week, I'm excited to introduce to you my dear friend, Jacob Hyzer. Jacob is a man of many talents. He's a celebrity makeup artist, a brilliant educator, and a passionate brand director.
Over the last 10 years, he's been responsible for training thousands of beauty professionals across the globe. So as a result, he's also a pretty damn good leadership coach. But those are not the reasons that I invited Jacob to the show today. At its essence, the ownership game is about taking personal responsibility so that you can create the life of your dreams. To me, there is no better person to speak on the subject than Jacob. Not because he's a self-proclaimed expert on the matter, but because he lives it every day.
In this episode, Jacob shares some of the practices that allow him to maintain that level of personal integrity. He gets really vulnerable with us and shares how he used personal responsibility to transform the pain of this young adulthood into gratitude and incredible grace. His story is incredibly inspiring and a true testament to the magic that can happen when you're willing to look inward and take responsibility for your actions, experiences, thoughts and feelings.
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So there are many things that I love about you. I've known you for many years and there's many things that I love about you, but there's two things in particular that I've always really admired about you. Number one is your ability to take a nap anywhere at any time. It's true. It's true. You can take a nap like no one, boy. Your power nap game is on point.
By the time I can quiet my head and actually start to doze off, you've already completed your nap, you're ready to go, you're refreshed. And the other thing that I've always admired about you, I often speak about you when I'm giving this example, but you just have this uncanny ability to step into, like, you don't even, I don't even know how to describe it, but.
When stuff goes down, I need to give myself five seconds to go like, hmm, okay, let's go. But you often don't even need those five seconds. You're often right away, okay, so here's what we should do. We can kind of jump in here and you're just always in this space of creating lemonade out of lemons type of mentality. And I guess...
First of all, you're aware that that's like a superpower of yours, I think is my first question. And then the second follow up is, have you always been like that or was that something that you developed out of all of your personal development work? Okay, so I do see it as kind of a superpower, mostly because I look around at the state of the world and how other people often respond or react in situations.
And I realize it is a skill to be able to shift very quickly like that. So yeah, so thank you. Yes, thank you. And I do see it as a powerful way of being to be able to shift like that. I definitely, definitely have not always been like that. And I still have my moments. Absolutely. I had shared with you that even recently, I just kind of got stuck in this pattern of wanting to be right about making people wrong who upset me.
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And when I'm at my highest self, as my therapist calls it, myself with a capital S, I'm not like that at all. I don't care if you're wrong, I'm wrong. I really don't care. What I care about is the breakthrough that we can create and what we're really committed to. And my way of being that I declare myself to be being reflected in how I show up in conversations and interactions especially when they're difficult because that's the real test.
When you catch me on a day where it's 78 degrees and the sun is shining and I don't work that day and I've already worked out and meditated and journaled, wow, throw anything my way and I'm going to catch it like a pro and throw it right back to you so you can swing and hit it and knock it out of the park.
But on those days when it's 20, 28 degrees and nasty weather and there's slushy snow on the ground and I didn't sleep well last night and I didn't meditate and I didn't journal this morning. It's a little bit tougher for me to shift really quickly like that. I also find accountability is huge. Putting myself in leadership positions, I know that there are eyes on me and I like that because it holds me to the standards that I declare myself to be.
So there's two things I want to talk about and what you just said. Number one is you really, you really spoke to that even when you are operating at that level, it doesn't just show up. Like there's a whole routine that you have in place to make that happen.
And we should definitely go there because I think that people think that that just shows up and they often disregard the work in the background, the structures that you put in place in order for you to be able to operate at that level. So talk to me about that and what your morning routines look like and how did you come up with them? Gladly. So this is an interesting one for me because I absolutely have my routines and for me personally, they're vital.
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They are absolutely vital. And I look at social media and I see these people who want to be setting themselves apart and want to go against the grain. And they're like, you don't have to get up at 430 in the morning. You don't have to meditate. You don't have to do all this stuff that everybody says, blah, blah, blah. And for me, when I hear that, I'm like, that is so great for you. Like to be able to just run through life and operate and not need to have those things in place.
That's amazing. That's not me. So growing up, I definitely as a kid, I noticed it, especially like thinking back, I noticed especially probably those years of nearing puberty, probably from, I don't know, I want to say maybe from like nine until 14 years old, I just had this reactive anger.
I was very short tempered and very reactive and I'm sure there is plenty of reasons that someone could analyze me of where that came from, which we're not going to get into right this second. But either way, what I've noticed is as I've gotten older, you go through puberty, you age, you learn some lessons in life. Now at 40, here I am and I've done a lot of work on that.
So it's taken a lot of personal development work, professional development work, personal development workshops, professional development workshops, and a lot of reading books and therapy to get to where I am. So my morning routines really started when I was living in New York. So I lived in New York City for 15 years. And as you can hear, but for those listening who may not know, living in New York, it can be really crazy, but it is kind of referred to as the city that never sleeps. And there's all these things going on.
So I started to notice maybe seven years ago or so that I was just feeling overwhelmed on the daily. I started changing my morning commute to work because getting on the subway was becoming so stressful to me. It's like you're getting on the subway, it's packed and it's 8 a.m. and people are annoyed and they're angry and they're shoving.
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And if it's winter, you're cold, but you have a coat on, you get on the subway, you're sweating. So there's all these like environmental factors coming at me. Oh my God. It was just reminding me why I left New York. When people ask you, why did you leave New York? I always tell them that story of trying to get to work. I'm like, do you know how much stress a New Yorker has to go to by 9 a .m.? I did. So it started. No, that's true. So it started with me just thinking like I need to shift my commute.
So I started walking a mile to the second subway rather than getting on the first one so I could at least cut one of my commutes out of the way. Okay, so that was a nice adjustment but then I realized I needed more. So my gym time in the morning is really important to me. I really believe wellness is holistic. It is whole body, mind and spirit.
So my gym practice is really important to me. And it's also my time. It's my time when no one's texting me. There's no social media that I need to respond to. There's no work emails that I need to respond to. There's nothing I'm responsible for during that time. So I love it. It's my completely selfish time that I do not want anyone to interrupt. So I know I wanted that time in the morning. And I had been reading the book.
The miracle morning and the author talks about his morning routine and what it takes for him to get there. So about seven years ago, I started getting up at 430 and I would do my morning meditation. So I meditate for 10 minutes. I journal usually about one full notebook page. I'll do journal, just free writing, free flow, whatever's on my mind. That alone is often a daily therapy for me.
If something is stressing me out or if I acted in a way the previous day that I'm just really not proud of, that's my chance to really just write out what came up for me, what's going on, what am I defending, what am I trying to be right about, and what is it that I really want. So even that journaling part gives me a lot of clarity and a lot of times just allows me to let things go that I might have been holding on to. So the meditation, the journaling, and book reading.
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I always have some sort of book that I read, even if it's just one page, two, three, four, five pages in the morning, absolutely have that. So meditation, journaling, reading, and then I hit the gym for a workout, and then I have a healthy breakfast. So that all for me, and then my shower and my skincare. And my skincare is absolutely a routine that anyone who knows me, anyone who stayed with me, spent the night that I've ever dated, that I'm married to, my skincare as a routine.
I can be running so late and I don't compromise my skincare routine. So that is all for me. If those things don't happen in the morning, it's like walking into battle without my armor. Yeah. And so a couple of things for listeners, like, because what I find about this too is that not everybody needs the same thing. Like,
So don't get caught up in Jacob's routine. What he crafted the routine that worked for him, that calls him and then has him, his best self come out. Some of you have different things. I used to have a client that, she didn't meditate for 30 minutes every day. She was like absolutely useless. Like it was like, I don't have the working out thing. Like that's not a thing for me, but.
There are, if I don't do my morning intentions and if I don't do my morning meditations, I feel the impact. So for you, it might be a walk, for you it might be a prayer, for you it might be nature, going outside and being with nature, that's so grounding. But I do what I want you to take away from this is that that superpower that Jacob has doesn't just show up.
He has to put the maintenance in every day in order to still be, to execute that. Cause I feel that a lot of times people get caught up in like, oh, I've arrived. I've transformed that about myself and I'm done. And I never have to, no, no, no, no. It's like, no, no. What you earn is the ability to access it, right? Like once you have that breakthrough, the breakthrough is yours.
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But the breakthrough does have to be maintained, right? We still have to keep creating the conditions to allow for that breakthrough to show up. And that's what you're pointing to. And I think, and it makes sense because you are very rigorous about your practices and you are very rigorous. And when they go off, you're very rigorous, like you're in communication about it and you have an awareness that it's like, oh.
I haven't worked out in two or three days. And you travel a lot, so it takes a lot for you to even maintain that, because sometimes you're on the road for a couple of days, and you still have to bring that back. I love that, I love that. So many wonderful lessons there. There was another question that I had for you, but I lost it. It went away somewhere. And yeah, you're right, I do travel a lot, which can make the morning routines more difficult, for sure. And one thing I've noticed is,
I really, it's very rare that I will sacrifice my workout routines. Even when I'm traveling, a lot of times the hotel has a gym and I'll make something work in my workout routine. You're always there. Yeah.
Better to be at the gym than in jail. But what I realized is when I'm traveling and life starts to get really busy, really crazy for me, sometimes the first thing I'll sacrifice is actually my more spiritual routines, my meditation, my journaling, prayer. And those are actually incredibly imperative to my wellbeing and for me to have that ability to self-assess when I'm off track.
When I'm not showing up as my highest self, when I'm not representing myself in a way that I want to, that I'm committed to, that is my integrity. So that's something that this past year, and honestly, honestly, like really real talk, even just last week, I just noticed maybe there was about two weeks, I was just off, off kilter, I felt reactive.
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When people would offer me ideas and suggestions, it was like I felt this tinge inside of resistance. And when I analyzed what was going on, it was because I wasn't practicing, a big part of it was because I wasn't practicing my morning routines. I wasn't doing my prayer when I woke up, my meditation, my journaling. So I wasn't giving myself that time to analyze what's actually going on, what's coming up for me. And I think that happens for a lot of people.
I think a lot of people don't realize why they're being so reactive or angry or emotional or upset because they're not taking time to deal with what's really going on in their day -to life. Well, you just get really, I think what the morning rituals do, I call them rituals. Michelle Lopez taught me to call them rituals and I was like, oh, rituals. Oh my God, that makes so much sense. Like there was something about that word that really held it for me as a sacred time. So the thing about the morning,
Rituals is they ground you it's a pillar. It's like a stake in the ground, right? And so if you think about the day You're bouncing around most of us spend the day in reaction. We pick up these things first thing in the morning and we start Responding we start responding to email. We start responding to requests We start responding to social media and we're just being bounced around but those morning routines really ground us and create the context for how you're gonna operate for the rest of the day.
And so that's why when they're not there and you, when you've put them in place and they're not there, you really, really feel them. I mean, I think you're right. I think most people feel them, but they're just don't have an awareness about it because they haven't put them in and then taken them out. Like, you know this right away.
So another area that you have an interesting story as well in terms of, we started to talk about your childhood and some of the things that you're experiencing in your childhood. And we should go back there if you want to go there. Because I think that that's another area where you have displayed a real mastery in overcoming certain things. So do you want to go there? Sure, we can go there.
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Angry, angry kid. Take us back to this angry kid who's in reaction. So I was raised in a very strict religion. In the religion, looking back now from from where I stand today at this age at 40 and and knowing myself to the extent that I do at this point.
I think part of, looking back now, I think part of the anger was a resistance to not be able to be and express my authentic self. Within the religion, being gay is absolutely unacceptable and acting on any feelings or emotions within that of love, romance, or your sexuality is absolutely forbidden within that religion.
So much so to the point where you are outcast from the religion. If you do, especially like if it's found out or if you come forward with that. And to be outcast from that religion, it means anyone who's in that religion stops talking to you. They cut you out of their life on a dime. Like the moment it comes out, the moment it is addressed, you are outcast from that religion.
The other interesting thing about the religion is it is so community -based. So when you're in the religion, you have this seemingly incredibly loving and supportive community who surrounds you all the time. And the religion also doesn't allow you to hang out and spend time with people outside of the religion. So you're in this community and you don't have
have any deep relationships outside of it. So if you try to leave the religion or if you do leave the religion, you have nothing. You don't have the support if your family is in it. So for me, my parents are still act very actively involved in the religion. One of my brothers and my sister are very active in the religion. So when I left the religion, I lost those relationships. So at 18 years old,
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just starting to step into my adulthood, I lost all community and close family that I had ever known. After spending a lot of my teenage years, honestly, living a double life, showing up to the religious meetings and presenting myself one way to fit in with the religion, to be accepted and loved by my family and the community, to then all of a sudden realizing that
This is not authentic for me that I personally do not believe in the beliefs of that religion and stepping out of it, I lost every support system and deep relationship that I ever had. So I can see now looking back to those teenage years of development of hormones, puberty, of starting to discover who we are as people during those years. And me having to hide that, cover it, suppress myself, try to take on...
suppressive actions of appearing, trying, trying to appear more straight acting. I can look back now and see like, no wonder there was so much anger because there was so much suppressed emotion and there was such a lack of love for my authentic self. So I had always just had this judgment and hate for who I authentically was because of what I was learning from the religion.
And the anger makes incredible sense, but I'm also like what I'm thinking is that had to be incredibly scary. I mean, it had to be incredibly scary because when you're a kid, your family is everything. That's your support system. That's your lifeline, literally. And that had to be incredibly lonely as well. I don't want to make you cry. I'm just like, yeah, no, it's OK. It's OK. Yeah.
No, it absolutely was. And it was incredibly lonely. It was incredibly scary. It was just this moment of really stepping into the unknown. And the even more difficult part about that unknown is the religion also feeds you such scary things about that unknown. So not only are you at that moment, not only was I choosing the path of loneliness,
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Separation but also stepping into this world of unknown That was always taught to me to be extremely scary and bad Yeah, so there was definitely though these these years from teen until Gosh, I want to say at least about 22 23 There was a lot of drugs and alcohol. Oh just for me to be able to fall asleep at night without
just feeling completely lonely and lost in this world. I just was looking for something to ease the pain. There was a lot of pain, a lot of pain. Yeah. Which a lot of that anger that I used to experience really stemmed from was the sadness and the pain. Yeah. So you're so talk to me a little bit about that. Deficient, that 18 deficient. How did like.
What went down? I guess I think what I'm interested in is at what point did you make the leap and what had you get to a point where you were like, okay, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this version of my life anymore. So now it's interesting from where I stand today.
I had a conversation, I don't know, maybe eight years or so ago with my dad, I had this opportunity and I asked him, I said, I said, at what point did you know I was gay? Was it when I was 16? And he said, no, I knew when you were six. So I didn't know, but my parents absolutely knew. And now looking back, I'm like, oh, okay, everybody knew. Like, oh, everybody knew. They always know.
So I really knew when I was about 14, 15, 16. Like that's when I was really aware like, oh, okay. So as I became, started to become a young adult, 16, 17, 18, I was venturing on my own. I was always, I've always been really responsible for the most part, really responsible, taking care of myself. I got a paper out when I was seven and my great thing was my parents taught me to save money. So I'd make, this was 35 years ago.
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30, whatever, three years ago, and I'm making $100 a month and I'm saving it. And then when I'm 13, I get a job at like a skating rink, doing the concession stand and I'm like making a little money and saving it. Then I get into restaurants by the time I'm 15. So all of a sudden I find myself at 18 years old with five grand in savings with my own car that I am fully taking care of car payments, car insurance, everything on.
So I'm managing myself really responsible. I've got some things, some measures to ways to take care of myself and to have a sense of freedom. And then it comes out at 18, my mom finds out that I was gay. So she confronts me about it. And when she confronted me about it, she was angry. Like she was really angry about it. And I had seen her angry before and my mom...
My mom angry, it wasn't something that I was gonna try to throw hands with her. I wasn't gonna go there. I wasn't gonna try to out anger her. I wasn't trying to fight fire with fire. So she confronts me about it. She's angry and she's like, what is this? What is this? I was like, what does it look like? I'm gay. I'm gay, that's what it is. And she said some hurtful things to me.
And so I just stood up and said, okay, then I'm out of here. I'm out. Like I'm leaving. I'm taking my stuff. I'm leaving tonight. I'm not sleeping here with this threat over my head. So that's it. And, and so I grabbed, I don't, I got some, enough stuff. I don't know, maybe an overnight bag or something. I don't even remember now, but gathered some things and went to leave the house.
And I can still remember it plays like a movie in my head. I can remember standing at the front door, opening the door and turning around and seeing my mom and dad just sitting on the couch looking at me. And they said, oh, we can talk about this. And at that point for me, this self-righteous, angry, hurt, scared 18 year old with enough money in the bank to take care of myself, I was like, bye.
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Like, you've said enough. I've said, I've heard everything that I need to hear from you, from what you've said earlier. And I know what your beliefs are. I know the beliefs and the teachings of the religion. So I know that the only agreement that would be acceptable for you,
is if I continue to live a life denying my authentic self, my feelings, having no romantic relationships or involvement with anyone. And that's the only way that this will work out. And I'm not signing up for that. So that was that. And it's interesting because it's interesting because there was years that, well, because at one point during that conversation that my parents did say to me, like, if this is your choice, you can't live here. And so,
I had this story that I would tell myself and share when people would ask me about this for years of, oh, I got kicked out when I was 18 because I'm gay. And now when I look back and recount the story and the actions and what happened, now I've rewritten that story and I realized, no, I did not get kicked out. I actively made the choice to leave, to stand for myself, my values and my beliefs and leave that situation.
But that's powerful, Jacob. That's a powerful rewrite. Thank you. It took a long time to get there. It took a long time to get there. It's a really powerful rewrite. And you rewriting that, I guess the question is, what became available for you? What did you started to see for yourself? And you rewriting that story, what became possible?
I was able to shed the victim mentality. I was able to really let go of anger that I held onto for my parents. And my God.
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Letting go of that anger was huge. Like just being able to put on empathy and grace, giving them grace, knowing that they're not perfect, that in their minds and in their belief, that really was what, for them, that was the right thing. That was their integrity to their belief system.
And so I was able to just get to a point of saying, okay, we have different values. We have different beliefs. It doesn't mean either one of us are right, but I'm not the victim. I'm not the victim. I'm absolutely not the victim anymore. So what was accessible to me now was authentic empowerment. What was accessible to me now was not feeling like I need to water myself down.
try to act more straight in situations because suddenly I'm not trying to recreate this relationship with my parents, with every adult that I meet who has different values and beliefs than me. Suddenly I was able to stand in my power and in my authentic self in the face of someone who has different beliefs than me or who has any kind of a problem with me. So,
I was able to access genuine self -love, self -empowerment, and freedom. Just emotional freedom by letting go of that anger. That's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. And I think, I hope it's an inspiration to a lot of people, because I think it's really easy to listen to your story and sit here and go, oh my God, they did that at Campelot, and get in that. But you're not there.
So if you're listening, don't have that be the point. The point is, look how Jacob has rewritten his story and look what's become available for him. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the things that became available is that you're able to kind of talk to your parents now. I feel like before you went through a period where you didn't discuss, you didn't talk. Is that accurate? Am I? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there was.
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There was definitely years there where there was just no communication. And so I don't have a real relationship with them, but I definitely out of my desire for a relationship and expressing my gratitude and love to them for my life, I do check in with them about once a year, sometimes maybe two or three times a year in a good year from a place.
of no expectations and from a place of now, it's been different over the years, but now I'm in a place of like, I don't need to make you wrong. I do not need to try to invalidate your beliefs. And what I've said to them is my desire is to have a loving relationship with you with open communication where you can share your values and beliefs. I can share mine with you. You can know what's going on in my life.
And you may not agree with it, just as I don't agree with your choices. I don't agree with your values and beliefs, but it's not going to stop me from giving you the love that I feel inside. And it's not going to force me to put on this shield of anger and defensiveness around you. Yeah, it's really beautiful. Really beautiful and really inspiring. I really acknowledge you for all the work that you've done.
to get there because there's people that hold on to that stuff for the rest of their life and have that stuff shape them. And I think something that's also really important to acknowledge is that your story has a more of an extreme black and white situation because of the religious component that played that added all the social pressure to the situation. But the truth is that most gay men go through some version of this. That they're...
most, not gay men, excuse me, gay people, gay, trans, any other, they go through some version of having to really step and own who they are and have that be an absolute risk and threat to their existing life, their relationships, the love of your parents and your relationships. And it's a choice that every, that's why we always say like, what's your coming out story? Cause everybody has one because it's such a traumatic experience for most of us.
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I mean, not everybody, some people have some great coming out stories and rah rah rah to you. But for most of us, there is that huge risk and you have to unpack a lot of the social pressure and dynamic and expectations that your family has on you in order for you to fully embrace that, which is one of the reasons that we tend to create our own chosen families. So.
Let's kind of get into that because you have an amazing community around you and you have amazing people that you've created. So talk to me a little bit about your process afterwards and how you kind of went about doing that. Sure. That's even the term chosen family is even an interesting one for me because there were years where I just didn't like the term.
family for anything other than blood. When work initiatives would be like, oh, we're a family. And when I was in my late teens and early 20s, I worked as a bartender and a server for the Olive Garden. And the old, I don't know if it still is, it's been 20 something years, but the old tagline was when you're here, you're family. There's always this dynamic of like, oh, it's our work family.
and our chosen family. And there was definitely years where I would ask people like, family has its own connotation to me, we're not family. We're something other than that. We're beyond that. And using that term would almost dilute the relationships and the depth that I've created because I had never, the depth that I have with my chosen family.
The depth of relationship, honesty, communication, authenticity that I have with them goes beyond what I experienced growing up as what I would have with family. So yes, but I've created, I have created a really amazing supportive community around me for sure of friends and chosen family. And that was a, that's a process too. That's a big process because.
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At a time when I was going through some really difficult things, that period especially 18, even up until probably about 25, although I started to clean myself up and get it together by the time I was about 24, 25, I started to really get it together on the path around 25 years old. What happens is when you're getting involved in just like living by the seat of your pants,
no real goals, ambitions, going out every night, drinking all the time. You'll create a family around that. And that can be just as toxic as the family dynamic that I had just come from. So that was interesting too, because I had developed over those years, I had developed some very close relationships with people and
some of those people I had to stop hanging around with. By the time I really wanted to get myself together and have more for my life, by the time I was about 26, I had to transform a lot of those relationships too and start to find a new supportive community and friends and chosen family who aligned with my values and beliefs that had evolved. And some of those people came along for the ride and some didn't. But I have found that
That community and that support system is incredibly important, for sure. Absolutely. No, and it could be the difference of making you or breaking you, which I think is kind of what you're pointing to, right? That you're, I mean, I don't think this just probably applies to any 20 -something -year -old. You're probably hanging out with the wrong people, your early 20s anyway. But when you don't have a solid...
support system at home. And my story is similar to yours in that I also had a father, the pastor. So I had the religious thing at home as well. And I didn't have the thread of sort of being excommunicated per se, but probably at that level, like somatically in the body, it probably felt that way. Like if I look back at how I was
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behaving or the level of fear that I was in. There definitely was some concern of them not loving me in some way, even though I don't know that that's what I said. The way that, looking back, the way that I was reacting, there was definitely that. And it took, and even though I came out to them in college and like came out to my mom first, she never told my dad.
I was like, she kept a secret from my dad. I was like, damn, I thought she was gonna like, do me the solid and tell her, but she didn't. So I had to come out to him all over again when I was 21 again, I think. But even throughout my 20s, it was like this unspoken agreement of like, we need to talk about it. It was like, I, so whenever they met somebody, I was like, this is my friend.
This is this is my friend. They're like, mm hmm. And it really took me till my 30s to create the authenticity and openness that that I have now. But for all of my 20s, even though they didn't shun me, it was like we don't talk about this. We don't talk about Bruno. No, no, no. And I had to rely on my.
Creating a community around me. I had to because it was those friends that introduced me to To that it's okay that adding with my whole life before that was hiding it my whole life before that was Suppressing it and don't get caught and pretending and the moment that it would come up same thing everybody knew but the moment that it would come up if I know I know what are you talking about? in in in my 20s
that it was that chosen family that started to introduce me to that sense of, like I learned to be okay with myself and to love myself and that I wasn't alone. Really, that's the thing. Cause when you're going through this, it is so incredibly lonely. I mean, you just think you're the only homosexual on the planet. I remember going to my first pride going like, there's so many of us. There's so many of us.
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So yeah, so Chosen Family played a really, I think plays a really important role in just affirming yourself and creating safety for yourself so that you can fully do the work of discovering who you are authentically. Because you can't discover who you are when you're trying to suppress and cover. Like, discovery requires play and you can't play if you're hiding. Well, my friend, I think you're just.
amazing. I love you. I so appreciate the courage that you have in sharing your story, but I really just honor the work that you have done and the way that you still honor your family, even though it wasn't the way that you would have designed and they haven't necessarily been able to be there in the way that you would have wanted. I still think it's just so lovely the way that you still honor them and honor.
It makes perfect sense because in order to love all of yourself, you have to love all of yourself. Right. And that's like my takeaway there. Right. Like you can't love all of yourself and then like hate that. But it's just real. It just really demonstrates ownership and leadership and a willingness to be at work on yourself. And I hope that the listeners have been as inspired by you as I am. Thank you. And I hope so, too. I think it's really easy.
to, no, I don't want to say easy. It's really normalized to live in a victim's story. And it can be a way to get sympathy from people. But what I've learned is it's not going to lead to your authentic empowerment. And it's not going to lead to you living the greatest life that you can live. So if there's anything that people take away, I really hope that people step into their authentic power.
in a way where they're able to shed their victim stories because it's one thing to be victimized that is legit, that can happen, you can be victimized. And it's another thing to live as a victim. And that is a choice. Being victimized, that's not a choice. That can happen to you without your consent. But living as a victim and living that story, that is a choice. And that's a choice that I made to step out of.
44:22
And I hope the same for everyone. Amen. Love it. All right. Well, friend, I hope you will be back. I'd love to have you in the show again. Thank you. Thanks, buddy. My pleasure. Great talking to you. You too, friend.
Jacob's story is both heartbreaking and empowering. His willingness to forgive, let go of his old stories and switch his mindset so that he was no longer a victim of the past is the stuff the movies are made of.
But this is not a movie, it's real life. And real life is messy and perfect. And it requires a lot more work that they can authentically show you in two hours. And that's the thing that I want you to take away from Jacob's story. All the work he did and continues to do daily in order to maintain that level of performance. See, this stuff is not magic. You have to work at it. You have to be willing to look at yourself and claim something different.
And you have to be willing to do the work to build the muscle and the context to take personal responsibility and in turn, forgive, let go of the stories and choose a different interpretation. An interpretation that gives you power and access to true freedom. Jacob works on this daily through his morning practices. And no, maybe you're not gonna get up at 4 .30 a .m. every morning. Hell, I know that I'm not.
But what can you put in place in order to create clarity, introspection, accountability, and commitment. The question I leave you with today is, how will you make sure that you're maintaining your optimal performance? Until next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ownership Game with your host, Gary Montalvo. Make sure to like and comment on your favorite podcast platform, as well as subscribe so that you never miss an episode.