Joe Kelley is a self-proclaimed life hacker and head honcho at Obtaining Mastery, a company dedicated to helping people reach their potential and achieve true mastery in life. He’s a lifelong learner who loves to explore the world and uncover life’s secrets. Joe has dedicated his life to helping others unlock their potential and unlock their greatness. His passion for learning and teaching has led him to write books, create courses, and lead seminars and workshops around the world. He loves to learn new skills, challenge himself, and share his knowledge with others. Joe is a firm believer that anyone can achieve greatness with the right guidance and motivation. He is always looking for new ways to share his knowledge and help people reach their goals.
Joe had a family background of firefighters, nurses, and police officers. His dad wanted him to join the police department, so he decided to use his athletic ability to do something where he didn’t have to sit behind a desk. Joe got a job with the Department of Children and Family Services and after six months, he got into the police academy. He found out quickly that it was not exactly what he had envisioned as a child because of all the extra stuff that comes with it. He ended up getting addicted to pain pills and losing his job. The chief offered him help, but Joe felt like he was being set up to be fired and kept his problems to himself.
We talk about his dramatic tale of burnout from overworking, leading to drug addiction, divorce, and eventually jail time. Thankfully Joe’s story doesn’t end there, as he gained the tools and coping skills to change his outlook and turn his life around. His book, Badge, Bars, to Beyond, tells his story while also giving tangible tools to apply to your life today.
Guest’s hype song is Eye of the Tiger by Survivor
Website: www.obtainingmastery.com
Book: Badge, Bars, to Beyond
Facebook: www.facebook.com/badgebarsbeyond
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/joe-kelley-255b29137
Today’s episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. If you’d like to find peace of mind amidst the chaos and no matter what’s going on around you, you’ll find a whole bunch of free resources, like meditations and articles at ZenRabbit.com. And while you’re there, if you’re curious about how you might stop working so hard and achieve more success at the same time – get a copy of The Five Easy Ways to Start Living a Sabbatical Life. It’s a short guide to working less and living better. Find it all at ZenRabbit.com.
Transcript
Hey, my friend. Welcome to Fine is a four letter word.
Speaker:My name is Lori Saitz.
Speaker:I'm an entrepreneur, mentor, founder of Zen Rabbit, and your instigator in saying fuck
Speaker:being fine. This show is for those of you who are done living with the dumpster fire
Speaker:and are ready to find the tools and courage to transform to step into more success and
Speaker:fulfillment in both your personal and business life.
Speaker:You're in the right place for stories of self discovery, gratitude and connection, and
Speaker:to help you strengthen that connection to your own inner guidance, you'll find each
Speaker:episode has an accompanying meditation.
Speaker:Now let's get into it.
Speaker:We talk about never settling for fine, but today's guest had a life that was decidedly
Speaker:less than fine.
Speaker:From first responder to drug addiction and jail time, Joe Kelly has seen and experienced
Speaker:some seriously difficult times.
Speaker:He learned the hard way what it takes to turn your life around.
Speaker:And now he shares what he learned through his own company, obtaining mastery.
Speaker:His life's work is to help others unlock their potential and achieve true greatness
Speaker:from the depths of despair to the heights of success.
Speaker:Joe's story is one of resilience, recovery and redemption.
Speaker:With his book Badge Bars to Beyond.
Speaker:Joe is here to provide the tools and coping skills to help you turn your life around.
Speaker:So if you're ready to start your journey to a fresh, new outlook on life, you've come to
Speaker:the right place.
Speaker:Today's episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit.
Speaker:If you'd like to find peace of mind amidst the chaos, and no matter what's going on
Speaker:around you, you'll find a whole bunch of free resources like meditations and articles
Speaker:at Zen Rabbit dot com.
Speaker:And while you're there, if you're curious about how you might stop working so hard and
Speaker:achieve more success at the same time, get a copy of the five Easy Ways to Start Living a
Speaker:Sabbatical Life.
Speaker:It's a short guide to working less and living better.
Speaker:Find it all at Zen Rabbit.
Speaker:Hello and welcome to Fine is a four letter word.
Speaker:My guest today is Joe Kelly.
Speaker:We were introduced by a past guest, Sabrina Victoria, and I'm so excited that she
Speaker:introduced us because you have such an amazing story and I'm so eager to get into
Speaker:it. So welcome to the show, Joe.
Speaker:Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker:My pleasure. So the first question I always start out with for everybody is what were the
Speaker:values and beliefs that you were raised with that contributed to you becoming who you've
Speaker:become?
Speaker:Yeah, awesome. And it's a great question because I think a lot of the values and
Speaker:beliefs that I was raised with, you know, got me to a certain point in my life and then
Speaker:they stopped serving me at a certain point in my life, you know.
Speaker:So my I'm from north, I'm from the Northeast, I'm from Massachusetts, Boston
Speaker:area, Cape Cod is where I was born and raised.
Speaker:You know, family was a big part of growing up.
Speaker:Even people that weren't even blood related, that were close to the family were aunts and
Speaker:uncles.
Speaker:I have that, too.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And we were you know, we were taught, you take care, you take care of your
Speaker:own, you know, And you know, other people can make mistakes.
Speaker:And, you know, you might have looked at them differently, but when it came to family, it
Speaker:was blood was thicker than water type of thing.
Speaker:Those were the what was instilled in me.
Speaker:But also, you know, athletics for me was a big thing.
Speaker:I didn't come from a very affluent family.
Speaker:A lot of my cousins, and there were a lot of them because I'm Irish, Cape Verdean.
Speaker:And when you're a Cape Verdean, we have a lot of cousins.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, you know, that was big.
Speaker:That was big as well because everyone played sports, you know, And also being from
Speaker:Massachusetts and I live in Florida now, the one thing that I see that's big different
Speaker:when you're taking out of an area and put somewhere else is and I notice it a lot now
Speaker:is the northeast. It's a lot blue collar.
Speaker:It's very blue collar.
Speaker:I was taught from an early age that to get a job with that was union.
Speaker:That was union benefits, you know, I mean, security.
Speaker:And it really didn't matter, you know, the amount of money that you are making it more
Speaker:it meant more to have the benefit aspect of it, you know.
Speaker:And most of my family were all yeah, most of my family were all first responders, you
Speaker:know, And obviously when you get into my story, you mean I thought I had arrived, you
Speaker:know, and that was the king job for me.
Speaker:My sight was always there being a police officer for three years.
Speaker:But in Florida, it's quite different.
Speaker:You know, Florida is more of an entrepreneur state.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, where it's you work more for yourself.
Speaker:It's not work harder, it's work smarter, you know.
Speaker:So it's been it's been a big change in a change for the good.
Speaker:So those were the core values is, you know, family, you know, God and you know, basically
Speaker:working.
Speaker:Yeah. So and I think it depends on the area of the state.
Speaker:Like I don't know that we could say like all of Massachusetts and all of Florida, but I of
Speaker:course, have had similar experience.
Speaker:I lived in Florida for South Florida for 11 years, too.
Speaker:And it is a lot of entrepreneurial spirit there for sure.
Speaker:Yeah, it's nice. I love it here.
Speaker:So cool. So.
Speaker:So this is what you grew up with.
Speaker:And then when you got to be an adult and you were looking for a career, how did that path
Speaker:go? Like you said, you went into being to be following in your family's footsteps of
Speaker:becoming a first responder.
Speaker:I was going to say, how did you get to the point to choose where which which which part
Speaker:of first responder you were going into?
Speaker:Well, all my family were mostly firefighters, nurses or this and that.
Speaker:I had one uncle who was a police officer.
Speaker:My dad always says you took a left instead of a right because they joined the police
Speaker:department instead of the fire department.
Speaker:But for me, you know, like the first question has values and stuff, you know,
Speaker:athletics and family and that stuff that that got me to college on on scholarships for
Speaker:football and baseball.
Speaker:It worked me for a very, very long time.
Speaker:And then when I graduated college, you mean I always wanted to do something where I
Speaker:didn't have to sit behind a desk?
Speaker:You know, I wanted to be able to use my athletic ability.
Speaker:I loved helping people.
Speaker:I like growing up the authority figure, you know, as a police officer, being able to
Speaker:actually make decisions and help people, you know?
Speaker:So growing up in that environment and all that talk and my dad's, you know, radio going
Speaker:off in the background and, you know, the excitement of something new every day, you
Speaker:know, obviously as a kid, I didn't take in everything that comes with that.
Speaker:I just saw all the glorious type of stuff that goes with that and how it's on TV and
Speaker:all that stuff. You know, Little did I know all the extra stuff that comes with it as
Speaker:well. So my first job, my first job was DCF, it was called DSS back then called the
Speaker:Department of Social Services.
Speaker:Now it's called Department of Children Family.
Speaker:I worked there for. Six months for the state of Massachusetts, working with adolescents
Speaker:and chins, the chins unit, truancy and stuff like that.
Speaker:And then I got into the police academy, you know, So, you know, it was a vision from a
Speaker:young, young boy playing cops and robbers.
Speaker:Family, family background with that.
Speaker:And then it came to fruition, you know, after six months after I graduated from
Speaker:college.
Speaker:So And now talk about, as you just referred to, it's not exactly what you envisioned as a
Speaker:child that it was.
Speaker:What did you find out?
Speaker:How long did it take you to find that out?
Speaker:Very quickly, You know, very quickly.
Speaker:You mean because, you know, I obviously I just wrote a book.
Speaker:It's called Badge Bars to Beyond.
Speaker:And a lot of that extra stuff played into.
Speaker:You mean my fall from grace, so to speak.
Speaker:And, you know, being a police officer or a first responder, You mean we see a lot of
Speaker:stuff that, you know, ordinary people don't see?
Speaker:I mean, I'll probably see more stuff, you know, over my years than than a single person
Speaker:sees sees ever.
Speaker:I mean, and that stuff affects you.
Speaker:I mean, it affects you internally.
Speaker:You know, especially if you have children.
Speaker:You mean anything to do with kids?
Speaker:Whether that is fatalities of any kind, whether that's car accidents, crib deaths or
Speaker:anything else. You mean there's a lot of the non glorious parts of that job that come with
Speaker:it. And it's also, you know, for me, it's stuff that I always stuck inside of me
Speaker:because as a first responder or a police officer and I think it's a little bit better
Speaker:today, but there needs to be a long way to go with it is.
Speaker:We're we're taught to give the help, not ask for the help.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, in in these cases a lot of the times is if somebody does come forward and
Speaker:they in they're having emotional problems around that, you know, stigma comes with that
Speaker:too, because you're carrying a gun, you're the authority figure, and they're going to
Speaker:make it out to be that it's more than what it is.
Speaker:When we all need to talk, we all need to open up about the things that we see.
Speaker:Otherwise it's going to get worse and worse.
Speaker:Right. And for me, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker:I was living in my uniform.
Speaker:The divorce rate within police officers is very high, you know, because of what I just
Speaker:said. I mean, we see a lot of things.
Speaker:We don't talk about it.
Speaker:We don't make a big deal about it.
Speaker:We think we become immune to it, but we really don't.
Speaker:Those behaviors come out in a lot of different ways.
Speaker:And for me, it came out with being distant at home, you know, distant with with my wife,
Speaker:my ex wife now, you know, distant with my kids.
Speaker:You know, it affects us in a lot of different ways that we don't know how to
Speaker:handle. And all we are taught is just to keep moving forward, you know, just to keep
Speaker:moving forward. And a lot of my story, you know, badge bars to be on the high level view
Speaker:is I was a police officer who got hurt on the job, got prescribed high, high, high
Speaker:amounts of pain pills because of who I was and my status in the community.
Speaker:They gave me more and more.
Speaker:I became addicted to them.
Speaker:I ended up losing my job over them.
Speaker:And I'll tell you how I lost my job was.
Speaker:The chief sat me down and said, you know, we heard some things are going on.
Speaker:He said, If you need some help.
Speaker:And, you know, I like throwing this out there because he did offer me the help.
Speaker:But my mental state of mind at the time was, here's my friend who's also the chief of
Speaker:police sitting me down.
Speaker:Now he's at the chief of police position setting me down.
Speaker:Yeah, not the friend.
Speaker:And all I heard was tell me everything you know so I can fire your ass.
Speaker:I mean, that's what I heard.
Speaker:Because now all that guilt, all that shame and everything else was sitting inside of me,
Speaker:and I was afraid of loss for everything that I worked with at that point.
Speaker:Yeah. And you bring up a good point there in that what we hear is through our own filters,
Speaker:we interpret our own story is running in our head.
Speaker:And this is a big issue when you're talking about communication between other people, you
Speaker:know, communication issues, because what somebody says and what they mean may not
Speaker:filter through properly because we're looking at it through our own lens.
Speaker:Yeah. Because, you know, basically as we get into it on my trainer and NLP, I do a lot of
Speaker:work with people across the country, but this is what we do is the information that
Speaker:comes in. We delete, we distort, and we generalize information based on our value
Speaker:system, you know, our upbringing, our experiences and everything else.
Speaker:And obviously when somebody sits somebody down who's under the influence of a narcotic
Speaker:and everything in my experience is up to that point.
Speaker:You mean the fear set in you?
Speaker:I mean, so I was I was prepared, you know, not in a in a negative way, but in a way to
Speaker:protect my position, my family, my income at all costs possible, you know?
Speaker:No. Knowing damn well what I was doing was not right.
Speaker:But by that point in this in my story, you mean I was hooked.
Speaker:You mean one? I was father of the year when I was on something and I was like pushing a
Speaker:bowl of cereal over when I didn't have anything.
Speaker:And the problem became when the insurance companies ended up red flag in me probably
Speaker:six months down the line after giving me all this medication and the doctors just
Speaker:prescribing and prescribing and prescribing stuff I shouldn't have been on in the first
Speaker:place. But they prescribed it and they never told me when they first gave it to me.
Speaker:Here, take this and watch out for it.
Speaker:And I didn't know anything about addiction.
Speaker:I didn't all I knew that was when I took this pill that was the size of my pinky, that
Speaker:it made me be able to go to back to work faster.
Speaker:It took away all those internal feelings that I was feeling.
Speaker:And then when I didn't have anything, everything that I was feeling prior to ever
Speaker:picking up that pill came back tenfold like ten fold.
Speaker:Right? And it was, you know what I mean?
Speaker:Yeah. Because you didn't have any other tools and they were giving you a tool that was
Speaker:serving many purposes, but they didn't tell you the downside.
Speaker:Parts of it, obviously, that you just said that.
Speaker:But yeah, so anytime somebody is given a tool that helps them cope with feelings that
Speaker:don't feel good, they're going to take it and not want to give it back.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:In the in the and the result of that was, you know, I got red flagged and I didn't have
Speaker:anything and I needed something now to then just feel normal.
Speaker:It wasn't like I was getting high.
Speaker:I needed something just to feel normal, to be able to go to work, to be able to be an
Speaker:active member of society, you know?
Speaker:And I did the next best thing, you know, this is where the dishonesty came in and
Speaker:everything else is.
Speaker:I would, you know, tell my wife I needed a new bulletproof vest, I needed new boots, I
Speaker:needed a gun holster, I needed this.
Speaker:And then two months later, because I had to pay for stuff from people I knew from high
Speaker:school to get what I needed.
Speaker:And I'd be walking around in the same raggedy old shit, you know?
Speaker:I mean, who am I fooling?
Speaker:I mean.
Speaker:Right? And she didn't question that.
Speaker:You know, I think I had our head spinning in terms of what what to believe and what not to
Speaker:believe, because some stuff was you mean left at the station where I changed there and
Speaker:this and that, you know, and, and the thing is, is, you know, for me after that, you mean
Speaker:I eventually resigned forthwith, forcefully resigned from the job my wife left me.
Speaker:She emptied our bank accounts, probably rightfully so, because of the stuff that I
Speaker:was going through. And, you know, I was I was at a I was at a position in my life where
Speaker:everyone that I knew wasn't talking to me.
Speaker:The love of my life was gone.
Speaker:My kids weren't a part of my life.
Speaker:All those feelings of shame, guilt and everything else that that that I had done up
Speaker:to that point. We're hitting me like a ton of bricks.
Speaker:Instead of picking myself up, you know, I got angry and I said, Well, I'll show you.
Speaker:I'm like, I've been ten years or nine years on the job.
Speaker:At that point, you know what I've sacrificed.
Speaker:You know, I started pointing the finger.
Speaker:I got angry.
Speaker:And, you know, the next year of my life was the worst year I ever had in my 47 years of
Speaker:my life. I caught so many different charges because I didn't have any money.
Speaker:I still needed what I needed to be normal and to act, not to feel like I was crawling
Speaker:out of my skin and going into, you know, those many times I would put my gun in my
Speaker:mouth, but excuse my language.
Speaker:I didn't have the balls to pull the trigger, Jimmy, But I did not want to live.
Speaker:I wished every day at that point in my life that I wouldn't wake up the next day.
Speaker:So I have to redo everything that I had to do to get what I needed.
Speaker:It was it was a terrible existence.
Speaker:It was like Groundhog Day, right?
Speaker:Oh, every there it is.
Speaker:Every day. It was Groundhog Day of doing things.
Speaker:And I'd always say that I'll do this, this and this, but I would never do that.
Speaker:And I'd always cross a line, you know, to get what I needed because.
Speaker:Go ahead.
Speaker:No, I was just going to say, I talk about this a lot and it's you couldn't trust
Speaker:yourself because you were not keeping promises to yourself when you said, I'm going
Speaker:to do this and then you didn't do it and you'd cross another line, Yeah, we break
Speaker:integrity with ourselves when we do things like that.
Speaker:Yeah, you mean.
Speaker:And I was I was a shell of who I used to be.
Speaker:You mean at that point?
Speaker:And long story short, I ended up getting charged with trafficking.
Speaker:I caught I got caught with 200 and, like, 30 perc thirties, charged with trafficking.
Speaker:I was a police officer, high ranking police officer who ended up going to prison.
Speaker:I did two years in in prison.
Speaker:And let me tell you what, like two weeks into that stay, I kind of woke up from
Speaker:everything that's going on and I said, Fuck, how how the hell did I.
Speaker:Get here. It was like my life flashed before my eyes.
Speaker:Raised well.
Speaker:College graduate, high ranking police officer.
Speaker:Within six months, I'm sitting in a cell going, How the fuck did this happen?
Speaker:You mean after I had some clarity, you know, and that was the transition.
Speaker:I was awake, you know, my my daughters were everything to me and none of my decisions.
Speaker:I could say that, Hey, you know, nothing.
Speaker:Nothing is more important to me than them.
Speaker:And honestly, in my heart, that's how I felt.
Speaker:But my actions up to that point weren't dictating that because I was so consumed with
Speaker:what was going on on the inside and trying to self medicate and everything else that
Speaker:nothing else mattered.
Speaker:Yeah, you know, because I couldn't be who I wanted to be.
Speaker:I have so many questions, so.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:One, you said in the beginning that family is everything and blood is thicker than
Speaker:anything. How did your your family, beyond your wife and your kids like how did they
Speaker:respond and did they know this was going on and how did they support you after they found
Speaker:out?
Speaker:Yeah, it's you know, you read some in the book as well, but my father, she has the same
Speaker:name as me. It was very hard on him and he was very strict with me.
Speaker:He, you know, when I went through and got caught up with stuff because of who I was, it
Speaker:was a juicy story to the media.
Speaker:All of my stuff was posted front page of the paper.
Speaker:So you can imagine being the football baseball star, you know, and all this.
Speaker:And now for the first time in my life, I wasn't on the front page for good news.
Speaker:It was for bad news.
Speaker:You know, it was all nonviolent criminal offenses, but there were still felonies.
Speaker:You mean anything? Over $250.
Speaker:So my dad, you know, totally shut me down.
Speaker:He was very hard.
Speaker:He took my ex-wife's side in terms of trying to push.
Speaker:I wasn't ready, you know, So I was always trying to manipulate and he wouldn't allow me
Speaker:to manipulate. So he stood his ground.
Speaker:My mother.
Speaker:My mother would always give me the shirt off her back.
Speaker:I mean, she was a huge enabler, but I don't say that in a bad way.
Speaker:I needed both.
Speaker:I needed the love and I needed the stillness.
Speaker:But as I get older and obviously the stuff that I know, people do the best they can with
Speaker:the resources they have.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I mean, and the problem and that's the resources my dad had.
Speaker:That was a resources my mother had when I went to prison, nobody visited me but my
Speaker:mother. My dad did not come see me until the last six months before I was going to be
Speaker:released. You know, and the big turning point for me, you know, because there's
Speaker:there's not just about this story.
Speaker:My whole book is based upon what happens after prison and how to build a life back
Speaker:that to be successful and everything else and all the stuff I did.
Speaker:Since then, that's just a small piece of me because I'm 47 years old.
Speaker:I refused.
Speaker:I don't care how society wants to label anybody as a felon and put a stigma on
Speaker:anything. I love the quote that somebody took the same situation you're complaining
Speaker:about and they won with it.
Speaker:You know, and I and I when I was in jail, I started to have a little bit of spark back in
Speaker:me of in clarity that I wanted to live.
Speaker:That was my first thing I didn't want to die in.
Speaker:Yeah, I wanted to live.
Speaker:And when I decided that I wanted to live, I had to I had to come up with what was I going
Speaker:to do. And what I say to a lot of people is I.
Speaker:I had to reach for for four things.
Speaker:I had to do some things that I had never done before.
Speaker:You mean in terms of some personal development stuff, whether that was reading a
Speaker:book, motivational type of stuff?
Speaker:Yeah, I was just going to ask that question.
Speaker:What did you what helped you?
Speaker:What tools or techniques helped you turn things around?
Speaker:Well, this book I ever read cover to cover, and I'm almost ashamed to say it because I
Speaker:was never an avid reader.
Speaker:The four agreements.
Speaker:Yeah, love the book I loved a lot because it really hit home for me.
Speaker:Obviously, with the traditional AA and a I read the NRA, the NRA book, the A book.
Speaker:I'm like, Oh, that's me, that's me, that's me, that's me.
Speaker:But for me, it wasn't so much about substances.
Speaker:I mean, it was more about the root, the underlying reasons of why I was doing those
Speaker:things in the first place.
Speaker:For me, it was like the perfect storm that happened and it just happened to involve this
Speaker:substances. So I can relate on a lot of different levels.
Speaker:You mean. And I stopped pointing the finger and I started taking responsibility because
Speaker:there was true power and taking responsibility for that.
Speaker:I mean, one of the first month I was in jail, I had a hit list.
Speaker:I'm going to get you.
Speaker:I'm going to get you. But that changed.
Speaker:You know, jail doesn't work for a lot of people or prison or whatever you want to call
Speaker:it. But it gave me the time I was unwilling to give myself.
Speaker:Yeah. You mean it gave me it made me sit with myself.
Speaker:It made me evaluate things.
Speaker:Right. Which I could never do.
Speaker:Yeah. And that's a lot of people have to reach that point.
Speaker:Like my program is called Fork Being Fine, because you reach that point where you're
Speaker:like, I just can't do this anymore.
Speaker:And some people get there, I don't know voluntarily if I on their own and some people
Speaker:have to be put in a situation that forces them to look at it like you were.
Speaker:Yeah. And it's unfortunate.
Speaker:I work with a lot of people that have dependence problems across the country and
Speaker:even high executive CEOs, like when I wrote this book.
Speaker:This book isn't just about, you know, drug addiction.
Speaker:That's part of my story.
Speaker:But it is it's about, you know, the bankrupt professional there, reluctant divorcee.
Speaker:It's about the fallen leader.
Speaker:It's about anybody that has gone through challenges in life that were unsparing,
Speaker:whether they were publicly humiliated, whether they were just internally
Speaker:embarrassed. I mean, whatever it may be, it's a system on how to build a life worth
Speaker:worth living now.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, and part of my story was getting out of jail, you know, and when I moved to
Speaker:Florida, you know, meeting my wife, where I checked that ego of being the emergency
Speaker:response police officer, the athlete, the womanizer, like all that check that ego,
Speaker:because everything my values, core and everything else that up to that point served
Speaker:its purpose to a point.
Speaker:It was no longer working.
Speaker:Right. I needed to find other avenues in other ways in order to succeed with all the
Speaker:stigmas of what society and a felon and all that and make a life worth living, you know.
Speaker:And that's what I did.
Speaker:My wife was into a lot of different modalities, whether it was meditation,
Speaker:whether it was yoga, whether it was NLP, A Course in Miracles, all that stuff that I
Speaker:said to you, you wouldn't catch me dead in one of those things 20 years.
Speaker:Well, yeah.
Speaker:Because my my ego won an awful lot.
Speaker:And it almost did catch you dead.
Speaker:Yes, and rightfully so.
Speaker:You know, And I say to myself, I'm you know, I'm a religious man, I'm Catholic, and I
Speaker:believe in God. God brought that woman into my life.
Speaker:Maybe because he knew that for me at first it was, oh, I want to get close to her, You
Speaker:mean? So I'm like, Oh, I'll go to that with you.
Speaker:Sure, no problem.
Speaker:Right. But when I went to it.
Speaker:It caught me.
Speaker:It gave me tools and NLP, which is neuro linguistic programming, which is a fancy word
Speaker:for the road map to the mind.
Speaker:It changed my entire life because I'm a very skeptical person.
Speaker:It allowed me to get rid of limited beliefs.
Speaker:And you can imagine how many of those there were.
Speaker:It allowed me to release anger, sadness, guilt, you mean.
Speaker:Which I was just a walking throne of all that.
Speaker:And it allowed me to release this stuff within a matter of like, 90 seconds.
Speaker:Yeah, that's how.
Speaker:Powerful it is. It's really powerful.
Speaker:And it's all of the releasing of all of that, I know you'll agree with this is that's
Speaker:what matters like that you are no longer carrying it.
Speaker:You can't be responsible for what other people are carrying or feeling towards what
Speaker:you experienced.
Speaker:It's about forgiving and releasing yourself from all of those feelings.
Speaker:Yeah. True forgiveness too.
Speaker:You mean because not, Hey, I forgive you.
Speaker:And then, like, you know, behind someone's back, it's about true forgiveness.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, and how can I expect people to forgive me for stuff that I've done in my
Speaker:past if I'm unwilling to forgive other people, you know?
Speaker:And at the end of the day, I can only control what I do.
Speaker:I can't control anybody else.
Speaker:I can't control my wife.
Speaker:I can't control my mother.
Speaker:You know, I try to control my kids.
Speaker:You know what I mean? I can only control me and my response to things.
Speaker:And before in life, when we were talking about values, I was raised like eye for an
Speaker:eye. Like I was the type of guy that I'd see you.
Speaker:And you looked at me wrong. I'm like, You got a problem now?
Speaker:I had to do a total transformation of who I was because that stuff was no longer working
Speaker:for me. Right. You know, it's the same thing.
Speaker:And I and I don't like to pigeonhole either.
Speaker:No. My story is about dependence, and I help out.
Speaker:A lot of people across the country get into different facilities.
Speaker:I do a lot of sober coaching and stuff out there, but I don't pigeonhole myself to that
Speaker:because I'm so vast in so many other ways.
Speaker:Like we I help, you know, successful CEOs improve their bottom line through
Speaker:communication skills, you know, in terms of marketing and stuff like that.
Speaker:My true passion is just helping anybody in general, regardless of what they're going
Speaker:through, regardless of what they're facing.
Speaker:You mean? I faced a lot in my life.
Speaker:And the one biggest thing that we have out there, and I think you'll agree with Lori, is
Speaker:coaching. Coaching is out there, but it's so underused because you have to have humility
Speaker:in order to jump into that.
Speaker:And humility is the ability to ask for help.
Speaker:Just because somebody comes for me, comes to me for coaching doesn't mean that I'm any
Speaker:better than them.
Speaker:I mean in life, right?
Speaker:It just means that I have some expertise in a certain area that they may need assistance
Speaker:in. Right. They may have expertise in another area that that I'm going to learn
Speaker:from. You know what I mean?
Speaker:Right. Right. And it comes back to your whole thing about humility, asking for help,
Speaker:because whatever thing they're facing at this moment, they just need a hand.
Speaker:Yeah. And a lot of people, you mean, tend to hold on to the problems.
Speaker:And I was one of them.
Speaker:I was that guy that when I when I, when I was going through things before I had a
Speaker:change in mindset and everything else, I wanted to tell you all about my problems.
Speaker:I wanted to justify my problems.
Speaker:I wanted to I would tell the complete stranger, hey, you know, look at look at my
Speaker:problems, look at my problems, you know, and just buy them, right?
Speaker:So I can move forward in life like they labeled me a felon.
Speaker:I can't get a job now. What am I going to, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, well, and then the interesting thing that happens with that is the more you focus
Speaker:on those problems, the more problems you get to focus on because it works the opposite
Speaker:way, too, right? When you're focusing on the good stuff, more good stuff comes in.
Speaker:I wanted to ask you a question about your move to Florida.
Speaker:Was that because were you I mean, obviously people move to Florida because it's warm and
Speaker:they want to get out of the snow.
Speaker:But but did you move to get through a change of environment so that you weren't going back
Speaker:to the same environment in the fear that you might fall back into the same old patterns?
Speaker:Great question. So when I first got out of prison, I moved back to my small environment.
Speaker:I became a a counselor at a detox.
Speaker:At first I was a landscaper, right?
Speaker:I took a job landscaping because I really needed to pick up something.
Speaker:I used to hide behind trees when cruises went by because I was so embarrassed.
Speaker:Right. And then I started to work in behavioral health and that type of stuff.
Speaker:The reason why I moved to Florida was because after about a year and a half of
Speaker:living at home, I knew that I was capped at home because of all my stuff being through
Speaker:the paper because of being a star one.
Speaker:In that area and then fall from grace.
Speaker:I had a stigma.
Speaker:I really, no matter how I try it, I couldn't get away from.
Speaker:But the capping point when I was playing around with the idea of moving and I stayed
Speaker:because of my kids, I had to.
Speaker:They're now 18 and 16.
Speaker:I stayed and I tried and I tried and I tried, but I could never do anything in and
Speaker:escape my past.
Speaker:And I wanted to provide for them.
Speaker:I wanted to do some things right then I was I was in a on a boat with my cousin who was
Speaker:like my best friend, a family gathering.
Speaker:And we both the boat unhooked, unhooked from the bottom of the lake.
Speaker:We both were treading a long story short, I saw my cousin die.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:While we were both treading water, I barely got saved.
Speaker:There's another part of my life.
Speaker:I shouldn't be here.
Speaker:His five year old was in the water with the life vest that witnessed all this.
Speaker:And we didn't find him until the next day.
Speaker:And that was the moment I decide he was always my rock, regardless of what I was
Speaker:going through in my life.
Speaker:He never judge me, try to talk sense into me, my stubborn, my stubborn ass.
Speaker:And, you know, seeing him go under and not being able to do anything about it, I ended
Speaker:up relapsing for a week.
Speaker:It was too much for me to handle, even though I was going through everything.
Speaker:I just. I had no coping skills.
Speaker:I'm like I was barely holding on as it is not living the life that I've always wanted
Speaker:to live and getting back in those feelings.
Speaker:And that was a cap for me.
Speaker:I ended up reaching out to a friend in Florida who owned a couple of places and he
Speaker:knew my background and he said, Joe, just just come down here.
Speaker:I went down to Florida with the intention of coming back to the Cape because my kids were
Speaker:there. It was just time for me to get away, to reevaluate what am I going to do with my
Speaker:life? And I ended up being very successful down here.
Speaker:I ended up working a lot on myself.
Speaker:I ended up building two multimillion dollar companies.
Speaker:I ended up Florida, gave me the opportunity that Massachusetts was never going to give
Speaker:me. I mean, yeah, and I took it and I ran with it.
Speaker:But more importantly, before I ran with a career stuff, I worked so very hard on
Speaker:myself. I invested in myself, whether that was personal development type of stuff,
Speaker:whether that was trainings, whether that was certifications, you, me, I just wanted
Speaker:change. And the only way for me to change everything on the outside was was to change
Speaker:what's going on in the inside.
Speaker:And the reason why I love NLP so much is because it helped me through that process.
Speaker:Just because somebody wants to get certified.
Speaker:A lot of people come to us to get certified in NLP hypnosis time Techniques, EFT or Life
Speaker:coaching, and a lot of people come in because they want to make more money and
Speaker:that's fine and they want the freedom to do it wherever they want.
Speaker:And I love that.
Speaker:That's not what I get excited about.
Speaker:I get excited about the fact that, yes, you're going to make more money and you're
Speaker:going to be able to add to your value.
Speaker:I go, But what I get excited about is what they don't know.
Speaker:And the fact is, is when you go through certification for, you know, NLP hypnosis,
Speaker:time techniques, all that, it's a lot of work that you do on yourself.
Speaker:First, the person you come in is not the person you leave.
Speaker:Yes, you're going to have shifts, You're going to have emotional breakthroughs.
Speaker:You're going to this is the stuff that I work with, clients that were not certify on
Speaker:within minutes within.
Speaker:It's so I get so excited to see how people change when they come through it and how they
Speaker:blossom afterwards that it's so very important.
Speaker:And obviously you can see it on my face.
Speaker:I yeah, I can hear it in your voice and I can see it on your face for sure.
Speaker:Yeah. So, you know, Florida did a lot for me and my current wife.
Speaker:I'm be nine years now.
Speaker:We've been married three new kids, you know, and that's what I write.
Speaker:I wrote the book. I made it.
Speaker:You know, it's not a long book.
Speaker:I was never an, you know, a person who would pick up and read a book.
Speaker:And I know most people don't read books cover to cover.
Speaker:I wanted this to be read, cover to cover.
Speaker:So I made it short enough where where it wasn't overbearing.
Speaker:It's not going to you know, somebody who looks at it doesn't read.
Speaker:They're going to be like, Oh, I can. Yeah.
Speaker:You know, it's it's a book that tells a little bit about my story, but it also gives
Speaker:tangible tools that you can take away to apply to your life now.
Speaker:And it's an introduction to who I am and what else that we can offer.
Speaker:Yeah, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:And in all honesty, I haven't read the book yet.
Speaker:However, it is at the top of my list.
Speaker:I got I got a stack of books over here and I'm really eager to get into it and.
Speaker:And to read what?
Speaker:And I was very excited.
Speaker:Yeah, I was very excited.
Speaker:It made number one best seller on Amazon, not on the bestseller list, number one.
Speaker:Best seller. It was like four weeks in a row, and I think it's still still in the top
Speaker:100, which is unheard of.
Speaker:Congratulations. That that is an amazing, awesome accomplishment.
Speaker:Tell us the name of the book again.
Speaker:It's called Badge Bars to Beyond.
Speaker:It's how I came back from sinning to winning, written by me, Joe Kelly.
Speaker:And you can get it on Amazon.
Speaker:I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker:I'm also going to put a link to how people can get in touch with you if they want to
Speaker:continue a conversation, which is tell me that.
Speaker:You can go to our website.
Speaker:It's called Obtaining Mastery Dotcom.
Speaker:And if somebody wants to talk, you can book a free, free consultation on the call or even
Speaker:if you just want to talk.
Speaker:You can also find me on Facebook.
Speaker:It's Joe Kelly.
Speaker:That's my author page or you can find me Joe Kelly and my personal page.
Speaker:I'm an open book, as you can tell.
Speaker:Almost all my dirty laundry has been aired out over the front pages of papers.
Speaker:But here's my big thing, Laurie, is I feel and I and I truly feel this, that if I can be
Speaker:vulnerable about my situation and there's a lot we didn't cover and there's a lot of that
Speaker:I don't mind talking about to anybody.
Speaker:If I can be vulnerable about my situation, maybe that's going to help somebody who's
Speaker:dying silently, you know?
Speaker:And I don't mean to be like, you know, so far left or so far right, It doesn't mean
Speaker:that you have to be dying.
Speaker:It just means that you need to.
Speaker:You know, you have obstacles that you need help with in life.
Speaker:So I have so enjoyed this conversation, and I think there's a lot of value out of here.
Speaker:Yes. Your story is is somewhat sensational and not to get caught up in that part of it,
Speaker:because the the lessons and the the learning from this is universal whether you've been in
Speaker:your position or not.
Speaker:Right. So thank you so much for sharing.
Speaker:Before we go, what is your song, the song you listen to and you need to get an extra
Speaker:boost of energy.
Speaker:For me, it's Eye of the Tiger.
Speaker:I'm a big, rocky, Rocky movie guy, you know?
Speaker:So I like anything that's inspirational, inspiring and motivational.
Speaker:And for me, that's always been a great movie for mine.
Speaker:So any time that I need a hype song, I'm walking in, I like, I like to listen I to the
Speaker:tiger.
Speaker:I love it. I love it.
Speaker:We're going to put a link to that in the show notes as well.
Speaker:So lots of good information in the show notes.
Speaker:Once again, Joe, thank you so much for joining me on Fine is a four letter word.
Speaker:Thank you, Laura. I appreciate you having me.
Speaker:Wow. Joe really got vulnerable in sharing his story here.
Speaker:I didn't bring it up in our conversation, but as he was talking, I was thinking back to
Speaker:Andy Overton's episode at the end of season one.
Speaker:She had been a police officer on a dangerous path as well, although with a different
Speaker:outcome. Here are today's five key takeaways.
Speaker:Number one, acknowledging the inglorious parts of life we choose to pursue is
Speaker:important to avoid a life of regret.
Speaker:Number two, this topic of asking for help and how difficult it is for people keeps
Speaker:coming up.
Speaker:The perceived shame is even greater for those who are used to providing support for
Speaker:everyone else.
Speaker:Joe mentioned his definition of humility as the ability to ask for help.
Speaker:Number three, when you tell yourself there's a line you won't cross and then you cross it,
Speaker:you destroy your integrity and lose trust in yourself.
Speaker:Number four understand, everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they
Speaker:have. Forgive them.
Speaker:And number five, you can try to control other people.
Speaker:But at the end of the day, the only one you can control is yourself and your response to