Adapting Through Adversity: John Benjamin Jones's Inspiring Journey

Transcript

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Well, welcome back to the show.

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I'm so honored that you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today and I am super excited about today's guest.

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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

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On today's episode I have John Benjamin Jones.

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He has 30 years of experience in military, security and law enforcement.

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He's the author of his newest book, a Higher Calling A Biblical Guide for First Responders, military and Veterans.

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He's taught and spoke for decades about his experience within the profession and he's currently a financial representative with Magnolia Wealth Strategies.

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John, how are you doing, sir?

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I'm good sir.

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How are you man?

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What an interesting career.

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As your life continues, just give our audience how you got here, your experience and how you ended up where you are now.

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You know that adage everybody thinks your life's going to be this straight line, when in reality it's-.

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Yeah, and we discover what we think right, all the best plans in the world go out the window, with God for sure.

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Absolutely, and that was part of my whole life journey.

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Right, so grew up, always wanted to be in the military, grew up listening to my dad and my uncle's stories about being in the military, actually graduated high school a year early to go in.

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Did that?

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I was a Navy corpsman, I was FMF, so I was with the Marines for about three and a half years out of my almost seven-year tenure, for about three and a half years out of my, you know, almost seven year tenure deployed a smallie with them.

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But, uh, you know, just, god's plan is always going to prevail.

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Like right, the best laid plans are, are never going to go up against what God has for you.

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Ultimately though, um, ironically, I was never interested in law enforcement as a youngster.

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I have an uncle who did 40 plus years in law enforcement, but I was never interested in that.

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It was always military, military.

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My career came to an end from a medical issue and I've thought what can I do?

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That would still be something that I would be serving others while providing a good lifestyle for my family, and it was either law enforcement or firefighting.

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You know, first responder field in general, right, firefighting was.

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There were,500 applicants for about four openings, so that goes, but ultimately law enforcement is what I kind of fell into and I again, like I said, I wasn't interested in law enforcement when I was young, but absolutely the best field I could have gotten into outside of the military.

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So I started off.

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What kind of assignments within the profession did you do?

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I was on a sheriff's department in the Midwest initially.

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And let me, let me back that up.

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We had a little internet glitch.

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I'll just start that question again.

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So what kind of assignments in law enforcement did you do?

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So I started off on a small, small or sheriff's department in the Midwest, the county that Omaha is, in which Omaha is such a big city that the county has has a smaller jurisdictional area, but road patrol court did a little bit of instruction there.

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But because my background in the in the military was, you know, was traumatic medicine, I kind of fell into instructing that.

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I did some instruction with that in the military, so I just kind of fell into that.

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Once I left the sheriff's department I went into contract security for a while because I thought I was actually going to just make more money is ultimately what it what it boiled down to.

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My family had grown at that point to six kids so you know I was just trying to provide a better life for them.

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Ultimately didn't work out that way.

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So I went and pursued a career with the Fed, started off with the VA police and then I was able to move into Federal Air Marshal from there Within the Federal Air Marshal, you know, conducting security flights, protection, civil aviation protection.

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But I got into full time instruction, specifically traumatic medicine, for the Los Angeles field office of where I was based, out of.

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Right, right.

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And so you're in wealth management now and I want to get into that.

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So you're in wealth management now and I want to get into that, but kind of talk to us how the law enforcement career kind of sets you up for doing things after law enforcement.

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Because I keep talking to cops around across the country because we sort of were fed this sort of fill of lies.

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Right, it stops and ends with this law enforcement profession, right, right, but it doesn't.

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Your life can just get just beginning sometimes at the end of that career.

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You have a chance for a second life, so to speak.

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So how did the things you did in the profession sort of set you up for success in what you're doing now?

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Well, you become you, law enforcement you.

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You have to become a self-starter.

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You, you're assigned a particular district or beat, or what have you assigned a particular district or beat or what have you.

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You may or may not have a partner with you, but you have to go out and generally create something to happen.

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Law enforcement, by nature, is reactive, right, unless you're out there being proactive, looking for the violations.

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That translates perfectly into the financial services field, especially when you first get started.

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Nobody is coming to you seeking your advice, right?

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So you have to get out there, try and make something happen.

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And the fact that law enforcement you are talking to dozens of people a day that you don't know and you are the subject matter expert in what you're discussing with them from the law enforcement side, but, at the same time, not everybody you talk to is a suspect, right?

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So you're talking to business owners all the time.

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You're talking to victims, you're talking to the general public all the time.

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You're making rapport with people, so that translates very well into the financial sector as well.

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That would translate into any sector outside of law enforcement, but one of the reasons I went into the financial sector, though, is in law enforcement.

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First responder field in general is one of the few fields where you still receive a pension on top of your 401k or TSP, which, whatever it may be, which, whatever it may be, a lot of industries don't have that anymore.

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Even with that, though, you find that once you retire from that, unless you prepared properly, you still need to continue doing some type of employment.

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Once you retire from the first responder field, which goes into your point, the law enforcement first responder field, it does not end when you stop.

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You have to go in and try and find something else.

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Now many people go and try and find something that those skills translate to starting their own training company, starting their own security company, going and working court security what have you?

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So do you sense in the profession because I saw this myself that you're told from the very beginning oh, you have a pension, oh, you have a pension.

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They use that to get you in the door.

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Then sometimes people will think well, that solves my answers, I don't have to worry about anything else.

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Do you find that officers get to the tail end of their career and they're struggling because they didn't pre-plan financially, thinking the pension would help me, the pension would take care of it?

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Because you know, some pensions don't account for inflation, right?

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Sometimes COLAs are by the legislature and so that you may have had in 1995 and the pension isn't what it is today.

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And so do you find that same thing when you speak to law enforcement about this?

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Yes, very much so, and that's one of the reasons why I'm actually trying to help as many law enforcement first responders at any level as I can, because a lot of people will rely on the pension.

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They won't manage their other 401k or TSP.

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They just kind of set it and forget it and hope that it grows as their career grows.

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And unfortunately I was kind of in that boat.

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I know a lot of my coworkers who have retired were in that boat.

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Some of them worked out well, others it didn't.

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So I do find that the pension, as great as it is to have that income coming in once you retire, it's kind of the catch-22.

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Just like you said, people think they're going to have the pension, so they don't plan at all.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So I'm trying to get people, I'm trying to educate our community to understand that you need the planner.

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Just like you need you need a coach to learn martial arts, just like you need a trainer to reach a goal in the gym.

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You need some kind of professional to help you reach those financial goals.

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Well, I've got a great leadership story and, of course, this podcast is about leadership, but I'm convinced that we need to do better in leadership not just about the operational standpoint of the profession, but the personal lives and well-being of people as well, whether that is mental, physical, because of a sergeant.

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He literally said I'm not going to let you work with me if you don't enter this thing.

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As a 21-year-old kid you don't like.

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What in the world are you talking about, right?

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So I got in it and didn't think much about it after that, but it's well over, obviously, six figures today, because that one leader sort of forced my hand on that.

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And so what would you say to the leaders out there, people in the profession, that try to encourage people to do this?

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Because I do think there's a responsibility we're very bad in the profession, john, about take care of them on the job, but then once they leave the job, good luck getting anybody to really care too much after that.

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And so how important is that to be speaking about this to our officers very early on in their career?

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Probably one of the most important aspects of early education in our field.

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Don't get me wrong.

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I'm not saying it's any more important or more valuable than all of the technical skills and the trade craft that you need to do to do the job.

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But it is as important because, like you said, the job is going to end eventually, whether you retire, medically retire or leave for something else.

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I mean, I'm sure you're aware of the statistic that you know average law enforcement career in the United States is about seven years.

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So people leave the job before retirement in different capacities.

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So it's imperative to understand it and, as a leader, I would recommend leaders reaching out to financial professionals, especially if they have a background in the first responder community, to come in.

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Just invite them in half hour hour half hour during an academy or a FTO program to just come in and speak to them about the importance of it.

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Maybe those officers, those first responders that have already been employed for a while that have not had that training, you know, maybe during a follow-on training event which I know it's difficult to get the time on those follow-on trains, I understand that the required legal you know, functional training takes precedent, but again it doesn't take a long time a half hour, an hour to just let them give them the knowledge or the at least a brief presentation and give those folks a chance to talk to them on their own time.

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At least they know somebody right.

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A lot of times people don't want to talk to a professional because they don't necessarily trust them.

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They don't think that they'll understand their specific needs as a first responder.

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But there are quite a few first responders out there.

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Just in Magnolia, the general agents of West Point, graduate.

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We have several retired military.

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There are people who truly understand what's going on out there with the first responder and military fields, veteran fields who understand where you're coming from, understand the struggle of Right yeah, really dangerous job that you're doing and understand why the protections that they recommend are important.

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They're not just trying to get you to file a financial plan or pay for this specific product, right.

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They're doing it specifically to help you reach the goals that you have set forth for you your family and your loved ones.

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Yeah, and we're not just talking about playing a stock market.

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I mean, there's all sorts of different avenues, right?

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I mean we're talking about pensions all the time, but there's a product called an annuity.

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That's literally that's what that is.

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It's what a pension is Right.

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It's set money each month.

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So you probably are involved in all that.

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So I speak to a lot of people that they don't trust the stock market.

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They watch the buy gold commercials.

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Everyone's nervous.

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I get that we're sort of an untrustworthy group.

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What would you tell them about?

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if somebody is a little bit nervous about speaking to someone like yourself about this, Do a little bit of research If you know what it is you want to research about.

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If it's about stock market investments, do a little research, see if that's something that they manage or somebody within their firm will manage.

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But you're right, stock market it is.

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What it is right is for first responders specifically is to do what you can talk to somebody about helping you maximize your income once the job is over.

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Yeah, right, so um, but just just like on the job, right?

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You talk to somebody, you talk to them a little bit.

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You can kind of get that gut feel about them If you just get that feel like they're just not the right for you.

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That doesn't mean that all advisors are not right for you, right, they want to talk to me.

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If they want to ask me a couple of questions, even if they don't want to work with me, that's fine.

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I can help them find somebody in their area that they might be willing to work with, or at least somebody who's reputable.

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Yeah, let's pivot quickly because your new book and if you're just joining us, we're talking to John Benjamin Jones 30 years of experience in military, security and law enforcement.

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He is working with Magnolia Wealth Strategies now, so in the financial industry really good stuff.

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He just wrote a book called A Higher Calling A Biblical Guide for First Responders, military and Veterans.

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John, talk to us about why you decided to write the book and what it means to the profession?

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That's a good question.

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I ended up writing the book specifically when COVID started.

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So this has been some pretty difficult experiences it out, you know, I saw mainly friends and family members like going through the same struggles, so I helped them out.

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Well then COVID hit.

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Everybody was home, Nobody was really going out doing anything like that, and my wife was already working from home and I had been traveling in my capacity as a federal air marshal quite extensively.

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So I was home and my wife said basically you're kind of annoying me, You're here too much.

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You need a project to do.

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So she said you always wanted to write a book.

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Why don't you write the book about the process you mentored some of these folks through.

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So that's kind of how it started.

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It took about a year to write and the reason it's a four year process is because it actually got picked up by a traditional Christian publisher and then they sat on it for two years, which is apparently not having worked with traditional publish before.

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It's kind of a common practice.

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So in the clause there was if it, nothing happened within a certain amount of time, I got my rights back, I worked with a coach and within about seven months of working with the coach.

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It was released.

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It was finally released on June 7th of this last year, 2014.

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On Amazon all major books.

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Is that where people can find it?

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Yeah, it's on Amazon, walmart, barnes and Noble.

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It's available through my website.

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You reach out to me, we can do something.

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One of the things that I'm trying to do is people who reach out to me directly.

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I'll try, if possible, if it's not a direct purchase, where it ships directly to them.

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If it comes to me first and I ship it out, I try to write a you know, a quick note in it, at least to you know, say thank you.

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So we're really good in the profession about.

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We talk about the physical, we talk about wellness, we talk about the emotional.

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But I assume you're hitting on the spiritual, which is a key component in all that so kind of talk about the importance of having that spiritual foundation both on the job and off.

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To me, what I've seen is it's critically important.

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You can have all of the other aspects taken care of, but if you don't have the spiritual, there's always something missing from it.

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And the spiritual takes into account everything the physical, the physical fitness, the training, the martial arts, the um, the you know your shooting skills, what have you your?

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Whatever you're doing, it is.

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It's involved in that.

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It's involved with your relationships.

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It's involved with how you talk to your family members.

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It's involved, it's a part of the community, within your department or agency.

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It's involved with how you speak with the general public and it goes into every aspect.

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But the biggest aspects of what I found in these fields the first responder military and veterans is it gives you a path.

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It's the guide for you to do these potentially horrible things or see these horrible things, and still understand that what you're doing is important, it's honorable, it's.

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The book is called A Higher Calling, because a lot of people in these communities feel called into them and it's generally that you know.

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I'm a Christian, so I believe that God calls us into these professions.

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But it's also God that gives you that guidepost to help you cope and deal with all that stuff that you see, and unless you have that spiritual aspect, something's always going to be missing.

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You're always going to try and fill it with something else.

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So fantastic stuff, john.

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I can't thank you enough.

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Be sure to check his book out, a Higher Calling, A Biblical Guide for First Responders to Military and Veterans.

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Fantastic stuff, john.

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It's a perfect example of just if the first career law enforcement career comes to an end.

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There's so much more in life that is in front of you, but we have to have that purpose to do it.

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I can't thank you enough for being on the show today.

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Thank you, sir, for having me.

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I truly appreciate it and, if you've been listening, thank you for being here.

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And just remember lead on, stay courageous.

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Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates.

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We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www.

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travisyates.

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org.