Dancing with the Stars winner, American hero, and author J.R. Martinez talks about “Full of Heart,” family, Operation Finally Home
Mark: We’ve seen this thing through a break and back into MyFixitUpLife with my wife Theresa …
Theresa: … And my husband Mark.
Mark: We’re inside the Formica booth at the International Builders Show.
JR: It’s nice to be part of the trio, only at Vegas.
Mark: That voice you hear is none other than the multi-talented and American hero.
JR: Well thank you.
Mark: An inspiration to I don’t know 10, 15 million people, JR Martinez.
JR: Yes, yes sir. It’s great to be here with you guys man. Thanks for having me on.
Mark: We are so psyched.
Theresa: Thanks for taking time out of your busy day for us and spending a little time with us.
JR: As you guys know and this is what we’re so thankful for which you do, because we have something that we want to talk about. We go to numerous people, but through your source and all your listeners we’re able to do it and be able to share more, so thank you guys for the opportunity to have us on.
Theresa: I want to talk about your book, but first I want to talk about Operation Finally Home.
JR: Yes ma’am.
Theresa: What you’re doing with them here at the International Builders Show.
JR: Operation Finally Home is a nonprofit, it’s a 501 C3 and essentially it’s setup to build mortgage free homes, custom mortgage free homes for service members that are injured and returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Also their families of course. It’s a great organization. They get a lot of donors, a lot of people to come on board. Of course we’re still that’s what we’re doing here at the International Builders Show is trying to make those connections with other builders and other contractors and say hey, “This is what we’re doing. “ We’ve built a lot of homes in the last couple of years, but we want to expand, so we’re looking for more partnerships. We’re looking for more people to come on board and say, “Hey this is what we’ll bring to the table, this is what we’ll donate,” and so on and so forth because of the relationship that they’ve been able to develop that they can build a $300,000 home for about 70,000. It’s pretty amazing.
Theresa: That is amazing.
JR: There are a lot of people that donate a lot of the equipment. Everybody can go to OperationFinallyHome.org to learn more about this organization. The executive director the founder, are great friends of mine. I believe in what they do. In the nonprofit world you have to be careful just because of the fact that you never where the money really goes. The great thing about this nonprofit, just for everyone that’s listening, is that all the money goes to the program. There’s really no overhead, it’s a small staff and they do great things.
For me, it I can use my platform and any kind of power that I have so to speak, to raise awareness about the organization and continue to get people involved to build more homes. At the end of the day that’s what it’s about and that’s what we’re here for. It’s great to be here in Vegas and to have a booth set up and having people come by, learn about who we are, and what we do, and hopefully create more partnerships to build more homes.
Theresa: I am completely inspired and I hope that a lot of people are coming out to help, to participate, and go into the website too, to find out more information people that are listening.
JR: Yes.
Theresa: I have to talk about your book Full of Heart. I actually wanted to show you, I’m actually the first …
JR: You’re reading it.
Theresa: Yes, I’m reading it on my iPhone.
JR: No one has ever come up to me that have it on their iPhone, this is the first actually. That’s cool.
Theresa: I’m about half way through.
JR: What part … “He reached for the pink Cadillac; oh I’m in the hospital at that stage, nice.”
Theresa: Yes. I don’t want to put it down. I want to read it right now.
JR: The great thing is … and thank you first of all for purchasing the book. I would sign it but I don’t how you would do it on the iPhone. I think we just take a picture?
Mark: We have square, actually you do.
JR: The great thing about me writing my memoir Full of Heart, is just simply because people see me on TV whether it’s Dancing With the Stars or All My Children or other things that I have done, and they see someone that’s very positive and inspirational, I definitely am and I try to practice that every single day. I think it’s something you have to practice in order to become better and implement them into your daily routine, in your daily life.
The thing about me writing the book is I wanted people to see that it wasn’t always smiles and great times. There were a lot of difficult times in my life. A lot of obstacles that I faced aside from what everybody kind of knows of. Me being in the military, being injured in 2003 in Iraq, and going through that recovery process, and of course the journey being into the entertainment field. I wanted people to understand that there’s … I’ve been through a lot of obstacles that I think in a lot of ways all of us kind of can relate to in some sense. I wanted people to get the full picture that there’s all kinds of things that everyone single one of us will face in daily life.
The big explosion that went off in my life was the roadside bomb in Iraq and it changed my life, but we all go through and have big explosions in our lives. It’s important that we understand that we bring something to the table. We have the strengths and the experiences in that moment to be able to do the two things that I talk about in the book, adapt and overcome. It’s important for me to be able to try and get that message across to people, to read my book and ultimately we help each other when we share our own experiences with one another.
For me this is my opportunity to be able to share with everybody that picks up that book or hears me talking to you guys on your radio show or sees me on, whatever it is. That’s my opportunity and I hope people take something away from it just as much as I take away from other people experiences.
Theresa: I could not believe the amount of things that you lived through.
JR: Right.
Theresa: Before what everybody knows about you and your relationship with your mom, and at a very young age sort of protecting her and being a really strong … I just can’t even …
JR: I had to grow up quick.
Theresa: Yes.
JR: I had to grow up quick as a young boy as being raised by a single mother from another country that’s away from her family that’s having to raise a boy by herself. My father left when I was nine months old and she barely knew the English language. She was still learning, working multiple jobs. Of course like anybody, we try to find love and try to find someone’s stable to be her partner and obviously a great role model for me. Unfortunately there weren’t good men that were in the picture and seeing her go through those struggles. The thing that my mother taught me … she taught me a couple of things that I didn’t realize until I got older which usually happens. We don’t pay attention until we get older.
Mark: Yes who does?
JR: Yes exactly, but the couple of things that I look back at that I learned from my mother, is that she taught me about a different type of scar when I was very young kid. She taught me about the scars that are on the inside. Even though I knew those scars, because of all the things that she was going through and the pain that she was facing. She also taught me that at the end day you still smile. The reason why you still smile because if you walk around with no smile your pushing away possible good opportunities, good blessings to come into your life. Ultimately what happens is smile, and invite them in and that to me is a pretty special.
Theresa: Well, wait I know my husband’s touching me on my back, because he wants to talk, but I want to say something …
Mark: You’re obviously …
JR: You know how it goes man. You know how it is.
Mark: I’ll be over here if you want to talk after that’s cool.
Theresa: I wrote this down while I was reading it. I’m reading it on iPhone, but I still had to write down … but your coach said, that you got on the team in high school, because it had nothing to do with your ability, but it had everything to do with your attitude.
JR: What does that even mean? I don’t care, what’s my jersey number? How cool am I going to be? What position am I going to play? Am I going to be the popular kid on the football team? That’s all I cared about, I didn’t know about attitude, but apparently I had it in me the whole time as a kid, I had it in me. I always understood that it was bigger than I, it was a team. I always kind of understood that.
When I wasn’t able to play I moved around a lot and I wasn’t able to play as a senior as much even though I felt I should have been on the field … of course everybody feels that they can do it and they should be there … it was like okay you know what maybe my role is limited. It’s about the team, I’m going to be here to try and help the team. If it’s being an encourager and essentially being a cheerleader with football pads, a helmet, and wearing cleats than that’s what I’ll be. You just got to find your niche in life and we all kind of have something that we bring to the table. It may not be the star role, but it’s important to have the supporting cast.
A lot of times in my life I’ve been a supporting cast and now there’s a lot of people because the tables have turned, I’m the main role now and people supported me, but it’s a team work thing. It’s all about working together.
Theresa: I love that you’re … I know …
Mark: JR you know what I’m going to give you my phone number.
Theresa: Yes, you guys talk later.
JR: Let’s just talk later. We’ll sit down, we’ll have a drink.
Theresa: Can you tell how excited I am?
JR: She can go to the spa, you can finish the book on the iPhone, and me and him will just talk.
Theresa: Seriously I’m obsessed right now. No, but I like how you’re being the part of a team and finding your niche and that whole positive attitude. You’re bringing it back around with Operation Finally Home. You went through everything you did and you could. You could just be acting. You could be on TV. You could be doing all these other things and not giving back and not trying to help other people who are going through and who have been through the same thing that you’ve been through.
JR: When you look at … we have a tendency at times to kind of look at people in the limelight public figures, we call them celebrities. We look at them as role models. We look up to them and say they are people we want to emulate … we kind of want to be like. It’s great when you see those people that have that power, that have that ability to kind of catch people’s attention for 15 seconds, to pay attention to a cause that’s worthy. It’s great when you see those people do that. For me what’s the point of me having fame to myself. What’s the point of me having people pay attention to me all the time when I go through an airport or I go to an event?
Yes it’s nice, it’s great, but at the end of the day more importantly, “Hey I got your 15 seconds of attention. Let me tell you something about that’s important to me. Hopefully it will be important to you, if not you’ll pass it on to someone else and we can kind of have a nice movement going on here.” It’s great when you see people that have the power and using it towards a great cause and doing great things. I think when you do that, I’ve learned in my life when you try to help other people or when you do help other people good things always come around to you.
It’s kind of a nice kind of initiative in the back of your mind … you don’t do it for those reasons, but it always happens that way. That’s a secret that I think a lot of people don’t realize, because we’re not willing to try to do something for someone else, because immediately we think well what’s in it for me. I don’t know this person. We should take the time to say, “You know what I’m going to try to help somebody out. Let me do something for somebody today.”
Theresa: I’ll do something for you. You go ahead and ask a question. I’ll be gracious right now.
JR: She’s a loving and supporting wife.
Theresa: I’m a very loving and supporting wife.
JR: There you go.
Mark: I forgot what it was.
Theresa: Oh no.
JR: He had his moment. He had his movement.
Mark: I didn’t forget what it was. You talk about the positivity and I had a bunch of questions ready to go for you everything from like football pics to what position did you play through the whole thing and … you look great by-the-way. You stay in shape and I had all kinds of questions about that.
JR: You’re in great shape.
Mark: The first thing that came to me … thank you for giving him the 20 dollars.
Theresa: I already did.
JR: You’re in great shape man, if you guys can see this guy he’s a stud. You motivate me man.
Theresa: He’s my husband.
Mark: That’s my new ringtone.
JR: Nice I like that.
Mark: The first thing was positivity. You have it and some people have things, some people don’t it’s not. It’s a mix of stuff, but someone stole a pack of gum from me when I was nine years old, I’m still torqued off. I’m still mad, I don’t smile. But how much of it do you think is in you just you show up that way and how much of is kind of like forced. “I’m going to go out and I’m going to smile today, come high or hell water?”
JR: I think it’s a 50/50. I think it’s definitely something that it has to be a nice combination between the both. Obviously I’ve lived a lot in my life and I’ve had lot of experiences to where … I’ve been at the bottom and I felt to myself what’s the point of smiling, but then something always comes around the corner and blesses me. I think to myself that’s why I should be happy, that’s why I should push through this moment. I’ve had a lot of those experiences to understand that it’s important to be able to push through and to be positive. But there’s also a part of me that’s just says “You know saddle up man today is another day. Last night was not cool or yesterday wasn’t cool or today I’m exhausted, but you know what saddle up man.”
There’s a reason and there’s a point of me knowing what I’m doing today and it can help somebody and that’s why I carry on. As I tell people when I speak, or when I’m signing books, or doing an autograph, or whatever it is. I pretty much tell people it’s like positivity, believe, faith, having courage, brave, strength whatever word you want to use, you’ve got to practice this stuff. This is like an athlete you’ve got to practice this stuff.
You talk about the greatest athletes in our history. They always practice to be the best to be the one’s at the end of the day people would be talking about for 50, 60, 70 years later down the road, to be someone positive. To be someone that you continue to survive and to do great things with your life. You have to practice this stuff. This doesn’t … I have to practice it. This is the part where sometimes I don’t want to do it, but practice it. As long as you practice it overtime as every great athlete that we love you be taught to be greatness.
Mark: We have to cross the finish line to take the athlete mojo through and take a break.
Theresa: You have to buy the book Full of Heart and check out Operation Finally Home and we will be back after this from MyFixitUpLife. I have to go read some more of the book.
JR: Thank you guys, thank you.
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