060 From Darkness to Light: Jake Cortez’s Journey of Redemption and Unconditional Love

Hello everyone, I'm Dimple Thakrar, and welcome back to Beyond the Words. Today, I have an incredible guest, Jake Cortez. We met at a Tony Robbins event, and I was immediately struck by his sincerity and depth. In this episode, Jake shares his powerful story of transformation and resilience.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Jake Cortez takes us through his journey from a troubled past to becoming a beacon of hope and inspiration. He opens up about his early life, his time in prison, and the profound personal changes he underwent. Jake’s story is one of redemption, self-discovery, and the power of unconditional love.

Key Takeaways

1. Owning Your Past: Jake emphasises the importance of taking responsibility for your actions and not blaming others for your circumstances.
2. Power of Love: The unconditional love of his mother played a crucial role in Jake’s transformation, highlighting the power of love and support in overcoming life's challenges.
3. Healing and Self-Acceptance: Jake shares how essential it is to love and accept yourself, including the darkest parts, to truly heal and grow.
4. Positive Transformation: Jake’s journey illustrates how one can turn their life around by embracing new values and striving for personal growth.
5. Role of Mentorship and Guidance: Meeting and learning from mentors like Tony Robbins helped Jake to redefine his life and goals.

Connect with Jake:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakecortez/?hl=en
• Website: https://www.jakecortez.com/

Thank you for joining us for this inspiring episode. Share this episode with friends and family who might benefit from Jake’s incredible story.

Have a wonderful day, and remember to love yourself unconditionally.

Dimple Thakrar Resource Links:

Website: https://dimpleglobal.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dimple.thakrar
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dimplethakrar/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Welcome
• 1:46 Meeting Jake Cortez
• 4:23 Jake’s Early Life and Family Background
• 7:08 Turning to Drugs and Moving to Miami
• 7:53 The Impact of Parental Separation
• 16:53 Jake’s Time in Prison
• 23:53 Realising the Need for Change
• 30:53 Embracing New Values and Mentorship
• 37:53 Life After Prison and Professional Growth
• 47:53 Final Reflections and Advice

Transcript

Beyond the Words EP60

[00:00:00] Dimple Thakrar: Hello and welcome back to Beyond the Words with me Dimple Thakrar. I have today the most incredible guest and I want to share with you before I introduce him and bring him on how we met and what I felt in that moment that we met. So we met at a Tony Robbins event and this guy walks up with this beautiful woman.

[00:00:28] Dimple Thakrar: And I look at this guy and my first thought, I will be honest with you, he's a hot guy. He takes care of himself. And then I was like, ah, but there's something else. beyond the hotness. And I felt something so sincere in his heart and it felt like he was an old soul that had quite literally the words that are coming through right now that he'd done his time.

[00:01:00] Dimple Thakrar: And so when you hear this story you will understand what I mean by he'd done his time. So Without further ado, I want to introduce the incredible Jake Cortez. 

[00:01:15] Jake Cortez: Wow, thank you for that introduction. 

[00:01:17] Dimple Thakrar: Just truth, honestly. 

[00:01:19] Jake Cortez: Yeah. Just 

[00:01:21] Dimple Thakrar: truth. 

[00:01:22] Jake Cortez: If you were to ask me what is the one thing that I want to have done before I move on and transition is to impact as many people's lives as possible.

[00:01:32] Jake Cortez: Our paths intersecting and maybe as brief as it had been I still take delight in knowing that I had left a mark on you. Where shall I begin? 

[00:01:45] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah, Jake, it's interesting that you want to impact because you certainly did. Cause there are so many people that we meet, as in the Tony Robbins platinum partnership and in the Tony Robbins world, and.

[00:01:57] Dimple Thakrar: I still remember the day we met. I still remember where it was. I still remember the color of the walls. I still remember all of it, right? And that's the impact, and it was your soul. It was your soul. Of course you take care of your body. Of course you look amazing. That is hard frigging work, and that needs to be honored.

[00:02:17] Dimple Thakrar: And your soul hit me. And so that's the piece that you impacted me with and I want you to know that today. And so I would love for you to start with your story because I was blown away and it really changed the way I it made me aware of my prejudice, honestly. And it really helped me work through the truth of what I thought about people who had been behind bars and what I actually now think.

[00:02:48] Dimple Thakrar: So I would love for you to share your story. 

[00:02:53] Jake Cortez: I love your transparency and that I knew that was a part of my journey being perceived a certain way. And I had to come to a place of ownership of the areas where I had messed up and messed up big. Now, the beauty of my experience is one that I own it all.

[00:03:17] Jake Cortez: I like I own it. Like it wasn't my father. It wasn't the system. It wasn't the drugs. It wasn't any of that. And I was born into a beautiful household. Like my mom, my grandmother, my great grandmother, and my great grandmother were there to welcome me into this world. So I had four generations of women to welcome me into this planet.

[00:03:42] Jake Cortez: And what a beautiful way to be brought into this world. Zero to seven years old. Great. I'm 85 years old and a couple incidents with my father. My father is, he's unique in the sense that he chose his path, but he really dealt with addictions. He was a functional addict, he still held his job and all this other stuff.

[00:04:07] Jake Cortez: And, when I was five years old, maybe found like a joint in his bathroom, my mom got pissed. And it was another crazy story where him and my uncle, they took cocaine from my grandfather. So my grandfather used to be like a drug dealer, which was So I have in my family things that I needed to break generationally.

[00:04:32] Jake Cortez: My mother kept me away from my grandfather. My grandfather actually was in the movie Serpico with Al Pacino because Serpico was the only cop in New York City in the 70s. that would not take mob money. My grandfather wasn't a made man, but he worked with the mob and he was actually arrested by Serpico. So I have this dynamic where on my mother's side, which was the nurturing, the care, like the one Protecting my father was more authoritarian, but on her side, her dad was, it turned out to not be so great. And on my father's side, my dad's father was a hardworking man who eventually died penniless in this country for a few bad deals, but he was still a good man, was by his wife and all of these other things.

[00:05:27] Jake Cortez: So growing up, I had these two, identities, like these two models. And I didn't want either of them, but I realized very quickly at an early age, the power of raising young men the right way. Like I have two younger brothers and a younger sister. And one of the catalysts in my life that sent me into a world of chaos, mischief, and all of this other stuff was.

[00:06:04] Jake Cortez: When I was 11 years old, my father and my mother were getting separated and I'm the eldest of four. And my father at the time thought it was the best idea to just leave me in charge. So 

[00:06:19] Jake Cortez: He sat me in the living room on the couch and he's look, Jake, it's not working out. Me and your mom, we're going separate ways.

[00:06:25] Jake Cortez: And you're now the man of the house. Those were his exact words. 

[00:06:29] Dimple Thakrar: 11. Oh my word. Wow, that's a lot on any younger man, never mind child's shoulders. 

[00:06:40] Jake Cortez: I was immediately confused. Yes. And then he was gone the next day. 

[00:06:48] Dimple Thakrar: Gosh. 

[00:06:49] Jake Cortez: So then I didn't have any way of getting any answers. And then that confusion, which led to anger, which turned to hatred, which turned to resentment.

[00:07:05] Jake Cortez: Yeah. All became my captors. They became, I became a prisoner of these Emotions that I didn't know how to deal with at such a young age. 

[00:07:20] Dimple Thakrar: But you didn't even know they were running the show at that age. 

[00:07:25] Jake Cortez: I had no clue that they were running the show and being a man. Look, just to give you perspective on who my father is.

[00:07:32] Jake Cortez: When Rocky IV came out, 1985, I'm four years old. My brother's three. I might've been five and he might've been four. We're over the sink eating raw eggs, just like in the movie. So he's teaching his boys to be men. It's Hey, anybody messes with you, you protect yourself. And now me and my brother, Chris, are in the living room and we're boxing.

[00:07:55] Jake Cortez: We're duking it out. So there was reinforcement, social reinforcement around physical aggression. Now, I don't think entirely that's bad for a father to teach his boys. To protect themselves and protect the family, protect your sister, protect your mother. I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with that.

[00:08:16] Jake Cortez: Now, the challenge was when he was gone and I had these emotions and suck it up. Men don't cry. This is what I was raised with, suck it up, men don't cry. And what ends up happening is when you tell a boy that what ends up getting internalized, it's not socially acceptable to have certain feelings

[00:08:35] Jake Cortez: so then I'm 11, I'm 12. I knew my dad smoked weed, so I ended up smoking weed. 11, 12 years old, 13 years old. I had experimented with that in Texas and then shortly thereafter we moved to Miami, Florida. So not only did my parents get divorced, but then I was uprooted from where I was in Texas. Moving to Miami, Florida.

[00:08:59] Jake Cortez: Now, I had only seen marijuana in my younger years. But when I get to the schools in Miami, the middle schools, these kids are doing cocaine gambling out front. This is, like I had never experienced anything like that. It was a total, it was a culture shock. I'm of Cuban descent, but I wasn't raised around Spanish people.

[00:09:20] Jake Cortez: So when I get to Miami, everybody speaks Spanish. And people dress different, it's more trendy, it's more hip, but there's a lot more drugs. So then what ended up happening is, I said, if my mom had these Christian beliefs, and this is what I was raised with, and this is what she got. She now has to raise all four of us, all by herself, working seven days a week.

[00:09:45] Jake Cortez: Why do I want those beliefs? And I just cast them aside and I started to create my own way in the world. And the best way that I can put it is I start, I started to rewrite the code, the algorithm that was the operating system. I started adopting new beliefs. I started hanging out with people that didn't match the values I was raised with, but they had one thing in common.

[00:10:13] Jake Cortez: We all have one thing in common. We had similar pain. They've been hurt by a parent. They've been hurt by a They had trauma that I can relate to.

[00:10:23] Dimple Thakrar: That was 

[00:10:24] Jake Cortez: my experience. It was betrayal. 

[00:10:26] Dimple Thakrar: Betrayal. Yeah. 

[00:10:28] Jake Cortez: My life, I think, would have took a totally different turn if I felt abandoned. I never felt abandoned. I felt betrayed. 

[00:10:34] Dimple Thakrar: Betrayed. 

[00:10:35] Jake Cortez: I felt a deep betrayal this is a guy you play basketball with. He's teaching everything, like 

[00:10:41] Dimple Thakrar: he didn't 

[00:10:41] Jake Cortez: even get to teach me how to tie a tie yet, like he was, there's all these things that a father teaches a boy and I had a right to be angry, but I had no right. To hurt people. And that's what I did. 

[00:10:57] Dimple Thakrar: It's interesting, because I wrote a post just this Sunday. It was Father's Day. And I wrote a post about the power of our fathers, and what's coming to mind through your story is how, when you don't have that role model anymore, and it shows up as betrayal, right?

[00:11:21] Dimple Thakrar: Because you had it, and then it was gone, and it, right? And the impact of that influence, the power of the father, right? And how important fathers are, and yet there are so many children being raised in the absence of a father. 

[00:11:41] Jake Cortez: It's really sad because, ending up in the Department of Corrections. About 80 percent of these guys came up, were raised in fatherless homes, 

[00:11:51] Dimple Thakrar: right?

[00:11:52] Dimple Thakrar: Wow. 80%. 

[00:11:55] Jake Cortez: No, it's significantly high. So now your father, my father, I went to prison when I was 18 years old. My father was four walls and fighting other men twice my age. Look on one side, It was painful, it sucked it was a very arduous journey, and the best way to put it, and I learned through blood, sweat, and grit was if you don't heal what hurt you, You will bleed on those who didn't cut you.

[00:12:29] Jake Cortez: And 

[00:12:30] Dimple Thakrar: Say it again, please. Please say it again. 

[00:12:32] Jake Cortez: If you don't heal what hurt you, you will bleed on those who didn't cut you. I think Rumi said that. Now 

[00:12:42] Dimple Thakrar: Can we just let that land for a moment? I want that to land. Because how many times, and I am guilty of this, where I have taken things out on my beloved, And it's not his fault.

[00:12:58] Dimple Thakrar: He wasn't the one who hurt me. We do that. We take it out on the people we love the most. 

[00:13:05] Jake Cortez: What happens is, and it's an interesting dynamic that you want the person that's closest to you to feel the pain that you're feeling. Yes. Because it wouldn't matter to have a stranger do it because they don't know you.

[00:13:18] Jake Cortez: But you want your partner to feel what you feel. Why? So I spent enough, I spent seven and a half years in prison, I can't believe 

[00:13:26] Dimple Thakrar: it. I can't, as you're saying this I just, sorry to interrupt you there, but as you're saying this, I only know you as Jake that I know, right? And so when you told me your story, the first time I heard it, I had this like really weird feeling in my, in the whole of my psyche.

[00:13:49] Dimple Thakrar: It was like, wait, hold on. None of this makes sense. Because it's solely making me feel something different. And yet, you've been through all this, and what astounded me was that you chose through all of it, and even went so far that you told me about your story. You made a choice to make different beliefs.

[00:14:13] Dimple Thakrar: Yes. You had that much awareness. Maybe it was in the wrong direction in that moment, but you made a choice. Yes. To be the game changer and rewrite the codes for your family. And you did it in your unique way, right? There was a path. 

[00:14:31] Jake Cortez: Yeah. 

[00:14:32] Dimple Thakrar: Please. 

[00:14:34] Jake Cortez: Yeah. I so there's a story when I was On my first bid.

[00:14:39] Jake Cortez: So when I was 25 years old, I was on my way to prison for the third time. Good. So on my first bid, I am sitting in a confinement cell. I just finished fighting one of my cellmates and I'm on what's called closed management too, which means I am segregated from open population. They have deemed me a risk.

[00:15:01] Jake Cortez: To general population within the prison system because there was a situation at another institution where, I'll just be frank. I violently insulted this guy because he First he tried to take one. It's crazy because it's just like in the movies He tried to take my cookie like an actual cookie Like he wanted a piece of my cookie and I ended up fighting over it, but like he didn't really fight back and I didn't like this guy.

[00:15:27] Jake Cortez: And then one thing led to another. And I ended up sending that guy to the hospital and it was bad. And they reclassified me from a youth to an adult and I'm 165 pounds soaking wet. I'm probably like 19 years old. I'm walking into this adult institution and. I realized that although I was committed to leaving the institution I was at, I wasn't going to escape because I only had two years.

[00:15:52] Jake Cortez: But I was committed to leaving by any means necessary. As I walked into this new institution, I realized what a mistake I had made. I'm being catcalled like I'm Beyonce Dimple. I'm 165 pounds. I'm being catcalled by other men. And they're at minimum, these guys are weighing 200 pounds. I'm 165 pounds soaking wet.

[00:16:15] Jake Cortez: So in my head, the internal monologue is you wanted to get out of there, huh? Look at you now, you idiot. I laugh now. And I can laugh because I fought through it and, thankfully nobody, I had to fight a lot of people, had to share cells with murderers. And it was the craziest thing.

[00:16:40] Jake Cortez: And as I'm going through this at 18, 19 years old, I was in confinement for a whole year. I had to share a cell with somebody. It's a six by eight cell, and they feed you through a flap in the door. Three days, three times a day, and you only get three showers a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 

[00:16:58] Dimple Thakrar: It's literally like you'd see it in the movies.

[00:17:01] Dimple Thakrar: It's totally 

[00:17:01] Jake Cortez: like the 

[00:17:02] Dimple Thakrar: movies! 

[00:17:03] Jake Cortez: And it can be worse sometimes. You're young, but you've got to wait, you've got to navigate the world of the animal kingdom. I'm in this cell by myself, older guys are like, hey man, you want a honey bun? This is language in prison, where 

[00:17:19] Dimple Thakrar: I don't know what half of it means, but I can guess.

[00:17:22] Dimple Thakrar: I don't 

[00:17:23] Jake Cortez: So if I take this food, this man wants to come and get it from me when I don't have it. I'm like, no man, I'm straight. I'm good. And so I was street smart enough to understand these things and had the wisdom, but some people aren't and it doesn't turn out so good for them. But now fast forward, here I am going through this situation.

[00:17:43] Jake Cortez: In my mind, I'm tough. I'm a man. I'll figure this out. You screwed up, but you have to figure it out. And one of my cellmates was this tall white guy and we're playing chess. And he beats me three times in a row. I knew I could beat him in wrestling. I didn't want to fight him. I was just playing around.

[00:18:01] Jake Cortez: And he got up and he threw up his hands like he wanted to fight me. I said, man, are you serious? And he's yeah. So then we threw the chessboard. I ended up fighting this guy and little did I know that my mother was coming to visit me soon. So now here I am in confinement and closed management, and then I get a fight and she drove nine hours to come see me.

[00:18:20] Jake Cortez: She had to bet, I had no idea she was coming because I can't make phone calls. So she had to beg for the officers to see me. And as they shackle me, handcuffs here, belly chain, and a shackles on my ankles, it's the craziest thing. Now I'm, instead of my mother being able to hug me as she thought she would, she has to speak to me through a metal mesh for 30 minutes as I'm being escorted back to my cell, I'm saying to myself, if somebody hurt your mother, you'd hurt And here you are hurting her the most.

[00:18:55] Dimple Thakrar: I can't even, I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like for her. 

[00:19:01] Jake Cortez: I 

[00:19:03] Dimple Thakrar: can't, it's making me tearful.

[00:19:06] Jake Cortez: My, my heart had become so calloused because I didn't, I obviously as a young boy didn't want to allow that type of pain from somebody so close again, but when I corrected, when I actually overcorrected.

[00:19:26] Jake Cortez: I overcorrected and then it became an extreme perversion of masculinity. And the perversion of masculinity is don't touch me, don't mess with me, I will fuck you up. And As I grew, I'm like, and I'm in another confinement cell, in another institution, I'm thinking, how many of these people do I have to fight?

[00:19:47] Jake Cortez: Now I'm 22 years old, I'm still in the same situation. And then I came to the realization that what does it mean to even be a man? Because at this point, my perception of manhood is making sure people respect you and that you carry the air of just being an alpha man. And yeah, maybe some of that is partly true, but what I realized is one, I'm never going to see these people again.

[00:20:21] Jake Cortez: Two, who am I really seeking respect from? And three, this is not what being a man is about. 

[00:20:30] Dimple Thakrar: And also, who are you really fighting? 

[00:20:34] Jake Cortez: I was fighting myself. I was wrestling myself. Like Jacob in the Bible, I was wrestling the angel. It's hey, your path doesn't have to be so rough. Let me go. And through my pain and my ill conceived choices, I realized Certain areas where things didn't have to be so rough, but I said if it was gonna be rough I want it as intense as I can possibly have it because I don't want to squander this Opportunity for me to distill a very powerful pearl of wisdom like I was blessed with the enough insight to know that as painful as this is, the, this crucible that I am confronted with will forge a character that only a situation like this is.

[00:21:23] Jake Cortez: can create. Then I can have a conversation with whoever it is, a man, and gazing into the eyes, into the soul of this person, I can see that they've never really encountered something that severe. You've never really been pushed to the point of seeing what you're really made of. 

[00:21:46] Dimple Thakrar: It's the initiation. 

[00:21:48] Dimple Thakrar: It's the initiation. And, I have this belief that the initiation, the greater the initiation, the greater the strength. And you get gifted the size of the initiation in accordance with that, what you can handle. 

[00:22:06] Jake Cortez: Yeah. 

[00:22:06] Dimple Thakrar: What you can handle. And this goes for men and women experience it in a different way. They experience their initiation in a completely different way. I feel one of my initiations was being able to still be in love with abusers, being able to still accept the loss of five babies. It's a different initiation, right? It's completely different, but it's still it, through that, it's made me the woman I am and the ability to have the compassion that I have.

[00:22:43] Dimple Thakrar: And so for you, what's interesting, what I'm finding with your stories, and I just, I love to pull gems from people's stories for the listeners to really like it land. Yeah. And something that I'm finding with your story is, despite. Your father leaving at age 11, some of the attributes that he instilled in you as a young boy helped you through your initiation.

[00:23:11] Jake Cortez: Oh, 1000%. 

[00:23:12] Dimple Thakrar: Without those, Oh. You would have been one of those. I would be a broken 

[00:23:16] Jake Cortez: man. 

[00:23:17] Dimple Thakrar: Exactly. You would have been one of those men who couldn't handle it. The initiation, you were supported by what your father taught you in those small, but vital 11 years. 

[00:23:30] Jake Cortez: Yeah. 

[00:23:31] Dimple Thakrar: The stress. 

[00:23:32] Jake Cortez: Plus, the love of my mother. 

[00:23:35] Dimple Thakrar: Talk to me about that.

[00:23:36] Dimple Thakrar: Tell me about that. 

[00:23:37] Jake Cortez: I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that there, outside of the love of God, there's nothing more powerful than the love of a mother for a child. Because in my darkest hour, That gleam, that glimmer of like unconditional love. My mom loved me when I committed the crime. My love, my mother loved me when I did it, when I was happy, when I was, it didn't matter.

[00:24:05] Jake Cortez: The beauty of my experiences on one side, my father and I'm not saying my father did anything to me. He did the best he could with the resources he had. And Tony teaches us. Powerful tools. And when I was like 35 or 36, I was able to successfully close the loop with my father and have a conversation about that day. It's on his journey. It's my, there's a saying that it's what happened to you is not your fault. What you do about it is your responsibility. Nice. Nice. And the beauty of my experience is one that I understood that the hatred and the resentment Were the foundations of the cell that incarcerated my soul, and my emotions, and my heart, long before I ended up in the physical manifestation.

[00:25:05] Jake Cortez: Correct. Yeah. So as I sat there, and I'm getting goosebumps right now because the freest I became in that time was I was when I was in a confinement cell and the officers were messing with the inmates mind. Prison is designed to break spirits. The officers helped do that. And ' cause you don't wanna unruly crowd, you don't want people just.

[00:25:29] Jake Cortez: And they shut off the AC. It was really hot summer months in Florida. I'm sweating. You can't take off your shirt cause they, you're, and I'm in a confinement cell. So I'm saying to myself, they have my physical body. They have that. They're messing with my mind, but they can't touch my spirit.

[00:25:47] Jake Cortez: They can't touch my spirit. 

[00:25:48] Dimple Thakrar: You won't 

[00:25:49] Jake Cortez: let them. I won't, I will not allow you near my spirit. You cannot corrupt, like you just can't get there. So what is this doing in what is this creating within me? It's forging character. Now, the challenge for people who have endured experiences like this is it became too rough.

[00:26:10] Jake Cortez: There's too many traumatic experience. Instead of doing the healing work, which sucks, it's dark, it's ugly, confront all of the nasty crazies. It's like hugging a cactus. 

[00:26:21] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah, I always, I often I liken the healing work. I'll tell you just as a side note, you talked about mothers and motherhood and unconditional love of a mother.

[00:26:32] Dimple Thakrar: And I never wanted to be a mother. Honestly, that was the, like my husband and I, he wanted a football team. I didn't. And I've talked about this before, right? And we ended up playing Russian roulette one month that I decided let's go for it. Cause I did a two millimeter moment of motherhood. Pang.

[00:26:51] Dimple Thakrar: Anyway, we got pregnant, we had Maya and I kid you not, motherhood has been the biggest expander in my life. Why? Because it taught me unconditional love. I would kill for my children in that heartbeat, right? And that, for me, I never realized the capacity that I could have for that. So when you speak of it, And how motherhood helped you in your darkest moments.

[00:27:24] Dimple Thakrar: And then you go. 

[00:27:24] Jake Cortez: I would've definitely, look, if my mom wasn't there to love me, I would have probably killed myself. Wow. Because there was a moment I'm telling you, there's a distinct moment. I'm sitting in the cell, I'm in confinement. I spent a considerable amount of time in confinement because I just, I would end up fi, I'd end up fighting. And it's one of those things in Florida Florida state prisons. Like the worst thing to be as American, because you're the minority it's African Americans. Then it's Hispanics and then it's American. Now I'm of Cuban descent. My father was born in Cuba. I was born here, but I don't act and talk like some, a Cuban.

[00:28:04] Jake Cortez: So I would end up in a lot of fights as a result of this, but I'm sitting in a confinement cell and it's not the fights that got me here. It's just the fact that I'm suffering. And I'm like, you know what? I could get the trustee to bring me a razor because you still have to shave your face in the open compound.

[00:28:23] Jake Cortez: So if I gave him stamps or cigarettes, which that's basically currency within the institution, he would bring me whatever I wanted. So I was like, okay, I could probably get that done. Now the officer walks by every hour. And if he walks by and I have this razor and I slip my wrist, I know this is pretty graphic, but might as well tell the story and be totally transparent.

[00:28:49] Jake Cortez: Then I think, okay, I have an hour to bleed out. This is an actual internal monologue. I'm saying to myself, how do I know where I'm going is better than here? And then the next thing was You mean to tell me that you're gonna end the suffering you created and cause suffering in the lives of your mother, your brother, your father your whole family?

[00:29:15] Jake Cortez: You little bitch. I'm actually talking to myself. You little bitch. You better man the fuck up. 

[00:29:20] Dimple Thakrar: You shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:29:22] Jake Cortez: You little bitch, you better man the fuck up. And it's it was a revelation that actually caused me to erect myself. What the fuck are you thinking? And I never thought about it again.

[00:29:32] Jake Cortez: Never contemplate. So as bad as things would get, I never went there, but it got bad enough to say, let's end this. And, but now from that point forward, what I realized is I'm making steps in the right direction. And I, on my third time back in, so the first time I robbed the house when I was 18 years old, I was dumb.

[00:29:54] Jake Cortez: I should've never did that. I was changing my life, but I was still hanging out with the wrong people. I changed certain things, but not all things. I was in a club in South beach. A guy hit me with a bottle. I got into a fight. I went back to prison for a year. And then when I was 22 years old, I was drinking and driving and I got into an accident and somebody died.

[00:30:13] Jake Cortez: So that in a rapid succession, things had unfolded in a way that was really crazy. And for whatever reason, this was a part of my path. And now the judge has basically said, I'm sentencing you to 15 years, state prison upon you turning yourself in February 2nd, 2007, that day was January 2nd, 2007. We are going to mitigate it to five years prison followed by five years probation and permanent revocation of license.

[00:30:41] Jake Cortez: So this is happening right here. That was a great plea because if I took it to trial, the next step if I didn't take that plea is I have to pick jury members because they're in the hallway. And I have to proceed with trial, which I knew what I would have lost. So I took that plea, but now I have 30 days on the street to situate my affairs.

[00:31:00] Jake Cortez: I went to dinner with my brothers and I told them the situation and they're like, and it really put me in a position that I really felt like shit. Cause I'm talking with my brothers and my littlest brother said, Jake, I'd rather see you free somewhere else than here locked up. Meaning he was tired of seeing me go through this stuff.

[00:31:19] Jake Cortez: And the fact that I put my brother to feel that inside him, And he meant well, and I sat with that, but I could not be a bitch and show my brother that as a man, you don't own up to your fuck ups. I could not show my brother. So in my mind, five years, I could do five years. So on my way back in, I'm researching.

[00:31:50] Jake Cortez: Universities online that would mail me my courses. I found Louisiana State University. I took an intro to psychology. I created rules for myself. I studied the dictionary. I would learn 20 new vocabulary words a week and learn to use them in proper context. I wrote books.

[00:32:05] Jake Cortez: I read books on sociology, psychology. I read any textbook that I can get my hands on. I committed to never reading any fiction books. Got to a moment. Where there was a revelation of the music that I was listening to in the club. The lyrics started to, I started to actually hear the lyrics instead of the music I was bopping to, I started to actually hear the words and I was like, wait a minute wait a minute.

[00:32:36] Jake Cortez: There was a crack in my consciousness where I started to elevate. Instead of this lower frequency that I've been perpetuating unconsciously, I started to hear the filth that I was allowing into my subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is like a record player. You got a record on that record player.

[00:32:56] Jake Cortez: On that record, there are grooves. Some of their, some of them you put there, Most life experience and all of this other stuff. I had no idea that I was writing those grooves by the music I was listening to, the people I was hanging out with, the drugs I was doing, all of these things. But the music played a big part because here I am listening to music where they're objectifying women, glorifying violence, the sale and usage of drugs.

[00:33:22] Jake Cortez: I was raised in a house full of women. I would never use the B word in reference to a woman. And I got to a moment enough. I can no longer in good conscience, listen to rap music, hip hop music. I couldn't. 

[00:33:34] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah. 

[00:33:35] Jake Cortez: So there was these steps that I started to pull the veil back. And now the beauty of all of this is I didn't blame anyone.

[00:33:45] Jake Cortez: It wasn't anyone's fault. It was my responsibility. And I got to a place where I stopped judging myself. Because life didn't have to be so hard, but I chose a path that was distinctly unique for me, and the one thing that I will say is it's not, to all the men listening, it's okay to feel. The ramifications of not feeling drug abuse, alcoholism, violence.

[00:34:10] Jake Cortez: I've lived through it all. It's so important as men to have your support network. It's so important to, to talk to people that love you, that care about you, and that are going to listen to you intently with the purpose of. Just listening to you so you, they can be a soundboard. Not that they have to do anything, just when you hear yourself speak, the answers are present in what you're saying.

[00:34:35] Jake Cortez: But sometimes when you don't feel loved, or you don't feel like all this other stuff, you don't feel like you have anyone to turn to. Fast forward Dimple, because we've gone through all the craziness, I 

[00:34:44] Dimple Thakrar: What now? How did you get to where you are now? Tell us what you do now, Jake. 

[00:34:49] Jake Cortez: Okay. So the one thing that I realized that would make my life easy where I didn't have to pick every decision is I created values and the value set dictated the decisions.

[00:35:03] Jake Cortez: Integrity is that is if integrity is up top, then I don't have to worry about all of these other things. I'm integral to myself. You don't have to worry about me cheating you as a business partner. You don't have to worry about me cheating on you as a partner. It's not you. It's me. I'd be cheating on myself.

[00:35:22] Jake Cortez: I have to sleep with myself at night. If I can just adopt a value set, Walt Disney said, When values are clear, decisions are easy. I saw, since there was so much complexity, so much frustration, so much anxiety in my younger years, I realized the easiest way to go about doing this is defining a value set for me and adhering to that.

[00:35:48] Jake Cortez: And then it will start to unfold. So now when I was in a work release center, just about to be released, 2010, 2011, I got a job. As a over the phone salesman, it was the largest moving broker in the country. Within my first year, I was able to get into the top five of a room of 70 people. I was kicking butt on the phone.

[00:36:07] Jake Cortez: I work from 9 AM to 8 PM, Monday through Friday and Saturdays, 10 to four. And I sought to perfect my practice where I was making small improvements. In my pitch and communication, I never sought to be an excellent salesperson. I sought to master the art of public speaking. And as a byproduct of that, I became really good in sales.

[00:36:33] Jake Cortez: I forgot one very important part. I bought Tony Robbins book with a pack of cigarettes in 2000. 

[00:36:38] Dimple Thakrar: Yes, that was the, that was a pivotal point, right? 

[00:36:42] Jake Cortez: Pivotal point, because what ended up happening is I, when I came to the realization, sitting in that cell, going to potentially unalive myself, I came to the realization is that.

[00:36:54] Jake Cortez: As a result of your ill conceived decisions, this is the consequence. Now, if you've created this hell, you can create your own heaven. 

[00:37:03] Dimple Thakrar: Yes. 

[00:37:04] Jake Cortez: How do you do that? That question alone set me off on a self discovery journey. It's less of attainment and it's more of a being. A being. Because what, yeah, because what you pursue must ensue.

[00:37:20] Jake Cortez: You can't It's like a guy who's fervently chasing a woman. 

[00:37:26] Dimple Thakrar: She'll keep running. She'll keep 

[00:37:29] Jake Cortez: running. She'll keep running. Nobody likes that. It's a dance. It's a dance and if you're chasing something like you don't have it. You won't keep it even if you do get it. You won't keep it. So I had to come to these realizations in the most profound of ways because nobody can take them from me.

[00:37:50] Jake Cortez: My life experience and God brought them to me. So 

[00:37:55] Dimple Thakrar: I just want to share something with you as you're speaking about your values. I introduced you right at the beginning and I said there was something about you and I couldn't put my finger on it, what it was. And now that you've shared your values, it's made me realize what it was.

[00:38:09] Dimple Thakrar: And it was. Integrity. I felt safe and respected when I met you. Those thoughts, right? 

[00:38:20] Jake Cortez: Being raised in a household of women I'm a protector of women. 

[00:38:24] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah. 

[00:38:25] Jake Cortez: Nobody can do there were moments I'd end up in fights. Going out because it wasn't even my fault, like I was just protecting somebody and it was just, I am that person.

[00:38:35] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah, that's what I couldn't put my finger on what it was about you, but it was that. So then find out that you've been in prison. Yeah. That's what messed with my brain because my intuition is really good. And so I, the first thing I felt was safe with you. How can I feel safe with somebody who's been in prison?

[00:38:54] Dimple Thakrar: That was the mindfuck for me. Do you get it? 

[00:38:58] Jake Cortez: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that because it's really, look, every cell in my body from when I was that young. Everything is changed. Every seven years you generate new. So whatever, between the work that I did with Tony, the plant medicines, all of this was pulling back the layers of an onion.

[00:39:18] Jake Cortez: And what I want. is that people go through that experience that you did because these are prejudices that we have as humans, but I want that I can crack that veil so you can see that you can see my own, my humanity and me just having the courage to be vulnerable in the presence of others. You can see that I was a hurt young boy that made really bad decisions.

[00:39:44] Jake Cortez: And out of fear, I was attempting to protect my heart. And instead of actually protecting it, I didn't let any feelings in. I didn't let any feelings out. But the important part is when I bought Tony Robbins book with a pack of cigarettes when I was 26 years old, it wasn't so much the information, which was valuable.

[00:40:03] Jake Cortez: And I wrote down my goals, my personal goals, my toys and adventure goals, my business goals, my contribution goals. Less than a year later, I'm in a work release center, and one of my goals was to master the art of public speaking. Now I'm in this work release center, and one of the other inmates sends a letter to Toastmasters, and wants to bring a chapter of Toastmasters into the institution.

[00:40:26] Jake Cortez: Lo and behold, it happens. I am in the first meeting. Wow. I am the first person in that chapter to ever speak, Jake, to the podium. You're going to speak on the use of the bayonet in the Civil War. Go. And, now, as I'm standing at this podium, it was a moment of clarity and understanding that you created this.

[00:40:47] Jake Cortez: Yes. And you never thought that it was possible while still incarcerated, you furthering your ability to communicate publicly and hone this new skill. So now here I am speaking in front of 30 inmates on the use of the bayonet in the Civil War, which was really cool. It was fun. But now, boom. Sales. So now I'm kicking butt in sales and then I go to manager and then I go from manager to partner.

[00:41:13] Jake Cortez: I ran the marketing and sales arm of a household transportation company and I got really good and I created a name for myself so it was very easy to create partnerships but in 2015 I went to business mastery. Tony's talking about proximity is power. I learned so much and I'm essentially running the front end of these people's operation and I have no equity in this.

[00:41:39] Jake Cortez: And I opened the office, I closed the office, I hire, I fire, I manage, I train, I close sales, I T. O., and I sat him down, Max, Grace, husband and wife couple. I said, look, if I get injured, you're not going to cut me a check because I'm a nice guy. And who's going to feed my family? I'm not going to say us going from 1, 200 square foot office to 3, 000 square foot.

[00:42:00] Jake Cortez: To 14, 000 square foot in a matter of three years is wholly attributed to me being here, but it sure has helped. So it no longer makes sense. It no longer makes sense for me to just, I have no complaints with the pay. That's great, but it no longer makes sense for me to continue without having a percentage of the business 

[00:42:19] Dimple Thakrar: In the game.

[00:42:20] Jake Cortez: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And they said, nah, we're not willing to do that. Take some time. Think about it. It took 24 hours. I came back. So that was my journey into taking the leap. I had already created another potential partnership before I left. I'm not going to jump ship without creating another ship to jump into.

[00:42:38] Jake Cortez: So I had already done that and then it was a process of Learning entrepreneurship. Wow. And fast forward, one of the things that I love about the opportunities that God has afforded me is when you learn to communicate effectively and you can convey to the person that you're speaking to. This is not about a commission.

[00:42:59] Jake Cortez: Commission breath kills more deals than anything. It's about serving you at the highest level, even if You will not be a client of this company. If I am not what you need, I'm going to point you in the right direction. If you have that feeling, 

[00:43:14] Dimple Thakrar: it's integrity, that's 

[00:43:17] Jake Cortez: integrity sales, integrity based sales, like 

[00:43:20] Dimple Thakrar: that's it right there.

[00:43:21] Jake Cortez: If sales is a number game, a numbers game, I know that if I hold true to my core, because listen, when I was 17 years old, I went to sell cars and they were teaching me crazy ways to take advantage of people's ignorance. And I learned in three months, one thing I never want to do in my life ever again.

[00:43:40] Jake Cortez: I never sold cars. I never want to do that again. So I kept auto correcting, but in an area that made sense for me, holding true to these values. Nice. And although I made mistakes, I still, and I did depart from certain value sets. I realized of my own volition that it wasn't necessarily wrong, but I kicked Pandora's box open, and I shouldn't have.

[00:44:05] Jake Cortez: I shouldn't have, because what came forth And I learned things like my first incident going to prison, I stole something from someone. That person is a hardworking man. He comes home to see something was taken of his, that he worked so hard. And I realized something very powerful in that moment. You've created energy in this world of violation.

[00:44:31] Jake Cortez: of hurt. That's energetic reverberation is going to go out into the world and it's going to come back and slap you so hard and you better deal with it. So I realized as much as people think that you can do things and dodge that bullet, life doesn't work like that. We're energetic beings. 

[00:44:50] Dimple Thakrar: I call it energetic match.

[00:44:53] Dimple Thakrar: So you create an energetic match for what you receive. So if you are that, you will receive it. 

[00:44:59] Jake Cortez: You are that, you will receive it. Now, fast forward sales. I was selling and this is actually what got me to Platinum Partnership in 2016. I was running a call center for relocation service, had about eight to ten guys on the phone cranking out sales, and then 2018, January 2nd, my business partner saw me traveling, all these photos, And she, I guess she got jealous and mad and she locked me out of accounts and she waited until the holidays were over.

[00:45:29] Jake Cortez: Very nice of her. But January 2nd, 2007, she just locked me out of all the accounts. And Tony teaches you got to burn your boats. If you want to take the island, you got to burn your boats. I didn't have to burn mine. They were all fire. I just had to fan the flame. 

[00:45:41] Dimple Thakrar: You already created it in the quantum.

[00:45:43] Dimple Thakrar: They just manifest. No, I'm like 

[00:45:46] Jake Cortez: now I'm having a conversation with her. I'm like Doris. We've developed this relationship over three years. If you would have asked me, Jake, I want to take the sales in house. Can you help me? I would have helped her. I would have helped her. 

[00:45:59] Dimple Thakrar: It was a 

[00:45:59] Jake Cortez: hostile takeover because she didn't think I would be amenable to this suggestion.

[00:46:04] Jake Cortez: And it was a hostile takeover. So now. As I'm fanning the flames, it's a process of what's next. So I realized like Tony teaches, there's a big distinction between a business operator and a business owner. I was a business operator and a business owner works on the business. A business operator works within the business.

[00:46:21] Jake Cortez: When you're working within the business, it's very difficult to optimize yourself out of the business. If you don't know that the KPIs and your metrics and the right things to watch, because people become dependent upon you. Yes. And sometimes they can get the answer from elsewhere, but they want it from you because you've created dependence in your company, your staff.

[00:46:43] Jake Cortez: So I realized in that moment, I wasn't ready to jump back into that game and I didn't want to stay in that industry. And that's what I knew. For the last eight years. So I said, what's a high ticket item that I can sell that I'd be comfortable selling. And it was solar. Who's somebody I want to learn from.

[00:46:59] Jake Cortez: It was Caleb. He was in the plaque community and he was running a solar company. So I flew there and within my first three days, I closed my first sale and I was the top guy there from then on. Now, fast forward, which I had no idea. I'm door knocking. I'm like knocking on people's doors to close sales.

[00:47:18] Jake Cortez: In my mind It was, you're 36 years old. Look at you, look at where your life has gone. It's, and I'm having this debate and it's shut up. You have the opportunity in the best country in the world to basically further your ancestral lineage. And yeah, you had a setback, but don't beat yourself up because the world is already going to do that.

[00:47:41] Jake Cortez: You, you can't be on the world side, beating yourself up. You bet the voice within better be louder than the world outside of you. And. 

[00:47:50] Dimple Thakrar: What's interesting with that is I just want to point out to people, it doesn't matter what you go through in life, you can have had the roughest time at the beginning and then come through it.

[00:48:02] Dimple Thakrar: Or you can have a, had a smooth sailing line. There's always going to be that inner critic. There's always going to be that inner critic. Your job is to decide how you're going to navigate that. And that was a beautiful example of, despite everything and all the learning and all the work and all the healing and the onion layers that you peel, you're still a witness to that inner critic.

[00:48:27] Dimple Thakrar: Everybody has it. I want people to know that. It's not a bad thing. It's just, what are you doing about it? Are you addressing it? Are you aware of it? Are you allowing it to guide you? Or are you saying, not today? 

[00:48:41] Jake Cortez: And if people are asking how do you address it? 

[00:48:44] Dimple Thakrar: One 

[00:48:44] Jake Cortez: thing that I did throughout my life since I was 16 years old, as I always trained, the gym was my friend.

[00:48:50] Jake Cortez: The pain, the anger, the rage, I took so much of that out on the gym. Now, I wanted to push my physical limitations. beyond their present capabilities, so that maybe my mind and my spirit, because sometimes when you're training hard, so hard, your body's saying no, your mind's like you're good, but it's what your spirit is what pulls you.

[00:49:17] Jake Cortez: The process in that, that what you're forging is doing what you need to, not what you want to, because if you did what you want, you just sit on the couch and maybe watch TV or scroll Instagram.

[00:49:29] Dimple Thakrar: It's true. It's so true. I was talking to a guest that I interviewed just this morning. We were talking exactly about this and how men and women, they manage it in a different way. So my belief is that men need that physical exertion. Like literally, we need to 

[00:49:53] Jake Cortez: get it up. We need to throw shit, move it.

[00:49:56] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah, and women operate in a different operating system. 

[00:50:01] Jake Cortez: Yes. 

[00:50:02] Dimple Thakrar: We need to move our bodies in a very different way. And yes, we need resistance, but it's a very different way of doing it. Would you, what are your thoughts on that? 

[00:50:13] Jake Cortez: I know that, When I went through this healing journey, emotions are trapped in your body and they can be trapped in your body like sounds and stuff like so it's not just moving your body, but like Getting stuff out like moving your vocal cords your voice You can like even yeah yelling is like Even you know 

[00:50:35] Dimple Thakrar: wailing is another one.

[00:50:36] Jake Cortez: Yeah So although these things look weird or whatever It doesn't matter because you have to think about your body. So the way I look at it is this human machinery is the house of my spirit and my spirit doesn't necessarily just live in this house. This is the interface that I'm using to interact with the third dimension.

[00:51:04] Jake Cortez: Exactly. Now as I am interacting in this world, things can potentially attach themselves to me energetically you. Experiences can take place where now I, I've associated a certain meaning. So now I'm feeling a certain way and these things then get trapped and I start reacting as a result of something that I've defined, like in the moment when that happened with my father at 11 years old, the betrayal, that was the meaning I gave it, that was a cut so deep that the emotions it created pulled me further from what I really wanted.

[00:51:41] Jake Cortez: Through a platinum partnership. 

[00:51:42] Dimple Thakrar: And 

[00:51:42] Jake Cortez: the truth. From the truth. Exactly. I know that I'm a man of God and I have access to love whenever I want. I am a being of love. I just love and I, and the beauty of my situation is. I can send a ton of heart emojis and all of this other stuff without feeling less of a man and say I love you bro without feeling less of a man because I've slamed it slept in the same room with killers like I know that part but a part of being men is that sometimes you overcompensate because You just never really been pushed to your limits.

[00:52:22] Jake Cortez: You've never really had to hunt for your food. 

[00:52:25] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah. There's something, there's a question coming through as we complete. I don't, it's not the final question, but there's something I'm curious because I want to wrap up. Okay. There's something that I want to ask you, knowing what you know now and knowing that leading with love, is the way to connect.

[00:52:46] Jake Cortez: Oh yeah, 1000%. 

[00:52:47] Dimple Thakrar: Would you have, how would you have handled those situations in the cells with killers? What would it have been like if you'd have led with love is what I'm asking really. 

[00:53:00] Jake Cortez: That's funny, it's funny because I definitely wouldn't hug them, okay. No, 

[00:53:07] Dimple Thakrar: I'm not, I'm just energetically, I'm just, do you know what I'm saying?

[00:53:10] Dimple Thakrar: I'm really curious how it would have showed up. I. You wouldn't have hugged them. Is that image in your head now? 

[00:53:19] Jake Cortez: Yeah, I'm like, yeah. Yeah, bro, let's not fight. Come on, just give me a hug. Come on. 

[00:53:26] Dimple Thakrar: It's because they would have been starved of love as well. That's the other piece, right? They would have been 

[00:53:31] Jake Cortez: Yeah, but look, the thing about this which is sad is when you put a dog in the cage and you shake the cage and you shake the cage and you shake the cage, your love is misunderstood as An aggressive move and you can get bit.

[00:53:45] Dimple Thakrar: Oh, okay. Okay. 

[00:53:47] Jake Cortez: So I've had situations like that where, the guy was getting crazy and I was like, you know what, this guy's too old. If I punch him and he falls down and dies, this would be a bad situation. So I would just say, God bless you, man. And he would get so mad, like God loves you.

[00:54:03] Jake Cortez: And he would get so angry, like to the point of almost physically fighting. But he was smaller than me and a lot older. So yeah, but there were points where I was like, I know I need to fight this person, but in my mind I couldn't hate them because it's not me that I'm fighting. It's the experience of what they have gone through, the culmination to have arrived here.

[00:54:28] Jake Cortez: My consciousness had been elevated so much so that I understood that we are two humans. Traversing this experience and through his life experience, he's been a culmination of this anger, this hatred, this rage, this violence. And he's just a product of this experience. Now the challenge with capitalism, and I don't want to go too much on a rant here is because my grandfather was born in Cuba.

[00:54:50] Jake Cortez: He woke up one day and his business belonged to Fidel Castro. I love capitalism. He fought to get me here. I'm fighting for freedoms and people to live better lives. Unchained, we, so the challenge with capitalism is when you privatize a prison, what's the asset? The prisoners. Exactly. If, like Charlie Munger said, show me the incentive and I'll tell you the outcome.

[00:55:17] Jake Cortez: If the incentive is to fill beds, where's rehabilitation? 

[00:55:21] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:55:23] Jake Cortez: Exactly. Where is healing? 

[00:55:25] Dimple Thakrar: Yeah. 

[00:55:25] Jake Cortez: If I could snap my fingers, the one thing I would do is turn prison systems here in the United States into transformation centers, a place of healing. 

[00:55:33] Dimple Thakrar: Dr. Joe Dispenza's work is actually going into prisons.

[00:55:37] Jake Cortez: Yeah. 

[00:55:37] Dimple Thakrar: It's actually going into prisons. That's right. And that's 

[00:55:39] Jake Cortez: beautiful because they need it. 

[00:55:41] Dimple Thakrar: They need it, right? Thank you so much, Jake. You have been incredible. Guys, take a look at this guy's bio. You will understand who this man is now. And today was just a snapshot of his journey. The integrity, the love that this beautiful man has is just beyond.

[00:56:07] Dimple Thakrar: So where can people find you, Jake? Where is the best place? 

[00:56:11] Jake Cortez: I would say Instagram, Jake Cortez. At Jake Cortez. The same on Facebook, Jake Cortez. But mainly Instagram, yeah. 

[00:56:19] Dimple Thakrar: Amazing. And I want to complete with this one question that I ask all my guests. And that is, if you could give people one piece of advice or wisdom that goes beyond the words, what would that be?

[00:56:35] Jake Cortez: I would give them the healing grace of loving yourself before you start trying to love the world. And when you really love yourself, we humans created unconditional love, which is That's just a BS term because there are no conditions with love. Like love in its essence doesn't come with conditions.

[00:56:57] Jake Cortez: Humans created that. Once you begin to truly love yourself without judgment, without shame, without guilt you really begin to embark on a journey of what it is to be human in all of your humanity, the good, the bad, the indifferent. And love requires you to accept. The darkest sides of you and the lightest sides of you with the same amount of care and affection and understanding.

[00:57:28] Jake Cortez: We, we are human and as humans, we make mistakes. It's not to carry the burden of guilt and shame all your life. In my case, I got on my knees and I gave it to God, and that released me from ever feeling pressure or needing to address the judgment from humans. How people feel about me is none of my business.

[00:57:55] Jake Cortez: I am solely focused on my character.

[00:57:58] Dimple Thakrar: Wow. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. I love you too. And with that said, I want to say to all of our audience. Thank you so much for choosing to share your time with us, for choosing to hear these stories. My hope and desire for you is that you can relate or have a moment of wisdom come through for you and you pass that on.

[00:58:30] Dimple Thakrar: Share these moments, share this love. It's sent with the deepest of intention and integrity. God bless you all today. 

[00:58:40] Jake Cortez: God bless you. 

[00:58:42] Dimple Thakrar: Thank you. 

[00:58:44] Jake Cortez: My pleasure. 

[00:58:45] Dimple Thakrar: That was so 

[00:58:46] Jake Cortez: good. Give lots of love to Paul. 

[00:58:48] Dimple Thakrar: I'll see you in a minute. 

[00:58:49] Jake Cortez: Alright, bye. 

[00:58:51] Dimple Thakrar: Bye bye.