
The ARCast
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The ARCast
Second Chances: From Prison to Purpose with Jon Antonucci
What does true transformation look like after hitting rock bottom? Jon Antonucci's journey from prison cell to purpose-driven leadership offers a masterclass in redemption, resilience, and the power of servant leadership.
Growing up homeschooled as the oldest of five children in a pastor's family, Jon developed entrepreneurial skills early—mowing lawns at seven and running multiple small businesses by his teens. But beneath his success lurked character flaws that would eventually lead to catastrophe. At 18, his participation in arson resulted in a death and a 14-year prison sentence that could have defined the rest of his life.
Instead of surrendering to despair, Jon underwent a profound spiritual transformation behind bars. "At 12, I was interested in having Jesus be my savior, but I had no interest in Him being my Lord—and you can't have one without the other," he reflects. This revelation became the foundation for extraordinary change as he developed prison education programs, mentored fellow inmates, and maintained positive relationships with family by focusing on their needs rather than his own hardships.
Upon his release in 2021, Jon defied the statistics. Within weeks he secured employment, and within months his own apartment. Today, he runs SML Consultive (Servant-Minded Leadership), training frontline managers who have technical expertise but lack leadership skills. His philosophy is simple yet profound: "The question isn't whether you're making an impact—it's whether your impact is positive or negative."
Jon's insights on finding purpose resonate deeply: "You don't need Jesus to stay out of jail. There are millions of people who never believed in Jesus and know how to not commit crime. But you can't have purpose unless you have a relationship with the purpose giver."
Want to hear more from Jon? Connect with him on LinkedIn or visit jonantonucci.com to discover how his journey from prison to purpose might inspire your own transformation.
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Ladies and gentlemen, you are now tuned into the ARCast. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are. Ladies and gentlemen, this the ARCast , and no, I know I've said this once, but I'm going to say it again. Your ears are not lying to you, man. We are back. This is probably our first episode in almost a year. I am so excited to be here. I don't know if I introduced myself. My name is Buddha. I'm so happy to be here with you guys. This is crazy, man. I don't even remember what episode we left off at, but I have an amazing one for you right now.
Booda:There's a lot of new things going on, a lot of new stuff. The first thing I want to talk about right now, though, before we get started with this episode, is I want to introduce. Like I said, everything is new, everything is new, so I got to introduce my new official co-host of the R-Cast. I'm going to give you a second. I'm going to let you guys try and guess who this person is. Okay, either he or her, whoever it may be that's joining us. They were on episode one. They were on episode 50. It is a true honor and a blessing from God that I'm standing right here with this person and that this person is going to be my new co-host. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up to Ramon Benitez. What up brother, what's up Buddha? How you doing man.
Ray:Doing well, thank you.
Booda:This gentleman is killing it right now. He has since parted from ARC, but he's got his own company, Justice and Recovery United. What are you doing with that, Ray?
Ray:So basically still just helping clients that are coming through ARK, that are justice involved, navigate the program successfully, not focus on their you know, justice issues that they got going on, but to focus on their treatment and their healing and, you know, help them, you know, lessen the impact of what they're dealing with out on the streets.
Booda:That's beautiful man and there's nobody that I could think of better for that position, brother. So congratulations to you, and thank you very much for joining me on this journey, bro. It's going to be fun. We're going to have some great stories here, thank you.
Booda:Another thing too I mean AR is is we're alive. We're alive and strong, and that is due to some amazing changes that have happened, including leadership man. So I have my brother right here sitting next to ray, that I want to give a huge shout out to. He is our chief strategy officer. He's helping rebuild the entire structure here at arc. Everything feels better, everything sounds, but I mean, I can't, I'm just, it's a blessing. All in all, ladies and gentlemen, give it up to my brother, frank Eisenhower. How are you doing, man?
Frank:I'm blessed man.
Booda:I'm blessed to be here, dude, it is such a blessing to have you here. Thank you, how's everything been going for you?
Frank:I mean, it's the battlefield, yeah, but it's great, man, that we see light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, sir, you know, the culture is night and day from when we got here. Yeah, a lot of good, good people here, man, absolutely. So we're just really grateful to be back here. I started my career here in 2018, so it's good to be back here in this spot. Yes, sir.
Booda:And in the studio. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very, very, very special guest the gentleman that we have with us today. He is a talented speaker, a teacher and a leader with over 20 years of experience in front of crowds, talking about a variety of different things, including faith, business. He's always inspiring other people. He has a bachelor's in religious studies as well as a master's in theology, and he's also the owner of SML Consultive. Also the owner of SML Consultive. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together, get up out your seats and give a huge round of applause to our friend, mr John Antonucci. What is going on, brother? How you doing? Hey, it's great to be here.
Jon:Thanks for having me.
Booda:Hey, absolutely, man, absolutely. It's a blessing to have you here.
Jon:Frank was saying that you flew down. Yes, yeah, and it was a journey. Yesterday I was telling a friend of mine that the journey here was fraught with difficulty, but we made it. Today's been a great day.
Booda:Oh yeah. Yes, Like I said, it was just like the technical errors earlier. It's the enemy trying to keep us from doing this podcast.
Jon:Yeah, yes, you know you just press through, you, press through, you can press through, you press through. You can't change 99% of the stuff. You can't control Absolutely, but you can control your response and just keep in a positive attitude. I told my wife. I said there's been so many times where everything looks like it's going great and then I don't get the results I want. So I'm going to assume the results are going to be there, because nothing's going the way I want it to.
Booda:Absolutely, that's cool, man, that's cool. Well, thank you so much for coming over here. I always like to ask this because I mean, Frank has brought some powerhouses in here, man, and you know, and it's incredible, how did you guys connect?
Jon:We were both a part of something back in 2017, 2018. The state of Arizona was doing a series of meetings they called them town halls and they were looking at criminal justice reform and Frank was coming into the prison as a civilian. I was serving a sentence of incarceration during that time and we happened to get put at the same table and we're along with about eight people there total six other people.
Frank:Yeah, yeah, you're the only one I remember Well.
Jon:I remember. You know what's funny? That's actually probably mutually true. Yeah, I know there were other people at the table and in my mind's eye I can still see people around the table, yep. But yeah, you were right there, yep, and you kept telling me to be the one that goes and talked for the table. That's right. We were supposed to take turns and I went up there every time and I was like I'm the only one going up every time.
Ray:Yeah, what was the focus of those town halls? What was the goal?
Jon:The goal at that time, as my understanding was, they did 12 of them around the state, some inside of prison, some out. I think there was two that were done in prisons and they were designed to get basically all of what they consider to be relevant voices. So in that town hall we had inmates, we had staff, we had administrators, we had community corrections, we had interested parties. I don't know your would have been recovery or sobriety kind of coming in right.
Frank:Yeah, I actually went in when I was representing ARC back in 2018.
Jon:Okay, there you go. Wow, and so it was designed to just be. Basically anyone who was either being impacted by or involved with corrections were coming together to basically say what could we be doing better? And I'm actually quoted in some newspaper basically saying that they needed to get rid of the algorithm deciding who could take what programs and start actually learning about the people that were incarcerated so that they could be more effective in addressing their individual needs, not what a computer told them they might need. Wow. So there's actually a newspaper article out there somewhere quoting me saying that.
Booda:Yeah Well, man, I mean, you know I did a little bit of research before we started, right, but one of the things is, you know this podcast is pretty organic with the questions and things, so I wanted to save some of it. What we typically do whenever we have guests like yourself in here is we kind of start from the beginning about where you're from all the experiences that you've been through. So if you wouldn't mind kind of indulging a little bit, where are you from, man? I grew up in Fort Collins.
Jon:Colorado, colorado, yeah, it's the northern part of Colorado, basically the I-25, which kind of just splits the entire central western part of the US. If you were in Denver, go up 60 miles, you're in Fort Collins. You keep going, you're going to hit Cheyenne Wyoming.
Booda:Oh man, colorado is a beautiful place. It's gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. That's fantastic. And growing up, did you have any siblings? Yes, I'm the oldest of five.
Jon:Oh wow, yeah, oldest of five. So, yeah, oldest of five, and we were all homeschooled. So lots of sibling rivalries and whatnot?
Booda:Oh man, how was that?
Jon:experience. You know, I think there's a lot of things you know and just in life. I don't know about you guys, but for me there's a lot of things in life where you hate it, or at least you don't like it that much, when you're going through it and then you look back on it and you're like that was not nearly as bad as I thought it was. Yeah, absolutely. And I attribute a lot of even the success I experienced today to just the education I received, because there was such a high priority put on making sure that we had quality education. And back then I mean we're talking the 90s, so this was before homeschooling got big way, before COVID. Obviously, how old are you? I'm 36 this year. Oh, same age, Cool, yeah. And so, yeah, this was kind of pre-homeschooling cool. We were still the outcast.
Jon:But I think a lot of times that was because some maybe not all, but some people in the homeschooling community were kind of using it as an excuse to not do school, yeah. And so there was that like stereotype of oh yeah, you go bake cookies and call it home ec. I bake cookies too, but it's not school, Right? Um, but that wasn't how my parents did it. My parents were like we literally stood and said the pledge of allegiance every morning and, like they, they ran it. They ran a tight ship. The difference was, once we finished our work, we were good to go, so we didn't necessarily need to sit there for eight hours, and so, as an entrepreneur which I was from literally age seven, that worked out very, very well for me.
Booda:Wow, and your mom and dad? You said they were married. Obviously, right. Yes, yeah, how was that experience? Were they good marriage, all those things like that.
Jon:Yeah, they just let me see. So in August they will be celebrating 37 years.
Booda:Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations.
Jon:My dad's been in ministry all of his life Not all of his life. All of my life All of my life my dad's been in ministry. My dad kind of functioned as the principal, my mom was more the teacher. They used a curricula that was really very set out for the schooling part. My dad's been a part of very small churches so he's often, if not always, worked both in the church as well as in another job to support the family and oldest of five. So we were a poor family but my father taught us good work ethic. He taught us good money management skills.
Jon:When I got older and we started having more real conversations I was very rebellious so our relationship was strained. Growing up Now it's awesome. But once we started having real conversations I remember telling him I was like Dad. I feel like we had more of a boss than we did a dad, and I think he would regret that now. But even though that's not necessarily what we wanted, it has served all five of us phenomenally well.
Jon:Yeah, barring my mistakes, which I know we're going to get to, but if I go just for my youngest brother, he is a behind-the-scenes computer engineer coding specialist for Amazon Fantastic. A computer engineer coding specialist for Amazon. Fantastic. My sister is the executive assistant to the CFO, I believe, of Swift Transportation, a big trucking company my middle brother, her twin, owns I don't know if you guys have ever seen any of their trucks, but Our World Energy OWE, it's a solar company that is now in Arizona, new Mexico, texas, california, utah, colorado and maybe other places, and so he owns that company. And then the brother, just younger than me, is the director of IT for an international specialty logistics company.
Jon:And so I mean the work ethic and the money management and just the real world application of like hey, you know, we can live life productively, or as the kids are calling it, now we can. Adult Adulting is not as hard for us because of that, and so I think that served us all really well.
Booda:So you obviously got the speaking and all of those traits from your dad right? You said you guys kind of butted heads a little bit, so I'm guessing you're very similar. You said you guys kind of butted heads a little bit, so I'm guessing you're very similar.
Jon:Yeah, I think of the two, I don't know I get compared to my maternal grandfather more than anybody, but I think, speaking for me, it's the one thing in my life that I've got my 10,000 hours in on yeah setting, whether it was in the incarceration when I was teaching classes there. Even now I'm a part of Toastmasters and so I just put a lot of time into that and you just you develop that over time. And a friend of mine was talking with me just the other day and he's like hey, you've always had the mouthpiece. That's never been the problem, which is not. It sometimes has been a problem, but that's a whole separate situation.
Booda:Oh yeah, I feel you on that know, it sometimes has been a problem, but uh, that's a whole separate situation. Oh, yeah, I feel you on that. Yeah, that's cool. And and what about, uh, as far as your mom goes, like I'm just thinking about, you know, as a parent, I got two kids. You know the the thought of of, of keeping them homeschooled would be so amazing, especially because of how ugly the world is getting now. You know, and being able to teach them, educate them, bring them up the correct way, like other than your dad being in that role, it seemed like leadership as a pastor and all these things that he was doing. Did your mom have experience with that too? It's really cool to me that you guys were able to do that as a family.
Jon:Yeah, my mother was a saint. I mean, you can take everything else off and you just say she was at any given time simultaneously facilitating four different grade levels.
Jon:yeah, right, like that just that in its own right is like, okay, five kids, that's yeah, five kids, and two of them are, you know, a set of them are twins, and so that that sort of mitigates it. It's only four grades instead of five, but like that's a lot. And then she had people like me, and I mean, part of my journey is just that I lacked integrity from a very young age and so I had all these real world skills that were great, but most of junior high and all of high school I was cheating. I'd found the answer books, and I would take meticulous little notes and I worked harder, cheating than I probably would have had to study. If I'm being completely, like, transparent, and so it's.
Jon:You know she was dealing with my issues and and, of course, you know bickering and all the things that we do. And, um, then, not only that, she's a an accomplished piano player, so she tried to teach us all music separate from school. That was just, like you know, kind of a passion project, and so I I still to this day remember and I'm so thankful she did it, even though I hated every second of it. But I literally remember just sitting there just crying I can't do it. Oh man Trying to learn piano. And just yeah, so not so much on the leadership side for her, but just that humble servant heart that just said, hey, you know, I'm here to do this and do it right. And she did.
Ray:So the homeschooling was through the 12th grade.
Jon:Yeah.
Ray:What was, what was the transition for you and your siblings to go into? Like a college? You're all degreed. What was that like?
Jon:That's a great question, cause I think that's the big stereotype with homeschool Like they, they can't have a conversation, they, they're, they're socially inept. We were, I'm going to say, kind of the exception, but I'll go back to the fact that I was such an entrepreneur and so because of that, like everyone in the neighborhood knew us, everybody my parents were John's mom and dad, kind of thing that was, and so it wasn't as difficult of a transition. And you go to the business side of things. Um of us actually only two of us are degreed. Two of us have master's degrees. Um, I want to say, one or two of us have some like certifications.
Jon:But we all were working from a very young age, whether it was entrepreneurial or whether it was working for other people, and so that transition just into the real world was really quite seamless, because, even though we were being educated at home, that kind of school of experience was happening live with other people and we weren't completely like cut off. I mean, we went to the Boys and Girls Club and hung out with people. That was something that we were able to do. There was a Boys and Girls Club a couple of miles from our house. We of course had our church that we went to and so we did have some exposure to things like that, but probably that entrepreneurial and work side is what helped make that transition almost seamless Okay.
Ray:Wow, the reason I ask that? Because I've seen homeschool people that were just completely isolated and they just were hermits. They didn't want to be around anybody.
Jon:And it might be worth saying when you have five kids, not two. I said that when I got incarcerated. I think having to deal with all of the personalities of my siblings made it a lot easier for me to deal with all the personalities that surrounded me in prison.
Booda:Oh yeah, and I mean that's a great question. That was, that was my thing too. So you said just briefly, you said at around was it five or seven years old, you, you started developing your entrepreneurship. Being that type of person, what were you doing? What kind of stuff were you into?
Jon:Yeah, the very first thing I ever did was I went to my dad and I said, hey, the lady down the street we called her the crab apple lady Cause she had a crab apple tree in her front yard and uh, I said, hey, the crab apple lady's grass is long, can I ask her if I can mow it and try to make money? And uh, my dad, being the kind of just business minded person that he was, said, yeah, you can do that, you can use the mower. Um, I think he helped me kind of work out like a pricing plan. If I remember correctly, it was like $2 for a regular like a small yard, $3 for bigger and $4 for like one of the houses that's on the corner. And he's like you pay me $1 for every house that you mow and you get to keep whatever's left. He took a tax. I like that, yeah, it's his mower, his gas, yeah, absolutely. And so, like you mean, I got to invest. Yeah, for real. What do you mean, you know? And so, um, yeah, and that went well.
Jon:So I started mowing lawns and I was super original with the name of my company. It was called John's Lawn Service and so you know it was like I'm, I'm a super creative person. Tongue nice, but yeah, that turned into by the time I was 12. There was the lawn mowing and leaf raking and snow shoveling and all of that. I'd found one of those catalogs and y'all remember those catalogs where you go sell them to like try to raise money for a school trip or something. There was one called olympia sales catalog. I don't know if that still exists, but they would actually pay you money for every item you sold, and I think I like two or three dollars for every item I would sell. So I was going door to door.
Jon:Same way all the other kids were, except I was pocketing the cash for it. It wasn't going to whatever trip Um, they're part of. As I was going door to door, uh, looking for like lawn clients, some guy answered the door and it was he was his mom's house. But he was like oh well, I've got this little produce shop in old town. Do you want to come hand out flyers for me? And so he would pay me to hand out flyers to all the restaurants. I sold newspapers, I delivered newspapers, what else?
Jon:Oh, there was a little convenience store that I had been shoveling snow one morning and I got to kind of the corner and I was like there's a convenience store and I was like I'm going to ask. And so I walked in. I was like hey, you guys want to pay me to shovel your, your sidewalks around the place? And they were like uh, yeah, I think yeah, okay, yeah, we could do that. And so they paid me to shovel the sidewalk in front of the convenience store. And then they asked hey, you want to come back and like do some stocking for us and stuff. And so I would go in at like four in the morning and make their coffee and stock their shelves before school dang man.
Booda:Wow, that's pretty cool. Wow, that's pretty so. Listening to your story, man, I mean from where we started to where we're at now. In this story, you're a phenomenal student, you're an entrepreneur, you're doing your thing. I noticed that you haven't said anything about obtaining any type of a criminal record at all at this point. So let's go a little bit into that. At what age did you start getting into trouble and what was the reason?
Jon:I mean, I got into real criminal trouble the day I got arrested. That was. It was from one perspective, it was a one-off, but I think that it's maybe to give a more clear picture and to be more vulnerable with you and your audience. It started with character flaws that manifested as criminal activity. So I'll double back a little bit. At 12, I started martial arts. Okay, it was very good, very fast, and by the time I was 15, I was an assistant instructor and by the time I was 19, we'd moved to the Phoenix area and I had over 500 students in the Phoenix metropolitan area. But it was also around 15-ish where something happened.
Jon:There you can kind of pinpoint things. Things never happen, or rarely do they happen on a dime right. There's little decisions that happen over time, but there was one moment that just still sticks in my mind so vividly as a character pivotal moment. Growing up as a pastor's kid, I'd already been pretty good at kind of living. That doubled life uh, we're kind of notorious for it. It's not good. It's not good Just because you're expected to act a certain way.
Jon:You're expected to be perfect right, and so you learn how to act the right way in the right place and you act however else you want anywhere else. And it was I think it was about age 15 where there was a conversation I wanted to go to maybe it was 16, but anyways. I wanted to go to breakfast maybe 16, but anyways. I wanted to go to breakfast with somebody from our church and the girl that we were going to go to breakfast together she had a kid and my parents wouldn't let me go because they didn't want. Basically, it was like to have a testimony and in that moment, 15, 16 years old, I remember, like you, know what.
Jon:If I tell people what they want to hear, they'll let me do what I want to do. A pivotal moment in my integrity problems where I just developed this strategy of say whatever I need to say and I'll get what I desired and I'll get whatever I want, and, and and.
Jon:It was applied almost across the board and in some cases it serves people well, I cause it helped me communicate with people in a way that was meaningful to them. And, uh, you know, frank, and I just just finished a time with some of the residents here and it's like I was meaningful to them. And you know, frank, and I just finished a time with some of the residents here and it's like I was able to meet them on their ground.
Jon:And that's a good thing, to be able to communicate in a way that's meaningful to people, but most of the time it was used for my benefit and it wasn't serving anybody else. And it was tell you what you want to hear so that I get what I want. And that lying, manipulating, conniving, selfish, egotistical person that I became over the course of years. I remember telling my friend saying you know, people will do whatever I tell them to do, and I meant it. I really thought that much of myself, that I really thought that I just had basically manipulative power over everybody. And so you bring up the incarceration. Well, there were a series of events that happened. Number one that happened is that I got involved and started helping with some embezzlement and we justified it the way that we justified it and decided that we weren't really doing anything that bad. But eventually, as with everything, it got exposed. What age is this? I would have been 18 at that point. Yeah, 18 at that point. And so they, I was exposed and I was fired. That was actually the place that I was teaching martial arts for I was fired for it.
Jon:At this point in my life it's like well, this is what I've invested a lot of my life into, I'll go start my own martial arts company. And so I did. And they sent me a cease and desist letter. And because I was so full of myself and I also, I think in a way I felt cornered or scared, but I was like, well, the cease and desist letter has no power because I signed that contract when I was 17. So it's not enforceable in court anyways. Now I look back on that as a loophole. Right, that's not a man of integrity, that's a man looking for a loophole.
Jon:But at the time that was where I was. Meanwhile, my best friend. His books were also being audited and the whole thing I came into was all based on things that he'd been doing for quite some time. He was significantly older than me and so that was going to pose a problem if he wasn't working there and wanted to essentially do the same thing I did. And so, in our just absolute stupidity, we decided the best way to deal with that would be to go get rid of it with a fire. And we broke into the office building and we had gasoline with us. And we broke into the office building and we had gasoline with us and my best friend who it was his document. He struck the match and did not make it out of that building alive.
Jon:Oh man and so obviously, just the fire in its own right is a very serious criminal activity, and when somebody dies it gets a whole lot worse. And he was significantly older than the rest of us. It was his idea, but, from a legal standing, when somebody dies, they're no longer a perpetrator, they get classified as a victim. And so I remember my attorney saying like someone's going to take the fall for this, and you've positioned yourself very well to take the fall. And it wasn't because they were antagonizing me, it was because when I got arrested, I did what I've always done or had always done lie. I just lied and lied and lied.
Jon:And so integrity shot they. They questioned three of us I lied, lied, lied. The other one lied and then, when confronted, said I want a lawyer. And the third one lied and when confronted, said told him everything and uh, my actions. I went from being the hero to the zero in a matter of a day. Being this entrepreneurial good guy, everyone loved me, students and classes, and you know, my own house, my own, I mean all the stuff that you would look at and say that's a successful life. And all of a sudden, boom, I'm on the five o'clock news.
Ray:Whew, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a.
Booda:So you know, hearing your story and everything that you said from the beginning with your parents, and all of those things that experience for you when you knew. You know that you gotten in trouble for this thing like talking to your parents. How was that for you? Like when they had to find out.
Jon:When it first happened I was still in liar mode. And so well, actually I'll say there's two things. Number one, I was still in liar mode. But number two, the attorney had said you're not allowed to say anything because everything's recorded and so you can't admit anything or it also gets used in court. And so I just kind of adopted this line that I thought was kind of I don't know balancing whatever it was, that I didn't do what they said I did, and part of that I mean we'll kind of it'll end up fast forwarding in the story a little bit, but I didn't have this one giant epiphany of like oh my gosh, this is who John was and this is who John is now.
Jon:It happened in stages, just like I didn't become a complete and total loser all at once. It happened in stages, just like I didn't become a complete and total loser all at once. It happened in stages, through small character flaws that manifested and grew and developed, but at first I just lied, I wasn't admitting to nothing. Even the first time I talked to my attorney I will never forget sitting behind plexiglass, whatever, on a Saturday afternoon, as my public defender came to talk to me and he said Mr Antonucci, my name is Jeffrey Kirchler. I'm your court-appointed attorney. I will be your court-appointed attorney for the duration of your pretrial proceedings, unless the state chooses to seek the death penalty, at which point I will no longer be your court-appointed attorney and you will be assigned another.
Ray:Oh my, God, what was the charges that they originally charged you with?
Jon:Arson of an occupied structure and, uh, first degree murder. First degree, um, so it's felony murder technically, and so it's not that they thought that he was supposed to die, it was that because it was a felony being committed and somebody died, it's classified as an f1 automatic. Yep, yeah, wow. And so, and the occupants of the building were us, we so, uh, are some an occupied building? We were inside and therefore we occupied the building. So that was the first conversation and I lied to him. I was like I don't, I wasn't there, I don't know. Josh took off and I don't know where he is. So I mean, I hope you can help me.
Ray:With your dad's history as a preacher. How did that? How did he accept that and what did that do to the relationship at that point?
Jon:I maintain big picture that the people that love those who are incarcerated have it much harder than those of us that actually are. And we can go into that if you guys want to. But in that first minute nobody believed this could be true. So at the very beginning it was like no, this is crazy, there's no way, john would never. And so there was a huge reckoning that had to happen. External Meanwhile we can't say anything, the attorney's telling them what he can but being very furtive, and they're now dealing with their oldest son in prison or in jail. At that point, with all these accusations and I think at first their default just whenever you're going through trauma, what's the first? The default is to deny, and so I think that was their first thing. But ultimately they and I had to have a conversation where I said Mom and Dad, this is not your fault, I made this decision, it was the wrong decision, but you can't blame yourself. And I think that was a journey for them and they could probably speak to it better, but it did. I think it was a couple of things. I think there was the shame. I think there was a while where they didn't know what they could or should say about me at all. Should they even bring me up in conversation to people that they're just meeting? And I remember telling them that that was their call, that it was okay with me, they didn't need to feel like they were protecting my reputation. So if they wanted to tell people, that was fine, but if it was hurtful to them that they didn't need to feel like they had to tell people, and so we you know that was, that was part of the process. And then finally, once I was sentenced and I was actually in prison and all those things, and now we're able to actually sit at a table, kind of like we are now, and they're like okay, now tell us everything. That was probably where they actually had to digest it. But now they have a son who's finally telling them the truth, and so there's already some level of transformation that, yeah, yeah, I feel like before I took full ownership.
Jon:So like when I first first, first I lied straight up denied, denied, denied. Then, once I got felt cornered enough to actually start telling the truth, I told the truth. I had to tell, okay, yes, I was there, but I didn't want any part of it. And then eventually it was like okay, yes, I was there and I helped, but I helped minimally. And there there is actually some logistical truth to that.
Jon:My physical actions which is what I really locked in on for quite a while was that what I literally did was help break a window. That was my physical action. My hand did strike a window with someone else's and so I really like, hyper fixated on, like whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not my fault, all I did was like maybe criminal damage. And so there's a record out there ofated on like whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not my fault, all I did was like maybe criminal damage. And so there's a record out there of me saying like I think I should get maybe one or two years like criminal damage, that's all. And so, recognizing that my choice to participate had ripple effects, that took time and it wasn't.
Jon:I think it was about seven years later I think it was in like I want to say 2015 or 16 that I was applying for clemency. And this was my second time applying for clemency, which is basically just saying to the board hey look, I'm sorry, please help me, like that's, like you're not, you're not claiming innocence or anything like that. And one of my co-defendants got clemency, he had gotten his tenure sentence reduced to seven. One of my co-defendants got clemency. He had gotten his 10-year sentence reduced to seven, and so I was seeking that same seven we had both. He and I had signed the same plea that offered a range of seven to 21. He had been given 10. I had been given 14. And-.
Ray:Why was the difference with your-?
Jon:Because I was. I guess I'll say Pigeon is the mastermind with the absence of Josh and because of my well, not even with the absence of Josh, yes, the absence of Josh. But let me just take the ownership and say because of my lies, it was like you're the guy, this is your fault. Of course, there was some fun parts where they were like this is the stupidest idea ever and John's the only one smart enough to cook it up. Things go together. But yeah, so that was that I got sentenced to 14. He got sentenced to 10. He got his reduced to seven and I was seeking seven.
Jon:It was my second time asking and it was right.
Jon:Before we submitted the packet and I had probably the biggest like epiphany moment that I had in my entire growth journey from like a ownership standpoint, and that was when I realized wait, a minute, I was, I'm a natural born, I, oh my goodness.
Jon:And I realized I'm a natural born leader and even though it wasn't my idea and it wasn't my plan, the fact that I was even there gives more culpability to me. More culpability to me Because if I had said I'm not going to do this, the chances that everybody else would have followed suit, not because it was my idea, but just because of that energy that I carry, and I changed my request from seven years and said how? About 10 and a half, which is the presumptive they still denied me. So I ended up doing the entire sentence. But that pivotal moment where I actually said I'm not just responsible for what I did, I'm not even just responsible for the ripple, I actually carry responsibility for others' actions because of the responsibility and ownership that I have just as a person, and that was a huge pivot moment. But that took time. That was, that was some some time down the road.
Booda:Wow, During this whole process, um how was your faith?
Jon:So I I changed what I said a second ago and I said, as far as the logistics are concerned, so that would be the big pivot moment. Um, so, from a faith perspective, I had made a profession of being a Christian and believing in Jesus when I was 12. I had watched a scary movie and didn't want to go to hell and was like, oh that sucks, let's not do that.
Booda:And so.
Jon:I had decided I was going to get saved and that was kind of thing. Well, I had went to a Bible study and I'm sure you guys all probably know Roger Munchian he's the director of Rescue, not Arrested. But at that time Roger Munchian was nobody anybody ever heard of. He was doing one-on-one Bible studies in Fourth Avenue Jail as part of the what was the name of the ministry? It turned into Winning Walk Ministry. I think it used to be like Life-Changing Prison Ministry or something like that. What's?
Booda:his name.
Jon:Roger Munchian. Roger Munchian, I'll look it up, yeah. And he came in and he was doing a Bible study with a guy that was in like two cells down from me, and I was, at this point, just, you know, kind of almost defaulting back to you know, oh, I'm supposed to be a Christian. Like that's okay, let's do that. And I asked the guy if I could go with him and he was like, yeah, sure, so sure. So I go into the room and Roger's like, oh, so, like, are you? You know? What do you believe? I was like, oh, I've been a Christian since I was 12, but I backslid and whatever. And he was like well, like, backsliding is not really found in the New Testament, just so you're aware. And I was like, well, no, but you know what I mean. He's like no, I know what you mean, I'm just saying I don't think that's biblical.
Jon:Like maybe a month later was that at 12, I was interested in having Jesus be my savior, but I had no interest in him being my Lord, and you can't have one without the other. And so it was at that point where you have that pivot, and it was like, okay, my way's not working. Maybe we should actually submit to his Lordship. And so that's really the big transformative, because it was at that point where I became a lot of those things I told you I cheated through school. Well, that's because I wasn't interested in learning. I was interested in looking like I was smart, not actually learning and growing.
Jon:And so when he redeemed my character, there were some things that didn't look like they changed all that much, because I was going to church before I'm still going to church, I was reading my Bible, whatever, but the heart behind things that I did changed drastically and it went into. You know, we talked about failure just today at our workshop together and it was, you know, failure's. Okay, I don't have to hide, I don't have to pretend like I'm perfect. I'm not. So let's stop pretending and let's actually grow. And the people that grow the most are the people that are willing to look stupid, because you don't grow unless you're willing to look stupid.
Booda:So I found it's called Rescued, not Arrested, that's his current one.
Jon:Back then he was I think it was Life Changing Prison Ministry back in the day, and then that turned into Winning Walk Ministry when he became the director of the Christ Church of the Valley Prison Ministry. And now, yeah, rescued, not Arrested, is you probably see their Bibles all over the place, their white Bible they got handcuffs broken. It says Rescue, not Arrested. Oh, yeah, they're in a bunch, I think last I knew he was in like 130 countries, wow, distributing those Bibles and trying to help people.
Booda:A little bit of your story reminds me of Proverbs 22.6, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Yeah, I just had to get a little older. Yeah, you just had to get a little older, but you didn't depart from it. Man, I mean, when God was ready, he pulled on those heartstrings. You know what I mean? Yeah, wow.
Ray:So you get to prison. What would you do in those years while you were incarcerated? Because you know we're surrounded by gangs, by violence, by all kinds of bad stuff. What kept you walking the path to where you're at right now?
Jon:I think a few things. I think in one sense, I think God prepared me without me realizing that's what he was doing years before. I mentioned a minute ago just having that many siblings will help, but, like I'd been told by guys in jail like hey look. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to get to prison and they, they're gonna kind of watch you for a couple of weeks and then, based on how you conduct yourself, will depend on who approaches you and whatever. Well, that is not what happened. What happened is, about three minutes after I got there, I got attacked from behind by three dudes and what I then learned later was called a heart check. But I didn't know that. All I knew was I wasn't getting raped today and I fought back with the fury of a thousand Phoenix, suns and um and, and it didn't go well for them.
Jon:I had all that martial art background, remember, I had three black belts and, and so that kind of created a tone where I was just trying to do my time. I was already even though it was only 10 months after I'd been arrested. I was already uh, thankfully of the disposition and mentality that I'm going to do this productively. I can't undo the decision that I've done, but I can make better decisions. That that much I had already latched onto, and that first incident created a scenario where people weren't approaching me for anything. It was just kind of like, all right, as long as he's not doing stupid stuff, we'll leave him alone. And I even I like overheard a conversation where someone's like, hey, man, you need to be working out, and someone's like ah, he put Bryce on his back.
Jon:I think he's probably okay, and, uh, certain dominance on the yard. Yeah, exactly, um, and. And so I actually learned. No joke. I learned like 10 years later that that incident apparently became a legend. I had no idea. I spent over a decade not having any idea that anyone even knew about it, until I was on my way out. It was probably like a year, maybe two years, before I got out and someone walked up and they're like hey, man, I've heard about you. And I was like, oh, okay, like you know, cause I was a part of a lot of stuff. And they were like, no, is it true. When you came down, you like, and it had gotten blown up, so like it was this complete legend. And I was just like I mean attacked when I got in.
Jon:Just like you can leave whatever you want, but that helped and then just kind of being productive. So if you're already working out, no one can really try to get you involved in their issues. And if you're not doing drugs and you're not on the gambling table and you're not getting into debt and you're not doing those things, there's no real hooks in you. And so the only thing I really had to be willing to do was assert you talk about asserting dominance, really just asserting boundaries, where there were things, and once you the cool thing about prison and I don't recommend it for anybody, but if you have to be there, there's like one thing that earns you more respect than probably anything else, and it's just simply consistency. You can be whatever you want. You can be the crazy person, you can be the drug addict. If you're the same today and tomorrow and the next day. For the most part, people are just like, yeah, that's Maybe. It's like, oh man, that's him. Other times I'd be like, yeah, that's him. What are you going to do? Right, but you're consistent. It's the ones that want to be one way one day and a different way the next day. That don't usually last very long, because people just aren't going to put up with hypocrisy and inconsistency, and so that helped a lot as well as I.
Jon:You put a boundary in place. No, I don't carry things across the yard, I don't care if it's a honey bun, I don't do that, and it's not. No, I'm better than you. I'm better than you, it's, it's, it's from the heart of, just like. You know what I just make that my policy Cause I, I, I was doing a lot of programs. We can kind of get into some of that in a minute. But, like, I had a lot of Liberty on the units that I was on, even the lockdown units Um, I had to create those boundaries because I wasn't going to jeopardize all of the programs and everything else that we had going because of a honey bun, like you'll figure it out. I'm sure you know you've got resources and you have people that owe you things. So you know I don't owe you anything and I'm not going to, and so I think that helped a lot to just kind of create that space.
Jon:And then there's probably also some factors that had nothing to do with me. They're always well. First of all, when I came in, I didn't come in until 2009. So some of the politics had started to die down in the 2010 era. And then also there there always seemed to be someone that was either partially involved or behind the scenes involved or whatever with the politics. That always seemed to have enough respect for me that they were like yeah, we're not going to, we're not going to mess with him. And as it got longer and longer into my incarceration, some of them were, you know, even asking counsel like, hey, how do how do we deal with this? We're trying not to make the yard blow up, but this has to be handled, and so I had the opportunity to speak life and speak wisdom into some situations that I had no business being a part of. I wasn't involved with that, but they saw that consistency of life and I think that was very helpful.
Ray:And you served out your total time.
Jon:Yeah, so I was behind bars physically for a little over 12 years and then I served the last two under community supervision.
Ray:a little over 12 years. And then I served the last two under community supervision. And what kept you another question, prison question from not desecrating your flesh with tattoos the way I promised I wouldn't and I did. You know I mean, what kept you?
Jon:Well, probably two things. Number one, getting stabbed a million times, just never appealed to me, really. No, it was fairly early in. I'm trying to think of what year it was in, I want to say it was 2011.
Jon:So really early in my incarceration, they brought out something called oh my goodness, I don't remember the name of it, but it was actually funded through the Maricopa Health and recovery department or whatever and they came into all the prisons and what they were really trying to do was just reduce all the costs for the prisons for all of the communicable diseases, and so they certified like 30 of us in the system to be these peer educators, to teach this class. It started with an m, it was like mercer murper. It wasn't mercer, it was like murper something, but it was this class on how to avoid getting things like AIDS and HIV and hepatitis C and all that. And, of course, tattooing in a prison is very, very risky for some of those reasons, specifically MRSA and hepatitis, and so having just that knowledge and it was just like you know, if I want a tattoo, this is probably not the best place to do it, and so I just I just never went that route.
Jon:The other thing, I think would. That, at least for me, was probably a factor is that you know if you're going to make a mistake of some sort I'm not saying any, any of the tattoos in this room are mistakes but if you're going to make a mistake in general, one that is permanent and you can't do away with, so like, obviously tattoos in prison are not allowed, right, and if they catch you one with fresh ink they're gonna give you a ticket. But I had come in with and all my pictures definitely did not have tattoos in them, and so it was one of those things like, if I make that decision, like it's just a matter of time before they're, like, your intake picture shows a bare arm. That is not a bare arm, and then you know what am I putting on the line? All the programs, all the things that I'm doing, all the college that I'm taking, all that you talked about, the degrees I got. I got those there and you know that all goes away the minute they decide that you're not behaving yourself correctly.
Ray:What programs were you like involved with, or creating or improved?
Jon:So I got to be part of the kind of the ground level what now is called recovery support specialist. I actually helped build that, but then I wasn't allowed to be a part of it. Before recovery support there was something we called IPP inmate peer programming and I was I won't say I was the foundational person, but I was. I was one of the people on several units that brought that from an idea that had a couple of classes to full fledged program departments to full-fledged program departments, and I got to do that on a couple of different units. And so we were creating classes based on money management, based on seven habits of highly effective people, based on parenting, some recovery classes, we had small business classes, we had public speaking classes, we were developing all kinds of classes just around different things and eventually we were building teams of people that would say well, this is a subject I really care about, so I'd love to offer an investing class, I would love to offer a CDL prep class, and it was all peer-based that we were building. And eventually they formalized that and I was part of a group of I think it was 17 of us that sat in a room at Whetstone actually, which was the conception with Stacey Paul actually, which was the conception with Stacy Paul, stacy Paul, stacy Paul, and meant miss Mena I don't know if you remember her, but we all sat in a room together in the visitation of Whetstone unit and conceived this idea.
Jon:And people from I think it was community bridges or somebody, came in because they were going to be offering their licenses for the certification and they wanted to figure out okay, we, we have this kind of peer support out here. We'd like to bring it into the prison. How can we formulate this program in a way that lets you functionally do this? And we conceived it and we shared here's the challenges you're going to face. Here's the things you guys need to look for. Here's, you know, here's where we think can be great. And they walked out of that room and that is now rss recovery support specialist, the rstat.
Jon:Yes, yeah, okay what's funny about that is the minute it became formalized I was no longer allowed to participate because I don't have a drug background and they would not certify me as an rss. And so my story I've shared and it's kind of tongue-in-cheek now, but it actually prevented me from ever actually going to the second chance centers because they were only accepting RSSs and they would not certify me as an RSS, Even though I said look like RSS is not just drugs, it's really anything. Any trauma that you've gone through.
Ray:Mental health.
Jon:That's real. They would not do it, so they refused to certify me and therefore I was never allowed to go serve at the second chance center, which is something that I've I laugh about it, but that was something that was. It was pretty irritating during the last like five years of my sentence when it was like you guys have I built this, you know, and you guys and granted, they've taken it way further than I ever did Like don't let me sit here, make you think like RSS is me. I just like the foundation was laid and I was part of that formulation team and they were like all right, thanks.
Jon:Everybody else can do it, and I was like oh you suck.
Booda:Yeah, I agree with that man. I'm not in recovery and I learned a lot about the world of this recovery through different people, through Ray, through you know. But you know, I really do believe in what you're saying and the fact that you don't necessarily have to have that experience to be compassionate and to be loving and to teach people how to heal, because we all struggle from something. You know there's people who struggle from sexual abuse, physical abuse. You know, that's all. You know. It's all about being compassionate and loving and caring to people, man, and I've never had an issue with it, ever Like as far as being able to communicate with some of our clients and people that are struggling with it. So it's unfortunate that they did not allow you to be a part of that.
Jon:I'm thankful that they're doing good work and I hope that it will continue to make an impact in people's lives and I'm thankful that the legacy. We all in this room many of us know George Nolan and it was so cool. I met George through the ASBA GO program Growing Opportunities program that they have for people coming out of prison to help them start their own businesses and I didn't know him from Adam and he got assigned to me as my mentee. So to my knowledge, I'm the only mentor in that program with a criminal justice impacted past Everybody. All the mentors are business owners, all the mentees are people from prison. I think I'm the only, or at least I was for that round anyways.
Jon:Anyway, so we meet and we were having our first meeting and it goes, you know, just introductions. Second meeting. We get like 10 minutes into the call and George you can confirm this with George if you want to be like hey, did this happen? We get like 10 minutes into the call and he goes wait, you're John. I was like, yeah, john Antonucci. Yes, dude, I've been hearing about you for years.
Ray:I like George.
Jon:Yeah, and apparently he'd been on some of the units I'd been on and had, you know, been compared, and I was like that's such a cool legacy to just you know, regardless of what happened or whatever, just to know like, hey, the work that we did had an impact on some people's lives. That is so meaningful. And it wasn't just me, it was teams of people, it was people that will never, some of which will never even get credit, people that were behind the scenes, keeping track of computer records and helping build things that were, you know, never really at the front, but they were the ones that made that happen. And I could list names all day of people that deserve probably way more credit than I got as the front man for a lot of that stuff.
Booda:During your incarceration. How did the relationship change, the dynamic of the relationship between your parents and your siblings? How was all of that? You were going through your growth, all of that at the same time.
Jon:Yeah, it went really well. I think there's probably there's it's as with any relationship, it's so multifaceted, there's there's so many angles. With my parents, at least three things happened. Number one they were so delighted that there was real growth and I think that was evident every time they'd come to visit you know the staff visitation staff oh you know he's he staff oh you know he's great, he does this. And half of our classes were held in visitation, so I often had a lot of access to visitation staff and so they knew me. So that was really cool for them.
Jon:But the other thing that happened is as I grew, not just as a person, but as I grew knowledge-wise, some things shifted with my dad specifically, where we stopped having kind of that father-son conversation and started to have like a colleague kind of conversation, and that made our conversation like it's so productive and so dialogish instead of monologuish, and so that really, really helped. And mothers just want to be proud of their kids and so when she would come in and they would have good things to say, she's just beaming because, okay, this is a terrible thing and a terrible situation, but look what he's doing with it, taking the best of it. So that really helped. On the sibling side, I count myself so fortunate and so blessed because my siblings had every right to just say you know what you go to you. And all four of them have been so gracious. The one just younger than me, josh, has been a rock. He's become my best friend, not just my brother but my best friend and I treasure those relationships so much. And they came visit me when they could.
Jon:Something also very interesting that happened that was neat for me is a lot of times when people go into prison they've got a decent amount of family support and they take it for granted First of all. I think that happens. We've probably all kind of seen that, whether personally or observantly but they take it for granted and then they start making demands like they have a right. And I adopted a different mentality, which I think really helped the relationships, because I said and I said this verbally, but I also backed it up with my actions I said I put myself here. It's not your job to support me.
Jon:And so in all of my 12 years behind bars I asked for money one time. And the one time I asked for money was when I got moved to Winslow unit and my eye on the bus went to Winslow and all of my stuff went to Kingman and I called and I was like, so I kind of need everything and you know they you know, cause it takes, you'll see, like 10 weeks to get back for anything and then they're going to prorate it all and everything like that. So that's the one time that I ever asked for money. I never asked for money. I never expected that they owed me anything. They didn't owe me visits, they didn't owe me phone calls. We got on a really good schedule and so that helps increase the relationship, not because, oh, john is so great, but when your phone bill doesn't come in at $400 because someone thinks they need to call you every day and you don't know how to tell them no, well, now you don't have that strain on the relationship. And when you're hearing from them regularly, I read an article while still in jail.
Jon:So within the first six to nine months of my incarceration I read an article about how the families of people that are incarcerated genuinely love them. They genuinely want to help, but they have no idea how. And then they get these letters that are mostly negative. Woe is me. This sucks. So you know, you don't know what I'm going through and it they don't know what to write back to that. They don't know what to say, and so they don't write back. Because what do you say? And so I made myself a commitment when I read that article that I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that my family looked forward to my letters as much as I look forward to theirs, and that they look forward to our visits as much as I did. And so I really tried to serve them, even though they were definitely serving me. I tried to make sure that conversations were productive and positive and share with them the good things.
Jon:And you know, there are still things that I experienced in prison that I haven't told them, not because I'm hiding it, but because they didn't need to know. They didn't need the fear, they didn't need the stress, they didn't need any of that. And my mom my mom would find out later She'd be like you should tell me no, I really shouldn't. Yeah, no, I mean, I love you and there's no. I know what I'm going through, you don't. And you worrying about it from 200 miles away is not serving you well, so I would much rather you just be like no, john is fine, then think anything else. And so, um, that all helped, those relationships fostered, they built organically because, as a relationship should, I was giving and not simply taking.
Jon:Um, my brother, the one that I mentioned already, though he, uh, something interesting happened all as all my siblings, or as I continued through my incarceration, my siblings all grew up, and so a lot of times people come into prison. They have all that support, they've got tons of money, they burn those bridges and then they rest of their incarceration. They're destitute. I experienced the opposite. I walked in, had almost nothing, but as the years went along, my siblings all got jobs, they all became very generous. My, the Josh, the brother I've mentioned already. Every time he got a raise, so did I, and by the time I was walking out the door I felt I mean, I wasn't rich, I didn't have all the best stuff, but I had what I needed and I was happy to share. I was happy to be able to be a blessing, and that set a tone in life for me. He taught me a lot about generosity and about serving, and I'm very thankful to him for that.
Ray:Would you say you and I'm just asking because I you know, because of my past and my experience did you struggle with any kind of depression during those years and did you feel like you just had to put a smile on when your family came, just to keep them not worried? But maybe sometimes inside in there, you were just struggling with just man. What did I do to myself? Why is it? You know?
Jon:I think the answer is yes, okay, but in a little different than maybe some people think. The. In my opinion, the biggest cure for depression is service. You stop having a woe is me moments when you are looking and helping other people. So that helped a lot that I was doing all those things to help other people.
Jon:The other thing is, I'm also a huge believer that our emotions are a reflection of our thoughts, not the other way around. I think some people believe that their emotions dictate their thoughts. I believe our thoughts dictate our emotions and so, being disciplined about what I was thinking about, what I was, I like to say what I was feeding my soul, the music I listened to, the things that I was reading, the things that I was talking about. Were those conversations? Were those entertainments feeding my soul, positivity or negativity? So there were times where I would look around and it's just like man, I'm an idiot, what I have no excuses, there's no reason that I should be here, except that I'm an idiot. And so there were those moments, but there were many, many more moments. What are we going to do about it? Incredible.
Ray:I love it.
Booda:That's great, man. And how was your thought process? You know what I mean, because you went in when you were so young, yeah, and when you're 18, man, it's like something bad happens. You're like my whole life is over, type of thing. And then you realize that even in your 30s, it's like I'm barely starting right.
Jon:How was your thought process when your initial release date was coming up? I kept a very what I think anyways and I would still, to this day, tell everyone to do this. I kept a very healthy perspective of release because in Arizona, at least when I was there, maybe they've changed some things, but in Arizona your release date is not sure. You've got these Senate bills and you got all these things, and so I saw so many people in those 12 years be super hyped up I'm getting out tomorrow and then something would change. I saw even where they were on the band and then they got pulled back and so I mentally did, said no, I don't get out until I have to, which is my earned release credit date, all the other special, you get 10 days off for that and I didn't count on none of that and told my family, everybody, nobody knew any other date other than July 18th 2021. As it started to get closer and I think again, I just I think it's very healthy to do it that way, because that puts you in a different frame of mind as it got closer, it became more and more probable that I was going to be getting out May 10th, not July 18th, and so I took into confidence my brother and a little bit my dad, because they things weren't moving fast enough, and I was like we kind of need to have some stuff ready, because I know you think July, but in any case nobody else knew though and it was like, listen, there's no guarantees. There's absolutely a possibility that I wake up on May 10th and they say what are you talking about? Oh, did your CO3 tell you that? Yeah, we don't know, I'm sorry, right, and so I just kept that July thing.
Jon:For me, there was a cool. There are two things that were amazing. Number one I had all this responsibility, which meant turnover, so that was perfect, like training and building people up and making sure things were happening. But I think that anyone who's been to prison especially if you've done your time productively you're one of the only people that actually kind of knows what it's going to feel like to die, because it's the only scenario in life where there's going to be one day that you're experiencing one reality and then, with a snap of a finger, everybody that you've been around, everything that you've've done, all the clothes that you've worn, is different, gone, yeah, and you have to prepare accordingly, and I've always said I would love to know the day of my death, because it was very helpful for me to know when I was getting out so that I could prepare accordingly. Um, preparing was definitely part of it.
Jon:I ended up getting out may 10th. That was not as early. They could have actually let me out as early as February, um, but May 10th is what they decided to do. My brother, josh, picked me up. He was the only one that knew for sure I was out, um, and then we went, spent the whole day surprising people, wow, and it was awesome. We got to catch my mom off guard. I was standing and she was and she was like what and I'm turning my head like that, you know, back and forth, and it's like, oh, my God, you know, and just we did that pretty much all day and just had some great, great experiences as I got to reconnect with family.
Booda:So that amount of time that you spent behind bars? You know the world changes so quickly, especially going through COVID. You got out on May 10th 2021. Did you have any fear when you were, when you finally were getting released? Was there fears that you had 21. Did you have?
Jon:any fear when you finally were getting released. Was there fears that you had? I had healthy fear, and I say it that way because I was prepared to face the world, as it were. Part of my preparation had been to talk to people who'd been out. What did you experience, what did you struggle with, what were the challenges? And I heard everything. I heard everything from it's weird to hold a real toothbrush to going to the grocery store and seeing 800 variations of cereal. It paralyzed me to when I went to the mall, I went into PTSD, and so I was ready. I was mentally the fear of like, I'm going to get through this, we are pushing through, we're going to make this happen. That was where I was at, and then I walked out and didn't struggle with any of it.
Jon:Wow, all of that preparation had served me well. And so, the very first thing, when we went and got breakfast, it wasn't difficult to read off the menu. I knew how to do that. I knew how to engage with the waitress, it was not a problem. And when we went to lunch and we went to a different kind of restaurant, it was also not a problem. And last night we had a family get together at Topgolf and it wasn't a problem and I think to this day my brother paid me what may be the biggest compliment I've ever gotten, at least about that scenario. He sent me a text and he said it was interesting watching you yesterday.
Jon:It was like you never left and that was so beautiful, and there was an epiphany that I had about myself probably, I don't know, a week or two later, and anybody that knows me and spent any time with me in prison will tell you that there was always this dichotomy for me where I was doing all these good things but I always managed to have someone that didn't trust me or didn't think that what we were doing was actually good. I mean, I went under investigation, uh all sorts of stuff because people were like no, there's no way this dude is legit. And one of the things that people kept telling me over and over and over again is John, you need to learn your place. You think that you're, you know? You think you're a staff member? It's like no, I don't.
Jon:I'm just trying to help. You think that you're more important. No, I don't think I'm important, I'm just trying to help. But because I was in that growth mode and because I knew ego had been a problem I was hypersensitive to maybe am I the problem Like maybe they're right, maybe I think I'm trying to help, but maybe we're right back to being the John show and me telling people what they want to hear and all that stuff. And that really bothered me for the last like 18 months of my incarceration, where I was just like, do I need to know my place? Where I was just like do I need to know my place? And it wasn't until after I got out and that comment happened and I reflected and I realized they weren't right, or they were right, they were misapplied. The issue was not that I did not know my place, the issue was that was not my place.
Ray:And when I got back out, I was back in my place and I was able to function very effectively place and when I got back out, I was back in my place and I was able to function very effectively. What was the first uh like milestone you hit upon your release get all these goals, all these plans. What was the actual first milestone like?
Jon:yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm there. Yeah, getting my own place. For four months, to the day after I got out, I had my own place. That was, that was a big moment. Um, the day after I got out, I had my own place. That was a that was a big moment. Um, getting the job. I was within.
Jon:So it was about three weeks after I got out I was asked to work as a contractor to help develop, develop some curriculum for a company. Um, and two weeks after I started that, they were like what are we going to need to need to keep you? And two months they offered me a full-time training manager position. So I built their training department from the ground up. Two years after that they asked me to step into the director of revenue role for that organization. In the middle of all that, I started my own company.
Jon:So there's been kind of some different, you know, promotions and jobs and houses, and then we moved across the country and so after about three years I moved to South Carolina. I've been there about a year and a half now, parole, of course, being over. That was a big, big milestone. And this year, now that we're getting ready to come up on two years of completely off paper. I get to start applying for rights back. So I'm excited that that's something I can start working toward in July of this year. So I'm excited that's next month Fantastic.
Booda:One of the questions I have now. Man, you know, now that you're out, you're doing all of these amazing things. How did the talking to people? It just came naturally, but was that something you really wanted to do once you got out was to just speak to people?
Jon:Public speaking was not actually part of my I'll say game plan. In fact, a lot of what I'm doing right now was not part of the game plan. If it were. My plan when I got out was to spend the first month being Okay Be with family, be present, enjoy this new experience. Now, part of that was because I anticipated all that difficulty, yeah, and I was like I'm going to need some transition time, but I also just wanted to be able to be present. Simultaneously. I intended to be observing where there would be needs that I might be able to fill.
Jon:And it was during that time that my brother reached out to the company that he was working with and basically said hey, you guys know I've been looking for help for a while. We haven't found a good guy. My brother's currently on the market, you know, we might make some good use. My and his question was actually temporary. It was just like hey, can I hire my brother to help me for a couple of weeks? That'll give me some help with what I need help with. It'll give him some time to figure out what he wants to do and whatever. And they were like well, he gets all the qualifications. Like, don's not gonna work for you. We've been trying to do this. We've been trying to build some training. You say he built all this stuff. How about we? You know we'll have him do that, and so it kind of came from that. And then that was, and they asked me okay, well, will you be our training manager? And I was like, okay, I can add value there, like I just built, know anything about the industry. So I was learning the industry in order to build the training curriculum and was able to add a lot of value there and I'm very grateful for that.
Jon:And then eventually they asked me to be director of revenue. That wasn't even on my radar, it wasn't even something they posted. They literally I get a call one day from my boss and I'm like, oh, that's kind of weird. He doesn't usually call me at this time of day. And the jerk I love him to pieces. He's an amazing person, but he's such a jerk. Uh, it was. It was. It was a team's meeting and if you guys have ever used teams like what you named, the meeting will come up. Well, I didn't get a like a call. I got a. Matt is inviting you to meeting colon. Uh, discussion of john's future.
Booda:Oh, wow man, I don't know how I'd feel if I got that one.
Jon:Let me just tell you how I felt. I didn't know how I felt either, so I'm like, okay, except and it was live meeting. It was a live meeting, so I'm like except, which means I get plugged into the meeting. There's all 15 participants waiting and my boss is there with the CEO and the COO oh my God. And I'm like what's going on? And, uh, the COO kind of goes into a bit of a of kind of a long explanation that we're going through transition. We really need someone to step into this role and I think you're the guy for it and that started this conversation for me to take director of revenue. Um, which I had the privilege of holding that position for a while.
Jon:We got bought up by private equity and there was massive leadership misalignment. I'm a kind of a person I believe you take care of your people, the people take care of the clients and the clients take care of the revenue. The private equity group seemed to be more of the opinion that if you cut the people and take away any sort of personal relationship, somehow the business is going to grow. And so far I don't think it's very worked very well for them. But, with that being said, it was while I was training manager, something curious happened, and that was that we were able to do amazing things building the training department. We had brought the onboarding time at that company down from an average of about six months which is a very long time for someone to get acclimated down to less than six weeks. But we were still losing people. People were still walking out the door, and I got asked if I'd be willing to kind of spearhead, trying to figure out what was going on, and it didn't take me very long to realize that the big issue was that we'd been promoting people and we had taken the subject matter experts, the technical experts, the people that have been around long as we were promoting them. So they knew their job, they knew it really well, but they didn't know how to lead.
Jon:And I remember having the conversation with the CEO and saying, look, it doesn't matter how good they know their job if they don't know how to lead people. And she was understanding at that point and basically said all right, but I don't want you to take a lot of time with this, I need you to stay focused operationally. And so I kind of was looking to outsource some of this and I just didn't find anything that I was really comfortable bringing into these frontline leaders that we had. Everything was either dry as dirt, or it was like manipulation more than real leadership, or it was designed for the executive level. There's a lot of materials out there designed for executive leadership, and so I kind of was like you know what? I think I need to create something.
Jon:And as I was creating, I was like you know what? I've kind of been doing this for a lot of years. I had built. One of the programs I'd built in prison was a training course on how to be a facilitator, and so that was your integrity and how you, the energy you bring to class and all those things right, and so it was like this isn't actually that difficult. I just need to plug in all these things that I've already been working on for years and voila, and it went really really well. The first round went well. The second round went even better, but it was kind of at that point where it was like you know, somebody needs to fill this gap. The YouTube was actually where it started and it was like there's got to be better videos than this. I remember looking for a video on how a leader's attitude impacts their team.
Booda:I couldn't find myself like hours that's looking and couldn't find anything.
Jon:That was like yeah, oh, this man, this hits. And I remember going to my boss and I was like look, here's the two videos I found. I don't like them but they're the best. And he's like he's watching's watching me, like yeah, these suck, I'm like I know, I just told you that. And so he spent hours and he went to the CEO and was like this is, and there she I don't know how long she spent, but we did find anything and I was like I can do better than this. I mean, I got a phone Like SML Consultive.
Jon:Sml stands for Servant-Minded Leadership and our heart is to provide training. We call it empowering. The empowerers it's the frontline leaders. You're talking director level and below there's tons of people serving the executive team, but those middle management and frontline leaders that are often promoted because they're operationally or sales wise, they're very sound, but nobody gives them the relational tools to effectively lead their teams, and so you have poor culture. You have people leaving, you have people that are miserable. I've never heard anybody say I'm quitting because I hate the ceo. It's always I hate my boss. Boss sucks, he's a micromanager, she's a jerk, you know whatever. And so we're trying to provide tools to organizations that see and recognize that and basically fill that gap that we needed filled in our organization a few years ago.
Booda:That's incredible man. So you know, as far as you know, sml Consultive and you know you're doing live speaking around the United States. Are you going around the world? Have you gotten?
Jon:there. Yet you know we're almost. It's funny you ask so and I'm glad you brought that back full circle. I got off track a little bit on the speaking side of things, obviously with the SML. There's some speaking there, but I also decided that I had gotten in in my own little sounding chamber and so, for example, you, I come to a place like this and Frank knows me and and people are like, oh, you know, thank you, I appreciate it. You know, blah, blah, blah.
Jon:And I was like I need, I need real feedback, and so I joined an organization called Toastmasters. Toastmasters has been around for over a hundred years now and they're part of their thing is they give you feedback after every time you speak, and that was something that was really attractive to me, where people with no agenda other than to say, hey, here's how you can improve. We're now going to be a part of my life, and so I've been with Toastmasters now for about a year and that's helped a lot. I actually just won the South Carolina International Speech Competition a couple weeks ago, so we'll see if the next part is they're going to review that speech and compare it against all the other winners and decide if I move on to the semifinals. So we'll see.
Booda:We'll see you up there with David Goggins and all this yeah something you know Heck, yeah, man, that'd be cool.
Jon:So that's kind of how that's rolled out. And then there's the church side. I do, I share my testimony in churches and things. I'll be in Albuquerque this weekend sharing with a church there and actually that pastor, he wants to record it so that he can send it out because he'd like to. I want to go out and be a speaker.
Jon:Um, my heart is to add value, my heart is to be a blessing, my heart is to make sure that every interaction people walk away from better off than they entered that interaction with. And I had the same heart in prison. It wasn't anything other. I wanted to leave prison a better place than I found it, and whether I succeeded or not, I'm sure it's up for debate, but whether I tried or not, I don't think is, and so I try to live life that way.
Jon:Even this conversation, like I hope I've left somebody with some hope. I hope somebody is like you know what man like, if you can do 12 years in prison and still start your own company, like why can't I? And that's my the Toastmaster speech that has won so far, I've won the club, the area, the division in the district, um, that's, that's what it is. It's. Anyone can change the world. And if you think you can't, look at me. Well, if you think you can't, I think you can't. You're right. Yeah, but no, I mean look at me and say, look, I mean he's got the title of felon, he's did over a decade in prison, he's made bad choices, but you don't have to let those things stop.
Jon:You are you willing to do the work? And if you're willing to honestly just touch one person's life in a positive way, that's going to have a ripple effect and I really believe that anybody has the capacity to make a massive difference. That's part of the reason for the company. I believe that frontline leaders they are making an impact. The question is not are you making an impact or not? The question is is your impact, which you are making, positive or negative? Absolutely, and I want to give you the tools to make sure it's positive, because I think there's a lot of people that want to do really well and no one has ever given them the tools to make that happen. That's real.
Booda:That's real. I just got a couple more questions for you, man, before we finish this up. You know we've talked was a lot different than a lot of people's, but you have a lot of experience. You have a lot of faith. How important do you feel for anybody whether it's the type of traumas that we talked about earlier someone in addiction, someone in your shoes the stuff that you experienced? How important do you feel, because it's all about planting a seed right? How important do you feel is it for people that are lost to find something greater than themselves?
Jon:I think it's incredibly important. I used to say something very unpopular in prison, and that is you don't need Jesus to stay out of jail. There are millions of people in the world that never believed in Jesus and they know how to not commit crime. But you can't have purpose in life unless you have a relationship with the purpose giver. I love that. It chills. So if you're just looking to not experience some consequences, I don't think you need faith, I don't think you need religion. I mean, anybody can just make a better choice. Okay, I'm not going to steal that candy bar today, right.
Jon:But if you're looking to inhabit purpose, if you're looking to actually do something meaningful, I'm a big believer that the creator has the power to determine the purpose for the creation, and the example that I've given many, many times is if you're a contractor or a builder or you're a car junkie, whatever. If you build the house, you can design it as a haunted house. You can design it as a demolition house. You can design it as a beautiful residence, a castle. If you have a car, you can design it as a show car. You can design it as a race car, you can design it as a derby car. You have that right as the builder of the car, and I think when we try to take that right away from our creator, we do ourselves and him a disservice, because ultimately we're saying that the creation, the car, gets to choose what it's designed for. And if we can just get in line with that with God and say, no, I'm going to actually submit to the purpose for which I was created.
Booda:We have a lot more opportunity to have an impact and we get to live that life of purpose. That's awesome, man, that's awesome. So you know, let the people know. Out there, brother, for those that are listening that want to find you, where can they find you at?
Jon:Oh, way too many places. Probably the fastest, easiest. I'm very active on LinkedIn. If you look me up on LinkedIn, you're going to find me there for sure. We've got the Servant-Minded Leadership channel. You're just literally at Servant-Minded Leadership or YouTubecom slash at Servant-Minded Antonucci.
Jon:You're going to come up with some bad stuff. There's still some articles out there that are not very favorable toward me, but most of it is stuff that we've been doing much more recently. I would love to get in contact with anybody that I can be a blessing to. If it's a church or someone that's more interested in my personal side, you can go to johnantonuccicom Johnantonuccicom is more of my personal type of stuff and to johnantinuccicom Johnantinuccicom is more of my personal type of stuff, and if anybody's interested in what we do for businesses or frontline leaders, servantmindedleadershipcom or smlconsultedcom will both get you to where you need to go there Fantastic.
Frank:John. I appreciate you, man, for coming all the way out here from South Carolina. I know your plans changed, but your commitment to us did not. Um, really grateful for you, grateful for our friendship, man. Um, I just love watching you grow and I I admire you, man, for just the man you are, um, the man you know. When I met you, uh, in whetstone, um, from the moment I I tell you this every time, I tell you this a lot just part of my introduction to you. I talk to people, but you know, I was just, I was baffled at how you conducted yourself in there and just it's you leave me speechless, man. I mean I'm saying proud of you is doing you a disservice, because I mean I saw, I saw who you were in there and I knew, I knew in my heart that when you come out you're going to thrive and I'm just grateful for you, man. And thanks again for coming out here, my pleasure, thanks for having me.
Ray:Yeah, thank you for being here. I'm just blessed to be in this room right now. I learned so much, oh yeah, so much from just this conversation, and you don't have to doubt whether you bring positivity or education. I mean, you just have a gift. That was the most awesome story of consistency and growth that I've listened to in a long time.
Booda:Oh, yeah, it's beautiful man. We're two or more gathered. The Lord is right there with us, so it's been a blessing man. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up to John Antonucci. Thank you y'all For all the listeners, man. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to that episode. You know where we are. You can check the show notes of this episode. We're going to have johnantonuccicom on there. We'll have a bunch of leaks on there. Links on there. I apologize, but links on there. I apologize, but until next time, you guys have an amazing rest of your week. Much love and God bless. We will see you on the next one.