Welcome to the Pillars of Purpose podcast with your host, PJ Crescenzo. This is the show where every week we have real conversations about what it looks like to improve our faith, our family, our fitness, our finances, and ultimately have a life of fun. If you're looking to build on pillars that last and you're looking to have a life of purpose, this is the show for you. Thanks for tuning in and look forward to today's episode. Welcome to episode one of the Pillars of Purpose podcast. This is your host, PJ Crescenzo. Today, I'm going to dive into a little bit about who I am, what you can expect from listening to this podcast, what we're hoping to learn from some of the world-class guests that we're going to be interviewing on this podcast, and the best way to participate and tune in on a weekly basis. So just to kick it off, my name is PJ Crescenzo. I'm the host of the Pillows of Purpose podcast, and I've experienced radical transformation over the last 10 years. If you know me personally, you might have been a witness to the transformation that I went through. If you've recently met me or we do business together, you probably would not even have recognized the man that I was 10 years ago. So, June 4th, 2018, I knew I hit complete rock bottom when I found myself robbed at gunpoint and shot in a grocery store parking lot. This came after 12 months of bad decisions, of complete darkness, of abusing drugs, of being arrested multiple times in a short span of time. And just a few years before and just the years prior, I was on my way to attempt to be a collegiate athlete. And I was doing everything I could to compete and train at a high level. And it only takes one bad decision to turn an upward spiral into a downward spiral. And that spiral can just continue to snowball and snowball and snowball. And I've seen it with friends, right? I've seen friends that You know they started with a substance and next thing we know that they're they're battling addiction and i've also seen friends get sober and start making positive decisions and they become you know national brand sponsors and lead small groups helping dozens and hundreds of people experience sobriety. So, it's only, all it takes is one decision. One of my favorite quotes is, your life is the sum total of the choices and decisions you make. And when I wrote Rock Bottom, I made a choice that I was going to turn my life around. And it's through these five pillars that I've been able to experience transformation, I've been able to experience winning, but I also know that I've just started the journey. I am not even 1% of where I want to be when it's all said and done. So the goal with this podcast is to interview world-class operators that are experts in these five pillars, their faith, their family, their fitness, their finances, and most importantly, fun, right? Because it's not about just winning in one pillar, and it's not about grinding for the sake of grinding and putting in a hundred hours, and it's not just about the destination. It's about experiencing a journey. One of my favorite worship songs is if all the days of my life tell a story. And I reflect on that often because I want my life to tell a story. I want my story to be a story of education, of encouragement, of inspiration. And hopefully it's a little bit entertaining, right? I mean, just like this move of where I'm recording this episode today, Telluride, Colorado. I never visited here, I've never been here, but my wife had a dream that we would live in Telluride, Colorado. So do you know what we did? We packed up our family, we moved here, and I'm building a mortgage company and a national sales team from a remote destination because I wanted to give my wife the opportunity for her to experience the bucket list goal she had. I know people who are in my family that are 60 and 70 years old, and they've been talking about bucket list dreams for four to five decades. They have the resources to do it. They have the finances to do it. They probably even have the time to do it, but it's the confidence to actually make the decision and get uncomfortable. So that's what I want my life to be. I want my life to be a combination of uncomfortable situation after uncomfortable situation. And that's a little bit about who I am, right? So my name is PJ Crescenzo. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a believer. I've seen the redemptive power of what Jesus Christ has done in my life. You don't have to be a believer to tune into this show. We're going to have multiple people on who have different life experiences and different belief frameworks. But I know in my life, I've gone down a rabbit hole of multiple different spiritual paths from having college roommates that thought the world was a computer simulation to having friends that were frequent users of LSD and acid. I was born Jewish. My mother's maiden name is Eisenberg. I had a brisk as a child. So I've even gone down the rabbit hole of what is the origin of my grandfather's faith. But I know after countless hours and deep dives into world religion and the spirituality, that there is something special about the only one who has an empty tomb. And that is Jesus Christ. He's the only one that claimed he was the son of God, and it's the only documented empty tomb in history. So that's just a quick note on the faith pillar and how that's transformed my life. Fitness. I've just recently ran my first official marathon only after 30 days of training. The reason I did it is because I wanted to get uncomfortable. Family. Like I said, I'm a husband, I'm a father. I have two amazing kids. Finance. I've been blessed since I started the transformational journey and have seen a lot of redemption in my life. I went from never having a professional job to working seven days a week as an intern, as taking 18 credits to graduate college in three years and working double shifts for 12 months at a fine dining restaurant with no experience in Charleston, South Carolina. And in a little bit under two years, I was able to pay off the $120,000 in debt with living with my grandparents and working 70 to 80 hours a week for that span of time. So that's how I started my financial journey. I went door-to-door sales in high school. I had experience in network marketing, but really my career started in the mortgage industry. So in 2020, after spending two years in commercial real estate, I helped scale a retail branch from about a million dollars in revenue to over $3 million in revenue. I then started over from scratch in a brand new city and a brand new market without knowing anybody. And I built a seven-figure business in my first 12 months. And then recently I've partnered with a national lending platform and had an opportunity to step into leadership. And within my first four months in leadership, we've doubled the company's revenue. So I've been super blessed and grateful to have amazing mentors, to have amazing coaches and have amazing people in my life. But one thing that I've had a lot of success with in the marketplace is doubling revenue and creating a lot of strategic partnerships and relationships. So that's finance, but I am still miles away from where I wanna be. So I'm excited to interview some other people on this show. And lastly, fun. Again, a quote that I heard recently, which I love, and I'll say it again, winning is more fun than fun is fun. So the ultimate goal is to be the best steward that I can be, to grow in my faith, to grow in my family, to grow in my fitness, to grow in my finances, so that we can have a life of fun. So guys, this is the Pillars of Purpose podcast. I wanna encourage others to maximize their God-given potential. I'll talk with some of the top producers in my industry and top producers in real estate and top entrepreneurs. And I want to just uncover what is working for everyone out there. How do we win together? How do we do more? How do we create more, right? How do we make an impact? So that is what this show is going to be about. My goal is that it's educational, that it's encouraging. And if we do both of those things, then maybe it's just a little bit entertaining. So feel free to subscribe, stay tuned. We're going to have fresh episodes coming out every week. I'm grateful for whoever's listened to this episode one. It's the start of a journey and I'm excited to go on it with you guys. I hope you have a blessed day, a blessed week and let's go. Thank you so much for joining today's episode of the Pillars of Purpose podcast. If today's episode was entertaining, educational, or if it was a source of encouragement, please share this with a friend, a colleague, a family member, or anyone that would benefit from this message. Please subscribe and stay tuned for future episodes. We look forward to bringing you value every week. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed week, and let's go.