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Overcoming Adversity: A Journey from Abandonment to Achievement 0:03 A poor farm kid, abandoned by his father. Left with nothing and given everything. 0:15 I wanted to wrestle at the highest level and be the best. When I’m done with that, I’m going to get a job, keep competing at the highest level, be a husband, be a father, and show the world they can do it too. 0:23 Then I’m going to get another degree, start a business, and we’re going to do it together. 1:02 My name is Orlando Jimenez. I’m from Phoenix, Arizona, a ������ý MBA graduate and current DBA student. 1:18 I was born in Florence, Arizona. Casa Grande didn’t have a hospital, so I was born in Florence and raised in Casa Grande, to Debbie and Sammy Jimenez. 1:28 When I was about three or four years old, I can remember the police taking my biological father away. 1:36 He was choking my mother. Not a lot of people know that. 1:42 When I was 19, I went to find him. He was in this little apartment near Bethany Home and 35th Avenue. 1:51 He was just so happy and kind. I was in the Navy, and I just wanted to make peace with him. 1:57 He sat me on his lap and sang to me. 2:04 And I thought, yeah, we’re good. But he also let me know, “I didn’t raise you.” 2:10 Victor, who my father knew growing up through boxing and wrestling, looked at me and said, “That’s your father.” 2:20 I said, “I could be your friend.” And I understood that and accepted it. 2:26 But I realized he was a man who chose drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and poor eating and poor living. 2:35 He didn’t make it to 58. Stomach cancer took him, and he died at work. 2:45 So I went to see his body and sat with him in that empty, cold room. I held his hand and shared that time with him. 3:04 I said my piece, moved on, and paid for the burial services and everything. 3:09 I just wanted that moment — to make peace. I felt forgiveness was needed so I could move on. The Impact of Family: Lessons from a Father Figure 3:31 When I was five years old, I met my stepdad while he was working on my mom’s old sedan in our carport. 3:41 I was in kindergarten. I remember this very strong man. His name tag on his uniform shirt said Victor, and he had this blue thermos underneath, which showed his physical strength. 3:57 I thought, wow — this is somebody I want to be like. I hoped he could be my dad one day. 4:05 He started dating my mom, and the first time I went to his house, he showed me his room. It was full of trophies and sports and wrestling memorabilia. 4:14 He told me that if I wanted to be part of the family, he was willing to be my dad and could teach me three things. 4:24 One: how to be a good man. Two: how to be a fighter. Three: how to work on cars. 4:31 All three came to fruition and helped make me who I am. 4:38 What kind of man, in his mid-20s, retires from boxing, has a career, can do anything, and decides he wants to be a father to four kids and take that on? It means everything to me. 4:53 So much so that I wanted to build that for myself as a man. 5:02 He came from that migrant mentality — that farm life, husking figs, fruits, and cotton around the country as kids. 5:11 And he always taught that they took care of each other. 5:17 Everything I’ve learned — the camaraderie and brotherhood I experienced in the military — came from my pops and his friendships. 5:26 His brothers showed up to everything: sporting events, NBA programs, graduation day — everybody was there. 5:38 It hasn’t been perfect having a son with PTSD, or his own bouts of anger or depression. 5:47 So he’s dealt with that for 20 years. 5:57 This is my garage. I had zero trophies or accolades as a kid, so after seeing my father’s room, I created my own space. 6:06 I wrestled around the world and went to school around the world. He’s been there for everything. 6:13 First-place wrestling, number one wrestler in Arizona — my dad in the stands, just yelling nonstop. 6:20 He was so proud. That was probably the only time he was verbally loud. 6:27 He doesn’t speak much. He’s very stoic. He’ll look at you, shake your hand, bring you close, and you feel how proud he is. 6:37 He was happy, and that made me happy. I realized maybe I pursued all these things because it made me happy that he was happy for me my whole life. 6:47 Every opportunity to go to school through the MBA program felt like an opportunity to make my father proud. 6:55 I see him in my kids. 7:02 Who else takes a risk on a kid who doesn’t feel wanted? 7:09 That’s all you want — to feel wanted. And here’s this man who makes you feel that. 7:17 I’m that little boy, not wanting to lose that connection with his dad. 7:27 When you’re overseas serving, your head is in the books, or you’re thinking about the day you’ll come home or graduate. 7:39 Am I making him proud? I still want that. I’ll always be that son. 8:03 My old man means everything to me. That same day I saw his wrestling trophies was the day I knew what I wanted to do. 8:08 Wrestling at home on the grass, on concrete, with brothers and sisters — then you find a program in grade school. 8:17 Then middle school, high school, state championships. During my senior year, I received a full-ride scholarship to wrestle. 8:25 That all changed on the morning of 9/11, my senior year. 8:31 I walked into English class first period, and on the TV screen were the airplanes flying into the Twin Towers. 8:42 “Today our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.” 8:57 I went to the Naval Recruiting Station and signed up that day. It changed everything for me. 9:08 These calloused hands aren’t from lifting weights — they’re from husking corn by hand, boxing by hand, shipping by hand, from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m., from age 10 to 18. 9:18 I worked literally into the fields until the day I left for basic training in Great Lakes, Illinois, in the United States Navy. 9:38 Going into Great Lakes for boot camp, I quickly realized I was far ahead of other men my age in life preparedness. Service and Sacrifice: Life in the Navy 9:50 They were young men my age crying for their mothers under the rack beneath me, and I realized this was a different experience for them. They weren’t prepared in the way I was. 10:01 My father always told us that one day we’d be in charge of our own families, so take responsibility now. 10:06 He would teach us how to do taxes. He would teach us how to finance and balance checkbooks. 10:17 We just wanted to play, but it made sense when I was 18 and had money, while my friends were broke. 10:24 Every first and fifteenth, you get paid — and I was buying a house at 21. 10:32 Those are the lessons I took from my father through the military, through basic training, through getting in trouble in the Navy, fighting, losing my rating, not being able to be what I wanted to be, and learning to stand at attention, take it like a man, accept accountability, and move on. 10:52 You realize you are the master of your ship and your destiny, and you have to steer it yourself. 11:03 Thank you for being the person in my life, the leader I needed. I could have ended up in so many different scenarios — prison, jail, gangs. That was real. That could have been me. 11:22 USS Duluth, October 12, 2002 — I thought I’d see the sights, check out San Diego, and go party with the guys going to Tijuana. 11:40 But the BM1 on watch told me no — I wasn’t going to spend my money there. I was going to buy books for humanitarian studies and world religions. 11:47 I wasn’t going to party. I started college on board the USS Duluth in October 2002. 11:56 That led to 23 years of education, and I’m still in pursuit of that doctorate. 12:08 Somebody believed in me and said no — you’re not buying that Tundra, and you’re not going to Tijuana or downtown partying. 12:15 You’re staying on this ship. You’re getting an education. 12:20 And because I knew how to wrestle, they arranged for me to meet the captain and gave me an opportunity to wrestle for him. 12:35 I signed up to serve my country, and they gave me the opportunity not only to serve, but to get an education for my country. 12:46 And I’m still getting an education for my country, for my family, for me, and for my brothers who never made it back from that deployment. 13:06 What I signed up for was war — not sleeping, operations, Marine Corps in the well deck, small boat operations, morning, noon, and night. 13:15 I learned what it meant to care about something bigger than myself. In that process, you learn brotherhood. 13:20 All hands on deck — working parties, everybody painting the ship, everybody cleaning debris off the flight deck. 13:38 I grew up instantly. You cross that equator and enter a war zone, and the night sky looks like the Fourth of July. 13:49 I’m no longer in Phoenix. I’m not in the United States anymore. I’m not home. 13:58 One of my friends couldn’t come back from that. He locked himself in the armory and killed himself on the ship. 14:08 I didn’t want to become a statistic, so I kept myself busy all the time. Education as Empowerment: The Role of Learning 14:19 Staying alive. Stay in here. 14:27 Yeah — accolades and achievements. 14:37 I still carry a lot here and here. 14:42 I don’t want to wave that white flag anymore, but it’s heavy, man. 14:52 You still have those dark moments. I still wake up early alone by myself. 14:59 And I ask if I’m making them proud. They never got to go to college, start a family, buy a house, or go to the ������ý and start an MBA program. 15:16 With the encouragement of the university, that led to the doctoral program and the opportunity to take classes while I was in my MBA. 15:22 They’ll never know that. To sit here with you and tell this story — to tell them I miss them, I love them, and this is for them. 15:29 They’re a part of all of this. That’s what we promised each other. 15:40 I love my brothers. Everything is for them. 15:49 I met my wife in high school. We were friends. She was a basketball player and a runner. 15:56 She’d see my brother and me running on the track — just these little wrestlers with no form whatsoever. 16:08 I saw her running one day and she was so focused, like she was fighting or wrestling. 16:16 She’d say, “You need to run properly — head up, back straight, breathing, posture.” 16:23 Stance and motion. Diagnostic breathing. They were smarter than us, that’s all. 16:33 From there we became friends in high school. I didn’t really date. I was focused on school, wrestling, and getting into college. 16:40 When I was at Great Lakes, I had her address in my address book. 16:49 I wrote her. She was the first one to write back. I didn’t know anything about romance, so I sent her a little flower inside something mushy, and she understood the sentiment. 17:06 That led to, “Oh, I think he likes me.” 17:06 I went to Cairns, Australia for my first deployment, and I remember thinking that if she would still want to date me after my second deployment, I’d buy a ring and propose. 17:18 I came back from deployment in July 2005, and her birthday is July 21st. 17:29 So I proposed on her birthday, and we got married on November 5, 2005. 17:36 I was still in the Navy and had six months left, so I was still serving. But I married my bride — my best friend. 17:46 She gave me five beautiful children and helped me build everything. 17:56 She’s the kindest person I know. All my children have that softness from her. 18:04 She’s my best friend, my soulmate, the breath of life for me. 18:18 Three out of the four years, I wrestled for the Navy. After that, I was recruited to wrestle in college. 18:26 So it came full circle — I was able to go back to wrestling in college and keep competing. 18:35 Martial arts are tied into the fabric of who I am. 18:41 This constant need to push through — it’s always there. There are a few brief joys in life, but most of the time it’s a struggle. 18:51 My father, my pops, was a wrestler — a stud wrestler. I remember him telling us he couldn’t afford to go to China to represent Team USA when he was 14 because it cost $800. 19:01 My grandfather was a farmer. Eight hundred bucks to go wear a singlet and wrestle in China? Ridiculous. So he never got to go. 19:09 I still compete around the world today because of that. 19:27 I got accepted to the law enforcement academy, and for the first time in my life at that age — I was 26 — I realized I needed a job. 19:35 I needed a job, and law enforcement was that for me. 19:42 I wanted to be a peace officer. My uncles and a lot of friends who got out of the Navy became law enforcement officers and peace officers. 19:50 It was a great experience in Casa Grande, my hometown. I got to serve grandparents, parents, neighbors, family, and friends. 19:57 I was a patrol officer for a year, then a bicycle patrol officer for a year, then a drug interdiction officer for a year. Building a Legacy: From Struggles to Success 20:08 My last year before being accepted into law school, I was a school resource officer, so I also got to coach the wrestling team because I was there every day. 20:17 Those four years were some of the best of my life in service. 20:22 It’s a tough world, but kindness goes a long way. 20:38 Even a young man I had a run-in with as a law enforcement officer is now my landscaper, and he remembers that time on campus and that situation with a fight. 20:46 I didn’t treat him badly or make him feel less than. I told him he had an altercation — a disagreement — not the crime of the century. 20:52 From drug interdiction in the Sonoran Desert, playing cat-and-mouse games, I remember being pulled off graveyard shifts. 21:01 We were still chasing cartel bad guys in the desert. 21:08 Then you’re told you’re going to be the school resource officer here, and go clean up. The job was never the same. 21:24 You never know where you’re going to be, who you’ll meet, or where people will end up down the line. 21:35 Some of the heroes and mentors who guided me, I can’t even find anymore. 21:41 I was able to contact BM1 before the NBA to let them know I was in the NBA. 21:53 They replied, “I’m proud of you.” I wanted to be a BM1 — the boatswain’s mate first class who saw me coming in on that first day and cared enough to guide me. 22:02 Who told them to do that? Nobody. But thank you — because I’m here because of it. 22:07 I am who I am because I didn’t even think I could take a college class and pass, or be equipped enough to ace them all and gain the confidence to know that I can do this. 22:19 Not only can I do this — I can wrestle at the highest level and be the best. 22:28 And not only that, but when I’m done, I’m going to get a job and still compete at the highest level, be a husband and father, and show the world they can do it. 22:33 Then I’m going to get another degree and start a business, and we’re going to do it together. 22:38 There are no excuses for what you can or can’t do. Get up. Lace it up. 22:49 My dad always said this drawstring is connected to your testicular and intestinal fortitude. And when you’re having a hard time and you’re hurt, double-knot it and keep going. 23:09 It was the 2020 global pandemic, so everything shut down. We couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t train, no school. 23:16 We created Fight Rope because children were logging off Zoom calls and committing suicide. 23:25 We thought we had to do something. What tool had we used since childhood? A jump rope. 23:33 The philosophy became that your life is in your hands, just like the rope, just like the jump rope handles. 23:40 You can keep going one pace, one skip at a time. You don’t have to rush — just keep moving. 23:48 Much like the jump rope, your life is in your hands. 23:56 We went onto Instagram Stories and got schools, neighborhoods, and gyms to log on and do these workouts with us. 24:02 It led to people buying the ropes all over the world, and that mission still continues today. 24:14 Coffee, for me — if I can go back — my grandparents always had hot coffee in the morning with little pastry cookies. 24:25 With my father, it meant understanding that men used it as a source of energy for work. 24:31 So from age five on, that smell meant work, and meant sharing with neighbors. 24:39 Coffee is a love language. 24:45 Whatever you want to do, it’s going to help you do it. It can get you through anything. 24:52 It’s a connecting thing — a human connector. 24:59 What can we create in this space between you and me? 25:04 When you come up to me or I come up to you with coffee, what can we create? Anything. 25:13 Before you woke up this morning and your feet hit the ground, what did your heart want? 25:20 Tell me what you want so I can make it for you. 25:27 I see Dos Bros growing into more than a coffee truck, trailer, small café, or mobile unit. 25:32 I see us moving into franchising. I’m already being asked by several veteran friends who want the opportunity to do this. 25:40 It’s a great opportunity to build something that we can franchise globally. I want to be everywhere. 25:46 I want you wearing the merch. I want you feeling the vibe. It’s the culture. 25:51 It’s the culture of brotherhood — people caring for no reason other than that we should care about each other. 26:00 I returned to Phoenix, Arizona. The fight life was over, so I thought, yeah, let’s get back into law. 26:06 So I joined a law firm here with a lot of wrestlers and started competing and working for them. 26:11 There was a program through the VA, the VR&E Vocational Rehabilitation and Education Program, that let me continue my education after exhausting the GI Bill. 26:25 That allowed me to choose the perfect schedule with the ������ý — one that fit my work, family, and athletic competition schedule because I still compete around the globe. 26:36 I could take school with me everywhere. 26:50 It’s eye-opening when you have an entrepreneur or venture capitalist as an instructor, and you realize this isn’t a traditional school where someone just teaches the subject. 26:56 They’re actually professionals in the business world. 27:04 They own multiple service stations, have a family, run an online business, and still teach — and you think, wow, what am I doing? 27:10 What am I doing with my 18 hours a day? 27:15 It’s an eye-opener. 27:22 My instructor’s doing it right now, so she’s telling me to stick with it and not quit. 27:29 It’s not just about the program — it’s about what I’m building outside of the NBA, personally. 27:38 I didn’t pay for that. I paid for guidance through an MBA, but you’re actually guiding me through life as an entrepreneur. 27:47 Anybody who doesn’t say it starts to wonder: am I going to finish this? Can I finish this? 27:57 You’re a working adult in the real world, and then you open that email at work at 6 p.m., tired, wanting to get home to your wife and kids — and ������ý tells you that you have a 3.98 GPA and you’re part of the National Honor Society. 28:10 That makes you say, let’s get to work. 28:16 Phoenix doesn’t just provide instructors or teachers or a graduation path. They provide mentorship. 28:22 They provide heroes who guide you in your business and toward the life you want. 28:28 That’s why I’m going to finish the DBA here. I want other veterans, student athletes, fighters, and farm kids like me to know that the ������ý is a home for you. 28:39 It’s a home for me. I’ve done it, and you can do it too. 28:45 You can build whatever you want here. Look at this — you built this. It didn’t exist. 28:51 You created it and then ran with it. That’s what U of P does for you. 28:56 That’s what U of P has done for me. 29:03 A year from now, man, it’s going to be a whole different story of what we’ve done here, what we’ve created here — this, and this relationship, and this interaction, and the fact that people get to see it. 29:10 This poor farm kid abandoned by his father, left for nothing and given everything. 29:17 Thank you, ������ý. You’ve given me everything. 29:17 I believe that will be the last thing I ever do in education — earn a doctorate from the ������ý — and I’m going to wear that proudly.