Pamela:
Today, we have a very special guest in a very good friend of mine, Jonas Cain, and I can’t wait to introduce you to the amazing Jonas. Jonas, thank you so much for being here today. Welcome.

Jonas Cain:
Thank you so much for having me.

Pamela:
Absolutely. I love seeing you back and seeing the hashtag positivity on the shirt. Super exciting. I know we have a lot to catch up on and a lot to discuss today. I know you’ve got so much going on so many exciting things. But I know you very well, however the audience does not. So please give us an introduction, and sort of everything that you’re doing now. And then we’ll get into the journey.

Jonas Cain:
Alright, so my name is Jonas Cain. I am a facilitator of fascination, purveyor of positivity and owner of hashtag positivity, which my mission is to support emerging leaders and their influencers to develop clarity, confidence and courage in their everyday lives.

Pamela:
I love that. I love that. So tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you get to this point? I know we’ve had several conversations and several sit downs. And you’re actually the one that helped inspire this whole show. So that’s a big deal. Could you share that story, the one that we had talked about when we sat down sort of how did you get to this point? How did you get to magic and there’s this whole beautiful story that you have that I’d love for you to share.

Jonas Cain:
Absolutely.

Pamela:
I think it’s so powerful.

Jonas Cain:
There’s so many details to this. Absolutely. Because where I am today, I never would have thought I would be here, which is one of the reasons why I really believe it’s encouraging to see how everything changes, right? You know, I remember something that my mom said years ago, I remember I was telling her about a teacher who was just always complaining about things. And she said, you should just tell him, this too shall pass. I was like, Well, I don’t think I can tell him that when he’s mad. But you know, that really stuck with me. Because even things that are frustrating, this too shall pass. And it’s true. I remember getting into the lowest of being in despair, and that has passed. But also I’ve had wonderful, amazing experiences, and you know what? Those too have passed. So it can be discouraging, or it can be encouraging, depending on how we look at it.

So I’d be happy to share with you sort of how I got here. Yeah, as the facilitator of fascination and purveyor of positivity, because it wasn’t always that way. Right? So nowadays, I very much focused on a lot of education, a lot on, you know, behavior change for ourselves to influence others around us, but I started off just as, as a magician, is entertaining people doing magic shows, you know, a happy heart is good medicine.

Pamela:
Right.

Jonas Cain:
You know, so which is great. But where I started, I was doing magic shows. I was just a little boy fascinated by magic. Here it is, you know, people doing things that no one is supposed to be able to do. Right. And I was a very shy child. So I was even afraid of my own family. So seeing people doing what you’re not supposed to be able to, that was very alluring to see. I was like, Oh, I want to learn how to do this stuff. So I started to learn magic tricks. And that allowed me to not be so shy anymore because I had something that gave me the confidence that I needed in order to step up and share things with the world. So that was my passion. For the first half of my life was sharing something special with people. And really, I’m still sharing something special with people, but it’s really evolved. And the reason that I’ve gone from doing magic to doing empowerment is I went through a crazy time in my life, which I know I’ve shared this story with you. I’m happy to share it again.
You know, I’m going to share with you a snippet of the dark time because that will give you a hint as to just how bad things got. So we, everyone has something to complain about. Everyone has something that they’re frustrated by. I remember I woke up, I think I was 25, 26 at the time and I woke up. I was still half-drunk from the night before, which was a huge change because I didn’t ever drink. I’d never had a drink until I was 24.. So to all of a sudden wake up in the morning, still drunk from the night before, it’s like, Whoa, you know, this too shall pass. So, and I look at my desk, I roll out of bed, I looked at my desk, there was a perfectly typed suicide note. I typed it up on a computer, printed it out, signed it. I had no recollection of doing this, but clearly I did.. And I remember just sort of strolling into the bathroom that morning. And I did, I looked in the mirror, and I was like, you know, a full beard. I was always clean shaven, you know, this, too shall pass. And I was like, I looked in the eyes. And it’s the eyes. As I looked at the eyes, I was like, I don’t even know who that is. Right? My life had gotten to that point where it was out of control, out of control.

And what I realized then was that I didn’t want to live anymore. Clearly, I just, I had a suicide note, but I didn’t want to live the life that I was living right now anymore. But I also knew it was impossible to go back to who I once was. Because when you go through something, when you go through an experience like that, right, and I’ll share with you what that experience was that that got me to that point. But when you go through something like that, it changes you. Right. And you, that was one of the frustrations that I felt like I was, I felt like I had died. Like, you know, the person I once was had died. And part of why it was so challenging is you know, if someone dies, you can’t just resurrect them, you can’t go back to being who that person was. But that’s what it says, if that’s what people were telling me to do, like, Oh, you can move on, you can just get back to your old self, because I know I can’t. That’s impossible, right? So one of the things that really helped me was embracing that change, embracing that reality that Oh, everything has changed. And now Okay, well, who is Jonas? Right? What is this? Who is this new Jonas? And what do I want to bring to myself and to the people around me, and that’s when I really started to heal. I mean, it was still a long process after that. That was a huge turning point for me was realizing Jonas is dead. Right? Who is this new Jonas 2.0?

Pamela:
Wow, that’s, thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much for sharing now. I mean, and I mean, however much you want to share, you’re more than welcome to in terms of the experience, but I think it’s so powerful, what you’re saying, because I feel like so many people, when they get to that point, they don’t really know where to turn, right. And they feel so alone within those moments. And one of the reasons, you know, I remember it was that conversation that we had, that really brought me to like, wow, maybe someone was going through that right now may not understand there’s other people that are going through the same thing, or have gone through the same thing in the past, but got a chance to resurrect the way you did, yeah, in such a positive, beautiful way. And it takes immense strength to get there and to and to even talk about it, because you could go get past something. But then to really talk about it takes a whole nother level of strength. And I admire that so much about you.

And I remember hearing that story, the first time I was like, how could someone so beautiful and so strong and so positive, go through something like this and still shine the way he does, you know, and like, I just found that so inspiring about you. And your stories, I was blown away, I still am hearing it again, I’m still blown away. And I think it’s so important because you know, showing that vulnerability of yourself, helps other people sort of feel a little bit better about what they’re going through to know how they can make it through too and to know someone else. Hey, listen, he made it.

Jonas Cain:
I really believe that’s true. A lot of what I do now, I do a lot of programs in schools, I’ll go work with college students, I work with high school students, middle school students that, you know, but I also work a lot with their influencers. So with teachers, social workers, counselors, parents, and so forth. I really focus a lot on what I call the emergent leaders. I call them the 16 to 20 year olds, that’s really my core group, as they’re not exactly kids anymore, right? They’re not exactly adults, yet. They’re at this very interesting time where they’re trying to figure things out; school does a fantastic job of teaching academics, things that of course, they need, they need this stuff, but they largely leave the social and emotional things to chance, the psychological capital, the emotional intelligence, they really leave that to chance. And that’s where I really felt like I was failed in really, like, I think everyone has failed in that in school, right? If we’re relying on other people on the schools, and stuff. So that’s where that’s really where I focus on because I am convinced that if I had, if I knew all of the principles and practices, tools and strategies that I had to learn in the trenches, literally in the trenches, everything that I teach now and In my presentations still doing magic. But it’s, it’s as an engagement and teaching tool.

So I’m doing magic to point to truths and to teachings, it’s really drive, drive these things home, then, you know, all of these things that I teach are things that I learned I had to learn them in order to survive. So I end up doing lots of research, a lot of reading a lot, a lot, a lot of studying a lot of trial and error. So all the things that I talked about are things that I’ve personally used. However, they’re also things that are backed up by research. So it’s so, it’s not just things that have worked for me personally, but it’s things that’s worked with thousands of people as well,

Pamela:
Right? Yeah. That is amazing.
So can you share a little bit about your work sort of now and how your journey sort of led you there? Because I know you’ve written books, you have the hashtag positivity brand, you have the magic, which I want to see some magic.

Jonas Cain:
I will show you some magic.

Pamela:
Definitely, definitely want to see some magic.

Jonas Cain:
I want to talk about this. But,

Pamela:
Let’s talk about it.

Jonas Cain:
This goes in line with what you were just saying about sharing the stories. You know, this is the first book I ever wrote, It Just Happened the Other Day, a True Story. And I’ll tell you, this really tells my whole story about where I came from, and why I am who I am today. I’ll tell you what had happened. So this book is a book that I was supposed to write with my best friend Stephanie. And we, it was going to be all about our crazy adventures together. And we already had a title for it. It Just Happened the Other Day, a True Story. That’s what we’re going to call our book. Because anytime she told a story, she would say, oh, what just happened the other day, even if it happened, months or years. It just happened the other day. And whenever I tell a joke, I like to say, Oh, it’s a true story. Have you seen this? It’s a true story. Why did the chicken cross the road? So that was going to be the title of our book. But she died very suddenly, before we had had a chance to write it. And it just completely destroyed me.

We had just gotten engaged to be married. And just like literally a week to the day later, she was gone. It was just very sudden, it wasn’t like she was sick, or where it was an accident, it turns out it was a blood clot. But you know, there’s no way you could test for that.

Pamela:
Right.

Jonas Cain:
So it really destroyed me. And really, it shook everything, everything that was important to me, all of a sudden wasn’t important. Because now my whole vision of what reality was completely changed, which I now see as a blessing.

Pamela:
Right.

Jonas Cain:
Everything changes, right? This too shall pass. But it really took me a long time to really process and one of the ways that I processed it, it’s backed up by research, you share your story, if you write about it, even if you don’t like to tell it as long as you’re writing. Yeah, for me writing this book, it was able to get it out of me, right. So that didn’t have to be in me, it didn’t have to be eating away at me because I literally, I had the whole story written I, then I closed the book. And I remember, as I was writing it, I was reliving the experiences too. So I would be writing the story, typing away at the computer, and happy times and laughing times, you know, bright sunny days. And then I get to a certain point and be like, Oh, I know what’s coming. And it would hit me. It would hit me but I have to get it out. So here it is. It Just Happened the Other Day, a True Story about the whole process of you know, through the pain in the struggle, but at the end, it’s a hopeful book. Yeah, it’s a sad story. But it’s actually a happy story. I think it’s a happy story.

And what you’re saying too, about sharing the story, it does help others know that they’re not alone. Yeah, because so often when we’re sad when we’re depressed, when we’re at that breaking point, we can often think that we are alone, we can think that we don’t want to tell others because they’re not going to understand or we don’t want to be a burden on them. But really wonder at that point, there are people who have gone through their own version of the exact same thing, you know, you know, my version of losing someone will be very different from someone else losing someone, but the pain, it’s the same, right? And there’s also people that will always care about us. We all have people that care about us. So reaching out whatever that that looks like, it’s so important.