Episode #35
Narco Mindset Podcast
Why I love Jesus but can not stand His so-called “followers.” – Part 2
September 21, 2020
Host: Jorge Valdes Ph.D. – An Author, Speaker, Blogger, Mindset Coach, Podcaster, and YouTuber
Show Notes:
In this podcast, Dr. Valdes gets heated up with what he considers the hypocrisy among those they called themselves Christians, Catholics, and Protestants alike. Dr. Valdes understands clearly why people who have no faith want nothing to do with Christianity, it’s not Jesus anyone has a problem with Its Jesus’ “so-called followers.” Dr. Valdes received an email from a very dear friend of his, who also happens to be one of the most famous swim/triathlon coaches in the world, who has been an atheist all his life and through the many years they have known each other, this person has started to have faith. This disturbs Dr. Valdes so much that this episode is part 1 of a 2 Episode series. You see Dr. Valdes understands these people so clearly because he too was an atheist, and then had an encounter with Jesus and decided to become a Christian, but when he entered in organized religion the deception is so great that Dr. Valdes also DOES NOT want anything to do with organized religion. Jesus, he will follow unto death, but the harm so-called Christians do to those who are hopeless looking for meaning is enormous and somehow someone has to have the guts to fight this. Stay tuned, very shocking episodes.
Narco Mindset is an enlightening, informative, effortlessly entertaining podcast. It contains compelling RAW storytelling and intellectually honest talk about life. We will be delving into life challenges, life miracles, life recovery, and life opportunities. It illuminates a new generation on the power and the impact of a positive mindset.
TRANSCRIPTION
INTRO: Before we watched TV shows and movies on Narcos, and even before Pablo Escobar’s rise to fame, there was one man who was the ultimate Narco. He lived the Narco life of greed, money and power but found a way to reclaim his life, and use his astonishing experiences to empower others to live a life of hope, meaning and redemption. Welcome to the Narco Mindset podcast where Dr. Jorge Valdes shares his journey through life before and after the Medellín Drug Cartel. From torture and multiple prison sentences to how he refocused his life onto a path of principles learned as a Narco. It’s time to share that raw truth with you, right here on the Narco Mindset podcast with your host, Dr. Jorge Valdes.
Jorge: Today on the Narco Mindset podcast: Why don’t we just care a little more about humanity? I just hope that you know that I am real. Yes, we will pay the consequences of the choices we have made but we are not defined by those choices. So, let me ask you, saint, tell me what you’re going to do to help the so many people that are hurting in America today. All I care about is that you just try to learn from the many mistakes I have made.
Welcome to the Narco Mindset podcast. My name is Dr. Jorge Valdes, and I will be your host for today. I remember an old hymn that said “They will know we are Christians by our love”. How much love do we truly have? How much? But then, we go ahead and we post ugliness. We share ugliness. I mean, it’s just horrible. I never thought that I would see the world. Listen, our country was pretty divided during Vietnam. I was a young kid. I saw those students get murdered at Kent State. It was horrific. But you could talk to people and disagree, and it would be okay. The world doesn’t come to an end but today you just can’t. If you believe something and someone else doesn’t, it’s hatred. Why have we allowed someone or something to divide us in that manner? Why don’t we just care a little more about humanity? Why don’t we pray a little more?
To all my friends out there who write to me, who have come to our website and signed on to our community, over 300 in the few months that we have been doing this, or all the people that have followed me on Instagram, never solicited anybody. All the people following me on LinkedIn, I just hope that you know that I am real. All I can promise you is this; I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear, but I will tell you what’s in my heart. I lived a hard life. I know what it is to be involved in the ugliest of all worlds. I know what it is at the age of 21 to run the biggest drug cartel in America at that time. I know what it is to be tortured in prison. I know what it is to spend 10 years in prison. I know what it is to go multimillionaire not to have a dollar to buy a candy bar. I know the desperation that it feels when you’re in jail, and they tell you your father’s got a year to live or your ex-wife disappears with your children for a couple of years, and you have no idea where they are.
There’s nothing you can do because you’re in a 4×8 cell like an animal. I know what it is to pay consequences for the choices we make. But I also know what it is to find hope, and I know what it is to find redemption, and I know what it is to re-invent yourself. We’re not defined by our past. Yes, we will pay the consequences for the choices we have made but we are not defined by those choices. We can change and we can become better, and we can have a little bit of more faith. If we don’t believe in any religion, that’s okay. I didn’t believe in any. The truth of the matter is that when I fell in love with this Jewish carpenter named Jesus, whose love transformed the most hardened of all hearts. I didn’t believe in him either. I had no choice left. I’d run out of choices. I wanted to find meaning to my life so bad. I gave it a shot and it transformed my whole life.
Falling in love with Jesus is not falling in love with Catholics or Protestants, this church, that church, that mega-church. Criticizing that tele-evangelist who needs a big, old jet, bigger than what he has, and people just barely going hungry in America. Now, that’s between all of them and God. All I tell people is, “Look, man, I want you to know, there is a Jewish carpenter that loves you right where you are at right now. Just how you are. I don’t give a shit if you’re an addict right now, if you’re a prostitute, if you’re a whore, or if you think you’re a saint. Wherever you are and however your heart, he loves you. In the deepest moments of pain, he loves you. I’m not here preaching. I’m not telling you to convert. I’m not trying to do anything. All I want to do is tell you my story, and to tell you how there is love, and there is hope, and there is redemption. I’m not here to tell you, “Listen, become a Christian and everything is going to be pretty.” Bullshit.
When I became a Christian, things became really, really dark for me for a long time. There was an immense light at the end of the tunnel but the amazing thing was that even though my darkness, even though the pain and horror I went through, I felt that love of that the Jewish carpenter walking with me, and there are great priests, and there are great Catholics, men, and women. There are great Protestants, men, and women, and there are great preachers. I’m not talking about everyone. I’m talking about those who just preach hate and divisiveness. As Andy Stanley said, “No one, no preacher, pastor or priest, should ever, ever align themselves publicly with anything but Jesus. To do otherwise, sacrifice our integrity.” Think about that when you’re sitting in your pews. Any priest listening to me or any preacher, I’m here to tell you, just think about that.
You know what’s really amazing is I just shared this little story. I came back to the Catholic church because I met a group of priests that were so amazing. I met specifically one priest, and there’s so many like him in the legion of Christ. There was the most amazing priest I have ever met. They loved me, didn’t judge me, didn’t ask anything for me. All they asked is how they could serve me. The sad part about it or the interesting part about is that their founder was the most heinous of all individuals. When it was all discovered, these poor men who have given up their lives to serve their community were chastised, and I had just come to know them, and I’d just come back to the Catholic faith because of them, and it was horrific what other Catholics were saying about them.
I said, “Oh my God, is that what people are going to say to my children when they find out that their father was a drug lord, a whoremonger, an adulterer?” Everything that you can imagine. Just throw in every adjective in there. I fit them all. Or, I looked at it a little differently. I told some of these men and women of God, “Rejoice that you’ve just found out who your founder was.” It was very painful to many of them because it was like finding out your father is the scum of the earth. But I said to them, “Rejoice in finding this out because your calling did not come by some charismatic person that convinced you or enchanted you, it came from God that called you each individually to serve the least of his.” That’s who Christ calls us to serve, the least of his. That poor woman seeking an abortion. That poor African-American kid born in a crack house. That man and woman, children in prison abandoned by society. That man sentenced to death when no human being should have the right to sentence another human being to death.
God says only I give you life, I only take life away. Don’t read for the Old Testament. Listen, I have a Ph.D. in the New Testament so talk to me about Jesus, don’t talk to me about the Old Testament. The old scriptures, that God said I should never eat pork and I’m a Cuban. I wouldn’t have fit in really well back then because can’t live without pork. I told those men, “Rejoice,” and then I told all those accusers. I said, “Let me ask you something. You who are so quick to point out the sins of that man, look at what he has done. Look what God has done to a horrific sinner. Look at the amazing schools, the many, many millions of people that have been ministered to. The many churches that they serve. The many missionaries in the field helping the poor, walking with the indigenous. The many hospitals, schools. The many doctors that they have formed. Think about what that man did, that horrific sinner, what God did through him. Let me ask you, saint, what the hell have you done for anybody? Don’t tell me you’ve given money.” A lot of them give money because they’ve got a lot of money to give. You haven’t given more than I give.
Let me tell you that part, I used to give $30,000-40,000 every Friday to just anybody that needed any help. You know why I did it? I did it out of my excess. By the way, that $30,000-40,000 today might be $100,000-150,000 a week. I didn’t keep a ledger. I didn’t take a tax deduction. I gave because I wanted to help but I gave out of my excess. What I give today, many, many times, buying those thousands of books that we buy to send to prisoners, it isn’t out of my excess. Sometimes it’s out of my need what I give because someone enchants me or someone hypnotizes me to give. It’s what I feel in my heart that I need to do. I’m just telling my brother that send me that email today, and I thank that many, many listeners that write to me all the time about the pain that they suffer, and what they’ve gone through. Now you know where I stand. Now you know who I am. I promised you when I started this podcast I wasn’t going to preach, and I am not preaching. I hope you know that. Just sharing my story, part of my story.
Today, I’m sharing opening up my heart and telling you how I feel about what’s going on in the world today. At the end of the day, there’s only one person that holds my life in his hands, and that to me is Jesus. If I am wrong and full of shit, guess what, when I die, I’m going to be just like you but if somehow I’m right and somehow there is that Jesus, then I just pray that he overlooks the roughness in me. He overlooks some of my languages sometimes, which I try to make it better. He overlooks the hot temper. I’m going to have to ask him why he made me that way. I know he looks at a lot of my faults, and just looks deep down in my heart, and realizes the love that I have for so many freaking people. That I have for that unborn baby. That I have for that woman that needs to have an abortion or chooses that she needs to have an abortion. She finds no other help. The love that I have for those men and women incarcerated massively, and we don’t give a damn about them because they’ve become inventory.
The love that I have for that man dying on death row. I took my children, my baby girl when she was five years old, and my son seven. I took him to death row to meet and talk to men condemned to death so that they could see that they were men just like you and me. Yes, some of them made horrific acts, and they deserve to die in a prison but no man desires to have another man take their life. I hurt for the many Black on Black shootings that we have in America every year and the many Latino on Latino.
I can say, not because I read it in the paper, because I did gang revival. I’ve been there. I’ve been in the trenches, and I just couldn’t believe the hatred that people of their own race have against each other. Sad. The love that I feel for that woman abandoned by her husband or that woman that has her husband in prison trying to raise her children in a world that’s very, very dark, and ugly. I hurt for the migrant family. I hurt and I hope to read in the very near future about all my pro-life brothers to be alarmed and at arms over those poor migrants, women in those camps in Georgia that have had hysterectomies done on them against their will. Yeah, you heard me right. That is not abortion, that is genocide, but till today, apparently, this has been going on because a nurse became the whistleblower. But after today, I have not seen any, any religious leader, on both sides, at arms. I love those people that are hurting.
At the end of the day, I guess I just love the least of it. I can’t help everybody but I do all I can to help as many as I can and I’ve never worked so hard with my YouTube and with my Instagram account, everyday posting to give somebody a little bit of hope for that day, someone depressed. Listen, mental health is an issue in America. Why the hell are we not talking about that? Why is this not the forefront of our freaking debate, political debate? Why all we hear about a president talk about how ugly the other president is? Don’t give me… I don’t give a damn what you think about that other person. I’m going to judge you my way no matter what the hell you say because at least I have a brain and a mind to understand. Tell me what you’re going to do to help the so many people that are hurting in America today. Tell me what you’re going to do to fight this opioid crisis that exists. Tell me what you’re going to do about Big Pharma. Drugs don’t kill people. Big Pharma, I’m not accusing them of killing people. What I’m saying is that they make drugs that kill people.
So, therefore, why are they not doing more to fight, to help, to create centers? We know that rehabilitation is real. We know that people can be helped. We know that mental health is real. It’s just as real as climate change is. It’s just as real as this virus is. Why are we not talking about those policies? But all we’re talking about is scaring people that if such and such gets elected, the world comes to an end. No, trust me, it won’t come to an end. It will not come to an end. I just tell all those politicians, all those Republican politicians, all of them that sat on that debate stage against Donald Trump saying all the horrific things that they said about him yet right now they’re kissing his ass. I’m not judging President Trump. I’m not saying whether I like him or don’t like him. What I’m saying is this, you’ve got to be honest and real. Nobody trusts Washington because you promise, you promise, you promise, and at the end of the day, what do we have?
Think about our country. We’re going backward. Our education system is failing because we’re fighting for private institutions and private education. I had private education, and I believe in it if I can afford it but I also believe that that child that cannot afford a private education should get the same quality of education. I don’t believe that a child should come out of college owning an enormous debt that they’ll never get over. I just don’t believe that. Our system is broken. Why are you all not telling me how you’re going to fix that, and showing me? Are we that stupid? Do you think that we’re all that stupid? Maybe we are.
Maybe we are that naïve or maybe we just don’t give a shit. Maybe we’re just happy that you’re telling me that one guy is a liar and the other guy is a pedophile. Maybe that’s what we want to hear. I’m going to tell you something, not me. I don’t want to hear that shit. I’m going to vote, at the end of the day, I’m going to exercise my vote on which my conscience tells me whom I consider being the most decent and honorable person, and whom I think that is going to do the best that they can, not for me.
Listen, I live a good life. I drive a Rolls Royce. I’m already well-made. I’m made. I worked my ass off to be where I’m at. I don’t take a dollar off my book royalties, or my speaking engagements, or my theatrical releases coming up. I don’t take a dollar. I use that to buy books because I want to send a million books to prison. This is me, people. I don’t know how much time I spend. I didn’t even look at the clock when I started recording this but I’m going to release us ahead of time because I just feel that it’s time. It’s time that the world wakes up. Anyway, for my Jewish brothers and sisters, coming up, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur on Monday, I wish you God’s blessings. To my brothers and sisters who have no faith, I just wish you the best of this earth. I just wish you that somehow, someway, you find hope, you find meaning for your life, and you find redemption. For those brothers and sisters that I love and are Catholics and are Protestants, just pray to God.
Could we just become a little more loving so that instead of showing the world that you stand for a Jesus that must teach hateful things because that’s how you are, and that’s what you say, that you somehow tell the world that you love others? You love the least of his. You’re simply obeying the one and only commandment that God gave you; love thy God with all thy heart. Love thy brother as thyself. Love thy brother as I have loved. That’s amazing. I never thought someone could love me when I was who I was.
I had a lot of women. I know what they were there for, and I had no problem. I’m a businessman. I wanted something they had, they wanted something I had. I was good with that. But today, I hurt for them. God’s blessed me with three amazing, young, beautiful daughters, and the most amazing women God ever created. On top of that, now I have been blessed with three beautiful granddaughters and two grandsons. But three beautiful granddaughters whom I will fight for to make this just a little better world for them, who I will do all I can to teach them that truth matters, honor matters so that then the day they choose their spouse, they won’t choose a scum bag because they don’t know any better. They won’t choose someone who’s going to hit them because they don’t know any better, no. They’re going to choose a man that shows all the qualities of what their parents, grandfather taught them.
Three most important things. My godfather said, “What are the three most important characteristics a man should have?” Honor, integrity. That’s all I ask from my kids. I don’t ask that they be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim. That’s their choice. I don’t ask them that they be Cuban or American or Chinese. That’s their choice. I don’t ask them that they be black, white, that’s their choice. I do ask him that I pray that that man that’s going to come to my house is a decent human being, is a man of honor, and that the truth matters. With that, I’ll leave you on the narco mindset podcast. Again, you can write to me. If you like what I’m saying or if somehow I’m helping you, I’ll be more than happy to listen to you. If you’ve got some concern, and you don’t like it, I’ll be more than happy to listen to you too.
You can write to me at www.jorgesvaldesphd.com. If you join our community, you’ll get a copy of my free book. I’m about to start a new program, a membership program where I can really interact with you literally, one on one, and we can talk about all kinds of things. Then I’ll be releasing special material. The new cartel that I’m about to start. We think cartel because of the Medellín drug cartel [inaudible 00:18:40], but a cartel is actually a group of people that were like-minded, protesting to achieve well. I’m going to start the new cartel, and I’m not looking for a million followers. I’m looking for, to start, 10, 20, and a hundred faith followers. You’re not following me, people, you’re just following what I’m trying to say to you. All I care is that you just try to learn from the many mistakes I have made. I love you. Be blessed.
OUTRO: We’ve come to the conclusion of this episode of the Narco Mindset podcast but your path towards hope, meaning and redemption continues. For more information and resources to help you on your path towards finding a life built on integrity, honor and truth, head to jorgevaldesphd.com, and join our community. We appreciate you joining us for this episode, and look forward to helping you find your turning point right here on the Narco Mindset podcast.
