[00:00] Valerie Beck: Rise, Renew, Reconnect. Welcome to from the Ashes, a podcast where every story ignites hope and healing.
[00:09] My guest today is Rich Santana, a faith driven leader and the founder of Debt Behind Me, Wealth Before Me, a ministry dedicated to helping others find redemption, financial freedom and purpose.
[00:21] Growing up in Brawley, California, in a broken home, Rich struggled to find his footing, immersing himself in sports and later getting caught up in the party lifestyle.
[00:30] After years of personal challenges and misdirection, he experienced a powerful mindset and faith shift, surrendering to higher power and rediscovering the strength to rebuild his life. Rich now also serves as a marriage counselor, working alongside his wife to guide couples through healing and growth.
[00:47] I met Rich through Speakers Institute where he was one of my speaking coaches and event coordinators during my training. I can say with confidence that Rich is a compassionate and caring community leader and I'm so happy to have him share his story with you today.
[01:12] All right, everyone, welcome back from the Ashes. I have my guest here today, Rich Santana.
[01:18] And I met Rich last year in November. He was one of my speaking coaches at Speakers Institute and since then I've gotten the chance to know him a lot better and to hear his story about how he got to where he is.
[01:33] And it's been quite a ride for him. I know Rich as this charismatic community leader who's always there for people.
[01:43] And what surprised me is that when I talked to him about his story, he revealed that that was not always the case. And so we're going to be going a little bit into his transformation story today.
[01:56] Welcome Rich, to the show.
[01:58] Rich Santana: Thanks for. Thanks for having me. Valerie.
[02:00] Valerie Beck: Yeah, I'm really glad you are here. Let's give our audience a little bit of background about where you come from, like how you grew up and then we'll go into how you got to where you are today.
[02:11] Rich Santana: Awesome. Thanks, Valerie. Last name being Santana, growing up Mexican per se, but Santana is a Spaniard name. Am I related to Carlos Santana? We both come from the same area, but he wouldn't know me, that's for sure, if I ever came across.
[02:25] But I grew up in a small town down the Imperial Valley called Brawley, California, in between San Diego and Arizona.
[02:33] And in the small town life, there's not much to do out there. It's hot, it's about 127 degrees in the summer, so. But I did have a lot of family, which is great.
[02:41] My dad is one of 14 siblings, so my grandparents had 14 kids.
[02:47] And growing up in that atmosphere was great because I had so many cousins to play with, have fun, do sports with and everything like that. So I did grow up in a great family dynamic, but unfortunately by the time I was three, my parents separated.
[03:01] And due to the fact that in the Imperial Valley, it's a drug epidemic down there, so there's a lot of drugs going on, a lot of partying. My dad got caught up in that lifestyle.
[03:10] My mom decided to divorce. So I was growing up starting at 3 years old in a unique situation where both my parents live with their parents. So I live with both my grandparents.
[03:20] My mom also had three brothers. So I grew up with three uncles, my grandparents and my mom under one household. And that was kind of normal for me, you know.
[03:29] Not sure about you, Valerie, how you grew up, Was your lifestyle the same.
[03:33] Valerie Beck: Or kind of very different? I grew up in, you know, the typical. What you would think of as the typical.
[03:39] Rich Santana: Right.
[03:39] Valerie Beck: We know that there's really no normal, but the typical, like mom, dad, siblings, and then like grandparents kind of on the periphery.
[03:46] Rich Santana: So, yeah, most definitely. And I think one of the perks of that was I grew up never having my own anything really. Like I didn't even have my own room, I didn't have my own bed.
[03:55] You kind of just shared everything. And it kind of had me grow up in a family oriented environment. Though my dad was kind of a little off due to, you know, setbacks.
[04:03] Alcohol, drugs, things happen. I never really looked like I had a handicap or anything like that in my upbringing. I felt like it was a blessing. I mean, I would look at the positive even at a young age, like thinking, well, at least now I get two birthday part.
[04:16] I guess, you know, that's kind of a perk.
[04:18] But unfortunately, some of the negative parts are, the cons of it are, is when you have two parents who don't get along and they're constantly just saying negative things about one another.
[04:27] So you grow up as a kid like, well, I mean, I love my dad. Well, I love my mom. I don't really want to believe what they're saying. So you kind of like, as a kid, you start just like, well, maybe my parents a little off.
[04:36] I'm not going to take. Nobody wants to hear that their mom or dad is a horrible person. I mean, watching. How would you feel if somebody was saying not the best, not the best.
[04:45] Valerie Beck: Give me a little bit of picture of what that was like. Like, did. How did you internalize that? Did you start to tell yourself things about yourself that maybe weren't necessarily true and that affecting your life well, at.
[04:56] Rich Santana: First it kind of did. I think as a young kid you're kind of like, well, that's kind of messed up. I don't know about that. But after a while, there was one person actually in my life that never said anything negative about either parent and that was actually my dad's mom.
[05:07] And we always had like a weird, like a beautiful bond. And think about my grandma, she had 14 kids plus 40 grandchildren. And I became really close to her in that time season because obviously when I would go see my dad every other weekend, it wasn't like I was going to see him.
[05:23] My grandparents were the ones who kind of had the sober mind. So my grandma would be the one looking out for me and she would always implant those seeds like love and kind, didn't really care or judge me in that way and love me for where I was.
[05:33] And we always had a special bond. And even my, my cousins, even my aunts and uncles always joke around that I'm the favorite of my grandma's and I'm like her 15th child.
[05:41] And I've always had that upbringing, just looking out for my grandparents and loving them from that standpoint. So in that the blessing was, I believe that though my parents weren't together, I felt the love of parents from multiple different people.
[05:54] Being my grandparents, they would love me as if I was their own kid. For my aunts and uncles, they would love me as if I was their own kid. So growing up in that, it was nice to have a family oriented setting where they would celebrate my success as if I was their own kid, their own child.
[06:08] So I love that and I kind of carried on to today that I can now get along with most people and love them for where they are, you know, currently in their situation.
[06:17] Valerie Beck: Yeah. So I'm kind of seeing the background, the, the foundation of your, your compassion for people.
[06:25] Now we know that there is kind of like a fall or from world burning before we rise from the ashes. Right. And you talk about how, you know, you really value redemption and that and, and you.
[06:36] One of your messages to people is that there's always hope for when you make mistakes. So where does that come from? Why is redemption important to you?
[06:43] Rich Santana: Right. So part of me growing up with a dad who was kind of off and even him saying things later on in life, like he apologized later as I became a young adult, like maybe my teens, he apologized for the way he treated me because he realized it had nothing to do with me, but it was his hurt and pain from my mother and just me Reminding him of my mom would bring hurt and pain to him.
[07:04] And I totally forgave him and totally understood. Never had any ill will towards him. Sports becomes my identity and that I become really good at sports. I was like MVP of the league in basketball, football, track.
[07:15] I got a lot of love from a lot of people because of how good I was in sports. Got along with everybody, learned the team chemistry. I get to college, play college football.
[07:24] Lo and behold, you start getting caught up in a different cycle of friends who have different values. Mind you, I was raised Catholic and I believe there was a God.
[07:33] But I never was really practicing reading the Bible or like having that type of connection with God. But I did have a personal relationship with God I felt, but it wasn't guided correctly, where I was led astray very easily and to the point where I surrounded myself.
[07:48] Like, mind you, I get along with everybody, right? Well, I get along with all the people, like to party and do a lot of other stuff as well. So unfortunately, I found myself in a spiraling downhill situation where I was just looking forward to getting high, drinking, sleeping around, doing the things of the world that would tell you are great.
[08:06] But it was to a point where is this really worthwhile? Like, what am I doing? Like, the highs are not the same anymore. Sleeping around is not the same anymore.
[08:15] Making money is not the same anymore. It was almost like there's a constant void of like once I accomplished this thing, it was like a letdown accomplish the thing. It was a letdown.
[08:24] And it came to a point where actually one of the girls I was with, after a year of being with her, she told me she was HIV positive.
[08:31] Now at this point, my mindset was like, you know what? I'm just going to live fast, die young. I don't care. I don't want to get tested. Everything was hopeless, everything was pointless.
[08:41] I had no calling, there was no reason, rhyme reason for anything, right? So here I am living this life. I'm doing illegal activities in multiple different areas. I'm basically just asking God for help in ways of like just getting like, basically, you know, like a father would spank you when you're doing something wrong.
[08:58] It's almost like in a way I was asking God, God, can you just chasing me? Can you give me a spanking to get me right? I need a little help here.
[09:06] So God in a way kind of gave me that blessing in disguise where I got caught. Car full of drugs. They're like 10 years of life and I'm like, God, ask for help.
[09:15] But 10 years of life is kind of steep.
[09:18] It happened to be on a Friday 13th July, 2007.
[09:22] I was going to fight this case and here I am in a situation now where, you know, I would rely on myself a lot to get myself out of situations.
[09:29] But now I was in a situation where I couldn't lean on my own understanding anymore. I was definitely led myself astray. I led myself in a situation where I never thought I would be in my life.
[09:40] I mean, I joke around. Back in high school, in my high school yearbook, I was most likely never to end up in prison.
[09:47] Somehow, happenstance, anything can happen.
[09:51] So I'm not sure about you, Val, if you ever been in a situation like that where you're like, I don't know how the heck I'm going to get out of it.
[09:57] I'm sure you have.
[09:58] Valerie Beck: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I don't even know if I've told those stories yet. That might need to wait for another day.
[10:06] Rich Santana: That might be another signal. I might have to interview you on that one.
[10:09] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[10:11] Rich Santana: But yeah, once I was in this situation, basically at this point, my options were limited. Am I going to continue trusting my ways, the world's ways? And so here I am.
[10:20] I finally take a plea, a 37 month sentence. I turn myself into this prison facility up north in Lompolk Federal Prison. And I'm like, the first three days, eat and sleep, I'm stuck in a cell, right?
[10:31] Mind you, I went on their cellie, I'm stuck in a cell. They treat you like an animal. I'm ripp my dignity. Money, clothes, everything. I start fresh, jump shoot. They treat you.
[10:41] They feed you through a hole in the door. You're stuck in the shoe. A cell every 24 hours. First three days, eat and sleep, eat and sleep, no problem. Well, guess what?
[10:49] After three days of sleeping, you cannot sleep anymore. So now I'm stuck in my mind, like, how did I end up here? Why am I here? What am I going to do?
[10:56] I'm like. And finally I'm like, God, if you're real, just give me one day outside of prison and I'll give you my life.
[11:03] Mind you, I didn't know if I had HIV or not. I didn't want to do 36 and a half months of prison and die of HIV. So I did a little private confession to God.
[11:11] Like God, just asking for a faith ship per se. If you're real, help me out here. By the way, I never read the Bible before. I had nothing but time on my hands.
[11:20] I Picked up the Bible, started reading it for the first time in my life. I read the first 500 pages, like in two weeks. I had nothing else to do.
[11:27] God started speaking to me in mighty ways. And mind you, I never even thought I could even understand this thing called the Bible grace as a Catholic, let alone read it.
[11:36] And I was having fresh revelations. And the cool thing about the Bible, I realized it's. It's like living and active. Everything in there was innately things I already knew in my spirit.
[11:47] But it was written here for me to see exactly what I knew. But my moral compass along the way got kind of taken off course, you know, with the partying and lifestyle and everything else that the world was telling me was going to help me or telling me is what I wanted ended up being a lie.
[12:03] And it turns out when I was in this prison cell, when God started speaking to me, he gave me fresh revelations. I was in there for a month. After a month, I got out.
[12:10] I got to go to the yard. I went to the yard, I went to the chapel to get a Bible. There was these three guys about to pray. Kevin, John Jr.
[12:18] And they're like, hey, brother, you want to pray with us? I'm like, nah, man, I'm Catholic. Like, what, you believe in Jesus, right? I'm like, well, yeah, it's like we're praying to the same God.
[12:26] I was like, all right, fine. They did their little popcorn prayers at the end. They're like, praises go up, blessings come down. They gave each other hugs, like, yeah, brother, we pray every night at 8:00.
[12:36] We do Bible studies on Tuesdays, we watch Bible movies on the weekends. And I was like, okay, I just kind of want to know who this guy the Bible was I'm giving my life to.
[12:44] And these guys were like, able, loving, willing to pour into me. And it's kind of cool. Like when you're in a prison setting, you feel kind of, you know, it's different.
[12:52] Like I, you know, it's almost like I felt like I was in school all over again. But I was in school with all the class clowns, you know, in a way that they all messed up, they all made wrongs, but a lot of them in there really had.
[13:04] There was some good in there, even in prison setting. Obviously there's some bad, too. Not going to say they're all good, but there were some that made a mistake, like myself, and they wanted a way out.
[13:14] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[13:15] Rich Santana: But unfortunately, when you're in a prison setting, you're surrounded with a bunch of People with a lot of negativity, a lot of anger, a lot of unforgiveness, a lot of hostility, a lot of pain, Right?
[13:23] But here I am with these, these guys of a fresh light, and they're telling me things about this God they love. And some of these guys, they have some heartfelt stories that really impacted me.
[13:32] Like some of the guys, they had kids they hadn't seen since they were one old, and now their kids are like seven or eight years old, and it's kind of like, man, how can you live in that?
[13:40] But then I realized they had their faith in a God, that the only thing they could do was really put their faith and trust in God and lift up their prayers to their kids.
[13:49] And these prayers they were given were very heartfelt and sincere to the point where I was like, wow, is maybe there is something real about this God that I'm trusting in the Bible.
[13:59] And mind you, in prison there's a lot of politics as you can, but whatever reason, God protected me from all the politics. And I kind of just rode with the Christians and it kind of gave me a protective shield in a way where they wouldn't, they wouldn't mersey mess with you.
[14:15] They kind of leave you alone because deep down inside they all know that there is a God and they want to respect people who are trying to walk that walk.
[14:22] So they kind of leave you alone in a way to walk.
[14:25] Valerie Beck: Okay, so I don't want to derail this too much, but I do have questions because I wasn't raised Catholic or Christian and my ignorance in this is that why is it that Catholics don't pray or, you know, what is it about their God?
[14:41] Because they are also a root of Christian. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. Can, can you explain that a little bit just so we can clarify?
[14:49] Rich Santana: Most definitely. I mean, both Jesus Christ is Lord. They both claim Jesus is Lord.
[14:54] I believe Catholicism has been taken over a little bit derailed by man and money in a way to the point where it became very religious in a point where do this, do this now you have this now you're forgiven in a way.
[15:08] So it kind of, it's almost like there's truth in there, but it's sprinkled with a little bit of lies in a way to where I would say there's a spirit of religion, meaning like you have to do certain things to earn your way to heaven.
[15:22] So in a way, Catholicism, not all Catholics, I believe there are Catholics who are spirit filled, love the Lord and have a genuine relationship with God. I believe that is true.
[15:30] But there are, there is a way that they portray in a way where it's very, let's say, religious based, meaning you have to do this now. You get this, do this, you get this now, per se in the Christian faith, I believe it's the unique part about Christianity is it's saying there is nothing you can do to earn your way to heaven.
[15:50] You have no chance. There's. Okay, wait a second. There's two ways to make it to heaven. One is you live a perfect, sinless life. Boom, you go to heaven. Second way is you trust in Jesus, who lived that perfect, sinless life, who took on the sins of the world for you, all of your sins upon himself and died for you.
[16:08] So kind of in a way it's like if you were to go to court for a traffic fine, you go there, the judge is like, oh, you owe a thousand dollars for this fine or else you're going to serve time.
[16:19] Okay. Oh, well, actually this guy named Jesus actually already paid your fine, so you're free to go. Similar to us in a way, like as a faith in God, it's like there's a perfect holy God and the only way to be with him is holy and perfect.
[16:33] But unfortunately by our sin it separated us from that perfect, loving God. Now the redeeming factor is he had a son who was perfect who was going to do that perfect life for us to reconcile our relationship with Him.
[16:45] And it's by faith alone, not by deeds, can you make it to heaven. Faith in Jesus. So it's a freeing sense where it doesn't matter how good or bad I am, I could come to Christ as I am.
[16:56] There's not like a sense where I got to fix myself up before I could come to church or I got to be perfect before I come. Actually, it's the contrary.
[17:04] The Bible talks about Christ came not for those who are well, but for those who are sick.
[17:10] So basically, if you think you have it all together and you're perfect and you have no need for me, go ahead. But if you know you're broken, you're hurt, and you need me, then here I am for you.
[17:21] And that's kind of where God found me, in prison, where I was broken in a need desperately I had nothing to offer God.
[17:27] I think one of my life verses, it's job 5, 17 when I was reading in prison, it says, blessed is the man who God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.
[17:39] So in a way, God's chastening I went to prison was a blessing from God. That was my spanking I needed. Because a loving father, yes, he doesn't want to spank us, but he knows it's for our better good because we'll learn our lesson.
[17:53] Right. Instead of me going out into that freeway, he gave me a spanking. Now I know. Don't go out there. I'll get hurt. Thank you, Father. Same with me. I felt like I was on a path going to the wrong direction where I was going to be separated from God forever.
[18:06] But God spanked me to get me back on that path to where now I can enjoy a relationship with him daily.
[18:11] Valerie Beck: Okay, all right. Thank you for the explanation.
[18:14] Rich Santana: Yes, yes. And then the whole gospel in a nutshell is very simple. It's like you love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul, and you love your neighbor as yourself, meaning those around you can't see God.
[18:25] We can't feel him per se now, but the way we show our love for him is by how we love those around us.
[18:31] Very simple. Yeah, but people can convolute, put all these other things to it. But that is it in a nutshell. God is love, you know.
[18:38] Valerie Beck: All right, great. So then let's bring us back to praying in the prison yard and all of that. And what came after that? What? What happened after prayer?
[18:48] Rich Santana: I mean, there was that part. So the other part about the politics, other part of being good, you're walking with God's great. But I also, mind you, I was really good in sports, so I was really good at basketball and prison.
[18:59] So I got a lot of friends. I got a lot of good accolades from being prison basketball. And so I made a lot of friends even in the prison setting and I didn't have to get caught up in the politics.
[19:09] So before I went into prison, in the federal prison, there's not much ways to get time off of your sentence unless there is a court mandate by the judge to do a program which is called the RDAP program, which can take a year off your sentence.
[19:22] So I was able to go into this program towards the tail end the last about two years. After a year, I was able to go into the program where they separate you with 200 inmates, 200 other people, and we're separated to go into this very in depth program that's going to show you how to rationalize your thoughts and make them like good thoughts, healthy thoughts, not like our past thoughts that got us in the prison now.
[19:45] Healthy thoughts, they'd say. This program was worth $50,000 in this, like, if you were to do it out in the community. But it was the only program they have for us.
[19:52] And it was really in depth, in depth. And I would say it was even me walking with God. It was a trial. It was tough to walk through it because, mind you, you're trying to get better, but you have.
[20:03] Who are still flawed, who are still messing up, who still don't really want to get better fully all around you. And so they put you in a group setting of 24 individuals.
[20:13] You go through the first module. It takes about, I think, like a month or two. And then after the first round, they pick eight big brothers out of the 24 for the next round.
[20:23] I became a big brother. I got nominated. After the next round, they picked four of the eight to become a senior guide. Then they picked two out of the four to become a head senior guide over the whole prison facility in that whole setting.
[20:33] I became nominated every single time. Before you know it, I was on the mic every single day talking to all these inmates. I was a. Had to be a peacemaker.
[20:41] I was learning all the tools they taught us. And mind you, there were so many great tools that plus the Bible, hand in hand, changed my whole mindset. Everything learning, like, flag words, like shoulds.
[20:53] Like, you don't. When you say shoulds, they lead to anger because you're putting on a she should have did this, or he should have known better, and which leads to spats of anger.
[21:01] Or when you tell your things like, I can't. It's not necessarily you can't. It's more so that you don't want to.
[21:08] So these are things. Now all of a sudden, I'm getting the word is telling me all these things, how to love God, how I love my neighbor as myself. Plus I'm getting tools, practical tools of how to rationalize my thoughts on paper and make them right to get the outcome I want in life.
[21:24] Valerie Beck: Okay, that's really powerful. I'm very curious about this, the mind shift and the mind change that you talk about often.
[21:32] What did you see change in yourself? Do you have any stories about, like, specific things that you did or that change by doing that program?
[21:43] Rich Santana: Yes, there was a lot of changes that happened to me. One thing for sure was stepping into a leadership role. Like, I was always one that even as I was younger, I was never one.
[21:51] Like, I want to be a leader. Pick me. Pick me. I was always just kind of. It was given to me by being leader, by example, sports, football, basketball. I wasn't like the vocal person, but I led by example and I became a leader.
[22:02] Same thing with this program. I wasn't asking to be the leader, but I became the leader in that. And so God's always promoted me in different ways. I think it's just by the service I do in that.
[22:12] And now that I know the Bible talks about whatever you do, you do it all unto God. So whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it unto the Lord. Not for man to give me praise, not for myself, but knowing that God is always watching me.
[22:25] He loves me. And it's even better to do good when nobody is looking. But you know, God is looking. That is the best time to do good when nobody even knows it.
[22:33] So here I am. I do this drug rehab program. I get out of prison, I read the whole Bible front to back. And I remember going out for my first time walking in the streets, the community, right.
[22:42] And I remember seeing the homelessness, I remember seeing the prostitutes, I remember seeing the drug addicts. But I saw them differently. I saw the hurt, I saw the pain, I saw the brokenness.
[22:54] And mind you, before, in. When I was walking in my own world, I was walking by these same people every day, but I couldn't even see them. But now God, it was almost like, you remember the movie the Matrix?
[23:05] It was like God opened up my spiritual eyes to see them in, like in God's eyes of compassion and love and wanting to be generous to them, wanting to give to them, wanting to serve them, wanting to bless them and encourage them.
[23:18] So it was a big like, instead of being self focused, I was more outward focused because now God had met all my needs. I felt secure. I felt like God loved me.
[23:29] I felt like I had heaven waiting for me for all of eternity. There was no longer me needing fulfillment, but now I was overflowing of love and joy and peace to where now it just radiates out of me to the homeless, to the broken, to people I come across every single day.
[23:46] So, yeah, that was one huge difference for me in my walk in life.
[23:50] Valerie Beck: Amazing.
[23:51] Were there any specific exercises you did either in the program or combining that with, you know, reading the Bible, that really invited that mindset because it is. It's difficult, I would say, to really sit in that, to be able to see others and their suffering consistently and maintain, I think, that level of compassion.
[24:17] Rich Santana: Right.
[24:17] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[24:18] Rich Santana: I think one thing that's super helpful, I realized, is we're never called to be alone. You know, one of the things that God said right off the Bat that was not good was for man to be alone.
[24:27] So he created a helper, which is woman out of his rib, which is great. That just shows God's in community. And even God, it's the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, there's three in one.
[24:37] It's almost like that community.
[24:38] So I've really realized that, mind you, I get out of prison, I didn't have really a community who was doing what I was doing. So now I'm on my own.
[24:46] But I'm trying to find that community. I get plugged into this church at the Rock Church here in San Diego, which is a big mega church. But I go into my first ever small group Bible study community which was different.
[24:56] But the cool thing is when you have other like minded people who are trying to do well, it's very encouraging.
[25:02] None of us, the cool thing about being a Christian is none of us are going there saying we're perfect now, we're holy. It's actually the opposite. We're coming together because we are broken and we need help every single day.
[25:14] And it's almost like, I love this analogy I heard one time, it's like say so we're filled with God, we love God. We're hanging out with them in the morning.
[25:22] Now we're going out into the world. There's people angry, they're upset, they're telling us stuff, they're beating us down, our job, maybe our spouse, our kids, just the world just broke us down, right?
[25:31] Similar. Like somebody who is wearing all white and they're coal miners, they go into the coal field, they're going there and they come out, of course they're going to be stained, all these blotches.
[25:41] So then it's kind of like that we go into the world, but then it's coming back to God and being refilled, renewed our mind, our heart, our body, our soul.
[25:48] God talks about like if you have any offense or somebody who's hurt you or wronged you don't hold bitterness or rage towards them, but actually forgive them and love them and embrace them for where they are.
[25:57] So if you have any unforgiveness, maybe somebody offended you, repent, get right, ask God, like God, show me how to love them. And I've already. You kind of already know.
[26:05] Typically when somebody hurts you, it's probably because they got hurt themselves. Like hurt people hurt people. So if you can have a heart of compassion, understanding that there's a reason why people do everything that they do, there's a reason why they do good, there's a reason why they do bad.
[26:18] And when you can understand that, you can have a heart of compassion and understanding for them and not judge them so quickly.
[26:24] Valerie Beck: Yeah, I love that. Not judging so quickly.
[26:28] So from there, then you get out of prison and you start going to church and all of this.
[26:36] Now, I know that you have started a ministry, and I also know that you've become a marriage counselor. How did you get to fill those roles?
[26:46] Rich Santana: You know what, like I said earlier, like, when God, when you start just serving people, loving people, somehow you just get promoted and God keeps putting you out there. And me and my wife, wife, she's so wonderful.
[26:56] We've been married since 2013. We got married May, and it was a huge blessing because, mind you, when I went to prison, I told God, just give me one day outside of prison, I'll give you my life.
[27:08] I never got tested for hiv. I didn't even know if I had HIV or not. My heart was just, I'm going to go all out for Jesus. I don't care if I have to go to North Korea, get martyred, killed for Christ.
[27:17] I rather do that than die in a hospital bed of hiv.
[27:21] So here I am. Like, I went to this, the Rock Church. I did this discipleship program. It's a year long, but as soon as I went in, there was a segment where they took us out to Catalina island for a week, and there was a point where we had to write on a piece of paper something you want to give to God and throw it in the fire.
[27:37] I already knew one thing. I was. It was like a little bit of fear, maybe a little bit of shame that I was going through still. I was still holding that.
[27:44] Like, I would rather just not know if I have HIV or not. I'd rather just go all out for Christ, never get married and just live that life.
[27:51] And in that process, my group came around me. They encouraged me. They said, hey, what you want to do is get insurance first before you even even think about getting tested.
[28:00] Because if you do have it, nobody's going to insure you. And these cocktails are very expensive. In that process of me getting insurance, I came across my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time.
[28:11] She was ministering to another group, girl in my group. And I had told them about the program I did in prison and they wanted to learn about it. So as I was teaching them about it, all of a sudden me and my wife got closer and closer, but I had to tell her, mind you, we were hanging out a lot she saw me in the community.
[28:25] She saw how I was. I said, you know what, honey? I just say, honey, I said, there's one thing I got to tell you before we go any further, because obviously we have feelings for each other.
[28:33] I don't know if I have HIV or not. I'm about to get tested pretty soon. But I just want to let you know that before anything else, she heard audibly from God, that this is the man you're to marry, regardless, with or without hiv.
[28:46] She wrestled with it for three days. She didn't tell me that right off the bat. Three days later, she comes back to me. She's like, you know what? God told me to love you, regardless, with or without hiv.
[28:54] And I'm like, man, God, I asked for one day outside of prison. I didn't ask for all this. I don't know what you're doing right now with this whole thing.
[29:01] But it turns out a month later, I was able to get tested. The results were negative. Whether God healed me or protected me, he gets the glory. So that started off our route on a positive with my wife meeting her.
[29:12] We got married. In less than a year of knowing each other, we just jumped right in. But even in that, marriage is not easy, even with our testimony, because you got two uniquely different people becoming one.
[29:25] And naturally, us as humans, we're naturally selfish. So marriage is a beautiful thing to become selfless, like God wants us to be. So I always encourage people that want to get married.
[29:34] I say, yeah, you know, they say, don't get married to be happy. Yeah, in your flesh. If you want to just do whatever you want, don't get married. But in the spirit of the way God created us, marriage is a beautiful thing, and there's so much joy, love, and peace in it.
[29:46] I encourage it for everybody who wants to grow spiritually. So we started off that we had a rocky start to the point where we had to ask for help. Other people in the body of Christ poured into us, loved us, to the point where we got our bearings right.
[29:58] After three years, we were. We. We learned what not to do. We did this series called Love and Respect. And Love and Respect is a great conference series we did where the Bible talks to about husband and wives.
[30:10] The Bible never tells a wife to love their husband, and it never tells a husband to respect their wives, basically because naturally, women love. Naturally, husbands respect.
[30:23] Supernaturally, women can respect. Supernaturally, men can love.
[30:29] So it kind of goes down, this whole spiel of the way men and women are created a little differently. They're more unique to where they are. Men are very good at soldier service.
[30:39] Women are very good at loving, kind, gentle being, their compassionate. And I'm not saying it's a general because there's always, you know, there's always differences, everybody. There's always some men who are more on the loving side, women who are more on the respect side.
[30:51] It always has to be with your upbringing. But just naturally, men and women are geared differently, so we had a better understanding. And in the series, it's funny because he starts off the premise like, men speak blue, women speak pink.
[31:03] Men hear blue, women hear pink. So the wife goes to her closet and she says, I have nothing to wear. And what she's really saying in her pink megaphone is I have nothing new to wear.
[31:16] The husband goes to his closet, says the same exact words, I have nothing to wear. What he's really saying in this blue megaphone is I have nothing clean to wear.
[31:25] Same exact words, totally different meanings. And so he breaks down this whole premise that the enemy, his whole goal is to mess us up. And miscommunication between men and women, it's not necessarily we have ill will, it's just that we have different language barriers that we have to get past.
[31:40] And one thing that me and my wife love, that we share with all of our married couples is redos. Redos meaning if I say or do say something that came across wrong to my wife, it may had no ill will intention on my part, but it came across wrong to her a little off.
[31:54] She can ask me for a redo and it gives me a chance to redo and say the last thing I said. And psychologically, we always remember the last thing that was said to us.
[32:03] So it gives us a chance to get things open so we don't bottle it up up and we just get it out of the open and then we clear it up just like that.
[32:09] Because the other way is a lot of couples sometimes, oh well, they said I kind of rubbed me wrong, but I'm just gonna let it go. All of a sudden you have five, six, ten things bottled up and then you just blow up.
[32:18] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[32:19] Rich Santana: You could have just taken care of it right off the bat by asking for a redo. Instead you bottled all these things up. So it's a good way to get things out in the open and clear and it's real easy and quick and effective.
[32:28] Valerie Beck: Yeah, yeah, that's really great.
[32:31] Rich Santana: And so in that, that kind of built up. So in me and my wife, we also went to marriage conferences every year so we grew a lot in that. We. We became.
[32:39] We. We gleaned. To all the married couples who are 20 years plus married, we would glean and learn everything we could from them possible to the point where it got to a point where we were able to help and share and give that back to people around us.
[32:50] And it's kind of like you get to love God in the same way you felt love, and it's kind of like you had that same thing. We got loved on by other couples who loved on us.
[32:58] Well, now we get to give that back to these other couples who are coming up and wanting to learn. So that's kind of how we kind of walked into the marriage ministry.
[33:05] It wasn't like something we were wanting to do or say, but God just kind of put us there in a way that was like a blessing. And we've seen so many married couples, like, get restored.
[33:12] Some couples that they were separated already, they weren't even living together. And God redeemed brought them back together. I've seen couples to where I remember praying with their son and he was so broken and sad.
[33:21] His parents were going to get together and then God just redeemed. And now they're doing their thriving, their parents together serving. So it's such a beautiful thing to serve and get back to couples because it's not only that we're affecting them per se, but we're also affecting their kids, we're affecting their parents, we're affecting their whole livelihood, their whole everybody they know is affected by that couple.
[33:40] And we get to help them go on the right cycle to where they can love and encourage each other instead of being a discouragement, you know, because a lot of times, like in the love and respect it talks about, you get caught in this crazy cycle where you can't get out of it.
[33:53] Like, all of a sudden he's being disrespectful or he's being unloving and it's causing her to be disrespectful. And it just goes down the cycle of just back and forth, back and forth.
[34:02] And it's hard to get out of it unless you have an outside vantage point, somebody who could step in and be like, hey, hey, let's stop and try something new, something different.
[34:10] Because that whole disrespect and being unloving is not going to work. You can't continue to be unloving to him so that he can now change, you know, per se. You know, you got to actually step and do something first.
[34:20] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[34:22] Can I ask, in terms of, like, having seen your parents separate when you first got married, did that factor in to some of the conflict or your perception of things at all?
[34:34] Rich Santana: I think the blessing was for me. I had two grandpa, two sets of grandparents that I got to witness who. I got to see them function together. So I still actually got to grow up in a.
[34:46] Seeing a married couple, head of the household, wife of the household type of thing. And it's funny because I had two opposite perspectives. My grandparents. On my mom's side, my grandma was very dominant.
[34:58] She had the biggest voice, everything like that. On my dad's side, it was my grandpa. He was the law. Whatever he said was the way it goes. So I got to see a balance of both sides, and I got to see how both sides work.
[35:08] So I never really got to see, like I would say the way I see it too is there's nobody who grows up with parents who are perfect. There is no perfect marriage.
[35:16] So every marriage has a great opportunity to start fresh and develop their own perfect marriage for them, you know, per se. So it's cool the way God's given us that fresh start.
[35:27] So it wasn't like I came in with a broken background. So I still have a good relationship with mom, have a good relationship with my dad, great relationship with my grandparents.
[35:34] I have both grandmas still alive. So I would say I wasn't hindered by that. And another thing was I got to also see my aunts and uncles, they marriages. So I got to see them as well.
[35:42] So a lot of healthy marriages that I got to witness growing up, up. I think that was very helpful as I walked in and stepped into my marriage. And the other part was I was always growing up as a good team player.
[35:53] It was kind of natural for me to go into the selfless attitude with my wife, more so than if I was like a single kid. Maybe if I only had my own room, my own everything.
[36:02] I may have had different attitudes toward my wife than I was in the way I grew up.
[36:07] Valerie Beck: Yeah, absolutely.
[36:09] Having. I've only been. I think I've been married less than two years now, so I'm still very much learning. But I do definitely see how it is, is it's a new life.
[36:19] You are becoming someone else. Factoring in another person. I. I think that is really cool. And I. One of the things that I hope to explore is like, how to better communicate, how to.
[36:33] How to ask for what we need to in a way that is healthy.
[36:37] Rich Santana: I think that's big too, because a lot of times we get caught up in this, like, Hollywood perfect marriage thing where we think that it's going to be that way, but we don't see the behind the scenes when they're cleaning, doing all the other stuff, everyday life stuff.
[36:49] Right?
[36:49] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[36:50] Rich Santana: That's kind of the practical things that we touch on, like doing laundry, doing dishes. We've had a whole group discussion just on dishes alone, just laughing and doing, you know, just.
[37:00] We have fun as couples because we all know that we need help, but it's hard to break out of that shell. Like, oh, no, we're perfect. We have it all together.
[37:07] And I think when we come together as groups and we get to open up, it's like, hey, we never. Perfect. We get to just break it down. Like, hey, we were flawed.
[37:14] It's okay to be flawed, and it's okay. We can help each other get back together. And I think that's the cool part about it. Then you and your husband are going to learn new things about each other.
[37:22] You guys understand each other. Like, as a wife, for you, like, for you, it's probably better off for you to tell your husband what you want than to have him always trying to figure out or guess, you know, it's good to kind of get hints and give it away, per se, than us trying to figure it out, you know, and there's always that ongoing joke, like when, you know, the wife says, I don't know, where do you want to eat at?
[37:40] Wherever you want to eat at. Right? Where do you want to eat at? And then my husband. Husband's like, well, I want to go to the barbecue house. And the wife's like, I want to eat there, like, wherever you want to eat at, Right?
[37:51] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[37:52] Rich Santana: And I learned one of the hacks is I tell husbands, like, okay, when your wife tells you that, what she's really saying is, can you give me some ideas of good places to eat at?
[38:01] And so my wife's like, where do you want to eat? Well, let me see. Let me look at you up, honey. How about this place? Or this sounds good. So it's kind of cool that we kind of learn.
[38:10] What she really meant to say was she wasn't really saying that I want to eat wherever you want to eat at, which she was like, give me some ideas. Where should we eat at?
[38:18] Valerie Beck: Yeah, absolutely. That's. That's totally me too.
[38:21] And it, you know, I think it's like learning your own quirks, like your own expectations, because those are unspoken expectations, right? That we. We don't even know they're not conscious some of the time.
[38:32] Rich Santana: So, yeah, yeah, is like, one thing I've learned too is I tell couples it's not like our spouse woke up and was like, oh, how can I ruin this person's day today?
[38:41] Like, no, that was never the start of the day. It just happens through days. The things happen, shortcomings. Sometimes we're tired, sometimes we're hungry, sometimes we're this or that. Just a little off.
[38:50] And when you can extend grace, because I think a lot of times as couples, we hang out so much together that we put such a high demand expectation on our spouse to where they can never meet it, of perfection.
[39:03] And then we start becoming shorter with them when they're actually the person we should be the most gracious with with because we're giving them the most opportunity to fail us because we're with them all the time.
[39:12] And then here we are with our friends being all gracious and kind to them. We only see them once a week or whatever. But in actuality, we should be the most gracious with those around us.
[39:20] But it also is portrays our own personal relationship, right? How we treat our spouse is really our internal battle that's going on. So I'm on foot with my wife. I'm probably really beating myself up deep down inside, or vice versa.
[39:34] If I see that my wife is being short with me, me, I can have eyes of compassion for her, realize, oh, she's probably beating herself up. Maybe she's not feeling good.
[39:41] How can I love her where she's at? Because I think a lot of times as spouses, we get caught up in being offended. And if one of us gets offended, we build up offense.
[39:50] And then we can no longer love them, we can no longer encourage them. Now there's boundaries, and now we're hurt, they're hurt, everybody's hurt. Hurt. Let's hurt everybody, you know?
[40:00] Valerie Beck: Yes, that is super true.
[40:03] I'm just thinking of, like, all the times that, that I've done it, you know, and there are many, many, and I'm sure there's going to be many more. And just training myself to just be more aware 100%.
[40:14] Rich Santana: One of the biggest things for new couples is just to be okay with not being perfect. It's okay. Like, I think that was one thing that when we first started getting married our first year, we thought there was something wrong with this.
[40:24] Like, man, are we the only ones struggling? And then actually it comes down to, like. And then we came to our second marriage retreat, like, oh, wait a second, everybody's struggling.
[40:32] Everybody's flawed, everybody's messed up. Like, oh, okay, that's pretty cool. That's, that's, that's reassuring. And then actually then like about, I think three or four years later, I came back and I was telling the husband's joking around, like, hey guys, I figured out marriage.
[40:45] I figured it out. Like, what? You figured it out? I was like, yeah, I figured out that I'm. They're going to figure it out and I'm okay figuring it out, and that's okay with me.
[40:53] It's always going to be like a learning because we all grow. We're all going to become different. Like, I'm different than I was in my 20s, different in my 30s, and now I turn 40.
[41:00] I'm different in my 40s. And it's okay. You have different callings, different desires, different needs, you know, as we get older and we're just kind of adapting to each other as we grow older together.
[41:11] But I think one thing that's healthy for me and my wife is we both have a similar goal in mind. We want to honor God. And I think vile. I think couples need something that brings them together, a common ground that brings them together.
[41:24] And for me and my wife, obviously, that's our faith in God and that helps us that we want to better ourselves and be more like Christ for each other, to experience each other.
[41:32] And that's kind of like our foundational focal point. Rather than being like who's right or wrong. It's like God's right and let's go towards that.
[41:41] Valerie Beck: Yeah, I, I definitely agree. Because then that way you can grow in the same direction, even if it's not like 100 this right. Unified. But it is like, yes, we both.
[41:52] Rich Santana: Have a common ground, that we're both. And the spirit of God is what, what we want is. We want fruits of love, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
[42:03] Those are all the things we want to come out of us, especially when it's hard, you know, because it's kind of like what's going to come out of you when you're getting squeezed?
[42:11] Is it going to be anger, frustration, or is it going to be peace and gentleness and kindness, you know, so there's always opportunities to exercise that. And the cool thing is it's not like, I think when you have your faith in God, it's okay to mess up.
[42:23] You know, it's just all about getting back up, up and just dusting yourself off and just being better tomorrow than you were today and just continue to go down that route, bettering yourself every day.
[42:31] Because we're never going to be perfect. It's. We're not called to ever be perfect, but we're constantly trying to better ourselves. I think that was a blessing in Speakers Institute, that we all came together and I think we all were coming together in the common ground, that we all want to better ourselves and we all want to upgrade and we all want to do.
[42:46] We all want to help this world out in whatever aspect, wherever our calling is in this life right now. Yeah.
[42:52] Valerie Beck: Yes. And one thing I really like that you said is, like, you're a different person in all these stages.
[42:58] What a blessing. And something to just, like, really hold dear is your own curiosity. Right. Your own curiosity about yourself and knowing, like, you're not meant to be the same person day to day, year to year, you're meant to evolve and, like, grow that.
[43:14] And it makes life more exciting knowing that, like, it's not going to be the same tomorrow. And that's okay.
[43:20] Rich Santana: Yeah, it gets kind of exciting, right? Like, it's not going to be mundane, not going to be changed. And then you think about parents. They come have kids, their kids get older, then you transition to the next stage.
[43:29] No longer kids at the house. So it's always evolving. Jobs, living conditions.
[43:34] But, you know, it's good to have that common grounding. Me and my wife, like, we just moved to our new place here in Carlsbad, and it's been a blessing, but, you know, it's also like, you know, switching the churches and everything like that.
[43:44] So it's like you're just trusting God in the process. No matter where we are, God's going to be with us and we're going to just enjoy every moment because tomorrow is not promised any.
[43:52] Which one of us, you know, all we have is today. And we're going to just rejoice and give thanks in it.
[43:58] Valerie Beck: All right. I want to ask a question about forgiveness and shame.
[44:05] Rich Santana: Yeah.
[44:06] Valerie Beck: What is the hardest thing you've ever had to give, forgive yourself for? And how are you able to do it? And how are you able to let go of the shame that you carried?
[44:17] Rich Santana: So I think the hardest thing to forgive myself on, I would say there's a time where I was always trying to be perfect. Like, I always wanted to have everything perfect.
[44:27] I always wanted to line everything up. I never wanted to offend or hurt anybody to the point where it stunts you. And you can't really be out there. You can't really give your Best because you're always trying to be perfect for everybody and please everybody to a certain degree.
[44:41] And I think once you break free from that and it's okay to not be perfect, it's okay to be flawed, and it's okay to try and take risk. That helped a lot.
[44:50] And obviously me going to prison was a clear indicator that obviously I'm not perfect. I failed not only God, but I've also failed society, where they had to lock me up.
[44:59] But in that, I found out that, you know what? When you actually mess up and make mistakes, you probably grow and learn the most from those and anything else that you could ever do in your life.
[45:10] One thing I learned in prison that I'll never forget was I remember, like, there's a spiritual battle. I believe there's an enemy who's always trying to lie and beat you down.
[45:18] So here I am in prison. I'm 25 years old, in the prime of my life. And. And then I was like, man, you're in there. And I hear a voice telling me, like, you're in here wasting your life away.
[45:27] You're in the prime. This is the best time of your life. You should be out there, and here you are withering away.
[45:33] But then all of a sudden, I would open up the Bible, and all of a sudden there was this other voice that would speak to me, and it would tell me something along the lines of, there is nothing better you could be doing with your life than what you're doing right now at this very moment.
[45:44] Moment. And I always kept that near and dear to me that when I'm spending time with God, it is, like the best thing I could ever do of my life.
[45:53] And I've always prayed that. I always say, God, I want you to be the highlight of my life, the highlight of my day. I want anything to get in between me and you in life.
[46:01] And that even goes for my spouse as well. Everybody like God's number one. Obviously, my spouse is number two, and she's okay being number two to God. And then everything else kind of falls after that.
[46:11] But I think a lot of times, unfortunately, is we put our spouses in a position to where they should have never been. They cannot be our God. They cannot be our everything.
[46:20] They cannot be perfect. We should never hold anybody to a perfect status, which I was actually doing to myself when I had spirit of wanting to be perfect. So then once that got broken off of me, I was able to kind of, like, okay, I could forgive myself.
[46:33] Like, really genuinely forgive myself. I could get Back up and start fresh. And no, it doesn't matter how old I am, doesn't matter where I'm starting at. This is my starting point.
[46:42] And I let's go from here. And I think that helped me a lot. Breaking free from that. Just perfectionism of wanting to do that. And that even goes the same for content.
[46:51] Like, I started out, I just barely started out. My website, like, debt behind me, wealth before me. Our ministry just got the YouTube, just got the Instagram, but now it's about, let's put out the content and it's okay to not be perfect.
[47:02] Let's just get out there and get to it.
[47:04] Valerie Beck: Yeah. Do you ever still get it, though? Kind of like that, like, oh, it's not quite good enough kind of thing.
[47:10] Rich Santana: Thing all the time. And even, like, good thing about Speakers Institute, like, Sam did a great job of pushing us to our limits of being just. We're for sure, like, we're set up to fail.
[47:21] Valerie Beck: Yeah. Yeah.
[47:23] Rich Santana: Like, at this point, if you have a spirit of perfection on you, you might as well throw it out the window because none of this is going to be perfect at all.
[47:29] Valerie Beck: No. And I love that about it, the experience.
[47:33] I love that. I, I was going to try my hardest. I was going to stay up late, I was going to practice my speech, and in the morning I was probably going to forget anyway, anyway.
[47:40] And that's fine.
[47:42] Rich Santana: 100%. Yes. That was the greatest part about it. And we are all okay messing up. And it's cool to be in a safe ground that we could all mess up. And I think that's something that we lack in society, is surrounding yourself with this community.
[47:54] That's okay with you not being perfect and it's okay to try new things and try to grow and evolve from there rather than like, oh, don't do that. You don't want to do that.
[48:03] That's not in your lane. Or you can't do that. Rather, like, no, if God called me to it, I can do it. But, you know, it may not be perfect right off the bat, but obviously you're going to have to try trial and error and just get back up, pick yourself up.
[48:15] And I, I think one thing I learned too, like, even growing up, even, like, subtle things, like one of my first, like I would say things I grew up was, I remember starting off when I was four years old, video games, Nintendo had came out not too long before.
[48:27] But one thing that video games taught me was it was a lot of, like, repetition. You do it over, you fail, you do it over, you fail, you do it over, you fail.
[48:35] And I learned that you can actually become really good, good at anything you want to do through repetition, over and over and over, failing, failing, failing. You know, you're failing forward rather than.
[48:46] It's not complete failure. It's actually a success. Because to be successful, you have to fail that many times to get to success. So that stuck with me. That's how we became good at sports.
[48:56] That's how I became good at being a husband. That's how I became good at being a son of God, child of God. You know, just. It's okay to fail. You learn that along the way.
[49:05] It perfects you in a way. Way.
[49:06] Valerie Beck: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a similar story because I. I play video games too, and I think this is, you know, certain ones, like, if I end up spending, like, over a couple hours on, like, one boss, I might.
[49:20] Might give it a rest. But most of the time, most of the time it is like, you. You try one strategy, if it doesn't work, then you try another strategy.
[49:28] And. And then the reward for it, you know, having that thing is like, I know it's going to be good, and like, I'm just going to have faith. That's what a video game is built for.
[49:38] There's. It's built for a positive outcome at the end.
[49:41] Rich Santana: Yes, success. I mean, there's accolades, there's whatever you're doing to conquer. Think of Mario Brothers. You're saving the princess, you're saving the world or whatever it might be. You know, there's this positive thing that comes out of it.
[49:52] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[49:54] Okay, last question. I want to ask you about that you kind of just touched upon a little bit. Is this ministry debt behind me, wealth before me? How did that come about?
[50:03] About.
[50:04] Rich Santana: Well, it came about, I mean, because we were already pouring into a lot of marriages, and we're doing a lot for. For them pouring in. And then we realized a lot of the times marriage's struggle is.
[50:15] It's. One is communication, which we're helping with, but the other thing was finances.
[50:19] And finances is a big one because obviously there's stress, there's anxiety, there's fears that come with finances. And when you have two people involved, it can come very hostile when they're put under pressure.
[50:31] And we found this program that basically helps you manage your funds correctly. So we developed this debt behind me, wealth before me. That was the ministry God gave me. Kind of gave it to me a couple months back, and we developed it because we've already Been helping all these couples out along the way with their finances.
[50:47] And part of it is there's this analogy I always share with couples is it was a Belgian plow horse and I believe by itself, yeah, I think it's right by itself it's able to pull, pull up to £7,000.
[51:01] But when it was £8,000, I believe to be correct, I think it was £8,000 by itself. But when it has a partner and they pull together, like what would you think naturally it could pull?
[51:10] If they pull 8,000 by itself, just naturally you'll probably think like double, right, 16,000. But in actuality they could pull up to triple. So they could pull up to £24,000 together.
[51:21] Right? So now you think of that with couples. Well, here's the other part to it. If these two Belgian plow horses were trained together and brought up together, they could actually pull up to four times the amount.
[51:32] So now I apply that to couples.
[51:35] Now imagine you're a couple and you're actually getting trained together. You're learning how to love each other, encourage each other. Well, think about that. With their finances, if they're able to unite together financially, they can accomplish a lot more.
[51:48] And when they manage their funds correctly, we realize they can do amazing things. Like we nowadays, we could teach people, if they unite together, how to pay off a 30 year mortgage in as little as five to seven years without changing their lifestyle.
[52:02] And so that came about and we were like helping families left and right. And a lot of times people are like, what do you mean, five to seven years? And now people are starting to catch wind of it.
[52:09] They see ads on Facebook and stuff like that. But it actually is possible. And that's kind of how it developed was a need for couples to come together. But the other part was financially, America is in shambles right now.
[52:21] We are more debt than we've ever been in our lives. It's not because, I mean, it's not because they're not making money, but a lot of times it's just mismanagement.
[52:28] You hear people who are making a million dollars a year, but yet they end up in bankruptcy. It wasn't because they weren't making good money. It was just mismanagement. So we teach people biblical principles.
[52:38] Like one is being a good steward of your time, your talents, your treasures that God's given you. How are you going to do that? Steward your money? Well, the other part is, there's a part in Proverbs 6 it talks about, this is biblical principles, right?
[52:51] It says if you Signed any debt debt any debt you signed up for. You give your eyelids no slumber, no sleep. Like a gazelle caught in a snare, you get out of debt as fast as possible.
[53:04] So it was never meant. And it says like when you're in debt, you're enslaved to the lender. You're actually a slave to those you're indebted with. So in that. So these are the biblical principles we share people like hey, I mean not everybody has to be a believer.
[53:17] Obviously we help regular people as well. But these are just principles, foundational points that we help couples with. And it developed into something that we've already helped couples in the past two years sitting leave eliminate over a million dollars in debt.
[53:28] I mean we have over $28 million under management right now. And we've helped out a lot of families get debt free to the point where it's built up momentum to where we tap into all aspects.
[53:39] Yeah, financials, obviously couples see the most value of that. But there also is debts of unforgiveness.
[53:46] If one of the spouses has an unforgiveness thing to the other spouse, that's like debt like what is consuming your mind mind what is consuming your thoughts right now. That's like something that's got you under control.
[53:56] It's like a heavy burden in a way. So I also would consider that a debt. So we also will tap into the spiritual aspect of a debt would be unforgiveness or perhaps a debt of trauma.
[54:06] Perhaps like at one point they were abandoned. Now there's this debt of trauma that continues to come on and controls them. How do we break free from that trauma? What is the truth that is also a debt that we're burdened them.
[54:17] So those are other aspects that we tap into as well. And then we're also going to open up shortly like where we also meet up weekly with couples maybe on a live meeting, like maybe a webinar.
[54:27] Then we'll do one on ones and helping couples. And up and coming we're going to be doing a cruise ship with two of the day where it's a five day cruise leaving out of Long Beach February 10th to the 15th.
[54:37] And two of the days we're going to have a conference room for couples and we'll be encouraging them along the way. And there's, there's so many different avenues to tap into couples helping them.
[54:46] But two of the main ones, finances and communication.
[54:50] So those are two of the main things that debt behind me, wealth before me will help out with and it's not like we only help couples. Obviously, we'll help anybody and everybody who wants help with their finances.
[54:59] We help single people as well. We help everybody. But for couples per se, with our ministry, it kind of just went hand in hand. It just flowed perfectly with everything.
[55:08] Valerie Beck: Okay, last question.
[55:10] Rich Santana: Yep.
[55:11] Valerie Beck: Because you talk about mind change, and I know that, that when you want help, there's a certain level of openness that is required or certain level of being willing to see certain things that might be ugly about you that you don't want to see.
[55:28] Is there a, like a minimum requirement in your experience of being able to change internally, something that you need, need right before it happens?
[55:43] Rich Santana: I think one thing for sure is the realization that you need to change.
[55:48] So that's. First things first. Like, you gotta realize, okay, where I'm at right now is not the situation I ever wanted to be in. Obviously something's gotta change. So that's the first part is knowing that there needs to be a change.
[55:58] Like, humbly knowing that what I'm doing right now is not working out. This is not where I wanted to be. This is not the person I want to be. That's step one.
[56:07] Step two is, is being able to seek and look and ask for help. Because if you can't seek and look for, ask for help, how are you going to change?
[56:16] There's no ideas. And the good thing now is, like, we have the Internet. There's so much things online to get help with and everything like that. Another obviously avenue for me is you could always call out to God, even if you don't know him personally.
[56:27] There. I believe there is a God that would help you if you're humble enough to ask him for help and he would lead you. I mean, I asked him for help.
[56:34] Obviously I was at rock bottom. And you don't have to wait till then to ask him for help. But it worked for. So I think you gotta ask for help humbly, and you gotta be willing to try something different, something outside of the box, you know, something that's not very comfortable, something that's not the usual, because perhaps you grew up in, like, let's just say an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth.
[56:55] If somebody hurts you, then you gotta get them back. If that's your mindset, then it may not be the best mindset because you're gonna always be in conflict. But if you can actually learn different ways to love people and encourage people where they're at and have an understanding, you can get a lot further in life.
[57:11] And I think that's one thing that God's highlighted for me for changes. Having an understanding, just understanding. First off for me was understanding God. Secondly, having the understanding that this is not a perfect world, nor should it be, or could it be, but we have an understanding that this is a flawed world.
[57:26] People are hurt. But the cool part is I have an understanding now that I could actually affect this world in a positive way and. Or I could affect it in a negative way way.
[57:36] So if I'm willing to change and help people out, it's definitely worth it. And I think that's it. Willing to change and understand. Having a softened heart. Like sometimes we have a callous heart thinking, like if we, if we have a stance where we're like, we're immovable.
[57:49] I will not do this no matter what. I cannot forgive that person no matter what. It's going to be hard for us to change or I cannot conquer this fear, no matter what, because this is my safety net.
[58:00] There's no way I'm ever going to go on an airplane plan. Then, yeah, you're not going to be able to change. But if you're willing and want change, it might happen slowly or it might happen instantly.
[58:10] I mean, but either way, there is an opportunity for change and everybody can do it. So I would encourage any of the people who are listening right now, if you're in a current situation where you're struggling or you have fears, anxiety, pain, I would say the step one is call out to a higher power, like, God, help me, I need help.
[58:27] Guide me, direct me. Second step is like you realizing that there is. There's blind spots that we all have that we all can get a second perspective because somebody else's vantage point of us might be a lot better than our own, you know, so great, great ways to start off with change.
[58:44] If you want the change, you're going to have to know that you need the change and seek it out earnestly. And you can have that change for sure.
[58:51] Valerie Beck: Awesome. All right, Rich, Santana, everyone. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I've learned so much and can't wait to continue the discussion later. Later.
[59:00] Rich Santana: Awesome. Valerie, God bless you. Thanks for having me.
[59:12] Valerie Beck: Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying the stories and insights from from the Ashes, why not stay connected with our community? Join my mailing list for bi weekly updates on upcoming events, wellness tips, fun tidbits, and of course, new podcast episodes. I promise no spam. Just valuable content to help you live your best life. Head over to www.intrepidwellness life and sign up today. Don't miss out and let's keep the conversation going.
