Meet Jeremy Rivera

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeremy Rivera. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeremy below.

Hi Jeremy, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
I like this question because confidence and self-esteem are living and breathing realities that take time to develop. And even long after you develop them, like a muscle that can atrophy, there are seasons when confidence can be shaken and self-esteem questioned.

The art and act of becoming who we are is truly a long-distance race. And therein lies the good news for all of us, that regardless of how you see yourself today, it is something that can be developed and strengthened over time— if you’re willing to be honest, and honesty requires courage.

To develop self-esteem and true confidence, I realized fairly young that I would need to have the courage to take the inward journey, to face myself, and contend with the voices that held me back from becoming the best version of myself. But I also needed to hear something externally too– an affirming voice from the outside in. That Voice was one of unconditional love and acceptance, but also one of strength and clarity and truth.

Real confidence isn’t easily recognizable, especially from those who have learned to possess it with grace. People often confuse healthy self-confidence with arrogance, which is really just the other side of the coin of a low self-esteem. Arrogance is putting yourself on a pedestal so that others won’t see you the way you see yourself.

That was how my journey started, full of insecurity and self-doubt. I was raised in a lower-class neighborhood which, at the time (mid-to-late 70’s), was entirely African-American. Shaken by my parents divorce at seven years old, I was quickly living across town in a middle-class white neighborhood. The problem was that as a hispanic young man, I had never spent any time with people that looked like me. I didn’t speak Spanish and had zero encounters with Latino culture. It was a bit of an identity crisis. Childhood and adolescence became a tiresome pendulum of trying to stay true to ‘the hood’ and remembering where I came from, to worrying about wearing the right clothes and trying to fit in and be accepted by the cool kids.

But we can only do that for so long before we catch up with our false selves. Eventually, we have to make choices about what voice we’re going to believe; the one that says we’re not enough or the One that calls us lovable, beautiful, enough, worth dying for. It sounds so much easier than it is to live out. It takes a lifetime of practice to get out of our heads and into the present moment where life is happening here and now.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
One of the greatest benefits of knowing who you are is the freedom of expression that comes along with it. I wanted to harness this freedom to become a force for good in the world and that eventually led me to start my own marketing agency for non-profits. Building brand identity, engaging audiences through story, and producing video content are all fun things I’m deeply invested in today.

Based in Denver, Colorado and launched in 2012, Little J Marketing Co. is a marketing and creative agency that helps mission-driven organizations of all sizes show and tell a better story. We provide strategic and creative direction through broadcast, print, direct, and digital services. I founded Little J to reveal the inherent drama within each client’s story and to better connect with their most important audiences.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Three skills or traits that have proven to be the most impactful on my journey are teachability, relatability, and being a good listener to others.

By teachable, I mean not being afraid to ask questions; perhaps because of fear or pride, people struggle to be honest about what they don’t know. Every day is an opportunity to learn something new but without a sense of wonder and openness about life, you won’t grow or catch nearly as many life or career lessons that you could have if you were willing to be open to learning more.

It’s been said there’s only two things in life that matter. Relationships and I can’t remember the other one. Being able to relate to people from all walks of life has been a quality I thank my childhood for. No matter what you want to achieve in life, it’s likely going to involve working with others in some capacity, so I encourage young people to try to spend less time on their phones and more time in conversation, face to face with others. Being relatable has everything to do with being relational. It’s a subtle art to communicate that you care about a person’s whole life, not just their career. If you learn to be that kind of person who genuinely cares about those you come in contact with, then you will be successful at whatever you choose to do in life.

Lastly, learning to become a better listener has been a quality that has had a tremendous impact on my journey. I once heard that the first duty of love is to listen. And it’s so true! People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. It’s an approach to life and leadership that seeks first to understand (rather than be understood first). In a time in our culture when everyone wants to be seen (selfie’s and instagram reels) and heard, it is becoming a very rare gift to meet a genuinely good listener. Your staff, your employees, your donors, your prospects…they’re all willing to share what they want and need. The real question is whether we would hear it even if they did. The etymology of the word ‘absurd’ is connected to being deaf or ‘one who cannot hear’. If we can really learn to hear those we engage with on a daily basis at work, at home, in our communities, then we may truly know and understand how we can help them.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
The biggest growth area for me over the past 12 months has been the ability to pace myself when managing a very full life. Between being a husband, a father of four under 13, a friend to others, running a business, owning rental properties, and trying to work on myself…it can be a lot to juggle. But I’ll never forget the day an older friend shared some wisdom with me. In short, he reminded me that not all the balls I’m juggling are crystal. He told me that some of them are made of rubber and will bounce back, but my family, my faith, my friends, those are crystal. So with this in mind, I’ve learned that life has various seasons and some seasons are busier than others. If I know work and kid schedules are picking up, I’ll prepare to run hard for weeks or even months at a time, but I also know there need to be short trips or excursions built into those seasons for renewal and recreation.

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