How a Stroke Survivor Turned Pain Into Purpose

Regardless of what you go through in life, things can happen, and it can be a blessing.

“It just depends if you can either be bitter or you can get better.”

And I say in my life because of the sexual abuse, because of the divorce and to an affair, to the stroke, I have to look back and say that all things work together for the good. Jeff Jocelyn is a resilient, visionary, and purpose-driven filmmaker and the founder of Double J Productions. Drawing from his recovery from a life-altering stroke, he empowers audiences to find their deeper calling through inspirational stories. Inspirational storytelling, building a foundation of enduring resilience and faithful leadership.

When I got into the entertainment industry, that was my whole thing, like entertainment with a purpose.

I don't want to just tell, you know, do feature films and do this with that, and it's great, and entertainment people, people want to do that, that's great.

But I want to make an impact. If I hadn't gone through this stroke, I wouldn't be sitting here right now talking to you about this. And so I have to look back and I say, even though I would love to not have a stroke and struggle with all this junk that I have to deal with, it's been worth it. I would do it again. It spans the glory, like a super high school, enter their health.

The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy.

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to another episode of The Living Your Legacy Podcast.

I'm your host for today, Jason, and I am joined by Jeff of J&J Productions. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you. I appreciate it opportunity to be here.

“Pleasure to have you on. So you just finished recording your episode. First of all, how are you feeling now on the other side of it?”

Feeling good. I think that my brain kind of goes all over the place. I'm a stroke survivor, so I'm lost my speech in memory. So I'm still having some issues with getting my mind together and getting my words out, but I just fight through it. You seem tact sharp to me. The kudos to you on being able to get through and get onto the other side of that, and it's just a huge pleasure to have you here on the show.

One thing that I ask all my clients here on the show after they finish their episode is now that you've kind of gotten your story out there on camera. What would be your number one lesson you want people to be able to learn from your story? Regardless of what you go through in life, things can happen and it can be a blessing. It depends you can either be bitter or you can get better.

“And I think in my life because of the sexual abuse, because of the divorce and to an affair, to the stroke,”

I have to look back and say that all things work together for the good. And it's been a blessing. And I've taken this with what I do and in the entertainment industry is to just use it as a platform to reach mothers. Your story is your testimony. Right. It's it's you being able to share your story gives the next person the license to share theirs. I think if we're all a little bit.

A kinder to each other, but B if we're all a little bit more open to the idea of being open and honest about what's what we've gone through and what we've overcome. We're all going to realize like, hey, we're all going through this thing. We're all on the same roller coaster and it's got its ups and downs. Now, you're in the production space. Like us here inside success. Talk to me a little bit about like what got you into that space.

Well, I saw the, saw the opportunity to, I guess it was the ad on on on Facebook. And I looked it up. I looked it up. I had a lot of times you'll get trust a lot of stuff, but I really did some research on this and it started looking at these stories. And I, and I knew some of the people that had done it, some of the celebrities and things like that. And, and then I thought, Because I want to do a feature film about kin sparks that we did the documentary, which I'd like to do a feature film, a football film.

they said, well, yeah, that's a great story of doing a feature film.

But we want to know why you did it. And the impact that was in my life to go that direction.

“And it may it kind of clicked. It said, okay, I understand. And so that's why I jumped in and I said, I want to be a part of this because I think what Rudy is doing.”

Telling stories is important and seeing people fight through these struggles in life. And that what we're supposed to be doing. We've been doing it as long as humans have had speech. We used to sit around a campfire and tell stories. We used to keep traditional live through stories. And like, that's my, that's my why as a filmmaker.

Like, I want to be able to tell stories, whether it's through the lens of narrative filmmaking or documentary filmmaking,

or even, you know, getting into like, you know, high fantasy and different kind of things like that.

My whole thing is I love telling stories and I love hearing people's stories. So like, in that same vein, I want to know the story of Ken Sparks, right? You guys have done the documentary on it. I want to know kind of what was the foundational relationship that made you want to tell that story? Well, because of my opportunity to play for him in high school and college, he got into my life. And it was interesting because he was so different because he was the only coach in my life that ever talked about spiritual things.

He would come around and say, how's your heart? Not like how you're doing, but it's how's your heart. And it's a lot of times I was like, physically, I'm fine. But 130 BPM, I think I'll be right.

So he would go a little deeper and it's like, how you doing, you know, what you struggling with? Well, at that time I was struggling with coming out of sexual abuse.

I didn't want to tell him anything about it. I just hit it, but he knew I was something was going on in my life. And he infused a spark in my life. And then for me to tell his story later of the spark that happened in him when he was 18. And what it was was he ended up coming to no Christ.

“And he was coaching at that time and he said, this is for me the best way to make an impact at people's life.”

This is my mission field. And there's been people that tell, you know, that that, you know, as far as athletes too. I can't remember some of my teachers I used to have and as far as a teacher teaching in high school and your college and things like that. But I'll remember how many conversations about life. And coach sparks was one of those guys that this was his mission field.

Because because he didn't care about the games, we ended up winning, but he didn't care about the scores. He cared about you as an individual. And what you're going to do on that football field. And you go to get the glory or you're going to give glory to God. You hear a lot of times athletes that I give a God, the glory for it and things like that.

But because football is going to finish, it's going to be over, right? Like it was for me. You're going to be a husband. You're going to be a father. You're going to be a business guy.

You're going to be this or that. So what are you going to do with that?

“And that transition is so hard for athletes.”

And so he made a slogan. And it was called athletic for the purpose. And so when I got into the entertainment industry, that was my whole thing. It was like entertainment with a purpose. So I don't want to just tell, you know, do feature films and do this with that.

And it's great in entertainment. People want to do that. That's great. But I want to make an impact. I want to make a legacy of what I've done by reaching people for Christ as a believer.

But also just to impact people for eternity because you're only here for how long. You're here for a blip. And then you're going. And the thing about Coach Sparks, it wasn't anything about him. It was about who lived in his life and that was Christ.

And that spark had to come out because of what he did and what he wanted to do. Hmm.

This one, he was a pastor as well.

But I talk about, I like to talk about how your faith sort of informs the way that you act in service of others.

“I think the most successful business owners that I've interviewed on the show, their business is not just a vehicle through which they're going to make themselves successful.”

It's an avenue through which they're able to act in service of others. So for you, how does your faith inform the way that you do business that you work in the entertainment field now? Well, I have to go back to the scriptures about how Jesus treated people. Hmm. I think he was a great model for that.

And he, you know, you'll, you'll know their fruits by how you love people. And, and so what would Jesus do when meeting people? I mean, the people that I've been involved with here in other places, and it's like even I asked Jay, I said, "How's your heart?" And how's he doing?

And he told me some things that he was concerned about.

So hey, let's pray. Let's pray together about it. And because it's more than just this or that, and material things, it's about what's going on in your soul. You know, or we're, we're created with a mind, a body, and a soul.

“And all the times we get out of the track, out of whack, right?”

We could start focusing on the body, how we look, and what we do, and listen to that. But the soul, if you can get the soul corrected, and the mind and the body will follow. The mind and the body I find are kind of shaped by the soul. Yeah. If your soul is in good shape, guess what, what else is going to follow?

Right.

And I love that you brought up the mind body and soul thing, because for me, I think if you're able to,

the most, I mean, we're here at Inside Success, we talk about success all the time, but like success to me means like being in alignment with what truly feels like fruitful to my soul. Right. And for anybody out there who's maybe considering entrepreneurship or going into business or whatever it is for you, like, does it set your soul on fire?

Are you, are you able to really take things on and know that like, this is going to fuel me? This is going to, I'm going to be able to walk through life with an energy of, I know I'm doing right by not only myself, but I'm doing right by others, I'm doing right in the ways that I'm interacting with people. It shines. It shines outward onto everybody that you interact with.

People see it literally physically from across the street. They can see like, that guy's, that guy's in a good spot. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I love that you asked that question though, like, how's your heart doing?

Yeah. So I'm going to ask that question of you. How's your heart doing? I think it's, it's encouraging. Yeah.

I lose track sometimes because of what happened in my life, physically with the stroke and stuff, because I have to fight every, every moment really because I got a lot of anxiety. You know, I mean, just driving going places. I got, it's like you have PTSD, ADD. I mean, it's just, it's, it's one of those things that that's, it's in my life right now,

but it doesn't define me. I have to fight through whatever I'm going through to help others. It's not about me. And I have to be able to be open my eyes around the people that are around me, because there's going to be people placed in my life every single day.

And if I'm focusing on myself, then then I'm going to miss it. Then I'm going to miss them opportunities to make it impact somebody's life. And I love that you say that. I mean, it is because we get so focused on us. Look at me, look at me, look at me.

I mean, I mean, entertainment industry, right? I mean, I've acted, I've modeled.

“And it's like, and you have to push yourself out on social media, right?”

And look at me, look at me, click through likes and blah, blah, blah. And I mean, you get kind of sick of that sometimes. But I know that it can be a platform if it's used rightly to open up some opportunities, which I think what you've done within size success with myself. And I know many others that they're making an impact for as far as a legacy.

A dynasty dies. Oh, yeah. Continues. Oh, yeah.

And so you want to continue that legacy?

I'm stealing that. Yeah. I love that actually. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what, you know, all the, you know, goosebumps.

I had this dinosaur. You know, it was on a dynasty. His, his, his, even though he died in prostate cancer 2006, his legacy is continuing through those others, people like football players and other people that he impacted. But that one thing, how's your heart?

Mm-hmm.

“The ripple effect of him just being able to look at somebody and say, hey, how, how are you doing?”

Yeah. On the inside. Yeah. What's interesting is because I, when I did our documentary, we put it out about 30 or 40 different film festivals. And we ended up getting a lot of awards from some of the film festivals.

I sent one to Torch, California to a film festival.

It's always the first one to be able to, to view it and make, it was online.

And then the producers would come back and talk about it and things like that. With a lady came back and she saw this documentary and said, this is not about a football film. Mm-hmm. This is about changing people's lives. And he, or she saw that what we always said in a documentary that Coach Sparks was always

saying, how is your heart? And she said, I'm going to start using that. Mm-hmm. Because I always say, how are you doing? And I'm going to start using this.

This is made an impact in my life. Mm-hmm. And so even that little documentary that we did made an impact in some place, thousands of miles from here or so. Some, and it'll, it'll continue to make an impact. It's so funny because like Coach Sparks is making an impact on people.

“He never even had the opportunity to meet.”

Yeah. And I think that, to me, is legacy. I mean, you're hearing about it. I don't know the name. I need to see the documentary.

Yes. I do.

I would love, I'm a documentary, but first of all, most.

But I'll go and watch that. Exparks. Exparks. Exparks. The Ken Sparks story.

What's interesting, too, because it's streaming, by the way. What's that? Where's it streaming? Streaming on several platforms. I know it's on YouTube with ads, pure flicks.

It's on free v2v, Amazon Prime. We've got a five year deal with our distribution from PMG. And so it's been good, because it was in the theaters for about a month. Mm-hmm.

“And, but the thing about it was was that if I hadn't gone through this stroke,”

I wouldn't be sitting here right now talking to you about this. And so I have to look back and I said, even though I would love to not have a stroke, and struggle with all this junk that I have to deal with, it's been worth it. I would do it again.

Mm-hmm. If it meant coming to-- Yep. I'm firm believer in that. And I appreciate you for being here, brother.

Appreciate it. Guys, if you're still tuned in at this point, I want to make sure that you guys check out Jeff's episode. Now, you are, you can probably tell from this conversation that it's going to be a hell of an episode.

But I want you to make sure you tune in for that. You're going to get a full deep dive into his story and learn more about what makes him him. So, for everybody out there that's watching, where can people find you on social media,

where can they find your film? Well, we already-- y'all know where to go find the film, because we just went through all the distribution. So, go look it up on YouTube, Amazon, all the different platforms.

But where can people find you on the internet? I'm on Facebook. I have just a normal page, Jeff Joss Lennon, and I have a producer's page. I have a Sparks, a Ken Sparks story page.

On Instagram, just Jeff Joss Lennon, and then the Joss Lennon men, which are my three sons, Jeffrey Juss, and Jayvin, who are also in the entertainment. You do the Jay's as well?

Yeah, definitely. That's the same thing. I literally have it tattooed on me. We're all Jay's. Does Jayson, Jay to Josh, was Jason again?

So, Jeff, the oldest one, Jeffrey. He's a music producer. He did our music scored for the documentary. The middle one is a model. He's a Ford model with a big lot of campaigns.

And he was a Tommy Bama guy, the Nautica guy, the 007 clothing guy, and there are a lot of campaigns. And in my younger son, he's done a lot of production stuff as well. And those are my heroes.

And so, find out about those guys. They're really blessed. And they're going for it, right? Just like, um... And they're continuing that legacy.

So, tell their stories.

I will be looking forward.

Yeah.

I will be looking forward to it.

“But guys, this has been another incredible episode.”

Jeff, it has been an absolute joy having you on the show.

I appreciate you.

“Guys, make sure, again, make sure you check out his episode”

coming out shortly. But again, this has been another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Tyler, and I'll catch you guys in the next one.