The Klimb with Adrian Branch

Sowing Seeds To Harvest with Jonathan Paul

• Adrian Branch • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Some stories challenge your definition of success. This one begins with humble origins and big dreams, then winds through boardrooms, hospital wards, and a quiet moment where a young man heard the words that changed everything: you’ve never enjoyed the harvest. Adrian sits down with longtime friend and corporate consultant leader Jonathan Paul to trace how early lessons in sowing and stewardship became a blueprint for building a national firm—and how love and caregiving for his family led to a profound new perspective on life.

Jonathan shares major turning points in his life, shaped by faith, personal loss and keen perseverance. By the age of twenty‑six, he successfully launched a consulting firm serving Fortune 500s. The clients came quickly but so did the stress. On the other side of his career, Jonathan spent twelve years of round‑the‑clock caregiving for his wife while working nonstop on his business. This duality culminated in a cancer diagnosis with a 50 percent prognosis. From that crisis, Jonathan rebuilt around human purpose: taking on fewer clients, forming deeper partnerships, and an approach that blends organizational strategy with clinical psychology to align motivation, identity, and results.

The insights cut to the bone for leaders and teams: acceptance precedes performance; purpose clarifies priorities; healthy companies invest in people’s growth and protect their dignity. Jonathan explains how to spot a poorly run organization, how to stop performing for approval, and how to design work that’s fruitful and humane. Jonathan calls the outcome the garden life—productive, beautiful, and bounded by rhythms that let you reap what you’ve faithfully sown. If you’ve ever wondered why success feels empty, this conversation offers a map back to meaning.

Subscribe to The Klimb for more stories that turn adversity into wisdom and share this with someone who needs hope. Leave a review with one change you’ll make this week to enjoy your harvest.

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Welcome And Show Mission

SPEAKER_00

Hi, I'm Adrian Brant, former pro athlete, turn motivational speaker and certified life coach, and welcome to The Climb, a show where we celebrate the stories of resilient people sharing how they turned adversity into success. From the business sector to athletes and beyond, be inspired and learn what it takes to climb. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Climb. My name is Adrian Branch, and this show is intentional about bringing you stories about overcoming. We want you to hear people's story. What was their processes? What was their mindset? If they can do it, I can do it too. And the reason why we're so passionate about this, because in this world, you're always going to hear that you're not enough. You're not tall enough, fast enough, small enough, short enough. But when you hear other people's story, we want you to come away from this show saying, if they can do it, I can do it too. If they can overcome, I can overcome as well. Well, today's guest, you're going to love him. There's a lot to identify with him. He is, his name is Jonathan Paul. He's been a friend of mine for over 25 years. We love him. He loves our family. We've been connected at the hip. He's been a consultant. He's a dad. He's a business person. And he's a person that when you come away from this show, you're saying, wow, this guy was really deep, but a simple man that just continues to show resilience. He's a gentleman and a gentleman. And I'm excited to have him on our show. So, Jonathan Paul, welcome to our show, sir.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, great to see you, Adrian. Thank you for having me today.

SPEAKER_00

Man, listen, I can't wait to get into it for people to hear

Family Roots And Lincoln Connection

SPEAKER_00

your story. And I want to jump right into it because uh, Johnny, you got a fun fact. So your family is in the history books. Tell us about your three X great-great-great-grandfather.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so my uh my mother's great-great-great-grandfather, and my great-great-great-grandfather is from the Midwest, from Springfield, Illinois, land of Lincoln. And uh my great-great-great-grandfather, Lyons, lived across the street from Abraham Lincoln, was the uh town, both the town pharmacist and owned a farm and uh ran both businesses every year and was friends with Abraham Lincoln.

SPEAKER_00

And his house is reserved. It's so he was so close that his house is reserved just like the president's is.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So in uh Old Town Springfield, five of the houses were preserved by the federal government. And uh his house right across the street is one of them. So part of our own family history and family lore is we like to think that Abraham Lincoln, after work on a summer's day, would walk across the street and have a lemonade with uh grandfather lions, and uh they would share stories together. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00

And whisper in his ear. And it's interesting because now as he's a president and your uh great-grandfather whispered into the ear of a president, you today whisper into the ears of presidents which you're consulting, which we'll talk about. But also tell us about when you were 12 years old. It was a profound moment for you with the influences of your uncles.

Lessons From Twelve: Sow The Seeds

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so it comes from six generations of business owners that came from the Midwest and continued to uh build uh the family farm into large enterprises and uh working for them in the summers. When I was 12, I worked with them every summer from when I was 12 to when I was 18. Um I uh decided I wanted to own a small business that made a big impact in the world.

SPEAKER_00

Now it's interesting where you said you learned a few things from them. You learned to work hard, stay humble, and really be smart because you had to know the product. Even at 12 years old, what was that born out of? How did you know to have those three qualities?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think I watched my two uncles as they led large workforces and they were both really humble. And one of the things I one of the things I noticed about both of them that I work for was that um farming requires continued sowing. So uh you got to get up regularly, no matter what's going on, and sow seed, and sow seed, and sow seed, and till the soil and uh keep the weeds out so that the crops can grow. And uh it was that kind of regularity done with uh great intentionality and great hard work, and but done with teams of people that loved working for my uncle that made a big impression on me.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna ride that one where you said, I like how you said it, just simple statements where you have to sow seeds regularly. Sow seeds, sow seeds. So I'm sure that we can take that to every area of our life for your physical man, your spiritual man, your emotional man, for your friendships and relationships. We've been connected for 25 years and have to sow that seed. I've never heard it like that. I've been so impressed as you say that. Then at 23, this was a climb moment. This was a watershed moment for you. Tell us about when you were 23 years old. A lot was happening at that time.

The Age 23 Turning Point

SPEAKER_02

Yes, I grew up and I'd always wanted to be a business consultant. So I studied economics at school. I grew up largely in Canada, came to the States in my senior year of high school, was recruited to play soccer by seven schools, and uh chose a small school, private school, study economics at, played soccer for four years in tennis, and um did well academically. I was engaged to be married to the homecoming queen. And um as we began going through pre-Canaan, we uh I began to study the Bible. And um I began to feel the call of God the Father into a fuller relationship with him. And uh the Monsenior who was leading pre-Canaan was really helpful in guiding me and feeding my interest. Uh but at that time my fiancee was not interested in pursuing what I was pursuing, and uh our engagement ended, which meant that um I had uh I made a decision to follow Christ. I had a uh I lost the engagement, lost the family, and even the current position I was in, and uh had a big change at 23.

SPEAKER_00

So it's interesting. A lot's going on. You're a young, gifted guy. Uh, you stand on the shoulders of giants uh because you you said that you were gonna be a sixth generation business owner. Uh, and then at 23, you're moving along. The train is on the tracks, but then you get this heartbreak. Tell the audience, tell the climbers out there how you felt, because I'm sure there's a listener out there that's saying, that's happened to me. Man, I had a life change, or I'm committing myself to Jesus, and then my life is turned upside down. How what did you learn and how did you process that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great way to say that. I, you know, you and I talked about this, but I actually felt shame when I, not because I chose Christ, but because I lost something that was so sacred to me by making that decision. And uh the one thing I felt like at the time was um I felt

Launching A Firm At Twenty‑Six

SPEAKER_02

both the shame and rejection of losing everything I had known. But I also felt the reassurance that um that God had a very, very clear purpose and plan for me.

SPEAKER_00

So a lot of in that dichotomy that's going on, you you're a young guy, you're experiencing life, you have some heartbreak in life, but yet you're saying like there's a quiet reassurance, like I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna pull myself out of it. Yeah, I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, beautiful. It's quiet reassurance that God is with me, that this was not a uh this was neither a random decision nor destructive one. It was uh it was, as you and I talked about it, it was a calling I could not ignore. Wow. And uh yeah. So during that time, during that time of coming to know Christ, uh losing my engagement, um, I decided to sow the seeds of beginning to start my own consulting firm.

SPEAKER_00

And at 26 years old, you started, and it's interesting where you say it was built on relentless, relentlessness, uh, tenacity, and humility. So at 26, you're building this business, but it was interesting you said you were so young or so young looking that you had to get an older guy that looks like me nowadays and say, he had to be the face of that. Tell us about starting that business. And you were wise enough, as young as you were, to get a veteran presence to articulate the vision.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, when I was uh 26 and working with, I began working with public companies. I had uh developed a framework that would guide them in how they hired mass sales forces and uh began working with headquarters companies. But at the same time, uh when I was growing up, there wasn't 26-year-olds that worked with Fortune 500 companies. Now it's a commonality, then it was uh abnormality. And so I hired a 55-year-old man to uh be my vice president, even though I was a president and owner, and he became the face of the company so that uh we could break down doors and gain access to um opportunities for consulting.

SPEAKER_00

You know, it's interesting. I I'm hearing that 12-year-old that where you said you learned from your uncles uh to really be smart. That was a very, very smart move to have a veteran face of that. But here's interesting, John. Most businesses fail within three years. How were you able, as such a young guy, to overcome that, to climb, to say, we're gonna do this? What was the wisdom and the secret

Relentless Prospecting And Early Success

SPEAKER_00

sauce to continue to overcome and keep your business going and be successful with three businesses and 26 employees?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So I I knew that the first three years would be the hardest part, right? So I had studied the stats. I'd actually studied business since I was 12, since I made that decision. Study how businesses work, how they got started, how you establish one. And uh so I sowed seeds. Sowed seeds day and night. The first three years I called large companies relentlessly and told them I could solve their problems and listened to their problems and gave them uh an outline of how to solve big, big uh problems that they were facing as organizations. And I did that over and over and over. I never stopped sowing the seed um, really, for the first seven years of the business. I was relentless about that.

SPEAKER_00

It's interesting. I'm gonna stop you right there before your 40th birthday. Did you like what you were becoming? Who was John Paul at that time? What was your mindset? I mean, you got to be feeling pretty good to be a young stud and a business owner. Where was the humility? What was the self-talk during those years?

SPEAKER_02

Well, yeah, it's interesting. You know, one of the phrases that you had um talked to me about when you entered the NBA was uh you made the statement to me, it's always it's never left me, which is, is this all the NBA is? And you were surprised in a sense how uh easily you fit into that from a physical gift standpoint. So I was successful pretty quickly in business. And it's I had the same reaction, is this all business is?

Marriage, Caregiving, And Expanding The Business

SPEAKER_02

It seems too easy. And um so I yeah, I built the business the first seven years. At the same time, I uh had felt a calling to uh begin to uh pray for a woman I had met that um was beginning to have show the effects of having multiple sclerosis in her body. And um that was a mystery to me. I felt like God had laid her on my heart to pray for her. And I was, as I was building this business, I felt the pull to both be praying for her. And then God began to introduce us. We began to meet, not on any effort of my own. We just began to be in the same places, and um I there was a time where I felt like uh this was the answer to uh this was the answer to the decision at 23 to not pursue um my fiancee, but to pursue uh Janet, who was uh my wife for 19 years.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I had the privilege of meeting her, and you guys have your precious son Jamie. Uh so life is coming at you, and you're making that adjustment, you're still being successful. At 40 years old, it was another watershed moment. So tell us about when you were 40 years old, what was happening in your life?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so precursor to that was we uh, you know, we I was building the business, we were opening offices, opened three offices, and we were enjoying success, built the company to about 26 people. And uh we were working in 15 cities across the United States. And at the same time, I had married Janet five years earlier, four years earlier, and uh she began to get worse, which was not an expectation, very quickly.

Purpose Clarified Through Hardship

SPEAKER_02

And so I quickly, right after we got married, became her nighttime attendant, which meant that I actually had to do caregiving and uh was awake every 30 minutes in order to turn her in bed and take care of her. And then uh she required um she required care both in the mornings and the evenings because she began to lose uh use of her legs.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful story where you are just a guy that gives a darn. And it's just so amazing, and you're still able to come out on top. That's why I wanted you on this show specifically for our climbers, because people deal with situations. They deal with life. They deal with life from the heartbreak where you said in your marriage, from where you were learning businesses, and where you even said your your grandfather uh had three uh generations of black lungs and had to deal with uh disabilities. So the interesting thing is that drove you to purpose. You talk about purpose a lot. Tell us about purpose and overcoming and why purpose is so important to you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's a phrase that a friend of mine used that said, when the road is most difficult, the calling is clearest. When the road is most difficult, the calling is clearest. And so I refer to that in my calling to take care of to marry and both to take care and honor the dignity of Janet, my first wife. And the same calling that uh the same calling that also included uh owning a business. Um and you're alluding to like what that looked like. Um it was very difficult. Like I, you know, I had a very, very clear purpose in my marriage, a very clear purpose in my business. But what I didn't account for was how much work it would take. And so for 12 years, I ended up working almost 24 hours a day. Uh I was literally up

Cancer, Burnout, And Hearing “Enjoy The Harvest”

SPEAKER_02

every half hour at night for 12 years and doing caregiving as soon as I came home at night from working with. You know, we had we had a large suite of companies and projects, Fortune 500 companies at the time. And uh after 12 years of that, my body wore out and uh I was diagnosed with cancer.

SPEAKER_00

How did you feel? And you saw you you knew how you got there because you weren't able to rest and you weren't able to just be still. So, as a man in your prime, a young man, how did you feel? And how did you uh overcome to where you are today? What was the process?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's good. So I had to re-examine my life. And uh, even though my business was prosperous, I never really enjoyed all the prosperity that offered. I mean, it allowed for financing, really building a caregiving facility in our home, hiring attendants, that kind of thing. But uh, life had just become serving duty rather than enjoying God. And uh one morning, as I sat in the cancered ward and had to reconcile uh my life because I had a 50% chance to live, um, I heard the Lord speak something I'll never forget, which was, Jonathan, you've never enjoyed the harvest. Jonathan, you've never enjoyed the harvest. And I knew what it meant. It meant that I had worked really hard and God wanted me to enjoy the fruitfulness of my purpose along with the sowing. He also wanted me to enjoy the reaping. And uh I had given the reaping away to others.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, where you where you said enjoy the harvest.

Redesigning Work Around Human Purpose

SPEAKER_00

So I I like where now with your consulting business, I had to write this down, and I've seen you work, and I still had to write this down. You have a unique approach because in your consulting business, it's organization through psychology and human purpose. Simple statement, but explain what it is with Jonathan Paul Consulting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so during the time that uh I was recovering from cancer, um, God really kind of realigned my life. And uh, what that looked like was moving from 300 clients, 26 employees working in three offices in 15 cities across the United States to working with three companies and really honing in on the core stuff that I developed. It also meant going to school for clinical psychology to study motivation and um and really study human purpose, the genesis of it, where it starts, how it works in a life, and where we can go wrong in thinking purpose is calling, and it's not. And so uh God just began to um I began to live into the harvest that God had already prepared for me, in a sense, and not a prosperity gospel kind of thing, as much as uh I began a really fruitful consulting practice with I went from 26 employees to two and um worked with privately held companies that really prized the stuff that we were doing, which is integration of clinical psychology with business consulting practices and really focusing on uh leaders' individual purpose as well as an organization's purpose.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I have a quote from one of your businesses. Working with John Paul for nearly 20 years, his expertise and ability to connect with people made him invaluable to our company. So the relationships with people, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Give us the secret sauce

Acceptance, Performance, And Identity

SPEAKER_00

behind that statement.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so uh I think you and I have a deep love for people. I thought about uh something that you and I both share as I think what you and I both want to see when we meet, we respect it about each other, but we want to see it when we're meeting with other people. As part of our own gifts, is calling other people forth into their purpose and calling them forth into the dignity of who they're created to be in the image of God.

SPEAKER_00

I love that one. So it is and I I love that one. And I'm uh it's a simple state statement, but I'm just thinking about it. I'm thinking, like, man, so you're basically saying everyone can use a at a boy, at a girl. Is this a truism? Uh the number one need is acceptance. The number one fear is rejection. And you talk a lot about performance. You perform, we perform naturally. We want to perform to make these teams or make the uh make that tribe and connection. Tell us about performance and how dangerous that can be if it's not in the right mindset.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that's really good. That's well done. So, yeah, so when you understand your purpose, like all of us uh like all of us learn a way in the world. That's our motivation. We learn how to perform in order to be affirmed. And uh my journey to the cancer ward was trying to meet a need which affirmed my identity. So I had so many needs that I was meeting, it literally killed me. Yeah, it literally was killing me. And um, I realized that the way that I had learned to be affirm growing up was by meeting needs. And we all have this mechanism in us that um, this learned affirmations, it's a way that we perform in the world that reaffirms who we are. And God's way of doing things is completely different. It's he accepts us fully, and then he harnesses

The Garden Life And Second Chances

SPEAKER_02

us into a purpose that gives us both life and fruitfulness. And my life post-cancer, even though it hit the you know, some difficulties still, you know, I lost my wife to MS uh 15 years ago. And uh, but it's been fruitful. I've enjoyed the harvest the last 15 years of a new marriage, a really fruitful business that is much smaller, but much more enjoyable, and going really deep with people and really understanding that um God's way is the best way. When we lean into uh his purposes for us, life is twice as good and half as hard.

SPEAKER_00

You say a garden life. Explain that one. It's a simple statement again. And folks, uh, my buddy John makes the simple statements and I have to digest and chew the cud, digest what is said. You have now, and you've earned this one, my goodness, a simple statement, uh, uh, a garden life with you and Maria. What is that like now after so much hurt from really both of you guys' story?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so um, yeah, God, look, we um Maria and I, my Maria's my second wife, my first wife died 15 years ago. And uh I think we both, when we when we met each other, we both had gone to a point in our lives where we had not necessarily uh uh believed that there was somebody that God had for us. And uh, but we both found that uh we felt drawn to each other. We met in our son's high school and um our

What Healthy Companies Do Right

SPEAKER_02

life has been just uh both really fruitful, meaningful, and we call it our garden life because um literally God has uh built beautiful gardens around our home, as part of our home, and uh put our feet in spacious places. And we know that that has nothing to do with us or even our efforts, because there's a lot of people that work hard. But um look, the God life journey into his purposes leads to the garden life, leads to not just a life of fruitfulness, but a life of beauty.

SPEAKER_00

My goodness. Simple statements, and you have to digest what is said and almost read it slowly. So for the listeners out there, make sure you run this back, this show back into conversations. Talking about those businesses and you're consulting, how can you tell a successful business, how can you tell the DNA of a poor-run businesses?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, very good. So um, yeah, I look at we look at uh five areas of a business, but the overall theme is are they investing in their people's continual advancement and development? And do they care about their people? Like, are they harnessing the best good of their people by under helping people understand their purpose and creating the means by which people are developed so they can reach their potential within their firms?

SPEAKER_00

What really uh right now, and you have that story from a 12-year-old, a legacy of being connected

Faith, Love, And Calling Others Forth

SPEAKER_00

with Abraham Lincoln, uh, precious family, successes and challenges of family. Today, as you and I are privileged to start our sixth decade, uh, who is John Paul? Do you like what you're becoming? Do you like what you're unbecoming?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's a good question. Um Do I like what I'm becoming? Uh I uh I'm enjoying more and more the love of the Father. And I think that um as people, as people everywhere, uh part of our growing in our own journey is learning to receive the fullness of the love of the father and learning to let go of our tendency to perform in order to be affirmed. And uh so you know, I'm letting go more and more in a sense, and uh but life's no less fruitful, right? Like our our relationship has grown for 20 years and uh 25 years, and amen, right? And I love you because why? Because you lean in, man, because you lean in.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I remember this. I I'm listening because you talk about God and faith, and and I'm a person of God and faith, but

Final Encouragement And Where To Find John

SPEAKER_00

I still remember being a knucklehead on those LSD trips, being lost, stupid, and dumb, dancing when there ain't no music. I gotta act like I'm 61 now, folks. But you know, I remember the underground. John, my question to you is talk to that person out there that's like, man, get that's good for you. That's your truth. That ain't good for me. God, where is God for me? So why is God so real to you?

SPEAKER_02

Because he's better than we ever dreamed he was. I think that when you live Yeah, I lived in a life support situation for 19 years. So when you live in the uh shadow of death for a long period of time, you realize the goodness of the light and the love of Christ. And um it's an important thing. I think most people don't realize how deeply they're loved, how they will never be let go by God, and that really his purposes are far more fruitful than we can choose on our own. And he uses the stuff that makes us uh gives us joy, like uh families. Our lives are yeah, families, but he also uses our gifts. I mean, he wants to harness our gifts, the things we enjoy doing, things that allow us fulfillment in serving others. Um part of our work at Jonathan Paul Consulting is we help people in.

Closing And Listener Invitation

SPEAKER_02

Understand what their specific gifts, motivations, passion, and purpose is. And God uses that. And he just uses it far more fully for your own good and benefit than people might realize.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, this is this is so profound. I I said at the top of the show that you were a gentleman and a gentleman, but St. Francis de Sale said there's nothing stronger than gentleness, and there's no strength stronger than gentleness. And I hear the gentleness and the strength through brokenness. Uh before we let you go, um, what is one thing you would say that can encourage our listeners? What would you say to the listeners out there to encourage them to keep climbing?

SPEAKER_02

There is a purpose, a unique purpose only you can fulfill. There is a unique purpose only you can fulfill in this world, and to know it and to know it fully will give your life meaning and hope.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you, John. That is uh wonderful. Uh where can our followers follow you if they want to know more about Jonathan Paul Consulting? Where can they follow you or even on social media?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, that we have a website called Jonathan Paul Consulting. It's really for organizational leaders, but uh have a book coming out hopefully this year called The Wonder of Purpose, which will walk people through their how to determine and understand the purpose that's already written inside their heart and their um DNA. And um, so hopefully that'll be out this year along with um other resources that'll help people walk through understanding their own purpose.

SPEAKER_00

Well, John, you are the best. Uh, I love you. Our family loves you. And brother, you just continue to get wiser and more sincere. Uh, love you. Thanks for coming today. Uh, your special guy. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love you, man. Thank you for the time.

SPEAKER_00

Jonathan Paul, everybody, my goodness, a special guy. I'm glad you guys were able to dig in on this one today. And if you want to learn more about us, head on over to AdrianBranchSpeaks.com. Follow us on social media at Adrian BranchSpeaks and download the climb wherever podcasts are available. You guys are awesome. We love bringing you this show. We'll see you next time. And remember, be encouraged and keep climbing. Thanks, everybody.