The Art of the Comeback
Lessons from Building, Losing, and Rebuilding Success
Success often looks easy from the outside.
People see the headlines, the accolades, the milestones. What they don’t see are the years of quiet struggle, the failed ideas, the heartbreaks, and the countless moments when quitting felt easier than pushing forward. But real success — the kind that endures — belongs to those who refuse to give up.
This is my story.
The Early Sparks of Entrepreneurship
My first ideas for a business came early.
Between 8th and 9th grade summer school, while most kids were just riding skateboards, I was thinking about how to build a skateboard company. I called it ASS — American Skateboard Supply — a venture at 12 years old, based on the idea of ordering products from catalogs and selling them at school.
I didn’t know anything about wholesalers or distribution yet, and the idea never fully got off the ground. But looking back, I realize now — the spark was already there.
By sophomore year of high school, my path shifted toward music. At 14, I had barely been playing guitar for six months but was already picking up Joe Satriani songs by ear. I was playing 6–10 hours a day, driven by a natural gift and an even stronger obsession to master the craft.
Armed with a Nakamichi cassette deck, I started recording my music, making copies, and selling them for $5 apiece at school. I learned about profit and loss without even realizing it: I’d buy old books on cassette from the thrift store for a few dollars, strip off the labels with nail polish remover, and record my music over them, flipping inventory into profit. This — in all its humble beginnings — was my first real business.
The First Fall: Homeless at 19
By 17, graduating high school, I knew I didn’t want to stay trapped in the traditional workforce. My family — military through and through — didn’t understand the entrepreneurial drive. No immediate or extended family member had ever built a business, but I was determined.
I officially launched my first licensed business: selling cellular phones, right around 2001 — the age of Nokia dominance. It failed miserably. Within months, I was homeless, broke, and starting over.
But music, always my first love, saved me. I grabbed my guitar, hit the road, and started playing as many shows as I could — 20 to 25 shows per month — selling CDs and T-shirts just to survive. Tower Records became a critical ally, letting me play inside their stores up and down the West Coast, selling music to anyone who would listen.
Then in December 2006, Tower Records filed for bankruptcy, shuttering every store — including the ones carrying my CDs. Overnight, my second business collapsed.
The First Major Comeback Attempt
Life is funny sometimes. Shortly after Tower's closure, I struck up a conversation with a man carrying motorcycle helmets, and discovered Zamp Helmets, a local manufacturer.
Overnight, I became a helmet retailer — selling at Denio’s Farmers Market before opening a small retail store at Harbor Village Shopping Center in Roseville, California. Young, eager, and still green, I was learning the ropes.
A few years in, an opportunity came to open a store at Sunrise Mall. I thought it was a sure thing:
Lounge seating for husbands while spouses shopped
Movies, drinks, motorcycle gear, and even my revival of my skateboard dream: Sacramento Skateboard Company, our own skateboard brand.
It all sounded brilliant. But by 2012 — just two months after opening — we were out of business again. The online motorcycle gear sales continued but the retail dreams were over. Once again, everything I had was invested into the new store — and gone.
Homeless. Again.
The motorcycle business never officially died. We ran the motorcycle business online until just a few months ago when it was time to hang up our helmets and focus all of our energy on Impact & Influence Magazine. We sold helmets for a total of 19 years and man, we have some wonderful stories and memories. We will share those another time, but back to our story.
During those same years, 2006–2010, I was quietly building a Ferrari parts brokerage on the side. But when the Great Recession hit, small-time Ferrari owners lost their cars, while the big-time Ferrari owners bought directly from Ferrari.
Another business… lost.
Hitting Rock Bottom — and Keeping the Dream Alive
By 30 years old, I found myself homeless once again, this time with a lot more scars — but also a lot more wisdom. Desperate for any income, I took a job at Taco Bell, earning $8 an hour. Still, I refused to let go of my dreams. I would come to work clutching a DuPont Registry magazine — a dreamer among skeptics — and talk about test-driving Porsches on the weekend while coworkers laughed, unable to understand why someone flipping tacos was dreaming of luxury cars. But inside, the fire never died.
My Next Big Idea - and a Pivot Into Media
In 2013, I launched Awepra Technologies — an ambitious idea to build a browse engine (not a search engine). Think of it like a web version of the iPhone: click a category like "shopping," then Best Buy, then browse — rather than search.
I opened an office, slept there, and fought to get Awepra off the ground. But the market was already shifting too quickly toward mobile apps and social media. Awepra never took off.
Then one day, an unexpected door opened: I was invited to build a radio show on Money 105.5 FM. At the time, I was working at Paramount Equity Mortgage by day and working on Awepra at night. But I knew a pivot was necessary.
On July 8, 2015, The Good Life Show with Jon Robert Quinn launched. Within a year, I became the #1 FM radio show in Sacramento. A year after that, the show expanded into Seattle, Denver, Miami, and Sacramento markets.
In 2020, I transitioned from FM to digital broadcasting, launching JRQTV, and the media empire began.
Today: Building Legacy
Since then, we’ve built an extraordinary portfolio:
Four High Rise films — High Rise: Path to Nowhere (2022), High Rise 2: Nowhere to Run (2023), High Rise 3: Run to Peril (2024), High Rise 4: Peril to Prosperity (2025) — starring icons like Charles D. Clark (Empire, House of Cards), Jim Anderson (Deadwood), and Joseph R. Gannascoli (The Sopranos).
Over 40 books published — selling thousands globally.
Millions of music streams worldwide — keeping the original dream alive.
Founder of Impact & Influence Magazine — a publication built on three decades of real stories, real lessons, and relentless pursuit.
And all of this — every story, every scar, every triumph — came from never giving up.
Lessons From the Journey
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over these 30 years, it’s this:
You don't lose until you quit.
Failure is a tool — not a label.
Every setback plants the seeds of your future success.
The world will doubt you — but you must not doubt yourself.
You’ll be misunderstood — but you must stay true.
Success doesn’t come from perfect plans.
It comes from falling, learning, adjusting, and standing back up when no one else believes in you — sometimes not even yourself.
So wherever you are in your journey — stuck, rising, rebuilding, or just starting — trust your fire. Trust your passion. And above all, trust your ability to keep going.
You are capable of more than you know and the best chapters are still ahead.