LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Turning Brokenness Into Beauty: Jesse and Rene'e La Montagne Dunn's Story - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley and Alisha Coakley

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How can the darkest moments of our lives prepare us to light the way for others?

Coaches Jesse and Rene’e La Montagne Dunn share their inspiring journey of transforming lives within the incarcerated community. Their own daughter’s incarceration became a pivotal moment for them, awakening a profound calling to address the pain and challenges faced by those society often overlooks. Through their nonprofit foundation, "Go Broken to Beautiful," they have channeled their own struggles and personal growth into a mission of hope, empowering others to find healing, faith, and the strength to rebuild their lives.

From developing coaching tools to rewriting the narrative of generational trauma, Jesse & Rene'e offer a glimpse into the life-changing principles at the core of their work. Their innovative program addresses the physical, emotional, and spiritual scars of hurting individuals, emphasizing the Savior’s boundless love and the power of personal responsibility.

Jesse and Rene'e’s story is a testament to the power of faith in action. Their experiences remind us that no one is too far gone to experience Christ’s love and redemption, and that even the most broken lives can be mended into something truly beautiful.

*** Please SHARE Jesse & Rene'e's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode, visit: https://youtu.be/8E1IXkWQmfQ

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To LEARN more about The Prison Project, visit: https://youtu.be/KVD0LYpdYQI

To LEARN more about the Go Broken to Beautiful Foundation, visit: https://www.gobrokentobeautifulfoundation.org/

To DONATE to The Prison Project, visit: https://donorbox.org/help-change-the-face-of-a-nation-give-to-the-prison-project-3

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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Scott Brandley:

Hi everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Alisha Coakley:

And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.

Scott Brandley:

On today's episode we're going to hear how watching a child go to prison led one couple to teach the most forgotten souls that no one is too broken to come unto Christ. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today and we're really excited to welcome our special guests Jesse and Renee Dunn to the show. Welcome, guys.

Alisha Coakley:

Thanks Scott, thanks Alisha, thanks for coming on. Um, for our listeners. You guys probably want to grab tissues. I don't have any tissues here. I already started getting a little teary eyed before we even started recording. Um, I just think this is going to be such a special episode today, and so buckle up, like I said, grab some tissues, because I just I could already feel the spirit, no pressure or anything, though.

Alisha Coakley:

Renee and Jesse, and also to those who are listening via audio and not watching the video portion of this, we are going to be sharing some things that you might want to, you know, check out. So if you can't see it because you're listening, not watching, be sure that you check out the description and we'll put links to the things that we're going to be sharing in the description so you guys can watch that later. So, but before we jump in all of that, we would love to know a little bit more about you guys. Jesse and Renee, do you want to tell us just a little bit about who you are, where you're from, what you do and and you know, not your story yet, but just just some some fun information?

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Well, I'll start, if that's okay. So obedient.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

For both of us this is a marriage after divorce. Okay, I don't know how much into detail you'd be interested, but the fact is that I was born a member of the church in Seattle, washington, grew up most of my life in Boulder, colorado, attended the University of Colorado, got a degree in psychology and later got a master's degree in organizational management. I've worked as a career in kind of two distinct careers one in the nonprofit world, and I'll talk about that more in a second, and the other in the for-profit world. All of those kind of positions were either junior executive or higher executive level positions and moved around the country quite a bit. Wife and I have six children and I lose track 17 grandchildren and great-grandchildren on the way, and between Renee and I and our families we tallied up the other day and we have 63 now in our family. Oh my gosh, that's really exciting.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

We moved to Utah recently within the past it's been almost six months now because we both have family here, and it's just in our retirement years, a way to kind of stay connected and to kind of share the joys of, you know, being with extended family.

Alisha Coakley:

Wow, oh man, I can't even imagine holidays. That is wow, that's a lot, that's amazing.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Well, I am not an academic. I have had some college, but, um, I have been an entrepreneur all my life uh, hotels, motels, restaurants, investment properties hotels, motels, restaurants, investment properties and have been fairly successful and have failed quite a bit too. So the failing is what taught me the lessons and I'm grateful for that. I have three beautiful daughters. One is an alcoholic and we will be talking about her tonight. A little bit Beautiful family. I was married to my first husband for 34 years, just had a fairytale life with our children and things happened that just we couldn't get over and sad, sad, very sad divorce, and I don't think my kids have ever gotten over that. Divorce is not a fun thing, but I am so pleased to have met Jesse on the LDS planet, by the way.

Scott Brandley:

Oh.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Thanks. It was pretty interesting how we met, but I'm glad to be here and glad to be sharing as a partner and his wife and doing everything together. It's just marvelous.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

We just we just last week celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary, so oh well, congratulations you.

Alisha Coakley:

That's awesome. I met my husband online too, but it was Yahoo Personals 20 years ago, so a little different, but it works. I guess, like online can work sometimes, so awesome.

Scott Brandley:

Well, you're speaking to two entrepreneurs here, Renee. So, you're in good company. Yep, yep, awesome. So well, we're so glad to have you on the show and we'd love to jump in and have you guys share your story. I'm really excited to hear about it. So where do you guys, where does your story begin?

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Well, we're going to talk to you tonight about two different business entities. One is our for-profit business called NewView Concepts, which we train and certify people to become personal responsibility coaches or life coaches, but mostly the nonprofit which is Go Broken, a Beautiful Foundation, and we currently are working in the prison project and that's what we're going to be talking with you about tonight. And it started about oh, 30 or more years ago when my alcoholic daughter went to jail for the first time and I went to visit her and I was just heartsick about the tales that the women were telling us and the sadness that was in their lives Everything had been taken away their children, their homes, their dignity, their freedom, their life savings, their husband, their jobs. It was just a sad story and, you know, the more I heard about it, the more I thought. You know, my daughter was born into a really loving family. These most of these women were not, and the dysfunction, the sadness, just it was just terrible what they went through. So in my mind and in my heart at that time I thought what can I do? What can I do to help these women? And little did I know. And we teach, you know, quantum thought mechanics in our program, but little did I know that thinking about those things and visualizing that and carrying that with me for a long time finally came to fruition. So, you know, we proved a point for many, many years later and fast forward 30 years I finally met Jesse, and Jesse had taught these principles throughout the world to thousands and thousands of people and we thought, you know, we could put all the concepts and tools that Jesse had taught on, you know, online, and then turn around and walk away and, you know, just play with the grandkids.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

But, as it turned out, that's not exactly what happened. We it was called Vision Light. That first one. It was all about quantum thought and how to control your thinking patterns and to realize, you know, create your future on purpose. And we put our first little burb out on social media train your brain to make money. And we had about 60 hits. No big deal, it's not anything, you know, earth shaking. But around that time there was a lot of talk about suicide on social media and it wasn't just a, it was big, it was massive. And families were, you know, just going through it and just, they were telling me story after story after story. And Jesse says let's just take a breather and let's just watch what happens and see how this unfolds. And so, within a few weeks, he said we're on the wrong track. He said let's put out a different ad. And the next ad was has life crushed you? And then, within six weeks, we had 70,000 followers worldwide. Holy cow, oh my gosh.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So that proved to us that pain is universal number one and that it doesn't matter what the labels are. People are going through the same thing and they have to go through the same healing processes to finally get healed, you know, and get to those steps. To finally get healed, you know, and get to those steps. So we tabled the Vision, the Light Essentials course, and Jesse went back to the drawing board and wrote Go Broken to Beautiful. And it was a healing course and we'll talk a lot about that tonight. The beta testing that we did was absolutely phenomenal. In going through the course, we had amazing results. But the problem was people weren't finishing the course, and so Jesse and I started coaching people through the course, which they went through the course and they got. You know, they did amazing things and overcame amazing challenges and changed their lives for sure. So I thought at that time I'm just going to take this into jail to the women and see what happens. So I had several women that I started coaching in jail.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

That was around COVID, the beginning of COVID, wasn't it Right at the beginning? Right at the beginning, and there was no way that I could talk with some of these women. I had to text these women and text them. The course we were going back and forth. Of course I mailed them the book and we'll talk about this book soon. It's since become a number one bestseller, international bestseller. But the result of my coaching these women was astounding for me because I realized that in this setting I had to be very careful with the words that I chose. You know, neuro-linguistic programming and all of these things that go alongside coaching. We have to be very careful the words that we use. But we also have to realize that these people can't see us and can't see our body language. We can't see their body language. So words mattered and we had to develop a relationship of trust so that they know that I'm going to be there no matter what. And they had no one that was there no matter what.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So trusting me was really foreign to them they were essentially forgotten people yeah, forgotten people and just locked up and had to pay the price, which, um, some of them need to be there for sure, but there, I think there's other alternatives for these people. So we started coaching these women, and Jesse and I knew that we couldn't do this by ourselves, that you know, being two coaches and coaching this magnificent program, we knew that we were going to have to have more coaches. So he went back to the drawing board and wrote another course and we are training. In our for-profit business, we train people to become coaches, personal responsibility coaches and Jesse will tell you about that in just a little bit. So we were just amazed at what happened and the success ratio that was happening with this. And so Jesse, having a nonprofit background, he said you know, we can get more traction if we create a nonprofit with this, and truly that's where our hearts meshed. We realized that the purpose that we were on this earth was to do this, and with knowing our purpose and being partners in that purpose and sharing that journey together, it was phenomenal. It was just amazing.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

I did a little research on that and found out that the United States has the highest recidivism rate in the whole wide world.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So that means within 10 years, 83% of those people are going to get arrested again and 63% will go back to jail. So that is absolutely astounding and it's amazing that our system is so broken. So there was room enough for our program in the prisons and the jails, so we took it throughout North Dakota and that was where we lived before. We came here and worked in several different jails and we were working on a referral basis, one by one, and had just incredible results. And what I mean by that is when they came out of prison they were much more prepared, with the tools that they could use, the principles that they could live by, the tools that they could use, the principles that they could live by, and just better equipped to face life again. So, jesse, why don't you tell a little bit about what the program is about? But we'd love to show you a short video also that Alisha and Scott can dub into this in a little while.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

Alisha and Scott can dub into this in a little while. Okay. So the Go Broke Into Beautiful manual that I wrote, and Renee added a chapter as well, really had its genesis in a three-year period of my own life. In a three-year period of my own life and in that three years I experienced hit after hit after hit that left me broken. To start this, I was kind of at the top of the food chain for a large nonprofit organization in Montana, highly visible position, well known in the community, serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, multimillion dollar organization, 300 plus employees. And so you know, life was great, except that at that time my wife of 31 years decided to leave, to go a different direction and left me, go a different direction and left me. Our children were grown by then and so on, but that was devastating.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I can't describe the pain and I can't really talk eloquently enough about the physical distraught that that also brought, along with the mental anguish and the spiritual anguish and you know to the extent of panic attacks. That was bad enough. That was bad enough. But also during this period of time my mother passed away and you know death and the grieving and all of that kind of stuff just sort of added to the hurt and anguish that I was feeling at the time. Another thing that happened all of these really on top of each other.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I began when I went to the hospital for panic attacks. They noticed a constriction in my heart and so I went into surgery and had a stent placed in there, and during the rehabilitation I was unable to go to work, to attend to my duties. Now my boss was an entire board of directors my situation with them and explain to them that while I would be out of the office for a period of time, even when I came back to the office for many months, I would be unable to work a full day and we determined that the best course of action was for me to resign and they bring on another chief executive officer, which they did. The problem with that is that now I was out of work.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Yeah.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

Even though I got a settlement and things like that, even though I, you know, got a settlement and things like that, you know we need to work. That's, in my opinion, an eternal principle. Yeah.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And with the other stuff going on, I began to spiral downward and you know I did not recognize how broken I was. So, loss of job, loss of income, that resulted eventually in losing the place where I was living. I became homeless. I became homeless for a period of time, so I was living out of my truck until my truck got repossessed oh my gosh. So this you know all within a three-year period, and it was my good fortune to have a strong faith in Heavenly Father.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And you know I had because of the various leadership roles and so on that I've had in the church was able to recognize in myself some of the same thought patterns that caused difficulty for so many others who came in for counseling, for example, and so I began to sort that out and use what I knew about the gospel. And oh yeah, pointing to a note Also, at this time I was diagnosed with ME-CFS, which is myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue syndrome. There were days that literally I could not get out of bed, shower and so on.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I still struggle with that, but I've learned to navigate that.

Alisha Coakley:

But at any rate.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I recognized that my thought patterns were contributing to the downfall we. All of us face trials in life. That's part of the purpose of life. Right Is to learn how to navigate mortality in a way that we can prove our faithfulness right. In a way that we can prove our faithfulness right, and so my reliance upon the Savior became absolutely real. To me at that point it became a very tangible sort of thing, not an academic exercise or not even a spiritual power that I'd experienced all my life. It applied to every day getting through the day and I began to jot down some of that experience and how I was beginning to lift out of, you know, hitting rock bottom, so to speak.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And as I put that together, I realized that this was not the end, you know, even though I'd lost so much you know, money-wise and family-wise and in every other way.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

This was not the end, and so, you know, I began putting together what eventually became the Go Broken to Beautiful program, and I was challenged along the way in doing that. It's not easy to do a lot of writing when you're homeless. Yeah, and you know. Then I faced bankruptcy and terrible things, and so I began to think well, you know what is my dominant thought pattern?

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And I identified three basic paradigms of the mind, and these are not original with me. In fact, if the LDS audience is familiar with section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants, this is where I was informed about three paradigms of the mind. The first paradigm was where I had spiraled down to my dominant thought pattern. There was that of a victim. It was a victim mentality. The law that governed that was the law of survival, those who operate there consistently, and that's the telestial law. And so, you know, I studied Section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I realized that, you know, telestial glory in my condition, there was what I would be prepared for, and so I began to think about, well, so what's higher than that? Well, the terrestrial law, which we think of as, instead of fear, anxiety, law of survival. It's kind of the duty justice, the acceptor mentality. Here's what I'm supposed to do, here's the law. I'm going to live it more of a letter of the duty justice, the acceptor mentality. Here's what I'm supposed to do, here's the law. I'm going to live it more of a letter of the law, law of Moses, how people typically think of the law of Moses, kind of thing.

Alisha Coakley:

And that's important.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

It's important that we have laws for social order in society. Imagine if there were no traffic laws, for example. That would be created. And so, you know, I thought about that and realized, well, that for me was going to be pretty easy to move to. You know, I can make the change to elevate my dominant thought pattern to the duty justice level. You know, I could set a time to get up and take a shower and do the routine kinds of things. You know, spend X amount of time writing and doing those kinds of things, and so that was fairly simple. But then I realized that I was being challenged to an even higher law.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

It's interesting that not this past conference, but I believe it was the April conference President Nelson challenged us to celestial thinking, and so I began to ponder on that and realized that I was very far away, had a tremendous ways to go on that began to imbue my thinking, the love-caring level, the law of Christ, and that's made a tremendous difference in my own life. So those are the three paradigms the victim mentality, the acceptor mentality. Three paradigms the victim mentality, the acceptor mentality and what I call the victor mentality. Christ is the victory, was the point, and so I began writing these things and then I thought well, you know, in different parts of my life, you know I have different levels, different dominant thought patterns. And so, you know, in the manual we put in exercises around physical well-being, the mental, emotional, intellectual well-being, the spiritual well-being, the social relationship well-being, financial well-being and business and career growth. And so out of that came then a program.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I met Renee in the meantime we began publishing this were just amazing, astonishing to us, that individuals who were mired like I was in the victim mentality, could change their lives. And some of these individuals who had been in prison or were in prison, who'd suffered things far worse than me I mean, we're talking about women who, as children, were trafficked by relatives to pay for their relatives' drugs, and they became addicted in that environment. They had a sense of not being worth anything. No one had ever told them that they were worthy of love, they'd never received it. And so you know, with Renee's daughter experiencing, association with individuals like this while in jail.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

you know, it became just a calling to extend the information testimony as it thought pattern that kept so many mired down. And so, anyway, that's the story behind the writing, the program, and it's changed so many lives.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

One woman had become so mired in the victim mentality that she was seeing a psychiatrist every week on suicide watch and was mired there for 10 years. I don't know how expensive that becomes, but that was her life. She could not function in terms of normal daily living. Her dishes would not get done, she didn't sleep well. She just had difficulty after difficulty and diagnosed with clinical depression on all kinds of medication and so on. Now we don't present ourselves as providing clinical therapy or anything like that. We have a disclaimer about all of that, even though I'm trained in that field.

Alisha Coakley:

That's not what we do.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And she took the Go Broken to Beautiful course and literally within two weeks her psychiatrist said you know what's happened to you?

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And she said well, you know helps people deal immediately with a new thought pattern with bad things that happen in life and she explained to her psychiatrist that she was going through this and he said well, I don't think, you know, we need to see you every week. I'm going to take you off immediate suicide watch and why don't you just come every other week? Wow, she eventually, you know that became every month visit and then finally just twice a year kind of visit and just remarkable changes like that. Renee can tell you about some other women who have changed dramatically. We have one young man who will be incarcerated for a long, long period of time in federal prison because during the pandemic he lost his construction business, got into selling drugs. Some of the drugs that he sold were laced with fentanyl and a person died from that. The coach, the personal responsibility coach who worked with him, helped him see very positive, you know, third paradigm victor mentality, kinds of things that he can do with his life even though it's taken a turn.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And he was facing these challenges in prison that I can't even imagine and he's become a mentor to other prisoners, helping change their dominant thought patterns. And so these are the kinds of experiences that give us the sense of purpose, that we're doing the right thing, and it's just thrilling to us. We call it personal responsibility, response, hyphen ability. That's not original with us either. I first heard it 45 years ago from a man named Stephen R Covey. He visited the mission field where I was and that's where I first heard that and that's kind of captured my imagination the ability to respond to whatever life throws at us. That's the good things opportunities as well as the challenges. Those kinds of strengths, those thoughts and helps people change their dominant thought patterns to increase their ability to respond to life's challenges.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

When we talk about these people, men and women, I'd say the majority of them have come through incredible odds, say the majority of them have come through incredible odds incest gangs, crime, addiction, trafficking. Probably 90% of the women we deal with have been trafficked Emotional and psychological and physical abuse, mental abuse, indigence, lack of education, lack of responsibility and, of course, government assistance. So they have no parents that really care, no examples to teach them, no examples to teach them how to solve problems or to communicate or to make relationships important. They weren't taught manners, they weren't taught principles, they weren't taught how to deal with relationships. They had low school attendance and no money management skills.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So we're talking about a society here that is just mired in dysfunction and making poor choices. Because they didn't know that there was another side of life Many, many fathers in the family, family, but none of the fathers taking care of the family. So there was absence, addiction, separation, rapes and incest and murders and things going on. So our program, you know, helps to not only ignite their lives to see a different way, but to also taste what it could be like to have a different life.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And once they taste that, they want that, they crave that and once they know that their Savior is there and that he will not leave them, no matter how many times they've been abandoned, he is not going to leave them and that they can rely on him for everything. And it's brand new experience. It's a whole brand new life. So have you ever seen the movie Les Miserables? Make sure that you watch that with Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman was a burglar, a man that you'll have to see the movie, but anyway, the theme that came across from that is change begins the moment you decide to change, and he changed his life in a split second to become an honorable man.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Our coaches that we train in our New View Concepts work with the prisoners I don't want to say prisoners the incarcerated citizens and the previously incarcerated citizens and the first aha moment that they have is my coach loves me. My coach is not going to leave me. No matter what I do to my coach, she's not going to leave me. And of course they try and and they go through all this stuff to try and get us to leave them and just to see if we're really true to our word, but they don't realize that there can be a gentle side to life, a kind side to life, someone who cares and is loving and giving. And that's their first aha moment. The second aha moment is they realize that their thoughts took them to prison.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And think about the negative thinking patterns, oh, I'll just rob this store. Well, you can rob the store and you can make the choice, but you can't decide what the consequence is going to be. They don't think about the consequences. They think I'll rob this store and I'll pay off my bills and I'll be fine. Well, that's not what it happens. But the second aha moment comes. Well, I can control my thoughts. I can learn to manage my life by controlling my thoughts. And it's all about learning to navigate and to create a life with you what you choose to think about, what percolates in your mind. And then they finally realize I'm in prison because of what I was thinking. That's what brought me here. And so that's another aha moment. And they learn that we teach them the tools, we teach them the principles, we teach them the skills to stop those negative thinking patterns. It's called the ICE tool Jesse just mentioned a minute ago. I identify, confine and eliminate and then replace it with a healthy thought. But that's one of the tools that the coach works with the client to perfect and it takes practice. If you're not used to training your thoughts, if you're used to stopping what you're thinking and insert another thought in there. It takes some doing. You have to really practice that.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Another thing that we teach in the program is we help them find their purpose. When you know your purpose, life becomes beautiful and seek to fulfill your life by you know what was I born to do? Why is my life important? They don't realize that their life is important, that they're here for a reason, that they have something that they need to accomplish and they need to find out what that is. And when they find that out, then they realize that hey, I am here for something and my life does matter. And even though my stepfather told me over and over again I was a piece of whatever and I was just not even worth anything, I realized that God loves me and he knows my life matters. He didn't put me here by accident, that God loves me and he knows my life matters. He didn't put me here by accident.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Another thing that we do with them is we help them rewrite their history. You know many of them come with PTSD issues and abandonment issues, mental issues and trauma, shame and guilt. Trauma, shame and guilt and feeling unworthy is with all of them. They all feel, most of them all feel that. So we help them rewrite, and not necessarily can you. You can't rewrite facts, you can't rewrite history, but you can actually rewrite how you see that history. So when we teach them that you can train your thoughts, which means you can train your emotions, which means you can train the outlook, you can train your emotions, which means you can train the outlook outgo of what happens in any particular situation to a point, then you can rewrite how you feel about that past experience. Another aha.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Moment comes when they realize that everything that they've gone through in life, everything that's happened to them, every choice that they've made, everything is a gift and you can look at it as a bad thing, or you can look at it as a gift and we teach them that. You know, although heavenly father doesn't want this to happen to you, he can't control people because we have our free will. You can use this for good things, and so what are those good things? So that might be in in the purpose that they they learn to. Maybe they need to be a counselor, maybe they need to learn be a school teacher or whatever, so they can learn to help other people with the, with the experiences that they have, with a beautiful program. It's such a well-rounded program. We teach them tools, the ICE tool. Just For Today, I'm Going To no Excuses Living I Will Proclamation, I Promise Myself that I Will. There's different tools that we teach. Along with that comes skills like their physical well-being, all six areas of life physical well-being, psychological, emotional, mental well-being, social well-being, financial, temporal well-being and business career growth. We feel the most important part of that is the spiritual well-being.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Jesse's and my goal, of course, is to bring people to Christ through this program, but of course, we have different coaches teaching these individuals, and we have people from all over the world teaching people from Saudi Arabia, people that are Hindus and Muslims, and Buddhists and Christians and whatever. And throughout this manual, jesse quotes profound statements that come from all kinds of different things throughout the world. But our objective, of course, is to bring them to Christ, and if someone asks us what we believe, oh my goodness, that's like the missionary moment of the whole this is what I believe. And then they believe, and then so we work with them and eventually they learn that they can have the missionaries in. They learn principles like I am worth it, my life matters, I am important, I respect humanity, I take responsibility and I'm I'm accountable.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So those are principles that they learn, and they learn that they're capable. They learn I can create my future by design, with my thoughts, to a point. Of course, I can transform my problems into solutions, I can transform my barriers into breakthroughs, my I can't into I can't and my defeats into victories. So all of this stems around how they learn to think and process through problems, and then the values, of course, that they learn are humility, forgiveness, gratitude, peace, joy, abundance and love. And what we teach the very most is when they get to the point of feeling joy. They don't want to go back. When they feel the Spirit touching their souls and witnessing to them that the principles that they are learning are true and it will help them have happiness, then they don't want to go back to that life.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

There's an important transference that occurs in that place. Renee mentioned that coaches are tested by angels and you know, are you really going to be there, can we rely on you? And the transference that ultimately occurs is that they recognize they have a loving Heavenly Father that can be relied upon. That they have a Savior through whom redemption comes. They can be not only lifted, but cleansed and sanctified and purified, and that's the ultimate transference that we hope to see in the work that we do here. We do here.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, you know, I, I love so much that you you talked a little bit about, um, just the importance of being able to really control your thoughts, to like, use them for good or for evil, right, and I think so many people today have this, this very offhanded idea that they can't control their thoughts and their feelings.

Alisha Coakley:

You know that it's just something that happens and they're not trying to think about those things or they're not trying to, um, you know, feel that way or something like that. And the more that I learn about the universal laws that heavenly father has in place, the more I learn about our brains and the way that they're designed, you know, the more that I learn about trauma and healing from that and what it looks like to truly heal from trauma, not just to kind of become functional, right, because there's like this, this, this platform that happens when you're going through healing, where you're like, okay, I'm at a functional level now, but true healing is, like you said, it's this very high level of where you can truly love all those involved in your trauma. You know, and that is so hard to do and so hard to get to sometimes and people just they like to stop at that platform. But I think that's where this, what your program has is, where it's teaching you how you can really choose what you're thinking about them. And in the rewriting history oh my gosh, that is so near and dear to my heart. I've had to do, you know, the work myself of rewriting my history of even one of the exercises that that I have done in the past, and I don't know how you guys work yours, but it's just um.

Alisha Coakley:

For example, I'll I'll think about something that had happened to you know, for example, like the, the first time I experienced, you know, childhood abuse, and what I do is I insert the adult version of me into that memory and I have me, as an adult, tell that little girl what I needed to hear back then. So it doesn't it's not that it really happened per se, but I and I can't change anything that happened, but I can let her know one day because this happened. It's going to make you a better mom, you're going to be more aware of the dangers, and so your kids are going to be safer because of it, and you love them so much that you're willing to go through this for them so that you can be stronger later on, or one day you're going to be in a calling and you're going to be working with other girls who are going through it and they don't know who to talk to. But because you've gone through it, their spirit is going to recognize that trauma in you too and they're going to be able to talk to you and feel loved and and all of a sudden, it doesn't make what happened Okay, but it makes me okay.

Alisha Coakley:

I know that I'm going to be okay, not the situation, but I am okay and and I love that, through rewriting my own history and through learning about changing my thoughts, I've been able to draw closer to the savior and to really see how he can use all those things for our good.

Alisha Coakley:

And it is so powerful, such a powerful thing that happens when you realize that you're walking this life with, with God by your side, and when he has that atonement there to to erase all of the hurt that's happened, even if he doesn't erase the circumstances or the situations. So I want to ask you guys, can you? I mean, cause you guys had to figure this out right, like I'm sure that you made some tweaks to the program as you went along how did that? Yeah, how did this happen? I mean, where did your inspiration come from and what was that like for you guys personally, with your testimonies and finding your own purpose? Because it feels like this is a purpose that God really gave to you guys much later in life. You know you didn't start off when you were 15 doing this, so what's that look like for your just your own personal growth and testimony?

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

This has been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life the most demanding, the most commitment, the most loyalty, the most work. I'm almost 75 years old and I work 10 hour days. Wow, it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, aside from my children and having my sweet family. But to see the lives change and to see generational curses break when mothers learn the concepts of how to you know how to live on that, in that third paradigm mind where arguments aren't important more and being right is not important anymore and getting one up on somebody is not important anymore. What's important is the relationship and how we nurture and nourish and buoy and support that relationship to help that person become the best they can be.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So we're seeing generational curses of abuse and addiction and poverty and crime. People are changing their concepts of how to live and where to live in this plane and we're not there all the time. None of us are there all the time. But we have to make choices and it's fun when we share with them the concepts of the three principles of thought, to have them watch TV or watch people in their family or watch other people and how they solve problems and how they treat each other and if they're in the first paradigm mind as a victim or the you know, going to the second paradigm, or the victor. And it's not to label people, it's just to recognize behavior. And once you learn to recognize the behavior and you know how to identify it in yourself, then you can learn to live these higher principles on purpose. And the more you practice and the more you practice. You're living there and you're walking in Christ's footsteps. You're watching, you know walking by his example instead of the poor example that you were taught growing up.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

For me. The experience has changed me tremendously, deepened my testimony of the atonement and enabled me in some respects. It enabled me in some respects I don't want to oversimplify this but to put on the glasses and see through the lens that the Savior must look at other people, especially those who are downtrodden, especially those who are struggling. Just two little experiences to illustrate that. You know, renee and I were feeling like we were accomplishing something. Our purpose, our contribution was something significant, at least in the lives of the individuals that we could connect with. We I don't know, a couple of years ago, were called by the stake president into his office and he was exploring with us the possibility of serving a mission, which is fine. I loved my mission as a younger missionary and we explained to him what it was that we were doing and he just paused and sat back, closed his eyes for a minute and he said this is your mission. And so that reinforced what we already knew, that this was a spiritual, god-led sort of call to us to carry forward. And we're so slow and imperfect and you know we have to rely so often on forces much greater than ourselves and you know we realize absolutely that we're not the ones doing the converting. The teaching really is going on internally with the individual, and that comes, and then the transformation ultimately comes from the Holy Ghost and we're just amazed that individuals like myself are invited to be part of that kind of life changing sort of thing.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

The other experience more than 30 years ago my I used, with my young children, used to have Sunday evening one on one-one father-child discussion about anything that they wanted. One particular Sunday it had been a busy day. I had been called to a state presidency and so there was a lot of meetings and, you know, thousands of people at state conference and all that kind of stuff. And my daughter had just turned five and she wondered what all the hullabaloo was about. I mean, I was just kicked around the house in blue jeans and slippers, right, and so she wanted to understand, and so I explained to her you know how do you explain to a five-year-old kid and I said well, you know, dad will be gone to a lot more meetings. When you do see him at meetings, he'll be up on the stand and he'll be giving more talks and things like that.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And I thought I'd done a pretty good job and she just kind of put one hand on her hip, cocked her head and said to me well, I just hope you do good. I thought about that and you see what she was trying to teach me. You know, I thought at first she meant I hope you do well and that was kind of the way that I saw the world. But I hope you do good and that's what this has evolved in. For Renee and I it's about doing good. And you know, anything that I thought was important before the accolades, the positions, the visibility, the money- yeah visibility, yeah, totally irrelevant to what truly is important and that's doing good.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

And so that's what this has really brought to me in terms of my testimony and the depth of my testimony. I've always believed, I've always believed, I've always had a testimony, but now I understand the atonement in ways that I did not understand before. I can put on a lens, with love, carrying the spirit of the law, and see people a little bit more, perhaps how the Savior sees them, and have this yearning and this desire to live, to do good, to share what their lives can be and who, ultimately, they can rely on, and how they can grow from being mired in this law of survival mentality to a life of freedom and love and joy.

Scott Brandley:

Wow.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

This is a women's manual that we have and if you can see that, I hope that glare is not too bad this woman has gold scars all over her body, kintsugi yes, we commissioned an artist from Italy to paint her for us.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Wow, and it's just amazing. I look at this woman's eyes and every one of these women that I work with are this woman, and it's just beautiful. But let me read to you the theme of what we're doing here. All things carry distinctions of imperfection. Your wounds and imperfections are your beauty, like the ancient Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. We are all Kintsugi. We have all been broken. Breakage and mending are honest parts of a past which need not be hidden. Your wounds and healing are a part of your history, a part of who you are. Every beautiful thing is damaged. The damage creates depth and character. You are that beauty. You are a rare and priceless masterpiece.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

So when they recognize and we have the men's manual too, with the. You know he's got the scars on him too. We have the men's manual too, with the. You know he's got the scars on him too. When they realize that they are truly children of a father who loves them and a brother who cares, who wants them back to live with them, it takes on a whole different meaning. You know, being response-able becomes real and eternal. We're going to have problems anyway. No matter what we face in life. There's always going to be problems. There's always going to be decisions that you make that are wrong. Maybe you should have made it different there's always going to be consequences, but no matter how far we go, like President Holland said, nowhere you can't go any further. I mean, heavenly Father and Jesus will lift you up, no matter where you are. They can be mended, and that's what we strive to do with the Go Broken to Beautiful program, and I would invite anybody that's listening to this program.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

If you have brothers or sisters or friends or people that you know of that are incarcerated or have been incarcerated, we teach you. We teach them for free. Our program is absolutely free for them, and so we give them a coach, we give them the materials, they get the videos, they get everything for free and we run them through the program and typically it takes about 15 weeks. But we can go faster, slower, whatever. But our goal is to get into every jail and every prison in the United States. When you think about the United States having the highest recidivism in all the world, something has to change. If they go into prison with no skills and they're in prison, then they don't learn anything new. When they come out with no skills, no new skills, nothing changes and the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats, and generation after generation repeats and repeats. So that's our goal is to reach into the hearts and, with Heavenly Father's help and their Savior, to help them change their lives for good. Amazing things happen and they finally get to the joy.

Scott Brandley:

That's incredible. I mean Christ. He always teaches about leaving the 99 to find the one, and you guys are living that in real life, which is incredible. So I'm wow, that's like my dream to be able to when I leave this world. I want to leave knowing that I made a difference and, like you said, you're 75, but it feels like you. I mean, this is like you're living your dream, helping people making a difference.

Scott Brandley:

I mean, man, I'm so proud of you and I've just met you. Honestly, like I'm so proud of you and I've just met you, honestly, I'm so proud of you guys for doing this.

Alisha Coakley:

You're my heroes.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

Scott, you're ours. What you do is a marvelous thing and a significant thing.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Thank you for what you do these people that you can't see, but these people that we teach stories in the manual about how they overcame and what they went through, what their tragic lives and how they overcame that and where they found peace and joy and how they finally got there. I got chills all over my body.

Alisha Coakley:

Well, you know I love too and you haven't mentioned this yet, but you talked to me a little bit about it when we were having our pre-call and everything Some of the previously incarcerated citizens that have gone through your program have went on to become coaches. Absolutely For you to go back into the prisons and to be able to help out the people who they know what it was like to be there. You know so, like you truly did. In a sense, they did go back to prison, but in a way that was for the for the good right, for for growth. It's they are wanting to go back so that they can give more and do more. And it's just this trickle down effect where it's like you started with something and you jumbled through and you tried to figure it out and adjust it and change it and and went through your own stuff, and now you're able to teach other people to do the same, and so all the work doesn't have to be left on your shoulders anymore, which is such a great thing too, that you you know you can get something started, you can get it rolling, and then you can leave this legacy for you know, later on in life for people to to be able to continue the work.

Alisha Coakley:

Um, I was just I don't know why, but I was. I was thinking about Doctrine and Covenants, um 58. And it's one of my favorite, like few verses of scripture and stuff, and so I just wanted to share that real quick with our listeners, cause I think that you guys just modeled this so beautifully. Um, so, in in 58, 26, it says for behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things, for he that is compelled in all things, the same as a slothful and not a wise servant, wherefore he receiveth no reward. Verily, I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free will and bring to pass much righteousness, for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves, and in as much as men do good, they shall in no wise lose the reward. And I love that because I think that what your daughter said to you all those years ago, that has come to fruition.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

You are doing good and it's because I say, say to her, I'm so glad you're an alcoholic because she's the one that brought me this.

Alisha Coakley:

It's. It's so true. She's played a part to your daughter who, you know, made her choices and ended up in jail. She did she. Even her story can be such a propellant for good. You know, heavenly Father is just a genius that way.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

He just knows how to work it all out. When you go back to Matthew 25, and I have it on my book here on my desk Lord, when you saw we thee and hungered a thirst or a stranger, or naked or sick or in prison.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Oh my gosh, that just touched my soul, that you know you know, he provided for those that are really, really downtrodden in this community of people that we think, gosh, they need to go to prison, they need to be punished. Well, yes, they do, but they also need to be taught that there's another side of life that can change their behaviors, that can change your thought process, change their emotions, help them to think in a different level and to realize that they have purpose. They were not an accident.

Alisha Coakley:

Well, it reminds me of the other scripture that talks about you know, when you have to reprimand someone, what you do after you reprimand is you show an increase in love, and increase in love Right. So, like I, I think you're so right about the prison system right now. Today, it's not set up for joy to come out of it and for change to come out of it for the better, and so it's amazing that people like you are willing to go in the walls there and to really help to bring people out and to bring them unto Christ and to show them the joy of living the gospel, even if they don't realize that that's what they're doing. The teachings are still there. The teachings are still there. The principles are still there.

Alisha Coakley:

This is exactly what Heavenly Father is asking of the members of the church to do to heal ourselves and others, you know, to do good, to get involved, to share that Christlike love. He never says you need to hurry up and go get everybody baptized. Right, that's he really. That's awesome if it happens, or when it happens, and if it doesn't happen, that's okay too, because Heavenly Father knows his children, he knows where they're at and he'll be able to get to them when he needs them to be a part of the church, and maybe that's not in your timetable. Most of the time it's not in our timetable. Yeah, it's always in our timetable to love and I think I mean it's so evident you guys are doing that, yeah.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Well, thank you. We have an awesome board of directors, we have an awesome crew, we have, you know, and it still takes money. So if you guys you know, have something that you'd like to donate to, it'd be awesome for you to donate to the prison project or the Go Broken to Beautiful Foundation. Yeah absolutely.

Scott Brandley:

So how does somebody get involved in this? I mean, this rings true to me. I'm sure it rings true to a lot of people that are probably listening, Like how do we get involved? How do we help take this out into the world? Is there a place for everyday people to be part of it?

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

I think everybody can help, that's for sure. We all know somebody that's been addicted or gone through prison or jail or whatever, and so we can certainly even reach out in our own circle of influence and share the. They can actually show those links and that short little six-minute video to their people and get them involved. Also, we need volunteers to help. Of course we need certain people on our boards, but just giving us a call and asking what can I do would be awesome. We also would love to have people that are pen pals with our inmates that are still incarcerated.

Alisha Coakley:

And coaches too right.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And coaches. If you want to be a coach, that is.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

If there's a limitation on this program, it is how rapidly, we're able to train to go into the prison. Yeah, yeah.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And that, of course, is in our for-profit side. It would be nice if we made a for-profit, but we train and certify coaches to become personal responsibility coaches so that they can actually teach this program to the inmates and the felons.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

So Renee nonprofit is a designation, not a goal.

Scott Brandley:

That's hilarious, yeah, so, because I mean I can see a lot of these principals working for people that aren't in prison. Absolutely right, so it has totally changed my whole life.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

This is a cute story because I was dating another man before I met jesse on lds planet. And I met jesse and, of course, just everything, just it was just magical and the transformation in our lives was just. Heavenly Father was right there in the middle of it all but I kept thinking about this other man. So I thought, if I go to Jesse, what is he going to say? You know what is he going to do. So I thought you know, this is the man of my dreams and if he doesn't know my innermost secrets, then this is not a good place for us to be. So I went to him and I explained to him and he said, renee, what do you want with those thoughts? And I said I want them gone, I want them out of my life. And he said well, let me teach you the ice tool. And so he taught me how to eliminate, identify, um, confine and eliminate an unwanted thought and to replace it with a thought that was healthy.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And I have used that over and over and over and over and over again. And you know it's really funny when something happens and I get out of sorts or whatever upside down, and something happens, I get my nose twisted or something and I'm grumpy and, of course, the first thing Jesse says is what paradigm are you living in? I just want to stay here for a minute, let me wallow, let me wallow. I wallow for a minute and then I come back and it's amazing how this has helped our relationship. I come back and it's amazing how this has helped our relationship, because these tools we use on a daily basis with our relationship and processing through any kind of disagreement that we would have.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And in seven years, eight years, we've never had a disagreement. And it's just because we use the principles that Christ would have us use. And I'm not saying that to brag, I'm not saying that we're perfect, none of that. I'm just saying that we try every single day to use those principles in our own lives. And I don't have to be a prisoner, I don't have to be a felon. I mean, these principles are for everybody, and one of the beautiful things that we're working on is a family board game that teaches these concepts. So we're really excited about this.

Alisha Coakley:

So cool. I have to say that's phenomenal. Eight years you guys have been together and not a single argument. I can't go eight minutes without arguing with my husband. I'm going to have to get it just for that.

Scott Brandley:

You need to take their course, Alisha.

Alisha Coakley:

Apparently, it's over my husband, though.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

When you have an inmate or a felon that comes to us that has only lived that life. Yeah, everything is chaos, everything blows up, everything is just all the drama. It is so foreign. So that's why it takes a lot of practice, right, it takes you know a lot of um practice with the coaches and patients to to get through that and as long as they know is. You know, like the prophet has said, if you're making a step forward, you're not going backwards. You know so just wonderful yeah.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, wow, well, we will definitely be sure to share all of those links, and we do want to share that video that you guys have too. So what we'll do is we're just going to ask all of our listeners to please stay tuned right after we sign off here and then watch that video, reach out to Jesse and Renee, see where you guys can help, whether it's with donations or taking the program, getting the program for somebody else, spreading the word on social media. There's just so many great ways to do that. So we'll share all that information. We'll just remind you guys, stay tuned. You can watch that short video, but, jesse, renee, we've just really really loved having you on here today and Thank you, thank you so so much. Is there any last thoughts that you have that you'd like to share with listeners before we go?

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

I think. For my point of view, it is what my daughter taught me. I just hope you do good.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

And what I'd like to say is every soul is worth it, every soul is precious in the sight of God, and we need people to help us with this mission. For sure, absolutely, wow.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, thank you so?

Scott Brandley:

much I really can feel that the importance of every single soul. You know, as members of the church, we were taught to do missionary work and look for opportunities to serve others and share the gospel, but the people that need it most are the ones that are lost, ones that are lost right, and you guys have found the mother load of people that need help that are lost. This is genius, um, but yeah, like I think this is great to be able to, to reach down and help lift those that need it the most. Um, man, what, what a great thing to do in your life, and anyone that can help you in your cause is going to get so many blessings out of it. It's going to change their life, it's true, and it's going to change the life of the people they're trying to help.

Scott Brandley:

So, this is like a win, win, win, win, win for generations so this is like a win win, win, win, win for generations. Yeah, anybody, anyone that gets involved in your, in your program, is going to affect generations um for good. Yes, you know like yeah this is awesome. This is like the. This is the best thing ever I hope you get. I hope you get tons of people that reach out and ask to help.

Alisha Coakley:

Thank you, yeah, me too.

Alisha Coakley:

That would be so cool. I, yeah, my wheels are already turning and I'm thinking of, like, who can we connect you with and how can we help more? And I, I just love it. I know, um, you know, we talked about my, my own sister, having her experience of going through jail and dealing with addictions and stuff. She was just so happy when she heard about this and I talked to her a little bit about it. You could, you could just hear the fire in her be ignited, and so I'm, I'm thank you for helping my own family, even though we haven't even got started yet. Helping my own family even though we haven't even got started yet.

Alisha Coakley:

Just that, that possibility that it's something is there. I love so much that you guys are willing to give this for free to you know, those who have been through prison. Um, and I, just, I think it's just a beautiful thing and heavenly father is going to support you and lift you up and bring this a very, very far away. So we, we thank you guys again for coming on here today and for sharing your story, your sweet spirit and your amazing organization, the Prison Project and Broken Beautiful Foundation. We just we really hope that all good things will come to you guys and that you'll get. You'll be able to help people that you need to help. Thank you, god bless you.

Jesse La Montagne Dunn:

Thanks so much for having us. Thanks for what you do. It's a wonderful thing.

Rene'e La Montagne Dunn:

Thank you, god bless you all. God bless everybody that's listening to this for sure.

Alisha Coakley:

Well, that is all we have for our listeners today. Guys, be sure that you do your five second missionary work. Share this episode with others. Let's definitely help get the word out about Broken Beautiful and the Prison Project. Be sure that you check out those links. Stay tuned for the video afterwards and remember, if you guys have a story that you'd like to share, we would love to hear it. If you have an organization that's doing good, we would love to know more about it. Anything that we can do to help you know, spread light to the world. We just really want to be a part of it. So email us at latterdaylights at gmailcom or head over to our page. We would love to hear from you guys.

Scott Brandley:

Awesome. Thanks again, guys, for being on the show. Thanks so much we will talk to everybody next week with another episode. Until then, take care, bye.

People on this episode

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Scott Brandley

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Alisha Coakley

Co-host