Chasing Thoughts | S02 E21: John Leister, Living Life on Your Terms - Chasing Thoughts

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.

(00:03):
Chasing Thoughts was founded by strangers, two life coaches who met on TikTok and shared
the desire to create a different kind of life coaching podcast.
Instead of talking about how to do it right, the Chasing Thoughts podcast explores embracing
our true essence to find a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment.

(00:23):
Life coaches Keith and Mindy take a unique approach that transcends popular notions of
perpetual happiness in striving relentlessly to become one's ideal self.
Listen in as Mindy, Keith and their guests take a deep dive into their own minds and
souls to investigate the beauty of imperfection, challenge their beliefs, and embrace the richness

(00:44):
of living a truly authentic life.
Hi, my name is Keith and I'm a strategic interventionist and stoner-spirited life coach.
Hi, my name is Mindy and I am an authenticity empowerment coach.
Welcome to Chasing Thoughts.
Okay, hello everybody.

(01:07):
Welcome to Chasing Thoughts Season 2, Episode 21.
And we are joined today by John.
John, thank you so much for joining us.
Well, thank you so much for having me on, Mindy.
It's great to meet you and I really appreciate this opportunity.
Thank you.
It's a great honor.
So, Keith and I are really passionate about self-improvement, I guess, but sometimes I

(01:33):
hesitate to use that word.
Self-acceptance, I guess, is more important.
Self-acceptance first.
Yeah.
We don't need to be improved upon.
There's nothing wrong with us.
But we're both seekers and we love this journey of life and that's really what attracted me
to your profile, John, is that I felt that same love of being a human on this journey.

(01:57):
And so, tell us, give us kind of a recap of your life and let our listeners, you know,
hear that same thing that I really witnessed, your passion and love for being a human.
Okay, thank you so much.
Okay, here we go.
Well, I was born in 1965.
I'm 58, believe it or not.
And I always felt that I was meant to do something creative with my life.

(02:20):
I grew up in the 1970s and I was a huge comic book nerd.
I was really into Marvel and DC comics and it was a very different time, you know, it
was kind of stigmatized back then.
So I didn't like sports.
I had no interest in hockey.
I'm probably the only Canadian boy that's not watching the playoffs right now.
It's just not, I had nothing against sports.
I think sports are awesome.
That aspect did not come with me to this corporeal body.

(02:42):
I've always been an artsy fartsy nerd.
And so I wanted to be a comic book artist when I was a boy and I drew every day after
school, but I got lazy and I gave it up.
I guess I was too extroverted back then.
And then after high school, I didn't really have a solid game plan for myself.
And I really envied all the other kids that knew exactly what it was that they wanted
to do with their lives.

(03:04):
I was kind of scattered.
And then in my early twenties, I took acting for a couple of years.
There was an acting school called the Breck Academy and one of the stars that showed Peter
Breck probably before your time, you look quite young, but there was a Western from
the late and American show called the Big Valley.
Maybe Keith remembers that show.
And one of the stars of that show, Peter Breck, he came to Vancouver.
He started his acting school called the Breck Academy.

(03:25):
And that was an amazing experience.
I had an agent and I was going to audition.
And I was doing some writing back then too.
I was writing scenes for my acting partners and myself and I was writing my own monologues
and very often, and that didn't mean to be overly self-aggrandizing, but I would go to
the auditions and not get the part.
But the casting directors would say, I'd never heard that monologue before because they would
hear the same monologues over and over again.
It was because I wrote it and they always seemed to be impressed by that.

(03:48):
And so I was an extra in Rocky 4.
That was kind of my 15 minutes of fame.
Yeah, I know.
That always gets a reaction that I like.
So the big fight at the end, which thank you.
You don't see me in the movie, but I was there for one day.
The big fight with Ivan Drago was shot at the Agri-Dome in Vancouver.
There was an open casting call.
So me and my buddy, Jeff, went, we had an amazing time.
And here's where the story gets a little bit dark.

(04:09):
I don't mean to gross you or any of your listeners out.
Do you know what psoriasis is?
Do you know what that is?
So of course, for some of your listeners, psoriasis is a skin malcondition where some
of our bodies, some of us, our bodies generate far more dry skin than what would be considered
normal.
So I used to be very overweight.
I used to weigh anywhere from 235 to 250 pounds.
I'm a recovering sugar addict.

(04:30):
And I just stressed out over every little thing and my half glass of water tended to be half
empty.
And so it just got to be so bad that literally huge chunks of skin were coming off my face.
And so I gave up on my dream of acting.
And so for the last 35 years, believe it or not, I've been working as a security guard.
I mean, that's been my bread and butter job.
I always knew that I could do better.
I tried to fill my head with as much positive information as I could.

(04:53):
I was reading all these self-help books by Anthony Robbins, you know, awakened the giant
within an unlimited power and listening to the tapes and doing the exercises.
And I would make every once in a while, I would take a step forward, but then I would
take two steps back.
I was just kind of going in circles.
And I carved out this niche for myself where I was just making enough money to keep myself

(05:15):
afloat and coming home after work and flanking myself down on my couch and watching my DVDs
and then my Netflix for a while and just counting down junk food every night.
It's a wonder that I'm still alive.
And then in 2019, my life changed.
Now here's where the story gets a little bit weird for some people.
And I wanted to make it very clear that I'm Canadian and Canadians, you know, we're very
tolerant, very respectful.
I don't mean to be stereotypical, but whatever you, if you're an atheist or an agnostic,

(05:39):
if this sounds completely harebrained to you, that's absolutely fine.
But this is a mindset that has aligned me with the John Leister that I always knew that
I could be, which is this, I reached out to God and I said, our heavenly Father, I've
heard about you my whole life.
I don't know if you're real or if I'm talking to myself right now, but I'm the kind of person
who tries a little bit harder.

(05:59):
I'm sorry if I filibuster, you can cut me off at any moment, who tries a little bit
harder when I have it in my mind's eye that someone who loves me and accepts me unconditionally
for who I am is rooting for me to manifest whatever it is that's bubbling around inside
our brains.
Because when we don't do that, we suffer, right?
And I'm speaking from experience now from a place of judgment.
But just to backpedal a little bit, around 2005, I wrote a whole bunch of short stories.

(06:24):
I wrote about 60 short stories about a private investigator named Lee Hacklin.
And I made some hard copies and thank goodness I did this.
And I stuck them in my bedroom and the pages curled and they yellowed.
And then after I reached out to God and asked him to help me, and I don't know if you or
Mindy do any creative writing, it's hard to be objective about your own stuff.
But I dusted off these short stories and I read them and I thought, gosh, I mean, I

(06:46):
know these are not great literature, but I know that if someone else's name, like not
written, it's like written by Joe Blow, I know I would like them, at least I would like
them.
So if I would like them, maybe there's one other person in the world who might think
that they're not total garbage.
So that was the beginning of my journey, my true life's journey of becoming a manifester.
And it was a tremendous uphill battle for me to get that first book posted.

(07:08):
I thought, you know, this is an important life lesson.
When we begin on a new creative endeavor, we have to prepare in advance in our minds
that they're going to be hiccups along the way.
And then it's okay.
It's the hiccups and the potholes that make our lives interesting.
I mean, if you watched a movie and nothing bad ever happened to Hero, it would be pretty
boring movie, right?
You know, we want to see how the protagonist is going to get out of whatever situation

(07:30):
here she happens to be in, right?
That's what makes it good.
That's what makes it interesting.
If it was everything was smooth sailing, it would be pretty dull, right?
So I was going in circles for about a month.
I was trying to get this, my first book, Plug, Plug, Plug, There It Go Shamelessly Plugging
This Product, my first book is called The Collective Case of Lee Hacklin, 1970s private
investigator book one.
And I was initially, I was dealing with Amazon and they were rejecting my banking information.

(07:52):
They go to the bank and they say there's the right information.
Now if there's such a thing as parallel universes or parallel timelines, you know, like back
to the future or Star Trek, right?
If there was a parallel timeline where I was doing this and I didn't have God in my life,
I hadn't taken this leap of faith.
Knowing who I was back then, I would have given up after two or three tries because even though
I knew better, even though I'd read all these self help books, I was in therapy for a year

(08:14):
and I found that to be very beneficial.
I just was just too emotionally invested in this, in this lethargic lifestyle.
But because I had God in my life, like, look kind of like big brother from 1984, you know,
big brother is watching you, but in a good way, right?
Like Yoda, Luke, and Gao are great.
Not in a harsh punitive throw them in the iron maiden kind of way, right?
It's like, hey, don't give up.

(08:36):
And when I saw on the screen for the first time, congratulations, your ebook has been
published.
I mean, I lost my mind for real.
I was just walking on air and I thought, gosh, you know, so that's what this feels like,
reading something and there were hiccups along the way.
And for once in my darn life, I didn't bail.
I actually stayed the course and crossed the finish line.

(08:58):
Have you seen the movie Billy Elliot about the boy who wants to be a ballet dancer?
Have you seen that movie?
No.
I really recommend it.
It's a very beautiful film.
So just, just in a nutshell, it's about a boy who grows up in a small mining town in London,
England in the early 1970s, and he wants to be a ballet dancer and his dad's a very alpha
male.
You know, he's not very enlightened, but initially he comes around and spoiler warning and he

(09:19):
takes Billy to this ballet school and the audition is asked Billy, how do you feel when
you dance?
And he says, I feel like electricity.
And that's how I felt.
Mindy and Keith, when I posted that first book for the first time, I felt like electricity
and I thought, you know what, I'm 53 years old.
I don't know how many years I have left.
I'm lucky I made it this far.
I want to feel this way all the time.
So now it's 2024 to bring it up to present day and I've got about 100 of these books

(09:43):
online and my now granted, they're not very long.
Some of them are 30, 40 pages long.
But at the end of the day, what I'm writing is pulp fiction.
It's good guys and bad guys.
It's the kinds of stories that I grew up with.
And I feel like, and I don't mean to get on my high horse about this, but I feel like
that Hollywood is not really interested in these kinds of stories.

(10:04):
They're more about being woke and politically correct and sucking up to this group and that
group.
I like to think that my stories have universal values and universal, you know, like all the
comic books that I read as a boy, you know, good and evil, those are not abstractions to
me.
They're their concretes and they apply to everyone equally in my opinion.

(10:26):
So that's my story in a nutshell.
There is so much I love about what you said.
I was seriously writing notes that I didn't want to forget what I wanted to say.
So first, at the beginning of your story, you referenced one of your personality traits

(10:48):
and you said something like, well, that just didn't come into this package of me as a human.
And I love that so much.
And that it's actually a pretty new way of thinking for me where I'm like, I don't know,
consciousness in this body just likes this.
Like it just wants to do this.
Like just that almost surprising relationship with my own authentic self as I let myself

(11:14):
come out into the world without me trying to monitor how that looks.
And that is just so freaking beautiful.
Thank you.
And what stops us from doing that?
It's our mindsets.
We're afraid of being criticized.
We're afraid that people are going to make fun of us.
Oh, we might lose our friends.
I remember when I, and here's another thing.

(11:36):
I lost 65 pounds.
I used to be very overweight.
After I reached out to God, vegetables started to look very attractive to me because when
you love yourself, that will motivate you to want to take care of yourself.
So the Pete's in KFC was not so appealing to me anymore because I knew that I was rushing
myself to an early grade.
So I started posting videos and I started lifting weights like crazy.

(11:58):
I do yoga and I lift weights two or three times a week and I post videos of myself doing
that on my Facebook page.
And I remember when I started doing this in 2019, I was really scared.
And very shortly after I posted my first video, I got a phone call from my employer, the accounts
manager, and my heart started pounding.
And I thought, oh crap, someone's seen this video and they don't like it because I work

(12:21):
in security.
I work in the security industry.
It's a very conservative industry.
I mean, it's just the nature of what it is, right?
And they're going to fire me and oh my God, what have I done?
And it was just, I picked up the phone.
He's like, hey, John, we need you to work another shift next week.
Can you do that?
Like, these absurd, right?
These absurd, and what did they did fire me?
So what?

(12:41):
You just get another job, right?
It's not the end of the world.
And this is why so many people are unhappy because they're, and I'm not, again, I'm not
speaking from judgmentalism.
I'm speaking from my own experience.
They're walking around.
Well, who's it?
Henry David Thoreau said, the massive men lead lives and women lead lives of quiet desperation
because they have the desire to do something.

(13:04):
Whether it's writing a book or doing a podcast, or maybe they want to get their pilot's license,
or maybe they want to go back to school, or they want to start a business.
They want to do that thing that's far beyond their grasp.
But then they have it in their mind, say, oh, if I try, like when I started making these
changes and changes in my life, I reached out to so many people, and it's people I'd
had great conversations with about movies and pop culture and comic books and all the

(13:27):
geek stuff.
Hey, let's do a podcast.
Every single, and this is a diverse group of people, as you can imagine, men and women.
Every reaction I got was exactly the same.
Oh, I don't know.
I'm too busy.
Oh, gosh, I got this.
I don't blame them because they're too emotionally invested in the way that, and it's human nature.

(13:50):
We get into our routines.
We get into our routines.
And then something comes along, and it could be a really amazing and really exciting, but
all we're thinking about is, like, I could have said, I'm not going to say, I'm not going
to say it to myself.
Well, I shouldn't write because if I write a book and it becomes a bestseller, someone
will sue me for plagiarism.
Or if I write a book, someone might be offended by something that I've written and they might

(14:11):
sue me because I heard their feelings.
You know, again, it's just all these obstacles that we create in our minds, and so we as individuals
have to develop a mindset that works for us so that we can be in sync with whatever it
is that we want to do with our lives.
And that's what makes the world a brighter place.
Oh, sorry, just sped on the phone.

(14:32):
We're setting an example for other people to follow.
And here's another thing.
People will make fun of you, and they will criticize you.
The stone throwers and the bench warmers.
And you just be like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You know, when he imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger back today growing up in Graz, Austria, he
told all his friends and family members, I'm going to go to America, and I'm going to

(14:52):
be a professional bodybuilder, and I'm going to be a movie star, and then I'm going to be
a politician.
And they achieved every single one of those goals in spite of the fact that everybody
made fun of him and mocked him and told him he was crazy.
You know, you've got to turn all that negativity into gasoline on the fire of your passion,
of whatever it is that you want to do with your life.
And it's not too late.
You know, I'm 58.

(15:13):
I don't know how old you are, but that probably sounds like a pretty advanced age, and it
is on a comparative scale.
But we have to live our lives in here and now.
There was a philosopher named Stuart Wilde who's a British kind of standup, comic kind
of motivational speaker, and I love this idea he has of the eternal now.

(15:34):
Now, we just live our lives in the present.
Never mind the past.
As soon as we start thinking about the past, it really doesn't matter if it's a happy memory
or a sad memory.
We're going to feel sad.
And those feelings disempower us.
And they disempower other people too, because you could walk around with a big smile on
your face, which is nice, but people pick up on those feelings of inner angst.

(15:55):
And it disempowers them too, right?
If we think about the future, maybe it's just me, we tend to worry because it's the unknown.
I try to keep my mind on the here and now.
And I have faith that I'm on the right path of my life.
And that's what's worth it.
Can we talk about this in a free interview?
Our destinations are all the same.

(16:16):
I don't care who you are.
We're all headed for the same place.
These bodies that our spirits are inhabiting, they're like cars, right?
They're going to conk out.
They're not going to work anymore.
And that's it.
Then it's on to the next adventure.
People like to say it's never too late.
And I like that it's positive, but at a certain point it is too late.
If you're 120 years old and you can't tell the time, you need 24-hour care, that's it.

(16:38):
You're done.
You had 120 years.
And if all you wanted to do was muffle floor, well, we report we sow in life, right?
But Herman Wolk, who's one of my favorite novelists, he wrote his last novel when he
was 100 years old.
And Jacqueline, who's one of my idols.
He died working out.
He lived in 97, one of the absolute most self-believing individuals, whoever lived.

(17:00):
If I'm telling the story correctly, he died doing the thing he loved to do most, which
was to exercise.
And I will never retire.
I will never stop writing.
I've got a million more ideas for future Lee Acklin stories.
I'm in sync with the John Leister that I want to be.
And I believe in myself.
And if I didn't believe in myself, I wouldn't be reaching out to nice people like you and
Keith.
I'm sitting at home right now watching season 10 of Mandalorian and pounding down tons of

(17:25):
junk food.
And my inner monologue would be, what if, what if that's the old John Leister.
That's the John Leister that's gone.
This is the present day.
And I'm cool with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that you are so right.
And Keith and I joke about this all the time that when it comes down to it, it's a binary

(17:48):
choice.
And Keith says, right?
It's yes or no.
It's, am I going to do this?
Am I going to choose something different?
Right.
Am I going to stop these habits that might be really comfortable that are hard to stop?
And it's back in the day.
I thought it was having fun.
You know, I'd come home after work with my back at DVDs and just losing myself.

(18:11):
Because for some of us, stories are a much more immersive experience.
Right.
And I thought it was, I always, I would have these moments of clarity.
And I was like, I'm going to do this once in a while, but I was just too emotionally
invested.
My life now is so much more fun.
And that's a part of my mission statement.
If you're, if you know, if you're not happy, it's because you're not doing, you know, if
you think about what you want to do and you just think about it, again, you're going to

(18:35):
suffer.
You're going to have all this intertermal.
But once you start doing it and then you make this discovery as like, hey, this is so much
more fun than being a passive.
I remember someone once said to me, you know, John, you're going to cast a guy.
And I really didn't like hearing that.
I don't think anyone really wants to be thought.
She meant it as a compliment, I think, but I realized that she was right.

(18:58):
And now I'm much more proactive, at least on a comparative scale.
And it's so much more rewarding.
It's so much more satisfying.
And the feedback I'm in hundreds of Facebook writers groups around the world and just being
a part of this creative community of people like myself.
And when I say people like myself, I don't care about anyone's political beliefs.

(19:20):
I don't care if you're an atheist or if you believe in God as I do.
What I do care about is that you believe in yourself and that you have the same kind of
positive energy that I like to have.
I'm not really so keen about being around people who have nothing to talk about other
than how much they hate their jobs and their pet peeves and world events.
And here's another thing after I reached out to God.

(19:41):
I stopped watching the news.
I literally took 100% just cut off from watching the news other than just the geeky stuff.
Because I used to listen to all these very political podcasts, the Johnny Ken Show and
the Ben Shapiro Show and Alex Jones.
These are the Alex Jones every day.
You know the conspiracy guy?
The globalists are taking over.

(20:01):
I used to listen to stuff every day.
And it was stimulating and it was entertaining, but it was also driving me crazy because
it's all the madness and the corruption and the chaos of the world.
I mean, I look around Vancouver right now, you know, the Starbucks that I'm at right
now, I see peace.
You know, the news is never going to report that.
The more that we disengage from what's around us, that's negative.

(20:23):
The more that we focus on what's beautiful about life and that's motivating.
And again, it's all about motivation.
It's all about having a mindset that motivates us to do whatever it is that we're meant to
do with our lives.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but anyway, there it is.
I think it makes perfect sense.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, I really love the way that you describe falling in love with the journey.

(20:48):
Because another thing we talk about a lot is that, you know, ultimately it doesn't matter
if I become that thing I want so much or not, right?
If I'm successful or not, if I get my book published, right?
Like whatever that is, what matters is my level of joy in the path and in the becoming
of myself to get closer and closer to this thing.

(21:10):
And when you fall in love with that, which is falling in love with yourself and your
own growth.
And it's not narcissism.
You know, everyone's small, someone will call me a narcissist and I'm just like, oh,
God, you know, a narcissist is the person at the front of the Starbucks line that's
taking three days to order their coffee that doesn't have a single coffee bean in it.
Meanwhile, there's 20 people standing behind them that just want to get a cup of coffee

(21:31):
before they go to work.
That's a narcissist.
When you love yourself, again, love is motivating and people will pick up on those feelings
and you will attract love to yourself as well.
At least this has been my experience.
I went to Australia earlier this year.
I met a woman on, unfortunately, broken up recently, but I mean, I've had all these amazing

(21:53):
experiences ever since I reached out to God.
And again, it's because of this self-love.
Have you seen the movie DOA with Dennis Quaid?
It's probably before your time.
Anyway, I just want to quote from that movie where it's about a writer and he's been plagiarized
by another writer who's a very bad guy stolen the book.

(22:13):
And Dennis Quaid says to this guy, he says, it's not about fame.
It's not about money.
I mean, those things are like, I look at those things like an extra slice of lemon in my
beer.
I want to make money doing this, but that's not what it's about.
That's my goal.
It's about the work.
It's about the doing.
It's about the joy of being a player in this game of life over being a bench warmer and

(22:35):
just sitting in the bleachers and throwing stones at a glass house and criticizing.
I mean, I used to go to movies.
I used to be very ultra critical.
And I just don't want to be that guy anymore.
I want to be a creator.
I want to add to the world and not just second guess what everybody else is doing.
I want to follow their example.
And I want to be around people who believe in themselves as much as I like to think that

(22:58):
I believe in myself.
Yeah, pardon me.
Yeah, because it's contagious and energy like that is contagious.
And when you're around people like that, right, you just need to raise your vibration.
And I think ultimately, and maybe this is idealistic or utopian, but I think that positive energy,

(23:18):
that being in love with yourself and your life and the people around you is ultimately
what's going to change the world and save.
Absolutely.
And it's just to start here and then it starts with you and then it goes to three.
It's not something that comes big down on us, right?
Like we have to grow it and build it.
And that's how you grow it is by being in that vibration.

(23:40):
100%.
But it's hard to talk to people about without sounding totally woo woo, right?
Yeah.
Those people, they're not necessarily bad people.
They might have their own great contributions to make like they might be able to fix a car.
I can't fix a car.
They might be able to shingle a route.
And some of those people, and I don't want to stereotype, but some of those people, they

(24:01):
just can't see beyond their own, the ends of their noses.
They're not visionaries like you and I are.
They will look at what you and I are doing and they'll say, well, there's no guarantee
that there's like a big pile of cash at the end of the rainbow.
Like if they looked at you studying to be a neurosurgeon, they would respect that.
So, oh, she's going to be a neurosurgeon.
Well, once she gets her degree, she'll be, you know, saving people's lives and making

(24:23):
tons of money.
But you want to be an artist, you want to be a writer or an actor or dancer or a sculptor
or whatever it might be.
They're not wired that way.
And it's okay because we're not going to change them.
You can't change other people, but we owe it to ourselves.
Now, this might be a little bit controversial, but I even think even if they're family members,

(24:44):
we have to distance ourselves sometimes from those people because their negativity could
potentially poison us.
It's almost like we have to have our shields up.
You know, like the enterprise, the Starship enterprise has the shields up, right?
And we only drop those shields for people who have the same like-minded energy.
It's really better to be alone if they have people in your life who are undermining whether

(25:06):
it's on purpose or not.
And I think sometimes it is on purpose.
Like I was in a social situation one time with a group of people that I really loved
and one of them actually said to me, don't talk about your books.
And meanwhile, this guy was all too keen to talk about his achievements.
He talks about his achievements.
He expects everybody to listen.
I started talking about my books, then like it, then like it.
And so I just don't see that guy very much anymore, even though he's more or less my

(25:30):
brother because time is short, right?
This journey that we're on, you know, blink and we're gone.
We have to do whatever we can right now to be whoever it is that we want to be.
And my voice is drying out.
I think I'm writing on fumes.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, people.

(25:50):
I feel like our culture is, you know, pretty much programming everybody that there's this
very narrow, you know, path to success.
Like you said, if I was a neurosurgeon, right, I'd get these certain accolades and this certain
response.
But some of us have been lucky enough for whatever reason, usually bad childhoods and

(26:14):
trauma that didn't put us on that path.
And so we're free from this sort of like cultural programming, I feel like that a lot of people
have where we go, no, like I can define success anyway that I want to, right?
And what a beautiful gift to be at that stage where you're no longer a slave to ideas that

(26:35):
don't suit you and aren't helping you build a more fulfilling life, right?
And that's what it's about is you're here, make it as fulfilling as you can for your
self.
And I'm not being selfish, right?
Of course you look out for other people and you take care of the planet, but it's good
selfishness.
We have to be a little bit self.

(26:57):
If you're not selfish sometimes and you have no self, you know, there are a lot of selfless
people out there who want to help everybody all the time, which is, which is, I'm not,
just I'm not dismissive of that.
But if they're sacrificing what it is that they want to do, then I'm not on board with
that.
And I've seen the movie, it's a wonderful life with Jimmy Stewart, the classic Christmas

(27:17):
movie.
It's a beautiful movie, okay?
But I can't watch it now because it breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart that George Bailey didn't become an architect because he really, really
wanted to be an architect.
And so I feel, even though it's a great movie, it is a great movie.
It's a very, very beautiful, lovely movie.
But I want to see the version where he leaves the town and he could have gone back, right?

(27:38):
He could have gone back and still saved the town.
You know, he could have done both, right?
But he sacrifices his dream to help other people who quite frankly were masters of their
own misfortune.
You know, we have to take responsibility for ourselves.
And that's just the way that I feel about it.
And when we're children, we're just inundated with so much debilitating information.

(28:01):
I can't imagine what it's like for kids in the present day with the internet because
I didn't have this stuff growing up, right?
But I grew up and I don't want to throw my parents under the bus too much because they
raised me and they loved me.
I know they'd be super proud of me for their lives.
But my parents just, they just freaked out over every little hiccup in life that they
didn't have the mindset.
And so I absorbed a lot of that stuff.

(28:23):
And it's basically a choice between fight or flight.
You know, some kids grew up under horrible abuse and yet they go on to do amazing things
with their lives, right?
Because they were able to take, they say, oh, this is mom and dad.
I get how life works.
Just do the opposite.
Just do the opposite of everything that I'm growing up with, right?
But some of us are more sensitive, I think.
And we absorb that stuff.
And so we're struggling, struggling all the time to push, sorry, just about on the phone

(28:47):
again, to push that stuff away.
But it's a challenge.
It's a challenge for some of us.
And you know, it took me, Mindy, a long time to get where I am now.
But it doesn't matter.
It's, you know, better now than never, better late than ever.
That's a part of my mission statement too.
And any of your listeners out there who feel the way that I felt about myself back in 2019

(29:08):
for fitness sakes, it's not too late.
It's not too late for me, then it's not too late for anybody.
And it's worth it.
Yes.
Yes.
And that's my story.
Yes.
Well, I want to hear a little bit about your character, but Keith, do you have any questions
about sort of these topics before I switch gears and ask, ask about fictional things?

(29:31):
Because I want to hear about that before we go.
I absolutely love like what you're saying, like it's not too late.
And that's something that's been, I'm seeing in so many different places, you know, just
on social media stuff, older people talking about that it's not too late, that it's worth

(29:51):
it, you know, because a lot of times, you know, we, again, like, like the whole thing
with the neuros, you know, I'm going to become a neurosurgeon.
You have that respect, you know, when you're younger, you know, you're expected to do all
of this stuff, you know, and then when you're 40, 50, you're supposed to be at the apex
of your career, you know, but there's, there's a joy and a freedom.

(30:13):
And at that time, changing things up, you know, and going for something like you had
said, like the thing that you align with the passion, absolutely love that.
It is such an important message.
But I was wondering too about the characters.
I was like, because your energy, like I want to hear about this dude.
Okay.

(30:33):
Yeah, yeah.
We're both big story lovers too, like you said.
So we get it.
So you said it was Lee Acklin?
Lee Acklin.
Right.
So originally he was Lee Acklin.
Sure.
So basically he's an idealized version of myself, which is, I think something that a
lot of writers do, I think that's what Ian Flunny did when he created James Bond or Stan

(30:54):
Lee back in the day, when he created Peter Parker slash Spider-Man.
You know, it's a wish fulfillment.
It's like, well, this is me, but much cooler, much more handsome, more of a ladies man, a
braver.
And Lee is, he's the kind of hero that I grew up with.
He's a smoker.
He's a drinker.
He's kind of a skirt chaser.

(31:14):
He's a man's man, but he's a heart of gold and he loves to help people.
And so I just, you know, I just, again, it's a wish fulfillment.
You know, so often in life, I feel, I feel like we all feel bullied sometimes, whether
it's by the government or coworkers or employers or maybe our friends or family members.
And sometimes we want to act on our feelings of whether it's sticking up ourselves, but

(31:37):
we don't do it.
Usually we don't do it because we're smart.
We realize that there'll just be an escalation.
And so writing for me, writing these stories about Lee is very therapeutic.
You know, I just haven't encountered these really awful, horrible and savory people who
are doing bad things.
And again, I feel, I'm writing stories that I feel like Hollywood, I feel like Hollywood

(31:57):
is always apologizing for their villains.
They're always, they're always making these sympathetic, like low key, you know, they're
always making these simple likable villains.
And to me, that's not a villain.
A villain is a really, really horrible, awful, bad person who enjoys harming person for
no other other reason than their own gratification.
And a lot of people who I guess have very good hearts, they just can't buy into that

(32:19):
notion.
You know, you can't have good without evil in my opinion.
It's like you can't have day without night.
And so, and so writing these stories for me, again, it's just, it's just very therapeutic
because I was bullied as a boy, you know, I was a Charlie Brown kind of kid growing up.
I was a giant, I was kind of, I was all usually, I don't mean to be, again, beating my chest,
but I was very often the biggest kid in class.

(32:40):
And I just wanted to be everybody's friend.
And so I began it, I didn't stick up for myself and I became, and I was bullied at home by
my dad.
My dad was a very, he was again, he was a great provider, but he was a very, you know, my mom
and I were walking on eggshells.
I always asked my mom, like, why did you marry this man?
Seriously, he's a cold total psycho.
He has, he doesn't know how to deal with children.
He's impatient.

(33:00):
And so again, I'm just a lot of writers like Gene Roddenberry when he created Star Trek,
we're creating worlds that we want to live in.
You know, we're creating this sort of fanciful, like I'm saying 90% realistic.
We try to make my stories as realistic as possible, but we're adding our own perception
of how we feel that the world should be.
So in all of my stories, good is rewarded, evil is punished, all my stories have happy

(33:25):
endings, at least for the good guys.
And again, that's the world that I want to live in.
And so that's my boy, Lee.
He's, he's basically me.
He's the guy that you're talking to right now.
I'm Lee Hacklin.
He's just, he's got more, he's got more hair than I do.
He's got, he's got lovely, long flowing locks.
And I based him on it.
Keith, you may remember an actor named Jan Michael Vincent.

(33:45):
Do you remember him from Erewoll?
Do you remember him?
He was like the Brad Pitt of our generation, right?
Super handsome guy, great actor, but, but could be a tough guy too.
Like, like some actors are like a Leonardo DiCaprio.
I think he's a great actor, but I never buy him as a tough guy.
I just, it just doesn't work for me.
I know I don't need to be disrespectful, but that's why I base my hero Leon.

(34:08):
And so that, that, that's Lee Hacklin.
He drives a white Dodge Charger and, you know, he's just a very ruthless when it comes to
dealing with bullies.
And again, I'm writing basically the kinds of stories that, that I grew up with.
And I feel like a lot of writers, you know, they're trying to write what they think is
popular.
They're trying to cater to a certain market, right?

(34:28):
Which is fine.
If that's what you want to do.
I, I'm, I'm, you know, Stan Lee back in the day, he was going to quit Marvel Comics
and get into advertising right before he created Spider-Man and find the publisher said to
him, it's like, Stan, don't quit, don't quit.
What do you want to do?
He said, I want to write these stories the way that I want to write them, not the way
that you want me to write them because, because the publisher was saying, oh, Stan, you can't
use more than one syllable of words.

(34:49):
There's only children reading this stuff.
Or you know, you have to make the stories, you know, you have to cater to children.
You have to cater to, right?
He's like, no, no, no.
So one Stan wrote the stories he wanted to write and he created these characters, Spider-Man,
that's fantastic for, and they sold like crazy.
They sold millions and millions of copies and now they're all being made into movies
and TV shows and everybody in the, around the world knows who Spider-Man is all because

(35:10):
of one man and his faith, right?
Not in what other people wanted, but what he wanted.
I mean, look at George Lucas, there's another example, right?
Everybody told, everybody said to George Lucas, what?
You want to make a space movie?
You want to make a movie about heroes and villains?
Nobody wants to see this kind of movie.
It's all about the gutter.
It's all about naturalism.
No, you know, like again, some people, they're not, they can't see into the future.

(35:35):
They're not visionaries.
You have to be a visionary and if you have an idea, you know, everyone in your inner
circle might think that it's total garbage.
That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea.
That just means that the people around you, they don't get whatever it is that you're
trying to create.
So I have in my mind's eye that, that before I die, I'm going to connect with that one
person, my Alan Latt Jr. He was the executive at Fox, who Greenland Star Wars.

(35:59):
He and George Lucas had this conversation about, about the stories that they grew up
with, you know, the Green Hornet and the shadow and these old radio shows you're looking
to and the chapter plays, you know, I want to bring that back.
So Alan Latt Jr. is like, here you go, George, here's $8 million.
Go make your stupid space movie that's going to sink the studio.
It's going to sink my career.

(36:20):
That's going to be a total bomb.
And lo and behold, it became Star Wars.
And how many people are working today in jobs related to Star Wars?
The thousands of people, right?
Thousands.
Writers, actors, set designers, you know, costume designers, the people who make the
video games, right?
The comic books, draw the comic books, right?
So all those people have jobs that they love, that they love to do.

(36:44):
Why?
Because of one man and his faith in his idea, never minding what other people think.
It's an important life lesson, right?
Oh, so important.
And I love the way that you described it.
I think it's, I think that's what art is.
Like we get to live out the versions of ourselves or expressions of ourselves that can't come

(37:09):
into this world.
So whether we do it through writing or painting or whatever we do, there has to be a way for
this other stuff, right, to have life.
And what is dangerous in the world right now is when you have Hollywood or like a big
force scene, well, we only want this to be these two colors, right?
Bezier brown.
All the art has to look Bezier brown.

(37:31):
We're really limiting, you know, this self expression that is the genius of the world,
right?
It's like the heart pumping of the world.
And so that is one reason I love the internet because the internet has and will continue
to allow people to go into weird niches and make a living.

(37:52):
And for people to support people, right?
And listen to their podcasts and tip their social media accounts and all those little
tiny plays that we are supporting each other outside of this big agenda, right?
Capitalism and the way it has previously been.
And it's brilliant.
It's so cool to see that happening.

(38:14):
We know you use an American and music Canadian, you know, we're so lucky that we're living
in the so-called developed nations because there are a lot of people around the world
and I don't want to get political, but they kind of lost the lottery.
They lost the lottery of life in advance.
Unless they can get out, you know, there's so many people that wake up every morning.
There's another civil war.
You know, there's tribalism, there's violence, you know, religious wars and political wars,

(38:35):
you know, you know, not that we're reliving or you say they're not utopias and not perfect,
but on a comparative scale, you know, we certainly have a lot of wiggle room to be who we want
to be, whereas a lot of people are really out of luck.
And so we really owe it to ourselves to take advantage of these wonderful opportunities
that so many people don't have.

(38:56):
So true.
And if anybody is looking for a source of gratitude, like, there it is, you know, people
always say like, do a gratitude journal, say something you're grateful for every day.
And then I know so many people struggle with that, like coming up with new things.
And I'm just always so in awe of this human experience and in awe, like you said that

(39:21):
I'm living here that I'm not in a civil war.
Like when you look around the world, the world just becomes this fascinating place to be in.
Right.
And yeah, so many things to be grateful for and to experience and impact.
It's a pretty amazing to be consciousness in a human body.

(39:43):
That's wild, man.
Like, why is anybody fighting this experience?
Like when you dig into it is cool.
100%.
No, I agree.
I'm 100%.
Yeah, so great.
So I have, I have, I plug, plug, plug.
I have another series called the Urban Tiger, which I feel like I'm kind of finished with.

(40:05):
And it's basically, have you seen the movie kick ass about the boy who wants to be a superhero?
It was a movie that came out a couple of years ago.
I think they did a kick ass too.
And so I remember when the kick ass comic book came out, it really broke my heart.
I had this idea for such a long time about a boy, you know, superhero is always a very
dramatic motivation.
Like Bruce Wayne, his parents were murdered.
That's why he becomes Batman, right?
Or Superman is sent to earth to redeem humanity.

(40:27):
I thought, what if the kid who's a comic book nerd, as I was, and still I'm a little bit,
what if he just decided to put out a mask and run around trying to be a good Samaritan?
And so when I read this comic book, you know what, I want to do this.
And it's an important life lesson too.
Whatever it is that you want to create, it's been done before.
There's a version of it that's been done before, but that you're doing it or that I'm doing

(40:50):
it or Keith or any of your listeners, that's what makes it different.
I remember a book I read back in the day called The Sword of Shinara by Terry Brooks.
And I remember editing it was a huge bestseller.
He spun off a whole bunch of sequels and TV show.
And I remember reading this book thinking, well, this guy just read Lord of the Rings
and he's changed the names of the characters.
And instead of a ring, it's a sword.
But you know what?

(41:10):
I didn't care.
I didn't take away from my pleasure of reading the book because he probably read Lord of
the Rings that, you know what, I want to do this.
I want to do my version of the story.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
If you want to tell a story about a boy who lives in a farm and he goes off to fight an
evil empire, if that's the story you want to write, you just tell people, yes, yes, this

(41:32):
was inspired by Star Wars.
You just tell people that.
It's like I read a two-part science fiction series called The Taking of Red Star One.
There's two books, it's a sci-fi series.
And it's basically The Hunt for Red October, the Star Trek.
And I freely admit, without The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy, those books don't exist.
And I hope Tom Clancy up in heaven, I hope that he's flattered by that.

(41:54):
You know, George Lucas, when he wrote the original Star Wars, he based the first scene
on a Japanese samurai movie called The Seven Samurai.
And if you watch The Seven Samurai, it's about, there's two guys wandering through the desert,
groaning and groaning about their life, just like C-3PO and R2-D2.
Some of the dialogue is even the same.
We seem to be made to suffer.
And Akira Kurosawa, who wrote the Inforchus, you know, he could have sued George Lucas.

(42:17):
He could have, but he didn't.
He was flattered.
You know, and again, you just come, I think the important thing is to just come out in
advance and you just tell people, yes, you know, one of my Lee Hacklins is called Romantic
Fanatic and it's about a male, a male writer of women's romance novels.
And he's kidnapped by an obsessive fan.
Hmm, that story sounds familiar.

(42:37):
It was a Stephen King book called Misery.
But when you have this idea and you keep obsessing over it, then you just, then I just follow
through.
So by the time I finished Romantic Fanatic, there's really only one chapter that's a little
bit like Misery, but the rest of it is its own thing.
It was just my starting point, my inspiration point.
So I've had people say to me since I started doing this, you know, I want to write too,

(43:01):
but I don't have any original ideas in my life.
You know, if I had that attitude, you'd be interviewing somebody else right now.
Right?
I mean, I couldn't say to myself, oh, why would I tell a series of crime detective stories?
You go into a bookstore, you go to the mystery section.
There's already eight million books on the shelf for a crime detective.
So what?
It doesn't matter.

(43:22):
There's never been one written by me.
That's what makes the difference.
If that makes sense.
Yeah, I think that, yeah.
That is such a powerful message.
It's okay to copy someone you admire, right?
Well, I don't see as much as copying.
I see it as more inspiring.
Right.
You know, before Star Wars, there was Flash Gordon.

(43:44):
There was Buck Rogers.
Before Batman, there was the Phantom.
There was Zorro.
You know, the guys who created Batman back in the day, they got that, oh, we can't do
this.
You know, he's a millionaire who dresses up in a mask and a cape and I, well, there was
already Zorro that came before Batman.
They said, no, no, no, we want it.
And, you know, how many Batman movies have been made over the last few years?

(44:04):
Again, again, how many people have jobs that are Batman related that love what they're
doing because these guys, Bill Finger and Bob Kane had the guts, you know, to create this
character even though something similar had come before.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so much.

(44:25):
And yeah, it's such a great message.
Thank you.
I was just thinking about how I actually like that stories are copied over and over again
because like the whole kids in school that know some kind of magic that grow up and have

(44:47):
to fight somebody, right?
Like a coming of age.
I'll freaking read every story that is written with that.
That's what you know.
Because I am right, there's something about me and my experience here that hooks to that
storyline.
I don't know what it, but I have 10, 20, 30 storylines like that, right?
That I want to always have in my life because I like the fantasy of that particular storyline.

(45:14):
So I'm like, are you a Harry Potter?
Are you a Harry Potter?
Totally.
Awesome.
Good for you.
Yeah.
I love, my husband makes fun of me because he's like, are you shopping in the young
adult section again?
Because these stories rock.
Yeah.
Never.
See, that's, you're lucky you're living in the present day because in my generation

(45:36):
back in the 70s, the fact that I liked comic books, you know, I'm surprised I wasn't stoned
to death, you know, like, like the Salem witch trials, you know, burned at the stake because
there were just a lot of people out there.
They think you're a weirdo because you're wearing an orange t-shirt and everybody else
is wearing a purple t-shirt, you know?
And I remember feeling every time I walked into a magazine story to buy my comic books,

(45:59):
I felt like a dirty old man.
I felt like I was buying porn, you know, and I didn't want anybody to know.
It's completely ridiculous.
You know, the more we think about what other people think about us, the less motivated
we'll be.
And once we, once we cut all that stuff off, it's like, boom, it's like, here I am.
I'm the center of the universe.

(46:19):
This is what I can do.
It makes me happy to do it and then you just do it and then you're off and running.
Now, whatever comes ahead, that is good or maybe not so good.
You just accept it in advance.
And again, I want to remind your listeners out there, anyone out there, oh, by the way,
I don't use Amazon anymore for my books.
I used, I used, I used draft to digital and it's an amazing website.

(46:42):
And what they draft to digital, within the number two, anybody out there who wants to
do what I'm doing, become a self-published author, what they do is it's super easy.
Easy to use.
It's free.
And they springboard your books to other platforms.
So all my books are on Barrington Noble and Kobo and Apple and there's five to five, six
other platforms.
I'm just keeping an eye on my stuff.
And then there's another website, there's another website I use called Draft on, Post

(47:06):
or My Wall.
And that's how I design my book cover.
And again, it's free.
It's super easy to use.
And it's only over the last year or so that I've had, I actually have covers for my books.
And again, I know I've said this before, I'm repeating myself, but when we start on something
new in our lives, you have to imagine that it's not always going to be smooth sailing.

(47:29):
There's going to be choppy water sometimes.
It's going to be unanticipated hiccups.
You need help, drop your ego.
And I feel like this is, I don't, I don't mean to be sexist, but I feel like this is
more of a guide thing.
You know, men and our egos, we want to do everything by ourselves, right?
We don't want to ask for directions, right?

(47:50):
We want to be men, gold, aren't it?
Well, if I hadn't put my ego on the shelf and asked people to help me, like you would
be interviewing somebody else right now.
If it wasn't for the wonderful library staff who helped me get that first book online,
you know, you, but you also have to demonstrate to people.
And again, it's just my opinion that you're worth helping.
Have you, have you ever helped someone and then thought after that you wasted your time?

(48:14):
Have you ever had that experience?
I've had this experience and maybe some people have felt this way about me.
You have to show people that you're passionate, that you're sincere, that this is what you
want and you have to be patient, right?
And if they do help you, then you, you know, you might want to buy them a coffee after or
something.
You know, you might want to give them a token of your appreciation.
So over the last five years, I, I didn't discover my bliss.

(48:37):
I always knew that this was my bliss, but I embraced it and I'm enjoying the journey
of my life infinitely more than the way I was living it before, just being a couch potato.
You know, my only regret is that I didn't reach out to God sooner, but again, we have
to live our lives in the present.
There's no going back.
There's no point worrying about the future.
I mean, an asteroid could land on earth today and destroy the whole human race.

(49:02):
And I remember back in the 80s, me and my friends, we all thought about nuclear war,
all the Russians and the Americans, they have nukes, they're going to fire the nukes and,
and, and the world is going to be a nuclear wasteland.
And so there's no point, right?
There's no point going to university.
There's no point in manifesting.
Let's just go out and get drunk.
Let's just go to bars every night.
And I did a lot of that when I was a younger man.
I still do some of that.
But when I go to the bar now on my days off, I feel like I earn, when I have my beer, I

(49:26):
drink, I do, I do drink beer on my days off.
Sorry, Sunday.
I feel like I earned it.
I feel like, you know what?
This, I earned this.
I worked really hard this week.
My job is very physically demanding.
I'm writing.
I'm reaching out to nice people like yourself.
I have, oh, I have a group page.
My Facebook group page is called Johnny's Way, over 700 members.

(49:46):
Everybody please feel free to join.
And once or twice a week, I write what I like to think are uplifting and inspirational essays
about believing yourself and self, and self manifestation.
I am, I took a picture of myself holding a book by a writer named Mike Madden.
He writes a Jack Ryan series, you know, Jack Ryan.
He took over from a Tom Clancy.
He's one of the writers who took over after Tom Clancy.

(50:08):
I took a picture of myself holding one of his books.
This guy's a best selling author.
Okay.
I don't mean to brag about this, but I posted it on his Facebook page and I told him about
my group page, Johnny's Way.
Well, guess what?
He joined this guy.
I'm a security guard, right?
Right?
He joined my thing.
That's awesome.
How wild is that?
This is the world that we're living in.
And I'm always telling people, particularly people who are our age, maybe I think Keith,

(50:31):
you and I are around the same age.
I'm 50.
Take advantage of this technology.
You know, you meet the most amazing people.
Again, people who have your energy and you, and you know, you might meet someone that
you spend the rest of your life with.
You might need someone who can open doors for you that would otherwise remain unlocked.
That would remain locked.
And I'm so glad.
I'm so, we're living in a golden age.

(50:53):
I mean, I keep, if I was living in the 1970s, I'll be sending my stuff in the mail where
we just wind up in somebody's fireplace is kindling.
At least my stuff is out there now.
Right?
DIY.
Do it yourself.
I thank God that this stuff exists.
I thank God for all the people that created it.
And it's a year, a year, you know, year where you are in Emma, Vancouver.

(51:13):
And it's like, we're in the same room.
Yeah.
It was wonderful, right?
It's beautiful.
Yeah.
It's such a cool time to be alive.
It is.
It was funny when you were talking about asking for help and then giving appreciation.
I was thinking, you know, those interactions, it's like the Velcro of humanity.

(51:33):
And when you ask for help and you give appreciation and you start, like that's the weaving that
connects us all, right?
And so when we don't ask for help or give help, like when, even if it's the library,
like a stranger, when we stop doing that with each other, the fabric of humanity, it gets
thinner, right?
It's not strong.

(51:54):
And now that we have the internet and all of us can connect with people who are like-minded,
the power of that, like the possible power of that's even stronger, right?
To find the people who really can help you and who you can really help and you're on
the same mission in this world.
And that's an exciting thing.
Yeah.

(52:15):
You know, a lot of people, and I used to do this when I was a younger man, they moan and
groan about all the strife of the world.
They moan and groan about war and violence and their pet peeves.
It's like, wait a second.
Instead of moaning and groaning about what's beyond your control, why don't you start thinking
and talking about what's within your control and then act upon that.

(52:36):
And never mind, you know, I'm on a website called Enterprise Zone and they plug, plug,
plug, and they send me a question once a week.
And so I answer the question.
The most recent question was, if you had to stop doing what you're doing like writing
and you could do something like globally, what would you do?
And I said, I wouldn't do anything because what's going on globally is not part of my

(52:57):
mission statement.
It's not that I don't care, I do care, but if I start thinking globally, then I'll just
feel weakened side, right?
And I don't want to feel weakened side.
I want to feel strong.
And so I'm just, I will never stop writing.
It's, even if my arms and legs fell off, I would still, I would still write.
I would figure out a way to do it because it's my bliss.
It's what I was meant to do.
I mean, there's a guy out there right now hammering nails all day or a woman.

(53:21):
God bless them.
And they love doing that.
The abs and they're, they're, they're making bullets.
I can't do that stuff.
I mean, I could push came to shove, but I would have to will myself to do it.
And this is another, maybe this is something that we haven't touched upon will.
When you have to will yourself to do something, then you probably shouldn't do it.
But when it comes naturally to you, that's when you know that you're on track.

(53:43):
And I've discovered since 2019, Mindy and Keith, that writing for me is as natural as
eating, sleeping and breathing.
I don't claim to be good at it.
I know my stories are in great literature.
They are what they are.
And the joy that the exhilaration that it gives me to do it and to share with other
people and the reaction that I get, which is mostly positive.

(54:07):
You can't put a price on that.
There's no amount of money in the world that can match that feeling that I have and that
other people who are doing what I'm doing that they have and doesn't have to be writing.
It could be like yourself doing a podcast or whatever it is, the feeling that it gives
you again, just want to keep feeling that way.
And then you have faith that down the road, it can pay off financially.

(54:29):
But if it doesn't, if any of the Lee Hacklin streaming series never happens, it doesn't
matter because at least I'm going for it.
Right?
There's no guarantee when Rocky Balboa gets into the ring, there's no guarantee that he's
going to win the fight.
Right?
The point is he's getting into the ring.
He's taking the heads.
We do have one of my favorite lines of dialogue in the history movies is when Rocky Balboa

(54:52):
is just with son, you have to take the hits in life and keep moving forward because what's
the alternative?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much for today.
I have just really loved this conversation.
I'm sorry if I cut yours off.
Yours are still on your head.
Are they?
Yeah, we're good.
Yeah.

(55:13):
And I appreciate it.
And so the listeners know too, if you email me like all your links and stuff and for all
your stuff, I'll make sure that gets in the show notes so everybody look below and click
and they can find you in all your places.
Keith, did you have anything to add before we wrapped it up last minute?

(55:34):
I think that's about it.
I mean, if you go on YouTube and if you type in John Leister, you can check out some of
the podcasts that I've been on.
It's pretty much the same stuff.
On my email is John Leister, small letters, J-O-H-N-L-E-I-S-T-E-R-611 at hotmail.com.
And I would be happy, time permitting, because I do have a full-time job.
And I've done this time permitting.

(55:55):
I would be more than happy.
I mean, I want to make money doing this, ultimately, but I want to ring that bell.
But it's also about sharing.
And I would be more than happy to email anyone one of my short stories or one of my books
if they're interested.
And as I said, my group page is Johnny's Way.
Anybody, everybody out there, please feel free to join.
And if you want to post something, as long as it's okay, some people do post some bad

(56:16):
things.
And I remove them.
I remove them.
I remove that stuff right away.
And basically, that's it.
Oh, and if you go to Kobo or Barnes & Noble or Indigo, and if you type in John Leister,
you'll see all of my books.
And most of them are excerpted.
And most of them are around $0.99.
And as I said, if anyone wants a copy, I'd be more than happy to email one.

(56:40):
And so that's basically the whole shebang.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Yeah, man.
You are a whirlwind of energy that is so good and so positive and like attractive, man.
You know what I mean?
Like I feel energized just listening to you talk about this and the self-awareness and

(57:05):
the wisdom in the stuff that you were saying.
I freaking love it, man.
Thank you so much.
We're very kind.
Yeah.
And those feelings are reciprocated.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
This is awesome.
Cheers.
All right.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you, Keith and Mindy.
Have a great day.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.

(57:27):
Please support us by liking, subscribing, or leaving a review or comment.
We would really appreciate it.
If you'd like to be a guest, we would love to explore life and what it means to be human
with you.
So please email us at chasingthoughtspodcast at gmail.com.

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Chasing Thoughts | S02 E21: John Leister, Living Life on Your Terms

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chasing Thoughts | S02 E21: John Leister, Living Life on Your Terms