John Strelecky – The Café on the Edge of the World

Air Date - 16 July 2025

Many of us have experienced a life-changing “second act” in our thirties. For John Strelecky, that “second act” began by sharing with the world his amazing story of exploration and transformation. John Strelecky is a #1 Best-Selling inspirational author and lecturer. His books have been translated into more than forty-five languages and have sold more than eleven million copies worldwide. In his calling, he shares that the greatest adventure in life is mapping out a dream and then making it happen.

His website is https://www.johnstrelecky.com/, and he joins me this week to share his path and the book that started it all for him, The Café on the Edge of the World.

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Connect with Victor Fuhrman at https://victorthevoice.com/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science and
the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now and
we will explore these topics and so much more with
fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to

(00:28):
Destination unlimited. Many of us have experienced a life changing
second act in our thirties. For John Stroleki, that second
act began by sharing with the world his amazing story
of exploration and transformation. John Stroleki is a number one

(00:53):
best selling inspirational author and lecturer. His books have been
translated into more than forty five languae, which is and
sold more than eleven million copies worldwide. In his calling,
he shares that the greatest adventure in life is mapping
out a dream and then making it happen. His website

(01:13):
is Johnstraleki dot com and he joins me this week
to share his path and the book that started it
all for him, The Cafe on the Edge of the World.
Please join me in welcoming to Destination Unlimited. John Straleki.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Welcome John, Thanks Victor, I've been looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
John. You're known at this point in your life as
a best selling inspirational author. Your books have sold more
than eleven million copies and have been translated into forty
five languages. As I understand it, the launching point for
all of that happened after you made a dramatic life change.

(01:56):
Please tell us about that process. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Sure, it's kind of a crazy story, but I think
one that a lot of people can relate to because
they've probably experienced her are experiencing something similar in their
own life.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
I was in my early.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Thirties and I was doing a job that was just okay,
Like I was treated well, the job paid okay, but
I didn't really have a heart connection to it. And
I was looking at the people that were ten years
older than me and thinking, Okay, if I keep doing
what I'm doing, what is my life going to be
like in ten years? And it was going to be
basically like their life, and not that there was anything

(02:29):
wrong with their life, but it wasn't the life that
I wanted to be living. And so I was thinking
about these things, and I was reflecting on this for
quite a while. And then my grandfather passed away and
I didn't really know him well but for some reason
that really struck me because he had lived to be
eighty three years old. And I remember getting the call
from my mom. It was her dad, and I was

(02:50):
in my apartments and I was thinking to myself, Okay, like,
if I keep doing what I'm doing, what will might
be my story at eighty three, you know? And so
I made a very, very big decision. I left almost
everything behind, rented out of my house, sold everything, and
backpacked around the world for a year to fulfill the
part of me that was just waiting in a dormant
phase to be an adventurer, to see the world, to

(03:12):
get out there and experience these different cultures and animals
of the planets. And that dramatically changed my life.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Were you afraid? You know?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
What was interesting is sometimes in life, I think the
bigger fear can overshadow into the smaller fear and help
you take action. So the bigger fear for me at
that moment was that I would continue doing what I
was doing and I would get to the end of
my life and feel like I didn't live the life
I was supposed to live. And so that helped me
get over the fear of oh my gosh, I have
no idea how to do this, you know, it was

(03:45):
all completely foreign to me of how to actually get
out there and travel and backpack around the world. But
I'd rather figure that out, was my thought, than get
to the end and be like I wish I would
have done that.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
You know what's interesting, this happened to you in your
early thirties, and my life changed in my thirties. Also,
I call it the second act. We go through several
acts in our life, and for me, the thirties was
my second act, and it introduced me to a spiritual
outlook in life, which was something that I was truly
searching for. Do you find that a lot of people

(04:16):
have that second act?

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:19):
For some reason, the ages of twenty eight and thirty
five are dramatic shifting years. And I say that because
literally I've asked so many people, oh, and how old
are you, and the amount of time someone has said
exactly twenty eight or exactly thirty five. Now, I think
it can happen in between there two, like you were
describing for yourself, mine was at thirty two. But I
think maybe some of it is societal and biological. You're

(04:42):
looking at people that are in those age groups, and
maybe they're getting married, or they're already having a kid,
or they're buying a house, they're settling down, and you're
asking yourself, oh, is that the path that I want
to take?

Speaker 3 (04:54):
So it could be partly that.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
It could be also that economically, we've been living in
quite good times for many day decades, and so maybe
by the time you're in your late twenties early thirties,
you've established yourself in your career a bit, You've got money,
you've got some toys, and so you're starting to ask yourself, huh,
is this really all there is? Because if I understand
the timeline of most people, I'm gonna be doing this

(05:18):
for a long long time from this point forward.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Is that alright with me?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Or not? So it could be some of those, And
then I don't know, maybe wired within us is sort
of a switch of some sort that says, Okay, when
you get to this point, you're gonna start to find
yourself reflecting on life and the bigger questions, and you're
gonna be faced with some choices about entering the second act.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
So you come back from backpacking around the world, then
what happens?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, so I had a very profound life experience in
that when you're backpacking around the world and you're traveling
in countries that you don't know the language, you don't
know the cultures, you don't know the social nuances, what
you have to rely on most is your intuition. And
what I discovered in the process of doing those travels
was that the intuition is like a muscle. The more

(06:06):
you use it, the more you listen to it, the
stronger it becomes. It's almost like fluency in a language,
if you will, in terms of if someone is speaking
to you in a language that you don't understand at
all and you're not listening, at some point they stopped
talking to you, or they talk to you less. And
I find that's kind of the same with your intuition,
that this fluency that you're developing grows as you listen

(06:28):
and respond to your intuition. So luckily, after a year
of traveling, my intuition was on super high. The bandwidth
of it was very strong and very high, and so
something inside of me victor said, sit down and start typing.
And honestly, had I been at any other phase earlier
in my life, I probably would have completely ignored it
or just debated it. But I was in this great

(06:51):
space mentally, and so I was like, all right, I'll
sit down and start typing. And what ended up happening was,
over twenty one days, a story flowed through me. And
that story became a little book called The Cafe on
the Edge of the World, which, as you mentioned in
the intros, is you know, it's in forty five languages.
The books have sold eleven million copies. And so had

(07:11):
I have not gone and traveled the worlds, I would
not have had my intuition so open. And if it
wasn't so open, the story couldn't have flowed through me.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Absolutely, I'm in I would guess, the fourth stage of
my life. I'm in my early seventies now, and I
actually took the opportunity. I've been writing poetry since childhood,
and in the last ten years or so some very
significant poetry, and I actually took the opportunity to put
my poems into a book and have them published last year.
And I'm grateful that I did that. So I totally

(07:41):
that that's awesome, that idea of sitting down, and you know,
in the old days, we had typewriters and now we
have keyboards, but being able to put those thoughts for me,
inspired thoughts onto paper, So it was wonderful to do that.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
You know what I love about that, Victor, is I
was having this saw just the other day that when
you take a length piece of paper and you create
something upon it, that you have the chance not only
to share the insights that you've gained or the feelings
that you're feeling, but you open up the possibility that
somebody else can learn from your experiences as well, because
it becomes permanent.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Absolutely, and I've gotten a lot of people, a lot
of wonderful feedback, as I'm sure you have also an
amazing feedback about people reading some of these poems and
of course reading your book and having a moment of
enlightenment from them and saying thank you for sharing that
that's something I needed to read or hear or understand
at this stage in my life. So thank you, sir.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Absolutely, I think these are the little clues that we
look for when we're embarking on an adventure. And I
will tell you kind of a strange story as it
relates to the cafe world, and that is so I
had this thing flow through me over the course of
twenty one days. I didn't really know what the heck
was going on. I didn't know why it was happening,
but I was in that wide open space. And so

(08:57):
when it was done, and I didn't like pre think
what I was to type the next day as I
was going through this process, I just literally sat down
and typed. So the first time I ever read the
completed thing was at the end, and when.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
I read it, it felt like a book.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
One of my favorite books of all time is a
little book called Illusions by Richard Bach, and it felt
like it had the same energy of that, and so
I was like, oh, I think this is a book.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
And so, long story short, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Know what to do with it exactly, but I thought, oh,
if I'm going to turn it into a book, then
I should like get some publicity or some like get
a book review.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Basically, so I co called the editor.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Of this magazine and I explained that I'm a writer,
I've got this book, and she's like, oh, well send
it to me, and I was like, actually, it's not
really a book yet, but it's just a manuscript.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Honestly, Victory.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
I look back not I realized how absolutely ludicrous all
of that story is, Like, you'd never contact the editor
of a magazine if you don't have a physical book, right.
But I didn't know what I was doing, and sometimes
that's good in life, to just be clueless and confidence
and walking the path. But long story short, I ended
up meeting this lady for lunch because she contacted me

(10:06):
and said I want to meet you, and I was like, oh,
that sounds really positive, right, And so I meet this
lady and the opening words out of her mouth were,
this book has changed my life. That was the very
first person ever to read the manuscript which then became
the book except for me. And so I think when
you're embarking on these adventures, be open to those little

(10:28):
guiding clues that tell you you're actually doing something that is
on the right path for you.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Stay the course.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Absolutely. One of the things that you actually touch upon
in the book is what I call, or what Carl
Young referred to as synchronicities, which are meaningful coincidences without
causal connection. And I found so many of those in
my life, especially from my thirties on, where each time
I was approached with this situation, I could have one

(10:54):
of three answers. I could say no, this is not
for me. I could say yes, but not right now,
perhaps later. Or I could say yes with the capital why.
And every time I use that capital why, the next
one would come and the next one would come, and
I feel grateful for those opportunities.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
And why do you think that happened for you in
your early thirties?

Speaker 1 (11:14):
I was ready?

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Okay, do you think it was there beforehand and you
just weren't, like your receptors weren't finely tuned yet, or.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, I've had intuition since I was a child, but
I think perhaps the situation in my work life and
my family life was such that I was ready now
to step forward and embrace.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
These That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, it's a fine bouncing act I find as you
go through this existence. My daughter and I were actually
talking this morning. We were having breakfast together, and she said, oh,
what do you got going today? I said, I'm going
to be on this really cool podcast and she said,
what's it about? And so I was describing kind of
the essence of your show and the type of guests
that you bring on, and she said, how do you
feel about that? And so I was describing to her

(11:57):
what I feel is one of the interesting bounce points
of the human experience that if we're not careful, we
get so immersed in the day today that we forget
that we're in this amazing, energetic experience that is way
bigger than just the day and day out physical stuff.
And if we do the reverse, then in my experience,

(12:17):
that's people who struggle to appreciate the beauty of the
reality of this moment. They're very, very ethereal, which is awesome,
but then they struggle in the sort of the day
to day of l everyday life. And so I was
sharing with her that I think one of the great
challenges and the adventures of the human experience is to
balance those two worlds absolutely. And that's a lot of

(12:38):
that has to go with what you're talking about of
finding this finding the joy of realizing that you're not
running solo on this whole great adventure, that you can
open up your intuition and tap into something so much
greater than just what you've learned in your life. And
it is a perpetual resource that's available on pretty much
any topic in any situation, and you're ever going to

(13:00):
go through if you open it up.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Without going into a lot of details about bylife, because
this is your story today. So in my thirties, I
had a back injury that I had been recovering from,
and a friend of mine said, have you ever tried yoga?
And I said no, but I think that's something interesting.
And I found a yoga class at a local high
school in their adult education newspaper, and it said learn

(13:26):
yoga yoga with Judy Hamsa and the name Hamsa. I
didn't know what that meant, but something about it resonated
with me, so I signed up for the class. Judy
and I became very fast friends. When I started taking
the class, she said, I love your voice. Would you
start facilitating meditation? I said, of course, So I started
facilitating meditation. Then we started taking a series of trips

(13:48):
to a zendo in Livingston, Manor, New York and having
meditation classes and the wonderful, wonderful yoga practices. And then
at one of those classes, somebody said the word reiki,
which I had never consciously heard in this lifetime. But
there were three of us, including my teacher, and we said,
that's something really interesting. This is October of that year.

(14:09):
We'll look into it next year. Two weeks later, we
were in our first week class and reiki became the
spiritual rocket fuel that opened me up to so many
things down the line, and we're not going to share
those now, But that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking
about being aware that when these opportunities are presented to you,
there's a reason for it.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, And so let me ask you, because I think
for someone who's listening, and I know so many of
your great episodes of your show go way deep into
the spiritual world and the realms and the different elements
of this, and sometimes for someone who's just starting off,
I think it can feel a little overwhelming. So let
me ask you, when you have the big yes feeling,

(14:49):
what does it physically feel like or energetically feel like
for you when you just know it's one hundred percent,
they gotta do.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
It, gotta do it, gotta go now, it's this is
the opportunity, this is for me. This was given to
me as a gift, and that's the way I receive it.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
And do you hear it? Do you you know, do
you hear the voice in your head? Do you physically
get chills up and down your spine. Is there some
other element that you go, oh, that's a big yes, the.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Voice, a little bit, a little bit of tingling okay,
and a wonderful, heartwarming sensation.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Hmmm, interesting, Okay.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
I would say for mine, it's it's a sense of
just yeah, this is just yes, it's yeah. And sometimes
I get the chills too, like I'll get up and
down my spine, And that's a really good indicator even
when I'm writing. Actually, if I'm in the process of
writing something and it flows through me and I get chills,
I'm like, oh, that is going to be a piece
of the story that really connects with people. So that's

(15:46):
a huge indicator for me. But I think that's an
important one too. Opening the channel is really critical and
understanding the way in which the channel is talking to you.
And so if anybody who's listening, I would say, just
go back in your storyline and look at where you
followed your intuition and just ask yourself, what was I
thinking or feeling or experiencing right prior to that, and

(16:07):
that may be the way that your intuition or the
bigger energetic world talks to you, because it's not gonna
typically talk just like Victor and I are talking, it's
going to be a combination of things.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
I've been hearing the voice since I was a kid,
and I had that sense that this was a voice
of truth rather than an ego related voice that shouts
at you. This is what they used to call the
still soft voice within. And every time I'd hear that
message from that still soft voice within, I would know
that to act upon those things.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, So that to me is so awesome because you're
able to define that. And how interesting because you're known
as Victor the Voice, right, you have this great voice
for it, and so how interesting that the way in
which it's communicating with you is through an auditory means.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, Claire audience, absolutely absolutely. So getting back to your story,
how did you know that author was where you wanted
your life to go at that point.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Well, the funny thing is, Victor, I don't think. I
don't think it was that I knew I wanted my
life to go in that direction. I think that the
cafe on the edge of the world's story was out
there in the ether and it was looking for someone
to be a conduit. And I have shared many many
times that I have not followed my heart and followed

(17:27):
my own life's purpose and gone and traveled around the world,
that somebody else's name would be on the cover of
that book because I.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Was just a candidate.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
I demonstrated by my willingness to go out there and
do the things that I wanted to do to live
the life that I wanted to live, that I was
a candidate to be the author. And then when I
sat down over the course of twenty one days, I
further demonstrated but at any point in time, that book
could have been written by somebody else.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
In general, what would you recommend to someone who wants
to make a change in their life but isn't sure
which direction to.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
I find a lot of people are in that situation
right now. So I'll give you some super super practical
stuff and then I'll give you something that is more
on the energetic level. So the super practical is if
you look at people around you, and it could be
people that you know, it could be people that you
don't know, but you have access to sort of their
story or what they're doing, either through biographies or through

(18:24):
even social media, although there's always a filter through which
that's displayed. But find five people who are living what
you would say is your dream life. And then take
just fifteen or twenty minutes, write their name, and then
underneath each name, write down why you would say that's
your dream life. Like what is it about them? Oh,
they get to spend a lot of time with friends,
or oh, they have a flexible lifestyle in terms of

(18:46):
their work structure. Or oh, like they're very wealthy and
because of the wealth they get to contribute money towards
philanthropic causes. Or oh, because of their wealth they get
to travel around the world. Like, write down all these
different elements what makes that person's life your dream life.
And what's fascinating is when you do this for five
different people and then you can compare the results across

(19:06):
the five people, you start to see patterns. And then
those patterns are basically the life that you want to live.
And now I just like to go back I like
to backcast in those five individual story and say, well,
you know, what was their path they got from point
A to point B, what was the path to victory there?
And when you do that for five people, you're probably
going to see patterns in that too. And then it's

(19:27):
a matter of imitating those patterns at the start until
you gain momentum, and then once you've got the momentum,
you can start freelancing on your own in the dress
specific direction that you want to go. But it's a
very tactical, very easy way for anybody to start to
get clarity about what that ideal life looks like. The
more energetic side that I would say is, I find
that there are so many distractions in life right now,

(19:49):
and people operate very often in a state that I
call pleasantly occupied. And pleasantly occupied is a problem because
when at least when I was a kid, you used
to get bored. And when you were bored, that's what
stimulated you and your friends to say, okay, what could
we do that would not be boring?

Speaker 3 (20:04):
So it inspired creativity.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
And now pleasantly occupied is just looking at other people
on our smartphones or the news of the day, et cetera.
You're not bored, which is nice, but you're never living
a life in a way that's truly amazing. Your lever
often not in alignment with your true core purpose either,
And so I would say the goal is to get
beyond pleasantly occupied, and that means giving yourself an hour
a day, start with a half an hour, ten minutes,

(20:28):
if that's all you've got. I love being out in
nature to do this and just walk and ask the question,
and this is the first question on the cafe menu,
why am I here? And it may not come from
a thunderbolt from the sky type moment, But if you
do that, and you do that for five, ten, twenty
days max, just asking that question why am I here
and noticing what comes to you, you're gonna find yourself

(20:51):
at the end of that time period with a whole
lot more clarity than you probably feel right.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Now, and you won't be comfortably numb.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, because that's what you're right pleasantly occupied
is comfortably numb. You're just you're just not bored, but
you're not doing something amazing. And to me, you talked
about fears before, my fear would be that at the
end of life you'd look back and say, Oh, I
really wish I would have I really wish I could have.
I totally wanted to and it's a whole bunch of
missed opportunities that would be a tragedy.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Absolutely, I can honestly say that at seventy two years
of age. I am at a greater peace in my
life than I've ever been, and I feel very blessed
for everything that's occurred in my life. Even some of
the challenging moments were lessons to be learned and were blessings.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
And do you think so? I have two questions related
to that. One is, at what point did did you
feel that way, like at what phase of life slash age?
And two do you think that that is because you
have done, seen and experienced what you wanted to do,
see your experience and or is it related to the
fact that you have a knowledge that this human experience

(21:55):
is just a part of the story, like you're going
to go on to something after this.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
This human experience is just a part of the story.
I one hundred percent I believe in reincarnation. I believe
that each life is a series of lessons that we
come here to learn. We sign up for these lessons.
One of the major lessons of my life when I
was a kid, my dad was twenty years older than
my mother. I was the firstborn, and I don't think
he was ready at that stage of his life for

(22:20):
a precocious kid, because I was a very precocious kid,
and I never felt he loved me until I was
eight years old and he became ill and through diabetes,
he lost a leg and I became part of his
caretaking team with my mother, and for the first time
in my life, I felt that he loved me, and
it wired in my young mind if you care for others,

(22:43):
you will be loved. And that's not a bad thing,
except for the fact that when I started getting older
and getting into stages in my life where I needed
to take care of myself, I was neglecting myself while
running after everyone else's needs, and that resulted in a
little wake up call in my early fifties having to
do with the stents put into my heart, et cetera.
And so consequently I came to the understanding that it's

(23:07):
wonderful and it's a blessing to extend kindness and compassion
and help others, but you have to take care of
yourself first.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah, totally, and I find that.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
And this is something that I struggled with for a
long time, and I think the reason people struggled with
it is varied, of course, but for myself, I struggled
for a long time from the same point that it
was much easier for me to help others than to
accept help from others. And I finally one day, I
had this tremendous epiphany. And I don't know why it
took me so long to figure it out, but here

(23:39):
was the epiphany. Why did I like helping people? Because
it made me feel good. It made me feel like
I was doing something positive. It made me feel like
I was on purpose right, And so by me denying
other people the opportunity to help me, I was actually
being selfish. I wasn't giving them the opportunity to feel
the same great feeling I felt when I helped someone else.
And that totally shifted things from me. And again, I

(24:02):
wish it would have happened much earlier in my life,
because it took me decades and decades to get.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
To that point.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
But yeah, no, if we're if we're not allowing ourselves
to be the best and most authentic version of ourselves
and we're always just doing for others, at some point,
the system is going to run out of energy.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
My guest is John Straleki. We're gonna be talking about
his book The Cafe on the Edge of the World. John,
please share with our listeners where they can get all
of your wonderful books and find out more about you
and your amazing wisdom.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Absolutely, thank you so much. YEA, certainly Amazon or any
other online bookstore, probably in your local bookstore as well,
and you can follow me on social media. I'm at
John Straleki so j O h N S t R
E L E c K Y, and I have in
addition to the conversation we're having today, anytime I have
kind of a cool thought that isn't big enough for
part of a book, I often write articles about those

(24:53):
and I put those up on my website, which is
johnstrellki dot com.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
And within your book, The Cafe on the Edge of
the World, the story about a green sea turtle. I
understand you're on a quest to save baby sea turtles.
Tell us about that, please.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
I am so First let me ask you, victor, have
you ever seen a sea turtle? And have you ever
seen baby sea turtles?

Speaker 1 (25:12):
I probably have in an aquarium when I was a kid.
That's about it.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Gotcha.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
So the big majestic green sea turtles are absolutely amazing creatures.
They have this incredible connection to their environment, and so
it's funny as writers you write and then when you
interact with fans, the fans often tell you their favorite
part of the stories that you write, and in my case,
the green sea turtle part of the Cafe and the
Edge of the World is by far the most commonly

(25:39):
quoted part of the story. Back to me, people who
have come and showed me tattoos, they have their rooms
decorated completely in green sea turtles. One guy had a
van that he was driving and backpacking around the Australian
Outback that was totally decked out in green sea turtles
because of this story. And it's a very powerful piece
of life wisdom that came to me in the process

(26:01):
of those twenty one days in the story of flowing
through me. And so I'm ever forever grateful for that
story and the fact that I've been able to share
it with readers. And so this is not based on
some piece of random fiction. This is based on actual animals,
which are these amazingly beautiful green sea turtles. And so
my team and I each year we take a look

(26:22):
at what's going on and how we can make a
positive difference in the world, and we try and do it,
certainly through the books. And that's having a positive impact
on humans. But this year we decided that we wanted
to put some real emphasis behind preserving these amazing creatures,
and so we are partnering with an incredible organization and literally,
for every book that is purchased of The Cafe on
the Edge of the World, we get to save and

(26:43):
protect ten baby sea turtles. And these little guys are
the cutest things ever, and their lives are at high
risk in the early stages, and we are able again
to save ten of them for every book that is
purchased because we donate all the funds towards that. And
so for everybody who's listening to the converse with Victor
n I and you're thinking, yeah, like I don't know,
my vibe, my intuition is telling me there might be

(27:04):
something there, and you also love the idea of saving
and preserving ten babca turtles. Please grab your copy of
The Cafe on the Edge of the worlds and each
time you pick up that book and hold it, know
that you're having a positive impact not just on your
own life, but on the lives of ten little baby turtles.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Two beautiful Thank you for sharing that, John, and we'll
be back with more after these words on the own
Times Radio network.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
The Cutting Edge of Conscious Radio ome Times Radio IOMFM.
Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
providers of positivity, wellness and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
their net proceeds are finnaled to support worldwide charity initiatives
via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment to creating community

(27:51):
and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on
a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week, John Straleki.
We're talking about his book The Cafe on the Edge
of the World. John. In that book, it's about a
guy who finds three questions on the back of a
cafe menu. These questions which set him in a totally
new direction in life. Those were why are you here?

(28:24):
Do you fear death? And are you fulfilled? The questions
on the menu could have been anything, Why those and
what makes them particularly worth thinking about?

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah? Why those?

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Because, as we were talking about before, the story flowed
through me and apparently that was the questions that were
part of the cafe experience and the et they're waiting
to happen. Do you think I always share with everyone
that I talked to. I think the very first person
who was supposed to read all of my books is me,
And it's because it's things that I'm struggling with or
trying to figure out, in my opinion. And it's funny,

(29:01):
you and I were just chatting about this a second
ago offline, and it's the question of purpose. And so
we arrive into the human experience, and I do believe
that prior to arriving, we have selected some pre challenges
that we'd like to experience so that we can grow.
I also believe that we have the potential for many
different purposes, but we probably have some directional things associated

(29:23):
with that, and then we're born and we don't remember
any of that. And so part of the human challenge
is to figure out the answer to that very first
question why am I here? And what I've discovered over
time is the reason that's so important is because it
becomes your north on your compass, and in the absence
of that, it's so easy to be distracted, it's so
easy to miss out on the big yes opportunities that

(29:44):
you talked about before, the fear of missing out which
people struggle with so often these days, comes from a
lack of clarity. To me, though, the biggest thing by far,
and I'd love to hear your perspective on this victor,
is that I I believe there is a tremendous guiding
sense of forces out there, whether you call it God,

(30:05):
whether you call it the universe, whether you call it energy,
and it's existing in a state of pure potential, and
it's looking at the way we're living our life and saying, hey,
I'm ready to help. All I'm waiting for is for
you to lock in on the thing that you want
to do, and then I'm here to help. And very
often as human beings, and this was certainly my case
for a lot of years. Until I started to figure

(30:27):
this out, I wasn't giving very much good directional guidance
to the universe in terms of what I was really
passionate about, what I really wanted my life to become.
But the minute I did that, and in the case
we were talking about before, the minute I said I'm
leaving everything behind to go fulfill my purpose of being
an adventure, it was like the entire power of the

(30:47):
universe is like, okay, sounds good, here's how we can
help you. And these random moments, these random conversations with strangers.
My dad calls me and is like, hey, I know
you said you're interested in doing this.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
I just saw this.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Article about Malaysian Airlines is offering a summer season pass
where for one hundred and forty nine dollars you can
travel to any country in Southeast Asia on a three
month pass. Now, Victor, what are the odds that my dad,
who's living in Chicago is looking at a copy of
a newspaper that hasn't added from Malaysian Airlines? Right? I mean,

(31:21):
it's like, these are those random moments. But this, to
me is the clarity that started, or the synchronicity that
starts to kick into place when you have the answer
to that question why am I here? And what do
I want to do to fulfill that?

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Absolutely? And I think you were addressing that to me
as a question for myself from my own experience. Yeah,
I think that the story about me getting involved with
reiki was the starting point. And in those days, if
you wanted to go into a hospital and do any
kind of laying on of hands, you either have to

(31:58):
be a licensed massage therapist or ordained in a faith
where laying out of hands was one of the sacraments.
So consequently, with a full time job, I couldn't take
off two years to go to massage school. But through
another synchronicity, these are very long stories, going to make
these very short. Through another synchronicity, I learned of this
organization called the New Seminary of New York, one of

(32:20):
the first interfaith seminaries in the world, where people learned
the foundational basis of virtually every faith, and so the
beauty in many of the faiths and virtually all of
the faiths, the beauty being that there's a foundational statement
in almost every faith of the Golden Rule and the
iteration of the Golden Rule in any event, that was

(32:41):
my motivation in my mind, in my heart for wanting
to go to that seminary, attend and get ordained. A
few years later, on an event called nine to eleven,
I became a chaplain for the Red Cross, something that
I hadn't had in mind, but it happened through synchronicity
after nine to eleven and my wife and I both
became chaplains for the Red Cross and served for several

(33:03):
weeks counseling and listening to and helping people who were
either mourning the loss of loved ones or waiting for
a word of their loved ones. All of these opportunities
presented themselves because I said the big why, the big yes.
So in addition to having my day job in industry,
I had this other work, this calling that I had
in spiritual direction and spiritual coaching and helping others. And

(33:29):
the interesting thing is, a friend of mine in business
many years ago, who also knew about my other life, said,
how do you balance the fact that you have this
day job in industrial technology and welding engineering of all things,
and this other stuff that you do the spiritual work.
And without even thinking about it, I said, the day
job pays my salary. The other work pays my solery.

(33:53):
This word solery came out of me. My wife said,
you got to trademark that anyway. But I'm also writing
a book called sold Read The Compensation of Spirits. So
again there's a purpose to everything.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
Yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
And I really like the way you described that, because
I think I've met a lot of people who are
frustrated in their day to day existence with the job
that they do, and I get that, and a lot
of the stuff that I try and help people with
is moving their life so that you're getting paid to
fulfill your purpose, which is awesome and it's easier than
people think. That said very often, if we are able

(34:28):
to reframe the way we look at the work that
we do, the job that we do as being a
conduit that enables us to fulfill this other part of
our life, then it changes the way we feel when
we go to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And
so you're viewing it as a gift. Maybe it's not
the only place that you want to have that gift
take place, but at the moment, it's a gift, and
I think that changes the feel of it completely for

(34:50):
a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Absolutely. So, getting back to the cafe on the Edge
of the World. In the book your Teachers, I would
call them gurus, are a waitress, the cafe owner, and
a frequent patron. The implication is that wisdom may be
found in everyday life if we look and we listen.
Was this one of the messages you were called to share?

Speaker 3 (35:12):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
I mean, when I was doing my trip around the world,
It was astounding how I would meet just a completely
random person in a random country, whether it was a
tiny little village in the middle of me and mar
or whether it was walking the Great Wall of China
or in Africa. And everyone has a story and everyone

(35:35):
has wisdom that they're learning as they go through their story.
And so I was just astounded at the conversations that
I would get into with complete strangers and they would
impart something which I would write down in my journal,
and then I would think, Wow, how did I go
through my entire life and not realize this before or
not think of this before? And so, yeah, I think

(35:55):
we all have something to offer the world. I'm not
saying everyone necessarily is a writer. Maybe they are, but
I think everyone has gifts, everyone has talents, everyone has genius.
And part of figuring out your purpose answering that question
why am I here, is allowing yourself to, in a
very beautiful, heartfelt way, look at the talents, gifts and

(36:16):
genius that you have and say I'm going to go
ahead and offer that to the world in the way
that I feel called to offer it. And so yeah,
I think everybody's out there, ready, willing, and often able
to assist you in some capacity and your life adventures.
The trick is, are we willing to kind of strip
away the ego and have the conversations.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
In my forty four years of training welding sales and
customer service staff, one of the questions I would ask
them to pose in their minds was what does the
customer really want? So, for the example, customer comes to
the counter and says, I'd like a drill bit, and
I would say, what do they really want? And the
salespeople of the customer service personnel would say they want

(36:56):
to drill bit. I said no, I said, they don't
want to drill, but they want to.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Make a whole.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
What they really want exactly, So that brings to mind
the drill bit. What else could you sell them that
would help them make that whole? Well? Safety gear, lubricant.
What are the other things a drill if they needed
a drill, if they're going to weld afterwards, any type
of grinding material. So there was a number of things
that they could use to build upon that basic drill bit.
And I said by doing this, by asking those questions

(37:22):
to your customers, you're building greater customer satisfaction. And I said,
by doing that, you are going to grow your sales
with them, and they may not look at the price
so much as they look at the service that you're
giving them and your willingness to embrace them in their goal.
So how may using the questions posed in your book
help readers learn to take ownership of their own satisfaction?

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah? Interesting.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
In that scenario that you just painted, the person is
actually playing the role of the customer as well as
the person who's helping. So correct to ask yourself what
do I want? And maybe what your first response is?
I want more free time? And then you say, oh,
that's awesome, and this is the kind voice you'd be
using with yourself. And what would you do with that
free time?

Speaker 5 (38:05):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (38:06):
I if I had more free time, I would just
relax more, okay?

Speaker 3 (38:10):
And why do you want to relax?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Because I feel super stressed about this job and the
job is super stressful because I know it's just not
my purpose. I know it's just not where I want
to be going with my life.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Interesting, Well, if you had full flexibility, what would you
want to be doing with your life? And in many
cases people say I'd love to see some of the
worlds like I know that I've been given this gift
of life, and there's amazing planet and I want to
go see it. And so by asking these questions you
do very similarly what you were describing. You're starting to
get down to the root of the why, Like why

(38:40):
is it that you want to do see and experience
these things that you want to do see an experience
as it relates to fulfilling your purpose and that's the gift,
Like that is the great opportunity that we have, and
why not do it?

Speaker 3 (38:53):
And especially why not do it when.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
You realize that there are all of these external factors
in terms of other people and energetic elements that are
in place that the game is designed for you to
actually succeed. That was something it took me a long
time to realize that the odds are not stacked against you.
The odds are actually stacked in your favor. So why
why would that be the way that the human experience
is designed? This is a very interesting rabbit hole to

(39:17):
go down, and I'd love to get your perspective on
this also, Victor, But here's my short version of this.
The game is designed that way because when each of
us allows ourselves to live the life that we most
want to live, to fulfill our purpose. That whether it's
writing the beautiful poems that you write, or writing the
books that I write, or a conversation we have with
a stranger, anytime we have that aha moment, it becomes

(39:38):
part of the collective consciousness. And in that moment that
it becomes part of the collective consciousness, it is now
accessible by every single human and or other life form
on the planet, probably for all of eternity. And that
is the reason that it's okay to do that, because
it's a growing, thriving universe, and so you're not just
doing it for yourself, but you're also doing it so

(39:59):
that other pe people can learn from your experiences and
have an amazing life as well.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
We're feeding the quantum universe.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, and that's because I've been thinking about this question
for a long long time, like why does the whole
game even exist? So, I don't know what's your take.
You've you've been on the planet a little bit longer
than I have. Why do you think the whole game
even exists? And what is our role as a human
in it?

Speaker 1 (40:19):
We're feeding the quantum universe. We're sending out these signals
in a world where there is such divisiveness and pain.
By sending out signals of love, we can start lifting
that pain, we can start lifting that divisiveness. We can
start embracing our sisters and brothers as the family of
humanity that we actually are. And for me personally, that's

(40:42):
that's one of my missions.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Hmmm. I love that.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
I'll tell you an interesting thought that I had related
to that, because I think sometimes people we're talking about
define five people who are living your dream life. And
I find that sometimes people will have filters in place
that limit their ability to see themselves in a particular
role or in a particular moment of life. And so
one of the other AHAs that I had, and this
happens when I was doing my travels around the world,

(41:07):
and I came to realize, like, we are all so
much more similar than we are different. And that is
if you've been raised in an environment where you're filter
by which you view the world is that it has
to be somebody like me. So if you grew up
in I don't know, let's say San Diego, California, and
you're looking for someone who's a source of inspiration, and
you happen to be a guy. You're like, well, no,

(41:28):
I need to find someone who is a guy like me,
who's also in San Diego, California, because they're the only
one who could really understand the type of things that
I'm going through. Oh and I'm six foot three inches tall,
so they have to be a taller person too, right.
And I find that these are the kind of barriers
that people often put in place, and I think it's
a defense mechanism. What I've discovered, though, is if we
allow ourselves to say, actually, every human being can be

(41:51):
a guide, Every human being can be a source of
inspiration for me, and I can model and imitate anything
that the other human has done because I too am
the human. It dramatically accelerates the possibility that we will
move forward with great conviction and great success in the
direction that we want our left to go. The even
extended version of this is to say, any living thing,

(42:15):
because I learned a tremendous is going to sound ridiculous,
but I learned a tremendous amount by like looking at
trees or looking at ants and the way in which
they collaborate, or the way the tree has such solid
structure in the midst of a storm. And so I
think there is a perpetual source of learning out there,
and if we allow ourselves to remove the structural filters,
it's say, well, I can't learn from that, because like

(42:36):
it's so much faster and so much easier to absorb
all of this knowledge.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
There is a lesson to be learned from everything in creation.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
M h.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
What is what you.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Refer to as the cosmic algorithm of the universe?

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, so I am fascinated, like I said before, about
how the whole game works, why the game works, why
it even exists. And one component of this that I've
discovered is the cosmic algorithm of the universe. And we
all have a sense of this if you've ever used
an online search engine before. So if you get on Google,
for example, and you type in purple Polka dott and gorillas,

(43:13):
and you do that fifty times, then pretty soon Google
is going to, independent of whether you type it in a
fifty first time, start to feed you content, whether it's
articles or videos or imagery about purple poka DoD gorillas.
And the reason this happens is because it's looking at
what your behaviors are and then it's adjusting what you
get out of the human experience based on that.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
And so the huge AHA for me was to.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Look in the rearview mirror of my life and be like, huh,
I wonder if this is actually happening on a cosmic level.
And what I discovered is that it's one hundred percent
happening all the time. And so when we say I
want to be in a very healthy relationship and have
love in my life, but then we constantly go back
to toxic relationships, whether they're a family or significant others, the

(43:59):
algorithm is saying, I hear what you're saying, but the
inputs that you keep putting in there are the same
as purple polkadot gorillas like you keep doing this through
your actions and through your intentions. And I believe the
algorithm in the universe is a benevolent presence and it
looks at us and says, you have free will. You
literally could do anything, You could think about anything. You

(44:20):
could spend your time, energy and resources on anything. So
whatever you're actually doing spending your time and energy on
must be the thing that you most want in your life,
and therefore I will give you more of that because
I'm a benevolent kind universe and so this was really
really life changing for me to realize that if I
change the inputs that I'm putting into the system, I
will change the outputs as well. And the reason I

(44:42):
love it so much is because it assigns personal power
and responsibility back to us as individuals. We are not
part of the game, we are the game master.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
My guest John Straleki his book The Cafe on the
Edge of the World, will be back with more after
these words on the Own Times Radio network.

Speaker 5 (45:02):
Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
to bring help to communities with little or no oh.
Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone

(45:23):
and that someone cares to learn more. Please visit Humanityhealing
dot org. Humanity Healing is where your heart is.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
HI.

Speaker 6 (45:32):
This is Bill Mark. I can find humor in almost anything,
but one thing I never laugh about is cruelty to animals.
If you don't get the joke either, right, People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals five on one Front Street
in Norfolk, Virginia two three five one.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Oh back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week, John Stroleki,
were talking about his amazing life and book The Cafe
on the Edge of the World. John, someone might look
at your life and think, easy for that guy to
talk about living with purpose. He's a best selling author.
He doesn't have to do tough stuff like I do.

(46:06):
How do you respond to that?

Speaker 2 (46:10):
I mean, that was me. I simply remember having that experience.
I was watching a guy on stage one time. I
was probably I don't know, in my early twenties, maybe
mid twenties, and he was talking about how you can
create a life of your dreams and you can manifest things.
And I remember thinking the exact thought, like, oh, yeah, dude,
easy for you to say. You've sold millions of copies

(46:31):
of books, and of course you can do that. But
what I didn't realize at the time was that it's
a cause and effect. It was the realization that I
was going to be the master of my own destiny
or something or someone else was going to be. And
so I think it's just an acceptance that what you've
done so far in your life has gotten you to

(46:52):
this moment for a reason, and so nothing in the
past is wasted. These are all life experiences that you
have which have prepared you to now embark on the
adventure that you most want to go on, and the
way in which those are going to show up. Who knows,
you know, uh, maybe you maybe you learned to be
kind to people who had less than you, which didn't

(47:13):
throw off a huge financial output for you, and you
doubted that's in some way, shape or form. But that
kindness as you're out there living your purpose is going
to result in amazing conversations which will change your life.
Or you're gonna you're just gonna help someone and it'll
make you feel good because you helped someone, or that
act of kindness is going to get you on a
TV show which helps you talk about whatever your passion

(47:34):
project is, which never would have happened. I don't know,
But it's about not beating yourself up about the past
and maybe the mistakes that you've made and the things
that you didn't know, and just embracing that that was
what guide you to this moment. And now it's from
this moment that you're going to take your life in
an amazing trajectory.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
What about for those who aren't struggling necessarily, but they
get the sense they're supposed to have more in life,
only they're not sure what it is, where to turn
or what to do. What concept would you share with
those folks.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Everybody's a little different in that regard, but I would
say in general, people are wired in one of two ways.
They either have a fear of something or they have
a desire for opportunity. And so in the NLP world
you kind of see that in terms of the choices
people make with the words that they use. And so
I would say, no yourself, and if you're more motivated

(48:23):
by fear, then what is the fear that would be
the worst fear possible? And like I said, for me,
it was looking at my life when my grandfather died
and saying, if I get to the end of my
life and I make it to eighty three, will I
look back and say I didn't really do the things
that I wanted to do. I never traveled the world,
you know, I didn't whatever the things are that's on
your life list that you're like, that's what would make

(48:45):
my life a success by my own definition of success.
Maybe the fear that can drive you to action is
the fact that in the future, if you don't start
taking steps, it's not going to happen. And one of
my favorite quotes of all time is, are the steps
I'm taking today getting me one step closer to where
I want to be tomorrow. You and I were talking
offline about how a single phrase can be an anchor

(49:06):
in a beautiful way, Like you anchor onto that phrase
and it takes you in a beautiful direction when you
really need it, or it holds you up when you're struggling.
To me, that phrase, that quote is so beautiful because
at least allow yourself to take one little step today
in the direction that you want your life to go.
That progress will make you feel more comfortable that you
can take a step tomorrow in the next day, and

(49:27):
then a bigger step the day after that. You just
got to take that one little step in the direction
that you want your life to go every single day,
and you're making progress. So that's for the people that are,
I think more in that fear state. For those who
are in the state that they pursue the opportunity so
everything is okay. They're not afraid at this moment I
would say that. Then it's a question of all right,

(49:50):
you have this incredible slate in front of you, this
blank canvas that is your life, and life statistically lasts
about twenty eighty nine hundred days, So what are you
going to do with it? As a writer, I like
to think of it from this perspective that we each
get the chance to write our story. And so if
at the end of your life, someone was going to
be reading the Book of Victor, like, what would make

(50:11):
that an absolute bestseller? You know, like, Wow, this guy
did so many interesting things, and he was kind here,
and he was adventurous here, and like, what would make
your personal story awesome by your own definition of awesome?
And then apply that same phrase, are you taking steps
today that are getting you closer to that? And I
not that you want to beat yourself up every second

(50:32):
of every day, but it's a very useful phrase to
look at, Oh, I'm thinking about spending my next hour
doing this.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Huh?

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Is that actually taking me one step closer or not?
And then you adjust your behavior based on that, and
pretty soon you've adopted new behaviors that are moving you
the direction you want your life to go. The cosmic
algorithm kicks in. You're getting all these unbelievable resources that
you never even imagined, and now it just becomes part
of your everyday life.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Speaker 2 (51:00):
So I received this one from the universe? Uh, and
it is the following. It goes actually in spirit in
line with what we were just talking about. Every expert
started off knowing nothing about what they became an expert in.
And if you let that sink in, I mean that
applies to the most spectacularly successful scientist, entrepreneur, business person, parent, baker, entrepreneur, whatever.

(51:24):
There was a day when they knew nothing about what
they became a world class expert on. And I love
that because that was when that concept was given to
me from the universe. I think it was given to
me because I was struggling with a sense of inadequacy
in terms of my own capacity to do stuff and

(51:45):
understand things and could I actually I couldn't even envision
myself doing something like writing a book at that point.
It was completely out of the realm of possibilities. And
to realize that we all are starting at the same
point on a dream, which is I know nothing about that,
And that's okay. It's actually the perfect place to be starting,
because every expert started in exactly that same spot and

(52:06):
look where they got to.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
How about the best piece of advice you received but didn't.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Follow, best piece of advice I've received but didn't follow.
I think I've probably gotten some of these things that
we've been talking about through the course of this conversation
over the course of my life, and I just didn't
feel worthy of the advice. And so my advice to

(52:33):
someone who's listening to this would be that, listen, you've
got a purpose on the planet. You wouldn't be alive
if you didn't have a purpose. I firmly believe that,
and you've got genius to offer, like we talked about before.
And so when someone says to you, you know, you're
really good at that, instead of putting up the defensive filter,
this says, oh, no, no, no, I'm not really allow

(52:55):
yourself to embrace the compliment and soak up the fact
that you actually are really good at that. And so
I would say, during my life, there was plenty of
times when people said something along the lines of you're
really creative, but I didn't see that that was worth anything.
So and I had plenty of other people telling me,
do you're dreaming all that? Like you're daydreaming all the time?
Like you got to get your head out of the

(53:16):
clouds and focus. And so I didn't realize that in
those compliments, in those senses of like, you're really good
at this was tremendous guidance and wisdom.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
What would you like readers to take away from the
Cafe on the Edge of the World.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
My great hope for anyone who reads my books is
that they realize that they're not alone. You know, as
an author, as someone who's out there interacting with fans
in the field of self development, every once in a
while you get the chance to have an experience because
you know, as an author, you're you're typically away from fans.
And then when I'm on tour, I get the chance
to interact with fans and be among them. And every

(53:56):
once in a while, and amongst the amazing commentary that
you got, you have one that just absolutely grabs onto
your heart and won't let go. And over the years,
there's been many, many of those, and I'll tell you
a recent one that happened we were on tour last
year for a new book that I wrote, and there
was a young kid there, twenty one years old, and
I learned that she was going to kill herself because

(54:18):
she saw no hope in life and she felt so
alone in the thoughts that there isn't there mortal life.
And I could tell there was a lot of trauma
in her story, and there was probably a lot of abuse.
And so through tears, she shared with me that she
was boarding a train to go up to a country
called Dentmark. She wasn't from Denmark. She was going to
go there because she had learned that she could commit
suicide there. And strangely enough, at the train station when

(54:41):
she was going to get on that train, something called
her intuition, and she picked up a copy of The
Cafe and The Edge of the World. And here she
is standing before me with tears in her eyes and
telling me her story. And she said, I'm here today
because of that story. And so my great wish is
that anyone who enters the Front Door Cafe first of

(55:01):
all knows that they're not alone, and second of all
knows that the characters in the cafe have an energy
and a voice all their own, and that the story
you're going to read might be different than the story
that Victor and I read when we read the Cafe story,
because that's what a book of that nature does for you.
It finds you where you're at and guides you to
where you want to go.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
My guest, John Straleki, John, one more time, please share
with our listeners so we can get all of your
wonderful books and learn more about you.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Absolutely, yeah, they can get the books anywhere. Amazon is
the most dominant place for people. And again, please remember,
per Victor's and I conversation before, every copy that you
buy of The Cafe on the Edge of the World
enables us to save ten baby sea turtles, So your
contribution goes to you and to baby sea turtles. And
people can find me online at Johnstraleki dot com or
in social media at John Streleki.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
John, thank you so much for joining us today and
sharing your amazing wisdom and your beautiful story.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Thank you, Victor.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Appreciate what you do and the incredible guests that you
bring on the show and the month and compassion you
bring to it as the host pledge pleasure.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Thank you and thank you for joining us on Destination
Unlimited I'm Victor, the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week

Speaker 2 (56:14):
M