Episode One - Overview

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In this pilot episode, we cover Jon’s background, why he’s teamed up with me to tell his story in a forthcoming book, all about the confidence and downright cockiness that became both his salvation and his curse, and the timeline of the slow nerve degeneration from the disease that today has left him unable to move anything but his face: Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA.

We’re releasing this first episode in order to determine whether there is enough interest in this series for us to continue it. So if you enjoy this and would like to hear more, please let us know! To do so, you can comment below, subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast directory, and ideally leave us good ratings and reviews. If you’d like to reach Jon directly, the best place is on Twitter.

If people are into it, we’d love to continue … so let’s hear it!

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TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

NOTE: The transcript below was generated by AI and has not been edited. Accordingly, some things below are a little weird … but you’re smart, so I’m confident you can figure it out.

SPEAKER A

There are children of the darkness and there are children of the light. I was born in the dark withmonsters, and to survive I became a bit of a monster. And then at a certain point in my life, I stepped intothe world of the light and out of the world of monsters and I had to learn how to survive. You.

SPEAKER B

Welcome to The Impossible man the true story of how the inability to move allowed one person to tradehis humanity for ODS defying superpowers and how he clawed his way back. Hey, everybody. My name isJohnny B. Truant. I will be playing host for what I believe is going to be a very interesting behind thescenes look at a project that I am doing with and for John Morrow. Now, if you don't know either one ofus, I am a fiction author. I have written over a hundred books. I've been doing this for about ten or twelveyears. John Morrow is kind of a copywriting guy, kind of a content marketing guy, a writing guy, a blogger,a guy who teaches blogging, a consultant general all around internet badass. I would say that's certainlyhow I met him. But what it took me a long time to realize after hearing John's reputation and just thinkingof him as this larger than life personality was that he actually can't move anything but his face. I just knewwhat was inside first. And that's unusual because with somebody like John, usually people see what'soutside first. They see that he is in not just a wheelchair, not just a power wheelchair, but a powerwheelchair that he operates and drives exclusively by blowing into and sucking on a small tube. He has acondition called spinal muscular atrophy or SMA, which is sort of a cousin to ALS, also known as LouGehrig's disease. SMA is a little bit more mobile than that, but not very mobile at all. With just his faceand his voice, he has built a multimillion dollar business and just generally been one of the mostunstoppable people that I have ever met. John, being a writer and being somebody who has a way ofknocking people onto their ass with his writing, has written several posts about his condition and aboutbeing unstoppable in a way that it's kind of astonishing how unstoppable he is. And it's not just within therealms of his disease. He is unstoppable personally. Regardless. It's John's mentality that has made thingsthat seem to be entirely impossible possible. He has defied what seem like impossible ODS over andover again, both with things that seem to be within volitional control and things that seem like nobodycould control them. Like his health, john has survived close brushes with death many times. He has beentold by doctors many times that he would not live through a given ordeal. He's somebody with an attitudethat has somehow transformed his physical reality. I know how that sounds, but it is true. And as youlisten to this series, you'll find it. So publishers and others have been on John to tell this story for a longtime. And he keeps procrastinating, he keeps not doing it. He knows that it could be an instant bestseller.He knows that he could get a very large advance for it. But delving in, even as a writer, even though he's avery good writer, and even though he has a very good story, delving into it, actually penning the wordswould be too painful. And so John asked me if I would co write the book with him. We thought it might beinteresting to record the process of me discovering John's story. And there's a very particular slant to that,because uncovering his story could mean recounting the events in his life as they occur. And this is verydifferent from that. Just recounting the story in an autobiography doesn't really give you the lesson. AndJohn and I really wanted to convey sort of how this unstoppable personality was forged and how to do theimpossible. But in order to do that, we need to see how the listener can relate to John as a person fromwhere they stand, where things that are impossible tend to remain impossible. And that's one of thereasons that John wanted to work with me, a fiction author, to write this book, is because I believe that lifeis a story and that there's a lot of noise that crowds what could be a character arc, as if it were designedby an author. But most people don't see it because of all of the noise, because of all of the competingstimuli in our world. But if you delve Deep and I've written a whole book about this called The StorySolution, co written with Sean Platt, where we talk about picking out the pieces of life that, whenassembled together, can be a cogent story arc, you as the protagonist, you have an inciting incident at thebeginning. You have a first act climax, you have a midpoint, you have a second act climax. You have anemotional arc that needs to be developed to reach your fullest potential. And when John started thinkingabout that and we started looking at John Morrow as a character not fictional, but in real life, you canclear away the noise and see that he had an emotional arc that not only made this possible. But thathighlights what could have been a potential tragedy in his life, not as his health, but instead as somethingentirely different. Because we're both entrepreneurs, because we both think outside the box, we decidedthat we wanted to record the process of uncovering John's story so that you'll see how it came about andjust kind of to see if people are interested in it. And that's what this is. This is a pilot. Now, in subsequentepisodes of this, if everybody enjoys this and we want to continue it. I have the act markers of John as acharacter. I know when he reached his crisis points, when he pivoted in general because of this interviewthat you're about to hear and because of other times that we've spoken before. And I'll begin to have himtell his story linearly. But this first one is to give you the full picture. And so we're going to covereverything in this one now to get a.

SPEAKER C

Few of the things out of the.

SPEAKER B

Way so that I don't have to ask John what both of us already know. Here are some things that you need toknow as you listen forward again. John has spinal muscular atrophy. It's a condition where he slowly lostthe ability to move everything but his face. And so John spends his working hours in a power wheelchair,hooked up with all sorts of doodads that allow him to work with only his face. So if I had video of thisrecording, john has a rectangular object that's connected to an arm that's in front of his face, and it's a lipmouse. So he's able to move a cursor around on a screen using his lips. Most of what he does is withdictation. Now, another thing about SMA is he can feel everything. All of his sensory neurons work, but hismotor neurons, except for the ones that directly feed his face, don't. So in the interview that follows, I'mbeginning to suss out some of the themes that are in John's story and to begin to build what will becomethis rather epic story that's very different from what the earlier people who wanted John to write his bookwanted. They wanted the Hallmark version. And John said, that's not the truth. There's something else,there's another truth behind it. And I think it's something that's relevant to anybody who is drawing breath.So I hope you enjoy.

SPEAKER C

Here's our talk. Hey, John. How are you?

SPEAKER A

I'm great. Good to be talking again.

SPEAKER C

This is the second time that we've talked about this, but since we decided that we were going to do this,what I'm gonna I'm gonna call it a podcast. You can't see it's audio only, but I'm putting it in air quotesbecause it's kind of a podcast. But it's really our attempting to determine what the story is actually goingto be and what's going to go into it. And people might be interested. The idea is that if we have a goal forthe book, which we do, which is this idea of teaching the impossible and if you're the main character ofthis book, even though you're a real person and everything we're going to convey is real. We want to finda story that is like the focused thread that most clearly conveys this impossible thing. Right. Becausethere's all sorts of things that you've done in your life that have no real relevance to the story that we'retrying to tell. So I'm looking at this through the lens of a fiction author. Why did you like the idea of afiction author being involved in this project with you?

SPEAKER A

Because I think my life more closely resembles fiction than the average autobiography in my life. There'sa very real story arc with everything I'm doing, and I think ultimately, even for autobiographies orbiographies, often what makes the best ones are the ones that are actually the best stories. And peopleget a little pure obsessed with reporting every detail or reading every detail. I don't think a chronologicalcatalog of everything that's happened in my life would be particularly interesting. But I do think there arecertain themes and three arcs that you've picked out that are actually hard for me to see exactly whatthey are that will ultimately end up making something that's both true and profoundly enjoyable andimpactful for the reader.

SPEAKER C

I actually think that anybody who's living their life well has a story embedded in it that feels like fiction,but there's too much noise that's baked into, like because people get obsessed with, well, my latestInstagram post didn't get enough followers, and that feels like a crisis, but it's not. It's really just noiseagainst the background of what you might actually be trying to do with your life. And, I mean, that is thepremise of the story solution. The book that I sent you is like, life can be like a story, but you need to findthe storylines and focus in on the things that are actually relevant. The example that I give is when we sawThe Dark Knight, we didn't watch Batman watching TV in the evenings. Like, for some reason, we only sawthe scenes where he was that were relevant to his crime fighting. So we did figure out a lot of this stufflast time, and I was going to regardless of whether we were recording this or not, I was going to kind ofread back to you what I got out. Of the last session, because I went and I listened back to it, and therewere some moments where I was like, oh, this is awesome. This is exactly the arc that we're looking for.Why this book at all? You've had people asking you about it. But I mean, it's obvious to me I've knownyou, but for people who don't necessarily know, they know that you're a copyright, a copying guy and awriting guy, but they might not know this unstoppable aspect. Can you talk about that?

SPEAKER A

Yeah. I'm doing it for a few different reasons. One is very self serving, and that is my story is an asset. It'sthe reward of having lived so many difficult things. And I've come to a point in my career where I nolonger want to be just a copywriting or a blogging guy or even a writing guy. I want to step out onto abigger stage. And part of that process is giving your audience the chance to get to know you. And the waythat you do that is by telling your story. And so one of the reasons why I'm doing it, not the only one, isthat I think it's necessary for me to get to where I want to go and that it will be immensely beneficial to mycareer and to my checking account. I don't apologize for that either. A lot of people would. But I think it'sthe way the world works. The other reason is I think that the first step to building the life you want foryourself is believing. It's possible. And it's where most people actually get stuck. The reason why so manypeople procrastinate about building the life they want isn't that they don't know what to do. It's that downdeep they feel like this will never work. And I think that my story is the antidote to that particular form ofpoison.

SPEAKER C

When you say that particular poison. So that's the idea that you may know what you want I'm sorry, youmay know what to do and you may know where you're going, both of those things, and you believe it,maybe even on a conscious level, maybe even you're like, okay, I can figure out how to do this. But it's notsort of gut deep realization. And that's what you really need is that confidence that comes from waydown. Is that basically what you're saying?

SPEAKER A

Yeah. If someone said, Would you be willing to bet your life? Where you would say, of course.

SPEAKER C

And I know that this is, I'm sure, a big topic and we haven't even really broached it, but I can't think of anyparticular things. But I've had this realization recently where there's knowing and believing and I'm a prettyconfident person too, so there's knowing and believing, but then there's this extra special level, and Icouldn't tell you how to make the leap from one to the other. Do you consciously know how to do that, oris it just repetition and exposure?

SPEAKER A

I think it's repetition and exposure. When I look back in my story, I was less certain of my success but stillwilling to bet my life, by the way, than I am now. Now, one of the biggest dangers I have, when you'vedone the impossible a hundred times, it's very easy to believe that you can always do it. And that's justnot true. Eventually there will come a time where you'll fail. That's just the way life works. If you are ajujitsu fighter, eventually you're going to come across someone better than you are. And the biggestdanger to me now is that after having won so many battles, I automatically assume I'll win the next one.And so I'm not sure it's a good thing, it's actually a bad thing.

SPEAKER C

Or it's a two edged sword. Because if you go confidently. We both know this phenomenon where,especially if other people are involved, the surety that you bring into it increases your likelihood ofsuccess.

SPEAKER A

It does. As long as you don't go into the territory of, I'm so good, I don't have to prepare. I don't have totake this seriously. This person is a joke. This situation is a joke. That's how you end up getting beaten.And thankfully, I've managed to avoid that, but it's by being aware of the danger.

SPEAKER C

Did you always have that awareness? Because we've and I want to I do want to break down some of thethings that we talked about last time, because I'm wondering if this is the answer here. I don't know,because we've talked and we've joked. Like, I wrote a post and I joked about the big John Morrow ego,and I know you embrace that, but is that something did you have that? I don't know if you would call thatit's not exactly humility, but it's a sense of fallibility, I would say. Did you develop that over time or fromthe beginning? Were you so overconfident? These are the same thing. Were you so overconfident at thebeginning and then you learned it? Or is this something you knew from the beginning that you always hadto be prepared and couldn't assume?

SPEAKER A

I had huge problems when I was in college. In retrospect, they were small problems, but I got kicked outof Computer science at my university because I was so confident that I was better than the teachers, andI probably was, but I looked for ways to make them look foolish in front of the whole class, to embarrassthem. And eventually, after two teachers in a row complained about me despite getting good grades, thechair invited me into his office and said, you can no longer continue in our department. And that's how Ibecame an English major, because I got kicked out of computer science around the same time I gotkicked out of church because I got really serious about I was like, if I'm going to be a Christian, I need toread the Bible. And so I did. I read it cover to cover, like, 20 times. I eventually got so familiar with theBible that I would then raise my hand in church and ask the pastor questions and reference Scripture.And it got so disruptive that he asked me not to come back to church.

SPEAKER C

What age was that?

SPEAKER A

I was probably, like, 19, 1819.

SPEAKER C

Okay. So this actually brings up something that I hadn't even thought about, but you casually mention Iraised my hand in church. Were you able to physically raise your hand at age 19?

SPEAKER A

At that time, I think I was not very high, but I think I was yeah.

SPEAKER C

Can you give me the timeline, by the way? Because I don't know. I mean, I've I've read your posts. I knowthat you had physical symptoms that were from when you were born that were clear to the doctors thatthere was something wasn't quite right. But what was the timeline of the progress of SMA?

SPEAKER A

There were a couple of long periods of very slow decline with occasional fast bursts. So I never walked,but I was able to crawl and I was able to stand if assisted. So, like, if you held onto my shoulders, like, Icould kind of support myself when I was a child.

SPEAKER C

And that was true at what age?

SPEAKER A

Like two, maybe up until five. I lost that strength when I had spinal surgery when I was seven, I was in bedfor like, six months, and that robbed me of a bunch of strength. When I got done with that, I could nolonger stand or support myself. I could still move my arms, but I had pretty much nothing in my legs afterthat.

SPEAKER C

And how long did you keep mobility in your arms?

SPEAKER A

Until I turned. It was a gradual decline. First I lost my left arm, then I lost my right arm at the age of 21, 22,something like that. And the way it happened is I kept getting weaker and weaker. And one day after I'dgraduated, I was going back for a master's class, and on the campus there was a big hill. And I was goingdown the hill, and my arm slipped forward and pushed the joystick forward to where the chair was goingfull speed, and I couldn't move my arm back. And so literally, I was going top speed of the chair down thishill, and I couldn't stop. And there was this couple kissing on the part bench down at the bottom of thehill, and I ran right into the bench and flipped it over. And I was so mortified that I knew at that momentthat was the end. And I went to the wheelchair shop and I said, Next option, please. And so we moved tosip and puff.

SPEAKER C

How does that work when you move around in your chair?

SPEAKER A

I have a straw in my mouth, and we have four different directions. We have forward, backward, left andright. When I want to go forward, I blow in hard. It's what they call a hard puff. And the chair will keepmoving forward until I do a strong sip, until I suck in hard. If I blow end card again, it speeds up. If I wantto turn left, I suck in softly. If I want to turn right, I blow in softly. But when you go backwards, I have to bestopped first, and then I suck in hard.

SPEAKER C

How long did it take you to get the feel of that? Because having seen you do this, your control is quiteprecise for something that is being done with breath. I mean, you're getting through doorways and you'llstop and adjust slightly. So how long did it take to.

SPEAKER A

Figure that out about two weeks.

SPEAKER C

Okay, so is it not as difficult, or you're just a very good student?

SPEAKER A

I'm fast. It's hard. It requires being able to do very precise breaths, and not everyone can do that.

SPEAKER C

Okay. So those people just really need to kind of work on it, obviously, because it's the only option.

SPEAKER A

It is either that or be pushed.

SPEAKER C

I'm curious. When you are 1619 over that spectrum and into college and you're losing function that youhad, and especially since your arc is an emotional arc, which we can talk about in a second, I mean, Ican't even imagine that sounds devastating.

SPEAKER A

It wasn't, because it probably should have been because I'd been with it since birth. Imagine if you wereborn into a world where everyone became weaker as they got older. It wouldn't be emotionallydevastating. It would just be normal. That's just what happens. So I just viewed it as, this is normal. This iswhat happens. And I just accepted it and moved on.

SPEAKER C

But you don't live in a world where that happens with everyone. So you were seeing other people. Did thatnot bother you?

SPEAKER A

I think this is a core part of what makes my story my story. When I was a child, I did not view otherpeople as the same. I was in a category of one in my own mind, almost as if we weren't even the samespecies. That's the way I thought about things.

SPEAKER C

See, now that's your answer. But it just prompts more questions for me. It makes me say what you've justdescribed. That still sounds devastating to me. Because you're alone. I mean, I know you aren't alone. Iknow you had your parents and you have caregivers and you have friends and all that stuff. But being if Iwere in that condition, if I were in that position, and my brain said, Well, I'm the only one, and in thisworld, everyone meaning me, one person, everyone in this category gets weaker as they go, do yourealize how unique of a viewpoint that is? I don't think most people think that. I think most people wouldthink I'm the only one, and that sucks because I'm degenerating and others are not. But that's not whatyou did. And that's kind of key to this story in my mind.

SPEAKER A

Number one, I was lonely all the time. I didn't know at the time what to call it, but I was lonely all the time.And my response was anger, not sadness. It was, well, then fuck you. I'm going to show you who I am.That was my response.

SPEAKER C

I'm wondering if your determination was that thing where it is. I'm going to show you your power is youranger because you're so determined to show everybody. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER A

Yeah. This gets dark, but when you're on a table in a hospital and the doctor tells you you're going to die,this happened to me multiple times. There are only two responses to that. The first response is to getvery afraid and then die. Second response is fuck you. Those are the only two responses. And I wasn'tready to die. So the fuck you response was all that was left to me at that point.

SPEAKER C

I called it practical belief, choosing what to believe rather than looking at the world and saying,objectively, there's a truth out there and I can accept it or bargain with it. It's like this decision to believewhat is most practical in the moment. And it sounds to me like the fuck you response to I'm going to die.There's no downside. There no because if you're wrong, you're dead and who cares?

SPEAKER A

Yeah. And if you had asked me, could you be wrong, I would have said yes. I wasn't like in my own dreamworld, I knew that it was an irrational response, but I didn't care because the alternative was justunacceptable to me. I wasn't ready to die.

SPEAKER C

When I'm creating a lead character who's going to go through some sort of a hero's journey, it's best ifthey don't have if they have an emotional journey to make. So at the beginning, the hero does not have atrait that they're going to eventually need to succeed. They're going to attempt to do things the waythey've always done them in their own comfortable, flawed way, which is driven by a wound. And thenthey reach a cris point where they have to go on a journey. And then act two, the 50% middle of a movie,so from 25% to 75% ish of a movie, and it's about the same in a book, is usually an attempt to get whatthey want by using the old ways where they're working from their wound. So when we were talking aboutall of this and I'm trying to find a story that is both amazing and not relatable at all because it's so uniquethat you have that impossibility that everybody is going to want it to learn to do. And I'm trying to squarethat with this need to have some sort of brokenness at the beginning that you're going to realize andoutgrow. I started with confidence. If you remember when we were talking a few days ago and I said,okay, so when did you get this resilience and confidence? And you're not going to get in my way. Itdoesn't matter what's going on with me. I'm going to win. And you said, I've always had it. And you alsosaid, and this is ironic because you just talked about getting weaker. You said, I've never felt weakmentally. And so what we've kind of thought about and we kind of figured out was this idea that you kindof developed an emotional callous. And this sounds like the same sort of thing where the arc that youhave had beyond your childhood into adulthood and continuing on has been you've always had thisunstoppability. You've always had this idea to take apart and figure out how to make anything work, evenif it seems like it should be impossible. But at the same time, you had to say fuck you to the world to doit. You had to be angry to do it. And you told me the other day that you had basically no emotion up untilan age where you kind of had to begin experiencing some of that. So is that about right?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, totally right. Not only that, but the identity that I adopted was as not a human. I didn't even believe Iwas the same.

SPEAKER C

In what way?

SPEAKER A

The logic at the time was a human could never survive this, therefore, I am not one.

SPEAKER C

How did that thought feel? Did it feel empowering, like I'm superhuman, or did it feel like a knock, like Idon't fit?

SPEAKER A

It felt extremely empowering because I got to believe that I'm this special species with special powersthat can survive things that other people can't. But it also felt very lonely because I was the only one weconsidered.

SPEAKER C

The point where you were in real estate with your dad and there was this big the real estate crash, andyou went bankrupt, and that was the moment where you kind of had to step up. Was that also themoment where what I'm calling the emotional callous kind of became evident as a problem, something toget past?

SPEAKER A

It became evident slightly before that, but I didn't try to handle it until that happened with my father. So Ijust kind of ignored it. It became evident in my first business when I started a software company and thecompany went under. But one of the things I did wrong was had no emotional bond with any of myemployees. When things got hard, they just quit. And I was astonished. It was a huge surprise.

SPEAKER C

I'm wondering under which conditions they quit. Like, were you not able to pay them anymore? Was thecompany, like, truly going under and they were looking for other conditions? Were you trying to dosomething that they felt was too risky or too big?

SPEAKER A

When it got down to, we have three months of runway and no certain way of extending it, that's when theyquit. So they didn't wait until the end. As soon as it became clear that there was going to be an end, theyquit.

SPEAKER C

And that pissed you off?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, immensely. It sent me into a depression because I felt abandoned at the time. I don't know if Iwould have used those words. I didn't even know what words to use for my emotions back then. I knew Iwas in pain, I knew it hurt, and I knew I was angry, but I felt abandoned. I felt like I gave this everything Ihad, and you didn't.

SPEAKER C

So you thought you could pull it out, but you didn't. Then. Have the staff.

SPEAKER A

Yeah. And when they left, that was the end. I couldn't do it by myself. I felt betrayed. And the rational partof me also recognized that the reason why they left is because they don't believe in you.

SPEAKER C

Does it still seem that way today? Because here's where I'm going with this. So since we're looking at thisas kind of your journey was this particular thing, this is what has changed most. And there are other actmarkers that get further in. So if you look back and this was a moment where you said that your lack ofemotional understanding and attachment and bond to these people was one of the things that it soundslike caused this issue, and you're a different person now, and this was before your crisis point. Do you feeldifferently now? Do you feel like if you had the emotional maturity that you have today, that you wouldhave viewed this differently?

SPEAKER A

Oh, yeah. I think, by the way, if I had had the emotional maturity that I had today, I would have quit andcalled them and tried to make it as painless as I could have for them as possible to find other work. Andnow I realize these are people who all had their own bills and their own families, and their families weremore important to them than my company. That's as it should have been. And at the time I viewed that asa betrayal. Now I view that as I was completely blind, completely blind. I didn't understand them at all.

SPEAKER C

Because you used a word there that you don't use very often, especially a string of words. You said, Iwould have quit. And quitting is something that is exactly the opposite of what's going to happen in mostof this story. So I'm curious if I mean, the hero arc here is you learning emotional maturity and there's a lotmore to it than that, but that is kind of the core of it. And so I'm curious if your development on that arc,do you feel that it to any degree made you less tenacious and less determined because you would nowhave quit something that you were determined to do before?

SPEAKER A

So if you had asked me this question even just five years ago, I would have given you a totally differentanswer. Now I recognize if you are a leader and there are people following you and you are facing a knowwhen situation where the outcome is not I mean, we're not saving the planet here. At the time, I wasbuilding a software company when the outcome is not more important than the lives of the people whoare following you, the mature and healthy thing to do is to surrender and live to fight another day and gostart another company and recruit the same people. And they will respect and love you because theyrealize that you put them ahead of your own ego.

SPEAKER C

So what is your stance today? Visa vis, empathy, the stuff you were just talking about, and determination,is it that you are just as determined as ever when it is you and your consequences, but the equation, let'ssay, becomes bigger when there are other people involved.

SPEAKER A

And I think one of the hardest it even goes beyond that. It even applies to me personally. I recently leftthe United States after years of battling to get nurses, and it was me tapping out, me saying, I quit, I'mdone, next round. And what a younger me didn't understand, and some of my biggest mistakes have beenactually fighting for too long. There are times where the smartest thing you can do is recognize whensomething isn't working and change course. And it took me until probably 38, 39 years old to reallyunderstand that.

SPEAKER C

Okay, let me do sort of a compare and contrast here. So everything you just said versus the stories thatyou've told, and maybe you should retell one of them about defeating something that didn't feel like it wasin your control. Pneumonia by force of sheer will. Now, I mean, I think I could suss out the difference, butI'd think I'd like to hear it from you, because that is a case where there is zero surrender, there's zerobargaining. It is everything. And then you're talking about the situation where you say, I'm going to tap outbecause the situation in the US isn't working with health care, so I'm going to go live to fight another day.

SPEAKER A

It's about the stakes. Pneumonia was life and death. Tapping out would have been dying.

SPEAKER C

Did you feel like everything, looking back, did you treat everything like it was life and death before?

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER C

To what age?

SPEAKER A

Probably until 38 years old.

SPEAKER C

And you're how old now?

SPEAKER A

40. About turned 41 later this month.

SPEAKER C

But by the way, sidebar, how long were you supposed to live, according to your earliest doctors?

SPEAKER A

Two years. Two.

SPEAKER C

And then they amended it once you passed two?

SPEAKER A

Kind of sorta. They kind of sort of just shrugged their shoulders and said, I don't know.

SPEAKER C

Did you ever get another updated estimate?

SPEAKER A

No, not that I'm aware of. It's possible my mother got one, but my mother was of a mindset at that time.She wouldn't have paid it any attention.

SPEAKER C

Well, that's something that we covered earlier, is that when you were too young to formally have any ofthese attitudes yourself, and it was your mother who instilled them in you, it was almost like herdetermination became your determination. It evolved and took root within you.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, it definitely did. I got it from her.

SPEAKER C

Is she this determined about everything like as you are?

SPEAKER A

She used to be. Now she's in her late sixty s, and she's tired. She doesn't want to fight anymore. And Idon't blame her. But yes, she used to be.

SPEAKER C

So if you said that there was a time when you didn't feel human. And when we talked about this before inyour words, the the arc seemed to be the lesson that you had to learn seemed to be about learning to behuman, to not be so driven that it became callous and that it became reckless for other people. How longwhen did you start feeling human, assuming you do?

SPEAKER A

I do. It was around when I started dating. I was about 31. That's when I really confronted it, had.

SPEAKER C

It just built to the point where you couldn't ignore it anymore. And there were things that were falling apartbecause you were so strong about everything.

SPEAKER A

I'd learned to pretend and manipulate not in a destructive way. I was never trying to hurt anyone, but I'dgotten very good at manipulating people. I was a great salesperson. And that's one thing. Two thingshappened. I started getting around other successful entrepreneurs and seeing and hearing about theirown journey, which the whole thing about not feeling human actually happens in a lot of entrepreneurs.Being around other entrepreneurs was the first time I didn't feel alone.

SPEAKER C

And then you saw from them some of the same lessons that you needed to learn.

SPEAKER A

I realized that there were lessons at the time. In the beginning, I didn't know what they were, but I knewconsciously that there were things I needed to learn and that other people had already learned them. Andseeing that gave me a desire to learn them as well because there.

SPEAKER C

Were benefits that they were having from those things or lack of obstructions that they were havingbecause of those lessons.

SPEAKER A

Because they'd learned they were immensely happier and more fulfilled and calmer, more at peace than Iwas. And I wanted that when I was.

SPEAKER C

Listening back to our Last Call and there's the section where you talked about the children of the light andthe children of the dark and you were born in the dark where there were monsters. It's this wonderfulsegment that we should probably pull that segment. It's wonderful and share it somewhere. So when Iwas listening to that, we've been considering now, obviously just loosely, but we kind of liked the feel ofDavid Goggins's book Can't Hurt Me, not Can't Help Me, as I wrote by mistake in a blog post, we'd beenconsidering that to be sort of, I would say, a rough parallel. And so I'm listening to that book at the sametime as on and off with when listening back to ours. And I had this idea that I want to get your reaction toand it's almost intentionally simplistic, but I just want to hear what you think. So his journey for peoplewho don't know David Goggins wrote a book called Can't Hurt Me and he's a Navy Seal. And the wholething is about learning to be strong and hard, right? Like developing just this mental unbreakability to thepoint of obsession, really. And so I was thinking about how his story is about learning to be hard andlearning to be unbreakable. But interestingly, the real true heart of your story to some degree feels like it'sthe opposite. It's learning not to be so hard, learning to be just a little soft. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER A

I was born like David Goggins. That's who I was as a kid.

SPEAKER C

So you've got a Benjamin Button situation going with the David Goggins in some.

SPEAKER A

Way, but also so I don't know David Yogans. I've never talked to him. But when I watch interviews withhim, I see a man that's in the same prison I used to be in.

SPEAKER C

In terms of being so hard and determined. That maybe less relatable.

SPEAKER A

And at the very level I know about him, I think he's had like a whole bunch of wives, a whole bunch offailed relationships. So that's evidence to me that something is wrong.

SPEAKER C

So you like that idea of that you've kind of been ungogging yourself, that that is kind of your journey?

SPEAKER A

I'm still just as strong, but I'm less alone.

SPEAKER C

How do you square those two things, John? Because I think a lot of people would say that they are tosome degree warring for space. That single minded determination that I am right. Everyone else is wrong,at least about certain things. I'm the smartest guy in the room. I'm going to get through this with sheerwill. And you're squaring that with this desire to connect and have empathy. That requires that you backaway from.

SPEAKER A

That a little bit.

SPEAKER C

So how did they find peace within you?

SPEAKER A

All entrepreneurs are that way. One of my mentors, and now a dear friend, is named Alex Sharfin. He's avery successful CEO. He's now in his fifty s, I think. And Alex has a book where he talks about theentrepreneurial personality type. And it's not just psychological. It's not at all just psychological dribble.It's actually an investigation into the history of entrepreneurship. And he draws fairly solid connections tothe hunter gatherers of old that if you were a hunter, your job was to hunt, to attack, to kill, to be strongfor your tribe, but you were still a part of a tribe. That's the way I resolve it, yeah.

SPEAKER C

Because you said that you kind of related to the children of Sparta legends, where they were made toughjust through being beaten and cruelty to some degree of emotional alienation. Certainly. Is that a fairparallel because they were still part of Sparta? Because I don't know. The only parts of Sparta that I'veseen in any detail are from 300. Right. I haven't studied it, but it doesn't seem to me a happy life even ifyou're part of Sparta. So is that a fair comparison or am I missing nuance?

SPEAKER A

It gives your life meaning, it gives your suffering meaning. And you realize, by the way, I still think ofmyself as different from a non entrepreneur or from a non hunter. My real, all of my friends areentrepreneurs on some level, and it's because who I feel close to. But I view other people now as not adifferent species, but people with a different role to play.

SPEAKER B

Okay, everybody, just Johnny here again. We're doing this episode of this podcast as a pilot. There's nopoint in us continuing to record all of our sessions if people aren't interested, if people aren't listening. Soplease, if you are listening and you're listening on a directory, itunes or Spotify or anything like that, makesure you subscribe and you can rate or leave comments. Please do that. That makes a huge difference. Ifyou just click and give us five star review, hopefully, or if you leave us a review that would really help. Youcan also contact us directly. You can get John's team at support@smartblogger.com. Those emails will berouted to him, but John said the easiest way to get a hold of him is actually on Twitter. So that is just atJohnmarrow without the Hjonmorrowi am not on any social media whatsoever. Please visit my website. It'sJohnnybtruant.com, and I do have the H-J-O-H-N-N-Y-B-T-R-U-A-N-T. Subscribe to the site. That willkeep you maximally in the loop, but then please respond to anything in there and let me know, give mesome feedback, let me know if you liked this, if you want me to ask other things, if you have questions forJohn, any of that can come to my website. There's even a post near the top called The Impossible Manthat's all about this project. You can leave comments on that. You can email me at johnny at johnny.Btruant.com. Thanks so much and hopefully talk to you next time.