John Latta | Leveraging our Dreams, the Importance of Balance, & the Synchronicity of Love

“Sometimes in life things happen that make no sense. In retrospect though, they make complete sense” – John Latta

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Have you heard the one about the gentleman who seemed to have everything going for him in his thirties and then lost it all? You know, the one where his wife got seriously ill with cancer, fully recovered, and then abandoned him and their two children so she could “live her life”?  Today’s remarkable guest not only shares how his marriage and life fell apart, how he lost it all personally and professionally, but how he was able to turn it all around and find true balance and success.

Listen now to learn how he discovered how to look inward (and upward), find balance, and turn his dreams on and off in order to find the synchronicity of love. He is an entrepreneur, coach, author, podcaster, and friend. Know this episode will help a lot of men and women out there, but especially you single dad’s trying to recover from the damage that was done when your wife left you. Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to the John Latta story!

GUEST BIO: 

John David Latta is a mystic, author, teacher, and former founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar consumer products company. He shares intimate and personal stories and teaches workshops on leadership, healing, transformation, awakening, love, synchronicity, and wisdom that unite and expand human experience. He lives with his wife, Wendy, in Redmond, Washington.

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• NEW REMARKABLE BOOK! Remarkable People: Volume 1, How They Did It, & You Can Too!  Order Your Copy on Amazon Today! 💪100% of profits go to supporting the Remarkable People Podcast. Buy Your Copy Today! You benefit. People Around the World Benefit. Everyone wins and the world becomes a healthier place for us all to live! 😇

Guest Info:

• Website: https://johndavidlatta.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johndavidlatta/
• https://www.facebook.com/john.latta.3

Transcript

John Latta | Leveraging our Dreams, the Importance of Balance, & the Synchronicity of Love 

We're going to talk about balance. We're going to talk about turning our dreams on and off, and we're going to talk about entrepreneurial ups and downs and so much more. Get ready for this episode.

Hello, my Remarkable friend. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. This week we are going to speak with a gentleman who had success and then lost it all. Had a marriage and then it fell apart, and then he had success and lost it all [00:01:00] up and down throughout his. , but then he discovered how to turn it inward, how to find balance, how to turn his dreams on and off, how to find the synchronicity of love.

So every week I try to explain these episodes in a short amount of time to get your interest, but you just gotta listen. Listen to the episode, take notes, apply it to your life, and I promise you're going to be better off when you're done than when you started. Tell your friends about this podcast, make sure you're sharing it.

And again, this isn't for us to get popular and grow. This is for us to get popular and grow so we can help people and glorify God. We make no money from this podcast. Whether you listen to episodes, whether you grab onto links from sponsors, whether you buy the Remarkable People Volume one book, whether you [00:02:00] subscribe to us on YouTube, no matter what you do that promotes the show, I hope you understand 100% of proceeds go to supporting the podcast so we can bring you fantastic Remarkable content so you can have a better life.

Like our slogan says, we don't just want you to listen to shows and entertain. We want you to do what you know you need to do from the episodes each week. We want you to repeat it in your life. Make it a habit so you can have a great life in this world. And most importantly, an attorney to come. So, I'm David Pasqualone.

This is our entrepreneur, our coach, our author, our podcaster friend, John Latta. His story is Remarkable, and I know it'll help a lot of men and women out there, especially you single dad's trying to recover from the damage that was done when your wife left you. So check out this episode right now.

John Latta | Leveraging our Dreams, the Importance of Balance, & the Synchronicity of Love

Hey John. How are you today? I'm doing great, David. Thanks for the invitation. Oh, it is awesome to have you here. I just told our listeners just a little about you, so they're super pumped to hear your story and to just glean knowledge from you and not just the knowledge of what you were able to overcome and achieve in life, but to hear the practical steps of how you did it so they can too.

Right. Before we start the episode though, and dig into your life story, your autobiography, pretty much, if the listeners were going to follow you through this entire episode and you want them to walk away with one truth or one lesson, there's going to be a lot. But if there is one main lesson that you want them to get at the end of this podcast, what would your heart say that is?

Sometimes you don't know what you don't know, and people build brick walls around themself, their identity, their personality, their beliefs, and it's okay to start to dismantle those walls too. . [00:04:00] All right, so let's start with what got you to that point in life, right? ? So where were you born, John? What was your upbringing like?

Again, this podcast, whether you're a first time listener or you've listened to every single one of our episodes, John's going to take us through his life stories, the highs, the lows, the everything in between. And together, we're going to learn and grow. So John, how did your life begin on this planet, brother?

Well, I was born in Stockton, California. Back when Stockton, California wasn't a ghetto like it is now. It was like a farming community. But when I was three years old, we left there and moved to Long Beach, California. So, Lived about a block from the ocean and a block from Los Sal Mitos Bay. So I was kind of a classic southern California beach bu kind of kid growing up.

And and that's where I grew up until I was a teenager. And my parents ironically thought even back then, way back when, this was back in the seventies, that California was too smoggy, too crowded, too expensive, decided to move back to Seattle, [00:05:00] which is where they were from originally. And so I've been in the Seattle area ever since.

So I kind of blend in. I look like a native now. . All right. Yeah. We actually live north of Seattle for three years. You know, a little community called c Wooly Mount Vernon. I know exactly where it is on the Skagit River. Yeah, I lived, I literally bought a old a hundred year farmhouse right by the Skagit River.

Right. And within a week of buying it, we got robbed. So totally uncharacteristic of that area of the country. But it was crazy. So you grew up in that beautiful part of the world? Yeah. And I, I'm cracking up because if you lived right by the Skagit River, long enough was probably just a matter of time before he got flooded once in a while too.

Right. So we, we were only there for that short period of time, the three years. And we lucked out. We didn't hit a flood. . Yeah. It can be just crazy there sometimes. Yeah. So I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, which I love. I kind of have a body that runs hot all the time anyway, so I kind of like the cool gray weather.

And I don't r much like it when it gets above [00:06:00] eighties and nineties, and so we don't have to deal with that too much. And and then when I moved up here from California I took up all the outdoorsy kind of stuff that people can do up here. I took up skiing and fly fishing and backpacking mountain biking and I tried to do almost all of those even today.

And but I really fell in love with, you know, we live by the beach and the ocean's really cool. It's really cool, but when you go to the beach every single day of your life, it's kind of nice to go to a different part of the world. And it was a whole different environment here and really fell in love with the outdoors up here.

And when you moved, was your mom, your dad, any siblings or were you the only child? Yeah, two younger siblings, a younger brother and a younger sister. . Okay. Yeah. And then so pretty much between the move and that point in your life. What you'd consider average every day kind of stuff. Yeah. Nothing Remarkable that shaped, I mean, everything shapes who you are, but nothing significant that's going to come up later in the story.

[00:07:00] Well, yeah. There were two significant things. And one was my father lost everything overnight. Poof. And which is another reason we ended up moving back to Seattle. And and I, you know, I was young at the time. I was probably 13, 14 years old, and I could see the effect I'd had him and cut his, you know, he was a proud ex-marine engineer, researcher, and boo.

His company went a business overnight. All the money disappeared. And boy, his ego took a big stab. And little did I know I was going to have my chance to live that out later in life too. . And the second thing that was probably. , very formative that I still remember, like crazy. So we were part-time Catholics, and by that I mean we'd go to church for a while and then stop going for a while.

There were some years that we would go only on Christmas or only on Easter, so we were part-time Catholics, but one day we're walking to church. And again, I'm probably 13 years old, roughly. And I, in the Catholic church tradition, a, a woman has to cover her head [00:08:00] before she enters church. My mother didn't have her head covered and.

Told my mom said, look mom, you're not covering your head. It's a sin to go on covering your hands. She goes, oh, the church. They changed the rules. They decided it's okay for women to come in without their heads covered. And I was flabbergasted as a little kid growing up. I kind of thought, well, the Bible's the playbook and this is, this is what we go by.

Those are the rules. And it never occurred to me that men were making the rules and that the rules could be changed over time. And it kind of threw me in such of a tizzy that literally for probably the next 30 years, I avoided church. I avoided religion and avoided spirituality for like 30 years, cuz I just thought, well, if it's all just make believe and people can make up whatever they want it to be, then I'm just not interested in it.

I didn't know it at the time, but that was going to be a very formative point in my life. Yeah. And that's a good truth that people can kind of, will just stop briefly on it's, God never changes, the [00:09:00] Bible never changes. Truth never changes. Yeah. But man changes things and that's why the world's so screwed up

So I'm sure is going to go into this more. But yeah, take note, God's not imperfect. It's us as men and women on this planet that screw things up. And you can't change the Bible. Whoever does, they're going to have to face God someday and they're in deep trouble. Well, I totally hear you and, but you know, grab a hundred random people off the street and tell 'em what the Bible passages mean to them and then you really find out why mankind is so screwed up.

There's so many levels of understanding, levels of consciousness, whatever you wanna call it. I, it sometimes blows my mind that we get along at all. Cuz it's actually really true that we very much uniquely see. things in our own way. So there's great universal truths in the Bible, but you can't convince some people of that.

It's just when their time comes, they're going to see it. But until they're ready, they're just not going to see it. Yeah. And what's that saying? People believe what [00:10:00] they want to believe. Like you can have the Yeah. Worst decision in the world, but people die for it sometimes. Yeah. Where it's like, God's never wrong and God's always true.

But what you're saying is people sometimes just believe what they want, not what's real. So, yeah. Well, and didn't Jesus say something about casting pearls before swine? Which, swine, which I don't think would be politically correct nowadays, but No. A hundred. But it's true. Like, you know, there's great wisdom out there, but I, it's just, I, I hate the term swine, but until you're ready to hear it and it's ready to kind of sink in, it is just, I just don't think people see it or interested in it.

Exactly, exactly. So you talk openly, we share our beliefs on this show. Our listeners know, you know, thankfully we had listeners in over 110 countries, you know, actively in over 70 and they're here whether they agree or not, they know we're coming at it from a Christian worldview. So you just be yourself, John.

Yeah. And feel free to talk. So now you move back, your dad, you know, your family goes through a [00:11:00] bankruptcy or he has closes business and then where does your life go from there in Washington? Well, and that became a difficult period of time cuz my, my father kind of devolved into functional alcoholism, but still extreme alcoholism, only a good marine can down a fifth of bourbon and get up and go to work the next day and do that regularly

And so, yeah. And so I, he was suffering and he was going through a lot of changes himself and and so you might say as a teenager I kind of went my own way during that period of time. And I, I. Got my first job bagging groceries at the grocery store, intended to just work part-time while I went to college.

Ended up dropping outta college and staying on and going into management. And that was my first career. And and I did that for till the age of 39. I was a store manager, very young store manager and manage a bunch of stores and a large regional chain here. I dunno if you remember the short time you were here, but Q F C was a popular chain in the Puget [00:12:00] Sound area.

Mm-hmm. . And and so that's what I did till age 39 and got married, had two kids. And honestly, you know, in some ways, cuz I was kind of this hard driving, very rational, very competitive male you know, I had a, what I would call a good life and a relatively charmed life. And but then everything in my freaking life started to change right around age 40.

And and so remember I said my father at age 40 lost everything had to start all over. So it's funny how patterns can repeat. So what happened, David was so we are living in a nice ho house in a nice part of town. Like I said, I was good at my job. I had a lot of respect from my people above me and below me.

And I left to start my own company. And ironically, completely different field, but I started a chemical company and started with a single product that was designed to clean up if your dog or cat [00:13:00] peed on the carpet to get rid of the urine stain in the odor. And it's what they call nowadays, a pet stain and odor remover product.

And so I left to start my own company at the age of 39 doing that. And then my wife out of the blue gets cancer and, you know, she was healthy, young, took good care of herself. I mean, where the hell that came from. I couldn't see that coming. And ended up having her whole thyroid gland taken out.

And so she has to take a pill every day for the rest of her life just to live. And she started to change. She started to go deeply within, she started reading books about God and the meaning of life books that I just didn't read at that age and stage in my life, and probably wasn't the best person to support her, what she was going through.

And then during that period of time, I started my own company. I lost all of our money. I had a lot of money, and it was all gone and I lost. So much money. I was in debt to the tune of $650,000, quarter million in [00:14:00] personal credit card debt I borrowed against the house, borrowed against everything. So our net worth on paper was literally less than zero.

And and then to make it even more interesting, suddenly I had this horrifying fear of death. I don't know where it came from. I don't, you know, I was healthy, I was anxious and working hard and in a lot of fear cuz my company was in deep debt. But I I suddenly, I was terrified of death. And because I hadn't been religious, because I hadn't been spiritual, I had no foundation to fall back on.

You know, I had the little kid understanding of do good, go to heaven, do bad, go to hell. But I, I just, all I could conceive of is when my, when I die, when the body dies, that's it, it's over. And I just couldn't wrap my puny little brain around forever or oblivion and it terrified me. And so all this is going on At the same time, my wife is going deeply within and changing.

I am got a company that's just horribly in debt and I'm faced with all this fear about can I ever start over [00:15:00] again? Would I wanna go back to my old job? Would they even hire me again? You know, and how do I get out of all this debt and no sign that I could turn it around. And then behind closed doors, running around, terrified of death.

And then my wife decided to leave and said, you take the kids, you're the better parent. I want a whole new life goodbye. And it was over in 30 minutes. It was that fast. So now I've got custody of my two kids, nine and 11, a company that's dying, not thriving, and I'm running around behind closed doors, terrified of death.

And I'm honestly in sort of grief, fear, and anger about my wife leaving. And suddenly I'm, I'm raising the kids by myself. And so you know, I'm sure tons of people who follow a Christian path have seen this. It's a time honored path that people go through hell before they change . And, and that's exactly what happened to me.

That was my rock bottom. That was my hell. Like, oh my God, I have to be mom and dad to my kids. My company is [00:16:00] so deep in debt, I can hardly stand it. And and I'm terrified of death and too, too proud to talk to anybody about it. And so that was when everything in my life began to change. And roughly what year was that?

That was the beginning of the change was probably 1999. Okay. 99. Okay. Yeah. Just trying to get a timeline based on American history and economics and stuff. Yep. So once your business, you know, you're struggling, was that something that your ex-wife, like, was it just money? Did she have a, been life crisis herself?

Was there any pre-discussion or she just pick up and pop smoke? You know, she, it was her own, you know, this happens to a lot of people when they get cancer or some kind of life threatening disease, especially at a young age. There can be a real, you know sometimes it's what [00:17:00] they need. They need to, you know, whatever you call it, be more honest with themselves, be more authentic with themselves.

They need to, you know, do something different. There's endless stories of people who got cancer and made dramatic shifts in their life and the cancer went away. And so, no, I think she just kind of spent a lot of time kind of reevaluating herself and her life and what she wanted in the face of, you know, it's kind of a weird thing to think, I have to take a pill every day for the rest of my life, or I die.

And the insurance companies don't let you have more than 30 days worth at a time. And so a lot of those things were just kind of praying in her and she just decided, I, I want whole new life. I don't wanna be a mom anymore. I wanna start over. And it's not unusual when people have life-threatening diseases or horrible car accidents and things like that for them to come out of it and say, I'm starting over.

I'm going to do something completely different. And I admit it. I didn't see it coming. . No. And that's a [00:18:00] terrible thing. Yeah. I mean I myself went through a situation where, you know, I have an ex-wife now, but back then my wife, she just derailed and she wanted a different life. And I fought for the marriage for six years.

Yeah. All it did was cause more problems. I should have just been like, okay, you want to go, go? That's what the Bible says. So there's only, you know, one reason for divorce is adultery and I was still trying to fight for it, but man, it's painful. So now your business is struggling. You're a single dad. Yeah.

And by, and this makes a difference. Do you have boy, girl, both. One of each? Yeah. Yeah. Me. Boy, girl. And how old were they roughly at this time? Nine 11. Yeah. So I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about wow, they need a mom. And you know what happens when my daughter gets her period and how do I do her hair and my son, how do I explain this?

These are thoughts that go through our head, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so now this is all hidden you at once. Your wife pop smokes, she takes off and you're by yourself. Where does life go from there, John? Well initially it went [00:19:00] to just massive fear and anxiety. So I'm a, I was always a skinny athletic guy anyway, but I lost 15 pounds, so I was five 11 and got down to about 140 pounds, which is pretty skinny.

And I was just worrying my weight away, you know, I just, every day, like between my kids and my business and and so simple things, you know, I, I, I didn't fight for six years to try and get my wife to come back, save the marriage, but I did fight for about a year and that, like, you, it did not help at all.

If anything, it just made it worse. But yeah, I don't, and again, I wanna clarify for listeners. John has his story. I have mine. Yeah. I think you should fight for your family. Yeah. But there comes the point, like in my situation, maybe John's where you're fighting a losing battle. Yeah. And if God's going to provide a miracle, he doesn't need you to keep getting depressed and keep getting exploited and keep abusing you and the kids.

You know, it's just, There's a time to move on. If you wanna stay celibate and hope she comes back or he comes back, great. But [00:20:00] don't keep letting yourself be abused in the fire. I, I was way too stupid and it caused many issues. , man. I was just waiting for that miracle and it never came. But God still, he allowed it for a reason.

He didn't cause it. Yeah. So now your kids are there, you're recovering where like you're, you're seeing this all unfold for the year. What happens? Well, so here's what happened. So I, I signed up for counseling 1 0 1 and tried to get my wife slash ex-wife to come see me, went three times together.

That didn't work. The therapist Cantella was clearly it not going to work. And because my wife had already made up her mind. And and then I. My therapist said, you're too smart for me. I'm going to put you in a group. So I got into a group. I'd never been in group therapy before and in a short period of time weirdly, I was pretty much the only guy in a group of like 10 women and two women therapists, and it was really difficult for me, David, like , [00:21:00] it was so difficult and there were things that they were trying to teach me to do that I didn't know how to do, like how to ask for help.

Seems like so simple for some people, but I was kind of a go it alone, do it myself, rugged individualist kind of guy. And so. . I didn't know it at the time and I don't know if you ever saw Steve Jobs commencement speech when students at Stanford were graduating, but he said sometimes things are going on in our life that make no sense, but later in retrospect they make perfect sense.

And so what also happened was a church down at the bottom of our hill had a really good divorce recovery program. And and I was shocked. I signed up for it cuz I'd heard it was really good. I signed up for it. It was only like five minutes from the house and I think there was like 150 people there.

It was crazy. And weirdly, I became friends with all these other single moms. And so for a period of time in my life I'm going to therapy with a group that's mostly women. [00:22:00] And, and for a period of time some of my best friends were single moms and we would hang out with our kids and bitch about our exes and

But even that was kind of cool in a way because. what was going on in my life, but I just couldn't see it at the time, was this John rigid, rational, very kind of masculine oriented, was learning to step into and embrace all things that most people would call feminine. And so list all the usual.

Masculine attributes and then list all the various feminine attributes. And you might say in a way, I quite literally was learning to be both mother and father to my kids. And I look back with enormous gratitude on that period of time, even though the learning curve was really difficult and really steep for me.

And then you know, dive in here a little further. So so the book I wrote called The Synchronicity of Love Begins at that period of time. It began right about the time that my wife [00:23:00] left and all the difficulty I was going through. And anyway, I signed up for my first ever spiritual retreat, which was.

Horrendously difficult for me because I'd been sort of anti spiritual and anti-religious for so long. But the guy leading it seemed safe to me. He was a very eminent physician in Southern California, turned spiritual teacher, and he just taught heart-centered meditation over and over again. You know, just coming back to the heart center and and really, if you might summed it up, he taught unconditional love.

That's all he taught. And Michael Creighton, who was one of my favorite authors at the time, and written a bunch of bestselling novels, you know, typically sci-fi kind of stuff and a bunch of movies and TV shows, a lot of people don't know. He wrote a book a non-fiction book, an autobiography book called Travels, and he kind of had his own story in there, and he went through his own midlife crisis.

One of the things like me, he'd been sort of anti spiritual and [00:24:00] anti-religious and kind of, you know, very intelligent, intellectual kind of guy. And he broke down and went to a retreat and I loved reading about his experiences there. And anyway, he went all the way back in 1982 and here it is 20 years later.

And I read the story. I ran to the internet. I looked up the same teacher, was teaching almost the exact same thing that Michael Creighton went through . And I signed up on the spot and I said, you know, I'm $650,000 in debt. Another couple thousand isn't going to matter if I go bankrupt. And I remember in the little course description it said, this can be life renovating.

And I needed some life renovation. I needed to see myself and my life differently cuz I was worrying myself to death. And so What I would call the synchronicities in my life that in a lot of ways have not ever ended since then. Began the minute I signed up for it. I signed up at the last minute.

I had to hop a plane from Seattle to Southern [00:25:00] California cuz the retreat was in the mountains in Southern California. And the woman next to me is reading the retreat leader's book and I'm count 180 people on the plane. The only two people going to this retreat are me and her. And and we're checking each other out.

Well, you look okay. Well you look okay too. Okay, well maybe this is going to be okay. And so everything in my life started to change from that day forward. Now while you were in this state and you were traveling, did your kids, did you have family in the Seattle area to watch your kids? And cuz that's a big deal, especially where you just lost your spouse.

You want to know your kids are safe and they need to be as someone who is safe so they don't feel abandonment. How did you set that up for the listeners? Well, to take this step, Maybe wasn't the best choice, but my mother and father live about 45 minutes away and my mother offered to come live in the house and take care of the kids and just kinda make sure they got up to school every day.

And, and I, when I came back, I don't [00:26:00] think they were too happy living with grandma for a week. But , he's okay. They survived . Yeah. Yeah. It's what you needed. And they weren't going to die. And they were older, you said they were like nine and 11. They were nine and 11. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. So what happens at this retreat?

You, yeah, and I, you know, Michael Creighton shared so many cool things that happened to him. And weirdly, the retreat was structured almost exactly the same way it was when Michael Creighton went. And I, I didn't have a lot of cool, wacky spiritual experiences. I. Starting maybe a year or two later, but at the retreat itself, not much.

The first thing I discovered David, was how much I kept other people at a distance. I don't think I'd ever truly been close to another person, truly honest, truly open, truly intimate, truly vulnerable with somebody else. And, you know, the, the vibe there was so centered on the heart and compassion, unconditional love.

It. It was a whole new feeling for me and strange things were happening. [00:27:00] One of the partners that I kind of got partnered up with was planning on leaving her husband and kids, and the kids were the same age as mine when she got back from the treat. And oh my God, like why am I getting partnered up with what's this woman, you know?

And it was hard not to be in anger, fear, and judgment, you know what I mean? I was just like, ah, I can't believe you're going to do that to your kids and your husband, you know? Oh yeah. But, you know. Yeah. But so, Long story short, by the end of the retreat, I think it was the first time, like I said, I've been honest, open, intimate, and vulnerable with other people.

And it was the first time in my life I think I started to experience what I would call true compassion, not judgment. And so, you know, it doesn't sound really sexy. I didn't, like I said, I, there wasn't a lot of great spiritual experiences and things like that. I didn't have visions. And but what I came out of it was, what was the beginning of like, the seeds planted around compassion.

And and I'm really grateful for that. I think [00:28:00] they're still sprouting today and it's 20 years after the fact today. And so so that's what happened. So, so I come back from the retreat. I have all the same problems I had before I left, but everything feels a little bit lighter which is nice. But still, , nothing happens.

And then for two straight years, my company doesn't lose more money, but it doesn't also get ahead either. So I'm robbing Peter to pay Paul. I'm always staying just a half a step ahead of going bankrupt and it kind of flatlines like I said, not going down, but not going up. And And then about that same time during the retreat, the retreat leader thought that dreams were sacred and encouraged people to record dreams, remember the dreams, and gave us a little exercise for how to remember a dream.

And if you don't mind, I'll, I'll share the exercise with you cuz I didn't think I had dreams or remembered dreams. You know, maybe a few scary dreams when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember [00:29:00] dreams. No, absolutely. I was actually going to ask you before we go on, what are some of the things you took away from the retreat?

And then now here's one. So we definitely wanna take away points that people can apply to their lives while they're, after they listen to this episode. Yeah. So they can start the ball rolling and continue the conversation with you. Yeah, absolutely. And this was one of the coolest things that ever happened to me, and I never would've guessed it would be so wondrous.

And so he said, go home, get a journal, pen, pencil, a recording device, or everyone, some way to record a dream in case you have a dream. And as you're laying in bed in the dark and you feel yourself drifting off to sleep, he goes, imagine walking up to the edge of a, you know, like say the Grand Canyon at nighttime, and there's this huge dark abyss far below you.

Imagine taking off all your clothes so you're completely naked. Turn your back to the abyss and fall backwards into the abyss and total trust. And asked for a dream. And so I tried this [00:30:00] night after night and after two or three nights I had a little three seconds of a dream I remembered. And then I don't know what the period of time was.

I'm going to say a few weeks. Suddenly I had a dream and I wrote it down. Then another dream. Then it got to be so much so that I was having like five dreams a night. And sometimes I had to kind of almost turn it off because there was just so much. And so what I learned from that experience is, you know what, I'll have a, a conscious mind.

It's basically what we're aware of. But you also have an unconscious and so much of healing work or trying to recover from addictions and stuff like that is trying to make the unconscious conscious. Cuz it's one thing to say, I'm going to go lose weight, I'm going to quit drinking. But if there's an unconscious aspect to you that says, I'm worthless.

I'm a piece of shit and the only way to feel good is to drink or nobody's going to love me and that's why I'm going to just eat like a pig all the time and just gain lots of weight. And so I didn't know it at the time, but he was saying, dreams are the [00:31:00] doorway into your individual personal unconscious. And so, because some of some of spiritual work is just becoming more aware of all of the parts of yourself, you know, the good and the bad you might say.

And so dreams reporting forth. And so, but anybody that's ever. Worked with dreams or begins to work with dreams, finds out, okay, now I'm having dreams, but what the hell do they mean Cuz they can look like something from Alice Wonderland. They don't make any sense. And so I would say for the next year or two, I spent that time what I would call learning the language of dreams.

There are things that are unique to your dreams that you have to kind of decipher what it's trying to say, but there's also universal symbols and dreams. You know you know, the, the cross can appear in all sorts of cultures, in dreams all around the world cause it's a universal symbol. And so dreams have to be re realize.

It's a language of symbols speaking to you. [00:32:00] And the best way to work with a dream is with your intuition, not your logic. And if you're very kind of left brain linear logic, kind of masculine orientation dreams can seem like a convoluted mass. But if you apply. What I would call a feeling state or intuition or kind of like, oh, I get the feeling from this dream.

I get what's trying to tell me. It's much easier. And this was a whole learning curve for me. I didn't know about intuition. And and so it was a whole learning curve. And again, it doesn't sound very sexy, but it was about to become really, really important because two years after that retreat and working with dreams for a couple of years, I had a full on what some traditions call Kundalini awakening and I think Christians would call Movement of the Holy Spirit.

And it was deep and profound and full of visions and all sorts of energetic changes taking place in my body completely out of my [00:33:00] volitional control . And it all began in a hotel room in Philadelphia of all places, . And so everything, everything started to change massively in my life after that point.

So let me do this. Let's back up just a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Talking about dreams. Yeah. And talking about, there's some people that never dream. There's some people that always dream, there's some people that have nightmares, which is, you know, a negative dream. But let's start going back to the people who can't dream, right.

What are a couple tips to help them start this process, especially if they are that black and white left. Yeah. Well the thing is, I always say, you know, in whatever Christian terminology or religious terminology, I always say ask. And if it's ask Jesus or ask God to me, it's the same thing. Just ask. I wanna start remembering my dreams and be [00:34:00] clear and be, I think one of the most powerful qualities on the spiritual journey is sincerity.

So begin by asking, and that exercise I talked about, it's like I am going to fall backwards into the Biss in total trust. And ask for a dream. And one of the things you'll find in working with dreams is, you know, we all wear masks to some degree out in the world. We all have a persona and we all have parts of ourself we want the world to see.

And parts we don't want to see. But you start paying attention to your dreams and you find out dreams will speak to you with unvarnished honesty. And it's why a lot of people avoid dreamwork because they very carefully sweep certain parts of themselves that they're vaguely aware of under the rug. And so but there's beauty and power in dreams too.

And sometimes you know, it isn't all difficult, dark, deep, negative stuff too. I remember meeting a woman wants to kind of, I nicknamed her dark side cuz she was into witchy kind of [00:35:00] stuff. Crystals all over her fingers and seemed kind of obsessed with power. But she would have this dream over and over and over again of walking by this.

Full length standup mirror. And when she walked by and looked at herself in the mirror, she was this angel all in white, beautiful. And she kept saying, nah, that can't, that's not me. And so everything comes spilling forth in dreams. What I saw the most beautiful Pacific, I think is the word, and the most difficult and dark stuff.

And and so I, I think the beginning is just asking over and over and being intentional. Putting a recording device, putting a pen and paper by the bed and ask over and over again. Ask now. David, one thing I've learned after all these years, and I've done a lot of dreamwork now for 20 years Some people just aren't as visual as others.

Some people get information. You know, you're probably familiar. Everybody gets information through their five senses, but beyond that, there's four other [00:36:00] senses, so to speak. And so one way to get information is through visions. Some people will have waking visions visions in dreams visions while prayer and meditation visions in church, they get information that way.

Some people get literally what I would call the voice of God or other beings speaking to them. And so when I say a dream, most people think of like a movie. But a dream to me is soul multifaceted, that it can come in the form of a voice or voices. It can come in the, in a sense of what I would call knowing with a capital K, where I, I would liken it to sort of like a computer download, like boom.

you just know. You don't know how, you know, you just know. And and then the other is kind of a feeling or kinesthetic sense, you know, it's a real thing out there, especially with entrepreneurs in the world. You know, they don't always trust their intellect. They trust their gut. Their gut tells them. And so when I'm talking [00:37:00] about dreams, when I'm talking about are ways to get other information besides just your five senses.

And that's really what I'm talking about here. I wrote a chapter in my book called The Spectrum of Dreams. And after working with dreams for 20 years now, dreams are so multifaceted and I just love them. I mean, to my experience of it is like an angel or a wise old soul feeds me information and usually it comes through visions, sometimes it comes through voices.

Those are probably the two most common for me. And yeah. And lemme ask you. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I didn't, sorry about that. Go ahead. As a delay. No, go ahead. No, I was going to say, so this is super intriguing to me. And some people, based on their worldview, they hear dreams, they shut it off. Yeah. Some people hear dreams like, oh, I want more.

And they get obsessed with it. Yeah. I believe everything God made, there's truth to everything, but we have to have balance. In the Bible, there were [00:38:00] godly men and women who had dreams and they shared them and it was from God. Yeah. Than the people who were liars. They got stoned to death and they deserved it.

Right. Yeah. So, so I'm not against dreams, but I do wanna make sure we have the right biblical balance. But I always wondered this, you made a great statement. You said sometimes people get too much into it and they have too many dreams. They just need to learn to shut it off. Yep. Let's park there. How do you shut off dreams?

Because there my mind goes and I don't, I've, I very rarely, I'm talking, I don't even know if I can remember a handful in 46 years of my life. where I had like really happy dreams. Yeah, it's always stressful nightmares based on reality. It's not like alien clowns are abducting me. It's like real life situations that have happened or that I can see ha could happen very easily and it's just a stress and this torment and I hate it.[00:39:00] 

So for myself and other listeners, how do you turn off the dreams or work through the dreams to resolution? And that's probably two different questions. Yeah. Okay. Well the way to turn it off again is to ask, I'm totally at peace with everybody telling God like, excuse my French, fuck it, I need to sleep tonight.

Yeah. You know, and I've got real world problems to attend to. I'm a human being here on earth. I've got stuff I gotta deal with. And so that was a learning curve for me too. You know, one to say yes and one to say no. The second thing, David, I would offer you and just, you know, everybody has. Nightmares, scary dreams things that cause them anxiety.

But the thing that's interesting is it's unique to the individual. What's a scary dream to one person is not scary to another. And so, and so part of what I would suggest and offer to you, David, instead of pushing those dreams away and running from 'em, you're a tough guy. [00:40:00] Turn around and face them and face them maybe with, I'm going to call it God in your heart.

You know, something that's bigger than just you in your ego personality. And, and I'm happy with calling it God, God's love, whatever you wanna call it. Cuz with that you can turn around and face anything, anything. And so, I'll tell you, you're going to laugh. It doesn't sound probably scary to you, but this is like my recurring nightmare, which is starting to fade.

So I left my really secure job as a store manager in q qfc, the grocery chain here locally. And And so my recurring dream nightmare that would cause me to wake up an agitation was I'm always back at my old job and I don't know who's in charge and who, who's doing what. And things seem to be running fine without me, but I don't know my role anymore.

And I always wake up an anxiety. And so what I know about myself now, cuz again, dreams are going to tell [00:41:00] you more and more about yourself, is I, and I'm, you know, I'm comfortable saying this. I'm a control freak. I like certainty. I've been bossing people around since I was 18. . I've been in management my whole life.

And being in a situation where like, who the hell's in charge here? What's the mission? What's the plan? What are we going to execute? That's really difficult for me. And so I had to realize too, Some people are really, they function really well in the world without that strong sense of mission, purpose, direction, who's in charge, you know what I mean?

And you know, we gotta execute the goal. That was my thing, you know, but trying to be kind of, , very fairy floaty. Well, everything's getting done, but who I don't know who's in charge of what? I don't even know what I'm responsible for anymore. And so over and over I had that dream and I had to kind of make peace with the fact that like, wow, I just really have a stick up my rear about being in charge.

And , you might say, a kind of a military mentality, you know what I mean? This is who's in charge, here's the mission that we're trying to [00:42:00] accomplish. And so, but I have the dream over and over and over again until I'm willing to face it. I'll give you another example. One of my favorite books is called Second Sight by Judith Orloff.

And she gets a lot of guidance and information from her dreams too. And she told the great story. So she was a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, and she started a business practice with somebody else, a partner, a guy. And it quickly started going off the rails, but she was. Courageous enough to confront him about all the things that she was angry about.

She would be seething behind closed doors. She wouldn't turn around and just talk to the guy. And so she starts having dreams and nightmares, and one of them's terrifying where there's this epic forest fire and it's chasing her, and she's running as fast as she can, and a voice says very calmly and neutrally, the fire won't hurt you if you turn around and face.

And so in the dream, she turns around and it just, just [00:43:00] appears into smoldering ash. And she knew that that dream was connected to all the rage she was feeling towards her business partner, but was too afraid to talk to him about it and confront him. She goes and talks to him. They had a really good talk.

It was a little uncomfortable. All the nightmares, at least around that disappeared. And so, you know it's kind of a cliche thing to say, but you know, in some respect we all do kind of create our own reality. We decide what's important to us and what's not important to us, what we believe, what we don't believe, what scares us, what doesn't scare us.

And so the dreams are just trying to show you. And and so that's, that's the second part of your question is I encourage all people all the time face your dreams. I dunno if you can see me, but you know, You know those pictures of Jesus and Mary with their heart of flame and it's kinda leaping out of their chest.

Just put your hand over your heart. And I would call it calling God or divinity and say, I'm [00:44:00] willing to face this now, but I want some help. And then inevitably, I think during the dream you'll find like, oh, you're trying to face it. Sometimes the things that seem so horrifying and so demonic. I, you know, the worst of the worst are our own creations in our head.

And sometimes just the simple act of turning around and like, I'm willing to face this now. It'll change, it'll change everything. That's a long I, does that answer your question? No, it definitely is a great, great answer. And I'm just trying to, for myself, for the listeners, you know, you talked about falling backwards into the best to start turning them on.

Yeah. And then for shutting them off, basically asking God. Lord, why am I having these and then facing in and going after it. Yeah. So I think that's great advice for everybody, at least, you know, as a starting part to continue the conversation with you. So now let me, let me, can I jump into one more thing?

So, and I'll tell you, this is your show, brother. I, John, it's your show. Oh, I think I appreciate the invitation. [00:45:00] One of the reasons I'm passionate about this, so I remember about the time this whole journey began. I suddenly was running around by kind closed doors, literally in tears, terrified of death, and too proud to ask anybody about it too.

I, I wouldn't even known who or what to talk to. I was too proud to go to church and talk to anybody about it. And so three years after I went to that spiritual retreat, I signed up for this group, and I'll never forget it, the teacher said, okay, for the month of November, we're going to. And embrace the mystery of death.

And I thought, oh my God, this might be the thing that I need cuz I just, we've been running from it this whole time. And literally terrified. And he goes for the month of November on, on a fairly practical level, pretend you're going to die at the end of this month. And if you need to make a will, make a will.

If you need to make amends to other people, if there needs to be some forgiveness or something said, go do it. And now I want you to meditate on. Pray on death, read [00:46:00] books on death, listen to music on death. And David, I did it faithfully, very sincerely. And I had all these profound visions and dreams.

And by the time it was done, all fear of death is gone. It's been gone ever since. And so again, it sounds so simple to say. I know it's really freaking hard to face your fears. And I'm not talking about, you know, jumping off a cliff if you're afraid of heights. But you know, I think most people know what gets them anxious, what gets 'em triggered, what gets 'em pissed off, what gets 'em scared and turning around and just facing it and embracing it.

And like I said, you know, with God's help, with the help of divinity, you can turn around and. anything. And and it's, to me it was the most life-changing thing that ever happened in my entire life. And so I'm kind of a big, you know, beat the drum about those scary dreams are happened, turn around, face them.

Even my own teacher that at first retreat used to say over and [00:47:00] over again, you can't do it with the ego or the personality, but you can do it with God, you can do it with divinity, you can do it with unconditional love. They will help you. And that's just been my experience. You just have to ask. Yeah.

Asking you shall receive. That's a basic concept from the New Testament, so. Yeah. Yeah. I don't doubt. I, I mean I think I've always asked God, why am I having these dreams or what do they mean? But yeah, I've never said, you know, Hey, can you help 'em to stop or help me to get the solution, face this and get over with.

Cuz there are dreams are all face in. I'll be like, Hey, this is a dream. Screw you. I'm not going to let you control me. And then poof, it goes away. Yeah, but I have these weird reoccurring dreams that are stressful and I'm like, ah, I can't even get peaceful sleep sometimes. So we'll talk. I hear you. I've been there so many times.

Yeah. Yeah. And weird, weird stuff. Stuff that bothered me in real life. And now it haunts me in my Dr. My nightmare. So I, I wish it was physical is [00:48:00] punching in the face. Get it over, babe. No, I hear you. I hear you. So one of the things I understand since dreams have been part of my path and and I, I share my book, in fact, I'll tell you in a minute, I had a phase two where I profound dreams with Jesus in them, even though I didn't consider myself.

A Christian in the sense that I went to church all the time, but I had profound what felt like guidance from Jesus over and over and over again. And it wasn't like I was seeking it, it just showed up. And so one of the things I understand about Dreamwork and, and I, I, there's some interesting books on the subject, and it's been my experience, if you wade through the difficult stuff which is usually, you know it is just, it's your own difficult stuff.

Somebody else might have other difficult stuff. It's the things that trip you up if you wade through it fearlessly. And like I said, with God's help you move through that [00:49:00] difficult stuff. And on the other side of that are, is what I would call divinity. You'll, you'll, you know, literally it's been my experience, you know, wise guides.

Jesus Angels will communicate with you. Some people call them ascended masters. You know, there's all this great source of. Unbelievable love and unbelievable wisdom that's behind excuse my French, your shit and the turmoil that, that everybody has some degree of that they're dealing with. And some have even said, and behind all that is God, infinity, you know, unity, what all the words people had used to describe, what would it like to be in union with God?

And so everybody's path is different. And so, but I I, I encourage people just turn around and face the stuff you're struggling with. And I think if you, you know, just a suggestion, David, you got all these crazy nightmares over and over again. You might try just asking. What is this? Because again, dreams [00:50:00] very lit, rarely are going to speak to you.

Literally like, Hey, this goes back to something that happened when you were five years old with your mom and dad or something like that. It's not usually that literal, I, I don't know why I wish it was that simple, but it's usually some kind of symbolic message and it's telling you over and over again.

And I'm telling you, brother, you turn around, face it. You ask for help to face it, they will soothe and they will likely disappear. I can't tell you if that's going to take a day or years, but it can happen. Yeah. And I don't disagree with that. And we'll get back to your story. I have one more question on this topic.

Sure. And then we'll shelf it and then move on. Not that I want to, it's just saying like, I just wanna make sure we have your story and then we wrap everything together. Yeah. But where's the boundary and balance that you found? Because. . Our mind is so powerful. Yeah. And even the greatest scientists understand so little of it.

[00:51:00] Mm-hmm. . And whether you're a Christian, someone who believes and follows and trusts in Christ, or whether you're like, I don't believe there's a God. There's still a conscious and a subconscious, and there's still that area that we don't fully understand as humans. Right. So when you're meditating, and meditating can be not like weird, but like praying and just being peaceful in it.

One with God, Jesus himself, meditated. So if you're a cursing, listening to this Jesus himself, meditated, go read the Bible. It's in there. So when we're meditating, when we're thinking and pondering and, and going to these places, how do we know what is like, there's times I clearly for sure know God spoke to me a hundred percent.

Yeah. Yep. But there's other times where it's like, Wait a second, and was my mind just making this crap up like a science fiction story? Or is this really happening? Like when you're in that meditative state or the dream state, how do you know what's just a [00:52:00] weird me? Because like if I saw a firetruck before bed and then I thought about some prom at work and then I saw a yellow duck, and you know, sometimes your mind just from the multitude of business of the day puts it together in a weird dream or nightmare.

So where are those lo lines and boundaries where, you know, this is something really God's trying to communicate to me. And this is just a bunch of clutter from my brain from the, before I went to bed and ate a bad hamburger. I don't know. David . Okay. That's the honest god dang. Excuse my French goldar answer.

But I think after 20 years of sorting through it, you start to. It just, I, I don't have an easy answer. I, you know, I, I, you know, if Jesus appeared to you or angels and White showed up and, and gave you something, it'd be like, okay, this is the good stuff, . This just is in my mind point. Yeah. When you hear people say they saw an angel, everybody sees Gabriel and he always says the same thing.

It's like, you are this person. No. You know, like they [00:53:00] all can't begin the same, the same story. Like, so it's like there's people who I think have real experiences and I think there's people who make stuff up, but it's just like, how do you know the difference or find the balance? I didn't know if you had an answer to that.

I don't. I, you know, , you know, I don't know if you've ever read or heard of the book series Conversations with God and CS Lewis or no. It's Neil Donald Walsh shows his name and he wrote a book called Conversation Conversations with God, I think. And, you know, his story was he had hit rock bottom.

I think he had lost everything, was living in a tent out of the edge of town and really frustrated cuz he was intelligent and he was capable of functioning in the world. But everything kind of went wrong. And I, if I remember the story, they made a movie about it too. He grabbed a legal pad and just started squiring out all his, you know, like, I'm going to have it out with God.

And you might say, rah, he's just bitching and complaining and, you [00:54:00] know, all this stuff. And then it was like some other voice would come through and just calmly answer the question and then, oh God, well why do you do this and why do you do that? And how come there and calmly answer the question? And so the best way I can describe it is, That is a fairly useful way to, to sort between what I would call your mind made stuff and what I would call the deeper wisdom.

The deeper wisdom usually comes from a very neutral, loving place. And it's sort of like, David, we honor you. This, you are divine too, and you have this human life and the gift of a human life is free will. And being human isn't always easy. But we're here and we love you without judgment, and we support you without judgment.

And we're here if you want. . [00:55:00] And if you wanna go by yourself, that's fine too. And so I think that's, that's been my experience and just other people have said the same thing. When it comes from a cool, loving, non-judgmental place, that's probably something you wanna pay attention to when it comes with a lot of.

Fear, anger, judgment. That's what some people call the ego or the lower self. And, and yet I admit, it's really hard to sift through those messages. So I, I wanna share a dream I had and that, you know, I, a friend of mine who I know works with a lot of dreams used to say, 85% of dreams are crap, but the other 15%, oh my God, pay attention to them.

And so I'll give you an example of a dream in my head where I, everybody will probably understand like, oh, well this was an important dream. So I used to love the fly fish. And in the dream, I am fishing in the Yakima River over in eastern Washington, it feels like September. And it's, you know, the sun's going down.

It's just beautiful sort of as the [00:56:00] sun's going down, the shadows are falling. And I'm, I'm fishing and I suddenly kind of start having all these angry thoughts in my head, like stupid people on Facebook and fake news. And oh my God, it's hard to know what to believe. And I'm, I'm angry even though I'm waist deep fishing.

I'm just angry and I feel this light touch on my shoulder. And there's Jesus right there with me. And he goes, he doesn't say words, he just says, come on, we're going to go for a walk. And in the dream, we're literally walking upstream on water, up the Yakima River, up to where it comes out of the mountains.

And we stop at someplace where clearly there's a lot of violence going on. And you know, there's a lot of graffiti and billboards are defaced, a lot of buildings are destroyed. And I see cops chasing bad guys and, you know, and, and I'm sitting with Jesus, and Jesus asked me to look and I'm watching and he, and he just points at it and says, this is not your true north.

that's it. And so, and then it's over. Now we're walking back downstream on the water. I [00:57:00] still remember it like yesterday. I'm waving at the farmers . They don't see me, but I'm walking on water with Jesus, you know, walking down the river, Golo, back, pops, MCRI fishing, end of dream. And so I knew what he was trying to get to.

I kind of grew up as a sort of, maybe not a fist fighter fighter, but very competitive, kind of fighting, arguing all the time. And I think he was trying to show me like, these are, you know, if you think of the analogy of a river and a river, not always, but usually is born in the mountains and it, you know, it's born in snow melt and it rushes downstream.

There's waterfalls and eventually hits a valley and it gets wider and slower, becomes more usable to farmers and all rivers eventually end up in the ocean. And so it's almost like a man's life. And I think he was, took me all the way upstream to say, , this was when you were young, but you're not there anymore.

I don't this, this is not your true north. This is not your mission or purpose anymore. Running around, fighting and arguing with people. And I knew it and I, and so [00:58:00] anyway, it felt a little bit like that. That story of Christmas Carol, except my ghost of Christmas past was Jesus. And so it's kind of hard for me to have a dream like that that's so laid out and not just be really grateful for the dream and realize it's probably not my mind making that stuff up.

No, and I'd agree and I think something, something that I've always believed and I believe to this day and you mentioned is anything godly will not go against the characteristics of God as outlined in the Bible. Yeah. So if he's asking you to do terrible things or if there's this dirty feeling, then that's not God and that's someone pretending to God.

Yeah. So yeah, that's really great you said that, and that's awesome you had that experience and get to have that resolution and then to the future, have more peace. So let's do this to get back to, we can talk about whatever you want, but to get back to your story, you went to that retreat, you came back, your business didn't dip, it didn't grow.

But you said you flatlined for a couple years. [00:59:00] Yep. Your kids are still with you. You know, you're still single parent. Where does your life go from there, John? Well, so. I would say right around 2004, weirdly, when I started to have all that energetic experiences and all these visions and things that I didn't even know the words, what they meant or didn't even know was possible, I , I, I sometimes say I'm like the Nazi skinhead who suddenly was in love with this black neighbors.

It was that much of a shift for me and that difficult for me. And but then my business started to turn around and like I said, I had a consumer products company. We made pet products, clean cleaning products dog shampoos, a whole bunch of different things. And we got a test in Target and Walmart and and we did really well.

We were the number one new carpet cleaning intro in Walmart in the year, I think 2004. But they only put me in, you know, 10% of their stores. Anyway, make a long story [01:00:00] short, over the next year or two, we got our product into all the targets and all the Walmarts, and suddenly it went from, Horribly deeply in debt to making more money than I ever made my entire life.

And it was a complete turnaround, and so nice. But it was kind of surreal. So I, you know, if you read, you know, some of the Christian Saints throughout time so I remember a little bit about St. Teresa and she was good friends with another they called him St. John of the Cross, and they were best friends and, but they had very different paths.

St. Teresa was full of I forget the word mysticism, you know, wild, energetic experiences, crazy visions, you know, I mean, even to the point of like levitation and things like that. And, but St. John was a quiet, contemplative. , but they both had enormous respect for each other cuz they both ended [01:01:00] up in the same place together.

And and so, you know, they just, and so I guess you could say for a period of time I was going down the path of what I would call the mystic. Cuz all this stuff was coming to me unasked for, I didn't even know what it was. I was trying to find out what was happening to me. And, but at the same time, I'm running this business that's suddenly turning around.

I still got custody of my two kids. My biggest fear during all that time was that all of these spiritual visions and experiences were going to make it so I couldn't coach my kids ball teams anymore. I wasn't going to be able to function as a businessman, but it never happened. It always seemed to take me right to the brink and then sometimes all of the, the fireworks would disappear for a day or two and I'd catch up on sleep and then here they come again.

And so it was a complete turnaround in my life all of a sudden. Companies on fire making lots of money, everybody's happy. And and [01:02:00] John, like I said, didn't really know it at the time, but again, everything that most people would attribute it to, a feminine quality, you might say was being asked to be integrated by me.

So even something as simple. Intuition is generally considered to be a feminine quality as opposed to sort of linear thought or logical thought or rational thought. So I had the logical down pat. I mean, having been a businessman, been in business, been in management, had a few too many years where I hung out at the racetrack, gambling on the races when I was young.

And so I had a really good math mine, but it was a whole different world to interact with people in the world through intuition. And so you know, a lot of people don't know Sir Richard Branson, who is England's most successful entrepreneur in a billionaire, he was horribly dyslexic and never got past, I think eighth or ninth grade in school.

But his intuition was so highly honed. He goes, I knew when I went to hire somebody, [01:03:00] I knew within 30 seconds if that was the perfect person or not. I didn't have to read their resume, another background, do background check or anything. I just knew, and he trusted that intuition. And that's a real thing that some people.

Navigate through the world by, and it certainly worked for him. Yeah, he's done. All right. Virgin? Yeah. Virgin cell phones. . One of my buddies actually, he's done pretty well himself, not to the Richard Branson level, but they both have islands, like within three miles of each other. Yeah. So yeah, the guy's done well.

He's done pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And I, I do wanna throw this out there where

everything I believe is balance. Everything is balance. A false balance is abomination to the Lord. So our society today is telling men to be a effeminate. That's not what you're saying. You're saying to have a balance on the masculine and the [01:04:00] feminine traits. Yeah. But you're not telling men to be women or women to be men, you're saying to have a balance and there's, there's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah. But when it comes to our world, if you go too far left or too far right, both of 'em are crazy. So I don't care if you're liberal or ultra-conservative, you're out of balance. Yeah. So what John's saying, take within balance and normal boundaries of reality. So that's good information. David. David, my whole book is 344 pages.

It's 119 short stories. They're all true stories. That little story I told about meeting Jesus and him kind of giving me little course corrections in there and my grand conclusion, it's not super intellectual or super sexy. It's yeah, it's just a balance. And I hate the term masculine and feminine because people automatically tie it in with men and women and it's not the same thing.

You know, I personally, I think that book Men are for Mars and women are for Venus, there's total crap because there are women that are from Mars and men who [01:05:00] are from Venus. Yeah. I actually just talked to, I actually just talked to a couple that were freshly married. and they're having huge trouble because their traits are reversed.

Yeah, yeah. And they're like, what do we do? And I'm like, well, let's work through this . Well, and I totally agree. And so I, you know, I, I, you know, I'll use a very simple thing that I had to learn, and I'm honestly still learning David. We tend to think of speaking and doing as masculine and sort of listening or receiving as feminine, but, you know, you can think of many times in just even the typical course of a day where, This is a situation where I just need to listen.

Like that person just wants to be heard and acknowledged. I don't have to freaking do anything for them. I don't have to fix their life. I don't have to do anything. I just listen. Well, to me that's a feminine trait cuz I had another, another way to describe masculine feminine is electric, which is kind of like an outgoing energy and magnetic where you just attract things to yourself.[01:06:00] 

Hmm. And so so that's the trouble is people kind of get 'em confused. Male female manshack, like this, a woman should act like this. Well I agree there's some of that. But that's not really, I'm talking about. , what I'm really talking about is becoming more whole and more resourceful in every situation.

You know, I've seen the reverse is true. You've probably met people who are just damn good listeners, but don't have the slightest clue how to speak up for themself and speaking up for yourself. Having a strong sense of self, a strong will, being assertive, that's a masculine quality. Well, it's okay for women to develop that too.

And so I think it's about wholeness and having these qualities available to you no matter what situation you're in. And instead of being so one-sided, like you said, so outta balance that you're only comfortable in some situations, but in others, you're completely lost. And so, yeah, I think and like I said, I'm happy that it could be in reverse too, kind of the masculine qualities you might think [01:07:00] of as like assertiveness, taking action.

I think everybody should learn those qualities. It doesn't have to be only men or males that do that. A hundred percent. And like when people say they're a Christian, that means to be Christ-Like Christ in the Bible is a perfect example of that. Nobody's a better listener. I mean, but yet when he spoke it was so powerful and important.

So that right there proves everything you're saying. I mean, I agree and you nailed it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. You know, I was thinking about something we're talking about dreamwork and there's a quote from the Bible and that goes, let's see if I'm going to get this right. Before you remove the spec from your brother's eye, first you have to remove the log from your own eye.

Yeah. And so and so, to me that's saying, you know, sometimes we see what's going on with another person. It's like, oh my God, I can, I can fix them. I know. What's the matter with them? But you know, it takes what I would say a little bit of [01:08:00] personal work. You know, for me that dreamwork has been really helpful because you're maybe not seeing that person as they really are.

You're just seeing through your own lens . And you, you might say your eyes are dirty. And I, it's so funny cuz psychology, let's spend all the rage for a, you know, quite a period of time now, shadow work and projections. And and, and I think Jesus spoke about it 2000 years ago. It's the same thing, you know, cleaning up your own site and not being so quick to rush in and try and change somebody until your own site is clear.

Does that make sense? Oh, a hundred percent. And we talk about that in the podcast all the time. So yeah, anybody who's a regular listener, they know that we firmly believe all truth comes from God. And I don't care if you're Jack Welch. If you're Donald Trump, I don't care if you're Albert Einstein. Yeah. If you're speaking it, , it came from God originally.

People are just repackaging it. Yeah. Like all these motivational speakers today, nothing they're saying is original . They're just maybe presenting [01:09:00] it in a new way. But the ones that say, this is my truth, those are the ones I shut off without question in seconds. Yeah. You know, and they could be super quote unquote famous and rich, but they're still just repack.

They're just repackaging what God said. So you might as well just get your Bible and have some good. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, something else I wanna jump in David and talk to you about, that's been kind of an interesting part of my journey, and I don't know if you're familiar with Lorna Byrne.

And so Lorna grew up Irish Catholic and, but has been seeing and communicating with angels since earliest childhood. Every single day she sees and communicates with angels and there's a whole spectrum of angels. I could probably spend hours talking about all the different kinds of angels and what they do.

But anyway, this is her reality and she accepts the fact that most people don't see and interact with angels every day like she does. And one of the things I found very fascinating oh, and by the way, she says, [01:10:00] every single one of us without fail, Has a guardian angel and it's there to help us. All we have to do is ask.

It might take a while to figure out how to communicate with that guardian angel, but they're there and they're there to help. And so and she sees them every single day. She sees them whispering in people's ears, tapping on. People are just, they just don't know. And I think it takes a little bit of inner stillness to actually kind of hear that communication.

But the thing I found really fascinating. Angels would reveal things to her slowly over time. And there really is sort of a, like, on the one hand we all have free will and I, and I honor and acknowledge that, but on the other hand, behind that is sort of a divine plan that the angels are trying to help execute out there.

And so and so things would be revealed to her when it was time and she, even working with the angels, it would be, they would tell her, okay, we can talk [01:11:00] about this, but we're not ready to talk about that yet. And so I think there's a, a whole process of foot of human mankind becoming aware of things, aware of who they are, aware of a divine plan.

But it's just being revealed to us slowly cuz it's almost sort of like a, a maxim out there with just people of mankind. If we have too much change too quickly. People freak out and wanna put some kind of thug in as a leader to make them feel safe. And the reverse is true if we've clamped down on society too much and don't allow people to grow and change and evolve and be creative, you know, people start to freak out because they're, they're, it's like they're in chains and so there's your balance, their pendulum.

Again, I think politically, economically, we're always kind of seeking that balance between new creative expression, new things being revealed, and the same time a sense of what feels like order and control. [01:12:00] Because people generally feel safe that way. Oh yeah. And I don't, I am not an expert in any way, shape and form, and I do not know all the answers.

But I do believe there's a real God. There's definitely real angels. Yeah. Demons are fallen angels on this earth. The only difference is a choice they made. Who they're going to follow. Yeah. God, our creator are saying the liar. . And I do believe that different people have different gifts and abilities. Yeah.

And that's just like out of my realm of understanding. So what you said makes sense. And to know that there's, you know, the Bible talks about how there's things principalities and powers and things we never see, but it's all happening around us constantly. Yeah. And that's kind of like some of what you were talking about.

So I do not disbelieve it. I just don't know enough to properly, I don't ever want to be, what's the word? I don't ever wanna [01:13:00] blaspheme God, you know, say something. I don't. That's not true. So with all that's going on and you're learning all this and your company's booming, you still have that personal healing journey.

It's not easy having a spouse that leaves you and readjusting. Where does your life go from there? Well I meet somebody and I am getting married and she has two children, two young girls, and so who were probably four and six at the time and the short time I got married. And yeah. And so and so now I had a blended family, a family of six and a whole bunch of wild, crazy spiritual experiences.

it was crazy, but at the same time, like business was going so good, I could hardly believe it. And so again, I went through a period of time where life was really awesome for a while, like on all levels really. Awesome. And then if you remember, we had a big recession in 2008. Probably began in 2007, but [01:14:00] probably hit absolute rock bottom at the beginning of 2009.

And and I had a product that I considered to be. or our products, what I would call recession resistant. I don't think any product or is recession proof, but when the recession started hitting, I I, well actually let me back up a little bit, David. This gets even a little weirder. So I had four different people over six months period of time.

Tell me about this old Russian woman who was 96 years old and said was a living Oracle and four different people suggested that I go meet with her now. I'd never had a reading before a psychic reading an intuitive reading. I never sat with an old Russian woman before. So this was all new territory for me.

And so, but after the fourth person said it, I said, well, this almost feels like a sign. I think I'm going to go find this woman. Look her up. And I found her. Her name was Bella Carish. And I heard [01:15:00] people say if there is such a thing that she's a living oracle. And so she was in Southern California. I flew down to the Burbank airplane port, met with her, sat in this room, and here's this woman just frail as can be, 96 years old.

Her hands as soft as like just little velvet, puffy, you know, little pillowy hands. And she looks at me with a strong Russian accent, says, You are not a businessman anymore. You are a monk and reverend from the past, you are here to help and heal. Now you're going to sell your business and you're going to start a healing center, and you are going to move.

And she goes on and, and I'm like a deer in the headlights listening to all this, you know? And at one point she, and she's yelling at you, not just speaking. And she really started to yell. She goes, you're not believing this, but this is true. You know? And again, you know that really heavy masculine, like a smoker's Russian accent, you know?

And she is this 96 year old woman just bellowing all this. Well, again, everything in my life started to [01:16:00] change after that. Like, I didn't want to move. I, you know, I've been so deep in debt before that. I, I was a really good situation financially, and I just like, Nope, not moving. And then all these, here we go again.

The synchronicity start to happen. And I, my daughter overheard me talking about it. She was 15 at the time and looks up a home on sale and she goes, Hey dad, look at this house for sale. And I'm like, oh my God, I've seen that house before. I know where that is. It's really beautiful, but we can't afford it.

We're not going to buy it. Okay, we'll just go look at it. Well, we go and look and oh, it's beautiful. It's on five acres. It's got a pond in the backyard. You know, I just like, I used to love to fish, so I thought I could put fish in the pond like this. It's a big pond, like maybe a half acre. And anyways, just magnificent.

But it was too expensive and I didn't wanna go back in debt again. And so we go back and that next morning I have a dream. And in the [01:17:00] dream I'm meditating on the island in the pond in this giant teardrop three feet across made of light falls from the heavens and penetrates my body and penetrates the whole, like all the acreage there.

It was profound. And then I go to tell my wife at the time, and she says, John, you know that place we looked at yesterday, yesterday? I had this dream where it looked like this goddess from the myths of Avalon is in the pond and she's in a boat and she's waving and beckoning to me. And then night after night, I keep having more and more dreams about this place.

And so, you know, I wasn't like a really big believer in signs. I didn't really, but even then I was like, God, this just feels like another sign again. So I went and talked to the owner. The house had been on the market for six months. Unbeknownst to me the big recession had already begun, but I hadn't really noticed it.

And anyway, I talked him way down in price and I still kind of grumbled about the price, but ended up buying it and I'm still here today. [01:18:00] And so anyway, and it's a special piece of property and I've seen all these visions and dreams and it's, it's hard to really describe, but it's a special piece of property.

And and I, I know I'm meant to be here, and so, but. The recession ended up hitting my business really hard and here I go again. Now I'm going to go through the whole thing. I went through eight years earlier where I lost all my money. Like suddenly the, the downturn was completely the opposite. So where I was making money handover fist, suddenly I was losing 20 grand a month because some of the big retailers got very, very conservative with product selection because of the big re recession that we were in and started deleting product lines left and right.

They wanted a very bare minimum conservative product selection. And you know, a lot of people don't know that was the worst recession we'd had since the Great Depression. It was a difficult time and it was for me too. And then my wife and I and the kids, we went through [01:19:00] all sorts of difficult times for a period of time there.

And but you know, it's funny how things work. , I wanna say you know, loosely, I had more trust in God this time around. I'm not saying it was easy, it was still difficult. But I remember just having some unusual, again, energetic spiritual experiences that just seemed to be saying, ride this out, John.

You're going to be okay. And so, like I said, I'm not saying it didn't worry, I'm not saying it didn't suffer, but I had more tools and more trust at that point in my life. And, you know, we are able to kind of surf through that. Okay. But it was difficult for two or three years. Really difficult. And then between that point today, what's the rest of your journey look like?

Well I ended up getting divorced again. Ended up getting remarried again. But it, I don't, I don't, it was. Perfect. David. I don't know how to put it. You know, it was [01:20:00] just all meant to be and I'm still at peace and friends with my ex-wife. And I love my new wife Wendy. I'm just ecstatically happy with Wendy.

And so that's what happened. And and it was difficult, but it was done in a very different way from the time before when I got divorced where there wasn't. The fear, the anger, the grief nothing like that. It was just sort of like, you know we're going to go our separate ways now. And so she was from the east coast originally and ended up moving back to the East coast and and she was doing great over there.

We still talk all the time and I, I love my stepdaughters. We were together for 10 years. And so anyway, so what happened was last year I sat, so I sold my company in 2019. So I remember I said it was at rock bottom, then it took off, then hit rock bottom again, then it took off again, and I sold it in October of 2019 to a, a large chemical company.

And extremely [01:21:00] grateful. I sold it when I did, cuz three months later is when Covid hit and the new buyer of the company. Said the last two or three years has been the most difficult of their entire 65 years of being in business just because of mostly supply chain issues. So semi-retired, and then I finally sat down and assembled all these stories of the last 20 years, which I didn't even touch on today.

Um, I had profound, I didn't even talk about how dreams can heal. I had profound dreams of healing. I had six years of chronic neck pain because of a series of dreams. The neck pain went away. I had strange experiences of throwing my back out and dreams, trying to teach me a different way to deal with throwing in my back out that I'd never thought about.

David. I had to fly all the way from Seattle to Jacksonville, Florida and back with a connection in Dallas, and I threw my back out the day. And, and I was very upset about that cuz all I could think of was like, oh my God, a a bad back and sitting in an uncomfortable airline seat, you know, for [01:22:00] eight hours each way, two days in a row, this is going to be hell.

And I suddenly noticed this voice inside me, humming the tune, don't worry, be happy. And I could feel the song being aimed at my lower back. And I, I knew kind of loosely that vibration could be healing. And so all the way there and all the way back, I ended up just humming that song the whole way, like a mantra.

And my back was all healed. I'd never had that happen before. And so a lot of this is what I wanna say, this sort of whole masculine, feminine, personal growth expansion of consciousness, you know, being more resourceful. It's like I have certain tools available to me, or I'm actually listening maybe for the first time in my life.

And so I'm learning a lot from what I would call my own. inner guidance. And whether it's an angel or not, I can't really tell you. But I trust it. And when it comes through, it's like, oh, okay. In fact, I, I remember I've actually done talks with people about, just because [01:23:00] you've done something the same way your whole life over and over again you know, I, this is example I use.

If you're four years old and you go and pet a big black dog and he bites you severely, it's entirely possible you'll go through the rest of your life terrified of big black dogs. You might decide you're a cat person might decide you're going to create a Facebook page that's anti dog . It's crazy how experiences can be formative, especially when we're young and you know, where you could be terrified of dogs for the rest of your life.

And you might have just caught that dog on a bad day. Maybe on any other day that dog would've been a friendly dog. But later in life, I think we can stop and say, whoa, wait a minute here. Other people have dogs and they love their dogs. You know, maybe I'm going a little too far here, being anti dog. And so this is what I like coming back to what we talked about at the very beginning.

Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. Sometimes it's good to kind of get unstuck from the ways you've been doing things and the way you see things and allow yourself to kind of grow and expand and see things differently. [01:24:00] I think that's excellent. Okay. Excellent advice cuz we definitely want to get out of ourselves and really as unbiasedly as possible, evaluate what's really going on.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. What, what do we believe in? Why or why are we feeling this way? Like you said. Yeah. Not all dogs are bad. Dogs are great. Yeah. Right. Well, well that wasn't my experience when I was four years old, but that's, yeah. That's just how people are. Right. You know, I've been a part of a, a men's organization called Mankind Project and you know, a lot of men's work and stuff like that, and a lot of it is healing work, man.

You'd be amazed how many. Big, rough, tough. You know, guys just had one or two shitty experiences when they're young and it's profoundly, in fact packed them to this day and it's, it's tough to kind of get out of that, how the five-year-old saw the world and how the five-year-old adapted and had to survive and, well, dude, you're 45 now.

Maybe we could change that a little bit. And so that's again, a message I like to share [01:25:00] people. It's just like, you know, it's okay to get outta your old habits and create some new ones. Yep. Well, let's do this then. Is there anything between your birth and today, John, we've missed that you want to cover before we transition to, and we kind of touched on it.

Where's John today? Where are you heading and how can people get ahold of you? . Yeah. I think we covered everything and thank you. It's the first time I've covered, you know, since birth. Usually it's just been like the last 20 years I kind of been covering in podcasts, so I, I don't think I ever sat down and thought much about it.

But thank you for the opportunity to do that. Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for being here. Yeah. So my website is John David latta.com. Last name is spelled l a t t A. My book is called The Synchronicity of Love Stories That Heal, transform and Awaken. It's written in a series of 119 short true stories because that's frankly how I learn best.

I don't really like dry academic, you know, jargon. I like to hear people's [01:26:00] stories and I learned a lot from that. So that's why I wrote the book the way I did. I can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and I found out it's at Target and Walmart now. And you, you probably had one more question.

What was the other question? Oh, what's the best way for people to reach you? Yeah, I think probably my website would be best, John David lada.com. Awesome, my friend. Yeah. Well, John, it's been an excellent time together. I thank you so much for sharing your life and the highs and lows and everything in between with our audience, ladies and gentlemen, like our slogan says, don't just listen to John's story and the great advice he's given you today, but do it.

Repeat it each day where you need to so you can have a great life in this world. And what was importantly an attorney to come. So John, again, thank you for being here today. I really appreciate you, brother. Ah, thank you much, David. Appreciate the invitation. Glad we're finally able to connect here. Yes, [01:27:00] yes.

If our listeners don't know God's bless our podcast and we put these together. The only two objectives is to help you grow and glorify. God and our friend John here, waited at least six months to be on the show. Because our waiting list is so long. So thank you John, for your patience and being here today, cuz I know it's not a normal quote unquote podcast.

You get on 20 minutes and you're done. Right, ? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So thank you very much. And ladies and gentlemen, hopefully this helped you. Reach out to John if you have any questions, encourage him. Let him know what helped you. Let me know when we're behind the mic in the camera. We don't get to hear it.

So let us know. Share this with your friends and family and people you think it'll help. And we want to grow. We wanna reach as many people as we can in the world. And again, not so we're popular and famous, but so we reach more people, help them, and the world's just a better place and we can share the love.

So John, thank you, our listeners. Thank you. [01:28:00] We love you and we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao.