Latest / The On Purpose Podcast / Ep. 345 - Dr John A King
Transcript
- speaker-0: You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast. If you run a business, listen up because my friend, Dr. Elise Rigney, just dropped something every entrepreneur needs. Elise is who we trust for our tax strategy and she put together a free 40 minute breakdown of the new big, beautiful bill that will impact you this tax season. This thing changes a lot. Deductions, depreciation, write-offs, and most business owners won't understand it until it's too late. We've used her strategies ourselves and they work. So grab her free training at the link in our show notes and get ahead of this bill before it hits your bottom line. There's a moment in every man's life, especially for veterans, first responders and men called to lead when the uniform comes off, but the mission doesn't end. Too many try to navigate that transition alone without structure, accountability or brotherhood. That's why I'm proud to partner with Missions Purpose, a community built for men who refuse to drift. Inside the school platform, You get live calls, challenges, frameworks, and disciplined brotherhood that pushes you to rebuild purpose, direction, and daily structure. If you're ready for the next chapter of your mission, click the link in the show notes to join us inside the Missions Purpose Community on School. You were never meant to walk this road alone. What's up everybody? Welcome to this week's edition of the show. You know, it's our privilege to have you here to get you thinking, get you moving, getting you questioned, maybe a little bit about life. And that's, I'm excited for this week's guest. I just have a real quick bio for him because I was researching a few things that intrigued me. And one of which was, he's a self-described resilience leader. And I love that. They're people to be tough and movement and question things. So this week we're joined by Dr. John A King, an Indigenous Australian author, poet, and as I mentioned, resilience leader. And I'm excited for this conversation to get into a bunch of stuff. He's got a nice cigar he's got going already. He's got a fancy hat, as you can see, if you're on YouTube with us. Dr. John King, welcome to the show, my friend. How are you today? speaker-1: Yeah, good mate, I'm real good. Cheers, appreciate it. speaker-0: I appreciate you, man. I just like your work. I'm excited to share some stories with you. I'm excited to learn from you. So I want to thank you for what you're doing, sharing your story so that others around the world can learn with you and grow with you and maybe see some strengths in themselves that I didn't know they had. speaker-1: Yeah, well thanks man, it's a privilege. I look forward to chatting. I like what you do. I love the people you're serving and I think it's... and you know, you've got an appreciation of good hats. So that's really important. speaker-0: Yeah, man, I didn't even put mine on yet. Matter of fact, should throw that guy on for you. Yeah, sometimes I record and I just didn't have it on today. All right, John, before we get going, though, I got to warm you up, right? This is like I got to get the mind and the body going and let the audience know who you are. So you ready for some quick warm up questions? All right, let's go. Here we go. What's something you learned about yourself lately? speaker-1: ⁓ that's, that's a great question. ⁓ about a month ago, I was diagnosed with autism and, so I thought that was fascinating. So I've got complex post-traumatic stress and I've had a lot of questions as to why I couldn't resolve some issues. And for me, something like a diagnosis is a reason, not an excuse. ⁓ A lot of people come across things like this and it's an excuse why not to. For me, it's a reason to understand why and how and how to mitigate some challenges and do some things. that's a very, very good question. wasn't planning ever to talk about that, but thank you. speaker-0: How are you how are you handling that? What is your strategy? speaker-1: Very well, as I said, it was very exciting for me because it made me... So, you know, I was trafficked as a kid and so I grew up in a very adverse situation and I had to become a very good liar and a masquerader. And people with autism are about four times more likely to be abused and trafficked than those that aren't. And so I grew up with this absolute lack of understanding of authenticity. So now you bring that forward with a series of masking behavior. You find out about one thing and you find out about another, but you still find yourself with a series of traits that you're not sure why they are and why you operate that way. And when I had a conversation with this person, it was like, now I get it. Let's actually got a label for it. And the label just gives me something to beat. It doesn't give me a reason why not. It gives me a reason why. And so, you your past will either define you or refine you. And so again, as I said, excuses and reasons. So it's been really, really productive, man. been great. speaker-0: Good for you. All right. What's a small habit or ritual that's giving you energy lately? speaker-1: Oh, the one that I come to every day is Christ coffee and cigars. I'm a Christian man. And I start myself my day with the creator of the universe and a good stogie. I just sit around and talk to him. He's very, very funny. He's got a hell of a sense of humor and he talks like an Australian. I don't know about how you guys hear him, but my God, far as I know, mate, is his front row 40 plays rugby. He's an old rug. speaker-0: Later. Why you put it out there? speaker-1: Good to go. speaker-0: And you've a big piece of pizza here, speaker-1: He's got a lot of hats. He's probably bald, but that's the other thing too. So I sit around and have a chat to him and we talk about like, Jim is a big thing to me. ⁓ Brought a red light sauna just recently. And that's been a really interesting addition to a series of biohacking for biohacking trauma and dealing with that. So that all makes up a very, you know, very rigorous. focused morning ritual. speaker-0: That's good. Who's someone in your life that's influencing your thinking or inspiring you today? speaker-1: It'd be Melissa, my wife. Yeah. Yeah. Melissa, you know, where someone else saw trash, she saw treasure. And, ⁓ she's been my go-to girl. ⁓ you know, she's taught me off the bottle and the barrel a couple of times and being there when in the darkest days, you know, I only ever met Melissa after I had recall of what happened to me as a kid. And, she, she literally didn't know me well. She never knew John 1.0. And so she's been, you know, in this wrestle with me for the last, you know, 10 years. speaker-0: That's awesome. Yeah. All right, one more. When you think about the season you're in right now in your life, what word or phrase describes it for you? speaker-1: ⁓ writer. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: So John 1.0 was before John Aguedan and John Aguedan is what the internal marketing department calls the recall of what happened to me as a kid. So, and you'll know this from PTSD, your brain changes neurologically when you have this recall of all this stuff. So that was John 2.0 and John 2.0 and John 1.0 never got on. They've been fighting each other for the last 15 years. John 2.0 is pretty sure John 1.0 was an anal stuck up bastard and wanted nothing to do with it though. John 1.0 thinks John 2.0 is a lazy prick and just wants to sit under a tree smoking out of own eyebrows. So I thought fuck it, I'm just going for John 3.0, because those two bastards can't get on. 3.0's gotta be a writer because those guys have got nothing to do with any of that shit. speaker-0: jump. Yeah, speaker-1: My cigars and my coffee go, fuck those guys, we're outta here, they're crazy man! They've got a certificate! speaker-0: ⁓ that's great, dude. That might be the best answer I've ever heard for that question, John. Congratulations, man. All right, so let's talk about Let's just start kind of where and my research for you a lot of stuff seemed to have started in 2008 with the recall right, so Talk to us about who you wore who you were before 2008 and kind of that moment when things started coming back to you speaker-1: So I was a very successful entrepreneur, had a series of businesses, traveled the world probably nine months of the year, speaking in corporations and nonprofit groups. And... Made a lot of money, man. I was boo-coo. I was the blowy and go-y sort of guy. I had it all together. John 1.0 literally had it all together for all those things. But John 1.0 was devastatingly unhappy. And he didn't even know that he was unhappy because he was living from the outside in. And I think most of us spend our life living from the outside in until we make a decision or we have an epiphany. When I had recall of what happened to me as a kid, I lost everything. I lost my business. I ended up losing my marriage, a strain from my children. My mental health, you know, I went from traveling the world to having a chronic stutter that was so bad, it was embarrassing. know, people would walk away, run away, you know, they'd see me. ⁓ And so when I moved into that phase of trying to understand what happened to me as a child, trying to comprehend it really, you don't ever understand it, just trying to comprehend what the hell is going on here and the impact it had on my life. So yeah, so that was John 1.0 and you know, very successful business guy and then I had recall of what happened and that happens a lot for men between the ages of 35 and 45. Suppressed memories, rationalization of thought processes. And when it all came flooding back to me, it started and it really didn't stop for about seven years. And it still is a challenge at times. was like little, like eight millimeter frames strung together and played this movie continuously, 24-7. And that's the nature of trauma, particularly suppressed memories or things that aren't dealt with because the brain... will go into survival mode and it will suppress things. And then at some point it says, okay, in order to move forward, we're gonna have to actually deal with this stuff now. And you don't get to choose that. I think you can if you're aware of it, but the moment you're aware of it is really the moment that you're starting to deal with it. And if you're not, if you've really clamped down on it, you know, to survive, and I know that I was in that phase, when it came back, was forced upon me. I had to face this stuff. speaker-0: Was there a trigger that brought it back? you pinpoint like? speaker-1: Daffodils, Daffodils. So when I was growing up, there was a lady that lived two or three doors down, Mrs. McGregor, and she had these plum trees. And they sit in the front yard, and under the plum trees is a of these daffodils. So when life was pretty tough, I'd get up and I'd walk to school. And every spring, I'd wait for these daffodils to come up. And for me, it was like I was counting that I'd survived one more year. And in 2008, it was a beautiful spring morning, mate, like the Simpsons, like blue sky, little fluffy, fluffy clouds. was perfect, man. And I remember stepping outside, it was about 2.45 in the morning. I was going up to have morning tea, a cup of tea. And I looked down and I saw these daffodils and I went, they're beautiful. And then it came flooding back. It's like everything that was tied to my childhood was somehow wrapped into that. And that was a moment. And that's why, you know, the term trigger, People really use it and abuse it. When you actually experience a trigger tied to a traumatic event, it is absolutely devastating. And it rocked my world. I literally went overnight from that to a chronic stutter and inability to communicate. I cried for five or six years. I had day mares, night mares, constant recall. It was a complete mess. speaker-0: What did that teach you about the fragility of your identity and who we are? speaker-1: Great question. I'd like to reframe it if I could. Yeah. In reflection, it actually taught me how resilient we are as human beings. For sure. The body's ability and mind's ability to say, you know what, we can't handle this now, but we're to pick a time in the future and we're going to have a conversation about this. So it taught me how resilient I was. And then to your point and your phrasing, how fragile we are if we don't deal with things. That suppressing things, holding things in, not discussing, not talking about it is not ⁓ macho or masculine. It's actually emotional suicide. And for a lot of us, particularly men, because women talk about things face to face, men talk about things shoulder to shoulder. Like you mentioned, you're going on a marathon with your son and it'll probably be one of the greatest times of your life because you will run beside your boy shoulder to shoulder. And that will deepen your relationship as men like nothing else. And we do that with our mates all the time. So even when it comes to therapy, men are put in an environment which is counter-intuitive to us. I don't want to sit across the face from some guy or some girl and like talk about crap. I want to go and hunt things, do things, fish things, build things. And if I want to have a chat, it's going to come up, you know? And so for men, when we do that, speaker-0: for sure. speaker-1: It's a couple of things that stand in our way of doing it authentically. And some of it has to be very decisional. We have to choose to sit down with a mate and have these conversations. so I don't know, man, I forget what I was talking about, but I was just wrapping it on there. So now speaker-0: That was perfect the fragility of identity or the resilience of our identity. Yeah, I think you said something that does super important there and that's when we We become aware of it speaker-1: Yes, ⁓ authenticity starts with self-awareness. So a liar who lies is authentic. A thief who steals is authentic. They're true to who they really are. Understanding who you truly are, your real nature, is very important to be authentic, living true to yourself. When you live from the outside in, you allow cultural norms, background, childhood, other people's philosophies to dictate who you are, then you're always going to be subject to those things, only at the point where you stop and say, you know what, I need to really... I really, really need to live according to what I believe, which is interesting. Purpose, mission, vision and value. But when you don't have a purpose, you don't know what your mission is, you haven't got a vision for your life and you don't know the values that guide those things, you can't live authentically. And that's just, and it sounds like a little bit like a business seminar. It's really not. It's just spending time with yourself and asking some deep questions to throw the bloody phone away and go for a walk in the woods. You know, and just have a conversation with you. And you know, it's something I learned from a family in Australia from Aboriginal brothers is the ability to sit with self and sit with situations, be it grief or life or struggles or whatever, trauma. And the ability to be able to sit with those things in such a way as to learn from those things and not fight those things. Yeah. Is a little bit, sounds tree huggerish and a little bit home, know, like get crystal grazing. But the fact is, it's just a reality and a truth. And I think men who are comfortable with themselves are a different breed. And I think it's a very important skill because our society is very, very shallow. And unfortunately, the generations coming through, I think some of them have a sense of value of mindfulness and mindfulness of self, but in a very self-absorbed way. And so when I talk about coming into tune with yourself, it is not for self-gratification or flagellation. It's actually for self-development. to grow and be of benefit to those around you. The greatest work you can do on yourself, the people who will benefit from that are the people that you love the most. speaker-0: Yeah, so talk yeah, I agree with that so talk me through So you get flooded with these emotions you get flooded with memories that you had suppressed for years and At what point did you decide that? These weren't gonna break you that you weren't gonna die a broken man that you were going to rebuild Face face what you had suppressed face it and rebuild the life you wanted speaker-1: Okay. No, I got, I got an answer for you on that. Thank you. That's a great question. Great podcast, bro. You do really good job. Thank you. got an answer, but it's going to sound really trite and simplistic and it's not true. So I'm going to give the second one first. The second one is I've been in this recovery process for about 16, 17 years now. And in the last two years, I feel like my feet are under me. So I want people to be very clear about that. I'm not saying, cause we live in a society where it's popcorn, you know, microwave 30 seconds and everything's probably gone. It just, that's just bullshit, man. It doesn't work. When I had recall and it went from these little eight millimeter frames to this one movie in my head, I said a single phrase to myself and I had an inkling, an epiphany at that moment. I believe it was a, you know, I'm a Christian man. I believe it was the creator talking to me and saying, you've got to be careful here. And I said, I'm a victim of sexual abuse. And that was the last time I ever used that word. Because I knew, I just knew instinctively, if I allowed myself to be labeled the victim of anything, I was never going to recover from this. And for a lot of years, I'd fight against that trope internally and externally. I mean, for a lot of years to not allow myself to be fined by a spirit of a victim, to not allow myself to be trapped in this world by anybody. Because you can shop a victim narrative. You can go to a lot of therapists, a lot of groups, get a lot of support from people because you've had a really tough run of things. Be it in the military, be it in the police, be it because of trafficking. And unfortunately, those things define you. They don't refine you. They don't make you into something. Your life actually stops. The moment you start saying, I'm a victim of my past, is the moment you stop progressing and going forward. Now you can understand your past and reflect on that into the future. But the moment you allow yourself to be fine by and I've lost some great mates because of it, I'm in the moment watching one just die, talk himself to death, because he won't graduate from being a victim. speaker-0: you How did forgiveness play into that for you? speaker-1: Forgiveness is the most selfish thing you can ever do for yourself. And it's something you've got to sincerely learn to do. And it's absolutely crucial. You'll... Things can either afflict you or infect you and bitterness is a root that goes down and will corrupt your soul. So things get done to you or you're put into situations where you're witnessing to things or seeing things and they will either infect your soul, your heart, your life or they'll afflict you. The scars, know, scars versus cancer. I heard a quote by a guy who was in Romanian prisons. He was a priest. And while he was in these prisons, he witnessed to the guards and after he got released in the fall of communism, ⁓ His guard, the guard, he got saved, became a Christian. And someone said, well brother, and so, how's it going with reconciling with this guard guy? He said, I haven't. Well, why not? Haven't you forgiven him? He said, yeah, I did. But there's a difference between forgiving and forgetting. And I think we confuse that. My ability to forgive the people who did this to me is very, very powerful. I can forgive them, but I don't have to forget. that they did this to me. And I think that's very important. And because I didn't forget, I saved my children from being exposed to them. Because I didn't forget, I was allowed to put the actions that they did to me that were not caused by me with them. And it was their problem, their issue, and I didn't have to address it with them. I didn't have to try and reconcile with them because I didn't forget. speaker-0: Yeah, that's powerful. What was that process like for you, working yourself through the forgiveness stage? speaker-1: You've got to sit with it a lot. It takes a long time. And you come back to it. And I think this is a challenge, and I think this is where men get stuck a lot too. If something happens, we say we've forgiven it, and we have. And then it comes back up again. It's a little bit like climbing a mountain. And I think we like a mountain analogy because as men we want to climb and overcome, we want to get to the next heights. But if you're facing north off the mountain, you've got a particular view. You go around the mountain as you go up, you're going to come to north again and you're going to see the same view. What I've found in life is as I've traveled around the life path of life going up, progressing, changing Maslow's hierarchy, I would come to the places where I was looking north or south and I would come to the same things that were once a problem and they still were a problem. I just had a new opportunity to deal with them. ⁓ in a new and different way. think when we, okay, here's something that people may not like, but I don't think you ever recover from trauma ⁓ to the level that some of us have been through. I think you spend your life managing it. And my sole task for the last 15, 16 years is to be accumulate tools for my toolbox. And it's like in my head, it's like a little red toolbox with a little red loop and a little black handle, you know, we had as kids. And in my head, it's that. And in my head, every time I discover a new thing to cope and manage, I call it a new tool and I put it in my little, you know, mental toolbox. And as I go through life and I come into a situation, I go, I know how to handle this now. I've got a tool for that. And I think the more we spend time in the journey towards wholeness and wellness, the more tools we accumulate. which gives us the impression to other people that we've become better. You don't cure this thing. You learn to manage this thing very, very well, seamlessly. But what's important is like an alcoholic, and I've got one of my brothers is an alcoholic, and he says, I've got one more binge in me. I don't know if I've got one more recovery. And I think for people with a mental illness, it's very important to understand that I have to be vigilant. I have to keep eating right. going to the gym, doing the things I know to do, reading, making sure I have a good smoke every now and again, because those things are valuable and important to my mental health. And so that little toolbox, they're the things which going forward are very important to me. speaker-0: Yeah, you said something that I'd like to expand upon if you could, and that is that recovery, you're constantly managing it. Right? It's not going to be this moment where it just goes away and it never happened to you. And I think sometimes we get tricked into thinking, if I address this thing and do this thing, it's gone and I move forward. without it, but it's always there. And I'd be curious what you think about accepting the fact that it's always there, it's always part of you, but I can manage it. speaker-1: Yes, that's a great way to put it. So I traveled the world preaching, seeing a lot of things, incredible miracles. mean, mean things like red letter biblical stuff. And so I believe that God could do whatever he wanted to do. That if he could get me to be free from this thing called trauma and PTSD and the church doesn't have a really good doctrine on suffering or mental health. They really don't. We've never spent time. You know, some have, but most people don't want to hear it. want to, you know, whatever. rainbow, sunshine and unicorns, whatever, as opposed to scripture, Christ and understanding Romans. So we don't really have an understanding of that. And I think... Anyway, restate the question again. I was waxing eloquent, I lost thought. speaker-0: Yeah, just accepting the fact that like being aware of our trauma, being aware of what we've gone through is always going to be a management thing that it's never just going to go away and we'll get to a point in life where it never happened. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: and accepting it as part of your story, that it's actually a strength in your story for most of us. speaker-1: I think it is a strength, mate. I think it's very much a strength. ⁓ Because if you allow it to, your past will make you who you're supposed to be, who you long to be. I like John 2.0, as I said before. I never really understood John 1.0. ⁓ He didn't like himself. John 2.0 likes himself. John 3.0 is getting really comfortable with the future. And I think if we allow ourselves to... not be a one trick pony, ⁓ allow ourselves to grow. And it's the concept of sitting with something. You have to be comfortable with it and you have to be comfortable managing this thing. And a lot of us aren't because we don't want to really spend the time. want to take, you know, look at our Zempik, you know, okay, we're going to take a shot that's going to reduce our muscle mass. ⁓ And so then all we are is fat on the bones. Like dude, like Okay, why don't you just like staple your mouth shut or cut off a leg or something like it doesn't make sense that you're going to do that. We want to take these shortcuts. And you know, I'm not talking about chronically obese people or people who have got a thyroid problem. Look, I get it. But you know, 60 % of America's fat, like 60 % of America doesn't need self discipline, maybe, you know, that's a different thing. speaker-0: to use. Yeah, for sure. So John, talk me through this. At what point in your personal healing and in your journey did you go, wait, I can share this with other people and help them. When did that become your mission? That's about you and more about sharing it so that others could join you and work through theirs. speaker-1: So, I've been in Christian ministry for a long time. I churches, planet churches. One of the challenges I always had was that people who would become new Christians would get very excited and especially if they were rock stars or whatever, people would throw them on big stages and 12 or 18 months later they'd fall because they weren't able to reconcile their faith with temptation trials and you know, the word had not taken root. And I never wanted to be that guy. I'd actively encourage people that came into our work to take their time and spend more time concentrating on Christ than building a platform. And I never wanted to be that guy. what I found, the challenge I found when I was trying to get some sort of therapy or help is there was none for me. Still in America now, there's multiple, probably hundreds of houses for women and girls, and there's only one place for men. It's in Texas. I think they're starting another one in North Carolina. There was no therapy groups for men, no therapy groups for men that are being predominantly raped and abused by women, was my case. I tried to go to those, and they'd call me a predator and a pervert, and it was just really a horrible time. So I ended up reading 200 books and I just decided I was going to work out what is this thing called PTSD. went all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, up into the Civil Wars, into Patent and World War II, and battle fatigue and all that stuff. And I remember sitting at this stage, I was divorced and I was living in a one bedroom apartment with a cement block bookcase and a mattress on the floor. was basically a bloody college student again. I had a group approach me about doing a documentary and the documentary went on to become very impactful. A couple of people had done different documentaries. And it was at that stage that I started to write poetry and I published poetry anonymously. And my goal was to just try and find one other guy that I might be able to encourage. And that's really how it started. But for me that process started... ⁓ in 2015 so I was eight years and I knew my feet weren't under me but I knew so there's four tenants I live my life by one is being authentic number two is imagining a future you want to inhabit number three is allow these truths to set those goals and number four is live su su you know the old Finnish word and so for me I was coming to terms with being authentic And I wanted to imagine a future that I wanted to inhabit instead of just living in this concrete box. And that future involved that I never prayed why this happened to me. I only ever asked that he would turn all things around for good. And my future involved this being turned around for good. So when they gave me an opportunity to be on this documentary, you know, against, you know, under much protest from people who love me, I said, yes. because I just wanted something good happen with this. And so understand again, I'm eight years into this thing. I've got a chronic starter, I'm living alone by myself, I'm living from paycheck to paycheck, I'm trying to put my life together, trying to rebuild with my children. And I just knew I didn't want to have then as my, I didn't want to have my now as my tomorrow. And so I started to try and do something and put myself out there. And it was very, very difficult. and it paid a lot for it in terms of emotional cost. ⁓ But I think it was just the right thing to do. if people are going to do that, they have to be ready for it. And when you think you're ready for it, you're not. It's when you know you're not ready for it that you possibly are. I know that's counterintuitive. speaker-0: Yeah, no. What was the hardest part of that decision? speaker-1: I was shit scared. Totally shit scared. Just putting myself out there telling my story that I'd be known as a man who started having sex at four with female caregivers. And that's why I started publishing the poetry anonymously because my kids were in school at the time. But at this stage they were being home schooled and it was a little different. I just knew that I had to... I don't know, it was just very frightening. And really just, it's just not nice. it's, I've got a lot more miles on my clock now until it's talking about this stuff. But before, if I ever did an interview, it would take me three or four days leading up to it, which would be very difficult. And three or four days after, know, I probably, I just wouldn't talk about it. I just didn't, you know, so. speaker-0: How did this? Yeah, no, thank you so much for what you're doing. How did this lead you to creating the foundation, the Give Them a Voice Foundation? speaker-1: Because no one talks about the fact that ⁓ between 45 and 55 percent of all ⁓ trafficking victims are male. No one talks about the fact that about 45 percent of perpetrators are female. No one talks about the fact that ⁓ there's somewhere between 1.5 and 2.2 million ⁓ soldiers, ⁓ males, that have been affected by military sexual trauma. that 40 % of all reported cases of military sexual trauma are by men and they're the only ones, they're the ones that are talked about, the disclosed ones. So, and again, ⁓ with pipe hitters and first responders, like I was working with some very, you know, tough men, tip of the spear guys, and about 60 to 75 % of them had adverse childhood experiences. And if you look at it in law enforcement, Per population, about 1.6 % have had adverse childhood experiences, ace. Police are four times more likely. In fact, 13.7 % of all police officers have had adverse things, but with paramedics and firefighters, it's more like 38%. So if you look at the impact of that career-wise, and we're not talking about any of these things. In fact, if you disclose it to the VA that you've got a childhood issue, you have a pre-existing condition and you learn your benefits. As a copper, You talk about it, you're on death for the rest of your life. And that's not what you signed up. That's not why you signed up to wear the badge. So people just weren't prepared to have conversations about men. ⁓ You know, the Me Too movement is classic about that. It had an opportunity to be all inclusive. It was very much gender politics. The fact that the UN has women and girls, you know, trafficking stuff, nothing to do with boys. And yet anyone who spent time in the sandbox, knows that women are for procreation and boys are for recreation. And about 95 % of those kids over there in places like Iran, under the age of 11, have all been sexually abused. That's how you get ISIS. It's one of their tools. They've done it in Ghana with the boy soldiers for years. So people just weren't talking about this. So the reason I started Give Them a Voice was to just give a voice to the unrepresented. and we were prepared to deal with any organization across the world that was working in trafficking as long as they were working with both boys and girls. speaker-0: What was it like getting that launched and getting that off the ground and getting traction? speaker-1: ⁓ I suppose we approached it a little differently. ⁓ We had the opportunity to work with a group that were involved in the tail end of the Epstein group, Epstein situation back in the day, and then the guy that took over from me, from Peter Niger. So we were working with that level of people, running investigations on the grains of people we had at one point where the organization was burning about a million dollars a month. caring for some kids in protective custody within the US. it became very dangerous for us. I'm an old rugby player, I'm smart but not clever. I just want to climb into a fight and have it. But then I fell in love and my kids were living with me we had devices on our cars and houses bugged and all sorts of things. So that's when we really did a public pivot towards trauma. What I learnt during this phase was, was how disappointed I was in some nonprofits and their... Basically read trafficking of traumatized human beings to raise money I found it an abomination and I really just didn't want to be a part of it So we just went about doing what we could do help people on the side very silently I kind of feel that anyone who's got their name on a banquet for fundraising for rescuing kids from cartels is full of shit because If they were they wouldn't because they couldn't so All of you folks out there writing checks, have just a little think about that from Uncle Johnny. speaker-0: Ha ha! speaker-1: Put your money somewhere else. speaker-0: Yeah, no, that's true. It's such a political term right now, right? Everybody wants to be associated with it. Not actually like solving it, just associated with it to put it on the resume. speaker-1: Dude, that's a thing. It's really sexy to help people get it free, which is a horrible way to say it, but it's the truth. You know what's not sexy is recovery, and that's what we focus on. I worked out it costs about $10,000 per person per year and takes about 10 years. Personally, I spent 15 years and $300,000 to get better. I was privileged to be in a position to be able to do that. That's why we actually started the... that give them a voice foundation and what came out of that, Phoenix Collective. We took that, you know, 15 years and 300,000, we put it into a course that people can take online and self-paced course. It'll take them between three months and two years to go through it, depending on how they do it and how many times they wanna do ⁓ it. basically everything I learned out of the 200 books and 15 years of working out, just, you know, they can just go through it and do it, Hopefully get further down the track than I have. speaker-0: Yeah, I think just accepting that it's going to be a long process. it's speaker-1: It took you a long time to mess up your life, it's gonna take you a long time to fix a bloody thing. speaker-0: Yeah, so let's pivot here, John. I want to get into your writing a little bit, right? You wrote no working title anonymously, as you said, because you weren't sure your community could handle the truth, right? You weren't sure about that. What did that teach you about honesty and leadership? speaker-1: No working title for me was cathartic and therapy. And you know, suppose in some way self-indulgent. It was a way for me to try and process what happened to me as a young man and the impact of trafficking and pornography as a young man and the impact on me later on in life. The destruction in relationships, the devastation of a life, the dreams and things that I will never have an opportunity to see because of what happened and who it caused me to be. So no working title was like that. And I'm just, you know, I've got to make a decision with that book. It's very much a capsule in time. And a lot of it has to be re-edited and rewritten. It's very raw. It's definitely not a coffee table book. You do not want your grandkids picking that crap up, man. To read it is just, it's rough, man. Visceral. It is raw. And so that was that. And then the next book that, so I've written about 30 books. speaker-0: See you speaker-1: And most of them were in the John 1.0 stage and all about business leadership, business development, coaching, all that sort of stuff. So in this next phase, No Working Title was the first one of poetry. And then Deal With It is the one that's just come out of that, which is a memoir on how we recovered. my agent, got blessed with a literary agent, and she's shopping out as a memoir at the moment. But I'll probably just bring that back out to people. because I think it's a bit of a hard read. It's a hard read for a publisher to think there's a market for it. It doesn't really sit next to chicken soup on the salt. My doctor's in theology, but I tell people it's turning shit into fertilizer. If I was to release that book again, I would call it turning shit into fertilizer ⁓ because ⁓ it's a great read. Lives have been radically changed because of that book. Thousands of letters thanking us for it because Melissa and I wrote it together. And this next series of books that I'm writing are fictional recounts of being trafficked, of our work with the Epstein and the Onnigard case. And the latest one is on military sexual trauma about the impact of PTSD, VA and DOD corruption. So that's the latest one. speaker-0: How did the writing help you become more resilient? How did it be like tapping into that? I guess how I want to phrase this, like a lot of times when we're thinking through things, we're thinking very logistically, very like step by step overcoming. How did get into that creative side where you just allow things to flow, play into your resilience and you're building into this John we see today? speaker-1: Great question. So there's two parts to writing I've come to learn. There's the creative and there's the editorial and there's a brain swap that happens there. So when you start with a creative process of writing, you're dumping your information, your ideas, your thoughts. The problem we have is we do that then we see a spelling mistake and we go back to that and we're literally swapping the sides of our brain from right creative to left analytical. And that's what you can't afford to do. you need to get it. For me, I just need to get my whole book out. And I did that with Deal With It and the poetry. I've gone back over and over again. So that's one. But if it's like your soul is constipated and you can't get it flowing, you know there's something there you want to say, you want to think that you're seeing something inside that needs to be dealt with. Pen on paper is a very powerful thing. And I say pen on paper as opposed to thumbs on phones or tablets. Taking note in your phone just counts for gathering ideas to write about later, it doesn't count for anything else. Because it's been proven neurologically that there is something that happens between the hand and a pen on a piece of paper when you're writing in a particular way. There's a process that happens in how your brain rewires things and recalls things. When you're doing this, it's a different sort of response altogether. So there's all the studies out there people can... So I, I would suggest if people wanted to start to use writing to process this, you block out a section of time every day. it's the same section of time. ⁓ for me, it's normally first thing in the morning before I hit the gym because I want to go to the gym. I don't want to write. And if I don't do my writing, I'm not allowed to go to the gym. So, you know, I've got all these rules. Whatever. I just sit. and I look at a paper and I sometimes I'll go just weeks looking at a paper maybe writing one or two sentences about some stuff. And then I'll just start to talk and for me it's a prayerful and a meditative thing. It's like man I'm dealing with this at the moment I've been thinking about this and I'm wondering if I take this and can I build some water tanks outside the house and then I'll start to think about that and chickens. Then I started thinking about why I want to have water things because the world's gone fucking crazy and they're all going to drop bombs on us and fucking all this sort of stuff. So I definitely need some chickens. Well, if you've got some chickens, well, what does that mean? Well, I don't know what having chickens means, but where the hell am going to put chickens? And by the way, I remember a time when I was a kid and I was a farm and I got abuse. ⁓ yeah. Okay. Wow. How the hell did you get there from water tanks and zombie apocalypses and what I got there? So then that starts the next whole series of conversations you're having. with yourself, you know, that I'm having as a Christian man prayerfully. Okay, well, God, what does this mean? Why I'm bloody chickens? What's going on with this, you know? And so these conversations all start to flow in. But what you're doing is you're actually training your body that it is safe to process these emotions. Because if your body feels fearful, if your mind thinks this is a stressful thing, which it is, and you're in a dangerous place, it's not gonna process it. But if you're in a regular place, and you go there day after day for four or five days and nothing bad happens. Like no one breaks in the door. You don't have to shoot anybody this morning. You know, you make sure you've got your gun because then you're not gonna be worried sitting in the shed, even though it's nine o'clock in Texas, in the suburbs, not likely to be attacked by zombies or fucking chickens, but you never know. But I've got a gun. I've got an AR, I've got 45 rounds and a ballistic vest and I'm in my shed with my Bible, my cigar and my coffee. Okay. Now I can write. No, I can't. I've got to go and get one more thing out of there. I've got to get a survival pack and a whistle. I need a whistle. A flotation device. Now I've got a flotation device with a fucking whistle and some floaties. Now I can write. So it takes me a few days to warm up to this. Here I am. I'm writing. Dear God, it's hard to write. My floaties are getting in the way. All right. Cheers, John. Okay, I got one sentence down. It might take me two weeks. speaker-0: But he has speaker-1: But then it's gonna get easier and easier because I'm training my brain. safe, I'm prepared, I'm comfortable, and I really wanna have this conversation with myself. speaker-0: That's such a funny story that yeah, I hundred percent I agree that was good Good way of explaining that it gets you ready to go and allows that emotional safety because that's the thing a lot of us are missing right is Because we don't address things we live in a constant state of I don't say fear But hyper vigilant like our bodies still in a place where it's in fight or flight even though right now we should be relaxed speaker-1: Yeah, and you've got it. It's a trick. You you didn't, you'll know it. We spend our lives as men, particular types of men, you know, if you don't have like too much soy, you know, you don't kill that. Then you are on with your family. And if you take a particular sort of career, you're on all the time. You have to actually train yourself and say in this parameter in this space, I have everything to keep me safe and I am safe. And it's a mantra. I have everything to keep me safe. I am safe. She's safe in the house. I am safe here. I check the front doors before I come to my shed in the bottom of the garden. Why? Because then she's safe. My gates are locked. And those are very, those sound very silly, but they're actually not. Because then I can go, I've got nothing to worry about. I'm safe in this space. I want to do that. And the brain goes, okay, now we can have some conversations. And I think being proactive in that. is a tremendous thing to be able to be and ⁓ it sets you up for wins. speaker-0: Yeah, no, it's especially for our veterans that are maybe coming back from being overseas where they're hyper vigilant about everything. It's just having that conversation that, okay, this is the safe spot and I've done all the things to keep it safe. So now I don't have to be on guard. speaker-1: Yeah, it's like going to the gym. Okay, we all go to the same gym. You know, some, we just all go to the same gym because we know the people in the gym. If we see a stranger, we don't, you know, we're... But being aware of those things, instead of just fearful of those things, like who the hell is that guy? Why the hell is he wearing tapered pants? Why is he singing to Taylor Swift? That guy's a loser. We know that. But he's not likely to, he's not likely to explode. He doesn't have a pager on, he's not going to explode. Yeah. But what we do is we know where the exits are, we know we park in the same spot, and it's okay to have those routines. Often we tell ourselves that a normal person wouldn't have those routines. You're not normal, you're crazy. Okay, so you got a certificate, you know, use it. I have to do this assert, redefine normal. Who knows what bloody normal is anyway? Redefine it. It is normal for me to park in the same spot, check through there, check the exits. Make sure as I'm walking out from the doors, if anyone's following me in, ⁓ I don't let them follow me in. I step to one side. My wife is used to being scooped. Scoop. Why? Because there's a granny in a walker. Who fucking knows what's in that walker? speaker-0: Bye! BITCH! What? Scoop? speaker-1: You grinding? So we do it. We go to the same thing and we go into the gym, it's too crowded. Fuck that. I'm going to go do kettlebells over here. We can get it done. But it's okay to have these rituals because these put boundaries and frameworks into our life that we can manage ourselves. Do that enough times. We do that over time, enough times over time. Then all of a sudden we're training our brain to think differently, feel differently. speaker-0: And if we speaker-1: and then that'll start to overlap into other things. We'll always be vigilant, which is okay, because it's more to do with the nature of us as men, as opposed to the nature of our trauma. And that's okay. We are created. The creator made us that way. We are those people. speaker-0: I love it. John, as we get ready to wrap up, I have a question I want you to ponder for a second, and that is this. When you look at the man you are today, what are you most proud of? speaker-1: So under the previous administration in my first marriage, I was told I was unlovable and incapable of love. And I was actively encouraged to commit suicide. So the fact that I'm alive, I'm really proud of it. I'm proud of the fact that I get up every day and try to be a better version of me for my wife and my kids. I'm very proud of my son. Because in my darkest times, my son still saw me and still saw me as dad, never was ashamed or embarrassed of me. So that's very important to me. I'm proud of him. I'm not saying that I'm responsible for that. I'm just very proud that he's happily married. It's a really great question, mate. I'm really proud of my life, to be honest. I've made it. And when I say made it, I'm not talking like blings and Bentley's. I'm talking like, I've got a little house. It's mine. I've got a little shed. I've got three chickens. I've got a dog who tolerates me, but loves my wife. And, know, I've got a woman who's happy, you know, she's a crazy hippie painter and she's just happy, you know, and, ⁓ I like my life and for most of my life, I've never been happy. And for the last 18 months or so, it, kind of feels like this is weird, man, but this is kind of enjoyable. And so I don't know if it's proud in that sense, but it's like. I like being me and I like being here in this phase of my work, walk on this planet. speaker-0: Yeah, well John, we like you my friend. We're proud of you. It's an honor to have you in our community now and where can our audience connect with you to get into the books just to follow along on your journey? speaker-1: Sure, probably the best place is ⁓ the website, drjohnaking.com. Go there, on media, on any social platforms, Dr. John A. King. I love to connect with him there. I'm across all of them. And, you know, I'd love to do that. Love to see them, you ⁓ you know, we got, we hold six or seven free events a year online. And we hold Manchurch every second Saturday. So if they want to come along and, you know. for faith and fellowship online for an hour and to have coffee, Christ and cigars, they're more than welcome. Got to come and come up this week. And if they want to come along to any of free events, go to drjohnaking.com, you'll find a button there for something, I'm sure. speaker-0: Well, thanks. Yeah, absolutely. John, thank you so much for taking your time. Thank you for trusting us with your story. It's been an honor and a privilege to sit with you today. When you're training with purpose, your fueling can't be an afterthought. That's why I use NeverSecond, the simplest, most reliable system I have found for staying energized, hydrated and steady through their long efforts. Their C-Series carbs take the guesswork out of performance. No stomach drama, no complicated mixing, just clean, consistent fuel. speaker-1: Cheers, brother. speaker-0: that actually works when the miles get long. If you want to train with more intention and recover without feeling wrecked, check out Never Second. Click the link in the show notes to get dialed in. And remember, team, life is far too short to live any other way than on purpose. will see you all again next week.