🇺🇸 John Strelecky (bestselling author): 5 things I wish I knew at 20

Joel Kaczmarek: High five guys, this is Joel and today I have a very special guest on Five Things 20. A man who has been inspiring and making us think with his books for years. No other than the great John Strelecky. Many of you probably know him as the best-selling author of The Big Five for Life and The Café at the Edge of the World. and John knows like no other how to take us on a journey to our inner compass and ask the really really big questions. questions like why are we here what do we want to achieve? or how do we find our personal fulfillment. he has touched millions of people like literally millions around the world with his stories and today he's giving us insights into the five things he wishes he had known when he was 20. i'm really looking forward to this conversation because who better than john sterlecki to give us a few lessons for a fulfilled life? and that being said dear john a warm welcome and how cool is that to have you here?

John Strelecky: Thanks Joel. it's great to be here and thank you for doing what you do. i know you bring a lot of inspiration to people through the podcasts and through the insights that you share. so thanks for having me on the show.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, actually, that's a similar journey as yours. And I guess quite a few people ask themselves when they read your different books. And I mean, we could start right with the Café series, as I call it, because it has like four books so far. And recently, the fifth one just came out. And I was obviously asking myself, the main character is called John. He talks about a life change, like finding to himself how much of a biography is in these books.

John Strelecky: Yeah, there's definitely my own story wrapped in all of the stuff that I write. People ask that too about Safari to Sleebans or Life Safari or The Big Five for Life. And sometimes it's directly from my story that I implement it into the character. And sometimes I will take something from my story and give it to another character. Because it makes more sense. Like we were talking offline a little bit. In the second book in the Cafe series, Mike talks about his experiences with his daughter. And those are 100% based on my own experiences with my daughter. But it made more sense in the context of the story to have Mike being the one sharing that. But yeah, no, I always say I'm the first one who's supposed to read my books. I'm going through the same struggles, the same challenges, asking the same questions as the characters. And so it makes it very easy for me to do the writing because I know exactly what the emotions feel like.

Joel Kaczmarek: But how funny is that? Then it's actually like you are different persons in the same context. Like you're Mike when it comes to parenting. You're the waitress when it comes to, you know, thinking about the turtles, the sea turtles and which ways to follow and which ones don't. I imagine that to be very, very funny, actually.

John Strelecky: You know, it's interesting when you do the writing, or at least for me, when I do the writing process, each character has its own sense ability, its own feeling. The tone of voice is different. And so I would say it's not that I'm adding my voice to that character. When I sit down and do the writing process, I actually see the scenes and I hear the characters talking. And that my job is simply to get it down as fast as possible. I always say the stories are out there and I just get to be part of the writing process. And I can say that with certainty because the characters will say something very often. that is so wise and I know it was not inside my head. So yeah, that's one of the really cool aspects of the Cafe series, all the books really.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, and I was thinking about the book. What does it make so great? Or all of your books. And I realized you're doing something which is actually quite interesting. You have really great concepts with details in them, but at the same time, very, very easy. Yeah, like the idea of having five things you would like to achieve in life. And what you're then doing is put a story around them. And I think it's really, really hard to put a story on these things because it's some kind like a putting things together in a row. And it doesn't feel natural to a certain point if you do it in the wrong way. But you're doing it with a really easy twist. So all of the books feel easy to read. They're not that thick. It's rather short. The story is easy to tell. And I was asking myself, how do you manage to get rid of all this complexity to reduce all that stuff to the max?

John Strelecky: Well, I'm a big fan of stories in general. I found when I was going through school that I did my best learning when it was a story based structure. And so I just try and design it the way that would work best for me, first of all. And second of all, I think that ideally reading is a positive, joyful experience. You want to see what's going to happen next. You want to turn the pages. You want to be engaged with the characters. And so I like a life lesson that is told in a way that feels genuine and has emotion associated with it. If you think about Safari to Sleep and Life Safari, for example, I won't spoil the ending for someone who hasn't read that book yet, but the entire story is a dialogue as two characters are walking across Africa. And so it gives you this amazing chance to share life wisdom for sure. But at the same time you're sharing the life wisdom, you're seeing animals in the wild and they're experiencing what it's like to be on the plains and watching, you know, the incredible animals of Africa. And so you get to add some adventure, you get to add some very cool dialogue, and you get to add some life wisdom while at the same time, hopefully creating enough suspense that the person reading the book wants to turn the page and see what happens next. And that's really my goal. Because I'm not really a fan of the ones that feel sort of like they're forced. You know, it's like someone took a single concept and then said, well, I want to tell it as a parable. So I'll do it this way. But it just doesn't feel genuine to me. I don't enjoy those books as much. And so I don't want to create that type of experience for the reader. I want to create something that's like, genuinely enjoyable.

Joel Kaczmarek: You know, the fascinating thing about this is that you still manage to continue them. I can remember the first book I read was Big Five for Life, and I read it in a business context. So usually when I'm thinking about, like, what would I like to achieve, I'm thinking, you know, self-employed from a business perspective. And then I read The Cafe on the Edge of the World. I said, okay, cool. This is basically the basis for this one. This is, you know, do what you love, find a purpose. And then this one is like, what are the five aspects you would like to put on top? And the idea of a museum that you fill with all the experiences you make. Wow, done. And then I realized, oh, there's a second part, like return to the cafe on the edge of the world. And then there's the third door to the cafe on the edge of the world. And then there's the fourth part. And we're actually close to talking to the fifth part. How do you manage to continue this?

John Strelecky: Yeah, it's so I don't write on demand. I don't say, oh, it's been two years. I need to write another book. But I will have ideas come to me based on my own life experience as it's moving forward. So the second book in the Cafe series, as you said, as we were talking about, there's information in there about the experience of parenthood. And so Mike and his daughter Emma are the the catalyst for that discussion. But that was the phase I was at in my own life where I had my own daughter and I was having these major epiphanies about life and about parenting and about the purpose of life as it relates to parenting. And so my own life had changed enough that it gave me new content. And then for the third book in the series that you see the main character of John struggling with getting older. And I wrote that book as I was approaching 50. And I was really struggling with this concept of having to say goodbye to things that I would never get to experience. You know, when you turn that age, you realize I will never be 18, throwing on a backpack and traveling the world with absolutely no cares, nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, just completely free. You'll never be that again. And that's okay as long as you've had something in your earlier life that checked that box for you. And I had done those things, not at 18, but I did them a little bit later, but it was still something that I struggled with, Joelle. I just had a hard time letting go of the fact that I would never be these different things again. And so I couldn't find my answers. And it was only through the process of writing that third book in the cafe series that I really found my answers, many of which come in the form of this character, Max, who's 80. And Max just like tells it like it is. He's like, listen, it doesn't really matter if you're unhappy about being 50, like you are 50. So get over it because before you realize it, you're going to be 70 and then 80. And so there's an example in there, which is a perfect illustration of what you were asking. Like, where did these ideas come from? So I'm busy writing that book and I'm asking myself these questions. And then this character of Max, I see him talking. I hear the things he's saying. And he's saying, tell me something that you like. And the character of John says, I like Christmas. And he says, okay, what do you like about it? He's like, oh, you know, I like making the cookies and spending time with family and friends. And he's like, all right, how old are you? And he says, how old are you? And he's like, all right, statistically, you got 28 Christmases left. You're like, what the 28? That's all you have left. And what I loved about that moment in the story. And again, I hadn't been able to figure this out in my own. It was only through the writing process is that we often don't assign a numeric value to how many of these types of things we have left. And, you know, if you love to ski and you love ski season, well, subtract your age from statistically what's going to be 79 years old. That's how many ski seasons you have left. And all of a sudden that reframes the human experience in such a different way. And like I said, I could only find that through the process of writing the CAFE book.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, but I can totally imagine what you're saying. I remember when I was a teenager, I saw this episode of the Bill Cosby show and Cliff Huxtable lies in bed with Claire and he says, you know, honey, it's somewhat frustrating. I just turned 50. I can never become an astronaut anymore or a professional NBA player. And she like laughs at him as if this was his goal.

John Strelecky: That was going to happen. Yeah.

Joel Kaczmarek: And he says, of course, this is my goal, but I could have done it in the past. And now I definitely cannot do it anymore. And I have a business friend who actually told me the same. He turned 50 just recently, one or two years ago. And he said, well, I have 15 great holidays left, like summer holidays. And I said, what do you mean? I mean, yeah, you know, at the age of 70, like around 70, I can't go to Africa anymore. that easy. As you know, probably maybe I'm lucky and I have till 90. And I found this slightly depressing, to be honest. How about you?

John Strelecky: Yeah, well, and that's the thing. In the book, you'll see that the character of John pushes back on Max. The character of John finds it depressing. I found it depressing in real life too. And what Max says is, it doesn't matter if you find it depressing. It is. And so you can either sit in the depression or you can realize that the situation is not going to change just because you find it depressing and you can go make it happen. You can make sure that you go to Africa now so that you don't have any regrets later. Because the truth is right there in front of us. I don't know about you, but the people I know who are 75 Even the ones who are in good shape, it's not the same as when you're 25 or 35 or 45. Like your body is just different. And so having that awareness is what enables us to find the courage to take the steps today to live the life that we want so that when we get to 75, we don't look back with regret. We look back with a whole bunch of fantastic Museum Day moments. We may still feel sad that we're already 75 and the end is getting closer, but at least we won't regret the way that we spent the previous decades. And that's the power that comes from this.

Joel Kaczmarek: I can remember in Germany, there was a, I think it was a woman who was working in a hospice, like, you know, basically carrying people over the step of death. And she wrote a book about five things people regret close to death. And actually that was one of them, not doing what you love to do, not talking to friends anymore and all that stuff. So I guess you're right. The best time to do something is now, not tomorrow.

John Strelecky: That's one of my favorite lines from the cafe book. It's the epiphany that John has when he's talking to Ann and he comes to this realization that you can't regret not having done something if you've already done it, or if you're actively doing it right now. And so from a parenting perspective, you can't regret that you didn't spend more time with your kids. If you're actively spending time with your kids, when they're at different phases of life, and this is the only path to victory as it relates to having no regrets. And so once you know that, again, it reframes how you choose to spend the minutes of your day, choose to spend the minutes of your month, your week, your year. And it's just super powerful to me because it's amazing how easy it is to just wake up every day and do stuff. without really consciously thinking about the impact towards the value of life that you want to have.

Joel Kaczmarek: Do you think in prices sometimes? Because what I witness is I see so many people who would love to be like famous or successful, but they do not ask for the price you need to pay to get there. And I'm not talking about monetary prices. I'm talking about time you cannot spend with your family. practice you need to invest, health issues you may get because of overdoing and all that stuff. And also in a positive way, if you're spending more time with your kids, you need to accept the price that your career might not be as successful as a singer or a songwriter or an artist or whatsoever. And you ask yourself, is it worth it? Do you think in prices?

John Strelecky: Yeah, it's funny that you asked that because just the other day, I was thinking about one of the worst phrases from a marketing perspective that has ever been dumped on people. And here in the US, there's a very common, which is you can have it all. You can't. You can't. If you're going to build a business, it's going to require three years worth of dedicated effort to really gain trajectory on that business. And that three years worth of dedicated effort, and I say this from personal experience, means that you're up until two in the morning and you're thinking about it nonstop and you're networking and interacting with people. And hopefully you love it because that's going to dramatically increase the chances that it's going to be successful. But even if you love it, the fact that you're spending that much time on it means you're not doing something else. Maybe you're not spending Fridays, hanging out with your buddies, playing football. Maybe it means that if you have kids, you're not there to tuck them in at night or read them bedtime stories. And so everything comes with a price tag. And it's really, really useful in life to look at the price tag and ask yourself the question, is it worth it? Because you're right. Sadly, we usually just see the pinnacle of somebody's success. We see the athlete at the absolute top of their game. But we don't know what it's like when the game's over and they have to go sit in the ice bath for an hour and a half because their muscles are in such unbelievable pain every single time they play? Or what happens when they turn 45 and they have to go through two knee surgeries? And I'm not saying that's everyone, but I think it's really useful to have a well-rounded perspective and picture of what the upsides are and what the costs are for any time you're going to invest your time.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, I think this is also about comparison. People tend to compare themselves on one level or one aspect. For instance, success. How much money do I get? How famous am I? How hot does my wife look? How big is my car? That shit, you know? But they usually do not compare themselves on. how much effort do I spend? What does his health look like? What does mine look like? This makes comparison probably quite hard because you only do it on one level and not on all the different aspects because it gets too complex, I guess.

John Strelecky: Totally. Interestingly, so you were talking earlier on about the new book from the Cafe Society for Froggen. And in there, one of the biggest questions was about happiness. And people were asking, how do I find more happiness in my life? How do I get more happiness in my life? And so I wrote up two different answers, like two quite long answers to my perspective on those things. And in my research, I found that in Finland, which is considered the happiest country in the world, one of the most specific reasons they say that people there are happy is that they don't compare themselves to others. A, they spend more time in nature, and B, they don't compare themselves to others. It's culturally not something that is normal. And that really resonated with me because at the end of the day, it's not about how good I'm doing compared to somebody else. It's about how good I'm doing compared to how good I think I can do. And so if the max capacity for me given the other elements of life that I want to have. Like maybe if you say, I want to spend every night reading with my kid, that's beautiful. That's wonderful. That's some of the fondest memories that I have in my entire life is every night for like 10 years, my daughter and I would sit and read together from the time that she was super, super little. And I treasure those memories. And I realized that came with a price tag, that there was something else I could have been doing, but that was more important to me. And so allowing yourself to write the storyline that would make you happy with your life and not looking at somebody else's storyline, unless you're looking at it for inspiration, but to not look at it from a comparison perspective is a tremendous tool towards enabling you to have more happiness in your life. Because I think the contrary is you're constantly judging yourself against others. And there's always going to be somebody who has more of something that you're working towards always.

Joel Kaczmarek: I just recently did an interview series. I called it the Pillars of Success and I was asking the people two questions at the beginning. What is your idea of being successful and what is your idea of being happy? And I found out two aspects actually. The first one was I realized the German language has only one word. for being lucky, like for instance, winning a lottery or something and feeling happy. Yeah, I feel happy. And sometimes I asked these guys and said, well, you know, being happy for me means winning a lottery or doing this and that stuff. And I was totally confused. And then I realized, oh, I said, no, I mean, like happy in the sense of being happy, not, you know. And the second part was I realized that they were basically, you know, creating these two images, like being successful means this and being happy means that. And funnily enough, they didn't pay in on each other. So they actually did different stuff than they said. that makes them happy.

John Strelecky: And we're having a unique time in the human story because not that long ago, the idea of doing something that you love It was such a luxury thought. You know, it was, okay, how do I have enough food to feed my family today? And how do I make sure that we're not going to be rained on tonight from a shelter perspective? This is not that long ago in the human storyline that we worried about marauders, we worried about wild animals, we worried about the elements. So this is wonderful that we're at a place now that we have the flexibility and the capacity to be asking ourselves okay what do i want to do? that's actually fulfilling. how do i want to spend my time in a way that makes me feel like i'm really living the life that i want to live and i always think about that. you know it's sort of a responsibility we're so lucky to be at this point in the human story. it would be such a travesty for all the people who suffered to enable us to get here that if we didn't use it you know it's like whoa my grandparents the life that they endured to enable my father to have the life that he had, which then enabled me to have access to the life that I have. I'd be doing a very big disservice to my grandparents if I didn't use my time wisely to live an extraordinary life, given the sacrifices they made.

Joel Kaczmarek: It's an interesting perspective that it's not only to yourself, but also to your ancestors or other persons that came before you.

John Strelecky: And there's plenty of people on the planet who are still struggling to figure out what am I going to eat today? And so it's a bit disrespectful to them too, to not take this opportunity that we've been given and really do something special with it.

Joel Kaczmarek: Before I dive into the fifth part of the cafe with you in just a moment, what do you answer people that are in a situation that's really tough to work on when it comes to finding your purpose? Because there's an American saying like mercenaries versus missionaries, like mercenaries are the guys doing a job to get paid. To be able to do something they love, for instance, go on holiday or something. And missionaries are like basically you who do something they love. But then there's people who say, listen, kid, that's nice what you say in theory, but I have three children. I'm working two jobs. I'm working in a hospital to do this and that. I cannot afford at all. to think about my purpose and you know just stepping back and do things i love because i have to find something to feed my kids. you can basically imagine what i'm talking about. how do you see this like? what's your answer to them? to still find a purpose and something you love and you know manage to do all this?

John Strelecky: Yeah, there's two reasons to do a job that feels purposeful. The first one is because you'll enjoy the minutes of your life that you're spending on that job more. So that's personal gratification. And that's wonderful. And I highly recommend that. Actually, there's three in the context of the story that you just shared. The second is because our kids are constantly watching us. And so if as a parent, what your goal is, is to enable your child to live a happy, fulfilled, satisfied life, then you are the single greatest role model for that. And so if you do it, there's a far greater chance that they will do it because they see by proxy that it's okay to do something that you love and to be courageous to find something that you love. And so sometimes the great courage for people when they're faced with a challenging situation like that is to realize I'm doing this so that my kids have this role model so that they can live this extraordinary life. So that's another reason to do it. The third reason is because when you do something that you love and that you're passionate about, you're just better at it. And when you're better at it, there's a greater chance that you're going to make more money at it. And so this is probably one of the most important reasons why I would recommend it to someone who's working multiple jobs, trying to get ahead in life. If you actually have a passion for something, you enjoy the process of learning. The more you know, the more you become an expert. In our societies, experts make more than generalists. If there are 10,000 people who can do the exact job that you're doing, then by the law of supply and demand, it's very difficult for you to demand a higher wage because there's 9,999 other people who can replace you instantly. But if you have deep, deep expertise in a topic, you become irreplaceable. And now the supply-demand curve has shifted, and people are willing to pay a lot more for your expertise. And again, if you love the topic, learning about it isn't a job. You actually enjoy the process, and it happens easier and faster. And so what I would say to somebody in that situation, first of all, is thank you for being a great parent. Thank you for taking care of your kids. Thank you for wanting to provide for your kids. Now let's see if we can help you make a mental shift that shows you that there's actually a way to do this that will make your life easier. It's not that you should be beating yourself up because you're not focusing on your purpose. Instead, by focusing on your purpose, you're going to increase the chances that your financial wealth grows dramatically, that your kids will have a better sense of what's possible in their life, and you're just going to be happier.

Joel Kaczmarek: As we both love stories, I guess there are quite a few people writing you emails, sending messages on Instagram with their personal stories. What was the most touching one you received?

John Strelecky: The ones that always sort of rip my heart in a beautiful and positive way or grab my heart, I should say, is a better way to phrase that. Over the years, we've had many people and it just happened again when I was in Germany for the tour for this new book. that someone comes up and they share with you that they were going to end their life. And they didn't end their life because something in the stories helped them realize that there's a reason to live. And I never thought when I was younger that I would ever have the opportunity to make a positive difference maybe in any respect in somebody's life. And I never, ever thought that something that I would get to be involved with could be the difference between somebody realizing that life was worth living and life wasn't. And so I'm supremely humbled every time I have those experiences. And it's not that it's more important than the other ones, because what I get a lot is someone comes up and says, thank you so much. Like that cafe story or the big five for life, it really changed my life. And when I ask them, what do you mean by that? They say, well, I changed my job or I changed where I live or I changed this relationship. And those are super, super important because those can have just a cascading effect on the quality of life for that person and the people around them. But I guess because I've had moments in my own life for, especially when I was younger and I looked at the experience and was like, I just don't get it. And I'm not sure there's any point to it either. that I can really relate to that feeling of hopelessness when everything just feels pointless. And so I'm especially touched when the book or the materials can connect with someone who's in that phase.

Joel Kaczmarek: What does the fifth chapter of John's story and not the real John, but the cafe John look like? I mean, in German, people should buy it right now that the book is called Zeit für Fragen im Café am Rande der Welt. And in English, it's also questions about life at the cafe on the edge of the world. What does it look like? I mean, you said chapter two was about, you know, parenting and taking the next step in that episode of finding your purpose. Then we had the aspect of becoming 50. Like what does chapter five look like?

John Strelecky: Yeah, so this is a very different type of book. And so I want to set people's expectations that for those of you who love the cafe story and the setting of the cafe and the characters in the cafe, that this is not that. And so this is 46 questions from people who love the books and love the cafe experience. And have written in to say, I'm struggling with something or I'm curious about something. And can you give me perspective on this? And so it's, first of all, a book that I don't recommend reading start to finish. To the contrary, I would suggest looking at the table of contents and just flipping through it and saying, oh, you know what? Wow, that question on how do I become happy? That's the one that I feel most at this moment in my life is the question I'm asking for myself. Or is it how do I get rid of negative thoughts? Or how do I find my purpose? And so use this as a guide, use the table of contents as a guide for where you start. And then when you're done with that particular chapter, go back to the table of contents and look for the next piece that connects with you. And so this is really answering the questions from fans who love the content in the other books that I've written and are now trying to implement it in their lives. And I call this building a foundation for living an extraordinary life. that certain things, once you know them, shift the way you look at your whole experience. We just talked about this, that the idea of supply and demand based on knowledge, like once you know that, it reframes the point of trying to align the work that you do with passions that you have. You see that it's just a better process to actually win the game of life. And there's been so many of these over the course of my existence that I didn't know, that I struggled with for decades, And I know that if someone just reads seven pages of content on that particular topic, they're going to have at least one or two major epiphanies that help them accelerate their path. I was watching an interview you did, Joelle, and something leapt out at me, which is you said, the goal of a lot of what I do is to help someone learn in four weeks what would take four quarters to learn. And I would say the exact same philosophy is embedded in this book because in those seven pages, which is like, that's the max length I typically do for a chapter. In those seven pages, I guarantee you, you will accelerate your learning on that topic by at least seven months.

Joel Kaczmarek: Great. I love the concept because, you know, we have a common friend. I think we should greet her at this moment. Her name is Karin. Karin Koschig. She also wrote a great book in German. It's called 50 Sätze, die das Leben leichter machen. And her book, as well as your new book, have the same aspect. Did you realize the phenomenon that sometimes in life you open your mind for something and all of a sudden it pops up all of the time? That's like when you have a child and buy a stroller. You see these ones like the same brand you're buying all the time for whatever reason. And in your case, I think it's the same story that you flip through the table of contents and say, oh, this is the topic I'm having right now. So open the probability to find stuff that fits into your situation. So I need to buy it right away.

John Strelecky: Yeah. And, you know, to me, my goal with this book is that it's the kind of thing that, again, someone doesn't read straight through over the course of five days. This is the kind of book where you're going to probably take one or two questions and really allow yourself to immerse your energy in there. Underline a whole lot of stuff that makes sense to you. Circle things that you want to remember for the future right in the margins. And then put it on the nightstand and then go back to it the next day and read one or two chapters. So I think it's probably going to take people a good month, month and a half to go through this book. And then my hope is that it stays on the nightstand because as you've probably experienced, sometimes you go back to a book two years later and you're like, whoa, it's like a different book. Like I realized stuff that I didn't connect to two years earlier. And of course, the content doesn't change, but we change. And so while right now a person might be dealing with this, how do I find more happiness? Two years from now, it might be, how do I deal with these feelings of sadness and depression? Or how do I deal with the question of how can I understand and deal with my fears? And so my hope is that this is a book that stays on someone's nightstand for a long, long time and helps them all the way through the humanist story.

Joel Kaczmarek: I would say actually also the other books are like this. I feel like as if they were some kind of wake-up call. They call you again. Hey, there's this purpose thing. You read about it two years ago. How is it going to them? Okay, you're right. What was it about the green sea turtle? again? Oh, yeah.

John Strelecky: There you go. There you go.

Joel Kaczmarek: But that's the magic about the book, I would say, which I quite love. Thank you. But let's move on to the five aspects you would have loved to know when you were 20. I thought when Karin introduced us, I said, OK, that guy is perfect because, you know, the big five guy talking about the five best things. Are you willing to tell your age? Because I think it's always interesting from what age someone looks back on the 20. Sure.

John Strelecky: Yeah, no, I'm 55 this year. 55.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah. Okay. So 35 years of experience, because what I witnessed was, if I'm asking you when you're 70, I guess the five things differ also, right? So this is actually underlying what you're saying. So what's the first thing you would have loved to know when you're 20?

John Strelecky: Yeah, I would say I would have loved to understand what I call the cosmic algorithm of the universe. And this is a very big, broad topic, so I'll try and skinny it down to a short answer. But in much the same way as you can get on Google and you can type in purple gorillas 50 times in a row, and the algorithm of Google realizes that for whatever reason, you are deeply passionate about purple gorillas, and it will start feeding you content related to that. You'll get pictures and images and articles and stories that there is something called the cosmic algorithm of the universe. And I dedicate a chapter to this in the book, but I'll give you the answer here. that I believe that the human existence works very similarly, that the output that we're providing to the system, to the algorithm of the universe, is looking at that and then supplying us with feedback based on what we're doing. And so if you don't like the life that you're living, look at the inputs that you're giving to the algorithm and start making modifications. If you're feeling frustrated all the time and you're letting yourself vent that frustration and tell frustrating stories and you're watching frustrating news, then don't be surprised if what you get more of is frustrating parts of your life. And I realize that this requires a shift. sometimes that feels dramatic. But let me give you a very specific example that I think will illustrate that the best. If you're very frustrated with the amount of deforestation in the rainforest in the Amazon, your choice is to read article after article and watch video after video of the deforestation. or knowing that the topic exists, you can actively look for examples where the people are either preserving or they are reforesting. And in my experience, that when I fill my mind with people who are actively solving the problem that I am concerned about, it reframes my perspective on the problem. It goes from being unsolvable to I realize that there are options and it gives me more hope and it gives me tactical ways in which I personally can make a positive difference. And so that simple reframe in terms of the algorithm changes the output that I'm getting from the algorithm. So I'm putting the input in that says, this is a topic I'm interested in. Tell me where it's being solved. Tell me where it's being improved. And the algorithm goes, okay, sure. I'll give you videos about that. I'll give you stories about that. I'll give you connections to people. You're going to be at a random party somewhere, and the algorithm goes, oh, you were looking for people who are doing positive things in the Amazon? Wouldn't you know it, out of 50 people, you're going to have this random conversation with someone. They're like, yeah, I just got back. I was working in the Pantalon in the Amazon, and we're doing this amazing project for reforesting the Amazon. So this is what I wish I would have known for the first thing at 20, the way in which this plays out, because I would have changed the inputs that I was putting into the system.

Joel Kaczmarek: I can totally imagine what you're saying because it's sometimes crazy because when it comes to software, it gets visible. But, you know, even there it takes time. I can remember I was flipping through Instagram and my wife was saying like, how's your Instagram usage look like? I say, I don't like this app because basically there's only these bullshit videos of, you know, slapstick shit I'm seeing. And as I was finishing the sentence, I realized, well, wait a minute. I took a look at the display of my wife and showed totally different things. Okay. Oh, I'm the idiot that's looking for slapstick. That makes sense. But I can totally imagine what you're saying. The funny thing is to open your mind to the fact that the universe works like an algorithm. You call it a navigation system in the second part of the cafe books.

John Strelecky: Yes.

Joel Kaczmarek: It's quite interesting.

John Strelecky: Yeah, I love this concept of the navigation system. From many perspectives, this is a conversation that Casey and Jessica have. And in that system, whatever you are typing in, it's like the nav system. If you keep typing in Italian restaurants, it's going to assume that you love Italian restaurants and start providing you with content about that. And so Casey is explaining this to Jessica. And then Jessica says, well, how do I change it? And Casey says, start doing different searches. And it's so hard to accept after decades of our behavior that it's as simple as that. And that's why I wish I would have known it at 20. But in my personal experience at this point at 55, it actually is as simple as that. Now, one day of changing is probably not going to shift the entire algorithm instantly. So it's a process that you go through. But over time, as you make dramatic shifts in what you're putting in, you will see dramatic shifts in what comes back out.

Joel Kaczmarek: The sad part is actually my mom was telling me this at my 20s all of the time. She was saying like, Yeah, she was always attracting the wrong kind of men, like partners she didn't love. or, you know, it always crashed in the end, like one or two years ahead. And she was saying, like, I attract the wrong people all the time. And watch out, son, that you do not attract the wrong people. And I always said, mom, what the heck are you talking about? Do I look as if I have some kind of magnet up my ass or what? Like, how should I attract people? But by now I know what she was saying, because I think that the tough part about your learning is to understand it's very abstract. How do I differ my input when the algorithm or the entity bringing stuff to me is the universe? Because the input might be behavior. might be attitude, might be interests. You know what I'm saying?

John Strelecky: Yeah. So I would say there's a couple of major points to think about in this regard. One is that when the algorithm sees you in a state of confusion, in my experience, the algorithm backs off and says, well, it's clear to me you don't know what you want. And so I will hang here and wait until you figure it out. And so if you're constantly changing your mind, going back and forth, then the algorithm cannot supply you with the information that you truly genuinely need because it feels like you don't actually know what you want. And so the positive elements of this is I've found that when you actually, what I call draw the line in the sand and you say, no, I want to go to Africa and I'm going to go by October 2025. And you commit to it. And maybe you don't know exactly the way that's going to happen yet, but you commit to it and you start telling everybody about it and you start planning for it. It's like magic happens. It's all of a sudden these opportunities come your way, people come your way, resources come your way that you never could have planned before. And the only explanation that I can give for it is the algorithm. Because I've had it happen so many times in so many different ways, whether it's destinations or people I'd like to meet or business opportunities I'm interested in, that this is the only way that I can see that it actually does happen. And Part of it could be, too, that it's energy. And so if you said, I'm going to go to South Africa by October 2025, why are you going to do that? Because I totally want to go. The energy and the positivity that you bring associated with that topic, with that experience, in part carries the day. Because when people see you excited about something, they get excited about it as well. And so as an example, in the job world, when people come to me and say, can you help me find a job? I say, no, I can't help you find a job. And I say, but if you tell me what your dream job is, I will definitely help you find that. But 80 to 90% of the people don't like the job that they do. Why would I want to be part of the process of helping eight or nine out of 10 people find something that they're going to be unhappy at for 40 hours a week? I don't want that as part of my story. But tell me what your dream job is. And now I think about how amazing it's going to be for you to spend those 40 hours a week. now i'm excited to help you and so that's part of it. it is the energy that you're bringing to the storyline that in part determines the response from the people that you're interacting with and that helps the cause.

Joel Kaczmarek: i can remember i had a woman on the show. she's a witch and also a medium. her name is tanya and she told a story actually on air so it's basically open public. And she said, you know, I bought myself a bike, a mountain bike, because I moved to Bavaria and I loved the forest. But this bike was like pain in the ass. I expected it to be much easier, but it was so hard to drive. And I was, you know, grumbling about it all the time. I was frustrated. And I once went on a bike ride and I just did a small pause. Like I went to the woods, took a look at the trees, turned around and my bike was gone. And I said to myself, what's going on? I'm a witch. I'm like, you know, focusing on things. I'm manifestating stuff. Why is my bike on? this can't be? And then she realized, oh, the universe did it. Like I was so frustrated of the bike that the universe said, okay, she doesn't like it. So let's take it away. So her idea was that the universe isn't judging. So the algorithm isn't judging what you're asking for, at least as long as you're clear on what you're looking for. And this is quite a tough part for many people, I think. that they realize that sometimes they focus on stuff that's bad for them. And so you get more of it.

John Strelecky: Yeah. And I'll give you a very specific example as it relates to work, because this is one that seems so present for a lot of people. And it certainly was for me at different phases of my life when I was younger. And so if you believe that the algorithm is a benevolent presence, and again, you can substitute a word that works better for you. If you don't like the word algorithm or universe, you can put God in there. If that word works for you, whatever fits your perception of how this whole experience works, because we're all guessing. I mean, we're all guessing based on our own life experiences and our own terms that work best for us the way this whole structure works. And so I do believe it is a benevolent presence. And so as a loving, benevolent presence, the algorithm looks and says, well, gosh, that guy, John, he spends so much time at that desk, at that cubicle. I mean, look at that. He spends 10 hours a day sitting in that chair, looking at that little screen that's just a few feet away from his face. He must love that. I mean, it's crazy because look, his back hurts him and everything. He's dehydrated and he's missing out on his kid's football game, but still he just sits at that chair and that screen. He must love it. Think of all the things he could be doing, but he's doing that. Since he loves that so much, I will give him more of that. Like I genuinely think that our actions are contributing to the perception that we're feeding into the algorithm. I do want to say, I don't want to minimize anybody's struggles in life. And so when we say things like, okay, the output that you're getting is related to the input that you're putting into the system. I do believe that there is another game going on also. And that is, what is the story of our life? I talk about this in Safari Des Libans or Life Safari, that I do believe this is a game. I believe that statistically we get 28,900 days, hopefully more, sometimes less. But in part of that game, we have picked certain challenges we want to grow from during the human experience. And so part of the storyline is related to the things that we decided we wanted to experience before we got here. And in conjunction with that on a whole nother level is sometimes we're the supporting actor in the play that's going on and sometimes we're the lead actor. And so sometimes what's going on actually isn't about us. It's about our role in the play as it relates to someone else. And so all of these things are combining at the same time. What we can control is what we're putting in and therefore in large degree what we're getting out of the algorithm.

Joel Kaczmarek: When I was talking to Tanja, she was talking about a law. It's called the Hermetic Law of Sending and Receiving. And what she basically was addressing to us that she said, you know, quite a few people are good at sending. So they're hustling all the time, they're working their asses off, they're investing, but they forget to receive. And to receive is quite a passive act of doing. So you lean back, it's about trust in a way that you are carried and that stuff will find you. How do you manage to come into receiving?

John Strelecky: Receiving is one of the toughest things for people who are empathic. The givers of the world love to give. They struggle to receive, I find. And I say that from personal experience. The reason they struggle to receive can be very different depending on the person. I grew up in an environment where it was an implied reciprocity. And so if someone helped you, the expectation was they sort of logged that in the ledger. And then at some point they would call in that favor and say, well, you remember that time when I helped you, so now you got to help me. And even as a child, I didn't like that. I didn't think that felt right because I didn't want to be held responsible to then get the call back. And so that sort of painted a picture in my mind of why I shouldn't ask for help or don't want to get help. The truth that I realize now is something very different in that the reason that we like to help people, those people who are empathic, is because it makes us feel good. And so when we deny others the opportunity to help us, we're actually being incredibly selfish because if it feels good to help others and we don't let other people help us, we're not allowing them to feel good. And that's just selfish. And so much better is to realize that when you're doing something that you're excited about, something that you're passionate about, something that's in alignment with your big five for life or your PFE, in essence, other people will probably really want to participate in that because they take great joy in knowing that they helped you do see or experience the life that you want to do see or experience. And so now I view it completely the opposite. It's better to put it out there and give people the opportunity to contribute if they want to. And if they say no, I don't take it personal. I just realized that for that person, maybe right now they don't have the time, the energy or the interest, but it's not personal. They just are not in the right space to actually help in some capacity. So yeah, one of the greatest things, maybe this is number two of my list of things I wish I'd known when I was 20. And that is ask for help a lot. But ask for help regarding things that you are genuinely passionate about. And if I'd have done that when I was 20, my life would have taken such a different trajectory because I thought I had to figure it all out on my own.

Joel Kaczmarek: And the funny thing is, I can remember there's a very famous entrepreneur here in Germany. He built up all the big internet companies and he was like ruthless and he was always copycatting stuff. So he looked at the US and then copied the idea here and waited until he either exited on the like VNIPO or it was bought by the original. And I can remember one girl went with him to Japan and they were trying to copy the idea of Groupon in Japan. And he was meeting all of his competitors for an interview together with that lady and was asking them the question, how do you do this? How do you do that? What's your idea on this part? And she said, I was sitting next to that guy and I was totally mesmerized by the fact that that your direct competitors actually told all of their secrets and ideas what they thought about the stuff. so what you just said even works if it's against the logic or being positive for your company right. so i guess you're right on this one.

John Strelecky: if we can work in that environment imagine when it's actually something beautiful and positive related to your purpose. people will. they really will go out of their way to help whenever they can.

Joel Kaczmarek: what's your idea on why this is happening like? why are people so happy about it?

John Strelecky: Well, I guess in general, people like to help because it makes them feel good. I think wired within most people who are kind and generous and empathic, then it gives them a degree of happiness and satisfaction. Even for people who aren't wired that way, but they have a strong sense of significance. So their main driver is wanting to know that they're important. Knowing that they helped you achieve makes them feel important. And so it checks a box in their psyche that works. There's lots of reasons. It depends on the person. But the truth is that, again, for people who haven't tried this, I really encourage you to do so because it's something that, like I said, I struggled with forever and would have dramatically accelerated my life in beautiful and positive directions had I have just got comfortable asking the question. I will say one of the reasons that I didn't ask, and I actually talk about this in the intro to the book, funny enough, now that I'm saying it out loud. I used to not ask questions because I was afraid that I would look stupid. And so the minute I ask the question, how do you do this? Or what is the reason you do this? It's demonstrating that I don't know the answer. And my fear was that I didn't want to look stupid. The truth is that by not asking the question and trying to figure everything out on my own, I actually was being stupid. And so It was in my behavior that was required because nobody knows all the answers. And again, asking questions, asking for help is just going to dramatically accelerate your path and your progress. It's just the better, more efficient way to do it. It keeps you much more balanced in life than thinking that you always have to figure everything out on your own. Even the act of going on Google and typing a search in is asking. And so maybe the transition for people is to realize like, why are you comfortable doing that? Well, sure, I can do that on Google. Great. Well, it's the same thing. You just got to ask a real person.

Joel Kaczmarek: I have a guess. I just recently had a podcast on AI search. And what do you think is the amount of searches you start per day with Google?

John Strelecky: Ooh, that's a good question. I would say for myself, it's not that, that many. I would say five to 10 per day. 200. That's the average for a person? Jeez, how in the world are they spending that much time on their computer?

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, because, you know, usually when you type into your browser and the top navigation bar, this is also a Google search in a way. And I realized when this guy was telling me, he's right. And I mean, there's the saying about children as well, that children ask, I think, 1,000 questions a day. 1,000. I have a friend, she has four kids and once said to me, Joel, a kid asks 1,000 questions a day. I have four of them. So I'm answering 4,000 questions every day. Can you imagine what my life looks like?

John Strelecky: They must be asking some of those internally because doing the quick math in my head, at least a question and an answer is going to take a minute, 4,000 minutes in the day. I don't see that being actually happening. Somewhere along there, the math doesn't work, but I love the concept of like being very proactive and asking questions.

Joel Kaczmarek: And I was thinking about this question. Do you think that every kind of help is good help? Because you were mentioning a different type of help at the very beginning of your saying, when you mentioned that you had like neighbors who helped out of the expectation that they receive help back. Or sometimes there's also people helping without being asked. And I think there are really different ways of helping people. What's your perspective on this?

John Strelecky: Well, I think that the more you do this, the more you start to realize who has just a genuine interest in helping you and who might be doing it because of a secondary motivation. And so you'll quickly figure out the difference of the two and then align your asking towards people who are more in conjunction with the type of response you want to get. Some people might be happy about the reciprocal response. they might be more than pleased to accept help knowing that there was going to be a return somewhere down the line. It just didn't work for my psyche, but that might be a great fit for somebody else.

Joel Kaczmarek: Do you believe in karma?

John Strelecky: From what context? Like you're going to come back in your next life and deal with the responses to how you lived your life in this life?

Joel Kaczmarek: That might be one aspect, but actually I think the other one is even if you're not making a list of how many people you have helped, the list is created by the universe, I would say so. So if you're helping a lot of people, they naturally have the wish to help you back. Sometimes it might be that you help person A with something and it's person C or B that helps you. But I think what goes around comes around is some kind of generic law of our universe.

John Strelecky: Yeah, I haven't thought of it in that context before, but now that you're describing it, I would say in my own life experiences, that's true. When I'm doing the best version of John Stralecki, and so I'm living in alignment with my purpose, and part of that purpose is to create Museum Day moments for others. that things will just automatically happen in my life that are special Museum Day moments that are exactly what you talked about. It wasn't directly related to the A action that I took, but C action happens anyway. And so that may be another element of the cosmic algorithm that your contributions, I guess it makes sense in exactly what we were talking about, your contributions are then resulting in feedback that comes back to you. You may not see the direct connection between the two, but there probably is a direct connection.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, the interesting part is, I mean, it's only a picture that you create with the navigation system, yeah? But if you're saying you're typing stuff into the navigation system, whether you call it God or whatsoever, then helping other people is somehow something like looking at other drivers and helping find their way, right? You know what I mean? That's an interesting stretch. And as you just mentioned your name, do you have Polish ancestors? or where does your name come from?

John Strelecky: Yeah, I know that it's Eastern European, so I've had numerous people tell me it's from different regions, but certainly Polish Czech Republic, I get a very typical response back from people saying, hey, is your name, right? And it's from those regions. And so there is an island in Prague that is named Strelecky Island. And supposedly, as the story goes, that's like my great, great, great, somewhere how many, I don't know how many greats it is, but somewhere great-grandfather. was a gardener and he dove in front of an assassin and took a bullet for a prince. And so they named the island after him. That is the way that the story goes. So I haven't actually been there, but that's what my parents were told when they visited there.

Joel Kaczmarek: Are you into ancestry? Do you take a look at that stuff?

John Strelecky: You know, I used to be very not into it from the perspective that I can't take credit for anything that my ancestors did. And if they did something bad, I don't want to take credit for their bad behavior either. And so I used to just put no emphasis on it whatsoever. Now, at this point in my life, I'm very much more curious about the challenges and struggles and the life that they lived and the contributions that they made. And I'm also curious because I do believe that there is a cellular transfer of behavior. And this is generational often. And by cellular, I mean that belief systems get transferred into our DNA in terms of the way that we approach life. Now, the exact mechanics of that, I can't explain for sure. But everything is a combination of protons, neutrons, and electrons, which at a larger form become cells. Those cells are manipulated based on our belief systems. And so what we believe impacts our physicality, our natural state. And so something that happened four generations ago that is still at a cellular level part of your DNA could be part of the way that you think about something. Now, far more likely to me is that it's generationally transferred in terms of behavioral traits. And so as an example, in my own life story, As I said, my grandparents were immigrants. And so as part of their immigrant story, there was an incredibly traumatic moment when my grandmother was just five years old. And she then exhibited a particular type of behavior of wanting to prove that she was worth having around. And I saw that reflected in my father and I see that reflected in siblings. And I'm sure that somebody from the outside would see parts of that in me. And knowing that it's there enables you to say, oh, is that something that I'm happy about in terms of my behaviors or is that something that I want to change? And so I think it's very useful to understand the genealogy and the stories. The stories are more important than probably where people came from. To know that if those are impacting the way you view the world, that you can actually choose something different, that you're not defined by that.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, I was just asking Chet GPT what your last name means. And it says something like Archer or Bowman. So maybe the story is correct, you're saying?

John Strelecky: Yeah, yeah. The Hunter is what I've been told. So yeah, somewhere back in that entire story, there is somebody that was wandering around Eastern Europe, playing some part or role. So yeah.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, but I mean, you're a hunter as well. You're hunting experiences. You're hunting memories.

John Strelecky: Exactly. I'm an adventurer at my core. And what I want is to get to the end of my life with no regrets. And so you're right. I'm hunting those minutes of quality, quality time with the people that I care about, having the experiences that matter to me.

Joel Kaczmarek: But the aspect you just mentioned, I think this comes more to the public right now, is this transgenerational aspect. Because I can totally imagine what you're saying. I was talking to a coach and I asked her, like, why do I have this wish of being on stage? I'm not introverted, I'm not outroverted, I'm like in between. And she said, well, this has to do with your grandpa. And one of my grandfathers is adopted. And he said, this is totally typical of grandfathers being adopted, that their children or their children's children try to prove their value to many people. And I think it's fascinating that this happens across generations. But in my mind, it gets so totally complicated. If both is true, what you just mentioned, if you on the one hand have this transgenerational aspect, on the other hand this aspect of i come to this planet with a plan in mind. there's some kind of you know spiritual world afterwards and you know you know what i mean it gets like so so complicated. it gets

John Strelecky: really fascinating because if one of the challenges that you picked when you were in your pre-human form so let's say you're an energy out there floating in the ether and you say oh i would like to pick this particular challenge i would like to have uncertainty about my self-worth. and And so your soul is looking at all of the possible places you could be born. And it says, oh, look at that. Like that woman wants to have a kid and her grandfather was adopted. So if I make that her kid, he's naturally gonna have that as part of the genealogy. When you look at it from that perspective, you might be like, whoa, that's so complex. But that's actually not complex at all in terms of data sets and the way in which, like it's complex, don't get me wrong. But from what we know about technology now, It's fascinating more than it is complex and more than it is unbelievable. Again, it's something that I think can be incredibly useful. I'll give you a very specific example through a story that I saw that was just so profound. It was about a guy who was a business executive. And he was an incredibly caring father, very loving, very present in his kids' lives. And then when his son turned eight years old, he actually left the country and went to work overseas. So he left his family behind, didn't divorce from his family, but just said, I'm taking this job overseas and I'll come back every three months or so. And his kids were very traumatized by this. They couldn't understand what the heck happened. Like dad was so there. And then all of a sudden he's not there. And I remember having a discussion with him and asking him about his life story. And sure enough, when he was eight years old, his father died. And so how interesting that the code that is written in the mind of an eight-year-old boy is that when son is eight, father goes away. And now sure enough, when this child becomes a man and then has their own child and that son becomes eight, the code that is written in him is when boy becomes eight, father goes away. And so I've seen this time and time again in people's behavior. On so many levels, they can't explain why they're doing what they're doing. They give you rational explanations, but when you understand the story behind the story, you see patterns. And so again, I just think it's fascinating from the perspective of our life is either dictated by these patterns or we can realize we're in control of making the decisions.

Joel Kaczmarek: How do people react when you talk like that to them? Because I was asking myself, I'm in the business world, right? So I have to be like logical a lot of times and think about strategies and all this. And I was always asking myself, like, this might sound pretty spiritual or esoteric to certain people, but I realized the reactions aren't as bad as I expected. As long as you're interested in something and believe in it, from my point of view, people react rather positively. And I think it's also about the time right now, like people looking for solutions because it gets really complicated. But what's your perspective on this? if you're talking about this kind of destiny aspects, transgenerational things?

John Strelecky: I would never bring it into somebody's space if it wasn't something that they asked me about. But if they said, hey, I've been struggling with this lately and I know that you think about life and you think about different ways in which the human experience intersects with different parts of our life, our business life, our family life, the rest of that. Do you have 10 minutes to talk about this? And I would listen to them. I would ask a lot of questions. And the goal ideally is that even if I see the pattern, my goal is to help them see the pattern, not tell them the pattern. And so I would ask them questions and ask them questions. And hopefully you see all of a sudden it clicks that they understand, they see the connection. If not, then I would say, I'm not sure this is true. In hearing your answers, I see something that you may find very interesting. If you'd like, I can walk you down that path. And they're either going to say yes or they're going to say no. If they say no, fine. If they say yes, then I say, okay, so here's what I see. And I'll explain it and I'll say, what do you think about that? So it's very much of just putting information out there, asking them questions. And if it feels right, if they see the connection, fantastic. If not, that's okay too. There's information that we understand to be true based on our own life experiences, but we can't actually show the data set that proves it. And maybe AI will cross that barrier in terms of some of these things. The only pushback that I have on those things is I don't like to think that life is predestined. I firmly believe that each person, no matter where they're at in their story, has the ability to change their life and move it in a different direction, a direction more in alignment with the life that they want to live.

Joel Kaczmarek: Totally on your page here, because they have the same aspect of not believing in predestiny in a way. This is what you and I were talking about before we started the podcast. Some people, you know, need 40 years to find the way they were meant to be. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, what about your third point? I'm curious.

John Strelecky: Third thing that I wish I would have known when I was 20, I would say be more active in sampling from the buffet of life. And so asking people questions, which was my second one, is maybe kind of related to that. But this is more tactical in terms of actually doing this stuff. And so I was uncertain and afraid as I was going through my early stages. And the fear of failure was very dramatic. And I can tie it actually back to a very specific incident. And I only realized that when I was in my 30s. Like, where did the genesis of that fear come from? But if I could go back and have that conversation with myself when I was 20 or just have that awareness when I was 20, I would understand that and know that everybody fails. And actually, the path to victory is through failure. Now, you don't want to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. That is a disaster waiting to happen. However, in order for you to achieve greatness in any field, whether it's learning a language or establishing great relationships with people or business success, you're going to have to try things and some of those are not going to work out. And if you expect that you can get through life by only doing the things that you know you're going to be good at or by only doing the things that you know you can succeed at every single time, your life is going to be quite small, which is how my life view looked back then. And from an outside perspective, it wouldn't have seemed that way. People would have seen me as successful in school, a good athlete. But inside of my head was a perpetual round of fear. And so it would have been awesome to get beyond that.

Joel Kaczmarek: Do you know this picture? It says what success looks like. And it's a straight line from left bottom to right top. What success really looks like. And it's like scratches all the time.

John Strelecky: Yeah, that's so true. And you can only know that, like genuinely know that by actually getting in the game. And so, yeah, that's a great perspective. And you know, the more you study other people's stories, like that would have been, I'll make this my fourth one. So I really wish that I would have been more aware of the power of biographies. And so I call this finding your who's in the context of the big five for life world. where the question is not how do I, so not how do I learn to play guitar? It's not how do I learn to be an entrepreneur? It's not how do I travel around the world? The question is who's already done those things and what was their path? and what did they know already? And then you simply imitate those paths and you can always feel free to do your version of the path, but understanding the who that's out there gives you such an incredible trajectory right from the start. It takes away so many of the fears, so much of the uncertainty, so much of the hesitation, so much of the inaction comes from. how do I do this? And so understanding the power of who's and making that the food that you feed yourself on a regular basis, that has been one of the most powerful things that I've ever learned in my life. I wish I would have known that at 20, 100%.

Joel Kaczmarek: You just mentioned that you could basically nail down your fears down to one moment in your life. Do you feel comfortable talking about it?

John Strelecky: Yeah, sure. I've shared this story in the past in other settings, and it's kind of a long story, so I'll be very brief with it. But basically, I was raised in an environment where my parents had us young, and so there was a lot of stress in the household. And my dad was an entrepreneur trying to build a business, trying to deal with three little kids, a lot going on there. At the same time, now I realize at this phase of life, he was probably also taking care of my grandparents at that point. So dealing with a lot. And because of that, he would vocalize his frustrations in the form of yelling. Like he would yell a lot. So when I was a little kid, I was about five or six years old. He wanted me to go into the basement and find a drill. He was, he needed a drill for a project he was working on. And so I, I remember distinctly this moment of going down into the basement and he told me that it was on the work bench, but you know, five or six, you're quite small. You can't actually see above the work bench. And so I That was a problem. And so I had to climb around something to get on top of the workbench. And our basement was always a disaster. Like there was stuff absolutely everywhere. So A, in addition to the fact that I wasn't tall enough to see and had to climb on here, it was also just stuff was everywhere. And I knew that if I went upstairs without the drill, that he would become angry and yell. And so I was very, very afraid to do that, but I couldn't find it. So after about 20 minutes of looking, I couldn't find it. And I was cowering at the base of the steps, afraid to go up knowing what would happen, but knowing that I couldn't stay in the basement forever. And so finally, I went upstairs and said, I can't find the drill. And sure enough, everything that I knew was going to happen did happen. He was very angry and he stomped very specifically down each of the steps going into the basement to let me know that you failed and went down into the basement and started throwing stuff everywhere, venting his frustration. And, you know, I'm sure the frustration was not at me. As a matter of fact, I'll make this my fifth thing. Remind me in a second. His frustration was at the moment of a dozen things that were going on in his life. and he couldn't find the drill because it wasn't in the basement. So he goes back up the stairs, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, goes back into the garage, throwing things around the garage, and finally finds the drill. It's in the garage. So the whole task of sending me to the basement was actually pointless because it wasn't even in the basement. So there was that aspect of his frustrations that he would vocalize. And then there was a second piece of his personality, which may have been tied to the story I shared about my grandmother. He would never say that he was sorry. And in retrospect now, I think the I'm sorry was tied to the I'm not worth having around. Like if you admit that you failed, oh, well, if you keep failing, maybe you're not worth having around, you know? And this was tied to her story, so generational transfer. And so he would never say that he was sorry. Instead, he would do things that were very kind. And so that night, for example, he may say, okay, we're all going out for ice cream. Everybody gets to pick the own flavor of ice cream that they want on their Sunday. And that was his way of saying, I'm sorry for what happened earlier in the day. But for a little kid, that doesn't, like the dots don't connect. You don't realize that one is related to the other. And so I held this fear of failure down. for many, many years. And I only had the epiphany of what it meant when I had this flashback moment and saw that exact scene that I just described. I was 32 years old at the time and I watched it almost as if I was watching a movie. And amazingly enough, when I got to the end of the movie and I realized that as a 32 year old man, like instantly my fears disappeared because I saw everything that had happened in such a different context. And we all have those. Everybody has situations in their life that are formed when their lens was not fine-tuned enough as it is as an adult. And so you had these experiences and you're looking at them still as an adult, but looking at them through the lens of a child. And if you don't allow yourself to look at them through the lens of the adult, they can continue to negatively impact the way you feel about yourself, what you think you're capable of, the approach to life that you have, all kinds of different ways.

Joel Kaczmarek: Did you have the chance to talk about this with him, to clean the air?

John Strelecky: No, I never did. He had passed away before I had completed the circle of exactly what that meant. We did have a much better relationship in the last decade of his life, for sure. Because even though I never had the conversation with him, I understood things at a different level. And I'll actually share my fifth one because it relates to this story and ties in perfectly. One of the major ahas I've had in my life is this concept called transference. And so Very often in life, we will experience different emotional triggers as we're going through our day. And so it could be, I'll give you a very specific example from my experience with my daughter. So because of that, what I just shared that story, growing up in an environment where there was a lot of yelling on the day that my daughter was born, I committed to her literally in the hospital. When I held her for the very first time, I looked at her and I said, I will never raise my voice to you. I will never yell at you. I will always challenge myself to find another way to get my point across. And so one day she was about three years old. And you probably know this from being a parent yourself. When the kids are little, they can't reach the sink to brush their teeth. And so you have these little stepstools and they have to climb the stepstool to do that. So she's like three years old. And instead of climbing the stepstool to brush her teeth, she's dancing on the stepstool. She's up and down and up and jumping up and down. laughing, goofing off. And my day, Joelle, had been a very frustrating day. I was working on something I was excited about and I had a partner who was supposed to do their part and they didn't do it. I had a contract I was trying to close that didn't close even though they told me it was going to close. And I had like five of those things where other people didn't do their part. And I was carrying all of this frustration inside of me. And so now it's 8.30 at night and it's brush your teeth time. And there's my little kid who's not brushing her teeth because she's dancing up and down the stairs. Now, in and of itself, the dancing is, there's nothing wrong with that. It's actually super cute and super funny in a beautiful moment. But because of my frustrations for the rest of the day are still inside of me and they are boiling because I can't get rid of them, the temptation is to vent that frustration at the person who is dancing up and down the little stairs. And I call this concept transference, where you take the energy that you received from others and you direct it at someone who didn't create it. And sadly, if we're not careful in life, we will often direct it at the people who are most likely to forgive us for it. And the crazy sad thing is your kids will forgive you for almost anything, but it is not necessary to ask them to keep proving that. And so having this tiny filter between our brain and our mouth allows us to realize that in that moment, The child is not the problem. Or it could be your significant other. You know, you come home from a day of work, you're frustrated, and they say, how was your day? Or they drop something accidentally, and all of a sudden, all the frustrations of your day get directed at them, but they were not the source of the problem. And so understanding this concept of transference and putting this filter between your brain and your mouth is one of the single most powerful things that we can do in life. And I definitely wish I would have known that at 20.

Joel Kaczmarek: it's like a lightning rod right there's this energy and it explodes in something. and i really like the fact that you're talking about this point john because i was reading the book the second one of the cafe series and exactly that part drove me crazy because you know i was so frustrated by that guy. i i said to myself hopefully this guy is made up. it's so hard to be so perfect as he is describing this father in this book who's able to not yell at all, but be patient all of the time. I think there's one situation where he says that he basically kind of derailed when he was with his child in a camping situation or something. But I found myself exactly in this situation. I'm someone where I realized, okay, you're basically copying your father in a way, who's some kind of, how do you say in English, like if your emotions rise up really fastly, I'm not sure, but it'd be like someone who's got a fast, hot trigger.

John Strelecky: And so it doesn't take much to set them off very quickly. And when they get set off, it's pretty explosive in the way that they demonstrate it.

Joel Kaczmarek: Exactly. And I mean, I'm happy, as you mentioned, that the part with the sorry, I can imagine this is quite powerful for you or has been quite powerful for you to understand the lack of a sorry was still filled with something else, with some kind of love act. Because what I often do is I sit there and realize that, OK, actually, you were not mad at your children. You were just frustrated because you didn't sleep well. And this is what happened at work. And now your nerve costume is you know not working properly and i go to them and say listen i'm sorry and i think this is a helpful part but still i'm afraid of you know being forced to pay a psychiatric doctor in the future because of what i did to my children.

John Strelecky: well what it comes down to is defining for ourselves who we want to be. i know that a lot of the focus that you do in some of your other podcast work is on the business front. obviously the big five for life book is all about leadership in the context of our connections with other people in life and so It's very easy for us to just accept other people's version of how to do something. We do have the flexibility and the capacity, though, to define for ourselves who we want to be and then hold ourselves to that standard. And again, we absorb code all the time when we're growing up. We absorb code all the time when we're young and working in an environment. Like our perception of leadership is usually driven by our experiences with leaders when we first start working. That's what we think of as leadership. And leadership applies to the way that we interact with others who work with us. It applies to the way we lead our friends and family in a given situation. It also applies to how we lead ourselves. What are the standards that we're holding ourselves accountable towards in life? And sometimes it's the smallest things that enable us to achieve so much bigger things. And again, this tiny filter. So two pieces of that. One is I said to myself, who do I want to be as a father and what standards do I want to hold myself accountable to? Okay, I'm not going to raise my voice. I'm not going to yell. And then I apply this tiny filter. So when I feel the frustration boiling inside of me, And I have the urge to yell. I just pause for just 30 seconds and say, where is that actually coming from? And what would the moment be like if I don't let that out, right? What if I find a different way to do this? And the crazy cool thing is it just challenges us to think. It challenges us to grow. It challenges us to find another way. as opposed to just being responsive to old code that we absorbed when we didn't even realize we were absorbing it. This is so much more authentic when you really think about it. The old code is not authentic. That's just us absorbing code when we're not able to perceive that we're even absorbing it. Us consciously putting a filter that says, wait, what do I actually want to be like in this moment? That's authentic.

Joel Kaczmarek: I tend to call this the inner spectator who's sitting on my shoulder, kind of. Spectating yourself from an outer perspective. But to be honest, it's so insanely hard. Because, you know, it's called derailer because you derail. You lose contact, you know, to the ground in a way. And then, you know, okay, let's breathe. Let's step back. Think for a moment. I think it's insanely hard. I don't know about you. Maybe it's a question of training.

John Strelecky: It's insanely hard in the same way that learning a language or learning to play an instrument is hard. year is the worst because you're dealing with everything that's brand new. you haven't established patterns that you know how to easily navigate. but i would say with any of those and the same with parenting and the same with being a great leader again whether you're leading yourself or others is that the more you do it in the way that you feel most authentic doing it and you see the positive results it becomes easier and easier. let's use the kid example when you lose it with a kid and you engage in transference. You vent your frustrations of the day on them because they dropped their cup. How do they respond? they're hurt and they're sad and they're crying and they can't figure out what just happened. And you created a dissonance as opposed to love in that moment. I don't know a parent in the world who would look at that and be like, great, that's exactly what I was hoping to experience.

Joel Kaczmarek: And even worse, they will copy this behavior as you just mentioned. Oh, that's a great point.

John Strelecky: That's a great point, right? So you're writing code for them. But to the contrary, if instead you put the tiny pause in there, and you demonstrate love, how is that moment like for them? And how does that feel for you? So now you're just establishing things that work better.

Joel Kaczmarek: The thing you just mentioned with the code is interesting. I can remember it felt fearful for me when I realized that my life could have turned out totally different if different things happened to me. Because my father, for instance, he was left alone by his mother. And this had a really, really bad input on his life. And I witnessed that what was on the plate for my father and myself was quite similar in a way, like the capabilities we had, the knowledge we had, the way we treated the world, et cetera, et cetera. And I realized, oh, wow, How would Joe look like if this and that happened to him? Or if he was treated like this and like that? Because, you know, we always tend to think that we are this and that. We are honest. We are direct. We are happy. But in a way, life forms how we are. Or at least I'm asking myself this question. Is it character? Is it traits that I inherit naturally? Or is it things that happened to me and the consequences I take out of this? What's your idea about this?

John Strelecky: I definitely think we're a reflection of the experiences that we have and the environments that we've been introduced and exposed to. I still believe, though, that you can find examples of someone who comes from a similar situation and still has the capacity to turn their life in any direction they want it to go. And so while you may not have written the first one third of the story, you do get to write the second and the third act. And so, you know, yeah. And I think there can be great inspiration, no matter what challenges or struggles that you found yourself in for that first act to, this goes back to the biography piece, finding examples of people who have gone through something similar, learn what they did to enable them to get out of that situation, both physically, emotionally, mentally, and then redirect their life in a direction that they wanted to go and learn from those stories and apply those same techniques to your own life so that you get to write an amazing second and third act.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, that's actually a lovely point as well. The thing you mentioned with the power of who's. Do you mean this like literally when you talk about biographies, like reading and learning about people? Or is it more about mentors, meeting people, talking, having someone guiding you?

John Strelecky: I think all the above is incredibly useful. Often for something that's very specific, you may find it's easier to find the biography of someone who's gone through something like that. But if you can find it in the form of a real person who is willing to be a great mentor, that's spectacular.

Joel Kaczmarek: And I was asking myself when I read this point in your books, how do you prevent yourself from copying something that's not yours? Because if you're looking at the different biography and saying, okay, we have these and that similarities, this and that aspect might be different, but we have these similarities. He did this and that. I should do the same. But maybe It's not the right for you, but for the person you are looking at.

John Strelecky: Yeah, so the goal is to allow yourself to write your version of your story. And sometimes the best thing that you get from the who is learning how they moved away from what wasn't working to a place where they could create their own story. So it doesn't mean that you're going to use their story, act two and act three to imitate for your own life. But the techniques they used to get to the point where they could write the rest of their story is what you're going to use. And then at that point, you create your own version of reality in whatever direction that you want it to go.

Joel Kaczmarek: And in your experience, what does help more, to look at the stuff the people did right or to look at the stuff the people did wrong?

John Strelecky: That probably depends on what the situation is that you're going through. I like to spend my time primarily understanding the things that they did that went wrong, but I really focus on the things that went right. And so I'm willing to learn from someone else's mistakes for sure, but I wouldn't want to spend 80% of my time looking at all the mistakes people made. I'd much rather spend a significant chunk of my time looking at what worked as opposed to what didn't.

Joel Kaczmarek: Is this also about motivation, like seeing positive examples? Because I also realized there's a strange effect. I was always asking myself, why do people go to these anonymic alcoholics things, which I see in TV series or movies sometimes? And as soon as you had the moment of someone telling a story that was painful for him or her, and you witnessed the same or experienced the same, you feel totally bonded. So sometimes it already helps to know that there's someone else in the same situation like you are. But I haven't found out why this is the case.

John Strelecky: Well, I think it's when we feel we're the only one that's experiencing a particular thing or the only one in the situation. We feel very alone and being alone can make you feel afraid. And so when you learn that others have actually experienced something like you're experiencing and have gotten out of it so that they could write their second and third act. that A, makes you realize you're not alone and B, gives you a role model to follow and just gives you confidence that it's possible to move your life in that direction. So I'd say all of those three things are a factor in why that's powerful.

Joel Kaczmarek: Totally makes sense. John, I have the feeling that actually there's so much stuff I would like to think about after talking to you. And this feels like some kind of milestone being complete in a way. So thanks a lot for sharing all of this. I really enjoyed it.

John Strelecky: You're very welcome. Thank you again for hosting the podcast and doing the work that you do. And I love interactions where I get the chance to have a conversation on a podcast and to share because I learn every bit as much from the person I'm talking to as I hope that someone is getting out of the conversation pieces that I'm sharing. And so I love the fact that we got to talk about your experiences as a parent, your experiences in different aspects of your life, and you giving me the framework to share some of mine as well. And I hope that all the listeners can find something in our discussion that connects with them and relates to their life and helps them on their own personal trajectory.

Joel Kaczmarek: Yeah, I guess one of your magic powers, maybe one we share is curiosity. Is that possible? e John Strelecky: Very much so. Yeah. And again, that's something that I had to get comfortable with over time. But that willingness to realize that you're not in this on your own, that there are answers out there and get curious to ask the questit take?