Episode 3 - Control

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Thank you for your kind words about the podcast so far! If you’re enjoying this series, please like and/or comment on this post so we’ll know about it.

In this episode, we move Jon’s story out of the First Act and into the Second. Jon faces a choice, then embarks on a journey … but watch out, because like all heroes on a path to change, Jon brings a flawed strategy into the Second Act with him, and it puts him on the path to more big lows before the tide can possibly begin to rise.

Wondering why I’m talking about Jon like he’s in a character in a book? Subscribe below to get a cheat sheet of the process I used to uncover Jon’s “character arc.”

I also discuss a solidifying of the podcast format in this episode, so listen for that. We now know this will be a five-episode series giving the complete and hopefully-satisfying story … but told in sparse enough detail that you’ll still want to buy the book when we’re done with it. Y’know. Because that’s a thing, too.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

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

SPEAKER A

I said, listen, I'm gonna give you a very important decision tonight. You have one of three options. Optionnumber one is you can kill me right now and there's nothing I can do to stop you. Option number two is Iwill sell everything I own and hire a hitman to kill you. Option number three is that you leave and no oneever sees you again.

SPEAKER B

Close. Welcome to The Impossible Man, the true story of how the inability to move allowed one person totrade his humanity for ODS defying superpowers and how he clawed his way back. Hey, everyone, andwelcome to the Impossible Man. This is our third episode. Big thanks to those of you who got in touchand said that you enjoyed the episode or the podcast as a whole and encouraged us to continue. We aregoing to continue, but we're going to continue in a very specific fashion. So what we've decided is thatthere's just so much that we're going to need to plunge here. There's bottomless stories. I mean, you guyshaven't heard what I have heard from John, but let's just say that there are a lot of rabbit holes, and all ofthe rabbit holes have rabbit holes. So John and I are going to be talking quite a bit. And our original ideato record absolutely everything is kind of falling apart for a few separate reasons, one of which is I didn'tsign on to make a podcast. I'm happy to do it. It was my idea. But there's a book to write here. And if Ispend all this time editing up the podcast, it's a significant expense of time. We don't come out this cleanand polished sounding that requires a lot of effort. And if I keep doing this, then I'm not going to get thatbook finished. And that's obviously not something that we're looking for. And the second reason is if Icould pull back the curtain a little bit, it's honestly commercial. We've been in touch with some peoplewho are advising us on the proposal and pitching this book. And they said, don't put everything out there.Put out a small portion and leave people wanting more. Well, that's exactly what we're going to do, but Ithink we're going to do it in a way that's really going to satisfy you. So I think that this episode that you'reabout to listen to contains both sides of that coin. Number one, you're going to see how many stories arehere. You're going to get a really compelling story from John. Let's just say it involves criminals. It involvescrazy behavior. It's something. But you're also going to be able to tell that there's a lot more to this, thatyou aren't hearing the full story. That's why you got to buy the book. A lot more fits in a book than fits on apodcast. And honestly, it's a better format for it anyway. So what we've decided to do is to complete anoverview of the entire story so that you have the entire story, but you're going to have it in kind of asummary fashion. We anticipate that taking two more episodes for a grand total of five episodes for thispodcast because it was never really meant to be a podcast, podcast ongoing. It was always meant to be alimited run to let you know a little bit about this amazing story and to honestly interest you in learningmore. So this will be episode three, and unless something kind of unusual happens that we aren'texpecting, we think that there will be two more episodes after this. Please keep letting us know if you'reenjoying this because honestly, this is kind of a market test for us. We want to know how interested youguys are and there is still time to get in questions. So if you have any questions, you can always just get intouch with either of us. So I'm not going to waste any more time here, especially not if that tease that youjust heard in the little Stinger opening the episode that story and many more are to come in this episode.And let's just get started. All right, John. So the response has been good to the first couple of episodes.There are a few things that I feel like we should get out of the way, though, that we haven't really done yet,that we've just sort of been assuming. Why are you, a prominent author like you are known as a writer?Why are you working with me on this project at all? Why are you working with any writer?

SPEAKER A

I've tried to write this story many times and it's always ended in disaster. Either I can't write it or it doesn'tfit together right. And I know it. And it eventually occurred to me after going through a lot of therapy, thatthe reason why is I just went through so much trauma during all of this that it just brings up too much painpieces of the story for me to be able to write about it. So in all likelihood, my story, which is the thingeveryone wants from me, is the thing that I am most unable to write. It's probably the only thing I'munable to write. And so that's why it eventually came to me that, well, what if you didn't have to write it,but you could still tell the story and that's where this idea came from.

SPEAKER B

Do you think any of that is distance from the story or I guess I would say lack of distance because you'retoo close to it. So, for instance, the major arc that we're pursuing, this idea of learning to be human, thatwas something that you didn't realize was there from an arc perspective. So do you think that it's just thatit's too emotionally close for all of these stories that you can't do the story justice, or is it more traumaticfor you, or both?

SPEAKER A

When I'm telling these stories, I'm actually experiencing what happened. Some of these stories are abouttimes almost died. Some of these stories are about violence. Some of these stories are about timeswhere I was incredibly depressed. And what happens when I tell those stories is I go back into that statein order to be able to give you as honest of a story as I possibly can. And that results in me losing touchwith the present. And it makes it very hard for me to reflect on how to tell the story appropriately or in themost compelling way.

SPEAKER B

So you told me some stuff before we started recording. It was in this vein, it was cautions about howmuch this was going to affect you and so forth. And that makes me wonder how much you feel that you'vesort of processed all of this stuff just holistically. Because a lot of times you'll hear people who hadtraumatic experiences and they're over it or not over it to greater or lesser degrees. But the way that youtalk about this, it's almost like you're afraid for your sanity if you go back and revisit them. So do you feelthese memories really have that grip on you that you haven't moved through in the ways that you mighthave otherwise?

SPEAKER A

The best definition I've heard of being healed from trauma is that you can relive the experience without ittaking control of you. I am, to that point, with all of these memories that it doesn't take control of me. Thatwasn't always the case. And taking control of you, by the way, can mean different things. Doesn'tnecessarily mean you just go into a trance. It means if there are certain stories you cannot tell, then thatstory is in control because you want to tell that and you can't. And for a long time, that's where I was withmany of these stories, is I wanted to tell them, and I just couldn't. And I've already told all of these storiesnow to therapists, to people I deeply trust, to close friends. And in the beginning, I was not in control. Ifyou start crying uncontrollably while you're telling a story and you don't want to cry uncontrollably, thenyou are not in control. And those kinds of things happen. They don't happen now. Now, I can't say that I'min complete control because the story still makes me feel a certain way, but it at least doesn't control mybehavior. And so from a therapeutic perspective, that's progress.

SPEAKER B

Another question that I wanted to ask before we really resume this story is I realized it would probably bebeneficial to have kind of a quick list of the things that the accomplishments that you have. When I talkabout the things that you've done and the things that you've achieved, I say very successful multimilliondollar business. One of the best known writers on the web, super intelligent, all that sort of thing. But canyou give me a punch list of some of the things that you've done that would be impressive if.

SPEAKER A

Anybody had done them writing things that, as far as they could tell, literally hundreds of millions ofpeople have read? That would be one. I've made a lot of money, but I'm certainly not like, mega rich. Ifanything, I feel like I've underperformed as far as how much money I've made, even though I am amillionaire. So it's kind of weird to say.

SPEAKER B

That underperformed relative to what expectations that you had.

SPEAKER A

When you look at my skill level compared to people with equal skill level at making money and buildingbusinesses, they are all richer than me. Now, I think there are reasons for that. They don't need a team ofnurses to get them out of bed in the morning. My condition, even though I've overcome it to some degree,is still an enormous distraction and time suck, so it still continues to cost me in the realm of business. Butdespite that, I've still managed to make enough money to do anything I.

SPEAKER B

Want to do, anything else that should go on that list.

SPEAKER A

The things that I'm most proud of are none of those things. I'm most proud of finding the courage to goout and start dating. I'm most proud of falling in love. I'm most proud of for finding the courage to seektherapy. Lots of people brag about how much money they make or how popular they are, but at the endof the day, if you have all of that but you're a miserable human being, it's not really worth anything. On theother hand, it's where I reconnected. We even connected for the very first time with my own humanityand became a complete person and even had the courage to fight for that. That's what I'm most proud of.

SPEAKER B

All right, so here's a real big, juicy question. Based on the stuff that we've been talking about with yourarc, that is the answer of an emotionally mature person who has thought through a lot of this. The idea ofbeing proud, of facing demons and going to therapy and all that stuff. What would younger John havesaid?

SPEAKER A

Younger John would have focused on variations of power, whether that be money, influence, or popularity,because younger John, all he cared about was accumulating enough power to not be scared anymore.

SPEAKER B

What were the achievements in the realm of various versions of power?

SPEAKER A

Getting to the point where I could reach anyone in the world and talk to them with enough effort wasn'talways easy. But I eventually got to the point where I can do that. If I want to make a post go viral, I can. IfI ask for favors and powerful people, almost everyone says yes. My good friend David Gonzalez definesinfluence as the number of people that you can ask for a loan for $100,000 and not tell them what it's for,and they immediately just say, yes. That number for me now would probably be pretty high.

SPEAKER B

Well, when we last left off, we covered early days. We covered the beginnings of what I keep calling theemotional callous, and that actually prompted some stuff in you that when you came back, you said, well,there's a lot more to that. There are some other dark stories that contributed to it. So can you just give mekind of a teaser of what other things started happening around this time that were just contributing to thatneed to bunker in and build a shell around yourself so that you couldn't be hurt?

SPEAKER A

Probably the biggest one was my mother and father got divorced, and my mother remarried a guy thatturned out to be the wrong guy. She made some mistakes in love that many of us do, wanting to see thebest in someone, and eventually found out his family was in the Mexican drug cartel. He was an alcoholic.He was violent, I'm guessing through his family, was nearly impossible to keep in jail. And I grew up withhim as a stepfather and not only survived, but I was in a position to where I felt like I had to protect mymother. And I was only 1516. I was a kid in a wheelchair who didn't have a violent bone in his body in theface of an extremely violent drug cartel. And, I mean, I ended up going to Mexico, met members of thecartel. I've sat face to face with a sakario Mexican assassin and had conversations, but still was basicallya kid. I learned that whenever you're around someone who's not afraid to use violence as a way to getwhat they want, that you have to become dangerous to defend yourself. I learned that when you're in thepresence of a killer, he never has to tell you that he's a killer. You can just tell. The most dangerous personis someone who can kill you and feel nothing. The only way to make someone like that afraid of you is forthem to know that you are also capable of killing them and feeling nothing. That is the only person theyrespect. And so, over the course of four years, that's who I became. I never killed anyone. But there weresome close calls to.

SPEAKER B

Point out the obvious. You already said it. You're a kid in a wheelchair. How did you become dangerous?Because it doesn't seem like it was happening in the usual way.

SPEAKER A

The most powerful people in the drug cartel are the guys at the top who order all of the sakarios, all oftheir kitmen to go out and do things, but they are never personally in a fight. So the most dangerousperson isn't actually someone who can do physical violence. It's someone who can order violence done toyou. Without remorse. And that's the way I became dangerous.

SPEAKER B

So you made friends, you made connections.

SPEAKER A

Made friends. I made connections. Killers don't cost that much, especially if you're somewhere likeMexico. I mean, the way it ended was I came out to him one morning and I said, listen, I'm going to giveyou a very important decision to make. You have one of three options. Option number one is you can killme right now and there's nothing I can do to stop you. Option number two is I will sell everything I ownand hire a hitman to kill you. Option number three is that you leave and no one ever sees you again. Andit's one thing to have a 15 or 16 year old to say that to you, but what made it different was he could tellthat I was being 100% honest and that I would have him killed without remorse. And at that time Iabsolutely would have.

SPEAKER B

So he took option C. He took.

SPEAKER A

Option C. It is an enormous credit to my stepfather that he still chose option C, that he still had enoughhumanity in him to do that because the easiest option to take would have been option A to kill me right atthat moment. So when I made that bet, I was betting, and I knew this, that he still had enough humanityleft in him to make that choice.

SPEAKER B

Well, I'm also going to assume that there wasn't an undeniable amount of pro for him to stay. Did he reallywant to stay? Was he ready to go? And it was then more of a matter of pride of not being caught out bysome young punk?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I think he didn't really want to stay. I think there was some pride. And also, I think at Cart he was acoward, so he was never allowed into the cartel because he was seen as too much of a hothead and justkind of an idiot. But also, I think he did love my mother. I think he did respect me and I think he did feelregret for things he had done and the way that he had affected us. And he just needed someone to tellhim, this is really it.

SPEAKER B

And I mean, it needed the decision made for him. Right, because he might have felt the need to waffle insome way if you hadn't made it clear.

SPEAKER A

Yeah. And he was also familiar enough where if he hadn't believed me, he wouldn't have left. But hehundred percent believed that what I was telling him was true. His face actually turned white when I toldhim and he didn't say a word. He went and packed his stuff and he left and I've never seen it again.

SPEAKER B

All right, well, then I circle back to where do you go from there? Because that in itself is its own fantasticstory. And now I'm imagining you kind of go back to normal life, and that just seems weird. Aftersomething like that, I went back.

SPEAKER A

To a somewhat more normal life, but I was the same person. He had still turned me into someone whocould kill without remorse. I'm grateful I've never had to do that. But even if your life circumstanceschange, it's not something that goes away. And even now, it's still with me. If I were to ever becomeconvinced that the absolutely only option was to kill someone, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind Icould do it. And I say that knowing this is being recorded.

SPEAKER B

Well, so you're 16 with this attitude, so that's pretty dark. At age 16, you still had high school to finish, youstill had college to do, you still had a lot of normal world stuff to do. Did it just kind of bubble into thebackground?

SPEAKER A

So I graduated like two or three months after this happened. I graduated a year early, and I was one ofthose kids who started school young, so I graduated when I was 16. What I learned from that experiencewas I had to be in charge or no one was safe. That was a subconscious thing, and I don't agree with thatlesson. I wasn't even aware until I started going through therapy that that was the lesson I took away fromit. And it basically been operating my life under. And so I would never let anyone ever be in charge of anysemblance of authority or leadership. I would immediately attack it.

SPEAKER B

Can you give me an example?

SPEAKER A

I got kicked out of church because I kept challenging the authority of the pastor, kept asking questionsthat I knew would be embarrassing, that he wouldn't know the answer to. I was doing it to deliberatelyundermine him in front of the congregation. Why? Because I couldn't let someone else be in charge. Itwas important to me at the time for everyone to know that I knew the Bible better than the pastor.

SPEAKER B

We've joked a little bit modern day. It's kind of a half joke because it's definitely true, is that you do havean ego. You're unapologetic about thinking that you're pretty darn smart and that sort of thing. So where isthe overlap there? Because there is an egotistical aspect of I know better than everyone else. Ego isdifferent from this wound where you feel you need to control because it's coming out of a scarcity, andyou're going to be damaged if you aren't in control. Was there interplay there?

SPEAKER A

There was. It was totally about control. It was totally about humiliating other authority figures. I made twoprofessors in computer science actually break down and cry in front of their classes. And the way that Idid it was literally by doing more advanced stuff than they could and then humiliating them in front oftheir classes. So we're not talking about the ego of saying, I know I'm smart, or even I know I'm smarterthan you. It's I'm smarter than you, and everyone is going to know it.

SPEAKER B

So you keep it a little more to yourself these days.

SPEAKER A

I eventually, after going through therapy, learned that this was my pattern. Eventually I got to the pointwhere now I want people around who are smarter than me and better than me, and I want them to be incharge. I would say nowadays I don't have nearly as much ego as even when you met me, and it'simmensely freeing. Imagine being someone so afraid all the time that you have to be in control ofeveryone all the time. That's who I was. Now, as I got a little bit older and more mature, I got better atcontrolling myself and not rubbing it in people's faces, especially not in the public way. But I was still thatperson, and I would still find ways to undermine them that didn't reflect as badly on me as a person.

SPEAKER B

And it sounds like you were able to do it kind of like a ninja, too. You described some of those schoolthings as, well, your mom never knew, and teachers never knew. So not only were you manipulatingpeople, you were doing it in a way where you came out looking like roses.

SPEAKER A

I was still doing that until 38, 39 years old, and it was finally a therapist who saw my behavior, realizedwhat was happening, and directly challenged me.

SPEAKER B

About it back at age 16 or something. So this is around the time that you're doing the software companyas well. The story that you told that was around 16.

SPEAKER A

I think I was 17 when I started it because the sequence of events were I finished high school like, twoweeks later. I went into summer, summer school in college. I didn't even wait until the fall semester, and Idid two or three semesters, and then all of this was happening with teachers. I was immensely fed upwith school and authority, and a brilliant programmer invited me to launch a virtual reality company withhim, and I took him up on it.

SPEAKER B

Is that the guy who wore the sword on his belt?

SPEAKER A

Yes, that was Kip, now known as Kenzie, because Kenzie is trans. But Kip at the time was the mostbrilliant programmer and one of the most brilliant people ever that I've ever met. We're talking 100 and8190 IQ. Someone just off the charts smart. Kip liked me because I was smart enough to keep up withhim, and he was completely incapable of socially acceptable behavior.

SPEAKER B

Well, the things that I know about Kip, because you've told this story before, is that at the time, he onlyate Hot Pockets. He only drank Mountain Dew and used a chair that had to be specially made because itwas like a kneeling chair or something.

SPEAKER A

Yeah. Couldn't have any back on it. Kip also had extreme Add and found the drugs to be intolerable. Onetime we had a meeting with a banker and he ran out of a room chasing a bug. Only after he killed the bugto realize what he'd done and to come back in the meeting embarrassed. Kip was a Goth and used todelight in causing mischief. So he lived right next to a funeral parlor, and his father in law made an aircannon that could shoot a balloon a mile into the air without popping it. But Kip had this air cannon andwould fill it with skittles and shoot them over the funeral parlor. While they were having funerals outside,kip would fill it with rubber chickens and shoot them over the funerals. He would trim his hedges with hissamurai sword. It was a real samurai sword. So, brilliant programmer. He did the job of at least 50 people,50 programmers, all by himself. He was the programming department, and he was pretty much incapableof working with almost all other programmers. He had one friend who he could work with named Cyclone.No idea what his real name was. Quite an OD bunch that I fell into, but I actually felt at home.

SPEAKER B

This was your company. This was the company that you formed, and these people worked for you or withyou.

SPEAKER A

And we made virtual reality software for the Defense Department for soldiers to learn various languages,mostly Middle Eastern languages. At the time. It was extremely cutting edge. Nowadays, it's a jokecompared to the stuff that's out there. But it was my first company. My father was the biggest investor. Hefunded everything until he couldn't anymore. And I had no idea what I was doing, but I didn't know that atthe time. I figured I was really smart. Tip was really smart. Of course we were going to be a success. Weoperated for, I don't know, a year and a half. And my dad had a business partner rob him of several milliondollars. Right when this was happening, he couldn't give us the money he had promised. We had to shutthe company down. Once people found out that we basically only had a runaway of like, three or fourmonths, they all quit. It sounds obvious, like, why people would do that, but John at the time wasimmensely shocked and betrayed.

SPEAKER B

I think we decided this was one of the biggest, the first really big landmarks that made you kind of perkup and say, maybe the way that I'm relating to people is not the most productive. Is that a fair way to saythat?

SPEAKER A

Yeah. Up until that point in my life, every challenge I had faced, I had overcome every single one. This wasliterally the first one where I gave it everything I had and it wasn't enough.

SPEAKER B

So what did you blame for that? Did you blame the other people? I'm I'm guessing you weren't blamingyourself. And what I'm looking for is the leverage point at which you said, maybe I need some changes. Ineed to make for probably two to three months.

SPEAKER A

I blamed other people for not being committed, for stabbing me in the back. I blamed Kip. I blamed allmy employees. I blamed my father.

SPEAKER B

You blamed him because he had his failings and didn't have the money or because he'd done somethingelse?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, because he didn't have the money, and he'd promised it to me. I felt like, I'm giving it everything Ihave, and I'm the only one. No one else is trying this art. This went on for a month or two, but eventuallyeveryone left and just kind of left me by myself. I didn't really have anyone to be mad at. And I wasinsightful enough to realize, put yourself in the position of someone who has to be in charge, or no one issafe. Someone who loses control of everyone around them. My learning at the time was basically, I'm notgood enough at manipulating people. I don't know if I would have put it in those words at the time, but itwas, I'm not connecting with them on an emotional level. I'm not a leader they respect. I don't haveinfluence. I don't have power. And I need to fix that or no one will follow me, and that won't be in control.

SPEAKER B

Tony Robbins has this idea of a primary question, and it's like if the primary question is answerednegatively, if it's violated, that's like, the worst thing that can happen to somebody. So it sounds to me likeat this time, your primary question was, am I in control? Am I safe? And it sounds like you hit a placewhere the answer was, no, I am not in control, therefore, I am not safe. It sounds to me no wonder youwould have a downward spiral.

SPEAKER A

And I went through a dark period for three or four months, got pretty depressed, eventually even realizedstarted to learn about depression and realized I fiddled the symptoms for being depressed. The way Ilifted myself out of it was I decided, I'm going to learn about people. I'm going to learn about emotions.And even saying that out loud makes me laugh a little bit, because it's like, going to learn about emotions.

SPEAKER B

How did you connect the dots between your lack of understanding of people? Was the reason becauseyou went to it from, they abandoned me. They gave up, and I didn't give up. So how did you get to thepoint where you were developing enough empathy to say, maybe they might have had some other depthto them that I couldn't see? Because I don't have empathy, therefore I need to develop it.

SPEAKER A

I don't know if I would call it empathy. Maybe it was very, very low level empathy. But my thinking was, if Ihad enough influence over them, they would have stayed with me even when they weren't being. Paid.

SPEAKER B

So you were looking for a manipulation tool. You were looking for leverage.

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER B

Okay. And how did you get it?

SPEAKER A

Watching movies was originally how it started. I decided I was going to study people, basically, because Ididn't, at the time, have many emotions. I didn't understand anything about my own emotions. I wascompletely closed off. I'd just been with the stepfather that trained me how to be able to kill someoneand not feel anything. I signed up for a Blockbuster membership. They had this thing at the time that waslike $20 a month, and you could rent as many movies as you wanted, but two at a time. So you could renttwo, you'd have to bring them back, and you could have two more. And so I literally brought back my twomovies every day. I'd watch two movies a day, every single day. And my intent was to understandemotion. My intent was to understand people.

SPEAKER B

What's interesting to me is that it's this exact same approach that you took to understanding pneumoniaand lung anatomy is that you said, give I'm just going to do a shit ton of practice and learning, and I'mgoing to I mean, it's bulk you're talking. I think when you told me this before, you said it was 300 moviesthat summer. Just sheer force of will.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, 300 movies. They told me it was a record. No one had ever rented that many movies in a year.

SPEAKER B

Were you systematic about it? Did you take notes?

SPEAKER A

I didn't take notes, but I would set aside certain movies to watch over and over again.

SPEAKER B

Like what?

SPEAKER A

Fight Club. Fight club fascinated me. Seabiscuit fascinated the fact that everyone would believe inSeabiscuit after he was this lame horse. Absolutely fascinated.

SPEAKER B

Well, now, hang on a second, because I didn't know this element. So Fight Club is all about manipulation.Fight Club is very cult like, and the book is even more so. Seabiscuit, you just said that you werefascinated because nobody would believe in this horse, and you wanted to know how if I may take someliberties, the horse got people to believe in him. I mean, obviously it was trainers and stuff. So this is verydirected and practical. Were most of your investigations targeted at how to get people to believe? I mean,it almost sounds like you were trying to develop a cult.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I didn't realize it at the time, but I wanted to be able to control people, not for any evil purpose. Ididn't wish anyone harm. I just didn't want to be scared. I wanted to feel safe.

SPEAKER B

Well, the flip side of that is understanding psychology. If you don't understand how people think and whatmade them leave, that must be the ultimate out of control, because you can't prevent something youdon't understand.

SPEAKER A

Yeah. And the fact that it was a surprise that they left and it was a surprise, I realized that there must besomething I don't understand. It can't be a surprise if you truly understand it. So I went to work trying tounderstand people.

SPEAKER B

So did your investigations, did you kind of like biosmosis imbibe anything that wasn't strictly that goal thatyou found yourself developing empathy or emotions that you didn't expect?

SPEAKER A

That was the unintended consequences of what started happening, is I started watching movies thatdidn't make me feel things and started to pay attention to those feelings and even journal about what Iwas feeling. I wasn't doing it as any sort of therapy. I was doing it in sense of curiosity. So, yeah, I wantedto understand myself better. And I became familiar with the concept that we can go through life and notknow who we are. And so I set about trying to understand who I was.

SPEAKER B

What's interesting to me about this is that you're starting with a cold emotionless, by your definition, sortof approach to this, that's almost it's facile you're looking to get a tool, but it sounds like you also had thisgreat degree of introspection, which does not normally go with that. Normally somebody who's looking forcontrol. There's an infallibility that is almost like armor, but it also sounds like you were aware of ashortcoming, which feels like it maybe contradicts that because you were aware that you were missingsomething and you were willing to see it.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I was. And I think I got that from trying to understand pneumonia, trying to understand differentdifficult problems. The worst thing that can happen when you're trying to survive any sort of medical issueis something no one expects. That's the absolute worst thing that can happen. So my theory wasignorance is the worst thing there is. It puts you in more danger than anything. And so my desire not to beignorant was much greater than my desire not to be wrong.

SPEAKER B

Where did you get this bulk action thing that you do? Because this is skipping ahead, but in addition toreading all the FDA things and being super aware of lung anatomy for pneumonia, in addition to binginglike nobody's business on movies in order to understand emotion, there's a story. When you startedworking with copy blogger, which is a very large copywriting blog and writing blog that you wrote, howmany headlines was it in the course of a year?

SPEAKER A

36,000.

SPEAKER B

And that's a bulk action thing too. And I know there are other things. I know that your approach to kind oflearning dating was similar. And so where did that come from, that idea of, I'm just going to just force feedall this data into the machine? It almost sounds like a programmer's mentality, or AI mentality for thatmatter.

SPEAKER A

I think very much like a programmer does. I don't think it was anything more than logic. No one taught itto me. I didn't see it anywhere that I recall. But, I mean, imagine a doctor tells you you're dying and here'ssome books, that the answer could be somewhere in these books. Well, the logical thing to do is to readall the books, every page.

SPEAKER B

As fast as you can, but multiple times, right? Because you said you read the Bible.

SPEAKER A

Like 100 times, 20 something times. Yeah, but it's still way more than most people. It's more than mostpastors. But I definitely picked it up just learning to survive. And for me, it was just logical. If the answer issomewhere here, and if ignorance is the worst thing there is, then of course I'm going to dedicate myselfto becoming an absolute expert on this.

SPEAKER B

An expert means more information.

SPEAKER A

More information. And so during this process of watching movies, I also started to I became introduced tothe idea of psychology and influence and the work of Robert Chaldini and the whole concept of sales andmarketing. And again, being someone who wanted to control the world, I was absolutely fascinated andread every book I could find. And at the time, I was so broke, I went through all the books in the locallibraries. And then I went to Barnes and Noble and I read entire aisles of Barnes and Noble sitting in theaisle, and they never kicked me out. They knew what I was doing, but they never kicked me out. Thankyou, Barnes and Noble employees. I appreciate that. But yeah, I just kept reading and reading and readingand reading and reading, and eventually started to use that. For someone with a learned for introspection.

SPEAKER B

Maybe a good way to close out this episode is so, again, I'm thinking like a fiction writer. And so I havewhat is probably a reasonably hard question, but let's see if what you think of it. And that is so we're intothe first act here because you have realized that there's an adventure to go on. In this case, an internalone, where you had to well, first of all, literally, you had to get out, kind of away from the protectiveumbrella of your parents you talked about that where you realized it was up to you, but also thisemotional journey that you're beginning on. So we're into the first act. And the first half of the first act issort of hallmarked by the hero attempting to get what they want, which is, in your case, to be safe byusing the means that they the flawed means that they have used from the beginning, which in this casewas trying to control people. Now, eventually, I'm thinking we get to a point where you feel safe withoutcontrolling people. But would you agree that during this phase, did it feel like there were ways in whichyou were beginning to change? You were beginning to see some empathy, but you were still trying to besafe by controlling everything and everyone?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, definitely. I think that definitely describes what I was doing. And eventually it got to the point whereI did control everything and everyone.

SPEAKER B

In what way?

SPEAKER A

Everyone did what I said. Before I went into therapy, there wasn't a single person who worked for me oreven members of my family who I didn't control in some way. I went through a time in my life where Ieven felt guilty about this when I was going to therapy. Oh, my God. Am I a narcissist? What is this? Inever controlled them to try to make money from them, to hurt them in any way. If anything, I tried toprotect them. I was trying to control people just so I would feel safe.

SPEAKER B

Little like a helicopter parent controls a kid because they're afraid for the kid, but it's really about theirown insecurity.

SPEAKER A

Exactly. I didn't do anything even remotely evil to anyone. I was a good person. Everyone liked me. But atthe same time, if you wouldn't let me be in charge, then you were out.

SPEAKER B

So you told me in an interview that we did back when we first met, I had this framed as like, why youwere so unstoppable, why you were able to achieve anything. But now it feels like it might be a symptomof this wound. Honestly, you said, there's nobody in my life that I wouldn't walk away from if they told me Icouldn't do something that I wanted or needed to do. And that sounds to me like this is it, or am I offbase?

SPEAKER A

No, it's totally this.

SPEAKER B

So now would you distance yourself from somebody who said you couldn't do something, or would youhave a different response?

SPEAKER A

One of the things that changed the most about me doing therapy is I now have zero desire to controlpeople. I feel safe even when I'm not in control.

SPEAKER B

When did that begin to happen? Do you remember a first incident? Was it pre therapy or did it take theintrospection of therapy?

SPEAKER A

It took therapy, and the therapy I went through for this was extreme to the point where it angeredeveryone close to me because they thought it was dangerous and it wasn't. But it was definitely extreme.The therapist even told me I've never had to do anything that extreme.

SPEAKER B

Okay, I feel like I've seen a little bit of the therapy thing, and we should save that for the next episode. Butit sounds like you would agree that first that movie phase was all about still trying to control, butrecognizing that a change was necessary. And you got to the point where you'd done the 300 movies,and then did you feel like after that summer of movies, did you feel satisfied where, like, you just ate anentire cake, but you still want more? Or was it more like, no, that did the job? I feel like I understandpeople now.

SPEAKER A

It was more the second.

SPEAKER B

In what way? How did you quantify that? Or was there any recognition that maybe the control wasn't asnecessary as you thought?

SPEAKER A

My real perspective was, I have a tool, but the toolbox wasn't complete. After the movies, I understoodemotions better.

SPEAKER B

But you needed to understand them more. You needed another piece.

SPEAKER A

No. Understanding emotion and even empathy is only one part of influence. So after this, I went back toschool and I majored in English. I'd always been really good in English, but the real reason why I majoredin English words are another tool that can be used to control people.

SPEAKER B

So this sounds like your classic case of the universe or something tells you that there's something wrong,that a change is needed. That was your wake up call with the business and your dad's financial strugglesand all that, but it sounds like you kind of got the wrong lesson. It sounded like you felt that you justneeded to control people more and influence people more. Okay, well, that's probably a good point tostop, because I'm thinking after this, you're going to begin to see the holes in that. Can you give me aquick answer? Do you begin to see the holes in that later?

SPEAKER A

No. The journey of learning how to control better and better and better lasted 15 years. The way it ended,the way I realized there was something more, was eventually I was in complete control, and I still didn'tfeel safe.

SPEAKER B

All right, everybody, it's just Johnny here to close this out. We have two more episodes coming after thisone to finish the summary version of John's story, which is pretty fantastic in itself. I'll just remind you aswe close out, please be in touch. We're doing this in a vacuum. We don't really know what people arethinking unless they get in touch. So this is posted on my website@johnnybtruant.com. You can alwayscomment on those posts. You can reach John on Twitter at at johnmarrow jonmorrow, and you can reachme at johnny@johnnybtruant.com. And I would also encourage you if you're at all interested in thisprocess that John and I are using, where I keep coming in and I saying, as a fiction author, I'm trying tounderstand the arc, and I'm prompting him on things as if I were writing a work of fiction. And if you'recurious about that process, I wrote up a whole post about it on my site@johnnybtruant.com. And all youneed to do is to subscribe to the site. It doesn't cost anything. You just sign up, you enter your emailaddress, you'll get new posts and email. And in the first email, there's a link to that post that I justmentioned where I describe exactly the process that I'm using here and what goes into that. So with all ofthat said, we will see you on episode four of The Impossible Man.

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