It’s Never Too Late: John Leister on Writing, Purpose & Reinventing Yourself at 59

Sometimes the most powerful lessons come from the cold. Yeah. John likes to join the CJ Moneyway Show and brought real world insight on endurance, discipline, and building wealth while building character. John Leister joined.

Do hard things, do them consistently.

No shortcuts, no sympathy. Brick by brick, that's the energy.

From resilience to leadership, leadership, this one's different.

Sometimes you hard things, just stay in the—

from resilience to leadership, leadership, this one's different.

It's different sometimes, sometimes, sometimes.

Growth ain't comfortable, it's earned. So what's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Network and powered by GI The state's capital, where we bring you stories behind the success and plant seeds of purpose for the next generation. Today's guest is a living reminder that there is no expiration date on your dream. A 59-year-old John Lester didn't let the clock dictate his calling. He chose to begin. Now he's a self-publishing author with a growing catalog about Kobe, and a voice that's helping reshape the narrative around aging, creativity, and personal evolution. This conversation is about second chances, publishing on your own terms, and waking up to the idea that your time is whenever you decide it is. John, what's up, man? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show.

Oh, I'm just, uh, you know, I'm ready to go. I mean, I'm an open book. Uh, I'll answer any question that you want to ask of me. I'm good to go, chopping at the bit. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers.

It's all good, John. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, just gotta let you know John is from Vancouver and he's at a very, very exclusive Starbucks where he is right now, and he has to be at work at 1:30. So we're going to jump into this, man, and I hope you all enjoy the conversation between me and John. So John, let's dive right into this, man. Starting late isn't Starting Over. John, you began publishing your work in your late 50s. What finally pushed you to say it's time to do this?

Well, when I was a kid, I was a huge comic book nerd. I was really into Marvel and DC Comics. I feel like I was ahead of the curve looking back. And as a Canadian boy, you know, it was very difficult for me. I don't mean to play the world's smallest violin. I'm just sharing my story. I wasn't into sports. I didn't like hockey. You know, if you're a Canadian boy and you don't like hockey, you know, you're considered to be a pariah. I mean, it's a wonder that I wasn't burned at the stake. And so I like Star Trek and I love my movies and my TV shows. And I grew up in a very abusive environment. My dad just had a terrible temper. He had a thick German accent. It was like growing up with the Terminator. And a lot of his negativity rubbed off on me. So I kind of lived a kind of sheltered existence for the first two-thirds of my life. I tried acting after high school. There was an acting school in Vancouver called the Breck Academy. There was a show, a Western from the 1960s, an American show called The Big Valley. One of the stars of that show, Peter Breck, he came to Vancouver and he started this acting school called the Breck Academy. So, I tried acting for a couple of years when I was in my early 20s. I was an extra in Rocky IV. That was my 15 minutes of fame. The big fight at the end was shot at the Agrodome in Vancouver. So, I actually got to see Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren duke it out in the ring chanting, "Rocky, Rocky." That was fun. I was going for it. I was doing some writing back then too. I was writing my own monologues. I would never get the part that I auditioned for. I had an agent. But the casting directors would have— so whenever I did that monologue, you know, very often they had the same monologues over and over again. So that's because I wrote it. They always seem to be impressed by that, or at least they seem to be. And so I don't mean to gross you or any of your viewers out, but I developed psoriasis. Do you know what that is? It's a very common skin, a malcondition where some of us, our bodies, and mitigated by factors such as stress. Psoriasis is also hereditary and bad diet. I used to be very overweight. I used to weigh 235 pounds. I'm a recovering sugar addict. And so my psoriasis just got to be so bad that I felt less like a human being and more like a reptile. Like, literally chunks of skin were coming off my face. So I gave up on my dream of acting, and I've been a security guard, believe it or not, for the last 35 years. That's always been my bread and butter job. And I always felt that I was meant to do something creative with my life. And looking back, it's always been writing. So just to backpedal a little bit, and you cut me off at any point because I have a tendency to prattle on. But I wrote about— I wrote a bunch of short stories about a private investigator named Lee Hackland. My stories are set mostly in the 1970s. And I wrote these stories that were for my own amusement more than anything else. I wasn't even thinking about self-publishing. I wasn't even aware of Amazon. And then I made some hard copies, thank goodness, and I shoved them in my bedroom and the pages curled and they yellowed and they collected dust for about 15 years. And here's where my life changed. And here's where the story gets a little bit bizarre for some people. And I want to make it perfectly clear, that I respect other people's beliefs. If you're an atheist, if you're an agnostic, if you're a Muslim, if you're Jewish, Christian, or if you're nothing, whatever works for you, whatever gets you out of bed and whatever gets you to live life. What I did was I hit a peak of loneliness. I was just spending way too much time by myself. I carved out this niche of a couch potato lifestyle where I was just pounding down junk food every night and watching tons of movies and DVDs and reading my books, reading my stories, just kind of plugged into the matrix. And what I did was I reached out to God. And I said, "Our Heavenly Father, I've heard about you my whole life. I don't know if I'm talking to myself right now, but I made a discovery about myself." And I think that it's human nature to a large degree. I think it applies to all of us. When we feel loved, we need to feel loved in order to feel worthy. And what I discovered since I reached out to God is that feeling loved, feeling his love, accepting his light into my life has been a great motivator. And so you and I and everybody watching this podcast, We all need, if we haven't already done so, I mean, some of us come into life, hit the ground running, and some of us like myself are late bloomers. We need to have a mindset that works for us. So, after I reached out to God and I asked him to help me, I dusted off these short stories and I read them and I thought, "Gosh, I know these are not great literature, but I was having a good time reading them." I thought, "Well, if Joe Blow, if these stories were written by Joe Blow instead of Jon Leinster, I know I would like them." So, they became my first book, plug, plug, plug, there you go, shamelessly promoting his product. The Collected Cases of Lee Hacklin, 1970s Private Investigator Book One. And it was a tremendous uphill struggle for me to get that first darn book posted online because Amazon was refusing my banking information. And then I would go to the bank and it says the right information. I was going in circles like Daffy Duck, losing my mind. And it's an important life lesson that I think some of us need to remind ourselves sometimes. When we embark on a new creative endeavor, we have to have it in our mind's eye that there's gonna be hiccups along the way. There's gonna be unforeseen obstacles obstacles, and it's okay. You know, that's what makes our lives interesting, right? If everything was easy peasy all the time, there'd be no meaning to life. If you watched a movie and nothing bad ever happened to the hero, it'd be a pretty boring movie, right? You know, the hero needs to have challenge, hero needs to have a goal. So when I finally, after, after about 100 tries— sorry, just spat on the phone— after about 100 tries, and I had tremendous help from the library staff, I finally got that first darn book posted. And this is in 2019, the beginning of my true life's journey. Better late than never. When I saw on the screen for the first time, "Congratulations, your ebook has been published," I mean, I just lost my mind. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I remember walking down the street. I just wanted to stick my phone in people's face like, "Hey, check it out. I'm a self-published author. Something versus nothing at all. Thank you." I've discovered since then— well, not discovered, more embraced/acknowledged— that every time I open my notebook, I untap my pen, I'm usually able to scribble out anywhere from 1 to 3 single-spaced pages almost every day. I've been writing virtually every single day since 2019, and this is what I was meant to do with my life.

I totally agree with you. That first book, man, that gets published, it's just like, wow, all the work that I've done, you know, even if nobody ever reads my book, I can say that I was on Amazon.

Exactly right. Oh, Nev, if I knew in advance that I thought the whole world thought I was the world's worst writer, I would still do it. It wouldn't stop me because it's my bliss. And better late than never. And that's part of the reason why I'm doing this, reaching out to nice people like yourself. It's not just about self-promotion. Some of it is about self-promotion, and I do want to be a professional writer. I want this to be my main source of income. But I also like to think that my story is inspiring other people, particularly late bloomers like myself, because I know there are a lot of people out there around the world. They're in their 40s, they're in their 50s, and they are thinking the way that I used to think. I see it every day in my day-to-day life. They think, oh, my ship has sailed. My ship is like the Titanic. It's sunk. It's too late for me. No, no, no. As long as you need to have some cognitive ability, as long as their minds still work, I think we need to be relatively healthy. What we really need most importantly is a ton of passion. And another motivator for me has been getting older. For me, really, it's been nothing but a win. I hate it when people moan and groan about getting older. I love the fact that I'm getting older. I love the fact that my life has an expiration date. It could be today, it could be 10 years from now. I hope it's not for a very, very long time because I have a lot more stories to tell. But again, that awareness, when I was young, I think that when we're young, many of us tend to take our lives for granted. We just take for granted that there's always going to be a tomorrow. I don't mean to bring anybody down, but young people die every day. We really have to, like Sylvester Stallone says, we really have to seize life by the throat and do what we can. I know that I'm on the right path in my life because the way it makes me feel, the way I feel when I write, the way I feel when I share my story. When I also write essays once or twice a week, I have a Facebook group page called Johnny's Way, over 1,000 members. I actually, I took a picture of myself holding a book by an author named Mike Madden. He's one of the writers that does the Jack Ryan series. You know Jack Ryan? He was a character created by Tom Clancy. Well, after Tom Clancy passed away, Mike Madden took the reins, one of the writers, and I posted a picture of myself with one of his books and I posted on my Facebook page, on his Facebook page, and I told him about my group page, Johnny's Way. Well, guess what? He joined. This is the world he joined. This best-selling— I know, right? This best-selling— I don't mean to brag about this stuff. I'm sharing. Like I'm always telling people, take advantage of this technology. You meet the most amazing people who have the same kind of energy. And they can open doors for you, and you might wind up meeting someone you spend the rest of your life with. So that's my story in a very long-winded nutshell.

No, it's all good, man. But you know, you was talking about people in their 40s, 50s not to give up on what they doing, man. So let me ask you, man, creative discipline after 50. What does your writing process look like now? Has age brought more structure, more urgency, or has it brought both?

I mean, my writing process, I just, I start with a general idea. I mean, I've seen a million movies and TV shows and I've read a million novels and comic books. I mean, I like to think that I have a good aesthetic as to what makes a story work. You know, it's not rocket science. You know, you have a protagonist, he's likable or she's likable, they're charming, they're fallible. You know, there's a reason why these characters like Peanuts and Archie and the Marvel Comics superheroes, they're popular with every generation. The new kids, they love this stuff just as much as our parents did. Why is that? Because we all know a kid like Charlie Brown, or we see ourselves in Charlie Brown, right? And I think that's the key. To me, story is not as important as character. You look at the most popular movies ever made, they're all telling pretty much the same story, whether it's Star Wars or Harry Potter or The Matrix or The Terminator, it's all the same. There's a plucky band of rebels, there's an evil empire that needs to be overthrown, the good guys are nice, The bad guys are jerks and they all deserve to be punched in the nose. You know, it's all the same. But the writers, they're putting their own stamp on it. And I've heard people say to me, "Oh, John, I want to do what you're doing. I want to be a writer too, but I don't have any original ideas." This is such a negative and self-destructive mindset that I despise. If I thought that way, you'd be interviewing somebody else right now. I wouldn't have a single book online. All my stories can be compared to something that's come before. You know, when George Lucas wrote Star Wars back in the day, You know, he freely admitted he just cobbled together all his favorite stories that he grew up with as a boy, and he put all that stuff into Blender, and out came Star Wars. There's a Japanese movie called The Hidden Fortress, written and directed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa. If you watch the first 5 minutes of that movie, it's two guys wandering through the desert, bemoaning their lot in life, and one of them actually says, "We seem to be made to suffer." I mean, the dialogue is almost the same as what Threepio is saying in the first 5 minutes of Star Wars. And Akira Kurosawa, he didn't sue. He could have sued, I guess, for plagiarism, but apparently he was flattered, and he and George Lucas wound up becoming friends. You know, Terry Brooks, who writes a fantasy series called The Sword of Shannara— I read the first book in the series— I remember reading his book back in high school, and I thought, well, gosh, you know, this guy has just taken The Lord of the Rings and he's just changed the names of the characters, and instead of a ring, it's a sword. But you know what? I didn't care because I said, you know, I still enjoyed the story for what it was. So never worry about originality. The moment you start writing, the moment you start creating, whether it's you, me, or any of your viewers, that's what makes it original. Because we're not peas in a pod. We're not a race of robots. We're a race of individuals. And every one of us, you know, I'm not into political correctness and culture and culture wars and all this stuff. All of that stuff is completely meaningless to me. What matters is our character. What matters is our behavior. And what matters is what we do. With our lives. And if we're procrastinating, and I'm speaking, I'm not judging, I'm speaking from my own experience. When we make excuses, when we procrastinate, when we have the desire to do something, maybe it's not writing a book, maybe it's starting a podcast like you're doing, or maybe you want to get your pilot's license, or maybe you want to go back to school or start your own business, whatever it is. When we say tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, what happens is during that interim of not doing, we're suffering inside. And you can walk around with a big smile on your face, which is great. I think that's a good thing to do, but other people will pick up on that inner angst and it makes them suffer too. And I lived that way for many years and I look back now and I think, oh my goodness, why did I do that? Well, I did that 'cause I got used to living that way. We're creatures of habit. I just fell into this rut and I was reading all these self-help books like Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power and Deepak Chopra. And I loved reading those books. They're great. I recommend them. The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. I mean, I read these books and they made sense to me and I would make little baby steps, but it was always like one step forward, two steps back. Like, I would join a gym or I did kickboxing for a couple of years or I tried to write something, but I always fell back to my comfort zone. It wasn't until I reached out to God, it wasn't until that momentous day for me back in 2019 that I finally aligned myself much, much closer to the John Leister of my mind's eye, a manifestor, versus a procrastinator. And I don't claim that my stories are to be great literature, as I said earlier, but I think that at the bare minimum, they're not boring. I think that my boy Lee Hacklin is a really relatable guy. I mean, basically he's me. He's an idealized version of myself, which is something that I think a lot of writers do. I think that's what Ian Fleming did when he created James Bond, or Tom Clancy when he created Jack Ryan, or Stan Lee and Steve Ditko back in the day when they created Spider-Man, you know, Peter Parker. You know, we create these characters. It's a wish fulfillment. You know, it's like Georgine Roddenberry when he created Star Trek, you know. To me, Star Trek isn't so much about starships and Klingons and photon torpedoes. It's more about presenting a gold standard of what human beings are capable of. You know, Captain Kirk doesn't go running to the liquor store when the Klingons attack, right? They face life head-on. They face challenges head-on. And if Plan A doesn't work, then they go to Plan B. And Captain Kirk always asks his subordinates for advice. What do you think? What do you think? He's not so arrogant that he tries to do everything by himself. And that's an important life lesson, too. If I hadn't put my ego on the shelf— and I feel like this is a guy thing. We men, we were men, god darn it, and we want to do everything by ourselves. If that was my mindset back in 2019, again, you'd be interviewing somebody else right now. If I hadn't asked for help, I would never have gotten that first book published online. Because when it comes to technology, I need to have someone explain this stuff to me over and over. And looking back now, it's like, it's so simple. But when it's something new, I'm just the kind of person that I need to have explained to me over and over again before it finally sinks in. So here we are, it's 2025. I co-host another podcast with my childhood friend, brother Paul Bale. It's called the Canadian Bros Show. That's bros and brother. We have over 30 episodes on YouTube. He started it, he's the founder, and he has another iteration which is about basketball, and he's starting another one about real estate. My brother Paul was a professional basketball player. He played professionally in Europe, and he's a real estate a developer and a great guy and absolutely one of my very, very, very best friends. And we started doing this podcast a few months ago. We talk about movies and pop culture and growing up together and our philosophies. We try to keep it upbeat. And so that's, again, that's my story in a nutshell. That's basically it.

Oh man, that's cool, man. You know, like you say, with the podcast and everything you're doing, which I'm doing right now myself, you build everything around that, you know what I'm saying? You begin to have an ecosystem where you making streams of income, you know what I'm saying, off of the things that you doing and the passion. You know, I think you talked about that earlier. You gotta have a passion for what you do.

You know, I'm sorry to interject, but I'm having so much more fun with my life now than the way I was living when I was a younger man. You know, if I had that vision of how my life could be, if I just believed in myself a little bit more, you know, I would've started doing this a lot sooner. I would've started doing this maybe 10 or 20 years earlier, but I like to talk about this because I like to remind myself too that there's no greater gift in life than the present. We have to keep our minds in the here and now because that's where our ultimate power lies. The moment we start thinking about the past, oh, remember when everything was great, we're going to feel sad. All of those feelings come to the present and they're disempowering. And we need to think in a way that empowers us to do whatever it is that we really want to do with our lives. I don't think there's such a thing as a 5-year-old kid that wants to be bank manager. And I'm not dissing bank managers. It's an important job. It's a tough job. I worked in banks for many years as a security guard, and I saw what bank managers go through. I have nothing but love and respect for them. But that's not what they wanted to do with their lives when they were 5 years old. They wanted to be an astronaut. They wanted to be a movie star, right? They wanted to be something that was really, really big and epic. But they compromised. And look, we all compromise a little bit in our lives. I feel if you're happy with that, if you can look at yourself in the mirror and feel good about yourself, then just live your life however you see fit. But for goodness sakes, if you have the desire to do something, then you'd better do it because these bodies that our spirits are driving, they do have expiration dates.

Oh yeah, that's right.

They're going to conk out like cars.

That's for sure.

We owe it to ourselves to be true to ourselves. And we're living in a golden age. When I was a kid, as I said earlier, I felt like I was a pariah, an outcast for liking the things that I like. I remember every time I walked into a drugstore, to buy my comic books, I felt like a dirty old man buying porn. You know, I was waiting for the store. I felt like waiting till the store was empty. I mean, I was ashamed. Isn't it ridiculous? It's so absurd. It's absolutely— it's a crappy way to go through life. I just remember having this struggle inside and it was all a waste of energy. And again, those feelings of inner angst, the kind of the Charlie Brown type of way of feeling and thinking, again, those feelings are disempowering. They weaken us. And they make the temptations that, you know, you as an American and me as a Canadian, you know, we're living in the so-called developed nations, right? You know, we have it pretty good compared to many other places around the world. We certainly have a lot more opportunities and we're surrounded by temptation every day, whether it's junk food or booze or in more severe cases, hard drugs. And I lived like a drug addict for many years. I wasn't breaking into people's cars. I wasn't breaking into people's homes to support my habit. I've always been gainfully employed. But I kind of put all my eggs into one basket. And then finally I hit a saturation point. Again, better late than never.

Yeah, I like that.

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Now let's get back to the show. I like that. So since we pressed for time, John, man, let me ask you this question, man. The Purpose of the Pen. What's the biggest purpose behind your work? And what do you want readers to feel or learn when they close the last page?

Well, I mean, basically I just hope that they feel entertained. I mean, I like to fill my stories with a little bit of everything. Sometimes it's a little romance. There's a lot of humor. Lee's a wisecracker. I like to think that there's some insight into human nature. I mean, basically at the end of the day, I want the reader to feel that they got their money's worth. Most of my stories are 99 cents because some of them are not very long. I mean, some of them are about 100 pages and then some of them are closer to 30, 35 pages. They're more like short stories. They're getting shorter and shorter. I feel like they're more like episodes of a TV series. The kinds of stories that I'm writing, and I don't mean to get on my high horse about this, they're not the kinds of stories that I feel Hollywood wants to tell anymore, not based on what I've seen. My stories have heroes. My villains are really bad. I don't apologize to them. I don't try to make them sympathetic. They're awful people who get— you ever see that movie Dirty Harry? You ever see the original Dirty Harry? There's a scene where the DA says to Harry, Well, how do you know the killer's going to kill again? And Harry says, because he likes it. Like, that's it. There's some people out there, their wires are not properly attached and they just enjoy inflicting harm on other people, whether it's a comment or something worse than that. And so my stories, I feel— look, let me put it this way. When I write, it's therapeutic. I'm creating a world that I want to live in where good is rewarded, where evil is punished. And again, I'm just attracted to those kinds of stories where the main character is a hero. When a character who runs towards the fire while everyone else is running away from the fire. And I hope that my stories— again, if I ever have any readership, I've had a few people read some snippets of my stories here and there. Most of the feedback I've gotten is positive. One guy wrote cringeworthy, and I just wrote back, well, at least you read what I wrote, you know, thanks for that. You know, not a very constructive comment, but you took the time to read my stuff, you know. And I always tell other writers who are so sensitive to criticism, for goodness sakes, Just read the review and try to get something positive out of it. You know, the reviewer might have something to say about your writing that might actually make you a better writer. I like to think that I'm a better writer now than I was 5 years ago. Of course, it's very hard to be objective about your own stuff, but when you do something every day— I mean, if you do 1 push-up today, you can do 2 push-ups tomorrow. That's the way life works, everybody. You have to do what you want to do every single day, even if it's just for a couple of minutes. If you're learning how to play the guitar or maybe you're learning a pole strumming, whatever it is, I'm just throwing darts at a dartboard, you're going to get better at it. And when you're good at something, that gives us a feeling of self-confidence. And that infuses every other aspect of our being. And other people pick up on that. Now, some people don't like it. I mean, I've had people say to me, one guy said to me, "Don't talk about your books." I was in a social gathering with some friends. And one guy actually said, "We don't talk about your books." Now, this guy is all too eager to talk about his own achievements, right? You know, and again, I'm not bragging, I'm just sharing. And I love hearing about other people's success stories. I love hearing about other people, you know, I started to spout on the phone again, you know, "Following your bliss, better late than never." I want to be inspired by other people and I want to also inspire, you know, quid pro quo. I think I'm running out of things to say.

Oh no, man, you all good. You all good. So let's look, let me ask you this, John. Final question, man, but I got this game, man. It's a quickfire game, and I'm gonna ask you 5 questions. You just say the first thing that comes to your mind. But before I get there, what's next for Jon Leister? What's on the horizon for you? More books, speaking, or something new? What's going on?

Now streaming on Netflix, Lee Hacklin: Private Investigator, based on characters created by Jon Leister, executive producer Jon Leister. That's the goal that I have in my mind's eye. Mind's eye, easy for me to say, Captain Articulate. I have absolute confidence that my stories are good enough for media adaptation. You know, movies, television, animation, graphic novels. I've reached out to comic book artists. I've actually had a couple of comic book artists drop— I remember the first time I saw a drawing of my boy Lee. He's based on Jan-Michael Vincent, who was an actor from the 1970s. That's why I have a mind's eye when I write this character. It is tremendously rewarding to see something that you created in a more corporeal form like this drawing. So that's why I'm reaching out to people, nice people like yourself who are self-manifesters, self-believers. I want to see my characters on the big screen. I want to talk to Messenger on Messenger with a young, handsome actor. And I want to say to him, Brad, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is you're going to die someday. The good news is you're Lee Hocklin. Start listening to disco music. Let your hair grow long. Blow it back with a blow dryer and get used to wearing bell-bottom jeans. And paisley ties because my stories are set in the 1970s. So that's my goal. And I have faith that before I die, no guarantees in life, just death and taxes, but I have faith that I'm going to reach out to that one person out there, man or woman, who has the money, who has the connections, who's a mover and a shaker and can make my stories come to life. I don't think about being super wealthy. I'm not materialistic. I've never owned a car. I probably never will own a car because Vancouver is such an easy city to get around. My goal is that the days ahead where it's my creativity, where it's my ability to manifest these stories that provides me with my livelihood, with my beer on the weekend and my coffee on Monday to Friday. That's the goal. And I feel that we need— each of us, we need to have a goal that's beyond our grasp that we're reaching towards, even if it's just a few minutes a week to get started. It's good to take baby steps, right? Because it's the easiest thing to feel overwhelmed. We need to have a goal beyond just paying the rent or making our car payment. We need to have a goal, a big goal in our lives, I feel, in order for our lives to have meaning. Because it's purpose that gives our lives meaning. And my purpose is to write. I finally got here. Better late than never.

Thank you, bro. I'm with you, man. I totally agree with you. And like you say, you got to dream and look to the stars. Somebody told me I was on Mars. Hey, and I ain't coming down, you know, because like you, man, I got an animation series that I'm trying to put together too. I'm getting a lot of things together, getting it in place, called G.I. The State's Capital, about my hometown. And I'm using some characters, like you say, the character building and things of that nature, man. And it's fun to do. And like you say, I know that there's somebody out there that's gonna take on this project, man, and let it come to life. So I'm with you all the way, John. So John, man, let's play this quick round real quick, man, so you can get ready, man, and go to work. You ready?

Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. It's great to meet you.

Now, you ready for this fire round real quick, man? 5 questions, first thing come to your mind. All right, favorite time of the day to write?

In the morning.

Book that changed your life?

Off the top of my head, I want to say a book called Atlas Shrugged. The writer's name is Ayn Rand. She was a Russian immigrant, and it's funny because she was an atheist. You know, I'm not an atheist, But I agree with her thoughts on free market capitalism. And also 1984 by George Orwell. That would be another one. I read a lot of Star Trek books when I was a kid. Those books and a million comic books, they shaped my morality. I'm certainly no angel, but I do have a semblance of a moral code. And again, all these self-help books. But really what changed my life is reaching out to God, because that's when I started finally implementing all the stuff that I learned in these books. But off the top of my head, I want to say Atlas Shrugged.

Good choice. So let me ask you, John, what's something you're still learning?

Sorry, can you say again, please?

What's something that you're still learning?

What's still learning? Gosh, I don't know. I mean, I'm 59, you know. I obviously— we're, you know, we're all works in progress, and we have to keep— like Bruce Lee said, we have to keep our cups empty. You know, when I read a book and I see a word that I don't know the meaning of, I know I don't do this every time, but I'll Google it. Because again, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to evolve. I mean, there's only really one thing that I don't like about myself still, and that's I always feel like I sleep more than I need to. I always feel like I should get up out of bed earlier. But I mean, other than that, I really am who I want to be. And again, we have to keep our cups empty so that we can learn new things. We shouldn't think of our lives as aging. We should think of ourselves as evolving. And I believe that there is a continuance beyond the expiration of these physical bodies. And I believe that the spirit goes back into the ether. I don't think it's quite like reincarnation, but I think there is a continuance and who we are now informs who we'll be in the next lifetime. So I hope that in my next lifetime, if I come back to this world, if that's how it works, that I'm something close to who I am right now because I'm okay with who I am right now. And I owe all of that to God. God is my morning star and my yellow sun. And I like to call God my yellow sun because the yellow sun is the source of Superman's powers. You take away the yellow sun and Superman's just a regular guy. To me, God is like the Force from Star Wars. He's in my mind all the time. He's watching all of us. He gave us free will and he expects us to make some effort towards a self-manifestation. Again, because if we don't— and this is why so many people are unhappy. Why are people unhappy? There's only one reason. It's because they're not— it's like what Samuel L. Jackson said in Unbreakable, that movie with Bruce Willis. Because you're not doing what you were meant to do with your life. The moment you start doing what you really want to do, a funny thing happens— you feel happy! And again that makes the world a brighter place.

Yeah I totally agree with you on that man we can go for hours on that subject just alone but first thing after work yeah I know I know first thing you would like to say to your younger self?

Oh gosh boy that's a good question. I would say, don't be so hard on yourself. Don't be so self-critical. Your life matters. I would say to myself, start talking to God. I think that's what I would say to myself because you'll feel better about yourself. And again, you'll feel loved. And again, once we feel loved, we feel motivated. But I think I would just pat myself on the head and I would give myself a hug. It's like, hey, buddy, you know what? Just accept who you are. Don't fight it. You like comic books. You don't like sports. I have nothing against sports. I work out, I lift weights at home, and I do yoga just about every day. And I used to play tennis when I was younger. I look at a hockey game, the puck goes in one net or it goes in the other net. I just don't care. It's just my DNA. That's just the way my brain works. And there's so much external pressure, kind of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, kind of the mob mentality. There's so many people out there. They want you to be like them. It's a sort of tribal mentality. And I try to distance myself from that as much as possible. So I would just say to myself, my younger self, it's like, hey, relax. Just enjoy your life, OK? And start right here.

I feel you. And as far as that hockey, I know Alex Ovechkin, I know he just broke Wayne Gretzky's goals record yesterday as we speak. He just broke it yesterday. It stood for like 35 years. But to your point, hockey, I don't know, man. You know, Ovechkin, he ain't got no teeth in his mouth. You know what I'm saying? Got all his teeth knocked out of his mouth. Hockey is a dangerous game, man, where you can fight literally.

I can't imagine. I cherish my teeth. I wore braces for 2 years. I didn't go through that for nothing. I did kickboxing for a couple of years and I got punched in the face a lot. I always had the mouth guard. And it's like, you know, I mean, I'm glad that I had that experience because I think it toughened me up a little bit. But, you know, we just— again, we just accept who you are, everybody. Don't fight it. Don't let other people try to change you. You know, live your life. And if you have the desire, act on it. And if you're not doing it, then get help. This is another thing. I was in therapy for a year. I had a therapist for one year. I had cognitive therapy. And looking back, I don't feel it was a waste of time. And I had a great therapist. And he said to me something that I feel is very, very simple but very profound. We have to like ourselves on conditionally. In other words, don't say to yourself, I like myself if I'm a millionaire, I like myself if I drive a sports car. No, no, no. It's like a default position, and then you can build from that. But if you're going through life with all this inner angst, then it's like building a house on quicksand, right? It's just the motivation won't be there, and the temptation to overeat or to drink, to live your life crawling into a bottle of Jack Daniel's, or in some cases, like hard drugs. Why do people take hard drugs? Why would someone stick a needle filled with heroin into their bodies? Why do people do that? I see this every day where I work downtown. I see people with their pipes, lighting their pipes and oh my God. And I look at them, I think, gosh, they must be really suffering. They're just suffering so much inside and they don't see the beauty of life. They're not inspired by other people's example. All they see is the negativity. And so they say, to hell with it. To hell with it. I just want my quick fix. And if I die when I'm 25, so what? I don't care. It's very, very sad, but most of us are not in that place. We have the mindset, at least to some degree, and we need as individuals to show the world what people are capable of if we just believe in ourselves and accept ourselves. And if you're not doing that, then you have to change your mindset. And sometimes the ego gets in the way of that. And so we have to put our egos on the shelf and come to a different place because time isn't slowing down, it's speeding up as we get older.

For sure, for sure. I got more days behind me than I do in front of me. That's for sure. So let me ask you— last one, John, man— your dream writing collaboration?

Collaboration? Gosh, what a great question. He's no longer with us, but I would have to say Stan Lee. Because Stan Lee, as a boy, was my favorite writer. When I read comic books as a kid, I always used to pay attention to the credits. That's how much of a nerd I was. Whenever I saw written by Stan Lee, I would say to myself, well, this is a story that I'm going to enjoy. But that's why I go with off the top of my head Stan Lee. But as far as collaborating goes, I really don't have desire to collaborate with anyone. I don't like the idea of other people writing my characters. It's kind of like leaving your kids with a babysitter, you know, sometimes you have to do it, you have to do it, but you know, you're not really comfortable with it, right? You're like, you're rolling the dice a little bit, right? Even if you trust the babysitter 100%, you know, my characters are my kids, they're my children, it's my world that I created. And so I'm not really attracted to the idea of collaborating with anybody. But I mean, if you put a gun to my head, I would go with the late, great Stan Lee.

So, John, man, where can we find you at, man? Social media, social media.

As I said earlier, my YouTube channel is John Leister, and over 30,000 views. I don't mean to brag about this. My group page, Johnny's Way, has over 1,000 members. Everybody out there, please feel free to join. As I said earlier, my podcast with Paul Bale, is called the Canadian Bro Show. Well, it's really his podcast. He's the Johnny Carson, I'm the Ed McMahon. I'm along for the ride. He really got the ball rolling and I'm very honored to be part of it. And he has another iteration about basketball. And that's basically it. And my Facebook profile page is Jon Leister. If you go to YouTube and you enter a Jon Leister author, you can check out some of the other podcasts that I've been on. And if you go to Kobo and enter Jon Leister, you can check out my books. Now my email is jonleister611@hotmail.com. I guess it'll be on your website. Time permitting, because I do have a full-time job, I've done this before. Time permitting, I would be more than happy to email anyone one of my short stories or one of my books for free. I mean, look, I want to make money doing this. That's my goal. But I also love to share. It's tremendously honoring for a writer when somebody takes the time to read something that you've written and to get the feedback, whether it's positive or negative. I mean, you prefer the positive, obviously. You hope that people like it. But just to take the time to read it, you can't put a price on that feeling. When I go online and I see like a little comment from someone that's read something that I wrote and they make like a little mini review, the feeling of elation it gives me really can't be priced. There's no amount of money in the world that comes close to that feeling.

Well, you got my email, man. Send me one of your short stories. I'd love to read it. John, man, your story, man, is living proof that purpose has no deadline. You've reminded us that the decision to begin is far more powerful than the fear of being too late. To anyone listening who's been holding back, the page is blank, the pen is in your hand, and your legacy is waiting to be written. This is the CJ Moneyway Show, powered by GI, the state's capital. As we was talking, animated series that I'm working on that'll be coming out soon, where legacy meets media, and every story plants a seed. Let's keep writing, keep building, keep growing. Until next time, this your boy CJ Moneyway with my man John. We out of here. Peace.

Cheers.

Let me leave you with this.

Every story shared here, it's a reminder that your story matters too. Keep your faith sharp, keep your focus steady, keep your vision clear. And if this episode gave you wisdom, hope, or a push forward, share it with somebody you love. Tap in with me on all platforms, @chmoneyway, and stay locked into the movement because God's not done writing your chapter. This is the CJ Moneyway Show, brick by brick.

And always.

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