John A. King identifies four personal truths that guided him through a difficult decade. These aren't rules but foundational principles that shaped his resilience and incremental growth, helping him transform into what he calls his renewed self.
John, you told me the first time that we spoke that one of the things that helped you through that decade from 45 to 55, how you made it through, was that you identified 4 truths that you live by. And this is different than the rules. But tell me a little bit about the truths and how you found them.
Thank you.
That's a massive question.
So the Leaning Tower of Pisa, when it was leaning, it was about to collapse in 1164 and they knew it was gonna go down. But if they just went and got some horses and pulled it up, it was gonna collapse. So they invented this machine that was like a screw and it would remove one shovel full of dirt a day and it just would slowly move up. And it spoke to me about the power of small shifts and small changes. And what they were trying to do was not try and get it back up to vertical where everyone thought it should be, but get it up to that place where it was settled and true to itself. And sustainable. And sustainable. Yes. What we started to understand was the power of authenticity. And I was most comfortable when I could just talk to people who understood me in a manner that was true to me. And I was living from the inside out regardless of what their response or their feeling was. So we learned that authenticity was very important. For me, if I'm not true to myself, then I get really wobbly because I'm performing. And that brings back 40 or 50 years of entrenched trauma. And I don't wanna use that word or trigger because they've been abused, but I start to get out on the unauthentic edges of myself. And my world collapses really quickly. Mm-hmm. Like coming on today, the big prep for us was I have to speak the truth. I have to be honest. That might be a little rough around the edges for some. It might be not for others, but I just gotta be who this is. This is the only me I've got. So that was part of that process of accepting John 2.0 and getting to know it.
