Having an Awakening with John David Latta

george grombacher 0:00
Hi I’m lipid This is George G and the time is right welcome today’s guest strong, powerful John David Latta. John, are you ready to do this?

Unknown Speaker 0:22
I’m ready. Thanks for the invitation. George,

george grombacher 0:24
excited to have you on let’s go. John is an author, a teacher and an everyday mystic he was is the CEO of a multi million dollar consumer products company. His newest book is synchronicity of love stories that heal, transform and awaken. John, tell us a little about your personal life and more about your work and why you do what you do.

Unknown Speaker 0:47
Well, I was the CEO and founder of a multimillion dollar consumer products company, but I sold it right before COVID hit, I regularly get down and kiss the ground because of that. But lucky timing. I own a large chemical company and you know, the supply chain issues have been horrific ever since then. So now I am an author, and I’m out there peddling my book. It’s part of the reason I’m hanging out with you this morning. And so that’s what I’m doing. Now. The message I’m sharing in the book, My wife thinks I could have titled The book rigid rational male transforms into random, accidental mystic. And that might have been a better title. And so what I’m probably the message I’m out there talking to people about now is all you rigid, rational No at all men and women. There’s a lot more to life. And and I discovered that, like so many people do by getting dragged through the mud, kicking and screaming, kind of hitting rock bottom. And, and so the book chronicles the last 20 years of my life, a lot of shocking, unexpected, and synchronistic experiences that I never knew were possible, kept happening over and over and over again. So my message in the world today is reaching out to all your rigid rational, no at all, I was one of them for most of my life, there’s a lot more to life and to open your eyes, open your heart.

george grombacher 2:11
What’s the benefit of being rigid and rational?

Unknown Speaker 2:14
The benefit? The benefit is, well, you know, the world is actually I think, in a lot of ways set up to be rigid and rational. And so one of the benefits is you fit in really well I think you can be function very well in business in life and in the world being rigid and rational. But there’s a certain sterility to it, it’s sterile, and just there’s the sense always it feels like something’s missing. So and the other benefit of being rigid and rational is you think, you know, a lot. Turns out you don’t. But if there is that sort of false sense of feeling as secure, I think in in the world that you’ve created for yourself.

george grombacher 2:54
Its security, a confidence in, in, in knowledge and, and control and mastery kind of a thing.

Unknown Speaker 3:06
Yeah, but I think it’s a false sense. You know, rigid and rational, it’s, you’ve created a framework for yourself that I think is sort of limiting without knowing it, you’ve limited yourself, you know, I was really influenced at a really young age by books, Think and Grow Rich, the magic of thinking big. And so I would kind of go back and forth between anything as possible. And now that’s bullshit. That’s not possible. And I kind of took on the that’s not possible for a long period of time in my life. And like I said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I don’t think most people know how much they’ve self limited themselves.

george grombacher 3:46
Yeah, yeah, I think that that’s really interesting. So when, what what got you started breaking out of that framework,

Unknown Speaker 3:56
probably like most people going, like I said, being dragged through the mud through hell. So I had lived what I thought was a relatively charmed life, and then all of a sudden, all at once, everything that could go wrong, all went wrong all at the same time. My wife got cancer came completely out of left field, she was only in her 30s took good care of herself. And God might even two weeks after she was diagnosed with cancer, they took out her entire thyroid gland, and a bunch of lymph nodes. And to this day, she has to take a pill every day for the rest of her life just to live. And it changed her she started reading books about God and the meaning of life and sort of kind of having our own little life review is this really what I want from life. And I wasn’t capable or able at that age and stage of my life to even be there for her she was going through it the same time I left my very secure job and started my own company and promptly lost all of our money, a whole bunch of money 650,000 in debt, quarter million personal credit card debt, you know, borrowed against the house 100,000 SBA loan, and every day I was facing bankruptcy. So the company grew like crazy, but the losses grew even faster. And, and then at that same time, for whatever reason, suddenly I have this horrible fear of death, it was stalking me everywhere I went, and I was not religious, I was not spiritual. I didn’t know who to talk to, I didn’t have I don’t think I even would have talked to anybody about it. But I was terrified of death. And I kept thinking of death as like the body, me dies, and then it’s gone forever. And I couldn’t wrap my head around forever. It was terrifying for me. And so in the middle of it all, my wife walks out to me and says, you take the kids, you’re the better parent, I want a whole life, new life, goodbye. And so I’m a single parent with custody of my nine year old and 11 year old. And so I felt like in the blink of an eye was suddenly a bad husband, bad dad, bad businessman and a grown man running around behind closed doors, terrified of death. So I did what I never thought I would ever do, I sign up for a spiritual retreat. And it was something that Michael Creighton, the author, who I really loved had gone through years earlier. And and I didn’t have a lot of crazy spiritual experiences there. But what did happen was a lot of synchronicity started to happen. And I didn’t even know what the word meant. And to me, I just called them. Wow, that was a coincidence. Oh, there’s another coincidence. And it started with me flying to the retreat. The lady sitting next to me was reading the treat leaders book, as the plane was touching down. And the only two people in that flight of 180 people going, where me and her and I’m like, What are the chances of that? And so every, all the doors in my life started to open after that retreat. And looking back sometimes when you’re really stuck in, you know, things are just going all the help, you can’t see what’s going on. But with retrospect, looking back, I could see I was in a tremendous period of growth. And what I would call, I had lived out a highly masculine view of life competitive, hard working, go, go go doo doo doo, and I loved it. high energy, high intensity. I, you know, over the next 20 years, you would say I came into my feminine side and into a spiritual side, two sides. I didn’t really know I had or even existed out there. So but what started it to answer your question was devolving into what felt like my scariest form of hell?

george grombacher 7:27
Yeah. What? Thank you for sharing that. So laughs The funny thing, though, is is Is life a funny thing?

Unknown Speaker 7:40
It is a funny thing. In retrospect, it’s hysterical, where you’re in, and it doesn’t always seem so funny. Actually, love is a really funny thing. But yeah, and that’s a whole another subject. Sometimes I think I’ve learned after all this time, we all take life too seriously, myself included. And yeah, humor is, in my opinion, the great healer and the great transformer.

george grombacher 8:04
So what does it mean to to to awaken?

Unknown Speaker 8:10
Well, so that’s a great question. And that’s a popular word, this round politics. Now, you know, people are woke, or awakened, and but what it really means is, here’s the best way I can put it. And if you dig deep enough, it turns out, we’ve had many lives, almost all of us and and so what we would call an old soul, which is a common term is somebody who’s actually had many, many, many, many, many lifetimes. And you see this sometimes even in children, they’re just unusually wise for their age, even though they might only be five or 10 years old. And, and so awakening is really just remembering, it’s remembering all the skills you’ve actually had all along, you just didn’t know you had. It’s remembering all the things that you knew, but you just forgot. And so I think a better term for waking up is actually remembering, but how it’s experienced by a lot of people is it feels like, wow, I’ve been asleep. And I think, you know, a lot of spiritual teachers, Jesus, so many others. You know, the only real sin is not me being a bad person or doing bad things. The real sin is just ignorance. And for whatever reason, part of the human journey is being ignorant living out life sort of one sided. And then we start to remember and we start to wake up and there seems to be a divine timing around that or seems to come around sometimes when people hit rock bottom. But that’s what awakening means. It’s really just remembering all the wisdom you’ve actually accumulated through many past lifetimes could be hundreds and hundreds of lifetimes. And it just seems to be the human journey. And until that time, we tend to live in the sort of our little I call it the rigid world of ignorance where we I think we know it all, but we really don’t.

george grombacher 10:04
Well, I thank you for that. The real sin is ignorance. Yeah. And is it not necessarily that I am ignorant, it’s that I’m not trying to, to, or I’m not pushing myself, I’m not I’m not exploring these things. I’m not trying to remember the things that I knew. But for whatever reason I’ve forgotten.

Unknown Speaker 10:31
Yeah, when I say the real sin is ignorance, it doesn’t mean, I’m a bad person, because I’m ignorant. And that is the sin is ignorance. And we all come in ignorant, I should say, all most of us come in ignorant to one degree or another. Because I think that’s how we learn, we learn by being one sided. We learn by being hypermasculine, we learn through contrast, and, and so I think it’s just part of the human journey to come in and be one sided, we explore. I’m gonna say, being the hero in this lifetime, I’m the hero in the next lifetime, I explore being the villain. But it never occurs to me that I’m both the hero and the villain, and a whole bunch more, because of all my past lifetime experience. So I think it’s just, I think there’s a little bit of a divine timing behind it all. We live our lives sort of one sided. And then we have the opportunity later in life to sort of wake up to the other half of our life. I don’t know if that makes sense.

george grombacher 11:31
I, it’s, it’s, it’s hugely thought provoking. And here’s what I was thinking. I’ve always, I’ve always resisted and had a hard time, you know, categorizing myself. And I like that. That’s arrogance. It’s it’s maybe honesty, because nothing is ever really felt just right. It’s like, what, who are you? What do you do? I’m like, Well, you know, I just have a hard time with that stuff. Because I’m, you know, I, I’m not sure what that is, John?

Unknown Speaker 12:04
Yeah. Well, I’m a podcast host, I got a great voice. I’m a great host. Not everybody’s a podcast host. But you know, a great one with a great voice. So, you know, some people, it cracks me up when I wrote my book. And my publisher said, Now I want you to get out on 50 podcasts by year end, it’s like podcasts. I’m not a podcast person, you know, but it was kind of cool. My wife had talked me into doing a bunch of online improv classes, which I wasn’t interested in. And it’s amazing how improv can prepare you for being on a podcast. There’s so many podcasts hosts, want it to be sort of, you know, just sort of flow. Let’s see where it goes. And that really requires me as the guest tuning into the host, and really listening and not trying to take command of the podcasts, which, you know, I’ve been in management my whole life. So I tend to boss people around. So I’ve really learned to listen, they kind of tie into like, what’s this podcast? So where’s the podcast? goes? Go in with this and just roll with it.

george grombacher 13:06
Yeah, yeah. Well, I certainly appreciate that. So we talked about I asked you what, what was the benefit of being rigid and rational and a know it all? And we certainly covered that, and thank you. So the benefit of, of becoming of engaged in this journey has been what?

Unknown Speaker 13:30
Well, I think it’s more enlivening. It’s more revitalizing. It’s kind of like dying and being reborn all the time. There’s a very practical aspect to it, too. I know in the early days, you know, that first spiritual teacher I worked with, and this was 20 years ago, he could see what was happening to me. And he goes, he goes, John, you’re not going to lose your overly developed masculine side is you delve into all things feminine, you’re going to ultimately be more whole and more resourceful. And so that’s the benefit. The more you expand into many different areas of your life, the more resourceful you are in every different situation. And I boy, I certainly learned to be a much better listener, just to start at the beginning with that, I think I mostly talked over people and told him what to do, which is a great quality when you’re running a large organization sometimes, but being a good listener is a good quality too. So that’s what I’d say. I would say you find yourself life is richer and you find yourself more resourceful and capable in any different situation.

george grombacher 14:32
What do you think about instincts and intuition?

Unknown Speaker 14:37
Well, having AI so I think it’s great. I think anybody that’s got an entrepreneurial mindset probably is doing it already. I think intuition is the great gift. I love the quote from Einstein where he says intuition is the gift and logic is faithful servant but we’ve elevated the servant and forgotten the gift And so I encourage anybody to intuition is something that can be open to a can be developed. And I would say that was probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned in the last 20 years is that I actually have intuition and to actually pay attention to it. I swear, George, where I get myself in trouble is when I don’t listen to it.

george grombacher 15:23
Is that? Is that our, pardon me for using clumsy terms? Is that our real identity? telling us the truth about things?

Unknown Speaker 15:37
That’s a great question. Some people would say that. And some people would say, we all have a guide or guardian angel that’s with us all the time. We just don’t ever know it. Most of the time, we don’t pay attention to it. Some say we always have a higher wisdom with us all the time, but we don’t always listen to it. And I can tell you, for me, intuition is like a subtle, quiet voice. I’m gonna say my ego and my day to day personality is much louder, and I drowned it out. So I can’t say specifically, if that’s who I really am, or if something wiser than me is talking to me. In a, you know, you mentioned intuition and instinct. People get intuition at different ways. I literally was having lunch with a gal the other day, and I kept talking about I was talking about some things and she kept showing me her forearm I’m like, what, what do you just, what am I what am I supposed to be seeing here? She goes, truth bumps, truth bumps, you know? Well, if she gets a rash of instant goosebumps over her skin, anytime somebody is telling her the truth. And as I Oh, cool, so everybody gets messages in different ways. Some people see things visually, some people literally have voices in their head, some people, it’s a felt sensation. In her case, center skin, a lot of people you know that you hear people talk about their gut, it’s a gut yes or no. And so everybody’s has a different way of accessing beyond just what the mind is telling you at the moment. And I think a lot of people, you know, Sir Richard Branson is England’s most successful entrepreneur, billionaire. A lot of people don’t know, he never got past ninth grade in school. He was terribly dyslexic. He was very athletic and have a terrible, I think knee injury in eighth grade that ended his athletic career. So poor guy couldn’t, couldn’t go to school, academically, and he couldn’t play sports anymore. But he said, as a result of it all, he became highly intuitive. He because he couldn’t depend on reading the way other people could. And, and I think that guy found with some ridiculous number of over 200 companies. And it started with Virgin Records when he was a teenager. And he goes, ever since I was a kid, when I started my first company. I knew when somebody applied for work, I knew within 30 seconds, if that was the perfect person for me, I didn’t need to know their resume their background, or anything I just knew. And so some people really rely on that, that sense of I just know. And so I think that’s something that everybody should consider developing because, boy, it sure worked for him.

george grombacher 18:12
Yeah, there’s no doubt about that. I love it. Well, John, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And where can they get a copy of the synchronicity of love stories to heal, transform and awaken? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 18:25
my website is John David louder.com. Last name is La TTA. John David louder.com. Everything is there. My book the synchronicity of love. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and I just found out yesterday it’s available at Target walmart.com. It’s actually cheaper there to sell. Yeah, that’s where you can find the book.

george grombacher 18:45
Excellent. Well, if you enjoy this as much as I did, so John, your appreciation and share today, share with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. And for all those rigid rational notables out there, for sure, pick up a coffee and go to John David lotta.com johndvidl@ta.com, and then pick up a copy of the synchronicity of love. Sounds like wherever you buy your books. Thanks again, John.

Unknown Speaker 19:12
Thank you, George. appreciate the invitation. And until

george grombacher 19:15
next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai