John O'Leary, ON FIRE: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms don't have time to read books.
[0:10]It is a daily podcast, 365 days a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career,
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[0:22]I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir,
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[0:34]and my children's book prints is charming.
[0:37]You can learn more about me at Zivi Owens.com, but really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do.
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[0:58]John O'Leary is the author of On Fire, the seven choices to ignite a radically inspired life.
[1:03]In 1987, John was a curious nine-year-old boy who was playing with fire and gasoline created a major explosion in his house and was burned on 100% of his body.
[1:13]He was given less than one percent chance to live, but he did.
[1:18]And the epic story of survival was first showcased in his parents' book, which was called Overwhelming Odds in 2006.
[1:25]They printed 200 copies of that book for friends and families and his parents ended up selling 60,000 plus copies.
[1:32]John inspires 50,000 people at 100 plus events a year.
[1:36]He speaks to companies and organizations across industries and is consistently described as the best beaker we've ever had.
[1:44]His first book On Fire, the seven choices to ignite a radically inspired life was an instant number one national bestseller.
[1:51]200,000 plus copies have been sold and it's been translated into 12 languages.
[1:56]John's live-inspired podcast is top rated on Apple and has more than 2 million downloads.
[2:01]His second book in awe, rediscover your childlike wonder to unleash inspiration meaning and joy, is also out now.
[2:08]His greatest success is his marriage to his wife Beth, their four children, and his relationships with family and friends.
[2:14]And John actually had me on his podcast.
[2:16]Welcome, John. Thank you so much for coming on momstone have time to read books. I'm so honored to have you on.
[2:22]I love this time. So does it be thank you for making time for me.
[2:26]You shared such a personal moving, disturbing, inspiring, wonderful story in your book,
[2:35]not only from your point of view, but then going through and taking the points of view of all of your family members as they dealt with the trauma of the event.
[2:43]Can you describe what happened and the process and inspiration for even turning it into this very, very inspiring, unique, wonderful book?
[2:54]Well, there's a lot there. So I want to begin in a place. I don't think your question was intended to take us, but I think you have to start there.
[3:01]So the reality is this, I never knew I had a story to share. When you're nine years old and you're a little Midwest boy,
[3:10]and you get burned on 100% of your body, the dream is not one day. How do I turn this story into into a best selling book into a movement?
[3:19]The dream is to be ordinary. And even more than that, the dream is to disappear to be gray matter.
[3:25]I didn't like to be set aside. I didn't like to be celebrated or shunned. I just wanted to be ordinary again.
[3:31]So for the majority of my life after being burned, we'll come back to it. And after spending all that time in hospital, we'll come back to that probably.
[3:38]My goal was just to be a normal kid. And I did that all right for a long time into my 20s, in fact. So for almost two decades,
[3:45]I was an ordinary little guy. And then what changed ultimately was I'm working construction,
[3:52]Zibi and St. Louis, Missouri. A little girl calls my phone. I flip it open so that dates me a little bit,
[3:59]but I flip the phone. And I say, hello. And she says, Mr. O'Leary. And I say, oh, you want my dad?
[4:07]And she goes, no, Mr. O'Leary, I spoke to your dad, Mr. O'Leary, would you share your story
[4:12]of being burned with my school? And I had not told guys I was working construction with. I had
[4:19]not really told a married to her now, but I had not really told my girlfriend. Really,
[4:23]I had not told friends in college. It was a painful story that I did not like to rehash.
[4:29]But that day at this construction site in front of an F-150, I said, yes,
[4:35]I went, I spoke, and one of the kids' fathers said, John, that was awesome, would you speak for
[4:40]my rotary club? So I said, sure. And then I said, sure again, and sure again, and a couple thousand
[4:45]speeches later have finally started to embrace the miracle that is the story, that is my life,
[4:52]that is all of our lives. And so I had to share that because it's not a brag story. The whole
[4:57]thing is the slowly slow ability to wake up to the gift of life and to recognize how remarkable
[5:04]others were and instrumental they were and guiding you forward in that journey. So even the front
[5:09]of the book that you have in your hands, when the editors of New York first got their hands on it,
[5:15]they sent it back to me and it was a picture of me wearing a suit. And my arms were crossed,
[5:20]and my hair was up just right, and I'm looking at the reader like, aren't I a badass? Look at
[5:25]this thoroughly and maybe twice, you shall be too one day. And now when you see the book like,
[5:31]dude, there's no picture of me on the front or the back because it's not about me. It's a weird
[5:36]thing because it's all about me in some regards, but it's not at all about me. And so I wanted
[5:41]my readers to read it. I want my friends to speak to read it or the people follow us on our podcast
[5:47]to know it. It's not about a guy. It's about us collectively in what we can do together. So I'm sorry
[5:52]for the long-winded non answer, but I think it's important to know that. It is not a non answer.
[5:59]It is an introduction. So it's wonderful because you do take your own story and make it into these
[6:05]lessons. So your subtitle is the seven choices to ignite a radically inspired life. And you do
[6:13]take each one and make it a tip or an invitation to try something, to do something, to reconceive
[6:20]something else. So take us back, if you don't mind, or you don't have to talk about it,
[6:25]to what happened that day and how your recovery has and your decision to share has started this
[6:32]whole movement. Yeah. Well, what it would give that is. So as you read through the book, you realize
[6:37]it starts with chapter one. And it's my mom who is this unbelievable leader. A Midwestern woman,
[6:46]we never had any adversity grown up. I'm from a family with two parents,
[6:50]no divorces, no bankruptcy, no cancer diagnosis, nothing. It was clean, sailing, lies for all
[6:57]six of my siblings and me and our two ordinary troopers vacations down the Florida and occasionally
[7:03]up to Rhode Island. Like, my gosh, it was a idyllic upbringing. And then at age nine, I was involved
[7:08]in a gasoline explosion about a week before I watched boys in my neighborhood play with fire and
[7:14]gasoline, zipping life, if she can do it, or he can do it, or they can do it. So can I. So on a
[7:21]Saturday morning with my parents at work, the house was mine. I walked into the garage, bent over
[7:26]a can of gasoline. And the grandiose plan was to pour a little bit of gasoline on top of a piece
[7:31]of paper that was a flame. And before the liquid came out, the fumes from this five gallon container
[7:38]and hailed the little flame into the can, massive explosion, launched me 20 feet against the forest
[7:46]out of the garage and set my world on fire. One moment, I'm a happy, healthy, normal nine year old
[7:52]little guy with bangs and a turtleneck and a good, good life. And then in the next, you know,
[7:58]I found myself in a hospital bed with burns on 100% of my body, 87% worth third degree. And I'm dying.
[8:06]And you know what you're dying. I mean, some of your listeners in viewer like we know one more
[8:12]dying. So I knew I was dying. But I also knew even before death, I had fear and the fear was my
[8:18]dad is going to kill me when he finds out. So even though I knew I was going to die anyway,
[8:23]my first concern was before that happens, my dad is going to finish me off because I just
[8:28]played with gasoline. I blew up his home. He's going to be I rate and I hear him coming on the
[8:33]hallway, yelling at some nurse, where's my boy? Where's my boy, John? And this man walks into
[8:39]the room and he pulls back the curtain, marches over to me. My father was a veteran, points down at
[8:46]me and says, John, look at me when I'm talking to you. So in my family of origin, like this was
[8:55]the kiss of death. Look at me when I'm talking to you. So I look up at my dad and then he goes,
[9:01]I have never, I've never been so proud of anybody in my entire life. And my little buddy,
[9:09]you look at me when I'm talking to you today this morning, I'm just proud to be your dad.
[9:15]And then he says, I love you. I love you. I love you. And there's nothing you can do about it.
[9:21]So I would be, I mean, you read the books that you know what happens next. But I remember
[9:25]across my arms and shut in my eyes and think, you know, my gosh, nobody told my dad what happened.
[9:32]I mean, clearly the old man does not know I played the fire and gasoline. I blew up his house.
[9:37]I caused all of this. But what I did not know is boy is the power of grace and sacrificial love
[9:45]and meeting people where they are as they are. Like just a free in them to be as they are,
[9:50]I get changed. Honestly, fundamentally that day, my dad's love changed me. But our story doesn't
[9:57]open up with that. That's actually chopper.
[10:00]seven. My dad's love. It opens up with a story of my mother's chapter one. And my mom walks
[10:05]into this room. She takes my hand right after my father walks out. And she says the words,
[10:10]I love you. And I remember saying to her, mom, knock it off with a love. Am I going to die?
[10:16]And when I asked her that question that day, and I of course read it loved your book. So I
[10:20]know we both been through some tumultuous times in our life, but at this tumultuous time in
[10:25]mind, I was just looking for hope. I was looking for a hug. And I wasn't ready for what my
[10:30]mother was going to say back. So I said, mom, am I going to die? And she says to me, baby,
[10:36]look at me. Do you want to? Do you want to die? It's your choice, not mine. And I said,
[10:43]mom, I don't want to die. Gosh, I don't want to die. I want to live. And her response was good.
[10:49]Then look at me. You take the hand of God. You walk the journey with him, but you fight.
[10:54]John, listen to me. You fight like you've never fought before. Dad and I will be with you,
[11:00]you're not alone. But do your part, do your part fight forward. And this was this open and
[11:06]shot across the bow. It did not make five months in hospital easy or amputations or skin graphs or
[11:11]bandit changes. It's a torture program and hospital for burn care. It's really hard.
[11:16]None of that was easy because of that first moment, those first conversations.
[11:20]But I think the manner in which my dad walked in and then my mother's boldness to call
[11:25]like John, do your part. I think it made the journey possible. So that's how our story begins.
[11:33]Oh my gosh, just the power of the hearing you talk about it. It's similar. I mean, you capture it
[11:38]in the book as well. It's like you just, I can't stop listening and hearing and wanting to soak up
[11:42]like everything you say and everything you write. And oh my gosh, it's like you are a gifted
[11:50]orator among other things. Look at my, look at I cut you off there. I am, I struggled in school.
[11:57]I'm in articulate if I'm honest with you. I dangle a prepositions. I use the wrong word. I
[12:02]spelled there wrong all the time. Like I'm goofy, man. But I think that gifted orientation that
[12:11]you might pick up is like crazy vulnerability that is, it just cuts through the errors and allows
[12:19]us to connect with the message bigger than the one delivering it. Like that's not humility.
[12:24]I've been doing self work for a long time. I see very clearly my brokenness. But I know the
[12:30]reason why the story works is because it's not about the one delivering it. Like there's just
[12:34]something in it that allows us to imagine ourselves being that mom or being that dad or being that
[12:40]little born in difficult situation and wondering how are we going to weather this thing? What are we
[12:44]going to do next? Well, you're deflecting the compliment, but that's okay. I'll take it.
[12:49]We'll go with it there. Talk about the decision of how you structured this book
[12:56]around your experience. I know this is not your only book on fire and you have in awe rediscovering
[13:00]your child like wonder to unleash inspiration meaning and joy and your podcast and you were so
[13:05]nice to have me on your podcast. I'm so incredibly humbled. Why do it like this? Why not just
[13:12]write a memoir? Why include the choices and I'm sure it's linked to your feeling that what you're
[13:18]doing is to help other people. But talk about this. And also I really found it so interesting how
[13:24]you took everybody else's perspective. So tell me about that and tell me about
[13:30]do you talk to all of your siblings to get? Just tell me about all that.
[13:35]Okay, there's so much in your beautiful question. So first, why not write a memoir and why
[13:41]write it? Because I don't like self help, but it's almost more like a self-help memoir,
[13:46]autobiography, instructional book on living a bold life. So what, why structure like that?
[13:53]Even the way I answer that, like I don't like self-help gurus really and I don't like,
[13:58]I don't learn much from motivational speakers. Ultimately, what I do when I speak or write
[14:03]or have friends like you and my podcast is bring on these powerful stories in order that you
[14:08]and I might live differently afterwards. That's what the whole thing is geared toward. How do we
[14:14]take someone else's message, whether it's about being burned, going through a painful divorce,
[14:18]whatever else we're going through in life? How do we take somebody else's story and then say,
[14:22]okay, this is what it means for me in my life. And it's part of the reason why even after sharing
[14:29]my story with the Girl Scouts, it took me a long time to imagine why would I do this for another
[14:34]group or another group or another group? Why would I ever write a book? Because I've always
[14:39]viewed those things as being done for the person, either hold in the microphone or type in the
[14:43]memoir of the book. So I begin every chapter with a question like chapter four, are you in jail?
[14:50]That's kind of a weird question. Chapter one, a book about life begins with a title,
[14:55]do you want to die? That's kind of weird. So the whole idea is how do we have readers step into this
[15:01]and make a little Midwest boys story about being burned their story on either coast around the
[15:07]world about life and not my life. There's so that's why it's structured like that. I began
[15:13]usually with the chapter opening up with a little nine-year-old boy riding from his perspective.
[15:18]So, you know, I'm laying in the hospital bed and I don't understand why this happened to me
[15:22]and I write it as a total victim to my circumstances. Like it's not fair. How did this thing happen?
[15:28]Other boys did it and they got it. So it's this total mindset of how unfair life is.
[15:35]And then the mother steps in and thank heavens for the moms and the dads and the leaders in
[15:40]the rabbis and the pastors and the AA counselors of our lives, man, stepping in alongside of us
[15:45]and calling out our bowl. My mother steps in when I'm looking for someone to fix me. Do it for
[15:51]me, mom. That's what I want. And she says back to me, do you want to die? Like, I'm a dad now.
[15:58]I was a new dad when I started writing that book, but I wasn't fully a dad yet. It takes a while
[16:03]to fully understand like love like that, to put the choice of life and death into a child's hands.
[16:08]Like, who does that? Mom, but not only my mom, love does that. Like bold, audacious,
[16:16]unconditional love says you choose it. And if you come on back, I'll be here for you. Honey,
[16:20]I love you that much, but you've got to choose it for yourself. So I try to structure the book in
[16:26]a manner in which was honest about our story that allowed us to tell our story well,
[16:32]but ultimately allow it to be a story that would be meaningful and moving for the readers of it.
[16:37]And then you asked about, well, John, if you wrote a lot about others,
[16:41]yeah, I interviewed all of them because I wanted the perspective not to be,
[16:44]I remember it like this. And I won. Is that how you remember it? No, I wanted it to be their
[16:50]perspective, ultimately in the perspective of truth. So in the book, you read about my mom,
[16:55]you heard about her already. You heard a little bit about my dad, sisters. I don't know if you
[17:01]read chapter three or not. I did. Oh, my Lord. I mean, because when I speak, I kind of
[17:07]of give the highlight reel of our story, I very seldom go into the corners. What those little
[17:11]girls did on the front yard that day, it's unbelievable. So yeah, I had to get, I had to glean
[17:17]their perspective to understand what they felt and what they heard and what they did and why they
[17:21]did it. And all of that ultimately, not why it's moving me on your podcast to tears. But ultimately,
[17:27]why it might move a reader not only to tears, but to movement, to action. I want your life better.
[17:33]Your brother too, by the way, who you call such a hero. I mean, the guy who had not been
[17:38]particularly nice to you. Oh, I'm sorry. I love it, man. Like this is so raw. Like I just, I love
[17:44]my siblings. And I don't get to talk about him a lot. And as an old man today, I'm 46.
[17:50]We're just normal. Like we don't talk about gosh, do you remember that day? Like we don't talk
[17:54]about that. We talk about our kids and dude, three soccer practices on one night. I'm going to
[17:58]freakin loot. Like no, so we talk about normal stuff today. And then I get to go on your podcast
[18:03]and talk about the great stuff and the painful stuff and ultimately the good stuff of life,
[18:07]like my brother, Jim. When you start feeling so emotional now, which piece of it,
[18:13]which sister, what were they saying? Which moment? Well, I'll go through it in lineage.
[18:19]It won by one real quickly. So maybe the listeners of your podcast, those we've not already
[18:24]rocked a sleep. We'll hear maybe wild periods of your emotional as they are on these three kids,
[18:32]because that's who they are. They're just little kids, man. My brother, Jim was 17. My mom and dad
[18:36]were out at work, Saturday morning, 732, explosion, big explosion, so large. In fact, that my neighbor's
[18:44]windows blew out. So like, boom, man, this thing rocked the neighborhood and certainly woke up my
[18:51]siblings, including my brother, whose room was in the basement. So I'm out of the garage now,
[18:56]but I'm on fire. Fueled by gasoline, my little sweatsuit was just fueled with gasoline. And I'm
[19:03]a torch on the front hall, screaming for a hero, praying for a savior. And my brother, Jim, who
[19:09]heard the explosion. And then the screams comes up, looks at me. I look at him. And I remember
[19:16]thinking anybody else, you know, because Jim can't do anything for me. He's a 17 year old self-centered
[19:23]he's my brother. He's normal. I need a hero firefighter. Where are they? Where's my mom?
[19:30]But Jim's the one. And I just think there's so much like we can borrow from that. We keep waiting
[19:36]for Biden or Trump or the next president or the next governor or the next spouse or the next
[19:41]whatever to kind of fix us right now. But there's something about saying the one in front of us is
[19:46]the one that's going to do the work. And sometimes the one in front of us is the one in the mirror.
[19:50]Like, let's do this thing. So my brother, Jim, sees me a flame, runs over to me, picks up a rug,
[19:56]the kind you're supposed to wipe your feet on. And just
[20:00]It's beating me with this rug.
[20:01]And I have no idea what he's doing.
[20:02]Like I'm nine, I'm on fire, I'm in pain.
[20:04]And he's swinging down.
[20:06]And after three or four swings,
[20:07]he drops the rug because he catches.
[20:10]He pulls back, which is what we do when it's about us.
[20:14]And then Jim, as he watches his brother burn war.
[20:16]Now you know how I'm emotional, my gosh.
[20:18]This is life and death, comes back into the fight.
[20:20]Swings down a fifth time in a six time,
[20:23]in a seventh and a 10th and a 15th
[20:25]and two and a half minutes later, picks me up,
[20:27]carries me outside like a baby.
[20:29]Throws me in the ground, jumps on top of me,
[20:31]rolls around on top of me.
[20:34]After he completely puts out the fire,
[20:35]he then runs back into the house, calls 911.
[20:40]Then he checks every single bedroom
[20:42]to make sure my siblings are out and the dog is out.
[20:45]1987, the lifesaver of the year for the state of Missouri
[20:48]was not a firefighter or police officer
[20:50]or a veteran coming home from war.
[20:53]The lifesaver of the year was a 17 year old,
[20:56]arrogant self-centered boy named Jim O'Leary,
[20:59]who changed like in real time.
[21:02]He changed and eventually it's gonna change me too.
[21:06]So that's my brother Jim
[21:07]and there's a lot more to the story.
[21:09]And then my sister Amy's in the front yard.
[21:12]And she's 11 that day.
[21:14]I'm naked and it's a messy situation.
[21:17]I'll spare you the details,
[21:20]but this little girl comes over to me.
[21:22]And I'm just melting away in front of her.
[21:25]Like almost literally and she just comes over
[21:27]and she holds me.
[21:29]And isn't that what you long when you know?
[21:30]Is that but you've had your struggles in life?
[21:32]When you are on the ground floor and falling in farther,
[21:35]what we long for is someone to come
[21:37]and alongside of us and just love us as we are.
[21:40]And I get that morning, not from a counselor or a parent,
[21:45]but from an 11 year old sister who just holds me tired
[21:48]and she says to me, John, it's okay.
[21:50]It's okay.
[21:51]It's gonna be all right.
[21:52]I have faith and fight the best as she had to come.
[21:55]And after hearing her say this on repeat as several times,
[21:58]I remember saying to her Amy,
[21:59]I'm looking at my hands.
[22:01]You can see him on the screen.
[22:02]I'm looking at my body, which is charred.
[22:05]And I say to her, Amy, do me a favor.
[22:06]Go back into the house because it's not gonna be okay.
[22:10]Get a knife.
[22:11]Come on back out here and I want you to kill me.
[22:13]I'm not okay.
[22:16]And this little girl says to me,
[22:18]if words sometimes I need to hear
[22:20]if you wanna say I'm on the podcast,
[22:21]it'd be feel free.
[22:22]she says to me, John, shut up.
[22:26]What's wrong with you?
[22:28]Have faith and fight the best as she had to come.
[22:31]And I just knew she was wrong.
[22:32]So I kind of tuned her out
[22:33]and over here in the conversation was the third
[22:36]and final hero.
[22:37]So now you know, I'm emotional.
[22:39]This little girl named Susan,
[22:40]who hears her brother longing for a knife
[22:43]and this little girl goes into a house that is on fire.
[22:47]I'm not exaggerating to say the smoke is billowing
[22:49]through the windows and the doors.
[22:51]She makes it into the front hall
[22:52]and then she can't see her breathe anymore,
[22:54]but she's on mission.
[22:56]She goes into the kitchen,
[22:59]stumbles her way back.
[23:00]There opens up a drawer, reaches and grabs,
[23:02]whatever she came in for, comes back outside.
[23:04]And I just remember standing on the front hall
[23:06]and actually in the front yard that day,
[23:08]watching my house burn being held by one sister
[23:11]and then watching our seven-year-old sister Susan come up
[23:13]through the smoke.
[23:15]Her face was covered in so it black little cheeks now
[23:18]and she comes over to me and she just throws
[23:22]this cup of water right into my face.
[23:27]You know, I wanna die, Zibi.
[23:28]I want out of this mess.
[23:30]Some of us have been there on the call today
[23:33]and she's risking her life for mine.
[23:36]And then after she throws that first cup of water,
[23:38]she goes into the house a second time,
[23:40]gets a second cup of water, fills it up,
[23:43]runs back outside, throws it on my face
[23:45]and then at age seven turns and goes right back in.
[23:48]And we think it's nothing short of a miracle
[23:51]that this little girl goes into a house three times
[23:53]for three cups of water through
[23:54]and each one directly into my face.
[23:56]I am burned, as you know, on 100% on my body.
[24:00]I'm burned for my neck to my toes third degree.
[24:04]But the part of my body that is best saved.
[24:07]You're looking at it right now as Zibi is my face.
[24:09]It's not only the most handsome part of my body today,
[24:13]it's also the part of my body that they took 13 layers
[24:16]of skin for a donor site.
[24:18]They call it, it's from my scalp.
[24:20]The doctors who know credit, my sister's bravery that morning
[24:25]with giving them the opportunity of having skin later on
[24:29]to use as a donor set that saved my life later on.
[24:32]So, man, we need this all.
[24:35]It's like I'm such a, it's in regards
[24:37]a centralist politically and racial,
[24:40]like I keep trying to draw people together
[24:42]because what I'm so convinced of,
[24:45]it's that odd, odd retention between the two sides.
[24:49]We need them both.
[24:50]We need them actively engaged.
[24:52]We need everybody showing up mightily together,
[24:55]taking their next right best step.
[24:57]And on that morning, I had three really different siblings
[25:01]showing up for me.
[25:02]And in them showing up for me,
[25:04]I'm with you today Zibi on your podcast.
[25:08]Oh my gosh.
[25:10]John, good, like an emotional, man.
[25:14]It's amazing.
[25:19]There are no words.
[25:20]It's a gift from God, what they did,
[25:23]how they, that you were saved,
[25:25]that the whole thing has transpired this way
[25:29]so that you can turn back around and share the gifts
[25:33]that you received and the power and the bravery
[25:37]of your family and yourself.
[25:39]And it's amazing.
[25:43]It's just amazing.
[25:45]You're all incredible and it just goes to show
[25:49]what everybody does under duress.
[25:52]You might not think you can do.
[25:54]And yet you might be the one who can save someone else.
[25:59]And even more pointy and I think what you said is so brilliant.
[26:03]You are the one.
[26:04]We so frequently cheapen our life and this book
[26:09]and our work ultimately, not just as an author,
[26:11]but my work as a human being,
[26:13]is to remind people ultimately how much their life matters.
[26:17]In a marketplace where 46% of us report being isolated.
[26:21]So it's a big deal now.
[26:22]This is chronic.
[26:25]This is a real problem where so many of us
[26:27]feel as if our life is cheapened
[26:28]or we can't really influence positive change around us.
[26:31]I try to step forward, remind the seven year olds out there
[26:35]and the 11 year olds and the 17 year olds and the parents
[26:37]and the single people and the nurses and the doctors
[26:39]and CNAs and the inmates and the wardens all
[26:43]that your work matters.
[26:45]Like it matters big time, act like it.
[26:48]Even when you don't feel like it, act like it.
[26:54]John, thank you.
[26:56]And for people listening,
[26:57]this is just a tiny glimpse at the power of the actual book
[27:02]on fire, which you will read as I did
[27:05]with sort of my hand over my heart.
[27:07]Sometimes covering my mouth and just like, oh my gosh.
[27:12]And ultimately leaving so inspired,
[27:14]but which of course is the point,
[27:16]living in radically inspired life.
[27:18]So, John, thank you.
[27:20]Thank you for coming on.
[27:21]Thank you for sharing your story.
[27:22]And it's, I just can't say something about all that.
[27:27]I'm getting it's for you.
[27:28]I've had 506 podcast interviews now outbound.
[27:32]So from our live inspired channel,
[27:34]my wife has listened to three of them.
[27:38]Use it to be our one of the three
[27:40]because she was so moved by the book
[27:42]that she wanted to hear the author who wrote it.
[27:43]So, you are now in elite territory.
[27:47]Elizabeth O'Leary, my beautiful wife,
[27:49]has loved and been so moved by your life.
[27:52]So I wanted to give you a good friend for that.
[27:54]Well, thank Elizabeth for me.
[27:56]And I really appreciate her connecting us.
[28:00]I'm honored and I'm grateful to be your friend.
[28:03]Thank you for letting me be on.
[28:04]Of course, anytime.
[28:06]All right.
[28:07]Hi, John.
[28:07]Bye. Thank you.
[28:09]honored.
[28:11]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[28:13]Don't have time to read books.
[28:14]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[28:16]at Zebioans and at Moms.
[28:18]Don't have time to read books.
[28:19]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[28:22]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:24]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:26]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[28:28]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:30]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:32]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.