John was born almost half a decade ago in Australia to a family who lived in Sydney’s western suburbs. He was the middle child, with a brother three years older and a sister just 18 months younger than him. To all appearances, the family was very normal, they had a cat, a dog and an above-ground pool in the backyard that the kids adored. John’s father served as a Chief Petty Officer in the Australian Navy while his mother worked as a contract cleaner.

 What wasn’t so apparent to outsiders was that John’s father’s approach to disciplining his children involved a level of violence which, from a young age, left John traumatised. He has memories of inappropriate paternal responses to soiling himself in the bathtub as a preschooler, and to his decision to “decorate” some newly-laid concrete with shells he had lovingly collected at the beach. John’s father was not going to spoil his child by sparing the rod. Despite this, John maintained a relationship with his biological father until his passing in 2023, although the family was broken by his parent’s divorce when he was just five, and his mother’s subsequent remarriages.

John’s parents did manage to shield him during their separation; John recalling being picked up from school by his uncle who told him they were going on an adventure in a removal truck. Eventually John, along with his mother and siblings found themselves living for a year outside Grafton, a rural township in northern NSW, with his maternal grandparents on their cattle station. John’s favourite childhood memory is from that time, of sitting at night on a hill, snuggling up with the family and watching for shooting stars. In that moment, John experienced no confusion, just love.

During his professional career, John’s achievement has been influenced by those he terms “thought leaders”, a group of mainly American men and women who were at the forefront of the movement towards self-help and in the process became well-known and highly respected. Yet despite John’s desire to become as influential and successful as any of this group, it is his mother who he credits as the living person he most admires. She put an enormous effort into providing for the children after her marriage breakdown. John will concede that in some instances she was not the ideal mother, but he wants to acknowledge that she certainly tried her very best to meet all her children’s needs. John had some developmental delays, had “fallen through the cracks” and now considers he was functionally illiterate until the age of nine, although this didn’t stop him from imagining, dreaming and story-telling.

John’s Pop, his maternal grandfather, sensed that something was amiss with John’s learning when it came to reading and writing and put in a concerted effort with young John to improve his memory, with strategies to help him retain access to information not yet available to him in written form. The resultant skill level John achieved, at his Pop’s instigation, serves him very well in a professional capacity even now.

Miss Day, who was John’s primary school teacher in Year 2, also holds a fond place in John’s memories.  Her belief in John’s potential as a story-teller, despite his writing being totally illegible and incomprehensible to anyone else, was pivotal and ignited a spark for literacy, and literature, in John’s heart. From the beginning of his formal school education, John’s report cards had always noted he was easily distracted, John choosing to mask his learning deficits behind acting the clown. When he was in Year 3, no longer in Miss Day’s class, John was sent to read her what he now acknowledges as his first literary success, even though she had no way to read it herself. It was titled “Sausage men from outer space”. Dear Miss Day filled John with pride by telling him he had real promise and asking his mother for an interview to discuss it.  Although money was tight, John’s mother managed to find the finances she needed to get John a tutor, and John fell in love with reading. It was a turning point John will never forget, as he is never far from either a printed book or his Kindle to this day.

John had no option but to address his demons. He had therapy, including regression therapy, helping him to reframe past trauma and access healing through the release of associated pain. John learnt to respect and love aspects of himself which he had suppressed, his recovery fertilized by his sense of shame and embarrassment. A pivotal moment of John’s recovery from this trauma was performing a stand-up comedy routine based on his abuse at a venue near Bondi Beach in 2012.

John’s work life saw him start his first “business” as a six-year-old. He’d been given a kit to make plaster of Paris statues of Disney characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and in partnership with his brother Adam, had made and painted them, ready for sale at a streetside stall. John credits the pair’s success with his cute blond hair and blue eyes and wanted to invest the profits into the purchase of further molds, but his short-sighted brother wasted his share of their sales on lollies, to the chagrin of their Pop, who had been hoping to instill some financial acumen into his grandsons. This was John’s first, but by no means last, lost business. After losing a business in horticulture and landscaping, John followed a roundabout path through sales, selling gym memberships before he started another landscaping business, which he sold at the end of 2010. Eventually, John transitioned into the personal development field, where he is still extending both his reach and his skill set, intent on remaining a lifelong learner.

Over the last 20 years or so, John has invested a considerable amount of both time and money into becoming a life coach and international trainer. It is ironic that this path has seen the young boy who could neither read nor write becoming a prolific author, writing coach, publisher and motivational speaker. Leveraging his impressive organisational and interpersonal skills, John initiated a global movement born from authentic stories, “A Journey of Riches”, a 43-volume anthology of moving, personal stories of hope and triumph over adversity, from more than 400 co-authors in more than 50 countries, a series now a decade in the making. But John needs constant challenge, which is why his focus has now expanded to including film making, his first documentary debuting to considerable acclaim earlier this year. John has shown “The Gift in Adversity” at international film festivals in Germany, India, Italy and Portugal, winning awards for Best Documentary as well as Best First Time Director, Documentary. High praise for any debuting film maker.

John initially left Australia and joined the newly-burgeoning digital nomad bandwagon because he doesn’t enjoy the cold of a Sydney winter. His career in the personal development industry has afforded John opportunity to travel to many of the warmer parts of the globe and he considers not having experienced a full winter since 2001 amongst his greatest achievements.  Although John doesn’t have a bucket list, he will admit to a dream list, and in his dotage would love to be able to say he’d set feet in every country in the world, having travelled with purpose and meaning, exposing himself to new cultures and novel experiences. But hopefully for John, his dotage is still a long way off, since he wishes to remain a visionary and a catalyst for people to believe in themselves for many years yet. John’s true work is still in its early phase as he embraces retaining a beginner’s mindset, searching each day for improvement, for himself and also for everyone he encounters. 

Immediately prior to his arrival in Hua Hin in Thailand, John had been based long-term in Bali, Indonesia, a place with which he will have lifetime links, since profits from his book series are all donated to Jewels Children’s Home near Amlapura, Bali. Jewels is an orphanage John connected with when he had an incidence of foreboding while riding a bike laden with food donations. It was an unexpected turn of events which had lifelong consequences for John and the children at Jewels. John’s word is his bond and he has can find it difficult dealing with people who don’t keep their promises, much as he retains compassion for them.

While his film was in post-production in other areas of the country, an unexpected turn of event saw John head to Hua Hin in February 2024, on what was to be a temporary basis. Hua Hin has been weaving its magic on John, and now, with a Thai girlfriend and a tight-knit community based around a common love of rugby, John is happy to remain a Hua Hin local, though he would love to see more progress with road infrastructure and drainage, to make life easier for all local inhabitants. Hua Hin offers John the perfect balance of beach and mountains and he feels that there has never been a better time to be alive, most grateful to his parents for the gift of life. 

John is also grateful to have a girlfriend who is a chef, as evidenced by the copious number of plated food photos on his phone.  John’s personal favourite dish is an Indian dal makhani with jeera rice. He will also admit to a fondness of chocolate though a pre-diabetic scare has curtailed his regular consumption of desserts.

Some of John’s proudest moments arise from compliments he receives. It brings John a warm glow to hear that he’s been a game changer and has made a tangible difference in a person’s life. What more can anyone desire?