The Place: Starbucks

The Cup: John Henry and I both went the traditional route and opted for coffee – straight up. We were letting the world know we were serious.

Background: If you read Cup 53 Cole Harmonson, John Henry’s name may be familiar to you. In fact, like me, when you read Cole’s story, you might have thought, “Wow, who is that John Henry fellow who had such an impact on Cole? I’d sure like to hear more about that guy!”

I was very curious. He sounded kind, generous and like someone who had figured out a thing or two about success. Imagine my delight when Cole, without my asking, sent me an email and copied John Henry letting me know he’d told John Henry about the project and then suggested we get together for coffee.  I was even more delighted when John Henry accepted. He was in New Mexico (where he spends about half his time) when we exchanged emails, but found time to get together when he was back in Austin for a few weeks.

What I will now attempt to do has never been attempted before. Well, not by me, that is. I am going to attempt to tell the most incredible story ever shared. Again, with me, anyhow. This is a story of addiction, poverty and hopelessness. It’s the story of second chances, third chances and miracles. It’s the story of a man who came into this world with nothing, spent many years of his life with little more than what he began with, and through a few powerful relationships managed to create a life of unimaginable success. It’s my hope and my belief that if we pay attention to the lessons ahead and put a few actions and beliefs into place, starting today, lives will be transformed. I know that sounds wild and maybe a bit megalomaniacal – but I believe with all of my heart that this interview has changed my life and it could change yours as well.

Born to drug-addicted parents, it’s not surprising that John Henry McDonald would follow a similar path. For the most part, it’s the only way of life he knew. When things got hard, people made you mad or the demons showed up, booze or drugs could made everything better. Until you sobered up, that is. So the cycle continued.

Vietnam made a soldier out of John Henry but it did little to turn his life around. He came out with Drill Sergeant on his resume and a love of narcotics and cheap wine. John Henry told me, “I took drugs and alcohol to mask my problems – my fears. I was scared to death all the time.” When I asked him if the fear came from Vietnam he admitted, “No. I was born scared. I called it Vietnam, but I was already well on my way. Vietnam was just an excuse.”

Christmas Day, 1973 John Henry woke up, covered in filth and soot from his attempt to burn down the house he was living in, to find a man standing over him. That man, L.E. Morgan Sr., was a Deacon at the local Church of Christ. He looked at John Henry and said to him, “We are a Church of Christ family and it’s Christmas, so we’re giving and you’re getting, son. Stand up and get cleaned off.”

John Henry tells me that in his semi-sober haze he considered screaming at the man to go away, figuring he was a Christian, so maybe he’d listen. But L.E. had his two grown sons standing behind him and John Henry, known as a scrapper, was nursing a broken arm (it had been broken 17 times). He knew he wouldn’t fare well in a 3:1 fight with the men. So he got up and cleaned up as best he could. He needed a drink. As he glanced down at the booze beside his bed, the old man seemed to read his mind and said, “You can leave that jug behind. We don’t drink in our house.”

Christmas dinner with the Morgan family was uncomfortable. John Henry laughed a little and said, “I felt like a wino bum in the middle of a Norman Rockwell print.” He needed a drink badly. After dinner, it was time for gifts. John Henry sat as the family exchanged gifts, and then the littlest Morgan came up to him and presented a small box addressed to John Henry. He opened it and inside the box he found a keychain. John Henry tells me he thought, “Shit, I don’t own a key. I didn’t have a car to drive or a door to lock.” He was touched by the sentiment though.

Seven long, sober hours later John Henry was finally at home again. He looked at himself in the mirror and thought, “Nobody did this to you but you. You’re the reason you’re here.” I comment that it must have been a difficult message to hear and John Henry says, “It was a brilliant grasp of the obvious and it changed my life.”

John Henry experienced many mysterious occurrences in his life, but this day was the first. He went to bed that night without touching a drop of booze and for the first time in as long as he could recall, he slept – versus passed out. And he slept well. The next day he called a friend, Gordon Barnett, who hauled him to an AA meeting – which he’s been doing for 40 years now. From that day on, he never drank again.

John Henry is a musician and he played with some of music’s greats – Waylon Jennings and Johnny Hammond Jr. to name a few. In 1976 he decided it was time to leave the Connecticut town he’d been living in and head to Alaska, where musicians could make serious cash. He had a little blonde girlfriend with a car who he talked into joining him, and they were accompanied by a mandolin player named Ralphie, his cat, and his dog, as well as John Henry’s dog, who happened to be pregnant with nine pups.

Because John Henry had a pal, Gentleman Joe, living in Austin, they decided to head to Alaska by way of Texas. Yeah, not my first route choice either, but what do I know? Thanks to a broken down car, 37 years later, John Henry is still in Austin.

Shortly after arriving, John Henry met a fellow named Vic Thompson. He’d played the banjo in the 1930s, had been a successful photographer, with photos on the cover of Time, Life and National Geographic. He’d also spent nine years in the Federal Penitentiary after he was busted for forging government checks and being on the run for over a year. When John Henry met him, he was a sculptor – apparently a very good one.

John Henry says, “Vic started talking about ‘If you can dream it, you can see it. If you can see it, you can do it.’ He talked about positive affirmations and living an intentional life. My uncle was a friend of Clement Stone who was friends with Napolean Hill and co-authored, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude and I’d heard all about PMA – Positive Mental Attitude – as a kid. I’d forgotten about it though, until I met Vic.”

The two began spending time together and Vic said to John Henry, “You need to change some things. First, you need to get a job.”

John Henry said, “OK, I’ll grab my guitar and find some work.”

“No.” Vic said.

John Henry says, “I was 27 years old and hadn’t worked a day in my life outside of being a Drill Sergeant in the US Army. That work doesn’t transfer. You can’t go in somewhere and say. ‘I’ll yell at people for you.'”

Vic told John Henry, “You will be working by Monday and you will follow some rules. You will show up 15 minutes early and stay 15 minutes late. When the boss comes in you will stand up and you will call him ‘Sir.’ You will not lose your temper.” When John Henry tried to explain that he had no control over the temper that landed him in countless fights over the years, Vic said, “Yes you can control it. You’re just a coward. You pick fights with small people you know you can beat.”

“How?” John Henry wanted to know and Vic told him, “You will count to 10. And you can pray.”

“I don’t believe in God,” John Henry said.

“Well he obviously believes in you,” was Vic’s response.

At Vic’s admonishment, John Henry went to work. Which he admits was hard when you have no skills. John Henry saw jobs available for carpenters. He said he figured he had a hammer, so he could be a carpenter. He was wrong. He’d get hired on and by the end of the day, when they figured out he wasn’t a carpenter, he was fired. There was so much work though, that the companies were hiring guys every day.

Jesse Welsh Sr. was the first man to hire and fire John Henry, and a few days later when he came across John Henry holding a hammer wrong and tapping on nails that other men were driving in with two whacks, he said, “I know you! I fired you the other day. I’m going to call you Lightning.” John Henry says, “Because I work so fast?” Jesse says, “No, because that hammer never seems to strike in the same place twice.” John Henry laughs long and hard, adding, “Then he fired my ass.”

Next up, John Henry decided to apply at a sign company. He thought he was taking an executive position, but in reality, it was a job as a janitor. He says, “I was terrified. I wanted a career.” Wanting to prove himself a hard worker and hopefully climb the ranks, he devised a plan. He’d work hard. “I swept as hard as I could,” John Henry tells me, “figuring the harder you swept, the better you were. I didn’t realize that the harder you swept, it kicked up dust into the air which got into the glue of the signs being made. So I got fired again.”

Gatti’s Pizza was John Henry’s next employer. He admits to me that he was full of self-delusions. He was hired as a pizza maker, but he says he thought he was on the leadership track. There was a day manager and a night manager who was over everyone. The day manager was working toward getting the night manager job once that person was promoted. John Henry decided he was the assistant to the day manager. He says, “There was a lot of stress being the assistant. Turned out, all they wanted me to do was make a pizza.”

Two months into the job, on a busy Friday night, John Henry stood before the pizza oven with a messy glob of dough on his paddle and no clue what to do next and he was frozen with anxiety. His 14 year old co-worker took over, threw the ingredients on the pizza, popped it in the oven and then told John Henry the manager wanted to see him.

“I figured he wasn’t about to give me a raise,” John Henry tells me. The manager said to him, “Obviously the stress of making pizza is too great for you.” John Henry says in that instant, he had another moment of complete clarity – like he did on Christmas Day 1973. You’ve got to let go of the willpower.  The message became so clear to him. He was fired, but he had clarity. He thought about giving up alcohol, and how easy that had been for him that Christmas Day. “It wasn’t willpower. It just happened. I realized that self-will didn’t work,” he said.

John Henry was back to the want-ads the next day. He found a listing for a carpenter that said to submit a resume. He’d never seen a carpenter job that needed a resume and it made him curious. He decided to call up the only man he thought might be able to help him write a carpenter resume – Jesse Welsh Sr. When he heard John Henry’s request, he said, “I don’t know anything about a resume. But I need a carpenter and Lightning, I guess you’ll do.”

John Henry showed up the next day, called his boss “Sir” and finally learned to hammer properly. Because of his Army Drill Sergeant training, Jesse hired him to run his crews and that’s what John Henry did for 18 months.

One day, Vic says to John Henry, “You need to finish something.” In his younger years, John Henry had failed out of several schools. He decided he’d try to get into the Union because they had a trade school and maybe, at long last, he could finish something.

Around this time, Vic also shared another powerful lesson that would take him years to fully get, but would stay with John Henry forever. Vic said, “Wake up every day and look for a miracle.”  A little while later, once we was in the habit of looking for one, Vic said, “Now, wake up every day and expect a miracle.” John Henry did this until one day Vic again changed it. “Wake up every day and demand a miracle.”

John Henry’s life was a struggle. He worked, got fired, scraped together rent money, sometimes couldn’t pay his rent. He kept moving forward though – baby step by baby step.

John Henry had long been controlled by his fears and Vic knew this. The next lesson Vic shared was, “You’re not allowed to worry.”

“How do I do that?” John Henry wondered?

Vic said, “Do you believe a worrisome thought has a beginning?”

“Yes.”

“When a thought begins,” Vic said, “stop it. And here’s the magic word.  No!”

He went on to remind John Henry that he needed to focus on having PMA – a positive mental attitude. Vic said, “Say, ‘It’s good!’ and good things will eventually come. You’ll attract them.”

John Henry got a chance to practice this when he got hired as a carpenter in his effort to get his Union Card and was once again fired. He decided not to worry and instead said, “This is good. Look for a miracle each day. Expect one, demand one. This is great. Wonderful!”

Vic’s next lesson was LTL – learn to lie. This one I’ve heard referred to as “Fake it ’til you make it.” No matter how things are going, learn to say, “It’s stupendous! Things are great!”

Hitchhiking home after getting fired from his carpentry gig, he got picked up by a man who asked John Henry, “I need a welder. You’re not a welder, are you?” LTL…”Yes I am!” he told the man. The next day, he got fired from his welding job.

Not having any luck getting hired for a union job, John Henry was thinking about moving up north where he might have better luck. He made a stop in to the Union Hall to visit with guys he knew and when he walked into the Business Agent’s office, the guy told him he’d been trying to get in touch with him, and asked, “Are you a bookkeeper?” LTL…”Yes I am!”

He got the job, and made friends and built job security quickly with his interesting payroll calculation technique. “There were all kinds of levels of pay in the union. I picked the highest one and paid everyone the same amount,” John Henry admits with a smirk and a laugh, adding, “I lasted through the winter at that job.”

When the owner came down to give him an aptitude test for another job he was considering hiring him for, John Henry’s cover was blown. He failed the test. But fortunately, he had his union card now and was an apprentice.

Vic had another lesson for John Henry. He told him to begin writing down the miracles he saw every day. And then he told John Henry to start designing a future. To focus on attracting what he wanted and not on achieving what he wanted. “What will you be doing five years from now?” Vic asked, “If you don’t know, you’ll just wander around and are more likely to fall into the negative. What’s your ideal life going to look like? Put a path together.”

John Henry’s next job was running a 750 acre cattle ranch in the Bastrop Pines. His little blonde-headed girlfriend loved horses, and this was the only way John Henry could figure he could give her the life she wanted – acres of land in the country with horses and cattle. He put on his cowboy hat, and the little blonde put on her gingham dress and they loaded into their new pickup truck to interview for the job. Twenty other folks, all with more ranch experience than John Henry, also wanted the job. After his interview, John Henry presented the owner with his calling card. When he got the call later that night, the owner said. “I’ve never met a cowboy with a calling card. You’re no cowboy. But I don’t think you’ll steal from us, so you’re hired.”

The next three years were spent on the ranch and it sounds like many happy memories were created there. Sadly, during this time, Vic got sick. There was a man that John Henry admired named Frank Roberts. He and Vic were as different as night and day. Vic was elegant and sophisticated and Frank was rough. He’d taught himself to read with a comic book in one hand and the Bible in the other. He carried a gun every day and had a dog named Charlie. Vic didn’t care for Frank, but he called him up one day and said, “John Henry seems to listen to you. I’m sick and I’m dying. If he asks you for help, say yes.” Frank said, “OK.”

This is still a very emotional subject and John Henry takes a few extra seconds as he composes his next sentence. “Vic loved me. Before he died he told me, ‘Finish that apprenticeship. Once you finish, there’s nothing you can’t do. Put your focus on doing right before wrong. Live in the confines of the day. Don’t worry. Keep a positive mental attitude. And write stories about how life will be.’ Vic helped me a lot. But there was still work to do.”

John Henry and the little blond were given a horse from a man named Charlie Graham (which I’m told is a whole other story…one I hope to hear someday). After leaving the ranch, they moved to an apartment downtown, and the horse lived in a stable. John Henry was at the stable one day when the owner asked what he was doing. He explained that’s he’d finished his carpentry apprenticeship, but didn’t think that’s what he wanted to do. She suggested he make a call to her brother Hank to talk about an opportunity.

When John Henry called Hank to request the meeting, he was told, “I’ll spend 15 minutes talking to anyone about anything.” John Henry decided he’d tell him he was looking for power, prestige and money and in their meeting he did just that. Hank thought that was hilarious and the two bonded quickly. Hank gave John Henry a name of a man to see about a job as a mutual fund salesperson.

John Henry went to that meeting and after a short conversation where the man learned John Henry was not retired from the military, a former school teacher or an MBA, he told him he had nothing for him. When Hank heard this, he called the man himself and demanded he give John Henry the test. It was an aptitude test and he passed. Luckily, it was the same test John Henry had seen before when he was fired from his bookkeeping job.

Next came a nine week training program which was essentially sales and product training. After the nine weeks, everyone went on to take their exams. Except John Henry. He repeated the nine week course. And when he’d done that three times, he was told he had to take the exam. He passed and on January 1, 1981 he was put on a direct commission plan and told he had 6 months to produce or he’d be let go. By the end of that first year, he’d be the 13th leading producer in the nation.

“I looked around and saw that everyone was sitting there waiting for the phone to ring. I though, if there’s anything I can do better than these SOBs, it’s work. Remember, expect miracles. I memorized the product information for three products out of hundreds and walked door to door. I’d ask, ‘Have you accumulated all the money you’re ever going to need?’ If they said ‘No.” I’d try to get a 15 minute meeting to show them how.”

Back at the office the guys joked about his methods asking, “Did you sell a red one or a green one? When he said, “I sold two reds and a green.” They wanted to know how. John Henry tells me, ” They called me a Financial Planner and I said, no, I’m Lightning.”

“I decided I needed credibility so I went for extra certifications. When I got the big stack of books needed to study I started to panic,” John Henry tells me, “so I called Frank. He asked ‘how many books?’ I said, ‘Six.’ He asked, ‘Have you opened them?’ “No.’ ‘OK, get out your calendar and on day 1, you’ll open them. Day 2, read the table of contents, day 3, first 20 pages and so on.’ I took six exams – failing and retaking several of them multiple times. But eventually I passed.”

Eventually, this hard work and perseverance would earn John Henry the spot of 13th leading producer in the nation among 1st year recruits, he’d have his own radio show called Taking Stock, and even a TV show. In 1987, he started his own company, Austin Asset Management which continues to be a huge success.

Recalling Vic’s advice to create the life he wanted, in 1984 John Henry began a 21-day ritual each November where he dreams up his best life and writes it all down. He says its “an exercise in dreaming.” He has made a book filled with his wildest dreams every year since starting the ritual.

John Henry went through a painful divorce in 1994-95 and was left with very little. He was angry and he was hurt. And more than anything, he wanted a drink. He called Frank and Frank said, “You’ve got to learn to forgive. You were an agent for the dark side for a long time, and it’s trying to bring you back. It’s got a wedge in you. That’s where it starts – with a small wedge.” John Henry shows me a small, opaque, plastic wedge he has on his keychain. He carries it with him as a reminder.

He did forgive and he gave his ex-wife everything. The house, the cars, the money. He took the debt, the taxes and he made a fresh start.

In his dream book from 1994, he has a clipping from the Wall Street Journal of a man who was featured as one of the top 250 financial planners in the country. Over the man’s face, John Henry has placed his own image. In 1997, John Henry was chosen by worth magazine is one of the top financial advisors in the nation.

He also shows me a photo of a lovely woman with short, brown hair. He explains that he was looking through Land’s End catalogue and saw her and thought, “She’s salty. I like her.” In the book she went. Along with other images – watches, custom clothing, vacations – and pages and pages of John Henry’s intimate hopes, dreams and plans for his best life.

In Feb. 1997, he met his wife Louise. He brings up a photo of Louise and I have to admit, the resemblance to the woman from the catalogue is uncanny. Louise actually edges her out in the “pretty” department.

John Henry is happier today than ever before. He’s living the dream – a successful business, a beautiful wife who’s also brilliant and successful, a gorgeous home in the hills of Austin, friends and associates who respect and admire him and a heart filled with gratitude for the teachers who helped him see it was possible.

As our conversation concludes, John Henry gives me a huge hug and I thank him for taking the time to share his story. He says, “I’ll spend 15 minutes talking to anyone about anything.” As successful as he is, he hasn’t forgotten that he didn’t get here alone, and he’s willing to help anyone who asks. He’ll share the lessons he’s learned over the years. He’ll show you his dreams and his goals, the pages of his ideal life scripted out in great detail. He’ll tell if you can dream it, you can see it and if you can see it, you can do it. He’ll challenge you to look for the miracles. But in the end, the rest is up to you. What you do with the secrets to a wildly successful life is your call. You’ll make the right choice, don’t worry.