Real Talk | The Real Estate Podcast
Real Talk | The Real Estate Podcast
Jonathan Hacohen's Leap from Law to Authorship: Unveiling the "Bible 3.0 The 6 Commandments of the Chosen Life."
Embarking on a new chapter in life often requires a leap of faith, and that's exactly what Jonathan Hacohen, a seasoned mortgage lawyer and now author, did with his transformative book, "Bible 3.0: The 6 Commandments of the Chosen Life." As your host, I was thrilled to unwrap Jonathan's journey from the structured world of law to the boundless realm of writing. We peel back the layers of his creative process, the eye-catching cover designed by David M, and the leap from blogging and podcasting to publishing with the support of Awakened Press. Jonathan's tale is a testament to the power of following one's passion and the beauty of growth that comes from embracing new challenges.
During our enriching dialogue, Jonathan and I traverse the path laid out by "The 6 Commandments of the Chosen Life," a beacon for introspection and self-acceptance. Together, we underscore the essence of being authentic, the joy of giving, and how these commandments fortify one's life with a sense of purpose and personal responsibility. It's a chapter of our lives where helping others doesn't just change the world – it has the power to redefine our very beings.
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Hey everybody, this is Diana Victoria Quinn from TFN Realty and you're listening to the Real Talk Real Estate Podcast, the uncensored show that keeps it real for people who love real estate. We'll have some of the best interviews with some of our industry's most exciting people right now on a variety of different topics. We promise not to bore you. It's not to bore you. We have Jonathan Hukohan with us today real estate lawyer and now turned author here to speak about his new book Bible 3.0, commandments of the Chosen Life the Six Commandments of the Chosen Life. The Six Commandments.
Speaker 2:You want to show off the book?
Speaker 1:Yes, this is the book.
Speaker 2:There it is in all its glory.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful.
Speaker 2:It's like an encyclopedia. It's almost 400 pages.
Speaker 1:Who designed the cover?
Speaker 2:So the publisher Awakened Press, who are really awesome. I was really lucky to get connected with them and they worked me through this process and I learned how to create a book and write a book and edit a book, et cetera, and eventually record an audio book with it. And they have people that they work with that their only job in life is to create book covers. And Lindsay, my publisher, said to me I have somebody in mind, I think you'll work well with him. So I met the. His name was David David M, and David met with me for one session. We spoke for like five, 10 minutes and he got a flavor for me and what I thought I was looking for and everything. And I said to him but I don't want you to put together what you think I want in the cover. Knowing me and knowing what the book's about, you go do your thing.
Speaker 2:He came back, I think about two weeks later or so, with this book cover. This is the exact cover he came up with. I made not even a single tweet to it. I loved every single aspect of it. It was totally not what I expected from a book cover, yeah, and I was enthralled with it. So that's all David M. He saw my vision.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 2:Even the coloring, everything it's with the orange and the blue and the sky. Everything was strategically put there for a reason. I look at it, I feel uplifted, I want to go do something. I feel energized. That's what that book cover is supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So how did the chosen?
Speaker 2:lawyer become the chosen author. So the chosen lawyer was always born knowing he was going to be a lawyer. So from the time I was literally born, my family always told me you're going to be a lawyer, you're going to be a lawyer. So from the time I was literally born, my family always told me you're going to be a lawyer, going to be a lawyer, that's your role in life, it's going to be a real estate lawyer. So I knew, literally at that point I had no choice and I actually fought it for the longest time. I didn't want to be a lawyer, not because I didn't think I'd be good at it. Eventually accept. You know the universe and the way it is. I had a poster on my wall growing up. It was from the Godfather, part 3, which was a terrible movie, but it had a great quote on there and it said all the power on earth can't change destiny. And so I was always destined to be a lawyer. The only thing was I was. I was ready to accept it. My mother said to me when I was in about grade three or so. I came to her and I told her I'm going to write a book one day.
Speaker 2:I was a very avid reader from the time I was young. I read literally a book a day. So like we'd go get go to the library public library and, like kindergarten grade one, pick out seven books on a Saturday, sunday, read a book a day, and they would quiz me on the books. They'd come back and say I can't believe you read it that fast. And they would ask me questions. And I was able to do that. So I was an avid reader but I always wanted to write a book.
Speaker 2:I just honestly never thought it was actually going to happen. I was, you know, I was really nervous about it. It was too much of a hill to climb. I didn't think I was good enough. Whatever story I sold myself. And then, once I've accepted at the point in my life, okay, I'm too old for this, it's not going to happen, I haven't done it now, I will never do it. Once I reached that point and I just accepted it, then it hit me. Then, just literally, the book concept hit me in one day and I went with it. Instead of, you know, being forced to do it or being scared about it, I just said you know what you live once. Let's just do it and let's have fun with it, and that's where I grew to it. So I think, naturally, I was actually born to be a lawyer and author. It's just when I was ready to accept it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. And the inspirations behind this book. So you knew that at some point you would be an author, you would write a book? Did you know what it would be about and how did Bible 3.0 come to be?
Speaker 2:There's so many times I started and stopped writing books. It's utterly ridiculous. I was blogging for a long time. So before I was a podcaster, before I was an author, I was a blogger and I was writing about sports. So what happened? I love baseball, so I was writing about baseball. I built up a giant baseball blog. At one point I had like six seven writers with me, so I was writing my own work, I was editing their work, I was running the site, doing the marketing, every aspect of it, and I burnt out really quick because that's a full-time job or two jobs in itself and that's just not feasible. And before all that, why did I go to blogging Is because I started and stopped writing books and I never found the it factor, nothing that I loved enough that I said, okay, this is what I want to write a whole book about.
Speaker 2:The closest I ever came, I was in New Mexico. I was about 17, 18 years old. Give or take. I'm always off by a year or so. I went to go visit my uncle in New Mexico, in Taos, new Mexico. I've never been there before and I remember being there and he was like in the middle of nowhere, literally. I've never seen something like this in my life.
Speaker 2:I traveled by myself and I was with him and his wife and their dogs, and I remember sitting out there and, day night, you don't even hear a single sound ever. There's like nobody around for miles, and so it's completely clear from a sound perspective. You look up in the sky there's no pollution, there's no nothing, it's just a blue, blue sky. When nighttime comes, stars are there and I just felt so in love with that area and I became so entranced that I started to write. And back then there was no laptops or anything. There was a pad of paper and a pen and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote about, I'd like to say, seven or 10 chapters of a book.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And I brought it back home and I thought to myself okay, let's reread it now. So I left it and I went back and I reread it. I read it and I said this is way too dark, I'm not going here. I ripped it up and I threw it out. It's funny because even after all these years I have that story in my head and I remember it. But the problem was I was very, I was only reading Stephen King. At this point it was getting to be very Stephen King-ish. I realized that the influence was too much.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is about being an artist. I think you know art takes so many forms. You know People think art is just drawing, it's sculpting. Music is an art form, writing is an art form. If you're going to have true, true art, the only way it's going to really work for most of us is if we embed ourselves into it, so we are a part of our art.
Speaker 2:So this book is me Like it's an inspirational book. It's a self-improvement. I don't love the term self-help. I like self-improvement, but it's in the self-help genre, sure, in a spirituality sense. But it's also a memoir. So it's almost like when people buying it they're reading my diary, so to speak.
Speaker 2:And so when I wrote that other book in the Stephen King, it was like what I kind of projected myself in, who I was and where I was going, and I was very lost at that point in my life. So it's almost like I was bringing my readers into where I was at that point in my life and I was kind of at a crossroads. And being at a crossroads, I wasn't ready to write about it. And at the point where I gave up blogging, I went a good 10 years.
Speaker 2:I didn't write anything other than work related items. I didn't write anything other than work related items. I didn't read anything other than magazines. I had literally writer's block and reader's block. I made this vow to myself. I said I'm not going to write about life anymore, I'm going to go live life and I'm going to yoga. So I gave up writing for yoga and I went on a yoga spiritual journey and that's where I was at. So ultimately, when this book came, it wasn't about writing where I thought my life should go or writing a fable about it. Now I had had practical experience which now I could share, and that's really how the book was born.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible, such a great story.
Speaker 2:It's. I look on it and I feel like I'm watching somebody else's life, because I don't believe it actually happened. I feel like I've lived three lifetimes and so, ultimately, whether it's my grandchildren or great-grandchildren, they never got to meet me. Yeah, they'll see this character on podcasts, who interviewed all sorts of wrestlers and baseball players, etc. But if they wanted to know who he really was and where his real thoughts were, that's all there.
Speaker 1:How did this awareness come to be?
Speaker 2:In what sense, as far as like self-awareness, yeah, self-awareness.
Speaker 2:Everything begins and ends with me at yoga. So I and in my book, when I dedicate the book, I dedicate it to my brother, first of all because my brother, you know, finest human being that I know and a true mensch gentleman, you know as a term in our language, and when my dad died I was I just turned 11. When my dad died, I was I just turned 11. And he was my brother's, 17 years older than me and he really raised me like a dad and my mother was always like my grandmother because of the age gap. My mom was 40 when she had me and nobody really had babies at 40 back then, you know. And so he was really like my guiding force. But I talked in the book and I said you know, you brought me from a boy to a man. So he was like Hades and he brought me to the underworld, kind of thing. And then the trip stopped and while he's continuing to be there for me, yoga took me to the next point. Yoga took me from being a man to enlightenment, so to speak. And so yoga, going to yoga, was really like a cheat. It was a lazy solution because I was physically not well, I didn't look good. I was really heavy. I was at the crossroads, professionally and personally, and going to yoga I thought it was, you know, stretching out, doing these poses and everything and pushing so hard. It was great and that's what helped me kind of get myself physically fit, which allowed my mind to get sound, and then, as my mind is sound, I can then channel that energy to bring my body to be more fit. So they work together.
Speaker 2:But it was lying there before and after classes in Shavasana. You know the pose where you're dead dead man, dead woman pose. You're lying flat, your arms are out, eyes are closed. I struggled so much with that because I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts. You know the horrible thoughts were coming and panics and all that. And once I let go of that in Shavasana, that's where everything, the awareness came. That's when I realized this is who you are, this is where you are in life. These are our options in life. You didn't see this road. You didn't see that road. Why are we not pursuing that? Why are we spending time with this person? We should let them go. Why are you doing this for a living? Why don't you go? Take control of your own destiny? That's when I stopped listening to those devil bad thoughts and I just got cleared All of a sudden, like my third eye opens and all of a sudden the light comes in and I start to see of where I am at and where I can go. And I start to see those positive thoughts. I see the true potential of who I am.
Speaker 2:And even now, if I'm not going to yoga frequently enough, I get stuck in ruts, I get down on myself. I'm human, I'll admit this. I wrote this book. People think I'm this spiritual guru, whatever. I'm human still and I still feel very bad thoughts at times. I forget anxiety. I still get anxiety on a daily basis. I fight that, you know, and unfortunately I only get that in the morning. And I realized through hydration, when I drink my water in the morning, all of a sudden it feels better and I go to practice yoga, I go to the gym, I feel better, you know. So I'm realizing these things.
Speaker 2:But awareness, ultimately for a lot of us, you're going to search for answers in the books. You're going to search for answers in food. You're going to search for answers in traveling. I'm gonna go to India, whatever. All of these things are conduits. The answer is not in the book. The book is the conduit to allow you to get to the point where you can be with your own thoughts and start to see the true pictures, and then you can only cause. Only you can do it for yourself. Ultimately, nobody else can do it for you. But if we can open that door and you can see that door and you can go through that door, boom, that's where you're at.
Speaker 1:So and it's not an easy process.
Speaker 2:It is a lifelong struggle I can say. I talk about in the six commandments. Part of it is the nutrition chapter and I got to points in the past year where I sold myself you are lifting really heavy, you need to bulk up, you need to eat like this so you can eat six meals a day, that's okay. And I sold myself whatever bill of goods I sold myself. And then I go to take my physical and I'm realizing, oh, guess what? Your cholesterol is so great and more, and your kidneys, you know, are suffering a bit and you're on that cusp. And I said to myself okay, let's go to yoga. I go to yoga. As I'm in yoga, I'm telling myself you have the formula, you've done it. You know what you did originally. That worked for us 10 years ago, that worked for us five years ago. Let's just go back to the formula and let's go to what's tried, trusted and true for us and let's just make it happen. I started to follow it. I can tell you I'm sitting here now with you and we're taping this. We are in near the end of March, right 2024.
Speaker 2:I started this process January 1st. I'm sitting here now and I weighed myself this morning. I am now 15 pounds down from January 1st, very, very gradual. Nobody can see it on me. I can feel it because as a male it's off the waist. All that junk that didn't need to be there is gone. It's redistributed partially in my upper body through workouts, yes, but I'm realizing I'm not carrying the weight I don't need to. I feel unburdened, I feel lighter, I feel happier, my body's responding well, my clothes are fitting better. It's all kind of a cycle with it.
Speaker 2:So trying to pretend we're something we're not doesn't work. And a lot of us try to play characters, you know, and think of what we have to be, because people expect that of us, or what we expect our parents think of us, or our boss or our kids. At some point we need to be true. This is who we are, this is our strengths, these are our limitations, and embrace that. You know I'm never going to be 6'5", diana, I'm not. I'm 5'6". That's the way it goes. Maybe 5'5", you know. And I'm not a natural athlete and I'm never going to be able to paint beautiful paintings, you know. That's okay. I like to write, I like to talk.
Speaker 2:I like to spend time with people. I like to build, I like to help others. That's okay too. So accept what we have and use those to make better in this world. Ultimately and that's what it all comes down to at the end of the day I think a lot of people have to ask themselves what are we on this earth for? What are we achieving for ourselves and how are we helping others? And I think, really I think, especially in this day and age, I think the need to criticize others, make other people feel bad, go on social media, insult others, what be. There's no need for that. Let's let that stuff go and let's think to ourselves today, every day we wake up. How can we be at our best and how can we make others feel good and help them? Let's all help each other.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I had this conversation with my boys the other day because you know they're children, they're 11 and 13. But it's all about them. It's all about I wake up in the morning. What is mommy and daddy doing for me? Where are we going today? What are you buying me? What are you doing for me? And I ask them what are you doing for me? Are you going to do the dishes? Are you going to clean your rooms? Are you going to do my laundry? And they looked at me shocked I'm not doing your laundry. They don't understand that. It's about giving, it's not about receiving, and when you give, you receive indirectly. It comes to you. So I really believe in that as well. Without going into all the details of the Six Commandments, can you share a little bit about each? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Foundationally I wasn't expecting the book to be the Six Commandments of the Chosen Life. It's funny we kind of had this kind of discussion back and forth with the publisher because I'm really enthralled with the enlightenment section, you know, and part three of the book. We talk about how to get to that road to enlightenment. Uh, you know that it captivates a lot of people and I can understand why and it's the the. The thought is I want to be able to focus on that, I want to set goals, I want to manifest, I want to learn all that sexy stuff. I don't want to focus on the not necessarily unsexy stuff as far as doing putting the work and building the systems. But why this book is ultimately called the Six Commandments of Chosen Life is because you have to build those systems in order to be able to get yourself ahead. You're not going to be able to go to the road. You can't make it to the road if you don't even have yourself down initially. And so when part one of the book talks about how the body, mind and soul work, we understand we have a body, we have a mind, we have a soul. So there's a component for us that we tend to neglect that soul part. We forget that there's a life energy, a life spirit. We're like, okay, I'm mentally good, I'm taking care of my mind, I'm playing Sudoku, whatever I'm doing, I'm going to the gym, I take care of my body, but what zest for life do you have? What do you want to move?
Speaker 2:And so the six commandments, in their own ways, I talk about there in the book how each affect the body, mind and soul. So if we're going to go from a starting point, really easy. You know, none of this is new, by the way. I didn't create, you know, new revelations that people don't know exist. The thing is, we know it's there, but we know it's there so succinctly. And how do we achieve it?
Speaker 2:So you know, we talk about, okay, exercise, nutrition, sleep, water, nevermind five and six, those four things on its own right. We know they're there. And because I know I have to drink more water, I know I need to exercise, I know I should sleep more, great, let's get past what we think we need to do and let's actually do it. Let's not say to ourselves, okay, I have to get eight hours of sleep, okay, I have to go to the gym five days a week. Let's get away from all that. Let's look at where we are today and let's say I'll give you an example, so probably each in one section. Okay, so I'm going to fix now for you those four parts of your life. Okay, let's say, for example, diana, you're going to the gym, none.
Speaker 1:It's your own.
Speaker 2:Okay, from an exercise point of view, right now, today, can you make the commitment to go take a 15-minute walk outside? It's a beautiful day, right. It's plus 15 Celsius. It's balmy, right. Today we're going to take one 15-minute walk that we weren't going to do otherwise. Take one 15-minute walk.
Speaker 1:Feasible, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Done. Let's do that again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. We have 24 hours in a day. You're awake for X amount of hours. All you're coming to for this week is 15 minutes a day for walking Beautiful Done. So we covered off the exercise. We're already on our road there.
Speaker 2:Water let's say we're drinking zero water, so we have a big hatred of water and we just want to drink coffee and juice and beer and whatever we want. Okay, I realize you need to have a glass of water. We can all agree. Whatever the studies show, blah, blah. People like six glasses, 10 glasses, 15 glasses. I hear three liters, seven liters. Okay, we're going to start somewhere. Okay, we're making a commitment. Today we're going to drink one glass of water more than we're going to do. You don't have to gulp it down, you can sip it throughout the day, but we're going to fill up our one glass right, 250 mils Every hour. We're going to take a sip out of it. By the end of the day, that water's going to be gone right, one glass of water, one cup of water, is added to our diet, beautiful Finito. Tomorrow, same thing, and we're going to do this indefinitely. So now imagine if that's all. We did, those two alone, and we come back after 365 days and every single day you'd walked 15 minutes right and every single day you had one glass of water. What's the accumulation there? It looks like a lot, but it was very, very little.
Speaker 2:To begin, sleep Okay, let's say, for example, you're sleeping five hours a day, no-transcript create, everything set up, and you're going to get an extra 15 minutes to half an hour every single day. We're going to do that for a week as well. Okay, so we covered off so far water, sleep, exercise, nutrition. So let's say, you looked at what you look at what you ate throughout the day and one of the things you're saying okay, I have a guilty habit. I like to eat, let's say, ice cream bars, and let's say, every day, I love to have two ice cream bars. That's my thing, ice cream bars are my guilty habit, and so every day I got to get those ice cream bars. So I eat pretty well, but that's my guilty pleasure.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's make the commitment today we're going to drop one of those ice cream bars. We're not going to add anything into our diet. We're going to find one thing that we're doing and let's lessen it. So now for this week, every day you're still getting your ice cream bar, just have day. You're still getting your ice cream bar, just have the one. And let's say you eat them at 6 pm and 9 pm. Okay, can we hold off on the 6 pm one? Maybe have it around 7 or 8, and you're going to train your brain thinking it's still getting it. But instead of the two it'll be the one.
Speaker 2:And what we've done there, we just removed one thing out of our diet. That's already now the four commandments. We've already started the process. That's literally what the book is doing. How do we add a little bit of something good, slowly take away something bad Once we get those four down? That's why I have them in the order of the six commandments, because then we're going to work towards yoga meditation. Commandments five and six those are the ones that most people struggle with. Diana, the hardest refuse to do it.
Speaker 1:I have personal experience with that, very challenging for me.
Speaker 2:People say near impossible. I don't meditate, I don't practice yoga, it's too hot for me, I can't sit still, my body's not built towards it. Whatever bill is remember the bill of goods that I sold myself and why I can't write a book. I see a book now. This is not five pages, this is almost 400 pages, but I can't write a book. But I did. If I can sit and convince myself that I can't write a book and then I can convince myself that I can. Somebody who says I can't meditate okay, we don't have to make this fancy. We have your walls in this room, right. You don't have to go sit in the middle and struggle. Go lean up against the wall, sit in whatever comfortable position. Set yourself a timer 10 minutes. Timer, 10 minutes 10 minutes and not only that.
Speaker 2:Go put some music on while you're at it too, and go listen to the music and go sing along. I don't care, you've already started the process of meditation there. We're not going to sit for an hour. We're not going to sit in the middle of the room cross-legged without cushions. We can lie down and meditate. We can sit on this chair. Right now. You and I could both sit down together. We could literally sit in this position, sit in silence. We're meditating.
Speaker 2:And then in yoga, you know what? You don't want to go to a studio. You don't have a gym membership. You have access to YouTube. Go, pop out to YouTube type in yoga instructional class, whatever it be, and you can practice 10, 15 minutes of yoga.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can whatever be it and you can practice 10-15 minutes of yoga. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can get a mat. You can find it on a carpet floor. You don't have to wear a fancy outfit and you can find ones where it's beginners yoga, where you're simply doing simple stretches.
Speaker 2:There's yin yoga, where they do two or three postures. They show you how to hold the posture. It's almost like just relaxation time you put a couple of cushions, you're just lying there and you're holding one position. Time you put a couple of cushions and you're just lying there and you're holding one position, that's yoga. That's going to be that simple. So my issue with how society and people tend to do things is we become this all or nothing society. We either go a thousand or we go zero. If I'm not going to gym five days a week, there's no point at all. If I'm not eating freaking perfect then I won't eat at all. Or I'll eat zero or I'll eat the garbage. It doesn't matter, we don't have to be so extreme.
Speaker 1:But it's almost self-sabotaging. We're setting ourselves up for failure Because we don't know. But I don't know.
Speaker 2:If we know, we don't know necessarily what's better and we don't know how to do it. And this is where I'm saying how did this book come to be? It's because I didn't know. I went to professionals, I worked with a dietician, nutritionist, I went to meditation camps, I went to the Buddhist temple, I went to yoga studios, I worked with the finest instructors, I had workshops. I got to understand everything.
Speaker 2:If you want to build a foundation, it's built slowly. They say. Rome wasn't built in a day, it's built stone by stone. So you want to build these six commandments. In there we create a system where you do it gradual, gradual, shift a little bit, shift a little bit, take away, take away. And before you know it, one or two years have passed and you're doing these things which you need to be doing anyways. All of a sudden, you feel better, you look better, you're more motivated. Now we can open the door and let's take our life to the next level. But we can't do that if we're not equipped. If you and I are not mentally and physically sound, how are we going to go climb a giant mountain? We're going to get burnt out in two seconds, right? So you're basically training yourself and doing the practice so you can go climb those mountains, so to speak, in life.
Speaker 1:Now, who do you think this your book is for? Does someone have to be ready for it? Because it sounds. I know it's not simple, but the concept, from what I'm understanding, it's small actions over time, a little bit every day, over time, a little bit every day. But with that you need to be ready to put in the work and everyone says that. You know, I want to change, I want to lose weight, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, but to sit with yourself and look at yourself in the mirror and say I'm ready to do this, do you think? I guess my question is do you think everybody has that in them, the ability to be honest with themselves and start this process, or it's for somebody who's already aware?
Speaker 2:and ready. The person, okay, which is a great question the person that is most aware and ready, like, for example, where I'm at now. I was ready to write the book. When I read this book, I don't read it that I wrote it. I read it like it's written by somebody else, because I don't remember even writing it. To be honest, I was in such a trance in the zone when I was writing it that the words were flowing through me that when I read and I listen to that audio book, a version of it, I feel like I'm listening to somebody else and I have an appreciation for it. And so I separate myself and I'm like okay, am I following this? Am I doing this? That's a very easy market to say.
Speaker 2:The people that are going to the yoga studio, the people that are meditating, people that are attending temples and synagogues and churches and are religiously aware, no doubt they're going to have a great appreciation for this book. You know, no matter what denomination you are, even though I'm a Jew-boo, this is not for Jew-boos, this is not for Jews, buddhists, this is for everybody, no matter what you are. I heavily encourage you and in the book I talk about, a lot is find your zest for life. Certainly, I think about two extremes right now. So easy, wise, my son, 18 years old, jeremiah, and I look at him and we talk about it and he's heard the book a thousand times. I have it playing in the background and everything else. And I look at him and he's at the point now he drinks about 10 bottles of water, so the 500 mils. And so for somebody who was not drinking water, you know, he goes to his gym about three, four times a week. You know, um, he's on a food schedule and everything else. And it's funny because he fought me on it forever and he was telling me like you're crazy, you should, you know, you're so extreme and nobody does that, blah, blah. And eventually, when he started doing his own research and everything and realized what I was doing and all of a sudden he starts asking me questions, he started having more an appreciation for what that book is.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think to myself, lord, if I was Jeremiah's age and at 18 years old, somebody had given me this book and could have shown me the road and I could have followed these things instead of starting it in my 30s and 40s, I could have been so much more ahead of the game. And so I think that kids in high school, grade school you know when I think of myself in grade five and I was eating grilled cheese sandwiches and drinking Slurpees, you know, and drinking fruit juice if parents reading this book can come and talk about these concepts with their kids and start them off early with a foundation you know. Talk about yoga in grade school, you know they do them in prison, you know. So why not bring it to the school system, kids learning yoga earlier in life? It's setting such a good foundation for them. They're calmer, they're happier, they're more focused, to an extreme.
Speaker 2:Where my mother, who's 87 years old and she's reading the book and she's telling me you know, I'm not your target audience for this because, like I'm done, I'm just on borrowed time now and I'm just going to do what I'm doing. But yet she comes back to me and says you know what? I made a couple of tweaks in my life. I thought about what you said and you know what. I took a couple of things away from my diet and I decided to do a little more walking today. And that's where I'm saying you know what, diana, it's never too early to get started on a good foundation, and it's never too late to change, as long as you're alive and you have breath in your body.
Speaker 2:And not everybody can read and I, granted, not everybody has the ability or the will to read pop in the audio book, listen to it, you know. Reach out to me as an author. If you don't have the means financially, I'll get you a copy of the book. This is not about making money. It's about helping others, and so most are those people that are at the crossroads in life, that don't have the systems, feel okay, I'm too heavy, I'm too slow, I'm too old, I'm in a dead-end job, I don't have education, whatever it is. Those are the ones that you think are the most not target audience, they're the ones that need it the most. This is the lifeline. That's why it's called the Bible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's amazing because it brings you through it one step at a time Because, like you said, everything is interconnected. So when one aspect of the mind, body, soul is off, it's all off, and so it can become overwhelming. I have been there in my life where you just don't know where to start, completely helpless. But you pick up this book, chapter one, you start to read and you have a guide.
Speaker 2:Metaphor wise LeBron James. Okay, I can take LeBron James. Lebron James, greatest athlete potentially of all time right.
Speaker 2:Two things. Number one LeBron James spends over a million dollars a year just on his body. Between all the chambers. He uses his nutritionist, dietician chefs, his coaches, everything else in the practice schedules, meditation, everything he does. He has been genetically engineered for near perfection. The man is not a spring chicken anymore and he can still beat almost anybody on the court at any point. That's number one. Number two he is one of the greatest knowledgeable basketball and he has coaches. So he's not above coaching. He's not above assistance. You know, you think of Roger Federer, greatest tennis player of all time. Potentially, he has coaches.
Speaker 2:And that's where I tell people no matter where we're at, I wrote a book. I need coaches. When I go to the gym, I have a personal trainer. When I go to yoga, I have my class and my teachers. When I am cooking, I am reading articles, I am watching YouTube videos. I'm getting instructed.
Speaker 2:None of us are above. No matter where we're at in life, we need that little push, we need that little assistance. So this is where I'm coming to everybody and saying, hey, you know, you might be really good with exercise, nutrition. Great, if you reading this, those chapters, and you're reaffirming it, fantastic. There's no harm in that, but you may find one little tweak or you may find roads. You know, none of us are perfect, diana. The truth is again. Remember. We came back to the whole idea. We have strengths. We have limitations. Right, I have more limitations than I have strengths, and I'm honest with myself about that. Why I got to the point is God did not give me a lot of abilities in a lot of areas, but he gave me hard work and determination, and people need to know, no matter what limitation you have, then work twice as hard, three times as hard, but any little thing you do to make a slight shift is better than what you were doing yesterday. I don't need to be LeBron James of basketball. I will never be LeBron James of basketball. Let's be quite frank with it.
Speaker 2:When I was growing up, who did I want to be when I grew up? I didn't want to be Stephen King. I don't want to be an author. I wanted to be Mr T. That's who I wanted to be. I wanted to be a big African-American guy with the mohawk and gold chains, the earrings and I didn't really notice or worry about the earring part, but maybe I could have pulled that off and I wanted to be a boxer and I wanted to be on the A team and that's what I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:And at some point in life I realized I'm not going to be Mr T. Obviously I don't look like him, I don't have his strengths and everything else. But one of the things I took away from him was we can all channel our inner Mr T, because he has a passion for life, that zest, that soul. So in a lot of what I do, I tell myself, like when I'm lifting weights, for example, I need to push that last rep. What would Mr T do right now? Mr T wouldn't give up, mr T would pity the fool and he would push through. And that's what we got to do. So in life sometimes when you think you're down, channel your inner Mr T.
Speaker 1:You know who should have been on the back of her? Mr T, that would have been great.
Speaker 2:I still hope to meet him one day. I had the opportunity. He appeared at the Toys R Us when they first opened, when I was very young, wow. And my dad said to me he was going to take me and I came to him every hour. I said are we going to go see Mr T now? And he's like we'll go soon, we go soon, we never went.
Speaker 1:And I never got to meet Mr T. We should find a way to make that happen.
Speaker 2:Well, mr T, if you're watching this buddy, I was pushing for you to be in Creed 3 because I thought that it was the way. The progression was that Mr T's son should come and face, but they decided not to go with Mr T and they didn't listen to me. Okay, we're going to have to see what we can do, what TFN can do. Where can we buy this book?
Speaker 1:Great question, and so you also just came out with the audio book. Where can we listen to that?
Speaker 2:So the book is available as the physical book, as you see here, we have our e-book, so for those people who love to read it on Kindle and iPads et cetera, it's available. And there's the audio book which just recently launched and really, really proud of that audio book for the amount of work and everything else that went into it. And I would tell people, if you are not a fan of audio books and that's not for you, it's not your style. This ain't your mama's and papa's audio book. It's very different because there's a lot of music embedded into it. My music producer, who's a musician himself. He's been in rock bands and won Junos and he's just a fantastic human being. That's so cool. I went with not an audiobook person, I went with a music person. So that's where you can hear the crispness of the volume and everything else. I narrated it as well as writing this book, so my voice is in there and, believe it or not, reading off of paper is a lot harder than writing it. So I think the audiobook was even more challenging than the written book. So it's available on Audible, it's available on Apple Music.
Speaker 2:Everywhere you purchase books If you're in the States, barnes, noble. If you're in Canada, indigo, indigoca, amazon. Across the world, amazing Independent bookshops around the world, uk, australia, one of the first to stock it. Um, whatever your format is, go for it. And I've had people that purchased the physical book then went and downloaded the audiobook and told me they have a different appreciation from the audio side of it. Uh, but easiest, easiest, just type in amazonca, indigoca, go to Barnes, noble Jonathan O'Cohen, the Bible 3.0, hit the purchase and you meet me, I will be happy to sign it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be signing your book. I want to sign. Get my book signed.
Speaker 2:I promise I will. I'm going to be doing a Barnes Noble tour in September. They told me I'm going to be in Arizona, potentially looking at some indigos.
Speaker 2:It's neat because I love that aspect of it. I love building relationships and I'm most, most intrigued with hearing people's stories because I'm sharing my stories. But my purpose is not to tell you about me. It's for you to read and reflect on yourself and I want you to think about your stories. And may my stories bring out your stories to yourself and when you meet me, I want to hear your stories.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much, Jonathan. Thank you for sharing some insights in the book. I have the book Highly recommend that. Everybody gets the book and starts to read it one chapter at a time.
Speaker 2:Did you notice the cover? It's nice and soft.
Speaker 1:It is. It really is nice and soft.
Speaker 2:We actually picked a purposeful, like a nice feel to it. So it's like a hard cover but a soft cover. It's nice feel, but with stronger paper, beautiful color, crispness. Every single thought was put into it. It wasn't like, okay, let's skimp on costs and everything else, like the. The printing cost is insane on a book when you go this high end. But I said I wanted the best quality book, I want this to last a lifetime. I wanted something that people can pass to their children and it's there for generations to come. So when I'm off this earth and people read this thing in 150 years from now, it's still timeless that way. So the way I prepare this book, I tell people everything you do in life, do it with purpose. If you have a chance, always go higher end, always make it the best you can with it and take pride in what you do Absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's also well laid out as well.
Speaker 2:My publisher is amazing.
Speaker 1:Easy to read and to follow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're really, really great with this. This is where, if you want to get something done, you want to get it done right. Don't do it yourself. Find the right people. Surround yourself with the right people. Uh, I was very fortunate to come in with the awakened press. The amount of love they believed in this book. The second I lost I, by the way, I think that I still marvel at the idea that when I I didn't come and pitch a book idea, I came. I said I met you before at a book launch party. Can you do you remember me? Can you give me some tips? I'm a new author. I just want to know if I'm going the the right direction. That's all I asked for. They came back to me a couple of weeks later so maybe it was a week later and said we love this, we want to sign you immediately. And I didn't come to them with a finished product. I came to them with a list of chapters and 10 pages. That's it.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And you think I'd be excited over the moon and I'm like, are you effing crazy? Are you seriously going to go on a book for 10 pages? And I was like something's gonna be wrong here. This ain't right. But they so believed in me and they believed in the concept from day one, and I'm so fortunate. The universe brought me together with lindsey and the waken press and the editing team and, uh, they brought the best out of me. You know, ultimately, I know this is me and I'm fortunate for it.
Speaker 2:But if I went and wrote a book in isolation, it's one thing. It's every time I wrote a chapter and they came back and had questions and comments and sometimes sent me back to the drawing board. They made me look in the mirror and bring out the best in myself and took care of those kind of details, like the book cover, the spacing, all the little little details which you think you know aren't a big deal. Everything is a big deal, certainly, and so, from beginning to end, this is a team effort. So, from AwakendPress, ronald Patton, my audio producer, to me this really feels like a team effort at the end of the day. So this is all our baby and now it's birthed into the world for everybody to see.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, Jonathan.
Speaker 2:Thank you, diana, thank you for this opportunity, thank you, you know to reach me out on social media. You can reach me at chosenlawyer. The book has its own Instagram account as well the Bible 3.0. And I encourage people please leave your questions, leave your comments. If you enjoy the book, please go on Amazon. Feel free to leave a book review. Book reviews really, really help people and I'm very interactive and I'd love to hear your questions, comments and I'm here for you. You know we're all in this together, so let's make this book interactive and let's use it to help people and help society in general.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for bringing this into the world and sharing it with us, god bless. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to our guests and our editor. We hope that you enjoyed this new episode and, if you did, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review. Our goal is to continue to provide you with interesting content and exciting topics, to stay up to date with TFN's Real Estate Real Talk and to get all the behind the scenes content. You can follow us on Instagram at TFN Realty Inc and on YouTube.