[Joseph Scoda]Good morning, world! You’re in the office with Joseph Scoda, G.I. Joe Scota, Joseph Steven Scoda the Third. However you want to refer to me, it sounds good because you’re watching me, you’re listening. It’s very interesting when you listen because you know I have something to say, or more importantly, I have important guests that I want to share with the world.

[Joseph Scoda] Well, today’s guest is a friend of mine. We probably met three or four years ago in a Toastmasters meeting. Yes, it’s Toastmasters I talk about all the time because it’s made a difference in my life. In fact, today, every now and then, someone pays me to listen to me. How do you like that? You never know that’s going to happen. But regardless, I want to introduce you to an author, a business owner, and just a great guy all the way from San Luis Obispo, California. So, please help me give a warm welcome to John Bliss. How are you doing, John?

[John Bliss] I’m doing just fine, thank you.

[Joseph Scoda] Great, great. Well, how long? It’s been at least three or four years since we’ve talked together, I believe. Is that right?

[John Bliss] No, I think it’s been five because it was COVID. COVID killed Toastmasters, and it killed my spirit, and I never came back.

[Joseph Scoda] And tell us a little bit about what you do.

[John Bliss] I started and ran a company for about 23 years doing energy efficiency in big commercial buildings. I had about 20 people working for me, and I sold it, and I’m glad because it’s tough being a business owner. It’s really tough, and I’m glad to be done with that.

[Joseph Scoda] I agree. If I’m not mistaken, the last time we talked, well, besides the last few weeks, like, “Yeah, I’ve got this book. I’ve got this great idea. I’m starting it.” And, “I’ll talk to you when I’m finished.” And then out of the blue, you call me, “Hey, I finally finished.” Hey, at least you finished. I know people like myself have never finished and barely got started. But tell us a little bit about your journey to writing this book.

[John Bliss] It took 13 years, Joseph. So, I don’t think I worked anymore on the book before selling the company as opposed to after selling it. I can only work on this thing for an hour, an hour and a half, and I’m just worn out. My mind just gets dumb, and I just can’t work anymore. So, that’s why it took 13 years. I mean, it’s a thick book.

[John Bliss] It’s got a long title. It’s too long a title. It’s called “The False Paradigms of Today and the Timeless Truth of Tomorrow”.

[John Bliss] I mean, that’s really what it’s about. So, but you ask, why did I write it? As you know, for a long time I owned a business, and I didn’t really feel like I owned the business. The business owned me, and I felt like I was in jail. And I remember I used to go to a Jungian dream group. There was a priest in San Louis Obispo at the Benedictine Monastery, who used to lead a Jungian dream analysis class.

[John Bliss] And people would come once a week, and we’d tell our dreams, and we’d all help each other analyze our dreams. And my topic was often, I’m just going to continue running this company only until I can provide for my family. And then I am done with it.

[John Bliss] And but that’s not what I’m about. Instead, I’ve been devoted to this for this book even before I started writing it. I’d say it’s been at least 20 years, it’s been in me, been wanting to come out.

[Joseph Scoda] I got you. Um, some people might say, “Oh, 13 years, what took you so long?” But I, I can relate. My first, my first two-year degree, you know, associate degree, two years, took me 12 years. Took me 12 years to get my first two-year degree.

[Joseph Scoda] Did anything change between the time you were writing the book and now?

[John Bliss] Absolutely not. I’ve learned a few things I didn’t know, but they were details. The whole theme has always been the same from the beginning.

[John Bliss] First off, it’s really hard to do an elevator pitch for 450 pages. It’s difficult to do. Look, I’m not a Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not a great person. I’m just a guy who wrote a good book. But, you know, if you asked Da Vinci, “Can you explain what you’re working on?” He might answer, “I’m working on this this painting, this woman. She’s smiling, and you really don’t know why.” Is that compelling? Is that going to make you be really excited when the painting’s done? No. It’s just some woman that’s smiling. Who cares? Everybody paints those. And so it, it’s hard to describe some of these concepts in the book without sounding trite, but I will try, and I think I can do it.

[John Bliss] Um, so essentially the first part of the book is about how all of us believe things that probably are not true. Um, let, let’s take it back to just individuals. As you were growing up, when you were dating, you met a lot of women who thought they were really ugly or really fat, and they weren’t, right? But they were convinced they were, or they believed that their bodies were so imperfect, their tooth was too big, their ears were too big, or whatever it was, it was never true, but they were so convinced of it. They could never enjoy the fact that they were beautiful. Just couldn’t do it. And it’s the same with all people, in that we believe a lot of things are just not true, and it’s not self-image things. That’s not what I’m talking about at all.

[John Bliss] We carry a lot of incorrect assumptions about the world that just are not true. And as a result, the beliefs that rest upon them are totally wrong. They’re just totally wrong. So the first half of the book goes through incorrect assumptions that we have. Well, here’s one example. I remember I, I tried to give this talk in Toastmasters, and people really hated it. They were really upset when I said, um,

[John Bliss] I don’t know if you were there for this one or not, but I was trying to explain to people how, in the course of time, throughout the centuries that people have been alive, there’s been so many people that you’re really not important. I’m not important. And the fact that you got a job or didn’t get a job or got the special ice cream you wanted or didn’t get the ice cream you wanted, it really doesn’t matter.

[John Bliss] And that if you died tomorrow, or if even President Trump died tomorrow, or anybody died tomorrow, anybody of leadership, there’s someone else that will replace them. There are so many of us, and we individuals just don’t matter in the long term. And yet we all just seem to think that we’re so important. We’re not. That is one incorrect assumption.

[Joseph Scoda] Well, well, a good point. Like you mentioned earlier, the assumption that we’re not good enough, we’re not pretty enough, our ears are too big, our nose is slanted. When or how do we get out of that mindset and realize, that we are good enough, at least at the ground level? When do we come to that conclusion?

[John Bliss] That, that’s not what the book’s about. But I do know how to get over all of that negative self-image. That’s actually really easy. Or at least it was easy for me. Maybe different people are different. For example, when it comes to losing weight, some people can and some can’t. And I guess we’re all different. There’s a book on cognitive psychology, called “Feeling Good” that explains how to handle negative self-talk. If you have incessant negative self-talk like, “Oh, I’m so stupid. Oh, I screw everything up.” If you hear that over and over and over again, it’s easy to get over it. And it only takes maybe a half hour

[John Bliss] Write every one of those repeating negative self-talk messages down. Write them all down. Make a little grid. Here are some: I’m ugly. I’m stupid. I’m insignificant. I will never be successful. Nobody will ever love me. Okay, those are, those are some that I used to hear in my head.

[John Bliss] And then in the next column write a counter argument based on experience to each of these negative messages. Am I stupid? Well, I got a college degree. I can’t be stupid if I got a college degree. I got into these schools. I can’t be stupid if I got into these schools. So, okay, I am not stupid. The next one. I will never succeed at anything. Well, have I ever succeeded at anything? Yes, I did. I did this and I did that. So, I have succeeded in the past. So, I guess that means I can succeed. There’s, no one ever loved me. Well, this person did and this person did. And so, I guess I can be loved.

[Joseph Scoda] Sure.

[John Bliss] And then, once you have made the grid, every time you hear that voice saying, “Oh, you always screw everything up.” You, you remember the counter. No, I don’t because I did this and this and this. And it only takes like two or three times of countering this negative self-talk and it goes away forever. It’s gone forever. So that’s how you do it. But this book is not about…

[Joseph Scoda] Well, sure. Well, well, no, I, I know. I’m just curious about that because you brought it up, and sometimes…

[Joseph Scoda] Tell us a little bit more about, about the journey of the book and, and where it’s going to take us.

[John Bliss] Let me tell you something that happened to me when I was probably 23, I was with my brother on the beach somewhere, maybe Santa Cruz. My brother and a few friends. We all decided to take magic mushrooms. They all started feeling the mushrooms come on, and I didn’t. And so they all took off and left me by myself, and I don’t remember what happened. I just remember waking up or being awake at about 4:00 a.m. in the morning, face down on the beach.

[John Bliss] And I kept hearing this song over and over in my head. It was called “It’s O Que Sera.” It’s a Brazilian song by Milton Nascimento and Chico Buarque. Beautiful song. But the thoughts that, that came to me at that moment really changed my life. I saw myself, as I was, as a young man, and how I would grow older. I would find a woman that I loved. I would marry her. I would have dreams. I would get a job. I’d retire. You know, I’d have a child. And then that child would do the same thing. Would grow up, find someone they love, marry them, have dreams and find a job, have a child, and then that person would do the same thing. And my father lived the same story, and my grandfather did before him. And I realized that I was just part of this continuum that’s been happening for centuries. I’m just part of the whole story, and that the story isn’t about me. The story was about humanity.

[John Bliss] When you think of Cal Berkeley, okay, what is Cal Berkeley? Well, it’s a bunch of buildings, a bunch of professors, a bunch of students and administrators and a bunch of books in a library. That’s what Cal Berkeley is. But you know what? The buildings come and go. The books come and go. Professors come and go. The administrators come and go. Nothing stays the same. All the pieces are short-lived, but Cal Berkeley remains. That’s just like how people come and go, and humanity remains.

[John Bliss] So anyway, in the first half of the book I take on science. I take on the whole idea that we are living in a time of rapid change. I don’t believe that at all. And I explain why. And then I also go after, how the groups that you belong, tribes really, affect your thinking. Including your profession, that’s also a tribe. For example, army people think a certain way. I also address the fact that we cannot really understand what’s going on around us. We really can’t. We, we can to an extent, but, and it works enough so that we can survive, but we can’t smell what dogs smell. We can’t see what bumblebees see, and there’s so much we can’t understand. We don’t understand what God is. We can’t, we can’t fathom it. We are mentally limited, and people, especially smart people, have a problem accepting the fact that we can’t understand everything. That’s the first part of the book.

[John Bliss] In the second half of the book, there are sections on religion that are absolutely fascinating. And there are sections on mysticism and on history. But the whole point of the book, this is the hard part, this is where I can’t do the elevator pitch. . .

[John Bliss] The way I wrote it, each of the chapters get you to the same place, but they get you there from a different starting place. First, we’ll talk about religion, and we get you there. Then, we’ll talk about reason, and get you there. We’ll talk about history, and get you there. And so, all these different topics get you to the same conclusion. And, and if I just tell you the conclusion, it just, it will sound trite. It’s like a woman smiling. It’s like that is not the Mona Lisa. You have to be immersed in it.

[Joseph Scoda] Our whole life is a journey, and, and I think it’s a process that, that’s ongoing. Like you reach a goal or you try to figure out the, the meaning of life, and you never will until we actually die, I think. And that’s when it’ll all be explained to us, at least that’s what my faith is, and we never know why we’re here. But that, that’s a good point.

[Joseph Scoda] How do people find you or find out about the book? What’s, what’s the best way to reach out to you?

[John Bliss] To find the book, you would, uh, just go on Amazon and type in “John Bliss” B-L-I-S-S., and “essays.” Everybody can spell the word essays. If you can’t spell essays, don’t read the book or don’t even try.

[Joseph Scoda] Don’t scare me right away.

[John Bliss] I know. Well, there’s no math, fortunately, so we’ll be okay there.

[John Bliss] So, a long time ago, I think it was around the turn of the century, there was this group of people called the, the Theosophists. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Theosophy. It was a movement of people, and they believed that there was these spiritual masters who were guiding humanity. They lived in the Himalayas. I don’t understand it completely, but there were, there were certain mediums, that means people who these masters could communicate through, and then they would do automatic writing, and get the message out to the rest of us. And one of these guys, I think it was General Leadbeater, he found this 10- or 14-year-old boy in India, and he thought, “That’s him. We’ve been looking for him.” And he said, “This is the new world teacher,” or in other words, “This is the new Christ. We found him.” And so they made some agreement with the boy’s father to take the boy and his brother to London where they educated him to become the new world teacher. This was probably in the 1900s. They educated the boy in Theosophy and literature, and history. He became a brilliant person. His name was Krishnamurti. And by the way, Krishnamurti, he’s got a center in, he’s dead now, but he has a center in Ojai, and also I think there’s a church somewhere near Arroyo Grande. The Theosophists developed a sub-organization. I think it was called the Order of the Eastern Star. They had maybe 20,000, to 30,000 members who were pretty devoted to sharing his teachings when he came of age and started teaching. It’s similar to Christ who wasn’t really the great teacher until he actually became the great teacher. Until then, he was just a kid, and he was just learning, and getting ready. Well, it was the same with the Krishnamurti. He used to speak every year at these summer camps they used to have in the Netherlands. It was in 1929, he gave a remarkable talk. He said, “Don’t follow me. Don’t follow me. Religion is a crutch. The truth is inside yourself. Just stop following me.” Of course he said it so much more eloquently. And with this talk, he destroyed the entire movement. He destroyed Theosophy. His Eastern Star Order was disbanded. I’m sure there are still people who call themselves Theosophists, but the movement was pretty much ruined. It was an amazing story. This story is one of the things I cover in this book.

[Joseph Scoda] No, that’s something. I mean, religion, mostly it’s faith. You either believe or you don’t believe, and, and sometimes we sway because what we see this perceived reality in front of us, and we try to figure out like, but sometimes it doesn’t make any sense. And, you know, we just have to figure out that this is faith, and this is what I know, and, and sometimes they’re not the same thing, right? So it’s interesting.

[Joseph Scoda] Do you, are, are you planning maybe another book in the future?

[John Bliss] I am.

[John Bliss] This book I just released covers everything. That’s what made it so hard. It covers history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and religion. So, it just covered everything and tried to bring it all into one basic truth. And my next book, it, when I do write it, will be a lot simpler.

[Joseph Scoda] Well, once again, what is the title of your book? I know it’s long.

[John Bliss] “The False Paradigms of Today and the Timeless Truth of Tomorrow”

[Joseph Scoda] There you go. We can read it now. “The False Paradigms of Today and the Timeless Truth of Tomorrow” by Mr. John Bliss. Essays on meaning.

[Joseph Scoda] So you just look up “essays on meaning” and your name, and something great should pop up.

[John Bliss] That’s right.

[Joseph Scoda] I’m always updating my photos or deleting ones I don’t like and try to make everything that pops up make me look good anyways, even though it’s perceived. Sometimes I feel ugly or I don’t understand what I’ve been doing or why did I take this degree instead of that degree? Why am I doing podcasts rather than writing books? Why? I think we all second-guess ourselves. Maybe that’s the meaning. We second-guess ourselves, and we don’t need to.

[John Bliss] We do the best we can. We’re all here for a reason. Or as I see it maybe we can agree or disagree on this. I think we’re all manifestations of God and we’re all different because we’re supposed to be, and we all have different things we’re supposed to be doing, and what, what to me is success is not success for you. We have different end points. The problem is that different times of history, like now versus like the 1850s, different types of people will succeed and others will not. What would have happened to all these computer programmers in the 1850s? What would Elon Musk be doing right now in the 1850s? He might be a guy just pushing a wheelbarrow, right?

[Joseph Scoda] Could be. I just don’t know. Our, our mindsets do things differently. Well, I appreciate that perspective, John. It’s, it’s pretty cool. I’m looking forward to finishing your book and getting it out to as many hands I can. Now, it’s important that we read. I don’t read often, but when I start, I’ll read for six or seven months, and then I won’t for a while. Then I’ll start back up again, and then I won’t for a while because we get distracted in life. And I think it’s important that we can minimize those distractions and find out what’s important. I know some people can start four or five books at a time and just every day pick up a different book. I can’t do that. I have to finish one thing at a time.

[John Bliss] Different minds. Yeah. Different brains.

[John Bliss] The problem right now is that people are using cell phones, and, and I’ve done it too. When you start looking at the cell phone, like you look at X, which I’ve been off of X now for three weeks.

[Joseph Scoda] Okay.

[John Bliss] Social media will keep you from being able to concentrate, and I lost the patience to be able to read something long form.

[John Bliss] But the thing is, someone who posts something on X, how long did they think about that? 15 minutes. Whereas a book, I mean, this one was 13 years, there’s plenty of people who’ve written books that have taken 20 years or more to write, and it usually it takes a year or two or three, and they’ve really thought it out. They’ve really thought it out. Not just 15 minutes, you know,

[Joseph Scoda] Right? Because you’re, you’re editing it over and over and switching things around and finding, trying to find the right photo to put on the book of yourself. That takes time. I understand that. Well, thank you again, John.

[John Bliss] Thank you.

[Joseph Scoda] Hi, everyone. This has been “In the Office with Joseph Scoda and John Bliss” today. It’s been a productive day. Life is good. But anyways, I encourage all everyone out there listening to focus. If you want to write a book, do a podcast, reach out to people who’ve been there, done that ahead of you. I recommend you do, because we all become a little bit better as we learn, as we grow, because in this journey, we’re not in it by ourselves. Regardless of what you believe and whatever faith you have, the point is one day we are going to breathe our last breath. What did you accomplish between the dash, the day you were born and the day you passed away? So, what did you do in that dash? We’ve all heard that in different ways throughout the years.

[Joseph Scoda] With that being said, Joseph Scoda over and out. Thank you, everyone. Bye.