Becoming a Badass Granddad: Open Chat with John Graham

Links 

https://www.johngraham.org/badass-granddad

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DB1mzlgxAne/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-graham/6/284/244

http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnGraham29

Summary

In this conversation, John Graham reflects on his adventurous life, starting from his youth as a thrill-seeker to his transformative experiences in Vietnam and his subsequent shift towards advocacy and service. He discusses the importance of storytelling in inspiring others and emphasizes finding purpose through service. The conversation culminates in the emergence of his persona as the 'Badass Granddad', highlighting his commitment to making a positive impact in the world.

Takeaways

I never thought of using the word overcome obstacles.

The only thing that mattered to me was taking risks.

I realized that my decisions weren't just about me.

I had a charmed life and kept upping the ante.

I had to move through some stuff in order to get my life straight.

I was fighting for the rights of blacks in South Africa.

There's nothing more important than finding real meaning.

I heard a voice and the voice says, you got to get serious.

I never realized what an incredible badass he was.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

00:44 Adventures and Life Lessons

03:45 Transformation and Service

12:40 Legacy and Impact

13:03 The Giraffe Heroes Project

15:52 Finding Meaning Through Service

18:05 The Importance of Purpose

20:52 The Badass Granddad Origin Story

26:39 New Adventures and Projects

Transcript

0:00

Hi friends, welcome to the Do Life podcast where we talk about life, its challenges and some clever ways to tackle some of those common obstacles with cutting edge technology, science and a splash amount of physical properties. I'm your host, Life Coach Layla, and today I have a special guest, John Graham has lived a very fascinating life and he's going to share his story about how he's overcome so many obstacles in his life that he's turned the lessons into motivation to help him give back to not just the community, but the world. He truly is a remarkable human and I'm so excited to welcome him So John, thank you so much for being here today. And welcome. Thanks very much. Thanks very much. I'm happy to be here. You know, I never really thought of using the word overcome obstacles. I was having so much fun as a young person. And I did so many interesting things. I never thought of them as obstacles. Now that I'm 83 years old, I realized that, I had to move through some stuff in order to get my life straight. as far as I was concerned, My whole first part of my life was as an adventure junkie, uh, or rather an adrenaline junkie. The only thing that mattered to me was taking risks and the more physical and the more dangerous those risks were, um, the, the more fun I had and, uh, and the more interesting my life became. was like the whole first half of my life. And it started off. I mean, uh, I, I, I didn't. I grew up in Tacoma, Washington, which is about a dollar small city, as you would find in the United States. Nobody in my family had ever done anything least bit adventurous. So nobody in my town, as far as I was concerned, ever done anything adventurous. but I ended up in long story short, I ended up when I was just 17 years old, working on a freighter, going to the far East and back. Now in those years I'm 83. In those years, freighters weren't, there was no container ships. A freighter was a great big ship that run by 50 or 60 really tough guys. And they, they was swing big bags and nets of stuff into the hole. And it was like tearing in the pirates, you know? And there I was from this little white bread community of Tacoma, Washington, all of a sudden spending the summer with 50 or 60 really tough guys. who took one look at me and were determined to teach me life lessons that they knew I would never get in school. And they, won't go into it, but boy, they did. From bar room brawls to whatever. And I spent the whole far, far east, like I say, it was like a Terry and the Pirates environment. And I came back, I completely hooked on the world. The world was a huge, colorful, exciting place. I had never realized that growing up in Tacoma, Washington. And all of a sudden it was huge and it was, and I wanted to do nothing more than to have one adventure after the other. And so that's how it began. mean, a year after that, or two years after that, I found myself hitchhiking, for example, in the Algerian revolution. The rebels were fighting the French government. And, I wanted to be in a war because I'd never been in a war before. So I was hitchhiking in Europe and I hitchhiked down to Morocco. I walked across the border into Algeria where there was a shooting war going on, but I had an American flag taped to my chest so that the rebels wouldn't take me as a Frenchman and shoot me. and that was, you know, and it just continued. And it became very clear that the only thing I wanted in my life was one adventure after the other. And because I kept walking away from them all, and they were pretty damn dangerous, some of them, I kept walking away from them all. became totally convinced that, that I had a charm life. So I kept upping the ante. Midway through, the university, for example, I was on a climbing team that made the first direct descent of the North face of Bob McKinley. one of the most difficult and dangerous mountain phases on the planet. And we were really lucky to escape with our lives on that one, but we got to the top and came back down. And, and then, after college, I hitchhiked around the world. all kinds of adventures there ended up in Australia. And, I realized then that I had to earn a living. I wasn't wealthy. so I decided, I'll join the U S foreign service, but not the kind that wears fancy clothes in embassies in Europe. wanted him to the foreign service that was dealt with wars and revolutions and really, and rough stuff. And so that's what happened. And I ended up on the U S foreign service. within a year or two, I was in the middle of the revolution in Libya. Then they went to the war in Vietnam. And by now I was in my late twenties. Okay. So I was no longer a 17 year old. I was no longer a kid. And, I was also well aware of the fact that I was gaining in power and influence because I was so good at taking risks. mean, by that point in my life, I was big and tough and smart and outlived everybody else. So I, I, I just kept going, but there came a moment in Vietnam. a real comeuppance. And I realized that my decisions weren't just about me and my adrenaline. They're about people's lives and decisions I was making were costing people their lives. And it suddenly occurred to me how shallow my life had become, how utterly shallow. All I cared about was myself. It was a totally selfish existence. All I cared about was the next adventure. and I was lucky to get out of Vietnam, with my life intact. I ended up in the middle of a so-called Easter offensive. The North Vietnamese that surrounded the city where I was the manager. And I escaped with my life once again. but I didn't in a way because my life had been broken by that realization of how shallow it had become ended up in California state department. sent me there as a reward for not getting killed, I guess, in Vietnam. And I got into what were then called encounter groups, which is where you sat around with a dozen people or so and spilled your guts in the hope of learning something about yourself. But for me, it was a good thing because I finally had a bunch of people yelling at me that they were sick and tired of my John Wayne stories. And that didn't, realized that in point of fact, deep down I had a heart, but that I had buried that heart beneath a big piece of plywood and I couldn't feel it. lost contact with my emotions until that battle in Vietnam. And so I began to gradually crawl out of that hole and it wasn't an easy crawl. wasn't an easy crawl. And also I, I had a whole lot of PTSD from the war in Vietnam because what I was doing so it was so frigging dangerous for so long. But I gradually moved up, began to see my life as a, as an engine, see myself as an engine for peace. and, and, and looking at all the devastation and wars and privations I had. seen before and all of a sudden seeing them as problems I could help solve. So I set about trying to do that and ended up with the United Nations, which was perfect because at the United Nations, I was in charge of a lot of American policies toward Africa and the so-called third world, poor countries of Africa and Asia. I, I was able to do some real good in working for peace and justice issues, totally 180 turn from what I'd been the whole first half of my life. I know it's crazy because I know so many people that went to Vietnam are not the same people. Everybody I've talked to that was in that war said something in their brain broke or snapped or changed. Some for the better, some not. So I don't think there's anybody that was in the Vietnam War that left the same person. And I don't know, you know, just if it was just because of the experiences or the danger or, you know, a lot of the other things that happened, but it's amazing that you were such a thrill seeker and you did a complete 180 and was like, wait a minute, there's more to life than just me. knowing that everybody that went to Vietnam kind of came out and changed person, it's amazing that you changed the way you did and went the direction you did, because who knows how you could have ended up really. really? Indeed. It was a real, I don't want to say come to Jesus because I'm not a religious person, but it was that kind of a moment. And I'm happy to say it kind of culminated at the United Nations because there I actually played a key role in the ending of apartheid, the system of racial oppression in South Africa. Something I'm very proud of. took enormous risks because There are a whole lot of people that wanted to keep racism going in Africa because they were making too much money off it, selling guns, taking minerals out of the ground, whatever. And I was fighting for the rights of blacks in South Africa and I was on the winning side. So at that point, I realized that the Foreign Service, I had to leave the Foreign Service because I was way outstripping its ability to do good in the world. And in point of fact, A lot of the foreign service was not doing good in the world. didn't need to tell your viewers that a lot of stuff America was involved in was not so great. so I, I left the foreign service and, and was casting about looking for something to do because now I was totally changed. was, I was out to make the world a better place and damn it. I was going to do that. and so, but I didn't. I didn't pay any attention to the practicalities of it. Friends says, well, you're, you're going broke fast. you've always had a good gift of gab. You know, you can lecture on cruise ships. They pay a lot of money. So I, I did, I, I, I did, I got a job right away lecturing on a cruise ship and the cruise ship promptly burned and sank in the Gulf of Alaska and the North Pacific. And I found myself desperately fighting for my life in a lifeboat. and I had another, that was the second come to Jesus moment. When I heard a voice in the middle of this storm, was hours away from dying of hypothermia and this life book. I heard a voice and the voice says, you got to get serious. You, you're, you're now determined to live a life of. of, of, real purpose of making the world a better place. And what are you doing? You're lecturing on a cruise ship. Doesn't sound like you're following that wisdom at all. You have a choice. You can get serious about being a good guy. In effect, yeah. About continuing using your skills and your resources to make the world a better place. Or you can keep lecturing on cruise ships, in which case you might as well die out here because. the next 50 years of your life won't be worth a damn. I was 38 years old then. And so I looked up into this wild storm. did I say that in this lifeboat with the burning sinking ship, a typhoon came on? And so when I was fighting for my life on that lifeboat, Typhoon Vernon had descended upon that part of the North Pacific. And so there were like 30 foot waves, which is like 60 foot wall of water. mean, it was like, I mean, I was convinced I was this time I really was going to die. And then this voice, I don't know whether it was the wind or whether it was quote God or whatever. This voice talks to me and says, you got to get serious. You got to get serious about your life. Are you a service or not your choice? I was totally beaten. And so I said, okay, I got it. And in that instant, this Coast Guard cutter, small ship comes crashing through this wild storm. I mean, one chance in a million in this wild storm, visibility down to maybe a hundred meters that it spots us and I am rescued. And I never looked back. kept that promise. A year or two later, I met this incredible woman named Ann Medlock who started the Giraffe Heroes Project in New York City. Giraffe Heroes Project is called Giraffe Heroes Project because what Anne was looking for, she was looking for people sticking their necks out, that is to say, taking risks. And she was going to tell their story. She did get their stories told on the media of the day, which was viral records and fax machines. We're talking about 1982, 83. And because she was fed up with looking at all the regular news. And it was all gloom and doom when nobody was telling the stories of real heroes. And yet for, I don't know, 10, 100,000 years, cultures everywhere had told the stories of heroes as a way of getting other people in that culture to be heroic too. with the cavemen dancing around their fires or, or, or, uh, in the middle ages, the troubadours well, and it's had become the troubadour for our age. And I saw what she was doing. took me a while, but I gradually began to see the power of telling stories, uh, and joined her. And the two of us have been doing this together now for 43 years. We found, yeah, we found 2000 people now, right. At least and, told her stories. And I think we've inspired a whole lot of other people. We've written a curricula for kids, helping them build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens. I've written four books, five now, and I'm still the one who's drunk. ah know, I think it's kind of amazing how you started as just a thrill-seeking teenager, you know, the kind nowadays are jumping out of planes and bungee jumping and you're just in it for the thrill and you evolved that into still being a thrill seeker, but with a purpose. So you were sticking your neck out in Africa, but it was also because you were doing it for a good cause. And then that slowly evolved into, you know, kind of where you're at now. I love I love the project that you have now. think that there's just so much negativity in the news. I don't watch the news. I don't pay attention to mainstream media because it is just so negative. And when you think of like all the stories that you heard as a child growing up, it was all about the heroes. Those are the stories that are survived and there's a reason for that. So I love that she came up with that idea and ran with it. That's amazing. No, it was amazing and is amazing. you know, Anne and I, mean, we, by the way, did I say we got married and we've been husband and wife and business partners and whatever for 43 years. And, you know, we sat down at the breakfast table and we sort of scratched our heads. God, we've, the life, the life we're living is pretty damn cool. I think we're being a lot of service. And we're getting pretty good at it. And there were great storytellers and we're just going to keep going until they put us in the pine box. And why not? so, that's what, that's why I'm here on, your show, because, podcasts are a great way for me to talk to people about what's important to me. And if I may, the bumper sticker is there's nothing more important in anyone's life than that. find real meaning for that life. And that most stable source of meaning I've ever found is through giving back, is through some kind of service. Doesn't mean you have to be, run a nonprofit, doesn't mean you have to be Mother Teresa. In fact, quite the opposite. I talked to lots of business audiences, for example, and I tell business people, hey, so look, there's a great way to be of service. You can make a good product and sell it for a fair price under fair labor conditions. fair environmental constraints, and be a good citizen in the communities where you operate. That's a service. You can be a neurosurgeon or a barber or whatever. you can find ways to be of service and that's what will make your life sing. And I urge you, I urge you to look for that. And, cause there's a reason why you have the talents you have. Yeah, you're, good at figures. You're, you're a terrific artist. You're this, you're that. There's a reason for that. I don't think that we put on the planet for no reason at all. That to me would be like being a fancy Swiss watch with no hands on it. I just said, I tell people, know, take a look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. What looks back at you? Don't you want that somebody that looks back at you to make a difference on the planet? Of course you do. So what is it? What is it? And so I probe people and push people. but the only reason people listen to me is because they know I've had the first half of my life where I've done everything wrong. and so I've been through that. I've had that trepidation. I've had that fear. I've had that reluctance. and I've come out to a different place. So. I'm not saying copy John Graham. I'm just saying, Hey, this is my story. And maybe some of it might be relevant to your story. I love that. know a lot of people in the, what did you say earlier? The do-gooders industry came from a pretty treacherous lifestyle. None of us were born with the silver spoon hanging out of our mouth. We've all like overcame certain things that showed us that there's more to life than just material items or status or whatever. name you want to weigh on certain things, but I think it's really deeper than that. It's more about how we can give back and what we're here to do for others. So, you like you said, you've got a great talent. You're an artist, you're a musician, whatever it is. How are you sharing that with other people? And I think that's a real important message is because we all are here to do something and whether it's something as simple as, your purpose on this planet could just be to be a mom and be a good mom. or be a provider for your family. And there's nothing wrong with having that purpose. It doesn't mean you have to go win a bunch of awards and have a bunch of accolades. You could just be a good person and do meaningful things for other people or just be a good influence in other people's lives. And it's really what we can do to give back, I think is key. Well, it's evident from reading everything I could about you and what's on LinkedIn and your bio that you fully share and your mission of self-help and development. mean, that's exactly what you're doing. And so I applaud you and I thank you for what you're doing. And I think if more people did that, that we'd have an easier time of it. It might be a little easier for us to talk to each other even in these polarized times. So yeah. So anyway, so here I am. keep, I keep on going. The giraffe project. I should say this, or maybe it's in the crawl, but our website is that giraffe G I R A F F E dot O R G. That's simple enough. You can go onto the giraffe project. My own website is johngraham.org and there you can log on to all the stuff that I'm into. I just finished my last book called Denali Diary. It's a first person illustrated memoir of that famous climb up Mount McKinley. And also there's notices there of my badass granddad series and suggestions on how to plug into it on TikTok or on YouTube. I think your viewers will get a great kick out of it. There's only three minutes per view per episode, so you can't go wrong. So yeah, and so I'm constantly looking for new ways to do it too, as I'm sure you are, for example. I can see that you're probably not the kind of person who just goes through one podcast after the other without constantly trying to improve what you're doing and reach new audiences. And I'm the same way. Yeah, no, I love that. Can you share the story briefly about how you got the name Badass Grandpa? think that's... uh know, we were talking earlier. I can say I'm 83. So like, you know, I have a great grandchildren. So happy birthday a couple days ago. Right. So anyway, my grandson wants to come out west. He lives in New York and he wants to climb Mount Rainier. Doesn't want to spend a whole lot of money renting equipment. He knows I have a treasure trove of old climbing gear that I'm never going to throw away just because, well, you you don't throw away stuff that's sentimental value. So he says, can I borrow this stuff? And I say, sure. So he borrows an old face, an old helmet and stuff. And he goes out and hires on with a, a, a climbing guide service and they take him up Mount Rainier on the way down or when they're down and the guide takes a look at, at, at Andrew, my, grandson's equipment and notices how, how old it is and how antiquated and how inadequate it is. And so he says, you know, I probably shouldn't have let you climb the mountain. Cause this stuff is like, like 1800s or something. What'd you get this? And Andrew says, well, I, I brought it from my grandpa, my granddad. And, he, he, he used it on some big mountain in Alaska. McKinley, he climbed Mount McKinley with this. interesting. Yeah. So that guy goes on and he says, Hmm. tell me more about that. And Andrew says, well, I think he did something that no one's ever done since, something so dangerous that people thought it was really stupid and foolish. So now the guide is really interested because he's a professional mountaineer. So he knows all about famous clients. So he says, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Did your granddad by any chance go to Harvard? Andrew says, yes. He says, my God, this equipment. was on the Harvard ascent of the north face of Mount McKinley, one of the most epic climbs in North American mountaineering. Andrew, did you understand that? But what have you been wearing? And so the guy takes this equipment and starts showing it to all of his other guys. This stuff was worn by someone that made that climb. So Andrew was very impressed because he didn't know much about climbing. So anyway, he's a journalist, right? So he goes back to New York and he writes a magazine article nominally about his climb up Mount Rainier. But the last half of the article, he goes into this whole bit about that equipment and his granddad and the reaction of the guide to seeing face-to-face this incredible equipment for this incredible climb. Andrew's... final paragraph said something like, you know, I always loved, I love my granddad, but I never realized what an incredible badass he was. So I said, bad ass, I like that. like that. yeah. It's like, wait a minute here. Like bad ass. I love it. Yeah. and so I, and so that stuck in my head. So when I, a few months later came to the conclusion that I needed to do something different to reach a younger demographic. And that probably meant using Instagram, YouTube, Tik TOK, whatever. and it needed to be short, snappy, videos. and I needed some real punchlines. the idea of that ass granddad just popped into my head. Bad ass granddad. So I named the badass granddad. So about twice a week you can dial into, tick tock, just go in their search box and look for bad ass granddad, bad ass, all one word granddad with two D's in the middle. Or now or within a week, anyway, you can, you can look at the same videos or at least some of them on YouTube. I'm just starting my YouTube channel and you'll see what I'm talking about. Having great fun doing that on TikTok. And, so that's how the bad-ass and it's become, it's like, it's gotten bigger and bigger. I'm now introduced to speeches and stuff as the bad-ass granddad. That's become my moniker. Badass granddad. I love him because it fits. mean, you know, I really am a badass. you're in trouble, you want me in your foxhole. mean, Yeah, I think if we were the same age at the same time, we could have gotten a lot of trouble together. I'm I'm sure, I'm sure we would have. I'm sorry I missed that. Hahaha I think it's also so endearing that you've taken on the name Badass Granddad and it came from your grandson. So that's got more meaning to it and it's a heavier value to you because it came directly from a grandson. So I love it and it's fitting. It's an easy way for people to remember. If I say go online and look up Badass Granddad, hopefully you're the one that pops up and rightfully should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I'm having fun. having fun. mean, you know, what's life without having some fun, right? So I'm, I'm. Is there any other projects or anything that you're working on that we should know about? Well, I mentioned one, I just finished this last week, Denali Diary. It's an illustrated memoir and you can, it's already up on my website, johngraham.org.org. And it's pretty interesting because I wrote it after discovering the real diary from that client. don't know how, but somehow I put that diary in a drawer and forgot it for 55 years. And then found it and it's wonderful. It's crudely written because it's written by a 21 year old and it has a lot of that coarse exuberant language in it, which I left in. And then I also found some terrific black and white photographs. Fantastic, fantastic photographs from that time. I put them all together into this illustrated memoir. So you can reach. That's my latest adventure. Podcasts, I'm doing as many as I can find of the quality of the kind that you've got going here with your Do Like Podcast. The next thing, I don't know. yeah, yeah, yeah. I've written a memoir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. should. why didn't I say that? I'm a terrible marketer. I wrote a memoir called Quest, New Risk, Adventure, and the Search for Meaning. And easiest thing to do is just go to Amazon, but you can also order it from your bookstore. And again, this is the stuff that's just been happening. And in the last two weeks, I've completed the audio version of it so you can listen to Quest while you're driving in your car. You can get the audio from Audible or from Amazon or other sellers of audiobooks. After that, let's see what we got. We got Badass Granddad, we got Quest, we got the... Yeah, I don't know. I guess next week I'm going to be looking for my next adventure. I love it. You are such a fascinating human. I am so thankful for you to be here on the show today. I will link all of the ways to find you in the show notes below. So everybody who wants to dig deeper into you and your socials can find you. I'm absolutely going to go buy your book. I think it's going to be amazing. You have so many stories to tell and share, and I just want to read them all. Hey, good! yeah! And I do want to say that I am building a course on the feminine rise, like the dark feminine and how to embrace it. And I've actually named it Dark Feminine Badass Rising. So I thought that was just so fun to have you on the show and we can both talk about our badass ventures. I think that there's no, I don't believe in accidents. I think there's a reason why we're doing this, why we're in sync like this. Yeah, I call them divine synchronicities. It's just things, you know, there's no, I don't think there's any such thing as coincidence. think divine synchronicities are signs from the universe or whatever that let you know you're doing the right thing at the right time. You're on the right path. And when I saw the badass granddad was a possibility to be on my podcast, I said, absolutely. I have to meet this man. again, thank you so much. It's such an honor. I'm so proud to have you here. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much for asking me. I really have enjoyed this show. And like I said, I will link everything in the show notes below so everybody knows where to find you and let's go do life like a badass. There you go.