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What Hugh Hefner could not offer me...

"I was dating the Playmate of the year"

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So, I got to come up to the parties at the Playboy Mansion. I was dating the Playmate of the year and this other lady. There was the wealth. There was the popularity. There were the women. It was what I thought was the upper end of where you get if you have everything and life is really working out for you, that’s where it is. 

I was coming to the conclusion that athletics, business, education, and entertainment were the four things that I came up with that would make my life fulfilling. 

I went into the Army in the 82nd. I was on a skydiving team. I’ve always liked speed. I was a big water skier. After my fourth year of speed skiing, I won the Nationals. I went to Pepperdine and got my MBA. Then there was a college of Law. I went to law school and it was also in the San Fernando Valley. At UCLA I was taking an accounting course and a business course both at the same hour. I would go to a half of one, leave that one and go to the other one. 

Then I started my own financial business and was a broker-dealer.  We built it over time to fifty-something employees, and several attorneys, and we would drill oil wells. We were arbitraging government securities at the time. 

Then I heard about the Triathalon sport. It had just kind of started up there. A group of us started the first governing body for the sport. I actually have the first card ever issued to a triathlete. It was 000001. It was put in the magazine. 

I met Mike Nesbeth. We were in the same apartment building in Cowanga Blvd. in North Hollywood before he got into the Monkeys. I played the guitar and he showed me some stuff. When Mike got into the Monkeys, we started a music company. 

Life was very complicated with so many things at one time but I kept seeing enough achievements and success’ that I kept driving for the next thing. 

The Senior Olympics allowed me to do track and field high jump, shot put, triple jump, and broad jump. I won the gold in the triathlon. I’ve won some swimming events. I think I got two first, second, third, and fourth places in the Nationals. 

In boxing, I ended up winning ten years in a row, ten world titles. I really wanted to pursue acting because entertainment was a big part of those four items that would bring me fulfillment. So, I got an agent and I did some series work on Hunter. My main success was commercials. I did forty-seven commercials. In one of those commercials, I met a lady who lived at the Mansion, at the Playboy Mansion. At those parties at Hugh Hefner's house, I met him a number of times. Typically he was in his pajamas. I’m not sure why he felt like that was the wardrobe of choice I guess. I always felt he just seemed somewhere else. But his parties were pretty incredible. A multi-level pool with waterfalls. You would go through the waterfalls into caves. As soon as you went under the waterfall you about got high because there was so much dope smoking in all of these spots. The whole place was full of marijuana. The women there were just gorgeous. You couldn’t believe some of these. It’s a lifestyle with a lot of drinking and drugs. A lot of younger people were losing their lives for crazy reasons. I realized that was a dead end. Many of those people were the most unhappy depressed people you could meet because they got it and realized it wasn’t what they were hoping for I think. I think that’s why so many of those people ended up overdosing. Whether it’s a Belushi or Michael Jackson or any of these incredible stars that have every possible worldly power, money, or prestige. It’s just not fulfilling. 

I had those four areas but there was a very key area that I had not pursued at all and that was the spiritual side of life. That’s when I started reading Mary Baker Eddy, science, health and key to scripture, the book of Mormon, and the Pearl of Great Price, El Rons Hubbard Scientology, self-hypnosis, transcendental meditation, and the Koran. I met a person that told me I should go over to this church in Panorama City. I have read the Bible cover to cover I think going on thirty times. Over time it became very apparent that the truth lay in the Bible. Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life. That’s my life now and I have walked away from everything else that I thought was going to bring me peace, contentment, joy, and fulfillment. It’s a whole different impact emotionally on how you approach life.

John - What Hugh Hefner could not offer me...

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