Shownotes
John Dorenbos, the Magic Man, contacted me from his home in Los Angeles. John grew up in a wonderful family until he was 12 years old, when he came home from playing and learned that his mother was taken from him. John made it through his family's tragic turn thanks to kinship adoption, lots of counseling, and two outlets he is eternally grateful for --football and magic! John had a long career in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, but an injury that forced him off the field ultimately saved his life. What you're about to hear is the magic of a man who lives the power of positivity. This is John Dorenbos's journey.
Who Am I Really?
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Transcripts
238 - Jon Dorenbos - Life Is Magic
[:[00:00:21] Damon: Really podcast.com/book to that's book. And the number two. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how things are going. I hope to see you guys again in season 15 in the fall. Until then. Here's the last one. Are you ready? Let's go.
Cold Cut
[:[00:00:58] Damon: But if you give up on [00:01:00] yourself, the world won't Don't be shocked when the world stops showing up for you too.
[:[00:01:48] Damon: Thanks to kinship adoption, lots of counseling And two outlets. He is eternally grateful for football and magic. John had a long career in the NFL, but an injury [00:02:00] ultimately saved his life. What you're about to hear is the magic of a man who lives the power of positivity. This is John Doerr and boss's journey.
[:
[00:02:29] Damon: Their family life was good. And John was a happy kid. John said he had some reading comprehension challenges as a kid and book learning can be a bit slow for him. His mother dedicated to supporting him, volunteered at his school, working in the library.
[:[00:02:56] Jon: And so just get through this time because this too shall pass right out, [00:03:00] outlast the storm. Let this time go by. And the reason you're different is the reason you're beautiful. The reason you're different is the reason the world needs you right now. And so I was 12 years old playing across the street at a friend's house.
[:[00:03:34] Jon: I wrote it down. Here's a plan. I hired a hit man. There was thought execution when the, in the state of Washington at the time. And I don't know if it's changed, but first degree was life in prison or the death penalty. Second degree. It wasn't premeditated. Things happened. Max penalty is 13 years, eight months.
[:[00:04:10] Jon: And so my dad ended up turning himself in he was tried for second degree murder, a sentence to 13, eight, and then he was released in about 11 or 12 years. And at that time I didn't just lose my mom. I lost my mom and my dad, I lost two of my favorite people. And so that's when life completely changed for me.
[:[00:04:45] Damon: And then tell me about the transition out of foster care.
[:[00:04:49] Jon: And I was old enough to understand everything that was going on. I was old enough to remember it, to process it, but I was also young enough to where the people around me could really dictate, I [00:05:00] think, the direction in life that I was going.
[:[00:05:17] Jon: So the thought process was let's keep these kids here. Let's finish the upcoming school year and let's do an entire year of therapy with these kids. And so that was my sister and I, so we stayed together. My brother was 18. Look, he was 18 confused and just took off and did his own thing. And I don't blame him for it.
[:[00:05:59] Jon: [00:06:00] The idea that life is going to happen. And it can either be an excuse for you, or you can rise and live in vision. And that time period was, it was everything for my sister and I. And we were in that therapy during the trial when my dad got sentenced. And then my grandparents and my aunt went back down to Southern California where they lived.
[:[00:06:23] Damon: Yeah,
[:[00:06:41] Damon: It's so important to, I think a lot of adoptees end up not staying in their family, but the fact that you got to go to the identity of the family and be nurtured by those who also cared about your mom and your family.
[:[00:06:56] Damon: In his book life is magic. John [00:07:00] described himself as a big kid who was gifted the opportunity to let out some of his emotions on the football field. When I asked John.
[:[00:07:15] Jon: so I had two outlets cause these come together simultaneously. I was a kid. the school year's over. My aunt now gets custody of my sister and I. We move on down to Southern California and I made the little league all star team.
[:[00:07:39] Jon: It's the first time I saw a trick and the kid showed me a trick and I was captivated. And for me, what I realized now is it wasn't so much about being a magician. It was more about, it was an outlet and trust me, I do shows and I go speak to companies and stuff. And in my head, I'm like, gosh, why couldn't this kid just
[:[00:07:57] Jon: And I saw like Clapton or Jimi Hendrix or, and I'm [00:08:00] just a rock star. Instead I got into magic. Awesome.
[:[00:08:10] Jon: The sound of the riffle for me. Is where the world quieted. The sound of a riffle is where I felt like just a kid and I wasn't worried about adult issues. I wasn't worried about, losing my mom, my dad, going to prison, foster homes, moving, and just change and so much change. I could sit in a quarter, I could shuffle cards and the world quieted.
[:[00:08:44] Jon: That's what they call me. Ogre, get over here. I remember my buddy, Kevin Johanson was like, yo, dude, you should play football. And I was like, No way, dude. Football's for dorks. I like magic. And I didn't know the name of the positions. I didn't know anything [00:09:00] about the game. So he's telling me how to put the pads on.
[:[00:09:12] Jon: Game on. That sounds pretty cool. Actually. Now I'm not, I was never a big hitter. I wasn't the guy that was just, laying people out like crazy, but I was big and I could hit, and I had a lot of kind of pent up. Emotion and anger in me. And so during the day I could go and hit you and not get in trouble.
[:[00:09:43] Jon: This is actually a great story. Everybody in football knows what a pulling guard is. Okay. It's a lineman and he lines up over here and then he comes around and sweeps around and he pulls to the other side of the field.
[:[00:09:55] Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the running back, the guy carrying the ball would follow him.
[:[00:10:11] Jon: And we, it was like the bad news bears and we didn't have enough guys to feel the team if we got hurt. So coach Hay and coach row would clap. And this is the pace that we would have to move because, and we would step literally, this was the pace that we would run place. And you'd have to step to that beat because if somebody got hurt, we couldn't play a game.
[:[00:10:48] Damon: Experiential learning.
[:[00:10:50] Jon: But what I learned, so it's funny cause like from then on out walkthroughs were where I learned everything. I'm even in the NFL walkthroughs. I didn't need to go full speed. I could [00:11:00] literally do a walkthrough every day and let me just see in, let me see very slowly in front of me, what's going to happen.
[:[00:11:24] Jon: And I'm very thankful that at an early age, I found two things in life that I value, whether I made a career out 'em or not. I have a buddy that's a musician and he was mentoring this woman on playing the guitar and singing and songwriting. And he literally looked at her and he said, Hey, be prepared to have a love affair that you've never had before.
[:[00:12:00] Jon: Is that it'll always be there. It always listens. And what I found is that for me, when I shuffle cards, the cards never lie to me. If I'm contemplating a decision in my life, I can stand up and know whether what I did was right or wrong. No, whether I treated somebody the right way or the wrong way. If I said something that came out wrong, or if no I am a hundred percent behind what I did, how I acted and what I said, it's just cool to have that in your life to where you can escape from the world and have something that always listens and never lies.
[:[00:12:29] Damon: really amazing because not everybody gets that, right? A lot of people do not receive. The therapy to get to solid ground, to get through something hard, they don't get the opportunity to access not one but two outlets. One physical and the other more potentially mental. And I would argue that potentially both of them were mental as well.
[:[00:13:14] Damon: You're able to entertain people in a way that, that others can't.
[:[00:13:17] Jon: more importantly, you're able to entertain yourself and that's where the creativity and Self discovery just explode right to me scrolling through your phone tik tok Instagram. That's not an escape you're just hitting yourself, right?
[:[00:13:42] Damon: John played football through high school in college, then joined the ranks of the pros in the NFL Playing for nearly a decade and a half with the Philadelphia Eagles. The average NFL career lasts only a little over three years, but John.
[:[00:13:58] Jon: 14 [00:14:00]
[:[00:14:01] Damon: That is a lot of stress on a person's body over time. During John's 14th year, he suffered an injury to his arm that sidelined him from the team for the season. But the events that followed. Ultimately saved his life.
[:[00:14:14] Jon: So I'm going into my 15th season, come on 15 years. And in my mind, I wanted 15. And so basically what happened is I do a show called America's Got Talent. I had some success. I came back to the Eagles and I tied for the most consecutive games played in Eagles history. And the way this went down was we were playing the Redskins.
[:[00:14:50] Jon: I have a big scar all the way down my wrist, three wrist surgeries, dislocated the middle lunate bone. That was the last game I played as an Eagle. I tied the record for most consecutive games played. [00:15:00] So I rehab it all off season. I come back in training camp. And I'm still an eagle and I'm going to play here forever.
[:[00:15:17] Jon: And in therapy, when I was a kid, we had three goals and I kid you not, I've kept these with me my entire life. Come to terms with your reality because whether you care or not, it's happening. Find forgiveness in people and in the world and be okay with it. And then maybe you'll be lucky enough that a little piece of hope or a little piece of happiness floats by you.
[:[00:15:56] Jon: Where all of a sudden, for me, finding forgiveness is about, [00:16:00] it has nothing to do with the event or the other people. For me, finding forgiveness is being okay with what my reality is. It's being okay that I'm going to take one step at a time, and somebody who is no longer in my life anymore, or events that are no longer in my life anymore, Are not going to run me up here.
[:[00:16:33] Jon: I'll never forget. Never forget. He said, I just want to make sure you're going to show up. Now I had never in my life thought of not showing up. Never once. So I go, wow, wait a minute. So does that mean like maybe I got some leverage here? If he's, why wouldn't I show up? Okay. Who's interested?
[:[00:17:11] Jon: So they ended up trading me there for a draft pick. And I ended up getting traded to the saints. I go down there and I was, what was really cool is I was an answer to a problem that they had. So when I arrived, I was the magic man. So there's videos online. I was doing magic in the locker room and it was, for me too, I was 37, I think 37 or 38, 37, and I felt reborn.
[:[00:17:46] Jon: I did the physical. And then I got the results as I was heading to practice and they were like, Hey don't lift anything heavy. Don't drink caffeine. Try not to laugh. No hiccups. Like you're just sit tight. We're on our way and you're going to be an emergency open heart surgery probably in 48 [00:18:00] hours.
[:[00:18:17] Jon: I've never lived in a penthouse. I've never lived downtown. So my wife and I were like, this is sick. This is unbelievable. I was, I just got married a month prior. And so when they were like, Hey, you're never playing football ever again. And. That's it. It's just the world crashes. Now I had a couple things going my way.
[:[00:18:47] Jon: Hey, if it was us, this is where we'd send our guy. So my wife and I start calling surgeons. And every one of them was taught by a surgeon named Joseph Bavaria. And so my wife's
[:[00:18:57] Jon: Hey, look, I'm just going to throw this out there, but maybe we should talk to this [00:19:00] Bavaria guy because if that's where everybody's taught and he took my call and he's Hey man, I'm glad you called.
[:[00:19:19] Jon: I'm cut from here to here all the way down. John Ritter, Alan Thicke, Bill Paxton all died of complications of this or this one of the problems I had what's called an aneurysm and the way they found it was actually cool. They did the stethoscope on your chest on your chest and on your back and you take deep breaths.
[:[00:19:47] Jon: If there's a squish sound, that's called a murmur. And a murmur is a leakage of blood somewhere that it shouldn't be. So it might be, boom boom,
[:[00:19:55] Jon: boom. It could be,
[:[00:19:57] Jon: boom.
[:[00:19:58] Jon: Boom, or
[:[00:19:59] Jon: [00:20:00] boom,
[:[00:20:00] Jon: boom. And depending on where that squish sound is probably where the leakage is. And so they were like, Hey you got a murmur. And the squish sound is not in the place you want it to be. Like I said, we got the echocardiogram and. In the echo, they saw that my aorta, which you have a vein that connects to the heart the blood goes in the heart through the lungs.
[:[00:20:33] Jon: That's the size of a water balloon. Oh, not good. And so right where that a word, it connects to the heart. It starts blowing up like a water balloon. It should be about the size of a dime or a nickel. And mine had blown up to be bigger than a soda can.
[:[00:20:46] Jon: If that pops, if that pops like a water balloon lights out, you could be cut open in open heart surgery.
[:[00:21:17] Jon: So imagine your heart opens three doors open and then blood leaves the heart and then the three doors closed so that the blood can't fall back into the heart. Does that make sense? Yes, I was born. I was born with two doors and over time these two doors withered away and there was holes in it And what happened is mine and it would open blood would leave it would close over time mine started to fall into itself. So mine was never closing.
[:[00:21:42] Jon: Yeah, so the blood that was leaving the heart Was falling back into the heart now where that creates a problem is your brain needs five quarts of blood a minute Okay, and your heart can calculate that and so my resting heart rate would be 80s and 90s, which is really high But what's what was happening is that [00:22:00] because the blood was leaving and falling back in the heart the brain wasn't getting the oxygen So what happens is the heart's gonna work and pump twice as fast to compensate for that To give the brain five quarts of blood a minute And so now what happens, the problem is the heart now is a muscle.
[:[00:22:30] Jon: So now I have a new valve and then. And then the aneurysm, they take it out and they put like a little plastic tunnel, right? Like just replacing the hallway and then it grows over. It's great. Here's the problem. Now your heart's way too big. So now everything is normal, but now you've got this huge heart and like a pair of sweatpants, when you stretch the waist out, sweats don't, they don't snap back, right?
[:[00:23:18] Jon: And you're going to need a heart transplant. Oh, wow. So here it is too big, right? And I need it to, shrink and there's nothing, there's no medicine, there's no food, there's nothing you can do. Your heart's either going to shrink or not. I believe that when I was out of surgery, my heart strength was 27%, which is not good.
[:[00:23:56] Jon: So now all of a sudden, if you're at 52 with a 2 percent error, you're still at 50. [00:24:00] So now I'm 54 or 50. So I go in for echos all the time. They monitor the valve and the strength. So long story short, it was a 15 and a half hour open heart surgery. We had some complications. I was in the hospital for 35 days post surgery which I'm actually thankful for.
[:[00:24:32] Damon: Sure.
[:[00:24:57] Jon: But then at a young age, I realized that when things [00:25:00] happen to you, That's what makes you interesting when things happen to you and you stand up and you keep walking. That's all of a sudden when you admire people and when you read about people, people in the news and they go through a lot and they come out on top, Rocky or all these movies that have a main character that overcome the natural, Hobbes hit in the home run at the end.
[:[00:25:38] Jon: And this just came out in an interview like two years ago, and I never put this into words, but when I'm down or something hard happens to me in life. I find a lot of people feel like, Oh, life's getting up on me. Life's kicking me. Oh, what else could go wrong? It's like everything falls at once. I've never once felt like that.
[:[00:26:27] Jon: And it was this made up world in my own mind. And I did throughout high school, throughout college, throughout the pros. Anytime something hard happens in life, I would close my eyes. I would hear the slow clap and I just had to stand up. And then I realized that, maybe it's my mom. No, it wasn't.
[:[00:27:10] Jon: And that's been really cool. all right. So
[:[00:27:12] Jon: keep in mind, I've never actually had the slow clap in my life. It's not like I was ever cool enough to actually get one. But I had my heart surgery and I'd have to carry this heart pillow because when you have open heart surgery you're cut open your chest, they wire it shut.
[:[00:27:36] Damon: Outward force is pressure on your rib cage that they've basically stitched back together. Yeah.
[:[00:27:42] Damon: So if I had to sneeze or cough, I would have to squeeze this pillow really tight and be like, and try and not right.
[:[00:28:05] Damon: And, sometimes it can be overwhelming when you just, my wife just wants to sit and have dinner and we just want to like, be nobodies. And then we went to Bar Amis, which is in South Philly in the Navy yard. And her and I went to dinner and we sat on the patio and nobody bothered us.
[:[00:28:38] Damon: And one guy,
[:[00:29:09] Damon: To have that. Yeah. And that was a really cool moment for me in Philly that I'll never forget. And then I do America's Got Talent and I started selling out theaters and I do a show in a theater and we got an email, Hey, and we hadn't told the story yet, right? It just happened, but I didn't tell the media.
[:[00:29:48] Damon: you have two options die or stand up. So just stand up. And then the clap gets louder and louder in my own head. And then just take one step forward and just pick [00:30:00] your head up and you'll be off and rolling. I remember not to ramble here, but I remember in the hospital I would get up and rehab was this stand up, walk to the door, touch the doorknob, walk back to your bed and take an hour nap.
[:[00:30:32] Damon: And so. I would get out of bed and it was beyond intimidating. I'd have anxiety and the thought of walking down the hallway was harder than anything I'd ever done in my life. And I would go in the bathroom and I would close the door and my wife would say, don't shut that door. Cause if I fell, she wanted to be able to get in.
[:[00:31:07] Damon: And I would hear the slow clap and it was like, man, okay, I got this. I'd open the door, I'd shuffle my feet out. I'd have my heart pillow and my wife and I would walk the hallway. And the whole time I'm just like, hold your head up. Walk proud. You got this. And I'm very thankful that the man that lives in here, I believe that this is possible and I've had a lot of success.
[:[00:31:46] Damon: And then these other things I got going on, it's like, gosh, man, like be careful the words you tell yourself, no matter how big or how small, because they just might come true. Yeah. You're going to, if you're going to write your story, man, make it crazy and absolutely [00:32:00] outrageous. And you know what? Hope other people laugh at it.
[:[00:32:10] Jon: Absolutely. Think about how many unbelievable dreamers we know among us. You've got Richard Branson's and Elon Musk's and all kinds of people going to planets and deep sea and all kinds of things.
[:[00:32:43] Jon: That life really is spectacular. And that inner talk is super important. And you said something, I want you to correct my quote, cause I'm not going to get you right as I sit here in front of you, quoting you, but basically the idea is. don't listen to yourself. Talk to yourself.
[:[00:33:00] Damon: Nailed it. Yeah, nailed it. Look and that's what I would do in the hospital. That's what I would do as a kid. It's very easy to listen to the thought in your head or the voice in your head that says, quick give up. You're not cut out for this. This is too hard.
[:[00:33:23] Damon: And so literally when things get hard, that's what I do. I go in the bathroom and I look in the mirror and I talk out loud. You pick your head up, you walk proud, you got this. And all of a sudden that, that doubt of how hard it is, how much it hurts, how exhausting, how intimidating the anxiety. All that starts to disappear and you actually might start to believe your own lies.
[:[00:33:49] Jon: Yeah.
[:[00:34:02] Damon: You got this. You hold your head up. You walk proud. You got this. Hold your head up. Walk proud. You got this. Hey, you know what? God dang me just saying this. I just lifted that chin a little bit higher, stood up a little higher,
[:[00:34:13] Damon: man, maybe I do got this changes things, man, because, the other thing I've learned too, is And this is this is deep for me.
[:[00:34:41] Damon: But if you give up on yourself, the world won't Don't be shocked when the world stops showing up for you too.
[:[00:34:59] Jon: [00:35:00] And we went out to dinner and she was telling me about some of the things that had transpired in her life. And I was talking her up and I told her very clearly, I said, nobody's going to love you more than you. So you got to make sure that you are loving yourself first, and then you can do all the other stuff.
[:[00:35:24] Damon: I think within that too, there's this lesson in life that one, you're not going to do it by yourself. So I've got this little term that I coined it's mine. My friends laugh at it.
[:[00:35:46] Damon: Like they get excited when they see you.
[:[00:35:48] Damon: And what I found is Andy Reed. Was that guy for me? Man, we, I would go up in his office. We'd do tricks and hang out. And when I first met him, he's like, Hey they tell me you could steal watches off people. I [00:36:00] go, yeah, I'm pretty good.
[:[00:36:15] Damon: So I'll never do all the coaches are around players. And I went up to Jim Johnson, I held it over his head. He had no clue. And I handed it to Andy and he was just like, Oh my gosh. And here's Jim Johnson, nothing got by him. He was just, he was that guy. But I think for me, I realized that Andy Reed was somebody that I respected, I admired, I looked up to.
[:[00:36:57] Damon: There's a moment where maybe the salary cap or there's all these [00:37:00] different factors that allow you to play a long time. Maybe when one of those are not for you, the guy that's making the decisions will believe in you enough to want to see you succeed, but you have to be that person in the world. You have to be that person everywhere you go.
[:[00:37:30] Damon: And I don't want to say something that comes out the wrong way, but too many people are offended too easily. Like it's just, I agree. They're just too offended, man. Like everybody can have their own opinion. It's fine. Relax, who are we that if somebody says something that I don't like, how ignorant am I that I'm going to go my whole life and you're going to say something that's never going to offend me.
[:[00:38:01] Damon: Just keep being you. Just keep being you. Make the world a better place and you will find the people that you're going to gravitate to and those people are going to lift you up and hopefully you'll help lift them up and it's a great world.
[:[00:38:22] Jon: I've had the great privilege of seeing you live. And I gotta say not only is the positivity infectious, but the magic was absolutely stunning. stunning. I'm sitting there watching hands and cards and all kinds of things and things are appearing out of nowhere. And it's absolutely amazing for anybody listening.
[:[00:38:50] Jon: Oh, by the way, the book is called Life is Magic. It is a wonderful read. We didn't get into some of it today. I absolutely encourage you to please pick it up. It's an incredible story.
[:[00:39:01] Jon: Hey, I appreciate you, man. Thank you.
[:[00:39:04] Jon: Thanks, man.
Closing
[:[00:39:55] Damon: And like I said, I truly hope you will take advantage of an opportunity to [00:40:00] watch.
[:[00:40:02] Damon: I also hope for everyone listening, you're able to dig deep and find the positivity in your existence in this life. In the spaces you share with others and that you can uplift at least one other person, the way John Dorham boss has set out to do for millions of people. I'm Damon Davis. And to hope you've found something in John's journey that inspired you. Validates your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you to have the strength along your journey to learn who am I really?
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