Updated May 2026 to reflect current data. Original recording: June 2025.

Richard Lowe (The Writing King) joins Dr. John Dentico on Adversity to Strength for a personal conversation that doesn’t sound like most ghostwriter interviews. Topics: twelve and a half years of marriage to a wife dying of lung disease, decluttering a life weighted with another person’s belongings, finding the right therapist after years of the wrong ones, atomic habits as a grief framework, the no-contact decision with toxic family, and the move from Hollywood to Florida that reset everything. The ghostwriting career is the result of the rebuilding, not the subject of the conversation.

Adversity to Strength is a podcast and therapy-focused conversation series hosted by Dr. John Dentico, who works directly with clients on trauma, grief, and personal transformation. The show pairs in-depth guest stories with practical insight from a working therapist’s perspective.

BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATION

Interview

Dr. John Dentico: Today on Adversity to Strength, we delve into a transformative story of Richard Lowe, a man who turned personal tragedy into a beacon of hope and creativity. After a successful thirty-three year career in technology, including two decades as director of computer operations at Trader Joe’s, Richard faced a profound personal loss when his wife, Claudia, passed away from complications related to asthma and COPD in 2005. This pivotal moment led him to reevaluate his life’s direction.

Embracing his long-held passion for writing, Richard transitioned into a new career as a ghostwriter. Since 2013, he has authored 113+ books under his own name along with 54+ ghostwritten works, spanning topics from AI and cybersecurity to personal memoirs and business leadership. Richard’s approach to ghostwriting is deeply personal. He describes his method as soul-centered, aiming to capture the essence of his clients’ stories and convey them authentically to readers.

Now residing in Clearwater, Florida, Richard continues to help individuals transform their experiences into compelling narratives. His journey exemplifies how adversity can lead to profound personal and professional growth. Join us as we explore Richard Lowe’s inspiring path from corporate leadership through personal loss to becoming a guiding voice for others seeking to share their stories.

Richard, thank you ever so much, and welcome to the podcast.

Richard: Well, thank you very much, and thank you for the intro. It’s probably the longest one I’ve done, but there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to yourself. And I even think that’s keeping it short. There’s a couple of areas we’ll talk about that are slightly incorrect, but that’s okay. I blame our researcher.

John: So tell us from the beginning. Where did it all start for you? What was the beginning for you?

Leaving Home and the Grandfather Who Loved Stories

Richard: Oh, like 15,000 lifetimes. No, I’m kidding. The journey started when I had to leave home. I literally had to leave home. My dad and I didn’t get along. He was very violent and had anger management issues and was a drinker. So at age 19, well, actually it starts a little before that. At age 19, I left and just kind of moved out. Didn’t tell anybody I was moving out.

Wound up in Orange County working for a company, became VP of that company within a year. So that was cool. Just before that, though, I was at a family get-together, Christmas or something. My grandfather was there, and I’d never approached him before. He was kind of, according to most of the rest of the family, weird. “Stay away from him. Blah blah blah.” Curmudgeon is the word.

But I decided I wanted to know my grandfather, so I went and talked to him. Did a few interviews during that day, talked to him, had a good time, and learned that he was a World War II vet. He was in the Yangtze River Patrol before World War II. His ship was sunk underneath him, called the Panay. Little boat. It was actually a boat, not a ship.

Then he had to go to Corregidor, and was captured by the Japanese, was in the Bataan Death March, in a prisoner of war camp for four years, and came home. I concluded a couple things. First, I decided I like stories a lot. Second, he could be as curmudgeonly as he wants. He earned the right. And then I got to know my grandfather. That was good. So that was a seed that lasted through my whole life.

Twenty Years at Trader Joe’s

Richard: Then we get to moving out and so forth. That was a tough time because I wasn’t making enough money. It’s a small startup, but I managed to survive. Survived that way for a while. Went to a second startup, same kind of thing. I was the VP.

Then went to two jobs, one of which was in Oxnard and one of which was in Long Beach, about a 100 miles apart. Did a commute. So on the weekends I was in Long Beach, and then the weekdays I was in Oxnard. And the Oxnard one, I was actually supporting Las Vegas Valley Water District, their water system, the things that monitor all the water levels and sluice gates and stuff in Hoover Dam, things like that. So Friday night I’d be on an airplane, Saturday morning, then Sunday or Monday morning I’d be back.

That was a grueling schedule. This was before Reaganomics. Reagan changed the tax laws. So I found out that I was making less money working two jobs than I would make working one. I was killing myself. One was quit very quickly. The Las Vegas one was quit very quickly that same day I found that out, and life got a little bit easier.

After those jobs and some little minor ones in between here and there, I went to work for Trader Joe’s as their director of computer operations and technical services. That was a tough job. I was there for twenty years. Twenty years in a tough job.

John: How come you stuck it out for so long in a tough job?

Richard: Well, it was tough technically. It was tough leadership-wise. It was just a challenge.

Marriage to Claudia and the Caregiving Years

Richard: I also got married to my wife, Claudia. It’s always Claudia, not Claudia. If I called her Claudia, she’d ask if I was having an affair with some other lady. I’m using my English accent.

So she was Claudia. We were married for twelve and a half years and she got sick and was sick for eight of those years. Seriously ill: asthma, COPD, smoking two packs a day do not go together well. And she passed away at the end of that twelve and a half years.

I decided I didn’t want to be in grief and I didn’t want to be shy anymore. I was painfully, painfully, painfully shy. So I started photographing in addition to my job. I went in the evenings, or on the weekends I’d be photographing national parks, state parks, flowers, you name it. I was hiking, having a good time, going to Renaissance faires.

Photography, Belly Dancers, and Breaking Out of the Shell

Richard: I went to Renaissance faires and I found belly dancers. Every Renaissance faire has some very traditional Moroccan or Turkish or whatever belly dancers. I’d sit down in the back row with my telephoto lens, busy photographing the belly dancers.

One day, a dear friend, she’s become a friend since, named Marjani approaches me. Now Marjani has piercings all over the place and tattoos, and I wasn’t into that stuff. I had never even met somebody with that kind of stuff before. So I was terrified, literally. When she’s walking towards me, I’m like, “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” And she puts her arm around me. “Oh my god.”

She says, “We really like your pictures, Richard. We’d like you to be in the front row center from now on. We don’t want you sitting in the back row like some stranger. Come up front.” In fact, she introduced me to hundreds of belly dancers all over the state, and I became the belly dance photographer for Southern California. Plus, every weekend I was on an airplane taking pictures of Renaissance faires. Plus, I took pictures of the circus and of WWE and all the hikes I did and all that kind of stuff. So 980,000 photos over eight years. I was working my main job and flying all over the place.

The side effect was I got over my fear of people because I was taking pictures of them. I used the camera to help me do that, so I could talk to the camera and talk to them. Before long, I didn’t need the camera anymore. So it was great. I didn’t charge for my photos.

Every year, dancers and models and reenactors threw a party for me. My job was to rent a place for them to dance. It started as a pirate shop, then moved up finally to a community center I rented. And 24 to 100 dancers would come and dance just for me. It was an interesting time.

John: And sometimes you’d spill it over into two days?

Richard: Yep. Sometimes we spilled it over into two days. One would be in the hall and one would be in, say, a bar. Most of the gothic dancers tend to go to the bar and the non-gothic dancers tend to go to the hall.

I also photographed the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball, which is in Hollywood. You can imagine all of the Hollywood people, the costumes they made. And the first annual World Mermaid Beauty Pageant in Silverton, Las Vegas.

John: That sounds interesting. A mermaid pageant.

Richard: 50 mermaids and two supermodels. I met two supermodels that day. That was fascinating.

John: Anyone we know?

Richard: If I remembered their names, probably, but I don’t remember their names. It was a long time ago.

John: You weren’t focused on their names?

Richard: Well, I knew their names then because they were very famous. One was from Australia, one was from Germany, and they’re very nice. They were nice to me.

John: What is Shaffer now, McPherson? The supermodels are coming to my mind.

Richard: Neither of those two. One of them was a mermaid. She did a video of her swimming with whales in a mermaid costume. That was quite fun. The other one, the German one, I don’t know much about. But I got to do that. I was a model a couple times, so I have pictures of me being a model all dressed up in costumes. That was fun.

In the meantime, I worked a job. So with all this came the change. My wife had passed away and I looked at her life, which was locked in an apartment forever while she was sick, IV drugs, the whole thing to keep her alive. I thought, you know what? It’s a short time here on Earth. I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to have fun. I’m going to do things. And this broke me out of my shell. Enough’s enough. It’s time to live life.

Processing Grief and Decluttering a Life

John: Tell us a little bit about your partner. What kind of grief were you going through at the time? And then tell us a little bit about when you got to, was it an epiphany, or was it over a period of time where you thought, you know what? I can’t live a life like that. I need to maximize my life. What went on back then?

Richard: Just before she passed away, probably within six months, I went to a Renaissance faire. It was one of my first, and I had a great time. It was the first great time I’d had in a decade because I was focused on her, on the job, on other things. I was heavily involved in the community and religion and things at that time. There was a lot going on.

But I went to the Renaissance faire, relaxed, drove home, got lost. They were doing major freeway construction, and I got totally turned around because I was out of it. I’d had too much of a good time. I stopped and I looked around. I thought, “I can’t do this anymore.”

So I told her I’m getting out of the house more, and she was happy with that, because she wanted me to get out of the house. It was probably driving her crazy. That’s when I started to bloom. That’s when I started the hiking and taking pictures of national parks and things.

So I did all that stuff. After she passed away, I began to meet new people. I’ll tell you a story about one of them in a minute. Several of them are fun stories.

John: That sounds good.

Richard: That’s when I began to reach out and learn that there’s more to life than just work, and that life is too short to waste, especially when you’re younger. Too short to waste on stupid stuff like drugs and smoking and so forth.

John: With deciding that you wanted to change your life, you wanted to maximize it, do you think that helped you process the loss of your wife, helped you deal with the grieving?

Richard: That’s exactly why I had started doing it. The first pivot point of my life was moving out from my parents. The second pivot was joining Trader Joe’s, and this was the third pivot, her passing away. The fourth one was me moving to Florida. That came later.

So she passed away. That pivoted my life and made me open up a little bit, and I became a much different human being. The grief just vaporized, and I was able to survive much better, because grief is not fun.

John: How long do you reckon it took you from losing your wife to kind of transform and process and move on to become the new you? How long do you reckon that process took before you thought, yeah, you know what? I’m here now. I’ve arrived.

Richard: Nine years.

John: Nine years.

Richard: Nine years. And I’m really certain. Nine years. It was nine years because I picked up the camera just before she passed away, and I put it down before I moved to Florida. So when I moved to Florida, I knew I was done. I’d achieved what I wanted to achieve. It was time to move on to another chapter, and leave Trader Joe’s and all that kind of stuff. That was the sequence of events. That was the fourth pivot.

John: How did you feel when you got to nine years? That’s how you dealt with one of the biggest losses you can ever have, and then you put that down. That comes to the end. How did that feel? What were your thoughts there?

Richard: You mean when I was done with that nine years?

John: When you were done with it, nine years, I’m done. Was it something that had been on your mind for a while? Was it like, yeah, you know what? Today, I’m done with this. What happened?

Richard: It just disappeared. I didn’t even, it just was gone. And then I realized I hadn’t even thought about her in six months. I thought, “Okay. I guess that chapter of my life is closed.”

One thing I did though that’s interesting is I went through my entire place, and I found everything that reminded me of her and my parents and anything that was bad in my life. She wasn’t bad, but eight years of pain and suffering. I threw it all away. Everything.

John: What did you throw away?

Richard: Everything that reminded me of them. Every single thing, every picture, everything is gone. My parents, her, friends who were not so good friends. I kept all the good stuff, but my philosophy was: if you’ve got stuff in your life that’s making you depressed, why do you have it?

So I looked at each and every thing. I picked it up and I thought, “What emotion am I feeling now with this?” Feeling fine, keep it. Feeling ambivalent, maybe keep it. Feeling depressed, pitch it. Everything.

John: How much junk do you accumulate over the years? 2,000 things? It’s a long process.

Richard: It took six months. When that was done, I could be in my place and look at things and not feel those little pangs of depression and anxiety and so forth. It was all gone.

John: Did you feel like a weight had been lifted?

Richard: Huge weight. Massive. Like some elephant was sitting on my shoulders, and it was gone.

John: You know, it’s so interesting to hear that, because so many people don’t do that. So many people won’t even think about doing that. You surround yourself, and one of the things I say to clients, we’re a product of our environment. You look at what you surround yourself in. And if you’ve got things that are negative there, well, why would you do it?

And often we just do it and don’t question it. The fact that you looked at it, weighed it up, got rid of it, I’d imagine it was on a ruthless side of you as well. The sentiment had gone, and yet six months later, however long it took, you felt like a weight had been lifted. So very therapeutic and probably life-changing for you.

Richard: Very life-changing. I actually did it again just a few months ago. I went through everything else again and found all the last little bits of things that were hidden in drawers and stuff and pitched it all. First, I was doing a declutter.

I look at people who are divorced and they keep, they still have pictures of their ex-wife on the wall, or ex-husband. What are you doing? You’re divorced. Get rid of that.

You’re a child and your parent abused you. Why are you keeping pictures of your mother on the wall? She abused you. Or father or whatever. Why are you keeping all these mementos that mean nothing? Obviously, you keep the good stuff. But the past is the past is the past. It’s junk you’re carrying around with you and it’s costing you money to store, because a lot of people put it in storage units. It’s costing you emotional money to look at. Every time you look at it, it’s draining you. That helped a lot.

John: Did you feel so much freer afterwards? Did you feel like, well, that’s another chapter closed, on to the next thing now. Now I’ve done that.

Richard: The chapter closed quite firmly at that nine-year point. That’s how I know it. It just went “clang,” gone. It wasn’t like locking a door and putting it away. It was like it just vaporized. Completely gone. I did see a therapist during that time too, several of them, and got a lot of help from that end too.

Finding the Right Therapist

John: Tell us a little bit about seeing, obviously being a therapist myself and a lot of the listeners will be very into their mental health there as well. What were your experiences of therapy then? It sounds like it was a positive one over the years.

Richard: Yeah. There were negatives and positives. First of all, finding the therapists who work for you. Pitch those who tell you, “Oh, you’re this and you’re that or you’ve got this diagnosis or whatever.” You don’t want those. Get rid of those. You’ve got to figure it out yourself.

The therapist that I wound up with, they tend to ask me questions like Socratic method or something, whatever you call it. “How are you feeling?” and “What do you think?” to guide me to my solution, not their solution. That worked very well.

Same with the coaches that I’ve used for business. I avoid the coaches who say, “Oh, I have this method.” Well, screw your method. What I want to do is get to my solution, not your solution, and that works much better for me. The caution is that first session with them, or even the first talk with them. If they won’t talk to you for the first time for free, on the phone at least for half an hour or an hour, then find another one.

John: Yeah. That’s what I do. I do a free consultation, because in that twenty minutes you build a rapport. You get an idea. “Can I work with this guy? Is he for me?” You get such an idea. If you don’t do that, or you charge for it, for me, it’s just not good practice. Or you’re just talking to the salesperson, and they shuffle you off to somebody else if you’re in a larger therapy group. That’s not going to work for you. Well, it might, but it didn’t work for me.

Richard: What I found out is I want to interview the person. I want to talk to them, find out if they’re a fit, go to that first session, probably pay them for it, and then decide. Each session I’m deciding, “Is this person right for me?” Sometimes I just said, “I can’t work with you,” and that usually insulted them. If they were really bad, that would be an insult to them. They got pissed.

One of the first things I do when I’ve got a new client is I’m honest with them. I say, “You’ve got to have the vibes like a first date. You’ve got to have that connection. If you don’t have it, doesn’t matter how good the therapist is, get another therapist. You’ve got to have a connection. I can trust this guy. This guy can do this for me.”

So yeah, you did the right thing. If that person doesn’t feel like the right fit, get another therapist. If they get all hurt over it, you found you made the right decision. It’s not personal. It’s the right fit. And if it is personal, it doesn’t matter. It’s just not the right fit. You shouldn’t have to explain why. You just, “We’re not working out. We’re done.”

John: “Well, why?” “Because we’re done. Bye.”

Richard: You can go and see a therapist, again, like on a first date. You could meet somebody, or a therapist, whatever. They tick every single box, and something’s just not there. You just don’t get it. That’s enough. “Cheers for that. Take care. Thanks for your time.”

John: Well, you just put it right. The therapist is a guide, and that’s their role, to guide you through whatever’s going on or whatever they’re trying to accomplish. I was trying to accomplish getting out of some really bad mental stuff, and I think I was over the head of some people. I’ve been through more that I’m not going to talk about that was much worse than what I’m talking about, but we’re going to keep that amongst us girls.

Richard: When you come out of therapy, how different did you feel compared to when you went into therapy?

John: Well, one of the keys I learned really fast is you can’t go into therapy expecting, “Well, I have had a therapy session. I’m going to feel a million times better.” You might, but that’s not going to last. You might have that little high at the end, which is fine. Dopamine and stuff. You just had a big, “Oh my god. I realized that I didn’t need to do that. I was stupid.” That’s quite often what happens. “Man, I acted stupid. I was wrong.”

That’s quite common when I go to therapy. It’s like, “Oh, oh my god. I was wrong. I should have apologized. The wife was right. Go figure.” That was actually pretty normal.

But it takes time to have anything permanent. So yeah, you have those highs while you’re going through therapy, but the permanence is changing your life. And something as important, if not more important than therapy, is diet, exercise. Get out there in the street or whatever and get on the exercise bike, go kickbox, go do whatever you do, go to your gym. I like to get on my exercise bike. Just do that and fix your diet. I think most depression is caused by diet. I’m not a doctor, so don’t…

Habits, Diet, and the 1 Percent Rule

Richard: It is so important. Diet is so important. I see somebody, “Oh, I’m so depressed.” Yeah. And they’re drinking a six-pack a day. They’re smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Problem right there. Their diet, they’re eating sugar. They’re having sodas. It’s like, well, of course you’re depressed. Stop doing that stuff.

Of course, their finances are all screwed up because they’re spending all this money on stuff, and that’s, you’ll be much better. Of course, getting it fixed is going to be tough. Quitting any habit. Right now I’m trying to fix my diet again. What a pain in the butt, or the stomach.

John: Therein lies the problem. It’s not always the easiest for a lot of people. But if you can fix your diet and if you can try and train at the gym, brilliant. Even if it’s going for a walk, it’s something. It’s good. It’s better than just sitting there. If you’ve got enough energy to go to the fridge, you’ve got enough energy to go for a walk. I think somebody, Joe Rogan, said something similar, and it is true. It is true. And anyone can exercise. Even if it’s a small amount, it’s still a start.

Richard: Highly recommended book, Atomic Habits. Atomic Habits says change 1 percent every day. That’s what I follow. Instead of trying to change all of those bad habits all at once, hit 1 percent a day. Just a little bit.

So today, I’m going to walk an extra 100 yards, and I’m going to keep doing that every day. Then next week, I’m going to stop eating chips, or maybe less chips, maybe half a bag of chips instead of a whole bag. Before you know it, you’re doing pretty well. It doesn’t take as long as you would think, because 1 percent a day is 365 percent. An order of magnitude is 365 percent per year. 365 percent is big.

John: Yeah. And I read another book I’m going to have to pitch. Atomic Habits is brilliant. There’s also People Are Idiots, and I Can Prove It. The author is Larry Winget. He says at the beginning of the book, “You’re not going to like my style, probably, but I’m going to tell you like it is. You’re an idiot.” And you go, “Oh my god.”

He says, “Here’s the 12 ways you’re an idiot.” And he goes, “Now I’m not going to leave you hanging there. That’s just dumb. I’m going to tell you how to fix them.” He goes, “How to prove you’re an idiot. Do you smoke?” And his answer is “Yes.” He says, “It says right on the package that it will kill you. So you’re smoking something that says it will kill you. That’s just dumb.” And he goes through all kinds of stuff, your lifestyle, all these things that you’re just being an idiot about. “Fix it.” And he tells you how. It’s a very simple book. I think they call him the pit bull of counseling, or something like that. He has a book called Grow a Pair and all kinds of other books with funny titles.

John: Did you find that you would read a lot of books when you were helping to get through the things that you’d been through?

Richard: I read a lot of books, a lot of things, and I took away just a few things from them. Atomic Habits is a long, long book in my opinion that says a lot of things when it could be three pages long. For me, I skim it and get what I need and I’m done. You don’t need to read the whole darn book. Just skim it or find the Cliff’s Notes version or whatever. Do they still have Cliff’s Notes? I don’t know. Tangent there.

The other thing I discovered is work is not everything. That was a big one. I’m going through this therapy stuff, going with dancers and photographing, going to Renaissance faires and all this stuff, but I’m killing myself. I’m working sixty hour weeks at that time. Sixty hour weeks while my wife is in a sick bed.

She had nine comas during that period, and she had comas all the time. A twenty-seven day coma where I didn’t think she was going to make it. Her mom died during that time, the whole thing. And I’m still working sixty hours a week. Sixty hours a week. Minimum. Minimum. Minimum.

John: How come you were working so many hours? Just because it was the job that you were doing?

Richard: It was part of my philosophy. It was part of the requirements of the job. It was just the thing to do. It’s kind of the “I’m a man. I can do it” mentality that we go through as men. Or people. I don’t know if women go through that, but men certainly do. “I’m a man. I can do this.”

I do put in a lot of hours now for what I do, but I’m putting them in for what I’m doing, for what I want to do, and there’s a big difference. I’m not doing it for somebody else.

Going No Contact with Toxic Family

John: Yep. So that was the fourth pivot. Actually, that was the. Wait, go ahead.

Richard: Your turn.

John: No, come on, Richard. You go for it.

Richard: The fourth pivot was when I decided I’m done with working for somebody else. So the wife had passed away. I’d gone through, done all the photography, did all the stuff, did all the therapy. I was really happy and decided, “Okay. I need to make a big change. It’s time.”

So I moved. I left my job, and I did have money in the bank. Moved to Florida, set up a home and life.

Now the funny part is, the dancers all threw me a big party, and it was on my birthday when all this happened. One of the dancers, her name is Mira Devi. She’s an Indian Bharatanatyam dancer. Those are the ones with the little bells on their feet and so forth. Really, really nice and really pretty.

She said, “You’re not driving to Florida alone.” So we drove across the country together and had a great time. Then she flew back. She had a show in Jamaica a couple months later. So she flew back to Florida on Thanksgiving, made me a vegan turkey. Now the funny part about that is she said, “And it tastes just like turkey.” My thoughts were, one, how do you know if you’re a vegan? And number two, it doesn’t taste like turkey. But it was not bad, and not something I would do again, but it wasn’t bad. She flew home and we’ve been good friends ever since. That was fun.

John: Where did you move from? Where were you placed before?

Richard: Hollywood.

John: Hollywood. How was life in Hollywood for you? It sounds glamorous, but apparently there’s a small area where it’s glamorous. The rest is less so. Is that the case?

Richard: One block in either direction from where I lived was a war zone, essentially. Lots of gangs, but they left me alone.

I actually had the balls to ask one once. Walked up to a gang member and started talking to him. I said, “This is weird. I’m talking to a heavily armed, guns visible, knives, tattooed gang member.” And he said, “You don’t have any problem.” I said, “Why is that?” He says, “Because you’re white.” I said, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

He said, “Well, if we hurt you, there’s going to be cops. If we hurt another gang member or somebody else, there’s not going to be cops. But if we hurt you, there’s going to be cops. So you’re perfectly safe. Don’t worry about it. Just don’t go flashing money around.” I thought that was very, very interesting that I was safe because I was a white guy.

John: Would that have been the Bloods and the Crips then? Would that have been the gangs then?

Richard: I believe it was the Crips.

John: The Crips. How come you ended up talking to some gang member of the Crips? Did you stumble down the wrong road?

Richard: No. He was on my block. I was just curious and said, “Hey. How you doing?” He said, “How you doing?” He looked kind of shocked that I had the balls to talk to a gang member, and I was kind of shocked that I had the balls to talk to a gang member. We struck up a conversation. We wound up talking for a couple hours, literally.

John: Just in the street?

Richard: Yeah. He sat on a wall and so did I, and we just chatted. I think he had fun, because how often does he get to talk to somebody like me? I’m a middle class guy. And how often do I get to talk to a guy with two guns showing in his belt and who definitely could use them? These were not new shiny guns. These were used. But he’s just another person. A dangerous person, absolutely.

John: What do you reckon you took from that conversation? Two hours later with a gang member, you’ve had a conversation, wished each other all the best, and off you went. What do you reckon you learned from that? Because it must have been pretty, not intense, but pretty fascinating at the same time.

Richard: Well, first of all, that I’m an idiot. Second of all, that I can talk to just about anybody. As long as I go in there with the right attitude and in the right circumstances, I’ll be fine most likely. But I was on my own turf, so he wasn’t going to do anything in the middle of a middle class neighborhood. He was just there for whatever reason he was there. We didn’t talk about that. So it was something that happened. Interesting experience, though.

John: Yes. What was life like in Hollywood then?

Richard: I didn’t see much of Hollywood. I was taking care of the sick wife, working, and all kinds of stuff. There was no time to see Hollywood. Hollywood is not glamorous. It’s pretty much a dump.

Now I got my tattoos in Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is nice. I got these after she passed away, before I moved. One of them is a phoenix, and that’s for change of life. My life changed when she passed away. One of them is a dragon, and they’re both on my shoulders.

John: What’s the dragon for?

Richard: Dragon’s me. Dragon is intelligent, personable, charming, wonderful, great to be around. Don’t piss him off. That’s a dragon. Don’t piss them off. I do have that, or did. I don’t have much anymore of that quick to anger. That’s from my dad. I had it under better control, though. Much better control. I didn’t drink. I’ve never drunk. He was a drunk. I’ve never taken drugs. And I got a lot of therapy for it.

John: Because when you’re in an abusive upbringing, traumatic, often you get CPTSD, complex post traumatic stress disorder, and you can have anger issues, and you overreact to the slightest thing. “How did I even get here? Where did that come from?” It takes a lot of work in therapy.

Richard: Yep. Mom and dad were both narcissists. They got to go off of each other, and then I was a target. I learned to be small and shy to not provoke them so they wouldn’t attack me. They’re busy arguing, and I’m in the middle, and I just worked on model kits or something to be out of the way. If I opened my mouth, I got attacked.

One thing that happened, my dad was violent. When I was in my preteens, I think I was probably somewhere between six and nine, probably nine, a little bit older. I ran away from home and I didn’t get far because I got behind a bush and, “Oh, this is great. I’m away from home. I’m going to go do this and that.” You know how it is.

Then I thought, “My sister’s still at home. I can’t leave her there with my dad.” So I went back home and stayed there till I was 19. You can guess what I was protecting her from.

John: She’s two years younger?

Richard: She’s two years younger. There were several times where I had to intervene between my dad and my sister to keep him away from her. I was glad I did it. It was rough. It made it very rough. They knew I ran away from home, my mom and dad. They just joked about it. “Oh, yeah. Richard had to work it out.” No. I ran away from home because it was intolerable, but I had to tolerate it.

John: You left at 19. What happened to the relationship with your parents? Did you always have one? Did you cut them off?

Richard: Tried for a bit. I had an attitude. I was 19, a 19-year-old attitude. I was a bit of a prick for a while. The therapy fixed that, and the belly dancers and so forth.

The wife, she wouldn’t tolerate it, but I eventually went no contact with both of them. Eventually my sister went no contact with them too. Everybody went no contact with them. So they died alone. One from COVID, one just before.

That’s the most important lesson that I’ve learned in life by far. If somebody’s doing you harm, go no contact with them. It doesn’t matter who they are. Dad, mom, friend, acquaintance, somebody on the Internet who’s talking crap about your book, anybody. If they’re talking shit about you or anything like that, and a simple communication won’t stop it, done. My life has improved a thousand times.

John: I totally agree. I get clients that have got terrible relationships with their parents. Parents are really abusive, and I know where it comes from. The client is still trying to build a relationship with them, and the parents are so toxic. As a therapist, I can’t tell them what they can and can’t do or should or shouldn’t do. That’s what’s right for them.

But some people just cut them off straight away. “Great. Go for it.” Some people, they’re clinging on to a relationship that doesn’t exist in the hope that it changes one day. And if you’ve got narcissist parents, they’re never going to change.

The other thing that really frustrates me is that some people think that because they’re a parent, they’ve got a divine right to treat you in a certain way, whereas you don’t. In fact, you should be treating your kids with even more love and respect, just because you feel you can get away with that.

Richard: My dad told me on many occasions that I was his property and that he owned me. This was up till the last time I talked to him, that he owned me, and I would do what he said because I was property. I wasn’t property. Oh, boy. Did I hit the wrong button. So we had some major fights.

John: Did your parents know the reasons why you and your sister cut contact, and everyone else, or did they think that everyone else was in the wrong? What was going on? Because narcissists are very deluded.

Richard: They didn’t have a clue. It didn’t matter how much I explained to them or anything. No clue at all. No accountability. No apologies.

Friendship with Jannah at the Grand Canyon

Richard: Let me tell you about my best friend first. One of my best friends. Her name is Jannah. She’s a belly dancer. She met me at one of the dance shows.

So I’m sitting there. I am totally caved in. I’m depressed. I’m in the middle of a belly dance called tribal fusion, something like that. I was in the front row taking pictures, and she comes next to me and just starts goofing around like crazy. She and I goofed around so much.

This was the first time I had a conversation with a woman in a friendly state, not Marjani, but somebody who became a friendship since way before my wife, before I got married.

Before you know it, we almost got kicked out of the show. We were goofing around so much because we were in the front row. She had a sword and she put it on her head. We had a great time. Got me out of my shell right away.

A little while later, I decided I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. So I said, “I want to go to the Grand Canyon.” It was November. I called her up and said, “You want to go to Grand Canyon?” She said, “Sure. What do you mean?” I said, “I want you to go to Grand Canyon with me.” She said, “What do you want in return?” I said, “Just to come.” She said, “Okay.” I know what she was thinking. I was like, “No. No. We’re just going to be friends. Okay. Fine.”

So she came. I said, “I only want one thing from you.” She said, “What is that?” I said, “When we get to the canyon, I want to get some pictures of you doing your dance show on the rim of the canyon so I can get the canyon in the background.” She said, “Perfect. We’ll do that.”

We went to the canyon. We went on the Amtrak to Williams, took the steam train down to the canyon. That’s a two hour trip in a luxury car. Do the luxury car if you do this, because it’s only like $40 more, and you might as well have the luxury. $40 a person more. Beautiful, beautiful trip. Went down to one of the great hotels down there, stayed there, went on all the trips and things.

She did do the dance on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Really, she’s two feet from a 4,000 foot drop, dancing her heart out.

A ranger approaches me and says, “You know, there’s a $300 fine for doing a performance without a permit.” I said, “Oh, shit.” And she said, “But I’m going to let you slide because it was only five degrees out.” Five degrees Fahrenheit. It was cold. There were icicles everywhere, and she was dancing in her belly dance outfit on the rim. As soon as she stopped dancing, the sweat froze. That was the first time we went on a trip.

Then there was a dance training show that was on a cruise line. What I found about cruise lines is you have to buy them in twos. You can’t buy just one ticket. You have to buy two. It’s generally intended for couples. So I couldn’t buy just one for me. I had to have somebody else. So okay, I’d have somebody else go. I asked her if she wanted to go, and she asked the same question. I said, “No. We’re just going on a trip.” She said, “Cool. I’ll go.”

We spent the trip together just as friends. Men and women can be friends. Had a great time and went to Ensenada, took pictures of all the shows. There were 150 women on the boat in addition to 5,000 other people on the ship, and it was a lot of fun.

Did it again the year after. The year after that, she’d met a guy. He met me. He said, “Okay. Fine. Whatever.” Then the fourth time, she said, “I can’t go because I’m married to that guy now.” I said, “Okay. I’ll figure out something else.”

She came back a couple days later and said, “I talked to my husband and I told him I can’t go to the thing because there’s nobody to go with. He said, ‘Just go with Richard, stupid. Richard’s fine. I like Richard.'” So we went again. Yeah, men and women can be friends if they want to be. We had many, many great times together. These are things that I could not have done years before. Having a real conversation with a woman, “Oh my god.” It’s not going to happen.

John: How did you find that you were able to do that, have a friendship like that? Did you find it liberating? Did you feel that it was a big part of the progress and changes that you’d done, compared to where you were years before?

Richard: Big change in me. One thing I know about men is, because I am one, is that typically men are after one thing. We can guess what it is. We know. You want one thing out of a woman and that’s that. Actually, there’s several things. Once the relationship starts, the one thing plus respect and all that kind of stuff.

But I decided, I had the conversation. I said, “So we’re going to do this. What are the boundaries?” We negotiated the boundaries, and it wasn’t much negotiation. She said “This and this and this,” and I said, “Okay.” Fine. I knew the boundaries, and I didn’t cross them.

Now that can be difficult, because sometimes either side will say “This is the boundary,” but what they really want is for you to chase a little more. I told her, “Okay. You’ve said what the boundaries are. I am not going to go over them. Period. So if you get drunk or something one night and you decide you want me to go over them, I’m not going to, and it’s no insult to you.”

We had a real frank conversation. She said, “I understand.” Then she did get drunk, but she didn’t go over the line. She knew the line. She didn’t get all hurt about it. “Oh my god, he doesn’t, I wanted him to make a pass at me.” I didn’t, because we’d set the boundaries, and that’s an important conversation.

Hollywood, Florida, and the Leap to Ghostwriting

John: The next stage was your career change. You wanted to do ghostwriting. Just before we go into the ghostwriting, which is fascinating as somebody that loves books, is that something you would have ever done five, ten years previous, or was it because of the changes and the therapy and everything you’d been through that led you to that belief that you had the confidence to actually give it a go?

Richard: There’s one thing about working in corporate America for so long that I had to overcome, and that was fear. Fear of leaving the security of a steady paycheck. So there’s this fear of leaving. Like, can I make it on my own? Can I do my own company? Can I actually make 6 figures? And blah blah blah blah blah.

Finally decided, I don’t like where I’m at. And not because it was particularly bad. I just wanted to work on my own, and I didn’t like the area. Reminded me too much of things.

I was going to move to Florida, and Florida was as far away from California as I thought I could get. I was looking for a middle of the road town, and Clearwater is definitely middle of the road politically. There’s no hard left, hard right here in Clearwater. So it was good for me. It’s a nice place to write. I’ve got a lake in the back, alligators in the lake, and a bobcat.

I have a bobcat. I found out I have the bobcat because, A, I hear things getting slaughtered at night, and B, when the hurricane hit, it was stuck in the tree right there. I looked out my window and there’s a bobcat sitting in the tree. He was there for a day looking at me like, “Can you help me?” Like, “No. Do I look stupid, mister bobcat, or missus bobcat, or whoever?”

So I moved to Florida, overcame the fear. Terror. I had some money that I could last a few years on while I started my business.

Then I worked for a small ghostwriting company for a little while. I wrote up an entire book about an Afghani politician who was there before the Soviets invaded, before America was there, when the coup happened, and he had all kinds of adventures. I did a couple other books for that company.

John: The Afghan one, that would have been in the seventies that happened?

Richard: Yeah. The seventies. So I’m glad you know that. That’s interesting. Rough time, about to get rougher.

He was the guy who made all the roads in Afghanistan. He was in charge of the road system. He was told to get, he was under house arrest when the coup happened, and he got a phone call from somebody he didn’t know, had never met before, and the guy just said, “Leave now.”

He took it seriously, packed his family up and left within the hour. Got in the car, drove to the bank. He was about to check, he said, “I need to check all my money,” and the bank teller looked at him and said, “Don’t do that. They’ll know you’re leaving.” It was that obvious. He said, “Okay. What should I do?” He said, “Take a thousand and get the hell out of here.” So he took the thousand and drove down to the Durand Line, which is between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is a very rough place, and eventually got out.

When the Americans went in later after the Soviets fell, we went to that same prison that he would have been in, and we found 10,000 skeletons of people who had been executed. Mass grave. He would have died. Almost certainly.

John: Did you ever find out who the phone call came from?

Richard: No. Not that I’m aware of. We never really finished the book. He went off to Afghanistan and did his stuff. That was eleven years ago. Never heard from him again. It was difficult trying to do all the interviews in one day, because that was twelve hours of interviews through somebody who interpreted broken English for me to him, because he was leaving the next day. That was a long day. I didn’t use any of it because he left and I never heard from him again.

Then I thought, “I want to start my own company.” So I told my boss, and my boss says, “You can’t do that. You’ll never make it on your own.” Same story. I said, “Here. Do you hear this? Let me turn it up.” That’s from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You caught the gesture, right?

John: I do indeed. Absolutely. It’s very Americanized compared to us. Ours is just literally just “there you go.” There’s none of that pre-worked-up to it. Straight to it.

Richard: We got along fine after that. Within two days after that, I had a $10,000 contract. On the third day, I had a $1,000 contract, and I realized I can make this happen. Those both came out to be great books. I finished them. They did very well.

And now I’m making more money than I was making at Trader Joe’s. I was definitely in the high, not the highest, but the 6 figure range, just ghostwriting. It’s something I enjoy. It’s very creative. I like working with people.

I like getting stories from people, like my grandfather. That was the point of that. It taught me that I love stories. I love finding out about people and what they went through, and I would probably make a great therapist. Except I’d probably just tell people, “Knock it off. Stop being a baby. You’re whining.” You need the empathy.

John: You need the empathy.

Richard: I took a test, and I have almost no empathy. According to that test, I was like, “Yeah. Well, whatever.”

Closing Advice: Just Stop Being Afraid

John: Just as we’re coming towards the end, and it’s been really interesting and fantastic talking to you, Richard, listening to the stories have been brilliant there as well. What would you say to somebody that’s listening in that might be where you were years ago, similar set of circumstances, and they’re like, “How do I get out of this? What do I do?” What would you say to them?

Richard: First of all, read Atomic Habits and read People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It, which if you’re wishy washy or you’re easily triggered, will be tough, because he’s telling you right to your face “You’re an idiot.”

Second thing is after you read Atomic Habits, start changing your habits. Starting with maybe the easy ones, maybe the hard one. If you’re hooked on heroin, that might be the hard one you need to start with, God forbid. If you’re smoking, that’s going to be tough. I’m just trying to fix my diet, and it’s hard enough. I can’t even imagine trying to kick smoking or drugs or anything.

John: I said to clients with habits. Habits are what we’re designed for. If we couldn’t build habits, we wouldn’t be able to remember how to drive a car. Changing habits is important. It’s essential, but it can be tricky. You have to be consistent to do the habits.

Richard: Absolutely. Change your habits slowly over time. Kick anybody out of your life who’s hostile towards you or is upsetting you. But understand that you have a part in it, that somebody is being hostile towards you. Before you throw them out of your life, ask “What am I doing to cause this?”

You might be having some sarcastic remarks. You might be pushing their buttons that you don’t, you might be doing something stupid. See if you can fix that kind of stuff first, and then kick them out. Don’t make it a long process. It doesn’t need to be a year long trial to see if you’re going to go no contact with somebody. It should be over a matter of a few days at the most, maybe a week.

Have a conversation with them. “You’re driving me crazy. Can we stop this?” Or “We’re driving each other crazy” might be a better place to go, because then you stop blaming them.

Then choose your passion. I am very passionate about being a ghostwriter. I’m passionate because I help deliver people’s messages to their audience. That’s what I do. I like doing that, and I’ve settled on that as what I’m going to do in the final third of my life here. And stop being afraid. Just stop it.

John: I totally agree with those sentiments. Absolutely. Fear is the biggest killer. If you can do something you’re passionate about, it makes all the difference. We’ve all done jobs that we hate just to pay the bills, but the difference between doing a job that you dread on a Monday morning and doing something you’re passionate about, it just pulls apart.

Being a therapist, doing a podcast, my brand. The difference is I’m working like nineteen hours in a day. I’d love to know how much somebody could pay me to do that as a job to do that. I’d love to know.

Richard: Same here. Same here. Do it.

John: If you have to work those miserable jobs, they’re placeholders. They’re helping you get to where you want to go. If you think of it that way, “Okay. I’m working here, but,” then you have to actually treat it that way. “Okay. I’m working here because I want to own my own business.”

Richard: Well then start a side gig at the same time and go start your own business. Maybe you’re only doing it five hours a day, five hours a week. Maybe you’re selling stuff on Etsy or eBay or whatever. Maybe you’re writing that new AI project. Whatever you’re doing, go to school. I mean, screw public education. That’s just garbage here in the US. That probably makes some enemies, saying that. Go find trade schools and courses and things. There’s plenty of free courses online.

You want to learn AI or you want the new big thing, Google has a bazillion free courses that are really, really good. LinkedIn has free courses. You can find them all over the place to get educated on these things so that you can start your side gig and actually make money and learn to market and sell. Without a doubt, you have to have that. If you’re shy, join a Toastmasters. I don’t know if you have them there in the UK. We have them here.

John: What’s Toastmasters?

Richard: There’s a bazillion of them here. There’s one in every city or at least one. You go there with a group of people and you learn to speak. You get to speak in front of people. If you have speaking clubs, it’s a speaking club. If you have speaking clubs, go to the speaking clubs and get up there on stage and speak and get rid of that shyness. If you can’t do that, start doing improv. Go into those places that help with open mics. They’re all over the place too. Do karaoke. But get rid of the shyness.

John: Shyness is definitely a killer. It’s been a hell of a journey for you. That’s a good way to put it. Quite literally. And I’m sure there’s a lot more out there as well. Obviously, from the upbringing to losing your wife to doing the things that you wanted to do and going from the person that you were, overcoming and dealing with all the issues that you resolved and working on yourself constantly and improving and progressing now and doing the things that you want to do out of love as opposed to for the money. It is a fantastic journey.

With the podcast, what I really wanted to do is have guests on with interesting stories, but also so people listening get to hear from people that they can relate to and then also be inspired by. With yourself, they get both. So I really appreciate your time today, Richard.

Just the final one, but I’m so used to saying clients, being a therapist. I’m actually getting there with guests. I always ask guests, is there a song at a particular time that is relevant to you, or anything that just sticks out, a song that you want to mention?

John: I forget the name of the one I mentioned to you at the beginning. What was it?

Richard: “The Long and Winding Road” by the Beatles. That’s the one that probably sums up my life. It’s a long and winding road.

There’s an old game called Zork. It was one of the original computer games, back, this text game. And they said, “You’re in a maze of twisty passages all alike.” That was very famous for that. And that’s what life is like sometimes. You’re in a maze of twisty passages all alike, and your job is to find your way out of that. “The Long and Winding Road,” your job is to make yourself a good life for both yourself and others now. Just do it.

John: I totally agree. That song will be in the information as a link there to listen to, and it’s a great song. It’s also a Beatles song.

Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.

---

Notable quotes from this conversation

---

Common questions from this conversation