Hi, I'm John Adams, author of The Third Phase.

I spent decades as an investment banker but that was really my day job.

My passion was being a youth pastor at our church as my five children were growing up.

What I used to do is read the great books and try to come up with stories and games and puzzles to translate that into things teenagers could understand.

So a couple of years ago, I was having dinner with my three daughters, now grown, and they suggested that I write a book about Plato's Republic, which they knew was my favorite book, and try to make it like a modern-day action movie.

And they said, do what you used to do in the youth group, Dad.

Tell us about yours and what inspired you to write it in the first place.

Oh, thank you.

Well, the idea came from my three daughters who are now grown.

They grew up with me being an investment banker during the day, but my passion was to be the youth pastor at our church as they were growing up.

And I would I would try to take the wisdom of the great books and translate that into games and stories the teenagers could understand.

So a couple of years ago, I'm with my daughters who are by now mid-20s, and we had a dinner where they wanted to create their ideal world, how the world ought to be, pretty different from how it is.

And we got to the end of that discussion.

Where do people find the book online? Is it just best to go to Amazon, or do you have a publisher's website?

If we can get rid of that, have a bonfire out in the backyard, get rid of all this stuff that's all been legislated to, to help cronies and businesses and, and, and agendas through history, we can still get back to the original documents and, and fulfill them, don't you think?

Yeah.

Well, it's, it's so out of control.

I, I saw an interview with Steve Hilton, who's, who's running for governor in California, and then, um, so I'm just quoting what he said.

I don't, I don't verify this.

But he, he said that last year, California passed legislation that if you stack it up, it's 12 feet high.

Um, you know, wait, what, what comes next for the book? Are you just station to station trying to sell as many of them as you can first?

Well, I'm, I'm certainly, uh, doing all I can in the media, the podcast, TV, radio.

Uh, you know, so I think you might be uniquely qualified to, to do that to Plato's Republic.

Well, y- y- you know, the, you know the, the Malcolm Gladwell, uh, thesis that you have to spend 10,000 hours to become expert at something, and in a, in a strange way, I've, I've spent my 10,000 hours, um, reading the news, reading politics as I'm working on M&A deals around the world while I'm, you know, trying to translate the great books into- ... into something unders-- that's easy to understand.

So I've, I've put my 10,000 hours in doing that, and I, uh, I, I use that skill, I think, a bit in writing the book.

Yeah.

... website or?

Well, Amazon, uh, is, is great, and there's an audio version as well that, that came out yesterday.

Uh, any, any of the m- m- major bookstores.

But I would encourage everyone to go to my website, which is thethirdphasenovel.com, because I've, I've done a companion guide that's quite extensive.