John Strelecky

Biography

Strelecky was born and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. He attended St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois and upon graduating, enrolled in Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He completed his aviation training and spent two years working as a pilot before failing the medical exam for United Airlines due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition.

In interviews, Strelecky has called this one of the lowest points in his life. “I had been working since I was twelve years old. All the jobs no one else would do. Two and three jobs at a time during the summers. In addition to working at nights while I was in college, I would take up to twenty-one credit hours per semester, because everything after fifteen was free. And after doing all the things that were supposed to be ‘right,’ it was all taken away because of something I had no control over.”

Strelecky’s low point continued when he applied and was denied admittance to the prestigious Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. In response to a note on the bottom of the denial letter, he called the school and was informed that his denial was due to a “lack of significant work experience.” Strelecky sent a letter to the admissions office explaining what it was like as a pilot, with people' lives on the line moment by moment. Six months later he was admitted to the program.

After graduating, he spent a month in Costa Rica, where he had a significant life epiphany and for the first time ever, began to question the purpose of his life. Part of that experience is chronicled in his first book, The Why Cafe, told through one of the characters.

Following his Costa Rica experience, Strelecky returned to the U.S. and spent five years as a management consultant to large companies, ultimately leaving that in 2002 to pursue his love of travel. During that year, he backpacked around the world, covering more than three times the circumference of the earth.

Upon his return, he was inspired to write his first book, The Why Cafe. The success of that title inspired him to continue writing, including an eventual sequel to The Why Cafe, called - Return to The Why Cafe and many others.

Inspiration for First Book

In 2002, after spending a year backpacking around the world, Strelecky re-entered the world of management consulting, but found his interest in the work was gone. While sitting on a plane coming back from a client engagement, he wrote out the start of a speech to answer the question, “What would I tell someone right now is the meaning of life?” The next day he sat down at his computer and started what turned out to be a twenty-one day stream of consciousness typing experience.

In interviews Strelecky has explained, “I never thought about what I was going to type, or even read what I had typed the previous day. I just let the words flow from somewhere, through my fingers, and onto the screen. It was a very surreal experience. I had no formal training as an author, no ambitions to be an author, none of that.”

At the end of the twenty-one days, Strelecky knew the experience had ended. What was on the pages turned out to be his first book, originally titled The Why Are You Here Cafe. He initially published the book on his own. After it sold more than ten thousand copies across twenty-four countries in less than a year, he was signed by a literary agent.

The book hit its first best-seller list in Singapore, then Taiwan. It continued to draw attention from readers and media around the world as publications in different languages were released. In 2009, it was released in French Canada under the title Le Why Cafe, and within weeks was #1 on the best seller lists, outselling all books in all genres over a four weeks stretch. In 2015, following the release of The Why Cafe sequel, the title rose to the #1 position in Germany, eventually becoming bestseller of the year for 2015, 2016 and holding #1 spot every week of 2017.

The Why Cafe

In this, his first book, Strelecky traces the story of a man searching for meaning in his life. After getting lost while heading off on a driving vacation, the man (John) arrives at a tiny little cafe in a location so remote, it sits “in the middle, of the middle, of nowhere.”

On the cafe menu are three thought provoking questions: Why are you here? Do you fear death? Are you fulfilled?

Through the stories of the people in the cafe, and the discussions he has around the questions on the menu, the man comes to a new level of understanding about life, and his place in it.

Since its release, publishers and media sources have often compared The Why Cafe to Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach), and The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho). Strelecky has shared in interviews that he has been deeply inspired by both those authors. He credits Illusions, also by Richard Bach, as dramatically shifting his view of life, and actually used the size and look of the book as his model for the original versions of The Why Cafe.

Life Safari

After the success of The Why Cafe, Strelecky’s next work was Life Safari. Here he introduced for the first time through his books, his concept of the Big Five for Life— choosing the five things you most want to do, see, or experience in your life before you die.

In this inspiring and emotionally powerful story set amidst the mystery, beauty, and allure of Africa, Jack is a young man struggling to find happiness in his life. Although he doesn’t know why, the one image that seems to capture his soul is that of Africa. With solitary focus, he saves for two years and then embarks on a journey to find the source of the calling he has felt.

Halfway around the world, a very old, very wise African woman named Ma Ma Gombe is on a journey of her own. She is seeking a fabled destination she was told of as a child — “a place where you can see the earth be born, and then watch the world go to sleep. A place so beautiful that words cannot describe it.” It is a destination known to her only as “the birthplace of all.”

As if their paths were destined to intertwine, these two unlikely travelers meet shortly after Jack’s arrival in Africa and join together on a journey that changes both of their lives forever.

Through this story, the reader walks with them as they cross the African continent on foot. Marvels with them at the animals they encounter, the people they meet, and the adventures they experience. Like Jack, finds through the teachings of Ma Ma Gombe that piece of their soul yearning to be set free.

Strelecky has said that this book was inspired by his own experiences while traveling in Africa, and also from the Oprah Winfrey TV show episode where she delivers 50,000 Christmas presents to children in South Africa.

As he has explained in interviews, “Following the success of The Why Cafe, I went to visit my agent in New York to talk about what my next project would be. After our discussions, I made the decision to write a non-fiction book about the Big Five for Life. When I returned home, my wife had rented the best of Oprah from Netflix, and when I finished watching the show about South Africa, I walked out of my bedroom at 2:00 a.m., and knew I had to do something bigger.”

When he woke up the next morning, the ending to Life Safari came to him, and in ten days he had written the entire book.

The Big Five for Life'

The roots of Strelecky’s third book, have their basis in his former business life. The Big Five for Life is the emotional story of Thomas Derale, a man viewed by those around him as the greatest leader in the world. Then suddenly, at the age of fifty-five, Thomas learns he's dying.

Through the course of the discussions Thomas has with the people around him during his final months, readers are taken through an emotional and powerful experience, about the purpose of life and the ways in which one life connects with others.

It is in this book that Strelecky first introduced the concept of Museum Day. An idea which was later turned into a movie short, as well as a rock song by Canadian band, Plead Guilty.

Although not written just for leaders, The Big Five for Life has dominated best seller lists in that category. As of 2017, it had spent an astounding 223 weeks as the #1 bestselling leadership and personal development book on amazon.de.

Return to the Why Cafe

After reading the Hunger Games series of books, Strelecky was intrigued by the idea of opening a book and already having a sense of familiarity and connectedness with the characters. This experience inspired him to re-visit The Why Cafe and eventually led to its sequel - Return to The Why Cafe.

The story picks up ten years after the first one ended, and brings back many of the original characters. This time however, the cafe’s location is in Hawaii. Response to the book has been very enthusiastic. As of 2017, it has spent over 105 weeks in the top ten of bestseller lists worldwide.

AHAS! - Moments of Inspired Thought

The idea for this book originally appeared in the story of Return to The Why Cafe. The main character keeps a journal of his “Aha! moments.” Things which changed his life, or caused him to view the world in a different way. Strelecky liked the concept so much he ended up writing the book shortly after Return to The Why Cafe was published.

Unlike his other books, which are narratives, every page or few pages of this book has its own concept or idea.

The Big Five for Life Continued

Following the success of Return to The Why Cafe, Strelecky considered writing a sequel to his title - The Big Five for Life. He was unsure of which direction to take the story, until being inspired by an email from a reader. The reader, Jacques Guennette, was one of the co-founders of DLGL, one of Canada’s most decorated companies.

After an initial meeting, the two agreed to collaborate on The Big Five for Life Continued, which intertwines the actual story of DLGL, with that of the characters from the original Big Five for Life book.

According to Strelecky, “The similarities between the founders of DLGL, and what was in the original Big Five for Life book, were astounding. Including the passing of DLGL co-founder, Claude Lalonde at the age of fifty-five. It was clear to me after just my first meeting with Jacques, that there was an amazing story to be told. And I was convinced it would be the right way to continue The Big Five for Life.”

How to be Rich and Happy

How to be Rich and Happy is Strelecky’s first nonfiction book. He co-authored it with renowned life coach and online blogger, Tim Brownson. It was released in May 2010.

In this book, he documents his findings, along with clinical research that helps explain why some people are able to achieve a state of Rich and Happy (defined as the ability to do what they want, when they want) and others aren’t. Called by many reviewers “A modern day Think and Grow Rich” (the classic by Napoleon Hill), this book is very different stylistically to Strelecky’s previous works. Unlike the story format of his others, this is written in a traditional non-fiction format.

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