John Dokimos:  

I’ve had a great life since high school. I have worn a lot of hats since then. I Graduated & went to Sierra College. and got a AA degree. I Took a job dispatching for Placer County Sheriffs Department (had a blast) got promoted to Deputy at 20 years old, turned 21 while in police academy and worked the streets for a year. Worked in the jail for awhile and at the Tahoe City branch. After a couple years I quit & went to Michigan State University. I wanted that on campus Big Ten college experience and I got it. It was amazing and quite an experience. I associated snow with mountains and had no real idea of what cold was. Wow I learned. Graduated with 2 BA degrees & moved to Hawaii to thaw out. I moved there with my friend Dan Koob, his wife Kim and their baby Eric. We were broke but somehow we all made it. Many good stories there. I went to work for American Hawaii Cruises which did 7 day cruises each week to 4 islands. I lived aboard the vessel and was considered a merchant marine. I had lots of jobs but was mostly a waiter. My last trip was as an officer which was fun as I was the first person to go from crew to officer. Many many fun experiences and new friends. I did this until 1985. I would sign on usually stay 16 weeks then get off ship for a couple of months. This enabled me to go to Europe every summer for about 5 years. Great times with family (my Dad was from Greece) and new friends. I was very happy with Hawaii & wanted to stay so while working on the ship I started looking for a business I could get into involving tourists. On Maui I had some photos developed at a 1 hour photo shop & was impressed that this was possible. Then on Kauai I noticed that a new mall was being built with major stores like Liberty House, Radio Shack, Sears & such. So I decided to open a one hour photo store there and that was one crazy good idea. I did this with very little money and a belief I could do anything. Law of attraction in action by accident. Within a year I had 2 stores open on Kauai and with 5 years I had 4 stores going. From 1985 until 9/11/1992 we basically printed money at the stores. Tourist loved taking pictures and seeing them while on vacation. It was a dream, and I completely loved it. I traveled all the time, spent money like a fool and still was able to pay the bills. I was In my 20s and thankfully I didn’t try saving money I spent it and enjoyed life. I worked hard the first years to get it running right but then I had my fun. Then.In the summer of 1992 I got a call from my brother in Loomis letting me know that Moms Cancer had returned and that I should come home to Loomis for a while. I arrived in May & was surprised to see how advanced her disease was. She was a master at phone calls. I saw for myself she was sick as hell but on the phone she sounded great. I decided to stay and take care of her. It was a moving and difficult 5 months that I will cherish for all my life. She died on 9/8/92. I went and got drunk for 3 days and as I was getting dressed for her funeral a friend called me and said turn on the news. I turned on channel 3 and there was a picture of Kauai on the news with a giant hurricane called Iniki headed for the islands Eastern shore, where my beach house was. I was in shock, my Dad and brother Steve were there too. The hurricane was scheduled to hit in 3 hours at the precise time my moms service was to start. This was 9/11/1992 the day Iniki destroyed the Island of Kauai. Life was never the same after that. When I finally got back to Hawaii 3 days after the storm they weren’t allowing anyone to go to Kauai. A day later I got there and it was super bad. My Koloa Store located in the old dive locker building was the only one of 4 locations that could reopen. We worked hard for the next couple years but the tourism did not return. I ended up with 1 store open that only did a fraction of the business we used to do. The other 3 stores were open for a while but closed one by one in the following years. Deep in SBA loan debt after 4 years of trying to make a come back it was hopeless and I gave up filed chapter 7 bk and then moved back to the mainland which broke my heart. The summer of 1995 was a turning point for me. I had been mad at God for taking my Mom like that at her young age of 54. Maybe religion was my problem. I was a believer but things were not making sense. I was intent on figuring it out so I was very in my head all summer. I was journaling and thinking about life God and what’s it all about. just about every week On Thursday’s my friend Eric would take me and a couple others to San Francisco for what we called our dance safaris. We would start at a club that was the ”Thursday night place” and dance until the sun came up, then go to the end up and dance there until the Friday night club opened. This usually went until Monday around 5 when we would come back to Loomis. You could literally dance somewhere straight thru without stopping. This was a revealing summer for me and it was thru all this craziness that I found my truth. I released myself from the dogma of organized religion and became a spiritual being. I remember the night I had the breakthrough and when it happened I felt 100 pounds lighter. My anger, grief and fear all disappeared. I realized that the universe and life was either random without meaning or perfect beyond my understanding. One or the other and I Knew which one it was. It’s like the lights went on. And once I got this the signs I had asked God for when I was in despair and searching for the why, came to me easily. It was confirmation that I no longer required but was grateful for nonetheless. For a month it was like having magic at my call. This all changed me at the core. I was no longer the person I had been. And that turned out to be a great thing with strings. Law of Attraction doesn’t see good and bad it’s a law that works like any other law. If you believe so it becomes. We are what we think about and we really can do whatever we set out to do if we believe it. When I was young and thoughtless and stupid I truly believed I could do anything in business and so I basically did. I was a selfish successful man who wasn’t a bad guy, I was immature and having fun. But I wasn’t happy and I didn’t think in the long term. Glad for it because I really had fun with it until the hurricane. I had spent the money so anything I had saved would have been lost in those years after the storm. So now it’s 1996 and I’m free of the devil that haunted me since losing mom and trying to live as an honest man who loves family and friends. I was irritating I’m sure because I had learned how important time is and how important friends and family are and I wanted to tell everyone. And I did. I moved to Brazil for 6 months and I lived in Petrolina which is in the middle of the country where few white men are. It was such an adventur...Expand for more