Connect with Katherine Dudtschak Website: Sincerely Inc. LinkedIn: Katherine Dudtschak Instagram: @kdudtschak Connect with John Abbott Website: Centered LinkedIn: John Abbott John Abbott: The Perfection in the Perceived Imperfection Ask John Abbott to draw his company and he draws a sun. At the centre is Centered, a heart-centred marketing and sales agency that amplifies speakers and facilitators around the world. Around it turn the planets, each division running on its own, all of them in orbit around warmth rather than command. This conversation travels the whole arc: how John built by striving, lost everything, and found freedom in the release, and why he now believes that generosity, not pressure, is the truest way to serve. John leads Centered, working with speakers and facilitators from Tony Robbins to Michael Beckwith, helping them reach far more of the people their work was born to serve. Through the Giving Model he discovered in 2013, he invites people into a conversation rather than a transaction. He was raised largely alone on a rural South African farm during apartheid, a boy who stepped between bullies and smaller kids, who later published suppressed history on CD-ROM as Nelson Mandela walked free, and who built a multi-company empire before losing it all and finding something unexpected on the other side. In 2016, he shut everything down, committed to meditate daily until there was nothing left in him that needed to drive anything forward, and waited for the cinders to go cold so the phoenix could rise. In this conversation John and Katherine move through the planetary image at the heart of his company, the Giving Model and what it opened, how he sees money and abundance and the practice of getting out of the way, the 2016 reset, and his closing wish: that people get to live through the eyes of a single statement. Key Moments - The Giving Model arrives: twelve applications come back overnight, and John reads them one by one, each one opening something in him he had not expected. - Money reframed: John describes the practice of stepping into the feeling of abundance first, then giving from that place, and the faith that follows when you get out of the way. - Katherine gathers John's essence back to him: adventurous, defiantly curious, loving, humble, courageous, vulnerable. Quotes to Remember "Everything is perfect. Our job is to see the perfection in the perceived imperfection." (01:24.43) "The more vulnerable I am, the more I give others permission to be vulnerable." (44:28) Reflection for Listeners What I am still sitting with, days after this conversation, is the image of John at that airport. Bag in hand, nothing left, and a wave of freedom moving through his whole body. He had spent years building toward what he thought freedom looked like, and it arrived the moment he let all of it go. I know that place. I know the particular quality of silence on the other side of surrender. What John gave me in that room was a reminder that the release is not the failure. Sometimes it is the very thing we have been working toward all along, and we only recognize it when we stop fighting it. Sincerely, Katherine. About the Host Katherine Dudtschak is the founder of Sincerely, host of The Sincerely Show, and author of [title if applicable]. She writes and speaks about leadership, service, and the interior life. Disclaimer This conversation is for reflection and perspective only and should not be relied on as therapy or professional advice. Please seek qualified support where needed before making any decisions based on the information you learn through this conversation. This content is also subject to our full Terms and Conditions, which you can review on our website at sincerelyinc.com.