The following is taken from the appendix of my book, Turning to the Dark Side: What Star Wars Teaches Us About How a Good Person Turns Bad. Several readers and reviewers mentioned it to me as one of their favorite parts of the book (and that they planned on adopting it when introducing new audiences to Star Wars). Kevin J. Wetmore, author of ...
Gregory V. Diehl is a book producer, educator, and personal development mentor whose work centers on helping people question inherited assumptions and rediscover their authentic selves. He combines philosophical depth with practical insight, offering frameworks that challenge conventional thinking about learning, human potential, and heroic mythology applied in real life.
Raised in Southern California, Gregory left home at 18 and spent more than a decade traveling the world, immersing himself in diverse cultures and new ways of living. These experiences shaped his conviction that the root of social problems lies in self-understanding and a person's mental relationship with reality. He argues that lasting change begins with knowing who you really are and learning to perceive the world beyond the limits of comfort, commonality, and convention.
He now lives in rural Armenia, where he operates the Kalavan Retreat Center, a social initiative dedicated to the realization of a single, powerful idea: You are not the person the world told you to be. Through educational workshops, lifestyle freedom, and Zen-inspired coaching, Gregory invites visitors to Kalavan village to get away from "the real world," where they can step outside conditioned identities and remember their original face before they were born.

Latest Posts
My new book, Turning to the Dark Side: What Star Wars Teaches Us About How a Good Person Turns Bad, is now available for preorder in ebook and audiobook format. Paperback and hardcover will be available when it releases on May 4th (May the Fourth Be with You!).
When I was 21 years old in California, in 2009, I met a 75-year-old man named John Pugsley, a renowned economist and author. Well, John turned out to be a very influential figure in my life and introduced me to many ideas I had never considered about how the world works. In particular, he introduced me to a recording...
The Highest Standard of Romance
Please enjoy the first chapter of my new book, The Romantic Ideal—The Highest Standard of Romance for a Man. The book is now available in all formats on Amazon and other digital retailers. And happy International Men's Day to you.






