March 25, 2024 • 39 mins
When my moment in the viral spotlight collided with my battle against depression and Crohn's disease, it sparked an unexpected pilgrimage towards holistic wellness. This episode peels back the curtain on my personal voyage, revealing how a blend of diet and mindful living carved out a path to healing. Far from the quick fixes peddled by Western Medicine, my time in Bali exposed me to the simple, yet potent, power of food and lifestyle in managing chronic pain. If you're feeling trapped in a cycle of medication without relief, let this conversation be your beacon towards a life of empowered well-being.
At 39, an age where many grapple with the specter of 'what could have been', I found myself at a crossroads with my podcasting dream hanging by a thread. Suddenly, my fears transformed into a newfound determination. This episode is not just a chronicle of my own transformation—it's a heartfelt rally cry for self-love, the magic of supporting others, and the ripples of positivity that can emerge from nurturing a better world together. Tune in for an intimate exploration of how vulnerability can lead to empowerment, and how we all have the capacity to lift each other to heights we never thought possible.
#BGIR #Motivation #MentalHealth #Discovery #Mindfulness #intentionalliving #Meditation #Yoga #Selfhelp #themotionalhealer #growth #journey #explore #wonder #manifestation #intention #sayyes #yougotthis #choice #yesyoucan #poetry #poeticjourney #poetryinlife #thebrokestguyintheroom
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#BGIR #Motivation #MentalHealth #Discovery #Mindfulness #intentionalliving #Meditation #Yoga #Selfhelp #themotionalhealer #growth #journey #explore #wonder #manifestation #intention #sayyes #yougotthis #choice #yesyoucan #poetry #poeticjourney #poetryinlife #thebrokestguyintheroom
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Episode Transcript
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Christopher Kusznir (00:06):
Welcome back to the Brokest Guy in the
Room.
This is Chris Kusznir, on a daythat I have a strong suspicion
that I will remember this dayfor the rest of my life as the
day that my entire life changed.
This episode is aboutvulnerability.
(00:27):
It's about the thing thathappens when, it's about the
thing that happens when you'reready to break down, about the
incredible transformation thatcan occur when you are at the
point that you are ready tobreak, when you're at the point
(00:50):
that you're ready to quit.
I got to tell you on thisjourney of this podcast.
I have been pouring my heartand soul into this, and the
intention behind this podcastwas simply to use the story that
I have to tell my experiences,my failures and my triumphs, in
(01:10):
a hope that they would besomething of value to other
people who were struggling withthe same, and a mechanism by way
to inspire change and to helpother people realize this
transformation, because Icouldn't be more grateful for
(01:34):
anything that could havepossibly happened to me.
For the past year, I've beentrying to promote this podcast.
As you know, each episodefeatures a poem that I wrote.
I would take those, each poemin advance of the episode and
produce what I thought were very, very beautiful videos, but
(01:59):
they were highly edited, withmusical backgrounds and just
sort of different stock footagethat I would buy and sort of.
The process would be I'd take aline of the poetry and plug it
into the search box and see whatvideo would pop up, and usually
there'd be several, and then Iwould seek out a coordinator
(02:26):
pair with each line.
In any case, these videosdidn't get much traction and it
wasn't leading to thelistenership that I thought I
was going to get, because I waspouring my heart and soul into
this and because I wanted to beable to make something of this,
(02:48):
to gain an audience that wouldreally gain something from what
I had to offer, because it wouldmake me feel powerful, quite
frankly, because nothing makesme feel more powerful than
helping people.
It's as simple as that.
It's a strange kind of high,and it's one that, from the
moment I discovered the firsttime, I was able to empower
(03:12):
someone, inspire them andultimately change their life
forever, in their own words.
I found something that I wasnewly capable of, or perhaps I
was always capable of it, but Iwas never aware of it, and that
lack of awareness made it verydifficult for me to even be
(03:36):
willing to aspire towards it andthen, as often happens, the
thing you find you're the bestat becomes the thing that you
are trying to least at.
When I came back to Bali thistime I had stopped recording.
(03:56):
I'd even stopped writing, andanybody who knows me close you
can basically judge my mentalstate by the swing of my pen.
If I am writing, you will see ahappy, powerful individual, and
when I'm not writing, it's theexact opposite.
(04:17):
I feel empty, beaten and brokenand unworthy of offering
anything to anyone.
Somehow this place reminds meof who I am.
It's an interesting paradox,because this is not the first
(04:37):
time this has been my reality.
As a kid, I would do thesepoetry slams at Disneyland.
I've read in California.
I've read to audiences ofthousands of people, and every
time I did and I mean every time, every single time I had
(04:58):
virtually every person in theroom in tears and received a
standing ovation and had linesof people waiting for autographs
.
And I was just a kid.
And then I fly back across thecountry and go back to my
poedunk little town where I wasin nobody, and it was such a
strange circumstance and onethat I never really could come
(05:19):
to terms with.
I mean, it was just so hard forme to make that bounce back.
Naturally, I would spend allyear looking forward to going
back to the place where I wasspecial, because I didn't feel
special where I was and, quitefrankly, I didn't feel special.
I didn't feel that it was methat made the special happen.
(05:42):
It was the place, it was thecircumstance, it was the people.
It wasn't something, it wasn'ta magic I could perform on my
own.
I needed the environment.
For whatever reason.
Who I am and what I am is 100%responsive to the environment
(06:04):
around it.
It's exactly why there's achameleon tattooed on my shin.
The intention and the meaningbehind that tattoo is to remind
me of the very fact thatwhatever it is I'm feeling,
whatever it is I'm looking like,could very well be a reaction
and adaptation to thecircumstances that I'm facing
(06:25):
and the environment that I'm in.
Right, wrong, indifferentdidn't matter.
My body is covered in tattoos,each of which has its own
significance and its ownintention, most of which are to
remind me of something that Iknow I will be unable to just be
(06:47):
aware of when my darkness is.
Like most people, with a biglight, you got an equal darkness
to fight and I carry it bad.
My best friend, george, alwayswould come to me, because one
thing that's real is when I'm inthe thick of it and when I'm in
(07:08):
my darkness, unfortunately,there's nothing anyone can do.
Any attempt to help me seems tohurt me and that's largely by
my own fault, because I'munwilling to hear it from
anybody, and it translates fromcompliments to something that I
(07:32):
can use to chastise myself, tocounteract and to feel the pain
of not being that.
George always used to tell methat I should record it.
You know, when I'm feelingstrong, record myself so that I
could play it back to myselfwhen I was weak.
But the problem is I wouldn'teven be willing to.
(07:53):
I'd make up some shit like well, you know, that man isn't the
real me, that's just.
That was just me having areally good day.
It was me affected by somethingthat made me better and above
who and what I really am.
But who and what I really am isa piece of trash who's
(08:14):
incapable of shit.
I am not he.
What I did do was tattoo all ofmy mantras and all of my phrases
that I live by.
That I need to be reminded of.
I tattooed them and wrappedthem around my arm.
(08:35):
My right arm is just covered in.
Essentially, you could call itscripture, my own personal
scripture, be it my own wordsthat I've written or my own
phrases that I say or ones thathave influenced me along the way
, and they're on my body asconstant reminders, just like
the red tail hawk on my back,which I put on my back because
(08:59):
throughout my life, every time Iwas having a major struggle, I
would have an actual physicalencounter with a red tail hawk.
I'd look up and it'd be rightthere or right outside my window
.
Even one day, walking out ofIthaca College, one grabbed a
pigeon out of mid-air and killedit right at my feet, and so I
(09:20):
put one on my back so that if Iever is a day where I'm
struggling and I'm looking forthat hawk and don't see him, I'd
carry him with me always as asign of power and a symbol of
freedom and perseverance in myown heart and my own eyes,
because I need it, and the truthis, I believe we all need these
(09:43):
things.
There's no superman and we'reall supermen.
Dualities Everything in life.
With dualities.
You can't know pleasure withoutknowing pain.
You can't appreciate successwithout having failed.
You become most aware of lifeat the moment before death.
(10:10):
In the spirit of becoming mostaware of life at the moment
before death.
This is kind of what happened.
I was ready to quit.
I was so ready to quit and giveup on my dream, I stopped
(10:34):
recording, figured what's thepoint?
People weren't watching, peopleweren't listening.
What I was ignoring was thefact that the feedback was
universal across the board.
The people who were listeningwere absolutely getting
something out of it and goingout of their way to tell me over
(10:58):
and over and over again, almostto the point of pleading with
me not to stop because they hadfound a need for it.
Now, looking at this externally, if I was being objective in
giving this advice to somebodyelse, it's very clear.
There's no doubt over what thecircumstances is.
(11:18):
You mean to tell me you got100% positive feedback and you
think the shit's crap.
The problem is delivery.
You're not getting it out tothe right people, to enough
people.
You got to find a loudermegaphone, a higher rooftop that
you can scream from.
You got to be willing to climbup there, even if you're scared
shitless.
I don't give a fuck if you'rescared of heights.
(11:39):
You got to be up there becausethat's where they can hear you
from.
My roof is, of course,metaphorical.
See these videos that I wasdoing offered me a veil that I
could hide behind because Iwasn't showing myself.
I was using my voice, butapparently, my voice isn't the
(12:05):
only thing that.
It's not a complete picture onits own.
The reason that people areaffected by me in the way they
are and impacted by me in theway they are has everything to
do with how I look, how I act,how I carry myself, and how I
look how I act and how I carrymyself for all the products of
(12:28):
surviving, all of the variouschallenges, the beautiful
challenges that have come my way, from near death experiences to
punishing failures, to absoluteand total losses, to
perseverance, having to standback up to from dreams that
shattered, only to be recreatedand re-believed in, for the
concept of dreaming to have diedand been scorned.
(12:51):
I was damned for my dreams.
I hated my dreams.
I was plagued by my dreams.
I just wanted to push them awaybecause, quite frankly, not
being able to realize somethingI dreamed for was worse than
never having dreamed at all.
To me, like that phrase is,it's better to have loved than
(13:14):
lost, than never have loved atall, and I was all in.
I never have loved at all If Icouldn't have it.
I didn't want to know itexisted, because it seemed a
sick and twisted kind of torturefor me, because when I dreamed
something, oh God, I wanted itso bad.
I could taste it, and thethought of not being good enough
(13:37):
to realize it just made me sickand it just wasn't fair and I'd
had enough.
But right at that moment thatyou're ready to give up on your
dream, right at that moment thatyou're ready to lay down and
die, you kind of throw up a HailMary because why not right?
(14:03):
The game's already lost, you'realready fucked.
Why not do something crazy?
Why not make a little bit ofsplash on your way out?
So at the very least you gotsomeone wet, even if you gott a
drown to do it.
(14:26):
And so a couple days ago I didsomething that was scary as shit
to me, terrifying.
I decided to stop hiding behindthis veil and I decided to
expose myself and to actuallyjust simply do away with all the
(14:52):
editing, the fancy production,and just put a camera in front
of me and, from my heart,deliver my words as effective as
I could, the way that I used todo on stage when I was a kid,
and something absolutelyremarkable happened.
(15:15):
I posted the video on TikTokand when I woke up in the
morning it got 12,000 views.
And I went, oh shit, to behonest with you, when I woke up
that morning I was so goddamnterrified to check it, see,
(15:35):
because here in Bali we're 13hours ahead of New York, and so
I knew, when I woke up in themorning, New York would have had
all day.
New York, the United States,everybody in the West, they
would have had all day to seewhat I had put out and pick it
apart and tell me how ugly orfailure I was, or not good
enough, or uninspiring, or whyare you doing it?
(15:56):
I had all of these negativevoices, doubts, fears
inhibitions that weresuffocating me throughout the
night, and it just made me feelso damn dark and so weak and so
broken.
And yet what I woke up to was aresponse I could have never
dreamed of, and it was so damnencouraging that I thought I'm
(16:21):
gonna do it again and I'm gonnado it better.
And so yesterday yesterday, Idid do it again.
I very simply went and found aquiet place.
It's this little restaurant,panama, here in right by Brawa
Beach, and you know, I saw theplace.
(16:44):
It's a little what they call akitchen and pool, so it's
essentially a restaurant whereyou're you're to sit by a pool
in order food and hang out allday, you know, kind of like the
pool bar at most hotels, only tojust make an entire concept of
simply that.
And so I go to this place andthere's nobody in there.
I'm the only one and I thought,shit, this is amazing, I can
(17:06):
kind of use this as my littleoffice and there'd be no one
watching.
You know, because obviously, ifyou're about to do something
that you feel incrediblyvulnerable about and that you're
scared to do, the last thingyou want is for somebody to
fucking see you doing it.
You're not going to do it thesame way with somebody watching
that you would when you're alone, and that's critical.
(17:29):
I needed to be able to be theauthentic me, because the first
time I did, I got a response.
I got a huge response, the bestresponse.
Prior to that, I hadn't gottenmore than a thousand views on a
single thing.
I did, in fact, the poetryvideos.
I don't even think I got like500 views.
I just couldn't get people towatch them and it was driving me
(17:52):
nuts.
And I tried Instagram, I triedYouTube shit.
Half my own family didn't evensee them.
And that's one of the remarkablethings, you know, you pour your
heart and soul into somethinglike a podcast and of course,
you go to your friends andfamily for some support, for
some help, and I'll tell youwhat man most of my friends and
family haven't even heard asingle episode of my podcast.
(18:14):
It's mind blowing to me.
They'll feed you every kind ofexcuse under the sun, often in
the same breath as they'recoming to ask me for help,
asking me to solve theirproblems, and yet the audacity
that they can't even give me theslightest consideration to
(18:36):
listen to this thing and give mesome constructive feedback.
Help me, give me a pat on theback when I need it.
God damn it before you ask meto fix your shit.
But this is why they say you'llnever get famous in your
hometown.
You know, and that has beenliterally the story of my life.
I mean, I just I'm that guy.
(18:57):
You know, I gotta go as faraway as possible.
It's like the further that I gofrom home.
The more special and powerful Ibecome is if the entire journey
away makes me grow with everystep, and when the journey's
over, the person standing at theother end of it is 10 times the
(19:18):
size of the person thatembarked on it.
It's a remarkable thing, and sothe second video that I did,
which I literally postedyesterday, a little less than 24
hours ago, is a little lessthan 24 hours ago, and I'm gonna
(19:42):
check it right now and I'lltell you where it's at now.
Right now, it's about to cross50,000 views and I've got over
7,200 likes on it, and I have adamn strong feeling this is only
(20:09):
the beginning.
Last night, I very consciouslyrecorded myself, and the video
hadn't even started to take offyet.
Right after I posted it, I knewI said this is gonna be the day
that I will remember for therest of my life as the day it
really happened for me, as theday it really happened for me
(20:35):
what I'd been dreaming of allthese years, that I'm not sure I
really believed I was goodenough for, I'm not sure I
really believed that I deserved,but I kept saying it, saying it
, I kept saying it, and then,finally, I came here and I
(20:57):
stopped having to be the one tosay it.
People stopped, started sayingit back to me.
People I encountered here wereasking me how to get my stuff,
asking me they were chasing medown so that I could give them
what I was trying to force feedthe people closest to me.
(21:18):
And so when I was donerecording, I put the camera on
myself and just did this for meand I just said you remember
this day, Chris.
I apologize, getting a littleemotional because I can't
(21:41):
believe what's happening rightnow.
The artist, Jelly Roll, won BestNew Artist of the Year and his
speech brought tears to my eyes.
He says there's somethingwildly poetic about a 39 year
old artist winning new Artist ofthe Year and proceeded to
(22:04):
encourage people to chase theirdreams.
I'm 39 years old and my dreamsare being realized right now, in
real time.
I don't know what the nextcouple of months are gonna bring
, but I know they're gonna bringsome magic and I am so grateful
(22:27):
, so inspired, so empowered tobe experiencing this right now,
and I'm so goddamn motivated tospread this message and to
spread change and to inspire andempower other people to the
(22:51):
absolute maximum extent that Iam capable of, and I'm going to
say out loud that that islimitless, because I will
continue to grow and improveevery day, and I will do so
because I know, the more that Ido that, the greater the mark
that I will have, the greaterthe impact that I will have on
(23:11):
everybody who receives it.
I want to take a moment to thankeverybody who's been following
this journey.
I will always rememberrecording this episode.
Matter of fact, I will probablycome back and listen to this
episode for the rest of my life.
(23:32):
I want to thank my beautifulwife, kara, for so much support,
my best friend, george, forbeing my partner and confidant,
my parents, my in-laws, mybusiness partners and my
employees, my friends and myenemies.
(23:55):
Every one of you played a part,from the people who most helped
me to the people who most tookadvantage of me.
It was all relevant, it was allpart of this journey, and I know
damn well that I had any one ofthose things not happen, I
(24:17):
wouldn't be here telling thisstory, living this dream,
manifesting this reality.
That means so much to me that Icouldn't even whisper it, I
couldn't even get it out in athought until just recently,
because it scared theever-living shit out of me
Because it was a dream I wantedso bad that if I found I wasn't
(24:41):
good enough to have it, I wouldhave rather have never dreamed
it, because I couldn't bear it.
And the incredible thing is,I'll never have to.
All I had to do was believe init and be willing to be
vulnerable and do the thing thatscared me the most.
And the second that I gave inand faced my fear and dared to
(25:07):
dream and reach for it, and doso not behind the veil of any
sort of protection.
I would absolutely exposemyself to be seen.
My dream started to come trueand, of all the things to do it,
(25:27):
it was the gift that I realizedvery early in my life to think
that there was a long period inmy life that I put my pen down.
I'm so blessed.
I'm so blessed to be able toconnect with people in the way
that I am, and for the responseand the effect that it has on
(25:50):
them because of how it respondsand affects me.
I can tell you this it's been abeautiful journey and it's
going to be an even morebeautiful ride from here on out.
God damn, I'm excited.
(26:11):
Thank you all for following,for following the emotional
healer on Instagram and onTikTok, for listening to the
Broke's guy in the room, forreceiving this message, for the
encouragement, for the criticism.
(26:34):
Something interesting happenedthe other day.
I posted a yoga video.
I posted some videos andthere's a phrase that Mr Ian
uses of yoga facts.
He always says it's yogapractice, not yoga perfect, and
the intention behind the phrase,the meaning is, is that we all
make mistakes, we all have ajourney.
There's always room to improve,and so, as I made a time lapse
(26:58):
of me performing a few of thehatha yoga postures that are
used in 26 and 2 bikram yoga,you know, sped up and naturally,
yeah, no, I'm not perfect, I'vebeen doing this for less than
three years.
Yoga came into my life lessthan three years ago and in that
time I've gone through 600hours of training, only 200 of
(27:22):
which were to get my certificateand graduate.
The rest was just to bettermyself and to help better others
in the latest and honestly, Iguess from the first time,
because I'm reminded over andover and over again that the
class wouldn't have been thesame without my presence there
and I wouldn't be the samewithout my presence in that
class.
(27:42):
Dualities, in any case, I wasremarked to wake one morning to
a comment from a grandma of allthings, a woman who has
grandchildren, telling me thatwhat I was doing was not yoga.
That it was, I believe.
(28:02):
She said, acrobatics disguisedas yoga, a comment that offended
me to my core.
Yet my response, being a personwith yoga in his heart, my
response was all pieces of thesame puzzle, much love.
Well, it didn't end there.
(28:23):
My wife actually went on and,you know, just in defense, was a
little upset about this wholeordeal, and so you know she
responded in kind, essentiallysaying something that you know.
You clearly don't know whatyoga is or whatever.
And the woman's response waseven more remarkable.
(28:45):
She tried to put down my wifeand say actually, I'm a yoga
scholar, which I know isbullshit, because anybody with
yoga in their heart isn't goingto spend their time trolling
online to cyber bully to putsomeone else down, to put out
negativity and try and makesomeone else feel bad.
You have no understanding ofwhat yoga is, period, if that's
(29:06):
what you were doing and that'swhat you believe, and that is
how you conduct yourself, and soI let this consume me for a day
, and I had all these thingswritten out, that I was going to
go at this woman to try andtake the opportunity to educate
her and, thankfully, came toterms with the fact that she was
not worth my efforts, myeducation.
So, rather than doing that, Isimply blocked her and reported
(29:28):
her for cyber bullying and thentried to convert it into a
positive thing that I could doand put out a video against
cyber bullying.
But the truth is, even thattaught me a lesson.
Even that helped me breakthrough.
So, again, I just want to saythank you to the grandma cyber
(29:49):
bully who came at me on TikTok.
Thank you for teaching meanother lesson about growth,
about where to put my focusAlong the way.
There are always going to bepeople who have the right to say
and how you respond to.
That is everything about whoand what you are and how you're
(30:10):
going to do what you do and theimpact that you're going to make
on the world while you do it.
So, just again, thank you to myfriends, my foes, my family, my
loves, my hates, people who'vehelped me, the people who I've
helped, the people who've takenadvantage of me, who've hurt me,
the people who've healed me,the people who love me, the
(30:32):
people who hated me.
I love you all for every partyou played.
Thank you for making me whole,thank you for making me strong.
Thank you for bringing me hereand helping me live my dream of
helping other people.
You know, my big dream I'vetalked about before.
My big dream is to build aschool here in Bali so that I
(30:53):
can teach free English.
Teach English for free tounderprivileged children.
The reality of a lot offamilies here is that they got
to choose.
You got multiple children.
Most of them got to choosewhich kid they can afford to
send to school, and then theother kids go to work to help
pay for it.
Well, for the place that gave meso much, all I want to do is
give back, and what I learnedhere is that, you know, Bali's
(31:18):
got this wildly diversecommunity.
I mean, there's people from allover the world on this little
pinpoint that is Bali butEnglish seems to be the
universal language of service,and so if a Balinese person is
taught English, it's almost likehanding them a PhD.
You know you guarantee they canwork for life.
At the very least, you changetheir life.
(31:39):
And so, for the place that gaveme so much, what I want to give
back is language voice, and somy dream is to get enough
villa's that I can.
I can have a work program whereI can offer people free room
and board, come to paradise,hang out and change some lives
with me and inspire, and I wantto spend the rest of my fucking
(32:00):
life doing it, and that's whyeverything that we're doing you
know you try and make makeprofits that I can put into this
foundation, that hopefully, in10, 15 years I'll have my school
and as I grow old, I can spendmy days changing lives, one by
one, inspiring change by givingpeople the gift of language.
Bali's given me so much and Ilook forward to giving back and
(32:31):
all of you who are listening,following, taking part in this
journey.
You are all playing a part, sothank you, know that you are
helping me change lives.
This has been the journey of alifetime, a story I couldn't
have created in fiction, that Ionly could have.
(32:54):
The universe truly is thegreatest author and I'm just
absolutely in love with itsvision.
On that note, I'm going to moveforward to this.
Now here I'm going to readsomething that I actually just
(33:21):
wrote this morning.
I'll back up before I do.
I talked earlier about.
Yesterday.
I looked in the camera and Irecorded myself saying Chris,
remember this day for the restof your life.
This is going to be the daythat everything changed for you.
That night I went out to Finn'sBeach Club, which they claim to
(33:45):
be the largest beach club in theworld, but it's an awesome
place with five restaurants, allthese pools.
It's right on the beach.
You can catch sunset there, getgreat food and then they bring
DJs that night and it's a danceparty in the water.
I was going to go watch sunsetand I was going to dance my ass
off until the night away.
(34:06):
It's such a funny thing,because this was for me.
This is like a tribalcelebration of coming of age.
This was my great coming of age.
That's exactly what this was.
I'm at Finn's, which,ironically enough, finn's is
(34:27):
also the first place I got thefirst time I went to Bali.
When it came for Lux week, myplane landed well after
everybody else's.
The driver drops me off atFinn's with no way to
communicate with the group, andI never felt so lonely and so
isolated.
How poetic to go back there forme to do this tribal coming of
(34:48):
age celebration, where I'mgrowing my wings.
I dance my ass off all nightlong.
It was funny because I veryintentionally would not dance
with anyone.
Really, most of the time I hadmy eyes closed.
I just wouldn't stop dancing.
But every time I opened them Inoticed that I was most
certainly the center ofattention.
(35:09):
I think probably everyone therehas some pictures and videos of
me dancing down the road.
Every girl wanted to dance withme and every guy wanted to know
why.
I kept walking away Literallyevery time I opened my eyes I
don't know what came over me.
But also, I'm Latino, I'mDominican, I can dance my ass
(35:30):
off and that's not.
I guess they're just not usedto seeing a guy my size who can
move, like me.
So I got a lot of attention.
What can I say?
People like to watch me.
But yeah, it was just a funnything.
I dance my ass off until Finn'sclosed.
Then, because of the 13 hourdifference, I had to come back
(35:52):
to my room, open my laptop andstart to manage my business in
New York because business wasopen.
So I pulled probably 30 hoursstraight.
I go to sleep at 6 AM.
At 8 30 I am.
I hear the sound of hammers andsaws and something that was
(36:12):
shaking the fucking walls inhere.
I felt drained, exhausted andzombified.
I felt exactly how I felt,helping off the 18 hour flight
to Singapore, and there'ssomething remarkable happening.
I wrote what I'm about to readright now.
This is called giving in.
(36:38):
For the longest time, I pursuedmy dreams behind the safety of a
veil, told myself that Ibelieved in them, but I believed
that I would fail, because if Igave my everything and found it
wasn't good enough, all I'd beleft with is the truth that my
truth was just a bluff.
But something happens whenyou're desperate, when you've
(36:59):
passed the breaking point,feeling poisoned by the dreams
that you just wish you couldaroint, you take the chance to
take a chance and face thecenter of your fear and in the
darkness before the dawn, yousee the storm begin to clear.
Yesterday I took that chanceand I chose to lift my veil.
Defecting from my currentcourse, I took the other trail,
(37:23):
though tumultuous.
It seemed it was too late toturn around and then, before I
knew it, my lost became my found.
As I woke to greet the sun, Ifound my heart was filled with
doubt.
But as the light embraced mybody, something else came out.
There was a power so electricthat I was instantly consumed
(37:45):
and I rose up both as my Goliathand the man I once thought
doomed, now ever changed.
I was enabled to be fueled bymy own pain.
What seemed like losingeverything revealed everything
to gain.
I tried waking from thissuspected dream, but it became
reality Because I'd finallybecome who I was always meant to
(38:09):
be.
It's always at the precipicethat we metamorphosize.
It seems that staring in theeyes of death will make us come
alive.
I came so close to neverknowing how it could feel to
wear this skin, and though Iwear it on the outside, I know
(38:29):
it came from deep within.
Giving in Until next time.
Guys.
This is the Broker's Guy in aRoom Saying be willing to face
your fears.
Do so as your true self.
Reach for your dreams, nomatter what stage you're in in
(38:51):
life, no matter how far youthink they are.
You'll never grasp them if youdon't reach for them.
So dare to dream and reach, andyou will be amazed at what you
can accomplish and just howclose you came to never knowing
(39:12):
what it felt like.
Until next time, my friends.
This is Chris Kusznir, theBrokest Guy in the Room, @ the
motional healer, with endlesslove and gratitude Saying
Namaste.
Welcome back to the Brokest Guy in the
Room.
This is Chris Kusznir, on a daythat I have a strong suspicion
that I will remember this dayfor the rest of my life as the
day that my entire life changed.
This episode is aboutvulnerability.
(00:27):
It's about the thing thathappens when, it's about the
thing that happens when you'reready to break down, about the
incredible transformation thatcan occur when you are at the
point that you are ready tobreak, when you're at the point
(00:50):
that you're ready to quit.
I got to tell you on thisjourney of this podcast.
I have been pouring my heartand soul into this, and the
intention behind this podcastwas simply to use the story that
I have to tell my experiences,my failures and my triumphs, in
(01:10):
a hope that they would besomething of value to other
people who were struggling withthe same, and a mechanism by way
to inspire change and to helpother people realize this
transformation, because Icouldn't be more grateful for
(01:34):
anything that could havepossibly happened to me.
For the past year, I've beentrying to promote this podcast.
As you know, each episodefeatures a poem that I wrote.
I would take those, each poemin advance of the episode and
produce what I thought were very, very beautiful videos, but
(01:59):
they were highly edited, withmusical backgrounds and just
sort of different stock footagethat I would buy and sort of.
The process would be I'd take aline of the poetry and plug it
into the search box and see whatvideo would pop up, and usually
there'd be several, and then Iwould seek out a coordinator
(02:26):
pair with each line.
In any case, these videosdidn't get much traction and it
wasn't leading to thelistenership that I thought I
was going to get, because I waspouring my heart and soul into
this and because I wanted to beable to make something of this,
(02:48):
to gain an audience that wouldreally gain something from what
I had to offer, because it wouldmake me feel powerful, quite
frankly, because nothing makesme feel more powerful than
helping people.
It's as simple as that.
It's a strange kind of high,and it's one that, from the
moment I discovered the firsttime, I was able to empower
(03:12):
someone, inspire them andultimately change their life
forever, in their own words.
I found something that I wasnewly capable of, or perhaps I
was always capable of it, but Iwas never aware of it, and that
lack of awareness made it verydifficult for me to even be
(03:36):
willing to aspire towards it andthen, as often happens, the
thing you find you're the bestat becomes the thing that you
are trying to least at.
When I came back to Bali thistime I had stopped recording.
(03:56):
I'd even stopped writing, andanybody who knows me close you
can basically judge my mentalstate by the swing of my pen.
If I am writing, you will see ahappy, powerful individual, and
when I'm not writing, it's theexact opposite.
(04:17):
I feel empty, beaten and brokenand unworthy of offering
anything to anyone.
Somehow this place reminds meof who I am.
It's an interesting paradox,because this is not the first
(04:37):
time this has been my reality.
As a kid, I would do thesepoetry slams at Disneyland.
I've read in California.
I've read to audiences ofthousands of people, and every
time I did and I mean every time, every single time I had
(04:58):
virtually every person in theroom in tears and received a
standing ovation and had linesof people waiting for autographs
.
And I was just a kid.
And then I fly back across thecountry and go back to my
poedunk little town where I wasin nobody, and it was such a
strange circumstance and onethat I never really could come
(05:19):
to terms with.
I mean, it was just so hard forme to make that bounce back.
Naturally, I would spend allyear looking forward to going
back to the place where I wasspecial, because I didn't feel
special where I was and, quitefrankly, I didn't feel special.
I didn't feel that it was methat made the special happen.
(05:42):
It was the place, it was thecircumstance, it was the people.
It wasn't something, it wasn'ta magic I could perform on my
own.
I needed the environment.
For whatever reason.
Who I am and what I am is 100%responsive to the environment
(06:04):
around it.
It's exactly why there's achameleon tattooed on my shin.
The intention and the meaningbehind that tattoo is to remind
me of the very fact thatwhatever it is I'm feeling,
whatever it is I'm looking like,could very well be a reaction
and adaptation to thecircumstances that I'm facing
(06:25):
and the environment that I'm in.
Right, wrong, indifferentdidn't matter.
My body is covered in tattoos,each of which has its own
significance and its ownintention, most of which are to
remind me of something that Iknow I will be unable to just be
(06:47):
aware of when my darkness is.
Like most people, with a biglight, you got an equal darkness
to fight and I carry it bad.
My best friend, george, alwayswould come to me, because one
thing that's real is when I'm inthe thick of it and when I'm in
(07:08):
my darkness, unfortunately,there's nothing anyone can do.
Any attempt to help me seems tohurt me and that's largely by
my own fault, because I'munwilling to hear it from
anybody, and it translates fromcompliments to something that I
(07:32):
can use to chastise myself, tocounteract and to feel the pain
of not being that.
George always used to tell methat I should record it.
You know, when I'm feelingstrong, record myself so that I
could play it back to myselfwhen I was weak.
But the problem is I wouldn'teven be willing to.
(07:53):
I'd make up some shit like well, you know, that man isn't the
real me, that's just.
That was just me having areally good day.
It was me affected by somethingthat made me better and above
who and what I really am.
But who and what I really am isa piece of trash who's
(08:14):
incapable of shit.
I am not he.
What I did do was tattoo all ofmy mantras and all of my phrases
that I live by.
That I need to be reminded of.
I tattooed them and wrappedthem around my arm.
(08:35):
My right arm is just covered in.
Essentially, you could call itscripture, my own personal
scripture, be it my own wordsthat I've written or my own
phrases that I say or ones thathave influenced me along the way
, and they're on my body asconstant reminders, just like
the red tail hawk on my back,which I put on my back because
(08:59):
throughout my life, every time Iwas having a major struggle, I
would have an actual physicalencounter with a red tail hawk.
I'd look up and it'd be rightthere or right outside my window
.
Even one day, walking out ofIthaca College, one grabbed a
pigeon out of mid-air and killedit right at my feet, and so I
(09:20):
put one on my back so that if Iever is a day where I'm
struggling and I'm looking forthat hawk and don't see him, I'd
carry him with me always as asign of power and a symbol of
freedom and perseverance in myown heart and my own eyes,
because I need it, and the truthis, I believe we all need these
(09:43):
things.
There's no superman and we'reall supermen.
Dualities Everything in life.
With dualities.
You can't know pleasure withoutknowing pain.
You can't appreciate successwithout having failed.
You become most aware of lifeat the moment before death.
(10:10):
In the spirit of becoming mostaware of life at the moment
before death.
This is kind of what happened.
I was ready to quit.
I was so ready to quit and giveup on my dream, I stopped
(10:34):
recording, figured what's thepoint?
People weren't watching, peopleweren't listening.
What I was ignoring was thefact that the feedback was
universal across the board.
The people who were listeningwere absolutely getting
something out of it and goingout of their way to tell me over
(10:58):
and over and over again, almostto the point of pleading with
me not to stop because they hadfound a need for it.
Now, looking at this externally, if I was being objective in
giving this advice to somebodyelse, it's very clear.
There's no doubt over what thecircumstances is.
(11:18):
You mean to tell me you got100% positive feedback and you
think the shit's crap.
The problem is delivery.
You're not getting it out tothe right people, to enough
people.
You got to find a loudermegaphone, a higher rooftop that
you can scream from.
You got to be willing to climbup there, even if you're scared
shitless.
I don't give a fuck if you'rescared of heights.
(11:39):
You got to be up there becausethat's where they can hear you
from.
My roof is, of course,metaphorical.
See these videos that I wasdoing offered me a veil that I
could hide behind because Iwasn't showing myself.
I was using my voice, butapparently, my voice isn't the
(12:05):
only thing that.
It's not a complete picture onits own.
The reason that people areaffected by me in the way they
are and impacted by me in theway they are has everything to
do with how I look, how I act,how I carry myself, and how I
look how I act and how I carrymyself for all the products of
(12:28):
surviving, all of the variouschallenges, the beautiful
challenges that have come my way, from near death experiences to
punishing failures, to absoluteand total losses, to
perseverance, having to standback up to from dreams that
shattered, only to be recreatedand re-believed in, for the
concept of dreaming to have diedand been scorned.
(12:51):
I was damned for my dreams.
I hated my dreams.
I was plagued by my dreams.
I just wanted to push them awaybecause, quite frankly, not
being able to realize somethingI dreamed for was worse than
never having dreamed at all.
To me, like that phrase is,it's better to have loved than
(13:14):
lost, than never have loved atall, and I was all in.
I never have loved at all If Icouldn't have it.
I didn't want to know itexisted, because it seemed a
sick and twisted kind of torturefor me, because when I dreamed
something, oh God, I wanted itso bad.
I could taste it, and thethought of not being good enough
(13:37):
to realize it just made me sickand it just wasn't fair and I'd
had enough.
But right at that moment thatyou're ready to give up on your
dream, right at that moment thatyou're ready to lay down and
die, you kind of throw up a HailMary because why not right?
(14:03):
The game's already lost, you'realready fucked.
Why not do something crazy?
Why not make a little bit ofsplash on your way out?
So at the very least you gotsomeone wet, even if you gott a
drown to do it.
(14:26):
And so a couple days ago I didsomething that was scary as shit
to me, terrifying.
I decided to stop hiding behindthis veil and I decided to
expose myself and to actuallyjust simply do away with all the
(14:52):
editing, the fancy production,and just put a camera in front
of me and, from my heart,deliver my words as effective as
I could, the way that I used todo on stage when I was a kid,
and something absolutelyremarkable happened.
(15:15):
I posted the video on TikTokand when I woke up in the
morning it got 12,000 views.
And I went, oh shit, to behonest with you, when I woke up
that morning I was so goddamnterrified to check it, see,
(15:35):
because here in Bali we're 13hours ahead of New York, and so
I knew, when I woke up in themorning, New York would have had
all day.
New York, the United States,everybody in the West, they
would have had all day to seewhat I had put out and pick it
apart and tell me how ugly orfailure I was, or not good
enough, or uninspiring, or whyare you doing it?
(15:56):
I had all of these negativevoices, doubts, fears
inhibitions that weresuffocating me throughout the
night, and it just made me feelso damn dark and so weak and so
broken.
And yet what I woke up to was aresponse I could have never
dreamed of, and it was so damnencouraging that I thought I'm
(16:21):
gonna do it again and I'm gonnado it better.
And so yesterday yesterday, Idid do it again.
I very simply went and found aquiet place.
It's this little restaurant,panama, here in right by Brawa
Beach, and you know, I saw theplace.
(16:44):
It's a little what they call akitchen and pool, so it's
essentially a restaurant whereyou're you're to sit by a pool
in order food and hang out allday, you know, kind of like the
pool bar at most hotels, only tojust make an entire concept of
simply that.
And so I go to this place andthere's nobody in there.
I'm the only one and I thought,shit, this is amazing, I can
(17:06):
kind of use this as my littleoffice and there'd be no one
watching.
You know, because obviously, ifyou're about to do something
that you feel incrediblyvulnerable about and that you're
scared to do, the last thingyou want is for somebody to
fucking see you doing it.
You're not going to do it thesame way with somebody watching
that you would when you're alone, and that's critical.
(17:29):
I needed to be able to be theauthentic me, because the first
time I did, I got a response.
I got a huge response, the bestresponse.
Prior to that, I hadn't gottenmore than a thousand views on a
single thing.
I did, in fact, the poetryvideos.
I don't even think I got like500 views.
I just couldn't get people towatch them and it was driving me
(17:52):
nuts.
And I tried Instagram, I triedYouTube shit.
Half my own family didn't evensee them.
And that's one of the remarkablethings, you know, you pour your
heart and soul into somethinglike a podcast and of course,
you go to your friends andfamily for some support, for
some help, and I'll tell youwhat man most of my friends and
family haven't even heard asingle episode of my podcast.
(18:14):
It's mind blowing to me.
They'll feed you every kind ofexcuse under the sun, often in
the same breath as they'recoming to ask me for help,
asking me to solve theirproblems, and yet the audacity
that they can't even give me theslightest consideration to
(18:36):
listen to this thing and give mesome constructive feedback.
Help me, give me a pat on theback when I need it.
God damn it before you ask meto fix your shit.
But this is why they say you'llnever get famous in your
hometown.
You know, and that has beenliterally the story of my life.
I mean, I just I'm that guy.
(18:57):
You know, I gotta go as faraway as possible.
It's like the further that I gofrom home.
The more special and powerful Ibecome is if the entire journey
away makes me grow with everystep, and when the journey's
over, the person standing at theother end of it is 10 times the
(19:18):
size of the person thatembarked on it.
It's a remarkable thing, and sothe second video that I did,
which I literally postedyesterday, a little less than 24
hours ago, is a little lessthan 24 hours ago, and I'm gonna
(19:42):
check it right now and I'lltell you where it's at now.
Right now, it's about to cross50,000 views and I've got over
7,200 likes on it, and I have adamn strong feeling this is only
(20:09):
the beginning.
Last night, I very consciouslyrecorded myself, and the video
hadn't even started to take offyet.
Right after I posted it, I knewI said this is gonna be the day
that I will remember for therest of my life as the day it
really happened for me, as theday it really happened for me
(20:35):
what I'd been dreaming of allthese years, that I'm not sure I
really believed I was goodenough for, I'm not sure I
really believed that I deserved,but I kept saying it, saying it
, I kept saying it, and then,finally, I came here and I
(20:57):
stopped having to be the one tosay it.
People stopped, started sayingit back to me.
People I encountered here wereasking me how to get my stuff,
asking me they were chasing medown so that I could give them
what I was trying to force feedthe people closest to me.
(21:18):
And so when I was donerecording, I put the camera on
myself and just did this for meand I just said you remember
this day, Chris.
I apologize, getting a littleemotional because I can't
(21:41):
believe what's happening rightnow.
The artist, Jelly Roll, won BestNew Artist of the Year and his
speech brought tears to my eyes.
He says there's somethingwildly poetic about a 39 year
old artist winning new Artist ofthe Year and proceeded to
(22:04):
encourage people to chase theirdreams.
I'm 39 years old and my dreamsare being realized right now, in
real time.
I don't know what the nextcouple of months are gonna bring
, but I know they're gonna bringsome magic and I am so grateful
(22:27):
, so inspired, so empowered tobe experiencing this right now,
and I'm so goddamn motivated tospread this message and to
spread change and to inspire andempower other people to the
(22:51):
absolute maximum extent that Iam capable of, and I'm going to
say out loud that that islimitless, because I will
continue to grow and improveevery day, and I will do so
because I know, the more that Ido that, the greater the mark
that I will have, the greaterthe impact that I will have on
(23:11):
everybody who receives it.
I want to take a moment to thankeverybody who's been following
this journey.
I will always rememberrecording this episode.
Matter of fact, I will probablycome back and listen to this
episode for the rest of my life.
(23:32):
I want to thank my beautifulwife, kara, for so much support,
my best friend, george, forbeing my partner and confidant,
my parents, my in-laws, mybusiness partners and my
employees, my friends and myenemies.
(23:55):
Every one of you played a part,from the people who most helped
me to the people who most tookadvantage of me.
It was all relevant, it was allpart of this journey, and I know
damn well that I had any one ofthose things not happen, I
(24:17):
wouldn't be here telling thisstory, living this dream,
manifesting this reality.
That means so much to me that Icouldn't even whisper it, I
couldn't even get it out in athought until just recently,
because it scared theever-living shit out of me
Because it was a dream I wantedso bad that if I found I wasn't
(24:41):
good enough to have it, I wouldhave rather have never dreamed
it, because I couldn't bear it.
And the incredible thing is,I'll never have to.
All I had to do was believe init and be willing to be
vulnerable and do the thing thatscared me the most.
And the second that I gave inand faced my fear and dared to
(25:07):
dream and reach for it, and doso not behind the veil of any
sort of protection.
I would absolutely exposemyself to be seen.
My dream started to come trueand, of all the things to do it,
(25:27):
it was the gift that I realizedvery early in my life to think
that there was a long period inmy life that I put my pen down.
I'm so blessed.
I'm so blessed to be able toconnect with people in the way
that I am, and for the responseand the effect that it has on
(25:50):
them because of how it respondsand affects me.
I can tell you this it's been abeautiful journey and it's
going to be an even morebeautiful ride from here on out.
God damn, I'm excited.
(26:11):
Thank you all for following,for following the emotional
healer on Instagram and onTikTok, for listening to the
Broke's guy in the room, forreceiving this message, for the
encouragement, for the criticism.
(26:34):
Something interesting happenedthe other day.
I posted a yoga video.
I posted some videos andthere's a phrase that Mr Ian
uses of yoga facts.
He always says it's yogapractice, not yoga perfect, and
the intention behind the phrase,the meaning is, is that we all
make mistakes, we all have ajourney.
There's always room to improve,and so, as I made a time lapse
(26:58):
of me performing a few of thehatha yoga postures that are
used in 26 and 2 bikram yoga,you know, sped up and naturally,
yeah, no, I'm not perfect, I'vebeen doing this for less than
three years.
Yoga came into my life lessthan three years ago and in that
time I've gone through 600hours of training, only 200 of
(27:22):
which were to get my certificateand graduate.
The rest was just to bettermyself and to help better others
in the latest and honestly, Iguess from the first time,
because I'm reminded over andover and over again that the
class wouldn't have been thesame without my presence there
and I wouldn't be the samewithout my presence in that
class.
(27:42):
Dualities, in any case, I wasremarked to wake one morning to
a comment from a grandma of allthings, a woman who has
grandchildren, telling me thatwhat I was doing was not yoga.
That it was, I believe.
(28:02):
She said, acrobatics disguisedas yoga, a comment that offended
me to my core.
Yet my response, being a personwith yoga in his heart, my
response was all pieces of thesame puzzle, much love.
Well, it didn't end there.
(28:23):
My wife actually went on and,you know, just in defense, was a
little upset about this wholeordeal, and so you know she
responded in kind, essentiallysaying something that you know.
You clearly don't know whatyoga is or whatever.
And the woman's response waseven more remarkable.
(28:45):
She tried to put down my wifeand say actually, I'm a yoga
scholar, which I know isbullshit, because anybody with
yoga in their heart isn't goingto spend their time trolling
online to cyber bully to putsomeone else down, to put out
negativity and try and makesomeone else feel bad.
You have no understanding ofwhat yoga is, period, if that's
(29:06):
what you were doing and that'swhat you believe, and that is
how you conduct yourself, and soI let this consume me for a day
, and I had all these thingswritten out, that I was going to
go at this woman to try andtake the opportunity to educate
her and, thankfully, came toterms with the fact that she was
not worth my efforts, myeducation.
So, rather than doing that, Isimply blocked her and reported
(29:28):
her for cyber bullying and thentried to convert it into a
positive thing that I could doand put out a video against
cyber bullying.
But the truth is, even thattaught me a lesson.
Even that helped me breakthrough.
So, again, I just want to saythank you to the grandma cyber
(29:49):
bully who came at me on TikTok.
Thank you for teaching meanother lesson about growth,
about where to put my focusAlong the way.
There are always going to bepeople who have the right to say
and how you respond to.
That is everything about whoand what you are and how you're
(30:10):
going to do what you do and theimpact that you're going to make
on the world while you do it.
So, just again, thank you to myfriends, my foes, my family, my
loves, my hates, people who'vehelped me, the people who I've
helped, the people who've takenadvantage of me, who've hurt me,
the people who've healed me,the people who love me, the
(30:32):
people who hated me.
I love you all for every partyou played.
Thank you for making me whole,thank you for making me strong.
Thank you for bringing me hereand helping me live my dream of
helping other people.
You know, my big dream I'vetalked about before.
My big dream is to build aschool here in Bali so that I
(30:53):
can teach free English.
Teach English for free tounderprivileged children.
The reality of a lot offamilies here is that they got
to choose.
You got multiple children.
Most of them got to choosewhich kid they can afford to
send to school, and then theother kids go to work to help
pay for it.
Well, for the place that gave meso much, all I want to do is
give back, and what I learnedhere is that, you know, Bali's
(31:18):
got this wildly diversecommunity.
I mean, there's people from allover the world on this little
pinpoint that is Bali butEnglish seems to be the
universal language of service,and so if a Balinese person is
taught English, it's almost likehanding them a PhD.
You know you guarantee they canwork for life.
At the very least, you changetheir life.
(31:39):
And so, for the place that gaveme so much, what I want to give
back is language voice, and somy dream is to get enough
villa's that I can.
I can have a work program whereI can offer people free room
and board, come to paradise,hang out and change some lives
with me and inspire, and I wantto spend the rest of my fucking
(32:00):
life doing it, and that's whyeverything that we're doing you
know you try and make makeprofits that I can put into this
foundation, that hopefully, in10, 15 years I'll have my school
and as I grow old, I can spendmy days changing lives, one by
one, inspiring change by givingpeople the gift of language.
Bali's given me so much and Ilook forward to giving back and
(32:31):
all of you who are listening,following, taking part in this
journey.
You are all playing a part, sothank you, know that you are
helping me change lives.
This has been the journey of alifetime, a story I couldn't
have created in fiction, that Ionly could have.
(32:54):
The universe truly is thegreatest author and I'm just
absolutely in love with itsvision.
On that note, I'm going to moveforward to this.
Now here I'm going to readsomething that I actually just
(33:21):
wrote this morning.
I'll back up before I do.
I talked earlier about.
Yesterday.
I looked in the camera and Irecorded myself saying Chris,
remember this day for the restof your life.
This is going to be the daythat everything changed for you.
That night I went out to Finn'sBeach Club, which they claim to
(33:45):
be the largest beach club in theworld, but it's an awesome
place with five restaurants, allthese pools.
It's right on the beach.
You can catch sunset there, getgreat food and then they bring
DJs that night and it's a danceparty in the water.
I was going to go watch sunsetand I was going to dance my ass
off until the night away.
(34:06):
It's such a funny thing,because this was for me.
This is like a tribalcelebration of coming of age.
This was my great coming of age.
That's exactly what this was.
I'm at Finn's, which,ironically enough, finn's is
(34:27):
also the first place I got thefirst time I went to Bali.
When it came for Lux week, myplane landed well after
everybody else's.
The driver drops me off atFinn's with no way to
communicate with the group, andI never felt so lonely and so
isolated.
How poetic to go back there forme to do this tribal coming of
(34:48):
age celebration, where I'mgrowing my wings.
I dance my ass off all nightlong.
It was funny because I veryintentionally would not dance
with anyone.
Really, most of the time I hadmy eyes closed.
I just wouldn't stop dancing.
But every time I opened them Inoticed that I was most
certainly the center ofattention.
(35:09):
I think probably everyone therehas some pictures and videos of
me dancing down the road.
Every girl wanted to dance withme and every guy wanted to know
why.
I kept walking away Literallyevery time I opened my eyes I
don't know what came over me.
But also, I'm Latino, I'mDominican, I can dance my ass
(35:30):
off and that's not.
I guess they're just not usedto seeing a guy my size who can
move, like me.
So I got a lot of attention.
What can I say?
People like to watch me.
But yeah, it was just a funnything.
I dance my ass off until Finn'sclosed.
Then, because of the 13 hourdifference, I had to come back
(35:52):
to my room, open my laptop andstart to manage my business in
New York because business wasopen.
So I pulled probably 30 hoursstraight.
I go to sleep at 6 AM.
At 8 30 I am.
I hear the sound of hammers andsaws and something that was
(36:12):
shaking the fucking walls inhere.
I felt drained, exhausted andzombified.
I felt exactly how I felt,helping off the 18 hour flight
to Singapore, and there'ssomething remarkable happening.
I wrote what I'm about to readright now.
This is called giving in.
(36:38):
For the longest time, I pursuedmy dreams behind the safety of a
veil, told myself that Ibelieved in them, but I believed
that I would fail, because if Igave my everything and found it
wasn't good enough, all I'd beleft with is the truth that my
truth was just a bluff.
But something happens whenyou're desperate, when you've
(36:59):
passed the breaking point,feeling poisoned by the dreams
that you just wish you couldaroint, you take the chance to
take a chance and face thecenter of your fear and in the
darkness before the dawn, yousee the storm begin to clear.
Yesterday I took that chanceand I chose to lift my veil.
Defecting from my currentcourse, I took the other trail,
(37:23):
though tumultuous.
It seemed it was too late toturn around and then, before I
knew it, my lost became my found.
As I woke to greet the sun, Ifound my heart was filled with
doubt.
But as the light embraced mybody, something else came out.
There was a power so electricthat I was instantly consumed
(37:45):
and I rose up both as my Goliathand the man I once thought
doomed, now ever changed.
I was enabled to be fueled bymy own pain.
What seemed like losingeverything revealed everything
to gain.
I tried waking from thissuspected dream, but it became
reality Because I'd finallybecome who I was always meant to
(38:09):
be.
It's always at the precipicethat we metamorphosize.
It seems that staring in theeyes of death will make us come
alive.
I came so close to neverknowing how it could feel to
wear this skin, and though Iwear it on the outside, I know
(38:29):
it came from deep within.
Giving in Until next time.
Guys.
This is the Broker's Guy in aRoom Saying be willing to face
your fears.
Do so as your true self.
Reach for your dreams, nomatter what stage you're in in
(38:51):
life, no matter how far youthink they are.
You'll never grasp them if youdon't reach for them.
So dare to dream and reach, andyou will be amazed at what you
can accomplish and just howclose you came to never knowing
(39:12):
what it felt like.
Until next time, my friends.
This is Chris Kusznir, theBrokest Guy in the Room, @ the
motional healer, with endlesslove and gratitude Saying
Namaste.
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