September 21, 2025 • 63 mins
In this episode, Brad Wetzler shares the fascinating journey of his life, one that has taken him all over the world. Brad is an author and writing coach whose work is deeply informed by his unique and broad life experiences. Listen to hear more about Brad's story --- the struggles, successes, and profound lessons that have guided him to where he is today.
For more information on Brad’s writing projects and coaching services, visit bradwetzler.com.
Purchase Brad’s most recent book Into the Soul of the World: https://a.co/d/2KIi0HA
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Hangout Podcast.
I'm your host, david Shoretta.
Come on in and hang out.
In this episode, I wasprivileged to have a
conversation with Brad Wetzler.
Brad is a journalist, author,adventurer, writing, coach,
seeker and someone who spent hislife asking big questions about
(00:28):
meaning, resilience, the humanjourney, recovery.
From his days as acorrespondent when he was
traveling the world to hisdeeply personal explorations of
healing and self-discovery, bradbrings a wisdom that's both
hard-earned and also deeplyrelatable.
In this episode, we dive intothe stories that remind us of
(00:53):
how courage and curiosity canreally reshape our lives.
I had a wonderful time in thiswide-ranging conversation with
Brad and I hope you enjoyed itas much as I did in this wide
ranging conversation with Brad,and I hope you enjoy it as much
as I did.
This episode containsdiscussion of sensitive topics,
including suicide, drug use andother adult content.
(01:14):
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know isstruggling, please seek
professional help or call yourlocal crisis hotline.
Welcome, Brad.
I really appreciate you comingon the podcast for a
(01:34):
conversation this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
It's a pleasure, david, it's good to see you.
Likewise, I'd like for us tostart where I start with all
these conversations, which iswith your origin story, where
(01:58):
you come from, what your journeywas like to this present moment
, and then we'll branch off fromthat.
Sure, I'm going to start myorigin story in the middle and
then I'm going to back up.
So I grew up in Kansas, in thesuburbs of Kansas City, and you
know I was an earnest kid thatcame into Christianity through
Fellowship of Christian Athletesand really got obsessed with
that as a young man andultimately then went off to
college and, you know, fell inlove with writers and kind of
(02:22):
left that past behind and thenultimately became an adventure
writer through working atOutside Magazine and I went to
graduate school at Northwesternafter finishing up at the
University of Kansas and the dayafter I started there, or the
day after I graduated, I landeda job as an intern and worked my
(02:44):
way up the masthead and becamea senior editor.
And then, long story short,they didn't have staff writers
and so I went out on my own tobe a hung a shingle and became a
freelance magazine writer,writing for all various
magazines.
So there's a little bit of it.
Feel free to probe more so.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So there's a little bit of it.
Feel free to probe more.
Yeah, so Kansas City, huh, yeah, still the smack dab in the
midst of barbecue and baseballand you know the center of the
country roughly right.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, it's the heartland, and absolutely.
I was a big Royals fan andbarbecue fan and there was a
radio station that talked aboutthe three B's baseball, barbecue
and blues and they had somegood blues clubs there, and I
remember as a young man playingguitar and watching a lot of
music there too, so it was agood place to grow up.
(03:40):
You know Midwestern values andyou know played sports, played
you know baseball when I wasyoung, and then basketball and
tennis through high school, andyou know it's pretty flat out
there in Kansas, though.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
On the face of it you had this kind of a typical
Midwestern Americana upbringingand life.
But as you mentioned in yourmemoir, there was kind of some
undercurrents there.
And I bring up the termundercurrent pretty
intentionally because I want toreturn to this theme of water.
(04:16):
It presents itself multipletimes in your life but the first
time it's very prominent inyour memoir.
Can you talk to us about whenit appears and this canoe trip
and kind of what that kind of isthe undercurrents to this kind
of typical American lifestyle?
I believe your dad was anattorney and successful and kind
(04:39):
of a homemaker mom and justthis leave it to beaver type of
household on one hand, but thenthis other undercurrent.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, good question.
So everything at you know athome appeared to be, you know,
like you said, not just normalbut kind of extraordinary.
We were sort of taught to viewourselves that way.
You know, we were smart, goodat sports.
You know we were smart, good atsports, belonged to a tennis
(05:06):
club and everything you know onthe surface looked like it was
awesome and.
But there was a lot going on athome and you know, my dad was
(05:26):
drinking a lot and and I was.
You know, I was struggling withthat.
It just felt like I was livinga lie, and the more I spoke up
about it, the more I seemed toget pushed out of the family
system.
And and well, when I was 12,just to get to the undercurrent,
so there was an undercurrentgoing on at home and then when I
was 12, we went on a father soncanoe trip, actually through
the Fellowship of ChristianAthletes, which is the
(05:47):
organization that I belong to,and it was father-son, and so we
went down to northern Arkansas,which I think was about a, you
know, seven or eight hour drivefrom Kansas City, and we got
down there and it had beenraining a lot.
The river was very high.
You know, the, the guy thatowned the campground, offered to
give us some money back.
He said it was too high, that afew people almost died the
(06:08):
weekend before.
And but you know, our groupdecided to run, run the river
and you know, on the first daymy dad and I had had some
trouble Neither of us were goodcanoeists and we were going
backwards and sideways, you knowthe entire time.
And after lunch we put thecanoe back in and got going
sideways again and the canoetipped over and I remember
(06:31):
vividly the water rushing overthe side of the canoe and
swamping us and I bailed out andI remember floating downstream
and at one point then I justfelt this really fast jerk and
this powerful jerk backwardsthat looked up and I was
stranded in the middle of theriver and the river was very
strong and it was pushing meinto this log and trying to pull
(06:54):
me away but also pushing me in,and I realized that my life
jacket is snagged on a submergedlog in the river and you know I
kept getting pulled down andkind of released again.
And I looked over and I saw mydad crawling out onto the river
and you know I kept gettingpulled down and kind of released
again and I looked over and Isaw my dad crawling out onto the
riverbank and he looked scaredbut he also looked paralyzed and
I thought he would do somethingto come get me and I, but
(07:15):
nothing, he didn't and there wasno options and I thought I was
going to die there.
You know, it was a very tenuoussituation and I was there for I
don't know how long, I think ithad to be between five and 10
minutes.
And then, thank God, there wasanother canoe coming and I
remember kind of looking up andhere, you know, seeing a hand
(07:35):
reaching for me and it missed me.
But then the canoe struck me,or the log, and it was just a
big collision.
The next thing I knew I wasfloating downstream and it ended
up getting pulled out of theriver and put in the bottom of
another boat.
And then my dad eventually cameover and got me.
So it was a traumaticexperience.
I remember that night, you know,there was a, we had a campfire
(07:59):
and I remember the leader of thegroup, you know, saying a
prayer, thanking God that I wasOK, and you know it was a very
real experience.
But then the next day we drovehome and I remember running up
to tell my mom about it and mydad stepped in front of me and
basically said that what I wassaying didn't happen, that I was
(08:22):
exaggerating, and nothing likethat happened.
My shirt got snagged on a twigand I was utterly confused and
at that point I was still youngand so I didn't say anything.
I had cuts up and down the sideof my body and bruises and was
really sore.
I remember at school justfeeling so sore up and down my
entire torso and anyway, that'sthe story of the other
(08:42):
undercurrent that was going on.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I wonder when I read that in the book and I know
you've shared it a lot you wroteabout it, so this is out in the
public, but I'm sure it's nevereasy to recount that why do you
think your dad so downplayed it?
Was it this I'm going to have amacho son thing?
Because it didn't sound likefrom your description of the
family dynamic he wasparticularly concerned about
(09:05):
your mom judging him harshly fornot keeping an eye on you,
right it?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
was more a commentary on you or your lack of ability
or something.
Yeah, I feel like there wassome of that, that I wasn't
being brave or something.
But I also learned over throughtime that taking accountability
for things was not something hedid and came up over and over
again and the story well intoadulthood became, you know, up
to this day even is that myshirt got snagged on a twig and
(09:37):
you know, he and I are speakingnow after a long time of not,
and I've never brought that upagain.
I used to bring it up all thetime, you know, just trying to
understand why my reality was sodifferent from his.
You know, especially younger, Iknew my experience.
I'd never doubted my experienceand at the same time, you know,
you kind of get obsessed withtrying to make it match up.
(10:00):
And 10 years after this happened, I was back in Kansas City and
I was at a Kansas City Royalsbaseball game and I ran into our
group leader there and I'd beenkind of mulling over this over
for the previous 10 years, whymy reality didn't match up with
my dad's.
And first thing out of hismouth is God, I'm so glad you're
alive.
You know, I just sort of it'sboom, all this kind of
(10:24):
confirmation arrived.
But again, you know, my bodyknows what's true and I never
really doubted it.
It was just this weirdobsession and confusion about
this reality didn't match upwith the.
The man who I looked up to, youknow that's, that was the.
The other part, it wasn't just,it was my dad's reality and
that's like that's supreme rightwhen you're a kid.
(10:45):
So and in some ways your own.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
So yeah, in some ways it remains supreme at some
level throughout our whole lives, right?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right, exactly.
Yeah, it takes a lot of work tostart to let go of that.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So you go, you have this despite that, or you know
that traumatic situation, you goon.
You're successful in highschool, college, you become a
writer, rise to the position ofeditor.
And full disclosure.
I have family in Santa Fe andthe Outside Magazine
(11:18):
headquarters is right next tothe REI store.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Right by the train tracks, and I would always.
I used to be a huge fan ofOutside Magazine in an earlier
iteration of their life, when itwas less about product and more
about story.
So I would always see thisbeautiful Santa Fe two-story,
beautiful building and go oh,what a dream it must be to work
there in some capacity.
So you work there and, on theface of it again, you have this
(11:45):
perfect lifestyle for anadventure-seeking young person.
Talk to us about the dichotomythe light and the dark right of
your existence, and how that ledinto the rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
That's funny how you've asked these questions and
it really has me thinking in aninteresting new way of just how
I arrived at this magazine.
And you know, it was my firstcorporate experience.
But everything was not justgood, but it was extraordinary
there too, right, and there wasa lot of masculine macho-ness
around the office.
(12:21):
So there was this appearancethat everything was great in my
life.
I was killing it.
You know, the first few yearsof my work I mean after I left
the magazine to be a writer, Iwas writing for the New York
Times, I was a contributingeditor at George, which was
JFK's magazine, I was writingfor GQ and Wire and all these
places and living the dream, youknow, and traveling Many months
(12:42):
of the year.
I was married and we had acouple of dogs and had a great
house outside of Santa Fe, andyet it seemed like with each
passing year I was fallingfurther and further into
depressions which had struck mewhen I was younger, but they
became deeper and with all thetravel and the time zone changes
(13:03):
I was coming back and fallinginto depressions that were
lasting months and sometimesjust never seeming really to
leave, and it was having a lotof what I now understand to be
kind of emotional flashbacks,and flashbacks both to the
canoeing accident, but justthese intense emotional surges
(13:23):
that were running through methat I didn't understand.
And eventually, you know I wasI was seeing a psychiatrist
that's a whole other story myinvolvement with psychiatry but
I'd gotten misdiagnosed at ayoung age and was taking a lot
of medications and and I wasworking with a psychiatrist in
Santa Fe that just every time Iwent in he added, seemed to add
(13:45):
something else.
So you know, maybe I guess Iasked for it too.
I was seeking answers andseeking solutions.
You know I wanted to keep onthis pace of being.
You know I want to be a greatwriter.
I want to be a great adventurewriter, like the people that I
admired when I was an editor.
And and yet the wheels werefalling off and and I was
(14:07):
finding myself in remote places,having these terrible
abandonment flashbacks.
And eventually I went into thepsychiatrist's office and you
know he said your options are,you know, electroconvulsive
therapy, shock therapy, or or anantipsychotic.
And I just I wasn't psychotic,this was just for depressions
(14:29):
really and he put me on apsychotic.
It was an easy choice.
I was afraid of electroshockand probably for good reason.
I'd seen one flew with acuckoo's nest too many times and
long story short, I basicallywent to bed for several years,
you know, and kind of crawledout occasionally when an
assignment came my way anddidn't do a very good job at it,
(14:50):
made mistakes and went back andhardly left again.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And, yeah, that went on for years.
I mean, you were an integralpart, for example, of John
Krakauer's work around Into ThinAir, which you might not be on
the front end of the publicfacing part of that, but behind
the scenes, like I'm a huge JohnKrakauer fan and and that was
the first book of his I read andI was transfixed by this story
(15:30):
and I'd never thought thatthere's an editor sitting back,
you know, pulling all-nightersgoing oh my God, are we going to
hear from John on the mountainand all that.
So you've got that, you've gotyour writing success and you're
married and this young,energetic lifestyle and all the
trappings of, as you say, kindof the macho lifestyle, the
outdoorsy, outside, magazinekind of ethos, yeah, and do you
(15:55):
think that that was all?
I mean, adventure can bebeautiful, but it also can just
be an escape, right?
I mean, was that really yourdrug of choice before you
actually had drugs of choice?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I think you're on to something there.
Yeah, I think that it was.
You know, it was very grandiosewhat I was up to in a way, you
know, and all of us who werewriting for that magazine, and
we were paying people you to togo do these crazy things and not
really considering the danger,that much, and and and there was
(16:31):
a lot of you know there was wehad, we had a lot of women in
the office and some amazingwomen, but there was a lot of
testosterone driving the bus andand I was trying to live up to,
you know, the image in my ownmind of who these people were
John Krakauer and Bob Chikochisand others who seemed to so
effortlessly go out into thewilds and and and do these crazy
(16:56):
things and write great, greatarticles about it.
That's what I wanted and and Ikind of fell into a spell, you
know, underneath that all I'mnot sure, looking back, exactly,
if my makeup was really builtfor that, especially given the
traumas I'd had as a kid.
You know, and've I've readenough psychology and know that
there is this idea that Freudcame up with of.
(17:18):
I always forget it's, I forgetthe term right now, but
essentially, you, you findyourself as an adult or later in
(17:38):
life, re exposing yourself tothe same dangers and same
situations.
As you try to heal it, yourunconscious is trying to heal
this, this disconnect and it'sthis wound you have.
And for me, being in nature wasterrifying and yet here I was,
throwing myself into places likegreenland and, you know, the
(18:00):
amazon, and finding myselfterrified a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
So so you go through this cycle of I found myself in
reading your memoir like one ofthe like.
This is this is audio only, soI'm doing this gesture of trying
to pull someone like out of a.
Well, right, like you startclimbing up, you you get a cool
assignment cause you still hadthe writing chops, and then then
(18:24):
the medication and the malaiseand everything you turn in a
subpar product and theneventually you end up getting
terminated by a lot of theseright, yeah, you fall into this
hole.
Uh, talk to us about the travelthat you were fortunate enough
(18:47):
to do.
That was really part of yourhealing journey.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Whether intentionally or not, when you set out to do
it right.
Talk to us about that, becausethat's where the book to me
started to get reallyinspirational in a deep sense.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, yeah, so there's a shift that happens in
the book where it actually is aquite intense one, where a
friend of mine had died bysuicide and as I was sitting
with his body I just knew I hadto get off these medications.
I around that time I saw thislittle clip and I think it was
(19:32):
the Wall Street Journal orsomething about the Jesus Trail,
and it was a 40-mile trail fromNazareth to Capernaum, which is
on the Sea of Galilee, and itapproximates the path that a
historical Jesus might havewalked when he left his hometown
(19:52):
of Nazareth to begin his threeyears of teaching.
And so obviously that struck achord in me, given my youth and
I was no longer a Christian butman I got obsessed with this and
that's one of my qualities, andmaybe as part of a addictive
personality, I get obsessed withstory ideas and stories and
(20:14):
told her about this and that Iwanted to go hike it and write
about it, and she said go, youknow, immediately.
And so I bought a plane ticketand, you know, 48 hours later I
(20:37):
was walking the Jesus Trail, andthat just whetted my appetite,
though, you know, at that pointthen I wanted to go everywhere
that Jesus had walked, and I was, you know, I was exploring
whether I could be a Christianagain, but I was also trying to
get back in touch with myselfand I became.
I ended up going into Palestine.
(20:58):
I spent 10 weeks, a 10-weekpilgrimage in Israel and
Palestine, in the West Bank, andthen when I came back, I, you
know, I realized that I didn't,wasn't going to be a Christian
again, but I did light somethingup inside me about spirituality
and that I knew that there washealing, that that was waiting
for me if I followed a path ofself compassion, of of seeking
(21:21):
something greater than myselfand knowing that my ego had
played a role in my demise andneeded to find some humility,
like Jesus taught.
And so it lit a fire in me and,yeah, that led to other things
too.
I could keep going.
Please do, yeah.
(21:43):
Well, so when I got back, I hadbegun practicing yoga earlier
and I really went full bore intopracticing yoga at that time
and really began exploring theEastern wisdom paths and
Buddhism and especially thephilosophy around yoga, which,
you know, here in the West wethink of yoga as just stretching
(22:04):
in a in Lululemons, but there'sa whole philosophy behind it
about um, that's involved with,you know, becoming more uh, you
know, more in your body, morecentered, you know, it kind of
mirrors the Buddhist path in away, um, and there's other
elements of it, including, uh,you know, yoga of devotion and
(22:25):
there's other elements of it,including, you know, yoga of
devotion, and there's a wholekind of a Christian kind of path
over in the yoga world too.
So, anyway, I became, went downthat rabbit hole and and just
really healed a lot through that, through that exploration and
finding myself again.
And then I found myself back inIndia, which I'd visited for
(22:47):
Wired Magazine in 1999 and justhad written an article about the
city of Bangalore, which was atech center, and this was in 99.
It was just taking off overthere, and so I wrote this
business article.
But the whole time I just wasthinking I wanted to go up and
visit the city called Varanasiand it was where they burned
(23:10):
bodies and people actually wentthere to die, because if you
died in Varanasi, you were moreinclined to achieve moksha, or
freedom, and not have to comeback into a human body.
Well, I just had to see thisplace.
So I went up there in 99.
Well, back to my other mainstory in 2018, I just, I just
(23:33):
became obsessed.
I had to go back to India, andthis time I went back to
Northern India, and I foundmyself, about five days in,
inside a cave where ahundred-year-old yogi lived.
He'd been there for 25 yearsmeditating and chanting and
living, and a few friends and Iwent up.
(23:55):
We heard about him and went upand visited him, and, you know,
I spent the afternoon there, andwhen I entered his cave, though
for the first time, thetradition is to bow at his feet.
Well, I did that.
And as I entered his cave,though, for the first time, the
tradition is to bow at his feet.
Well, I did that.
And as I had my head on thefloor, you know, I started to
sit up.
I felt him smack my head.
This is going to sound, youknow, maybe strange to us here
(24:17):
in the West, but there is awhole tradition over there, a
physical transmission ofspiritual energy, and I was
aware of that, and so the secondit happened, I was like, is
that what just happened?
And I sat up and he smacked meon the head.
I sat up and looked into hiseyes and I just began weeping.
It was just something thetenderness and the age and maybe
(24:41):
the grandfatherliness of it andmaybe related to my own
difficulty with men and myfather, but I just broke open
and I wept all afternoon and Iremember then going home that
night and you know, and I wokeup the next morning and I was
watching these birds fly outover this valley and I realized
(25:03):
I was sort of like feelingqueasy or something.
I stood up, I stumbled,eventually, you know, I went
down to where, this cabin, whereI was staying with my then
girlfriend, and told her that Ifelt like someone had slipped me
acid, you know, or mushrooms orsomething I just had.
I felt like I was out of mymind on a drug or something.
(25:24):
And so I ended up going up,climbing to the top of this
building and had, you know, forthe next 12 hours I just I saw
snakes vibrating on the groundand all the mountains in the sky
were knitted together.
It was like a, like some kindof psychedelic experience and it
lasted 12 hours and um, and I Iinterpret that even as a kind
(25:45):
of a God experience, or it was adeep mystical experience that
showed me, you know, thatunderneath all of ouri himself
then, from the universe that waschanneling through him.
I don't know.
(26:08):
You know, I know this soundscrazy and but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
When I read that at first I thought quite honestly.
I thought, oh, here we got, wehave the cliche right, we got
the cliche of the, the, theWesterner, hiking the mountain,
and then there's an old skinnydude up there and that was the
end of it.
And then you get smacked.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And then the fallout right the process.
It was messy and scary andterrifying actually Scary is an
understatement, and to kind ofto read that that was a pretty
powerful experience.
Were you still, I'm trying torecall, were you still on your
medication at that point?
(26:50):
Like layers and layers of meds?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I was, I had been dwindling down, I had moved away
from Stanford, I was living inBoulder, colorado, and this
psychiatrist here had said let'sget you off all of this and and
, uh, figure out who you reallyare.
And uh, and so I don't recall,I think I, you know, I was
taking, I think, oneantidepressant and uh, you know,
(27:16):
to this day I take anantidepressant and I take a, an
adhd med, and that's all and um,and so I was taking that at the
time, um, um, and it was just,you know, as wild as the 12 hour
mystical experience was, youknow, the crying and the weeping
was was just as impactful.
(27:37):
It just opened something in methat like needed to open up the
grief of years of of living, youknow, of living with depression
, living with hiding it, youknow, I mean, there's a at that
time my mother had died, and thegrief around my mother's death,
the grief of all the pain that,you know, not just I
(27:59):
experienced, but you know we allexperience.
And I think that's one of thebiggest gifts I want to talk
about about this book is, youknow, when I wrote the book, it
came out of me in this way thatlike to write a book like this.
It takes it does take some egoor something you know.
It takes thinking that yourstory is worth listening to and
(28:21):
and that it's a little bitspecial or something.
But but you know, but by thetime I finished the book and
then I began talking about itand marketing it, the more and
more I realized it was such auniversal experience, a very
universal.
In the suburbs where I grew up,where you have these families
that appear to be all in the upand up and yet there's all this
(28:45):
suffering going on, but alsojust worldwide.
There's all this sufferinggoing on, and but also just
worldwide.
You know that's there's farmore suffering than I've
experienced around the world.
But it just opens something upin me and and writing the book
allowed me to see kind of theuniversal aspect of all of this.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So you return to the theme of slowing down.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
In previous conversations we had you
mentioned that and I believeit's in the book as well, and I
can even tell in the way you'rerelating this right now that
this is after India didn't havethe frenetic pace to it.
Yeah, the distraction, thebuilt-in escape elements that
(29:32):
that your prior life had.
Talk to us about, about thatand then how that led into the
work you're doing today.
Yeah, where you know, I thought, wow, this is interesting.
A guy who's suffered this muchand has faced his suffering in a
public way with a memoir, andnow he's dedicating his energies
(29:56):
to helping other people gothrough a really difficult
process.
Like, aren't you done with thesuffering?
So, like you know what I mean,you're dipping your toe in with
everybody you work with.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
So talk to us about that slowing down and then how
you segue into being a coach,really, and a guide Right, Well,
so, you know, writing is whatI've always done, and editing
and, um, and I started to teach,uh, and I landed a job working
as a, as a teacher of memoir.
Uh, when I started to teach,and I landed a job working as a,
as a teacher of memoir when Imoved to Colorado, and it just
(30:31):
slowly developed into into acoaching business.
But it's more than that, though, because it's, you know, over
the years, I just did a lot ofwhat I call self-compassion work
, and you're right to use theword slow down.
You know I was no longertraveling around the world, I
was spending a lot of time doing, you know, practices like
(30:52):
meditating and practicing yoga,and I had slowed my life down.
I'd found a lot more compassionfor myself and I started this
business of working with peopleon their memoirs and, you know,
I just I just loved it.
You know I have this capacity tohear people's stories and
(31:13):
reflect back to them, kind of a.
You know that there'slegitimacy there's, there's
something to be said there.
There's.
There's not just legitimacy,but there's gold there to offer
people in telling our stories.
And and I was, you know, Ifound that, that I just love
this work and, and you know,helping people because I had
been, you know, eventually, whenI wrote my own memoir, I saw
(31:36):
how much it healed, and therewas so much that that just of my
suffering receded into thebackground almost like like into
the rear view mirror when I,when I hit send on my manuscript
, it was just a release and I,you know, I'd seen people say
that writing memoir was healing.
But I experienced it in a waythat you know I'm convinced of
(31:59):
it, and so I learned to walkpeople through the process of
telling their story, beingvulnerable but also, you know,
turning it into a gift forsomebody.
You know, when we write amemoir, you know memoirists kind
of get a bad rap that they'renarcissistic and it's you know
(32:22):
that they must think they'rereally special to do this and I
actually think it's the opposite.
I think writing a memoir issuch an antidote to narcissism.
It's like if you can getvulnerable about your life, you
know, and share the sufferingyou've been through, but share
the stuff that helped you heal,you basically give somebody else
(32:45):
a roadmap that they can seethemselves in the story and you
give this great offering toother people in the world that
to show that healing is possible, transformation is possible,
and it just has become this joyin my life.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
So I'd imagine that when it's all distilled down
there, there are probably just afew essential themes that pop
up in in a lot of the memoirwork.
You know we were, we were doinga lot of scenarios.
It was a week long, veryintensive training and the end
of the week, like thefacilitator said, hey, did you
(33:30):
guys realize that there's likethree themes that that all of
our conflicts had in common,that we talked about and you're
going to see these all over, andone of them is like people are
seeking a sense of recognitionand belonging.
Yeah, right, you know they wantto be heard.
And I thought about those andthen I thought about in in
preparing for today'sconversation with you, I thought
(33:52):
about the memoir journey, likewhen you boil it down and you
get past all the trappings of ofthe quote-unquote interesting
things people have done.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, I'm wondering if you come down to just a few
essential themes, are you seeing, you're right, you know, and,
and I obviously one of the everymemoir is a story of how you
became.
You know you today.
But but the deeper theme ofthat really is is often coming
home to oneself and um, and youknow, and so in the in belonging
(34:25):
in one's own body and belongingin one's own life.
And you know, a good memoirnever has a really tidy ending
and no one you know, it's nottrue that we ever arrive in some
place of full enlightenment,but there's always something
else going to come down the pike.
But there is transformation aspossible, and becoming more
(34:47):
comfortable with who one is isone of the biggest themes.
It's almost like in self-lovein a weird way ends up becoming
you know by the end.
It's sort of like everybody'sjust learning to accept this
path they've been on and seeingit almost as necessary to become
who they are.
And so you're right about thatand yeah, it's this.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Uh, yeah, I know we had spoken about the hero's
journey and that joseph campbelland or, like odysseus, you know
, returning home and and somethings are the same and some
things aren't right, yeah somethings have moved on in your
time and exactly you know andyou kind of return to yourself,
but yourself is somewhat shiftedand you've got a boon, as
(35:32):
campbell would say, you've got.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You've got a gift to share with how you, how you did,
how you slayed the dragons,both in the external world and
in the internal world, you knowhow do you, how do you help your
clients navigate this?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
because the reality is very few of them.
Like in any, in any writingventure.
Very few people are going towrite a bestseller, right like
that's, the numbers just don'tplay out that way.
And most people don't even geta a big commercial publishing
contract.
Right like that's not.
That's also not how the numbersplay out.
If you're not a celebrity andif you are a celebrity, it's
(36:09):
usually someone else wrote itfor you anyway Um, so how do you
navigate that whole realitywith people who are very
enthusiastic about their memoirsand then they're going to have
to face some sort of reality andthen you know, like, how, like,
how does that journey look?
Speaker 2 (36:30):
the good news is that that self-publishing and hybrid
publishing has become really alegitimate thing now, and so so,
on the one hand, you know thosewho really want to publish
there's so many options andthere are people that sell more
books, reach more people withself-publishing and what's
called hybrid publishing than dowith landing big contracts.
(36:55):
So that's one aspect.
But then the other aspect is,you know this healing part of it
, and I try to really keeppeople focused on doing the work
.
That there's the.
You know that the payoff ismultifaceted and I try to keep a
little bit of a minimal view ofthe publishing aspect and that
(37:16):
we've got it.
We.
You know step one is a writing abook that you love and that is
hopefully has some technicalaspects to it, that the that
people love to read and so.
But then the other, yeah, sothere's just there's.
It's kind of I try to keeppeople focused on the journey
and and sort of like, letletting whatever happens to it
(37:38):
happens to it, I kind of not toget too woo woo, but there's
sort of what's supposed tohappen in this case really does
happen.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So what's the hybrid Is that's?
That's some.
You do some of itself-publishing and then like
explain that to yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So there are some companies now that are called
hybrid publishers.
They're kind of in betweenself-publishing and big time
traditional publishing.
And these companies and thereare some really reputable ones
they will, you know, edit yourbook, you know, come up with a
cover and get it into bookstoresjust like a publisher.
(38:16):
The only catch is, instead ofyou getting paid which is what
happens in traditionalpublishing you pay them but
they're actually getting thebook into bookstores.
They have marketing teamspublishing, you pay them but
they're actually getting thebook into bookstores or getting
there and they have marketingteams.
And so it's like, you know, it'snot cheap, but it's a way you
can get your book into the worldin a real way.
(38:36):
And it does have, and theydon't take everybody, by the way
.
So there's, you know, forbetter, for worse, the
gatekeeping at the bigpublishers kind of.
You know, there's somegatekeeping in a good way.
I want everyone to have theirbook into the world and you can
with self-publishing, but someof these publishers are good at
really finding writers they wantto work with, cultivating them
(38:59):
and putting their stuff into theworld in a good way, in a good
way, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So and and you've, you've lived the.
You've lived in anextraordinary period of time, I
think, when it comes tocommercial writing, right, like
cause, when you, I'd imagine,were you born 30 years later,
you would have had a verydifferent career.
Yeah, like as an adventurewriter, right, I think you
(39:24):
might've even mentioned this inyour book.
But, yeah, you know, betweenjust the, just between the what
am I trying to say?
Like between AI, which is itsown beast, and then just online
journalist, whatever that lookslike, and research that could
perhaps be some portion of it bedone remotely.
(39:46):
You know, when you started,there was no, hey, I'm going to
Google, I'm going to do Googleearth and look at this.
It was like I got to buy aplane ticket and get my rear end
there.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, I hit the sweet spot.
The nineties is, in particular,were a golden period for
magazines.
Then they were very thick,pre-internet, you know, all the
advertising was going into theseprint ads and you and we all
had big magazines on our coffeetables and they were prestigious
and and all of that and uh so,and there was money in it and
(40:15):
money for travel.
So I hit, I hit a sweet spot interms of my career.
You know, now I find myself, uh, you know, writing articles
that would have gotten paid$10,000 for.
You know, back in the nineties.
I'm doing it for free, you know, because it's part of my, you
know, part of what I love andalso part of my business plan,
(40:35):
and also, you know, just part ofputting, keep putting stories
into the world.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
So, yeah, I, and tell us about your, your substack
work as well.
So so again, if let us knowthat, the title of the, the full
title of your, of your memoir,where to find it?
And then also your sub stack,because that's really what drew
me to your work initially, andthen I went and got the book.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, so my book is called into the soul of the
world my journey to healing, andit's available.
It was published by Hachette in2023.
And it's available at all thebig bookstores and through
Amazon, and you can order itthrough your other, your
favorite indie bookstore.
Um, it's available everywhereand uh, so that's my book and,
(41:24):
um, it is the story of how Ibecame an adventure writer, how
my life fell apart and how Ikind of pieced it back together
through through all thesedifferent ways, as you know, and
then so my sub stack is calledSeeking Letters to the Restless,
so it's a newsletter that isfree right now anyway, and you
(41:44):
can sign up for it.
Look up Seeking Letters to theRestless.
And you know, I try to writekind of adventurous stories
about seeking oneself, seekingsome kind of understanding of
what a spiritual life might bewhen you're full of doubt.
It's sort of a it's foreverybody who kind of longs to
have some connection withsomething greater than
(42:07):
themselves, but also lives inthe world of science, so it's
kind of like has a foot in bothworlds.
I'm constantly trying tounderstand what that means.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
So To listeners I highly recommend it as well as
to pick up a copy of the book.
I read the book and then I wasgoing back and checking out some
of the sub stack and there wasone where where I think you had
you'd, you'd gone down to theriver and you you, I can't
remember you went swimming orsomething and I was like, oh no,
(42:38):
not, not a river, not a red,stay away from the river, yeah,
but but I think it's an, it's aninteresting recurring kind of
theme in your life.
It is.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
You know, I'm drawn to rivers.
When I lived more in downtownboulder I would walk the river
every day and it would nevereven it never crossed my mind
that the weird connection it waswith it.
So I've been to rivers all overthe world and been obsessed
with them.
And so there's.
You know, freud was I don'tknow how, if everything was
right, but he wasn't a dummyeither.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So well, there's a.
I lived in Santa Fe for a longtime, right yeah, the Pecos
River.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
So I grew up this is a crazy aside, but I grew up
hearing stories about mymaternal grandparents who had
moved from upstate New York tothe Santa Fe area so my
grandfather, who hadtuberculosis, could be in the
dry air Before antibiotics.
That's what they told you to do, and they had no money, and so
(43:42):
they rented a little shack onthe banks of the Pecos River and
the only way to get to thatshack was to walk across a
swinging bridge across the PecosRiver, and I've spent the last
I don't know how many decadestrying to find where that is.
I'm sure all the structures aregone now or whatever, but to
(44:05):
try to find where that is, and Ihave not been able to get back
there.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Well, we'll have to go down there sometime.
Yeah, down there, come out andlet's go find it.
I'd love to do that.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I hope that's in your memoir, so yeah yeah, I mean, I
, I have these stories of thesein my mind, like of of my
grandparents raising, raisingrabbits, because that that was
what I had been told like theywere.
He was ill, he was ill and shetook care of him and they raised
rabbits to sell, and it wasjust on the banks of the pecos
(44:36):
river.
And now my mom and two of mybrothers and their families live
in santa fe.
So, um, you know, who would youknow?
It's interesting, theserecurring, these loops.
Right that we come back to, wetry to, we try.
I read this thing the other dayand it's somewhat
tongue-in-cheek, but but it saidwhy are my parents always so
(44:57):
good at pushing my buttons?
I know why Because theyimplanted them there and it's
just like these.
This is not a knock on myparents' back it's like those
themes, right that come back.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
You know it's the boomerang stuff.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
A good memoir does have that kind of looping.
The past and the present arekind of constantly revisited and
things that happened at onepoint in life end up coming up
as memories later.
And yeah, there's a lot of thatin a memoir, so in life too, as
you know.
So I bet you we can find thisplace on the Pecos.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
We probably could.
Yeah, now I'm.
Now I'm going to get obsessedlike you Did you and I don't
want to dive too deep into thisbecause I know it's a personal
journey but were there evertimes when you were writing your
memoir where you were like,dude, what are you doing?
Like, like this is justrehashing things.
Like this is just rehashingthings, and I'm already a
(45:52):
successful writer by the way.
That's the style of writing iskind of a hybrid.
I love the fact that you'resuch an effective writer, apart
from the memoir theme right,because a lot of memoirs it's
just hard to get into the actual, to live into the non-fictional
(46:14):
dream part, because it's justwriting's not effective, so I
love that part.
But like, were there times whenyou said I should just be
writing about something muchmore factual, real world, and be
done with it.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
You know, at some point I became under the spell
of memoirs, and I think it wasaround 2013.
I started reading a lot of them, I began teaching them and and
began to understand what makesone you know better than than
another, and and and I just itbecame kind of this obsession.
Like we talked about obsessionsand so, you know, at that I
(46:50):
knew I was going to write one.
You know whether I ever had, youknow, I think writing about
life became and I realized Ikind of had a superpower about
it, and so, yeah, there's lotsof amazing things to write about
, and I think you can alwayswrite about those other amazing
things through a personal lens,always write about those other
(47:15):
amazing things through apersonal lens.
And that, to me, became a lotmore interesting than just going
out and writing in a like youwrite a profile of somebody and
that's fun, but if you write apersonal essay about your
meeting with them, then you havea lot more room to go down
different rows and what's thisperson mean to me, what you know
, as well as exploring them.
So it's kind of a it became abit of obsession to write in a
(47:36):
personal way about the world, soso I think there's a both and
to it, I guess, is what I'msaying it's interesting, as
you're, as you're speaking, II'm also a fan of uh, I can
never pronounce his last namesebastian junger.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, yeah, the the perfect storm guy, right, and of
course the perfect storm is anon-fiction, you know, just this
amazing narrative of courageand also a real foolhardy story
(48:16):
of thinking.
From that to then some wartimereporting and some PTSD related
experiences.
And then now his last two booksare you know, he had one about
a walk that he took as he wasgoing through a divorce.
Yeah, latest one, I think,think, is in my year of dying.
I don't know if you've readthat, but I have not read that
yet, but it's on my shelf yeahit's, it's, it's pretty powerful
(48:39):
.
Yeah, and here's this and I'mnot gonna spoil alert, I'm not,
I'm not gonna ruin it for you.
But like to this guy who waswriting about ships and and
storms and all that, and kingcrab fishing and or no, actually
it wasn't, it was tuna orwhatever that to now writing
(49:01):
about what it's like to nearlydie and be staring into the
abyss well, I know, you know, Ithink a as we age we get more
reflective and but also I knowhe's had some pts and that you
know, the past and the presentmerge together with PTSD and it
becomes a very fascinating thingto write about.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
So I think it's natural for those of us on the
other side of you know 45 or 50to be going down this road,
especially him who's done, youknow, war reporting and has some
serious, you know, has seensome things.
So Do you have another memoirin you?
I do, and I've been talkingwith my agent about it and it's
(49:46):
probably pretty reflective ofwhat I've been writing about
lately.
It's the seeking, you know,which is a theme in my other
memoir.
But for the longest time I'vewanted to have faith in God and
it's been an obsession.
And I've also, as a person whoappreciates science and was a
very scientist, journalist andwas very just the facts ma'am
(50:08):
kind of a guy.
I had these two sides andthey're always at war, and so
the book will be exploring thiskind of discussion, the inner
discussion I've had about faith.
So, and very different thoughfrom my memoir, it won't be
organized as a chronologicallyas a story.
It'll be kind of thematicallyoriented.
(50:29):
So you know a few stories fromthe past in it, but some new
ones too.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
I can't wait to uh, to read that.
It sounds, sounds like a, uh, agreat follow-up to, to your
first memoir.
What, what is uh?
What does your family thinkabout?
Um, I, that's a, that's a.
I'm asking, I'm asking for afriend.
I'm actually asking because, asI begin to put pen to paper on
(50:58):
some of my experiences, that'salways the little voice here
that's like hey, wait, can I saythat?
And if I do, I know I should,and in what way?
And so what does your familysay?
And your friends?
And you've got ex-partners andthe whole, the whole piece.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
You know, I think that one of the things that that
got me ready to write my book Idid, I did a fair amount of
therapy and I and one of thethings I finally was able to
understand is, all of us havedifferent stories.
You know even even siblings ina family, you know.
You know even even siblings ina family, you know there's.
(51:33):
You know kids have differentrelationships with their parents
than other kids, and plus birthorder, and so no story.
And I used to think that mystory had to match up.
We talked about that with mydad, this obsession that needed
to match up, and finally I letgo of that.
I'm someone who takes realityvery seriously and I know I can.
(51:56):
I've learned over time I canreally trust my own reality,
even when it's at odds withsomebody else's, and that was
that became the linchpin I hadto kind of arrive at to get
comfortable writing memoir.
You know my dad and I arefriendly.
Now we have a kind of a growingwonderful relationship.
He's, he's, you know he's 87now, um, and not in great health
(52:17):
.
Um, um, you know my brother andI haven't spoken in years and
and uh, so that's a painfulthing.
Um, and as far as friends, Ithink they probably some of them
roll their eyes at me.
I mean, the intensity with whichI write about my life is not
everybody's cup of tea, and itsort of is, and I don't care,
(52:39):
you know.
I have found.
You know, going back to one ofthe gifts of memoir is.
You know and I was writingabout this today on Substack in
a comment, a note to someone whocommented on my piece is when
you start living, finally, yourauthentic life, it's weird how,
(53:02):
like things start to click,people come into your life who
you haven't been there becauseyou've been hiding yourself and
they didn't know you were you.
And so your life begins tochange when you put stuff out
there for the better, you knowand people finally see who you
really are, and you'll you'llpull in people who you're meant
to be with and you'll you'llrepel the people that can't
handle it or don't think it'sit's not for them.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
So Wow, that's a, this whole, the idea of, of, of
truth, right.
Whose truth is the truth Right?
Speaker 2 (53:34):
And so honesty is the word that I kind of lean more
heavily into.
I do love the word truth, but Ialso know in memoir writing we
just try to be as honest as wecan, you know, and knowing that
the truth is elusive and no onehas a lock on it, and yeah, it's
so interesting, as you say,that I think about things that
(53:57):
happened to me as a kid, and orI'll be sitting hanging out with
my siblings or on a phone calland we're joking around.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
We're like, hey, you remember that time that this
happened and we were both there.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Perspective and granted, it's like 35, 40 years
ago, but the perspective istotally different.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Totally different.
Yeah, now I don't know which is.
I know what I can feel in mybody and that's all I can really
speak to.
But then I think, man, like,how much of it was, how much of
it has shifted to in myretelling and my recasting of it
(54:41):
internally over all these years, and I don't even think it
really matters that much, right,like it's what it is right now
for me.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Memory is is a very complicated thing and it is
faulty.
And the more you learn aboutmemory, they think now that
every time you have a memory youthink of some memory.
The more recent version of thatis what gets filed away.
So, you know, throw in writingabout something.
(55:08):
Now, you know, when I thinkback at some of the stuff I've
written about, the image I haveis the image that I wrote about.
And I'm not sure I can evenaccess the original memories of
years ago.
You know, because it's become acontemporary memory.
It's complicated, you know.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
How was the experience of having?
Speaker 2 (55:42):
an editor work on this, on a memoir, as opposed to
you writing about, you know,whatever Whitewater Rapids in
the Grand Canyon or somethingyou know.
First of all, I love editors.
I was one and I have alwaysworked with.
You know, I was surrounded bygreat ones at Outside.
My work always got better whenI worked with editors, so I've
been very, always very acceptingof collaborating, knowing that
writing gets better when youhave a smart person pushing you
(56:02):
and helping you.
Try to get clear about whatyou're trying to say.
As far as the memoir itself,you know, I I think because
getting my truth out, or gettingmy honest version out, was, was
so important to me.
You know, I had lived, uh, I'dhad a lot of of my experience
(56:25):
denied in my, in my family, and,and it was like just simmering
underneath me, not in anger somuch, and like I just had to get
my version of it out andfestering and festering.
And so I was so open in writingmy book I go, I go deeper and
more, probably more revealingthan than a lot of people do in
(56:48):
memoirs and way more than even I.
You know, I don't ask.
I try to help my, my studentsget vulnerable and my clients I
also know they've got to settheir guardrails for what
they're willing to share.
There's some great memoirs outthere that don't go to the bone
quite like mine does.
Um, it's just part of my naturethat I do that.
(57:10):
I don't know understand why Um,no-transcript author and the
(57:40):
reader.
But yeah, I hope that makessense.
I was open to it.
I loved it actually.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
It's how, how can?
So you've talked about the book, where obviously people can
find it online bookstores, yoursub stack.
You've got this, this.
Um, I'm not going to call it aside business, because it's the
central business, right, it'sthe?
It's what you do as well, right, is you write and you do this,
(58:09):
uh, guiding and coaching andmentoring.
How do people find you and what, what does it look like if
someone's listening to this andthey're like, hey, I've always
people always tell me I havecool stories to tell.
Or people always shocked when Itell them something and and oh
man, dude, you should write abook, you know.
And then you're like oh my God,what do I?
(58:30):
Where do I start?
How do do people find you andwhat does that guiding look like
?
Speaker 2 (58:33):
yeah, so you find me at bradwetzlercom and that's
b-r-a-d-w-e-t-z-l-e-rcom, and uh, you can read about my services
there and you can also sign upthere for a free 30-minute
consult, and that's really stepone.
So sign up and let's, let'stalk for 30 minutes.
I'll actually coach you, youknow, give you some, some ideas,
(58:55):
for if you, whether you, firstof all, we'll talk about working
together, but also even if youdon't want to work with me, I'll
, I'll coach you for 30 minutes.
So that's step one.
And then you know I havedifferent plans and they can.
You know we can talk about that.
I have six-monthwrite-your-memoir plans at
various prices, and basically wemeet either two times, three
(59:19):
times or four times a month andI walk you through the process
of writing your book and gettingyour draft done.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Again, I encourage listeners to check that out.
Encourage listeners to checkthat out.
If I'm sure you know, most ofus have at some point had
someone go, wow, that reallyyou've lived quite a life and
yeah, you know you should.
You should write some of thisdown, um, and you know it's an
interesting.
Again, I return to this theme ofI think there's because the
(59:50):
internet sphere lends itself topeople being quote unquote
experts in a lot of stuff,coaches in a lot of stuff, right
, and then you're like, yeah,you dive in and into it and you
go were they ever successful atthe original thing or were they?
Are they just successful atcoaching people to to do
something that they've nevereven done?
(01:00:11):
Right, people to to dosomething that they've never
even done, right, um, and you'vedone.
You've done the hard work.
You've been the professionalwriter, you've lived that, um,
and you understand the process,understand working with an
editor.
And then you've also gonethrough the incredibly, uh, you
know the process of openingyourself up to writing your
memoir.
You could have dodged thatwhole thing.
(01:00:32):
Your life, your whole life.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
It wasn't meant to be .
You know, to dodge it, it was.
You know.
I think I was a truth teller inmy family and it was.
I've lived it as an adult toonow, so it's something I just
it's part of my DNA.
You know.
I've got to say what's trueabout my life and the world.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
You've been so generous with your time, brad,
and I truly appreciate thisopportunity to sit down and chat
with you and I encourageeverybody to check out all the
information we talked abouttoday and I'll put it in the
show notes.
I wanted to finish with just aquestion that I ask all the
guests.
(01:01:15):
If you had the opportunity todesign a billboard and you can't
have the cop out of like Idon't believe in billboards
because they're visual pollution.
A couple of people have saidthat.
I'm like okay, this is thoughtexercise.
Okay, you can make itbiodegradable.
I know you live in Boulder.
(01:01:36):
You have the opportunity todesign a billboard for the side
of a thoroughfare or freeway.
What does that billboard sayabout what you believe in, who
you are, what you find to beimportant?
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, okay, what you believe in, who you are, what
you find to be important, yeah,um, you know, I think probably
in keeping with my sub stack, Iwould.
It would be something along thelines of keep seeking, you know
, keep, keep saying what's true,keep looking for what's true
about you and your place in theworld, and that there's uh, um,
(01:02:20):
and trusting your experience,all those things.
That's not a very tidybillboard, uh, but, but you know
, coming home to trust who youare and trust your experience
and keep opening up, that's themessage.
I think that it leads tohealing.
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
I thank you for that.
I think that's an apropos placeto pause the conversation and I
can feel in our conversationthat you've at some level come
home to a place of peace andreflection and reflectiveness.
Otherwise you wouldn't be ableto coach other people in that
authentically either.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yes, it's a good time in my life.
It's sort of I have arrivedhere at a place of, of, of calm
and and maybe not ease.
I'm always pushing myself to todo, to do new things, but this
is, this is a good season for meand I'm cherishing it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
So Well, thank you so much, Brad, and and it's been
an honor to speak with you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Thank you, David.
It's been honored Likewise.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Thanks for joining us on the hangout podcast.
You can send us an email atpodcastinfo at protonme.
Many thanks to my daughter,maya, for editing this episode.
I'd also like to underline thatthis podcast is entirely
separate from my day job and, assuch, all opinions expressed
herein are mine and mine alone.
(01:03:49):
Thanks for coming on in andhanging out.
Welcome to the Hangout Podcast.
I'm your host, david Shoretta.
Come on in and hang out.
In this episode, I wasprivileged to have a
conversation with Brad Wetzler.
Brad is a journalist, author,adventurer, writing, coach,
seeker and someone who spent hislife asking big questions about
(00:28):
meaning, resilience, the humanjourney, recovery.
From his days as acorrespondent when he was
traveling the world to hisdeeply personal explorations of
healing and self-discovery, bradbrings a wisdom that's both
hard-earned and also deeplyrelatable.
In this episode, we dive intothe stories that remind us of
(00:53):
how courage and curiosity canreally reshape our lives.
I had a wonderful time in thiswide-ranging conversation with
Brad and I hope you enjoyed itas much as I did in this wide
ranging conversation with Brad,and I hope you enjoy it as much
as I did.
This episode containsdiscussion of sensitive topics,
including suicide, drug use andother adult content.
(01:14):
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know isstruggling, please seek
professional help or call yourlocal crisis hotline.
Welcome, Brad.
I really appreciate you comingon the podcast for a
(01:34):
conversation this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
It's a pleasure, david, it's good to see you.
Likewise, I'd like for us tostart where I start with all
these conversations, which iswith your origin story, where
(01:58):
you come from, what your journeywas like to this present moment
, and then we'll branch off fromthat.
Sure, I'm going to start myorigin story in the middle and
then I'm going to back up.
So I grew up in Kansas, in thesuburbs of Kansas City, and you
know I was an earnest kid thatcame into Christianity through
Fellowship of Christian Athletesand really got obsessed with
that as a young man andultimately then went off to
college and, you know, fell inlove with writers and kind of
(02:22):
left that past behind and thenultimately became an adventure
writer through working atOutside Magazine and I went to
graduate school at Northwesternafter finishing up at the
University of Kansas and the dayafter I started there, or the
day after I graduated, I landeda job as an intern and worked my
(02:44):
way up the masthead and becamea senior editor.
And then, long story short,they didn't have staff writers
and so I went out on my own tobe a hung a shingle and became a
freelance magazine writer,writing for all various
magazines.
So there's a little bit of it.
Feel free to probe more so.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So there's a little bit of it.
Feel free to probe more.
Yeah, so Kansas City, huh, yeah, still the smack dab in the
midst of barbecue and baseballand you know the center of the
country roughly right.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, it's the heartland, and absolutely.
I was a big Royals fan andbarbecue fan and there was a
radio station that talked aboutthe three B's baseball, barbecue
and blues and they had somegood blues clubs there, and I
remember as a young man playingguitar and watching a lot of
music there too, so it was agood place to grow up.
(03:40):
You know Midwestern values andyou know played sports, played
you know baseball when I wasyoung, and then basketball and
tennis through high school, andyou know it's pretty flat out
there in Kansas, though.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
On the face of it you had this kind of a typical
Midwestern Americana upbringingand life.
But as you mentioned in yourmemoir, there was kind of some
undercurrents there.
And I bring up the termundercurrent pretty
intentionally because I want toreturn to this theme of water.
(04:16):
It presents itself multipletimes in your life but the first
time it's very prominent inyour memoir.
Can you talk to us about whenit appears and this canoe trip
and kind of what that kind of isthe undercurrents to this kind
of typical American lifestyle?
I believe your dad was anattorney and successful and kind
(04:39):
of a homemaker mom and justthis leave it to beaver type of
household on one hand, but thenthis other undercurrent.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, good question.
So everything at you know athome appeared to be, you know,
like you said, not just normalbut kind of extraordinary.
We were sort of taught to viewourselves that way.
You know, we were smart, goodat sports.
You know we were smart, good atsports, belonged to a tennis
(05:06):
club and everything you know onthe surface looked like it was
awesome and.
But there was a lot going on athome and you know, my dad was
(05:26):
drinking a lot and and I was.
You know, I was struggling withthat.
It just felt like I was livinga lie, and the more I spoke up
about it, the more I seemed toget pushed out of the family
system.
And and well, when I was 12,just to get to the undercurrent,
so there was an undercurrentgoing on at home and then when I
was 12, we went on a father soncanoe trip, actually through
the Fellowship of ChristianAthletes, which is the
(05:47):
organization that I belong to,and it was father-son, and so we
went down to northern Arkansas,which I think was about a, you
know, seven or eight hour drivefrom Kansas City, and we got
down there and it had beenraining a lot.
The river was very high.
You know, the, the guy thatowned the campground, offered to
give us some money back.
He said it was too high, that afew people almost died the
(06:08):
weekend before.
And but you know, our groupdecided to run, run the river
and you know, on the first daymy dad and I had had some
trouble Neither of us were goodcanoeists and we were going
backwards and sideways, you knowthe entire time.
And after lunch we put thecanoe back in and got going
sideways again and the canoetipped over and I remember
(06:31):
vividly the water rushing overthe side of the canoe and
swamping us and I bailed out andI remember floating downstream
and at one point then I justfelt this really fast jerk and
this powerful jerk backwardsthat looked up and I was
stranded in the middle of theriver and the river was very
strong and it was pushing meinto this log and trying to pull
(06:54):
me away but also pushing me in,and I realized that my life
jacket is snagged on a submergedlog in the river and you know I
kept getting pulled down andkind of released again.
And I looked over and I saw mydad crawling out onto the river
and you know I kept gettingpulled down and kind of released
again and I looked over and Isaw my dad crawling out onto the
riverbank and he looked scaredbut he also looked paralyzed and
I thought he would do somethingto come get me and I, but
(07:15):
nothing, he didn't and there wasno options and I thought I was
going to die there.
You know, it was a very tenuoussituation and I was there for I
don't know how long, I think ithad to be between five and 10
minutes.
And then, thank God, there wasanother canoe coming and I
remember kind of looking up andhere, you know, seeing a hand
(07:35):
reaching for me and it missed me.
But then the canoe struck me,or the log, and it was just a
big collision.
The next thing I knew I wasfloating downstream and it ended
up getting pulled out of theriver and put in the bottom of
another boat.
And then my dad eventually cameover and got me.
So it was a traumaticexperience.
I remember that night, you know,there was a, we had a campfire
(07:59):
and I remember the leader of thegroup, you know, saying a
prayer, thanking God that I wasOK, and you know it was a very
real experience.
But then the next day we drovehome and I remember running up
to tell my mom about it and mydad stepped in front of me and
basically said that what I wassaying didn't happen, that I was
(08:22):
exaggerating, and nothing likethat happened.
My shirt got snagged on a twigand I was utterly confused and
at that point I was still youngand so I didn't say anything.
I had cuts up and down the sideof my body and bruises and was
really sore.
I remember at school justfeeling so sore up and down my
entire torso and anyway, that'sthe story of the other
(08:42):
undercurrent that was going on.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I wonder when I read that in the book and I know
you've shared it a lot you wroteabout it, so this is out in the
public, but I'm sure it's nevereasy to recount that why do you
think your dad so downplayed it?
Was it this I'm going to have amacho son thing?
Because it didn't sound likefrom your description of the
family dynamic he wasparticularly concerned about
(09:05):
your mom judging him harshly fornot keeping an eye on you,
right it?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
was more a commentary on you or your lack of ability
or something.
Yeah, I feel like there wassome of that, that I wasn't
being brave or something.
But I also learned over throughtime that taking accountability
for things was not something hedid and came up over and over
again and the story well intoadulthood became, you know, up
to this day even is that myshirt got snagged on a twig and
(09:37):
you know, he and I are speakingnow after a long time of not,
and I've never brought that upagain.
I used to bring it up all thetime, you know, just trying to
understand why my reality was sodifferent from his.
You know, especially younger, Iknew my experience.
I'd never doubted my experienceand at the same time, you know,
you kind of get obsessed withtrying to make it match up.
(10:00):
And 10 years after this happened, I was back in Kansas City and
I was at a Kansas City Royalsbaseball game and I ran into our
group leader there and I'd beenkind of mulling over this over
for the previous 10 years, whymy reality didn't match up with
my dad's.
And first thing out of hismouth is God, I'm so glad you're
alive.
You know, I just sort of it'sboom, all this kind of
(10:24):
confirmation arrived.
But again, you know, my bodyknows what's true and I never
really doubted it.
It was just this weirdobsession and confusion about
this reality didn't match upwith the.
The man who I looked up to, youknow that's, that was the.
The other part, it wasn't just,it was my dad's reality and
that's like that's supreme rightwhen you're a kid.
(10:45):
So and in some ways your own.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
So yeah, in some ways it remains supreme at some
level throughout our whole lives, right?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right, exactly.
Yeah, it takes a lot of work tostart to let go of that.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So you go, you have this despite that, or you know
that traumatic situation, you goon.
You're successful in highschool, college, you become a
writer, rise to the position ofeditor.
And full disclosure.
I have family in Santa Fe andthe Outside Magazine
(11:18):
headquarters is right next tothe REI store.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Right by the train tracks, and I would always.
I used to be a huge fan ofOutside Magazine in an earlier
iteration of their life, when itwas less about product and more
about story.
So I would always see thisbeautiful Santa Fe two-story,
beautiful building and go oh,what a dream it must be to work
there in some capacity.
So you work there and, on theface of it again, you have this
(11:45):
perfect lifestyle for anadventure-seeking young person.
Talk to us about the dichotomythe light and the dark right of
your existence, and how that ledinto the rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
That's funny how you've asked these questions and
it really has me thinking in aninteresting new way of just how
I arrived at this magazine.
And you know, it was my firstcorporate experience.
But everything was not justgood, but it was extraordinary
there too, right, and there wasa lot of masculine macho-ness
around the office.
(12:21):
So there was this appearancethat everything was great in my
life.
I was killing it.
You know, the first few yearsof my work I mean after I left
the magazine to be a writer, Iwas writing for the New York
Times, I was a contributingeditor at George, which was
JFK's magazine, I was writingfor GQ and Wire and all these
places and living the dream, youknow, and traveling Many months
(12:42):
of the year.
I was married and we had acouple of dogs and had a great
house outside of Santa Fe, andyet it seemed like with each
passing year I was fallingfurther and further into
depressions which had struck mewhen I was younger, but they
became deeper and with all thetravel and the time zone changes
(13:03):
I was coming back and fallinginto depressions that were
lasting months and sometimesjust never seeming really to
leave, and it was having a lotof what I now understand to be
kind of emotional flashbacks,and flashbacks both to the
canoeing accident, but justthese intense emotional surges
(13:23):
that were running through methat I didn't understand.
And eventually, you know I wasI was seeing a psychiatrist
that's a whole other story myinvolvement with psychiatry but
I'd gotten misdiagnosed at ayoung age and was taking a lot
of medications and and I wasworking with a psychiatrist in
Santa Fe that just every time Iwent in he added, seemed to add
(13:45):
something else.
So you know, maybe I guess Iasked for it too.
I was seeking answers andseeking solutions.
You know I wanted to keep onthis pace of being.
You know I want to be a greatwriter.
I want to be a great adventurewriter, like the people that I
admired when I was an editor.
And and yet the wheels werefalling off and and I was
(14:07):
finding myself in remote places,having these terrible
abandonment flashbacks.
And eventually I went into thepsychiatrist's office and you
know he said your options are,you know, electroconvulsive
therapy, shock therapy, or or anantipsychotic.
And I just I wasn't psychotic,this was just for depressions
(14:29):
really and he put me on apsychotic.
It was an easy choice.
I was afraid of electroshockand probably for good reason.
I'd seen one flew with acuckoo's nest too many times and
long story short, I basicallywent to bed for several years,
you know, and kind of crawledout occasionally when an
assignment came my way anddidn't do a very good job at it,
(14:50):
made mistakes and went back andhardly left again.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And, yeah, that went on for years.
I mean, you were an integralpart, for example, of John
Krakauer's work around Into ThinAir, which you might not be on
the front end of the publicfacing part of that, but behind
the scenes, like I'm a huge JohnKrakauer fan and and that was
the first book of his I read andI was transfixed by this story
(15:30):
and I'd never thought thatthere's an editor sitting back,
you know, pulling all-nightersgoing oh my God, are we going to
hear from John on the mountainand all that.
So you've got that, you've gotyour writing success and you're
married and this young,energetic lifestyle and all the
trappings of, as you say, kindof the macho lifestyle, the
outdoorsy, outside, magazinekind of ethos, yeah, and do you
(15:55):
think that that was all?
I mean, adventure can bebeautiful, but it also can just
be an escape, right?
I mean, was that really yourdrug of choice before you
actually had drugs of choice?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I think you're on to something there.
Yeah, I think that it was.
You know, it was very grandiosewhat I was up to in a way, you
know, and all of us who werewriting for that magazine, and
we were paying people you to togo do these crazy things and not
really considering the danger,that much, and and and there was
(16:31):
a lot of you know there was wehad, we had a lot of women in
the office and some amazingwomen, but there was a lot of
testosterone driving the bus andand I was trying to live up to,
you know, the image in my ownmind of who these people were
John Krakauer and Bob Chikochisand others who seemed to so
effortlessly go out into thewilds and and and do these crazy
(16:56):
things and write great, greatarticles about it.
That's what I wanted and and Ikind of fell into a spell, you
know, underneath that all I'mnot sure, looking back, exactly,
if my makeup was really builtfor that, especially given the
traumas I'd had as a kid.
You know, and've I've readenough psychology and know that
there is this idea that Freudcame up with of.
(17:18):
I always forget it's, I forgetthe term right now, but
essentially, you, you findyourself as an adult or later in
(17:38):
life, re exposing yourself tothe same dangers and same
situations.
As you try to heal it, yourunconscious is trying to heal
this, this disconnect and it'sthis wound you have.
And for me, being in nature wasterrifying and yet here I was,
throwing myself into places likegreenland and, you know, the
(18:00):
amazon, and finding myselfterrified a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
So so you go through this cycle of I found myself in
reading your memoir like one ofthe like.
This is this is audio only, soI'm doing this gesture of trying
to pull someone like out of a.
Well, right, like you startclimbing up, you you get a cool
assignment cause you still hadthe writing chops, and then then
(18:24):
the medication and the malaiseand everything you turn in a
subpar product and theneventually you end up getting
terminated by a lot of theseright, yeah, you fall into this
hole.
Uh, talk to us about the travelthat you were fortunate enough
(18:47):
to do.
That was really part of yourhealing journey.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Whether intentionally or not, when you set out to do
it right.
Talk to us about that, becausethat's where the book to me
started to get reallyinspirational in a deep sense.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, yeah, so there's a shift that happens in
the book where it actually is aquite intense one, where a
friend of mine had died bysuicide and as I was sitting
with his body I just knew I hadto get off these medications.
I around that time I saw thislittle clip and I think it was
(19:32):
the Wall Street Journal orsomething about the Jesus Trail,
and it was a 40-mile trail fromNazareth to Capernaum, which is
on the Sea of Galilee, and itapproximates the path that a
historical Jesus might havewalked when he left his hometown
(19:52):
of Nazareth to begin his threeyears of teaching.
And so obviously that struck achord in me, given my youth and
I was no longer a Christian butman I got obsessed with this and
that's one of my qualities, andmaybe as part of a addictive
personality, I get obsessed withstory ideas and stories and
(20:14):
told her about this and that Iwanted to go hike it and write
about it, and she said go, youknow, immediately.
And so I bought a plane ticketand, you know, 48 hours later I
(20:37):
was walking the Jesus Trail, andthat just whetted my appetite,
though, you know, at that pointthen I wanted to go everywhere
that Jesus had walked, and I was, you know, I was exploring
whether I could be a Christianagain, but I was also trying to
get back in touch with myselfand I became.
I ended up going into Palestine.
(20:58):
I spent 10 weeks, a 10-weekpilgrimage in Israel and
Palestine, in the West Bank, andthen when I came back, I, you
know, I realized that I didn't,wasn't going to be a Christian
again, but I did light somethingup inside me about spirituality
and that I knew that there washealing, that that was waiting
for me if I followed a path ofself compassion, of of seeking
(21:21):
something greater than myselfand knowing that my ego had
played a role in my demise andneeded to find some humility,
like Jesus taught.
And so it lit a fire in me and,yeah, that led to other things
too.
I could keep going.
Please do, yeah.
(21:43):
Well, so when I got back, I hadbegun practicing yoga earlier
and I really went full bore intopracticing yoga at that time
and really began exploring theEastern wisdom paths and
Buddhism and especially thephilosophy around yoga, which,
you know, here in the West wethink of yoga as just stretching
(22:04):
in a in Lululemons, but there'sa whole philosophy behind it
about um, that's involved with,you know, becoming more uh, you
know, more in your body, morecentered, you know, it kind of
mirrors the Buddhist path in away, um, and there's other
elements of it, including, uh,you know, yoga of devotion and
(22:25):
there's other elements of it,including, you know, yoga of
devotion, and there's a wholekind of a Christian kind of path
over in the yoga world too.
So, anyway, I became, went downthat rabbit hole and and just
really healed a lot through that, through that exploration and
finding myself again.
And then I found myself back inIndia, which I'd visited for
(22:47):
Wired Magazine in 1999 and justhad written an article about the
city of Bangalore, which was atech center, and this was in 99.
It was just taking off overthere, and so I wrote this
business article.
But the whole time I just wasthinking I wanted to go up and
visit the city called Varanasiand it was where they burned
(23:10):
bodies and people actually wentthere to die, because if you
died in Varanasi, you were moreinclined to achieve moksha, or
freedom, and not have to comeback into a human body.
Well, I just had to see thisplace.
So I went up there in 99.
Well, back to my other mainstory in 2018, I just, I just
(23:33):
became obsessed.
I had to go back to India, andthis time I went back to
Northern India, and I foundmyself, about five days in,
inside a cave where ahundred-year-old yogi lived.
He'd been there for 25 yearsmeditating and chanting and
living, and a few friends and Iwent up.
(23:55):
We heard about him and went upand visited him, and, you know,
I spent the afternoon there, andwhen I entered his cave, though
for the first time, thetradition is to bow at his feet.
Well, I did that.
And as I entered his cave,though, for the first time, the
tradition is to bow at his feet.
Well, I did that.
And as I had my head on thefloor, you know, I started to
sit up.
I felt him smack my head.
This is going to sound, youknow, maybe strange to us here
(24:17):
in the West, but there is awhole tradition over there, a
physical transmission ofspiritual energy, and I was
aware of that, and so the secondit happened, I was like, is
that what just happened?
And I sat up and he smacked meon the head.
I sat up and looked into hiseyes and I just began weeping.
It was just something thetenderness and the age and maybe
(24:41):
the grandfatherliness of it andmaybe related to my own
difficulty with men and myfather, but I just broke open
and I wept all afternoon and Iremember then going home that
night and you know, and I wokeup the next morning and I was
watching these birds fly outover this valley and I realized
(25:03):
I was sort of like feelingqueasy or something.
I stood up, I stumbled,eventually, you know, I went
down to where, this cabin, whereI was staying with my then
girlfriend, and told her that Ifelt like someone had slipped me
acid, you know, or mushrooms orsomething I just had.
I felt like I was out of mymind on a drug or something.
(25:24):
And so I ended up going up,climbing to the top of this
building and had, you know, forthe next 12 hours I just I saw
snakes vibrating on the groundand all the mountains in the sky
were knitted together.
It was like a, like some kindof psychedelic experience and it
lasted 12 hours and um, and I Iinterpret that even as a kind
(25:45):
of a God experience, or it was adeep mystical experience that
showed me, you know, thatunderneath all of ouri himself
then, from the universe that waschanneling through him.
I don't know.
(26:08):
You know, I know this soundscrazy and but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
When I read that at first I thought quite honestly.
I thought, oh, here we got, wehave the cliche right, we got
the cliche of the, the, theWesterner, hiking the mountain,
and then there's an old skinnydude up there and that was the
end of it.
And then you get smacked.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And then the fallout right the process.
It was messy and scary andterrifying actually Scary is an
understatement, and to kind ofto read that that was a pretty
powerful experience.
Were you still, I'm trying torecall, were you still on your
medication at that point?
(26:50):
Like layers and layers of meds?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I was, I had been dwindling down, I had moved away
from Stanford, I was living inBoulder, colorado, and this
psychiatrist here had said let'sget you off all of this and and
, uh, figure out who you reallyare.
And uh, and so I don't recall,I think I, you know, I was
taking, I think, oneantidepressant and uh, you know,
(27:16):
to this day I take anantidepressant and I take a, an
adhd med, and that's all and um,and so I was taking that at the
time, um, um, and it was just,you know, as wild as the 12 hour
mystical experience was, youknow, the crying and the weeping
was was just as impactful.
(27:37):
It just opened something in methat like needed to open up the
grief of years of of living, youknow, of living with depression
, living with hiding it, youknow, I mean, there's a at that
time my mother had died, and thegrief around my mother's death,
the grief of all the pain that,you know, not just I
(27:59):
experienced, but you know we allexperience.
And I think that's one of thebiggest gifts I want to talk
about about this book is, youknow, when I wrote the book, it
came out of me in this way thatlike to write a book like this.
It takes it does take some egoor something you know.
It takes thinking that yourstory is worth listening to and
(28:21):
and that it's a little bitspecial or something.
But but you know, but by thetime I finished the book and
then I began talking about itand marketing it, the more and
more I realized it was such auniversal experience, a very
universal.
In the suburbs where I grew up,where you have these families
that appear to be all in the upand up and yet there's all this
(28:45):
suffering going on, but alsojust worldwide.
There's all this sufferinggoing on, and but also just
worldwide.
You know that's there's farmore suffering than I've
experienced around the world.
But it just opens something upin me and and writing the book
allowed me to see kind of theuniversal aspect of all of this.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So you return to the theme of slowing down.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
In previous conversations we had you
mentioned that and I believeit's in the book as well, and I
can even tell in the way you'rerelating this right now that
this is after India didn't havethe frenetic pace to it.
Yeah, the distraction, thebuilt-in escape elements that
(29:32):
that your prior life had.
Talk to us about, about thatand then how that led into the
work you're doing today.
Yeah, where you know, I thought, wow, this is interesting.
A guy who's suffered this muchand has faced his suffering in a
public way with a memoir, andnow he's dedicating his energies
(29:56):
to helping other people gothrough a really difficult
process.
Like, aren't you done with thesuffering?
So, like you know what I mean,you're dipping your toe in with
everybody you work with.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
So talk to us about that slowing down and then how
you segue into being a coach,really, and a guide Right, Well,
so, you know, writing is whatI've always done, and editing
and, um, and I started to teach,uh, and I landed a job working
as a, as a teacher of memoir.
Uh, when I started to teach,and I landed a job working as a,
as a teacher of memoir when Imoved to Colorado, and it just
(30:31):
slowly developed into into acoaching business.
But it's more than that, though, because it's, you know, over
the years, I just did a lot ofwhat I call self-compassion work
, and you're right to use theword slow down.
You know I was no longertraveling around the world, I
was spending a lot of time doing, you know, practices like
(30:52):
meditating and practicing yoga,and I had slowed my life down.
I'd found a lot more compassionfor myself and I started this
business of working with peopleon their memoirs and, you know,
I just I just loved it.
You know I have this capacity tohear people's stories and
(31:13):
reflect back to them, kind of a.
You know that there'slegitimacy there's, there's
something to be said there.
There's.
There's not just legitimacy,but there's gold there to offer
people in telling our stories.
And and I was, you know, Ifound that, that I just love
this work and, and you know,helping people because I had
been, you know, eventually, whenI wrote my own memoir, I saw
(31:36):
how much it healed, and therewas so much that that just of my
suffering receded into thebackground almost like like into
the rear view mirror when I,when I hit send on my manuscript
, it was just a release and I,you know, I'd seen people say
that writing memoir was healing.
But I experienced it in a waythat you know I'm convinced of
(31:59):
it, and so I learned to walkpeople through the process of
telling their story, beingvulnerable but also, you know,
turning it into a gift forsomebody.
You know, when we write amemoir, you know memoirists kind
of get a bad rap that they'renarcissistic and it's you know
(32:22):
that they must think they'rereally special to do this and I
actually think it's the opposite.
I think writing a memoir issuch an antidote to narcissism.
It's like if you can getvulnerable about your life, you
know, and share the sufferingyou've been through, but share
the stuff that helped you heal,you basically give somebody else
(32:45):
a roadmap that they can seethemselves in the story and you
give this great offering toother people in the world that
to show that healing is possible, transformation is possible,
and it just has become this joyin my life.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
So I'd imagine that when it's all distilled down
there, there are probably just afew essential themes that pop
up in in a lot of the memoirwork.
You know we were, we were doinga lot of scenarios.
It was a week long, veryintensive training and the end
of the week, like thefacilitator said, hey, did you
(33:30):
guys realize that there's likethree themes that that all of
our conflicts had in common,that we talked about and you're
going to see these all over, andone of them is like people are
seeking a sense of recognitionand belonging.
Yeah, right, you know they wantto be heard.
And I thought about those andthen I thought about in in
preparing for today'sconversation with you, I thought
(33:52):
about the memoir journey, likewhen you boil it down and you
get past all the trappings of ofthe quote-unquote interesting
things people have done.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, I'm wondering if you come down to just a few
essential themes, are you seeing, you're right, you know, and,
and I obviously one of the everymemoir is a story of how you
became.
You know you today.
But but the deeper theme ofthat really is is often coming
home to oneself and um, and youknow, and so in the in belonging
(34:25):
in one's own body and belongingin one's own life.
And you know, a good memoirnever has a really tidy ending
and no one you know, it's nottrue that we ever arrive in some
place of full enlightenment,but there's always something
else going to come down the pike.
But there is transformation aspossible, and becoming more
(34:47):
comfortable with who one is isone of the biggest themes.
It's almost like in self-lovein a weird way ends up becoming
you know by the end.
It's sort of like everybody'sjust learning to accept this
path they've been on and seeingit almost as necessary to become
who they are.
And so you're right about thatand yeah, it's this.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Uh, yeah, I know we had spoken about the hero's
journey and that joseph campbelland or, like odysseus, you know
, returning home and and somethings are the same and some
things aren't right, yeah somethings have moved on in your
time and exactly you know andyou kind of return to yourself,
but yourself is somewhat shiftedand you've got a boon, as
(35:32):
campbell would say, you've got.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You've got a gift to share with how you, how you did,
how you slayed the dragons,both in the external world and
in the internal world, you knowhow do you, how do you help your
clients navigate this?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
because the reality is very few of them.
Like in any, in any writingventure.
Very few people are going towrite a bestseller, right like
that's, the numbers just don'tplay out that way.
And most people don't even geta a big commercial publishing
contract.
Right like that's not.
That's also not how the numbersplay out.
If you're not a celebrity andif you are a celebrity, it's
(36:09):
usually someone else wrote itfor you anyway Um, so how do you
navigate that whole realitywith people who are very
enthusiastic about their memoirsand then they're going to have
to face some sort of reality andthen you know, like, how, like,
how does that journey look?
Speaker 2 (36:30):
the good news is that that self-publishing and hybrid
publishing has become really alegitimate thing now, and so so,
on the one hand, you know thosewho really want to publish
there's so many options andthere are people that sell more
books, reach more people withself-publishing and what's
called hybrid publishing than dowith landing big contracts.
(36:55):
So that's one aspect.
But then the other aspect is,you know this healing part of it
, and I try to really keeppeople focused on doing the work
.
That there's the.
You know that the payoff ismultifaceted and I try to keep a
little bit of a minimal view ofthe publishing aspect and that
(37:16):
we've got it.
We.
You know step one is a writing abook that you love and that is
hopefully has some technicalaspects to it, that the that
people love to read and so.
But then the other, yeah, sothere's just there's.
It's kind of I try to keeppeople focused on the journey
and and sort of like, letletting whatever happens to it
(37:38):
happens to it, I kind of not toget too woo woo, but there's
sort of what's supposed tohappen in this case really does
happen.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So what's the hybrid Is that's?
That's some.
You do some of itself-publishing and then like
explain that to yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So there are some companies now that are called
hybrid publishers.
They're kind of in betweenself-publishing and big time
traditional publishing.
And these companies and thereare some really reputable ones
they will, you know, edit yourbook, you know, come up with a
cover and get it into bookstoresjust like a publisher.
(38:16):
The only catch is, instead ofyou getting paid which is what
happens in traditionalpublishing you pay them but
they're actually getting thebook into bookstores.
They have marketing teamspublishing, you pay them but
they're actually getting thebook into bookstores or getting
there and they have marketingteams.
And so it's like, you know, it'snot cheap, but it's a way you
can get your book into the worldin a real way.
(38:36):
And it does have, and theydon't take everybody, by the way
.
So there's, you know, forbetter, for worse, the
gatekeeping at the bigpublishers kind of.
You know, there's somegatekeeping in a good way.
I want everyone to have theirbook into the world and you can
with self-publishing, but someof these publishers are good at
really finding writers they wantto work with, cultivating them
(38:59):
and putting their stuff into theworld in a good way, in a good
way, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So and and you've, you've lived the.
You've lived in anextraordinary period of time, I
think, when it comes tocommercial writing, right, like
cause, when you, I'd imagine,were you born 30 years later,
you would have had a verydifferent career.
Yeah, like as an adventurewriter, right, I think you
(39:24):
might've even mentioned this inyour book.
But, yeah, you know, betweenjust the, just between the what
am I trying to say?
Like between AI, which is itsown beast, and then just online
journalist, whatever that lookslike, and research that could
perhaps be some portion of it bedone remotely.
(39:46):
You know, when you started,there was no, hey, I'm going to
Google, I'm going to do Googleearth and look at this.
It was like I got to buy aplane ticket and get my rear end
there.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, I hit the sweet spot.
The nineties is, in particular,were a golden period for
magazines.
Then they were very thick,pre-internet, you know, all the
advertising was going into theseprint ads and you and we all
had big magazines on our coffeetables and they were prestigious
and and all of that and uh so,and there was money in it and
(40:15):
money for travel.
So I hit, I hit a sweet spot interms of my career.
You know, now I find myself, uh, you know, writing articles
that would have gotten paid$10,000 for.
You know, back in the nineties.
I'm doing it for free, you know, because it's part of my, you
know, part of what I love andalso part of my business plan,
(40:35):
and also, you know, just part ofputting, keep putting stories
into the world.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
So, yeah, I, and tell us about your, your substack
work as well.
So so again, if let us knowthat, the title of the, the full
title of your, of your memoir,where to find it?
And then also your sub stack,because that's really what drew
me to your work initially, andthen I went and got the book.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, so my book is called into the soul of the
world my journey to healing, andit's available.
It was published by Hachette in2023.
And it's available at all thebig bookstores and through
Amazon, and you can order itthrough your other, your
favorite indie bookstore.
Um, it's available everywhereand uh, so that's my book and,
(41:24):
um, it is the story of how Ibecame an adventure writer, how
my life fell apart and how Ikind of pieced it back together
through through all thesedifferent ways, as you know, and
then so my sub stack is calledSeeking Letters to the Restless,
so it's a newsletter that isfree right now anyway, and you
(41:44):
can sign up for it.
Look up Seeking Letters to theRestless.
And you know, I try to writekind of adventurous stories
about seeking oneself, seekingsome kind of understanding of
what a spiritual life might bewhen you're full of doubt.
It's sort of a it's foreverybody who kind of longs to
have some connection withsomething greater than
(42:07):
themselves, but also lives inthe world of science, so it's
kind of like has a foot in bothworlds.
I'm constantly trying tounderstand what that means.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
So To listeners I highly recommend it as well as
to pick up a copy of the book.
I read the book and then I wasgoing back and checking out some
of the sub stack and there wasone where where I think you had
you'd, you'd gone down to theriver and you you, I can't
remember you went swimming orsomething and I was like, oh no,
(42:38):
not, not a river, not a red,stay away from the river, yeah,
but but I think it's an, it's aninteresting recurring kind of
theme in your life.
It is.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
You know, I'm drawn to rivers.
When I lived more in downtownboulder I would walk the river
every day and it would nevereven it never crossed my mind
that the weird connection it waswith it.
So I've been to rivers all overthe world and been obsessed
with them.
And so there's.
You know, freud was I don'tknow how, if everything was
right, but he wasn't a dummyeither.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So well, there's a.
I lived in Santa Fe for a longtime, right yeah, the Pecos
River.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
So I grew up this is a crazy aside, but I grew up
hearing stories about mymaternal grandparents who had
moved from upstate New York tothe Santa Fe area so my
grandfather, who hadtuberculosis, could be in the
dry air Before antibiotics.
That's what they told you to do, and they had no money, and so
(43:42):
they rented a little shack onthe banks of the Pecos River and
the only way to get to thatshack was to walk across a
swinging bridge across the PecosRiver, and I've spent the last
I don't know how many decadestrying to find where that is.
I'm sure all the structures aregone now or whatever, but to
(44:05):
try to find where that is, and Ihave not been able to get back
there.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Well, we'll have to go down there sometime.
Yeah, down there, come out andlet's go find it.
I'd love to do that.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I hope that's in your memoir, so yeah yeah, I mean, I
, I have these stories of thesein my mind, like of of my
grandparents raising, raisingrabbits, because that that was
what I had been told like theywere.
He was ill, he was ill and shetook care of him and they raised
rabbits to sell, and it wasjust on the banks of the pecos
(44:36):
river.
And now my mom and two of mybrothers and their families live
in santa fe.
So, um, you know, who would youknow?
It's interesting, theserecurring, these loops.
Right that we come back to, wetry to, we try.
I read this thing the other dayand it's somewhat
tongue-in-cheek, but but it saidwhy are my parents always so
(44:57):
good at pushing my buttons?
I know why Because theyimplanted them there and it's
just like these.
This is not a knock on myparents' back it's like those
themes, right that come back.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
You know it's the boomerang stuff.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
A good memoir does have that kind of looping.
The past and the present arekind of constantly revisited and
things that happened at onepoint in life end up coming up
as memories later.
And yeah, there's a lot of thatin a memoir, so in life too, as
you know.
So I bet you we can find thisplace on the Pecos.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
We probably could.
Yeah, now I'm.
Now I'm going to get obsessedlike you Did you and I don't
want to dive too deep into thisbecause I know it's a personal
journey but were there evertimes when you were writing your
memoir where you were like,dude, what are you doing?
Like, like this is justrehashing things.
Like this is just rehashingthings, and I'm already a
(45:52):
successful writer by the way.
That's the style of writing iskind of a hybrid.
I love the fact that you'resuch an effective writer, apart
from the memoir theme right,because a lot of memoirs it's
just hard to get into the actual, to live into the non-fictional
(46:14):
dream part, because it's justwriting's not effective, so I
love that part.
But like, were there times whenyou said I should just be
writing about something muchmore factual, real world, and be
done with it.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
You know, at some point I became under the spell
of memoirs, and I think it wasaround 2013.
I started reading a lot of them, I began teaching them and and
began to understand what makesone you know better than than
another, and and and I just itbecame kind of this obsession.
Like we talked about obsessionsand so, you know, at that I
(46:50):
knew I was going to write one.
You know whether I ever had, youknow, I think writing about
life became and I realized Ikind of had a superpower about
it, and so, yeah, there's lotsof amazing things to write about
, and I think you can alwayswrite about those other amazing
things through a personal lens,always write about those other
(47:15):
amazing things through apersonal lens.
And that, to me, became a lotmore interesting than just going
out and writing in a like youwrite a profile of somebody and
that's fun, but if you write apersonal essay about your
meeting with them, then you havea lot more room to go down
different rows and what's thisperson mean to me, what you know
, as well as exploring them.
So it's kind of a it became abit of obsession to write in a
(47:36):
personal way about the world, soso I think there's a both and
to it, I guess, is what I'msaying it's interesting, as
you're, as you're speaking, II'm also a fan of uh, I can
never pronounce his last namesebastian junger.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, yeah, the the perfect storm guy, right, and of
course the perfect storm is anon-fiction, you know, just this
amazing narrative of courageand also a real foolhardy story
(48:16):
of thinking.
From that to then some wartimereporting and some PTSD related
experiences.
And then now his last two booksare you know, he had one about
a walk that he took as he wasgoing through a divorce.
Yeah, latest one, I think,think, is in my year of dying.
I don't know if you've readthat, but I have not read that
yet, but it's on my shelf yeahit's, it's, it's pretty powerful
(48:39):
.
Yeah, and here's this and I'mnot gonna spoil alert, I'm not,
I'm not gonna ruin it for you.
But like to this guy who waswriting about ships and and
storms and all that, and kingcrab fishing and or no, actually
it wasn't, it was tuna orwhatever that to now writing
(49:01):
about what it's like to nearlydie and be staring into the
abyss well, I know, you know, Ithink a as we age we get more
reflective and but also I knowhe's had some pts and that you
know, the past and the presentmerge together with PTSD and it
becomes a very fascinating thingto write about.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
So I think it's natural for those of us on the
other side of you know 45 or 50to be going down this road,
especially him who's done, youknow, war reporting and has some
serious, you know, has seensome things.
So Do you have another memoirin you?
I do, and I've been talkingwith my agent about it and it's
(49:46):
probably pretty reflective ofwhat I've been writing about
lately.
It's the seeking, you know,which is a theme in my other
memoir.
But for the longest time I'vewanted to have faith in God and
it's been an obsession.
And I've also, as a person whoappreciates science and was a
very scientist, journalist andwas very just the facts ma'am
(50:08):
kind of a guy.
I had these two sides andthey're always at war, and so
the book will be exploring thiskind of discussion, the inner
discussion I've had about faith.
So, and very different thoughfrom my memoir, it won't be
organized as a chronologicallyas a story.
It'll be kind of thematicallyoriented.
(50:29):
So you know a few stories fromthe past in it, but some new
ones too.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
I can't wait to uh, to read that.
It sounds, sounds like a, uh, agreat follow-up to, to your
first memoir.
What, what is uh?
What does your family thinkabout?
Um, I, that's a, that's a.
I'm asking, I'm asking for afriend.
I'm actually asking because, asI begin to put pen to paper on
(50:58):
some of my experiences, that'salways the little voice here
that's like hey, wait, can I saythat?
And if I do, I know I should,and in what way?
And so what does your familysay?
And your friends?
And you've got ex-partners andthe whole, the whole piece.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
You know, I think that one of the things that that
got me ready to write my book Idid, I did a fair amount of
therapy and I and one of thethings I finally was able to
understand is, all of us havedifferent stories.
You know even even siblings ina family, you know.
You know even even siblings ina family, you know there's.
(51:33):
You know kids have differentrelationships with their parents
than other kids, and plus birthorder, and so no story.
And I used to think that mystory had to match up.
We talked about that with mydad, this obsession that needed
to match up, and finally I letgo of that.
I'm someone who takes realityvery seriously and I know I can.
(51:56):
I've learned over time I canreally trust my own reality,
even when it's at odds withsomebody else's, and that was
that became the linchpin I hadto kind of arrive at to get
comfortable writing memoir.
You know my dad and I arefriendly.
Now we have a kind of a growingwonderful relationship.
He's, he's, you know he's 87now, um, and not in great health
(52:17):
.
Um, um, you know my brother andI haven't spoken in years and
and uh, so that's a painfulthing.
Um, and as far as friends, Ithink they probably some of them
roll their eyes at me.
I mean, the intensity with whichI write about my life is not
everybody's cup of tea, and itsort of is, and I don't care,
(52:39):
you know.
I have found.
You know, going back to one ofthe gifts of memoir is.
You know and I was writingabout this today on Substack in
a comment, a note to someone whocommented on my piece is when
you start living, finally, yourauthentic life, it's weird how,
(53:02):
like things start to click,people come into your life who
you haven't been there becauseyou've been hiding yourself and
they didn't know you were you.
And so your life begins tochange when you put stuff out
there for the better, you knowand people finally see who you
really are, and you'll you'llpull in people who you're meant
to be with and you'll you'llrepel the people that can't
handle it or don't think it'sit's not for them.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
So Wow, that's a, this whole, the idea of, of, of
truth, right.
Whose truth is the truth Right?
Speaker 2 (53:34):
And so honesty is the word that I kind of lean more
heavily into.
I do love the word truth, but Ialso know in memoir writing we
just try to be as honest as wecan, you know, and knowing that
the truth is elusive and no onehas a lock on it, and yeah, it's
so interesting, as you say,that I think about things that
(53:57):
happened to me as a kid, and orI'll be sitting hanging out with
my siblings or on a phone calland we're joking around.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
We're like, hey, you remember that time that this
happened and we were both there.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Perspective and granted, it's like 35, 40 years
ago, but the perspective istotally different.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Totally different.
Yeah, now I don't know which is.
I know what I can feel in mybody and that's all I can really
speak to.
But then I think, man, like,how much of it was, how much of
it has shifted to in myretelling and my recasting of it
(54:41):
internally over all these years, and I don't even think it
really matters that much, right,like it's what it is right now
for me.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Memory is is a very complicated thing and it is
faulty.
And the more you learn aboutmemory, they think now that
every time you have a memory youthink of some memory.
The more recent version of thatis what gets filed away.
So, you know, throw in writingabout something.
(55:08):
Now, you know, when I thinkback at some of the stuff I've
written about, the image I haveis the image that I wrote about.
And I'm not sure I can evenaccess the original memories of
years ago.
You know, because it's become acontemporary memory.
It's complicated, you know.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
How was the experience of having?
Speaker 2 (55:42):
an editor work on this, on a memoir, as opposed to
you writing about, you know,whatever Whitewater Rapids in
the Grand Canyon or somethingyou know.
First of all, I love editors.
I was one and I have alwaysworked with.
You know, I was surrounded bygreat ones at Outside.
My work always got better whenI worked with editors, so I've
been very, always very acceptingof collaborating, knowing that
writing gets better when youhave a smart person pushing you
(56:02):
and helping you.
Try to get clear about whatyou're trying to say.
As far as the memoir itself,you know, I I think because
getting my truth out, or gettingmy honest version out, was, was
so important to me.
You know, I had lived, uh, I'dhad a lot of of my experience
(56:25):
denied in my, in my family, and,and it was like just simmering
underneath me, not in anger somuch, and like I just had to get
my version of it out andfestering and festering.
And so I was so open in writingmy book I go, I go deeper and
more, probably more revealingthan than a lot of people do in
(56:48):
memoirs and way more than even I.
You know, I don't ask.
I try to help my, my studentsget vulnerable and my clients I
also know they've got to settheir guardrails for what
they're willing to share.
There's some great memoirs outthere that don't go to the bone
quite like mine does.
Um, it's just part of my naturethat I do that.
(57:10):
I don't know understand why Um,no-transcript author and the
(57:40):
reader.
But yeah, I hope that makessense.
I was open to it.
I loved it actually.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
It's how, how can?
So you've talked about the book, where obviously people can
find it online bookstores, yoursub stack.
You've got this, this.
Um, I'm not going to call it aside business, because it's the
central business, right, it'sthe?
It's what you do as well, right, is you write and you do this,
(58:09):
uh, guiding and coaching andmentoring.
How do people find you and what, what does it look like if
someone's listening to this andthey're like, hey, I've always
people always tell me I havecool stories to tell.
Or people always shocked when Itell them something and and oh
man, dude, you should write abook, you know.
And then you're like oh my God,what do I?
(58:30):
Where do I start?
How do do people find you andwhat does that guiding look like
?
Speaker 2 (58:33):
yeah, so you find me at bradwetzlercom and that's
b-r-a-d-w-e-t-z-l-e-rcom, and uh, you can read about my services
there and you can also sign upthere for a free 30-minute
consult, and that's really stepone.
So sign up and let's, let'stalk for 30 minutes.
I'll actually coach you, youknow, give you some, some ideas,
(58:55):
for if you, whether you, firstof all, we'll talk about working
together, but also even if youdon't want to work with me, I'll
, I'll coach you for 30 minutes.
So that's step one.
And then you know I havedifferent plans and they can.
You know we can talk about that.
I have six-monthwrite-your-memoir plans at
various prices, and basically wemeet either two times, three
(59:19):
times or four times a month andI walk you through the process
of writing your book and gettingyour draft done.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Again, I encourage listeners to check that out.
Encourage listeners to checkthat out.
If I'm sure you know, most ofus have at some point had
someone go, wow, that reallyyou've lived quite a life and
yeah, you know you should.
You should write some of thisdown, um, and you know it's an
interesting.
Again, I return to this theme ofI think there's because the
(59:50):
internet sphere lends itself topeople being quote unquote
experts in a lot of stuff,coaches in a lot of stuff, right
, and then you're like, yeah,you dive in and into it and you
go were they ever successful atthe original thing or were they?
Are they just successful atcoaching people to to do
something that they've nevereven done?
(01:00:11):
Right, people to to dosomething that they've never
even done, right, um, and you'vedone.
You've done the hard work.
You've been the professionalwriter, you've lived that, um,
and you understand the process,understand working with an
editor.
And then you've also gonethrough the incredibly, uh, you
know the process of openingyourself up to writing your
memoir.
You could have dodged thatwhole thing.
(01:00:32):
Your life, your whole life.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
It wasn't meant to be .
You know, to dodge it, it was.
You know.
I think I was a truth teller inmy family and it was.
I've lived it as an adult toonow, so it's something I just
it's part of my DNA.
You know.
I've got to say what's trueabout my life and the world.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
You've been so generous with your time, brad,
and I truly appreciate thisopportunity to sit down and chat
with you and I encourageeverybody to check out all the
information we talked abouttoday and I'll put it in the
show notes.
I wanted to finish with just aquestion that I ask all the
guests.
(01:01:15):
If you had the opportunity todesign a billboard and you can't
have the cop out of like Idon't believe in billboards
because they're visual pollution.
A couple of people have saidthat.
I'm like okay, this is thoughtexercise.
Okay, you can make itbiodegradable.
I know you live in Boulder.
(01:01:36):
You have the opportunity todesign a billboard for the side
of a thoroughfare or freeway.
What does that billboard sayabout what you believe in, who
you are, what you find to beimportant?
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, okay, what you believe in, who you are, what
you find to be important, yeah,um, you know, I think probably
in keeping with my sub stack, Iwould.
It would be something along thelines of keep seeking, you know
, keep, keep saying what's true,keep looking for what's true
about you and your place in theworld, and that there's uh, um,
(01:02:20):
and trusting your experience,all those things.
That's not a very tidybillboard, uh, but, but you know
, coming home to trust who youare and trust your experience
and keep opening up, that's themessage.
I think that it leads tohealing.
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
I thank you for that.
I think that's an apropos placeto pause the conversation and I
can feel in our conversationthat you've at some level come
home to a place of peace andreflection and reflectiveness.
Otherwise you wouldn't be ableto coach other people in that
authentically either.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yes, it's a good time in my life.
It's sort of I have arrivedhere at a place of, of, of calm
and and maybe not ease.
I'm always pushing myself to todo, to do new things, but this
is, this is a good season for meand I'm cherishing it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
So Well, thank you so much, Brad, and and it's been
an honor to speak with you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Thank you, David.
It's been honored Likewise.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Thanks for joining us on the hangout podcast.
You can send us an email atpodcastinfo at protonme.
Many thanks to my daughter,maya, for editing this episode.
I'd also like to underline thatthis podcast is entirely
separate from my day job and, assuch, all opinions expressed
herein are mine and mine alone.
(01:03:49):
Thanks for coming on in andhanging out.
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