Overcoming Addiction: Bruce W. Brackett's Journey to Positivity

[00:00:00] Jay: All right. And yeah, your
[00:00:03] Jay: setup works great. I know that you just put that in recently, right?
[00:00:06] Jay: Yeah. Your podcast setup. I saw that on your Instagram. I was like, all right, look at you doing the background work. A lot of people don't understand what goes into making a podcast sound professional because people are ear bigots.
[00:00:20] Jay: When it comes to sound, we have been raised on FM, which is nice and fluffy and feels great in the ears. The moment you have a little bit of a problem with your audio, it sounds like you're in the bathroom using two tin cans with your brother. It is awful. People don't want to listen to you; they hang up. You could be saying the most profound things on the planet, and they're like, nope, next.
[00:00:44] Jay: there's something to be said about putting the effort in the background. Also, I miss you and respect the process at the end of the day.
[00:00:49] Bruce: Yeah, this is how you do it. And if you want to do anything, do it. Well, I, I had, I've been on a [00:01:00] lot of podcasts, and before, I was just, working off of my iPad the sound that would go through the iPad, and I was like, okay, this is working for now. And then I started getting more and more podcasts, and then the NPR episode came through, and I was like, I need to get, I need to get with it with this.
[00:01:19] Jay: So welcome to the Tragedy Academy, a show that bridges societal divides in a judgment-free zone using candor and humor. My name is Jay. I'm super excited today. I'm here today with Bruce Brackett. How are you doing today,
[00:01:32] Jay: Bruce?
[00:01:33] Bruce: I am doing very well. I woke on the right side of the grass. I made the wake-up list, and the opportunities are that. Jay, thank you so much for having me and
[00:01:45] Bruce: to be a part of your podcast. It's an
[00:01:47] Jay: I'm just excited to have a seat and some popcorn to watch your journey. you're one of those people
[00:01:54] Jay: I get excited about coming on for the simple
[00:01:57] Jay: the fact that they're
[00:01:58] Jay: authentic as authentic can
[00:01:59] Jay: be, [00:02:00] right? That's how we're supposed to live on this rock. And you have a book coming out called How to Breathe While Suffocating.
[00:02:09] Jay: You want to tell us about that book, tell us who you are, and then we'll go from there.
[00:02:13] Bruce: Yeah. Yeah. So hello, everyone. My name is Bruce W. Brackett. I am a recovering alcoholic and addict. I am an advocate for overcoming mental health, addiction, and trauma issues. I am all about spreading love, art, connectedness, positivity, just being authentic, and sharing and listening to other people's stories.
[00:02:40] Bruce: Stories and connecting are really lacking in this world in so many different ways. I think that, being someone on social media, I find the yin and the yang of it. It has provided us with unlimited information at our [00:03:00] fingertips so quickly, but it's also created this disconnect between human beings in their everyday lives.
[00:03:07] Bruce: so I try and spread positivity and love in a way that's very authentic. that's just where I'm at now, but that's not how the journey began for me. As we all, we all start somewhere
[00:03:22] Jay: We Have To
[00:03:23] Jay: To say we don't have a story is to say we haven't been here at all.
[00:03:28] Bruce: right, yeah, exactly. And or that you haven't lived out. All of us have lived no matter what type of life or what we've experienced or what we may or may not have accomplished. You've lived.
[00:03:40] Jay: Lenses. It's all lenses. Every experience is a prescription change and no two people can see the same. You can't swap glasses at the dinner table. You can't swap glasses anywhere else when it comes to experiences in life. Gotta listen to people. Bro, you have astigmatism. I don't. So that means when you look around, shit is different.
[00:03:56] Jay: Why don't I just respect that? Why don't I just [00:04:00] believe you and go, all right, show me what astigmatism feels like?
[00:04:06] Bruce: I love that. That's a really good way of putting it. And it's so true. We're all so uniquely different, living very similar existences on this planet. So it really comes down to just being open-minded, accepting, and embracing another person's existence because it's equally impactful, even if it may not impact you in the same way that it does for someone else.
[00:04:38] Bruce: take what works for you, leave the rest. It doesn't mean that everyone is
[00:04:42] Bruce: for everyone, but just to be loving and respectful of that creates humankind in unity
[00:04:49] Jay: does. And
[00:04:51] Jay: there's that whole do unto others thing. And I'm not some
[00:04:54] Jay: guy that walks the religious path. I walk the spiritual and I take things as I see them.
[00:04:59] Jay: And there's something to [00:05:00] be said about do unto
[00:05:01] Jay: others. And that's for the simple fact that I read this. Book or this paper one time that was talking about how we meet ourselves through other people across the span of our life And that every interaction that you have with someone is just another version of you And that you can learn from them and their experiences and experience them through yourself back and forth And that you should respect it because you wouldn't do something like that to yourself in those moments Why would you do it to them?
[00:05:32] Jay: For me, that's how I've been consuming this show since this journey started for me about four or five years ago, interviewing people from all over the world in all
[00:05:40] Jay: different types of situations. And I found myself more often than not looking at him going, I see me like I don't see you except for the fact that you are you uniquely you.
[00:05:52] Jay: But the things that reflect back first are the things that I see myself and others, whether it's good, bad or indifferent.
[00:05:59] Jay: It's [00:06:00] just taking that moment to process it and figure out what it means.
[00:06:04] Bruce: Yeah. And I think there's something that you just touched on that delves into a lot of, let's say, transphobia or homophobia. When we look at something that might be different from us, it creates that panic reaction, or this is different, and I don't necessarily know what it is. It's, are you maybe saying something to yourself?
[00:06:30] Bruce: not saying that someone who is heterosexual and they're looking at
[00:06:34] Jay: you do not have to convince me of this. And everybody that listens to this show understands very much. We have a repeat guest. Her name is Aiden, a trans, artist that does some of the wildest stuff you've ever seen. But we've discussed openly in the past that. I suffered from growing up in a small hillbilly town from a condition called gynecomastia.
[00:06:59] Jay: A [00:07:00] lot of people may not know what that is. Some people do.
[00:07:03] Jay: It's
[00:07:03] Jay: a pronounced breast tissue in
[00:07:06] Jay: puberty. A fatal wound for a hillbilly kid in the middle of a redneck town that's straight.
[00:07:15] Bruce: Yeah, I
[00:07:17] Jay: I
[00:07:17] Jay: had things thrown at me. I had people shame me, and call me every f-word for gay people you could possibly
[00:07:25] Jay: imagine.
[00:07:26] Jay: He, him, what, she, whatever it was. And at the time, I didn't understand why.
[00:07:32] Jay: I, just knew why was I the person that had to take this on? I hated it. I
[00:07:36] Jay: hated it. Maybe a horrible person. So I say a lot of things that,
[00:07:40] Jay: that you've experienced. I see in myself when I was looking through your past, I'm like, we come out of those moments in life hurt with fear, defense mechanisms. And we start doing
[00:07:53] Jay: things that are out of character to protect that child.
[00:07:57] Jay: And I did that for a long time. And
[00:07:59] Jay: then I sit here and I see [00:08:00] someone like you before me with the strength and the vulnerability to say, hey, look, this is who I was. This is who I am. This is who I'm gonna be. Guess what?
[00:08:09] Jay: They're all the same. I feel that. That whole transphobia thing really resonates deeply with me for the simple fact that I just couldn't get away from it. All, and it made me hurt for people to know that was happening to someone who knew who they were.
[00:08:29] Bruce: Yeah,
[00:08:30] Jay: That's a pain that I can't replicate.
[00:08:32] Jay: It gave
[00:08:33] Jay: me a lens that I honestly don't deserve.
[00:08:37] Bruce: but by the same token, I would imagine that I gave you the other side of it where you know what you don't want to tolerate and what you don't want to be putting out
[00:08:48] Jay: I have zero tolerance, which gets me in trouble at times. But tell me about yourself and what it was like going through that journey knowing who you are
[00:08:59] Bruce: [00:09:00] Thank you for sharing that with me. I, I can relate in, different I, do grow up in a very small ranching community in Montana, where if you were a different color, a different identity, if you were gay, if you had a disability, if you were different in any way, and you just weren't welcomed.
[00:09:23] Bruce: And they would just, kids, in general, are terrible. With bullying and
[00:09:33] Jay: they're just protecting themselves and we live in this like Tetris world Where we have to place ourselves in a fixed position no matter what our shape, we'll even contort to it and hold ourselves there, and we have to tell other people that they're not as good So we don't
[00:09:51] Jay: Let go of any of those lines between the two of us. We try to either hold them or stay on top of them with pain and rhetoric and whatever you can [00:10:00] think of to make them feel bad so that they don't feel good next to you.
[00:10:04] Jay: So you realize that you're not happy
[00:10:06] Bruce: yeah, and just to clarify, kids are not terrible. I didn't mean that in general. I'm just saying that kids bully kids, and they bully each other. I was bullied immensely, but I
[00:10:26] Bruce: also. bullied because I was
[00:10:28] Bruce: Hurt people. Hurt people, and healing people heal themselves as well as they heal others.
[00:10:35] Bruce: And eventually, you come to that in your own way, in your own timing. And I'm just, I'm fortunate enough that started to come to me in my late twenties, early thirties. Some people never get it.
[00:10:47] Bruce: but
[00:10:47] Jay: Congratulations. Not many people get that key, and not many people recognize that it is in their hands.
[00:10:54] Bruce: yeah. And you
[00:10:55] Jay: that key, they just don't use it.
[00:10:58] Bruce: you have access to it [00:11:00] any moment. You can literally change the trajectory of your human being's existence at any moment.
[00:11:06] Bruce: You are the engineer of your
[00:11:07] Bruce: outcome. So who do you want to be? Be who you want to be right
[00:11:11] Bruce: now. Even if it's something in the future that you
[00:11:13] Bruce: fantasize, and you're like, I want to be that person. Start acting like them now.
[00:11:18] Jay: person. Just go. It's that fragile.
[00:11:22] Jay: Yeah, the difference between success and non-success is action. Simply that. Our egos are so fragile and made up that we can create completely different personalities and trajectories in life at the drop of a dime—immediately. Why? Because time is a mental illness.
[00:11:44] Jay: The future and The past are something We contemplate in the now. The fuck out of here. I'm going to go today. Today is the moment. Yesterday happened today, too. Tomorrow happened today, too. So why don't I just live all three of them right now and be grateful [00:12:00] for what I have and not worry about what anybody else thinks? And I only say these things because I got to remind myself every effing day that I'm worth sitting in this chair and that I'm worth talking to people, that I'm worth just sharing space with other people.
[00:12:15] Bruce: Absolutely. Absolutely. The thing that we really forget is we're so busy.
[00:12:24] Bruce: Just trying to get to where is that we want to go or like today is tomorrow's yesterday We
[00:12:31] Bruce: I don't need to get to the point where I'm not where I need to be in life. I'm not where I think I should be in life. Calm down.
[00:12:39] Bruce: The world is moving at a thousand
[00:12:41] Jay: whose ideal that is.
[00:12:43] Bruce: Yeah,
[00:12:45] Jay: a rough one. If you sit and ask, whose ideal are you trying to fill, your own
[00:12:49] Jay: or the one that was given to you since birth?
[00:12:52] Bruce: Who are you
[00:12:54] Bruce: going to accept yourself to be? And those are things that I really had to ask
[00:12:57] Bruce: myself. [00:13:00] From the beginning, I was born to detox from drugs and alcohol. And
[00:13:04] Bruce: I was from that taken home and to my birth family where we were, with my older siblings, I'm the youngest of four
[00:13:13] Bruce: older sisters and we. At that time, in the 90s,
[00:13:18] Bruce: had one of the worst repaid, reported abuse cases in the
[00:13:22] Bruce: state of Montana
[00:13:23] Bruce: at the time. So, we were removed by the
[00:13:25] Bruce: state of Montana and put into
[00:13:27] Bruce: foster care system and so on
[00:13:29] Bruce: to be later adopted. If you guys know anything about the foster care system, it really is not cookie-cutter.
[00:13:37] Bruce: Program everyone has a different experience
[00:13:39] Bruce: and for the majority of people within the foster
[00:13:42] Bruce: care system or the in in-adoption System, especially if they have siblings they're separated and they go
[00:13:49] Bruce: Through many different foster homes. Some of them are fortunate enough to be adopted. Many of them graduated out of the foster care system at the age of 18 and were never [00:14:00] adopted.
[00:14:00] Bruce: My experience was not that with my siblings. We were in the foster care system very briefly and only went through to foster homes. The second one ended up being our adoptive parents. And
[00:14:12] Jay: It's amazing.
[00:14:13] Bruce: Yeah, no, we were
[00:14:15] Jay: That is, that's a truly amazing story. A lot of people don't get That, like you just
[00:14:20] Bruce: They don't.
[00:14:21] Bruce: They really
[00:14:22] Bruce: don't. And the second we were
[00:14:26] Bruce: removed from my birth family, the angels were with us. There was a higher power that was like, nope, you guys are going to start receiving good. And yeah. Even though we were removed, the abuse was extreme. It was physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect.
[00:14:45] Bruce: my birth mom would disappear for weeks to a year on end and leave us with our grandparents or abusive babysitters. Like the, you can paint the picture [00:15:00] for yourself. Abuse on.
[00:15:08] Bruce: Just because you're removed from the trauma or the abuse doesn't mean that, okay, everything's better now,
[00:15:15] Jay: Don't you love how people think that?
[00:15:16] Bruce: Yeah, it's not how it works. It follows you for a long time You have to do the work for yourself and we were fortunate enough that my adopted parents put us into trauma therapy immediately
[00:15:30] Jay: Thank God.
[00:15:31] Bruce: When we were placed with them, and it's a rollercoaster, recovery on any level is not a linear journey; it is, it's, Again, not cookie cutter. Go at your own pace. Take your time. Do what works for you. Try all of the things. Try
[00:15:50] Jay: your own fuck ups. They're nobody's business but your own. You effed up and did this or that because of whatever reason impacted you in the [00:16:00] past. Everybody else is looking in; it's Like trying to judge fish in a fish tank. Fucking, that one did three more loops. There's nothing going on in there. Just watch, right? Or maybe throw some empathy in here. Don't judge what's going on inside the tank. From the outside of the glass.
[00:16:19] Bruce: There's no. Yeah. Judgment is, it is a poison
[00:16:27] Bruce: that we choose to, that we choose to take. And. Everyone has an experience in this world, just by looking at someone, you may or may not know anything of what it is that they're going through, what they have been through, what they've overcome, and it be kind, be openly minded, be loving, and not just to people that you get along with, be loving and compassionate and open-minded to your enemies, to the people that you don't, or that you disagree [00:17:00] with.
[00:17:00] Bruce: It doesn't mean you have to be best friends and keep them in your life, but they're people, too. And whether you're right or wrong doesn't make you any greater or less than anyone else's experience. It's one of my favorite quotes. Don't compare yourself to anyone because you will become bitter; compare yourself to yourself, and you will become so much better.
[00:17:24] Bruce: Keep moving forward
[00:17:25] Bruce: with that. Be better than the version of yourself from five minutes
[00:17:28] Bruce: ago.
[00:17:29] Jay: Exactly.
[00:17:30] Jay: And just Stop trying to achieve better and accept that you are amazing in the form that you are right As soon as we start to love ourselves, and you know I've had my struggles and grew up in a rural pasture with no refrigerator We had a cooler for the longest time the front door was boarded shut You know all that kind of happy crap and it does stick with You I use the analogy of the rope all the time. The rope is [00:18:00] us. We come out a nice, clean piece of rope.
[00:18:03] Jay: And then throughout our lives, we'll cross through trials and tribulations. And we have a choice. With
[00:18:09] Jay: age, we don't necessarily get that choice. But as we grow older, we get a choice. Do
[00:18:13] Jay: we
[00:18:14] Jay: it? Or do we tie a knot in our rope and take it up later?
[00:18:19] Jay: But what happens as you begin to tie those knots and tie those
[00:18:23] Jay: knots and tying those knots into the same rope become just an unusable mess, right?
[00:18:31] Jay: and
[00:18:31] Jay: then, at what point can you do anything for yourself or anybody
[00:18:34] Jay: else there? Now, You're worthless until when the moment that you sit down and untie your
[00:18:39] Jay: knots, For me, that was meditation.
[00:18:43] Jay: Meditation allowed me to sit down
[00:18:45] Jay: and everybody's got their own way. But for me, it was meditation, sitting down and
[00:18:48] Jay: just
[00:18:49] Jay: let myself look at the knots, look at the knots, look at the knots, look at the knots until they start to come
[00:18:54] Jay: apart. There's a really cool phenomenon as you start to unravel knots, what [00:19:00] happens the deeper you get into it, the more knots unravel at the same time, the faster it comes apart, the longer the rope gets really fast.
[00:19:08] Jay: The beginning sucks. especially if it's like fucking thread. I think that's what mine was just a big ball of thread. It was just that asinine.
[00:19:15] Jay: right
[00:19:15] Jay: but you sit there, and you pull them
[00:19:17] Jay: apart if through things now, And we say you know what this is gonna
[00:19:23] Jay: hurt. This is gonna fucking hurt, but I don't want it to hurt next, Like who saves all their vegetables in
[00:19:32] Jay: life to eat before they die. that
[00:19:37] Bruce: That's so
[00:19:39] Bruce: true. No, not at
[00:19:42] Jay: don't want my broccoli. Oh,
[00:19:45] Bruce: you bring up that rope metaphor. It's really beautiful. I use, in my motivational speeches on stage, I have a very long chain of really. Thick, heavy chain and very [00:20:00] similar to what you're describing, and you go, the chain is the line of your life, and when you go through life, things are going to happen.
[00:20:09] Bruce: It's inevitable. People are going to hurt you. You're going to hurt other people. You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to learn. You're going to have success. You're going to have failures that you learn from that allow you to get to your successes. It's all just a whole bunch of life, right? On any of those experiences, the visualization that I do is I pick up the, chain and I start to wrap it around my, I'm getting fireworks.
[00:20:34] Jay: dude, that was amazing. Like ever since they started enacting all of these apple-like emoticons those
[00:20:40] Jay: of you that. are not looking or can't see. He just got fireworks, Thumbs up, and everything in between based on his
[00:20:47] Jay: hand motions. And I love it because you deserve
[00:20:49] Jay: those.
[00:20:50] Bruce: That was interesting. That pulled my attention for a second.
[00:20:54] Jay: Sorry about that.
[00:20:55] Bruce: no, it's good. That was fun. I, so when these [00:21:00] life experiences happen, I start to wrap the chain around my, body or around my neck. And it's all about what it is that you want to carry with you through your life, and when you're done with the bullshit, you drop the chains.
[00:21:16] Jay: It's a metaphor.
[00:21:19] Bruce: it's another. It is
[00:21:21] Jay: I use
[00:21:22] Bruce: is heavy
[00:21:23] Jay: There are masks, and I love the analogy where you use shit-covered helium
[00:21:29] Jay: balloons that you complain about. Just think about it.
[00:21:33] Jay: that. All of those
[00:21:34] Jay: issues. That you have are voluntary because we make a choice to focus on them and give them life within our own life, right? And if they were, just metaphorically, a shit-covered balloon next to you, you would be walking up to your friends complaining about the smell of the balloons.
[00:21:51] Jay: That you could let
[00:21:53] Jay: go. All you have to do is let them go, and they will float away.
[00:21:57] Jay: Instead, you're wrapping them around your [00:22:00] fingers.
[00:22:00] Jay: You're tying knots in them. You're trying to take those shitty balloons everywhere you go and tell.
[00:22:04] Jay: everybody, why you shouldn't smell like shit.
[00:22:08] Jay: what do you expect to happen, man?
[00:22:12] Bruce: yeah
[00:22:13] Jay: get what you focus on.
[00:22:15] Bruce: absolutely It's it. Yeah, I love that. It's so true. It is so true. It's you know, it's the It's, someone comes along in your life and they stab you in the back, metaphorically. Who hurt you? They did. Okay, you go through life a little bit more, and you still have that knife in your back.
[00:22:44] Bruce: Who's hurting you?
[00:22:45] Jay: They're not there anymore.
[00:22:47] Bruce: They're not there anymore, and you're allowing yourself to carry that knife in your back? Take them down! Take the knife out. You don't need to,
[00:22:53] Jay: A hundred percent.
[00:22:54] Bruce: so I do, I talk a lot about this in my motivational [00:23:00] speeches and as a keynote speaker. I, but the thing is, and I really want to be clear within my book. I don't share that because this part of the journey in my book is just explaining and sharing my story more so in a storytelling way of what it was that happened. To up to the point where I became sober from hardcore drugs, and then that's when the book ends. And then I have a second book that's going to be telling about really how it is that I started to do the work to get to where I am today with the negativity being gone and opening up and having positivity welcome into my
[00:23:41] Jay: beyond positive, and I love it. And it's not influencer positive. There's a huge difference. Like I listened to
[00:23:51] Jay: one of your, I think it was your interview where you were talking about, and I even wrote this down because
[00:23:57] Jay: it.
[00:23:58] Jay threw me off for just a [00:24:00] moment.
[00:24:00] Jay: And it was that there are certain days you feel
[00:24:03] Jay: silly running up to a camera in
[00:24:06] Jay: the
[00:24:06] Jay: woods.
[00:24:09] Jay: I think that we're taught that we're supposed to
[00:24:11] Jay: feel silly when we're being
[00:24:13] Jay: ourselves. Because I would argue that every time you run up to that camera, and you let go of every
[00:24:19] Jay: another chain that you've been holding, that's why everybody loves looking at you,
[00:24:23] Jay: and looking you right in the
[00:24:24] Jay: eyes. the true time you're being yourself. So if you do feel silly, it's because you probably are. And you should be,
[00:24:32] Bruce: yes,
[00:24:33] Jay: that's the way I look at it. Sorry. It was just that that was important to me because I heard that. I was like, I get it. I get it. Cause I do this, I hate videos where I talk to a camera.
[00:24:44] Jay: Won't do it. Hate it. Everybody has pushed me on our team. I can't do it. You amaze me. You get in
[00:24:51] Jay: there, and you bury your soul three inches from the
[00:24:54] Jay: screen. Whereas me
[00:24:57] Jay: Couldn't have my life dependent on it. So give [00:25:00] yourself some credit, man. It might feel silly, But at the same time silly as somebody else's fucking benchmark, not yours.
[00:25:07] Bruce: thank you for that. That you're so right. Thank you for that. It's,
[00:25:13] Jay: We need that
[00:25:15] Bruce: Yeah, and I might feel silly. I am, a
[00:25:20] Jay: dude. You are
[00:25:21] Bruce: And I am. I'm serious when I need to be, angry when I need to be, happy when I need to be, and overcoming negativity when I need to be. We are human. We have the spectrum of all of it. And I really encourage anyone listening to not try to be different.
[00:25:41] Bruce: Don't try and fit in, be exactly who it is that you are. And your life will go swimmingly. It doesn't matter what other people have to say or think about you, Hell, if they're thinking about you or talking about you, You're, the focus of subject. Who [00:26:00] cares if it's good or bad? You're be
[00:26:03] Jay: everything they want to do,
[00:26:05] Bruce: Yeah.
[00:26:06] Jay: if it's not the exact action. It's just simple authenticity to stand up and be yourself,. Everybody in the face is unwilling to accept themselves while looking at you. They're just pulling you down because it's easier to stay in the victim chair than it is to step over their
[00:26:23] Jay: own shit and realize they're amazing in their own right.
[00:26:26] Bruce: Yes. With just piggybacking off of what you just said, I'm sure that we've all heard or experienced the, could you tone it down a little bit when you're, and it's, it's not because you're too painful. It's because they are uncomfortable and it's about them and they're projecting their limits onto you.
[00:26:53] Bruce: It has nothing to do with who you are or with your being too much.
[00:26:57] Jay: too you
[00:26:59] Bruce: You're, [00:27:00] Yeah, And that scares them and makes them uncomfortable. So what? I'm sorry. Just be you. I'm not sorry.
[00:27:07] Jay: to the lighthouse man. The lighthouse doesn't ask anybody for any help. It just is a lighthouse. It shines its light, it doesn't fucking change anything with its
[00:27:16] Jay: The entire process, and people are guided by it. Stand up, be you, let your flame, your freak flag fly, whatever the fuck it.
[00:27:24] Jay: is, just be you because there's probably a good
[00:27:28] Jay: chance
[00:27:29] Jay: that fact that
[00:27:30] Jay: You felt like high-fiving some weirdo in Target walking by you in his Dockers because he needed a high five.
[00:27:36] Jay: You intuitively knew that. You knew that he needed something, but the only reason why you didn't give him a high five is because someone might laugh at
[00:27:44] Jay: you.
[00:27:45] Bruce: Yeah.
[00:27:47] Jay: And to think that you denied somebody
[00:27:50] Jay: you the only job that you're given you're given
[00:27:54] Jay: one job. The rest of them are fucking self-imposed
[00:27:58] Bruce: [00:28:00] Yes. Yeah.
[00:28:00] Jay: Like, just
[00:28:01] Jay: be
[00:28:04] Jay: and that's what I see when you come on the screen, and I can also see that you
[00:28:07] Jay: share the pain
[00:28:09] Jay: People don't understand that, like we were explaining the trauma that comes from a background and a childhood like your own
[00:28:16] Jay: also
[00:28:17] Jay: creates This micro understandings and intakes of your surroundings at any
[00:28:24] Jay: given moment.
[00:28:24] Jay: It means
[00:28:25] Jay: that you feel everybody's pain and everybody is dangerous,
[00:28:29] Bruce: Yeah.
[00:28:30] Jay: right? So you're looking for both ends of the spectrum at all times. And that's what ends up causing those pains.
[00:28:35] Jay: that put us in the throes of
[00:28:37] Jay: addiction. Or ways to quiet the mind,
[00:28:42] Jay: self-loathing for what could have happened or what you did do because of the pain from before that.
[00:28:49] Jay: Dude, addictions are a nasty bitch,
[00:28:52] Bruce: and
[00:28:52] Jay: they are, as well said by one of our former guests, addiction is a cry for an ascension.
[00:28:59] Bruce: [00:29:00] it is, and it's a symptom,
[00:29:02] Jay: It is.
[00:29:03] Bruce: even though I was born an addict, I was born into detox from drugs and alcohol; later on in life, I have
[00:29:13] Bruce: the choice to numb me because I, of the self-loathing, of the self-hatred, of something that I was feeling, so the symptom, or the, what I thought was the solution to fix that, Was diving into drugs and alcohol.
[00:29:32] Bruce: And was that solution? No, that was pouring gas onto the fire. And it wasn't necessarily about that. I was running from myself. And the way that I did that was through, And it's Again, recovery in any respect, whether it's addiction, mental health, the physical recovery that you're going through, [00:30:00] is something that you don't necessarily have to be ready for, but be willing.
[00:30:06] Bruce: When you're willing, the readiness will come. That is when we're able to ask for help. Even though. Asking for help for so many people is very uncomfortable, and we shy against that whether it's in recovery or you started a new job that you know nothing about and have to go.
[00:30:25] Bruce: through the training process, you're afraid to be like, Hey, I don't know what I'm doing here.
[00:30:28] Bruce: Can you
[00:30:29] Bruce: Help me? Everyone has help in one respect or another. Everyone has to ask for help. You don't become successful without having other people help you along the way. We look at all of these incredible influencers or these really outrageously successful humans who have accomplished so much in their lives.
[00:30:58] Bruce: And we think, oh, [00:31:00] they, just, they figured it out on their own. No. N Huh.
[00:31:05] Jay: Nobody goes up and gets in front of everybody and gets them, their little trophy and says, I thank me.
[00:31:14] Bruce: Right.
[00:31:17] Jay: Unless a piece of shit or making a joke. You can love yourself in that moment. But you don't get up, and you start naming off all those amazing talents That gave you the tools to stand up in front of everybody and throw your passion out there.
[00:31:37] Bruce: I'm nominated for the Cheer Choice Awards this year.
[00:31:41] Jay: Oh, please do that
[00:31:43] Bruce: when I go
[00:31:44] Jay: Thank me
[00:31:44] Bruce: stage and I accept my award, I will just ignore everyone else in the
[00:31:52] Jay: please do a shout-out to the tragedy academy when you do that
[00:31:56] Bruce: Oh, that's so [00:32:00] funny.
[00:32:00] Jay: I think that's amazing, though, but honestly, that is the first person you should thank On the list. Shit, who's the one closest to It's not anybody else who showed up every morning.
[00:32:12] Bruce: I have to thank, and I don't disagree with you, but I have to thank the universe for allowing me and providing me with the, withal or the God. What's the word I'm looking for?
[00:32:26] Jay: The wherewithal No
[00:32:32] Bruce: getting sober. Because without my sobriety, I would have nothing.
[00:32:36] Bruce: I wouldn't have my book, my partner, or the property that I own.
[00:32:41] Bruce: I wouldn't
[00:32:42] Bruce: have my life, my health. I wouldn't. Without my sobriety, I would have nothing. In fact, with the way that I was going, I would have been dead a long time ago.
[00:32:57] Bruce: had I not sobered up, I mean [00:33:00] towards the end there
[00:33:02] Bruce: of my active
[00:33:03] Bruce: addiction provided me with my beginning.
[00:33:06] Bruce: And I think
[00:33:07] Bruce: that's so important for people to
[00:33:08] Bruce: realize because we feel like it's going to be the end, and it's
[00:33:11] Bruce: not, you haven't even lived yet; towards the end there, I was overdosing, and I got every STD under the sun. I was a sex worker, and I was diagnosed HIV positive right before I was 21 with acute hepatitis C pneumonia.
[00:33:30] Bruce: syphilis. I had it all.
[00:33:33] Jay: went for it. You lived life as hard as you fucking possibly could
[00:33:37] Bruce: to the danger, to
[00:33:39] Jay: Yeah. No,
[00:33:40] Bruce: And I did. And it was, sometimes God, what's
[00:33:45] Bruce: the saying? Pain is the admittance of life when you want to start living and having it be a beautiful existence. Sometimes, you have to go through that pain and hit [00:34:00] that rock bottom.
[00:34:00] Bruce: And for me, I'm not a first-time winner. I've
[00:34:03] Jay: no
[00:34:04] Bruce: rock bottom so many times.
[00:34:07] Jay: hundred percent, and that's what I
[00:34:09] Jay: I was gonna ask this question's been weighing on my
[00:34:11] Jay: mind, I like to use the analogy that we have to be on our knees to
[00:34:16] Jay: plant the tree You
[00:34:18] Jay: for who we're going to become for our new
[00:34:20] Jay: life. What was that moment for you? And I understand that there will be repeated moments where we go back and have to dig the hole, add more water, or try all that kind of stuff again.
[00:34:32] Jay: I
[00:34:32] Jay: get that. But there's a mindful moment
[00:34:36] Jay: in an addict's life, where they go. Wait,
[00:34:41] Jay: I can't do this any longer.
[00:34:45] Bruce: Yeah,
[00:34:46] Jay: Do you have a moment in time that you look
[00:34:50] Jay: back to?
[00:34:51] Bruce: I do. I, as you said, have several causes. I had to relearn a lesson because I didn't learn it [00:35:00] the first time. But when I became sober from crystal meth, that was my drug of choice with crack, cocaine, ketamine, MDU,
[00:35:06] Jay: I'm from Florida, man. it. around this for a long time. I've dealt with it.
[00:35:11] Jay: in my family before I've
[00:35:14] Jay: seen the throes of meth addiction. I understand the withdrawals.
[00:35:17] Jay: come with it, the cravings, the dreams, the things that it's one of the worst drugs on the planet
[00:35:22] Jay: because it's all
[00:35:23] Jay: manufactured.
[00:35:24] Bruce: It's, it, yeah, it's a bitch. In the end, I remember it vividly and painfully. I was already reaching out for help. I was already in outpatient rehab, and I was attending the meetings going to 12-step programs, and I was still slipping, still relapsing. It's not like I was just cold turkey; the rest was great.
[00:35:59] Bruce: that's [00:36:00] not how it was for me. I was initially slipping, and on June 12th, 2014, I went out to hook up with someone. I took a few puffs off of their pipe, thinking that it was meth, and it probably was, but it was most definitely also mixed with something else. and almost immediately, I just started vomiting and hugged the toilet for an hour and did not hook up.
[00:36:38] Bruce: But the amount of pain that was pulsating in my brain, it felt like my brain was melting out of my ears, and it was unbelievably painful. And I, this was beyond a migraine.
[00:36:56] Jay: It sounds
[00:36:57] Jay: like
[00:36:58] Bruce: It was absolutely [00:37:00] terrifying. I'm in an unfamiliar hotel with a stranger, and I am 30 of a cab ride away from home and don't have money. In just a very unsafe environment to the point where, you know, he kept smoking. It got to a point of me Like I was no longer throwing up anything I had to chug water just so that I could get something out of me without dry heaving and Got to a point where he looked at me and he's like you have to leave like This is dumb.
[00:37:37] Bruce: And I was like, thank you so much for your help.
[00:37:40] Jay: Classy.
[00:37:41] Bruce: yeah,
[00:37:42] Jay: Didn't even hold your hair. What an asshole.
[00:37:45] Bruce: yeah, no,
[00:37:46] Jay: That's your job at this moment.
[00:37:48] Bruce:, seeing that I was having an allergic reaction to whatever it was that I was smoking didn't, but this is what you do when you're an active addiction. You're [00:38:00] extremely selfish, and you don't care.
[00:38:02] Jay: is all hell.
[00:38:03] Bruce: Luckily, I got myself home by a cab ride. I guess I had enough for the cab, and the next day, I woke up still very much hungover from the night before, but my brain, my head wasn't like pulsing anymore. but I was definitely in the withdrawal process, and I took everything that I had affiliated with it: the pipe, the drugs, the torch,
[00:38:33] Bruce: photos, I took everything, anything that had to do with it.
[00:38:38] Bruce: And I went to this, the only mausoleum cemetery in Manhattan, just a few blocks from my apartment in Harlem. And I went and I sat on the top of this hill, which was domed over one of the mausoleums. And there was this vent in the ground with this rock that I still have to this day. [00:39:00] And I took the rock and I crushed up everything that I had and I just brushed it down into this vent.
[00:39:08] Bruce: I guess it went down
[00:39:10] Jay: you hope like the poor guy down there that's in the crematoriums getting hit with like their old pipe residue and stuff underground
[00:39:17] Bruce: I got the ghost high. Sorry. I'm so sorry.
[00:39:23] Jay: That's no. I'm with you. That's an amazing moment.
[00:39:28] Bruce: I let it go, and I had my own burial service for my addiction, and very soon after that, it started to rain
[00:39:38] Bruce: And it was like I was being washed away and cleansed and released from that, and I've been sober from it ever since. As of June 13th, 2014.
[00:39:49] Bruce: We're approaching 10 years, and since then, I have painted this portrait, this abstract portrait of what I call crystal stuck in the rain [00:40:00] of my vision of what it was that I see my active addiction at that time of what I would put it. Form of a portrait, and she's beautiful. Like, really, she's
[00:40:13] Jay: Your art is amazing, by the way,
[00:40:14] Bruce: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. You've probably seen her then. She's her hairline.
[00:40:23] Jay: going to
[00:40:23] Jay: Ask, it's a very unique-looking feature—the face, the whole nine. I'm glad that you're describing this because I had this question. I was like, it's very intriguing. It's almost like when you look at the Mona Lisa, something makes you continue to look at it.
[00:40:42] Jay: I'm not saying, but I feel that way; it's an amazing picture, but there's more behind the
[00:40:50] Bruce: Yeah.
[00:40:51] Jay: more behind the picture because the eyes really
[00:40:54] Bruce: yeah. And that's the thing though is like in some of the versions that I've done of [00:41:00]
[00:41:00] Bruce: her hair is
[00:41:02] Bruce: separated, you can peek into her soul, her cheekbones are very sunken in and very elaborate because she's a meth addict, and she's mysterious because her eyes are hidden from her hair being in front of her face, but she's vibrant and colorful and beautiful in the same regard.
[00:41:25] Jay: most addicts are
[00:41:27] Bruce: because there is that beauty inside of everybody, no matter what you're facing, you too can overcome and recover. You have to listen to that light. That's inside of you, and that's what saved me. Towards the end, in the, hotel and that next day, I chose to listen to that
[00:41:48] Bruce: little light, even though it was almost extinguished, I chose to listen to
[00:41:52] Jay: It doesn't go
[00:41:53] Jay: out.
[00:41:53] Bruce: I, it doesn't, and it might get
[00:41:56] Jay: It'll get tiny. It'll look like an ember. I
[00:41:59] Jay: can
[00:41:59] Bruce: but [00:42:00] No, if you choose it, and you listen to it, and you
[00:42:04] Bruce: hold onto it with everything in your being,
[00:42:09] Bruce: it becomes a bonfire, and it becomes from space.
[00:42:14] Bruce: And that's how I want to,
[00:42:17] Bruce: that's how I want to
[00:42:18] Bruce: live, And now that I'm on this side of it,
[00:42:21] Bruce: of my addiction, and I am doing what it is that I'm
[00:42:27] Bruce: doing; there are many people, not saying that everyone has to do this, but for me, now that I'm on this side of it, I find it to be my responsibility to go back with buckets of water for those who are still left in flames, which is why I do what I do on social media, it is, it's not about it's not about the views.
[00:42:49] Bruce: It's not
[00:42:49] Jay: So
[00:42:50] Bruce: people following me. It's not about that. I'm very blessed, and I'm honored that comes from it. That's just one of the gifts, but it's not about that. It's about being an advocate [00:43:00] for those who are left behind. Someone did that for me. Now that I'm on the side of it, it's my turn to pass that on.
[00:43:06] Bruce: that's what it's about. And when I see the response from thousands of people just Who really get it, and they look past the outfit, or they look past the fan, and, or the silliness, and they listen to
[00:43:21] Jay: I ordered a shirt today, by the way.
[00:43:23] Bruce: Did you? Thank you so much.
[00:43:25] Jay: Yeah, I was super excited about It
[00:43:28] Bruce: Which one did you
[00:43:29] Jay: it's just what is it? It says, breathe, you're fantastic. What was it? I think it was a fan, and it said, I want to say it was like, you've got this,
[00:43:42] Jay: or
[00:43:43] Bruce: you're doing a fantastic job.
[00:43:44] Jay: that's what it was. I think so. It was cool.
[00:43:47] Jay: I was like, I didn't realize the fan was your thing. Even when I bought it, I just liked what it said. It looked like it was. It was just a good motto, and I thought, I'll take that.
[00:43:56] Bruce: thank you.
[00:43:57] Jay: Yeah, and I encourage more people to take a [00:44:00] look. You have interesting stuff on there. It's not just a shirt, a hat, or a mug that comes from wherever.
[00:44:09] Jay: You have other things on there. Do you want to tell some people some of the stuff in your shop?
[00:44:12] Bruce: Yeah, I've got my catchphrases on t-shirts, like the negativity be gone, which many people resonate with. But I try, and if I'm going to do merch, I want it to be a positive impact for not only the person who is purchasing it, but the person that you're walking by on the street when they read your shirt, that it, it sends a message to them, Hey, You're, doing fine.
[00:44:41] Bruce: Keep going. keep, you're doing a fantastic
[00:44:45] Jay: keeping on.
[00:44:46] Bruce: and another one that I find powerful is that Let go of your past because
[00:44:57] Bruce: it's already let go of you [00:45:00] just, it has already, it happened five minutes ago. It's
[00:45:05] Bruce: thinking about you anymore.
[00:45:07] Jay: Why would you keep somebody in your apartment that didn't pay? Exactly.
[00:45:12] Bruce: Why? Why? Why keep that knife in
[00:45:15] Bruce: your back?
[00:45:15] Jay: Exactly.
[00:45:16] Bruce: Let go. We are not museums. Let go of the
[00:45:20] Bruce: shit.
[00:45:21] Jay: We sure like to believe we should be on display. We also think that we're supposed to be all sparkly, too. Now, I look like an old that's been drugged behind a car with one leg on it and a hole in the I don't give a shit!
[00:45:37] Bruce: no, you do not.
[00:45:39] Jay: But no, metaphorically, I do! But guess what?
[00:45:43] Jay: I got to play! Who wants to be on a shelf in a box? There's no point. You've not been You yet.
[00:45:52] Bruce: Yeah,
[00:45:53] Jay: You've been what everybody wants to look at in fact, dad Like that
[00:45:58] Jay: seems like a whole lot of work [00:46:00] for somebody else's eyes
[00:46:01] Bruce: Yeah, I'm okay. I'd rather observe, I'd rather live, I'd rather have the experiences,
[00:46:08] Jay: 100 percent, you're an amazing human, and I have to tell you, and I haven't even told my dad this. I can't believe I'm saying it. On
[00:46:15] Jay: the show, but your name is very special to me. It's my father's middle name, Bruce.
[00:46:22] Jay: It will be my son's middle name.
[00:46:24] Bruce: Oh, wow. Oh, wow.
[00:46:26] Jay: So, just everything happens for a reason. I thought it was very interesting that you know you had the same name because many people don't. That name didn't survive as much as it should have
[00:46:38] Bruce: No, it didn't. And I have not met many Bruces,
[00:46:44] Jay: a solid name
[00:46:45] Bruce: Before, and it's really funny now actually looking back at it, when I was living in New York City, and I was wandering around Christopher Street trying to buy weed off of someone.
[00:46:55] Jay: How the good old days
[00:46:58] Bruce: yeah, when I was [00:47:00] 19, and I did, I ended up finding
[00:47:02] Bruce: this person is somewhere on Christopher Street and,
[00:47:08] Bruce: I
[00:47:09] Bruce: bought a piece of pizza, and we sat down on the curb together, and we ate pizza, and he was able
[00:47:16] Bruce: to, he had a connection for someone that had
[00:47:19] Bruce: weed. And I introduced myself, and I was like, hi, I'm Bruce. And he was like,
[00:47:25] Bruce: shut the fuck up. I was like, excuse me. And he was
[00:47:28] Bruce: like,
[00:47:29] Jay: Sorry?
[00:47:30] Bruce: yeah, he was like, my name is
[00:47:32] Bruce: Bruce. And I was like,
[00:47:33] Bruce: what are the odds of that
[00:47:36] Jay: you opened up a Bruce time warp like a black hole. No two Bruce's have ever met each other.
[00:47:42] Bruce: I know. I know.
[00:47:44] Bruce: And I literally, I've
[00:47:45] Bruce: only met,
[00:47:48] Jay: I don't know what happened to the name, it was like,
[00:47:50] Bruce: on one hand,
[00:47:52] Bruce: right? Yeah.
[00:47:53] Jay: like, it's mine, I'm out.
[00:47:55] Bruce: And no one else. Yeah, no. And it's funny because I [00:48:00] talk about it at the beginning of my book. After all, I was named after Batman.
[00:48:03] Jay: it.
[00:48:03] Bruce: and
[00:48:06] Bruce: It says here that you will be meeting me. Oh, I'm going to do a little reading for you.
[00:48:10] Bruce: from how to breathe while
[00:48:12] Jay: ready.
[00:48:14] Bruce: You will be meeting me personally over the coming chapters. So before we begin, let's be clear about who I am not. Though my name is Bruce Wayne Brackett, I am not Batman. I may share a touch of his notoriety.
[00:48:32] Bruce: On social media, at least. I am there to help people in distress. Unlike Batman, I cannot access the thrilling array of gadgets to banish villains.
[00:48:46] Bruce: That being said, we are all survivors, but unlike comic book heroes, we face adversities that are often hidden and hard to identify. On the very first page, I do, I touch [00:49:00] about that a little bit because my parents, I'm also named after my birth father who shares the same, Bruce Wayne, and then his last name is different because I'm adopted.
[00:49:10] Bruce: yeah, that, that's always
[00:49:13] Bruce: something that has really followed me, and now that
[00:49:15] Bruce: I realize, and it wasn't even something that came to be, but now I realize that I do hold that bat symbol when people are in distress
[00:49:24] Bruce: and I come running to them on the camera, and I'm like, hold my hands and
[00:49:27] Bruce: breath,
[00:49:28] Jay: I love when you do that.
[00:49:30] Jay: I love it.
[00:49:31] Bruce: it's not the bat symbol, but it is,
[00:49:35] Jay: It is.
[00:49:36] Bruce: the fan, it's the fan. and
[00:49:40] Jay: Oh, see, now you need to get a light, a searchlight with a fan on, it and point it up into the
[00:49:45] Jay: sky and have a BWB on the fan pointed up into the air, like on the clouds. You got to make one of those. I don't care how you do it. A flashlight and a piece of cardboard, whatever it
[00:49:55] Jay: is.
[00:49:56] Jay: You should have a BWB fan [00:50:00] signal.
[00:50:00] Bruce: When I create my next one-man show, I will incorporate that.
[00:50:04] Jay: I love that. I love that I want to give you a couple of minutes to tell everybody where they can find your book and where they can find all of your cool merch. And your paintings, all of that art that you do.
[00:50:17] Bruce: Thank you. Oh, yeah. And to go back and answer your question
[00:50:20] Bruce: At my shop, I got T-shirts. I have my fan, my artwork on the fan, with negativity gone on it. My catchphrase. I have the painting of Maria Poppins: Julie Andrews meets her two characters.
[00:50:39] Jay: I recognized that I'm not the best at Childhood happy movies like it wasn't right. We didn't see Mary Poppins, but I thought it was very good.
[00:50:48] Bruce: it's her two characters from Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. So it's Maria and Mary dancing together.
[00:50:57] Jay: So now it makes sense. I was [00:51:00] like half of it looked familiar, then the other half looked familiar. But I wasn't sure what I was looking at because I was like, I know these people, are they the same? So now it
[00:51:09] Jay: makes perfect sense
[00:51:10] Bruce: And
[00:51:11] Bruce: it's it's just so fun. I've done that a few ways. I did one with
[00:51:15] Bruce: Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's and my fair lady and my fair lady is offering a bouquet
[00:51:24] Bruce: of flowers in exchange, Maybe a pearl necklace that Audrey
[00:51:31] Bruce: is at Tiffany's, and it's just this cute little. And I think it's on my website, but it's this cute little interaction
[00:51:40] Bruce: and my fans, some artwork,
[00:51:43] Bruce: and Okay.
[00:51:45] Bruce: yes, again, my name is Bruce Wayne
[00:51:47] Bruce: Brackett. You can follow along.
[00:51:49] Bruce: On the journey, be a part of the BWB family members, family members, and that's BWB. Positiveness on [00:52:00] all social media platforms, meaning Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads. My website is BWBart. I also know how to breathe while suffocating.
[00:52:11] Bruce: com, which is more geared towards the book. The book is
[00:52:14] Bruce: being released April 9th across platforms. it will also be on the shelves on April 9th in all bookstores, independent bookstores, mega bookstores, and Barnes and Noble. It's now available for pre-order anywhere that books are sold. I highly suggest
[00:52:32] Bruce: that if you are going to pre-order it, that you go
[00:52:35] Bruce: through the bookshop.
[00:52:36] Bruce: org because
[00:52:37] Bruce: they,
[00:52:38] Jay: feel free to go to our website and click on the bookshop. Org. We already added your book to our list so that it
[00:52:45] Jay: can be available.
[00:52:46] Bruce: There you go. Yeah, bookshop. Org is amazing. They give back to independent bookstores all over. They've raised something like over 30 million for independent bookstores. In independent bookstores just by [00:53:00] existing and having people purchase their books through them. That is one way you can support independent bookstores and purchase the book.
[00:53:09] Bruce: But of course, it's available on all major platforms, such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, and the list continues. It's available worldwide and published by Wiley, which I'm very excited about. And I'm, I am going on a book tour, and we're getting.
[00:53:26] Jay: Check you out.
[00:53:28] Bruce: Yeah, we're getting those
[00:53:29] Jay: It's
[00:53:29] Bruce: lined up, and April is a big month.
[00:53:32] Bruce: It comes out in April; I get off probation in April for my DUI from last year. So yes, I'm To that, my book is being released then, the Cheer Choice Awards are then, I'm kicking off the book tour, so it's, sobriety, man, I tell ya, it's, way better than being in the shadows.
[00:53:53] Jay: Absolutely.
[00:53:55] Jay: I think there are a ton of people out there that would agree with you. And I think that [00:54:00] strength and vulnerability is, the motto for
[00:54:04] Jay: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that, the way that you express yourself.
[00:54:09] Jay: rawly helps other individuals
[00:54:13] Jay: accept themselves
[00:54:16] Jay: for who they
[00:54:16] Jay: are, for every stumble, for every trial,
[00:54:21] Jay: tribulation and their successes too. Authenticity is
[00:54:27] Jay: like stepping off of what you think is a cliff but ends up being a
[00:54:31] Jay: curb with a blindfold on. Just be you. It's the easiest thing to do. You don't have to remember a single mask ever again. All your masks are gone that day. All your voices and all the ways that you portray yourself in different scenarios are gone. You're free at that moment. You have the ability to do anything and everything you want to. That flame suddenly gets fan. [00:55:00] It gets bigger. It becomes what it's supposed to be. It allows you to be the best you that you can
[00:55:07] Bruce: Absolutely.
[00:55:08] Jay: And I appreciate you for being that person and showing others that there is a way to get through these things, right?
[00:55:17] Jay: So thank you for that, Bruce. I genuinely appreciate you.
[00:55:20] Bruce: Thank you. You too, Jay. And I just want to share that I'm very proud of you and thank you for doing what you're doing, not only on your podcast but also for yourself in life and for others, just as well as you. We have no idea who we're impacting.
[00:55:43] Bruce: It's just one of the gifts of truly showing up and living your life. It's, it, and I'll end it with this: with my father's three do's, I believe that you do this to do your best, to do no harm, and to do for [00:56:00] yourself every single day so that you, too, can eventually do for others.
[00:56:03] Bruce: If you can't do it for others right now, that's okay. It just means that you need to be doing it for yourself.
[00:56:08] Jay: Absolutely. You can't give back until your own cup runs over. It's as simple as that. I appreciate you. Remember everybody, be cool, and keep learning. Just one second.