From Addiction to Authentic Living: Bruce Brackett on Healing, Recovery & Finding Your Way Back
[00:00:00] Bruce: I am really learning that whether it's addiction recovery, whether it's mental health, whether it's a physical recovery, rehabilitation, life goals, whatever it is. It is 24 hours just today. Don't even think about or worry or put your mind into tomorrow. And definitely don't let it slip back into the past of yesterday because we're not there.
So this is the moment that I have right now. Speaking with you, speaking to all of these beautiful listeners, sharing in this moment. This is where we're at right now, so I have the ability to show up for that and be present. And then what's going to happen in an hour? I will get to that when it comes but really knowing and allowing the failures to happen.
[00:00:54] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to Live the With of Your Life podcast. My guest today is Bruce W. Brackett, BWB. He's a social media personality, author, entrepreneur, self-taught visual artist, and an international motivational speaker. And he originally is from Southwest Montana, moved to New York City, the age of 18 to pursue his dreams of being on Broadway and after many distractions making it to off-Broadway and developing serious addictions, meth, being a big one, BWB found his true calling and his way back to sobriety through art, and by advocating for recovery to his online audience of over 1.2 million people. This online community of recovery fuels his love, passion, creativity. And mission to share positivity and possibilities of recovery.
Bruce just happens to be one of the most positive and warm people that I've interviewed on this podcast. We talked a lot about his own personal journey and experience, really working to remove the stigma around addiction and mental health. And we talked about what it means to fully live your life for him and how he's able to do that with his clients, with his audience, with others.
We talked a little bit about his first book and also the book that's coming up, and it was just a great conversation and if you're struggling with anything, addiction with, mental health, you're struggling with finding yourself hitting your rock bottom. I think this conversation will be really inspiring. Take a listen.
Bruce, welcome to the Live The Width of Your Life podcast. I'm so excited to meet you.
[00:03:00] Bruce: Thank you. It's an honor to be here. It's lovely to meet you too. And hello to all of the listeners. It's so good to be with you in this moment. So thank you for having me.
[00:03:11] Aneta: Of course. And before we hit record, I told you that I've been watching your videos on Instagram and on YouTube and you just bring such love and light.
And positivity and inspiration into the world. And I was watching them and I was just smiling to myself and I thought, you know what? How beautiful that this is the life and the career that you've built for yourself, where you're able to do that.
[00:03:34] Bruce: It really is. We all start from somewhere and we all go through a really dark tunnel at some point in our life, if not multiple times.
And I found myself being stuck in that dark tunnel to the point where, when is enough. And I started to realize that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I just went gung-ho in that direction for as long as I could, and it developed into this and what I do every day. And the two-way street that is provided from that support, from people who watch, listen, what they give to me, as well as what I give to them.
So thank you for finding me and being a part of that journey. It's been a wild ride and I've loved every minute of it.
[00:04:19] Aneta: That's amazing. And I know that for a lot of us we go through hard times and from those hard times and experiences, if we're lucky, we use them for good, we're able to turn those around and use them to one, become stronger ourselves.
Become more resilient. Correct. But two, then be able to turn them around. So share a little bit about. Maybe your beginnings and how you started to be an author and to create these amazing videos and to be a motivational speaker and all the other wonderful things that you do.
[00:04:48] Bruce: Thank you. Yeah. So from the very beginning, way back when there was first light in my life. So I am a person who was born into detox from drugs and alcohol, which was the foundational entrance of life for me. And with that comes a lot of challenges down the road. I was fortunate enough to be put in the foster care system and quickly adopted, so when I was placed with my forever parents, my mom and dad.
Because let's face it, I was three when I was removed by the state, put into foster care, and I was six years old by the time that I was adopted from them. So they have been my entire life. And they were fortunate enough to be able to provide love, support, therapy, all of those things.
So from a very traumatic entrance to life to a very talk about whiplash, going from rags to riches and mental health terms, if you will. And I'm very fortunate for them. So from a very young age, even though I was still battling my own demons, I was still faced with every single day people loving me and reminding me how much I'm loved and that I can do anything that I want and I can be a Broadway star if I really want to be.
And it's okay to be me and dress up at daycare and all of the dresses at 6, 7, 8 years old and so unlimited authentic support which really helped me. Had I not had that, I don't think I would be sitting here having this conversation with you. So fast forward, all of that trauma that I've been working through and therapy over the last three decades, having great momentum moving forward and then taking 20 steps back.
And that was a consistency in my life and I felt like I was really stagnant. I wasn't where it was supposed to be. All of those negative thoughts that we can tell ourselves, which is not necessarily the truth, might be what we're seeing for ourselves right now, and we're limiting where we can go from that.
So I really stayed in that box for a long time and I moved to New York City at a young age, fresh out of high school, 18 years old from Montana. Jumped on a plane and moved to New York City and to pursue my dreams of being a performer and just, I've always wanted to live in New York City. And of course I got some gigs here and there, but I also found the nightlife and the drugs and the alcohol and the anonymous sex and parties and things that really pulled me down again I chose that path again.
Like I said before, it was that few steps forward, 20 steps back type of thinking and mentality. And this went on for years and it brought me to really one of the darkest places in my life of really diving deep into hardcore drugs, getting diagnosed with every STD under the sun. HIV was borderline aids, acute Hep C and pneumonia all at the same time, as well as an overdose. And that was a full stop moment for me. And that was at the age of 24.
I said, enough is enough. I am either going to do or I'm going to die and I don't want to die. So I'm going to start to choose to live the width of my life and really go in that direction, so I did, and I checked myself into outpatient rehabs, 12 step programs. Therapy again, got myself back on psychiatric medications to manage my dual diagnosis, bipolar, medic depressive.
And I started taking those steps and it was amazing how just by simply showing up the things that I'm afraid of, just by showing up, saying yes, and taking action, how quickly things can start to turn around for the better. And I started working again when before no one would even give me a key to their apartment because I wasn't trustworthy, and then all of a sudden was working as a maid at a cleaning company, and I had the keys to many apartments so it's just amazing what can happen when you change your mind and you make the choice to change and it's hard. It's not easy, it doesn't happen overnight. But I did that and I allowed it to take the time it took.
Fast forward, I did eventually become a performer in an off-Broadway show, which is where I met my now fiance, Teo, who's my rock, Teo, I love you. And then the pandemic hit and we were all just so removed from immediately without choice and without warning, removed from everything that we knew in life. And that is traumatizing.
That is unknown. That is uncomfortable, and we are all learning how to move forward through that together. So during that time, we had previously purchased a house in the Poconos about four or five months before the pandemic actually hit. And when things shut down in March of 2020.
So we moved out to the Poconos, temporarily, because we didn't know how long it was going to last, like everyone else. And come to find out a project of this fixer upper house that we were like, oh yeah it's a weekend getaway from the city and it's going to be fun and we'll fix it up over five years or something, turned into a forever home that we fixed up in five months because we had nothing else to do.
And then Teo, one day, February 3rd, 2021 told me that I should make a TikTok account creating and recording me painting my portraits in time lapse and post them. And I was like, that's the dumbest idea. Why on earth would I do that? You know? Yeah. But eventually I did and it really was very slow at first.
For the first few weeks, I felt like it was the same engagement that I was getting on Instagram, and then all of a sudden I just showed up in front of the camera, or I did a voiceover over one of the time lapse paintings. I don't really remember, but I started to share my story and I started to share my struggles and everything, and very quickly my account multiplied and tripled and doubled, and then it was out of control.
Within a month of doing that, I had thousands upon thousands of new followers and new faces and people who were like, that's me. That's my story. Thank you for saying that. Then really within months, I had over a hundred thousand followers, and then it just kept going and going.
And now fast forward, here we are with 1.5 million followers across all platforms. And it's not about the word followers. I don't consider myself an influencer. I see 1.5 million people who were just like me.
[00:12:11] Aneta: There's so much there I want to unpack with you.
[00:12:13] Bruce: I can talk and talk, so whenever you want to interrupt me, please. Just, Bruce, shut up. Lemme say something.
[00:12:18] Aneta: First of all, thank you for sharing and I know it's not the first time you've shared of, but it's so important to talk about the struggles that we have, so I appreciate, I think that the reason you had so many people suddenly respond was that when it wasn't just some guy that they were watching painting something, right?
It was Bruce who had a story and maybe something in your story was similar to someone else's or maybe someone that they know, and there was a struggle there, and it's that human to human connection that is important. So definitely well done Teo, for suggesting that you do it. Yes. Thank you, Teo. And the day that you did it, was it just like this internal like nudge saying, Hey, maybe you should do something a little different. Maybe you want to start sharing a little bit about your story? What prompted you to do that?
[00:13:05] Bruce: Yeah. So to answer your question, originally that I did not answer and I talked for 25 minutes. I did, I started to realize, I think that's what happened. I painted a portrait and I want to say it was my Maria Poppins, which is Julie Andrews characters from Mary Poppins and Sound of Music.
[00:13:26] Aneta: And
[00:13:27] Bruce: It's a portrait of her two characters meeting each other and dancing through the hills. And I started to share a little bit about my connection with that and how my mental health feels like sometimes it's two people connect like me, the same person, but two different sides of me meeting in the middle, connecting and moving forward that way.
And then I painted, which I painted a hundred times, my painting Crystal stuck in the rain, which is a reflective image of how I see my recovery through crystal meth addiction and the recovery process through that. And I shared that story in a short video. And then that's when it really took off and it clicked, this is how I can be a motivational speaker.
This is how I can fulfill that dream that I've always want. I loved pep rallies when I was a little kid, and they'd come in and they'd do their sketches and their talks and don't do drugs type of a thing. I really enjoyed that because one, I didn't have to do schoolwork, and two, it was entertaining and I saw my story.
Because of my upbringing with my birth mom and my sisters and the abuse and the drug use, and I really felt less alone. From a very young age, I've always had that dream, not only to be a Broadway performer or a singer or someone in Hollywood or that has been the dream for a long time.
As well as maybe one day I'll write a book, maybe I'll be a motivational speaker. Maybe I too will be that person going to the schools and doing a pep assembly to uplift these kids. Like I can see myself doing that, and it wasn't until years down the line when I got on social media and then that one video took off with me essentially doing that just in form of content creation.
Yeah. And it was successful and then it just clicked. I was like, this is it. This is my way to do this. I don't know what that means or what that's going to look like, but I can do it this way and let's just go for the ride and see where it takes us. And it has taken me to unlimited places. It's been way more than what I could have even imagined.
[00:15:51] Aneta: Isn't that the beauty of it? And if you look back, you can start to see how things were connecting, but planning it would've been so much more difficult. Things never turn out exactly as we'd planned, but sometimes Even better.
[00:16:05] Bruce: Yeah.,
[00:16:05] Aneta: Going back to your recovery, because I think that's such an important topic for us to talk about here. You said you'd reached a point where you were done. You knew that you couldn't continue doing what you were doing, your body was not going to survive. Did you have people to lean on who helped you during that time to really say, this is where you're going to go, we're going to be here for you? Was it your family? Were there friends? Were there other people involved?
[00:16:28] Bruce: So many people. I'm so fortunate. I have always been loved by many people. I just didn't love myself and I didn't see what they saw, which is why I was self-medicating and escaping and not dealing with reality in life. I was living with really dear friends of mine that I'm still very close with today in New York City at our apartment that we called the Peace Pad.
Shout out to Kadina. Hi guys. Yeah, Micah, Francis, Jay, Nicole back home in Montana. Really lifelong friends. Plus my mom and dad, my siblings, they were always very supportive, not enabling tough love, type of a situation. And I did eventually a lot of them had to back away from me and just couldn't be there to hold my hand through it and baby me and be like, it's okay for the 500th time that I've apologized to them for whatever horrible thing it was that I did. Yeah.
You can only do that so many times before the person just brushes their hand and they're like, okay, enough is enough. So they started to do that, which can either wake you up or you just ignore it and you just keep going deeper and deeper. And I was going deeper and it took me being hospitalized from an overdose, my HIV status being borderline aids as well as acute Hep C and pneumonia at the same time.
And that I was dying. There was no question about it, and that really shook me. Deep enough that I was able to see that spark within me that childhood dream, that little boy that was still inside of me being like, just let me out of this situation. Just so desperate that I listened to that more.
And then the support came from my friends, my family, and it grew. It came from psychiatrists. It came from the nurses at the hospitals. It came from the rehabs. It came from the counselors, therapists, doctors, everyone who is supposed to be there, and everyone that is always there when you're willing to receive the help.
They're always there. We, as the person in active recovery or active addiction, are the ones that make the choice. Either we're going to show up or we're not. And there was something in me, I think, my higher power every single day that I chose that instead. so the support's there.
[00:19:07] Aneta: Yeah. That's beautiful. You are so fortunate, like when we look at that, the blessed that to have the people around us, because it's so important to have that connection. What are some of the other bigger lessons that you have taken out of recovery, out of the process, out of the treatment that you saw in all of it, there's mental, physical, emotional the recovery. All of it, because we're also interconnected. You can't just focus on one piece.
[00:19:32] Bruce: Yeah. Absolutely. And there's not a destination. I'm still working on myself. I still struggle. I have learned along the way that I trade addictions. I stop one thing and then I move on to another thing. Alcohol was never my problem, I'm a junkie. I'm a hardcore drug addict, so alcohol was never the issue with me. And then hi, I'm an alcoholic so I'm just an addict across the board.
So I am really learning that whether it's addiction recovery, whether it's mental health, whether it's a physical recovery, rehabilitation, life goals, whatever it is. It is 24 hours just today. Don't even think about or worry or put your mind into tomorrow. And definitely don't let it slip back into the past of yesterday because we're not there.
So this is the moment that I have right now. Speaking with you, speaking to all of these beautiful listeners, sharing in this moment. This is where we're at right now, so I have the ability to show up for that and be present. And then what's going to happen in an hour? I will get to that when it comes but really knowing and allowing the failures to happen.
And to not shame myself or guilt myself or beat myself up for failing because I'm not going to have any success if I don't fail.
[00:21:06] Aneta: Yeah, that's true for everyone in all instances, right? In life. In life, yeah. Yes.
[00:21:13] Bruce: Yeah.
[00:21:14] Aneta: Yeah. And I love that you talk about coming back to the present moment and just being so focused and so present and so mindful in this particular moment.
That is the lesson for all of us in this life, isn't it? And especially in Western society. I think we just are the ones that hustle so much, and we're so goal oriented and as you said, focused on the destination. Not so much the journey, but I know that one of the messages you really talk about is this idea of living life fully.
So tell me a little bit more about how you do that with your clients and how you're able to share that with the coaching that you do.
[00:21:51] Bruce: Yeah. It's practice what you preach. For me, it really is, and I'm human. I'm not perfect, and I miss the ball sometimes on that, but it really is the way that I want to live my life.
I spent so much time staying so tunnel visioned and just staying on one line and it wasn't working. I wasn't allowing myself to fail or to even grow and succeed more than what it was that I thought was even possible for myself. So to be able to have the ability to stay present, to take deep breaths, to get grounded.
To remind ourselves that we made the wake up list to be in a place of gratitude to start just right there, as simple as it can be. We made the wake up list Good morning. I have opportunities in this day. So what does that look like? I'm the author of my own life. I am the one in control of the brush on the canvas.
I can paint my own portrait of how I want the outcome to be. What does that look like for me? And I ask myself as well as I ask my clients. If you could have one thing in the world right now, what would it be? Who would that person be? What does that look like for you? If you removed this negativity or this toxicity, this toxic relationship, job, whatever it is that it might be, what would your life look like?
And then have that be unlimited and start to move in that direction, start acting like that person that you want to become now. In that manifestation process of being that, and before you know it, you're walking those footsteps. You've created that path. It's a very famous saying, either you live your life or you get old.
Either you live your life. Do everything you can with it and see this world for the beauty everywhere, in all continents, in all countries, in all cultures. We are so connected in so many ways. See the beauty in that, go and experience other people's lives. Listen to their stories. Take off your own shoes, put on theirs, and walk with them in that.
It's so hard to say, but the next level of living that you experience by doing that is unmatched. It's just such a beautiful thing. So you can do all of those things or you can do nothing. Stay tunnel vision. Stay on that one line, and before you know it you're at the end of your life. And the pile of regrets that we have is not a very good feeling.
[00:24:35] Aneta: Thanks for sharing that. So you do have a lot of followers, which really means people, humans that are giving you their time, their attention, their focus, their resonating with the messages. What have you learned from connecting with the folks through all your channels and what have you heard about their stories? What have you discovered? What's a human experience Bruce?
[00:24:55] Bruce: I tell you there, there's an entire book. I could write just on that. Going on my book tour last year and meeting all of these people in person and sharing time with them and holding their hands and taking deep breaths and listening to their stories.
One I learned, I don't know anything. Two, I learned, I am not alone. And the fact that I am welcomed into other people, into so many other people's lives every single day, and sharing a cup of love, a deep breath, hold my hands and breathe. Here's some positivity. Here's maybe some advice, or here's a simple little story, or something goofy.
But we're sharing in that almost every single day, I've learned so much. I've learned a deeper level of love and connection with other human beings. I've learned to love myself more by the support that they give me and what they've shared with me, which is something that I never even clocked, that I didn't think strangers on the internet could teach me to love myself more, when in fact I am doing the same thing for them.
I tell you, it is such a beautiful, powerful community that we have created together on social media. It is not my platform. I'm not famous. I am not what I consider an influencer. It's our platform. They built that platform. I just showed up and made videos. I would not have anything. The successes that came from it the following, if you will. None of anything would've happened without them.
[00:26:45] Aneta: Yeah, it's reciprocal. That's the connection. It's like when you're able to create content that resonates, people get pulled in, they feel like they know you, they feel like they want to respond and share how you're impacting them.
Like I said, I felt so great. I was like, sometimes I felt like smiling. Sometimes I felt like my eyes were tearing up a little bit. It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful gift that you have. I do want to go back to your book though, because your book has to have one of the best titles ever. And so tell us about your first book, and I know you're writing a second book, but can we talk a little bit about your first book? How To Breathe While Suffocating. Is that it?
[00:27:22] Bruce: How to Breathe While Suffocating. Yep.
[00:27:23] Aneta: That's so good. Tell me how you came up the title and then give us a glimpse of what people can expect when they to read it.
[00:27:32] Bruce: Great. Okay. Yes, this was my first book published by Wiley was released April 9th, 2024.
And during the course of writing it, it is a memoir slash kind of self-help book, but it's definitely more just a memoir of my upbringing and there's a lot of heavy topics in it. Trigger warning across the board, drugs, alcohol, sex, abuse, you name it. Trigger warning and it's heavy and it's a rollercoaster and it's fun and it's funny and it's dark and it's humorous and it's a wild ride.
And sometimes while I was riding it, I myself felt like I was suffocating. I connected that because the whole purpose of me really writing this book was to, one, get my story out of me, put it on paper and release it, but do it in a way where it's going to impact and help other people. And with that thought in mind, I was like I know other people in their daily existence feel like they're suffocating, but somehow they keep going and they keep moving forward.
So how does that happen? And we were bouncing title ideas back and forth. My one way U-turn, there were a few other names that we were playing with. And that I think was one of the hardest sessions that we would have with my publisher. The constant meetings being like, what's the title?
Where are we going with it? And then finally the last meeting. I expressed that. I was like, I just don't know. Like I know that people are existing and they're suffocating, but they keep moving forward. Like, how does one breathe when they're suffocating? And it just fell out of my mouth and as soon as I said it, I looked at my publisher, Janine, it was a Zoom meeting, and I was like, wait, could that be it?
And she immediately wrote it down and she's I'm going to see what the team thinks of it. And almost instantly they came back and they're like, that's it. There you go. You can't force things. It just comes when it comes.
[00:29:40] Aneta: It has to be right, like you have to really want to say the title of your book, you want to be able to see it on the book cover and all those things.
You went with the publishing house, so how long did it take from the time you started writing the book to publishing it?
[00:29:54] Bruce: So my experience is very different and very unheard of in the way that this came to be. So I started writing the book, which was at the time called my One Way U-Turn when I was 18 years old when I first moved to New York City.
And then, I decided to smoke meth. So I put that dream up on a shelf and I kind of distracted myself with some very unhealthy things. So naturally it wasn't going to show up and do the next right thing for myself for a while. Okay, so that being said, I would dabble going back and forth to it periodically over the course of a few years.
And then it wasn't until my social media career started to really take off that dream came back to me and I was like, okay, now I'm starting to go down this inspirational, positivity, motivational road. Maybe it's time I take that book off the shelf, dust it off, and continue writing it.
So I started sharing that with the BWB family members online and started to set little goals for myself. I was like, in two years, in three years I'm going to have my book out there. I don't know how I'm going to do it. Maybe I'll self-publish. We'll see. And very similarly of how my TikTok account.
Started to develop almost within a month. The same thing happened on Instagram. I went from like 400 followers to 500,000 in a month.
Yeah. So when things are meant to happen and things do happen organically like that, there's no other sign of a how higher power that I'm like, okay, this is totally meant to be I was actually here at my uncle's place in San Francisco about two years ago, sitting at his dining table, working on my laptop, typing away in my book and checking my emails, and I came across this email from a woman named Janine who works at Wiley, just being like, Hey, found you on Instagram. I love your message.
And I was just wondering if you've ever considered writing a book and me being my, cute little, maybe uneducated person that I was at that time was like, is this a scam? because I was receiving.
[00:32:13] Aneta: You get tons of stuff, right?
[00:32:15] Bruce: All the time. I do all the time. We all do scam phone calls, scam emails, and I wasn't honestly very familiar with the global name of Wiley. So I showed it to my fiance, Teo. I was like, what is this? And he's like, if that's really from Wiley,
[00:32:35] Aneta: You should respond.
[00:32:35] Bruce: You need to respond to that email. So he did. And told them, little do you know, I'm actually in the middle of writing a book, and it was about two weeks later, we sat down, had a conference call, and I signed my first contract with them, and they essentially just offered it. They were like, we're not shopping around for a book. We want to do a book with you, and it can be whatever you want.
[00:33:02] Aneta: Wow, that's amazing.
[00:33:04] Bruce: Yeah. Yeah. So it really was another sign from the universe, Hey you need to be doing this. So here you go. You've been manifesting this, you've gotten clean from hard drugs.
You've gotten your health back. You're working hard. You're starting to show up for other people. Here you go. Take this opportunity. And I did. And then over the course, I had about half of the book written up to that point from over the course of the years. And of course things change because I'm in a clearer mind.
I'm older and I have different perspectives. So some things did change from the earlier writings. After I signed that contract, I was writing every single day. I was staying up until two, three in the morning, sometimes all night, just writing and writing just to finish it and to get it out.
And then this last summer, I went on a book tour that took me to 17 cities across the United States. And I met all of these wonderful people who have encouraged me from the beginning Bruce, when is your book coming out? What is happening here? And then to finally meet them in person and it was just so incredible.
[00:34:18] Aneta: So good. And you have another one that you're working on. What can you share about the second book?
[00:34:23] Bruce: I still don't have a title.
[00:34:25] Aneta: Okay. And maybe it'll come to you today. What's it about?
[00:34:28] Bruce: I find that it's harder to title something when it's not finished.
Yeah, so I am contracted again through Wiley and the deadline to have the book completed and with the editor is in August. So we still have some time and it picks up from where my first book, how to Breathe while Suffocating left off, when I became sober from hardcore drugs and I started going down.
The more positive road in life. So it is definitely a memoir and much more so than the first book, a self-help book. So the first half of the chapters is the continuation of my story, and the second half of each chapter is more clinical on the side of things of how I approached hurdles, relapses triggers, cravings, grief, running a business.
It really dives into a lot of different things and how to navigate that. And the key thing that I really want to stress, I have read so many self-help books where there's almost this feeling of entitlement and I figured it out.
Now listen to me and do everything this type of energy that comes from them not knocking all self-help books. There's a lot of really amazing health help out there. But my self-help book is more Hey, you are not alone. I still don't know anything. I'm still figuring this out.
Here are the things that have worked that I want to share with you and let's apply them together. But guess what? I relapsed not that long ago with alcohol. I'm still figuring this out. I'm still going through grief of losing my mom and trying to navigate that and figure that out. I hardly have anything figured out, so let's do it together.
That's the connection there that so many people find with me online and I find with them. So now I'm really just taking that formula and putting it in book form.
[00:36:33] Aneta: I love that. I don't know what I'm doing. Let's figure it out together.
[00:36:37] Bruce: Did we just title it? I don't know.
[00:36:41] Aneta: I don't know. Sit with it.
[00:36:43] Bruce: Yeah,
[00:36:44] Aneta: You kept saying that over and over again. I love that. I would so be curious to pick up a book that said, I don't know what I'm doing. Let's figure it out together. That's awesome.
[00:36:54] Bruce: Yeah,
[00:36:54] Aneta: I'm sure whatever comes to you will come to you. It'd be brilliant.
[00:36:58] Bruce: I love that. If I do use that Aneta, I have to credit you
[00:37:02] Aneta: Mention it in the forward funniest thing happened and just mention that on this podcast. How funny. I just can't wait. I actually want to read your first book too. I didn't get a chance to read it before our call today, but I just love the title of it and I'm so,
[00:37:18] Bruce: Thank you.
[00:37:19] Aneta: Curious too to hear about your story and also, everyone knows somebody that is going through something. We all are going through things and I love this idea that you are able to share your story and use it for good and to share it, to help other people recognize that they're not alone.
Because we are connected and the community is such a huge part of this. What do you want others to know? If they're listening today and maybe they're in their dark moment, or they're in a place where they don't know what to do next, what do you want to share with those folks?
[00:37:49] Bruce: One, I love you. Two, I'm proud of you. You have 100% successfully Overcome everything in your life to get to where you are now. So give yourself a pat on the back and a round of applause for that. Even if it feels like with where you're at right now, it's really dark and maybe even just a really shitty place to be.
That's okay. That's where we grow. That's where we grow. So allow yourself to be there. And everything we've ever wanted is on the other side of fear. So if you're afraid of feeling what you're feeling right now, I encourage you to feel it. It's going to be okay. It really is going to be okay. The only thing that makes it not okay is when you give up. Just keep going.
[00:38:38] Aneta: Bruce, how can folks find you? We talked about some of the ways that they can, how can they work with you? The best way for them to find you or would you direct them?
[00:38:47] Bruce: So my website, bwbart.com, you can find basically everything on there. My life coaching, my motivational speaking, my art.
You can order art that way. Bwb.positivity across all social media platforms, meaning Instagram, TikTok Threads, Facebook, YouTube and honestly, if you also just Google my name, I'm sure that there's a few other things that I'm forgetting that will pop up. But yeah. I am really loving my life coaching career and the different conferences that I've spoken at as a keynote speaker.
And just being able to show up and work one-on-one with other people is so rewarding and helpful, not only to them, but also for me. It's amazing how that's a two-way street. My book is available anywhere that you purchase your books. I highly encourage you to go into your independent bookstore and order through them.
Support small business. It's also available through. Audible, I'm the narrator on the audio book of it as well. And then my second book, which is still a working title, we will see is coming out in 2026. Bring it 2026.
[00:40:06] Aneta: I love it. I'm sure we will include all the links in the show notes, and I'm sure you'll include that on your website when it is available.
Question I ask all my guests is, Bruce, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
[00:40:19] Bruce: To do my best. To do no harm, and to do for others every single day. And if I can't do for others, that means I need to be doing for myself so that I can eventually do for others.
[00:40:30] Aneta: So good. Bruce, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for being a bright light in this world. I just wish you continued success and so grateful that we were able to connect today.
[00:40:45] Bruce: Thank you so much. It was lovely to meet you and to just share this time with you and all of the listeners here on Live the Width Of Your Life, and I hope that we all just take that each step one day at a time.
[00:40:58] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.