Episode 149 features my friend Brian Wcislo, who’s here to tell his tales of growing up, starting businesses, life altering experiences, boundary pushing, and finding his place in the world.
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Other Links
GoldenEra is as precise as a watch laser in GoldenEye 007 documentary
A Review Loosely Based on A Guide for the Perplexed: A Novel
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
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–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:03 – 00:00:29:06
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer. Dot com Golden era is as precise as a watch laser in GoldenEye 007 on the N64. A review loosely based on a guide for the perplexed A novel. And while Dan still looking for work, Mark added another hat to as many jobs as a published author. This is The Palmer Files episode 149 with my friend Brian Wcislo, who’s here to tell his tale of growing up, starting businesses, life altering experiences, pushing boundaries and finding his place in the world.
00:00:29:11 – 00:01:01:50
Agent Palmer
Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:01:55 – 00:01:02:50
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome.
00:01:02:50 – 00:01:25:03
Agent Palmer
To The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 149th episode is Brian Wcislo. Brian and I met many years ago when I was the liaison for my employer to his creative agency. Since then, we’ve loosely stayed in contact, but this was our first conversation in many years. Going into this conversation, all I knew was that Brian was now living in Costa Rica.
00:01:25:06 – 00:01:47:58
Agent Palmer
The details and reasonings were something I learned during this conversation. You’re about to hear. You’ll also hear us discuss finding what feels like home. Why Costa Rica, and perhaps learn just how happenstance played a role in what Brian is doing now and where. We also discuss startup culture, selling a business, making money with art, finding yoga, and even a few life altering experiences.
00:01:48:11 – 00:02:07:47
Agent Palmer
All of this and much, much more is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all related ways to contact Brian and myself in the show notes. I highly suggest you follow him on LinkedIn for business insights off the beaten path. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com.
00:02:07:47 – 00:02:17:46
Agent Palmer
And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:17:51 – 00:02:33:00
Agent Palmer
Brian, you and I worked together a very long time ago, but I want to start with this. You are now in Costa Rica. Did you did you ever. Did you see yourself like a child of the world? All the time?
00:02:33:05 – 00:02:44:41
Brian Wcislo
I don’t know if I saw myself as a child of the world all the time, but I never really felt like I was at home. Took me 44 years to find what actually felt like home.
00:02:44:42 – 00:02:59:22
Agent Palmer
But I and I, I only know this because we’ve met and talked at length before. Like you were always looking, though, like you’re one of the few people I know who is not shy about, like, I’m still looking for what? Where I want to be and.
00:02:59:22 – 00:03:07:43
Brian Wcislo
Absolutely. Yeah. No. Yeah. When you know that you’re when you feel that you’re not in the right place. Well, and you better be looking right.
00:03:07:52 – 00:03:20:43
Agent Palmer
Well, see, it’s easy for you to say that, but there’s a lot of people that would just, I don’t want to say be okay, but they wouldn’t be looking or not as hard.
00:03:20:44 – 00:03:42:55
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, I think that, for the most part, humanity is comfortably uncomfortable, and they just feel like, oh, well, this is the way it is. And, I’ll roll with it. And yeah, we suffered through, you know, relationships. We don’t want to be in places. We don’t want to live, jobs we don’t want to work. You know, so many things.
00:03:43:04 – 00:04:08:29
Agent Palmer
All right, so I let’s let’s start with jobs, okay? You’ve probably worn more hats in just the time I’ve known you, which is only like, might be 15 years, might be whatever, but you’ve worn a lot of hats in that time. If if I were to have randomly met you at a party, Brian, what do you do?
00:04:08:34 – 00:04:11:45
Brian Wcislo
That’s a good question. I’m still trying to figure it out.
00:04:11:50 – 00:04:15:06
Agent Palmer
I mean, that’s a great answer, though.
00:04:15:11 – 00:04:31:12
Brian Wcislo
I’ve. I’ve said all kinds of different shit. I like to tell people I’m. I’m a drug dealer. Just get a rise out of them. See their eyes kind of, like, pop out of their head a little bit. Often, I’ve, Often I’ll respond. An artist and an entrepreneur.
00:04:31:17 – 00:04:40:11
Agent Palmer
That’s. I mean, those are pretty hefty hats. Those aren’t simple, but, I mean, there’s there’s simple words, but, like, that’s a lot.
00:04:40:16 – 00:05:11:39
Brian Wcislo
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack there. And either one can mean a multitude of things, but at least if you put them together, it brings some sort of semblance to a little bit more clarity. But it’s not because it’s nebulous. Because the truth is. Yeah, there’s a, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of layers there, you know, and when you’re an entrepreneur, then particularly in the beginning of any startup, you’re, you’re everything, you know, you’re the janitor, you’re the bookkeeper, you’re the marketer, you’re the producer.
00:05:11:39 – 00:05:17:54
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, you’re the director, you’re that, you’re the everything. So an entrepreneur is a very, broad term.
00:05:17:58 – 00:05:19:54
Agent Palmer
But so as artist, absolutely.
00:05:19:54 – 00:05:29:23
Brian Wcislo
Even even more broad. Right. You can be a dancer or a musician or a painter or, you know, be doing street performances.
00:05:29:28 – 00:05:36:52
Agent Palmer
Do you have a preference other than marrying the two? Like, do you have a preference of, like, this is what I want.
00:05:36:57 – 00:05:39:40
Brian Wcislo
What I want in what regards to be called or to be or.
00:05:39:44 – 00:06:01:23
Agent Palmer
Just to be identified by, I guess, because I mean, I mean, a lot of I mean, projecting here, but a lot of what we call ourselves is not necessarily how others see us. So like, if I was to be like, hey, I’d like to introduce this person to my buddy Brian. Brian is or would like to be known as.
00:06:01:28 – 00:06:24:00
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, I’m not so big into the whole label thing, I know. Okay. Funny. And it goes back into a question that I don’t think was recorded, but how do you say your last name? Yeah. And, when we got, when we got acquired, as you know, when our creative agency, 401 got acquired by John White and Hammer and, White and Hammer Corporation, you know, he had a similar problem.
00:06:24:00 – 00:06:29:51
Brian Wcislo
And, he would say, I don’t care what you call me, just call me. That’s that’s a really good answer.
00:06:29:58 – 00:06:39:44
Agent Palmer
That, that. Yeah. It’s always nice to be needed or wanted or. I mean, probably better to be wanted than needed. I don’t know, actually. Now there’s a semantic there.
00:06:39:53 – 00:06:43:29
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, absolutely. That also depends by whom.
00:06:43:34 – 00:06:59:37
Agent Palmer
What? All right. So you’re an artist. Entrepreneur? I’m going to use the label only because it’s easier for the next question, which is if we go back to little Brian, did you have an idea of what you wanted to be.
00:06:59:42 – 00:07:37:18
Brian Wcislo
An artist and an entrepreneur? But, I remember being like, I don’t know, maybe like ten years old or less. And, my neighbor was probably 18. He was doing his senior project, for high school, and he, he needed to do something with like, getting some sort of artwork created by a child. And he came to my house and he said, I need, I need I need one of your kids.
00:07:37:29 – 00:07:54:45
Brian Wcislo
He said that into my mom. Any one of your kids to, to help me with this project. I’ll pay him. And she said, what do you need him to do? And she said to draw a picture. And my mom said, oh, okay. Then you want to talk to Brian? And, yeah, I got paid, like 20 bucks to draw a picture of.
00:07:54:45 – 00:08:11:22
Brian Wcislo
I don’t even remember what it was. I think it was, like, might have been what I want to be when I grow up. I don’t know, I don’t remember what the heck it was. I might I might ask my mom that actually, and, Oh, yeah, I remember I drew my uncle on a motorcycle after he did this, cross country, motorcycle trip.
00:08:11:26 – 00:08:32:29
Brian Wcislo
Okay. And, it might have been the whole family portrait, but I remember that specifically, and I was like, whoa, I just got paid to draw a picture that was awesome. That kind of that kind of set me on my on my path. And, Yeah, I think I went through a lot of different evolutions of what I wanted to be, but I remember wanting to be an architect.
00:08:32:29 – 00:08:56:08
Brian Wcislo
I want to be a graphic designer. Then I got really big into martial arts, and I wanted to join the military and go to Japan and find a, as I called it at the time of Miyagi, to, to teach me, you know, these, these, ancient arts and bring them back and, open a, a martial arts school that was that was actually like my that was my high school, early high school, vision.
00:08:56:08 – 00:09:15:45
Brian Wcislo
And then, I actually blew my knee out in a martial arts accident, doing unsupervised training in my garage, which we had turned into a dojo. We used to basically just go in and beat the hell out of each other. And, I was teaching somebody this, new, hip toss with a knee snap, that I had learned, just a few weeks before.
00:09:15:45 – 00:09:30:37
Brian Wcislo
And, yeah, they did it a little bit too well and, and blew my knee out and, I was like, dang, I don’t think I should go to that. I don’t even know if I can go to the military and, go and find my Miyagi. And I was like, well, I’m going to fall back on art.
00:09:30:37 – 00:09:38:11
Brian Wcislo
So I chose to go to art school. And I think that that tour ni, changed the entire trajectory of my life.
00:09:38:16 – 00:10:05:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I would say so. And in, in art school because, I mean, look, I went to a liberal arts college. I was surrounded by a lot of art students, and I think mainly building off of the story you just told. A lot of the art students I was around at the time were focused on their art as, single entity, like a singularity, like I’m just, here to paint.
00:10:05:09 – 00:10:28:43
Agent Palmer
I’m just here to take photos. None of them, and some of them I loved and some of them were just friends. And some of them I just knew. But none of them were working towards a career, so to speak. So when you go to art school, are you thinking in terms of a career or are you just thinking in terms of art?
00:10:28:48 – 00:10:34:08
Brian Wcislo
How is it honestly thinking, get me the hell out of new Jersey? Okay. Hi.
00:10:34:13 – 00:10:35:32
Agent Palmer
How far did you go?
00:10:35:32 – 00:10:37:13
Brian Wcislo
I went to Miami.
00:10:37:15 – 00:10:38:54
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s pretty far.
00:10:38:59 – 00:11:00:35
Brian Wcislo
It’s pretty far. I mean, it’s all relative, right? Yeah. For you, you know, for being in the same country. It’s a couple hour flight. Full day drive. Yeah. I had joined. I actually signed up for there’s. Oh, my goodness, there’s so many, so many intertwined stories there. I’m not sure what we can and can’t say on this podcast.
00:11:00:35 – 00:11:02:00
Agent Palmer
Anything, so.
00:11:02:02 – 00:11:27:20
Brian Wcislo
It’s all great. So I was I got in a lot of trouble when I was a kid, pretty much from sixth grade to 11th grade. I was arrested numerous times and, thrown out of school. And, this I just knew the system was rigged. Not in our favor. I didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but I knew it was a crock of shit.
00:11:27:25 – 00:11:28:12
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, I.
00:11:28:17 – 00:12:01:28
Agent Palmer
I, I will say, I believe one family move to a different school district took me off of that path because I was. I was still a troublemaker after we moved, but I was much more of a troublemaker before we moved. And that reset, and maybe more to the point that reset of the friend group. Probably saved me from a decent amount of that kind of trouble.
00:12:01:33 – 00:12:05:56
Brian Wcislo
Where I wasn’t a troublemaker. I would say I was a boundary pusher.
00:12:05:59 – 00:12:15:14
Agent Palmer
Oh okay. Okay. See, see with within school confines that fits me to a tee as well. Maybe that’s why we get along so well.
00:12:15:18 – 00:12:45:54
Brian Wcislo
Exactly. And yeah. So I, I didn’t know what I wanted to do in my junior year when I was 17 years old, I had a very, life altering experience which revolved a little bit around, a little bit around, narcotics, LSD, LSD, in particular. And, I don’t know how far we go into this story.
00:12:45:54 – 00:13:10:13
Brian Wcislo
It’s a crazy one. But I had I had, planned to go with a, one of my best friends to the park, and we were going to just, you know, take some acid and watch the clouds melt and the trees dance. And, we each took one, and we went to pick up his girlfriend, and mine started kicking in, but I started, like, saying that I keep seeing the same people everywhere.
00:13:10:13 – 00:13:29:33
Brian Wcislo
Everybody looks mean. It’s like every. Everybody’s looking at me funny and they’re like, dude, you’re paranoid. What the hell? I was like, all right, maybe, but it feels weird. It has like, nah, man, they’re following us. But I was like, this guy’s look really mean, and they’re following us and they all look the same. And they’re like, dude, what the hell?
00:13:29:38 – 00:13:53:42
Brian Wcislo
You’re tripping face already. And I was like, right? So we parked the car and, in the local, the local park. And, as soon as we parked the car, literally 4 or 5 unmarked vehicles surround us like, high speed, just jump out of their cars, rip open our doors, rip out my friend and his girlfriend out of the front seats.
00:13:53:47 – 00:14:17:13
Brian Wcislo
I was in the back seat of a, Ford Probe, which only had two doors. Yeah. And, I’m like, oh, my God, this is going on. And it was these big, mean looking dudes that I tell you that I saw them following us and looking at me funny. It was true. And, I had, you know, I was on one hit of acid, and I had two more in my pocket, and, they were folded up in a little piece of paper.
00:14:17:13 – 00:14:37:57
Brian Wcislo
And they were actually for my friend that I was given to him the next day. And this dude, big dude, just reaches in and grabs me and it’s like, yo, can me out of the car, but it’s not easy to pull me out of the backseat of a two door, right? Yeah. Me, me and my friend, we, without permission, borrowed some Hawaiian shirts from my dad just for the fun of it.
00:14:38:01 – 00:14:56:18
Brian Wcislo
So the hits were in my front left pocket. And this little, this little wad of paper. And I reached in. I grab that piece of paper and I put it in my mouth. And this big, you know, this big undercover police officer rips me out of a car, and he, like, literally like, just, like, choking me. And he sees I have something in my mouth.
00:14:56:18 – 00:15:18:22
Brian Wcislo
It’s like, spit it out, spit it out. And I was like, Lord God, I swallowed that shit right in his face. He was so mad. He was like throwing me around like a little rag doll and telling me, you know, I’m going to jail and this and that, and I didn’t go to jail, but I was only 17 years old, and they took me to juvie, and, they took my buddy to juvie, too.
00:15:18:22 – 00:15:46:43
Brian Wcislo
And, I mean, I was now on three hits of acid and, know the walls of the police station were dancing. I remember they were playing Metallica. Friggin. They call my mom. And, you know, I could. I couldn’t even speak to her. I was like, shit. And they’ve teargas me and my smallest, whitest friend to in our Hawaiian shirts to a really, really, really rough juvenile detention center.
00:15:46:48 – 00:16:18:52
Brian Wcislo
And, who we that, that scared me straight. And, so, yeah, after that, I was like, I ain’t never going to jail. I’m definitely not built for that. So that was juvie. And this year was rough as hell. So I never got in trouble again. And, you know, I was I was just 17 years old, and it was right before my senior year of high school, and, yeah, after after that, I got really smart about any, you know, boundary pushing I wanted to do and made sure to not get caught.
00:16:19:05 – 00:16:19:47
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:16:19:52 – 00:16:41:46
Brian Wcislo
And, yeah, that I just knew that that I needed to get out of new Jersey. And, my buddy and I both had found, colleges in Miami, and he was like, dude, I’ll go to Miami if you go to Miami. And I was like, yeah, let’s do it. So we both, you know, applied to the separate colleges in Miami and ended up going to school about, 100 blocks away from each other.
00:16:41:46 – 00:17:01:22
Brian Wcislo
And but at least I had one of my best friends from, like, sixth grade, you know, in a similar, the same city as me. Yeah. And that’s kind of how I ended up, going to art school in Miami and I signed up for and, it was like, I’m a visual effects program to make, like, special effects for movies.
00:17:01:22 – 00:17:20:17
Brian Wcislo
Okay. And, maybe like one month before the program was supposed to start, they were like, oh, we don’t have that program anymore. We merge it into the film program. And I was like, whatever, I don’t care, I’m going to Miami. You can go to art school. So next thing you know, I’m a film student and, you know, there’s everybody’s like, you know.
00:17:20:17 – 00:17:27:36
Brian Wcislo
No is her favorite director and her favorite writer and favorite cinematographer. Like, what the hell? As a cinematographer.
00:17:27:41 – 00:17:29:51
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s that’s why you’re in school. That’s what.
00:17:29:51 – 00:17:41:57
Brian Wcislo
It is. Yeah. Apparently so. Yeah, I ended up becoming a film student, which, you know, was close to what I was going to study, but not not exactly, but it was an amazing, amazing experience.
00:17:41:57 – 00:18:19:16
Agent Palmer
You’ve you’ve I know when, when I was working with you at 401, you would occasionally disappear for a couple weeks to shoot film, to shoot. Stuff it. You you are knowing your background, which I didn’t know until just now. In going to film school, you might be one of the few people I know in my entire life who went to art school for a thing and did it for money.
00:18:19:21 – 00:18:21:56
Brian Wcislo
I imagine that, no way to answer it.
00:18:22:03 – 00:18:22:17
Agent Palmer
Not.
00:18:22:17 – 00:18:24:07
Brian Wcislo
I mean, the thing I signed up for, which is the ironic.
00:18:24:11 – 00:18:40:02
Agent Palmer
I know, but it is like. But clearly, if people it’s I mean, look, we’ve all taken jobs because we had to take jobs. But you do you did you did you find a passion for film as opposed to just effects?
00:18:40:07 – 00:19:04:24
Brian Wcislo
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, here I am, 25, 26, 27 years later or whatever it might be. And, I’m still finding different passions for it now. I like writing more than than anything, possibly. And, you know, at the time, I didn’t really I didn’t really like writing, it was starting to, to interest me.
00:19:04:29 – 00:19:31:37
Brian Wcislo
But I, I really liked I did like editing. I did like shooting, and I’ve done both and I still do both. I’ve been producing corporate marketing videos mostly, or learning and development, videos, for, you know, my entire career, and I love, I love shooting. I don’t love editing so much anymore. I feel any time behind the computer, I’d rather be doing something else.
00:19:31:42 – 00:19:36:05
Brian Wcislo
And when I can shoot and I have somebody else edit for me, that’s my perfect situation.
00:19:36:10 – 00:20:01:55
Agent Palmer
I mean, that’s so that’s quite an evolution, though, to to go for, to go for special effects, to not really know what’s going on, to enjoy editing at one point, to not really like writing, to enjoy the shooting, I think has kind of maintained throughout. But it have you done, you know, you’re like, have you done Brian’s film like it does.
00:20:02:00 – 00:20:13:01
Agent Palmer
Have you done your, whether scripted or not, like, have you done the thing that you want to shoot as opposed to just for someone else.
00:20:13:05 – 00:20:30:44
Brian Wcislo
I think in the beginning I realized that you can meet a lot of pretty girls if you shot good photography. And that was really like the, the intro into shooting. I’ve never really had a thing that I just really, really wanted to shoot.
00:20:30:59 – 00:20:33:27
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:20:33:32 – 00:20:54:45
Brian Wcislo
You know, people will ask me like, well, what do you what do you shoot? My answer is typically whatever pays me or whatever I find beautiful. Okay. You know, so I think the closest thing I’ve gotten to just shooting the thing that I want to shoot was, I got bored of, photography. I got bored of shooting video, and, and then, you know, drones became a thing.
00:20:54:50 – 00:21:14:01
Brian Wcislo
And, I had more or less just arrived in Costa Rica for, you know, to live here. And, you know, I had a pretty cool drone, and, we were traveling all over to these epic locations and beaches and mountains and volcanoes and retreat centers and, you know, I which is everywhere I went, I would fly my drone.
00:21:14:01 – 00:21:37:31
Brian Wcislo
And it makes your heart race because you don’t know if the thing’s coming back. And it just gives you this new perspective. Right? That’s like, wow, this is incredible. You know, all the things that I was bored of don’t exist with this new tool. So that kind of re hooked me into, you know, into recording and, you know, filming video, whatever you want to call it.
00:21:37:36 – 00:22:06:23
Brian Wcislo
And, yeah, I, I’ve, I think that rebirth me in, you know, now, I don’t shoot that much anymore. I typically shoot on occasion for, you know, friends and, you know, close people who ask me to shoot and, yeah, cool opportunities that probably. I think you know, just in the recent month, last month, I went to Arizona to, record a, a, nutraceutical company.
00:22:06:33 – 00:22:33:06
Brian Wcislo
And, yeah, it was funny. I really hadn’t shot in a while. I had this box of gear that I had never use, a camera. I had never used, a stabilizer. I had never used a drone. I had never used. And I didn’t even use my drone in a few years. And, you know, I couldn’t believe how far they had come and how much fun I had flying the friggin drone around a nutraceutical company in the middle of the desert for, for literally one day.
00:22:33:13 – 00:22:39:37
Brian Wcislo
I flew there for. I was there for three days, and I shot one of them. And it was. Yeah, I had so much fun. I was like a kid in a candy shop.
00:22:39:42 – 00:22:51:54
Agent Palmer
Did it all come back like it was? I mean, obviously technology changing, but, like, framing shots, like getting light, right? Yeah. I like get all it’s just it’s there now. It’s just another like, arrow in your quiver. You’re good.
00:22:51:54 – 00:23:08:27
Brian Wcislo
Yeah. It’s just like riding a bike. You know the the drone was easier to fly to. Never. They made such advancements. And, you know, there’s always some, you know, technical hiccups. The first time I went to, to fly it, I went, fortunately, a day early to test flight. And the damn thing wouldn’t fly. And I was like, what the heck is going on?
00:23:08:32 – 00:23:29:36
Brian Wcislo
Just won’t fly. I was so happy I did that, that early test run. And, it was either dust in, in the, with like, gimbal or it was literally the, memory card just needed to be ejected and push back in. I don’t know which one it was, but I, I just searched like, why would this drone not fly?
00:23:29:36 – 00:23:43:08
Brian Wcislo
And those were a couple of suggestions. And I did it both at the same time without like, you know, process of elimination. Yeah. So I don’t know which one I actually fixed it, but one of them and then boom, that damn thing flew. But I didn’t, I didn’t figure that out for the night. So I was like, oh, thank God.
00:23:43:13 – 00:23:55:39
Brian Wcislo
But so yeah, other than that, yeah, fine. That was amazing. Framing the shots was great. The technology was fantastic. I mean, the quality you get out of $1,000 drone is just, I mean, insane, I, I.
00:23:55:53 – 00:24:33:23
Agent Palmer
I, I, I, I like your framing actually. And I can say that because I’ve used for, for my like if I needed a headshot of myself, I use a photo you took of me at an event, but I wasn’t aware you were taking the photo like none of this is posed, but like, there’s a sequence of like three shots of me, like a soccer thing that you took that, at least 1 or 2 of them, depending, are the ones I send out if I need a headshot.
00:24:33:23 – 00:24:36:45
Brian Wcislo
Now, we’re. We got to update your headshot, buddy.
00:24:36:49 – 00:24:47:53
Agent Palmer
I don’t I don’t go out that much. I yeah, yeah, I, I, I mean, you know, I’m a lot younger than I think it’s a pretty good headshot, you know, let’s.
00:24:47:53 – 00:24:51:20
Brian Wcislo
Have paparazzi in your ass. I don’t even remember being at a soccer thing. Yeah.
00:24:51:27 – 00:25:06:06
Agent Palmer
I’m, Yeah, I just I know you’re the one who took him, so that’s, you know, that’s the still the one I use, in fact, like, I don’t know where it is now. I mean, I know where it is, but I don’t know if I’m using it online anywhere.
00:25:06:06 – 00:25:20:53
Brian Wcislo
I kind of have a weird light image burn in my brain of what I think you’re talking about. It’s interesting how when I, when I see photos that I took, I almost always instantly am like transported back to the the time, the place, the moment. But you know, typically I can remember them super clearly.
00:25:21:00 – 00:25:35:49
Agent Palmer
And you’re and you have done a lot of photography as well. Can you but I, I okay, so obviously by sheer numbers you have taken more photos than I have written blog posts, but.
00:25:35:54 – 00:25:36:15
Brian Wcislo
Oh my.
00:25:36:15 – 00:26:00:55
Agent Palmer
Guy, I have the ability to completely forget I’ve written something like if. Yeah, just just for context, right? Like I can go back three years and like look at a blog post and go like, I don’t like this sounds like me. And I know I wrote it because obviously if there’s a guest post on the blog, I attribute it so I know I wrote it, but like the recollection is completely gone.
00:26:01:06 – 00:26:09:30
Agent Palmer
So when you look at when I tell you about that photo or when you look at some of your photos, are you like, I don’t I don’t remember this at all.
00:26:09:35 – 00:26:19:32
Brian Wcislo
No, I don’t think, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo that I took that I don’t remember taking. And I just, I mean, it’s got to be hundreds of thousands, maybe, maybe a million.
00:26:19:32 – 00:26:20:31
Agent Palmer
It’s got to be millions.
00:26:20:42 – 00:26:33:07
Brian Wcislo
It’s crazy to think that. Right. But then once digital came, outages like baba baba baba baba baba baba baba, you know now, no, I shot maybe, maybe ten weddings and issued thousands of photos. And, you know, just in one day.
00:26:33:07 – 00:26:37:57
Agent Palmer
So now did you do photography with film?
00:26:38:01 – 00:26:59:06
Brian Wcislo
I mean, the first camera I ever had was film. And, it was like my dad’s old camera that, he handed me down and it was ironic. It had, had a light leak in it. So he would, like, do these weird orange kind of distorted patterns and some parts of the photos. But I loved it.
00:26:59:06 – 00:27:18:45
Brian Wcislo
I was like, this is so cool because you never knew what you were going to get. You know, it was like a special effect. And it could it could mess up, technically mess up the picture. But in my opinion, it gave it character. So yeah, I shot I shot for film, with film for my first probably three years of photography.
00:27:18:51 – 00:27:45:32
Brian Wcislo
And I know when my first child was born is is 21 now, I, you know, I bought a pretty good film camera. And, you know, the whole first year or two of his life was documented on film. And I loved shooting film, but it just got more and more and more expensive. And I was like, wow, the amount of money I’m spending on film in a year, I could just buy a digital camera and never have to buy a film again.
00:27:45:36 – 00:28:13:43
Agent Palmer
Do you have, like, I and I always like to ask this to anybody who’s done photography on both sides of the digital divide. Like, do you do you miss the, I don’t want to say permanence, but permanence of film, like, hey, yeah, you can shoot this whole role at that. One thing, but you better hope you get it in those 30.
00:28:13:43 – 00:28:35:31
Agent Palmer
Like, because that there seems to me like I remember if for me, it was always a hobby up to a point where I just kind of actually when digital happened, I gave up photography. Ironically. But like for me, I remember in the film era being like, like just thinking of, like this. Well, I hope this works. I’m only taking this shot twice.
00:28:35:36 – 00:28:55:12
Agent Palmer
One of them has to work. I hope you know what I mean. Like, I almost it was harder then, but I almost felt like it was, I don’t know, more, I don’t know, there’s more pride in, like, I got I got the shot or like make it work in the, in the, in the, the the lab.
00:28:55:12 – 00:29:29:20
Brian Wcislo
No, I like, I like maybe missed the nostalgia of it. Okay. All right. Don’t not miss the, I miss the nostalgia. And I miss the tangibility of it. I did like the excitement of waiting to see what you got, and then literally having something tangible to touch. Yeah, but I, I definitely prefer the immediacy and ability to instantly make adjustments and just feel really confident in, what you’ve got now.
00:29:29:20 – 00:29:49:42
Brian Wcislo
I never shot professionally with film. Okay. Right. So I don’t even know. I don’t even know what that experience would be like. I did assist, I did assist for a while. Photographers with with film and that was that was kind of cool. And it made it weird, you know, it’s like, well, which is it all this work?
00:29:49:43 – 00:29:57:28
Brian Wcislo
We don’t really know. We don’t even know what we created. And, you know, we gotta wait, you know, maybe even days before we see it.
00:29:57:28 – 00:30:15:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it’s it’s kind of, I don’t know, there’s it there was almost a little bit of magic that went away when digital happened. You know, because of that. What exactly what you’re talking about, that, unknown I don’t I don’t know what we captured. I don’t it’s something I hope.
00:30:15:38 – 00:30:46:38
Brian Wcislo
Yeah. And it. Yeah, it was funny because the house that I grew up in was actually my grandfather’s house, and he was a photographer, and he. You know, I didn’t know him. He he died when I was, like, one year old or something. And but in the basement there was, like, this antique darkroom, and there was like, you know, these, these bins for washing in it, thousands and thousands of slides that he had process and these weird old machines.
00:30:46:38 – 00:31:15:44
Brian Wcislo
I didn’t even know what the hell they were. And and old cameras. And like, it was this, you know, it was this relic museum that we used to, like, play hide and seek in and, you know, just sift through, you know, treasure troves of of stuff. So, you know, that was all kind of cool. I didn’t, and I like the magic of the dark room, but I don’t I didn’t like, I didn’t like the chemicals and the smell and, the toxicity of it.
00:31:15:44 – 00:31:43:17
Brian Wcislo
I mean, truthfully, film film is, is very non eco friendly and very and very, very toxic. It’s not healthy at all. And I didn’t know exactly why. But you know, I’ve only, I’ve only ever even like used a darkroom a handful of times. In high school and. Yeah like I like the mystery of the in the science of it, but it didn’t like the actual process of it.
00:31:43:21 – 00:31:49:25
Brian Wcislo
So, yeah, all that stuff just made me like, yeah, I’m. I’m good. This digital thing is pretty awesome.
00:31:49:30 – 00:32:23:15
Agent Palmer
Well, speaking of the digital thing you had mentioned earlier, you you sold a business, and I want to talk to you about that for a second, only because I looked at, what you and, you know, at least from a founding standpoint, obviously, you were allowed to stay on if you wanted to. But I looked at you selling that agency as kind of similar to when like, an athlete retires.
00:32:23:15 – 00:32:46:09
Agent Palmer
That was, pro. Right? They’ve done this whole they’ve built this whole thing for, well, athletes for like 30 or 40 years. You guys had built a business in a little less time than that, but you had basically done this thing and then you passed it on, sold it, and you were like, you you were you were there, but you were still like, okay, now what?
00:32:46:11 – 00:33:10:45
Agent Palmer
Because it wasn’t yours anymore. And I, I mean, I know for me, switching careers was never I look, I still don’t know what I want to be or what I want to do, but you had built something, and then it was. It wasn’t. It was still there. But it wasn’t yours anymore. Like, was that a shift for you of, like.
00:33:10:52 – 00:33:14:18
Agent Palmer
All right, now I gotta find out what’s next.
00:33:14:23 – 00:33:25:14
Brian Wcislo
No, it was like it was kind of like, me saying when I was in high school, like, give me the hell out of new Jersey.
00:33:25:19 – 00:33:25:50
Agent Palmer
Okay?
00:33:25:50 – 00:33:45:54
Brian Wcislo
Or it was very it was very similar. You know, we had we had built this, you know, agency, so to speak, for, we were eight years in when we actually sold. Okay. We were, you know, the first several years were, you know, pretty tough.
00:33:45:56 – 00:33:48:18
Agent Palmer
I mean, startup culture, right? Like it’s. Yeah.
00:33:48:18 – 00:34:21:08
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, startup culture was super fun. Really, in the beginning, it was really fun and really exciting. And, you know, as we grew, yeah, we did enjoy it. But then as it got bigger and as we started to grow, my role shifted, right? And I started that company to be an artist. And then as we started taking on more and more talent and designers and developers and, you know, all these all these things, I, I grew into business development.
00:34:21:13 – 00:35:03:50
Brian Wcislo
And I remember coming right back into the office and having piles of paperwork on my desk and like, I got to do like five proposals and go on these meetings. And everybody around me is designing cool shit, like, what the hell did I do? So I got to it. Got to the point where it was okay, you know, I still I still shot all the photography and work, you know, most of the video and, you know, threw my hat in on the high end, design stuff, so I did I did have, you know, a fair amount of creative liberties, but I started getting burnt out.
00:35:03:55 – 00:35:37:07
Brian Wcislo
I started to feel my health eroding. And then as my health was eroding, my energy was eroding. My passion for everything was kind of dwindling. And I realized that I was creating my own illness and that if I wanted to regain my health, I needed to make some major lifestyle shifts. And that’s when I really started getting into yoga and eating super clean.
00:35:37:07 – 00:36:00:23
Brian Wcislo
All organic, vegetarian, pescatarian, trying all these different things. Stop drinking. You know, I was I was literally I remember starting to pay attention to how much was I drinking. And I wasn’t like, I wouldn’t say I was an alcoholic or maybe I was, but I remember being like, oh, I’m going to. I’m going to see like how I’m going to count how many days in a row do I drink?
00:36:00:23 – 00:36:10:47
Brian Wcislo
And, you know, see, I need to do something about it. And I remember being on like, day 75, and I was like, Holy crap. And I was just excited five days in a row.
00:36:10:50 – 00:36:30:46
Agent Palmer
I mean, I, I would argue that some of that sadly, is business development. Like, hey, Brian, let’s meet for drinks and we’ll talk about that thing, or hey, come to this event, there’s free. Like it’s just I’m not saying that that was the only reason, but like, I know that that’s that’s a part of it. You know.
00:36:30:48 – 00:36:59:22
Brian Wcislo
I was a social drinker and I was a social being, and I was out every single day. I just said, you know, rubbing elbows, you know, hosting events, attending every event possible. You know, and, and when we were not, at events, yeah, we were smoking some weed and drinking some drinks, playing some video games. And, you know, we were we were in our 20s and, having having fun.
00:36:59:22 – 00:37:02:05
Brian Wcislo
We were big kids. So we were big.
00:37:02:10 – 00:37:27:29
Agent Palmer
Let me ask then the the health stuff and the yoga, that’s one thing. And that’s, you know, trying to take back control from the energy you’re losing. Did you have to step back from the work, too, like, because obviously it wasn’t just what you were eating and and drinking, right. Like the, the work was wearing on you as well.
00:37:27:34 – 00:38:10:11
Brian Wcislo
Well, I think more was that the company culture had grown around, you know, having a beer fridge and, you know, having parties in which everybody was drinking and, you know, with I almost became an outcast in my own organization. Okay. And that was really what pushed me away. And. Yeah. And then and then I started having less, less and less love for the work I was doing because I was becoming more and more, you know, paper pushing, and yeah, I remember we still we were starting to do pretty good financially, but it took years.
00:38:10:11 – 00:38:34:11
Brian Wcislo
It took years to really be like, I mean, I was I was basically freelance video editing and shooting before that, and I, and I got, I got to a pretty good place salary wise before we started the agency. And it took me like, I think 4 or 5 years to match where I was before. Yeah. And I was like, God damn, I never thought I was going to take me this long.
00:38:34:11 – 00:38:42:26
Brian Wcislo
Building my own business to Majuro. Was that before I even started? Right. That’s true. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was it was intense and,
00:38:42:31 – 00:39:02:05
Agent Palmer
But it didn’t stop you from starting up. More like. I mean, no, that’s that’s the thing. I’m kind of, like, it’s like I’m. I’m kind of in awe that, like, all of that happened, and you still went, I’m, I’m. But I’m not done building new things. I’m not done with startup culture.
00:39:02:13 – 00:39:24:06
Brian Wcislo
When I was when I was like, I felt done. Honestly, man, I was ready to quit. I was like, I can’t, I can’t do this anymore. I am fricking done. And I remember going on a meeting and talking with one of our clients who were an agency much bigger than us, and they were like, you ever think about selling your agency like you want to buy it?
00:39:24:11 – 00:39:55:46
Brian Wcislo
And they were like, maybe we’ve been talking about, you know, potentially acquiring a shop like yours. Because the thing was, you know, we were really, really good at web design and custom development and design in general. And seemed like most people didn’t get it back then. And, you know, I was like, yeah. So we were working with a lot of bigger agencies who were more like ad agencies or tradeshow display companies or, you know, video production companies and all of their clients needed web, and they just didn’t know how to do it.
00:39:55:46 – 00:40:19:04
Brian Wcislo
So they would just sub it out to us. And I was like, all right. Yeah, that makes sense. And, you know, that didn’t go through. But we explored it a little bit and I swear, less than a month later, another guy who wasn’t a client, but he was, you know, one of my kind of drinking buddies, in the social scene, had a bigger technology company, and he was like, hey, you guys interested in selling your company?
00:40:19:09 – 00:40:38:41
Brian Wcislo
I was like, wow, I’m ready to quit. And all sudden I got two people in one month asked me if we were interested in selling our company, and that didn’t work out either. And then one of our, one of our consultants, who we would bring on to, do SEO services for our clients, he was like, hey, are you guys interested in selling your company?
00:40:38:41 – 00:40:53:08
Brian Wcislo
And I was like, what do you mean? And he’s like, oh, I work with this other company. And they’re way, way bigger. And, you know, I know they’re looking to buy a design agency, and I think, like, you guys might be a really good fit. And I was like, all right, so we, you know, we explored that.
00:40:53:08 – 00:41:27:43
Brian Wcislo
And, now they were actually sizable enough to, to do it. And, yeah, that that kind of helped me stay on and not just, you know, emotionally run away from what we had been building for. I got 6 or 7 years at that point. And. Yeah. So that so that’s where I said I was ready to kind of run away and like, run out, run away to, not necessarily greener pastures, but to have, a reboot or a reset, something different, something that felt a little bit more healthy and in alignment where I was at that stage in my life.
00:41:27:48 – 00:41:43:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And you in if but eventually you did go to greener pastures. I don’t know that it’s you can we can we find some other place that’s greener than Costa Rica like you. You you did eventually go to greener pastures.
00:41:43:39 – 00:42:00:38
Brian Wcislo
Yeah. True story. When, as soon as we sold. Yeah. Went on a two year employment agreement and, first thing I did was went to do a yoga teacher training in Costa Rica.
00:42:00:43 – 00:42:13:18
Agent Palmer
And now it was the yoga teacher course. The thing you wanted, or was it because it was in Costa Rica? Like, if it had been in Hawaii, would I be talking to you from Hawaii right now?
00:42:13:32 – 00:42:28:57
Brian Wcislo
You know, I think I actually didn’t want to go to it because it was in Costa Rica. Okay. Ironically, I had already been to Costa Rica a few times, and I loved it, but I wanted to go somewhere else.
00:42:29:09 – 00:42:30:23
Agent Palmer
Somewhere new.
00:42:30:28 – 00:43:00:49
Brian Wcislo
Yeah. So I was looking at like, Fiji or, you know, Bali or Thailand or something, you know, further away. Gotcha. And and that’s what I really want to do. But I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted at the time that I wanted to do it. And I had one of my, closest friends from college was living in Costa Rica, and I really wanted to spend time with him.
00:43:00:53 – 00:43:23:53
Brian Wcislo
And he said, hey, go anywhere in the world. He was actually a traveling cinematographer. And, he traveled the world doing all these crazy projects for Sony and Panasonic and Shark Week and all kinds of wild stuff, music videos and stuff like that. And he said, he said, yeah, wherever you just book your ticket, tell me where you’re going, and I’ll meet you there.
00:43:23:58 – 00:43:44:26
Brian Wcislo
And as I tried to figure out how we were going to meet up, I realized he wasn’t going to go anywhere. And the only way I was going to spend time with them was if I did go to Costa Rica. So I found a training in Costa Rica and literally after my three week, you know, immersion, I spent a week camping on the beach with him.
00:43:44:30 – 00:43:51:02
Brian Wcislo
And, you know, it’s one of my favorite memories of all time, especially now because he actually passed away a few years ago.
00:43:51:04 – 00:43:51:43
Agent Palmer
Oh. I’m sorry.
00:43:51:43 – 00:44:10:22
Brian Wcislo
Yeah, yeah, life is crazy like that, right? So, yeah, I mean, just makes that, that decision all the sweeter and, Yeah, that definitely that trip I was supposed to go over three weeks and end up staying for three months, and then, you know, kept coming back. You know, I think I was back three months after that.
00:44:10:27 – 00:44:14:20
Brian Wcislo
And then we were like, oh, God, we lost Brian. We always knew he wasn’t coming back at some point.
00:44:14:24 – 00:44:34:56
Agent Palmer
But where in this do you decide? All right. But I’m going to I’m going to live there now. Because obviously traveling back and forth is one thing and not not everybody has that ability. But you did. But like at a certain point you were like, well, I’d rather spend more of my time here and then travel to the States like I’d rather do it the other way.
00:44:34:56 – 00:44:53:01
Brian Wcislo
Well, I kind of didn’t make that decision for myself. I yeah, I came back again. I like I fell in love with this, this particular place and this particular group of people. They had this amazing, yoga retreat center in the jungle, like deep, deep in the jungle, like, you know, you got to fly here and and you got to.
00:44:53:06 – 00:45:18:08
Brian Wcislo
Then you got to, you know, either drive six hours or take a little plane, you know, and, you know, travel to the edge of the world. In essence. And then you had to drive down a dirt road for 20 minutes, and then you had to drive into a farm for another five minutes, and then you had to get out, and you needed to literally walk into the jungle, crossing the river four times, almost a half an hour to get in this retreat center completely off the grid.
00:45:18:13 – 00:45:39:19
Brian Wcislo
And it was just the coolest people. Rivers on both sides and waterfall, all these amazing houses, amazing food. Cause people from all over the world coming, you know, coming there. And yeah, there was I was like, oh my God, this is like, this is a dream. And, I just I kept spending time there with those people and they were like, wow, your photography is amazing.
00:45:39:24 – 00:45:58:52
Brian Wcislo
Your web design skills are like, just help us, like, with our marketing. And you could stay as long as you want, you know? And it was like, Jesus, I don’t know, $5,000 to be there for three weeks. So I was like, okay, this is a pretty good deal. Then at that point, I had money in the bank and I didn’t have, like a ton of responsibilities.
00:45:58:57 – 00:46:24:00
Brian Wcislo
So I, you know, I would just keep going back there and visiting them and helping them with their marketing and on, on one trip, a group of, traveling filmmakers and yogis kind of came through the jungle, and I got along really, really well with them. Go figure. And they’re like, hey, we’re traveling the country. And, we’re going to all the most beautiful places in Costa Rica for the next 2 or 3 weeks.
00:46:24:05 – 00:46:44:19
Brian Wcislo
We’ll be staying in the nicest hotels, eating the best food. We don’t have any money to pay you. But our other photographer dropped out at the last minute, so we’ve got, like, an open spot. And if you want to just come tag along and help us, you know, create some some images in this video. You know, you won’t have to pay for anything.
00:46:44:19 – 00:47:06:14
Brian Wcislo
And you have an adventure of a lifetime, so, like, just sign me up. So I was actually supposed to go back again and extended my trip for another three weeks and I think on like, maybe the, the fourth day of shooting, we were like, racing like maniacs to get to to this like crazy cliff on the Pacific coast for, sunset shoot.
00:47:06:19 – 00:47:30:04
Brian Wcislo
And by 25, yogis, your genies were all waiting there for us to do to do this filming. And, Yeah, one of them, one of them. I saw her just like dancing. Like I had never seen anybody, any human move like this before. And so, like, exotic and animalistic and controlled and fierce. And I was like, whoa, what is that?
00:47:30:08 – 00:47:53:17
Brian Wcislo
And, so ended up spending the next, couple of weeks with her. And, a few years later, she becomes my wife. So she grew up here, other than her first four years of her life in Brazil and, it’s a long, crazy, complicated story of how all that kind of worked out. But she came, she was traveling the world, literally.
00:47:53:17 – 00:48:13:15
Brian Wcislo
And she was actually just come back to Costa Rica to teach workshops and yoga and make some money and then go back and travel. And she’d go to India for two, three, four, five, six months, and then she’d go to Italy for a few months, and then she’d go to Greece for a few months, and she was either studying for teaching abroad and then come back, make some money in Costa Rica, visit her mom and do the same thing.
00:48:13:20 – 00:48:31:43
Brian Wcislo
So she happened to be on one of her trips. That goes really good. When I was on one of my trips to Costa Rica and she’s like, oh, come visit you in new Jersey. And I was like, sure you will. And she did. And, you know, whatever. There’s so many parts of that story. But she ended up coming to live with me, in New Jersey.
00:48:31:47 – 00:48:58:26
Brian Wcislo
And she made it through, like, maybe, six months at the most. And we, we had I had actually acquired a yoga studio, which wasn’t really super intentional. Very, very another odd. Yeah, another part of my journey. And, you know, she she happened to fall into my life at the same time that this yoga studio did.
00:48:58:39 – 00:49:14:18
Brian Wcislo
And that was part of the reason why I said yes, because I was like, oh, my God, I got this, like, super yogini to help me, you know, run this yoga studio. And we hosted a retreat for people from new Jersey, from our yoga studio to go to Costa Rica. And I took them to that place that I love so much.
00:49:14:23 – 00:49:41:20
Brian Wcislo
And we just had this fantastic, otherworldly experience, so transformational, so, so divine on every level. And I remember the retreat ended and we were sitting on the beach and we were watching the sunset, and my wife was like, I can’t go back to new Jersey. What? What do you mean you can’t go back to new Jersey like I got?
00:49:41:25 – 00:49:56:45
Brian Wcislo
I got a house there. It wasn’t. It actually wasn’t my house. And my parents, my parents kind of did a similar thing. You can see where my nature comes from. They went to Florida to visit my little brother and they found a foreclosure. They had my dad had recently retired and they bought this foreclosure and they didn’t go home.
00:49:56:45 – 00:50:17:17
Brian Wcislo
And they’re like, we got to figure out what to do with our house. And they’re like, hey, Brian, you got to like, you know, just go to the house and whatever, clean it up, help us sell it, I don’t care, but we’re not coming back. And so I was like, got an attending to my parents house. And, you know, I had, I had, the yoga studio, I had another business with my brother.
00:50:17:17 – 00:50:35:49
Brian Wcislo
I had a child, we had two cars, you know, we had well, we had a whole life in new Jersey to unwind and was just like, yeah, I can’t go back. I was like, wow. You know, I really always wanted to move the Costa Rica. I just thought it might be a little bit more strategic than this. So, she she didn’t come back.
00:50:35:54 – 00:51:00:21
Brian Wcislo
I mean, she came back to visit a couple times since, but basically the next year and a half of my life was, like, unwinding. I would go, I would go back to Jersey, you know, get rid of whatever I could get rid of, you know, put things in whatever order I could. And, and yeah, it was a very bumpy, you know, forced transition to, to living here.
00:51:00:21 – 00:51:17:12
Brian Wcislo
You know, people think it was like this, you know, oh, he just made all this money and he just didn’t know. And actually at that point I had put all my, all my money into another business, into two other businesses and was not in a financial position to be moving, you know, to another country. But.
00:51:17:17 – 00:51:25:12
Agent Palmer
You know, it was, it was it was time, I guess, right. Like it I mean, looking back, obviously you go like that, but it was the right call.
00:51:25:12 – 00:51:47:10
Brian Wcislo
Yeah. I mean sometimes we got to get pushed out of our comfort zone by others to actually take the leap that we really wanted to take. You know, I years before I wanted to move to Costa Rica, but I didn’t think I could do it. I had a teenager there, and I had businesses there, and my friends and family were there, and I don’t speak the language so good.
00:51:47:10 – 00:52:03:24
Brian Wcislo
And how am I going to make a living and all that, a million reasons why I couldn’t do it. And then it was just like, well, there’s this one really big reason why you need to do it, you know? So, yeah, I’m, I’m actually, in hindsight, grateful and grateful for the rocky transition.
00:52:03:25 – 00:52:11:29
Agent Palmer
Did finding yoga before all that rocky transition help the Rocky transition?
00:52:11:34 – 00:52:39:43
Brian Wcislo
100%, yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. What what does yoga even mean anymore? You know, probably means something different to to everybody. But the the thing that captured me most was that, you know, I fell in love with this, form of tantric meditation in which you’re actually, like, chanting these ancient verses over and over again.
00:52:39:48 – 00:52:58:21
Brian Wcislo
If you want to get if you want to go, like, really og and, you know, do it the way that they did it back in the day, which is the way I was taught you’re naked around a fire. So is like, what the hell am I doing that I join a cult? But I had tried for years to, like, meditate, and that just never worked for me.
00:52:58:21 – 00:53:27:49
Brian Wcislo
And then, you know, and then there’s one. There’s one experience. Like, I felt like I had taken powerful drugs and reached these states of peace and connectedness and clarity that I just had never experienced before. And it happened after a full hour of of, you know, sitting around a fire naked in the jungle, chanting ancient, you know, verses.
00:53:27:54 – 00:54:01:46
Brian Wcislo
And we did that for another two hours. It was literally a three hour session. And I was like, what the hell was that? I never felt that level of clarity of peace in my entire existence. So, you know, here we are ten years later, and, I’ve never let that practice go. And I think it’s helped me in more ways than I could ever imagine and definitely helped me make it through, you know, all that transition and, you know, my my teacher was here, so that made it.
00:54:01:51 – 00:54:14:23
Brian Wcislo
That made it, you know. All right, well, I can always go and stay with my teacher, and that’s pretty awesome.
00:54:14:28 – 00:54:43:27
Agent Palmer
Happenstance is such a massive part of our lives, isn’t it? My trusty funk and Waggles defines happenstance simply as a chance occurrence, and that’s accurate. But when Brian talks about that happenstance of his busted knee, or finding yoga, or founding a business, selling your business, or having a life altering experience, it’s not just the chance occurrence. It’s what you do and how you react to that chance occurrence that matters most.
00:54:43:32 – 00:55:08:28
Agent Palmer
Personally, you can go back to episode 24 of this podcast and discover how one thing I wrote for class changed the trajectory of my life, or even back further to episode 13, where I discussed the origins of my anxiety, which just occurred by chance. You know, happenstance, a chance occurrence. And this has nothing to do with preparation. In many cases, we’re not prepared at all for happenstance.
00:55:08:37 – 00:55:29:22
Agent Palmer
So our natural inclinations are what we go with. And I hope that yours and mine are as well honed as Brian’s, because if he can end up in Paradise physically and probably metaphorically, then we all have a chance. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 149. And now for the official business, the Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
00:55:29:25 – 00:55:46:02
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact my friend Brian and myself in the show notes. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things.
00:55:46:02 – 00:55:52:45
Agent Palmer
Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:55:52:50 – 00:56:06:39
Unknown
You.
00:56:06:44 – 00:56:24:40
Unknown
See?
00:56:24:45 – 00:56:33:04
Unknown
Me?
00:56:33:08 – 00:56:35:42
Agent Palmer
All right. Brian, do you have one final question for me?
00:56:35:47 – 00:56:43:58
Brian Wcislo
I do, I I’m curious as to why is it that you do and have it done for so long? The Palmer files.
00:56:44:03 – 00:57:14:21
Agent Palmer
You know, I, I think it’s because I, and I enjoy talking to people, which is not a shock. And like if we, if we pull back the curtain completely. It was your agency and I was your agency’s representative for one of your clients, and I know that, you know, I would talk to whoever I was talking to for a long time like that.
00:57:14:26 – 00:57:48:53
Agent Palmer
I think there might be for anyone like that. I should probably like, I could probably have them all on. And I think I did have Ryan on who was cool. Designer Ryan. I had on a while ago, but like, he he told me he’s like. Or maybe he told me when we were talking off Mike. And the point is, the Palmer files existed in 5 to 10 to 20 minute chunks on agency calls, with your agency, with your designers and your programmers.
00:57:48:58 – 00:58:18:28
Agent Palmer
So it was almost in like a, like a, an an inevitability that I would find my way to this medium and it and it, it did take a while and I did kind of come to it kicking and screaming, but it’s one of those quirks of life that when you finally do the thing that you’ve been putting off, you go, I probably should have started this sooner.
00:58:18:33 – 00:58:40:04
Agent Palmer
Yeah. You know, like it’s just kind of like, all right. Yeah, I was helping other people and I was doing the other thing. And, you know, I do enjoy writing and the blog is a completely separate thing. But this I do this with, I don’t know. So this is oh, math. This is like, 149, 100 and yeah, I think this is episode 149.
00:58:40:04 – 00:59:16:18
Agent Palmer
Right. So that would mean there’s at least 120 different people. I’ve spoken to. And all of these conversations sometimes are one sided. Sometimes they’re back and forth. They’re all the conversations that like I would have on the phone anyway. But I do kind of want to share that, and I want to bring it back. I want people to listen to you tell a story and then have me ask you a question and you tell another story because I want people to do that in their real life.
00:59:16:23 – 01:00:07:22
Agent Palmer
I don’t want it to be. I want this to be an example. Like, yeah, it’s it’s a great story. But I also want people to get those stories from the people around them as like, almost a lead by example thing, because everything’s so short and everything’s so, crafted that even stories that I’ve told multiple times on this podcast come out differently based on the day I had or the week I had or what I have going on tomorrow, or what was the preface before in the conversation that led me to this story I’ve told before, and all of those versions of that one story are just as valid as the next, but
01:00:07:22 – 01:00:37:04
Agent Palmer
they’re all different in subtle ways that are probably more important to the the teller than the listener. But they’re all important. And I think that’s that’s what keeps me coming back. That’s what keeps me, you know. Hey, Brian, what’s going on? You know, like, that’s what keeps it up. And you know, I don’t know, it’s what keeps me engaged in the process as well.
01:00:37:04 – 01:01:06:46
Agent Palmer
And, look, I’m. I’m an introvert. I think only because, like, in a group of 100, I will find the one person I want to talk to. You know, in that event, I’m not trying to work the room unless I have to. But, yeah, I think it’s just about telling our stories and listening to other people’s stories, because for me, it really just comes back to that.
01:01:06:51 – 01:01:09:39
Brian Wcislo
Where you found you found your place in the world.
01:01:09:44 – 01:01:22:18
Agent Palmer
I’d like to think so. I also feel like there’s a part of me that’s like, I feel like there’s more, but I don’t know what it is. So I’m just just, What are you, human?
01:01:22:23 – 01:01:25:48
Brian Wcislo
Am I shit, I don’t know, I’m not sure if any of us are human.
01:01:25:59 – 01:01:48:49
Agent Palmer
Well, we’re definitely searching. And I think that’s the other thing. Like, I find myself, I find myself. Oh, it’s not discontented, but, like, you know, I read a book, and then I read another because, like, the last one wasn’t enough. It was good. Or I loved it, but, like, there’s got to be more right?
01:01:48:54 – 01:01:50:34
Brian Wcislo
Gotta be more.
01:01:50:38 – 01:02:08:07
Agent Palmer
And that’s probably why I keep doing this, because, like, I’ll have another person on next episode that whether it’s you again or somebody new or somebody old or a repeat guest, it’ll still be different. I don’t know that we can ask for more than that.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).