About Brian Vaszily

He believes the biggest issue facing the U.S. and Western world today is a growing sense of individual insignificance and disconnect from genuine wonder and self-purpose … an issue that is primarily driven by rampant consumerism.

Brian Vaszily, founder of IntenseExperiences.com

To achieve his life's mission of helping people discover -- or rediscover -- a sense of deep purpose, wonder and happiness, and achieve their greatest goals, Brian Vaszily founded and leads www.IntenseExperiences.com. This includes the free and popular "Live Deeper" newsletter that profiles a wide variety of intense experiences that readers can apply to their own lives.

Brian Vaszily also writes columns for various print and online media in the U.S. and beyond, and he has authored and co-authored several books including the one for which, to date, he is most proud ... the inspirational novella Beyond Stone and Steel, which was nominated for various awards and received many rave reviews from media and readers (see Very-Clever.com for various reviews, Jerry Cantu’s review, Qvadis, or search the book title at Google for many other reviews.)

He leads the "Truth or Dare" blog here at IntenseExperiences.com, and he has also appeared on various TV and radio shows and been quoted in many publications regarding his books, columns, articles and ideas.

The Most Formative Period

Brian Vaszily was born and raised in Chicago, growing up on the northwest side in the blue-collar Polish-Italian neighborhood known as "Portage-Cragin" in the city. To summarize what he considers the most formative events of his life, Brian explains:

“We certainly never went hungry – and though there were some rough periods in there such as when my father was an active alcoholic, I liked my childhood -- but my parents had to pinch pennies hard … especially hard in the later years when my father became unable to work due to emphysema and other serious diseases.

"He spent the last half-year of his life entirely in three different hospitals, fighting a hard and sad battle against death while my mother with whatever support my sister and I could offer battled to keep his spirits up, keep her job and our home up, and battle an inept medical system while she was at it. We all spent much of our time at bedside with my father.

“During this same time period the girl I was dating for four months became pregnant and she and I would have our baby. I was 19 years old. I also asked her to marry me. In retrospect yes, of course I was way too young to marry … but then I felt partly responsible for my father’s pain (wrongfully so in retrospect, but he and I often had a rough relationship) and didn’t want to contribute to her pain too. She was a Roman Catholic from a rather strict family and the last thing I wanted for her was to be ostracized from them.

“On the same day my father died I had no choice but to go to a job interview as a mail clerk in a law firm because I had a baby on the way and we had absolutely no money. I didn’t get that job – I broke down in tears during the interview despite my best efforts not to – but I eventually got another job elsewhere paying a pittance.

"For a year my wife, my new son and I lived in a small studio apartment but -- when we simply couldn’t afford that and were way past due on most bills -- moved back into my childhood home with my mom. My wife, my baby son and I all slept and lived out of my small childhood bedroom during that time.

“I was determined, though, for my wife and I to go back to college and, with me working and parenting and going to school full-time and her doing the same, we did. We incurred over $60,000 in student loans to do it. We lived in subsidized housing to do it, and for a brief time in there we were even on welfare and food stamps to do it. But we did it, graduating three years later … and parents of a beautiful four-year-old boy.

“A few years after that we did go through a rather difficult divorce – she’s a good person but of course getting married so young and in those circumstances I had no idea what I wanted or why or how to be a husband (I was a great father, but not so great at husbanding back then). She is doing well now with her second husband, and they live close by. My son is seventeen and, though he is seventeen and poses all the worries a seventeen year old does, I couldn’t ask for a more wonderful child.

"I was in many ways still way too young when I got married a second time -- I still did not know who I was or what I really needed. My second wife had a daughter from her previous marriage who I love and helped raise for a decade, and who I view and treat as my own daughter. But though my second wife is a wonderful person we were not right for one another and we too got divorced. (No, I will not be following the Elizabeth Taylor model; over the last seven years especially I have learned who I am and what I need in relation to a lifelong relationship, and will be patient and wise getting there... third time will be the charm.)

“Bottom line is, there have been many other powerful and transformative experiences in my life. But this particular chain of events -- my father's difficult death and the death of two marriages, each of which had a domino effect on the next and all of which have many important details that can't be covered in this brief bio -- have been most responsible for opening my eyes to what really matters in this world, and to how fragile this gift of life is. And, for that matter, to how so many people have lost sight of this – or maybe never even had it in their sights -- and are living lives of quiet desperation. My life’s mission, including IntenseExperiences.com, was largely born of this.”

Brian currently resides in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. You can use this form to contact Brian Vaszily.