Motivational speaker & author Brian Vaszily's dedication to discovering and teaching the most positively transformative experiences, sparked by a series of revelations stemming from his unusual and often very challenging personal life, has earned him acclaim and a growing following worldwide.
As a motivational speaker, author, and life coach, his unique work for which he has achieved worldwide renown engages people in fun and fascinating "Intense Experiences" that rapidly clear through the impact of stress, fear, anger, feeling overwhelmed and other emotions. These Intense Experiences enable them to achieve far greater clarity, energy, productivity, and success in their work and personal lives.
This Intense Experiences work is not an invention, Brian notes, but is instead based on practices and beliefs that cultures throughout the world and time have valued most highly -- but that our culture today increasingly ignores, causing very serious issues on an individual and collective basis, including epidemic levels of stress, depression, polarization and anger, loneliness, and more.
It draws from research in neuroscience, nature, psychology, nutrition, and other sciences; the arts such as music, film, and painting; and Brian's own years of work as a coach and teacher.
Chicago motivational speaker and author Brian faced many challenges earlier in his life, including growing up in a rough section of Chicago where he faced frequent violence and lost friends to gangs. His father was a brilliant man who, through unresolved tragedies in his own life, became an abusive alcoholic to Brian and his family. His father spent ten years dying a difficult and angry death; within a period of months when Brian was twenty, his father died while Brian became a father and husband himself. For the next two decades, while helping to raise his son and stepdaughter and working through college and beyond, Brian experienced poverty including living on food stamps and welfare, two divorces, bankruptcy, the death of one close friend in a car accident and the near-death of another to cancer, the death of two young uncles, and other serious challenges.
What surprises many people is how genuinely grateful Brian is for the lessons provided by these challenges from earlier in his life. He contends that though they were hard, those years were also filled with many great triumphs and joys. And Brian points out that these many challenges helped prompt the big question he would explore for years, the question that would eventually lead him to create Intense Experiences: “Is it only through surviving difficult or tragic experiences that adults are re-awakened to how precious life is and how right now is the time to focus on their greatest goals, dreams, and what really matters?”
Through years of research in diverse fields, and through his own work as a coach and teacher, Brian learned the answer is no, people don’t have to rely on tragic experiences to refocus them on what really matters. He discovered that, by actively engaging in Intense Experiences -- particularly in nine key areas of experience -- people will stay focused on what really matters and achieve their greatest goals and dreams.
In 2011, John Wiley & Sons publishing released Brian's "magnum opus" book, The 9 Intense Experiences: An Action Plan to Change Your Life Forever, which hit #1 bestseller status in multiple categories on Amazon.com including Spirituality, Success, Happiness, and Personal Development. Many world-renowned authors have praised the book, such as Marci Shimoff, author of multiple New York Times bestsellers including Happy for No Reason, who called it "a beautiful, unique, and powerful guide, a must-read for anyone who wants to achieve his or her goals and dreams." Others have praised it as one of the best motivational books of the new century, and it has been nominated for a 2011 Books for a Better Life Award.
Brian is also the author and co-author of several other books, including Beyond Stone and Steel, an uplifting novella based on 9/11 published by a small press that earned widespread critical acclaim and landed Brian extensive media coverage including interviews on NBC, ABC, and Fox TV affiliates.
Today motivational speaker, life coach, and author Brian Vaszily lives in the city of Chicago. In addition to his weekly "Live Deeper" personal growth and motivational articles newsletter at IntenseExperiences.com, he frequently provides seminars and workshops through many different online platforms, reaching thousands worldwide. His articles, essays, columns, videos, and audio recordings have been published, featured, and discussed in thousands of blogs, publications, and websites. A graduate of Northern Illinois University, Brian also leads the global online book club 1World1Book.com that helps charities, and he also leads the Chicago Nonfiction Book Club, one of that city’s largest local book clubs. He routinely engages in a wide range of new experiences, but also has longstanding favorites, including deep conversations with family and friends, playing the drums, getting lost, trying new cuisine, and doing nothing on the beach but daydreaming.
What surprises many people is how genuinely grateful Brian is for the lessons provided by these challenges from earlier in his life. He contends that though they were hard, those years were also filled with many great triumphs and joys. And Brian points out that these many challenges helped prompt the big question he would explore for years, the question that would eventually lead him to create Intense Experiences: “Is it only through surviving difficult or tragic experiences that adults are re-awakened to how precious life is and how right now is the time to focus on their greatest goals, dreams, and what really matters?”
Through years of research in diverse fields, and through his own work as a coach and teacher, Brian learned the answer is no, people don’t have to rely on tragic experiences to refocus them on what really matters. He discovered that, by actively engaging in Intense Experiences -- particularly in nine key areas of experience -- people will stay focused on what really matters and achieve their greatest goals and dreams.
In 2011, John Wiley & Sons publishing released Brian's "magnum opus" book, The 9 Intense Experiences: An Action Plan to Change Your Life Forever, which hit #1 bestseller status in multiple categories on Amazon.com including Spirituality, Success, Happiness, and Personal Development. Many world-renowned authors have praised the book, such as Marci Shimoff, author of multiple New York Times bestsellers including Happy for No Reason, who called it "a beautiful, unique, and powerful guide, a must-read for anyone who wants to achieve his or her goals and dreams." Others have praised it as one of the best motivational books of the new century, and it has been nominated for a 2011 Books for a Better Life Award.
Brian is also the author and co-author of several other books, including Beyond Stone and Steel, an uplifting novella based on 9/11 published by a small press that earned widespread critical acclaim and landed Brian extensive media coverage including interviews on NBC, ABC, and Fox TV affiliates.
Today motivational speaker, life coach, and author Brian Vaszily lives in the city of Chicago. In addition to his weekly "Live Deeper" personal growth and motivational articles newsletter at IntenseExperiences.com, he frequently provides seminars and workshops through many different online platforms, reaching thousands worldwide. His articles, essays, columns, videos, and audio recordings have been published, featured, and discussed in thousands of blogs, publications, and websites. A graduate of Northern Illinois University, Brian also leads the global online book club 1World1Book.com that helps charities, and he also leads the Chicago Nonfiction Book Club, one of that city’s largest local book clubs. He routinely engages in a wide range of new experiences, but also has longstanding favorites, including deep conversations with family and friends, playing the drums, getting lost, trying new cuisine, and doing nothing on the beach but daydreaming.
