Permission to Heal
Permission to Heal
Permission to Heal Episode #70 - A Conversation with Glen Dunzweiler - Grow to be Your Best Self
Glen Dunzweiler is a filmmaker/producer and social entrepreneur who is on a mission to grow people into spiritual, strategic, and economic wealth one story at a time. He has a background in live entertainment and teaching at universities. In 2015, he moved to Los Angeles to focus on the business side of entertainment and has made it his goal to get others the tools they need in order to succeed in this society that we have built. He does this because he's seen (first-hand) the change in people when they recognize that they have value.
According to Glen, the biggest thing is to realize that you have to be able to value yourself. This deeply coincides with our mission here at Permission to Heal - inspiring people to give themselves permission to live their best lives.
Connect with Glen Dunzweiler
LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and His Website.
TEDx Talk, His Podcast - Difficult Questions.
His book - A Degree in Homelessness? Entrepreneurial Skills for Students.
YouTube Series - Skid Row Speakers.
“Deuce? Narrative feature trailer
Connect with Marci
· Website, Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Facebook Group.
· Permission to Heal on YouTube.
· Permission to Land (memoir) - Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, audiobook
- Permission to Land: Personal Transformation Through Writing
Permission to Heal Bookshop - Buy books from the episodes & support independent bookstores.
Permission to Heal is a passion of mine. I need your help to bring more inspirational episodes to the world; please consider becoming a patron through PATREON. You get perks & the contentment knowing you are helping get PTH out to the people who need it.
[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. And welcome to permission to heal. I am Marci Brockman, and I am as usual, thrilled that you were here, actually tickled pink that you're here every week with me. This week I chat with a lovely man from California named Glenn Dunzweiler. He is another multi-passionate person.
[00:00:28] Multihyphenate person. He doesn't do just one thing. He follows his. Journey and the path and, has a mission and seeks any avenue to accomplish it. His enthusiasm is quite contagious. Dunzweiler is a filmmaker, a producer, a social entrepreneur who is on a mission to grow people into spiritual, strategic, and economic wealth. One story at a time. He's a storyteller. He has a background in live entertainment and teaching at universal.
[00:01:06] In 2015, when he moved to Los Angeles to focus on the business side of entertainment, he made it his goal to get others, the tools they need in order to succeed in this society that we've built. And he does this because he has seen firsthand the change in people when they recognize that they themselves have valid. He wrote a book called a degree in homelessness, entrepreneurial skills for students that we talked about quite a bit. I think I'm going to buy for every college and high school graduate person.
[00:01:43] I know he wrote and created a documentary called why. With a letter "Y homeless" question mark that is featured on Amazon prime and he did a Ted X talk called "things I learned from the homeless". His other projects include a YouTube series called skid row speakers.
[00:02:06] And he has a podcast called "Difficult Questions" with Glenn Dunzweiler. He also has an upcoming music video for Ken Newman song about homelessness called "We Should Do This Again." He is I don't know how he finds the time and he's a motorcycle rider and he's just really passionate about. Seeing each other and treating each other with kindness and allowing ourselves the permission to take care of ourselves and make sure that our needs are met while we're also being kind and helpful to other people and who couldn't love and respect that.
[00:02:52] So this is a really energetic, fun. Yet. Very societaly mindful conversation. I hope you enjoy.
[00:00:00] Marci Brockmann: Welcome Glen. How are you today?
[00:00:03] Glen Dunzweiler: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:06] Marci Brockmann: He goes from really peaceful to this like big amped up energy. Just say hello, buddy, buddy. So you're in Los Angeles. It's nice and warm and I'm in New York and it's kinda cold and bleak and rainy.
[00:00:20] Marci Brockmann: It's so gray. It looks like a reading ready for a horror movie, but that's okay.
[00:00:26] Glen Dunzweiler: Let's hope not for sure. Let's hope not. No,
[00:00:31] Marci Brockmann: no. Hell no. So you've got a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, I do
[00:00:35] Glen Dunzweiler: a lot of stuff.
[00:00:37] Marci Brockmann: Multi-passionate
[00:00:38] Glen Dunzweiler: man. Yeah. The way I describe it, as most people have. You know, a family or a spouse or a soccer team or a church or whatever it is, they're multihyphenate in that way.
[00:00:53] Glen Dunzweiler: And I'm a, multihyphenate in, whatever's on my website. That's
[00:00:58] Marci Brockmann: and there's a lot on your website when Jones wyler.com it's jam packed. You don't want to just tell us, tell us, tell us, bring us into your world. Tell us the stuff that you did. Sure.
[00:01:08] Glen Dunzweiler: So, um, first and foremost, a producer filmmaker, but then a social entrepreneurs as well.
[00:01:15] Glen Dunzweiler: And what is a social entrepreneur? I try to make things that have. Social significance sustainable. So for example, my latest book, um, now I can't remember the title of my own book, but no homelessness, entrepreneurial skills for students. It's a way to give tools to students to prevent them from getting stuck outside of, of their education.
[00:01:43] Glen Dunzweiler: Because I got stuck outside of my education. I was told that the key to success with Desi K education. And then I found that I didn't have the tools to succeed after education. So I'm looking to give those tools back to, to students in a socially significant way. And, and entrepreneur in that the book is for sale.
[00:02:06] Glen Dunzweiler: Yes,
[00:02:06] Marci Brockmann: yes, yes, yes. So what kind of skills do you recommend, you know, without giving away the whole store, what kind of skills do you recommend for students? Cause I have a, uh, Uh, my youngest is about to graduate from college and she's embarking on her first forays into independent adulthood. And my oldest son is a.
[00:02:28] Marci Brockmann: Graduating with his masters and his trying to get a job as a mechanical engineer and going out on his own. So they're both apartment hunting at the same time, luckily around the same area. So they have each other. But, uh, so, so you're speaking to my wheelhouse here.
[00:02:43] Glen Dunzweiler: That's great. Great. Yeah. The biggest thing is to realize that you have to be able to value yourself and you have to be able to know what that number is and that number can change.
[00:02:57] Glen Dunzweiler: And that number is a conversation with someone that is employing you or a business that you were starting, but you have to know what you're worth. So you have some kind of idea going into a negotiation. I never was
[00:03:12] Marci Brockmann: taught this. You mean salary that's where you've got numbers
[00:03:15] Glen Dunzweiler: or, or value. Humanity. What do you, what is your place in life?
[00:03:20] Glen Dunzweiler: How are you going to give joy to someone that will be willing to pay you for it? Right. That's kind of, because for me, money was always something that my employer never gave me enough of, which is a very limiting viewpoint. Right. You get a job, you go to school to get a job, to have someone tell you how much you're worth.
[00:03:42] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. That's 20 minutes. Exactly. So that's the big skill. And then the other, the other is, is those are those small business and entrepreneurial. Opportunities that you can look for where you think, okay, am I selling my time? And if I'm selling my time, how much is that worth? And why is it that work? Am I creating a product and trying to scale and make passive income?
[00:04:07] Glen Dunzweiler: Am I positioning myself to be able to pay myself first? And do I understand what paying myself first is? Funny story. I never understood what that was. My grandfather always said, pay yourself first, pay yourself first. So I don't really was when I was 19, I bought a Harley Davidson and I went to him and I said, grandpa, I paid myself first look, and he just shook his head.
[00:04:30] Glen Dunzweiler: I don't think that's what it means. And then the idea of pay yourself first is you have to position yourself for the ability to survive after you can make now money. Now, what is now money? Now, money is the ability for you to make money now, but your life may extend past your ability to make now money.
[00:04:51] Glen Dunzweiler: And then what, so this
[00:04:54] Marci Brockmann: idea here usually investments something or other passive
[00:04:57] Glen Dunzweiler: income, um, kind of planning of your life, and that plan can change, but the plan needs to be addressed and you need to start at it. I say business skills and entrepreneurial skills are like vegetables. You know, when you're 18 to 22, you can get by on fast food, you don't need vegetables, right?
[00:05:17] Glen Dunzweiler: But when you hit about 25, you need to know what a carrot was. You needed a where to get a carrot, right. Need to know how to cook. Because it will feed your soul. Right. Um, and that's what I kinda, I kind of setting people up, but people say, well, where, when, when should they start to learn these entrepreneurial skills?
[00:05:36] Glen Dunzweiler: And I say, yeah, I mean, the sooner, the better I have a friend that had her son opened up an Amazon store when he was 10. And so he was curating toys and selling them through his store on Amazon. So he got to understand what people might be looking for, what excited people, how to market that. Wow.
[00:05:58] Glen Dunzweiler: Marketing is another skill that people have to learn. Why when I grew up, my dad always said, keep your head down and work hard. Let your work speak for yourself. Well, the problem is that can get you taken for granted. So I always say, keep your head up. And speak for yourself and that be by keeping your head up, you're looking for opportunity.
[00:06:18] Glen Dunzweiler: You're looking for people that might value what you have to offer. You're looking for people that you value as well. And you're building a network and that's something that was never told to me that was very important. I didn't need to build a network. You just, you go to school, you get work experience.
[00:06:36] Glen Dunzweiler: You could keep your head down, you work hard and then your work will speak for itself and you will succeed necessarily. Now
[00:06:44] Marci Brockmann: it doesn't work now, depending on what your business is, you have to create, I hate using this word, but you sort of have to create your own brand. You know, like, who are you? What do you stand for?
[00:06:53] Marci Brockmann: What are your values? What are your work, ethics, what kind of products or services can you produce? Where, what are your dreams? Where do your goals? You know, what can you do for my company? And why should I hire you? You know? Right. And you have to keep refining that, or you wind up obsolete.
[00:07:10] Glen Dunzweiler: And it's, it's taking your, your, your.
[00:07:15] Glen Dunzweiler: Your reality out of working for someone too, because sometimes you're going to get, let go. Sometimes there's not going to be a job. I mean, we live in a very, uh, in a world with great opportunity, but it's very tumultuous, tumultuous. There's the word? So, so sometimes my, my approach is, Hey, learn how to be a good employee, but also learn how to be a good small business person.
[00:07:41] Glen Dunzweiler: Look, learn how to be a good entrepreneur. One of the things I say is you have to learn how to sell among my cohorts. We always got to say, oh, I'm not good at selling. Well, what that means is you're working for someone. You're letting them do the work of defining what your value is, right? Because they, at some point they have to face outward and they have a customer, whoever that customer is, and they're marketing to that customer.
[00:08:06] Glen Dunzweiler: And by you just saying. I'm not good at selling. You're cutting yourself off and you're not, uh, you're not opening yourself up to opportunities. You have to get good. You have to get good at, at expressing your value and giving people joy, and really connecting with people. And that's what good salespeople do.
[00:08:26] Glen Dunzweiler: That's all, not all what good salespeople do, but really that's the crux of it. You have to keep your head up. And so this book is all about that. And, uh, that's kind of one of the things that I do, social entrepreneurially, your neuro. Usually the other thing is, as I work, I'm trying to solve the homelessness conundrum in the United States, the whole,
[00:08:53] Marci Brockmann: a whole documentary called why homeless available on Amazon.
[00:08:57] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. So let me take a sip of water
[00:09:00] Marci Brockmann: here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So from what I understand, something, something along the lines where my notes, my notes, you, you bought a house in 2006. Yeah. And then somehow had was job insecure or something by the time 2008 rolled around. And I'm sure as a homeowner, you were in the same bubble.
[00:09:20] Marci Brockmann: I was, cause I bought a house. I bought the house that I'm actually in right now in 2008 and before the ink was dry on the closing contract, it wasn't even worth what I had just paid for it. So
[00:09:32] Glen Dunzweiler: yeah, exactly. Same thing. And so
[00:09:34] Marci Brockmann: period of holy fuck, what do I do now?
[00:09:38] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. So that, that housing crisis really affected a lot of people in the country.
[00:09:43] Glen Dunzweiler: And we got to see how the banks were working and how things weren't were help. People were getting taken advantage of and how people were being encouraged to act ignorantly act in ignorance. And I had a huge learning curve from that and started to see. I actually became, I never became homeless, but I was under threat of becoming homeless.
[00:10:04] Glen Dunzweiler: I realized that the bank, my bank said, cause I was trying to negotiate. I'd got cut back at work. And I said, I'm not going to be able to make this mortgage in about three to four months. And they said, we won't even talk to you until you stop paying. So I realized that they were making me vulnerable for them to be able to foreclose on me.
[00:10:22] Glen Dunzweiler: But
[00:10:24] Marci Brockmann: by the time they could legally get you out of your
[00:10:26] Glen Dunzweiler: house. Right. However, hitting the world that I bought into ignorantly, I didn't quite know that yet. Right. And I also just thought, okay, I know the world of rentals and I have to have a good credit score. But if I stop paying my mortgage, I'm going to ruin my credit.
[00:10:40] Glen Dunzweiler: So how I'm going to get into even a rental. I have a job teaching at a university and I'm going to become homeless. How does this work? And so. Brought me into finding this whole world of who homeless people are, how they get homeless, how the successful ones get out. The people that are, that who the people are that are trying to help home the homeless.
[00:11:02] Glen Dunzweiler: What are the problems with that? And basically the landscape of homelessness in the United States. And when I learned what was going on, my social entrepreneur kicked in and I said, this has got to change. And what I found is, especially in 2008, you know, nonprofits have a model of having their out. So they have grants.
[00:11:23] Glen Dunzweiler: Their, their whole system is set up for grants for giving me money so I can do my mission. And when that money's not there, those places close. And I found a few, um, I found a few homeless service providers that had tied their, their non-profit onto the back of a profit of a for-profit business. So they were kind of.
[00:11:45] Glen Dunzweiler: Recession-proof and they allow, they could continue to serve the people that were were hurting. And so I started on my. Told them to try and, and, and say, guys, let's look at this, let's try and solve this. And, and so that that's a TEDx called small business homeless at the book called things I've learned from the homeless that's talking to you.
[00:12:11] Glen Dunzweiler: That's, you know, just trying it's I call it the, the hearts and minds work, you know, we're, we're trying to S to, to really solve this problem, but we've, we're always solving it in a, in a limiting way that we'll never get out of if we don't broaden our horizons. And we're really trying to compensate for a lack of, of, of family and community that we'd surround them.
[00:12:35] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. We've gotten rid of over the years and these people are just, when you fall down, when you lose your job, when you get hurt, when you get sick, whatever it is, and you don't have the socialism that we have in this country, which is your family and your community. Uh, we're trying to answer with capitalism and that costs a lot of money.
[00:12:53] Glen Dunzweiler: I mean, just in you think of 24 hour care, so you can't care for yourself. That's more than three full-time jobs to care for one person. So capitalism can answer that, right. And that's where we're hitting. We were spending a lot of money and not getting a lot of return on our investment and it's frustrating us and, and it's been frustrating us.
[00:13:15] Glen Dunzweiler: And so I'm trying to change the model. Uh, it changed the hearts and minds and the viewpoints of who homeless people are, how they get there. And, and really tell those stories. I say, I'm, I'm trying to, uh, grow people into wealth, one story at a time. And if growing people into wealth means I get to touch a person that has resources to not look at a homeless person, as let's say a throwaway person.
[00:13:38] Glen Dunzweiler: And so they reach out while I'm growing someone into wealth by, by effecting that story. If I give people entrepreneurial skills that allow them to, to, to re resurrect themselves after they get fired from a job or figure out what they're doing in college before they get out with $200,000 in student loan debt and no way to pay it back.
[00:14:00] Glen Dunzweiler: Well, then I'm growing people into wealth, one story at a time, and, you know, I've had a lot of failures in my life. So what I do is I just lay them all out there and write. Okay. These are the conclusions I came up with and this is why. And then I kind of spin it into not a sad story because I'm not a sad story type person.
[00:14:19] Glen Dunzweiler: When I made my documentary on homelessness, I thought, oh, there's so many sad stories out there. Yeah. A good cry is a good cry, but it is that we need no homelessness, not to be a sad story. How can I make it inspirational? So I started, you know, I have this YouTube series called skid row speakers where I get words of inspiration from homeless people, because I've learned so much from homeless people.
[00:14:41] Glen Dunzweiler: And once, you know, once they know that, you know, they have something to offer the world, they come alive, you know, and to see that is, it is amazing, you know? Uh, so as long as I can spread that word, I call it spiritual financial or spirit, spiritual, economic, and strategic wealth. That's what I'm trying to build people into.
[00:15:04] Glen Dunzweiler: However I can. And I'm, I'm spinning an interesting story as I'm doing it, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:10] Marci Brockmann: So you ultimately consider yourself a storyteller.
[00:15:13] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah, that's it really it's. I've learned. So I have a background in production and entertainment production. So however I need to tell how now, however I can best tell the story.
[00:15:25] Glen Dunzweiler: I'm trying to tell. So if that comes out in a book, if that comes out in a TEDx talk, if that comes out in an eight minute story, that I'm telling it a storytelling event, if that comes out in a feature length film, if that comes out in film shorts, if that comes out in an Instagram post, right? That's that, that's what I,
[00:15:43] Marci Brockmann: all the vehicles possible to get the message out.
[00:15:46] Glen Dunzweiler: Those are my storytelling tools and my technical tools to be able to get that message across to people or try to get that message across to people.
[00:15:55] Marci Brockmann: So what surprises or, um, um, uh, I guess that the word is surprises. What surprises did you learn from, from creating this documentary? This why homeless documentary?
[00:16:11] Marci Brockmann: What did, what did you learn that you didn't think you would learn?
[00:16:14] Glen Dunzweiler: So the first thing, cause we're in 2008 and the world was falling down and everyone was told that if you were middle-class and you were educated, you weren't poor. Right. And all of a sudden, wait a minute, I'm middle class and I'm educated and I'm poor.
[00:16:29] Glen Dunzweiler: So there were all these new stories about middle-class educated people. In homeless shelters. And I was, that was kind of the original idea of the documentary. But then I was talking to a homeless service provider and he said, look, man, you're just, all these people are just looking for blonde hair, blue eyes, homeless people.
[00:16:51] Glen Dunzweiler: That's all they want because that's the story. He said, look, man, homelessness, isn't a class because he said one thing to me that just blew my mind. He said, how much money does a child make? How can a child be middle-class right.
[00:17:09] Marci Brockmann: Just based on family.
[00:17:10] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah, it's been. And so if that child doesn't have a family.
[00:17:15] Glen Dunzweiler: W what class is that child, right? Yeah. And that's what we're running into. And the surprising part, where for me, it was all of the logical conundrums that we have and to use my hands now, the logical conundrums that we build ourselves in this society, where, for example, this is the one that, that I always just really blew me away is you have what I call bleeding, heart liberal moms that care for the world.
[00:17:45] Glen Dunzweiler: And we should, we should, we should, we should help. We should always help. We should always help. But then they're the first ones to stop a homeless shelter being built anywhere near them in their neighborhood, the NIMBY thing, because they're afraid of what that group of people is going to bring into their children.
[00:18:05] Glen Dunzweiler: Right? So it's this protection that of keeping everything close that is preventing. Helping other people. And we do that a lot. Uh, and we build these ideals in our heads about solving homelessness, where they can't logically play out. You know, we want someone else to, in, in Los Angeles, we spent all of this money and taxpayer money to develop shelters, but all of the money went into planning and development because we want someone else to do it.
[00:18:44] Glen Dunzweiler: Well, as long as you get someone else to do it, you have to pay that person. They're not going to do it for free. So the money you gave to help the homeless goes to pay the people, helping the homeless, you know, and by the time, the month that they're set up to help the homeless, they don't have any money left to help the homeless.
[00:19:02] Glen Dunzweiler: So. We have that. We do that a lot. And the reason we do that is because homeless are scary. Homeless are dirty, homeless are throwaway people yet. We don't admit they're throwaway people, but when they're back of our mind, we think they're a lost cause. Or I don't want them anywhere near me. Right? And so we have to build this, this caring barrier between the good public and the bad homeless to protect us, but to help.
[00:19:31] Glen Dunzweiler: And it's this huge force shield that costs a lot of money and does nothing. And so my, my whole kick is positive, direct action, as best you can, whatever that positive direct action is. And I've seen. Entrepreneurs come up with great ideas and, and, and put things out there that really help people not only on a day to day, but help their spirits.
[00:19:59] Glen Dunzweiler: So, for example, I always said, if you can do nothing else, just look a homeless person in the eye and say, hi, I know you're scared that you're, they're gonna lunge at you. And you're going to, they're going to make you uncomfortable because they're going to ask you for money. So if you don't make eye contact, they won't ask you for money.
[00:20:15] Glen Dunzweiler: Well, you have money. Maybe you can't afford to give them something, but maybe you can give them eye contact. And if they ask you for money, just say, I don't have anything. You suck it up. Just make eye contact with them because ma keep treating them as human is another step to getting them back. Right?
[00:20:31] Glen Dunzweiler: Once you, once a person who believes that they're not human true, you
[00:20:34] Marci Brockmann: start acting like
[00:20:35] Glen Dunzweiler: humanity. Right? And so, uh, there are, there there's a, uh, a platform out. I can't remember the name of it right now. Oh, Samaritan it's called Samaritan. And I said, I was going to next time. Uh, I was going to tell people about it.
[00:20:52] Glen Dunzweiler: You can sign up to get a homeless person. You be a team member of a homeless person, which I thought was a great idea. Two people. So you can, they, they, they do this kind of, you sign up for a Samaritan key and then people put money into this Samaritan account. And then this person that you're on their team of can use that money for things at these Samaritan sites.
[00:21:21] Glen Dunzweiler: So it could be food, it could be shelter, it could be. So it's all kind of trackable. It's not, it's not so locked down because you know, I, whenever people give handouts, they say, well, what if he's going to use it on drugs? Right. Okay. Are you going to think for them now? But what Samaritan tries to do is say, we offer, you can give, you can put money in this bank and then they, we don't offer drugs at these Samaritan sites.
[00:21:51] Glen Dunzweiler: So that's not an option that, so, so your, your fears are quelled,
[00:21:55] Marci Brockmann: right? It was a safe, sanitized way of helping more directly than giving the money to some bureaucracy where it didn't actually trickle down to the right place.
[00:22:06] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. And so things like that that are really thinking about positive, direct action, and really cutting out the middleman as much as they can.
[00:22:15] Glen Dunzweiler: And. Really great support to people directly. There are solutions. I mean, Samaritan is one of them. And so I I'm, I'm a proponent of trying to curate all of those and tell people about all of those and get people excited about thinking about how they can help with whatever resources they have and however comfortable they feel, you know, uh, again, people say, well, what, what if you, you, you aren't comfortable giving money.
[00:22:45] Glen Dunzweiler: Don't give money then. I mean, you have to care about you most, right. And unless you were prepared. So when I give them a. One, I pay for inspirational stories. So I'm changing the dynamic. I'm not giving them anything. I'm paying them for a story that I can record. So when they ask me money, I said, do you have an inspirational story?
[00:23:07] Glen Dunzweiler: And then I'd get my camera out. And I recorded their inspirational story and I pay them. But if I don't have the cash with me, if I have to dig for the cash, if I have to give them an opportunity, if I'm going to give them an opportunity to, um, to take advantage of me, maybe following some bad habits that they have, or just the opportunity is too great, then I'm not going to do it right.
[00:23:29] Glen Dunzweiler: If I'm not in a, if I'm not in a secure position, then no. Uh, but I'm going to make eye contact and I'm going to know, let that person know that they're a human. Now I'm also at an advantage. I'm six foot two. I look like this. You know, the, the familiar, yeah. I mean, and sometimes the fear thing is, Hey, you gotta do you, if that's, you just want to watch out for yourself, that's fine.
[00:23:56] Glen Dunzweiler: Try to make eye contact. I mean, at least try, try to get that energy force up that says, don't mess with me. I had one guy, he was bigger than I was. He came up and he said, Hey man, you got five bucks. And I said, no, I don't. And because I look the way I do, he looked at me, he said, what are you on drugs?
[00:24:18] Glen Dunzweiler: I mean, it's a hard life. You know, he's running into people out there. I don't look like, I look like I should have an extra five bucks for a guy, but I didn't have any cash on me. I just don't
[00:24:27] Marci Brockmann: have cash. I don't walk like cash most of the time. I'm certainly not giving them my ATM card,
[00:24:32] Glen Dunzweiler: you know? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:34] Glen Dunzweiler: And that's the thing, you know, so now you have this other thing in your wallet. I don't have any cash, but have you heard of Samaritan? Right? So now you have, you have a solution for them that may be accessible. And I think there, they're definitely in Los Angeles. They're definitely in Seattle. I think there are New York.
[00:24:50] Glen Dunzweiler: They're, they're adding, they're adding cities all the time. Uh, so it's one of these things where, Hey, maybe I can't give you cash, but I can get you hooked into this, this organization that gets you the money you need for the cigarettes that you want. Right. Cause I mean, I guess someone could say, I'm not going to buy you cigarettes cause that's a bad habit, but okay.
[00:25:13] Glen Dunzweiler: Are we going to say if you're ha you have to make a certain amount of money to have a bad habit that is socially acceptable, right? Well, we do, we do. That's our gut level reaction. We're you know, if you can, if you can make money, if you can make enough money, you can do whatever you want. That's why celebrities have addiction problems because they can just pay for it until they fall down until they can't.
[00:25:36] Glen Dunzweiler: But then if you don't have money, then we want to put limiting, um, activities on you. So long-winded answer there. I had
[00:25:46] Marci Brockmann: that's okay. I'm very interested. So, so your experience, I, you were experienced taught you that a lot of, or many of our stereotypes about homeless people are wrong.
[00:26:05] Marci Brockmann: Am I getting that? Well,
[00:26:08] Glen Dunzweiler: I, so, Hey, that guy that asked me for money, maybe as a criminal. Maybe he's been, I mean, maybe he's a scary dude. Uh, that woman on the street that is, uh, has, has, uh, has a cardboard sign out. Maybe she has messed up her life, you know, ma I don't know what I might, my goal is to really focus on the solutions and to keep a positive spin on the solutions.
[00:26:43] Glen Dunzweiler: Does that make sense? Yeah. Cause what we do, we throw a whole bunch of roadblocks in front of us to tell us, to tell ourselves why we can't help. And I'm trying to knock those roadblocks down. So any, any opportunity I can get, instead of telling you your stereotypes are wrong, I'm going to tell you, Hey, do you really want to concern yourself with those stereotypes?
[00:27:06] Glen Dunzweiler: Because they're not going to get us anywhere. Charlie on this, your street corner is still going to be on your street corner. It doesn't matter what his background is. Right. So
[00:27:17] Marci Brockmann: mental illness and his background, or he has a PhD. He's not using his irrelevant.
[00:27:22] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Yeah. There was a, I worked, yeah. I worked with a guy where you noticed that occasionally homeless people get famous and get a second chance because they're a great performer.
[00:27:35] Glen Dunzweiler: They have a great voice from the guy with the golden voice, or there was a violinist in LA about three years ago. That's. Saw at a train station and filmed her. And, you know, she had been a certain caliber of performer. And so they were trying to get her back. It's like, well, if you're down and out, do you have to have that amazing skill to fall back on to get help, get help.
[00:27:58] Glen Dunzweiler: Right, exactly. I mean, cause that's what we do and it's all marketing, right? It goes back and talking about your brand and people. What I tell people is you have to take control of your brand before someone else does for you. And what really taught me, that was the I'm going to F Amanda Knox. Do you remember Amanda Knox?
[00:28:22] Glen Dunzweiler: So she was a student, I think in Italy and she got caught up in some kind of her boyfriend ended up getting killed and she got charged for it, but the Italians wanted her to be guilty. The Americans did not want her to be guilty. So for a while, She was absolutely innocent in American's eyes. She was absolutely guilty in Italian's eyes.
[00:28:45] Glen Dunzweiler: And then it kind of flip-flop for a while. And she had no agency over her own brand. Like everyone else was talking about her personal, her personality. Does that make sense? Everyone else was turning out. She's a killer, she's an innocent girl and she's not saying anything.
[00:29:03] Marci Brockmann: And I just thought, wasn't she saying anything to her lawyer
[00:29:06] Glen Dunzweiler: 19, she was 20.
[00:29:08] Glen Dunzweiler: She was overwhelmed. I mean, any of those, any of those reasons? I think my stepdaughter is 21 and she funny story, her mom was coming back with her from, uh, Mexico, because she has family in Mexico. And, but, but my stepdaughter was, was born in the U S she's a us citizen and the border guard wanted to make sure she didn't have an accent because he was like, who is this?
[00:29:32] Glen Dunzweiler: And at times she was 16, she didn't have an ID or something. And. My, my ex wife said, you need to speak. You need to tell this guard that you're an American citizen and she freaked out. She cried, it closed in. Oh my, my, my ex-wife was going. If she doesn't speak, we're probably going to get deported back to Mexico.
[00:29:57] Glen Dunzweiler: And we're both us citizens. So I, I have a feeling and I don't know, I don't know Amanda Knox, but I have a feeling when, when everything closed down on her and it's also a legal proceeding. If there's something in your lawyer will say, don't say anything right, but, well, oh my gosh. Now someone else has control of my brand.
[00:30:18] Glen Dunzweiler: So if I'm a homeless guy, I need to control my brand with my sign or what we'll talk about. We'll talk about panhandlers too. Cause they're their own special conundrum, but even in business as well, you're talking about you need, you need to be able to commute. Who you are in this world, because if you don't, someone else will decide that you aren't a us citizen and we'll send you back to Mexico
[00:30:47] Marci Brockmann: or somewhere else or
[00:30:53] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Wow. Um, so anyway, panhandlers, just real quick, interesting thing about panhandlers. This is in my first book, you know, panhandlers are. The marketing wing of homelessness. Right. But they are the worst. They are the worst marketers for the greater homeless population because we see them and we say, they're always working in this corner.
[00:31:18] Glen Dunzweiler: And then we find out that they make a lot of money and they shouldn't make that mean they shouldn't make over a hundred dollars a day just flying a sign. Cause that's not work right then. And, and or this guy had, this guy had a really rude sign. And so, or this guy I gave the, I didn't have $5, but I gave this guy my fish sandwich and he threw it back at me.
[00:31:39] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. So panhandlers are the marketing wing of homeless, but they're the worst marketing wing ever because really they're the entrepreneurs of homelessness and not even homeless, they're just entrepreneurs. They've found a way to make money. One of the things I always say, you know, what's the difference between a panhandler asking for $5 and.
[00:32:01] Glen Dunzweiler: Some charity calling you up and ask him for $5. It
[00:32:05] Marci Brockmann: one has a lot of overhead and the other
[00:32:07] Glen Dunzweiler: one. Yeah, the suit. Is it the suit? Right. So, uh, you know, that's, that's one of the other barriers that we throw in front of, uh, for, for helping. I'm not going to help that guy. Cause he already makes $200 a day. I'm not going to help that guy.
[00:32:23] Glen Dunzweiler: Cause he. Not really homeless. I'm not going to help that guy for whatever reason that you see. Cause I don't want he sneered at me. And so
[00:32:35] Marci Brockmann: would you include the people who, um, try to peddle small wares, uh, on, uh, bottlenecks on in traffic flow? You know, they kind of walk through the traffic before it moves and they try to sell whatever it is.
[00:32:51] Marci Brockmann: They're selling a deck of cards
[00:32:53] Glen Dunzweiler: flood. I mean, that's just, that's just street commerce. That's just poverty. Right. And I mean, here in Los Angeles, stereotypically, a lot of them are Hispanic and they're just supporting a household. However they can. Uh, the one thing that, that I noticed, this is an interesting fact, not fact it's, uh, it's a hypothesis that.
[00:33:20] Glen Dunzweiler: So when I've done all of my talking to homelessness, this is including the documentary, uh, every major region of the United States, homeless people were either black or they're white. There were very few Asian homeless, and there were very few Hispanic homeless. Uh, and the reason I think this is my hypothesis, because my ex-wife was of Hispanic origin.
[00:33:46] Glen Dunzweiler: When her family would come to visit, it was an insult. If they all didn't crowd into our 1,250 foot square foot house, right. They all need wood. This is family. Right. And there's no expectations at a hotel. Yeah. When my parents came to visit, they got a hotel. We didn't have a spare bed. No, no, no, no, no.
[00:34:05] Glen Dunzweiler: We'll get a. There's this great American thing of when you're 18, get out, make your own. And the only Hispanic and Asian homeless that I ran into were ones that had been their family was Americanized enough. They also had that value. So when you look at the people that are doing, uh, poverty commerce on the street, you know, cause they don't, they, they can't afford a storefront.
[00:34:34] Glen Dunzweiler: So they're just selling stuff. They're buying stuff and selling it right for convenience, you know, giving you a convenience, charge, a convenience ups charge, you know, uh, Valentine's day flowers, right? Um, they are, they're the ones that are in cash only. They don't, they don't have a bank account. They may be legal here.
[00:34:56] Glen Dunzweiler: They may not be legal here, but what I have a friend that grew up in south side of Chicago, Black American, but he didn't know what a bank account was until he moved to Tacoma with his girlfriend because his girlfriend was in the military. He was like, what's a bank account. And this dad, this is a 90. So in the, not in the nineties and the early two thousands.
[00:35:18] Glen Dunzweiler: So, you know, there's this whole other idea of what we think America is or what we think society is in, in, in the greater media, in the greater middle-class media. We think society is one thing. And what I found out through homeless, through talking to my friends, um, from Chicago, there's this whole other economy that is underneath and it's not necessarily a criminal economy.
[00:35:49] Glen Dunzweiler: It is sometimes it's, but it's this economy that no one ever. Brings out and talks about or addresses because it's kind of dirty. It's kind of not easily handleable. Uh, I was talking to, uh, a guy that ran a, um, a, like a boys home boys, boys, a betterment, um, program in Memphis. Yeah. In Memphis. And he was telling the guys, he was telling these kids these 16 year old kids about, about investments and about savings and about other, uh, w what else was the oh, um, uh, pension and things like that.
[00:36:36] Glen Dunzweiler: And this kid raised his hand. He said, why do you want me to live like a white person? And the guy just went, whoa, whoa. So
[00:36:45] Marci Brockmann: there's this, it's not racially specific.
[00:36:50] Glen Dunzweiler: So there's this whole. Societal outlook. That is someone's reality. And they see the stuff that the, like the NASDAQ and the stocks and bonds and whatever it is, the news stations that they're seeing.
[00:37:08] Glen Dunzweiler: And they see that that's not for them. And one of the things that I've I've hit in the past since 2010 is I'm, um, I'm coming into contact with these, these stories and these communities that these people that have different ways to succeed. And I'm trying to, because it's also a trap, right? They're never going to get out if they think that if this is the only way to do it, I'm trying to not only tell the people.
[00:37:38] Glen Dunzweiler: Above them. This is the way it is. And we shouldn't necessarily think they're throwaway people, but I'm also trying to give skills to people that are in that, that society to say, you can raise yourself out. You don't, you maybe don't know where. They are where, where, where to get the information, but I'm one place, you know?
[00:37:59] Glen Dunzweiler: Sure. Whatever I can do. And so that's why I do my dance and my show and try to get, get as many people interested in what I'm doing to, to bring people to the information, because some people will just say, no, that's not for me. No, that, and I just, why, why is it not for you? Why? And I, at the same time, I didn't learn business skills.
[00:38:22] Glen Dunzweiler: I didn't learn entrepreneurial skills since I didn't start till 2015, I didn't understand owning a business that wasn't for me. What, because I never, I didn't come from that. We don't teach owning a business, no employees, we teach being employees. So it's one of these things where you realize the world that you've been told is true is not necessarily true.
[00:38:45] Glen Dunzweiler: And you have the power to change it. And that works for homelessness that works for students that works for. W deuce my friend, south side of Chicago. That's the next film I'm developing is a story about his life. Cause it's just really interesting how he moved. In these worlds, you know, and kind of navigated his way, um, in most
[00:39:08] Marci Brockmann: big splashy thing on your website, about a big splash and a trailer and yeah.
[00:39:14] Marci Brockmann: Using imagery led, you're talking about it. I was going to try to get that
[00:39:18] Glen Dunzweiler: into the conversation. Yeah. It's amazing life. I mean, basically he grew up in south side of Chicago hustling, so all that kind of criminal activity that we like to just say, lock them up, you know, whatever don't don't I don't want to see it.
[00:39:30] Glen Dunzweiler: I don't want to see it. And, uh, his girlfriend knew that that life was going to get her killed. Wasn't going to go nowhere. And her ticket was the military and he was. But he didn't see a way out. And she said, come with me to come Washington. And so when he moved to Tacoma, Washington with her, just because you didn't have anything else.
[00:39:52] Glen Dunzweiler: And she dared him basically said, let's go. Um, he found that all his hustling skills that he learned in Chicago made him a very good legitimate businessman and Tacoma. Wow. And if you just say any thought, wow, okay, this is working on, I don't have to, I don't have to commit crimes to succeed now, what do I do with my life?
[00:40:15] Glen Dunzweiler: You know? And, uh, so that those stories are just so intriguing to me, you know,
[00:40:24] Marci Brockmann: and it's probably, you know, not that unique, I'm sure there are other people that are found themselves in similar situations or who are stuck, where he was before he moved and didn't know that something else was possible. With the same skillset and some ingenuity and commitment, you
[00:40:44] Glen Dunzweiler: know?
[00:40:45] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. Yeah. I mean, for example, we're now he's hitting a third stage in his life cause he, you know, it's about his life. So we have do stories forever and we don't, we don't exactly, it was, we, we did write a, um, a feature length film for it, but we don't know if we're going to be able to get that one produced because it's, we, we had a budget and schedule run for it.
[00:41:06] Glen Dunzweiler: It's about a, maybe a $6 million film. And don't know if it would be advantageous to try to pull that much investment together. Maybe we can read a $2 million film or we get, anyway, we have all these, these tools, but his life when he came down to Southern California and now we're, that's where I met him.
[00:41:27] Glen Dunzweiler: And now we're, we're kind of doing this film thing, you know, he's he's of the he's of the, the ILC where he's got a lot of get it done. Power, but playing with others is not something that he's used to doing or, uh, and, and so for example, No one is going to touch this. We're not going to be able to work with someone unless they have a chain of title on this, this film.
[00:41:56] Glen Dunzweiler: So there's not, we are not writing it. You are providing the stories and the characters. I'm going to write it. So then I can tell an entertainment lawyer, I own the copyright to this manuscript or to, to, to this screenplay. So then investors will be interested because the more it's like a rock band, you know, the more members you have in the rock band, the messier it gets, and the more risk the investors are taking.
[00:42:24] Glen Dunzweiler: So they're trying to narrow the risk. Sure. At the same time, I'm also talking to him about contracts that we need to have set up going into these meetings. And of course he's thinking, you know, the only lawyers he knew of. Public defense attorneys. And so it's like trying to, w we're trying, we're expanding both our world.
[00:42:46] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. But it's always interesting. Cause we don't know what we don't know. And we're used to the world that we came from and pushing out of that is always scary. Yeah.
[00:42:59] Marci Brockmann: Yeah. In a previous podcast, we were talking about the phrase, well, this is the way it was always done, you know, and that applies here as well.
[00:43:07] Marci Brockmann: You know, just because it may have been the way it was always done. Doesn't mean that it's the way it should be now.
[00:43:14] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So one of the questions I had for you, cause I was thinking that time, um, permission to heal, right? So where, where does that come from? Because specifically I have another interesting story.
[00:43:31] Glen Dunzweiler: I have so many interesting stories. January 5th, I got hit by a car while I was on my motorcycle. Oh shit. So. I'm getting there. I've gave myself permission to heal and I'm also, and I'm also having to position myself. What I noticed is people have to allow themselves to empower themselves to heal themselves.
[00:43:55] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. That's the thing where, when I was in my previous life as a university professor, I was doing it for other people and I was really resentful. And I thought, well, why am I so resentful? I'm a jerk to be around what, what is wrong in my life? Right? And, and so you give yourself permission to get yourself to the point where you can heal.
[00:44:16] Glen Dunzweiler: And then, so this point, this has all been fighting with insurances, but giving myself permission to heal. You know, I keep telling people because the medical. Profession has been obsessing on my right knee because that was the worst thing. My whole body was hit by a car. It's not right. So trying to, trying to expand it.
[00:44:39] Glen Dunzweiler: So anyway, permission to heal, like what is, where did you, where'd you come up with that umbrella? Okay.
[00:44:45] Marci Brockmann: So a long, long, long convoluted story. Okay. So I grew up the only child of my parents' original marriage. My dad worked a bazillion hours a week because my mom didn't work and he was the sole breadwinner and probably was looking to avoid being with her because their marriage sucked.
[00:45:04] Marci Brockmann: Um, my mom was an undiagnosed self-medicated bipolar, uh, later became an opiate addict and that's what killed her. So here I have a dead mom who was an opiate addict, who was completely belligerent in her last couple of years of life. And in order to protect my own kids. Ex-communicated her from our world gave her the choice of drug rehab.
[00:45:30] Marci Brockmann: She chose drugs by, by, um, I'm trying to make that short. It was a much more long convoluted drawn out thing. So, so I was sitting in my house, single mom, two kids, three jobs, trying to figure out how to keep the roof over our head and the food on the table and heal from my disastrous marriage, which was quite similar to my parents' disastrous marriage and figure out how to not continue the toxicity of mental illness and addiction.
[00:46:07] Marci Brockmann: And. Toxic relationship template that I grew up thinking was normal. How do I take all of that and not continue it anymore in my life because it's not serving me at all. And how do I do that? So that I don't imprint this on my children,
[00:46:29] Glen Dunzweiler: right? No
[00:46:30] Marci Brockmann: small feat. So, um, I started, I've been a journal writer since 1983.
[00:46:39] Marci Brockmann: So for close to 40 years, really I've been writing and that writing and creativity became my salvation anyway. So I was writing and I was doing a lot of reading and I found, um, an online magazine called the elephant journal. And I thought I could write one of these articles. I could do this, you know, why not?
[00:47:02] Marci Brockmann: So I wrote an article and I immediately got detention of the editor and they're like, absolutely, we're going to publish this. And, and I kept going and I had all of these stories and all of these things that I wanted to share. And one of the original things that I wrote for elephant journal in January of 2015, I wrote about how I felt like I wasn't in my own life, that all of the choices that I had made were led either by societal construct were led by family expectation were led by things that were external to me.
[00:47:44] Marci Brockmann: And. When I was looking for healing and I was looking to make peace with my dead mother. And I was looking to figure out how to be closer with my dad. And I was looking how to heal myself and how to not pass the intergeneration ality of all of this onto my children. I kept looking outside of myself and I not sure what clicked, but I, I described it in the article that I felt like an, I was an airplane, endlessly, circling an airport, the important people in my life waiting for permission to land.
[00:48:23] Marci Brockmann: I was waiting for something to happen and nothing was happening. And, and then I just kept writing and I kept painting and I kept thinking and meditating and going to therapy and like really digging down deep into all of the dark murky shit that none of us want to deal with. And suddenly it dawned on me.
[00:48:45] Marci Brockmann: But the only person on this planet who could give me permission to make all of the other, to make sense out of all the other things with me. Yeah. The only person who could give me permission to cry or not cry or grieve or not grieve or whatever that looked like was me, the only person who could decide what was okay.
[00:49:11] Marci Brockmann: And what was not okay. Who could decide to learn how to create healthy boundaries for herself and enforce them without guilt or denial or all of
[00:49:22] Glen Dunzweiler: that was me. Yeah.
[00:49:24] Marci Brockmann: And, and there's a lot of agency in that. There's a lot of holy shit. It really just is my choice. I'm the boss. I have to stop being the supporting actress in my life and be the goddamn leading lady in my life, you know?
[00:49:40] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Well, and I think that's, that's exactly what I'm doing, except I'm in, is you're flying above saying when do I get permission to land? Um, I'm also down there trying to take away those barriers to say, look, you know, I mean, so really that's what we're doing. The same thing where it's, cause it does, it comes from you, you have to have permission, but you have to be comfortable to step out.
[00:50:02] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. And so how did you, how did you find that comfort? So I think that's,
[00:50:07] Marci Brockmann: well, I, I finally realized that I had been through hell and survived and if I. I could go through all the things that I went through and still maintain an excellent and meaningful teaching career and still be a great mom to some amazing kids that I could do anything I put my mind to.
[00:50:32] Marci Brockmann: Right. And so I started asking myself some questions, really simple, basic questions will this problem still bother me in five days? Will it bother me in five weeks? Will it bother me in five months? Will I even freaking remember it in five years? And it helped me prioritize what I should run around crazy about and what I shouldn't.
[00:50:51] Marci Brockmann: Um, I asked myself, just flew out of my head. I asked myself, um, it really just flew right out of my head. What was I saying? Oh my God. 53.
[00:51:06] Glen Dunzweiler: Wow. Uh, it's good. So that, that is. What I've noticed, what I, what I like best about talking about keeping your head up and, and working hard. I get to meet people like you doing this that have very similar Epiphanes and are doing very similar work.
[00:51:30] Glen Dunzweiler: And it's so interesting to see how we all come to the same conclusion through different paths, right? Because we all have our own path and our own way and the way our own habits. And, but it's the same thing where we realize no one else is going to do this for us. No one else can give us permission.
[00:51:51] Marci Brockmann: There, there ain't no hero coming to rescue you. You have to be your own hero.
[00:51:55] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. And if you don't like it, you have the power to fix it. You know, that's the one thing that people don't want to hear often. I think there's comfort in weekly. Yeah. Yeah. I
[00:52:06] Marci Brockmann: remember, I remember, um, around 2010 ish, maybe 2011.
[00:52:13] Marci Brockmann: I was really in some serious financial straits. Um, I was working full time, decent teaching salary. Um, I had earned a second master's degree so that I could get myself further along on the salary scale. Um, I have some money invested, but that's long-term, but I had this home that I was raising my two young children in that.
[00:52:36] Marci Brockmann: Worth much less than I owed the mortgage company. Right. And, and I, I was writing and trying to sell writing. I was creating teaching materials and selling that to other teachers on websites. I was like doing every possible thing. I was teaching as an adjunct professor online, which I could do while my kids were home and I didn't have to commute anywhere.
[00:52:57] Marci Brockmann: Like I was trying to burn the candles at all of the different potential ends, just to try to make my freaking housing payments every day. I mean, every month. And I remember sitting in my therapist's office saying, I've got. No choice, but to keep doing what I'm doing. And I feel like I'm drowning and I, I I'm like working 85 hours a week trust trying to keep my head above water and I'm missing my kids' childhood and I've got I'm lonely and I'm, I'm, I'm scared and I'm anxious and I don't know what to do, but I'm stuck.
[00:53:30] Marci Brockmann: And she looked at me and she said, you're never stuck. Like, what the fuck you talking about? Of course I'm stuck. And she's like, so, so what would happen? Follow the path down. What would happen if you couldn't pay your mortgage? What would happen? And I'm like, well, you know, I've done enough research to know that, you know, my credit rating would go through the floor, but it would take a good two or three years for the mortgage company to toss me out of my house.
[00:53:54] Marci Brockmann: And she's like, and then what would you do? And I'm like, well, then I'd save the two, $3,000 I'm spending on my mortgage. I would be able to save that. And she said, yeah. So then at the end of the two years, you'd have somewhere between 36 and $72,000 saved, and you could go move into another house. Or find another situation, you know, like, or move out of your house and live somewhere else or, you know, like the choice to stay and suffer is still your choice.
[00:54:24] Marci Brockmann: Yeah. You might not like the options, but besides death, everything is renewable.
[00:54:32] Glen Dunzweiler: It's one of the things I tell my students, I tell the students that I talked to cause I, with the book, a degree in homelessness, I, I have this talk called learn, do CA connect, repeat. And I say to the students to say, take care of yourself so you can take care of others.
[00:54:49] Glen Dunzweiler: That's the whole goal take, but you have to do the first
[00:54:52] Marci Brockmann: what's your oxygen mask on first. So you can help someone with theirs. Got
[00:54:57] Glen Dunzweiler: it. You have to take care of yourself. Cause that's the other thing that was killing me. When I was teaching at universities, I was just. Always at work and always miserable and never, and I found myself stuck, same thing where you're saying, why am I stuck?
[00:55:13] Glen Dunzweiler: What is this? And mine, mine was free. And I kind of lost my mind and I moved to Los Angeles, but I didn't have any kids. So it was okay for you to do what you want. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's so interesting. That's so
[00:55:28] Marci Brockmann: interesting. And when I started this podcast, you know, like I, I, I'm a worker. I, um, I have a very highly motivated work ethic.
[00:55:41] Marci Brockmann: And so I decided, you know, I have, I have this big nut to figure out how to do, and I was committed to putting out a new episode every Wednesday. Oh wow. And then the pandemic happened and you know, I'm home. So what is there to do? You know, we discovered zoom I'm home anyway. You know, here it is. And even though I had periods of time where I was extremely stressed and busy from the other things in my life and putting out a podcast would have been, or was extremely difficult because I do all of that, myself, all the editing, all the, all the design, everything I do at myself, all the marketing, everything, I am a 100%, one woman show.
[00:56:30] Marci Brockmann: And, and I finally, I was complaining to my husband and I'm like, I'm like so stressed. I don't. And he's like, so if an episode doesn't come out on Wednesday, what happens? I'm like, well, my audience who's looking for it will be disappointed that there's no new episode and I'd feel bad. Are you going to get fired?
[00:56:50] Marci Brockmann: Well, no, I'm the boss. He was trying to get me to say that, oh, I'm the boss. And then I had this like lightning bolt epiphany, and I was like, yeah, fuck it. I'm the boss. I don't want to put in that episode out. Cause I'm too strung out that I'll just say on social media, I'm too strung out this week. I can't quite do it.
[00:57:07] Marci Brockmann: But next week we've got this really thick, you know, there's a way to spend that. You know, at the end of the year, I wanted to take six weeks off for the December holidays and new year's and give myself some time my kids at college, we're going to be home and to visit and hang out and sleep and rest. And so I just decided I'm taking a six week hiatus, C a January 12th at anyone care.
[00:57:31] Marci Brockmann: No. Did I lose any audience members? No. You know, did the world fall out of orbit and the earth swallow me up whole?
[00:57:38] Glen Dunzweiler: No,
[00:57:41] Marci Brockmann: it was amazing. And so I sort of taken that metaphor through. The rest of my life now, you know, like what, what do I have control over and what don't I have control over? And the things that I have control over, I'm going to remake so that the systems work for me.
[00:58:00] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's something that we're not taught either. No, we
[00:58:08] Marci Brockmann: haven't figured it out on my own at the age of 50.
[00:58:12] Glen Dunzweiler: That's okay. I was in my forties before I finally went, wait, wait, this is not a way world's supposed to go because honestly, the people that are in control do better. When we think that they are in control of us.
[00:58:29] Glen Dunzweiler: Who's going to tell them that who who's going to tell you growing up, that you can just do what you need to do. And, and I think that there is responsibility, but you absolutely have to take care of yourself. And if you aren't taking care of yourself, then it's going to fall down. And I did, I, I broke hard in 2015 and I would not suggest that for anybody.
[00:58:51] Glen Dunzweiler: So I'm trying to say, Hey, and
[00:58:53] Marci Brockmann: you've learned to do for yourself to, to take care of yourself, to keep you grounded and balanced and smiling and
[00:58:59] Glen Dunzweiler: happy. And yeah. So I, I asked my, what is the meaning? Like I'm serious, you know, like what do I want to do with my life? You know, not because I, I started out as a performer.
[00:59:17] Glen Dunzweiler: I was gonna, what I thought might work out was going to be a drummer in a rock band. Like it was gonna w it had potential. And then it fell apart and I was really hurt. And I thought I'm never gonna working musicians again. So what I need to do, and at the same time, my mother was of her generation saying, well, you have to have insurance.
[00:59:37] Glen Dunzweiler: What are you gonna do for insurance? What are you going to do for the whole time insurance, insurance, insurance? Well, she has a point, but at the same time, do I do that for the detriment of my life in my twenties, not seeking things. And so what I did is what I did is I started looking at. Okay. What can give me stable jobs, stable insurance.
[01:00:04] Glen Dunzweiler: And I thought, okay, well, I like live entertainment, but if I do the technical side of it, the jobs are more stable that not entertain, not, not the performing side of it. So, and there are jobs with insurance, easier to get jobs with insurance. So that's kinda what I did. And then, uh, also fell into academia again because my mother was like, what are you going to do after graduate school?
[01:00:30] Glen Dunzweiler: She's like, do you haven't, you didn't have insurance the whole time in graduate school. Are you crazy? You know,
[01:00:35] Marci Brockmann: well, you never know you could have been in your bicycle accident then and without health insurance, then what?
[01:00:40] Glen Dunzweiler: Well then everything's in negotiation. You know? So the thing is w when, when you're, when you, if you are in the right head, granted, you can be laid out on drugs or incapacitated, but if you sell a doc, if you tell a doctor, are you telling me that you're going to put me out on that?
[01:01:00] Glen Dunzweiler: Are you telling me what I've noticed is the doctor will not say that because that's bad PR. And we built ourselves capitalist capitalistic early into this world where, you know, we're, we're saving human life, but then we're also putting a price tag on human life. And we are really uncomfortable putting a price tag on human life.
[01:01:19] Glen Dunzweiler: So if you make someone put a price tag on your life, they will not want to do that and they will back away. Right. And so what I've found is you can navigate a negotiation when I, so my, I was, I've been hit by cars four times. So
[01:01:36] Marci Brockmann: motorcycles,
[01:01:39] Glen Dunzweiler: so on a motorcycle,
[01:01:41] Marci Brockmann: four wheeled vehicle Glenn.
[01:01:43] Glen Dunzweiler: So they can just hit me in a car and
[01:01:46] Marci Brockmann: the car takes the damage and not.
[01:01:50] Glen Dunzweiler: Um, w that is, we can get into that, but that's
[01:01:54] Marci Brockmann: probably another
[01:01:55] Glen Dunzweiler: story, but that's another, that's another
[01:01:57] Marci Brockmann: thing, but I don't ride
[01:01:58] Glen Dunzweiler: motorcycles in 2005. I had good insurance. I was teaching at UC Riverside and, uh, I got in a motorcycle accident, a Dodge Durango pulled out in front of me. They didn't want to wait in the left-hand turn lane.
[01:02:12] Glen Dunzweiler: So they pulled out to try to get into the gas station. And I was driving on the street by the gas station. So they pulled out in front of me and I slammed into him 15, 20 miles an hour, broke my leg and hip had to relearn how to walk. Right. But in the meantime, so I had insurance and I was fine and sort of, kind of everyone had insurance, but they were under-insured and insurers insurance there, their whole deal is try not to pay.
[01:02:35] Glen Dunzweiler: They guarantee you, you know, it's false promises. Like, yeah, we'll totally cover you. Now. We don't need to pay that because of this. This is so really in the world of trying to take care of. What you is insurance, you know, you just spend time talking to a whole bunch of people that don't want to pay you stuff.
[01:02:51] Glen Dunzweiler: Well, I, and I can work on myself and not have that. So anyway, I was trying to, um, find out the cost for an x-ray. I said, give me the cost for an x-ray. They said we don't have a cost. And I said, I have a cost, not have a cost. You have, you have, you have, uh, a thing. It takes so much money to make this thing to, to buy this thing.
[01:03:15] Glen Dunzweiler: And then you have operating costs and then you figure out how much it costs per x-ray. And they said it doesn't work that way. What we do is we give you the x-ray because it's health, you need the x-ray and then we figure out how much we can get for that. X-ray
[01:03:33] Marci Brockmann: right. So how much the insurance company is willing to pay them as what it will suddenly
[01:03:37] Glen Dunzweiler: cost?
[01:03:37] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. And everything is negotiation. So there is no price. And I just thought, oh, it's a real. It's a rig. So anyway, so then I was, I had a job. I was teaching, um, recovering from my accident. But this time, at the time, my girlfriends, uh, stepped up and just said, Hey, you don't, you can no longer live in the room that you're renting because it's on the second floor.
[01:04:04] Glen Dunzweiler: What if I find a place in my condo complex and you can rehab there and I was blown away. It was like, you don't have to do that. We're just, we've been dating for a month. But then she later became my wife. And then, well, before she became my wife, she said, Hey, you want to buy a house as we're rehabbing?
[01:04:27] Glen Dunzweiler: We're going, no, but I mean, I kinda, I kind kinda owe you and I liked having you around and I'm, you know, I mean, this I'm still rehabbing, still rehabbing teaching. Okay. And. So we buy this house in 2006 and we move into this house and then she says, you know, unless you're going to marry me, I'm going to leave.
[01:04:48] Glen Dunzweiler: It's like, oh, okay. I mean, uh, okay. So it was this, you know, she hadn't, she had priorities, she had life priorities, she had needs, and I no way do I want to defame her. She's a great person. We are better off as friends than we are as a married couple. But, so I was in this, I was in this world where I had a job and I didn't like teaching.
[01:05:14] Glen Dunzweiler: I had it for insurance really. I mean, I liked, I liked, I like training people who want to learn, but a lot of times when you're teaching, you're teaching in the game and that you're given people that don't want to take a class, or they only reason they're taking your class, it's because someone told you they needed to take your class.
[01:05:29] Glen Dunzweiler: Right. And I don't like teaching people that don't want to learn. So I was constantly frustrated. And then, um, I mean, our marriage was constantly like, are we getting every, every two months it's like, are we going to get worse? Cause we were just two different people wanting two different things that alive.
[01:05:47] Glen Dunzweiler: And the epiphany for me was when I made my documentary, uh, the one thing she said when I'm, cause we were still married, she said, don't bring any homeless people home. And I just thought, I thought, well, I understand that, but you know how wrong? That sounds right. That sounds wrong where we're held w I'm here to help the world.
[01:06:09] Glen Dunzweiler: What are you talking about? But I get it. I get it again. It's that NIMBY thing. It's that fear of the, the, the boogeyman. And so the fear of poverty getting poverty on you, you don't want poverty on you. So I was screening my film and I, I ran into this, this woman that had quit her job to take care of her mother and then her mother died and.
[01:06:34] Glen Dunzweiler: She didn't have enough room, enough money to buy the house that her mom lived in out of her. So she had to leave the house. So they were selling the house. She was jobless and, and now homeless. So I met her, she was applying to get into the shelter I was screening at and we just connected, like she's she was an older woman.
[01:06:58] Glen Dunzweiler: Uh, she had, uh, she had a, um, a musical ministry and she was just, she was just an amazing person. And she was sleeping behind the grocery store, the local grocery store. And after talking to her for about 40 minutes, I just thought I can't let her do sleep behind the grocery store. So I called my wife and we negotiated that she came to sleep in our house for two or three nights before I got her into a shelter.
[01:07:25] Glen Dunzweiler: And then I got her a bus pass and I got her phone minutes. And so she was able to. Go in the shelter, she was able to call for jobs and go to those job interviews. And she got a job. And then she had the stability of staying in the shelter and she had this job, but then the shelter was on. You could only stay there for three months.
[01:07:45] Glen Dunzweiler: And then, because that's the way we run regardless of life, circumstance, whatever. So you're telling me, you're going to throw this woman back into chaos and she has a job, but now she has, she has a place to say getting out on her own
[01:08:01] Marci Brockmann: to pull the rug out from.
[01:08:02] Glen Dunzweiler: So then I went back, sorry. I have a bug in front of my camera.
[01:08:06] Glen Dunzweiler: Sorry. If that looks funny. Anyway, um, I went back to my wife and I said, we, we come on she's she needs a place that she's like getting out. We are doing a good thing. We're getting someone out of homelessness and my wife again, agreed. But what I found is after a while, she was, she was jealous of the attention that I was giving to this homeless person.
[01:08:36] Glen Dunzweiler: And I just thought, okay, I have to make a choice. I have to. And it was a mutual twice. Cause she's got tired of myself, me too. Right. I mean, I was out, I was so focused on stuff outwards. She wanted to focus on the life with, with her and we were just always at it. So. Basically lost the house in 2012, finally had, had to short sell it.
[01:09:01] Glen Dunzweiler: Cause it was worth, we bought it at 3 95 and it was worth 180 when we short solar. That's huge. Yay. Yeah. So it was never going to be any I, and I didn't want to live in Riverside. So we got out of that house. We got out of the marriage and then I got out of the job and I said, all right, I'm going to, I have this documentary and I have no idea how to get distribution for it.
[01:09:25] Glen Dunzweiler: So I have to go figure this out. I'm going to move to Los Angeles and I'm going to figure it out. And so that was in 2015 and it was just ever since 2015, it's been, what do I do? What am I doing? And why, what do I want out of this life? Because as I'm in, I'm now 48. It's like, I don't know how many years now if I keep getting hit by cars, I don't know.
[01:09:48] Glen Dunzweiler: You never know. So I might as well enjoy what I'm doing right now and to bring it back around to this conversation, I highly enjoyed this conversation. So thank you so much. I know I'm doing the right thing.
[01:10:04] Marci Brockmann: Yeah. The universe keeps telling me I'm on the right path. And when I question it, I get a sign or something happens and, and I'm, I'm reminded I'm on the right path.
[01:10:13] Marci Brockmann: So,
[01:10:15] Glen Dunzweiler: so it's a good thing. Yeah, absolutely.
[01:10:18] Marci Brockmann: So before we wrap this up, let's uh, let's do the seven quick questions and then we'll see where we go from there. Okay. You ready? Yes. Okay. What six words would you use to describe yourself?
[01:10:36] Glen Dunzweiler: Oh man. Um, direct, positive action. I like those three words. Um, and, um, well, my, I realized my life goal is to try and be Peter pan. So it's just that. Yeah, but that's two words, right? Peter that's. Okay. And then the last one is fun. I mean, it, it's gotta be fun
[01:11:08] Marci Brockmann: and I've only known you for about an hour, so yeah.
[01:11:11] Marci Brockmann: Um, what is your favorite way to spend a day?
[01:11:15] Glen Dunzweiler: So people say, Glenn, do you even know how to have fun? And no, I don't. So my favorite way to spend the day is connecting with people and, and really just learning from people. The thing I'll tell you what my, my most favorite thing that I love doing is seeing a person come alive.
[01:11:39] Glen Dunzweiler: When I let them know that I know they have something to give the world and then they give it and they come alive. Like that. That's my drug. Yeah.
[01:11:52] Marci Brockmann: Yeah. I'm up a public high school English teacher and I have been for 27 years. So I, I get that on a cellular level. Yeah, that's huge. Um, what's your favorite childhood memory?
[01:12:07] Glen Dunzweiler: I would say.
[01:12:11] Glen Dunzweiler: Trying to forget my childhood. So, um, I, I, I, okay. I, I learned w probably working with my father on doing those, those things, a, a father and son does where he you're, you're, you're bonding at an, on a skill, like you're, you're cutting a tree down, you're working on his car, you're trying to help your dad do these things.
[01:12:41] Glen Dunzweiler: And, and so I think, you know, and especially in my younger childhood, those were the fun times that I remember of learning and
[01:12:52] Marci Brockmann: sounding and spending time with him. Yeah. And having the attention on you and the shared activity.
[01:12:59] Glen Dunzweiler: Well, definitely. Okay. Life was a test, right? So my dad was always, the COO was cooler than I was, was better than I was.
[01:13:10] Glen Dunzweiler: So it was always, oh, I better not screw this up. And then, well, okay. Yeah, there was one time where we were threading. Okay. This is my favorite memory because I realized that I, I had realized that I had succeeded. We had to thread a wire up through a conduit and he was trying something from the bottom.
[01:13:35] Glen Dunzweiler: And I said, dad, why don't we just go through the top? Cause then gravity pull it down. And he looked at me, it's like, genius. I, I must have taught you. Right. It was just like, I did something. Right. I did something. Right. Yay.
[01:13:52] Marci Brockmann: That's
[01:13:52] Glen Dunzweiler: wonderful. Yeah.
[01:13:54] Marci Brockmann: That's great. Okay. What is your favorite meal? And I mean like food to eat, not breakfast, lunch or dinner.
[01:14:02] Glen Dunzweiler: So, uh, would be scallops, just scallops, no butter, just the actual scallop, uh, grilled is to me, the best taste
[01:14:16] Marci Brockmann: doesn't matter
[01:14:19] Glen Dunzweiler: does not matter, does not matter.
[01:14:21] Marci Brockmann: That's interesting scallops. I can't even remember the last time I had a scallop. Maybe I need to revisit that. Um, who knows, what is one piece of advice you would like to give your younger self?
[01:14:37] Glen Dunzweiler: You got to take care of yourself. You got to take care of yourself. That's one thing that I just, I got lost in, which is the reason that I blew up. I wasn't taking care of myself and I just lost my mind, which is never good with anybody. For anybody around you like that worst thing. Yeah. So younger self, you have to take care of your.
[01:15:02] Marci Brockmann: Do you think you would have listened?
[01:15:04] Glen Dunzweiler: No. Cause I was getting a lot of pressure. I, I come from a family where I needed to be a good citizen and I needed to do well for what others, people, other people's expectations were of me. Does that make sense? Absolutely. So I, I was always a good boy. I was like, are you a good boy?
[01:15:25] Glen Dunzweiler: I'm a good boy. I took pride in being a good boy until it was eating me away. Places eating me away.
[01:15:34] Marci Brockmann: Oh, because you were pleasing other people. Yeah. Extrinsic motivation only. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, what is one thing you would like to most change about the world?
[01:15:49] Glen Dunzweiler: W I would love it if we could be, we could enjoy being kind to one another. I think that we enjoy. Being mean to people being mean to each other a lot more than we should. I don't
[01:16:03] Marci Brockmann: understand that actually,
[01:16:06] Glen Dunzweiler: but it comes out, you
[01:16:06] Marci Brockmann: see it right and everywhere. And I don't understand where that comes from that vitriol, that, that, that anger, that hatred, that never made
[01:16:15] Glen Dunzweiler: me feel good.
[01:16:16] Glen Dunzweiler: Absolutely
[01:16:17] Marci Brockmann: not. I don't, I don't understand. You don't understand why anybody would expend any energy doing something that they know was going to make someone else miserable. Even if that person had just finished wronging you like just fricking let it go.
[01:16:32] Glen Dunzweiler: Don't play that the lady would say my landlady would say that person doesn't love themselves.
[01:16:37] Glen Dunzweiler: Okay.
[01:16:39] Marci Brockmann: Probably true. Probably true wise that wise woman at you land landlady woman. Um, okay. Totally changing tax here, being very frivolous. Um, what TV shows are you binging right now and enjoying.
[01:16:57] Glen Dunzweiler: I don't actually in the past few years being a filmmaker, you'd think it would be strange that I'd not bingeing TV, but I am. I found in the past 10 years, there's a stylistic thing. That's happening in television and movies with people are posturing more to look cool. They're not just being, so they're getting the direction of I'm cool.
[01:17:19] Glen Dunzweiler: And we hold on stuff and or this is needs, or this is a motive and everything is pushed so highly. And I never liked that presentation. So I actually watch YouTube videos. Oh, here's funny. Okay. This is a funny answer. This isn't a, it's so funny. Okay. I don't, I'm not an animal person. I don't have pets. I don't need pets in my life.
[01:17:44] Glen Dunzweiler: Uh, but I, in, in this, in this past three months, since I've been laid up rehabbing from this motorcycle accident, uh, I have been watching so many dog videos, like, like a woman. What's her girl with girl. She's like girl with pets or something. She grooms pets. She's out of Canada, Ontario. She has this channel and I'm watching dogs get groomed.
[01:18:12] Glen Dunzweiler: I have no idea. There's another, uh, there's this, this guy in the UK that has this Husky named Sherpa and Huskies talk. And so I'm just watching these dog videos and I'm thinking, wow, I must be missing something in my life. You know, I need some kind of companionship somehow, and this must be the way my, my, my world is
[01:18:36] Marci Brockmann: pleasant and, and happy, and I don't ruffle any feathers or for, as it may be.
[01:18:43] Marci Brockmann: You know, I, I know that I, when I'm disgruntled or I'm not in a good head space, uh, and I can't seem to figure out how to get there myself in the moment, a good streaming of cat videos will do it for me. You know, I go on Instagram reels and I, you know, and look at all these kids. They're so cute. And then suddenly I'm in
[01:19:09] Glen Dunzweiler: a better mood.
[01:19:10] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah, that must be it. That must be it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:19:17] Marci Brockmann: If only cat and dog videos could cure all of the problems of the world
[01:19:21] Glen Dunzweiler: that would be to cat and dog people, they can. Yes.
[01:19:24] Marci Brockmann: Yes. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Well, Glen, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for being here. This,
[01:19:32] Glen Dunzweiler: I honestly don't want this to end, so thank you very much.
[01:19:35] Glen Dunzweiler: This is very welcome. Very good for me. Lots of endorphins. Thank you so much.
[01:19:41] Marci Brockmann: Oh, so wonderful. I'm so pleased. Um, so I'm going to link in the show notes, all of your, all the different ways that people can, um, contact you, um, the, your TEDx talk and your book and you know, your website and all that other stuff, documentary and you know, all things Glenn Dunn's Weiler.
[01:20:00] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Yeah. And I always say, if you can spell my last name, you can find me.
[01:20:04] Marci Brockmann: Absolutely. Absolutely. So if the listeners are not driving, they can scroll down and all the links will be there. If you are driving, please wait until you. Yes.
[01:20:15] Glen Dunzweiler: Yes. Because as a motorcycle rider, I don't like it when you hit me. So please don't drive distracted.
[01:20:21] Marci Brockmann: Oh no, no. They were a few years back back, 6, 7, 8 years ago. I think I went through three years and every six months I was getting. I was driving a car. So I wasn't really, that physically hurt few injuries here and there. But, um, but my cars kept getting totaled by people who were not paying attention.
[01:20:44] Marci Brockmann: They were texting while they were driving. They were reaching down onto the floor of the passenger seat so that they couldn't even see where they were going. And oops, the traffic stopped, you know, over and over and over again. Um, not paying attention where in this, where there's a stop sign and I'm stopped and they're not looking that there's a stop sign ahead of them and they're looking over, but no pay freaking attention to what's in front of you.
[01:21:09] Marci Brockmann: Oh, I'm sorry. I hit you. Well, yeah, you ripped off the bumper of my car hurt my neck. Like, are you kidding? Yeah, it was like every six months I was in the wrong place
[01:21:17] Glen Dunzweiler: at the wrong time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately it hasn't been every six months for me. Cause I don't think it'd be near motorcycle. I don't think I'd be alive.
[01:21:26] Marci Brockmann: It's companies like what the hell is wrong with you?
[01:21:31] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's a
[01:21:33] Marci Brockmann: cultural thing. I was like, not at full for any of them.
[01:21:37] Glen Dunzweiler: Yeah. Yeah. Same here. I mean, I was stopped in my lane in left-hand turn lane this last time and waiting for a green light and a lady had a left-hand turn lane and she turned left too tight into my lane.
[01:21:52] Glen Dunzweiler: And so she just flipped me bull riding style. I was ragdolled and landed on my bike. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's just a cultural thing where we are now we sell cars for all of the things you can do in the car except drive, you know,
[01:22:12] Marci Brockmann: too many bells and whistles. There's too many things. Yeah. Yeah. I have a Toyota RAV4 that I love.
[01:22:18] Marci Brockmann: And the reason that I love this car is because it is the most comfortable. Driver's seat for my body, my lumbar supports there, the head rest. Isn't exactly the right position. I like the way the controls are laid out. I don't know what half the shit does. And I've had the car for four years. I don't even care.
[01:22:39] Marci Brockmann: I know it can do like a thousand more things than I ask it to do, but what do I need those things for? Right.
[01:22:45] Glen Dunzweiler: I don't correct. You do not think. And I personally, as a motorcycle rider, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, from the bottom of my heart. If everyone else were like that, I would not get hit by cars.
[01:23:02] Marci Brockmann: Yeah. Set the shit up beforehand. My dad, when I first started driving way back in the day, my dad said that before I would back out of the driveway in any sort of car that I was ever in, I needed to memorize where the controls were so that I could reach them without looking. Nice. You don't want to be funneling well, where's the heat or where's the air conditioning or how do I raise the volume on the radio?
[01:23:27] Marci Brockmann: You have to know where your hand is going to do the thing,
[01:23:32] Glen Dunzweiler: right? Yeah. Yeah. Because
[01:23:34] Marci Brockmann: you can't take your eyes off the road in a split second catastrophe happens. So
[01:23:39] Glen Dunzweiler: yes, yes it does. I attest. Yes, it does.
[01:23:45] Marci Brockmann: Well, I wish you a speedy recovery and a complete recovery, and I'm glad you're giving yourself the permission to rest and to take the time you need to heal.
[01:23:55] Glen Dunzweiler: Yes, absolutely. Thank you.
[01:23:57] Marci Brockmann: It's very imperative. Thank you so much.