Brian Vaszily's dedication to discovering and sharing what genuinely most helps people succeed in life has earned him a strong following and a reputation as an agent of positive change.
He has accomplished this through his books, his website www.AdvantageHacks.com, businesses he has built and helped nurture, speaking and media appearances, and more.
His unique work draws from research in neuroscience, psychology, nature, nutrition, and other sciences... the great spiritual and holistic traditions... the arts such as music, film, and painting ... his own work as a business and life coach... and his own personal experiences.
Brian grew up in a rough Chicago neighborhood where he lost friends to gangs and drugs. His father was a brilliant and fascinating man who spoke seven languages fluently and had been in secret intelligence in Germany and elsewhere in Europe for the U.S. Army during World War II, but he was also severely alcoholic for a time and severely abusive for most of Brian's formative years. His father spent ten years dying, including the final six months of his life in hospitals suffering excessively and unnecessarily due to an incompetent healthcare system.
While there were many challenges in Brian's youth, there were also many gifts, particularly Brian's mother, whose wisdom, love, and resolve have been remarkable.
Some other gifts came in small packages. For example, in the 4th grade, Brian won an Illinois short story contest for youths where the poet Gwendolyn Brooks personally congratulated him and told him, "You've really got a knack for this young man, keep working at it."
In the 7th grade, Brian wrote a long paper on the accomplishments of Benjamin Franklin, and the most influential schoolteacher of his life, Ms. Lillian McCabe, returned it to him with a top grade and a note on a card that read, "We expect great things of you, too, Brian" - a card he still has and cherishes today.
The same day his father finally died, when Brian was 20, Brian had to attend a job interview as a mail clerk at a law firm because weeks before, he and his girlfriend had learned she was pregnant, and he needed an income to support them. Brian broke down crying in the interview and tried to explain the situation; the lawyer responded that Brian was "clearly not fit for the job" and asked him to leave.
On August 9, 1990, Brian's father died. On December 1, 1990, Brian and his girlfriend married. On January 30, 1991, Brian turned 21. On February 28, 1991, their son was born. By the autumn of 1991, Brian and his wife were attending college full-time, Brian was also working several minimum wage jobs nearly full-time while she worked part-time, and they were raising their son. They also lived off of excessive student loans, food stamps, and for a time, welfare. They both graduated college in 1994, and divorced three years later. Several years later, though still too young, Brian married again, and he and his second wife would stay married seven years while co-raising each of their children from previous marriages.
During this time Brian and his wife experienced many gifts but also more challenges, including bankruptcy and the deaths of several too-young family members, but Brian also worked his way up in the corporate and then dotcom business worlds, becoming highly respected in certain niches for guiding Internet businesses to strong success. As for so many people, the events of 9/11 had a profound impact on Brian, and he authored a short novel, Beyond Stone and Steel: A Memorial to the September 11, 2001 Victims, that, though published by a very small press, was received with wide critical acclaim for being a uniquely uplifting work related to the tragedy.
In the early 2000s, Brian first experienced a range of profound experiences that led to big questions, extensive research and hands-on work, and revelations. It culminated into his most celebrated book to date, The 9 Intense Experiences: An Action Plan to Change Your Life Forever.
The 9 Intense Experiences book provides readers the nine most powerfully and positively transformative experiences of all. The book, published by Wiley in 2011, became a #1 Amazon bestseller in the US and other countries, and translation rights were even bought by a Chinese publisher and it was translated into Mandarin; it still sells well in the USA and China.
Today Brian's guidance continues to expand and help people achieve success in their personal and professional lives via:
1) His popular website, www.AdvantageHacks.com, which provides the most powerful and proven secrets to succeed in business and life to the "elite"... which in this case means those determined to succeed.
2) By contributing his marketing and business skills to other conscientious organizations with products and services dedicated to truly improving people's lives.
He continues to write, his first love, and to do speaking engagements. He also loves gardening, spending time with his family, and diving into all kinds of new experiences... of course.
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