We recently had the chance to connect with Bryan Young and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Bryan, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day for me looks a lot like writing. Usually I get up between 4:30 and 5:30 am and get to the gym for at least 30 minutes. I’m there longer the earlier I get up. And then I’m home in time to get my journal writing done, which is really centering for me. Then I get to play dad for an hour and help get my kid ready for school and get them dropped off. Then it’s a mad dash to get as much focused writing done as I can until it’s time to pick them up.
Sometimes, if there’s a deadline, I might keep working after they’re done with school after I get them a snack and spend a bit of time with them. Otherwise, it’s just time to hang out with them, make dinner, get them to bed and rinse and repeat for the next day.
Normal days are pretty boring for me, but I love that sense of routine and the ability to just write.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a storyteller at heart. And I have been for as long as I can remember. It doesn’t even matter the medium. I’ve worked in film, comics, prose, journalism. It doesn’t matter. I just love telling stories and I think I’m pretty good at it. I’m so grateful I get to do it full time.
When people ask what’s unique or something about me, the thing I’ll say that makes them go, “What?” is that instead of going to film school when I was 19, along with the help of my co-writer and co-director, we built a spaceship in my backyard. Then we filmed a movie we’d written inside of it and did pretty well with it. We even got it into a couple of festivals. I’m very driven to tell stories and have been since I was young.
Now, I make most of my money writing novels and teaching writing. I’m writing in universes like Star Wars and BattleTech and I love doing it. I get to wake up every day and do things in some of my favorite childhood universes and I get to work on my own stuff, too. I’m still working on films, too. My latest short film has done almost 30 festivals and won almost 20 awards. It’s a dream come true. I still can’t believe I get to do what I do.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
The person who taught me the most about work was my grandmother. She was an Italian immigrant from Chicago. She grew up in rough neighborhoods through the depression and World War II. She had all kinds of stories of mobsters and gangsters and the way things were back then in the neighborhood, but also about just how poor everyone was and how hard everyone had to work. She never lost that drive to work and how to succeed. There’s no doubt she was the adult with the most positive influence in my life and I think about the lessons she taught me every day about grinning and bearing it if I wanted to make it.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
The defining wounds of my life came down to a lot of severe childhood trauma and abuse. No need to get into them here, but healing them came down to a lot of therapy and a supportive system with my own family. And being able to ply my arts. Kurt Vonnegut said that practicing an art, no matter how badly, is a way to make your soul grow. For me, being able to create art for a living has made my soul grow exponentially from those wounds of my youth. Coupled with well over a decade of therapy, I feel like I’m doing pretty good now. I’m clear-eyed and happy, despite the tragedy we’re experiencing in the world. I would recommend every writer or artist seek therapy. Not because we’re all just broken people, but because we’re all wounded in some way and we all deserve that help. We all need someone to talk to, we all need someone to be that neutral third party. Science proves it works wonders. I can’t even imagine how much better the world would be if everyone were seeing a therapist.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
For the most part, yes. The big difference between the public me and the real me is that the public me is more outgoing. I’m very much an introvert and the public me can speak in public and interact with folks and sign books. The real me would rather sit quietly in a corner and observe. But that’s the nature of the job.
If you look at the things I talk about on my social media, those are the same things that I’d talk to you about at length if you caught me at a social gathering. Whether that’s the importance of protecting rights for trans kids or the finer details of storytelling in Star Wars films. It’s all genuinely me.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope the people around me will see that I helped. I try very much to elevate those around me. To do no harm. And I hope that’s the story that people see. I don’t know if I accomplish it, and naturally that will be something that I have no control over. And when I’m gone, I hope people tell whatever story they need to in order to comfort themselves. I’ll be gone and the story they tell will be immaterial to me. If nothing else, I hope they think fondly of me.
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