The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Never Leave the Dogs Behind: A Memoir by Brianna Madia

Episode Date: March 16, 2024

Never Leave the Dogs Behind: A Memoir by Brianna Madia https://amzn.to/4ajafHp The author of the New York Times bestseller Nowhere for Very Long continues her story with this deeply honest, moving account of a woman walking the line between independence and isolation when she moves to the Southwest desert with nothing and no one but her four dogs. In her debut memoir, Nowhere for Very Long, Brianna Madia reflected on her life as a nomad, free to roam some of the most beautiful land in America. Now, in Never Leave the Dogs Behind, the van life adherent faces the unfathomable darkness that comes from a life blown apart, her only solace the support of her dogs. In the wake of a painful, public divorce and the ensuing fallout, Brianna moves from a pared-down van into a pared-down trailer. She reckons with her decision to be alone in the desert, living on a nine-acre plot of undeveloped land on the dusty outskirts of a small town in Utah, accompanied only by her four precious dogs: Bucket, Dagwood, Birdie, and Banjo. As she grapples with the anger, despair, and delicious freedom that comes from being wholly on her own, Brianna wonders where, exactly, the road less traveled has led her. A powerful and poignant portrait of rebuilding and surviving, Never Leave the Dogs Behind is about finding the courage to start over when the dream life you thought you were living collapses around your feet. About the author Brianna Madia has lived a life of relentless intention, traveling the deserts of the American Southwest in an old Ford van. She made a name for herself on social media with her inspiring captions-cum-essays about bravery, identity, nature, and subverting expectations. She lives in Utah with her four dogs. Nowhere for Very Long is her first book.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. One of the only things that makes it official. Welcome to the big show. Thanks for tuning in, as always. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. Be sure to check out our recent interview with one of the tech billionaires last week. Of course, we always have the CEOs, the billionaires, the astronauts, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the White House advisors, all the great people who write the most amazing books that share

with you the life stories, the epicness of what they've learned, the cathartic moments they've been through. Basically, stories are the owner's venue to life, and we have some of the greatest stories on The Chris Foss Show. And if you can't find anything you like on The Chris Foss Show, there's nearly 2,000 episodes. Well, you're boring as F. Anyway, that was insulting, wasn't it?

Anyway, we have an amazing author on the show. We love you anyway. Everyone knows The Chris Foss Show family is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you. If you're evil, we do. If you're a very evil person. Good, I feel at home here then. The evil part or the...

No, no, no. There's good folks. We're in good company. There you go. We don't allow Putin to tune in. We have the author of the newest book that's coming out actually april 2nd 2024 which i believe is the day after april fool's day so you're not gonna be fooled by this book because it's not coming out april 1st it's coming out april 2nd i just

want to make that clear i don't know why but it's her book is entitled never leave the dogs behind a memoir by brianna madia she joins us on the show and she's going to be talking, this is I believe her second book, and she's going to be talking about why dogs are so damned important and other things. But I figured I'd lead off with that because I'm also a dog person. Brianna has lived a life of relentless intention, traveling the deserts of the American Southwest in an old Ford van. We'll find out why she hates Chevys. She made a name for herself on social media with her inspiring captions, her essays about

bravery, identity, nature, and subverting expectations, and why she hates being around other people. She lives in Utah with her four dogs, and we're actually in Utah right now filming this. Normally we're in Vegas. And Nowhere for Very Long is her first book. Welcome to the show, Brianna. How are you? So good.

So glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? So, briannamadia.com. All the information for both my books are on there. On Instagram, I'm just briannamadia.

Look for a big orange van. You'll find me. Yeah. There you go. What was was the big i think it's called the big bertha or what's that yep bertha he is still as we speak giving me problems she will be she is always going to be an old finicky lady i tell you what there you go there you go and's, it's a big orange van too. As well. I think one of the most common things that people tell me when they see Bertha in person is that she is way bigger than they thought. And I think people don't realize that I'm five,

10. So in the pictures, like this, her tire is up to my hip. Wow. So I don't think people realize she is monstrous. I love her. It's so fun to drive.

I also get that comment a lot when people meet me. They're like, wow, you're much bigger than we thought. So give us a 30,000 overview, Rihanna, of your book. And I think, do we get a link to your website? Yeah, we did. You mentioned Instagram. So give us a 30,000 overview of your book and what's inside i mean in short it's the story of how my dogs were really the only reason that i survived the darkest period in my life um and that period involved going through a very

public divorce because of my status on instagram which was very shocking to me not expected at all my very first book was kind of this happy lovely desert story and i never imagined that my second book would be about the crash and burn almost of that story so crash and burn book that's why i should focus that on my second book then my first book was kind of happy here's my stupid stories And then maybe I should put all the crash and burn. Like, here's all the things I fucked up. Yeah. It's very cathartic. And I am not afraid to say the stuff that I did wrong.

I mean, and I tell a lot of truths. I don't paint myself out to be a hero. I don't really believe there's any just full on, I mean, rarely is there just an outright hero in the story. Especially when you're talking about the ending of a marriage and, you know, these decisions I made about my public figure-ness on social media, you know, there was, it was messy. It was during COVID. I moved out to the desert. I bought nine acres of undeveloped land, lived in a trailer that had no running water, no temperature control, like basically my van, but bigger. You really don't like other people, do you? No, I'm just kidding. Not anymore.

Not after all that. It's a strange departure, too, because I grew up 45 minutes outside New York City. So I grew up packed in with people. Yeah, with the madness. And I think that that's why I love my current environment so much more, because I just feel like I can breathe out there. But yeah, this book was, I sort of, I talk about, I was walking the line between independence and isolation. So it's great to be able to spend time on your own. I prescribe solitude to everybody. I think it's very healthy and should be super sought after. Yeah. But as soon as you are like starting to actually become afraid, like I really went full hermit up there for a while.

It's like wild eyed woman in the bush. So yeah. This explains my first 10 marriages. Wild eyed women in the bush. I don't know. I think that's an OnlyFans channel. I subscribed. I was going to say that.

Someone's going to do something fun with that somewhere there that's gonna end up clipped on tiktok so so let's get a little into your history and then we'll circle back to the book tell us about your your upbringing what shaped you who hurt you i'm just kidding how did you end up in this van driving around places so i grew grew up in Connecticut, middle class Connecticut, and right on the line between a very, very wealthy town and a very, very poor town. And this particular area is actually used to study wealth disparity because it is so stark. You could drive down my street, take a right, there'd be like caution tape from a drive-by shooting. You could drive down my street take a right there'd be like caution tape from a drive-by shooting you could drive down my street and take a left and there would be like million dollar waterfront mansions wow and it was my mother bless her i love her she's my best friend but she very much

wanted to live on the waterfront mansion side of town so i just sort of grew up and started resenting this very materialistic lifestyle and this very, you are going to grow up, go to school, go to college, get married, buy a house, have kids, work until you retire, and then hope you're well enough to go out and see the world. That was the message. I'm exhausted just you describing it. Yeah. I mean, even after saying the sentence, I'm like, yeah. And it was just never appealing to me. And I felt like nobody around me, even my age from a very young age, I felt like I was looking around and being like, are you guys buying this shit? Do you think that it was because you could so starkly see yes the differences you know some people they're kind of you know they might be

born the silver spoon in their mouth and you know they're building opulence and stuff you know some of us were born in you know the average sort of environment or maybe lower average but you you could see that because it was so close together yeah Yeah. You compare the two in your head and just go. And I used to call it like the real world. That felt more, I mean, that's not to say, of course, people who have money or not. I mean, you know, we're all complex beings. But it just felt more like this is what most people on the planet, like not most people are struggling and grinding and hustling and, you know, trying to do their best by their families. And it just felt like that was more

human. And I also was just always so drawn to people who didn't feel the need to hide everything. It's like, you know, I grew up as very cliche. It was like the Chardonnay daytime mom with the dad who's gone at work and off with the secretary. Like, truly, it was like living in like some sort of a simulation. I mean, they filmed Stepford Wives in Connecticut. So you kind of probably see the bullshit behind the facade. Yes. Yeah. And I did for as long as I can remember.

And I'm not sure exactly where that comes from. My mom still lives there to this day. But yeah, I took off. I went to college, graduated, and didn't have anywhere to go because I didn't have a childhood bedroom to go back to. My parents were divorced. My mom was renting a room from someone so i ended up my boyfriend at the time who would become my husband we lived on a 33 foot sailboat that was just docked like we rarely took it out yeah and it sounds glamorous right like you picture like deckhands, white suit. It was 33 feet long.

It had like triangle mattress in the front. And it was, again, no running water, no air conditioning. We had like a cooler that had just like beer and, you know, leftover pizza in it. It was bare bones. And I had never lived like that in my life. I had never had to figure out where am I going to get my water? Or how am I going to keep me and my dog from boiling to death today? And I started to feel like that was a more intentional, present way to live. And so I kind of started choosing struggle a little bit. Like I got very comfortable

in situations that were made me like I had to be malleable and adaptable. And that sort of made me feel safer. I can live I mean, I've lived in a van. I've lived on a sailboat. I've lived in a trailer. You know, I mean, I've lived on friends' couches. And it sort of makes you realize, like, how strong and capable you are. And I think most people would be surprised at how capable they are. We used to have to do that as a species for, like, eons of time, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's only until recently you have running water and toilets and stuff.

I know. The toilet thing is the big issue for me. Yeah. I imagine on a boat, well, do you have gray water on a boat or? Yeah. Yeah. There you go. We used to own a Thunderbird back in the day from the 60s and it just dropped right in

the lake, but that was the 60s. Yeah. So let me get this timeline straight. You've been married once, right? Yes. Twice. Okay. Once.

So you did the sailboat after you did the the van experience and excursion that you wrote about in your first book no so the sailboat led to the van oh so this is yeah so the sailboat was the very first kind of introduction into i guess what i felt was like the more the real world. And I fell and at first I moved on to that sailboat. Like I say, in my first book, I don't know that I would have chosen to do that if I had had another choice. But I had 800 bucks to my name. I already had a dog, of course, is the first thing I did when I graduated from college was get my own dog. And so I was really struggling to find anywhere else to go. And so we found this sailboat and just lived on it.

And we were there for eight months. And then Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. And so we evacuated and our boat was spared spared but by then we were kind of like ready to move on so we quite literally just looked at a map and settled on salt lake city and back that like now everybody knows salt utah is pretty cool right they did a great job with their marketing campaign, the five national parks, Salt Lake City's amazing skiing. But in 2012, nobody thought it was so cool that we were moving to Utah. They were like, are you going out to get some extra wives? Where are you going to find beer? The whole, the usual. And it was, it was a culture shock when we got out there but we had sort of read that it

was affordable and so yeah we got this like 400 square foot studio apartment and just fell in love with the outdoors fell in love with going down to the desert and that's when we bought the van and moved into the van yeah and. And that was several really, really wonderful years that then culminated in a tragedy with one of my dogs who is thankfully still here, but my ex-husband accidentally ran him over. Oh boy. Yeah. And it was the single, I think about it often that it was a split second and it, my life went, my life will never be the same. I think that had a huge part in my divorce. Like it really, it was, and I never blamed him. We never blamed each other, but it, it just, and then when you're a public figure on social media

it was like here I had shown everybody this my dog he's amazing I love him I force strangers to look at pictures of him all the time and he's hurt and all of these people on social media love this dog what am I supposed to not tell them and so I that was the first time that I started having this very conflicted relationship with social media because it's fun to tell everybody all the nice stuff yeah and then all of a sudden you're like oh shit I'm in deep here like I've already told no wonder these people are curious you know like I have to be self-aware enough to know that I'm on social media. Of course, people are curious. But it just, it changed my whole life. He lived on the floor, or I lived on the floor

of the vet hospital for 31 days. It was tremendously expensive. Yeah, it was worth it. He's still here. This happened when he was six. He's 12. So yeah, he is a legend, an absolute legend. I mean, the real amazing story is the fact that he survived that because it was six hours until we actually got him to a hospital because we were out in the desert the way we always were.

We were way out there. And he survived against every single odd so yeah he's my hero for sure that's awesome six years that is so great yeah the uh that that i mean that's one of the things you worry about as a dog owner us both being dog owners so does part of your member you know you talk about how you were living this public life on instagram you have a public marriage and i've seen a lot of this with youtube and different public marriages that we've seen. And then, and then all of a sudden, you know, they do the video where they were separating and then you start, you know, then sometimes buzz slings or sometimes, you know, you just start finding out stuff. So do you talk about that in the book and what

does that look like if you do? Yes. I talk about it pretty immediately. I kind of kick off with honestly, but you don't have to get far in if you want to get right into it. immediately. I kind of kick off with honestly, you don't have to get far in if you want. Right into it. Yeah. Yeah. It was bizarre to be thrust into like my divorce. What, you know,

the accident with my dog was very publicly discussed. So I was sort of used to drama about my life being discussed, but I, in my mind, I'm not famous. I, I in my mind, am not famous. I cannot bring myself to think that way. I just, to me, famous people are like Beyonce. I am a lady who posts photos of her dog on the internet.

So the idea that my divorce would be like news and fodder for entertainment and like gossip was shocking dehumanizing you feel like you become a completely two-dimensional person people think that it's not going to affect you somehow if you're a public figure you no longer have feelings i'm a memoirist I bleed for a living like I like I am going to be deeply affected by this kind of stuff and you have a 303,000 followers on Instagram so you have your fair share of trolls and people that are tactful I suppose yeah way to say it yeah people that are gonna do conspiracy theories and judgments and I don't know blame you for judgments and blame you for those sky trails in the sky and stuff. Oh, chemtrails.

Chemtrails. They're going to blame you for JFK's murder and everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think, I mean, unfortunately, I never wanted to write as much about the negative side of social media that I have. But these people made it my story. And so during this period of my life where I'm just getting divorced, I didn't know how to, I didn't feel like I was famous enough to post, you know, the screenshot of the note. Thank you for your privacy at this time.

Like that never occurred to me. And I was kind of just like, leave me alone, which again, you know, in retrospect, it's what do you expect when you tell everybody everything? But what I didn't expect was how callous people were. Like, I don't't know i don't know if people understand like when you comment something on my photo i can see it the the notification comes to my phone i don't have an assistant i don't have a social like it's me you're talking to me and people would tag their they'd scroll back and tag their friend under like an old photo of me and my ex-husband like kissing and be like oh my god i think they split up i haven't seen the husband in a while and i'm like like i wrote this in my second book it's kind of like somebody coming up and tapping you on the shoulder and then talking right through you gossiping right through you but like they made sure to like let you know

first yeah you're like i'm standing right here yes exactly and i don't think people realize that and that's kind of like why i ended up talking about it so much in this book because i was like maybe people just don't have a full account of what it's like on this side. So I'm just going to be honest about it because I don't think there is anything like, I don't find strength in ignoring something or I'm just going to, I feel like I hate that message because people say that it's so much easier said than done.

And I felt like such a failure when I couldn't ignore it. So it's like, not only am I being harassed, stalked, losing sponsorships, being publicly defamed, having book events canceled. Oh yeah. Like it went, it went over the top. It was an absolutely wild experience. And I just, you know, I didn't want to act like it didn't hurt me and crush me and like permanently probably alter my mental health. Like I will always have leftover fears and paranoias and triggers from that experience. Wow. And for what?

Like for what? Like for what? I just, it's so weird to me that we have, it's a hobby, a totally acceptable hobby in our culture that a certain group of people, we can just annihilate them. Well, they're public. What did you expect? Sure. We expected a little criticism. I didn't expect to be like, to have people tell me I should be killing myself. That's a bit much. You know? And so I'm like, it's so weird that we just think there's a separate group of people that we can dehumanize.

But in my mind, if you can dehumanize one person, you can dehumanize anybody. It's true. You know? And the, you know, had i had somebody you know we used to do a lot of tech reviews of products back in the day and you know i got used to youtube really on with the trolls and and you know when you're making money off the off the comments and the trolls and the views you're kind of like well you just paid a dollar to yeah you know throw

wing shit at me so it's true i did have one person say to me he goes this review was so bad and it was like i don't know some 20 piece of crap junk thing he goes this review is so bad you should kill yourself and i remember thinking the value of of someone's life is depend upon the quality of a 30 item on yeah and you never know who you're talking to you never know what kind of day they've had you never know what is gonna i just we we we tend to like violently crash into each other all all day you know and it's like you can be gentle with people because you really just never know what's going on you know but a lot of movie stars have that and i think a lot of people in fame and instagram and online have that where they become what you mentioned two-dimensional yeah and they don't they either see us at what their interpretation of this is or you know if i ever went up to al

pacino and probably start doing godfather references and he'd just be like that was a movie i did a long time ago like he probably asked for security you know i mean we've had people run up to me at shows and scream the chris voss show and you just you panic a little bit you're like okay and you know they think that you have a relationship with them because they watched you for years and you're like i don't know who you are but yeah good for you i love you i love fans but security yeah it's really it's a weird place to be with fame or semi-fame or however you want to categorize it. Whatever way that people see you as a two-dimensional character. Alex brings up a great point.

Hey, Alex, how you doing? What are some things you did for self-care to get through? Hi, Alex. I did a lot of breaks from social media. I did, I mean, my dogs were my constant source of self care. One thing that was tremendously helpful was my property that I bought. I didn't have any cell service up there. So it was like the definition of my safe bubble was like sliding back into the warm water, you know, and so that saved me for sure, because I would have

continued down the rabbit hole, you know, once you start, it's hard to stop that. And also just, I'm so lucky to have lifelong friends who remind me who sadly had to spend a lot of time reminding me that I was not a monster. Because you start to question yourself. You know, you start to think if so many people hate me, which so many people, meanwhile, it's like a dozen people who make a hundred accounts. But anyways, you know, it's the level of dedication. You start to think I must deserve this. This is why, if I truly have done nothing wrong, why is anyone doing this to me? And the fact is, you know, they're illogical. And so you're never going to find a logical reason. But for a while, I had to lean on friends and family big time to sort of just like,

talk. I mean, I would be like hyperventilating, maybe you're okay like listing out things in my life that i had done that were good and it's i mean i was really beaten down to a pulp so yeah stepping away from it i mean i make sure i make it a point to take at least two months intermittently collectively off of instagram a year uh And do you live off it? Or you, I don't know if you live off it. Well, and it's usually times like when maybe my book is doing okay. But yeah, you know. Just plugs in there. It's worth it though.

There's no amount of money that is worth me being, you know, just totally burnt out. And I think so many creators are so burnt out because so many people are just mean and they just crush people's spirit just to do it did you have people that took the sides like sometimes people take sides so like oh that they go with the other person and then they're throwing shit at you you know what is wild to think about and i would be surprised if any of these people had ever considered this. My ex-husband did not participate in social media really at all. He had a page, but he told these people who he was. There's Banjo.

And if you think about that, birdie, quit. These people based their opinion on what I told them and then decided to team up on his, it's like I painted a picture. I painted this character for them right because you can never fully you can never fully you know know who somebody is and so the fact that after all of that they were all like team keith is his real name even though i i went birdie quit it is the book is entitled folks folks, Never Leave the Dogs Behind.

So we have to get some- Clearly, I have not. We're here. That's part of the whole memoir. So if you want, what else is in the memoir? Because I don't want to turn this into the- I don't want to focus too much on this unless that's the whole book. But I imagine there's another question.

No, no, no. It's really, it's a lot. I mean, it's a lot of me burning bridges and totally, I mean, I actually, I wrote in there my ex-husband for 11 years. Now we were divorced. He's out there making dating profiles. He starts to participate in the online hate. Really? He and his family. So I was just at this terribly low point.

I didn't trust people. I started kind of burning down all of my new friendships in this little town. It was COVID. So yeah, that was stressful for everyone. Yeah. Toss that in. It's not like anybody was having a great year in 2020. That's for sure. But yeah, I retreat to the desert. I found this nine acres of property and I went up there on my own and I bought it on my own and I have since paid it off on my own. And it was sort of strange to accomplish this incredible goal while being like, I am dying, like every day fighting for my emotional life, trying to process that this property was our dream. My ex-husband and I

always said we were going to do it together. So now I'm out here divorced, confused, isolated, but I have this property of my dreams. And so it kind of was a turning point for me. And I started to feel capable. And like I started to see what my life could be like on my own and this, this ultimate freedom. And then I drove down to Baja with my dogs for six weeks, which my, just me and my dogs, least favorite thing. My mom, my mom says it's the least favorite thing, her least favorite thing I've ever done. She did not like that at all. She was worried about your safety, maybe in Mexico. Yeah. And I don't speak a whole lot of Spanish I tend to I'm very impulsive

spontaneous but I think impulsive is a little bit more accurate because it doesn't always end well but yeah I drove down to Baja and it was great it was like one of the best things I ever did and all along through this ride my dogs were with me I mean I would meet a guy maybe and go home with him and my dogs would be with me. They were constantly with, I was never apart from them. And so to have these highs and lows and these really wonderful things happening in your life mixed in with these horrible things, there is no support system like a dog in that regard because they love you exactly the same on your best days and on your worst days. Didn't matter if I was crying happy tears or sad tears. They were rushing to me to offer comfort.

Oh, and they know too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. If I were to start crying, this one right here would be, her little face would appear. She gets very nervous when I cry, which was a lot. So never leave the dogs behind. And I imagine part of the story there is the unconditional love of dogs and how much of a wonderful comfort they can be. You know, going through a divorce is hard because it's the death of so many dreams and people put into it and the longer it is the longer it takes to unpack all that yeah go through the grieving stage and then you're tying that also to the social media fame that just makes everything harder

but maybe that's why i haven't ever gotten married well and i'm engaged i to this absolutely lovely wonderful man but i think we'll probably just be engaged forever we're not having kids we don't yeah i honestly that has been a blessing that i do change that about my social media people know more about my fiance's relationship with one of my dogs because they're buds He stole them from me basically. Then they do about us. Cause I lesson learned. Some things are just best kept more personal.

So any final tease outs on the book that you want to throw out before we go? I think that it will be surprisingly relatable. Even if you have never lived in an off-grid trailer with four dogs and two pythons on nine acres of desert two pythons too yeah they were yeah bean and may they're actually right over there wow i love animals i'm just so comforted by them and i think zoo yeah i don't know what you said at the beginning of the episode, that's my goal too. I'm just going to fill that property with animals. I want an indoor-outdoor alpaca.

I think that would be great. There you go. I just want like an alpaca-shaped dog door. Yeah, you could get the fur and, you know. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it is. I'm really proud of it. It's deeply, deeply vulnerable and honest. It is the most honest I've ever been, but I hope it

encourages other people to be honest because that's where all of our commonalities lie in the messy parts of our lives. And I also hope that it kind of shows people what's survivable because I was on the brink, truly in every sense of the word. And I'm sitting here today talking to you live about it. Didn't think I would survive it. Four years later, here I am. So I hope that it inspires people to just kind of push through. There's something on the other side. There's always something on the other side. What a great story and what a great lesson. I mean, push through. I mean, we go through these darkest moments of life and that's why we say stories are the lessons, the owner's manual to life is because, you know, when, when they hear

stories like yours, people realize they're not alone. That's other people have gone through the darkest moments they never thought they were going to go through. And so just everybody go by nine acres in the desert next time you're having a hard time. Yeah. But what that speaks to is there is a time where you need to spend time alone and you need to do some healing or what we call doing the work where you need to process the grief. You need to go through those steps. You need to find yourself again and redevelop. Who am I now?

Because I see this a lot of people are married because I dated a lot of divorced people. you need to find yourself again and redevelop who, who am I now? You know, because I mean, I see this a lot of people are married cause I dated a lot of divorced people. That's pretty much all I did nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard at this age to find people.

But, but you know, they've got to figure out who they are because that marriage was an identity. Yes. Now that that's gone, they have to reestablish a new, so it's,

it's a good analogy. And I think I meet a lot of divorced people that need to go out in the desert for a while. Oh yeah. I, yes now that's gone they have to re-establish a new so it's it's a good analogy and i think i meet a lot of divorced people that need to go out in the desert for a while oh yeah i i'm telling you i prescribe solitude to people it's very uncomfortable at first sitting comfortable with you right once you get comfortable with it you're you're addicted to i love being alone my plans tonight are to be entirely alone and hang out with the dogs and watch a crime show or something. I can't wait. There you go.

But never leave the dogs behind because they're just the best unconditional love you can ever find in this world. And my dogs have changed my life and made me a better human in so many ways. I'm still a horrible human. Don't get me wrong. We all have our moments.

Thank you very much, Brianna, which is hard to imagine. Thank you very much, Brianna for coming to the show. Give us your.coms for people to find you on the interwebs. It is Brianna, media.com B R I A N N A M A D I A. And same name on Instagram. So just look for a lot of dogs.

Yeah. She got 303,000 followers over there and a lot of cool pictures. I love the journeys you're going on, like some of the pictures of some of the environments you're in. Utah has such great, you know, there's so many different places to go here. As long as you don't go anywhere near where there's these people. I'm just kidding. Yeah, yeah. Go wherever you go.

Just go away from my place. There you go. There you go. There you go. So you're not building a commune yet. No, but I have some friends. I have some friends who were like, when stuff hits the fan, we know we're coming. Yeah. Well, I'll call you on the next COVID run.

Yeah. Because I may want to escape everything like I did the first time. So there you go. So thank you for coming on the show. Thanks to our audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com Fortress Christmas, linkedin.com Fortress Christmas. All those crazy places on the internet. Or up where refined books are sold.

You can pre-order it now. It's available April 2nd 2024. Never leave the dogs behind. A memoir. Please never do that. And do not lock them in the backyard and forget about them. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.