think there's a lot of hope for it. I think there is there is a there is some concerns about what it can do from a security aspect. Mhmm.

You know, with

the power of it, you already heard about, you know, anthropics, one going rogue and hacking into companies and doing some some crazy stuff. And that's probably just the the part that they share with us of what it can do.

That's right.

That's the

part we hear.

There's powerful models out there that can do a lot more than that.

I think there's

I I think it comes with that that responsibility that we as humans need to be conscious of as part of

this nature. Mhmm. That's why human beings still need to be part of the equation.

That's right. A hundred percent.

Right?

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

Well, Bryan, I've got a lot more to talk to you about, but we do need to take a quick break, and we'll be right back with Bryan Muehlberger on the Something Extra podcast.

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Welcome back, everyone, to the Something Extra podcast with my friend, Bryan. Bryan, in twenty nineteen, you and I have talked about this. Your family's life was changed forever with the loss of your precious, precious daughter, Gracie Anne. And I asked you beforehand, is this okay to talk about? And you said it absolutely is because it's part of who you are. That's right. It shaped how you do things. You know? Can you tell me a little bit about how that shaped you? I don't know if you want to tell any part of her story. I'll let you I'll let you decide what you wanna share.

Yeah. I mean, I could talk for hours about it. You know? I mean, Gracie was our only daughter. She was our youngest child. We had two boys, Riley and Brady, and we had Gracie, and they're all two years apart or so. But she was, unfortunately, killed in a school shooting, mass shooting at her school in Santa Clarita, California on November fourteenth two thousand nineteen. And it it's it's a day that forever changes your life. You know, my wife was in an ACL surgery at the time, when I get the text from my son, Brady, who's a junior at the high school stating that the school is under lockdown and one thing led to the next. Before she even got out of surgery, I was already at the hospital, you know, dealing with dealing with the outcomes. And, you know, the the sense of loss and grief is is so intense and so deep. The words don't even do it justice. I you know, I've been writing a memoir, narrative memoir on this whole topic, and and you just can't find the words to describe the depth of that grief. Mhmm. And it's and it's something that you get better at living with, but it's always there. And

so always there.

And so I remember seeing a photo that was taken. We didn't see Gracie for four days, not even the day of. So they wouldn't let us see her. They said she was evidence. That's a whole another story for another day. We got to see her fry finally on fry on Monday evening. So it happened on a Thursday, not till Monday evening. And we went out to a to a Mexican restaurant that evening with some family and some friends, and there's a picture of us. And we're all sitting at this table. We got margaritas in front of us, and we have smiles on our face. We look like we've been laughing. Probably maybe one too many margaritas. I'm not quite sure. And you look at it going, how can you be smiling four days after a tragedy like that? And it was actually a a moment of a sense of relief at that moment in time because we finally just we finally got to see her. Yes. And, we got some closure on some things with that that moment. And but it was still there. So if you saw the photo, you wouldn't see that depth of that grief that's that's really right below the surface at that moment in life. Mhmm. But as time goes on, you know, that I always use this this analogy. Grief is like a black ball. Right? And when when that moment occurs in your life, and everyone will experience some sort of of horrible loss in their life, unfortunately, we all will.

Mhmm. Yes.

It's all consuming. That black ball is is your entire world. And maybe for that one second, that smile on our faces that day was just that surface level of that black ball. Over time, that black ball never shrinks. It stays the same size. It doesn't get any bigger. It's just because it's as big as it can get, at that moment. But you you learn to add new experiences and new life around it. And so as that builds around it, you almost get, like, this protective barrier to that grief. And and that allows you to live outward in in a positive way, though that grief is still there at all times.

Yes.

Never goes away. So with that said, I would say, you know, we leaned into people. We I mean, I can't even describe the amount of outpouring of love and compassion that we received. The tragedy was very public. Right? It was national news, global news in many aspects. We had, you know, a lot of opportunities to get in front of the camera at that time, which was very uncomfortable when you're grieving.

Yeah. But

we also knew we had to put our our daughter's face and and personality out there. We wanted people to know who she was. And and through all of that, like, just the outpouring in our community was just mind blowing. You know? We had this we had a vigil, three days later on that Sunday evening at our local park, Central Park, in Santa Clarita, and over twenty thousand people showed up. Right? They've never had that many people in the park. They do concerts in this park all the time and things like that. And it was, like, you know, street parking only. People were the overflows were going to the local churches. They were streaming online. You know, everyone there holding white and blue, white six, and so forth for us. And and and it just kinda continued, in that. I mean, we have you know, I could just go on and on about all the things that somebody did for us in some way. We got these beautiful obelisks made. We funded the actual construction of them, but we got the city to allow them us to put them in that central park because that was the meeting place where all the kids reunited with their families. Unfortunately, we never got to reunite with our kids.

Yeah. Right.

And I say our kids because there was another little boy who also lost his life, Dominic Blackwell. And so they put up these beautiful obelisks. They have this whole section. They're lit up at night. These and they they're all a mosaic tile that we had this mosaic artist create with all their personality all over these these obelisks. So all four sides of them have, you know, like on Gracie's, it's a picture of the Saint Louis Cardinals. It's a picture of her dog. It's a Starbucks caramel frappuccino. It's it's music notes because she loved music. It's a microphone because she loved to sing.

To sing.

Yeah. Right? And so it's all that on Dominic's. It's like his football stuff and his ROTC stuff and just everything about his life. But to that was kind of an act of God in many ways. Like, we had to fight with city hall. We had to fight with the water water company there because they own the land and rent it back to the city for the park. Mhmm. There was all these complex things. I'd never dealt with city politics, but they all worked with us. The mayor at the time was very, very fortunate to have him at the time work with us to work through this problem and got it got it across the finish line. And then, you know, we we've, recently, we we participated in a in a documentary film.

Yes. Tell our listeners about this film. Yeah. It's All the empty words.

Started off as a as a reach out by by CBS correspondent Steve Hartman. So Steve Hartman Yes. The feel good guy at the end of the week. You know, usually usually Sundays, you know, it's it's Steve Hartman talking about the good story and the tragedies or bad things that have occurred that week, and it makes you feel good. Well, he had been covering school shootings for a while, always trying to find the hero in the story, the good, you know, and things like that. And he's just like, I I just can't keep doing this anymore. I gotta do something different. So he had this idea of how can I bring people, all of America, into the rooms of these kids that have been lost in these school shootings? And he's like, if we could just do that, we could be a different America. So he reached out. We got this FedEx envelope with a letter in it, from Steve Hartman saying, hey. I like I got this idea. We'd like to film your child's room. You know? And me and Cindy were like, I don't know. Like, we've done enough of this stuff. We're sick of being in front of the camera. Like, can we just not do anything anymore? And, and we just kinda prayed on it, and we felt you know, after speaking to Steve, we're like, okay. This he's a good guy. Let's, like, move forward with this. Let's see how it goes. So we kinda started going down the path, and we introduced him to the Blackwells. Dominic's room was actually in intact as well. And, he's a big SpongeBob kid, you know, and so forth. And so that kinda sticks out in the film. But he came out. They filmed our filmed the room in excruciating detail, videos and pictures. And Lou Bope, who is the photographer and videographer for all of this, just created this this collage of the personality of these kids. And at the time, we had been ever since the tragedy, I would say, we've been wanting to get out of California at that time. Mhmm. And but we didn't know what to do with Gracie's room. And so this whole time, we're just going, what do we do? You know? And it's like Cindy's like, I'm not ready. You know? She would open the door every morning. Good morning, baby girl. That night, good night, baby girl. You know? And you just got this empty room that used to be so full of life. And, and after doing this film, we kinda felt this sense of peace. Like, you know, we've documented this. Like, we got a great record that she was here.

Yeah.

And, so we went through that process, and then, know, they started getting calls for the film festival. They started sending it out to folks for the film festivals and so forth. So, like, Tribeca called them back and said, we wanna have you guys at the film festival. And, you know, all these film festivals started really giving it great accolades. And then they started getting reached out by the different streaming companies, and eventually Netflix purchased the film. So they purchased the film. It started airing on Netflix on December first of last year. Then it got shortlisted for the, Academy Awards for the Oscars, and so it was one of, like, seventeen films in this quote, unquote shortlist out of a thousand, something like that. And then also we're like, oh my gosh. This is, like, really going way farther than we ever thought. And then, in January, we're watching the livestream of the Oscar nominees, and it's the next one that they announced. So we get we're now now in the top five of nominees for an Oscar. So just being an Oscar nominated film is always a is a is a is a accolades. Right?

Yes.

So we're like, we won already. Right? But we just felt like like, we're going all the way. So and we did. And so in March, we go out to the Oscars to to watch it live, And, we're sitting up in our seats and waiting for the announcement, and then, Jimmy Kimmel comes out and, you know, gives the announcements. And right when he says, and the Oscar goes to, and he has all I had to say was all the, and then we

lost it. All the empty rooms. Yeah. Wow.

So yeah. So, she's got a she's got an IMDB profile. She's in an Oscar winning film. Like, I I don't know. Gotcha.

Yeah.

Right?

And she was a performer.

I know.

You know? I mean, Bryan, I mean, I think she want you know?

I always say be careful what you ask God for. You never know how he's gonna deliver it to you. I think she always wanted to be famous and and on film.

Right. I

don't think she ever envisioned this, but I think because of this, she's touched more lives than she could have otherwise.

Absolutely. So Yeah. We

just love that she's out there, and people get to see Yeah. Personality and who she is. And

Yeah. Because she had a big personality.

Oh, huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I miss it quite a bit.

Well, you know, so how has going through what you've gone through and that grief, what has it taught you about leadership? I'm sure it's taught you a lot about leadership. I'm sure it's taught you a lot about relationships, Bryan.

I will say, like, you know, when this all occurred, you know, I was the CIO for the Beachbody company at the time. Mhmm. Busy role. We were growing like crazy at the time, and my life was on fire every day. And and this occurs and life just stops. And the company, that's when you realize, like, the true nature of a company is in a moment like this. They could have easily said, hey. You're going on short term disability. You know? We're gonna pay you a portion of your paycheck. They never stopped my paychecks for three and a half months. Paycheck came every two weeks, hundred percent. They catered Thanksgiving. They catered Christmas to our house. They, never pressured me to come back. In fact, I was the one pressuring myself. I'm like, I gotta get back. You know? And they were always just so supportive. I mean, the head of HR

at the

time just, you know, poured her heart into it. Our head of legal helped me navigate some of the stuff related to PR and things like that, you know, having to be in front of a camera, which I hadn't expected before experienced before, and just everything there. So I would say what I learned through that is, you know, there are people on your teams every single day dealing with something. Right? Yeah. Maybe not as public. Yeah. But if you notice that something's different, maybe start there. Like, maybe there's something going on that you're not aware of. Maybe it's not just their so they they hate your company and they're being, you know, low performers. It could be, like, they maybe have some big stuff going on. Sure. And when you really get to know people and ask questions on on a human level, you find out some amazing stuff, about what they're dealing with. You know? Yeah. I I I do these dinners, CXO rise dinners, and I bring these executives together and, you know, everyone's I'm the CIO and CTO of x y z company. But at the end of the day, they're all humans, and they're all dealing with something. And and as I've got to know these big powerful leaders, you know, they're they're they're dealing with child children issues. You know? Their child's, you know, hurting themselves. They're they've got, you know, a no relationship with their wife because they're busy with work all the time. And they're dealing with all of these things, yet they're performing still. And so, I always just say, like, there's more more complex people. There's more behind the scenes, and and remember that as a as a leader for sure.

As a leader. No. That's really good. What you know, I this I know that there are people that are gonna be listening to this, Bryan, and they're carrying really heavy loads.

Mhmm.

They're carrying really heavy stuff just like what you said, and we don't we don't see that always. Right?

Mhmm.

But if somebody is feeling like they are just, like, drowning there, I mean, what can you give them one piece of advice, one piece of hope to help them feel like they can take that next step forward?

I would you're not alone. I mean, I think that's the the thing you feel the most. You know, we still say, like, why us? Why did this occur to us? Mhmm. What did we deserve to get this? And you feel very alone. And and especially during the initial moments of any sort of tragic situation and traumatic situation in your life, you feel very alone. But you're not the first person to go through this, whatever that is. And to know you're not alone, I think, is a good good starting point. And then and the second part is because you're not alone, reach out to somebody. You know? You know, your friends always say, hey. If you ever need something, just give me a call. You know?

Yes.

And I think they they all mean it. You gotta take them up on it. Right?

Mhmm. Right.

Be bold enough to say, you know, I'm gonna call my friend who said I can call my friend.

I need help.

Right? Yes. Yeah. Hundred percent. And, and take advantage of that. People want to help others. We're naturally wired to to rise up and help others. And and if you give people the chance, they're going to.

Mhmm. Yeah. I agree.

Yeah. I would say that.

That's good. Well, I know that you and Cindy founded Gracie Strong.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about Gracie Strong. I mean, you guys have created something really beautiful, like I said, out of this unimaginable pain. But, tell us about Gracie Strong.

Yeah. So we started Gracie Strong, initially as an organization to just honor our daughter. And, you know, it seems like the thing to do you know, I'm being just transparent. Like, the thing to do when you someone dies in your family, you you create a foundation. That was kinda maybe the initial thought of it. Like, how do we put something about her out there? And then as we evolved and really said, well, how do we make this, like, more about her? We just realized, like, as we reflected on who she is as a girl, she was never afraid to, like, speak up. She was never afraid to to share her thoughts to us, to others, or stand up for others. And so we kinda leaned into this whole, you know, having a strong voice. We we create a little campaign at one point where we had these bracelets made called speak TF up, which meant speak the f up. And and it really came down to we're like, you know, why didn't anyone speak the f up about this other child who was hurting that end up causing this tragedy and ruining so many lives? And and when you look back behind the scenes, you can see all of the pain this child was experiencing and nobody was helping him.

Yeah. Nobody noticed.

Nobody noticed. And if they noticed, they ignored, which is even worse. Right? They noticed it, but they just said, not my problem. Yeah. And so we were kinda like, you know, like, how can we do more of that? How can we make people more aware of that? And and since then, we've evolved a little bit more. You know, we we felt like Gracie got so much out of going to her church youth camp. They went to Lake Hume, which was sponsored by our church. And and we've got some some journals she wrote during those times when she was off the beaten path and no phone in her hand and had a pen and paper in her hand. That's all she had. And what she wrote was powerful. And we just thought, like, you know, she she was definitely talking to God. She felt God in her life, and she knew where she was going.

Yeah.

And we just were like, gosh. You know? Like, if we could get more kids go to youth camps, right, church youth camps Yes. Like, how much would that help? I mean Yes. We ended up fostering a daughter, for about a year and a half before we left California. And through that process, she started going to some some youth groups and so forth. And just the amount of camaraderie and support kids receive from like minded folks who also had this deep Christian faith behind them, is just so powerful. And it's transformed her life. It transformed our daughter's life. So right now, whenever we, you know, wanna fund something, we tend to try to fund our local church and help kids go to youth camp that maybe can't afford it themselves.

Mhmm. Mhmm. I love that. Well, yeah, she did journal a lot.

Yeah.

And I know one of the things that she had journaled, you actually have something permanent, I think, on your arm.

I do. Yeah.

You tattooed it. What what was that?

She she wrote in her journal, well, she wrote a journal entry, and I've actually got it right over here. And she had these four little notes. So inside this little trinket box right here is is four little notes. And you've probably seen this if you watched the film. This is in the film, first day of high school right there. So these she had a journal that she was writing in at the same time she wrote these notes to herself. So she thought it'd be really cool if I wrote four notes to my future self. And she wrote one about graduating eighth grade, one about starting high school, one about driving a car, and one about going to college. She got to complete two of those, but she didn't get to complete the other two. But in that journal post that she wrote, she she wrote, you only have one life to live, so why not live a great, real, and fill it with memories and experiences? And I was like, if that isn't a message, I don't know what is. Right? True. So I said, I'm I'm putting that on my arm. So that became the starting point of a I have a whole arm sleeve tattoo now with lots of my life in it, and that's that's an anchor piece to it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Her mantra for our life. And

so Love it. As we The great mantra.

Yep. Yep.

The great mantra. Oh my goodness. Well, I, just appreciate so much you being vulnerable and sharing your story. Bryan, and I know it's gonna help somebody because, like you said, every person's walking through something. We don't always see it. But, just seeing how you and Cindy have taken this unimaginable tragedy and, really honored Gracie Anne's life with the things that you've done. I think I I just know it's inspired me. So

Thank you.

Everyone that is on the podcast, I asked them this question. What do you believe? Is this something extra that every leader needs? So I would love for you to answer that question, Bryan.

Faith.

Amen.

I just honestly believe that. You know, I've I've I had a really strong faith when I was younger and into my young adulthood and even into the time we were raising our children, and then and then this tragedy occurred in my life. And I lost my way for a while. Mhmm.

I

was angry at God, but I would say he also continued to guide me through that entire process. And as I look back, I kinda realize all the blessings I was receiving during all of that and and that in some way, shape, or form that I don't quite understand yet, there is there is good in in all of this. And I would say, you know, you gotta have that faith.

Yeah. That is so good. Well, thank you so much. I know how busy you are, especially taking on this brand new role. I'm hoping that on one of my trips to Nashville, it will work out where you're there, and we can see each other in person. And yeah. But thanks so much for being on the show. I really do appreciate appreciate your time.

You too, Lisa. Good seeing you.

Take care, my friend.

Alright. Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production. Copyright Technology Partners Inc twenty nineteen. To learn more about this week's guest, check out the show notes at tpi dot co slash podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a review. Thank you for listening to Something Extra.