[00:00:00] Welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity, the podcast where we dive into the minds of creative thinkers and practitioners explore their journeys and uncover their secrets to unlocking their creativity and really getting our work up and out into the world. Now, in today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Bracha Goetz, a Harvard educated author of 41 books that inspire and nurture the souls of children, but also she wrote a candid memoir for adults, sharing her own incredible journey really, and her exploration of joy.

And joy, I think, exudes from you, Braca. Welcome to the show. Thank

Thank you so much.

We're going to talk about Brocka's books. They're all available on Amazon Libraries on our own website, GetzBookshop. com. But Brocka, really, let's start with that [00:01:00] you from Harvard to an author of children's books and your own memoir.

How did you really find this passion for writing? How did it really come to you that you wanted to explore this realm, especially children's literature?

I think when I was little, I remember maybe third grade, I wrote a poem about how books can take you anywhere. You just sit in one spot and you are in outer space, you're any place in the world.

This is way before. The technology of the internet and the web and everything. Books were like that magic carpet for me. And they read this poem at the assembly, like in front of everybody, and it was really exciting. And I feel like I loved picture books then. And I love them to the same degree today.

It hasn't changed. They're my, they're still my favorite kind of [00:02:00] books. Children's books.

I love this metaphor of the magic carpet. That it takes you someplace. Where are you trying to take your readers?

I love that question. I love it. Where am I trying to take my readers? I am trying to take them into their invisible essence. In other words, we all look like we're physical beings. I am trying to remind everybody that in essence, they're a spiritual being, even though they don't look like it.

That's the invisible part of them, but it's their core essence. And all my books, what they all have in common is about helping souls to shine. Recognizing that you're a soul and then giving it the nourishment it needs to shine. I

love this description. I actually read that and saw helping children's souls shine.

[00:03:00] Tell us a little bit more about those kinds of themes that do bring

out the soul. Yeah. So what's interesting is even when I was at Harvard, I was taking courses at the graduate school of public health and Harvard medical school. Cause I'm, I've always been interested and I went to medical school too.

I've always been interested in the mind body connection. It's really important in order for our souls to fully shine. We also need healthy bodies. So believe it or not, that's a part. It's a significant part of my books are about being healthy and safe. Like some of my most popular books are the books that focus on prevention of abuse of children and these books What's amazing is that they're popular even with Children will tell me those are their favorite books and I never expected that I understand that parents will want [00:04:00] those books for their children, but the children They love the guidelines.

They want to feel safe in this world. So it's been amazing. So there's books about prevention of abuse, books about learning disabilities, teaching children how to interact with who are usually the loneliest children with learning disabilities. Because if you don't learn the guidelines, You don't feel comfortable interacting.

So I teach that to children. Basic guidelines, books about swimming safely. This book is for toddlers because it's a really high drowning rate with toddlers. They have to be watched and they need to know the guidelines themselves and they really learn them. And then books about let's stay healthy, which I wrote during the pandemic, teaching children the why.

Why is it important to eat healthy? Why is exercise important and even why sleep is [00:05:00] important it to explain it to children not just say go to bed But really explain so that children can get these good habits ingrained Oh, and then there are books that are specifically spiritual but In other words, all of these books help souls to shine in different ways, like the Invisible Book is a book about all the things we believe in that are invisible just drop a pen, gravity, there's an invisible force pulling it down.

There's our feelings, our thoughts. There's electromagnetism. How does a magnet pick up a paperclip? There's so many invisible forces. We see the effects of them, but we don't actually see the forces, the same things. That's why it's not farfetched to understand that we too are invisible. We too are in essence [00:06:00] spiritual, invisible spiritual beings.

So strong. These air, weighty, important topics, and yet you've made them very approachable in a Children's book. But what was your, technique or method that you said? I need to get an important message across, but I need to do it in such a way that would be not only just approachable, but you describe Children embracing the

story.

Beautiful. Exactly. It takes 400 repetitions to form new synapses in the brain. It's very hard to create a new habit. But when done joyfully, 10 to 20 repetitions, and we've got the new habit down. So joy is what's critically important in learning a new habit. And that's how we can ingrain habits really quickly.

Basically, that's what I'm doing. It's a joyful approach, even the books about the prevention of abuse. The [00:07:00] pictures are joyful. The book is joyful. Children love absorbing safety messages because they're joyful messages. It's incredible. It was incredible for me to learn this, but this is the easiest way to learn in a joyful, playful way.

And that's how I present it. Oh,

very good. Do you have one of the books handy that you could read from?

Haha. Oh, okay. That's interesting.

Yeah. Just to give us a flavor of this style and tone that you

have. Okay. Don't read this book is my newest book.

This is a book. It's written in the voice of the inner critic inside everybody's head. There's a little voice trying to get us to be miserable all day long, trying to get us to focus on what we don't have. What we're lacking instead of focusing on what we do have, what are we grateful for? It's, we all have this book actually [00:08:00] teaches you how to overcome that voice.

It teaches you the tricks that it uses so you can outsmart it. But this book, it took me 30 years to write. Some books I could write really quickly. This book I had the title, I had most of the book written, but I didn't feel it was ready. I kept going back to it, and finally last year I got the surprise ending that I was waiting for.

Then I could, and here's the surprise ending. That little voice in our heads, it really doesn't want us to. Listen to it. And it really, at the end of the book, you find out that it was really hoping you would read this book because it doesn't want you to listen to it. It's like those barbells that we push off to gain muscles.

We gain gratitude muscles by pushing off those thoughts of who I [00:09:00] need that to be happy. I'm missing this. Every time we do that, we grow a gratitude muscles. Yeah, it's, and could you imagine if we knew this as children, all the stress, anxiety, miserableness, we could have avoided. So the earlier we learn this, the better, and then we don't have to play catch up.

Yeah. Don't read this book. You can still close it fast, or soon you may know way too much. You're still reading? Oh no! This book should be marked DO NOT TOUCH! You won't put it down. Please, just don't turn the page. My secrets will be out. Oh! And if you read this entire book, you may learn to get rid of me.

No! Eek, you're here, and you see the [00:10:00] next words. That hurt me so much, it's a shame. It says right here, when you do something wrong, that it's really me who's to blame. Then he goes into... All the things that children might do wrong and not listen and at the end you realize that this voice really wants you to understand it so you can outsmart it and have a really joyful life.

It's a

fantastic message and you deliver it with such enthusiasm. And I noticed on your website that you've got some new multimedia, versions of the books too.

Yep. Yep. Now it's an audio book with a great voice. It's not my voice. Oh my gosh. It was a young person. Who recorded it and he does the it, the fly is the image that we have here, this little fly buzzing around because when you shoo away a fly, it comes right [00:11:00] back.

And that's what these thoughts are like. So the voice is fantastic. You could read along with the book with the. It's either a CD or downloadable, either way, the audio book. And we're also making animations now. It's actually my children got me, they said, stop giving your books to all the publishers.

And they started publishing my books now. With the 40th children's book. Is published by my children. That's the gets bookshop up until then. It was published by mainstream publishers. So now it's a whole shift where it's a family business now.

I love that. Let's shift a little bit to those kind of logistics.

We love the creative process, but we also know that to get our work out into the world. There's some nuts and bolts. There's some logistics. What have you learned across this process on nearly four dozen books.

Yes, one of the main things I learned is when you [00:12:00] publish the book, that's step number one.

People think it's the last step. It's really just the beginning. It's the beginning of what some people call marketing. And I call it... Sharing or revealing. Revealing the gems, the treasures that are in your books. So you have the rest of your life to do that once your book is out in the world. And what I tell people is, There are probably an infinite number of ways to market your book, and you can't do all those ways.

The ways that you enjoy the most, and then you will never burn out from doing it. You'll never waste any time because you'll be enjoying every minute of it. So that's what I do. I absolutely love Letting people know about my books, but I only do it in the ways [00:13:00] that I enjoy. If I do it in ways I don't enjoy, it feels like drudgery.

It's annoying. Forget about that. Why should I feel like I'm wasting any time at all? So I'm successful no matter what I do, because I'm having a great time. Yes.

I can see a listener of this podcast nodding right now going, yes, she gets me. Because we've had those 101 marketing tips for authors and whatever.

But when you shift it. From sharing, from, to revealing. All of a sudden, that doesn't sound like pushing books. That doesn't sound like publicity. That doesn't sound like, book marketing. And it's a real different approach.

Exactly. And if you're not a business person, like I am so not a business person, I don't deal with the selling aspect.

That, that doesn't interest me a bit. I am just interested in sharing. That's the part that I love [00:14:00] to do. Love that.

Now, your other project is a more candid memoir for adults, so you really had to change voices, I'm assuming to really tell your story and give a glimpse into your personal experiences.

In a way, because You see, so this is the book, Nourish the Soul, but I'm a person that doesn't like to write a lot of words, so I didn't really write this book.

I took excerpts from my actual diaries, and then when I got older, I called them journals, and then I added in letters. And I filled in the missing pieces and you have 20 years, it's almost like a psychological documentary that you're watching because you see the person gradually developing food addictions, and then healing from the food addictions, and you actually you're actually with me.[00:15:00]

on those horrible binges. I'm very graphic about what it was like. You experience it with me in this book because the entries are real and very raw. So that's what it's called, Nourish the Soul, and the subtitle is Filling the Emptiness Within. Because I feel with food addictions, it's very obvious, but with all addictions, it's about trying to fill the void, trying to fill the emptiness, and we desperately try to fill it with all kinds of.

physical externalities, but that doesn't fill it. It makes the hole even bigger because it's not a physical hole. It's a spiritual hole. So when I finally learned how to nourish my soul with gratitude, That is it. It's about filling up on gratitude. And that's the really universal message that I [00:16:00] am so enjoy.

I'm so enjoying spreading now. Yes.

And again, the sharing, the revealing. Same. Yes. And thinking about, a lot of people say they have motivations to publish a book for any number of reasons. You've often said the impact is what you're going for, not the fame, spotlight, publicity, whatever, but rather, can these books make a difference?

What is that difference for you?

Exactly. I own, if, sometimes people come to me with ideas for books, they want me to, I'm like known, so they want me to write a book about, a children's book about a certain subject. And I'll go to this person, go to that person, if they can't do it, then come back to me.

I feel that if I feel that a certain book needs to be in the world, I'll do it. But if someone else could do it, great. There's so many important things to do in this world. It's not I need to be the one writing it. I just want the [00:17:00] message out there in the world. If someone else could do it, great.

Because my whole purpose for being here is that I want to uplift the world, make it a more joyful place, fill people's hearts with gratitude, and We all are a part of that. There's no competition. Let's all be involved with it. So yeah, I think Kurt Vonnegut said it's easy to write a book.

You just, split open your vein and drip the blood out. In other words, what I mean is it comes from so deep in me that need to want to help people and get the messages out into the world. It's coming from the deepest place from my vein. The very inside of my being, so that's what pours out when I write a book, and yeah, to me it's all about the message.

Oh, this is funny. Somebody interviewed me, and they said So how do you work on character development? Oh, [00:18:00] I said my books don't have that. And they said, what about plot? I said, not that much plot either, no. Oh, and what's in your books? That's, I just find a way To express the message. It's a vehicle for the message.

That's how I see my books.

In this philosophy you have of no competition, I can imagine some people, because we've heard, Hey, if the idea comes to you, you better act on it because somebody else will and quote unquote, take your idea. You're almost seeing in the reverse people coming to you with ideas.

Please write this book and you go maybe somebody else should do

it. Yes, I do feel that way, except once in a while when I feel, I think I could really be, I think I'm really the person to do this, and then I'll just jump on it right away. You know what I mean? I feel like when the person, somebody came to me with the, during the pandemic, please write me.

A book about being healthy. The children are just eating junk. They're not exercising. They're not [00:19:00] going to sleep. Explain to them why. And I said, that's a terrific idea, but I don't know how to exactly write that book. Let me think about it. So I go to sleep. Three nights later, I wake up. I wake up, I keep a pen by my bed with a pen.

I wake up and I go, Oh my gosh, here's the title. Here's the whole book. I got exactly how to do this book, so I called them up and I said, I've got it. Okay I'm full speed ahead now on this book. I feel that It's like rain coming down. There is a, there's a universal source, one source of creative energy that keeps recycling and flowing amongst all of us.

And it's about capturing that. And definitely, being in a state of joy helps to be able to... Get that flow just coming. Many times like when I'm dancing or doing yoga, I get amazing ideas and then I don't have a [00:20:00] pad usually at the class right there. But oh my gosh, the state of flow helps so much. In being able to capture the creative energies of the universe that are available to us.

So I, it's like rain coming down and my pad tries to catch all the drops coming and then I have the message for the book that I feel needs to be in the world.

Yes. And other people can be under that same storm. We all get some of that rain of joy.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Also, I wanted to explain, there's there's a pleasure ladder that I learned about, which is about gravity, which is about gratitude.

So basically I'll hold this up, the lowest level are all the natural physical pleasures in the world. They fill us with gratitude when we experience them, love. focusing on the virtues of another, the gratitude we feel about other [00:21:00] people, meaning when we do something meaningful, we fill up on gratitude.

And you see here, the second highest level of joy comes from creativity. When we are doing something creative, we are in this We don't feel like eating or sleeping. We're in such a high zone of pleasure. The highest level is transcendence. When we see the oneness of everything, we see how we're all connected.

So this is something I learned that changed my life and I'm loving sharing it with other people. And for, especially for this show how joyful it is to be creative and it actually gives a lasting pleasure and if we do it with gratitude. Then we don't feel that ego strain. Oh, this has to be perfect.

This has to be come out just right. When we don't have that. We are much more free to flow and be playful with whatever we're working on and just enjoy the process of being [00:22:00] creative. So

good. And it circles back to your initial point that the joy is the channel to creativity, not if I'm creative and I can produce the work, then I'll be happy.

It's not the outcome, it's the input. Yes, it's so

fascinating. The process is so important. And for sure, it's a joy to create. These are all my babies, too. For sure. It's awesome. But it's that joyful process of creation. We to value that. And not just to get to the end product.

Also, enjoy the promotion. Enjoy the sharing and revealing. That's all part of the process.

Love this. Folks, my guest is Brock, Brocka Getz, and we've been talking about your work and how just prolific it is with 41 or two books. Surely you have something in the works. So look over the horizon for us or tell us what's on your desk now.

Okay. Okay. [00:23:00] One of the books that I'm working on now. Is actually about the pleasure ladder for Children because I teach about this to adults, but Children imagine that imagine them understanding early on in life, how to fill your life with pleasure. It's so much about our purpose for being here is to experience this garden.

With gratitude. So that's what I'm teaching. And also one of my classic books, The Happiness Box we're putting that out again. We got, again, we got the rights back from the publisher and we're putting it out a new version for children which is, yeah it's a big thrill because when children understand when they can Take on happiness skills early on in life, they've got them for the rest of their life, which creates an enormous change.

They don't have to go through a lot of unnecessary pain in life when you have the skills down pat early on.[00:24:00]

It's very exciting. Thanks for sharing those with us and stay in touch and let us know how they're developing. Thank you. My guest has been Bracca Goetz and she shared an incredible journey of her authorship and creativity.

You can explore all her books, both the children's books and her own memoir on Amazon and libraries and at the goetzbookshop. com. It's been so great talking to you, Bracca.

Thank you so much. Thank you for resonating so beautifully with all these messages.

Your enthusiasm is infectious for sure. And listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave us a review.

And remember your creativity has this power to impact to change the world. And we've really gotten that kind of inspiration from today. So until next time I'm Mark Stinson, and we'll keep unlocking your world. Of creativity.