A wildfire took Ben Barbic's childhood home. At 28, he hit rock bottom. Then a teddy bear that said "We love you, Daddy" made him look in the mirror and ask, "Who is this?" We talk about the 18-year climb, music as a place to go, and the first small step out.
"I looked at myself and said, 'Who is this?'"
When Ben Barbic was a little boy, a wildfire took his family's home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Around the same time, a manager embezzled from the family's motorcycle dealership, and the business was gone too. They rebuilt, and two years later an earthquake took the house again.
Living in a donated trailer with no running water, Ben found a keyboard. Music became the place he could go.
At 28, he hit rock bottom. Then his son and girlfriend gave him a teddy bear that said, in their voices, "We love you, Daddy." He looked in the mirror and didn't recognize who was looking back. That's when the climb began.
Eighteen years later, Ben is a signed recording artist and the author of Rise & Climb: Finding Purpose Through Pain, a memoir where every chapter is anchored to a song he wrote at that moment in his life.
We talk about:
— What losing a home does to a child, and losing an identity along with it
— Hiding vs. flipping hard things into fuel
— What his mom and dad each modeled about resilience
— Rock bottom at 28, and the teddy bear that changed everything
— Taking his life one category at a time
— Getting clear first: what he gave up so he could see
— Being "frozen in progress," making music no one ever heard
— A memoir built like an album, and the companion soundtrack
— The barbell that survived the fire, and why he still lifts it
— The first rung for anyone at rock bottom: do one small thing
— Peaks, valleys, and plateaus: why you never stay in the valley
If you're rebuilding after a loss of your own, or loving someone who is, this one is for you.
MORE FROM BEN BARBIC
Book: Rise & Climb: Finding Purpose Through Pain (Amazon, Audible, wherever books are sold)
Website: riseandclimb.com
Music: search "Ben Barbic" on any streaming service
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