From Survivor’s Legacy to Activist’s Voice: Abe Gurko’s Inspiring Journey to Belong

In this episode of "Casa De Confidence," host Julie DeLucca-Collins warmly welcomes Abe Gurko, author of "Won't Be Silent: Don't Stop Till It Matters." Abe shares his compelling journey from growing up as a Holocaust survivor's child to navigating life as an outsider and ultimately becoming an activist. They delve into his family's harrowing past, his struggles with identity, and his passion for speaking out against injustice. The conversation is rich with themes of resilience, hope, and the power of storytelling, leaving listeners inspired to embrace their own voices and contribute to positive change in the world.

You can find Abe here: 

https://wontbesilent.com/

Abe's other links https://linktr.ee/WontBeSilent

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If you want my best resources check them out here  https://www.goconfidentlycoaching.com/quicklinks

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If you are not leveraging email marketing for your business, you are missing out on an opportunity to build a relationship with potential clients and to build a community. 

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This is an invitation to join a supportive community of purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are creating an impact in the world.
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Join the Confident YOU Mastermind now at https://goconfidentlyservices.myflodesk.com/confidentyoumastermind

Transcript

0:02

Welcome back to another episode of Casa de confidence. And today it's one of these episodes that I am incredibly passionate to bring to you. I have a guest who has a phenomenal whirlwind story, and he is doing some incredible things in this world, like a lot of people. But I am especially, um, passionate about some of the work that he's doing because it's no time to to waste. My guest is the author of the memoir Won't Be Silent, Don't Stop Till It Matters. The novel is a candid and humorous retelling of an unconventional life finally worth living. Abe's madcap journey through seemingly endless obstacles is an insightful story of survival with grace. Unshakable resilience. Teachable. I don't even know how to say that word. Found joy balloon. Thank you, thank you. I am so excited and honored to have you here. Abe. And this is Abe. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, well, anytime that I have the opportunity to interview someone from New York, I'm in. Because New York is my my city. And I know that before you made it to Hollywood and before you live this wonderful life, your story really began with your parents, your parents coming to New York. Tell me a little bit about that, because I'd love for the listeners to get to know you. So I'm when the very rare minority in this country and that is a child whose parents survived the Holocaust, my mom was, uh, in between the Vilna ghetto, survived Years in Dachau concentration camp and my dad, who was from the outskirts of Warsaw, was sent to Siberia to a work camp. And not only survived that those freezing, horrible winters, but ultimately joined the underground that smuggled Jews out from from Germany to safety. So it's having parents that, in my mind, were superheroes, which is in and of itself a bit of a challenge because you can never, ever really measure up from childhood on. They're just larger than life. And even though they're just your parents, they're still always, um, just like a shadow of greatness around them. Yeah, I would imagine, you know, my my first husband is Jewish, and I, I care so much for his family. He had family that were Holocaust survivors, and to this day, many of the family members as well are activists because we cannot be silent. And this is why it's so important specifically now with everything going on in our world. We need to keep the messages of the things that happen in the past that can really threaten the well-being of so many different people. And yeah. History repeats itself. So we have to really be aggressive in our messaging and just. Work. To make sure that that kind of, you know, horrendous oppression and violence doesn't occur again. Yeah. Shadows that it's coming out of the shadows. We see it in the news every single day, especially on social media. I mean, I think the algorithm of social media is far more, um, in tune with keeping everybody angry. So they show more of that. I still think it's minorities of people that are doing these things. Yeah, but the, you know, the internet's fallen in love with the anti-Semites. So here we are trying to combat not only the actual hatred, but the forces that be in AI that are just pushing it out there, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, a lot of people don't realize how much of what they're seeing is false and how much of what they're seeing is set up to cause fear in them. Now, you grew up in suburban new Jersey, and you were someone who struggled with your weight, and you felt like you were the other and didn't belong. I talk a lot about Belonging, and I feel that this is one of the things that we need to really talk about as well, because there's room at the table for everyone, but there's many people who are being pushed out, and also many people who don't feel like they belong. So tell me a little bit about what was that like for you growing up, feeling like that like the other. I've always looked at my situation, even, especially when we track back to just being one of the few, if very few people who I knew that, whose parents had that kind of upbringing. But we started out in a very small, blue collar town where we were. I experienced anti-Semitism early on, so it was kind of like that was other right there. It was almost double other. And then when we moved on up to the more affluent kind of situation, I was not like what these kind of suburban kids look like because I was coming from a parochial school environment, chubby glasses and everybody else seemed to be like other. I felt other there. Right? It's almost been always like, it seems like it's just my cross to bear, to always feel like outside of, you know, not invited to the party. But I always was because I had the personality that I compensated for whatever I was feeling to be engaging and funny and a good person to listen to, a good advice giver. You know, even growing up with the kids, you know, the girls telling me their boy problems, I wasn't an issue, but I was a good guy. I was a good conversationalist. And, um, and that's been, you know, what's really kept me through my whole life. And, uh, then we I got bussed to an all black high school and felt other there, and was able to manage to be part of that community because it was such a teaching moment to be. It was also the 70s and the civil rights movement was out of whack, and there was violence in my high school all throughout. And I it's a matter of how do you navigate right in that environment? And you just figure that out. And I did, and I got out, you know, unscathed with with all my limbs and um, and feel like that helped me move into New York City and just be able to, like, handle it and proud and be tall. And then coming out was a whole nother feeling, right? You know, for the years I did come out, that's a real sense of secret, I think a secret. Yeah. Like, um, I've cornered the market on other so and so I look at it, it. Seems to me like you've you've worn a lot of different shoes and really the shoes of people who are in that ostracized and marginalized communities. Um, I know that it's not easy. Um, I have family members that have come out and we are loved. They are loved. But I know that there's a lot that goes into this situation, right? You you want to, um, embrace who you are, but you also there's so much that goes through someone's mind, I would imagine. Um, what how how did you come out? Did you come out to your parents? Well, my dad died when I was a senior in high school, so that I wasn't really at all. Um, I didn't even know what it was, because there was also the 70s, and there was Quaaludes, and everybody was just falling on top of one another. But, um, there's a great incident in the book. When I come out and I go to Italy and I'm with a friend of my, my sister's friend, and I ended up, for whatever reason, traveling to Europe together and at the Gucci store in Florence. It's my first conscious experience and it's a great it's a great chapter. But what I ended up doing is coming back to America to sit my mom, my sister, is down at the kitchen table to tell them that this is what's happening. And, uh, it was my mother sort of was like, ah, you know, it's a phase. And my sisters are like, no kidding, you know what I mean? And it was a big nothing. And it was how gay people hold on to the fear of revealing who they are. And, uh, yeah, my family is loving and gorgeous and fabulous and the best. You know, I couldn't be happier with all of them. All their kids and their their, you know, their kids. I mean, there's a few generations that they've now kind of, you know, birthed. And it's a very loving, inclusive, welcoming mindset. It's also the times have changed. I mean, I don't get this whole backlash of anti-gay that's happening now. I just don't get it. I think these people and it's it's so unevolved of like, what country have you been living in? You know, it, it's with the book banning and like it, you know, I, you know, I refuse to be in fear of anything. It's more embarrassing for them. Like, I have to look at those people with pity because they're missing out on just being loving, emotionally processed people. But I. Think that, you know, that that is because the fear that people have and people, the, the media and all these things are playing into their deepest fears that they won't, they will. They will be the ones who are ostracized. So it becomes easier for them to just ostracize others. Um, you moved from New York to California and you did some incredible things along the way. Um, what led you? What would what was the thought in moving from New York to California? Well, since childhood, I was enamored with this golden age of Hollywood and the black and white movies, and I would just kind of lose myself into the black and white melodramas and musicals. And so I've always been like, like that, you know, kid in a candy store trying to, like, wondering what that would be like. And feeling like I would never as, like I say in the book, the only ring I was going to grab was not brass, but it was the intimate chocolate donut. You know what I mean? But, um. Oh, that's a great line. But, um, I always just wanted to experience it. And so I moved back and forth to New York, to LA a few times for life's particular situations that cause change. But the first time I really set out to live in LA for like to get into the business, my whole idea was always to be like it says in the book, I wanted to be a mechanic in the machine called celebrity. It's not like I feel like I should have been like, you know, Robert Taylor or, you know, whoever. I just love the idea of it. And I love how the the machine of it. And I wanted to know how that works. And when I did get a job at Carrie Fisher's, you know, production company or home, whatever you want to call it. Um, was a way in, and that was where I got all the experiences that any mechanic in any machine whatsoever was in the thick of it. It was awesome. She was brilliant. Yeah. Tell me everything I know about writing. And I attribute so much of my, uh, ability to make sentences work together. It's the time I spent with her. Well, you know, Carrie Fisher, and again, I'm a child of the 70s. I'm dating myself. Um, I grew up wanting to be that Princess Leia. And as I got older, of course, I saw her on other things. But I always saw such grace in her. And certainly I I'm so. I'm a little enamored with the idea, too, that you you you worked with Carrie Fisher, and that's wonderful. I could imagine that that person, the person behind the character, was pretty much a courageous person as well, and someone who would pour herself into others. And it seems like she definitely did. And and she did that with you? Oh, definitely. We were thick as thieves, but, um, but like, all good things that come to an end and. Yeah, it's just, you know, it was a teaching beyond a teaching moment. She was, uh. Yeah, a great she was an experience like no other. Mhm. Also it's also when you go through the book, I mean it's only one chapter really about my time with her. It's something I needed to learn how to survive that. Because when the thing about Hollywood is I'm either your talent or you're sucking up to talent and never the twain shall meet. Mhm. And, uh, it's hard and became harder for me because I do feel very kind of proud of the way I think and the way my creativity and to always be not in anywhere near the driver's seats. Mhm. The hard thing to kind of, you know, admit and this is I'm going to spend the rest of my life I'd rather and believe me, it's not like I'm on the top of my game, but I am at the definite pinnacle of embracing the life that I am meant to live now, by the book, by the documentary, I the social media platform that I cultivate with that same message of speaking out, especially on the eve of these elections that are just not only contentious. But in this particular instance, it's a matter of we're on the brink of losing our freedoms. More every day. It's mind boggling. Absolutely. And for me, you know, having been the daughter of, um, someone who is from El Salvador and came to the States at an early age, and an American father who also, um, was a was the son of immigrants. Um, there's a lot of things that people take for granted that our liberties that we have and the I'm so bothered by everything that I'm seeing with the banning of books like you alluded to, with the way that people are just being attacked for who they are, who they love, what they like or where they want to be. And I think that, um, this is not I actually saw a, um, I saw a clip and boy, did it make me angry this morning, and I don't usually go into social media in the mornings because I this happens. But I saw a, I saw a clip of Lauren Boebert saying that this is a Christian country. And having been studying history and our founding fathers, there is no context. And it makes me think like, did I go to a different school? Did I learn different things? Or is my brain just not accepting things the way other people accept that? And I think that this is where people hear that, and maybe they've never met someone who is an immigrant. They've never met anyone who is Jewish or someone who is, you know, a minority in so many different ways. And I'm thinking maybe they haven't met them. And this is why this message is resonating with them, because they're there's that bit of ignorance. But, um, you were an activist and you wrote this book that really won't be silent. Don't stop till it matters. Um. You're compelled to share your life story, your experiences. But who is this book for? Who is the person that you want to read this book and really be inspired or touched or motivated by it? So, interestingly enough, the response that I'm getting from such a diverse group of people, the most emotional moment since the book came out was this 19 year old kid from Europe emailed, uh, he did a posted a three minute video on on Booktok. Wow. And I was I mean, you could cry from what he was saying. I said, we have no comment and why am I even reading a memoir from someone that I have nothing in common with, someone who's old, who's not a celebrity? There is no reason for me to like this book. I am so touched by this book. I have learned so many life lessons. So the book is not only for the people who I have cultivated, really in my community. That is really the most because we only get the, you know, on social media, we've all been reduced to 30, 60, maybe 90s soundbites. And as good as I might be at handling that, I have so much, you know, and, uh, and I really want to these people who have been so incredible over the past few years and sending me amazing notes, thanking me for helping them feel like they're not alone, and this challenging political upheaval that we find ourselves. And since leading into the 2020 election specifically, and I felt like these people need to know everything about me, I've had a very hard road. I've survived a lot. My dad died after having a huge fight with him. It was such a hard road to climb out of that because I felt guilty. I said terrible things to him the night he died that I could never apologise for. I had, you know, Wade issues that kind of. I had to get on the other side of which I have gratefully. And I, you know, I test positive in the, you know, 1990. It was a very scary time, right. You know, it's all about it's all about this book is for anyone who is feeling challenged by life's. What life has done, and everything is insurmountable. Everything is surmountable. That seems insurmountable. And if you read my book and see how I go through drug addiction, almost near-death experience, you know, I mean, it never stops. It never stops. And even now, even though I am at this place of calm and creative connectivity and, you know, self respect and self love, which if the world could give this much to themselves, as I feel like I've done by finishing this book, it wouldn't have wars because I just think people don't love themselves enough. That's how they then hate others. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and again, I'm not I'm not challenge free. I'm financially not at a place where anywhere near am I ready to kind of sit back and relax. Yeah. So I, I look at like yet another challenge, you know, Jews were the ones or many Jews built the pyramids in Egypt. Right. So we're always pushing boulders up a hill. It is our lot. That's why we're forever being chased out of where we are. Or marginalized or hated or sent away. And, uh, so it's it's I'm just like a traditional I'm like a historic Jew. And that even this greatest moment in my life is an uphill battle. Yeah, I welcome it because I, I know how to get through it. And I had to get to the top. And you, you talk about how and this is one of your edicts in life that that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And I am a firm believer of that. And I know that I actually just met someone, Abe, who talked about how everything that we go through in life is what gives us our PhD, our doctorate in life. And these experiences are the ones that make us stronger and make us the person that we need to be to put out into the world that ripple effect and and I I'm a firm believer of that. Now you you I want to talk about the film and, uh, tell me more about what is the, um, the thought won't be silent and the activism. Tell me more about that. So there's two projects, okay. One is during Covid, when we were all in lockdown. The thing about my uncle's piece of music. I'll start with this quick story. Yeah. So start with that. Okay, so the Nazis did marching in Charlottesville. Let's go back to the beginning. And, uh, coincidentally, the Holocaust Museum sends my family a letter that they have found a piece of music, um, written in a book in Israel by a survivor of the same concentration camp as my uncle, who was a renowned composer conductor from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. If his friend, who was a poet that they grew up together in Vilna, were in this camp in Estonia together, and they wrote this little, it was more like a song. It was more like a prayer. It was called stay silent. Don't let them take your tears. Keep your dignity. You can't. They can't stop us from crying inside. Don't give them that. Don't give them. This is its idea of a silent protest, which is extraordinary. And when it. When it landed on my desk, I was like. From the ashes of the Holocaust comes this message of resistance. And here it was 2000, I think it was 17 or almost 18. And it's like we were in the thick of the crazy America that was going. And I was like, up until that moment, my uncle, his name was Walter Mushkin, but Uncle Wolf was just one of the 6 million anonymous Jews, and here was an opportunity to maybe give him a face and a name and a wow. So I set out on this journey that I'm still on, and I had a friend of mine, Harry Vardy, wrote new lyrics to that music. It's called Won't Be Silent, and we started recording it. And our whole discussion when we first got together about it was like, let's just put this song out to the world, let every genre, let every artist, let every language take this and make it so that the resonates about when being silent, because it's a, it's a global thing. It's like you can't say we shall overcome without being not being silent. You know, it won't be silent. That makes you not overcome. Mhm. Yeah. So it's this message on that level which of course I dream big. Um, Bit. And, you know, we've had beautiful recordings. If you go to my website, silent.com and on the navigation bar, click the music. It's been done in Spanish. We when they were putting the kids in concentration camps, the cages here in the border, I went and had it done in Mexico by this amazingly wonderful pop singer who did a really beautiful, simple rendition of the song, like wanting it to our his voice in the back of it's beautiful. Mhm. And we went we did it in Germany. I mean it's all these things. One thing led to another, people wanting to help. It's very magical, the whole idea. So everything was going great. We were filming we, I did an LA version. We had like a teenage violinist with just beautiful film. We filmed them all. But Covid happened. Every shutdown lost funding. Everything was gone. So what better way to say I won't be silent than by voting? So that's how the platforms like, you know, the voting rights and making sure we've got people registered to vote leading into the 2020 election was awesome. It was feeling like my uncle's message was still relevant, still happening. Absolutely. Even more so on a certain level then this film. And it was giving people hope because I think that that's what we needed. We had a chance after four years. You know, I, I know what I felt like when, when, uh, he was elected the former president. And I know that when I went to the polls and, you know, in the next election, I went with Hope. And I went with hope that my my vote would matter. Yeah. And the whole idea that, you know, we were saving the soul of America. And here was this soulful little message from the ashes of the Holocaust. It just felt like such. I felt it was so grateful. And again, we had a lot of hours to sit around in the house. But in the meanwhile I was thinking, well, here is this like message of resistance. And I got inspired to do a deep dive into the history of protest music. So I laid out what I thought was as a docu series. Each episode has its own reason why so much extraordinary protest music has been written. And we tried. I was introduced from one thing led to another, and we got out of Covid and I met the Academy Award winning writer who had written, uh, The King's Speech, David Seidler, who was introduced me to his friends who were at a production company that they were. And one thing led to another, and we were able to get the pilot of the series greenlit. So that is what we're finishing up. And because, uh, we had just lost Roe v Wade. So the episode we're finishing is the Women of Protest Music. Um, it's a real kind of wonderful compilation of all the music that we all love and know. But now our pleasure is about the message of women speaking up and women's rights and, uh, yeah. And hopefully it'll all go well and be on October. I said, I still have the uncle documentary to finish. So first things first. Let's get this in and then we continue on the journey. Well, I, I am such a fan of the journey that you're on. I'm so glad that we we've connected. But now the one thing that I would say is you're using your platform in so many different ways to speak up and to give people, to educate people and to give them hope. Um, what are you hoping that individuals learn and can do? What what are the what are the tangible things that we maybe come across your Substack or your TikToks? And what can we do and learn from what your the content that you're putting out there? I mean, what I really feel like, again, I'm, I'm starting life over again. It's a refreshing, exciting, um, moment. I feel like I am a good person to coach people through the fears that they're experiencing. Ways to get engaged in civic engagement. And I would love to be able to enroll people on a one on one basis to learn how being won't be silent is actually in all of us, and so many people just needs to find that confidence. It's about confidence. It's about not ego confidence. And again, I had no reason to have an ego when I was a short, fat little kid with glasses and whatever, you know? But I always had the understanding and the confidence that I needed to hold my own and meet the moment, you know, and I I'm actually hoping this is just an idea that I had the other day, that it would be great to create an opportunity to kind of engage the community that watches me or reads my stuff, to be able to have the full on conversation because people need to be prodded through. I mean, I just yesterday I had a conversation with someone who's trying to finish a book and they're not confident, and we're going to start doing conversations. Yeah. And so I feel, you know, the, the subtitle of my podcast has been especially leading into 2020. It was conversations from the Edge of Democracy, and it's still pretty relevant, but still pretty relevant. People need to be talked through the whole thing. It should not be just me talking at you from third person, you know, through this and this. You know that that there's phone calls. There is there's more of an intimacy to get through because I feel like I am a good not teacher because I'm again, I'm a college dropout. But but I went to school, and it's all of us. All of us have something to learn and and even, um, you know, the people that we don't agree with. I am a firm believer that by sharing our stories, we can understand better where we're coming from. And really, it doesn't matter your your education, but what matters is the the feeling and the experiences that help you help others. And and, um, I want to ask you something that, uh, you mentioned, um, that you love to speak about, and I want you to share with the listeners what was the thing that really, truly matters. What is it that you found that really, truly matters? There is no doubt that the journey to love yourself is what matters most to us. That has been always at any pit, of any pivotal junction juncture that I've been, whether it was addiction or when I was looked in myself in the mirror of finding and said, no, I'm not doing this. It's like, that's when you love yourself enough to take the first step. When I got sober that one time or whatever. Uh, I just knew that I needed to love myself. And it was. And it's hard when you don't like. When my dad died, I stopped believing in God. And, like as it was, it was always a hard one for me to chew because I knew my grandparents were brutally murdered, you know? And it's like, God. What? God? But what what is what are people believing in? But coming back to a sense of belief is another way of loving yourself, because it it takes the pressure off just you to make life better, you know? And if you just believe in a power greater than yourself and not give it a name. Like that's why people get all caught up in the names of these things. But if you just love yourself enough to get through Whatever the moment is. And that to me is that that's why the subtitle is don't stop till it matters. Because there were so many times I didn't think it mattered anymore. And I have to tell you, it's not like I'm suicidal or anything. I just didn't know what I was doing here. What was my mission? Yeah. And now I have a mission. And that comes from loving myself enough to throw myself into the mix. And and believe me, I still have my issues of not feeling worthy and. Who who doesn't, right? I mean that that's part of the human experience we have these days. And, you know, for as much as I talk about confidence and really, again, confidence is not that feeling we have. It is actually what happens when we put ourselves out there and we're scared and we start to see the evidence that we can. Maybe we have a couple failures under our belt, but we keep trying and that's what builds our confidence. And and I think that all of us, right? Struggle with loving ourselves 100% all of the time. All of this struggle with not feeling like we are enough. And and these things are the ones that, um, that, that really keep me going with this show in particular, to really be able to bring the stories of other people so that the person that's sitting at home, that's thinking, oh, that's nice for them. This guy, wow, he wrote a book and he's doing all these great things. I could never write. I'm not enough. But I want to encourage whoever is listening to know that there is a gift inside you that you can actually go out and plant into the universe, right? I mean, believe me, you're selling books ain't easy money if you're not, you know. Tell me about it. I have a book I'm selling to. Still feel like there is the contributions to just being a good person. Like, I have to say this, my mother our whole lives. If I remember one thing she said that I remember clearly as a bell. She used to say I had seen evil first hand in the eyes. And I only wanted to raise good children. I only wanted my family to know what it is to be a good person. Yeah, and there's a great little stories. My one of my sisters is on the Holocaust Museum in Battery Park. She's on the board of trustees. And when they broke, when and when they opened the building, when you walked into the building, they had all these tape recorded voices in this room, and you just heard voices. And when I walked in, I heard my mother's voice, and she was the exact same thing. And it was just. And she had already and she had passed like a few months earlier. Wow. That's powerful. Girl. It's been a ride when I went. Um, you know, when I went to when I was in Israel and I went to the Holocaust Museum. Um, the one thing and it really has been one of these experiences that has stayed with me forever. Um, I, I was in my early 20s when I went to Israel. And you walk into the room where they have the memorial for the children, and there is, um, a candle in, in the middle of the room. And then you have all these mirrors around the, the candle, and the light is reflected. Right. So that all these candles that you see, the millions of candles reflected are to symbolize the children that were lost. Um, however, there is something that happens if we were in a room with that many people, with each of us holding a candle with an open flame. There would be warmth in the room. There would be that sense and, and in more light. Whereas in this room, that one candle, um, doesn't light up the entire room and doesn't provide the warmth. So it's important that as as individuals in this earth, right, we share with each other ways in which we can light up that candle and pass it on and pass on the light. I love that your mom wanted to, despite the things that she saw, want to raise children, that again, we're good. And you are. You're doing incredible things. It sounds like your siblings are as well. And I think that that's you lighting somebody else's candle like she lit your candle to go and shine. Yeah, yeah. And she was, you know, when you think about what she endured, um, she was so funny. And my sisters and I are all pretty funny, too. But she was just funny. And that's just the kind of tenacity Today that I'd like to think I have. Yeah. Um, I've had a different, easier, much, much easier ride than they have my parents, but, uh, I that's why I feel like I really can, because of what I've survived and where I come from, and the emotional healing that I have set out to go through and get on the other side of. It wasn't by accident. I had like getting through this, and I feel like people can benefit from conversations with me, and that's how I feel like could be the next thing that I do as an offshoot of all be silent, you know? And I'm hoping with that. Okay. Well, I love your work. I love your mission. I love your passion and zest for sharing the story so that history doesn't repeat itself so that people who don't have a voice can, uh, be represented through your voice, through your teachings, through your social media post, your. Your book, the Substack, that podcast. Everything. Um, what it is, uh, how do people connect with you? I, I'm going to go find you on TikTok because I didn't see you there. Um, but. I. Won't be silent. Okay, okay. Got it. Uh, Instagram is my name, but if you go to won't be silent. Com you'll automatically be taken to information and a little brief about the book. But when you navigate, you of course you can order it. Uh, and I wish you would the, uh, or the audiobook, which a lot of people have. I've been on the top ten audiobooks and gay and lesbian autobiography for a week. It's amazing. I'm really excited about it because I, I did it's in my voice. And, um, so it's people love that. But if you navigate up to the top, you'll see the various things that I'm trying to make happen. We have the movie, you see a three minute video of the My Uncle Wolf story, um, and my Substack. You can sign up for my Substack. You can sign up for all my socials there. Okay. And. Yeah. And be part of my community and email me, of course. No questions aren't going to be answered. All questions will be answered. And hopefully this is just the best part of my journey. It's just. You know, I appreciate your inviting me to be part of this. No, I am delighted that you're here. I think that what you're doing again is incredible work, and I'm so happy that you have come to share a little bit of your experience that you have come to again. Let us know that you know, when we see other people, there's a story behind them and that certainly it's great to be able to sit down and find out more what we have in common as opposed to what we don't. And I'm hoping that if you're listening to this and perhaps you're in the other side of where you and I are, I want to encourage you to, um, be open. Be open to, you know, nobody is brainwashing anybody but everybody. We need to just respectfully learn why we believe what we believe in. I'd like to end on a message of what happened in 2020 can happen again. And I'm if if anyone who is listening wants to participate in keeping America's freedoms intact, please email me. Go to my website. Won't be silent. Com email me. Be part of this effort. Be part of this community. There's volunteer opportunities. There's a whole slew of ways you can be part of having a civic engagement and having your voice heard. Because what better way to say I won't be silent then by voting? And if you are on whatever side of the aisle you are on. Mhm. You have a responsibility. The best thing about being an American is that we get a chance to vote. Yeah. The best thing about being human is that we get a chance to forgive and hopefully the twain shall meet. But those are the things that if you have that if you're gifted with those things, you must embrace them. Because we're the, you know, until we're not the envy of the world. America is the envy of the world. Yeah, absolutely. And and again, your work is phenomenal. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. You are definitely shining your light I appreciate you. I can't wait to go in binge on everything that you have and for and for individuals. Again, the website where you can find Abe is won't be silent.com and you can go and check out. I listen to the music. The songs are beautiful. He has it in Spanish as well. Um, but yeah, go and check it out. There's lots of stuff in there. Um, and again, thank you, Abe, for sharing your story, for sharing your journey to confidence, and for living your life in a way that shines for others. And until next time, my friends. I would love for you to go and tell me what you thought of this episode. Even if you maybe didn't like something we said. I'd love to hear that. Um, but let's let's find out how we can again belong and allow each other to belong and exist. So thank you babe. Go confidently, everyone, in the direction of your dreams. Have a great 4th. Of July weekend. Thank you. Bye.