Finding Purpose Through Grief with Brian Floriani
There is a version of legacy-building that looks a lot like fear. You can chase a mission so hard and so long that it stops being about the mission and starts being about you. The more I talk with leaders on this podcast, the more I see it.
And then there's Brian Floriani.
I met Brian not long ago and fell in love with him immediately. He is one of those rare humans who has figured something out that most of us spend our whole lives circling - he knows exactly why he's here and he shows up every day like it.
Brian is the founder of Bernie's Book Bank, a metropolitan-scale children's book bank model designed to get eight quality books per year into the hands of every under-resourced child from birth through sixth grade. He named it after his father, Big Bernie, who passed away in 2005. Since then, the organization has placed 31 million books into homes across Chicago, Milwaukee, and coastal Florida, and Brian's goal is to serve 20 million children annually by 2045.
He's also the founder of Buku Branded, a social enterprise using branded products to fund literacy causes, with 100% of profits going back to four literacy beneficiaries across the country.
In this episode, we talk about:
How losing his father and grandmother on the same day in 2005 redirected his entire life
Why eulogies aren't about success, they're about significance, and the three questions Brian asked himself that changed everything
The dark side of chasing legacy when identity gets tangled up in the mission
How Brian navigated stepping back from leading the organization he founded
His brother Little Bernie's final words before choosing to end his life on a ventilator, and what they reveal about the only real choice any of us have
My Key Takeaways from this conversation with Brian Floriani:
Success is about you. Significance is about other people.
Brian was asked to eulogize both his father and grandmother, an hour apart, on the same day. What he noticed was that no eulogy is ever about success. They're about significance. Three questions he asked himself afterward changed everything: (1) would anyone have anything to say about me, (2) would it be true, and (3) would it matter?The hole grief leaves doesn't have to stay empty.
Brian describes grief as leaving a hole in your heart. You can ignore it, fill it with junk, or plant a seed and nurture it. Bernie's Book Bank is what Brian planted in that hole. The most powerful missions often come from this place.The mission has to be bigger than you are.
One of the topics we explored was about Brian stepping back from leading the organization he founded. He'll be the first to admit it didn't come easy, but he kept coming back to the same question: is this about me, or is it about the mission? That clarity only happens when you allow your mission to be about something bigger than yourself.Pressure is a privilege.
Brian isn’t naive about how hard this work is or how much is at stake when it comes to solving a problem as big as world literacy. But the perspective he takes on that pressure allows him to keep showing up powerfully, even with such a massive mission on his shoulders. Brian views the pressure as evidence you're doing something worthy. Coal under pressure becomes a diamond. That reframe doesn't make the pressure lighter, but it changes how you carry it.When everything is being taken from you, you still have a choice.
Brian's brother, Little Bernie, was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 and spent the last four years of his life almost completely paralyzed. In July 2020, he chose to be removed from his ventilator. His final words to his family, seconds before eternity, were, “If you need to choose between happy and sad, choose happy.”
Listen to the full conversation here:
Connect with Brian:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brianfloriani
Website: berniesbookbank.org
Connect with me, Clay:
Website: https://15sixty.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claystelzer
If you have a topic or guest you'd love to see on Fearful Giants, reach out to me at info@15sixty.com