Clutching My Mother’s Hand Outside a Concentration Camp: How My Journey Led to This Book
I’m so excited to share something deeply personal with you—Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America! It’s a love letter born from my journey through hardship, freedom, and everything in between.
The book comes out this December, and I can’t wait for you to read it. Join the waitlist now to be the first to get updates, sneak peeks, and access to video bonus stories for every chapter.
As a sneak preview, here is the introduction to the book and check out a couple of fantastic guest pods that just came out. The first one is my discussion of the book with the wonderful Eric Metaxas, whose book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy was just released as a movie this week in 2,000 theaters in the U.S. - I highly recommend it.
Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America - Introduction
My earliest memory is standing outside a concentration camp in Santiago, Chile, clutching my Russian mother's hand at age five. I remember being scared as she talked to the guards through a fence, convincing them to pass a small paper bag of food to one of the prisoners.
The prisoner was my Chilean father, one of the tens of thousands arrested nationwide after Augusto Pinochet's military coup overthrew President Salvador Allende on September 11th, 1973. Thousands were tortured and killed in concentration camps and secret prisons across the country.
Too young to experience the stark reality of human cruelty and the fragility of freedom, this moment may have sparked my lifelong interest in the importance of liberty and the pursuit of happiness—values I later found embodied in the American story.
My father was eventually released, and our family found safety in a refugee facility in Santiago under the protection of the UN.
We were among the two hundred thousand people forced into exile and blacklisted from returning. Doctors, educators, activists, intellectuals, artists—all perceived opponents of the military government.
I spent my childhood in Chile, Germany, Russia, and Mozambique. After receiving a master’s degree in economics, I became a pop star, producer, evangelist, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. A tragic story became an adventure with enough twists and turns to fill three lifetimes.
I immigrated to the U.S. at thirty-five with my American wife, Deb, and our three daughters, and for the first time in my life—I didn’t feel like an outsider.
After years of sharing with family and friends about why I love the culture and spirit of America, Deb encouraged me to write this book, perhaps to spare my friends from having to hear the same stories over and over again. I hesitated for a long time, knowing it would be interpreted as political. As I observed many Americans lose faith in their own country, I decided this book is worth writing.
Although it may come across as political, you will not find an endorsement of any party or candidate. It's about the culture and values that built an imperfect and extraordinary nation. It is also about the ideologies that clash with human flourishing.
I touch upon why all forms of Marxism are destructive after experiencing it firsthand, living in countries that adopted it as a core ideology, and seeing the catastrophic results. As an economics student in the USSR, I wrote papers on the works of Karl Marx and can recognize the rhetoric from a mile away.
Marxism has mutated into Cultural Marxism in America and is hard to spot because it uses real problems to offer terrible solutions. I want to help you connect the dots and understand why it never has and never will lead to a healthy and prosperous society.
You will undoubtedly detect my open aversion to top-down collectivist ideologies that promote a tyrannical state over the interests of individuals. Around 5.7 billion people today live under authoritarian regimes. That's around 72% of the planet.
America is dysfunctional and messy, but I'd rather live and work here than anywhere else because it's also the most free place on earth.
As a Christian and recovering atheist, I share how my faith has shaped my life and why the moral fiber of Judeo-Christian values remains an essential part of the American story—one we should not dismiss as outdated or unimportant.
The life stories I share are like spices in a dish—meant to enhance the flavor of the insights. For a straightforward account of my life, you’ll have to wait for my nonexistent memoir.
Most importantly, this is an optimistic book about ten wonderful reasons to love America—a love letter to a culture that shaped me long before I moved here and became a citizen.
Through these pages, illustrated with photos from my archives and thoughtfully crafted AI-generated images, I hope you’ll gain a renewed appreciation for the vibrant tapestry of stories, ideals, and dreams that make up America—and feel inspired to share it with others.
Watch our full conversation with Eric Metaxas here.
Another good conversation was on the Attitude Altitude Podcast, which focuses on how to turn Pain into Purpose - which incidentally is the secret to the high impact we discuss in my next free webinar for subscribers on how to Turn Failure into Victory. You can go ahead and claim a spot here.