Barry Walton: Shaping Success, Emmy Winner and His Journey to Excellence

In this episode, Barry Walton, an accomplished director and Emmy Award winner, shares his inspiring journey from childhood struggles to professional success. Despite facing the emotional challenge of being held back in third grade, an experience that left him feeling ashamed and misunderstood, Barry persevered to become a respected director with five documentaries and numerous awards to his name, including 15 for best documentary short. 

He opens up about how that early setback shaped his life, emphasizing the importance of managing your narrative and the lasting impact such experiences can have. Barry’s story is a powerful reminder that your past doesn’t define you, and with determination and self-awareness, success is within reach.
 
Contact Barry:

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Book: Why I Survived; Where Survival Becomes Strength

The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by purple-planet.com.
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Transcript

Jen

Please note, I Need Blue does contain topics which could be triggering. Please seek help if needed. And remember, you always come first. 

Our education system has this funny quirk of grouping kids by birth date rather than, say, intellectual ability or achievement or interest. But developmental pathways are as individual as kids themselves. So it creates this perpetual back and forth about whether to put certain kids in school a grade behind or ahead of their actual age. I do remember being held back in kindergarten because of my birthday. When researching the effects of holding back a child, there is much research on the academic advantage and disadvantages. However, I wasn't able to find much information about the emotional and mental impact that it has on a child. Imagine being that child who is watching their friends advance to the next grade and then just standing there. I would like to welcome my guest, Barry Walton. He is an accomplished director with five documentaries and an Emmy under his belt. Barry won 15 awards for best documentary short with his most recent film, Empty America. He is also the owner of Endless Media. Barry was held back in third grade. The details of his story touched me. I was sad when he shared with me the classroom where he was. To repeat his grade was missing a desk for him and what happened to resolve that would scar anyone. Barry, thank you for being my guest and sharing your story. And welcome to the I Need Blue podcast.

Barry
Thank you for having me here. That's an intimidating introduction, to say the least. There's a lot of things there and I'm kind of shy, but I'm also proud of that. I'm glad to be here. This is great.

Jen
When you and I first met and you started telling me a little bit about your story. It isn't the, quote, traditional topics that I tend to talk about, like human trafficking, domestic violence, and drug overdose, but as I was listening, your story gave me chills. And when that happens, I realized that your message needs to be shared because you are not alone. And I'm just glad that you came here today and are willing to talk to us about it, because what you have done and where you are in your life today is amazing. And as you can see behind us, we're really going to focus on how you shape your own narrative.

Barry
I have talked about this publicly about five years ago for the first time in a toastmasters class. And I remember when I did that, that was tough for me. I almost started breaking it was probably the first time I started to talk about it, and I almost started breaking down crying. I had to kind of pull myself together in the midst of an audience, and I was like, wow, maybe there's something here when you're a kid and those things happen and then you grow up and become an adult, you go, Well, I was just a kid. It's like a kid getting held back. Like, what's a big deal. But as you get older, you're like, that was a very impactful kind of thing that has driven a huge amount of insecurity and probably is some level the cause of a lot of great accomplishments that I'm very proud of.

Jen
The day after we spoke, I was out having coffee with one of my friends, and she had just hung up a phone call, and she said, oh, that's my girlfriend. She's having a really hard time. They have to hold her daughter back in third grade, and they don't know how she's going to handle it. And so they're really nervous about having to tell her and things like that. And when I heard that story, I was like, okay, this needs to be talked about because even you, sharing your perspective today, is going to help other parents who are going to have to have that conversation with their child. So by you saying how it affected you later on, then that parent will be able to approach it maybe a little bit differently so that it doesn't have quite that effect, that scarring effect on them. Do you think so?

Barry
I think it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. And my sister has her youngest is struggling with school, and I was rowing with him in a boat, and his brother, who's just like a rocket, just shooting his way through school, and he's just struggling with kind of similar things that I struggled with. Struggle with attention. He struggles a little bit with attention. I struggle with reading a little Dyslexic. And I was just sitting there roaming with little Leo there. And I was just like, Leo, you can't measure yourself by one standard. I think for parents, it's valuable to know. It's a really big deal for kids and kids have to feel empowered. I was like, why is this so important to me? Why is this so important to me? And I thought like a tree in the woods. And I remember seeing every now and then you'll see a tree in the woods and it's got like this crick in it and this huge trunk, this big old trunk. It will be a big trunk, but it will be like a tree that's going straight up and then all of a sudden it'll turn sideways and you're like, how did that giant tree get that bend right in the middle of it? And you're like, well probably when it was small and malleable someone stepped on it or something happened to it where it took a turn and completely changed its direction. And now that it's huge and you're not going to make that bend now, but it's an obvious change that happened at some point in its life. And I was like, that's why that moment was so big to me and that's why so much of my life probably until I was in my thirty s, and even today still is impacted by that. A deep amount of shame and a lack of self worth and not being able to keep up with my peers and feeling like I was inadequate. There's just so many things that go on within the emotions of a kid and the kid doesn't know how to process that. They're just like, mom and dad is in charge.


I think it's important to say up front as a caveat, my parents were awesome parents. They loved me. They wanted the best for me. And my mom, maybe she carries a little when I talk about this, she carries a little bit on her. And I don't think any parents should have to we make mistakes. I feel very confident as a parent, but it's not because I'm a great parent, it's because I'm okay with making mistakes. You know what I mean?



And who I am today and who I can help is because of the mistakes during this time. So this isn't a jury. We're not here to hold the school system or my parents or people that were part of this on trial. But that being said, as a kid, I just remember I was falling behind early and no one wants to tell you, no one wants to tell you when you're a kid that you're doing that you're in the Blue Book or the Green book and they're in the Golden Book or whatever. You're in group three and that's group one. And you know, kids aren't I'm talking second grade, first grade, you know, already like, what's up? You know, who's running the show? And then I started getting some tutoring. And then in my second grade year, my parents moved to a different school. And I remember specifically on my report card in the middle of the year, besides the fact that I was failing, not doing well, let's say D's and C's, and probably some fails, my teacher said, Class clown. Class clown. And looking at that, I was like, Should I be ashamed of that? I feel like I'm a pretty entertaining guy, looking back on it. But as an adult, I go, well, because I wasn't gaining recognition in the academics, and I wasn't in the advanced group that was getting recognized, and so I was looking for ways that I could get recognized. Right?

Jen
You wanted to find your niche.

Barry
I wanted to find my niche. So me, it was like, I'll entertain people, but I remember a conversation must have happened when the time came where people were deciding, and I don't remember being part of that conversation. I don't remember any moment where someone said, we're thinking about this. And that's not to say it didn't happen. That's not to say that my parents didn't say, but all I remember, it was the last day of school in the third grade, and I had kind of an average report card. And at the end of school year, kids are always thinking about next year, and they're thinking about not having to come to school, but they're like, okay, next year I'll be with you, and you're my friends, and we're going to do this.

And everyone's talking about it, and I'll see you next year. As they're walking out the door. I didn't get to walk out the door. Everyone got to go, and my teacher said, we hang back. Now, me getting asked to hang back wasn't unusual because I was a class clown. So I'd get scolded, and I'd been to the principal's office, and this back in the day when they used to spank people, my principal had a wooden board, and I have had the wooden board across my backside. I'm not criticizing that I was a pretty straight kid after, but she asked me to stay back, so I'm like, oh, man, what did I do on the last day of school? What did I do? How is this possible? And she brought me up to her desk, and she said, barry, I've talked with your parents, and we're going to have you repeat third grade next year. And all the times in my life that I've been embarrassed, and I embarrassed myself plenty of times, this was a different feeling. There was, like, this deep shame that just sunk in, and it hit me instantly. I was like, My peers are going, and I'm not going with them.

Jen
Can I ask, did you recognize the feeling was shame? Did you know that? Or was it later on in life that you realize? Oh, yeah. In that moment, it was shame that I felt.

Barry
Yeah, definitely. Later in life, I just knew that my gut sunk, my face turned bright red, and I just wanted to hide, you know what I mean? Minutes later, my mom was the school bus driver, so I got on the school bus. My mom, we didn't really have anything to say to each other. I didn't know what to say to my mom, and I don't know if she knew what to say to me. And that's been probably a source of a lot of pain as an adult. Even as a kid, me and my mom, our relationship has been tenuous. It was pain because I was like, Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you talk to me about this? Why don't you believe in me? Why hasn't anyone given me a chance? There's this sense of like, I failed, and nobody gave me a chance, and nobody empowered me to take charge of it, and nobody really believed in me. And it's hard to know. I remember these emotions. I don't remember moments where people talk about this, but I just remember that. And then, as you mentioned in your introduction, so then the entire summer goes by as the school year tickets closer. It was in the back of my mind every day. I'm like, and that would have been, like, eight years old, and you have an eight year old, you think like, oh, they won't think about this. And it's like, no, it was there every day. And then this first day of school started, and I did I remember walking in the classroom, and there weren't enough desks, and my teachers sent me to go get my own desk, and I had to go into the classroom where all my classmates that I should have been with were, and they were like, hey, burial. They thought I was late. They just thought I showed up late.

Jen
Oh, wow.

Barry
I never told anybody. I didn't tell anyone that. I don't want anyone to know.

Jen
But you're still in the same school, playground, lunch room, things like that.

Barry
Everything. Yeah, exactly. And I didn't want anyone to know. I'll never forget walking down that hallway and going to that door and having to open it. Then the desk back then were big, and you had the chair was separate from the desk. I think they left me to do the whole job. Maybe I was a big kid, I don't know. But I was left to do the whole job. I moved the whole thing by myself. It's so strange. I look back at that moment, and I'm like, Why would they I just don't think they realized. And I think full circle to your friend. I don't think most people realize how aware young kids are. And you have to have one on one with them. You have to talk with them. You have to give them a chance to voice their opinion. You have to look at them in the eye level and treat them as a little adult. You know what I mean?

Jen
I love that. And I love that you just said children are aware because a lot of times when we couple children with a particular word, it's resilient. But being resilient and being aware are two totally different things.

Barry
Yeah, very aware. I was very aware. And when parents ask me, because I've had parents ask me those things my son does very well academically, but he has his own things, whatever they are. And for me, it's always about, like going he struggles with loneliness and different things as an only child. And it's just kind of like hearing him. And I'll even say, David, I can't fix everything for you, but I hear you, you know what I mean? I hear that you're feeling lonely right now. I'm going to try to work on it. But I can't fix everything in life. And I think parents need to know that your job isn't to fix life. Your job isn't to be the ultimate instructor and guider and disciplinary or whatever. Your job is to just be there with them through life. I can't change the terms of life or the terms in which you were born under, but I can be here with you and let you voice what's going on and do my best to kind of control what I can.

Jen
Absolutely. And one of the consistent messages within my podcast is when I ask a survivor of a particular incident, if somebody wants to help you, what is the best way they can help you? And the answer is just to listen. I don't need you to fix it for me. I just need you to listen to what you said is so true.

Barry
It's powerful. And I think a straight talk would have solved a lot for me. A straight talk with somebody that knew me. And it's just like, here's the deal, and maybe even like a challenge where, listen, you're going to get held back. You got about a couple of months. Just so you know exactly.

Jen
 Did a conversation not happen halfway through the school year where you could have done extra credit, maybe stayed after school, done additional projects or have tutoring? Were you given any opportunities to avoid being held back?

Barry
I think my parents did their share. There was tutoring in second grade because I remember my dad picking me up and bringing me Twinkies.

Jen
I liked those. Like King Dongs. Those were my favorite.

Barry
Oh, my gosh, little Debbie's, the oatmeal cookies. My dad recently called me and he was at Walmart. Unfortunately, in this day and age, we have video everywhere. So I was like, Son, look at this. I got some Twinkies. I can't believe you can still remember that. I used to bring you Twinkies this is what I pick you up. He worked at a factory down the street. I think the message is like, those things probably were happening behind the scenes. Those things were happening behind the scenes. The tutoring was happening. Probably the conversations and one on one parent teacher conferences were happening. I got the message that I was a class clown, and I need to stop being a class clown. I got the message that my grades weren't good, but I feel like it was information being relayed to me, not in a situation where I was included in the conversation. And I think the reason that parents and adults make that compromise is sometimes as a parent, it's not always a democracy, but just because it isn't a democracy doesn't mean that you can't have a seat at the table. And I think it's more about the lessons. It's not about rehashing the mistakes. And that's where the piece about managing. There comes a point where you have to manage your own narrative from these things. And that's kind of one of the messages that I wanted to convey from this. For me, the perspective, it's important to go, like, this isn't about going back and rehashing the past, and we all want to go back in history and solve history's problem. You're not solving any problem. My uncle used to live on a farm, and every now and then it would stink really bad. And I'd be like, Why does it stink really bad? Because the neighbors have a place where they store all the manure for the fields, and every now and then they stir it up. The whole neighborhood stinks. It's like going back in history. You're just making things stink. You're just stirring up the manure. And look, maybe the manure needs to be cleaned out. I get it right. We can go a lot of ways with this metaphor, but the point is but that's not solving. The solving is in kind of looking at what could have been different and then applying it to what you have control of, which is, don't pass it on my kit. I have to be responsible now. I have a son, so it's my responsibility. I can't go back and go, It's you, and then not look at myself and go, okay, what am I going to do different? You know what I mean?

Jen
You stop the cycle.

Barry
Yeah. End the cycle. Yeah, exactly. We all carry tons of issues with us. I wasn't held back because I didn't need help. I was held back because I did need help.

Jen
And did you get that help? Do you feel you got it?

Barry
I think it took me 48 years to get it, and now I'm 48. And I feel like the biggest part of that help was, like, me going, this is who you are, and also understanding who I was, because all these things that I throw out, like terms with Dyslexia, in terms of bipolar disorder and different things. I never wanted to take the time to actually learn about that stuff. I'd go to a therapist just long enough for her to kind of go, oh, I see what's going on here. You might need some medication. And I'm like, yeah, I think this is done. I'm good.

Jen
I don't think you're alone in that.

Barry
It's hard to look at yourself directly in the mirror. And a lot of people can relate to this in the sense that most people don't want to look at themselves on camera.

Jen
I have had moments in my life where I looked at myself in the mirror and I had no idea who was staring back at me. It was from a mentally, emotionally abusive relationship. And I knew who I was when I looked in the mirror before this person entered my life. And I knew halfway into that relationship when I looked in the mirror, no, I didn't know that person. I was just being destroyed. So it's very scary to have that self reflection. And so anybody that can do it, I know the courage behind that. So I get that.

Barry
Isn't it crazy how people can enter your life and just, like, destroy it?

Jen
Yeah. Slowly and subtly is the best way that I described that. And it's something that I haven't talked about on my podcast. I just I haven't been ready, I suppose you could say. But I interviewed domestic violence survivors, so I get what they have been through. The circumstances are different, but the scars that are left behind and the devastation that you work through, I understand. So this particular individual was leading a double life. It was like watching a Lifetime movie. Lifetime show. I don't even like that television show, but somehow I ended up in an episode. It was just crazy.

Barry
I think what's fascinating about that is physically, like, if you get injured, you can look at it. It's like, right there. You got that injury. You sprained your ankle playing basketball. You're like, I need to set it up for a while. And you can apply that to a lot of ways, but when it's your emotions that are being injured, some people, they're not validating you or they're manipulating you or their abuse. Whether it's emotional abuse, you're like, how do I measure that? Is that okay? Someone was just sending to me today, he wasn't clear on it. He was like, they just come in my house and go out of my house, and they don't respect this, and they do that, blah, blah. I said, you need to stop coming to my house. And it's like, well, they're not respecting your boundaries. And he was like, yeah, that's what it is. When you clear it up, then you're like, that person isn't respecting who you are, your boundaries, and who you've established yourself as. But those things aren't always easy because emotions are kind of like raindrops. They kind of go everywhere. How do I make sense of this, especially as a man?

Jen
I think for me, boundaries is a really important word, but I think there are times in our life where a boundary is literally a picket fence versus a cement wall. And I think he came in and he took my picket fence and just kept pushing it further out to where my boundaries were established by whatever boundaries he gave me. Does that make sense?

Barry
Yeah, when you're in love, 

Jen
yeah, it's. The whole emotional thing and the trust thing, and then it gets to the point where you'll never do anything better than me. You'll never get anybody better. So then you start to live in the fear of, oh, God, he's going to leave me, and what am I going to do? Even though you're living on your own, you're paying your bills, you're making it. It has been instilled in your brain that you will not be okay without them. The best way I can describe that is before I met him, I was a single, independent, strong woman. Paid my bills, my own apartment, everything. And he came in my life, and I solely was like this little rag doll that was just thrown in the corner. And when I got love is when he decided to pick me up and give me love. Otherwise, I was just back in that little corner. But I lived. Nobody knew. It's a dirty secret we keep. Nobody knew. I went to work. I got up, went to work every day, laughed, smiled, did my job. And meanwhile, I was just dying inside. I was dying inside. So I get it. This is the most I have ever talked about, the whole situation.

Barry
And I can relate with that. I can relate to that in the experience that I had, but also with school, but also on other experiences. I think the benefits of something like that, as painful as it was, as you go, okay, that's my line. That's my line, you know what I mean? And even recently, and you're always having to hold that line. There never comes a point where you draw that line and you're like, okay, I know my line. It's like you always have. I had someone come into my life recently that was kind of pushing that line back slowly, and I wasn't paying attention. Too busy with life juggling and keeping up with work and family and different things. And this person was kind of pushing back that line and testing my boundaries. What I thought was happening here isn't what's happening. This person's trying to do X, Y, and Z or whatever, and it's hard for me to give all the specifics, but I was like, done. You got to pull the line. And it's almost like you have to put your troops back in. We got to put the troops in. I don't need to give you any more information. I don't need to share with you x, Y, and Z. You're getting the hard line, the hard line. And that's a hard thing to do because it's hard to give someone a hard line when you also love them. That's the challenge with your kids, too. And the whole experience is like, I love this person. And we don't have a clear definition of love. I think in our society, more often than not, we just think love is this peaceful, like all this well, no, love has boundaries. Love has justice. Love has a black and a white in an area that everyone wants everything to be gray. But there's a point where it's like, not gray anymore. And love has that side of it where it's just like that's it done. And I love you, and this is how love is going to feel for you now because you haven't respected me. I get that. I totally get that. And that's not easy. But I think the benefits is you're like, I'd gone through the pitfalls so that now you're kind of thankful to God at some level for you. He teaches you at the right times.

And what you're learning now, you're like, this isn't fun, but trust me, this is a survival game. There's a reason that show is popular, because we are in this survival game where it's like, the stakes are getting higher. Grandma, you say, like, getting older than for the week. You know what I mean? Stakes keep getting higher all the way. And you're like those lessons learned at a young age. They establish those boundaries. So it's very useful, I think. So then you kind of look at this and you go, oh, Barry, like third grade. Come on. It's like you got held back. Can you just move on? I gave up on myself a little bit. And high school, elementary, middle school, high school, I was just a rebel. Grades were not important. So I love sports enough to be like, I got to maintain my grades in college where literally sports weren't part of it. And I wasn't doing good in college. I wasn't passionate. I didn't feel empowered. My family was like, go to college. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I just didn't care that much because for me, I was a failure. That was the cycle. Speaking of breaking the cycle, I think it's important to recognize within yourself and as a parent the cycles that you're building. For me, it was a cycle of have a goal, try hard, fail. Look for people to make me feel good after my failure. Oh, Barry. You're all right? We still love you. You're good. We know Barry. Barry is that way. That's just how Barry is. And then start all over again. And then you get to a point where you're like, I'm tired of these people patting me on the back for things that I didn't really accomplish. I want to actually accomplish. Something. Big risk. Don't know how to execute. Fail people patting me on the back. Big risk. Don't know how to execute. Fail people patting me on the back. So this is the narrative. This is the thing that's interesting about the mind, is you'll get into those habits and you'll see them. We all have those friends, those friends that can't put a relationship together. They can't hold a career, they can't hold a job together or whatever it is, they can't piece it together. And you're just like you keep coming back to this space, and the mind is almost like, I don't know how not to come back to this space. Like, this is the space I know.

Jen
As harmful as it might be to continue the cycle, you don't have to worry about it changing. There's little risk because you already know how it's going to end up.

Barry
And what you end up doing is you establish these people that kind of bolster you up. And when you break that habit, what you find is sometimes those people aren't there anymore. And that's a very uncomfortable thing. My Uncle Mel used to he was like, bury at different times. People are different ways you'll see different turns in people. And some people are also part of that cycle because they are validated by lifting you up or patting you on the back or it makes them feel good that they can contribute to someone that isn't that's maybe worse off than they are. As horrible as it sounds, there are people that are like, my life's not so good, but let me help out my buddy because his life is a little bit worse than mine. You know what I mean?

Jen
So in high school, I know you really weren't into grade. You liked sports. Was there anything in your head that you were passionate about, like, that didn't involve school? Maybe a trade, something like that? Anything?
Did you ever have thoughts of what I want to do when I grow up?

Barry
I don't think I had any idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. I didn't fit into the system, and I just liked going on adventures. And my parents lived in the country at the time. Nights after school or summer, I would just literally disappear. I had a couple of buddies that would disappear into the woods, and I'd spend entire days just hiking through the woods. I just fell in love with nature.  And that brought me a lot of soulless and exploring in nature, finding things. Whenever I'd find the old, it was so cool. There would be like, creeks and stuff, and I'd find an old pop can.

I mean, I grew up in the this is like 80s, so a pop can from the they still had kind of either they didn't have tin because the tin would rust, but now and then you'd find the glass ones. I remember finding things like that. I'd just be like, this is so cool.

Jen
So what's interesting is you and I both grew up in Michigan, different areas, but my parents owned property as well. They built a cabin and dug a natural spring pond. We had turtles, all of these other things. But nature very much played an intricate role in my life as well. And I remember the little creeks, and I remember a dead log that had fallen across the creek. And we would cross it. You would go back and forth and cross it. We would climb trees. We had an out house. So the smell of anywhere yeah, you get it? We did. And even there was no electricity. Everything was gas. And we had the old fashioned water pump thing. That was fresh water. That was good. It was really good water. So I absolutely understand about falling in love with nature. And there's, like, no boundaries. Right? It's like the woods just goes on forever. And the green trees and the sounds of crickets and frogs and nighttime clear skies, the beautiful stars, the bonfires, the s'mores. Wow. I feel like we need to go back to Michigan.

Barry
Yeah, I know. Wow, that's so cool. You didn't have power. That's so cool.

Jen
Yeah. The cabin well, we had a home, but the cabin was literally everything was gas. So we had a wood stove. We did have a gas little furnace. We had a gas refrigerator. It was two bedrooms. One room had bunk beds and another bed. And then my parents had their room, and it was 1 mile dirt road in, 1 mile dirt road out. And later on, they got four wheelers. And so my kids were able to grow up and quote the city, but then also spend their summers in Michigan and experience what it was like to be out in nature. And we would swim in the pond. There were turtles, and the turtles would come to us, and so they would float on the tube with us around in the pond. It was quite amazing. And I wish every child had that opportunity, because I think we learned a lot of things from those experiences, and not a lot of children get to experience that.

Barry
I'm telling you, that's where I found my solace. It's definitely a country boy, and I'm very proud of that. But just an adventurer. I just love to adventure into the outdoors, which is basically what that drifted. That became kind of my life. I've gotten a little more career based in the last couple of years, last six or seven years. But that was my life, just travel. I think my career now is attached to the fact that it was good with coloring books and picture books. The words didn't make sense, but the pictures did. I was like, oh, that's a great could you draw? Yeah. No, I wasn't much. That wasn't my skill set. After college, I didn't know what I want to do, and I moved to Hollywood. My mom was not happy. I lived on a sailboat in the Marina del Rey. That was so awesome. And I wanted to be an actor, and I wanted to work in Hollywood.

Jen
How did you survive? How did you make money? Because you hear about starving artists all.

Barry
The time trying to get providential good fortune, I would say. I had done some theater stuff in Minneapolis, and a friend of mine had family in La. That was actually very well connected, better than I would have assumed. And when I went out, she goes, Barry, you want to come out and do a couple of days of work? Just said, I'll come out for, like, a week, and I'll sleep on someone's couch. And I went out, and the first job I did was Buster Rhymes. I don't know if you know who Buster Rhymes, busta Rhymes. I did a Buster Rhymes video, and. I was like a PA. But I was assisting with kind of the camera team, and I was all over the place. And I remember walking in at one point, and Buster Ryan's crew was, like, all hanging out on the couch, and I walked in, and they go, hey, what's up, bro? And I was like, who are these people? This is so cool. I got to watch him shoot on this big fisheye. And these guys instantly just took a liking to me. I remember there was this dude, he was on a camera car, and he was rolling all the camera gear in, and he's like, dude, where are you from? And I go, I've been in town for two days, and this is my first shoot. And from that, it just snowballed. Like, I came back. I had to move back. I was driving to California. I had all my belongings in the car. I had $2,000 that I'd saved up working at Red Lobster. My friend Liz, who had gotten me the gig, she goes up. My boyfriend has a sailboat that he stays on on the weekends. She's like, but he doesn't really stay there anymore. Do you want to move on the sailboat? And I was like, It sounds like a plan.

Jen
Wow. What was that like?

Barry
Oh, my gosh. The sailboat life. Well, it sounds romantic, and it is romantic. The romantic side of it is you go to sleep kind of on a boat that's rocking. I could slide back the top and look at the stars at night. I was outdoors, and that suited me. I was right on the water. That life was very attractive. That's the attractive side to it. The unattractive side is it's kind of like living in a trailer park. People are either going up or down in society. So people are either getting out of jail or out of a halfway house, and they had enough money to scrounge together to pay for boat rent because it was cheap. I'm paying, like, 200 and 5300 a month for rent. Well, and when I would work on a job in La. To start doing video playback, I would make, like, 500 a day. So I'd make my rent in, like, one day of work. But then our people just got divorced, and their wife left them with the boat. I literally knew these people. I'm not making this up. I had a network of friends. The cool thing is you would visit other people's boats. I used to play Cribbage, so we'd go and have Cribbage night, and I'd go to Eddie's boat, or I'd go to Dave's boat, or I'd go to Brad's boat. And we had a community that we were, like, primarily men. Yeah, it was interesting, to say the least.

Jen
Wow. Yeah, I can't imagine that. How did you end up off the boat then, like, not living on the boat anymore? What happened next?

Barry
A year and a half, 18 months on a 27 foot Catalina? Small boat. Small boat. And I don't know. There was a part of me that never wanted to leave, and there was a part of me that was like, you got to leave. Like, you can't make this a lifestyle. I could have. I knew people. I still go down and visit a guy who still lives on the boat. I pushed myself. I moved into an apartment and kind of kept chipping away at the whole film thing and kind of kept repeating some of the same failed mistakes, like, I want to be an actor. But I didn't know anything about execution, didn't know anything, didn't study it, didn't know the industry. Failed miserably fell on my face. I mean, I did have a takeoff. I did have a launch.

Jen
Did you have an agent?

Barry
I had an agent for a minute, but there was just a lot of, like, highs and lows. I have a little history of being a little bipolar as well, mood swings, and I couldn't keep it together, and I couldn't make the decisions that needed to be made, and I didn't understand the industry or the workload that you had to take on, and so I would take these huge risks and then kind of, like, fall in my face. And there was a point where I had moved back home after a couple of years because things weren't going the direction I wanted them to. And then I was home in my thirties for, like, six months, and then I moved back out to California, and then I got a job for that geo, an Animal planet.

Jen
You've used the word a couple of times now that I noted, and it was empowered. I didn't even realize that because when the conversation in regards to being held back is you as a child, you wanted to feel empowered and you didn't feel empowered at that time, and you described why really well. So do you feel empowered now? And how do you make your son feel empowered?

Barry
That's a really loaded question. Well, not loaded, but it's a big question to take on. Do. I feel empowered now. Yes. And it kind of goes to that piece about shaping the narrative for yourself, which is a major turning point, just kind of backing that up. And I'll come full circle, which is like, whether someone recognizes that they have a narrative or not. And what I mean by the term narrative is you have your brain processes things similar to a computer. It computes where it's like this emotion or this feeling. Experience leads to this experience, leads to this experience. And that's the cycle that we talk about. And breaking that cycle means breaking an action, but it's usually coupled with an emotion that goes with that action, right?

Jen
Absolutely.

Barry
So that becomes a narrative. Your brain is functioning in a way that is telling it its story. For me, it was like, oh, I did it again. I failed again. I knew I couldn't do it. I never could do it. I couldn't do it when I was in third grade. I can't do it now. Why would I think I can do it now? Let me go back to that spot where everything's good. Let me go back to those people that make everything well again. I'll return there. And for me, breaking that habit was like, no, I'm not going back to those people and no, actually, I haven't failed yet. I'm going to keep going forward. I'm going to keep going forward and I'm going to believe that all I've done is learn something new that is going to get me to my goal. Right? And so I started reshaping that narrative where instead of the hero turning back when it reached the abyss, the hero's journey, hero frodo Lord of the Rings, gets the ring, goes on the journey, has his buddies go with them, has his mentor, the wizard, and then obviously runs into his enemies, right? And every time it comes to that abyss, that abyss is like, are you going to drop the ring into the lava and destroy it? Are you going to deal with that suffering, that hardship, that thing that you don't want to let go? Are you going to let it go this time and go forward believing that something better is on the other side? Or are you going to hold onto that ring like that little Rascaly character and fall into the lava and start over from the beginning? Because it's like, are you going to go forward and learn something new and come back reborn as a different person? Or are you going to go back and start the cycle over again? And that's the big choice. For me, it's like, no, I'm here and it's really hard. It's really hard and I keep screwing up and I'm okay with that. I'm going to sit in this hot, fiery spot, let go of the things, those people, that ring represents, all those crutches that are bolstering up. That ring is like, I'm going to hold on to this ring because this is all I've ever known. This is my family, these are the people that love me, these are my friends, or I'm going to let go and I'm going to discover something completely new on the other side. And I feel like this life journey, it's like there are a lot of things that you can unlock in life, in a sense, a lot of doors that you can unlock to success and to being who you dream. And dreams are a gift. They're imparted upon us from something greater than ourselves, and they're a gift they're given to us because we can achieve them. Not because we can't achieve them, but achieving. Every time you have to let go of something, ironically, all those people come back. All those things that you let go, they come back and they see you as something different. What you're really afraid of is that they're going to see you as something different and they're going to see you as something that you don't see yourself as inside, that you don't feel and so empowered. Yes, because I've learned to go through that suffering and overcome. For my son, all I can be is a mentor. And it's hero's journey. That's a parent you're born in and all you can be for your kids, you can sometimes be a friend, but that's a dangerous role. I'm a little bit of a buddy to my son because he doesn't have siblings, and so I kind of play that role, but I know that that role has limitations and there's a point where that role has to end. It's like, yeah, let's go play Bud. We'll do it. And then there's like, and I have to be dad and I have to have discipline and I have to have tough love and I have to let go of you because someday you're going to grow up and go on your own. So I don't want you to be a dependent. I want you to be independent, which is a way to raise a kid so they can empower themselves. And so for me as a mentor, it's like, what can I pass on to you and validate? And so my son will have to learn to empower himself, but I can show him the path to empowerment and sacrifice myself if I have to, to do that. That's what happens in Lord of the Rings anyway. So I'm getting off track a little bit.

Jen
Here's a fun question. If your son had to describe you in one word, what do you think it would be?

Barry
Oh, my gosh, are you kidding me. You're putting me on the spot. That requires me to sacrifice my ego at some level. What I would want my son to describe me in one word, probably complex. Probably an honest reflection of what my son, if he were able to articulate his observations of his father, he would probably say he's a complex individual because sometimes he's the hero and sometimes he's the villain. You know what I mean? And kids don't always understand all that goes into life. I tell my son I go to church personally, and I tell my son I don't go to church because I'm good or I'm perfect or I got it all squared away. I go to church because I'm not, because I'm a mess, and I need someplace that I can remind myself that, like, hey, here's the road. Try to stay on it. So I think that's the complex part, because I'll take them to church, but at home, I'll be home, lose my temper and cussing and swearing, and he's like, this guy. I don't understand them. That's just the truth.

Jen
I want to move forward and focus a little on you and your accomplishments and your documentaries and your Emmy, because that's quite an accomplishment, and I don't want to not mention that. So can you tell us a little bit about your documentaries? What inspired them, and was it easy?

Barry
Well, thank you for recognizing them as such. For me, sometimes I forget or don't recognize them in that fashion, but I do think they've been big moments in my life. I look at them now and I celebrate them more. That actually brings and I'm going to answer that by backing up all the way to one of my biggest accomplishments in life, and that was in fourth grade. And I wrote a book, and I also think it's linked to a little bit of me living in this awesome place, which I love, by the way, and I love space. And I wrote a book in fourth grade called The First Boy in Space. Right. And it's about this boy named George, that's my father's name and his friend who go and sneak in to a spaceship, and they hide in the spaceship. The astronauts come in and it launches, but the astronauts get knocked out, and George is forced to bring the spaceship home.

Jen
So he's the hero.

Barry
He's the hero. And he does he brings a spaceship. Oh, my gosh, this almost makes me emotional. So crazy. This book was such a big deal to me, and I put this book in a frame, and it hangs on a frame on my office, and I drew it, I illustrated it. I guess it was kind of a good drawer. I illustrated it, and my teacher worked so hard with me to get the penmanship right, and I wrote it in cursive. Someday this is going to be a children's novel. Nobody is allowed. This is copyright Barry Walton. Don't take it. But you don't know the full story. But I won the Best Book of the Year award. That book hangs on my wall and it has a star on it, right? So for years, that book, my mom, God bless her soul and this is her redemption because she's such a great mom. She collected all of our stuff and she keeps it in the basement. And I could go down there any day and probably find my entire archive of my life in the basement. And for years, I had been collecting kind of great accomplishments. I worked on Universal Studios. I worked on the sets of Fast and the Furious. I was on the Fast and Furious original one. I was in Malibu on several of their scenes. I remember running into the director years later. I worked on this is less popular, but House of 1000 Corpses, it's kind of a cult classic with Rob Zombie. I sat next to Rob Zombie for two weeks in a row. The guy wore the same outfit every day. I worked with Will Smith. I worked with Jennifer Lopez. I worked with Brooks Shields. I have a romantic story about Brooks Shields. I'll save for another day. And the Judge family, I got to know them. And I understand that Naomi JuD recently passed away. But I got to know one owner, Judd and have a couple of great stories about her as well. I wasn't in love with commercial in La. I loved parts of La. Geographically. Too much traffic. Anyways, I moved into Nacho and I started working for Animal Planet and nacho. I produced a show called Conquering Niagara about the guys to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. And I hired a private investigator and we dug up all these famous barrel riders. And the most famous is Dave Monday. Dave Monday. And he lives up in Nova Scotia. And I got on the phone with Dave Monday. It was so cool. And I got to learn his story. And Anne Neville, who is the local journalist I would write all their stories. And I got on the phone with her and what was so funny about these guys is she's like is like anything in life. There's a purist form of going over the falls and then there's not. And they'd be like Steve Trotter. Steve Trotter was a Florida guy who was a promoter. And this other guy, Petsky, who went over on LSD and came out naked out of the barrel. I found all these guys footage. I dug it all up. I found tapes that no one had found before. And they'd argue Steve Trotter wasn't an authentic because he had oxygen and he had padding and he had all this stuff. And Dave Monday went in a barrel that was like, basically steel. This is like, went over strapped into steel. And they'd have these arguments. It was such a cool thing. I did that in Animal Planet I flew all over the country. I produced like, 52 episodes of The Weird, True and Freaky. Nobody's ever heard of the show. I remember my sister watching it once, and I'm like, my name showed up in the credits on national television. I was sitting around the family. It's not a fake. I'm on national television. My name showed up in the credits.

Jen
So out of all of those, what was the most memorable?

Barry
Probably my first documentary, because I did it on my own. I went to the Himalayas in film, these people that ran over the highest motorables pass in the world, and one almost died. Two almost died. Actually, all three almost died. They pioneered this race. And that was my first documentary. I released it. I screened it in theaters in a theater in Detroit, and everyone came. That probably was one of the more memorables. I did empty America recently. When Covet happened, I just thought this world had lost their mind. But I was also losing my mind in the process. And the way I solved that was driving around the country when it was empty. And so I filmed all the emptiness of our country and the sound bites from Am radio because the corporate radio and corporate media was just like, established narratives, their own opinions. But you could get, like, the local grandma calling into the Am radio. I don't know about these politicians, but this is good. That was a great one.

Barry
Where can people find that?

[Speaker B]
Empty America is primarily on my website. I have three documentaries on Amazon Prime and that you could reach in reality, my sailing documentary and my two running ones, the High and Ultra High, but Empty America. I never went for distribution. I just put it into a lot of festivals, which is one. And I have a distributor in France that's put my other projects up, and he didn't really want to touch this one. There's a lot of radio sound bites and a lot of copyright that it has to go through. And then it's also kind of like just one of those subjects that it's kind of artsy in nature. It's not like a formatted show. So I don't think a lot of people want to touch it for distribution. But it's on my website. It's on YouTube.

Jen
And what is your YouTube channel for anybody that wants to go check that out right now?

Barry
Endless Media. Yes, which is the name of my country. What company? Which I named after the Endless Summer, which I got that inspiration from Richard Branson's book he wrote about how to name your company, which I thought was really cool, but in the summer, because Bruce Brown my documentary, Reaching Reality, which is of me going on a three month sailing trip down the coast from San Francisco to the tip of Baja. I wanted to do, like, what Bruce Brown did, kind of originate surfing find spots that no one found, which is what we're doing. We're exploring seven islands that hadn't really been tapped for surf. And we did find one spot that we named places Unknown on the island of Geronimo, lisa Geronimo, deep in the Baja. It's unknown if anyone's ever surfed it, but it's a rocky spot, too. It would be sketchy, but that's where the name Endless Media came from because I was so inspired by Bruce Brown's Endless Summer.

Jen
What's on your bucket list?

Barry
Oh, that's a good question. My number one on my bucket list is when my son turns either 14 or 16. I haven't figured out what. I want to take him to South America, and I want to do kind of what they did in Motorcycle Diaries, where they drove around South America for three months. And I want to get a motorcycle with a sidecar, and probably by that time, my son will be capable of driving a motorcycle. This is sketchy because South America, people have been like, you shouldn't drive on a motorcycle in South America. It's kind of what I want to do. Maybe I'll just get a four by four, who knows? But that's one of my big dreams, to impart some of my adventures to my son. And that's kind of on my bucket list. That's probably the biggest one. And I'm sure there's my wife and me. We met in Costa Rica. Actually, my wife and I have been married technically twice. My wife is from Italy. I met her in Costa Rica. That's a whole other story. How long is this podcast? We don't have time. I married her legally in Italy, and that had to happen because of various reasons for immigration and stuff. So I know what it's like to immigrate to a country, and I know what it's like to immigrate back into this country and be proud of being an American. Then we got married for my family so they could come. And so we said, let's go back to Costa Rica and get married a third time where we met, because that's where we met. And we met for 24 hours. And then I chased the woman in Italy. I'll just tease that up. That's another day, another story. Those probably are my two keys. One for my wife getting married a third time, which is just fun, but having friends and just doing it. And then one for my son to impart some of my adventures experiences on him and travel through South America.

Jen
That's great. So what is the main message you would like our listeners to take away from this episode?

Barry
First, being aware of your narrative and then managing it. And then also within my statement about dreams. Like, dreams are a gift not to be tossed aside. And at any time in life, you can start to live your dreams. As soon as you start making excuses, they're yours. You can have it. You're giving up on what you want to. Give up on. They're your excuses. You own them. You can control the trajectory of your life. You can control the narrative of your success relationships that you're in that you don't want to be in, jobs that you're in, that you don't want to be in. You name it. The list is long. We all have our thing, and I still have mine, believe it or not. They never go away. It's always a battle. But you can manage that battle, and you can move it in the direction that you want it to go. And I think that would be it. It would be empower yourself, take control of your narrative, live out the dreams that you want for your life. You get this one. This is what you get. It's over. It'll be over in a second. It's over in a flash.

Jen
Absolutely. I know that you are working on a book. If you want to give us a little tease about that, you can.

Barry
I would say this. I've traveled a lot in my life. I've done a lot of adventures, and I've gone into the unknown. And the book is a little bit around the premise of the Known and the Unknown, the ying and the yang. And in the Unknown is where you discover something new and then you bring that back into the known. Unknown is order. The unknown is chaos, and you share that and impart that on other people. So a lot of what my experiences that I've shared to you today are about the process of going into the unknown and that scary. Chaotic void that I was talking about and then bringing those lessons back to the area of order where we're at right now. Which is kind of structure and me just kind of imparting my experience to you and sharing that so that you can have something. So the premise of the book is the Unknown Adventurer is the name of it. I spent a lot of my life adventuring in nature and going into that, and so it's metaphor combined with life experience and what are those lessons that came from it and how can you kind of do that for your own life? You know, it's probably like, 18 months away from having a publishable copy. I think that's the goal.

Jen
Great. Anything you want to add before I do my closing?

Barry
This has been so awesome. I think that you are so gifted, and I think that this show, it's on the upward trajectory. I think there's much better opportunities and people to come in the future. And thank you so much for having me here.

Jen
Thank you so much for being here. Barry, I've loved your open candidness, your words of encouragement. I think it's great, and I think that people and parents alike will gain a lot from your insight and what you shared today. So thank you so much.

Barry
Thank you.

Jen
Yeah. And thank you for listening. This is Jen Lee, creator and host of I Need Blue podcast again. To listen to additional stories, you can visit me at www. I need Blue.net. And remember, you are stronger than you think.