How to Stop Living for Other People (ft. Ben Nemtin)

- Ben Nymphton, welcome to the podcast. - Yeah, thanks for having me. - It's great for you to come up. You know, one of the most common questions I ever get is around questions of purpose, meaning, what should I do with my life, why am I here? And I feel like you are the ideal guest to address these topics. Why don't we start, give everybody context. What is the buried life? How did you get here? - Good, that's a great question. And that's a long answer. I'm gonna try and do it. - Okay, okay. - As quickly as I can. - We've got time. - Okay, okay. - And we have an editor, so. - That's right, yeah. We have time, and we can cut out everything you say. So, it's so funny when you think about how this whole thing started, 'cause it's an old English poem written by a guy named Matthew Arnold, two T's Matthew. And my friend, Johnny, was assigned this poem in English class at McGill. You know, so you had to read it for homework. So basically, Johnny and myself and Johnny's brother and our other friend, we all had this feeling that we wanted to create something. We wanted to do something, but we didn't know what it was. And we had talked about this feeling together that we felt buried. Like we felt like there were things that we wanted to do, but we hadn't done them, done them. And we were starting to talk about why we hadn't done them. And we had come together for this purpose to create something, although we had no idea what it was. And so, serendipitously, Johnny got assigned this poem and it struck a chord with him because this poem talked about the same feeling that we were feeling that we were having trouble articulating, which was that we had all these things that we wanted to do. We had all these dreams, but we hadn't done them because they felt buried. And we would kind of get inspired to go after them when we had a conversation about them or maybe we got struck by some sort of feeling of inspiration, but life and the day-to-day would then bury that enthusiasm. And so, we would forget about them. And so, it was this constant cycle of kind of remembering them and then forgetting about them and getting excited about them and then they would kind of get buried by the day-to-day because life continually got in the way and so we would push them and push them. And so, this poem was articulating this feeling and this also, I love this line, it's about following your true original course. And we felt like we weren't following our true course, we were following the course that other people had told us was the course or that we thought was the right one, but we actually didn't really know what we wanted. And so, we thought, okay, why don't we make a documentary about uncovering these buried dreams that we have? And we made a list of all of them and we pretended we had $100 million in our bank and we pretended that we could do anything. And we thought, let's just go on a road trip, go after as many of these as we can and achieve as many as we can and also help other people achieve their buried dreams. And we'll ask people this question, what do you wanna do before you die? Because the thought of death was the only thing that actually really got to what was important or what we thought was important in our life. So our list of dreams came from this question and we would ask other people, what do you wanna do before you die and if we can help them, we will. And we'll do a two week road trip and we'll make a short documentary and we'll show our friends and we'll go back to school. This is back in 2006. - Okay. - So we beg Borough and steal to get this thing off the ground. We don't have any money saved out. We work a job. We start cold calling companies. This is pre-social media, by the way, so 2006. So we are building sponsorship decks promising that we'll put their logo on our t-shirt. We'll put them on the side of the RV. We'll mention them when we're in the local news. And so we get local companies to give us in-kind sponsorships so we can eat on the road. Red Bull gave us red bulls. We got a granola bar coming to give us granola bars. A juice company literally gave us juice and we just bored an RV. We got a second-hand camera on eBay and we took two weeks off before we went back to school to hit the road and do this road trip. And what was unexpected was that when people heard about it, they wanted to help us. And so we started to get this incoming support emails with Tricklin. I saw your list. Number eight is ride a bull. I can get you on a bull. My uncle has a bull ranch. Or I saw you want to get up on a hot air balloon. I think I could help. Or you want to make a toast to strangers wedding. My best friend's getting married. I'm the best man. I can get you in. So we're shocked by the response. And then people start sending us their dreams asking for our help. And so at that point, we're like, whoa. We're overwhelmed by the response. It's local news. It's provincial news in Canada, national news. And it just struck this cord. And so this two week road trip, we just keep doing it. We just keep going. I mean, we go back to school. We get bigger sponsors on board. We were able to get Levi's on board to sponsor. We buy an old purple transit bus. And for two months, we go now the next summer through the states. We achieve bigger list items. We help more people. More magic happens. It all seems very serendipitous the way this is unraveling. Someone has a dream. We find someone that can help. We connect them again and again and again. And we're pushing ourselves and shocked at what we are achieving. So this journey, you know, over time, these huge dreams slowly they start to get knocked off the list. It's like make a TV show. Play basketball with Obama. Sit with Oprah. Have a beer with Prince Harry. Write a New York Times best seller. We have no business doing any of these things. But yeah, I mean, through a number of things, a lot of them, which were the right combination of elements that came together that we can talk about, that now in hindsight, I can see very clearly why these things happen. You know, they all start to happen. And so what's interesting is that this bucket list started as a list of to-do, as a list of things we want to accomplish. But what I've realized now is it really was a journey of self-discovery to understand what was my authentic expression. And what was the life that I wanted to live? And the only way I could figure that out was by going out and doing and testing and finding those things that make me feel more alive and then living closer to those things. What's I found those things? Find the people that made me feel more alive. So then I could gather more of those people in my life. And by doing those two things, it sort of propelled me on this journey to understand what my purpose is. And I don't think purpose is one thing. I think purpose is many different things. And I think it's defined by this feeling you have when you're moving towards your potential, right? This is feeling of happiness and fulfillment that you have when you're going down your true original course, which is what the poem The Barried Life first articulated. It's such an incredible story on multiple different levels. What strikes me about it is that it is such a universal feeling. I feel like everybody at some point in their life just feels like they're ignoring. There's some sort of calling out there. There's a dream that they're ignoring. They feel like there's something more. And it seems like you guys really tapped into that. We all have that feeling, but we never talk about it, right? It's like we think we're the only one and that we're kind of the weirdo and nobody else is going to understand. And it's one of those instances where your courage, you and your friends' courage to make the leap into actually go out and live it, and embody it, and share it. It gives everybody else permission. I'm like, oh my God, I feel the same way. I want to do this thing, you know? And it's the power of the social pressure. It's like the social pressure used in the most positive way possible. Exactly, it's flipping the social pressure. And that's when we, that's what I did not understand when we started it. I thought of a selfish, right? To do it to, like of course, like you're, you want to just go out and do all your own things, and what I realized once we started to travel, I was shocked that other people were going after their dreams because we were going after ours. We were giving people permission. And that's when I realized that there's this ripple effect that happens when you do what you love, you inspire other people to do what they love. And I know you've experienced this, I know you've experienced this, like someone says, I am so inspired by what you've done with the podcast, with the book, that I've decided to do X. I just, you inspire me to think about why. You know, and so that's the ripple effect. And I started to realize, oh my God, this is the greatest win-win of all time. I get to do what I love. I'm helping other people do what they love. And it really does sound self-serving, but I truly believe that when you figure out what your true calling is, like with those, we all are given gifts, I think. And our job is to give those gifts away. And that's when you make your biggest impact. Because you were born with gifts, you were born with gifts, we all were born with these gifts. And if we don't share them, it's a disservice to the world. And so this idea of living authentically, right? People don't regret their failures. They regret not living authentically. And that's comes from research out of Cornell. That comes from Bronnie Ware's book, The Top Five Regrets, The Dine. The biggest regret people have on their deathbed is I wish I would have lived for me. Not other people are the life that was expected of me. 76%. So that means that three quarters of us will never take that step towards that buried dream. And the reason why it's regret, 'cause that flame, that pilot light doesn't go out. And that's why you get inspired and then you quill it. or you start to talk about and you get excited about it, I'm going to do it and then something comes up that's it has a deadline or you have to do something for work, you have to do something that has a consequence because we think that there are no consequences if we don't do that thing. I got to, I'll go out all the time in the world, I can do it later. And if I don't do this thing for work, I get fired. If I don't do this thing for the family, right, I'm in trouble. There's coffee, I don't pay the insurance, there's a penalty, there's always a deadline and a consequence and we don't internalize the fact that there actually is a very big consequence. And that is a huge regret that you have at the end of your life and it's too late. When I heard this research, it shook me. I was like, how are more people not talking about this? Like this is the biggest human regret that the majority of people will have and no one is talking about how this feeling would be an absolute nightmare on your deathbed, just to lay there and be like, fuck, I blew it. Yeah. This is tangentially related. But I also think this dovetails nicely with what we're talking about. I'm curious because so for listeners who don't know, that original experiment, those road trips and the sponsorships and everything, it eventually evolved into a full-blown MTV show for a number of years. And the show was a ton of fun. But I'm curious because today, you're what, 40? Exactly. Okay, so you're 40. That show, you were in your 20s. The bucket list of that show, it was kind of typical 20-year-old guy stuff. Crazy stuff. Yeah, fun, exciting, flashy, stupid. But also, yeah. Really making streak and getaway. Yeah. Let's try and ask out Megan Fox. Viewers deserve an island. Exactly. Play with that. Exactly. So I'm actually curious, you know, the 40-year-old self, how do you look back on those things and what is your perspective on those things today? Oh, they were great. Yeah, I mean, I'm embarrassed about some of them for sure. But I definitely don't regret any of them. And I think that is actually the point of the list is that as you grow changes and it evolves. And that's why it's important to keep your list in a place where you can come back to it. And, you know, as you have your quiet time once a quarter, you reevaluate and you write more things because you've grown and now you have new things, new goals, or new things you want to try. And you look back and you're like, oh, that thing that I wrote last year, I actually don't want to do. And eventually you'll look back and back, oh, that thing I wrote five years ago, I can't believe I did it. He proved to yourself that things are that you thought were impossible or possible. But when I look back at those those those crazy MTV days and I mean, and that was our job to do crazy shit. Right. Because we had to get people interested in watching the show. But we knew that if we did that crazy shit and they stayed long enough, they would then see the the moment when we helped someone else. And that was actually what the show was about. Yeah. And it was always this fine balance of, you know, entertaining and cool and fun. But actually having real heart in it. And so we had to lead with the the sizzle. But no, I mean, I was actually going through. I forget what I was I think I was looking for some old photos for a project. And and I came across some of the old photos from back in that time. And I texted Dave who's one of the guys started sending them photos. And we're just like, Oh my God, we were out of our minds. You know, but I look back on it finally. And all of those things, even that, you know, competed a crump competition in in Compton, you know, I don't know how to dance. You know, we went in to South Central and competed, you know, create this whole plan to streak and get away at an MLS game. We got arrested. You know, like it was every time we did that, you know, it was so terrifying. And I always surprised myself. And we surprised ourselves at what we were capable of doing because we had the ultimate accountability. We had no choice. We had, you know, a crew of 40 people that were there filming. We had everything was coming down to making this show as well as it could be. We wanted to inspire our friends to actually do the shit that they wanted to do. Like, this was our life's work was making this. So we were just putting it online. And you know, things like play basketball with President Obama. That was, that was literally a joke. You know, when we first wrote it on the list, I remember President Obama got elected. Johnny called me and he said, yeah, he's excited. He's like, you know, hey, let's put play ball with Obama on the list. And I laughed because I thought this is Johnny. This is the most impossible thing we could ever think of doing. We're living on an island in Canada. And his, his response was, yeah, but how amazing would it be? And I was like, I can't disagree. So we wrote it down. And three years later, we're at the White House playing ball with Obama after he surprised us on the courts because we had failed so many times and they invited us to the White House for a tour as a consolation prize. That's funny. Literally, we know that Obama was actually going to surprise us. You know, and so these moments were I'm like, wait, I legitimately believed with every fiber of my being that that was impossible. And now it's happening right now. So it changed my belief system around like what was possible? And I realized, wow, you know, if you look at something, it's not, can I do it? It's, do I want to do it? It doesn't align with my true self. You know, with the, with the man, we work so hard on that shit. And it's like, you have to work hard. The persistence, like most people will give up. You just got to keep going. You have to have people around you that believe in you and that accountability. You know, and you have to be brave and move through that fear knowing that people actually aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are. And then you have to give because giving without expectation, you know, ultimately is what comes around to serve you. Right. And I don't think anyone would have wanted to help us if we weren't helping other people, you know? And in the beginning, our whole documentary, we weren't even going to be in it. We were just going to be helping other people achieve their list and ask people what do you want to do before they die. So we could learn about what stops you. We didn't know what fuck we wanted to do. So we're like, let's ask people what they want to do before they die. And if we can help them, we will. That's what the documentary is about. And then we'll do our stuff. We'll do our list on the side. But we didn't realize is that people were inspired by us in our journey. And so we're like, oh, cool. Okay. We'll just kind of do one for one. And that's, that's what kind of began the whole journey. And that's what the show was too. One thing on our list, one thing on someone else's list. Let's talk about something really important, which is how is Obama's jumper? Is he any good? Let's rate it. If you want to block Obama. Yeah. So he's a lefty, very smooth, very smooth release, but a low release, sort of by a shoulder. So I think you could, you could block him pretty easily. We kind of knew Secret Service was in the bushes. So we were not going hard. Yeah, not going hard. He was, he was very, he was, he was quite good. Yeah. Very chill guy. Yeah. You know what he was? It was like, you know, when you're in high school, and like, I feel like everyone has this, like one of your high school friends, dad is like the coolest dad. And you kind of go and hang out with your friend to like, you're really going to hang out with their dad because like he's like the cool dad. That's like Obama. He's like the cool dad. Nice. Like, so makes you feel so comfortable. Melee, we forgot he was the president and we're trash talking each other. And it was, it was amazing. Yeah. The cool dad of America. Yeah. Yeah. It does speak, though. I mean, even these, this, this stupid shit that you did, we're making fun of it a little bit. But I think there is actually still, I mean, there's a lot of value in that just writing down your bucket list and not having like everybody, when we think about purpose and we think about meaning, we think about these big, grand, huge goals, you found this through all these like weird little things that people want to do. I don't know. Do a backflip. Maybe I want to learn how to do a backflip, right? And it's not about the backflip itself. But it's about like, like you said, reaching out to people to help you building those relationships. I think we get in our own head so much about, oh, my purpose has to be this grand thing. I have to change the world. Why not just do something around and interact with people around you. That has a lot of meaning in it. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I think you're, yeah, it's exactly right. In my mind, your purpose is a bunch of micro things that are sort of leading you towards that true authentic expression of who you are. So I just, this week took salsa dancing lessons, right? And it's something that my girlfriend, I have, I've wanted to do for a year. We haven't done it. We keep talking about it. I'm like, let's just book it. So we do it. And it's like such an incredible experience. I'm using a part of my brain. I haven't used for so long. You know, I'm like, in my body, we reconnect. And I think that's a perfect example where you're just trying something just for the fun of it. And I think we do put so much pressure on ourselves to figure out our purpose and then have that be our career and our mission. And that's not really what it's about. If that happens, great. But also kind of not great, because then you're whole passion now becomes a business. And there's this whole, there's all these downsides, as you know, right? Where it gets very complicated. But my point is that it's, it's Just doing things for the fun of it, right? And that's what it was in the beginning. This never was meant to be anything, other than a two week road trip where we go and just try some things that we thought would be really fun. And that could be grow a mustache, planetary, or go to space, help someone build a house. There was no filter other than it just sounded like it would be fun and we would get excited about it. And that was really the metric that we used. And you follow that, you're following feelings. You're not following your head. So it's like, what are you excited to think about? You know when you book a trip with friends or your family and just a thought of that trip makes you fired up? Those are the types of things you wanna do. Or what are the things that make you feel more alive or the things that give you energy or the people that give you energy? So you're sort of like following these feelings versus your head and that I think will lead you to a beautiful life. - Yeah. - Where you collect memories, not necessarily things and you start to really through that journey, figure out who you are. And then as you said, start to give some of those gifts away. - Yeah. - Well in the irony too is that even if you do find, the quote unquote, the thing that gives you life meaning, in five years it will probably change. The authentic self is a moving target. You're always evolving and changing and the thing that made you happy at 25, now you cringe, right? And it's, we're all that way. It's like things, things change as you go. - I don't hear your cringe ones. (laughing) - Yeah, there's a lot of cringe ones. (laughing) - It's definitely the exception where somebody finds that one thing. It's not the rule. - No, it's not. - For sure. - For sure. - And I think that's, I mean if I look at my life that's been consistent, you know, it's been first, it was pursuit of a documentary, then it was television show, then it was book, and then it was like, oh production company, 'cause we made TV and this is the thing we should keep doing. And then I got so burnt out of, you know, around production and entertainment. And I started, you know what I said, these depressive moments where I'm not authentic. I was like, no, this is what we should be doing. And I started to get depressed. And I realized it's like, oh, I actually don't like what I'm doing every day. Shocker, it's making me feel down. And that's when I started speaking just as a side thing 'cause I thought, well, I don't really know what I'm gonna do. And so I got invited to this one talk. I was like, okay, I guess we'll do that. And that led to more talks. And then everybody was like, wow, I really love this kind of art form of creating this, almost like a one man play and inspiring people through this story and, you know, and that's led me to this other thing. But there was a moment from, it was my uncle I was talking to when I was going through this tough time of transitioning out of the production company. And he was a producer for his entire career. And I thought, you call him and I said, do you know, Uncle Bill, I'm really having trouble. I don't think I can do this anymore, but I don't want to give up the last three years of what I put into building this production company. And now it's actually working like we got investment. And he said, Ben, you're not starting from the bottom again. You're just recycling your career. You're taking everything you learn from this experience of building the production company. And now you're going to use that to do your next thing. And he's like, everyone should recycle their career every once in a while, because as we grow, we change. And something about that idea of recycling your career, it just made me think like, oh yeah, I'm upcycling, you know, all this stuff. And it's completely true. And I think we do tend to get stuck on this track. And we think, oh, there's a huge opportunity cost. If I, you know, if I pivot now, I've already put in 10 years, I'm at this level. I'm gonna have to start at the bottom. And I don't think that's the case. Yeah, you know, you know where else that's true too, but it sounds way worse is recycling relationships. (laughing) But it's so true. It's so true. You take all the lessons from your last relationship and you use it to make your current one better. But yeah, if you say that, yeah, I recycled my ex-girlfriend. That just sounds fucking terrible. Especially if you start to picture like, what a recycling depot would be for girlfriends. (laughing) Yeah, no, that is the truth. That's the terrible thing to say. (laughing) But that is the truth. But it is true. It is true. And I think it's, like, going through a breakup, it's always the hardest thing because you're forced to look in the mirror and look at the shit that you actually don't wanna look at. Yes. And that's why you level up because you have to look at things that you're hiding and that are causing problems, but you just push them under the rug. And so by the time you get to your next relationship, you're actually a bit of a better person. And all the things, like, it wasn't right, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. I come back up just a minute, going back to that buried life feeling that so many of us do feel, what happened to us that causes that? Why are we so, why do those lives get so buried and we just let them stay there? Well, this is such a big question. Because if you think about it, what's crazy is that this is the human condition, right? If this poem was written 175 years ago and it talked with this exact same thing, and now, if the poet Matthew Arnold was buried in 1852, and now, with the pace of life, with the internet, with the amount that we do every day, we are way more buried than ever. And we continue to get more buried. And so, why does this happen? I think part of it is that we don't really think about our death enough. I don't think we really understand that we don't have all the time in the world, even though we understand it, I don't think that we're able to keep it close enough to have it influence our day-to-day decisions. And we get caught up and we think short-term and we don't think long-term. And I think that the fear is the thing that stops us from doing those things. I actually don't think that it's what research tells us is that the fear of failure or the fear of what other people think is the number one barrier. So, we're stuck, we get inspired, but then the fear stops us. And we get caught up in the day-to-day, we don't think about the fact we're gonna die, and that we could die tomorrow. And if we knew we were gonna die tomorrow, things would be very different. Or if we knew we were gonna die in a year, things would be very, very different, but we don't keep that top of mind. And so, the fear stops us and then we get back to the day-to-day. And then we get inspired and then the fear. So, that's the issue. So, the trick is how do we keep that perspective? How do we create the accountability around those things to drive us forward? So, we don't forget about them. And then, how can we move through that fear? - I do think it's so interesting that this topic, it seems so much more prevalent in top of mind for our generation and the younger generations. Like, it doesn't, if you talk to the older generations or if you think back to like the '80s or the '50s or whatever, like nobody sat around and thought, "Oh, what am I supposed to do with my life?" Or it wasn't like a, as commonplace as it is today. And I do feel like it is, there is something, there are a number of things driving the demand for this questioning of purpose or this feeling of having a buried life. And, you know, I think you alluded to one of them, which I think is an abundance of distraction, right? Like, it is easier to check out and get lost and, you know, whatever is going on on my phone or in the world all the time. And I think part of it too is, it's almost like, I mean, I hate to call it it, but it's a high quality problem. - Yep. - You know, it's a large percentage of the world at this point, lives in physical abundance. We're safe, our basic needs are provided for. We are educated, we have lots of opportunities. And so it makes sense that if all of your basic needs are met, the next kind of crisis that you go through is, well, what the hell is all this for? Like, what am I doing here? Like, shit, I just wasted 20 years. Like, what happened, right? And it does seem like just like such a fundamental, I guess, modern issue, like 21st century issue. - Yeah, and I think, and you make a really good point and I think that it's important to note that, that like your basic sort of mezzles, higher needs, it goes shelter, safety, those have to be met. And so when I talk about fear, it's different than risk. Right, so you're not risking your wellbeing, you're not risking your safety. It's usually the fear that's based in ego. What are the people gonna think? - Totally. - And so, which like our human fears and very real fears as well, but they're different. And that's why I think it's important to, when you're thinking about, okay, I wanna do this. What are the risks and what are the fears? And those are different. - Right. - But I think to your point, that this is becoming more and more of a topic, more and more of an issue. I also believe it's because more and more people are unhappy. And the mental health crisis is the worst it's been, especially since the pandemic. And if I look at my life, and this is just my experience, and I look at the times in my life where I have hit low lows, if we talk about that first low low, which was the darkest, and I look at the other periods of depression that I've had, one of the things that's been consistent in all of those is a major part of what I'm doing or who I am in those times has not been an alignment with who I actually wanted to be or was. I was suppressing a pretty big part of myself. And I think that's contributed to that feeling of depression. I think the root word for depression is suppression. Sometimes you can suppress that true self. And I think that's actually, you start to feel stifled, you start to feel like there's a ceiling if you're not being that expression. It doesn't mean that has to be your job. It doesn't mean you have to get paid for it. But I do think that it's therapeutic to kind of express that authentic self. And again, like this isn't, there's no, you know, silver arrow for depression, but it has helped me in the past to look at like, okay, where am I not in alignment with my true self? And I think some people are feeling that, right? Where they're feeling stuck and they're not feeling fulfilled. And I think at the end of the day, that's what this is about, right? Like as as I mentioned, the so Dr. Ben Shahar, who's the professor at Harvard, he has the most successful class at Harvard on happiness. And his definition of happiness is the feeling you have when you're moving towards your potential. And I love that definition because in my mind, that's the feeling you have when you're moving towards your authentic self, your actual self, your ideal self. And and that's all that this list is. It's kind of just moving you towards that slowly. And that's why it's not about achieving the things. It's about learning about who you really are. So then you can try and live closer to that. And as a result, you're happier. Yeah. So what are the first practical steps people can take? I think one of the key things from your story is that it was a group of friends, right? There's that accountability built in. There's that realization of like, oh, you feel the same way I do. Hey, if you do it, positive social pressure. Yeah, if you do it, I'll do it. You know, if you go do yours, I'll do mine. And then we can like keep each other accountable. Like what can people listening to this? What is step number one, if they feel this way and they want to move in the right direction? Accountability is huge. I think accountability is the secret sauce. And we can talk about that. I think the first thing though is to figure out what are those things that you truly want to do? What are your buried dreams or what are those things that will make you feel more alive? And I think the first step to achieving your dreams is to write them down. Because I think when you write down your goals, you are forced to stop and think about what they are. And you're also forced to think about what you want, not necessarily what other people want for you or what is expected of you. And I think a lot of times we're living a life that we think is for us, but actually subconsciously, you know, we're not realizing that we're actually living for other people. And so that's why I like the idea of a bucket list. And when I talk about a bucket list, it's not just like bungee jump, skydive travel, right? Like it's, it's actually a map of your holistic self. So I like to break it down to 10 life categories. So you write your list and you think about these areas that you don't necessarily always think about when you're thinking about your goals, like creative goals, relationship goals. One of the top five regards to the dying is I wish I would have stayed in contact with friends. You know, I love your podcast talking about investing in friendships. I'm a huge advocate of that because that's off top five regret. I wish I would have stayed in contact with friends. So you have these 10 life categories, giving, travel, adventure, relationships, creative goals, physical health, mental health, material goals, professional, financial. And so you stop and you start to think about what are things that I might want to do? These aren't necessarily things that you're going to achieve. By the way, your bucket list is not about achieving the thing. It's about trying. So you don't regret not trying. It's about trying. So you learn about the things that make you feel more like yourself, right? Like even if you go bungee jumping and hate it, it was worth doing right now. You know you hate bungee jumping. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So you're collecting data. Yeah. You're just out there testing, taking and it's all about action. Yeah. When we were young and we started this, you know, we had this collective will and that accountability. But we just took action. We just went for it and we learned as we went and we didn't let the fear stop us. And the fear is the biggest barrier. Yeah. Right. So, you know, so first it's stopping and writing down your goals. Just to identify some things that you might want to do. So take the pressure off. It doesn't actually matter if you tune. There's no failure. Right. If you fail, that's great. Now you know, well, I got to do something else. I learned something or I don't want to do that perfect. I'm not going to do it again. Yeah. Yeah. And then once you identify one thing that you want to do, it's all about accountability. And that's why the thing that changed my life and I jumped to the story of the poem. But before that story, I made one decision that changed my life and that was making a conscious decision to try and only surround myself with people that inspired me. Because I realized that some people gave me energy and some people drew energy from me. Yeah. And this came out of necessity because I hit a huge depression when I was in university. And I always put so much pressure on myself to succeed. And I just crashed to come my first year. I was playing high level rugby. I was had an academic scholarship and I was I was really trying to check all the boxes to live that perfect life. And as soon as I realized that I wasn't in control, I started anxiety. I got dropped from the national rugby team because I couldn't go to practice. I couldn't go to school. I dropped out of school and I became a shut into my parents house. Who stay in my room for hours. My parents would have to push me out of the house to go for a 15 minute walk. And so, you know, there were many things that contributed to my recovery. And I've hit a few depression since then. And each time I go through any type of dip, it's easier for me to navigate because I've learned things about myself through that struggle. So I'm actually pretty grateful for those struggles because I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gone through that first depression. Out of necessity, I needed to be around people that lifted me up. In those dark times, so I was conscious about being proactive of surrounding myself with people that inspired me. And there was one kid that was inspiring. And he was a filmmaker. And his name was Johnny. And Johnny was the one that got assigned the poem in English class. And that started this whole journey. So I still subscribe to that and and try anytime I meet someone that that makes me feel I leave that conversation feeling energized. I'm like, I need to hang out with more of that person. And I need to hang out with their friends because they probably hang out with like mine and people. And that's just led me on a really incredible journey and brought me down to LA and and kept me here. And so this accountability is key because with these dreams, with these, you can call them anything you want. Hobbies, bucket list items, you know, there's no deadlines. And so we need to create accountability. And accountability really works. That's why we have accountability structures in the workplace. Right. We have leaders to keep us accountable. We have a salary. We don't want to let down our team. Right. We have all these layers of accountability. So when you want to create that around these goals, you want to share them. Right. Talk about them because when you feel when you share, you feel accountable to the people you shared with. So if I go on this podcast and I say, you know, I'm going to write my next book by next year, I'm going to feel more accountable than if I never said it. Yeah, we're not, we're not going to let that go. We're going to check in with you. If I said that, we'll add it out the if and we'll be like, where's the book then? Where is it? Exactly. So it's like talking about your goals, writing them down actually builds accountability because you take an idea that doesn't exist. You make it real. It's like a contract with yourself. Accountability buddies like you had accountability buddy. When you were writing your book, that's huge. You increase your chances by 77% just by having someone check in with you down the line. And you know, I think when you ask for help, you also build accountability and that's also something that I think not enough of us do because we don't want to, you know, we don't want to bother someone or we don't want to look like we don't know what we're doing. But you know, when you, the only way that we have crossings off our list is through the help of other people and the only way they can help us because we shared, right? So we had to move through that fear of one of the people thing. can be vulnerable and then people showed up to help. And so when you ask for help, you also build accountability, 'cause you think, well, this person's helping us, I feel a little bit more of a push to actually get it done. So in short, the best way to get from being stocked to actually doing is to stop and think about what's important to you and write it down, talk about it with people that you know care about you, and ask for help so that you can create that accountability. And ideally, you have someone that checks in on you down the line. And we had all of that baked into that first road. - Okay, if someone was, they're so buried, they're not really even aware of it or they're starting to become aware of it. How would you, you've kind of touched on a couple of things. How would you take them through getting out of that, that buried life or unearthing that buried life? - Yeah, so first I think you want to sort of be aware of what is happening. Like what are the things that are causing you to feel buried? So really there's three things. One is that there are no deadlines for these things you want to do, these buried dreams. So you're gonna have to create accountability, right? The second problem is that usually you're waiting to feel inspired to go after this thing or you're waiting for the perfect time. But if you're waiting for inspiration or you're waiting for the perfect time, you're gonna be waiting forever. So you actually have to create your own inspiration through action. And so by taking small steps towards that goal, you're actually gonna create your own momentum and mood will follow that action. And I really like the idea that action compounds like interest because just like making small deposits into a compounding interest account, it doesn't seem like much, but over time you've grown wealth. The same happens with action. Like you can take the smallest steps and it doesn't feel like you're actually moving, but you can then over time look back and you suddenly realize, wow, I've made strides or something will just happen that seems serendipitous or in all of a sudden you realize, oh, that's happened because I've been putting in all this work. I've been laying the foundation for this dream. So action is the key. That momentum follows action. Even if you don't know what the path is, you'll figure out the next step after the step you take. And so then the third bearer that you need to be aware of is this fear, right? The fear of what other people think of the fear of failure. So to kinda like recap, you know that there's no deadlines so you have to create accountability. So you need to stop and think about what this thing is so you can actually be aware of it. That's gonna create accountability. You're gonna write it down. You're gonna share it with your friends and family. Whoever, anyone you can, I'm a big proponent of sharing just with as many people as you can, as long as they're not the people that are gonna cut down your dream. You're gonna get an accountability buddy. You're gonna be like, Mark, my dream is to write a book. Like I need an accountability buddy. Do you mind if I send you a chapter every month or I just want you to just like check it out and let me know what you think. And it's a big aspect. - Yeah, don't, don't, no to listen or don't send me your book. What's your email? So you're gonna find an accountability buddy, right? That's gonna, that's kind of like surrounding yourself with people inspired. That's the biggest game changer. You're gonna communicate to them. Why this is so important to you and enroll them in being your accountability buddy. Maybe they'll do it with you. Maybe they will check in on you. Maybe you can, and you're gonna share this with your partner, your family. So they know that this is important to you. So that they're going to then support you in the pursuit of that. So when you have band practice because you told them, like, I really wanna do open mic night, I really wanna play in this band and you have band practice at 4 p.m. and the kids are coming back from school and it's craziness. Your partner's like, hey, I know band practice is important. I'm gonna let you go. I'll take care of this, right? And you can get me back later. So you start to really make this real. Like it's not just a thing that's inside you or you think about it in the middle of the night or you really wanna put it out there and create that accountability. And then you wanna figure out what's the smallest easiest step you can take towards that thing. Just the micro, this is the smallest easiest thing and start to take tiny, tiny steps. And try and do that every day, whether it's like five minutes, 30 seconds and just start to create some of that compounding action and that you'll start to feel the inspiration through that action. And that's what you wanna do, right? You wanna start to take action. Not necessarily because it's gonna move you towards your goal but you're starting the engine and you need that inspiration through that action to start to feel that momentum and then you follow the energy and then you have 30 minutes, right? And when you start to spend time doing things you love, you have more time. You get life force and then you're able to be more productive, you're able to do more. So you spend 50 minutes a day, just 15 minutes a day on something that you love, you're gonna get more than 15 minutes in your day. So you're starting to create inspiration through action, you start to create accountability and the fear is the juggernaut. But you have to remember that people on their deathbed, they don't regret failure. So you think about your future self and you ask your 100 year old self, will I regret not doing this? And if the answer is yes, you have to try because you won't regret not trying. At least you'll know, if you fail great, then your future self doesn't have to sit there and think, "Shit, what if?" So you start to delineate between fear and risk, make sure that you're safe. And then you look at this fear of failure, the fear of what other people think. And you think, "Okay, fear of what other people think. Hate to break it to you." - They're not thinking about you. - They're not thinking about you. Like, you know what I'm thinking about you? As much as you think they're, they're just not thinking about you. They didn't even notice you failed. - You failed. - Basically. - In fact, yeah, they don't even know you exist. So it's kind of liberating. You're like, "Oh, I guess no one really cares." And they're too wrapped up in their own shit. And fear of failure, you start to change your perception of failure. And you start to realize that, oh yeah, there's actually, if you're not risking anything, significant and that's like the key, then failure is just a pivot to success. At the very least, you learn something about yourself. And that fear that you feel, that's good. That means that this thing that you're doing means something to you. So you actually want to follow that fear. I think fear is your friend because it's a marker that this thing actually means something to you. And that fear is vulnerability, that you moving through the discomfort of, oh, I'm putting myself on the line here because this is meaningful. And anytime you put yourself in a vulnerable position, you grow. And usually something good happens from that. Even if it's not the thing that you think you want to happen, something good will organically come out of that, just putting yourself on the line. And I'm sure you can attest to that, right? Like the first time I did a TEDx talk, I did not want to do it. I was like, hell no, I'm not doing that. Like that sounds terrible. And I knew I was like, oh, damn it. The reason why I don't want to do this is the reason I have to do it, right? Because I was afraid. And I knew it was going to be a lot of work. And I did it. And I, in my mind, failed. Because my TEDx talk didn't blow up. I didn't get a million views. And I was like, oh, great. (laughing) What was that for? Two years later, someone sees it, calls an agent. They call me, that's my first speaking engagement. And now I do 120 keynotes a year. - I like that. The motivation piece of that, where if you're working on things, you buy back some of your time. That's great. Mark said before that one of the greatest productivity hacks is just a do-shit that you care about because then you just get shit done. I love that too, so yeah. - Yeah, it's so true. - I mean, all of this kind of circles around a concept that I love, which is leveraging emotion in your favor. And it drives me crazy, especially in the productivity space that nobody talks about emotion, or very few people talk about emotion, but it is what you are just saying about understanding fear, also understanding excitement, and knowing how to navigate those emotions when doing something that feels important. I think it's so key. We had Stephen Pressfield on a few months ago. He is this concept of the resistance. And he says that internal resistance arises in proportion to how important the task is. And he also has this concept, which is similar to what you were talking about called Turning Pro, which I love, which is basically he said, if you're afraid to do something, stop acting like an amateur, treat it like a professional would, right? Do the work around the thing to set up, make success inevitable. So he's like, if you're afraid to write your book, set up the office, put, create the documents, create, create the time by the office chair of tiny steps. Like tell everybody in your house that I'm not available from six to eight a.m., every morning 'cause I'm writing my book. Like do all of the ancillary stuff that is not scary, that puts that pressure on you to do the thing that is scary. Yeah, and then sets you up for success when you're doing it. So you're not writing it, on the shuttle from L.A.X. to Uber. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, but I do think that that idea following those emotions, we simply don't do because we're too stimulated, or there's so many external inputs that we're not really listening to that internal energy compass. Yeah, this comes back to the distraction thing, and one thing I definitely hear from people I imagine you hear from people too is people will literally tell me they're like, "I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want to do." They don't even know how to put a list together, and I've always had the opposite problem where there's like 800 things I want to do, and I actually have to stop myself and be a reasonable person. I see that, and I feel like that's just a product of people who are pulled in so many directions that they've lost so much contact with who their authentic self is and what they actually want as a person. Yeah. I agree. I think that one potential solution is starting with the list, but looking at the list as a list of experiments, to see if this makes me feel something, and as you try salsa dancing and you realize, "Oh, well, this is actually like, mismaking me feel a little bit like this, and I like that, so I'm going to keep doing it." You start to collect that data through action, so you have to look, "It's not comfortable me salsa dancing." I don't think I look very good doing it, but I kind of move through that discomfort and everybody looks like a fool when they start, so it's like, "Okay, well, let's just keep going and see if this energy continues." You start to really pay attention to your body, and what you're feeling, and also around people. The people you surround yourself will shape your life, and if you're not intentional about who those people are, you're letting them run your life. By finding people that are giving you energy, by finding people that are inspiring, because when you are around friends that are doing cool things, it makes you feel like you can do cool things as well, because then it's not a stranger doing something amazing, it's someone you know. Instead of a stranger doing something amazing, you think, "Wow, they're better than me." It's someone you know, so you think, "I know that, man." He's no different than me, if he did it, "Wow, I wonder what I can do." The very beginning of my story is that a friend of mine started a clothing line in high school, and I was so blown away. I couldn't believe that he had just created this thing out of nothing. I never seen anybody that I knew do something like that, and I went up to him and I was like, "How did you do that?" He's like, "What do you mean?" I'm like, "How did you create the clothing?" I don't know, I mean, fashion experience." He said, "What do you mean?" I just took out a loan and I did it, and I was like, "Wait, I don't understand." Who gave you permission exactly? I asked to get involved, because I thought it was so cool, and I ended up getting inspired by helping him out, and I thought, "Wow, if he made a clothing line, I wonder what I could do." I thought, "I want to make a movie." So I called up Johnny, and that started this process. Again, doing what you love, inspiring other people to do what they love. So you would think, "You go and you look at this clothing line?" It failed. It did. It was around for two, three years, it's not around anymore. You would call that a failure, but was it a failure? Because here's the thing. If Aaron wouldn't have started that clothing line, we wouldn't have started buried life. What's interesting is that show, 2009, 2010, 2011, was all these creators were in high school, and we're learning all these people. We're inspired by the show to start to do their thing, and big musicians, pro athletes, big, big creators, and so you think, "Okay, now I'm starting to see how this works." Aaron wouldn't have started this clothing line that objectively was a failure. This person wouldn't be playing music. This person wouldn't be an NFL player. This person wouldn't be one of the biggest YouTubers, and that's the ripple effect. That's the power of doing what you love, so it really is not selfish. Because now they're all ready to, they unleash their gifts. The impact we had is a grain of sand compared to some of these bigger creators. That's why I wholeheartedly believe in this idea that it's not selfish, you have an obligation to do these things and try them and walk your true original course because you have no idea the impact that we'll have. You guys were YouTubers before YouTube. You guys should have placed really well on YouTube now. You guys were doing that back in 2009. I remember the first video we posted on YouTube 2007, this one YouTube had a front page. It was a front page of YouTube, and that was, we helped this guy Brent. He said before he died, he wanted to bring pizzas down to the home of shelter, and we're like, perfect. This is finally someone we can help because we could buy pizzas. We didn't have money to help the other people that wanted different things. We went and interviewed him, and we found that the reason he wanted to bring pizzas to the home of shelter was because he lived in that home of shelter for many years, and he said when people came in with food out of the blue, it felt like the best day because it felt like someone actually cared about him. Then we learned that he had started a landscaping business, but his truck had broken down recently and his whole business was on the rocks. After that, in an interview, we're like, "Oh, we got to figure our way to get this guy a truck." We had $480 between the four of us. Canadian. That's what? $12.50. We pooled our $12.50 USD, and we go to a used car salesman, and the cheapest car in the lot is $2,100, and we tell him Brent started like this kid in the neighborhood, and he gives us the truck for $480. This is how young we were, by the way. We didn't even know that cars needed insurance, so he's like, "Okay, I got to get insurance." We didn't have insurance, so he pays for insurance out of his own pocket, and we drive the truck up to Brent, and we toss in the keys. He just drops his stuff, and he just bare hugs me and starts to cry. That was the first time we'd ever help someone. That was the moment that changed our trajectory, because that was the very first tour. From then on, we thought, "Oh, that is what it's about." That feeling, we're like, "Wow, we got to keep doing this." Tell us about the journal. What is it? Can they get it? I've kind of like a process when I'm doing things, so I try to create a process to writing your list and then bringing it to completion. The journal is a little bit of my story, as well as the purpose of the journal, so there's a bit of copying here around the big three challenges that I mentioned, and the why we get stuck. You get into the top five regrets of the dying to learn more about those, so that we don't die with those regrets. You start to write your list in the 10 life categories, so first you write your travel and adventure goals, because I think that's the easiest to think about. Then you go on to physical health, material goals, by the way, it's okay to have material goals. I feel like people are like, "Wow, it's like great, it's making you happy, get it, get the house on the beach, get the boat, get the watch, just don't do it for other people, it makes you happy." You get great, material goals, creative goals. We talked about that, professional, financial, intellectual, so you think about giving back as well. First, take time to write your list, then you start to build accountability and track your goals. You break your goals down, you choose accountability, but you choose a deadline for your goal. That creates accountability. Choose a reward for yourself. It's really kind of the place where your dreams live, and so you don't forget about them. I see it. Yep. We pimp it out on camera here. So where can they get it? Amazon's probably the best, yeah. Easiest. It's the bucket list journal. We'll put it in the show notes as well. Cool. Coming by, man. Thanks for having me. It's been blast. Yeah. It's a good chat and catching up. Absolutely. Thanks, Ben. Yep. Thank you so much. Gradually. Awesome. The subtle art I'm not giving a fuck podcast is produced by Drew Burning. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura, Jessica Choice, our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next week. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]