Ben Nimpton, welcome to the podcast.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
It's great to you 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, 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?
That's a great question and that's a long answer.
I'm gonna try and do OK, OK as quickly as I can.
We've got time. OK, good.
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 because it's a, it's an old English poem written by a, a
guy named Matthew Arnold. 2 TS Matthew.
And my friend Johnny was assigned this poem in English
class at Miguel, you know, so you have to, you have to read it
for, for homework. So basically Johnny and myself
and, 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, 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 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 this, I love this
line. It's, 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, OK, 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 want to do before you die?
Because this, 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, our list of dreams came
from this question. And we would ask other people,
what do you want to 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.
We'll go back to school. This is this is back in 2006.
OK, so we beg borrowing 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 company give us granola bars, a juice
company literally gave us juice. And we just bought an RV.
We got a second hand camera on eBay.
And we took two weeks off before we went back to school to, to
hit the road and do this road trip.
And, 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 trickling.
I saw your list #8 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
stranger's wedding. My best friend's getting
married. I'm the best man.
I can get you in. So like, 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 chord. 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, 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's 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 ATV show, play
basketball with Obama, sit with Oprah, have a beer with Prince
Harry, write a New York Times bestseller.
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, 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 is a list of
things we wanted 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 good by going out and doing and testing and
finding those things that make me feel more alive and then
living closer to those things. Once 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, this is feeling of happiness and fulfillment that
you have when you're when you're going down your true original
course, which is what the poem The Buried Life first
articulated. It's such an incredible story
on, on, on multiple different levels.
What strikes me about it is that it is such a, a universal
feeling. I feel like everybody at some
point in their life just feels like they're, they're ignoring.
There's some sort of calling out there.
There's a dream that they're ignoring.
There's they feel like there's something more and it, 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, we think we're the only one and that we're kind of
the, 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, to make the leap and to actually go out and
live it and embody it and share it.
It gives everybody else permission of like, Oh my God, I
feel the same way. I want to do this thing, you
know? And it's, it's, 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 it was selfish right
to do, of course, like you're, you want to just go out and do
all your own things like, 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'm, I know you've experienced this.
I know you've experienced this. Like someone says, I'm so
inspired by what you've done with the podcast, with the book
that I've decided to do X. I've decided you inspired me to
think about Y, 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 to the world.
And so this, 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 Bronny Ware's book, The top five
regrets, the dime. The the biggest regret people
have on their deathbed is I wish I would have lived for me, not
other people or the life that was expected of me. 76%.
So that that that means that 3/4 of us will never take that step
towards that buried dream. And, and the reason why it's
regretted because that flame, that pilot like doesn't go out.
And that's why you get inspired and then you quell it or, or you
start to talk about, 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 got 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 if I don't pay the insurance, there's a penalty.
There's always a deadline and a consequence.
And we 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, I, 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 this
feeling would be an absolute nightmare on your deathbed to to
lay there and be like fuck I blew it.
Yeah, this is 10 tangentially related, but I, I, I also think
this, this dovetails nicely with what we're talking about.
I'm curious because so for listeners who who don't know
that original experiment, the those Rd. trips and the
sponsorships and everything and eventually evolved into to 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, you're what, 40?
Exactly. Exactly for OK, so you're 40
that show you were in your 20s. The the bucket list of that
show, it was kind of typical 20 year old guy stuff.
Crazy stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Fun, exciting, you know, flashy, stupid.
But also, yeah, yeah. Really thinking streak and
getaway. Yeah, trying to ask out Megan
Fox being a deserted island. Exactly.
Play with mansion, Yeah. Exactly.
So I'm actually curious, you know, the the 40 year old self,
how do you look back on those things and, and what is your
perspective on those things today?
Oh, they were great. Yeah, they were.
I mean, I'm embarrassed about some of them for sure.
But I definitely don't regret any of them.
And, and I think that is actually the point of the list,
is that as you grow, it 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 1/4 you re evaluate and you write more
things because you've grown and now you have new things and new
goals and new things you want to try.
And you look back and you're like, Oh, that thing that I
wrote last year, actually, I don't want to do.
And eventually you'll look back and be like, Oh, that thing I
wrote five years ago, I can't believe I did it.
You prove 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, and, and that was our job to do
crazy shit 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 help someone else.
And that was actually what the show was about.
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, 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 I started sending him photos
and we're just like, Oh my God, we were out of our minds, you
know, but I look back on it fondly.
And all of those things, even that, you know, compete in a
krump competition in, in Compton, you know, we, I don't
know how to dance. You know, we went in 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 would every time we did that, you know, it was so terrifying.
And I always surprised myself and 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 as
well as it could be. We want 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 on the line.
And and, you know, things like play basketball with President
Obama. That was that was literally a a
joke. You know, when we first wrote it
on the list, I remembered 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 he's. 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 where 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, it, if you look at something,
it's not, can I do it? It's do I want to do it?
Does it align with my true self? You know, with the, with the,
hey, 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 you then you have to give because giving without
expectation, you know, ultimately is what comes around
to serve you. 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 you die so we can learn about what stops you.
We didn't know what the fuck we wanted to do.
So we're like, let's ask you what they want to do before they
die. And if we could help them, then
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 what we didn't realize is
that people were inspired by us and our journey.
And so we're like, oh, cool, OK. 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, is he, is he any good or is he overrated?
Let me bring it down. If you want to block Obama, 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 not going hard.
Yeah, not going hard. He was, he he was very, he was,
he was quite good. He was quite good.
Yeah. Very chill guy.
You know, 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 end up hanging
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. Immediately we forgot he was the
president and we're trash talking to 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 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. Or why not just do something
around and interact with people around you that has a lot of
meaning in it? Right, exactly.
I mean, I think you're yes, 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 and I have have wanted to do for a year.
We haven't done it. We keep talking about it and I'm
like, let's just book it. So we do it and it's like such a
an incredible experience. I'm using a part of my brain I
haven't used for so long. You know, I, 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 it's, that's not really what it's about.
If that happens, great, like, but also kind of not great
'cause they'd be like your 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. It 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, plant a tree or, you
know, go to space, right, Help someone build a house.
There was no filter other than it just sounded like it would
would be fun and it would really we would get excited about it.
And that was really the, the metric that we used.
And, and you follow that you're, 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 the thought of that trip
makes you fired up that those are the types of things you want
to do or what are the things that make you feel more alive?
Are 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, and the irony too, is that even if you do find the
quote UN quote, the thing that gives your life meaning in five
years, it will probably change. The authentic self is a moving
target, like you're you're always evolving and changing.
And the thing that made you happy at 25, you know, 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. There's a lot of cringe ones.
It's definitely the exception where somebody finds that one
thing. It's not the rule.
No, it's not the rule for sure. It's it's.
Totally. 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 because 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 to, you know what I said, these depressive moments
where I, 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 everyday. Shocker.
It's making me feel down right? And that's when I started
speaking just as a side thing, 'cause I thought, well, I don't
really know what I'm going to do.
And so I got invited to this one talk.
I was like, OK, I guess I'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 the
story. And you know, and, and that's
led me to this other thing. But there, 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, call him.
And I said to you, Uncle Bill, I'm really having trouble.
Like I, I don't, I don't think I can do this anymore, but I don't
want to give up the last three years of what I've put into
building this production company.
And now it's actually working like we got investment and it's
and he said, Ben, you're not, you're not starting from the
bottom again. You're just recycling your
career. You're taking everything you
learned from this experience of building the production company,
and now you're going to use that to do your next thing.
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 up cycling, you know, all
this stuff. And it's 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. Yeah, 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. 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.
Yeah, no, that's that is the truth.
That's a terrible thing to say, but that is the truth.
But it is true. It is true and I.
I think it's like that going through a, 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 want to look
at. And and that's that's why you,
you level up because you have to look at things that you're
hiding and that are causing problems, but you're, you're
just pushing 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, etcetera.
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really matters. Come back up just a minute,
going back to that buried life feeling that so many of us do
feel what, what happened to us that that causes that?
Why? Why are we so?
Why? Why do those lives get so buried
and we just let them stay there? Well, it's this is a this is
such a big question because if you think about it, what what
what's crazy is that this is the human condition, right?
If this poem was written 175 years ago and it talked about
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 the, and so why does this
happen? I think part of it is that we
don't really think about our death enough.
I, 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, and, 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.
Actually, I 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, 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 going to die and that we could die tomorrow.
And if we knew we were going to die tomorrow, things would be
very different. Or if we knew we were going to
die in a year, things would be very, very different.
But we, we don't keep that top of mind.
And so the fear stops us and, and then we get back to the
day-to-day and then we'll get inspired and then the fear.
So that's the, that's the issue. So the, 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, it's so
interesting that this topic, it seems so much more prevalent and
top of mind for our generation and the younger generations.
Like it doesn't if you, if you talk to the older generations or
if you think back to like, you know, the 80s or the 50s or
whatever, like nobody sat around and thought of like, oh, what am
I supposed to do with my life? Or it wasn't like a as common
place 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, 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 in, 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
it's almost like, I mean, I hate to call it this, but it's a high
quality problem. 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?
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, it's important to
note that that like your basic sort of Maslow's hierarchy of
needs, a gills, shelter, safety, those have to be met.
And so when, when I talk about fear, it's different than risk,
right? So you're not risking your
well-being, you're not risking your safety.
It's it's usually the fear that's based in ego.
What are the people going to think?
Totally. And so which like are 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, OK, I want to do this, what are the risks and
what are the fears? And, and those are different.
But I think to your point that this is becoming more and more
of a topic, more and more of an issue.
I, I, I also believe it's because more and more people are
unhappy and, 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.
You know, if we talk about that first low, low, which was the
darkest, and I look at the others periods of depression
that I've had. One of the things that's been
consistent in all of those is a major part of of of what I'm
doing or who I am in those in those times has not been in
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,
right? I think the root word for
depression is suppression. You sometimes you can suppress
that true self. And I think that's actually you,
you start to feel stifled. You start to feel like there's a
ceiling if you're not being that expression doesn't mean it has
to be your job, 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 I,
there's no, you know, Silver Arrow for depression, but I, it
has helped me in the past to look at like, OK, 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 Doctor Ben Shahar, who's
professor at Harvard and 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 actualized self, your
ideal self. And and that's all that this
list is. It's, 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
close to that. And as a result, you're happier.
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So what are 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 What is?
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 a secret sauce and we can talk
about that. I think the first thing though,
is to figure out what are those things that 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 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 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, 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. A10 life category.
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 regrets the dying is I wish I would have
stayed in contact with friends. You know, I love to do a podcast
talking about investing in friendships.
I'm a huge advocate of that because that's of top five
regret. I wish I would have stayed in
contact with friends. So you have these ten life
categories giving travel, adventure, relationships,
creative goals, physical health, mental health, material goals,
professional, financial. And so you're you stop and you
start to think about what are things that I might want to do?
These aren't necessary 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, and 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.
Yeah.
So you're collecting data. You're just out there testing,
taking, and it's all about action.
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, right?
So, you know, so first it's stopping and, 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 achieve, there's no failure.
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.
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. 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 getting 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 would 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 depressions 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, 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, you know, in
those 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, I need to hang out with their
friends because they probably hang out with like minded
people. And that's just led me on a, a
really incredible journey and brought me down to LA and, 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.
Yeah, if you said it, Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll edit
out the if and then 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 crossed things 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 what other people think and be vulnerable.
And then people showed up to help.
And so when you ask for help, you also build accountability
because 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 stuck 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, and we had all of that baked into that first road trip.
OK, if someone was they're, 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 or unearthing that
buried life? Yeah.
So first I think you want to sort of be aware of what is
happening, like what 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, these buried dreams.
So you're going to 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
going to 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 going to 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 overtime look back and you suddenly realize, wow, like
I've made strides or something will just happen.
That seems serendipitous or and, and 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, then the third barrier 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 kind of like recap you,
you know that there's no deadline.
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 going to create
accountability, going to write it down.
That's going to create accountability, going to 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 going to cut
down your dream. You're going to get an
accountability buddy. You're going to be like, Mark,
you know, my dream is to, you know, write a book like I need
an accountability buddy. Do you mind if I send you a
chapter every month? Or, you know, I just want you to
just like check it out and let me know what you think.
And it's a big ass but. Yeah, don't, don't note to
listeners, don't send me your book.
What's your e-mail again? So you're going to find an
accountability buddy, right? That's, that's going to like
the, that's the kind of like surrounding yourself with people
inspire. That's the biggest game changer.
You're going to communicate to them why this is so important to
you and, 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 going to share this with your, your,
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 want to do, you know,
open mic night, I really want to play in this band and you have
band practice at 4:00 PM and the kids are come back from school.
It's craziness. Your partner's like, hey, I know
band practice is important. I'm going to let you go.
I'll take care of this, right? And you can get me back later.
So, 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 know, like you, you really want to put it
out there and create that accountability.
And then you want to figure out what's the smallest, easiest
step you can take towards that thing.
Just the, the, the micro, This is the smallest, easiest thing.
And, and start to take tiny, tiny steps and try and do that
every day, whether it's like 5 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 want to do, right?
You want to start to take action, not necessarily because
it's going to 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 all of a sudden you have 3030 minutes, right?
And when you start to spend time doing things you love, you have
more time. You, you get life force and then
you're able to be more productive, you're able to do
more. So you spend 15 minutes a day,
just 15 minutes a day on something that you love, you're
going to 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.
They regret not living authentically.
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 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 you're safe.
And then you look at this fear of failure, the fear of what
other people think, and you think, OK, fear of what other
people think. Hate to break it to you.
They're not thinking about. Not thinking about you.
Like they're not even thinking about you as much as you think
they're. They're just not thinking about
you. Yeah, it's like they.
Didn't even notice you failed space.
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 basic, 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.
Yeah. So you actually want to follow
that fear. I think fear is your friend
because it's a it's a marker that this thing actually means
something to you. And that fear is vulnerability.
That's 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 and I'm sure you can attest to that, right?
Like the first time I did a Ted X talk, I did not want to do it.
Yeah, 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, 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 Ted X talk didn't
blow up. I didn't get a million views.
And I was like, oh, great, 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. Wow.
Yeah. I like that.
The motivation piece of that where if you're working on
things, you you buy back some of your time.
That's great. Mark Marks said before that one
of the greatest productivity hacks is just to do shit that
you care about, because then you just get shit done.
I love that too. So yeah.
Yeah, so true. It's, I mean, all of this kind
of circles around a concept that I love, which is leveraging
emotion in your favor. And, and it drives me crazy,
especially in like the productivity space that nobody
talks about emotion or very few people talk about emotion.
But it is what you were just saying about understanding fear,
also understanding excitement and knowing how to navigate
those emotions when when doing something that feels important.
I think it's so key. We had Steven Pressfield on a
few months ago. He has 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 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, like treat it like a professional
would, right? Like do the work around the
thing to like set up, make success inevitable, you know?
So he's like, if you're afraid to write your book, you know,
set up the office, put create the documents, create, like,
create the time by the office chair those tiny steps, like
tell everybody in your house that I'm not available from 6:00
to 8:00 AM every morning because I'm writing my book.
Like, do all of the ancillary stuff that is not scary, that,
like, 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 like writing it on
the shuttle from LAX to the Uber.
Exactly. Yeah.
But I do think that that idea of following those emotions, we
just don't, we simply don't do because we're too stimulated,
right. There's so many external inputs
that that we're not really listening to that internal, you
know, energy compass. Yeah, this comes back to the
distraction thing. And one thing I definitely hear
from people, I imagine you hear from it from people too, is
people will literally tell me they're like, I don't know what
I want. Like I don't know what I want to
do that. Like 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 like stop myself and be a reasonable
person. But I see that and, and I feel
like that's just a, a product of people who are, are, are pulled
in so many directions that they, they, they've lost so much
contact with, with who their authentic self is and, and what
they actually want as a person. Yeah, I I agree.
And I think that the one potential solution is, is
starting with the list. But but looking at the list as a
list of experiments to see if this makes me feel something.
Yeah. And as you try salsa dancing and
you guys, oh, well, this is actually like, it's making me
feel a little bit like this and I like that.
So I'm going to keep doing it. And and you start to collect
that data through action. So you have to like, it's not
comfortable me salsa dancing. I don't, you know, think I look
very good doing it. But, you know, I kind of moved
through that discomfort and everybody looks like a fool when
they start. So it's like, OK, well, let's
just keep going and, and see if this energy continues.
And so you start to really pay attention to your body, you
know, and what you're feeling. And then and, and also around
people, right? 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. And so by finding people that
are giving you energy, by finding people that are
inspiring, right? Because when you 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.
So 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. Yeah.
You know, he's no different than me.
If he did it. Wow.
I like, I wonder what I can do. And 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 just created this thing out of
nothing. I never seen anybody that I knew
do something like that. And I went up to him.
I was like, how did you do that? And he's like, what do you mean?
I'm like, how did you create the clothing line?
You don't have any 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? Yeah.
Exactly. And I asked to get involved
because I thought it was so cool and and I ended up getting
inspired by by helping him out. And I thought, wow, if he made a
clothing line, I wonder what I could do.
And I thought, I want to make a movie.
And so I called up Johnny and that started this process.
So 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, it was around for 2-3 years, It's not around
anymore. You would call that a failure.
But was it a failure? Because here's the thing, if, if
Aaron wouldn't have started that clothing line, we wouldn't have
started Buried Life. But what's interesting is that
show, right? 2009, 2010, 2011 was all these
creators were in high school and these were learning.
All these people were inspired by the show to start to do their
thing. And big musicians, pro athletes,
big, big creators. And so you think, OK, now I'm
starting to see how this works. If 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. And the impact we had is a grain
of sand compared to some of these bigger creators, right?
And so that's why I wholeheartedly believe in this
and this idea that it's not selfish, right?
You, you have to, you, you have an obligation to do these things
and try them and, and, and walk your walk, walk your true
original course because you have no idea the impact that we'll
have. Yeah, you guys were Youtubers
before. Before YouTube.
Before, yeah, you guys were like, like, shit that plays on,
plays really well on YouTube. Now, you guys were doing that
back in 2009, Like, yeah. Yeah, I remember the first video
we posted on YouTube 2007. It was, we got the front, this
is when YouTube had a front page and it was the 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 homeless shelter.
And we're like perfect, like this is finally someone we can
help because we could buy pizzas and we didn't have money to like
help the other people that wanted different things.
And so we went and interviewed him and we found that the reason
he wanted to bring pizzas to the homeless shelter was because he
had lived in that homeless 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. And then we learned that he had
started a landscaping business, but he his truck had broken down
recently and his whole business was on the rocks.
And so after that interview, we're like, oh, we got to, we
got to figure out a way to get this guy a truck.
And we had $480 between the four of us.
Yeah, Canadian. That's less.
So that's what, like 12 US? 1250 and so we we pool our
$12.50 USD and we go to a used car salesman and the cheapest
car in the lot is $2100 yeah. And we tell him Brent story,
like, there's this kid in the neighbourhood and, you know, 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 then he's like, OK, I got to
get insurance and 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
and he just drops his stuff and he just bear hugs me and starts
to cry. And that was the first time we'd
ever help someone. And that was the moment that
changed sort of our trajectory because that was the very first
tour. And from then on, we thought,
oh, that is what it's about, you know?
And, and that feeling, we're like, wow, we got to keep doing
this. Tell us about the journal.
What is it? Where can they get it?
I've kind of like a process when I'm doing things.
So I tried to create a process to writing your list and then
bringing it to completion. And so the journal is kind of a
little bit of a, of my story as well as the, the purpose of the
journal. So I, there's a bit of copy in
here around the, the big three challenges that I mentioned and
sort of the, the, the why we get stuck.
And then you get into the top five regrets of the dying to
learn more about those so that we don't die with those regrets.
And 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.
And then you go on to physical health, material goals.
By the way, it's OK to have material goals.
Like I feel like people are like, wow, you know, it's like,
great, it's making you happy, right?
Get it, get get the house on the beach, get the boat, get the
watch. Like just don't do it for other
people. Yeah, it makes you happy.
Yeah. But so you get great material
goals, creative goals. We talked about that
professional, financial, intellectual.
So you think about giving back as well.
So you, you, you, you just first like take time to write your
list, then you start to build accountability and, and track
your goals. You break your goals down.
You choose an accountability buddy, You choose a deadline for
your goal that creates accountability.
Choose a reward for yourself. It's really, it's 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?
Where can they get it? Amazon's probably the best,
yeah, easiest bucket. List Journal.
We'll put it in the show notes as well.
Cool. Well, thanks for coming by, man.
Thanks for having me, this has been a blast.
Yeah, it's good. Chatting, catching up.
Absolutely. Thanks, Brad.
Yep. Thank you so much for having me.
Awesome. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a
Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie.
It's edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choi is our videographer
and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we
will see you next week.