EFR 756: Tools to Build a Life Rich in Experiences and Die With No Regrets with Bridget Hilton

0:13:39 - Speaker 3 20,000 people, that's a hell of a sample size.

0:13:42 - Speaker 1 Yeah, there was a few people that we talked to Respect on that N equals. And it's sad. I mean, it's kind of interesting but sad at the same time that the number one reason why people didn't do the things they most wanted to do was that they just quote didn't get around to planning it.

0:14:00 - Speaker 2 So that was number one.

0:14:01 - Speaker 1 So the reason why, people wait to plan things is because they believe in this fictional someday that's not actually a real day If you look at a calendar. Some days not on there.

0:14:12 - Speaker 3 True, very true.

0:14:15 - Speaker 1 So all of these people would say some variants of like oh, I wanted to get around to it, I just never did Because I thought that I would do it someday. But then something happened where maybe they got sick, maybe one of their kids got sick, or they had someone in their family passed away, where something happened where, like they didn't actually get around to doing this thing that they wanted to do. So we always say make someday today, because you just really truly never know when something's going to happen and you need to start working on your goals and dreams now and not wait for, like a fictional day. I think the reason why we do this is because we make excuses for ourselves and the excuses look like we all do this.

It's not just these people, it's me, it's you, it's everyone. Say oh, I'll do X when I graduate college, or once I find the love of my life, I'll do this.

0:15:13 - Speaker 3 Or once I am Like some particular major life event thing must happen before what we want can happen. Yeah, like these milestones.

0:15:21 - Speaker 1 It's like okay, I'll wait until I, the kids are a little bit older, or once I get a promotion at work, or once I retire, and then like so the average retirement age, I think, is 64 in the US and the average lifespan is 76. So most of these people are waiting until this, like retirement that might never come.

0:15:43 - Speaker 3 To cram in all your friends, to cram in everything. It's barely more than a decade.

0:15:47 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's like do you really even want to do those things when you're in your 60s, 70s, 80s, et cetera? Probably not. So they're pushing all of these things that they really want off until a fictional someday, which probably doesn't exist. So it's sad, but Sad but true.

0:16:05 - Speaker 3 Sad but true, but hopefully no more for anybody listening right now. This is why we have these conversations. People you mentioned I'll do this or I'll be happy when I get this job, this promotion, and I think that's an obvious one for a lot of people. We think what we want most in life requires and in many times does requires a certain professional financial advantage. But then I know a lot of people and I definitely have been there myself where we maybe get that promotion, we reach that financial advantage, but what we wanted is something different. Now it's like once we level up, we automatically, or maybe even subconsciously, alter our goal and now it gets pushed further back, you know, even to another someday. Why is that?

0:16:56 - Speaker 1 For sure, and I've been guilty of that as well. It's like these goal posts. It's like okay like once I'm you know, once I put this book out, then I'm gonna do this, or once I do this.

0:17:06 - Speaker 2 And it's.

0:17:07 - Speaker 1 I think it's just comparison and it's natural because you're, when you're like, leveling up in that way. You're surrounding yourself normally with people that are also leveling up, so you're constantly surrounding yourself with like the comparison trap.

0:17:19 - Speaker 3 So we and our environment are changing along the way, which, am I hearing you correctly, tends to influence those goal post goals, exactly.

0:17:27 - Speaker 1 But really like. So when I get in that mindset, which I still do, but I really try to compare myself to myself versus the other people Like I can look at someone who you know sold 10 million coffees of a book and be like man. I wish that was me, but even a year ago I was like man. I just can't wait to put out a book.

0:17:48 - Speaker 2 Right.

0:17:49 - Speaker 3 What a perspective shift.

0:17:51 - Speaker 1 Yeah, like, that's all I wanted, like that was. My biggest goal in life is to to write a book and to put it out, and all I wanted was for people to like it and to feel that their life was changed, and that has happened. Like, maybe we'll never sell 10 million copies, but that wasn't ever the goal. So I need to compare myself to like myself yesterday versus somebody else, because even though those people that are, like you know, much more successful quote unquote than they are inspirational.

0:18:21 - Speaker 3 I have to inspire myself. Right, let's take, you know, maybe the financial goal out of it, or the thing that requires that leveling up. A big part of your work and in the book is this overarching topic of experiential wealth. What does this mean and what might it feel like, so that we can keep both this definition and sensation in mind as we progress through the rest of this conversation?

0:18:47 - Speaker 1 Sure. So experiential wealth to me is the greatest type of wealth that you can have, because at the end of your life, you know no one has a funeral for you and says you know, I loved Chase, he was wealthy, you know like he invested in Unless I got some greedy kids and grandkids or dividing up by estate I don't know. Something says that you will not have that, but I think you'll do the right thing.

0:19:15 - Speaker 3 Thanks, granddad Chase, you really stacked up. Stacked up my 401K.

0:19:20 - Speaker 1 Yeah, no one's going to be like man. Those stocks he invested in were just so interesting and that's my favorite thing about him. You know they-.

0:19:27 - Speaker 3 I just love your rabbit note portfolio.

0:19:29 - Speaker 1 Your wife might say something like I loved watching the sun sets with him. Or your kids might say like I loved when we went to the national parks together. You know your friends will say they loved volunteering with you at like a shelter or something like that.

You know, they're never going to say anything financial. So to me, like, experiential wealth is the most important thing, because that's what you're going to care about at the end of your life is these moments and these experiences that are worth way more than money. And in my life, like I've seen drastic roller coasters between, like, being very poor and seeing like the top 1% and then back down to poor again and back up, like I've seen drastic changes in my happiness doesn't really follow that roller coaster. Right, and I think that's the experience with a lot of people is that they could be really poor as long as they're, like you know, covering their needs, or they can be wealthy and there's not a big difference in happiness.

0:20:29 - Speaker 3 You also talk about how our life isn't created to be maintained. I love that because I think, if nothing else, if the listener can walk away right now and just have that in mind am I maintaining my life or am I continuously creating it? It's so important and immediately for me, a lot of analogies come into mind. You know, in health and wellness and fitness space, you know we're either losing weight, gaining weight, or we are we maintaining, but unique to goals and having this abundant lifestyle that you talk about.

I think it's also very important because if we look in the mirror right now and ask that hard question, am I creating a life, this experiential, billionaire life every day, or am I just maintaining it? I think we will come face to face with some hard truths of complacency, comfortability, which I'm not saying. Those things are bad but, personally speaking, I'm not about that life. We're not about that for very long. That's the whole point of living a life. Ever for it, I say, is to have those check-ins with yourself and then challenge yourself and then have unique and frequent enough stimuli to move you forward and get out of maintenance phase. Why do you think so many people are living in maintenance and probably don't even realize it?

0:21:50 - Speaker 1 I think just because it is comfortable, but at the end of the day, like discomfort is the thing that makes you grow right? There's not you can't do anything big in life without being uncomfortable, in my opinion. You know like going home every day from work, watching Netflix, going to bed and like getting food delivered to you, like we can live a very, very comfortable life.

0:22:13 - Speaker 2 these days I don't do that.

0:22:15 - Speaker 1 I mean, everybody does that, and I'm not saying that's even bad, Like I mean sometimes, that's what you need like to like restore yourself right, but if you do that every single day and then you wake up in 10 years and you're like, wait, I just wasted my 30s or my 40s or whatever Like that happens to the majority of people will wake up and be like what was I doing? And I think, if I look at my own life, like my biggest regrets in life are the times that I spent being comfortable in like a relationship, for example.

0:22:50 - Speaker 3 Oh, huge, absolutely yeah. I think that's where most people don't realize they're maintaining a life.

0:22:56 - Speaker 2 Because it's so easy.

0:22:57 - Speaker 3 You know, six months a year plus in that relationship to just like, oh like, they're not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere, we can just be here.

0:23:05 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think it happens in jobs. I think those are probably the top two, I'd say in my life, like I've spent too much time being in relationships that weren't working but maybe they were very comfortable, and then in jobs that weren't comfortable and that I was like, oh, it's just too hard to leave that job.

0:23:22 - Speaker 3 Right, but then when you it pays too good, yeah, exactly, the benefits are too good. Golden handcuffs, yeah.

0:23:28 - Speaker 1 And that happens to so many people and I totally get it because it is comfortable and it's hard to change. But then the moment where you do change that is like where you really, you know, it's like I think I talk about this in a different chapter in the book, but I talk about hermit crabs.

0:23:44 - Speaker 2 And I like to say it's like being a hermit crab.

0:23:47 - Speaker 1 It's like you know, the hermit crab like leaves its shell and then it's kind of like you know, just looking for another one, and it's super uncomfortable, and then it finds a bigger shell.

0:23:58 - Speaker 3 It's pretty freaky if you ever see a naked hermit crab.

0:23:59 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it's totally weird A naked hermit crab. Something about this is not right.

0:24:04 - Speaker 1 But then what happens is that it finds a bigger shell and it grows into it, and that's what happens when you get into these uncomfortable situations, I mean. A great example of that, like in my own life, that I like to think about is when I was a kid, I was absolutely terrified of public speaking, and now that's what I do professionally, right. And if I did it?

Without a head on Right, like if I didn't move through that fear, like you know, I don't know where I would be or what I would be doing at this point. But it's been such a great thing in my life to be able to, like, influence people by speaking, and I don't think I would have ever had that if I just didn't move past that fear. So, and that's uncomfortable, it's super uncomfortable, but it is what it is.

0:24:50 - Speaker 3 I want to get to the fear component in a moment, but we've now kind of brought up two really unique and familiar areas for, I think, everyone that I want to shine another light on Finances, job security and relationships, another form of security. Do you think financial and relationship security, financial and relationship complacency are the two greatest pitfalls to not living an abundant life or fast forwarding a year and going my damn. What was I doing? I wasted my time, I was comfortable.

0:25:24 - Speaker 1 I think those two things can be for sure, and I'm not anti-corporate job and I'm not anti-marriage, obviously, but I think that Any kind of professional situation, yeah, anything. Yeah, no, I definitely think that those two contribute, and if you're with, say, the wrong person who's not feeding that more adventurous side of you, then that can also be a downfall, right, if you're the right person, the wrong person, whatever. But yeah, I would say that those are the top two.

0:25:55 - Speaker 3 Without maybe abandoning either or both of those. Let's say, a person is realizing maybe I'm comfortable in my relationship, maybe I'm comfortable in my job, I don't want to leave either. Right now, in fact, I want to lean into them, I want to challenge them. How would you recommend someone going about that, challenging the comfortability and security of a relationship and your current employment, without really rocking the boat and having to go on to the next thing or next person?

0:26:25 - Speaker 1 Sure. So I think. Well, it's been proven that the number one way to grow a relationship is and that could be with your partner or with a colleague, which is really important to have a friend that work, obviously.

0:26:40 - Speaker 3 So I would say, not just intimate relationships Like friends, colleagues, anyone.

0:26:45 - Speaker 1 The number one way to grow is Because we're all some friends.

0:26:47 - Speaker 3 Maybe we should break up with two. We're not feeding each other and growing together like we used to.

0:26:51 - Speaker 1 We actually talk about that in the book. It's really funny. You probably should ditch the friends that are bringing you down, even though it sucks.

0:26:59 - Speaker 2 That's the way it is.

0:27:00 - Speaker 1 But the number one way to grow a relationship is to share new experiences together. So, if you're in a rut in a relationship but you want to keep that relationship. I mean and this happens to everyone it's like say you have kids and then you're just kind of maintaining. It's such a stressful life and everything. The number one way to get out of that rut is to try new things together, and that's what our book is really about yeah, spice it up, yeah.

And it can be something as simple as taking cooking classes together or like doing something really crazy like going skydiving or learning a new language together. Like it can be free, it can be cheap, it doesn't have to be.

0:27:41 - Speaker 3 There are those experiences. Again you're talking.

0:27:43 - Speaker 1 It doesn't have to be a trip to Italy. It can be something that's like right outside your door there's plenty of things to do. But the problem is that people don't do new things and then they think, oh, I have to go outside my relationship or outside of whatever, but really it can just be right there.

0:28:02 - Speaker 3 Can you help someone understand a little bit more here about the real value in experiences, especially ones that don't cost anything in terms of money? I think someone might be thinking because I've definitely thought this that's so cliche. Or if we just go to a different coffee house instead of the one we always go to, or if we take a cooking class, or we cook red meat instead of white meat, just any small little thing. You're thinking, is it really that simple and can it really be that free? Can something as transformational as that to our relationships and our life really have zero to little financial community?

0:28:43 - Speaker 1 I think so. I mean some of the greatest experiences I've ever had have been things that I've had to pay for, of course, and I don't think everything can be free, but I think some of the greatest things I've ever done are either free or next to free, it's like I guess I'll use surfing as an example. So I lived in LA for probably 14 years before I surfed Like why?

0:29:10 - Speaker 3 I haven't got up on a board either.

0:29:11 - Speaker 1 I'm in five and it's like OK, why did I waste that much time thinking like oh, I wish that I could do this, but I can't do it because I'm not going to be good at it. So one day I finally, like my friends had asked me to go, and I immediately came back with an excuse.

I was like oh, I don't want to I don't feel good, whatever, and then I ended up going and it ended up like totally changing my perspective and like almost changed my life because I loved it so much and even though I'll never be, great at it like I'm never going to win the Olympics in surfing, but it's something that I love so much and now I feel like a part of, and I ended up like moving towns to be closer to the water.

0:29:53 - Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

0:29:54 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and I mean now I'm just like so much more of in tune with nature and I just love being in it and I would have never had that experience had. I never just said yes to something that I thought I wouldn't be very good at, and I think little things like that can change your perspective.

I mean, like even just going hiking I know that's so cliche, especially in Los Angeles, but it really does calm your nervous system and it really does make you think like wow, I'm so lucky, like the gratitude is there and it's free, it doesn't cost anything. So I think some of the best things in life are free.

0:30:35 - Speaker 3 How would you help someone get to the ability to say yes? Because I think, kind of getting to the fear aspect here, there are typically a lot of concerns and hesitations around doing anything new for most of us, unless you're just an adrenaline junkie and you're always seeking new. Many of us feel and I think the argument can be made that we thrive off of routine and consistency, call it discipline.

But waking up at the same time, going to the same place for breakfast, going to the same gym, seeing the same people there's a lot of familiarity in routine and can serve a lot of different goals. I'm no stranger to discipline, but that might be an excuse to continue to hide behind fear. How do we say yes when we're screaming inside no?

0:31:34 - Speaker 1 I love that question and, yeah, I agree with discipline. I love that word and I think that we need to think about it in a little bit of a different way. Like for me, I love some routine. My life used to be a lot crazier and I had lived in two different cities and it was very chaotic.

And now I only live in one place, very calm, and I have my routine every morning I drink coffee, blah, blah blah. But it must be hard. But my things, like you, can be disciplined with new things too, right, say you know. Every week you're like I'm gonna learn one new thing, I'm gonna learn how to cook something new, for example.

That doesn't that costs like very little money and it's free on YouTube to learn anything right so you can be disciplined about learning new things as well, so you can add that to the routine. But if you only have the routine of like the exact same thing like are you really gonna be happy, or are you? Really gonna remember that.

0:32:31 - Speaker 3 Yeah, you might be compounding and you know, doing the reps towards an overarching bigger, longer goal, but I love how you're kind of reminding us here to prioritize and to build into our routine something new. This should be nothing new for anybody that's read James Clear's Atomic Habits, habit Stacking. You know when there's something you want to change or add in that you believe is in support of a goal of yours. That's where I think a lot of people and we know that's where a lot of people fall off the wagon. It's because they're trying to make this entirely new life in support of this bigger life.

But no, no, no, it's bringing in. You know like okay, it's part of your morning coffee time, you're going to take five minutes of that time. Instead of scrolling your phone, you look up new recipes to your point.

0:33:17 - Speaker 1 Right and like. I use cooking a lot as an example because I love to cook.

0:33:21 - Speaker 3 Everybody's gotta eat too.

0:33:22 - Speaker 1 Yeah, everybody's gotta eat yeah and it really does teach you a lot about other cultures and stuff. But say you had kids in your routine every week was like to order pizza for them. That's what I did when I was a kid. It was awesome. But guess, what I would have liked more is if my parents would have taught me how to make pizza.

0:33:40 - Speaker 2 Like I would have remembered that way more right.

0:33:43 - Speaker 1 Like that's like a core memory and like eating takeout pizza is not a memory. You know that's like everybody does that, so you can do these like little simple things even if you had a chaotic life. You have kids, a crazy job, just those like little switches, it's like I don't know. I guess another example of kids would be, you know, if you gave them like a stuffed animal with, like a giraffe, for example, or you could like take them to the zoo and go see a giraffe Like what is going to be more memorable, Right yeah.

0:34:16 - Speaker 3 How much are you gonna spend on that stuffed animal versus maybe the family tickets on a discount day to the zoo?

0:34:22 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it can't be that much, right so? It's just those little changes in your life where you can look back and be like I'm so glad that I did that, even though it was maybe slightly less comfortable or less, you know, slightly more expensive or something. But it's gonna be like a memory for your kids to like learn later.

0:34:41 - Speaker 3 I think we need to shift perspective as well into looking at these as investments, exactly Really wrapping our head around investing in ourselves and our greatest aspirations and our families and loved ones and jobs, every aspect of being a human. If we shift to go I'm investing in this I think we're gonna A probably get more creative around the things that we can do to support that vertical of our well-being, but, b I think it forces us to kind of look for gratitude, look for an ROI and, just you know, even get more creative in ways that we probably aren't right.

0:35:19 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, our whole book is about how to invest in experiences, because that is truly the most important thing in my opinion, to do in your life.

0:35:28 - Speaker 3 You're a good company, I believe it. To kind of wrap up this fear component, you have this great quote in there from Jim Morrison, actually Leetzing of the Doors, right, just second, you guessed myself there for a second. But in this quote goes expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. You then kind of go on to expand on this and say that fear is an invitation to evolve, and quote with the right training, your brain can unlearn its fear of virtually anything. How, how do we train away from fear?

0:36:09 - Speaker 1 It's really exposure and I'm sure everyone has heard this before, but it's just being exposed to the things where you think that you are afraid of. I think an example from my own life is I did this whole long road trip for many years around, going to all of the 50 states, and that was one of my favorite things I've ever done in my life.

0:36:35 - Speaker 3 That's an amazing goal.

0:36:35 - Speaker 1 I wouldn't who wouldn't like to do?

0:36:38 - Speaker 3 that I think most people. That would be really cool.

0:36:40 - Speaker 1 And it's not like I just quit my job and road tripped around for a year. That was over a long period of time, right, so it wasn't like outside of my normal life.

0:36:52 - Speaker 3 But again realistic, yeah, realistic, it's crazy. Financial bargain.

0:36:57 - Speaker 1 I mean, it really is not. So I think the average American sees like less than nine states in your life.

0:37:06 - Speaker 3 That's actually more than I would think. It might be eight, but it's around there it's not that bad, but out of 50, come on, guys.

0:37:13 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so for that I think that that's a good example because I'm not going to get political but around like 2016, when it was like it started to become so so, so divided, it really helped me as a person, like see why certain people would think that the world is that way and like where they're coming from.

And it really opened my perspective, like when I was traveling through all of these states, that, like a lot of people that grow up in New York or LA and I'm from Michigan, so I've you know, don't consider myself truly part of- that but a lot of the coastal people like don't ever see the Midwest and then a lot of the Midwesterners don't ever see the coast.

So there's this big divide in people. But if we could just like talk to each other and like see each other and like see where people live and like how they live their daily life, like that truly made me so much more open to other people's views. Oh, it has to.

And now I'm like so directly in the middle because I don't necessarily agree with a lot of things that people say and do. But I can see how they got to that conclusion and so I'm not afraid of you know the other anymore. In that sense, like I can like live in LA and be like oh those people in you know ex-state are like the other but I don't think that way anymore and I think that just the exposure to like other people and other cultures is so important?

0:38:44 - Speaker 2 Obviously, that goes for worldwide as well.

0:38:47 - Speaker 1 Like you know, I've been lucky to be like I think it's at 40 countries now.

0:38:53 - Speaker 3 Ooh, all right Nice.

0:38:56 - Speaker 1 And every place I go I'm like, I feel like I grow, like a little bit because I can see like, oh, wow, that's like how, like I was just in India and you know it's now the world's biggest population and to me that was such a growing experience because I'm like, wow, the US is so small in comparison to that and we always think that we're, like you know, the big bad guy or whatever.

0:39:19 - Speaker 3 We like to believe. So yeah, and in that way is just true, and we are in some ways, but it's like. Especially when you go.

0:39:25 - Speaker 1 Yeah, then there's this other place that has the biggest population in the world and it's like, okay, that's the real, like it's the real deal.

0:39:32 - Speaker 3 I think the same is true when we look at history. Another way to change your perspective around where you are and what you're doing with your life is anybody that's grown up in America. You probably studied American history myself, coming from Virginia, a colony, original colony state, one of the first 13 colonies. The history of Virginia, the history of America, was huge. Oh wow, like 200 years ago we were going through this. You know we had a blacksmith and we were building. You know tree houses, you know on the farm, and then you go travel anywhere, literally anywhere else in the world.

0:40:06 - Speaker 1 Literally anywhere.

0:40:07 - Speaker 3 Oh, that's cute. Your country is. How old. I had this flashback to this moment as a kid, thinking about how wild it is or how long of a history America has, when I was just recently in the UK and my wife and I. One of our travel hacks is we love. This is like the only touristy thing we do when we go anywhere. We love getting on, if they have it, the big bus, hop on, hop off, tour bus.

Oh, that's awesome Because A usually it's very, very cheap transportation and you can get on and off all throughout the day and we love to get this kind of perimeter lay of the land and then we'll get off and do our exploring and get our 30,000 steps in. But just we were listening to this one part about London, this area by Buckingham Palace, and just the dates they were saying and the you know, this king and that queen and these people I was just like wow, these people we are walking, riding in a big bus on these streets for thousands of years of history. It's crazy and just immediately made me think differently about my home country, not in a negative light, but just wow, we're babies, we were having baby experiences you know, we have so many more experiences to dive into.

0:41:18 - Speaker 1 I mean, that's why again not trying to be political, but I think the US has so many problems because of that. Because it's still new, you know, and a lot of people don't realize that it's new unless they travel other places.

0:41:28 - Speaker 3 We just recently in the long line of evolution and history. We barely just started crawling. Right, exactly the rest of the world are upright human beings. Yeah, look at.

0:41:37 - Speaker 1 Italy, for example, it's built like an actual lasagna, like, if you go below, there's thousands and thousands of years of civilization.

0:41:46 - Speaker 3 Oh my gosh yeah.

0:41:47 - Speaker 1 It's crazy. Or like I was just in Egypt, and I mean seeing the pyramids is just mind blowing.

0:41:54 - Speaker 3 One of my biggest life goals.

0:41:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was one of my biggest life goals and this year I checked it off the list and I'm just so grateful that we went. Especially, with all that's happening right now in the world, I'm just so happy that we did it. You just never know what's happening.

0:42:09 - Speaker 3 All right. So I'm kind of having an ADD brain moment right now, but I do think it's very spot on to what we're talking about here Changing perspective and thinking experientially. When I shared with you I was recently and I sound like a tool, just talking about all these travel spots- Me too, and I'm so like I came from nothing, so like to even have these experiences to me is mind blowing.

I don't mean this in any negative light. I grew up in a double-eyed and I'm in the middle of nowhere. So with a lot of hard work and positive attitude, and even money anything's possible.

But what I was going to say was when I started reading your book after we first met, I was in Reykjavik, iceland, or one of my best friends' weddings, and I sent a picture to you and I remember you talking about Iceland and it was one of my favorite places and I do this a lot. I wonder if anybody can relate. It's like one of those things when you realize that maybe you and I we only have known each other for a couple months now, but maybe we find out we were in the same undergraduate class years ago. And then I immediately go oh wow, we were together but we didn't know each other. That just kind of blows my mind sometimes.

But I was thinking experientially here I'm having this experience of being in for the first time, one of your favorite places in the world that you've been to at least once before. So I immediately was looking around. I was going oh man, I wonder if, like, am I in the same spot where she was, because downtown Reykjavik's not that big? And I was like, oh, maybe did we go to the same coffee house? So what's going on there, when maybe we ourselves are having a new experience?

but it's like inception experience we can tap into another level of experiences by tapping into the experiences of others.

0:43:48 - Speaker 1 I think it's just another way to connect and that's one of my favorite ways to connect. But good examples. I went to this program called the Hoffman Institute in Northern California.

0:44:00 - Speaker 3 What is that?

0:44:02 - Speaker 1 It's like a retreat. But saying it's a retreat makes it sound way more bougie than it is. Yeah, it's not bougie, but it's a place where they basically, like you, talk about your childhood trauma and you kind of rewire your brain and these patterns that are in your brain from when you were a kid and maybe it wasn't even that your parents were terrible or anything like that. Maybe it's just like you do certain things in your life because that's how you were taught.

0:44:31 - Speaker 3 Maybe you got made fun of at the playground or something. Yeah, exactly.

0:44:34 - Speaker 1 So it's like a way to make you feel like it's just it's mind blowing. I don't even want to go too deep into it, because people should just go.

0:44:42 - Speaker 3 That's inner child work.

0:44:43 - Speaker 1 Yeah, inner child work, it's so good and I love that one of the best things I ever did for myself. So that experience. When I see other people that have been there, I'm immediately bonded to that person.

0:44:58 - Speaker 3 Yes, and I'm like.

0:44:59 - Speaker 1 I just love that person, right. So, and the same could go for a lot of experiences, like when you were in Iceland, I was like, oh my gosh, I wish I could talk to you about that, because I just love it so much, and I want you to see all of these crazy things that I saw.

0:45:14 - Speaker 3 You should have let me know Happy to hit all the bridge spots.

0:45:18 - Speaker 1 And talk about perspective, I mean nature, Like the nature of Iceland. I mean I did a road trip around the perimeter of Iceland and just thinking about how long those things have been there, you're like my problems don't matter, Because these things have been here for millions of years.

0:45:38 - Speaker 3 So I want to go back. Actually, I know you said you were not going to. This isn't going to turn into a child development inner child work podcast.

0:45:45 - Speaker 1 I promise we've done that I mean I would be happy to talk about that all day long.

0:45:48 - Speaker 3 But it gets me thinking. I'm just thinking experiential. Experiential and all the different ways that we can have different experiences or begin to imagine the types of experiences that we want to support a fulfilling life. Going back into a past experience positive, negative, neutral there is a way to revisit that and redevelop that relationship. So maybe it wasn't as pleasant in our perspective, but we learned to find acceptance in it and we can move on. So, therefore, that experience in the past, with our own selves or somebody else now takes on a totally different meaning which, from that moment on, changes your present moment and your future.

What about going the other way? Can we let's say, ok, this is really what I want and it's going to take X amount of time, x amount of dollars, x amount of whatever to get there? I'm being very realistic and not putting it off. Can I get there ahead of time? Can I tap into this future experience to really try to understand what the perspective I need to adopt now is, to make sure I'm in alignment with getting there and extracting all of the meaning out of it that I hope to, that I want to, in support of whatever my biggest life goal is? Can we kind of time travel in these experiences?

0:47:08 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I mean that's. I guess that goes along with visualization and all of that.

0:47:12 - Speaker 3 OK, OK.

0:47:14 - Speaker 1 I think for that a great exercise to do. If you say you have this big experience, down the road you're like, ok, I can't afford it right now, or I can't take the time right now, but I'm going to start planning it. So I like to call this a high ROI experience. Say, it's like going to Italy, for example. And I only say that because a lot of people that's their big life dream, which is a great dream.

One of my favorite places as well, but say that's your big goal. But you're like I can't do it tomorrow. So I'm going to take these small steps to make that experience in the future the best that it can possibly be. So today you're like I'm going to download Duolingo and I'm going to learn a few words, and then I'm going to look up a recipe.

0:48:01 - Speaker 3 I'm going to find the best Italian playlist on Spotify, exactly.

0:48:05 - Speaker 1 I'm going to listen to some cool Italian music.

0:48:06 - Speaker 3 I'm only eating spaghetti now until I get there.

0:48:10 - Speaker 1 And then, every week you learn how to make one new dish from a cookbook, chef Bridget's back.

Yeah, exactly, I talk about food recently. I love food. And then you think about what? Do I want to drive there? Do I want to rent a fiat? So I'm going to Google how to rent a fiat. I'm going to Google what's the best route through Tuscany. Or what's the best. Say you try a wine that you really like at a restaurant, I'm going to find the best place to have that wine in Italy. So you have all of these things to do and you're building up these little experiences on the way to this big experience. So, even at the end of the day, say you never go to Italy, but you have like it seems like you kind of did yeah, you had like 100 different experiences.

0:48:56 - Speaker 3 You might have made your brain believe you have.

0:48:58 - Speaker 1 Exactly. And you're like, you know some Italian, you know how to cook, you know how to, like, you know tell what's an Italian wine versus like a French wine or something. So you're like building all these little things.

0:49:10 - Speaker 3 You're expanding your world? Yeah, exactly Before ever leaving it.

0:49:13 - Speaker 1 But a lot of people don't do that. They're just like it's just going to be go to Italy or never go anywhere, and then they don't do it. But you could make time for these small things on the way to the big thing.

0:49:25 - Speaker 3 OK, so let's, let's rain it in a little bit here. For the person that's like, screw you guys who apparently travel all the time, I'm never going to get there, I believe I'm not going to get there, or I don't want to hear that right now because I'm salty for whatever reason. Let's bring it home. How can we build this experiential life? Be an experiential building there, here and now. What I mean is how can we really look at our life, our world right here, within the four walls or wherever we are right now, and tap into these larger than life experiences, when we maybe feel like my life isn't that great, my world isn't that great, my job isn't that great. Sure, I would love to go to Italy one day, but screw you guys, I'm stuck right here right now.

0:50:15 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, figuring out, I think happiness and that general thing is figuring out what you want and why you want it, and that sounds oversimplified. But it's gotta be true for a reason it's true for a reason, and a lot of people are living for somebody else or doing the things that somebody else wanted them to do. I think the number one regret at the end of life is not living for yourself, right.

0:50:44 - Speaker 3 Where's Ben when you need him? Yeah, shout out Ben Nemtun.

0:50:48 - Speaker 1 Shout out Ben.

0:50:49 - Speaker 3 Bucket list. He'd have that stat down.

0:50:52 - Speaker 1 He definitely has it down. But what he says about that is correct and that's from some research out of Cornell but also from the study that we did. That's what everybody said. The people that we asked that were all 65 plus. They all said their biggest regret was something that they didn't do, not the things that they'd done. So not something that they did do, and I wish that didn't happen, you would think it was that right, like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have done this.

0:51:17 - Speaker 3 Yeah, when I think regrets, that usually comes top of mind. It's like, ah, I shouldn't have been in that relationship for that long or I shouldn't have done this thing. That's interesting.

0:51:26 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and for me it definitely was that it was like I shouldn't have done something for so long. But a lot of people they just say I wish I would have taken that chance. So to your question. I think instilling urgency is really important to figure out what you want, because you don't want to go to that quote someday.

0:51:46 - Speaker 3 Right. So what do you mean by urgency? It's like we need to create a timeline, we need to give ourselves a checklist of when and what.

0:51:53 - Speaker 1 Right, exactly, so a lot of people don't think about urgency because they think they have more time, and I don't wanna make this conversation all about death, but that is where I'm going, but Meadow-Morrie, meadow-morrie, you know. So you know, Meadow-Morrie, it's a very common exercise, but not everybody knows about it. So what it is is 76 boxes. That's the average age of the American lifespan. It's slightly different around the world.

0:52:19 - Speaker 3 By the way, this visual in the book.

0:52:21 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's scary, I was like what?

0:52:23 - Speaker 3 Like all of my life is just in half a page.

0:52:27 - Speaker 1 Right, and so this year is. So. I have this printed out and I put it on my fridge and I look at it every single day. It's not meant to be depressing. It's meant to just instill urgency, because there's only 76 boxes. I'm 38, I'm exactly halfway through.

0:52:46 - Speaker 3 I'm with you Really, yeah, yeah.

0:52:49 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So you look at that and you're like I'm already 50% done. But society has told me that middle age is 50, but that's not true.

0:52:57 - Speaker 3 I plan on living to at least 110. I mean you do, but that 76 needs a few more boxes.

0:53:04 - Speaker 1 I mean, we can plan it all we want but the reality is that.

So I try to plan it around that. So I have 50% left of my life. If I'm average Hopefully I'm not average and if you look at it that way, you're like, okay, now I have X amount of. I have 38 boxes left. If I wanna go to 38 new places, say, in my lifetime, I gotta start planning one year now. If I want to say I wanna see my parents right now, I only see them once a year, so maybe they only have 10 years left, so I'm only gonna see them 10 more times, wow, that's scary. So I need to instill that urgency in my life to do these things that I wanna do now. Say I wanna write two more books in my life, I'm gonna plan what years that's gonna happen.

0:53:59 - Speaker 2 So I think, it's just planning.

0:54:01 - Speaker 1 We did this exercise in the book called Treasure Map.

0:54:05 - Speaker 2 Yeah yeah.

0:54:07 - Speaker 3 I love this. Yeah, it's a great. You walk us through the Treasure Map exercise.

0:54:10 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So after you do the Memento Mori, it's like a good time to do this, because then you're really in the space of like, wow, I have less time than I thought. And the Treasure Map starts with so say, your doctor just called and they're like Chase, sit down. We have some bad news. You only have one year left to live. Okay, so now your time is like finite. It's like you thought maybe before, that you have like an infinite amount of time, which is like what a lot of people think.

0:54:45 - Speaker 3 It's the assumption. Yeah, it's the assumption. It's the audacity we all have that needs to be checked honestly.

0:54:50 - Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly Like we're not all. Like you know, five years old Needs to be checked, so now you have a year left to live. So what are, like, the top 10 things that you're going to do in that year? You're probably hopefully going to choose the things that are the most important things to you. So this is kind of different than like a bucket list, right? Because it's not all of the things that you might have time to do someday, it's just in a year and you look at that list and you're like why am I not doing any of these things? So the exercise you write down the top 10 and then you look at it and you put an asterisk next to all the things that you're currently working on. Usually, the average answer is one or zero things.

Oh my gosh, really it's crazy and we do this exercise like every day with people. So the next part of the exercise is like we take that same idea and we make it 30 days. So now you just have 30 days to live. What are you going to do in that 30 days? And then we take it one step further. You have 24 hours left to live. Obviously, the 24 hours one is not like I'm going to go on a safari, it's like I'm going to call my mom.

I'm going to tell I'm going to forgive this person.

0:56:09 - Speaker 3 I'm going to sit on FaceTime with every person that I've ever seen in my life until their battery runs out or I run out.

0:56:17 - Speaker 1 Or it could be something so simple, Like I'm going to go sit on the beach and look at the ocean, Like okay. Or like go to the woods, or something. It's like okay, go do those things today. Like how many of those things are on your to-do list today?

0:56:31 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

0:56:31 - Speaker 1 Like probably none. And I love that, because a lot of people will say I'm going to call an old friend or I'm going to forgive someone and I'm like, please do that today. Truly, never know you could get hit by a bus today. And then you'll be like I wish I would have done all these things.

0:56:51 - Speaker 3 Yeah, truly Not to keep going down the morbid rabbit hole here.

0:56:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I feel like I'm always talking about death now, which is very true.

0:56:59 - Speaker 3 But you know, I think it's important to remember, when we're looking to build an experiential life, why it's, because what are you really going to take with you? And when you think about these experiences and you get very granular about the timeline and the finite existence we all really have, I think it sifts through a lot of the bullshit probably in your life or the excuses you're making or the people you're not keeping or keeping in your life. But to really kind of bring it to the home of the show I was telling with you, you know, ever telling you before we recorded here, ever before it comes from my father and I only know this now, being on the other side of it. But when I came home after being I had just enlisted in the Army and I came home for my first Christmas and this was around the time like we kind of knew something was going on with my dad, but they haven't, my parents didn't really tell us, me and my brother and sister in the family.

And then all of a sudden they decided I flew in to, you know, roanoke, virginia, this tiny little airport, like hey, guess what? We're getting on another airplane. You, me, your stepmom, brother and sister, we're all going to New York for Christmas. We're going to have a New York Christmas, and this was the first time all of us were together, because my parents, you know, were divorced and so we're always kind of like changing holidays and I was like, oh, this is amazing, this is so cool. At the end of that trip it's when they shared with us my father's diagnosis he was terminal, maybe a year to live, which he did have about another 10, 11 months, but what that actually was was him coming to terms with wow, I'm at the end of my days.

0:58:40 - Speaker 2 What do?

0:58:40 - Speaker 3 I want to do. I want to spend Christmas with my family. That's really the only thing that matters. It's and I think this is a great reminder for every listener to okay, italy's great, it's going to be there. All these things are great, these experiences are great, but if you took that end of the line experience and brought the line closer, what that experience looked like, who would be with you?

0:59:11 - Speaker 1 And I would challenge us when would you be?

0:59:12 - Speaker 3 Exactly, and that's the challenge I want to put on everybody. I think it's to do that to really get crystal clear on what matters to you.

0:59:22 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, this exercise is so powerful and I'm so grateful to people that do it and then reach out later and tell us what they did. Some of my favorite things is like who they're around and where they are. You know, there's been people that have like moved. Like after I did this exercise, I moved closer to nature because that's what I would want to do in my last year is to be in nature.

0:59:46 - Speaker 3 How cool is that that they realized that. Yeah, I love it, yeah.

0:59:51 - Speaker 1 I wish. I mean I wish I would have done this when I was really young, but at the same time, like I've been so lucky with what I've done. But yeah, and a lot of people you know they'll be like oh, I was going to wait to like give back and do these things until I was older and I did it now and I'm so happy that I'll always have that experience and like I feel like I use that exact same reasoning for savings accounts.

1:00:14 - Speaker 3 Yeah, over the years it's like oh no, no, no, no, no. When I make more money I'll save more money. You know I don't have, I can't afford to save anything right now. I can tell you over the years you need to tap into that savings account. You're very glad you you know, air court here only put away $100 when you think you need to put away a thousand kind of things. That that reasoning. It's the same with experience, exactly.

1:00:38 - Speaker 1 And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so glad I did that. It's like you tap into that nostalgia of, and that will save you. It's like if you save a memory and one day the memory will save you.

1:00:48 - Speaker 3 Oh I love that.

1:00:50 - Speaker 1 If you save a memory, one day the memory may save you.

1:00:53 - Speaker 2 And that's so true.

1:00:54 - Speaker 1 Like for me. I went through this like crazy year in 2020 where I got really depressed and basically just dominoes fell in my life. I got separated, I moved cities, my business wasn't going well, it was just a million things going wrong. Once, obviously, covid happened and then I one of the really really small things that I did that was very cheap and very easy was just print out like some of my best memories and like like photos, yeah Like photos of like me and my friends like and you know, maybe it was just like us on a taco night or something.

It didn't have to be crazy. Or it was like us in Iceland, for example. And like print it out and remember, like okay, before these times I had bad times as well, but then I got through it and I can get through this and I think it's really important to like make those memories because then you can go back to them and even if, like you were saying, about negative experiences, it's like even if it was negative, like maybe it's positive now, and I just love that.

1:01:52 - Speaker 3 Thank you for sharing that. I'm wondering is this kind of the part of your story Because I wanted to kind of get your personal tie in here of you know? You quote had the life. Correct me if I'm wrong. You know Forbes 30 under 30. You're getting all these celebrity shout outs from, like Kim Kardashian, us presidents, yet you write in the book how, going to fill up your car at the gas station and you were still checking your bank account, are these kind of the low lows you were talking about and was that the technique you sent through them.

1:02:20 - Speaker 1 It's funny Like that's not actually.

1:02:22 - Speaker 3 Oh, there's more shitty stuff. I loved the story. I've lived quite the life.

1:02:27 - Speaker 1 No, I mean, I'll go like way back before that. So I grew up in Flint, michigan. I did not come from anything, and I know that it sounds to a lot of people when we talk about traveling the world that probably both came from a lot of money, but that is not the case.

1:02:42 - Speaker 2 Nope.

1:02:45 - Speaker 3 So I grew up in Flint Not a lot of money.

1:02:46 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I mean it grew up in a place that's famous for like having a water crisis and Michael Moore movies, but I was always really, really into music and that was like the love of my life. That was my passion and, very long story short, I started working in music when I was 14. I did jobs like picking up trash at music venues and getting coffee for people at radio stations.

1:03:09 - Speaker 3 Working in music? She said, yeah, working. There's not a lot of music jobs in Michigan. I'm in the music industry. Didn't I see you picking up water bottles?

1:03:17 - Speaker 1 at the festival. That's literally what I was like, but someone was on stage. That's the attitude, that's the perspective, but it was like it was hard, you know, and it was, I was doing that stuff for free or $5 an hour To put you in closer proximity to this experiential life, To like my dreams you know, and like sometimes you just have to do those really hard, difficult things.

And you know, at the time I was literally like living out of my car and like it was really, really hard, but like that led me to working in the actual music industry. Right, and I would have never had that experience without these like little things that were building up. And so I worked for a universal music group for about a decade and and I went from like the mail room you know in Detroit I was making like 20 grand a year.

1:04:04 - Speaker 3 Oh, it's like one of those stories. Oh yeah, mail room to boardroom.

1:04:08 - Speaker 1 Well, I wasn't exactly in the boardroom. I wish.

1:04:09 - Speaker 3 Same floors of boardroom. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was actually in the boardroom adjacent.

1:04:13 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I went from the Detroit office, which obviously no longer exists. That was like when music is different than it is now, but I ended up moving to LA and that was the best thing that ever happened to me and so, like, having these like small things build up to that really changed my life and I was around all of these people that were, you know, becoming incredibly successful, like I was at the very start of, like you know, the Taylor Swift's Bieber, drake, you know our love able.

Yeah, Talk about the weekend and yeah, that was actually the last artist I worked with there, but yeah, I again.

1:04:51 - Speaker 3 I like I fanboyed out when. I heard you say that before it was one of my favorite artists.

1:04:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and it was really fun, but, uh, but I was also like never, you know, making a lot of money. I was just like in these, having these incredible experiences that, like most people might dream about, especially in their twenties. Um, but I was never like, oh, I'm going to drive a Maserati or something, but from there so I'll just give you another, like some, some life background. So from there I I ended up seeing this video on YouTube of a woman hearing for the first time.

Um, and that made me think about how important music had been in my life and how, if I could give that gift to someone, that would be the greatest thing ever to help somebody.

1:05:36 - Speaker 2 Wow, yeah, cool.

1:05:39 - Speaker 1 So I ended up starting a company that is called listen and we make headphones and speakers and we um, we give the proceeds to this charity called Starkey Hearing Foundation, and that's the whole reason why I've been able to travel around the world, right, because I was giving this whole time. It wasn't just for fun, it's like actually a purpose. Um, since 2012, we would, we've been able to help over 50,000 kids here for the first time.

1:06:05 - Speaker 3 That's amazing.

1:06:06 - Speaker 1 Wow, it's been really fun, but the what you're referencing is like the Forbes thing was actually the um, the impetus of experiential billionaire. So when I was going through all of this, like you know, quote unquote success the reality was that we were giving away all of our money and then spending the rest on traveling around the world and helping people, which was awesome.

Right, like it was the greatest thing we never got rich. We never were like Dr Dre selling, you know like Apple for $3 billion, um, but we ended up like getting on all these lists like Forbes, 30 under 30 and a head of people reach out to me like from high school or from you know, from my hometown and asked me to borrow money. And it was just really funny because I was like I don't.

1:06:53 - Speaker 3 She made it. She's got to have it swimming in it.

1:06:57 - Speaker 1 So I would just be like um actually can you float me, yeah, I need to pay my bills. Um, but we, we would just meet my business partner. We just laugh about it because we would say like well, we're not exactly billionaires, but we are experiential billionaires.

1:07:12 - Speaker 3 And that's where we get the term.

1:07:14 - Speaker 1 And that's like it started from like an inside joke. Um, because it was really true. Because, like, if you would present me with like some huge bank account, or you could present me with like what I've done in my life so far, like I would choose that a hundred times over. Like all the things that we've done to help people has, like made my life so rich and so much better than I could have ever imagined when I was a kid. So it's, the greatest thing in my life was to be able to travel the world and help people. So that's where that came from.

1:07:45 - Speaker 2 And, yeah, I feel like I was living the life, even though I never you know.

1:07:48 - Speaker 1 Quote unquote got rich.

1:07:50 - Speaker 3 I feel so wealthy along your journey and in the book you definitely drive home this point of play and I loved it because I think it's such an important contributing factor to this experiential billionaire lifestyle they talk about and also for us to just really have fun with our life and have fun with our goals and remind us to not be so serious and to not just, you know, check something off your list and not actually sit with it and be with it and play with it. Why is play so important and what role does it play in contribution to having this experiential lifestyle and just overall fulfillment, I would say meaning of life?

1:08:38 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I think you're right is that everything doesn't have to be so serious all the time, and the things that you might remember are like the silly, weird things.

1:08:47 - Speaker 3 Right, yeah, yeah.

1:08:50 - Speaker 1 Like an example is. So this is so ridiculous Me and my friends I have five girlfriends that every single year for the last 14 years we've gone to the mall in Burbank and we go sit on Santa's lap and take a picture as adults. As adults. This is for the last 14 years.

1:09:11 - Speaker 3 We sit in the same exact formation. You've got a timeline of this book. That's amazing.

1:09:17 - Speaker 1 I'll send you it.

1:09:18 - Speaker 3 That's amazing.

1:09:20 - Speaker 1 And like even though our you know families might change, like a lot of them have kids now and whatever we're like, no kids in the photo.

1:09:27 - Speaker 3 I must have cosigned on this. I like this idea a lot. That's great.

1:09:30 - Speaker 1 And so every year we do this and we can like see over time, like how this changes, Like that. You know it might cost $20 for like a photo.

It is every single year. I look forward to it and it's so funny and we always post it like online and we can see like how each other have changed. But even if I never, like a couple of these girls have moved away and, like you know, grown their families and whatnot and have different jobs or whatever, but every year I know that I get to see them for like at least one thing, and it's so silly and so stupid but it is hysterical and we laugh like for like hours every year. So just those little things are like. You're going to remember that.

1:10:13 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:10:14 - Speaker 1 Like I'm always going to remember that it's just making things more interesting. I use an example in the book that I I love wine and I started making my own wine during COVID is like my little pandemic project. So fun and so interesting. But when I when I finished the wine, I had like a party, like a small party, where I had everyone when they entered they had to do a song about the wine.

1:10:48 - Speaker 3 Like off the cuff style.

1:10:51 - Speaker 1 Oh no, they like prepared it.

1:10:52 - Speaker 3 Oh yeah.

1:10:53 - Speaker 2 It was like a competition, even better.

1:10:54 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:10:55 - Speaker 3 So she means business.

1:10:57 - Speaker 1 But even though it was, you know, meaning business, quote unquote, it was one of the funniest nights of my life. Like just watching my friends, like be silly, like when is the last time that you like made up a song and like performed it for your friend?

1:11:09 - Speaker 2 Like as a joke Never, never, or maybe when you were a kid, not yet Right as a kid.

1:11:16 - Speaker 1 Like you, you probably used to do all of those things as a kid.

Like I'm going to get up and like, do a talent show in my family or I'm going to like make up a joke or make up a song, but like we don't do that as an adult, like as an adult. So I just thought it would be like a funny thing to do and that's like an easy way to make a memory that you would have had otherwise. I've had a million like wine tastings in my life, but like I don't remember most of them, like I remember that.

1:11:42 - Speaker 3 Well, it's probably because you had too many wine. Yeah, probably.

1:11:46 - Speaker 1 But like I'm always going to remember that, even though, like, obviously the wine wasn't that good, Right. So I remember just eating pizza, it wasn't like some big, expensive thing, it was just like at my apartment. It was the most fun thing ever and I like doing things like that, like having themes around like dinners or something it's just like makes it fun.

you know, do things that are like when you were a kid that you would do. One of my favorite questions from the survey that we did of 20,000 people was what was your favorite thing you did as a kid and do you still do it, and why not?

1:12:26 - Speaker 3 Oh, do you still do it? Yeah, great addition.

1:12:29 - Speaker 1 So what would you say?

1:12:31 - Speaker 3 I would say most people don't. And why not is probably because they deem it to be. That's something a child does. That's not what an adult does.

1:12:42 - Speaker 1 It's like what would you still want to? The answer is yes.

1:12:45 - Speaker 3 They all probably get that mischievous grin.

1:12:50 - Speaker 1 Like a lot of people will say, like I used to ride horses when I was a kid but I don't anymore or I used to go ice skating or play tag, you can still do that. But they're afraid that people will judge them or whatever.

1:13:06 - Speaker 3 Or they might even judge themselves yeah.

1:13:08 - Speaker 1 And you don't need to like have fun.

1:13:09 - Speaker 3 Life is short Like have a good time.

1:13:15 - Speaker 1 I just forgot what I was going to say.

1:13:17 - Speaker 3 I got a question for you, if you're pausing there, how can we maybe get others on board to these great low barrier to entry, maybe even free experiences that build such important core memories, if maybe they themselves don't quite see the value? And it's like you know, I got this person, this family member, these people in my life that I'm trying to change my life and adopt these changes here right now, but they're just not on board. And it's important to me for them to be on board because that's the experience I'm trying to build.

And how do we? How do we, I guess, be more inclusive to other people and be more inviting and, ideally, give them the same experience that we're trying to get?

1:14:01 - Speaker 1 I think that's a great question, and this is something that I haven't really talked about. What I really like the concept of is so we have, like, the holidays coming up, right, so think of like one person that you're going to buy a gift for, like. Instead of buying them a gift like, get them an experience that you know that they would like.

1:14:21 - Speaker 3 Yes.

1:14:22 - Speaker 2 Maybe, yes, so return the favor.

1:14:23 - Speaker 1 Yeah, they'll do something that you want to do with them, one of my favorite things to do is we call this exercise like best day ever. It's like just take a whole day and do things that you want to do locally that are like all of your favorite things in one day.

1:14:40 - Speaker 3 This is a great date idea too by the way.

1:14:42 - Speaker 1 Yeah, totally, I've done this a couple of times with my wife.

1:14:44 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:14:45 - Speaker 3 I didn't call it best day ever, but same thing.

1:14:47 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:14:48 - Speaker 3 If you can make it about your significant other, you're welcome. Yeah, you're welcome.

1:14:52 - Speaker 2 You're welcome future Also with, just like a friend or whatever you know like.

1:14:59 - Speaker 1 I love doing this because most of the time it's something that's really cheap. It's like okay, like, let's, you know, watch the sunset, let's go for a drive down PCH. Let's do like, listen to this, let's go surfing.

1:15:11 - Speaker 3 We did, as part of many of the things we did, a hop on, hop off, hop off bus to an LA. Oh, my God, I wish I said we only normally do when we travel.

1:15:18 - Speaker 1 But I was like I also love that being a tourist in your own house.

1:15:21 - Speaker 3 Exactly that's what we did so fun.

1:15:23 - Speaker 1 I love doing that. So if you do that for someone like, hopefully they'll like want to do that for you right? Maybe not, but yeah, that's a good way to like get them involved At least you'll plant that seed, you know, hopefully.

1:15:36 - Speaker 3 And then I'm never about that tit for tat kind of life, but you know you can take note of the people and this is a great way to establish healthy boundaries and relationships and just be mindful of. Okay, maybe my experience needs to change because they're not picking up when I'm putting down a kind of thing.

1:15:50 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and you never know Like you could go do something that your friend or family member loves and you are always like I don't know.

1:15:59 - Speaker 2 You might end up loving it yeah.

1:16:01 - Speaker 1 You know like I went hunting with my dad last year and when I was growing up, my parents were both hunters and I was like this does not interest me Same.

1:16:10 - Speaker 3 Yeah, I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Hunting was not my thing, not at all Right.

1:16:16 - Speaker 1 But I was like you know what? My parents are getting older, Like I'm going to go do the one thing that I know my dad do it for them, yeah. Like I'm going to do it just because, like that's like core memory.

1:16:26 - Speaker 2 Right.

1:16:27 - Speaker 1 Like he's going to remember that, I'm going to remember that. So I went and then I ended up loving it.

1:16:32 - Speaker 3 Really.

1:16:33 - Speaker 1 This is something that I never thought I would be interested in, right, but I loved it and I think it's just because I love nature and I love like it just felt very like wow, people have been doing this for a million years.

1:16:44 - Speaker 3 You know like right, that's how we got here.

1:16:48 - Speaker 1 So trying things that other people like, that you might not be like initially open to, is super important, I think, to like expand your horizons.

1:16:57 - Speaker 3 And I love what you talked about there of it seems like you kind of enjoyed the whole experience, but you hit on one key component of the experience that, oh, I'm out in nature and I know that I love that and I think it's a really important reminder to pick up on is that when building a building, building these grandiose experiences, or maybe trying to find value and experiences we already have or know are coming, if we can't get on board with the full picture, what's a component of that?

1:17:24 - Speaker 1 Right.

1:17:25 - Speaker 3 It's going to most likely look and feel different, but that's kind of the point, right.

1:17:29 - Speaker 1 It's so funny. Yeah, you can just choose like one thing that you know that you'll enjoy. Like I know I'm going to enjoy sitting outside and like the beautiful fall weather and like the leaves and stuff and like if I can just get that, maybe I'll like the other stuff.

1:17:41 - Speaker 3 There you go, there you go, what. You kind of wrap up the book with a great little bow. And before we get to my final question, I want to ask you this another quote, this one's from Robert Byrne the purpose of life is a purposeful life. Is a purposeful life something we ever really achieve? Like, I got it? It's a thing, it's a finish line, or is it more of a mindset that we must learn how to adopt and keep with us in pursuit of that fictional or realistic kind of timeline or benchmark? Wow?

1:18:19 - Speaker 1 It's a deep question. I think that you can achieve it. I'd like to think that everything I've done in purpose with my business and what not giving hearing has led me to a more purposeful life. And I think purpose, really it drives me. Money does not drive me, and I'm so not anti-money, I'm so not. This book isn't about that. It's not about, like, screw money, I'm just going to do things there free.

It's not that it really doesn't drive me as far as like purpose truly drives me, because I know that's what I'm going to care about at the end of my life and that is like my ripple effect. It's like how can I touch people's lives and they can touch people's lives and that's how you live forever. No one's actually going to live forever, but your purpose is like how you'll live forever.

1:19:22 - Speaker 3 That is how you obtain immortality.

1:19:24 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:19:25 - Speaker 3 Absolutely, and that takes me back to a big Stoic fan and reminds me a lot of the Roman emperors and just really any conqueror in time, some definitely a little more ego driven than others and having a different kind of legacy and mortality in mind, but ultimately that is. That's immensely powerful, especially when we use and work towards a purpose driven life to leverage that same purpose and experience, or how to achieve purpose and how to achieve experiences to then pass back for everyone and anyone that wants to pay attention to what we left behind. That's what I'm here to do.

1:20:03 - Speaker 1 Absolutely. I don't think there's anything more important than like what you can help others with. And that doesn't have to be giving away a million dollars.

1:20:13 - Speaker 3 Which is dope. If you can do that, I would like to do that.

1:20:15 - Speaker 1 I've done it. I've never. I have given away far more money than I've ever made, and I can say that.

1:20:22 - Speaker 3 I sound like my accountant. Yeah, exactly.

1:20:26 - Speaker 1 My accountant is listening to me like why? But to me, I mean again, I've been like in the lowest lows and the highest highs of life and like the purpose always brings it back. You know, it's like that's what I'm going to care about. I'm not going to care about a watch or a fancy car or something like that. I'm going to care about like what I did to help other people and like help the environment and help.

You know animals or whatever my purpose is Like, for me it's other people, but you know for you.

1:20:54 - Speaker 2 It could be your kids or your parents or anything that you can do to help others.

1:20:59 - Speaker 1 Like you know, that's how you live forever.

1:21:02 - Speaker 3 And you know, it's easier to be happy and to find the gratitude and value in all the experiences when we're at that highest, high right. What about when we're at that lowest, low?

1:21:18 - Speaker 1 I mean, I think one of the interesting things in our survey was when we asked people what was the most valuable experience of your life and one third of people said a negative experience.

1:21:34 - Speaker 3 Really.

1:21:34 - Speaker 1 So it was like the worst experience of their life. Say, it was like my mom got cancer and then I realized how you know important our relationship was. I stepped up and I took care of her. Or it was, you know, I was homeless and I realized like I have to be grateful for everything that I have. Like once they got out of that situation they were, like, so grateful. Or there was a bunch of people that said you know, I was addicted to you know X drug and now I work in addiction. You know treatment. Oh well, it's powerful.

And it's like then they're helping people that were just like them because they can see how hard that is and for me, like I would say, the most valuable experience of my life I was in that one third is like going through depression and whatnot. It's like now I just truly feel so grateful, like for all that I've had in my life, and like any day that I wake up happy, I'm like this is great, oh yeah we're awake yeah.

I'm like I'm alive, Like to watch the sunrise and it's going to be awesome, and so I think there's a lot of reframing that we try to do in the book around negative experiences, whether it's something life changing like that or if it's just like a funny story later. Right, like I've been through a lot of things that, like when I was a teenager I went to jail for a day and it was like really stupid.

1:22:59 - Speaker 2 Honestly, it's like a funny story, right Like it was like at the moment.

1:23:05 - Speaker 1 I was like this is the worst day of my life.

1:23:07 - Speaker 3 Parents are going to kill me.

1:23:08 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't believe how stupid I am. But now I'm older I'm like that's hilarious. So a lot of these like negative things can just be funny later, and I think that that's a good way to think about, like when you're in the lowest of lows, maybe just like visualize yourself later on either thinking that it's funny or thinking like I can learn from this and. I can grow from this and change from this If you never go through anything negative in your life, like who are you going to be?

1:23:35 - Speaker 3 Yeah, truly.

1:23:36 - Speaker 1 Like probably pretty boring.

1:23:39 - Speaker 3 Boring, not able to really extract value or gratitude or lessons out of these things. You know when I think back on, when you pulled everybody, was it three life experiences.

1:23:53 - Speaker 1 Oh yeah, one of the top three, Okay.

1:23:56 - Speaker 3 So when I think of the top three life experiences I've had so far in my short 38 years of existence, two of the top ones for damn sure during were the worst experiences in my life and without them I would not literally be here sitting with you today, losing my father at such an early age and having my identity and career and physical self radically ripped out from underneath me during my time in the military.

Who I thought it was going to be was this guy that served his country, did 20 years and went on to retire, while also having this amazing relationship with my father, and both of those were completely taken away from me at the time. That's what I thought and wrecked me and ruined me. Now it's so weird to say this, but two of the best experiences in my life I would not be here, we would not be having this conversation, I wouldn't have put myself on the path after that career shift to figure out what it means to be human and how can I be better. And physical, mental resilience. It's two of the most important, radically life changing situations I've ever gone through. That, of course, you never would wish on anybody, but damn it, I wouldn't change anything for the heroes journey, yeah, right, yeah.

1:25:10 - Speaker 1 What was your third? Yeah?

1:25:14 - Speaker 3 Talk about my wife too much. No, you don't. I love her, she's dope. But yeah, truly, marrying May was the greatest Hands down, the greatest in my life.

1:25:27 - Speaker 1 Hands down the greatest she have a brother, she does.

1:25:30 - Speaker 3 He's single. Saman, I'll link you guys up after the show, right? You like to eat Persian foods? The best, right? Look, I've been gone hungry in 10 years. I'm surprised I'm not 100 pounds bigger. But you know, bridget, thank you so much for coming on the show and before I get to the final question, I just want to remind everybody about your work, the book Experiential Billionaire, and just how much you have been a reminder to recognize what we have going for us right here, right now, first and foremost, and then how and why it's necessary to work towards a future that is not just something we're attaching our life and dreams and finances to, but actually has meaning and worth, and we're going to look back on it, you know, a year from now, 10 years from now, and still hold, if not have, even more, value and appreciation for it.

1:26:25 - Speaker 1 So thank you Love it. Thank you so much for having me so ever forward.

1:26:29 - Speaker 3 How do we move forward in life? That's what the show is all about, and so I always ask my guests the same question at the end what does that mean to you? How would you say that you live a life ever forward?

1:26:40 - Speaker 1 I think we have very similar values and the way that I live my life ever forward is honestly just trying to have as many new experiences as I can whether that's, you know, learning something new, going somewhere new, meeting someone new, just trying to grow every single day. You know, if you just do one new thing every day, even if it's a tiny, tiny thing like, you'll be going ever forward.

1:27:06 - Speaker 3 That's so true. It doesn't have to be this grandiose life changing thing, which can be for some people, but you make it very real and very granular, very here and now. The next choice you make could change every choice for the rest of your life.

1:27:21 - Speaker 1 Exactly, and if you're kind of like climbing a mountain peak, then you see another one.

1:27:25 - Speaker 3 That's how it. Like you don't?

1:27:26 - Speaker 1 see those things until you get there.

1:27:28 - Speaker 3 Absolutely, we'll bridge it. Where can everybody go to connect with you? Learn more about the book.

1:27:33 - Speaker 1 Sure Go to experientialbillionairecom. My personal website is Bridget Hiltoncom, which is where I book my keynotes and whatnot.