16 Ben Nemtin: How to Achieve Your Wildest Dreams

What does it take to achieve your biggest dreams? For Ben Nemtin and three of his Canadian friends, it was a willingness to announce their dreams to the world, take massive action, and help others along the way. They have proven over and over that no dream is too big to achieve and anything is […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to episode number 16 with Ben Nemtin.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Yo, yo, yo. What is up, greats? I hope you're having a fantastic day today. It was super sunny today in LA and all day yesterday, I was on the beach, playing some beach volleyball, having some good time with my friends, but I'm back on the podcast today. And I'm excited about this one because I've got a good friend of mine, his name is Ben Nemtin, and he is one of the stars of the show on MTV called The Buried Life. And if you haven't seen this show, you gotta go check it out. See if you can find some episodes online or something. It's very inspiring. What they do is they basically find things that they want to do, and put them on a bucket list, and then they go cross them off. It's pretty cool. But they also go help other people check off things on their bucket list.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  It's a very inspiring show, and I encourage you to check it out. Before I get into Ben and the show and what you're gonna learn today, I want to give you a quote for the day. I want to start doing some quotes. I really like quotes. So I'm gonna start sharing these hopefully each and every week, each and every episode. The quote for today, I've got this on my wall right now. It is, "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." And that's by Oscar Wilde. And I like that one because sometimes we can forget about the path we're on and the journey we're on. We kind of get sidetracked. Maybe we've got too many shiny objects or too many opportunities coming our way, but really, you gotta stay focused and you gotta be true to who you are

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  and do what you feel is right. So be yourself because everyone else is already taken. That's my quote for the day. Hope you liked that one. Here's what you're gonna learn in this episode with Ben. Now, I've known Ben for a couple of years. From an event called Summit Series, actually, we met each other. And I wanted to get him on here because every time we talk and hang out, he's super inspiring. He's always got something that he and his crew, his buried life crew are chasing or going after, are on a journey to achieve and to learn and grow. And I really like that. So in this episode, you're going to learn some great things about how to accomplish your own dreams and how to accomplish your own goals. And he's got a six step formula for accomplishing any dream.

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  Now, this formula is pretty cool and I believe in it myself. So you're going to want to make sure you take notes during this six step formula. He's also going to share his journey about how he went from just a young kid from Canada. And he and a few of his friends basically had this idea to create a show. And now they're on MTV and they're doing even more shows now. So they've got some great stories and some great experiences he's got to share with you on this episode. I'm excited for you to learn it. Want to go really quickly into the review of the week before we get into my interview with Ben. And this week's review, we got a bunch of awesome reviews. I appreciate you guys leaving your five star reviews over on iTunes.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  But this one was from Jeff Thornton. And Jeff's title said, "A True How's To For Greatness." You like how he used my name, "How's To," get it? He said, "This is just another success to add to Lewis's already fantastic portfolio. This podcast delivers high quality content that stimulates your mind and motivates you to continue to follow your passion. I started this podcast and finished all the episodes in two days. Truly amazing lineup and fantastic material." And Jeff goes on for a little bit, but I appreciate you, Jeff, and you are the review of the week. So thanks so much. And with that, guys, I appreciate all your reviews and comments.

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  I'm getting you, a lot of listeners sending me Instagram photos of where you're listening to the podcast. Someone was at Newport Beach the other day posting an Instagram picture saying how inspired they were on the beach, listening to this. So thanks again. If you want to post a picture on Instagram and tag me at Lewis Howes of where you are listening to the podcast, I'll give you a quick shout out next time. And with that, guys, let's get into the episode with Ben Nemtin.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  What's up everyone, I am back again with a friend of mine and a special guest. His name is Ben Nemtin. What's up brother, how you doing Ben?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  I'm good man, how are you?

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm doing excellent. We were just chatting about some of the cool things you're doing right now with your production company and selling some new shows and I want to get into that in a second. But what you're most known for, I guess, in kind of pop culture is the show you did, which is The Buried Life. And for people that don't know what The Buried Life is, it's a really cool show that was, I guess it had, what did it have, two seasons on MTV?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  Two seasons on MTV and it's basically a bucket list with Ben and his, three of his buddies, where they go around and try to cross things off the list, like make a television show. I think you had be on Oprah, play basketball with the president, a lot of other cool things. I think become a number one New York Times bestseller was one, which you've achieved a lot of these different things. And it's an extremely inspiring show. It's actually a show that I wouldn't think would be on MTV, but I think you guys pulled it off amazingly, so congrats on that.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Thank you man.

• 5:50Lewis Howes?

  And what was the, I guess it was back in, was it back in 2006 when you had the idea for the show?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, in West Philadelphia.

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  So tell me, so tell me how it came about?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  So we grew up in Victoria, B.C., up in Canada. You know, all four of us went to similar high schools in the community. So Victoria's pretty small, we kind of all knew each other. So it's Duncan and Johnny who are brothers and Dave who is Johnny's best friend. So I was going to college at the time and yeah, it was actually a friend of mine who started a clothing line out of high school, sort of like no experience in fashion, no, no money from his parents, no connections.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Took out a loan and started this clothing line and I was just kind of, it was such a cool line. And I was just like, dude, how'd you, you know, like how'd you do this? And he just sort of said, well, you know, I just, I just did it. And I was like gravitating towards people that were doing really cool things and so. I just sort of thought like, fuck, I wanna do something like that, you know, I wanna make something cool that my friends will respect and that, you know, I could, I could, I could really have a lot of fun doing and um, and I saw some videos that, that Johnny had been posting on Facebook of him and his friends partying at McGill University. And he had made these like, these videos that were just the most sort of inspirational party videos you've ever seen. They were just made you wanna go out and get drunk with your friends, so.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  You know, I, I called him, I was like, Johnny, let's make a movie this summer. And he was like, I just got back from Cuba with Dave and, and we were talking about making something and and serendipitously Duncan, Johnny's older brother, had come up to me in the bar in Victoria and been like, let's, let's do something. And so, we all got on Skype, actually. Um, because it was the only thing that we could afford, we started having these calls about making a movie. We didn't know what we wanted to make a movie about, but we decided that we wanted to make, um, you know, something. And, and we kinda kept on coming down these, to these dead ends creatively about what, what kinda documentary we wanted to make and finally, we got frustrated and we said, okay, let's just make a list of everything

• 8:05Speaker 01

  we would wanna make a documentary about. Like, what do we wanna make a movie about? Let's not think about what we should make it about. Like, if we could make a movie about anything, what would it be?

• 8:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  And so, we all went our separate ways for a week and made this list of things we would wanna make a movie about. And then we came back around this circle, so to speak, and went around and everyone said there, there are things they wanted to make a movie about and we just liked so many of the things that people listed off. Someone said, well, why don't we just do all of these? And so, that's kinda where the list was born. And at that same time, Johnny was at McGill and he was in English class and he got assigned this poem um, in English, you know, one hundred called The Buried Life.

• 8:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  And it was this poem by Matthew Arnold, written in eighteen fifties. And there's this English poet who was like in his fifties and, and this, there's four lines in this poem that really spoke to Johnny, um, and kinda resonated with him and he brought him back to us and those, the lines were, "But often in the world's most crowded streets, but often in the din of strife, there rises an unspeakable desire after the knowledge of our buried life."

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  And, uh- He was like, guys, this is like what we're talking about this feeling of unrest and this feeling of like we want to do something, but we don't know what it is. You know, it's like we have all these things we want to do, but we get, you know, kind of buried by life and uh. But you have these moments when you know what it is and then it just gets buried and then you have another moment of inspiration and then it gets buried. And you end up like never doing the things you really want to do.

• 9:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  So he said, we said, I said, like, okay, well, let's take this name like we don't even know what the. The the movie is or the project, but let's just call it the buried life.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Um, and from then, from there, we we took sort of the next step, which was. Um, we decided that we were gonna base it around this question, what do you want to do before you die? And we were gonna ask people, you know, as we traveled, what do you want to do before you die? And and and base the documentary around that and and talk about why they had or had not done the things they wanted to do in their life and. And by by doing that, maybe we could find a direction of what we wanted to do with our life.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Cause we didn't really know and and we also had this idea that we would make our own list and on the side we would do our list. But we never thought our list would be in the documentary. We always thought that would be a little too self-serving like. We would, we would ask people and we would profile them, but we would do our list on the side and. And that would be something different, but um, so we didn't have any money, uh, you know, our parents didn't fund us.

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  How old are you guys now?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Now I'm twenty nine.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  I mean, how mu- how many you had to, how old are you guys at the time, I mean?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Uh, twenty two.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Seven years ago.

• 10:47Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. No money, you're broke and you got these ideas.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're broke, we're like, we want to make a movie, so.

• 10:56Lewis Howes?

  But no one's ever made a movie.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  No, I didn't even know how to use a camera. I was studying psychology, which no one even knows what that is.

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Um, and Johnny and Duncan had grown up like making, you know, skateboard movies, snowboard movies. They made like weird wizard movies when they were kids like they. Had played around with cameras and editing, but no one had gone to school for it, so. Duncan and Johnny sort of went up to the oil rigs and um made uh some money so we could build a website and buy a camera and then I would just call production comp- uh no, I would call companies in the phone book pretending to be a production company, get through the CEO, sell them on the movie we were making, sell them on the idea that they should get involved and like this local juice company ended up giving us enough money to pay for our gas. Wow. And that was all we needed. We bought an RV, we made two, four matching T-shirts with

• 11:47Speaker 01

  the Berry Life on it and this like logo with the shovel and we, we took off and we were like, okay, we're gonna go after this list and you know, we're gonna, we're gonna talk with people, we're gonna ask them what they wanna do before they die and if we can help them do the thing that they wanna do, then that's, then that's what we're gonna do. Right. Amazing. Yeah, so it's, so we set out as, you know, just a couple friends basically going on a road trip for two weeks to make a documentary and the first day we did it, we ended up getting on the front page of the newspaper in our local town. Wow. And uh then that sort of ended up getting some media buzz and then it was provincial news, you know, which is the equivalent of state news and then it was national news

• 12:32Speaker 01

  and, and then we had all of a sudden all, you know, we had our list posted online. This is back in two thousand seven, right? So this is, oh, sorry, this is two thousand six. YouTube was sort of just getting going. Right. You know, uh I remember we started Twitter in two thousand seven, but we did make a simple website and um we posted our list and so we, we noticed our, our uh in, our inbox was started to, was like starting to fill up and people starting to email us being like, hey, I saw your list online, like you wanna ride a bull, my uncle has a bull, like he can help. Shut up. Yeah, or like, you guys wanna make a toast to strangers wedding? We got invited to twelve weddings in two weeks to make toast. Oh my gosh.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, um and then people sending us like emails saying, my, my, my, my friend wants to do, do a duet with Michael Buble, like can you help him? Or I wanna fly an F-18 fighter jet, please help me and. Wow. You know, sending us their dreams and what we realized sort of is people were really starting to get inspired by the idea of four guys going after their dreams, you know, their dream list. Um which we didn't really expect because we thought.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  In the beginning, we weren't really gonna be, uh, us doing our list wasn't really gonna be part of it. But they just wanted us to finish, you know, they just wanted us to do the things on our list and they would. I remember one, one list item was lead a parade and we crashed this parade in Penticton. It's like a small town in B C and we just drove our RV, like made it into a float and. And we were, we were, we were going through the parade and people in the, in the crowd were yelling at us saying, you know, nice one crossing off number twelve.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  You're crossing off and so that was kind of a cool thing because we were like, wow, people are really rooting for us. So we, um, so yeah, we, we kind of were able to, and we, when we were crossing off things, we didn't think we could cross off. You know, we like opened the six o'clock news at a major news station, you know.

• 14:27Lewis Howes?

  Playing basketball with Obama.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's that?

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  Playing basketball with Obama.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean that, yeah, and then it, I mean, ultimately it sort of built that.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, we, so we finished that two week tour, a producer saw us on the news. He emailed us and said, have you guys ever thought about making a TV show? And one of the things on the list was to make a TV show. We ended up getting offered a show in Canada, but we turned it down because they wanted to own the, the buried life, basically. So we just, you know, we didn't care too much to do that much to do TV, so we just decided to keep doing it ourselves. We went back to school, but we raised more money the next year and got a, bought a bus, got a crew from L A and filmed more the next summer for two months. Still going for the documentary and then had this epiphany like we were making this to inspire our friends, right? And we kind of had this epiphany that was, you know, if we make this documentary, none of our friends are gonna watch it.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  You know, like, maybe it gets into a film festival, but it's not gonna have the effect we want. Like if we want this to be seen, like we gotta make TV.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  So we decided to make our own pilot and start coming down to L A to hustle it down here. And so that's what we did and, you know, we made our way to the right production company that could get us there and. Slowly but surely, kind of caught our way there.

• 15:48Lewis Howes?

  So when did your fir- when did the first episode air on MTV of The Buried Life?

• 15:53Speaker 01

  It was, um, 2010, I think early 2010.

• 15:57Lewis Howes?

  So 2006, you have this idea, well, your friend has a fashion line and you're like inspired by this idea that he's creating something cool and you like it. You and three buddies get together and say, let's create something cool, like a documentary that's going to inspire friends. It turns into a TV show and four years later, you're on MTV.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  I mean, it's pretty amazing, dude.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  It is when you, when you think about it like that. I mean, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, four years is a long time. There's a lot of ups and downs.

• 16:25Lewis Howes?

  Right. And you probably thought it was too long.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  We also didn't start it to make a TV show.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  I think it's important, you know, like we didn't, we didn't design Buried Life as a pitch.

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  Right. Um. It wasn't until year two, when you were like, okay, let's make this a show. But you really had no experience, you know, four years prior to the show coming out with raising money, with being on camera. Maybe you guys had done like some goofy videos before, but not actually being on camera. And all the different facets of what you need to do to produce a great show. You just kind of learned it along the way, right?

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  Now, now whatever, did you guys ever come close to like creating some type of documentary type, like a 60 to 90 minute documentary, or did you guys just never even get there?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  No, we haven't got there. Um, we still want to and it's still one of our, uh, goals, you know? And we still film everything, but the stor- I don't think the story is quite finished.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  Okay, keeping, oh, you mean your story?

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  In general, because you haven't crossed everything off your list.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  You know, across, and there's some major things we want to cross off our list, like go to space that we haven't done. Um, and make a movie, you know, like a feature film, which I think would be really cool to show in the documentary. Um, but, uh, it's, it's, it's all, we have, you know, all the footage is there.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  And, um, so it's definitely something that we want to do.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Now, what, how many, were there a hundred things on the list or were there more than a hundred?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  There was always a hundred, um, but we, it's not a static list. It's dynamic. I mean, we, we add stuff to it all the time. We take stuff off. I mean, as you grow, your priorities change.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  You know, we see something like, oh, that'd be really cool to do. Let's, let's try and do that. And, and we, and we add something. So we've done about like, technically, I think we've done about seventy-nine or eighty of the list that as it stands right now. I mean, the list on our Facebook page, um, but we've also done a lot more that we've taken off.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Okay. You've done a lot more that you've taken out. Why, why don't you keep it on there if you've already done it? Why wouldn't you just leave it on there?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Uh, it's a good question. And we've, we've talked about that, um.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  You're not proud of it or something, or?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Well, we, no, cause we, yeah. We don't want to tell anyone. No, we, we like having the list at one hundred.

• 18:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  There's big things on there that we still want to do that we don't want to take off to put on other things that we have already done. But eventually I think the list, the cap will come off one hundred and we'll, uh, and we'll just have a, just a, a sort of a longer sprawling list of the things that have been done. Um, but we just haven't really gotten there yet.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Now, but you're pretty close. You're like eighty percent done, which is pretty amazing. And you're only twenty-nine, is that right?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  Twenty-nine, you've completed eighty of the hundred things you wanted to do before you die. You've got probably many years left on your life. But, you know, for a lot of people, um, they probably don't cross off, you know, ten things on their, on their list. By the time they're fifty and it's because they have a buried life. Now, why do you think, what are some of the causes for people to have a buried life, do you think? And just never really get around to doing what they want to do?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, I think there's a lot of, a lot of things and, you know, it obviously varies, um, from person to person. I definitely don't claim to be an expert in, in this sort of area, but I mean, from what I've found, just from.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  The people that we've met and in my own experience, really, just with doing these things is um. You know, I think people are stopped by the usual suspects, like money, um, you know, kind of time and that. That idea that you get in your head, like, I don't, I don't have time to do that. I've I've to work, you know, or I have to study or. That's gonna, that's gonna take up too much of of of my time. But I think a lot of the time, too, it's it's also fear, you know, people really, they don't do it because they don't think. They can, or they think they're gonna fail. Um, when we made the list. We decided to to to add things to the list in a, we said, okay, if anything was possible, what could we do?

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Let's not even think about how we could actually do this, these things, or or even if we ever could. Like, let's just pretend for a second that we can do anything.

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  That anything was possible, right?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, anything, like, get on the cover of Rolling Stone. Play basketball with the President of the United States. Make our own movie, like, just what would we wanna do i- i- if we could do absolutely anything, walk on the moon, like, the craziest shit you can think of.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  And that was a really important step for us because. That was the first time we just pretended that we could do anything. And once. You go down that road, you realize that you really can. I mean. I think people limit themselves just from the get go because they don't think they can, but they don't know their potential until they try. And once you try and you you end up actually, even if you don't know how you're gonna do it, even if you start the first step. Once you do the first step, you you you can, you can figure out what the second step is and then the third step. Like, people see these, their dreams as these huge. Everest goals. I mean, that's why everyone talks about, like, Everest, you know, the climb Everest.

• 21:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  It's not, that's not what it's about, you know, it's like for us, play basketball with Obama. Huge dream. How the fuck are we gonna do that?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Like, I don't know. I guess I'm gonna start by asking all my friends if they have any connections to the White House. Who has uncle who knows a guy who knows a guy who's a senator? Like, that's, and the only way you do that is by talking about it.

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And by talking about it, you put it out there and people step up to help you. So like, we don't do this stuff on our own. We do it with the help of other people. So, you know, I think that people stop, they just sell themselves short right away without even trying.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  And, and, and it's funny, like, people are afraid of failure, or, I don't think I can do it, or, but failure is always just one step in the right direction.

• 22:32Lewis Howes?

  Yep. Now, here's a, here's an interesting question for you. What do you think people are more afraid of? The, the fear of failure, or failing at something that they wanna like, put their big dreams and goals out there. Uh, and having, being ridiculed, or people say, I told you so, or whatever it may be, or reaching their actual big goal. And what that'll do, uh, once they reach it.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, I think it's the fear of, of failure, but not so much the, the fear of getting ridiculed as much. I think it's more the fear that they will lose confidence in themselves. That they will begin to doubt themselves in other areas of their life.

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  You know, um, if I can't do that, I can't do this, I can't do this, I'll never amount to that.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Um, where if they stay in the things that they know they can do, then they're successful, you know? I have a decent job, I'm pretty good at it. I get some sort of validation out of it. My boss tells me good things, you know, and it's safer, you know, but

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  When you step out of your comfort zone, it's, it's also scary, you know, like, for instance, try, take the example of you're living in Alabama and you want to move to LA to be an actress. You've always wanted to be an actress. You've known since you were a kid, you dreamed of doing that. Um, but everyone's telling you, you can't, you can't just pick up and move to LA. You can't just do that. You don't have a job down there. You don't have a car. Everybody's trying to make in LA. What makes you special? And you start to believe that instead of just like going from this place of, you know, like, like when you were a kid where none of that mattered. It just was, this is what you dreamt to do.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  And as you get older, people start telling you, you can't. You start to listen to them and, and you start to believe that. And by actually doing it and then, you know, not succeeding, you really believe that. And that's like, that's, that's pretty scary. So I think that is what holds people back.

• 24:40Lewis Howes?

  Right. I think the power of belief in yourself is a, is a huge factor in where we, where we go in life and our career and things like that. And I think for you guys, it sounds like to me, one of the key factors was putting it out there first. Like here's the things on our bucket list in the news and on Facebook and wherever, on your blog. And then people will actually emailing you say, hey, my uncle's got a bull that you can ride on. That's not going to kill you. And then you actually go right on the bull. I don't know if you rode on it or someone else did.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  You rode on it?

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Uh, no, no chance, no.

• 25:11Lewis Howes?

  Right. But you guys, you guys going right on the bull and it's like, okay, we got a small win. I mean, that's a big goal probably for, you know, ninety nine point nine percent of the people in the world never ride on a bull. So that's a big thing, but it's not like playing with the president. So it's like a big step, but it's also like telling yourself that you can do these things by putting it out there. People are going to support you and, uh, you know, you're just going to keep going forward to achieving the things you want until you cross them all off, I guess. But if you don't actually put it out there, then it's never going to happen.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Exactly. A lot of people don't put it out there because of that, you know, they're they they these like these huge dreams become these big things in their mind and um but the thing is when you talk about them and like you talk about them with passion, which is usually how you talk about the things that you really wanna do. Right. Um, that excites people, you know, people want to just they feed off that energy and they wanna get involved, you know, I mean for us, we didn't know what we were doing in the beginning, but we just fucking talked about it a lot and told everyone and and you know, our first manager was my godmother, our first lawyer was Dave's dad's friend, you know, like we we just, people stepped up to help and Right.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Uh, you don't never know who knows someone who knows someone, but if you keep it hidden, no one will will be able to help you and it's definitely been one of the keys to our success is is like a putting and whether that's putting it out online, you know, like we made a list on on made a website. Or just talking about it where wherever we went or strategically reaching out to people, you know, I think that sharing what it is you really wanna do is is is extremely important it and even before that is is the power of writing it down. Hmm, yes. It seems like a simple thing, but it really, it is the first tangible step, like there is a difference between the thought and something that's real on paper, I mean, it's just

• 27:10Speaker 01

  it seems kinda airy fairy, but it's not, I mean, we had this, we kinda see it as the difference between a dream and a project, you know. Right. Dreams have a funny way of staying dreams, but if you think of your dreams as projects, it's like I said before, you can think of the tangible steps to getting them done and you just chip away at it, just like any other project and it's on your list and just like do your homework and get toilet paper is on your list, do it, cuz it's on your list. And you know, you find a way to get it done and you will find a way to go to Paris with someone you love, like that's just Right. If you look at it like that, you you'll figure it out and you can look at it and you can share it. And you kind of approach it the same way you do your daily tasks.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  Right. I think it's interesting you say that, but writing it down makes the dream more real and makes it more attainable because then you you make a project base and you kind of reverse engineer how you have to get there. And this is something I started doing back in high school and college. I started framing my dreams and putting a date on when I wanted to have the goal or the dream accomplished. And I remember specifically, and I want to, I want to talk about, I want to lead into the next thing, which is your sports background. But I remember specifically, when I moved to New York City a couple of years ago, I said, I want to be on the USA national team for a sport called team handball in less than a year. And I never played the sport before, and I made the team within nine months because

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  I reverse engineered exactly what I thought I needed to do in order to get there. But it was this huge dream I had in my head of like playing for the national team and for an Olympic sport and trying to make the Olympics in four years. And I saw that you, and for me, framing my goals helps me because it makes me feel like it's it's real and I can take steps into achieving it. And I want to ask you, because I didn't know this about you, I'm checking out your Wikipedia page right now, that you were actually selected on the Canadian national rugby team. Is that right?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, when I was, yes, younger, nineteen.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  Is this like the nineteen and under rugby team or like the?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, the U nineteen.

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. That's pretty amazing. I didn't know you were that good of an athlete. We have to play some basketball or something sometime. Now, do you think having this background with sports and being completely, completely competitive at a high level at a young age, do you think that's helped you in going after these bigger dreams? Do you think if you didn't have that background, you'd be as confident in kind of tackling your, your bucket list?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  That's a good question. I think, I think parts of it served me and I think parts of it didn't.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  You know, I think that, that kind of that determination, you know, that kind of like bull-nosed attitude, the teamwork camaraderie and, and, and just like the diligence and, and hard work that it takes to compete at a high level, all those attributes that you have to have to, to, to do that definitely helped me. I was also like captain, you know, of, of a few teams and, and I think that more than anything, definitely the social, I think that sort of, those skills that you learn being a captain and it's like what I like, I kind of say the same thing in, in university. I, I think probably the most important thing

• 30:29Speaker 01

  you learn in university are social skills, you know, and, and different ways to get stuff done, hit deadlines and stuff like that. So I think I definitely learned a lot from that. When I was competing at a high level, like I would, I, I apply myself so much to the things that I do just because that's the kind of person I am that I would overwork myself. And, and I remember first year of college, I just, I was right when the national team was getting going, you know, I was like on an academic scholarship as well and I just, I put so much pressure on myself that I just totally burnt out and had to drop out of school.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  And, you know, I didn't know about balance and I didn't know, I didn't, I just overdid it. And so I learned a lot from that and, and learned about what was important and priorities in, in my life and what I needed to stay healthy. And so I think that it kind of goes, for me, it went both ways.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  Right. I got a couple of questions Wes left. I know you got to run to another meeting, but on a post you did on fourourworkweek.com, Tim's, Tim's site, you have, it's almost got 500 comments on this post. You talk about your six steps to crossing anything off your bucket list or achieving your dreams. And you've talked about a few of them. You said, you know, stop thinking about it. And and start writing it down. And then you say start talking about it and start sharing it with people, whether that be your friends or online or however it may be. You talk about being persistent, how you guys just went after it for, you know, three, four years and just kept going. You got your friends, parents to to help out and did everything you could to figure things out.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  And number five and six, you have be ballsy and help others. And I think that was one of the key elements in your whole journey was always to help others achieve, you know, their bucket list. And you weren't even thinking about yours originally, but it was helping others achieve theirs. What do you think's one, you know, the most important part? Or is it all part of a whole six step system for you?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  I think people that are your age and my age, um, they sort of, for the most part, understand this, and that's why we don't talk about it too much. Um, because people kind of just get it, just the importance of, you know, helping out um, other people.

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  For us, what we've experienced is it's, it's just, it's been, and it's, you know, it sounds cliche, but the moments when we've been able to kind of dive into other people's lives and share something really meaningful with them. Um, because that's really what a lot of this stuff is, is like when you have something that you really want to do and you end up doing it, it's kind of like this cool, special moment. And so when we are able to help people do that, we get to be a part of that. Um, and, you know, it's, it's just kind of, it's more gratifying to see other people experience that and to you be there and to meet someone that you, you know, at first was not a part of your life and now you, you've shared this moment with them and now you're very much a part of their life. It's just very cool and gratifying.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  And so that's, that's been the most memorable portion of the project is being able to, to do that with other people. And, you know, we stay in touch with all these, these people and seeing what they're up to these days. And the first guy we ever helped, I mentioned before with this guy named Brent, uh, we bought him a truck because he had this business that was about to go under and he had pulled himself out of a homeless shelter. So we like got him a truck for 480 bucks. And, um, you know, we're like still. Friends of them, so.

• 34:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  And then I think, yeah, the last one that we didn't touch on, I guess, and I think actually this is, if you, if we had a secret sauce, like this would kind of be it.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  It's be, be ballsy or just be audacious.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Because like when I told you before, we, we pretended anything was possible and we made the list. Like if we wouldn't have done that, I don't think we would have been where we are today.

• 34:31Lewis Howes?

  Definitely not, definitely not.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  If we thought about playing basketball with Obama before we decided to do it, we would have been like, oh, this is way too hard.

• 34:42Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  It's like that moment when you're with your friends and it's late at night and you've been drinking or something and you come up with an idea and you, everyone's stoked on it and everyone's, yeah, we should totally do that. Next morning you wake up and you're like, whoa.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  So, but the thing about being audacious is that, and, and this is straight from

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Ferris is that the majority of people, ninety-nine percent of people believe they can't do great things. As I said before, for whatever reason, they don't believe they can, they can reach their, their big dreams because so they aim for mediocrity.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  So here's this huge group of people in the world that are, that are, that are aiming for mediocrity, mediocrity, which means the level of competition is highest for realistic goals. So statistically, you have a better chance of achieving unrealistic goals.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  Cause not as many people are trying to get them.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Too many people are going after them. So you think that it's harder to do these outrageous things, but really it's easier because no one's trying to do it. So it's like, not only do you have no competition, but when you, when you're going after it, people are like, oh, crap, that's cool.

• 35:57Lewis Howes?

  That's ballsy.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I wanna, I respect you just for trying that. That's what happened with us when we decided to make a TV show and we were like, we're not gonna make this. Like, list item wasn't be in a TV show, it was make a TV show. Like, we had to be executive producers. We had to hire our own crew. We had to choose the music. We had to do the editing. Like, we did everything. And our first TV show offered to represent that, you know, and write a New York Times bestseller, like, we're not authors. Dave failed English in grade ten. Like, he sent a copy of our number one New York Times best-selling book to his English teacher in grade ten and was like, hey, hope you enjoy the read.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  And so, you know, and, and, and the, and the cool thing about that is you just surprise yourself with what you can accomplish.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  And that's, that's what we found. And, and doing so, uh, you know, it fuels you. You get this taste of success, you know, it's, it's contagious, you know, once you do something or, or start to feel the accomplishment of, of doing something really, really cool, really, really great. It just makes you wanna do more and you feel like you can do anything. And that's the secret, like, that we've learned is that you can do anything, anything you want. And that's hilarious.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Anyone can do anything. And like, when we think about the things that we're doing, you know, like, the shows we wanna make, the movies we wanna make, going to space, whatever, it's like,

• 37:24Speaker 01

  we know that we can do anything.

• 37:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  We just have to decide on what it is.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  I think it's inspiring.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  And it goes for anybody. We're not special. We're not better than anyone. We're just, you know, four kids from a small island.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  From Canada. What's up with all the Canadians taking over the world, coming to Hollywood and just dominating? You and Bieber, man.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Just me and Bieber, man.

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, I got a couple of questions left for you. So, what do you wanna be remembered for then, Ben?

• 37:55Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  I want to be remembered for, I just, I kind of would love to be seen as kind of a blueprint for inspiration for others that that want to create and be, you know, do big things. And, and, and I just want to, by doing, and the only, the only way to do that is to continue to do really, really big things. I mean, we had this, we, we, we had this idea when we started Berry Life that what, what we wanted to do with, with the project was, it's like, you know, when you, when you, when you miss a really good party?

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  And all your friends are talking about it.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  And you're bummed.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Damn, like, I should have gone out. We want to create that same feeling for life. Like, if you're not living the way you want, we want to give you that feeling like, ah, shit, like, I should be doing that.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Um, which is why we don't ever tell people what to do and why we, our whole brand is the questions. What do you want to do before you die? It's asking people. It's not telling people. And so we just want, like, I would just like, love to represent that throughout my life and ha, and accomplish really, really big things and be able to like, have a New York Times bestseller, have an Emmy, you know, go after an Oscar and just continue to, to push the envelope because you can.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  So you're not, it's not telling people what to do, but it's more you living the life that you want to live and through that inspiring people to live the life, their best version of themselves as well.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And hopefully giving them the tools to do it as well because

• 39:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  It's like in the, in our book, What Do You Want To Do Before You Die? Or in the, the blog, um, we wrote for Ferris. We talk about things that we've learned that have, that have helped us sort of get to where we are.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  Now, what's the biggest, what's, what's the most inspiring moment, uh, that you've had so far? The biggest thing that you've crossed off that you actually thought would be the hardest thing to do? And then, when then what is the one thing over everything else you want to do that you haven't done yet?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  I think the biggest, biggest moment was probably, uh, probably being on Oprah because we got to invite our moms and I don't think they really took the whole thing seriously until that happened. The hardest thing was probably make a TV show because it took us, you know, three or four years to to make it happen and and when in the first two seasons, we just put our in all of our blood, sweat and tears into that thing like we did not sleep for a year and a half.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Didn't have any social lives and and we just were like wanted it to be perfect, you know, um, and so it was a great learning experience. So, you know, I think that was the hardest thing, also battling with network executives and MTV and just trying to make it so true to our vision.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  And the thing that we're working on now is make a make a make a feature length movie. So we're writing a script for a film.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  Very cool.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  That we wanna that we wanna get out there, so.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Very cool.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  I I would actually also say the thing that I didn't think we were gonna do that we did was Crash the Playboy Mansion.

• 41:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you mean not be on the list, but actually just go and get in?

• 41:23Speaker 01

  I didn't think we would ever get in. We filmed that as our first episode. MTV was like, you guys are gonna have to clear a Playboy, so we're gonna have to call ahead and we said, no way. We're doing this legit. We're gonna sneak in and we're gonna get permission later. And it was basically like this was our first episode. They were putting um all their faith in us, but if we couldn't do it, like we were screwed. So Johnny and Dave had this idea of dress like it was a it was a Candy Land themed party, like a completely pumpkin themed party. They did an idea of dressing up like Oompa Loompas, hiding in the bottom of a giant prop cake that we would dress up like the party. Delivering that prop cake to the back door of the Playboy Mansion at five in the afternoon and waiting in the cake for six hours.

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Peeing in bottles, like.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Just

• 42:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Night vision cameras and we delivered it to the back door with like paperwork that we had made that was fake. They rolled it up the back driveway of Hugh Hefner's house. They had no idea where they were. There was like Shawshank Redemption in there. And they just waited and popped out around midnight and got into the party. And they thought they had to get sort of do their thing and get out quick. But security thought they were working the party because they were just dressed up like Oompa Loompa. So they could do whatever they wanted.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Like up on stage with stoop dog, dog, they did like, they did cannonballs into the grotto. Everyone was screaming Oompa, Oompa.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  And then we got out and Playboy had no idea that we were in there.

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Episode and MTV was not, they said, you guys don't need permission. If they sue us, it's it's just good press. And one lawyer said, you guys need permission. And so we had to go and Playboy said, no way. And we were totally screwed and we were not able to air the episode until, and so we said, we could, we just were like, no way we're giving up on this. This is the best thing that's ever happened to us. We are going to write a handwritten letter to Hugh Hefner with the DVD of the first episode. We were, we, we sent him the letter and the DVD and we heard it back two weeks later and he said, you guys can air the episode, just know I'm not, we're not very happy with you, boys.

• 43:39Lewis Howes?

  So he gave you a slap on the wrist, but said, go for it.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And getting scolded by Hugh Hefner is way better than even crashing Playboy Mansion. So anyway, it was really, that I, I just thought, I just, I remember they told me that plan. I was like, this is never gonna work.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  So anyways.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  That's an amazing story. Okay, so that's great. I want to leave it with one final question. It's what I ask everyone and that is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Uh, just being yourself, like just staying true to yourself.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  Being yourself, simple. You can leave it at that. What, uh, where can people find you online? You guys got a million and a half Facebook fans, but where can people find you personally online to connect with you?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Uh, just my name, at Ben Nemtin on Twitter. That's probably the best store. Uh, Ben Nemtin on, on Facebook.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  Awesome. I appreciate it, man. Uh, this is gonna be amazing and, uh, thanks so much for coming on.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it guys, I hope you enjoyed this inspiring episode with Ben Nemtin. He's truly an awesome guy and make sure to reach out to him online and say hello to all the Buried Life guys online as well on their Facebook page and on Twitter and theburiedlife.com. Check out their book, very inspiring, which is gonna help you hopefully write some things for your bucket list. And what I want you guys to do is head over to schoolofgreatness.com right now because we've got all the show notes over there, a bunch of links back to Ben's site, some cool videos from the Buried Life, and also I want you guys to leave a comment at the end of the show notes on the Buried Life show

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  notes. With one, what is your biggest dream that you would like to accomplish? And two, what's the biggest challenge you're currently having in trying to accomplish that? So again, thanks guys and make sure to head over to schoolofgreatness.com to leave your comments and suggestions and remember to go out there and do something great.