Ben Nemtin: Building a Badass Bucket List for Your Life and Business | Mental Health | YAPClassic

Ben Nemtin was an athlete in university with a bright future until crippling mental health struggles blindsided him and forced him to drop out of college. But through that darkness, he found purpose: a list of 100 dreams and a pact with three friends to help others pursue theirs too. Ben believes building a bucket list saved his life and living your “Buried Life” is essential for profiting in life. In this episode, Ben shares his battle with mental health, how bucket lists became his path to purpose, and how entrepreneurs can take control of their own happiness, one bold goal at a time. In this episode, Hala and Ben will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (06:12) Ben’s struggle with depression (13:47) Origin of The Buried Life and Bucket List Concept (23:47) The Ripple Effect of Purpose and Helping Others (27:51) Why Personal Goals Aren’t Selfish (33:06) Legendary bucket‑list wins: Playing with Obama (40:56) Red Carpet Escapades: Asking Out Celebrities (48:11) Unfinished Bucket List Items and Future Plans (50:00) How Death Can Be Life’s Greatest Motivator Ben Nemtin is a #1 New York Times best-selling author, keynote speaker, and co-founder of The Buried Life movement. He gained global recognition through the hit MTV show The Buried Life, where he and his friends pursued an epic bucket list while helping strangers do the same. Ben now ranks among the World’s Top Organizational Culture Thought Leaders and Top Motivational Speakers despite struggling with mental health. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, CNN, NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, and more, spreading his message of mental wellness, self-improvement, and the radical possibility of dream-chasing. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit at ⁠indeed.com/profitingIndeed⁠ Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at ⁠youngandprofiting.co/shopify⁠ Microsoft Teams - Stop paying for tools. Get everything you need, for free at ⁠aka.ms/profiting⁠ Mercury - Streamline your banking and finances in one place. Learn more at ⁠mercury.com/profiting⁠ LinkedIn Marketing Solutions - Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at ⁠linkedin.com/profiting⁠ Bilt - Start paying rent through Bilt and take advantage of your Neighborhood Benefits™ by going to ⁠joinbilt.com/PROFITING⁠. Airbnb - Find yourself a co-host at ⁠airbnb.com/host⁠ Resources Mentioned: Ben’s Book: What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?: https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Want-Before-Die/dp/1579654762 Ben’s Website: https://www.bennemtin.com/ Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset, Mental Health, Health, Psychology, Wellness, Biohacking, Motivation, Mindset, Manifestation, Brain Health, Life Balance, Self-Healing, Positivity, Happiness, Sleep, Diet

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

• 0:11Hala Taha?

  Hey Young and Profiteers. What's on your bucket list? Climbing Mount Everest, writing a bestselling book, maybe meeting your childhood hero? Whatever it is, my guest today is here to show you that your wildest dreams are more achievable than you think. And this is the Yap Classic episode from 2022. I spoke with Ben Nemtin, the motivational speaker, bestselling author, and star of MTV's hit reality documentary, The Buried Life. Ben didn't just dream big. He made it happen. He crossed off incredible bucket list items like playing basketball with President Obama, throwing the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game, and even sharing a beer with Prince Harry. But what truly sets him apart is his mission to help thousands of others turn their dreams into a reality too. In this conversation,

• 0:54Hala Taha?

  Ben shared with me how one small decision can completely change the course of your life. He also broke down the key steps to crafting your own bucket list, including what to add, what to leave out, and most importantly, how to actually make your dream goals happen. If you're ready to stop waiting and start doing, this episode is for you. So let's get right into it.

• 1:15Hala Taha?

  Hey Ben, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

• 1:20Hala Taha?

  I can't wait for my listeners to hear all of your bucket list advice and all of your life-changing stories. But before we get into it, I did want to touch on your upbringing and talk about mental health for a moment because you are an expert on this topic. You grew up in Canada and I read that when you were younger, you were always traveling with your parents. So let's talk about your upbringing and how that influenced your adventurous spirit that you have today.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  So my dad was actually a clown and he was like a theatrical clown. So he played music and he wasn't necessarily the clown that like does balloons and parties and stuff. He would do theater shows. So we would travel around to different kids festivals or different cities and he would do a show and it would either be in a some sort of exotic location like in Africa or somewhere like Sweden, or it would be on a ski mountain. So we had this really- Really interesting upbringing where we would kind of travel with him to these cool locations. He played music. So what he would also do is like when my mom and my dad met, they would travel Greece and they would play music in the tavernas for a free room upstairs. So in Greece, you have the bar and then you have a couple of rooms above it.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  So they would play music, pass around the hat and their payment would be free room and board. And so my parents have been to Greece fifteen, sixteen times. It's their favorite place to go. So when I was two years old, they brought me to Greece for the first time and they still would do that thing where they would play music in the taverna and travel around like that. And so they would just bring me with them and they would sit me on the bar as a two-year-old and then they would leave and play music in the corner and they would just leave me on the bar and hang out. And then at the end of the night, they kind of pick me up and off we'd go and they put me in between them on their Vespa with a little hockey helmet and kind of travel around Greece. So I think from them, I learned that there really wasn't any rules around how you had to live your life.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I think subconsciously, we either absorb that, there's this expected route that we have to go on and we feel like that's what we should do. It doesn't need to be pressure from our parents, it's sort of pressure from society. I think at an early age, subconsciously, I learned from them, there really were no rules and you could create your own life based on what made you happy. And they never really made very much money. We didn't have a lot of money growing up. It's not like we were scraping by, but he was a performer and my mom was kind of an independent business coach for women and then did this and that. But their life was so rich and they still to this day live like that. And we had a Westvalea van where we travel around and camp and to this day, they drive down to Mexico every year in the van

• 3:54Speaker 01

  and play music and meet people and they had this very rich life. And so that's definitely what I learned from them growing up.

• 4:02Hala Taha?

  That's so cute. It's such like a unique little story and considering how much you travel now, now I understand kind of where you get that from because it's a very unique upbringing that you had. So you ended up getting a scholarship from my understanding to college and you had an opportunity to play on the rugby team, which in Canada is a really big deal. But you ended up falling into depression your first year of college. So talk to us about that. From an outside perspective, it seems like everything was going great. You had great parents, you guys traveled, you got a scholarship. Why did you think that you ended up falling into depression? What happened there?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  I put so much pressure on myself to succeed in school, in athletics. I really wanted people to like me. Like, I just kind of, for whatever reason, I put, I, I've always put a lot of pressure on myself. I was on the under nineteen national rugby team and we were training for the World Cup and I was worried about missing a kick because I played fly half. So that's like a field goal kicker and you're, you're the quarterback kind of. So there's a lot of pressure on that position. And so I started worrying about, oh crap, what if I miss an easy kick at the World Cup? And what if I blow this opportunity? And I had missed a kick in the end of a, of our championship game in high school. And so I really didn't want that to happen again. And you know, at that age, you're, everything is so black and white and so life or death.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  You know, whether your friends like you or you don't, you're living in this little bubble of high school. So you really don't know that there's so much more out there. And that there, these things that you think are such a big deal when you're younger in your high school years or early college years, you realize, well, I'm not even going to remember that this happened on my deathbed. Like, there's just no way I'm going to remember that this was something that I worried about. But at that point, I was so worried about doing well on this team. And so I would worry about it at night and I felt this anxiety and this anxiety caused me to have trouble sleeping. And so this lack of sleep, this anxiety, this constant pressure, it all built up. And I started to not be able to go to school and I started to not be able to go to rugby practice and I, then I couldn't leave the house. And so it just compounded.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  I'd never experienced anything like this where all of a sudden I was crippled by this anxiety and depression. And I was a very happy-go-lucky guy and I was at a really, I was A-type. I had a lot of friends that were also very supportive and high energy. But I really wasn't talking about what was going on at all. So I was internalizing it and I just went down and down and down. And it got really, really scary. And it ultimately, my friends actually kind of pulled me out of the house and convinced me and rallied me to come work with them in a new town for the summer after I dropped out of school. And I was forced to get a job. I was forced to start to kind of do things on my own. I've sort of built a little bit of confidence. I started talking about what I was going through. I started to find.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Different types of people that were inspiring, right? Like, as I said, when you're in high school or even college, you have this Petri dish of friends, but you don't realize that if they're not your people, there are your people out there. It just takes time to find it. And so that was something that took a bit of time for me to realize. And I started finding these people that I realized gave me energy, these, these new groups of friends. They inspired me and they were doing all these cool things. They had already traveled. They had started businesses. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to try and only surround myself with people that inspire me almost by necessity because I needed that energy. And that single decision completely changed my life. And it would lead me down this path that would ultimately bring me here, speaking to you.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I mean, I wouldn't be doing the things I am doing now if I hadn't consciously decided to try and only surround myself with people that inspire me.

• 7:40Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I think it's pretty crazy how one decision can change the trajectory of your life. I mean, you've been on this mission for what it seems to be like 15 years now.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that that's a really empowering idea because it means that you can change your life at any time. And I think we all can think back to moments where there was this pivot and it could be something very small, like something a teacher said to us or the way a teacher showed up to us for us in high school or some way a friend supported us or just happenstance. When you ran into someone and then that led to your job or there's any number of things, but these, these little moments. And I think it's a combination of you have to be aware and it kind of jump on those moments sometimes. And it takes a little bit of, of awareness and it takes a little bit of this, uh, being proactive. And you start to go down this, this path that you don't know will ultimately shift your whole life.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  So if you think about it, if you, if anybody's a golfer, you hit a golf ball one or two degrees off. It doesn't seem like much, but by the time that it lands, could be 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 feet off center. And so this little change can be a big change over time. And that's how I look at these small little shifts that you make that you don't see them in the moment, but they can actually. Create this huge impact. And I think it's an empowering idea because it means that you can also make a huge impact in someone else's life. So just by being there for someone in a moment when they need it, or by small gesture of kindness, or helping hand,

• 9:14Speaker 01

  or even a compliment to a stranger, all these things create ripple effects that are hard to measure, but it's very real. So it goes both ways. Like, everyone has the power to create this immense change through the ripple effect, through your daily micro interactions. But then it also means that you have the ability to change your life in any moment, because really, a small change can lead to a huge change. And so I think we get overwhelmed sometimes by thinking about, oh, I have to make this huge, massive shift to change my life. And I don't think that's true. I think that you can change your life just by doing a very small thing that over time will compound, and you'll ultimately make a huge shift.

• 9:58Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I think that's super powerful. So something, Ben, I was curious about was if you still get depressed today, because you seem so energetic, you always have a smile on, and you don't seem like the type of person that gets depressed. So I'm curious to know if you still suffer from depression and what you do to manage your highs and the lows.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm happy you said that, because I still do get depressed. And I think that that is something that is like, really, just a great thing to talk about, that the people that you don't think struggle, struggle. You know, everybody struggles. Every human will go through some mental health crisis in their life. And that's just through the research, right? It doesn't need to be from a mental health illness, a mental illness. It can be from a divorce, stress from losing a job, bereavement from losing someone that you love. You will go through the crapper, like, it's going to happen. And so I think that that's almost an empowering idea, because it means that no one is alone in their struggle. If someone is not struggling, they've been there before, they will go through it. I really believe when you speak things, they lose their power.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  They're much scarier when they're in your head. And so that's what I found, is by talking about it. I'm able to also process it like I can talk about, I can break it down when I'm talking about therapy or talking about it with friends. So it's so important to talk about. So I would say if you are struggling right now, if you take anything away from this podcast, it's find someone that you trust to talk about what is going on. Ideally, it's a professional and we can talk about therapy and we talk about the challenges with finding a good therapist and the stigma around therapy because all that is there. But just outside of that, if you can find someone to talk to, I think it's the most important thing.

• 11:38Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I have a therapist. I hope that stigma has gone by now, Ben, because I feel like so many people have therapists and and therapy is really important. It's important to talk out your feelings. Alright, so let's take it back to the summer of 2006. You were 19 years old and you had the idea to gather up your friends to make a movie called The Buried Life. So talk to us about how you got that idea and what was the premise of this movie?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I came back from that summer away. You know, I was starting to feel back to myself, you know, lifting out of this depression. I was like, okay, I met these cool kids in this new town. I want to continue to surround myself with more people like that. So there's one kid that came to mind and he was a filmmaker from my neighborhood and his name was Johnny and I secretly had always wanted to make a movie. So I called up Johnny and I was like, let's make a movie if you, you know, I didn't know him too well. I was sort of going out on a limb, reaching out to him. And we gathered two other friends. One of them was Johnny's older brother Duncan, another friend Dave. And we started talking about making this documentary. We didn't know what it was gonna be about though at this point. And then serendipitously Johnny gets assigned a poem in English class at McGill University in his first year English class. The poem is called

• 12:46Speaker 01

  The Buried Life. So it's an old poem written in 1852, over 150 years ago. And this poem strikes a chord in Johnny and he sends it back to us. He says, guys, this poet is talking about the same thing we're talking about right now, which basically was this idea that we felt like we had all these dreams, but we never even tried to go after them because the day to day buries them. Like, we knew we had things that we want to do, but why hadn't we ever done them? It's because life got in the way. And we have these moments when we're inspired, but then we get less inspired because the day to day pushes. publishes them. So we thought, okay, we're not the first people to feel like this. If this guy wrote this poem in eighteen fifty-two, let's take this name, let's call our film The Buried Life.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  And our next task was to uncover these buried dreams. And the way we did that was through this question, what do you want to do before you die? Because for us, thinking about death actually made us think about life. And I'm a huge fan of thinking about death. I think the more we can think about death, the better. And we can talk about that, but just we stumbled into this. This was by accident. But we asked ourselves this question, okay, we're, we realized, okay, we're gonna die one day. So if we're gonna die, which is probably the only thing we can count on in life, what do we want to do with the time left? And that's where the bucket list came from. It was our answers to the question, what do you want to do before you die? And we pretended we had all the money in the world. We pretended that we had the ability to do anything.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  So our list was ambitious. It was like, make a TV show, play basketball with Obama, write a number one New York Times bestseller, sit with Oprah, have a beer with Prince Harry, pay off our parents' mortgage, go to space, streak a field and get away, ask out the girl your dreams. You know, it was a very audacious list. And then we thought every time we crossed something off our list, let's help someone else do something on their list. And so that was the mission. We bought an RV, we bought a secondhand camera, and we planned a two-week road trip in the summer of two thousand and six in Victoria, B.C., where we grew up in Canada. And we hit the road, and as soon as we hit the road, unexpectedly, people heard about our road trip. And then they started to email us, and they looked at our list, and they said, hey, I can help you cross off writeable.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  I can help you cross off get up in a hot air balloon. I can help you cross off make a toast to stranger's wedding. And then they would send us their dreams, asking for our help. And so we struck this nerve, and we just thought, let's keep doing this. And so this two-week road trip ended up lasting over ten years. And then the list items that we had written down in the beginning that we were convinced were completely unattainable, over time, they ended up falling off the list. And so. We also realized that helping other people achieve their dreams meant even more than doing the big things on our list. And then along the way, like built this passion for like figuring out, why do some people achieve their goals and go after them? But most people

• 15:33Speaker 01

  don't like, why are 76% of the people on the planet, reaching their deathbed and regretting the things they didn't do, not the things they did. And so that's why I started to speak because I was like, okay, we need to get more people in that minority of the population that actually go after the things and be true to yourself. And really, a bucket list is just a reflection of your true self. That's the way I look at it. It's just a list of all the things that are going to bring you joy and happiness. So it's not just skydive and go to Europe. That's one of 10 categories of your life. So you want to think about your adventure travel goals, but you also want to think about your mental health goals, your physical health goals. You want to think about your, how do you want to give back? Your relationship goals, intellectual, what do you want to learn, financial, professional?

• 16:16Speaker 01

  And so that's what a full bucket list is. But when we were on that road trip, we had no idea of any of that. We were just going out to tackle our dreams and help other people. And it sparked this lifelong learning journey.

• 16:30Hala Taha?

  Yeah, it's so beautiful. And one thing that I really connected with with your story was this idea that people went out of their way to help you. And that's because you guys had really good intentions and you were just trying to be of service to the world. You're trying to make the world a better place. And I can relate because when I started Young and Profiting podcast, I had no intentions to make money. All I was trying to do is just help people listen, learn and profit. And by months, too, I had 10 volunteers who were just working for me for free in a Slack channel, helping with the movement. And it's just funny how when you want to do good for the world, you just become magnetic and people want to help because there are good people out there. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  The only way that we cross things off our list is through the help of other people. I just want to be very clear on that. You know, we had no business or no ability to achieve any of the things that we have achieved. But people always stepped up to help us in unexpected ways because we shared our goals. And I think that you had the idea for this podcast. Ninety nine percent of people will have the idea, they'll want to do it, but they won't take that first step because of fear. Right? They're afraid of failure. They're afraid of what other people think, and that's ultimately what stops people. And that's through research. And we can talk about like where that comes from, but that's the number one barrier. When it comes to stopping people from achieving their personal goals. But when you don't put it out there, no one can help you.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  You're on your own. And if you think about it, when you hit a challenge at work, typically, what do you do? You go to your leader, you ask for help, go to a mentor. Hey, have you ever been through this? I don't know what to do. You ask a friend. But with these personal goals, we don't ask for help because of the fear. We're afraid of failure, afraid of what other people think. And then we just have a lower chances of succeeding because we're trying to do it in our head on our own. So I always say, when you give someone a chance to be a hero, they usually take it. And so you experienced this when you started to put this, you took the leap. You moved through that that discomfort of like, oh shit, like what are people? Is this going to be good? What if it's bad and it fails?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  And then you started to see that people were gravitating towards it because you were doing it from your true. It came out of what you truly wanted to do. This is your, a reflection of your true self. And I think that at the end of the day, that is the big goal is to be true to yourself in a world that is so hard to stay true to yourself. Cause everything pulls you away from that. Social media pulls you away from that. You know, being disconnected pulls you away from that. The fear pulls you away from that. But when you are true to yourself, you're, I think you're unstoppable. You are the only person that can be you. And we spend most of our life trying to be other people. And anything you could do to remind yourself of who you are. And that's why I think a list is a great device to remind you.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Friends that keep you accountable to these things are are great reminders. What you saw is that when you were true to yourself and then you started to do this thing, it was like this gravitational pull.

• 19:32Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  And then you start to see this thing happening and then you follow that momentum. And I think that sometimes we feel like we have this plan, we got to stick to it. And I've done that a lot, but I've realized that you need to follow the energy and you need to follow what's easy. And what was easy for you, not that it is easy as in it didn't take a lot of work. Easy in is as in you saw there was momentum and that's what you followed. And so for me, that's been speaking. I didn't mean to be a speaker, but I did a TEDx talk and then some people asked me to speak. And I love doing it and I feel like it's easy for me to do. And I work really hard, but I see that it's working. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to leave the, I started a production company with the three buddies that we started the buried life with after the show.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  And I left that production company, which is very hard to do speaking because I could see that it was, that was more true to me.

• 20:23Hala Taha?

  Yeah, following the flow. So you came up with this bucket list, you were 19 years old, you're a little naive at the time, you know, you didn't have that much life experience. So I feel like coming up with big audacious goals when you're that young. Doesn't seem as frightening as if you were in your later twenties or thirties or forties. I feel like as you get older, you feel like it's too selfish to accomplish personal goals. Like you feel like you've got all this responsibility and maybe you can't do some of the things that you always dreamed of. So I'd love to hear your thoughts about why it's not selfish to have personal goals. And also how we can start to think outside the box when it comes to some of these things on our bucket list.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, great point. So I think that it's not selfish to pursue your personal goals because you can't take care of other people if you can't, if you don't take care of yourself. You can't do your job if you don't take care of yourself. You can't be who you need to be if you're not fueling yourself. And one way you fuel yourself is by doing the things that you love. So there's this big tie between purpose and your mental health that I think a lot of people are missing. And when you are following the things that you love, that are important to you, that mean something to you. That gives you a greater sense of wellbeing, that contributes to your mental health and it energizes you. So I think that we need to flip our thinking around this idea that it's selfish to do these things.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  And I get it, like I used to think a bucket list was selfish, considering all my responsibilities, everything that I had to do every day. But then I started to notice. That people around the world were going after their bucket list just because we were going after ours. Thousands, tens of thousands of people through the show, millions of people. And to this day, they come up and say, oh, I saw the show. I was going to school and I decided that I wanted to travel. I met my husband when I was traveling. Now we have four kids and we live in Italy. Or I started a restaurant. And instead of being a doctor, because when you do what you love, you inspire other people to do what they love. Just like you starting this podcast, you probably can't even count the number of people that you have inspired. So it's not selfish, it's service because you are giving other people permission to do the same and you also fuel yourself.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  So I think it's the same idea around taking vacation. We sometimes feel guilty when we take vacation because we're taking time off work. Well, you're not taking time off work, you're taking time off for work. So that you can come back recharged and you also come back maybe with a bigger idea because you've taken space, you have perspective. So there are so many reasons why it's important to pursue these personal passions. And so the first thing is give yourself permission by understanding that it's not selfish. Because one, you're going to inspire other people by doing those things, but you're also going to fuel, fuel yourself. Then you look at like, what are these goals that are important to you? And sometimes it's hard to think about, you know, you look at a blank piece of paper and like, what's your list? And it's overwhelming.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  And that's why I think it's important to, to separate your list into categories. And so I talked about the 10 categories of life. That's basically what my new book is based on, The Bucket List Journal. It just came out last week. And effectively you write your list in those 10 categories. Mental health goals, physical health goals, relationship, how do you want to give back? Intellectual, financial, material goals. And then you start to move through the barriers that stop you from achieving your goals. So I mentioned there was fear, that's number one. The other big barrier is when these personal goals, you think about them, there's no deadlines. And that's a huge problem. That's why we push them. So you need to create accountability around the personal goals. That's why writing your list is important.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  That creates a small bit of accountability because you take an idea that doesn't exist, you make it real. That's why we share our goals. You share your goals so you can give other people the opportunity to help, but you also share them because then you feel accountable to the people you shared them with. If I say on this podcast, this year I'm writing a book. That's my number one goal. I'm writing a book this year. And you say, great. And then I run into you six months later and you say, hey, how's the book coming? And I think, ah, I better start writing that book. Right? When you share your goals, you feel accountable. When you share them with your community and then they can, they can help you. And then the third barrier, and I think we've all felt this, is that usually with these personal goals, you're waiting to feel inspired to go after them. Or you're kind of waiting for the perfect time. And that inspiration just, just rarely hits.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  So you have to create your own inspiration through action. Like, there was never a perfect time for you to start this podcast. You were never going to have all your ducks in a row. You know, you were never going to feel completely inspired to do it. Because the fear dampens that inspiration. So you have to just do it and create your own inspiration. And as soon as you started the podcast, you saw the reaction. And then you started to feel more and more energy and more and more inspiration. So you're the architect of your own inspiration through action. And sometimes we just plan too much and we forget that action is a plan. You don't need to know the plan. You'll figure out the plan after you start. You do the first step, you don't need to know the second step. You'll figure out the second step after the first. It's a momentum.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  And so the journal is designed to create inspiration through action, to create accountability, and then to identify real fear and, and imagined fear.

• 25:36Hala Taha?

  Yeah. I love what you're saying right now. It reminds me of something that Jeff Hayden talked to us about the podcast called the motivation feedback loop. And basically what it means is that, like you said, you got to take action. And once you get those little wins, you get that little bit of motivation to take the next step, a little bit of motivation to take the next step. But it all starts with action. You have to go out and do something. To your point, you can't just sit there and plan and think. You've got to take those first steps.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That's why most people don't because the fear stops you from that that first step.

• 26:06Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Okay, I want to get into some story time because you've got some really incredible stories. You've been doing this for many, many years. You've helped a lot of people. So one story that really stuck out to me was about this guy named Brent, who told you that he wanted to deliver pizzas to a homeless shelter. I don't want to give away the story, so can you tell us about that?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  No, it's great because you I met you at a speaking engagement. So you were able to see the talk and so some of the you used to know my story, which is cool. So Brent was the very first person that we ever helped back in 2006. So take you back, we're leaving Vancouver Island in Canada. We're heading to the mainland and we start to get in this RV and travel. Now there's some news starting to talk about we would just camp out at radio stations and we wouldn't leave until they put us on the air. So emails started coming in and we got this email from this guy named Brent. And Brent says, hey, guys, I'm 24. Before I die, I want to bring pizzas down to the homeless shelter. And so we're thinking, finally, someone we can help. Like, we don't have much money, but we can buy pizzas, so let's go interview Brent.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  And so we talk with him and we find out that the reason why he wants to bring pizzas down to the homeless shelter is because he had lived in that homeless shelter for a couple of years. But he said when people came in with food to the homeless shelter, it felt like the best day because it felt like someone actually cared about him in a world where nobody really cared about him. And we found that he'd actually pulled himself out of this homeless shelter by starting his own landscaping business. And his landscaping business relied on his truck and his truck had recently broken down. And so the four of us thought we got to figure out a way to get this guy a truck. Because when we asked him, is there anything we can do to help? He wouldn't ask for help around the truck. He would just ask for help to get the pizzas. So we thought, that's pretty cool that this guy's in a tough spot and he's not even asking for anything for himself.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  And we didn't have much money at the time. We had $480 between the four of us, Canadian, so it's less. Anyway, so that's like. Not much cash. So we went to an RV, no, sorry, a used car salesman. And we said, this is the story of this guy in your community, you know, and the cheapest truck on the lot was $2,100. And he sold the truck to us for 480. And then he paid for the insurance and out of his own pocket. Like, we're at the age, we didn't even know that you needed insurance. This is all our money. And so anyways, he was. So this idea of, you know, we gave him a chance to be a hero and he took it. Like, we saw that so many times. Drive up to Brent, throw him the keys, and he just sort of started to cry and he bear hugged me and didn't let go for a long time.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  And we hung out with him and his girlfriend that day and we sort of all felt like, okay, this is what this is about. And we have to keep doing this. And that was the catalyst to continue to do this again the next summer. You know, this, this feeling that we had never felt before, which was helping a stranger, helping someone we didn't know. And we hadn't done that before in our lives. We hadn't volunteered in high school or experienced that. And so.

• 29:06Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  That was very impactful.

• 29:10Hala Taha?

  And so you went on to do a lot of bucket list items that are really impressive. You started an MTV show. You escaped a desert island. You had a beer with Prince Harry. You even got on Oprah. And you also played basketball with President Obama, which is pretty damn impressive. So what was your favorite story? Tell us like your favorite story and like the crazy things that you did to accomplish your goals.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  There's a lot of crazy stories. I'll tell the President Obama story quickly. And then there's, I'll tell another one after that as well, very quickly. President Obama, we had no connections to the White House. So we just drove there and started asking people on the street if they knew anyone in the White House, which is not, didn't get us very far. But we started to send emails to people that we found, we just like contacted politicians' offices, basically. And we met with a couple of lower level officials and they, and then we could convince them to meet with their boss. And then we met with their boss. And we got all the way up to Secretary of Transportation and he put in the call to the White House. And we were stoked. And then we got an official rejection letter from the White House. And then we were. Like, okay, well, that's too bad. I guess we're gonna have to change our tact.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  And so we said, instead of going after the president, we'd go after the president's personal aide. Because the personal aide to the president, he set up the basketball games with President Obama. And there was these secret gap basketball games that everyone was trying to kind of figure out a way to get involved with. And so we found what we thought was the president's personal aide's email. And we started sending him emails every day with a challenge to a basketball game. So we said, you and the president versus us tonight, seven thirty at the YMCA, be there. And we'd show up at the Y at seven thirty and no president. We did the next day, no president. So we did this for a week. We picked it outside the White House with signs. We sent letters. And at this point, like, no one is meeting with us anymore. So we just accept defeat and we leave. Then I get a block call a couple days later and I pick it up and it's the personal aide of the president.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  And he's like, what's this I hear about you wanting to play basketball against the president and I? And I explained what we're doing and he's like, you know what? I can make this happen. I feel good about this. Give me two weeks. I just need to run it by the press team. They gotta sign off on everything. I'll get back to you in two weeks. Calls me in two weeks. He's like, it's not gonna happen. And we're like, oh, Jesus, okay. So now he's like, listen, I'm sorry. I don't know. If you're back in DC, let me know. Maybe I can give you a tour of the White House. Cut to three months later, we're back in DC. Personal aide of the president, true to his word, gives us a personal tour of the White House. Walks us through the West Wing, shows us his office, next to the Oval Office, down the back steps of the White House. By the way, we didn't know what to wear, so we rented suits from a prom rental store, right? So we're like on the White House basketball courts.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Manicured hedges, presidential seal on each hoop, one presidential basketball. We're shooting around and then all of a sudden I hear my friend go, oh, my God, oh, my God, it's the president. And President Obama walked on the court and he totally surprised us. And we were totally awestruck. And so we met the president, we shot around with him for fifteen, twenty minutes. Immediately forgot he's the president because he's the coolest man on earth. We were trying to hit shots he wasn't hitting. We were trash talking. It was really, really incredible. And that was amazing because it was.

• 32:16Hala Taha?

  What a great memory.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was definitely the most impossible thing I remember writing down. I remember when we came up with that idea for the list, it was, I laughed because it was so impossible. Right? I was like, this is, this is hilarious that this is so impossible. Let's put it on the list. It was definitely, and then to see him stroll on the court, I was like, wow, I guess I have no choice but to believe that anything's possible because I just proved to myself that this was possible. And I thought this was impossible and now it happened. And so now I have no choice but to believe that these things can come to fruition. And I think that that's a very common feeling is that you don't know what's possible until you're doing it.

• 32:57Hala Taha?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  And that's really important. You don't know what's possible until you're actually doing it. You can't even imagine yourself achieving some of these things until you've achieved it. And then you prove to yourself and everyone has the ability to prove to themselves that these things are possible.

• 33:14Hala Taha?

  I want to touch on this point because I really, really resonate with it. I always tell my listeners and when I'm getting interviewed on other podcasts, people are like, what is your secret to life? How did you become successful? And I always say like, you have to believe that life is limitless. And I feel like, once I really believe that, that's when everything started to happen. Once you really believe that there's no limits to your life. And so that's really awesome that you had that mindset shift. And I'm sure that's helped you achieve more and more of these goals. So tell us another one of your stories and then I want to hear what's still on your list. What have you not yet accomplished?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Okay. One quick story is we tried to streak a field and get away. We didn't get away. We ended up spending the night in jail, but spending the night in jail is on the list. So that was, at least we crossed off one.

• 34:00Hala Taha?

  A double whammy.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  One of the things on the list was ask out the girl of your dreams. At the time, the girl of my dreams was Megan Fox, was back in the Transformer movie days. I snuck onto the red carpet at the premiere of the Transformers film, pretending that I was working for Us Weekly. So I had a spot on the red carpet, I had a microphone and the cord of the microphone was just going into my pocket. And I had a camera guy with me because we were filming. And I snuck onto the red carpet in the, in the press line, Megan Fox coming up, she comes up right up to me. I start interviewing her with this microphone, by the way, is not connected to anything. And I'm like, hey, how you doing? My name's Ben. And she's like, oh, my first boyfriend's name is Ben. And I'm like, uh, I start to get super nervous.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  And I started talking about something and then her publicist pulled her away and I completely blew it. I failed. I didn't ask her out and we did that on the show, by the way, and it was a complete, it was an embarrassment. I didn't, I didn't ask her out, but then the next season Duncan was like, I'm gonna redeem you, which didn't. Good, I guess, because he was like, I'm gonna ask out Taylor Swift. That was his girl of his dreams at the time. So we dressed up Duncan like a fake country music star named Boone McCaw. Cause we knew that she was gonna be at the CMT Awards, Country Music Television Awards. So we dressed him in all white, handlebar mustache, cowboy hat, Boone McCaw.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Dave was his guitar playing partner named Patagonia. He had a, a big jacket with tassels, another mustache. Wig. I was the publicist, so I was wearing like an earpiece and I was like, I was running alongside them because then we rented a big horse and chariot. And we were gonna just bum rush the music awards to try and get in. And we had, at that point, it was season two, and so we tweeted out and we had probably like one or 200 fans come out. And we made fake country music, I forget what the magazine is, but like basically Duncan's face on as Boone McCaw on the cover of this magazine. We had I Heart Boone t-shirts. We had all these, so like, country music television awards that they're happening.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, this white chariot in a horse, with horses, starts to just run towards the entrance of the awards. There's cops everywhere and as soon as it happens, all the fans are around the entrance and they start going crazy. And I'm running along with my earpiece on and my walkie talkie and cops let us through. We go to the front of the red carpet, publicists, everyone's letting us through, the producers. And then someone recognized us and they're like, no way, buried life, you're out of here. Cause CMT is, uh, the, uh, Viacom owns MTV and, uh, this, and the awards. And so they, they knew about us and they were, someone tipped them off that we were coming or something.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  And that's why we had to wear fake, uh, mustaches and stuff like that. Anyways, we didn't give up. I snuck in the back. By the way, if you ever wanna sneak in anywhere. Just wear all black and hold a walkie talkie. You basically look like a roadie. If you have a clipboard, that's even better. And you can pretty much walk in everywhere. So I walked in the back and I ended up nagging, nabbing two passes. I said, I was part of Kid Rock's crew. I got two passes. I came out, I gave one to Duncan. He got in all black. He went in the back. He walked right up to Taylor Swift, who was sitting in her seat, passed her a note. The note was asking her out. And then he ended up actually going out on a date with her. So that was a success.

• 37:25Hala Taha?

  Oh, wow. What a great story. And I love your tip about just wearing all black, pretending to be like a PR person. Get it anywhere. That's so funny.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:36Hala Taha?

  So I know that you guys have like other items on the list that are going to be really hard to accomplish. I think you, you want to go to space. Is that right? What other items have you not yet achieved?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Go to space. Make a movie, right? I'd like to finish the buried life documentary that we started. Been filming for the, all those years on the road through the show and everything. So it's a really cool story to tell there. Tell a judge you want the truth, you can't handle the truth. But it has to be real. We've got invited to do it in, to judges, but I think that, you know, we got to be in a real courtroom. And then I think host Saturday Night Live is the, is the last one, which would be probably the hardest. Yeah, go to space is going to be tough, but I think I'm going to do that in 2024. I'm talking with this company called Worldview, which is sending these capsules up to space in a big air balloon. And it's like eight people can go in it. That'll be probably 2024.

• 38:25Hala Taha?

  Awesome. Well, I can't wait to see you on SNL. I think it's definitely going to happen. So Ben, we're going to wrap up the interview now. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that we always ask our guests. And then we'll talk about where everyone can find the bucket list journal. So my question to you is what is one actionable thing our listeners can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, write down your goals. It seems simple, but it's a very big step to write down your goals. It makes them real. They're not ideas anymore than they're a reminder that they exist. It also forces you to slow down to think about what's important to you. And in a world where 76% of the population, their biggest regret on their deathbed is, I wish I would have lived for me, not what others expected of me, or what I thought I should do. It's important that we slow down to think about what's important to us. Again, it's all coming back to being true to yourself. And that's one step to being true to yourself is reflecting to understand what you really want and make sure that you're not subconsciously doing. Things because you think it's what's expected of you.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Right. So 76% of people on their deathbed, their number one regret in their entire life. This comes out of research from Cornell. Their number one regret, I wish I would have lived my ideal self, the life I wanted, not what others wanted for me. So no one should have that regret on their deathbed. And basically, the bucket list journal is hopefully designed to solve that problem for you so that you identify what your goals are. And then you start to build accountability, build inspiration through action and move through the fear so that you don't end up on your deathbed, regretting the things that you didn't do.

• 40:01Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I love the journal. I've been starting to use it. So thank you so much for giving me an advanced copy. And Ben, what is your secret to profiting in life?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Thinking about your death. And it sounds weird, but if you think about what's important in your life, you look at the top five regrets of the dying. Okay. And they don't have much to do with money. The top five regrets of the dying are, I wish I would have lived for me. I wish I would have told people how I really felt. I wish I would have worked less. I wish I would have let myself be happier. And I wish I would have stayed in touch with my friends. Okay. So those are the top five regrets that people have at the end of their life. So you need to remember that your time is finite to put things in perspective. So yes, you want to make money. Yes, you want to be successful. But when you do a eulogy for a friend, you don't usually talk about how much money they had. You don't usually talk about how successful they are.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  You talk about they were a good friend. They embodied these values. And so these types of things, and if you just look at the five regrets, you want to make sure that you can keep death close to you. So it reminds you that your time is limited so that you live with intention. And you hear this all the time. I had a near death experience and everything changed. My dad died and everything changed. Why does it take a traumatic experience to wake us up? How can you keep that perspective without going through that trauma or without it being too late? And that is, I think, the big goal is to remind yourself every day that this could be. Your last, I mean, it sounds cliche, but that's the truth.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Like best case scenario, you have another 50 years. But it's just interesting that like if you see a 90 year old person, you know, with a cane hunched over, shuffling down the street, you never think that that's going to be me. You don't even think about it. Well, the only thing you can count on is that will be you. Best case scenario, you might die in a week. And we just don't think about, we think we have all this time. You don't have the time because when you look at the research, that's the biggest regret that people have in their life is they, they wish they would have done the things they didn't do. So start now. A year from now, you'll wish you started today. That's the truth.

• 42:16Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I love that message. And so many really successful people who have been on the show have a similar thought, Robert Greene, Matt Higgins, Donald Miller. Everybody that I've talked to lately seems to always talk about how you need to use death as a motivator and death can be your life's greatest motivator. So I really agree with that perspective. Ben, where can everybody get the bucket list journal?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Uh, you can get it on Amazon. If you search the bucket list journal, it should be the first thing that pops up. Or you can go to my Instagram, which is at Ben Nemtin. And the link in the bio will send you to the bucket list journal website.

• 42:52Hala Taha?

  Awesome. Well, thank you so much for this eye opening conversation.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me.