Manifesting Your Dreams: Using Google and the Power of Intention W/ Travis Bell

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting-edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. Today on the Big Success Podcast, I've got the bucket list guy, Trav Bell. Now, not only is he a bucket list expert, built his own personal training business. In fact, if you go right back, and some of the things he teaches us about reverse bucket lists today, which is going to show you a whole different side of gratitude. and I really think you'll enjoy that part for it. But as a kid, he wrote his to-do before I die list.

0:37Like, okay, that's an interesting thing for a kid to do. But Travis is going to take us through that. Not only that, he takes us through his whole bucket list formula, the 12-step formula for creating your bucket list of not just the big travel things, but all of the other stuff. So he's here. He's written a book on it. He's taught everyone about it. He's the bucket list guy. Trav Bell, we're going to talk about success. So Travis Bell, I have to ask, as a bucket list guy, you're the bucket list guy, what is success to you? How do you define success? yes good good question uh and i'm gonna i'm gonna you know me i love fleshing things out in the story i finished a hike with my dad about 10 years ago and we were staying at a not so good hotel at the end of that hike in the middle of kind of lower hobart really dodgy kind of area they picked it i I didn't.

1:36And on the back of the Dunny door. For the non-Australians, that's the door, yes. That is, or the Benio, is there was a quote by Bob Dylan written, a man is a success when he wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night and does what he wants to in between. and I went huh and it has stayed with me it's in my book I've talked about it at length and I think success for me is doing what you want with whom you want um having the freedom of choice and yeah being happy in the process having having purpose meaning um and choice in the process Okay, take that down just a little bit, okay? Let's take a look at that.

2:34Firstly, did that definition change over time or has that always been your thing? uh my definition has changed by hanging around with people like you and uh which is you know a success success to me sure is choice but also when you get exposed to other people playing life at a whole other level, very different to what you grew up with, then your perception of success expands. And I think, you know, for me, as you know, I've always wanted to get around other people that are big thinkers and as a result it's just, you know, the mind does not go back to that original, how it originally was before that exposure to other people living life a lot more grander, with a lot more expansive, a lot more choice.

3:33So for me, I'm always putting myself in environments and around big thinkers that allow me to expand and keep doing the things that I love in the process though. You know, everything you've done in your life, you've been sort of pushed to success levels. When do you think you chose success in life? Was it as a kid? Was it gradual? Joel, how did you choose success? It's interesting. I never played team sports. Maybe because I was adopted, I grew up as a competitive athlete doing surfing and surf lifesaving and swimming. And I've always, I've got a tattoo here. If it is to be, it is up to me. So it doesn't say if it is to be, it is up to the team.

4:25um unfortunately there's no iron team there is me um so i've always sort of you know been um self-determined you know i've always been motivated i've always you know got around um got around influences that i could learn from that i can promise i know trav if you go way back do you think there was a time where you said i'm choosing success in my life versus average yeah definitely definitely i i i reckon it went it goes back to um seeing my dad seeing my dad disgruntedly go to work at like split shift as a as a wharfie as a fitter and turner by trade um really in the same job from when he was 17 through to retirement he was in the same job the last 15 years he did not like it and and I saw him get angrier and angrier and angrier um he's still angry today about the government and all the all the rest of it the big man smashing the small man and you know you know those current affair kind of shows and he watches the news and just gets more and more angry anyway bless him um but I reckon that that turned me into a business owner is like my concept of work growing up is not not favorable not positive I didn't want to go to I didn't want to spend the precious years of my life angry at the world like dad was and so maybe it's you know that forced me to become an entrepreneur you know Like right out of uni, I chose to be an entrepreneur to, you know, so I got my first personal fitness training client in third year uni and then I started personal training back in the early 90s.

6:29And, you know, that one book, The E-Myth by Michael Gerber and all of your stuff as well, you know, that really changed the perception of what success was, how to build wealth, how to do business. And rather than rely on someone else, I wanted to rely on myself. So let's think then if you look at success, what's your formula for it all? How do you predict success is going to happen? What's your methodology of how success works? Well, I like, you know, it's really an action. It's a doing activity, you know. Like I will sort myself, you know, having, number one, having a goal. Like I've been always, you know, right from when I was swimming competitively, I always wrote down goals.

7:33And, you know, even to this day, I go and do corporate events and keynotes around the world and I go into very intelligent groups of people and say, write down your goals. And it's like I've discovered freaking fire, you know. And then I go into another group and I say, write down your bucket list and it's like I've discovered the wheel. And so people don't do what you and I think. It's just our way of being, you know. I've always written down goals. I don't understand why people don't. And I was like, all right, are they medium goal? Are they really stretch goals? And a goal is only valid if it's a stretch goal.

8:23So all right, well, who do I have to, that's what I want to have. Who do I have to be or who does one have to be in order to achieve that? Maybe disassociate myself and go, okay, what would Brad do? You know, what would, sorry, who would be the type of person that would achieve a goal like this in whatever area of life? And more importantly, what would they do? So kind of flip that, you know, be, do, have. No, no, you're big on that. Sort of have, be, do to a certain extent. You know, what's the goal that you want to have? and then reverse engineer and go, who is that kind of person that could achieve that?

9:06And then get around those people. You know, that's an accelerated learning technique. Get around the people that are actually like that and that stuff rubs off. And what do they do on a day-to-day basis in order to close that gap? So when you think about, you know, the mistakes or the failures in life, how do you use failure to teach success? So how do you learn from that sort of thing? I think it's really important, and I've always done this, is, you know, teaching, you know, like learn to teach. If I've learnt lessons, I guess I'm an educator by trade and I can't help it, you know, a coach by trade and I can't help it.

9:52If I've learnt something, whether it be by a book or from my own life or from a business, I like to be able to impart those lessons, not immediately because they're too fresh, but at least impart those lessons. I went through a mental health battle with depression, albeit mild back in the day before I became the bucket list guy. And I know that if I'm vulnerable, if I'm authentic to the message and if I tell stories that the audience or clients can't hide in my shadows as a result, that really brings them into the light and gets them to address the things that they want to address. So imparting that knowledge, there's a lot of people that learn a lot of stuff in life, and I'm the first to say, whatever you do, don't go through this life and die with the wisdoms trapped within you.

10:48Get it out of you. extract the learnings, articulate them in a way to teach them and help others. Helping others is one of my highest values along with family and health and all the rest. But if I'm not helping others, which I saw during COVID, I was like, I'm not helping enough people. It frustrates me. So I love helping people. I love imparting those messages. And that gives me a sense of fulfillment. That is a success marker for me. If I'm only helping one person or a handful of people, I'm actually not tuning in to why I'm here. Got it. You're on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Sugars. We'll be back with the bucket list guy, Trav Bell.

11:36And we're going to be talking about bucket lists and how you build it and what you can do and how you can succeed at living a bucket list life. In 30 minutes a day for 30 days, 30X Business will take you through the exact hard one business principles that Brad Sugars has personally developed over the past 30 years as an entrepreneur, investor, and business advisor. Join Brad and his team and 100 other entrepreneurs who want to start building a successful business today. You're back on the Big Success Podcast. I am Brad Sugars, your host, and we're going to chat with the bucket list guy, Trap Bell, around bucket lists.

12:09But before we do that, Trap, I want to ask, how does one succeed at the reverse bucket list? Because I love the way you teach people to do that. How do you succeed at doing it? Well, maybe first tell them what it is and then how to succeed at doing it. Yeah, everyone knows what a bucket list is. There's, you know, it's all the future things that we, all the things we want to tick off our list before we die, between now and into the future, before that, you know, use by date. but the reverse bucket list is I actually do the reverse bucket list with people before the future bucket list to give people a sense of gratitude you know to get them to identify all the cool things that they've done in their life as if they were in a bucket list all the way along and this you know this is a big gratitude exercise so when people identify all the cool stuff and and to be honest we live in such a forward-facing world the next thing the next goal the next you You know, and that can create anxiety in people by just piling more on it.

13:13Dude, I'm already busy. And now you're talking about bucket lists? It's like, no, no, no. One of the pills of positive psychology, one of the pills of positive psychology is gratitude. You know, positive psych, as you know, it's about identifying the strengths, what gives person meaning purpose fulfillment and gratitude and basically bleeding more of that into their life and into their business business life as well or work life and uh and therefore you'll have a quote-unquote happy life or a more fulfilled life as a result and people people are too busy trying to fix their weaknesses to balance things out now positive psych is just like no do more of what you're good at um that what floats your boat how do we succeed creating what's the keys to creating a great reverse bucket list mate it's identifying all the things that you've done in your life as if they were in a bucket list all the way along simple as that um yes most people you know identify those things and people will sort of start to tap out at about five things you mean you can only identify five things on your reverse bucket lists, maybe in the five minutes that I've given you.

14:29So I think it's really important to identify all the things and there's no judgment, no comparison or anything like that. You've got a reverse bucket list and that should be as fleshed out and as big as the future bucket list. What it does is when you actually put pen to paper and even create a reverse bucket that's bored for some people, it gives people an overwhelming sense of gratitude and a hell of a foundation to then dream big because a lot of this stuff in your past happened by default rather than intentional design. What if we actually put some intention, true intention, behind what we want to do going forward?

15:13And people like that get that glimmer of hope. mate and I've got to say just helping people identify all the cool stuff and I frame it up in this you know reverse bucket list context that alone has helped so many people with depressive thoughts it really has over the years it's helped people just bring the light back and go yeah massive appreciation for for you know the stuff that I've done in my life already. I remember doing and just listing all the places that I'd travelled to. And just when you actually list them down and you go, dang, you know, I've been everywhere. Yeah, it makes it feel real good.

15:55So let's flip that over then. Your formula for the bucket list, the My Bucket List, can you take us through that and why that formula is important? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, I created it on the back of researching what most bucket, this is about 12 years ago when someone called me the bucket list guy. Most bucket lists are about travel, and that's what a lot of people still think that bucket lists are all about. But travel, unfortunately, uses the most resources, time and money as a resource. It's really expensive, and it takes somewhat a lot of time in order to tick that stuff off. So it doesn't happen until retirement, until you can get off work.

16:37And what is it in America? You get two weeks off a year if you're employed, four weeks off if you're in Australia. When the hell am I going to get time to do my bucket list? So it forces people into a mindset of heavy delayed gratification. I'll be happy when that happens syndrome or I'll have to wait until someday or the perfect time. and you know with with the mental health stats as scary as they are depression anxiety you know um the over prescription of antidepressants suicides use suicides then you go through the pandemic on top of that and even this thing called the loneliness epidemic which is a real thing you've got a perfect storm of mental health so there's got to be some I'm doing my bit to, you know, my narrative, this bucket list narrative to help people, to give people tools to be instantly gratified, you know, to get that sense of instant gratification rather than just wait until delayed gratification so they can be happy now.

17:43So I created this My Bucket List Blueprint, which is a 12-step program, which sounds like AA. You might need a drink afterwards. What is the formula? What does it stand for? So my bucket list, it's an acronym. So it's designed to help you go north, south, east, west in your own brain, help you extract and articulate a personally meaningful and holistic bucket list rather than just about trouble. So M, who do you want to meet before your time? Meet a personal hero. Y stands for your proud achievements. You know, another level of education, a TED talk, you know, starting a business maybe for some, building your own house.

18:34B, I've written a book on this. I've done a TED talk on this. B, buy that special something. This is the only materialistic part of this. How are you rewarding yourself? You, ultimate challenges. challenges so these are maybe the the small medium and big physical challenges also the you know the intellectual challenges that you can set for yourself see on the other side of your bucket list here's something that people need to write down on the other side of your bucket list is a you that you don't know yet i want people to get curiously excited about what's on the other side the bigger version of them that they don't know yet.

19:14Because as we know, people are dying at 40 and being buried at 80. People get to midlife and they have a crisis. We call it a crisis. Let's have a midlife awakening. So you, C, conquer a fear. So it's not just about holding the snake or getting the spider. It's how you map those, that stepping up to the plate, conquering the fear, jumping off the bridge with the bungee. But how do you map that into other areas of your life? You know, maybe it's starting that business or it's asking someone out on a date. You know, it's how you map those fears. Conquer a fear. What are we up to? M-U-C-K. Yes. Kind acts for others.

20:02Like I said, it's early over here in Australia, Brad, so I'm yet to have the coffee. kind acts for others. So this really rounds out the bucket list, this and another category. It's not about just you. It's about the kind of footprint that you can lay down while you're still here. And we're assuming that you're all nice people who are listening to this. So buying someone else coffee in the line at Starbucks or helping an old lady over the street, let's assume that you do that naturally. That's not a bucket list item, but maybe there's a cause out there that hits your heart. Maybe there's a champion of a cause out there or you've been personally affected by something.

20:43Something really pisses you off. Maybe they need your attention. E stands for express yourself. So this is the creative part of you. Good. It could be woodworking. It could be writing a book. It could be writing songs. We've had people do all of the above. we had a bunch of ladies in Mexico at a company go and do quilting and I didn't even know what the hell quilting was so now I do so that painting art you know photography whatever it is so this is the and this is this is the category that a lot of us used to do maybe before we became and adult, but where we find flow in, right? So E, T, the first T there is take lessons, right?

21:34So what are some things that you want to learn before your time is up? Breakdancing, harmonica, guitar. I'm learning Spanish at the moment. Not very good, but I'm learning it. I'm actually learning for when I launched the book, I've got a four-channel DJ deck mixer. So I'm learning, you know, mixing. I can't play a musical instrument to save myself, but this is allowing me to, and I can lose days doing that. So that's the creative side. L is along the same lines as K. L stands for leave a legacy, all right? How do we want to be remembered after you're gone? You know, one year, two years, 50 years.

22:25What sort of an imprint are you making now? What sort of roots can you plant now in order to create that legacy? It might be a property portfolio. It might be even a father-son camp that you set up, a mentoring program, a scholarship. It could be a whole bunch of different things. I stands for, you love this bit, mate, is idiotic stuff. This is just, I know there's a 21-year-old backpacker within all of us still, no matter how serious you become as an adult, right? So, God, people have just got to still keep having fun and having more adventures and choose fun and choose life because people get so serious and then they, mental health And, you know, like, anyway, people, funnily enough, a lot of people say to me over the years, Trav, this is the feedback, thank you for giving me permission to have fun again.

23:29Thank you for giving me permission to dream again. I mean, dude, how sad is that? Yeah, yeah. So S stands for satisfy a curiosity. This category gets weird. It gets weird. There is really weird stuff that people want to do. And this is actually the most, you know, what are the foods? What are the restaurants? What are the places you want to stay? What has always been that chip on your shoulder that you've always been curious about, about exploring and doing? And when I do a couple's bucket list, because that's one of our offerings, a couple's bucket list, this category gets really fleshed out.

24:16back on target T stands for the classic travel adventures so where are the big bucket list items that you want to go on who do you want to do them with nothing sadder than doing a selfie at Machu Picchu so these so these these experiences need to be shared and who do you want to share them with you know there's a big these are the what's but where's the big why you know when you flesh out your whole bucket list and then you look at you look at it in a in a categorized list and then you go i do a one to ten scale ten is you'll move mountains to make that happen one you couldn't really care about it so you go through all your whole list and you go yep these are the eights nines and tens whatever they're the ones that really get you out of bed in the morning and they're the ones where you got to start plotting them.

25:13You've got to start what I call a bucket list budget around them. They're the ones that really can change the course of your life. With the T, the travel adventures, what I was saying during lockdown, if you haven't got the money, you haven't got the time, be your own tourist in your own hometown first. It's an attitude of choosing, not just taking that default. A lot of us are just existing and not living. So this gives people an opportunity to really, I think, go for it. And it has worked over the last 12 years of letting people in on this stuff. You're on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Shugas.

25:55We're going to be back and we're going to talk about going from good to great, how we level up in our bucket list life. He's known as the bucket list guy, the world's number one bucket list expert. Someone called Travis this about 12 years ago after the first talk he ever did, and it's stuck ever since. To learn more about Travis Bell, please visit TheBucketListGuy.com. And we're back. Travis Bell, Bucket List Guy. What's the difference in the people that build a good bucket list, like to do the average things, and people who go for massive and go for the really big stuff? What do you think is the difference between those people and how can we learn if we want to be the ones going for the massive?

26:44Well, I think a bucket list is so individual and I say in my rooms when I speak, as you know, there's to be no comparison, no judgment because, you know, what Brad Sugars, and I've seen your bucket list, what Brad Sugars will put on his bucket list, A lot of people in the world can't compare. And but that's, you know, but I've had, you know, I've had, you know, teens, you know, that are on suicide watch from really bad backgrounds, going through really bad stuff just to go on a holiday down the beach. that probably the rest of the world could just completely take for granted. Oh, yeah, that's not a bucket list, but that's massive in her world.

27:43And that has to be appreciated. See, and here's, I guess, the frame for it all. It's really not about the ticks off your bucket list. It's really about how a person reverse engineers every aspect of their life in order to make that stuff come to fruition. It's about the growth of you on this journey towards these self-imposed destinations. But more importantly, like I said before, it's about the you that exists on the other side, and that's the person that we don't know yet. And that's our potential. When we get to experience our potential, it puts a smile on our face. So each to their own is probably the best answer for that.

28:27But you hang around enough. challenge everyone that your bucket, you know, this is a never-ending thing. So whatever you put on your list, what are you going to do once you've crossed that off? Then you're going to have to go more, the more, the more, the more. So it's about getting around the right tribes of people, the right community, and the people listening to this podcast and hanging around in your world, you know, they're always upping their game. You know, they're always looking for more and more big success in their life. So don't keep it to yourself. Share your bucket list, you know, share your bucket list with your team, with your family, and it's amazing what comes out of them that will inspire you and vice versa.

29:12So, you know, it's really important to share this stuff and just don't keep it to yourself. Bring people on the journey with you. How do you, is there a formula for dreaming big? Is there a methodology for it or is it just as simple as get around people who are dreaming back? Well, it has a hell of a lot. You know, it's about action. At the end of the day, you can write all the goals, you can write all the goals that you want, but it's about taking action, you know, baby steps if that's your way of doing it. I'm not one to do that, but everyone's got their own comfort zone. um you know you've got to put pen to paper you know like again there's so many people that go through life and yeah they might even say they've got a bucket list but it's up there with their to-do list you know and guess which one gets done first on a day-to-day basis it's their to-do list so as simple as it sounds and I'm on a lot of podcasts I've talked to so many people over the years.

30:22And the first step is to whether it's, you know, go through that My Bucket List blueprint. Don't just think about it. Grab a book if you want to. Have a look at my TED Talk. Get around our coaches who can help you, you know, who can help guide you. But the most important thing is actually putting pen to paper and getting this stuff out of your head and separating that daily to-do list from your bucket list. So as simple as that sounds, that is actually the first step. The first step is actually getting it out of your head. And I know it's really analog and old school, but what's this, Brad? This is a...

31:05Yeah. Yeah. And what's this stuff here? Yeah. It does this amazing thing like writing, you know. Basically, when you write stuff down, I'm being facetious, of course, But when you actually write stuff down, you're typing into Google, or it could be chat GPT4 at the time of recording. You're typing in your search, your search engine here. And if you don't type it in by writing, what are you searching for? You know, the brain has a funny thing of helping the path, of showing up. The universe has a funny way of showing the path when the what and the why are really strong. You've got to plug it into Google, write this stuff down, and it's amazing how then you start to, you know, you put Mount Everest Base Camp on you.

31:56But funnily enough, you're now, you know, talking to people who have been there. You're looking at blogs. You're looking at websites. Stuff is showing up on social media. All I have to actually say it and my phone starts showing me stuff. Yeah, I was about to say that. You just say it near your phone and you'll get ads. And just in this podcast, because I've got mine on right here, I'm probably now going to get ads about it. It may not matter if it's a space camp. But that's kind of how it goes with that retargeting stuff. But, yeah, write it down, guys. And then I'm going to say pick off the thing that is the most easiest to do, all right?

32:37Go the low-hanging fruit first because that will give you the momentum and motivation to smash through the bigger ones. Now, finishing up today, best advice you ever got on success or best quote you ever read on success other than that, Bob Dillon.

32:53Yeah, I'll come back to that. I'll come back to my tattoo. I love a bunch of your quotes as well, you know, about business. I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I'm going to say, I'm simply going to say life's way too short not to live your bucket list. Don't wait until you get given a use-by date. Now is the best time to take action, and it really is. Love it. Travis Bell, the bucket list guy. Follow him. Learn from him. Study his stuff. Build your own bucket list life. You're on the Big Success Podcast. We'll be back next week with more on your success. And that's the Big Success Podcast for today.

33:38Hopefully you took a lot of notes and hopefully you learned a bunch and hopefully you're going to take action on it and refer people. Remember, if you haven't subscribed, click that subscribe button now. Be with us every week on the Big Success Podcast. BS, Brad Sugar's Big Success. Take action. Check the show notes for all the links. I'll give you all the links for everything that your speaker had. Make sure you follow through and keep the learning going. Remember, you've got to grow into your goals. I'll speak to you next time on the Big Success Podcast you've been listening to the Big Success Podcast with the number one business coach in the world Brad Sugars to learn more about how to achieve business and personal success as well as how to level up or listen to past episodes visit www.bradsugars.com