The Reverse Bucket: How to Find Gratitude and Enjoyment in Your Life w/ Travis Bell

0:00People are dying at 40 and being buried at 80. Thank you for giving me permission to have fun again. Thank you for giving me permission to dream again. Today on the Big Success Podcast, I've got the bucket list guide, Trav Bell. And some of the things he teaches us about reverse bucket lists today. 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. We live in such a forward-facing world. The next thing, the next goal. That can create anxiety in people. He's the bucket list guide. Trav Bell, we're going to talk about success.

0:31So 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? 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 didn't. On the back of the Dunny door, 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. And I think success for me is doing what you want, with whom you want, having the freedom of choice and yeah, being happy in the process, having purpose, meaning and choice in the process.

1:29How 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.

2:09You know, this is a big gratitude exercise. So when people identify all the cool stuff, and to be honest, we live in such a forward-facing world, the next thing, the next goal, the next, you know, and it, and it creates, that can create anxiety in people by just piling more on it. but dude, I'm already busy. And now you're talking to me about bucket list. It's like, no, no, no. One of the pillars of positive psychology is gratitude. You know, positive psych, as you know, it's about identifying the strengths and what gives person meaning, purpose, fulfillment and gratitude. And basically bleeding more of that into their life and into their business life as well, or work life.

2:50And therefore you'll have a quote unquote happy life or a more fulfilled life as a result. People are too busy trying to fix their weaknesses to balance things out. Now, positive cycle is just like, no, do more of what you're good at, what floats your boat. 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. Yes, most people 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?

3:26I 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 write, even create a reverse bucketless board 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 happened by, stuff in your past happened by default rather than intentional design. What if we actually put some intention, you know, intention, true intention behind what we want to do going forward?

4:07And 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, you know, the stuff that I've done in my life already. Your formula for the bucket list, the My Bucket List, can you take us through that and why that formula is important? So My Bucket List, M, 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.

4:54So M, who do you want to meet before your time? Meet a personal hero. Y stands for your proud achievements. B, buy that special something. This is the only materialistic part of this. How are you rewarding yourself? You, ultimate challenges. So these are maybe the small, medium, and big physical challenges. Also, the intellectual challenges that you can set for yourself. 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. Because as we know, people are dying at 40 and being buried at 80.

5:36People get to midlife and they have a crisis. We call it a crisis. Let's have a midlife awakening. So U, C, conquer a fear. K, kind acts for others. E stands for express yourself. So this is the creative part of you. So E, T, the first T there is take lessons. All right. So what are some things that you want to learn before your time is up? L stands for leave a legacy. How do we want to be remembered after you're gone? I is idiotic stuff. There's a 21-year-old backpacker within all of us still, no matter how serious you become as an adult, right? 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 people funnily enough a lot of people say to me over the years Trav this is the feedback book thank you for giving me permission to have fun again thank you for giving me permission to dream again I mean dude how sad is that S stands for satisfy a curiosity T stands for the classic travel adventures these experiences need to be shared and who do you want to share them with?

6:56These are the what's, but where's the big why? A lot of us are just existing and not living. So this gives people an opportunity to really, you know, I think go for it. And it has worked over the last 12 years of, you know, letting people in on this stuff. And that's a big success podcast for today. Hopefully you took a lot of notes, learned a whole bunch. And if you need to go re-listen to it, we dropped a lot of information right there today. Big success is what it's all about. And by the way, if you haven't subscribed, hit that subscribe button so you're here with us every single week on the Big Success Podcast.

7:32I'm Brad Sugars. That's BS. Big success is what we're shooting for. Check the show notes for all the links. Make sure you follow through. Keep learning. Keep coming back. Oh, and by the way, share this with any of your friends who you know are up for success. I'll see you next week 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.