Ben Nemtin: Stop Waiting for Motivation and Start Checking Off Your Bucket List Today | Mental Health | YAPClassic

23:11Hala Taha:Yeah, I totally agree. Sleep will change your life if you can get a little bit better sleep. All right. 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? 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.

23:46And 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 The Buried Life. the buried life.

24:15So 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 them. So we thought, okay, we're not the first people to feel like this.

24:51If this guy wrote this poem in 1852, let's take this name, let's call our film The Buried Life. 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. We asked ourselves this question. Okay. We're, we realized, okay, we're going to die one day. So if we're going to die, which is probably the only thing we can count on in life, what do we want to do with the time left?

25:29And that's where the bucket list came from was, was, it was our answers to the question. What do you want to do before you die? And we pretended we We had all the money in the world. We pretended that we had the ability to do anything. 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 cross something off our list, let's help someone else do something on their list.

26:03And 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 2006 in Victoria, BC, 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 ride a boat. I can help you cross off, get up on a hot air balloon. I can help you cross off, make a toast at a 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.

26:39And so this two week road trip ended up lasting over 10 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 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.

27:16And 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?

27:51And 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.

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31:05Hala Taha:You go from working solo to managing a team, serving clients, and balancing the systems that keep your lights on. I really felt that shift as young and profiting grew from side hustle to the media company that it is today, Yap Media. Suddenly, reliable connectivity is no longer just a nice to have. It's become essential to keeping everything moving smoothly. That's why I want to put you guys onto AT &T Business. Think of AT &T Business as your go-to for reliable business connectivity. They help your team, devices, systems, and day-to-day operations stay connected so you can focus on the important stuff.

31:40Hala Taha:serving your clients, and growing your company. You work way too hard to let a shaky signal slow down your momentum. Give your business the rock-solid foundation it needs with AT &T Business so you can step into your CEO energy. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. 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.

32:16Hala Taha: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, you know, months two, 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 wanna do good for the world, you just become magnetic and people wanna help because there are good people out there. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. 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.

32:46You 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. Right. And I think that, you know, you had the idea for this podcast, 99 % 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.

33:25But when you don't put it out there, no one can help you. You're on your own. 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, you know, but with these personal goals, we don't ask for help because of the fear. We're afraid of failure or 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.

33:59And so you experienced this, when you started to put this, they said you took the leap, you know, you, you, you move through that, that discomfort of like, Oh shit. Like, what are people, is this going to be good? What if, what if it's bad and, and, and, and it fails, 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 was, 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 because everything pulls you away from that.

34:36Social 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 because you're channeling this. You are the only person that can be you. And we spend most of our life trying to be other people, 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. Friends that keep you accountable to these things are great reminders. But I think that 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.

35:11And then you start to see this thing happening, then you follow that momentum. And I think that sometimes we feel like we have this plan and if it's not on plan, then 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 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.

35:46And I feel like it's easy for me to do. And I worked really hard, but I see that it's working. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to lead the, I started a production company with the three buddies that we started the buried life with after the show. 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.

36:05Hala Taha:So following the flow. Yeah. Um, I, I totally agree with everything that you're saying. And 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 20s or 30s or 40s. 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.

36:38Hala Taha: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? 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 take care of your family. 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.

37:15And when you are following the things that you love that are important to you, that means something to you, that gives you a greater sense of wellbeing, that contributes to your mental health, and it energizes you. I think that we need to flip our thinking around this idea that it's selfish to do these things. 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.

37:49And to this day, they come up and say, oh, I saw the show and 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, you know, or I started a restaurant, you know, 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.

38:19So 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, right? Because one, you're going to inspire other people by doing those things, but you're also going to fuel, fuel yourself.

38:56And then, oh, so now you're hopefully thinking, okay, I can get around about, I can back this idea that it's, it's okay for me to have these goals. 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. 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. Um, that's basically what my new book is based on the bucket list journal, which I've given to you, but, uh, 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.

39:44And 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. 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 know, 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 share them with.

40:17If I say on this podcast, you know, 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, oh, I better start writing that book, right? So like 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.

40:48And that inspiration just, just rarely hits. So you have to create your own inspiration through action, right? Like there was never a perfect time for you to start this podcast. You were never going to have all you're ducks in a row. You know, you were never going to feel completely inspired to do it because the fear dampens that inspiration, right? 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.

41:19And 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. And so the journal is designed to create inspiration through action, to create accountability, and then to identify real fear and imagine fear.

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43:00Hala 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 and 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. Yep, absolutely. And yeah, and that's why the fear, that's why most people don't because the fear stops you from that first step.

43:33Hala 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? No, it's great because you, I met you at a speaking engagement. So you were able to see the talk. And so, you know, some of the, you should know my story, which is cool. Brent was the very first person that we ever helped back in 2006.

44:08You know, 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 we were starting to get momentum around this idea. 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.

44:38So let's go interview Brent. And so we talk with him and we find out the reason why he wants to bring pizzas down to the homeless shelters, 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, where nobody really cared about him. And we found that he 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.

45:11And 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, you know, this guy's in a tough spot and he's not even asking for anything for himself. We didn't have much money at the time. We had$480 between the four of us. Canadian, so it's less. 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, what, and the cheapest truck on the lot was$2 ,100.

45:47And he sold the truck to us for 480. And then he paid for the insurance and, uh, out of his own pocket, right? Like we're at the age, we didn't even know that you needed insurance or maybe we just, 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 they 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. You know, we, we hung out with him and his girlfriend that day. And we sort of all felt like, okay, this is what this is about.

46:24And 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. So that was very impactful.

46:47Hala 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. There's a lot of crazy stories. You know, I love the President Obama story, but I won't tell that one because you've heard it. But just to kind of give the. I haven't I by the way, I missed your speech at the event.

47:25Oh, there you go. Okay, great. That's great.

47:29Hala Taha:So and plus, we've got thousands of listeners. So tell me. Okay, well, I'll tell the 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, you know, we just drove there and started asking people in 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 lower level officials and they and then we were could convince them to meet with their boss and then we met with their boss and we got all the way up to the 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 uh too bad uh i guess we're gonna have to change our tact and so we said instead of going after the president, we'd go after the president's personal aid.

48:21And because the personal aid of 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 aid's email. And we started sending him emails every day with a challenge to a basketball game. So he said, you and the president versus us tonight, 730 at the YMCA, be there. And we'd show up at the Y at 730 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.

48:50We 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 aid of the president. 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 got to sign off on everything. I'll get back to you in two weeks. Calls me in two weeks. He's like, it's not going to happen.

49:20And 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 a tour of the white house. Cut to three months later, we're back in DC. The person later, 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, manicured hedges, presidential seal on each hoop, one presidential basketball.

49:54We're shooting around and the president's not in town. And, and because this was like, this is back when like, uh, he, I forget why he was supposed to be out of town for something. So 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 15, 20 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.

50:31It was really, really incredible. And that was amazing because it was - What a great memory. It was definitely the most impossible thing I remember writing down. I remember when we came up with that idea for the list, I laughed because it was so impossible. I was like, 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.

51:11And I think that that's a very common feeling is that you don't know what's possible until you're doing it. And that's really important, right? 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.

51:37Hala 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.

52:08Hala Taha:And then I want to hear what's still on your list. What have you not yet accomplished? Okay. Well, it's a couple, 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 spend a night in jail is on the list. So that was, at least we crossed off one. A double whammy. You know, 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. It 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.

52:45So 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 bed. And I'm like, uh, I start getting super nervous and I started talking about something. And then her publicist pulled her away and I completely blew it.

53:20I failed. I didn't ask her out and we did that on the show by the way and it it was a complete embarrassment so 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 you know it's 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 because we knew that she was going to be at the cmt awards country music television awards so we dressed him in all white, handlebar mustache, cowboy hat, Boone Macaw. Dave was his guitar playing partner named Patagonia.

54:01He had a big jacket with tassels, another mustache, a wig. I was the publicist. So I was wearing like an earpiece and I was like running alongside them because then we rented a big horse and chariot and we were going to 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, country music, uh, television awards that they're happening.

54:35All 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, you know, 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. Because CMT, the Viacom owns MTV and the awards. And so they knew about us. and someone tipped them off that we were coming or something.

55:21And that's why we had to wear fake mustaches and stuff like that. Anyways, we didn't give up. I snuck in the back. By the way, if you ever want to 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 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.

55:52The note was asking her out. And then he ended up actually going out on a date with her. So that was a success.

55:59Hala 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. Yeah. 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 want to go to space. Is that right? What other items have you not yet achieved? Go to space, make a TV. Oh, sorry. Make a movie, right? I'd like to finish, excuse me, the buried life documentary that we started. I've been filming for the, you know, all those years on the road through the show and everything. So it's a really cool story to tell there.

56:34Tell a judge you want the truth. You can't handle the truth because, but it has to be real. We've got invited to do it to judges, but I think that, you know, we got to be in a real courtroom. Um, and then, uh, 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 and big air balloon. And it's like eight people can go in it. So that'll be probably 2024.

57:05Hala 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? 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. Then they're a reminder that they exist. It also forces you to slow down to think about what's important to you.

57:38In 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, right? 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, right? So 76 % of people on their deathbed, their number one regret in their entire life, and 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.

58:22So no one should have that regret on their deathbed, right? 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.

58:41Hala Taha:Yeah. And 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? 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. 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.

59:19Okay. 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. 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. You talk about they were a good friend. They embodied these values, right? 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.

59:56And 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? Right. And that is, I think the big goal is to remind yourself every day that this could be, you know, this could be your last. I mean, it sounds cliche, but that's the truth. 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.

1:00:38You 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. 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 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.

1:01:05Hala 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? 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 Nemton. And the link in the bio will send you to the Bucket List Journal website.

1:01:42Hala Taha:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for this eye-opening conversation. Thank you so much for having me. It's good to chat again.