Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Ben Nemtin of The Buried Life Movement

Episode Date: April 17, 2018

New York Times bestselling author, co-founder of The Buried Life movement, and fellow Canadian Ben Nemtin joins Kaitlyn to reminisce about her move to America, the impact of ambitious goals, and living a life where it's never too late. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And some features are not available in all states. Caitlin is creating a space where girls and gents can feel empowered to be themselves. Get ready for lots of laughs, tabby topics, on filtered advice, and wine. Lots of wine. Get ready to shake things up. Here's Caitlin. Okay, welcome to Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow, in the studio with me, New York Times best-selling author.

That must sound so cool to just hear me say that about you. Author of What Do You Want to Do Before You Die? the star of MTV show The Buried Life and internationally renowned keynote speaker and my friend Ben Nempton. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's good to see you again. I know. We were just saying, I'm like, I feel like it's been years and years, but it's, I mean, maybe like two. Yeah, probably two years.

It's so crazy because I think back as to how we met, I didn't meet you before, like with Shana and our mutual girlfriends. I met you when the show started happening the buried life and I mean we can start by talking about that story because it's kind of funny yeah well that was always like we always talked about like how do we get Caitlin on the show yeah you know because we did this show which was like we're crossing things off our bucket list but

we're also helping other people do things they want to do on their bucket list so we I mean I guess that means that we could say that we we knew in the beginning we like knew you had a talent and we always thought we got to get her on the show somehow and so when we were doing an episode So we're like, let's help Caitlin, you know, sing or dance or do something. And you were dancing at the time. So we're like, you know, let's surprise her and bring her down to L.A. for a big audition. And so I think, yeah, Dave surprised you at the restaurant and you were shocked. It was a really funny moment.

It's funny because, okay, yeah. So the show is The Buried Life. It was on MTV. You're all Canadian boys. And we had mutual friends. So you knew it. And Dave knew me well. And so I remember.

I was in like a weird place in my life where I was just like partying and like I feel like I was hung over and sleeping and you guys were like trying to call me or Penny was trying to call me a bunch of times and I just kept like ignoring the I had like 38 missed calls. That was a very specific number apparently I remember. And finally they're like you need to get to Earl's restaurant. Something's happening and I was like what? And then they're like and look like like doll yourself up a little bit. I was like what? And so I just put on like. hat and sunglasses because I know you know what I had pink eye yeah that's right that's right I had pink eye it all

just came back to me right now I had pink eye and so I put sunglasses on yeah not knowing I was going to be on camera no of course not and so you guys came in with camera crews and you're like you're going to be on the buried life like we're going to help you cross something off your bucket list and I was like holy shit here we go and it was so funny because then I went I was in Edmonton or something when I actually was flying out and now I still get questioned at the border

because of you guys. Really? Yes because I had a one-way ticket to L.A. You brought Pinkie into the States for the very first time. Spread it everywhere. It's my fault. But they, every time I cross the border well now I have a work visa so it's different but because we booked a one way ticket from Edmonton to L.A. and I didn't have a return

flight so they were like you can't can't come into the States without a return flight. Right. And they, I almost didn't make my flight. They went through all of my stuff. They unpacked her. They were going through my wallet and asking me about concert tickets because I'm like a sentimental kind of person. And so I keep things. They're like, why do you have a ticket from like a year ago? I'm like, it meant a lot to me. Anyways. And so I got there. Finally, they let me in. But now when I still cross, sometimes they're like, what did, what were you doing with the buried life? And I'm like, what?

Yeah. Oh, those are my pink eye days. Yeah, we don't like to talk about those days. But now I've got to work visa, so it's all good. Good, yeah. But yeah, it's your fault. But that was funny because, okay, so I landed in L.A. You guys pick me up on your big purple Penelope. Is that what you call there, the bus?

Yeah, 1969, like, purple transit bus. Yeah. We actually bought off a nudist in Vancouver. What? Yeah. Yeah, when we first, I mean, because we started doing Buried Life, you know, 2006. 2007, we bought the bus because our old RV broke down. And we were like, okay, we got to find a nice bus to be able to that we can drive, but we can also sleep in.

Yeah. And we found this like big purple vintage bus that was a long-haul transit bus on Craigs us. And we went and met the guy and he did the bumper sticker on the back said, happiness is no tan lines. And so we went through. Oh, I thought you were going to say hap penis or something. And I was like, ah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's still funny. It's still funny. No, that's funny. But yeah. And, and so we ended up buying this purple nudist bus. And like.

It was, everything was purple. The outside, the inside, there was, like, purple. Sort of, like, the wallpaper was purple. The bedding was purple. There was, like, a mirror on the roof, which was really funny. In the bedroom. A nudist would do that. Yeah.

And then we, so we ripped out the bed and we built these four bunk beds. And then we found when we were cleaning the bus, because we, like, had to clean the bus pretty well on the inside. Yeah. He's probably sitting everywhere. And so we found this purple leopard print speedo. Oh. He had left in the shower or something. And of course, we were like, okay.

The guy really like purple. Yeah. So we like, we kind of like, I think we threw it in the garbage because we're like, okay, we got to get rid of this. And then Dave saw it in the garbage, like pulled it out and put it on. Of course he did. He sort of wore that for the most of the tour. So then we, when we got the show, which was one of things on the list was make a TV show, we ended up like getting the show, drove our nudist bus down to L.A. Yeah.

And lived it all the way down. And then we, you know, we just kept. you know living it and well we we we lived together an apartment but we would when we were on the road we still live in it you all four of you lived in the same apartment yeah for the first two years we lived in a four bedroom apartment in los felas oh you did yeah we went we almost went crazy yeah because we didn't see anybody else other than the four weeks yeah filming and then we weren't filming we were in post production yeah and we were working from like eight a m to like two a m sometimes we'd sleep in the edifice and then we just drive our kea that we rented back to los

So we'd never see daylight, you know, if we were in post-production. That's so crazy. I feel like I love hearing, like when people are successful and make something happen, I always love their stories of how they got there because it's always stuff like that. I mean, you think back and also, you know, you talk with anybody, but it's, I mean, it's luck and the hardest work you'll ever do. You know, like it's, you have to, you have to prepare to take advantage of that moment, which is, you know, quote unquote luck, but it's being, I think it's having the preparation and being

ready to do the work in that moment, take advantage of it, and then continually do the work afterwards to continue that growth. Because in the beginning, it's so fragile. And you really have to, like, you can't miss a step. And that just takes tenacity, hard work, you know, all that determination to kind of get that exponential growth. And then once, you know, it's kind of going, then you've, you sort of laid that foundation where you can really start to take off. But, but anyways, I remember, oh, but I also remember. What, when we almost crashed the bus? Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. So we picked you up in the bus at L-A-X, which by you. By the way, this is a 36, 40-foot bus.

And it's from the 60s. Yeah. So it has a, I forget what it's called, but it's like an engine retarder, but it's like basically it can't go above 60. So it's like the opposite of speed. Yeah. Which is like, you can't go below 60. It's like, you can't go above 60. And if you're going up a hill, you just, there's nothing you can do.

You just crawl along. You put on your hazards. And if you're going down a hill. Yeah. Yeah. So we picked you up. I'm surprised we actually got into. the ring at L.A.S.

I'm thinking that now, too, because I've been to the airport so many times now. I'm like, how did you guys bring the bus there? Yeah, I don't know. They must have been a little more lax in security. This was like 2010. Is it 2010? Probably, probably, yeah. 10, 10, 2011.

And then we picked you up for this stupid, like, we had this big horn, like Hong Kong, pick you up. You're like, okay. And we get in, everyone's excited. And then we almost crashed. Like, this is the one. We've been driving the bus. We drove it for, you know, eight years. Yeah.

This was the scariest. This is the one moment. I was like, for sure, we're like, and we all saw it happening. We're like, this is the moment you crash the bus. Yeah, because you can't slow down quickly. And we were going, I think we were merging into another lane and there was another car coming. And then it was all of a sudden like really backed up traffic. And all I remember is everybody just yelling, pump the brakes.

Pump the brakes. And I was like watching it all happened. And I'm like, okay, so how do I, like, brace myself for a crash right now? Like, I had time to think about it because we were going and, and I don't even, was something wrong with the brakes? No, well, that's the thing. It's an old bus. It doesn't stop quick. Like, this was, you know, we were going fast.

That's what it was. We were going fast. And all of a sudden it was just stopped traffic. Yes. And we knew we couldn't stop in time. And if you pump the brakes, you can actually, if you just slam them, they're going to lock. Right. So we had to pump the brakes and then go and squeeze on the inside, no lane lane.

and just miss having a huge pile-up. I can't believe we didn't trash. I just remember that. That was the scariest moment on the bus. Yes. I've ever been on it. And I was there for it. You were there.

And you probably thought like, yeah, you know, one eye. And you don't even know. I saw it all happened with one eye. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Wait, now I'm really thinking back and remembering all of this stuff. And I had pink eye and both eyes.

Which you read about. But adil it actually happens. Yeah. Pink eye and both eyes. No, why they flag you at the border? Like, get this woman out. out of our country. Trying to move to the states with double pink eye.

Never worked out for anybody. Oh my gosh. So then we do this whole, like, wait, then we do this whole thing where I went into an audition for, it was, I don't even know what it was for a music video. It was for a music video. I want to say Madonna, but it definitely wasn't Madonna, but let's just call it Madonna.

Let's say it was Madonna. That sounds cool, even though I didn't get it. But I remember walking in and I was late. We were late. Something happened or they didn't want camera cruise or something. Yeah, it was our fault probably. Well, still fun. Yeah.

And so I go in and they're like, oh, are you Caitlin Bristow? Oh, yeah, just go ahead. And it was all these women standing around, like crossing their arms, like, who's this chick coming in? So then they all have high expectations of that. I'm going to pull out the best dance moves they've ever seen. And so it's this audition. There's three judges on a panel, all these women, and they just go, okay, just dance and they turn on music and you freestyle.

Wow. Like it wasn't like a choreographed, okay, you learn this dance and then we perform it. And it was like, go, Caitlin, turn on the music and I just had to dance. Which is one of the scariest, in all my things that I've done, that's one of the scariest things I've ever done. Totally. And they're also, they probably too, they had such like high expectations, but also like didn't really probably want you to succeed. No, of course not. So it's like you're coming into a tough environment.

you and coming in late yeah oh yeah all of it was just yeah it was a tough one it was tough and then so we whatever i walked on then we we um got on the bus and we all had this conversation or whatever but then here's the here's the part that gets me you didn't air my episode oh yeah so now i'm like held this against you guys for so long every time i see you i'm like remember that time you didn't air my episode i know i know it that's that's bad but the other thing too is i get it You know, well, we, so we would shoot, you know, more episodes than we could air. And MTV made us do that because ultimately they were chiming in on what stories they wanted to air to. And for us going into a show, making a show that we had, we never had any experience in television.

And we insisted that we were executive producers and we hire our own crew and that we were, you know, involved in every step of the process. And that was the one thing that they. maintain some control on as they were like well you know we're going to have a say in which stories go to air but yeah and so yeah it was we always felt bad about that because we wanted it to go and you know but it was the same thing with um you know we wanted to break into the playboy match and for the playboy party and do it legitimately because the whole thing with as you know with with reality TV like is that it's not 99% of it is completely scripted you know not even just uh like

hey, you know, here, we want you guys to, like, get to this end by the end of this scene, you know, it's even feeding lines. So for us, we thought this can't be the way the buried life is made. Like, it's just going to undermine the entire purpose. And I think watching it, you can see that it's pretty real, too, because you guys aren't actors. Totally, no, exactly. And we also failed all the time. Right, right. You know, like, you know, people that, like, we tried to play basketball with President Obama.

Yeah. And MTV was like, you can't do this. there's no guarantee it's going to happen. We're like, yeah, I know. You're like, that's the point. That's the point. Yeah, that's the beauty of our show. Like, we tried to get Jay Z to a house party, failed.

You know, I tried to ask out Megan Fox, failed. Oh, yeah. I remember that. I was like, I want to ask out Megan Fox. But wait, you did play basketball with Obama. Yeah, ultimately we did cross it off, yeah, which was kind of the whole point of buried life was like, it wasn't about doing it on the show. Number 53, make a TV show is one item on the list that we crossed off.

But it wasn't the big. be all and end all, which is why, like, we did the buried life years before and we continued to do the buried life years after. It was, you know, it was amazing to cross off make a TV show. Yeah. And then we crossed off, make a book. And now we're crossing off make a movie, you know, and now we're crossing off all these other things that, and slowly it has turned into this sort of lifestyle with intention, right? Which is really what a bucket list does, is like, forces you to prioritize these things that are important to you. Yeah. Where over time, you eventually subconsciously prioritize the things that you know are going to make you the most happy or bring you the most

joy and that over time hopefully turns into this sort of like subconscious choosing of these things that you're like okay this is important to me like I'm going to do it you know there's a trip with my girlfriends you know I'm talking about me yeah trip with my girlfriends this is something that I know I want to do because like quality time with them is super important yeah and so I'm going to make sure that I make time yeah so anyhow the point the point being we fail we succeed at some things but you know over time it's not really about the actual the wins yeah it's more about the experiences and that's i mean that's one thing about me being on that episode or whatever was that that was like a really great experience for me and if they

if it was on tv or not whatever it was a really good experience for me to have and it kind of actually it completely took me out of my comfort zone even though i'm like a big personality and I'm not shy. It was still, like, terrifying to go in and do that. But I also, part of your show was you do things, cross things off your bucket list, and you help others along the way. And I didn't get the music video. So that would be a whole other story if I did and went on to be like, yeah, I got it.

But I didn't. And then you guys helped a blind cowboy ride a horse, which was way cooler than mine. There you go. It was way cooler. Well, but it is cool. I mean, you think about, like, these things that you think are failures um but ultimately there are steps towards success and i think that's what failure is most of the time it's like absolutely a learning experience and if you if you

you you would have never put yourself in that position no to come down to L.A to stand in front of some you know bitchy girls and some judges or you know some casting directors or what have you and do that you you did that because we forced you basically which is what buried life did for us is it forced us into positions that we would never otherwise be in. I would never want it to be in. Right. Streek a field and get away. Like, Duncan was so terrified he puked before the street.

You know, like survive on a deserted island. I don't want to survive on a deserted island. Like, I like to move a castaway. Yeah. Yeah, we did that in the Cook Islands, which was at the time when we thought about it seemed like such a romantic thing to do. Oh, my gosh. We went, got, and, you know, the thing with the whole.

With all the list items, it was like, especially with the show, MTV doesn't help us with anything. So we came up with the idea because we wanted to do it at the time. And we thought, okay, we're going to go on an island. The rules are this. We can all bring one thing. Yeah. We can't tell the other person what it is. And we're going to get dropped off on the island.

The crew will come during the day, but they'll leave it at sundown. And we'll film ourselves after hours. And the crew can't help us with anything. They can just sort of film from afar. and we'll film the rest. And we were in the Cook Islands and we got pushed, we got blindfolded, put on a speedboat, and then sat on the side of the edge of the speedboat, and then got pushed off the speedboat a mile outside of the island.

What? And swam in and then had to set up camp, but, like, didn't do any survival training. I was going to say, like, some people love that kind of stuff. And, like, well, yeah, they'll put themselves in these situations to experience it and know how to survive. You're like, nope, nothing. Nothing. Like, you know, not even a YouTube video. We thought, okay, if we were on a plane and the plane went down, could we survive? And that was, and we happened to have one thing. Okay, you guys know this has been a process for me, but I have been decorating my home for over a year now. So let's talk about article. Article is the online furniture retailer that respects your time and your taste. Their design is as thoughtful as a Pinot Noir, as bubbly and fresh as Prosecco. And my favorite, as wallet-friendly as happy hour. More than just a pretty chase, article's shipping is as great as their selection.

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So just go to article.com slash off the vine and your discount will be applied at checkout. That's article A-R-T-I-C-L-E forward slash off the vine. What did you each bring? I brought a headlamp. Okay. We're going to have to see at night. Right. Duncan brought a machete, which is definitely.

the most useful. Really? Johnny brought a pot because he thought he was going to try and boil water so it was clean to drink. Okay. Oh, and we couldn't bring a lighter. That was the other thing. We couldn't bring fire.

Oh. And Dave brought a snorkeling kit. What? Did that come in handy? No. No, it didn't. I mean, I would say at the end, I think he caught a few crabs, but I think he could have just reached in the water and grabbed them.

But his whole thing was just going to spearfish. But, of course, He didn't. He couldn't catch anything, and he was just sort of waiting around in his boxers. I wish people could really just know Dave Lingwood at this moment to know that that's, like, classic. Yeah. And be like, that's so funny. There's going to be, like, yeah, classic.

Yeah, totally. But the thing that was, so the machete was so useful because of coconuts, right? We survived. And we didn't eat anything except coconut. How long were you there for? We were there for four days. Oh, my gosh. And we went full Lord of the flies.

Like, we killed a bird. No. Yeah. And ate it. Oh. It was amazing. Wait, did you get sick? No, I don't know.

Maybe I still got something. I don't remember. I blacked out. But like Johnny, like Johnny got sick, you know, and he was kind of the one that was on his back the whole time. And the thing that you don't understand, I mean, I guess if you really think about it, it makes complete sense. But when you're trying to just live on an island, you spend every waking moment looking for water. Yeah, right. Food and water.

Yeah. That's all you do. Yeah. So it's not like you're like, oh, let's like chill and hang out on this beautiful island. And you're like, it's like, it is. It is so hot And I'm parched And I got to climb that damn tree

And get a coconut again Oh my God And so you spend your whole day collecting coconuts Yeah lugging them back to camp And then at night You're fighting rats

To get the So the rats don't get the coconuts There's these huge rats There's these huge I couldn't do it There's these huge Coconut crabs That were about

The size of this ice bucket No And And we slept on like the sand and you're thinking, well, it's kind of nice to lay on a towel on the sand. Yeah. When you sleep on the sand and you start to pack it down, it's just cement.

Right. So we're sleeping on like palm fronds on the sand. And, you know, it was intense. It was really intense. And then we were like, we need food. Like we can't just keep living off coconuts. Yeah. And Dave's little like squirly crabs that he was catching.

And we needed fire. And we couldn't start fire with a stick. Yeah, that's what I was thinking that. I'm like, what did you do for? So the crazy thing was, this actually was sort of serendipitous. So we're trying to, Duncan and I are just killing ourselves, rubbing the stick, sweating, trying to start fire with like coconut husses. And then Johnny had brought this pot that was totally useless because we hadn't had a fire.

But the top of the pot was a glass lid. Yeah. And we realized that if we turn the lid upside down and closed the plug hole that was for steam to come out, filled that with water, it acted as a mess. magnifying glass for the sun that we could then prop up on three sticks and put coconut huss underneath where this literally a magnifying glass of light and we would blow and you got it we started a fire like that it was the most yeah it was actually one of the most gratifying experiences oh my i'm like so proud of you guys right now i'm like wow yeah it was your brain just goes into survival mode when

you're in that situation and you like all of a sudden you're a genius yeah yeah or just dumb luck yeah one of the two so we and so and then we're like we need to find a some food like we need some meat and we knew that Duncan was the only one that was man enough you know excuse the inspiration but like could kill a bird yeah yeah and so we're like Duncan you got to go kill a bird man like we can't do it was he like okay he was like yeah okay so he goes and he went straight lord of the flies no got a rock threw it at a bird in a tree hit the bird out of the tree with the rock and jumped on it with his machete. No, he didn't.

This is, you can't make this stuff up. No, you're like, it's actually on, it was filmed. Yeah, it's film. The camera guys were like, wow, that was gnarly. Like, we couldn't put it in the show. Really? We could put eating the bird, but we couldn't put the killing of it. And so, and it was the, we cooked over the fire as the most delicious bird.

It was like, you, like, enjoyed it. Oh, my God. What kind of bird was this? A pigeon? It was like a, people eat pigeons. It was sort of like a, it was a big sea bird. It was like a, picture of a, it was like, a, it was a big sea bird. one and a half seagulls, size, birds.

This makes me want to vomit a little bit. Oh, yeah. Okay. We go on. And then we put together a raft. Yeah. And like... I don't understand.

Like, you cut it open? No, we... I'm like just picturing feathers everywhere. I'm like... Yeah, no, we got... Oh, yeah, Duncan gutted it. That's right. Yeah, he gutted it.

And it was like a chicken, you know, and we put it over on a stick over a fire. It was... Holy shit. Yeah. So, yeah, if you ever want to survive on a dessert island. I don't know how I haven't heard that story from you guys. Yeah. That's wild.

Yeah. Now I need to go watch that. You know what I watched this morning? What? I didn't even plan on talking about this. That video of you pulling over Lingwood and saying that he was going to get an ass looking. Oh my God. I died because that was, I mean, I don't know how many years ago that was, but I remember you guys sent it to me when you first did it.

And I died laughing. I watched it again today. Same thing. Died laughing. It was your mustache and you were like a cop pulling over Dave. Yeah, yeah. That was in the desert. Your guys' like craziness that you've done on TV has also like you're just like that in real life.

Yeah. No, it was, I mean, what it's so funny just thinking about the whole story of how it went down. Like we were basically depressed in college. Yes. And we're like, let's like make a movie. Tell the whole story. So the four of you were friends in Victoria, B.C. And so tell us the sort of how it all came together and how we got to worry.

But by the way, Oprah, can I just say you went on Oprah and she said that your work, what did she say your work was? She thought it was inspiring, which is, we'll take that. That's on my bucket list. Have Oprah tell me I'm inspiring. Go on. It was very cool. Yeah. The coolest thing about Oprah, too, well, one of the coolest things was we invited our moms all, you know, to come.

and I think that was the first time they really took us seriously. Well, yeah, it would be weird if they didn't. You're on Oprah. So that was, and we made Oprah a bucketless book. We had her producers go through every show. So they basically have transcripts for every show she's ever done. And we said, can you just sort of basically scrub through the shows

and look at any time she's ever said, I want to do this? I've always wanted to do this. And they did? They did. Yeah, I mean, they can basically search through all the transcripts just by looking for keywords yeah and so we we made her a bucketless book of anything she's ever wanted to do yeah um and made this really janky bad little handmade book of all Oprah's bucket list that we gave to at the end of the show but that um but anyhow so that this the whole like thing began was as you said we were

in victoria bc um and i you know we actually weren't really friends oh you weren't no i didn't know Johnny took my sister to prom. That's the only way I knew about him. You know? And so I was, like, conflicted about whether to reach out to him in the beginning because of that. And, and yeah, I was, I was going through a big low. I dropped out of college. My first year, I had an academic scholarship.

I was on the national rugby team. And I just, like, hit a wall. I was, I overworked myself. I put too much pressure on myself. And I literally shut down. My body shut down. And I got depressed. And I dropped out of school.

I couldn't leave my parents' house. I was a shut-in. and you know essentially I was looking for something to make me feel alive and I made a decision to only surround myself with people that inspired me and brought me up because I thought like if I can't control the way I feel I can control who I surround myself with and how they make me feel and so I kind of made this small conscious decision that ultimately would change the entire rest of my life because out of that I surveyed my friends and there wasn't really too many people that checked that box but there was one kid that I knew from the neighborhood that did because he made movies. And his name was Johnny. And Johnny would make these summer movies of all of his friends, and he would air them. He would screen them at the end of the summer. And all the kids from the neighborhood would come around. Oh, my God.

I love that. And so I was like, man, I want to make a movie like that. Yeah. So I called him. I said, Johnny, let's make a movie. And he's like, I was just talking with Dave. We were in Cuba. We were talking about doing something.

I was like, yeah. And I was like, I just ran into Duncan, his older brother at the bar. And he was like, hey, we should do something. I was like, oh, I just talk with your brother. And so we all got on Skype and we started talking about this movie. and we had, you know, all these things that we wanted to do, but we just didn't know why we hadn't been doing them, and we were trying to think of what we could make a movie about.

And then Johnny gets assigned a poem in English class at McGill University called The Buried Life, and it's required, I can, why can I say that word? I did this the other day. I sound like, uh, wascly wabbit. Require? Required reading. It's a tough one. It is a tough one.

It's a tough one. Yeah. Um, so it was required reading. Mm-hmm. Nailed it. English 1 of 2 in McGill. and this poem is 150 years old and it's basically articulating this feeling that we can't articulate

this is like we have all these things that we want to do but we're not doing them because they're buried by school, by work, by the day-to-day, by whatever, by life. And we have moments when we're inspired, but ultimately that gets buried. So you're motivated, but it gets buried. And then you forget about it.

So we thought, okay, let's, you know, take this name, the buried life. And we didn't even know what the movie was going to be, but we're like, if this guy felt like it 150 years ago when he wrote this poem, we're probably not the first people to ever feel like this. Let's take the name of the buried life. And from there, we came up with this question, what do you want to do before you die? Which was basically like, okay, we're going to die.

If we could do anything, what would we do? And that's where we made the list, ultimately, which was really like the thing that was different about the list in the beginning was we said, if you could do anything, what would you do? So write the list as if you have $100 million. Write the list as if you can do, you have no obligations. in your dream of dreams, what would you do? And so we put down everything. Go to space, make a TV show, write a book, be on Oprah, play basketball with President Obama, pay off our parents' mortgage, cover Rolling Stone, whatever.

And then we thought, okay, if we're doing all this stuff on our list, let's help other people. So we thought, we'll do something on our list. I loved that part of it, too, that you guys helped other people do it. Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of a, it felt like the natural thing to do because we knew people were going to have to help us. Yeah. Could we have no means to do any of this stuff? So MTV didn't, like, give you a budget.

No, well, eventually they did, but we were doing this, you know, three years before the show. Right. So then we sort of, this is 2006. So we're like, okay, we're going to make this movie. We have this list. We have the name. We're going to help other people. And we board an RV, you know, we made matching T-shirts.

Yeah. I would cold coal production or cold-call local companies pretending we had a production company. Did you really? Yeah. And the first company I called Happy Planet juices in Vancouver. Really? Yeah. And I was terrified to make the call, and Randall picked up, I got through to the C, well, Gregor, who's now the mayor, Gregor and Randall ran it, and Randall I talked to.

And he said, listen, a lot of people are going to tell you you can't do this. Don't listen to them. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, he gave us $2,000 to pay for our gas. Oh, my gosh. And then we begged, bore and stole everything else. Yeah. Bought a camera on eBay, made the website and just left for this two-week road trip, which was like, we're going to cross.

off as many things as we can and try and help as many people. And as we left, this magic and luck started happening where people wanted to help us cross things off our list. Right. Strangers would be like, hey, I saw your list online. You want to, you know, get up on a hot air balloon, I can help you. Or you want to make a toast to strangers' wedding. My friend's getting married.

I'm the best man. I can get you in. Oh, yeah. And then people sending us their dreams of things they want to do, asking for help. And after two weeks, we crossed off all these list items. We had hundreds of emails. And one of those was from a producer who was like, I saw you guys on the news, if you ever thought about making a TV show.

Oh, that's when the wheel started turning. We actually ended up getting offered a show in Canada, which we turned down because they were going to own it. Oh. We went back to school. You guys are smart, too. We, well, I think that's what's, like, good about being young. It's like, you're like young, dumb and broke. Yeah.

That naivete, we're like, we're not going to give this away. Like, we'll just keep doing it ourselves. Right. And we had no, like, roadmap or any, you know, for, or chart for the future. But we just thought that it was working for us. Yeah. And we didn't want to give that away. And so we went back to school and pretended we had a bigger production company to raise more money the next year.

Yeah. And then bought the bus, got a crew from L.A. the next year. And we were all filming for this documentary. Yeah. And, you know, again, the next summer, amazing experiences, helping other people doing things on our list. And also, we thought, okay, if we're going to really go after make a TV show, we can't just pitch the idea. We've got to make it. So then we took all this footage and we created an episode, which was one thing on our show.

list helping us to someone else every episode I met a random person in Mexico on a family vacation that knew people in L.A. and started doing trips down and ultimately like partner with a production company sold it to MTV but under the sort of office that were in control. We're able to really like do this the way we always dreamed of. Yeah. So it was kind of a completely it was just a mistake that we ended up getting there because we put stuff on the list as a joke. It was just like a laugh. It was no mistake. Well, I mean, it kind of, you know, we definitely had no intention of getting to where we have gotten to. But you had intention to cross things off your list and you made it happen.

Yeah. So how many things did you cross off out of a hundred things on your? Yeah, I think we're like, I mean, we're actually just re-releasing the book in May and I updated the list. And I think we're like into the 90s. What? Yeah, into the 90s for sure. Like there's only a few left. one of them being

Go to space, yeah Do you think that'll happen? I think some version it will happen I mean that's the one that we're actively working on now Are you really actively working on going to space? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. All four of you? Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know if all four of us will go.

Can I come? What? Because, like, what, the big list item that we're working on as well is make a movie. Yeah. Because the buried life started to be a documentary. Yeah. And we thought, okay, cool,

we're going to hit the road for two weeks and we're going to make a movie. It's going to be a two-week movie. And then 10 years later, we're still making it. Wow. We've just been filming the whole time. So now we feel like going to space would be a good way to end the film, the journey. Oh, that'd be a great way. That's a great way to end things.

Yeah, it'd be really fun. That's so wild because you're putting things on your list that are like pretty unrealistic. So to be in the 90s of crossing things off when you're putting things on like going to space and playing basketball with Obama, that's pretty wild. It is wild. There's actually a cool quote by Tim Ferriss, which is basically just pertaining to audacious goals, which is that 99% of the world doesn't believe they can do great things. So they shoot for realistic goals,

which means the level of competition is highest for realistic goals. Yeah, everybody's trying to do that. Everyone's trying to do them. So if you shoot for unrealistic goals, I like that. There's less competition. You have a higher chance of getting it done. I feel like I've lived my life like that,

like thinking of unrealistic goals. And you're right. And not a lot of people do that. They don't. Like how many people were trying to play basketball with President Obama when we were trying to do it? You're probably the only ones. Only one or a handful of others. Right.

But, like, we just had the tenacity to never give up because we got denied many, many times, right? Yeah, exactly. And as you said, like, persistence is one of the things that, you know, you need to pair with having that audacious goal because most people just give up, you know, most people give up right before they're about to succeed. But, you know, by being persistence, all you're doing is increasing your odds. So how is this part of how you would tell people to cross things off their list? Like I watched something where you had six things, I think. Yeah. Six steps?

Yeah, six steps. Yeah. No, it is. It is definitely like, you know, because we've been doing this for so long, I thought there's probably something to be learned from the past decade or so of accomplishing these, what I thought were impossible goals. Nelson Mandela has a great quote. It says everything, it's something like it seems impossible. possible until it's done, which is true. It absolutely does until you do it.

And then you realize, wow, you always surprise yourself. Yeah. And so I look back at the sort of the last few years of crossing things off and, and excuse me, there's some wine. Yeah. It happens to me every podcast. Yeah, yeah. People know now. I make these noises.

Yeah, yeah. What vintage is that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is that a Samuel Blanc? And so I sort of thought like, okay, I did this Duncan, actually. we've looked at sort of the successes and then the failures, and when we succeeded at doing something, we noticed there's patterns of things that we do again and again to cross something

off that we thought was impossible. And so distilled those down to six steps. And so essentially the first one is even before you begin, I would say the first step is to think about what's important to you and not what's important to your friends or your family or your coworkers, but in your gut and in your heart, what's important to you, what gets you excited? And you have trouble thinking about what your passion is because it's sort of a tough thing to nail down don't think about it like feel it and if you feel excited when you think about it that's the feeling you want to follow towards this thing that you might want to do so if you get those butterflies and you're something if you're thinking about a trip you're like ooh that's going to be fun you know

something like that like you want to follow that excitement and people are going to tell you that you're you can't do it all the time people told you guys you couldn't do it yeah exactly and i think that's a good thing like i think if if people think you're crazy i think that's great you know And if you're scared, that's better because you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone to grow and ultimately to achieve the things that other people won't achieve. Or else it would be, if it was easy, everyone would do it, right? I say this all the time. It's everything that I've done in my life that has been the most terrifying has been the most rewarding every single time. So it's like, how do we not, how does that not register and be like, oh, this is scary?

Great. I'm going to really go for it because it means it'll be rewarding. How can we, our brains aren't wired to think like that? I think it's human, I think it's human nature to shy away. away from any type of conflict or any type of, you know, like internal conflict, which is basically what happens when you go and try and do something where you feel scared or out of your comfort zone. But I think that as you do it more, and as you said, you start to understand that actually, okay, this is a really good opportunity. You know, I don't know what's going to come of it.

I don't know if it's going to, if I'm going to succeed at what I'm trying to do, but I know by putting myself in this position, by putting myself in this room in front of all these casting directors, you know, going down to L.A. on a whim and potentially making a fool out of myself by dancing to a song that I don't know or not having a choreograph dance to, I know that something good will come out of it. And that's generally what happens. So once you understand that, like, for instance, I got asked to do a TEDx talk. It was the last thing I wanted to do. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. It takes a ton of preparation. It's going to be online forever. It's a timestamp of, like, you know, who you are at a certain time in your life that will never go away. Never. And so, but I knew that the reason I needed to do it was because I didn't want to do it. And I just kind of learned over the years that by putting yourself in that position, some good stuff will come out of it. And ultimately, when I look back, doing that TEDx talk, which was the first time that I articulated these kind of six steps of crossing anything off your bucket list.

Because we never used to be prescriptive, but we sort of thought, okay, now it's a good. time to actually like give some value add to people from what we learn and out of that TEDx talk which is you know maybe a year and a half ago or two years ago um all these incredible opportunities have have come for me and sort of like in the speaking world and in you know thinking about my next book and stuff like that so it's uh it just wouldn't have happened if i would have put myself in that position so you know getting outside of your comfort zone is such an amazing thing i always think that like what's the worst that can happen what's the worst that can happen maybe you you you get a hit to your reputation that's the worst yeah but what you learn from

that far outweighs any potential hit to your reputation and that's a potential hit that's the worst but generally what happens is you you there's some sort of uh you succeed in some way um but people a lot of times don't sort of take that first step because they're afraid of failure right or they're afraid of what other people might and that's just um like you said earlier like having that mindset of not not thinking of something as a failure, but thinking of it as a lesson. Yeah. Because really, a failure is in your own mind. Like that, but it might not be a failure to other people because it's like, well, you actually went out and did that.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's incredible. Like, a lot of people couldn't do that either. They couldn't even try it. Right, right. Yeah. So it's just like you make up the, what a success and what a failure is.

So it's kind of like, the first step is like determining what's important. Mm-hmm. The second is talking about that thing that you've identified as being. important to you. Let's just call it a bucket list item. Sharing it. And the simple, it's kind of like the truth behind that is like if you don't share it, no one can help you. So if you don't talk about it, how is anyone ever going to help you? And you can't do it on your own. So you need to talk about it. So people don't talk about it because they're afraid of what other people might think, but they're afraid that if they do it and they talk about it and

they fail, they'll look bad. But again, like, as you just talked about it, failure, like it's just a stepping stone to success, or forces a pivot that you need to make to get to success. And then, so the second is, is talking about it. The third would be this kind of idea of creative persistence, which is like, we talked about it before. Like, I think most entrepreneurs are successful because of simple persistence. But it's not just banging your head against the door again and again and again. it's like there's like there's some persistence that pisses people off and some that people respect and the type of persistence that people respect is when you think outside of the box right to go add it in a way that they've never seen before that they that type of originality they will really respect and and that's what we found you know like it's it's being creative when you think about doing these goals like we when we were trying to play basketball against the president we found out that the basketball games happened in a way where his

right-hand man, his body man, which is a guy named Reggie Love, would set up the games because there's these basketball games that happen in D.C. with senior officials in the administration and Obama. And we were like, we've got to figure out how way to get in these games. And his right-hand man would send a text out the day of saying, this court, this time to a group. You know, let me know if you're in. And people opted in. That's how. So we found Reggie's email and we would send him the same messages. Yeah. Reggie, the YMCA, we reserved the court. 7.30, Thursday, bring the president. Yeah, if you don't mind, bring the president.

You know, we'd show up and they wouldn't show up. Yeah. But ultimately, it got his attention. Yeah. And he called us, you know. And so this idea of, like, thinking outside the box is really people respond to. There's a great story. I don't even know if it's real, but it doesn't matter, where this guy was trying to get a job.

Yeah. And he could get an interview. So there was, like, a board meeting with the executives. and he sent a parcel in and into the meeting and they opened it up and it was just a shoe in the parcel and it said now that I've got my foot in the door can I have an interview? You know, but it's like that type of thinking

where you're like, just like, be funny. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Think about how many people reach out to you. Yeah. What are the, who do you respond to? You respond to people that are like to stand out. Yes.

Or give you a value at. And that's the other thing. That when you're thinking about reaching out or persistence, offer something. And everyone has something to offer and research who you're trying to get to or what you're trying, who you're trying to speak to and try and give them some form of value out. So they're like, okay, this is actually worth my time. This is a transaction I can get down with. And, you know, it's creative, it's original.

I like this person. And they're going to add value. Right. And those three elements, like you can scrape together when you're thinking about doing this thing. So the first is think about what's important. The second is write it down. Because the importance of writing it down is it feels very simple, but what you're doing is you're actually taking this idea that you've identified and then you're writing it down and what you're doing is you're making an idea real. So you take something that's like intangible, you're making it tangible and you're sort of like basically breathing life into your dreams just by writing it down.

Even people who make lists like of things to do in their day, I love writing it down and crossing it off. Yeah, exactly. And like, and you really want to do it if it's written out and you need to cross it off. Yeah, exactly. And it's a reminder. And you need that accountability to remind you to do the things that are important to. Because if you write a list of things to do during the day or a grocery list, you're going to do them. Right.

It's the same, like, why wouldn't you do that for your biggest hopes and dreams? Yeah. Like, if you don't have something to remind yourself, you will forget about them. You know what I have written out? What's that? This is my number one bucket list. It's written out. I have it in my head and I'm going towards it is having singing in front of a crowd and having them sing my lyric.

back at me. Oh, that's amazing. That's like my number. I'm like, oh, I just get goosebumps every time I'd be like, I don't even know, I wouldn't even be able to finish the lyrics because I just start crying. Yeah. Because you know me. I'm a cryer. But yeah, go on. I love that. That's a great one. Yeah. Are you singing at now? Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I've been doing like voice lessons and I have, I think I have three songs recorded right now. I'm going to record another one at the end of the month. And it's just a matter of like getting the balls to put it out there now, which I will. Yeah, totally.

But yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. We wanted to sing the national anthem to a packed stadium. Didn't you do? We did. Yeah, we did it. Well, the issue was we couldn't sing, but we convinced Phoenix, the Phoenix Suns that we could.

And so we sang at the home opener and Steve Nash was there, which is always like another Victoria BC home town hero. Yeah. And we were just kind of like, this is everything. So we sang the Canadian anthem. in front of the Phoenix signs. And it was played in Vancouver because it was a pre-game. Oh, my gosh. And our strategy was, let's get everyone in the crowd to sing along so they can't hear how bad we sound.

Oh, great plan. Yeah, so I think it worked. I don't know. Really? I mean, we sang. And then. You didn't get any negative feedback? We left, so we couldn't get any of that.

Was social media not a thing at this time? No, not really. Oh, that's great. 2007. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. yeah so it was it was it was wild but anyhow the we've we've gone out over it on the steps but what I'll say is the last one yeah is to help other people and not just because it fills you up

in a way that doing things for yourself doesn't right but also because it helps you get stuff done because when people see you out in the world helping people they want to help you yeah right and that's just what karma is yeah people I'm a big believer in karma yeah yeah well it's It's, it's, I mean, it makes total sense. You know, if you're a good person, good things will happen. Yeah. Because primarily people know you as a good person over time and they will see you doing good things and they'll say, yeah, this is someone I want to help. I'm going to send this opportunity their way.

And, you know, and also like stepping into a moment that means a lot to someone just stays with you longer. So, you know, so those six steps are essentially like, think about what's important. Write it down to make it real. share it so people can help you be persistent and on top of that be creative in your persistence when you're going towards that thing five make sure that you have an audacious goal that is above what you think you can do because you'll surprise yourself and finally six help other people I'm afraid that we're going to like put it out there and then too many people will go from like having regular you know comfort zone goals now we're going to make everybody think outside the box

and then we're going to make things harder on ourselves who are like the go-getters. Yeah, like the, they'll be too much competition. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. Okay, well, that's great

because I'm going to do that with my bucket list item. Well, you just talked about it. I mean, that's... I did, and it's written down. Right. And I'm working towards it. Yeah. And it's incredible what talking about it will do.

Like, I posted my New Year's resolutions for the first time on Instagram, and like, I think about that all the time. Yeah. I'm like, I got it. Because now you're being held accountable. Exactly. And like that accountability is the only thing that drives you forward.

That's true. That's actually a really good idea to put it out there. Yeah. So share it. Like that's, that's the best thing to do. You know, like whether it's talking about it with your family or sharing it on social media. Yeah. You know, I think that it's like you just want to figure out those things that are going to remind you to do them or else they'll just get buried.

And this is also crazy because this stemmed from a point in your life where you were feeling depressed. And I think a lot of people who feel depressed tend to not go after something big. They just tend to find like the easy way out because it's uncomfortable. So it's crazy that all of this stem from you being in a point in your life where you were depressed. Now you're, you've switched gears and now you're speaking around the country to thousands of people on mental illness. And I just, I love that you're doing that because I do think we're in a time where it's, good to talk about and have this conversation of mental illness because we've realized how important it is and how many people struggle with it and how I'm like how has nobody talked

about it over this like how when we all can relate and understand whether it's like at some point in your life you can understand or you're going through it now or you haven't gone through it yet like so many people can relate to depression um there's a new active deodorant for women made by secret it's called secret active it's activated by activity, so it is designed to work when you're moving around a lot. So that could be fitness, but it doesn't have to be. Most of us are moving around during the day and at some point do something. Secret Active is designed with long lasting sense, which provides a constant reassurance that it's working. Secret Active uses sweat-activated technology. It has odor neutralizing

molecules to trap odor, lock it away, and then replace it with a fragrance. It works all day long, so you will not be reapplying deodorant every time the heart rate goes up. So if you're active, you need a product like Secret Active. Do it. We'll be back with more Off the Vine with Caitlin Bristow. From Podcast One and the Voice of the American People, it's time to fight back with Barbara Boxer. It's so hard, I think, for the average person who has to get up in the morning to follow this stuff. This is a problem.

All we have to do is look around the world. They have made a difference in Florida. It's unbelievable. Listen free and subscribe to Fight Back with Barbara Boxer, exclusively on Apple Podcasts, Podcasts, Podcasts, podcast1.com, and the Podcast One app. If you love the show, share it with a friend, and leave us a rating and review.

Now back to Off the Vine with Caitlin Bristow. What made you switch gears into speaking and going that route and how rewarding it. is it for you oh man a lot of good questions there so sorry that was no the the the reason why i started speaking more um is because i started thinking about what uh my story was and and we would always tell all our story the four of the sort of johnny duncan dave in my the buried life story especially when we did speaking as well it would be like how did this whole thing come about and i always thought speaking um and the speaking engagements that we did were the best

best kind of exam or sort of like it buried life were to come to life in any form whether it be like a TV show a book or you know a live experience I always thought the live experiences were the most impactful and we could tell the story and have the greatest impact in the and we could tell the story in the best way so after I did this TEDx talk on six steps to cross anything off your bucket list it just resonated with a lot of people and people would sort of reach out say hey can you come speak at this event and finally I kind of caved in on those requests because I was working on the production company with Dave and Duncan. And so I started speaking on my own and I thought, okay, what do, what's my story?

And when I started really like peeling back the onion on what it was sort of like buried life came out of for me in the beginning, I realized it was this really dark depression. And then I started learning more about what was going on in around the country and around the world as it relates to mental illness and understood that this isn't like a problem that's happening right now. This is a full crisis. Yes. And this is a crisis that is, like, affecting, you know, one-fifth, so of the population in the U.S., struggles with some sort of mental illness.

And I think that the real kind of stat that I feel is important to get across is that everybody will go through some sort of mental crisis at some point in their life. And that is not a bad thing and that is not a weakness. That is because we are humans. And humans suffer. Humans have ups and humans have downs. And I think it's just important that we talk about the downs as much as we talk. talk about the ups, mainly because from my experience, those points of weaknesses are things that you sort of think are weaknesses are actually your greatest strengths. And when you start

to kind of like talk about those things, only then can you start to actually like learn and grow and sort of heal on your own, but also help other people because they will relate to that story. They relate to what they, what you've been through. And they'll think, okay, if this person went through this like maybe I'm not so crazy or maybe I'm not alone and you know we're at a point right now where in the U.S. there are there's a there's a suicide in the U.S. every 15 minutes is that true? 120 suicides a day and that's for every suicide there's 25 attempts so we're talking about thousands of suicide attempts a day and I think that what we can do to help stop this like full-blown crisis is simply breaking the stigma around mental health by talking to

about it and having healthy productive conversations and because everybody struggles and that's okay and you can learn from those struggles but it's important to talk about it and if you don't talk about it then that's where you start to get into trouble and might feel backed up against the wall yeah because i feel like the people that do struggle and feel alone and that's where those suicidal thoughts can come from is not feeling like you've got anybody on your team and no one you can talk to and feeling so alone yeah yeah even just having conversation or speaking about it wherever you're going, I bet people will come there who have had those thoughts and be like, oh my gosh, because you've done so much with your life.

And from an outsider, you'd think like, oh, he's got it all together and blah, blah, blah. So hearing people like you and anyone with like a platform who's done all these crazy things saying that, no, I've actually gone through it too, it helps everybody. It helps normalize the conversation. Exactly. And, you know, so you look at anyone that you feel has it all together and they don't. And that's Instagram and the whole social media world too. Which is why it's so tricky with this day and age is like, you know, seeing everyone with their, like, looks like a perfect life.

Exactly. And really, you know, they don't. And ultimately, that's okay. You know what I mean? Like you look at any, you know, leading celebrity or musician or whatever, like everyone has their demons. And so my goal is to get as many people talking about those things as possible because I think it's really going to help move the needle on, you know, normalizing this, like this and breaking the stigma so that these suicides don't happen. as often and I don't even think it's that difficult right like I don't even think it's and I don't even think it's on the one in five that struggle with mental health to to break this thing but I think it's on the four out of five that don't yes to make the other one if I feel okay and just by having those conversation and the other thing is like especially in guys right like especially in guys because we've right and it's not even our fault because we just we've been bred with this definition that's backwards about what it means to be a man yeah and that's like high in your tears yeah don't be a pussy You know, don't talk about your feelings.

Right. And unfortunately, that's just backwards. Like, that's not even wrong. That's backwards. Like, to be a manness of the courage to talk about your vulnerabilities. Like, that shows leadership. And, like, you can see that with, like, you know, like, I'm meeting Justin Baldoni after this. He did an amazing TED talk on masculinity.

Lewis Howes wrote an incredible book called The Mask of Masculinity, which is basically, like, how we're just tricked into, like, thinking that this is what is actually a man is supposed to be. but like it's it's it's it's backwards and so you know I think at the end of the day it's like a couple things will really help one people have influencer that have a following to talk about their struggles and I like the question like what have you survived right because everyone has survived something and thinking about it from that perspective you're like oh yeah like I you know whether I'm still battling with it or not like I'm here yeah like I've survived this and this is what I've learned. And I'd also change in the language, like, mental illness is so, like, loaded as a term. But, like, what if we called it brain fitness, right? Like, that's something that, like,

Adam, who started Movember, which is, like, a, like, he calls it brain fitness. And you think about, think about it as brain health. Like, this is an organ, just like your heart is an organ. So, like, there's no reason why if you have a heart attack, it's, like, should be seen differently as you have, like, either a brain aneurism or schizophrenia. Like, just a depression. There's something that's going on in your brain it's not a weakness it's just a health issue if you can't see properly and go get glasses you don't feel embarrassed about that you're not like oh my gosh this is wrong yeah it's the same thing like it's not like you choose to have you know that yeah that mindset it's you don't choose that it's something that's going on in your brain and you know yeah so you don't

choose to have pink eye in both eyes no one would ever choose that no that's impossible and what do i do I go to the doctor and I fix it and I work on it and I get some work. Yeah, I just think there's like, and that's the mentality for every other ailment is like you have a sickness, you know, you go to the doctor, you talk about it. Maybe you take some medication. If you're diabetic, you take insulin. Right. You know, you talk with a doctor. But like with mental illness, it's completely, you're shunned, you know, you looked upon as crazier or weak.

But the reality is like, look, like I would say that everyone should be so lucky if they could talk to a therapist. Oh, you know, like... Don't give you started. I talk about my therapist all the time on this podcast. I think everyone should have one. Exactly. Why wouldn't you? So like, if you try and play basketball, why would you try and play basketball without

a basketball coach? Right. It doesn't make any sense. So then why would you try and go through life without a life coach who this is the biggest game of your life, someone that you can talk to about like, hey, I don't know about this decision. Can you help me make this decision? Or I need, you know, I'm trying to navigate this.

How do I navigate? They give you the tools to navigate. You learn about yourself. because a lot of times the stuff that you're dealing with today is from your childhood. Yes. That you have not recognized because it's subconscious or, you know, there's just really there's no way you could kind of figure out unless someone said, hey, by the way, this is why you're doing this?

And getting to the bottom of it by talking about it. It's just so crazy. Have you ever heard of the Enneagram test? No. It's a personality test. And it kind of just like, like, for example, I'm a three, which means I'm like, oh, I talked about it on the podcast with Danielle. And it was like about like I'm my title what they call it is the achiever, but there's a way of thinking in your mind of like a healthy way of thinking as a three and there's like an impaired way of thinking.

And so there's just so many ways like I don't consider like I've I've definitely battled with depression in my life. I don't but but it's nothing that has been consistent. But the things that I have realized when it came to that low point in my life was all things that stemmed from my childhood. and how I deal with it in an impaired way of thinking. 100%. Yeah. And that's generally a lot of the times what happens is you'll be running this loop or this pattern that happened because of some instance that occurred to you when you were young, that you made it mean something when you were young. And subconsciously you made it mean that until you die if you don't deal with it.

And then a therapist would be like, oh, like, you don't have to do that if you don't want. And you're like, whoa. Yeah. that was a big realization there yes and so you know it's like i understand that there's a there's a high barrier of entry for therapy and it's expensive and this but like i'm not talking about that what i'm talking about is the stigma that comes along right with with talking to a therapist which like you should be applauded for doing that because you know you're learning about yourself if anything it's just self-growth it's like and i think it'll slowly get there but right now it's

still why are people so afraid of investing in themselves like why is that such a scary thing to do is get to the bottom of who you are and work through it. And I always say to sit in something you're uncomfortable in and understand why. It's like investing in yourself is the most important thing you can do in your life. And I understand the cost, again, of therapy and everything. But investing in yourself is going to help your whole lifestyle and who you are as a person overall and how you raise your kids and what you can do to help them so that they don't struggle from the same things. Yeah.

Which also, I always worry about that with having kids. I'm like, what am I going to put on them that? But I can't put that on myself. But like, I always worry, what will I put on them that they'll grow up and be like, oh, my mom did this. And that's why I'm this way. But also, there will never be a human being on this planet that is just perfect in every way and doesn't struggle from something.

Exactly. And you have to look at, if you're going to look at that side, then you have to look at the other side. Which is like, look, what are all the great things I'm going to give them? And ultimately, at that point you're like well I probably learned a lot from the things that I know are my weak you know my blind spots and I can help you know pass those on to my kids or those those those teach jeans and you know I think that that the thing that's really positive about all this is like we're

definitely heading in the right direction because you think about like you know why don't people invest in themselves well 20 30 years ago people didn't invest in you know paying a thousand dollars a month for soul cycle or right right but like or you know you're talking about your physical well-being, which was really not something that people invested in or thought was worthwhile, but once they understood and were educated around what the benefits were long-term and stuff like that, and also there's vanity that's involved as well. But ultimately, like, you're doing it in a large part because it feels good and you know that it's going to be good for you and it's going to give you more energy and stuff like that.

And the same sort of effects will come from this type of work with, you know, whether it be talking with a therapist. But the other thing is like, or talking with a friend. Like, and that's kind of the, my big point is that like, it's not this huge barrier of entry where you need to talk with the therapist. And it's not a huge barrier of entry to talk with someone that's struggling. All it is is just being a human and being caring and just being like, hey, I'm there for you. It looks like you're going through something.

If you need to talk about it, I'm here. here. Yeah. And then if they do reach out being there for them, right? And I think that that's really the most important is like creating, you know, a network of friends and family that you invest in with your time so that when you are in those times of need, you can call on them. Yeah. And vice versa. And if if everyone felt like they had that, I think there would be less people doing drastic things when they fell up against it, like, you know, taking their own life. Yeah. And that type of network, you know, is something that you just peg as being important to you and you have to, you know, invest in that by like creating those relationships and also being

vulnerable to your friends. Right. And saying, hey, I'm going through this shitty time right now. I don't know why or what I'm going to do, but like, can you talk about it? Because not one person who is your true friend would be like, oh, my gosh, what's wrong with you? Exactly. And if they are, you probably don't want to be friends of them. Yeah, please don't be friends with them.

Thank you, friends. Yeah. I always give credit to the circle that I have, like Penny and Shana and my best friend, Jess, and Brie and my sister and my family. Like, I really invest in those relationships more than anything because I've seen how much value they've brought to my life and that I can count on them and that they've always been consistent to me. And especially from going on a show and then seeing people come out of the woodwork and everything, I've just realized who are the most important people in my lives. and now I, like, value their friendship more than I ever have. And I reach out to them. I talk to one of my best friends, Brie, every day.

If I'm, like, having a hard time, she is the first person I go to because she does the same for me, and she's always just consistent in my life in that way. And that's friendship is so important and valuing relationships that you have in your life. Like, that's part of the reason I feel so comfortable with Sean is that I can go to him with, like, the most uncomfortable situations or if I'm feeling really low and actually have these conversations with him where he listens and wants to help. Yeah. And you look at like friends like Penny and Sheena and, you know, and then and your relationship with Sean. And ultimately those are the ones that that matter the most. And as you now have done subconsciously is like, they're like, okay, these are the type of people that I want to be around. Which was the same decision that I made back in 2006. It was like, these are the types of people I want to be around. And ultimately that changed my life, making that decision. And ultimately. you know you doing that will continue to change your life because you are you know the you are the people that you surround yourself yeah yeah and at the end of the day it's like life's too

short life's too short to be around people that are going to bring you down in any way yeah life's too short for the thing to people to be around people that you don't feel like you want to invest in because like it's worth you know getting getting everything you get out of that friendship um but it's difficult i think to sometimes leave relationships that aren't healthy whether it be friends or whether families arguably the most difficult or relationship

but and I get this question all the time it's like you know when you're kind of making a shift in you're figuring out who you want to surround yourself with you know how do you kind of split with that friend or you know that

family that's a question I actually had not specifically for you but in life I've been like how do you end that or how do you have that conversation or not have that conversation and not like we'll kind of wean these people out of your lives to better yourself yeah without feeling selfish right so that's the key and that's why it's hard is because you see it as being selfish right but it's not selfish it's actually selfless it's actually selfless and you know you can look at it the same way you would look at a relationship where would you stay with someone that was bringing you down because you didn't want to

hurt them a lot of people do and that's true yeah i'm like actually i've been there no yes no but i mean like you're right no but like look at how many people do yeah because they're like I don't want to hurt this person you know it's going to be difficult but I think that you should take the same like obviously that's not the right answer but I think you should take the same uh stance on on friends and if it's something where they're like you're not gaining what you want in in a relationship from this person you need to quote unquote break up with them and it doesn't need to be a sit down hey I'm not going to be your friend. I don't think that that like, you know, really is what you need to do. But you can chart your path that is different than their path, you know, and, you know, if you need to have a

conversation about, you know, I'm focusing on this right now. And so I need to focus on this. And that means I'm not going to be there for you doing this. Then that's cool. But you, you, it's something that's not an easy thing to do, but ultimately, you know, that's going to be best for you. So that's going to be what's best for them. Yeah. And that's how you need to look at it. Yeah. Because people grow, people change, you know, and that's totally normal. What's not normal is staying in the same situation when you're wanting to get out or you're changing and you're not letting the situation change with you or you're not leading that situation. Yeah, I think that's a big part of how people just lose themselves is they're becoming someone they aren't just from being in a relationship that isn't healthy for them. I found that in a lot of past relationships too.

Like I all of a sudden was just trying to please them and do what worked for their life, which ultimately led me to be in a low place because I've completely lost who I am. Yeah. And that's like that's a difficult position to be in. Oh. You know, especially when it comes to and, you know, potentially ending a relationship. Right. And it's like it's confusing and you're like, I don't really know who I am. And a lot of people think like, oh, it's just easier to stay, but really it's not.

actually it's a lot more difficult and challenging to stay than get through that initial heartbreak or whatever to do it for both people. Yeah, because I don't know if you feel this way, but when you do that and then you look back, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I didn't do that earlier. Yes, exactly, all the time. All the time.

And that's generally how it is. With most of these things across the board, whether it be like a breakup or like choosing like a different group of friends or, you know, changing your direction from a career standpoint, standpoint and just be like, well, I'm in this career. It's easy. I don't, I'm on love with it, but like it works for me. It's good money.

You know, but I really kind of want to do this. Ask you out the question, if you look back in 40 years, would you regret not doing this thing that you wanted to do? Would you regret it or would you be okay that you just did this? And if you say that I would regret it, you have to do it. You have to. Yeah, I agree. And you think about like, well, I don't want to be behind. you know I'm I'm already going down this path and I've been doing it for five years and

it's like well you're going to work for 50 years like you think five years is going to mean anything right I know right now it does I mean people ask me that too about like travel they're like oh I don't know like taking a year off and I'll be a year behind it's like you out of your mind yeah in in UK it's like a gap year is a is a mandatory almost thing yeah you take a year off and travel like you're going to be working your entire life it's not going to mean anything in fact that year of travel you're going to grow you're going to become a person that people are going to want to hire yes you know and so it's like i think it's just like stopping to actually like really think about what you're doing and like stepping back to get that perspective is is important

and i think a lot of people that as well are thinking about what other people think and not doing it for themselves like what if i took that like one of my girlfriends was debating going on this like five-day trip to Mexico because she thought that people would think, oh, why she leaving her kids to go to Mexico for five days? And I'm like, all right, go. What are you thinking? Like, you have to go. She was so excited, but that was the only thing holding her back when she had someone to look after the kids. And I'm like, why would you not go? Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to me. So can I just take a second and ask if you remember the joy and spirit of Peter Pan? There's a place where you don't have to grow up, guys. Even though the world tells you to,

That place is Walt Disney World. It's tough being adult, duh, but at Walt Disney World, you can put the adulting on pause and let the everyday stresses of life disappear. There's so much cool stuff you can do at Walt Disney World after hours, including a crawl of some of the best in-park drinking options. If the world tells you to grow up, at Disney World, you don't have to. Walt Disney World is a perfect escape for millennials. There's an entirely new way to experience it as an adult without the kids. From cool drinking options to the excitement of after-hour events, find you. your happy place here. Like check out Cabana Bar and Beach Club, sip signature cocktails like

the Dolphin Maitai served at a chic illuminated bar in the evening. Also, bottle service, yes, please. There are so many cool attractions and characters that bring your childhood to life and new experiences that you can appreciate as an adult. Relive the nostalgia of Disney or create some new memories. When you speak at these events, like what age range are you speaking to? Is it? Like, everyone? Yeah. It is ironically, kind of everyone.

I spoke to like 5,000 high school kids in Orlando, which was, you know, teenagers. And I speak at like state health associations, which are like CEOs of hospitals and nursing unions and, you know, people getting into their 60s and 70s, you know. It kind of just runs the gamut. And I think that the reason being is because at the end of the day, we're all going to die one day. And this question, what do you want to do before you die, is relevant to anyone at any age. Right. That's what I was asking. Because I'm like, it could even go, you could even speak to, like, young, young kids.

Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I'm doing a commencement address at University of Utah in May. And part of that sort of like whole experience that we're doing there is we're going to the students and saying, what do you want to do before you graduate? So we're collecting people's list items to fulfill, you know, dreams to do before you graduate. But what's even cooler is we're going to senior centers, assisted living centers, and asking old folks what they want to do and getting their dreams and aspirations and then helping make that come true through, you know, the community in Salt Lake. Yeah. So I think it's been great to like take some old folks to do.

Oh, I love that. That makes me want to cry right there. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that is such a beautiful thing because it's not too late. No, it's not. And that's the thing. It's never too late. People always think, oh, what's it? Like, I remember watching, this is so funny to say this, but I remember watching the

view of all things and listening to them talk. And I forget who it was that said it. It might have been Whoopi Goldberg. She goes, oh, God, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? You turn 30? Because in that time, I think I was like 28 being like, oh, God, I'm almost like. I haven't done enough. I'm almost 30, and now I'm 32, and I'm like, I still see so much ahead for me.

Yeah. And people base things on their age and where they're supposed to be and what they're supposed to be doing. And you're like, what's the worst that's going to happen? You turn 40? Yeah. What's the worst that you turn 50? You still have all the time in the world until you die. Totally.

And so, like, how did you, I mean, when you, you were really kind of floundering before you got on The Bachelor, right? Like, you were 29? Well, I was. how old was I when I think I was 28 when I first went on or yeah it was 28 yeah so you're 28 yeah but you know for the last what like X number of years you were sort of floating I did not always and I was like I don't know if I deep down was okay with it but surface level I was like this is fun I don't I don't know and then I got to a point where I moved to Germany for my ex-boyfriend completely lost who I was

and everything that I had going for myself came back and just felt like I started absolutely from rock bottom with I was so depressed, I was so sad, I was so lost I didn't have any money I didn't know what I was going to do I had to get back into the restaurant business which was like the last place in the world I wanted to go

and but I got through something which I thought was the worst time of my life and just getting through it made me have a way more positive attitude as to what I wanted to do because I was like I just got through the worst thing that I at that point in my life the worst thing that had ever happened to me and so I was so confused and I mean I don't know how this happened that I even got on The Bachelor but I just feel like it was like the timing of everything couldn't have been better for me yeah but it also was it wasn't like what was the thing that made you make that decision to come and try out for the Bachelor because you knew I remember there was conflicts with a wedding you know and there was all these things that were like basically people were telling you you shouldn't do it yeah um so what what was it that made you take that step yeah ironically it was people like the closest people in my life that were like

are you really going to like do this for the 17th season of the bachelor or whatever it was and i was like there's just something in me that felt like why not and again like that selfish feeling where I was like, am I doing something selfish here or am I doing something like for myself that I'm like interested in doing and could potentially lead to a bigger or better thing? And so I think it was just a moment of my girlfriend suggesting I went on it because she was like, you really need to be on the show. You'd be so great on it and blah, blah. And my whole life I've always thought I can't just do like go to work and I'm just the same thing was when I was living in Germany. I'm like, I'm not meant to do this. I'm meant to do something bigger and have a voice. And And that's just who I am. And so I think that just always stuck with me that I'm meant to do something bigger. And I even remember thinking going on The Bachelor, if that's what gets me to have some sort of platform to reach other people and share my life with them, like, I guess that's what it is. I guess it's the bachelor. So I think that's the most, if anybody takes one thing from this entire episode, I think that's the most important thing that even the people that were closest to you told you you shouldn't do this.

You should either come to the wedding or you should continue to think about doing something else. But you listen to yourself and you listen to your gut because you always knew deep down that you had this thing that needed to, you know, basically be expressed by using your voice in some way, shape, or form. 99.9% of the people in the world, I think, would end up ultimately caving to their nearest and dearest at that moment. but you didn't and because you didn't and you took that audition your entire life changed that's so true entire life just from that one decision which was so on the edge yeah it was such a a small delicate decision right and you just decided for whatever reason probably irrationally yes definitely irrationally yes but if you weren't irrational you would be living the same old life you're right and that small moment you your gut was strong enough to push you to do it

against the other people that the people that you care about telling you know you should really do the sensible thing um and that ultimately completely changed life imagine what your life would be like right now if you can't imagine right and my relationships with those people are stronger now having done it and getting through it and and having the success because they're proud of me and I like I said earlier and now I value relationships more and so much more came of it than just you know it's now it's just like to me it was not just a TV show it was like a pivotal moment in my life that changed everything and and made me who I am right now because when you do what's best for yourself you're doing what's best for other people oh I just got goosebumps

right I just got goosebumps I feel like we need I'm like let's leave them with one thing what do you want to do before you die there you go thank you so much for coming on that is like I feel like that was one of the most inspirational podcasts I've had oh good thank you for having me and I got a lot from it too

I did as well good well then we've both done our jobs here our work here is done awesome thank you so much and where where can people watch you find you like tell us everything I would say just Ben Nempton on all the socials at Ben Nempton

B-E-N-N-E-M-T-I-N. And, yeah, this is great. And your TEDx, people can watch it on YouTube, right? Yeah, if you search Ben Nempton on YouTube, you can find the TEDx talk, or you can go to Ben-Nempton.com, and there's videos there. Or maybe I'll post the video of you telling Dave that he's going to get an ass-looking. Also inspirational. Very inspirational.

Okay, thank you so much. and I'm Caitlin Briscoe. I'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Off the Vine with Caitlin Brisco. Get new episodes every Tuesday exclusively on podcast.com, the Podcast One app, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Who's not with OTV? Let's review, shall we? OTV sponsor review True Car. Visit True Car to enjoy a more confident car buying experience.

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