Trading Secrets - 56: World-Renowned Motivational Speaker Ben Nemtin Reveals the Behind the Scenes of The Buried Life and Making the Impossible Possible

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Check out The Restart Roadmap: Rewire and Reset Your Career now!   In this week’s episode, best-selling author, content producer, and world-renowned motivational speaker, Ben Nemtin, joins Jason as they dive behind the scenes of all things “The Buried Life” and the work behind motivational speaking. Ben gives insight on how to start working through your own bucket list and overcome the obstacles, what is next on his own bucket list, and the routes you can take to get into a speaking career. How were they funding The Buried Life at the start? What was the timeline from conception to airing on TV? What is the process of working as a motivational speaker? Ben reveals some of the most memorable moments of the show, how they negotiated to keep control over their content after landing at MTV, the importance of mental health, and how to make the impossible possible. It’s another episode you can’t afford to miss.    Pick up your own copy of Ben’s new book “The Bucket List Journal” here. To get one month free on 3nickles use promo code TRADING   Sponsors: Omahasteaks.com keyword SECRETS for 8 free Omaha Steaks burgers Netsuite.com/secrets for a one of a kind financing offer   Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr   Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. We're lucky to have best-selling author, content producer, and top world-renowned motivational speaker, Ben Nenthen. He is here with us today, also a good friend of Caitlin and Ben is the number one New York Times bestselling author of What Do You Want to Do Before You Die? And is a star of the MTV highest rated show ever on iTunes and Amazon called The Buried Life. If we have some Gen Zs out there, which I know we do, it's one you have to watch. He's widely known, again, is one of the best world motivational speakers and a thought leader of our time.

He is also the co-founder of the Buried Life Movement through which his message of radical possibility has been featured across major outlets all over the world. The Oprah Winfrey show, The Today Show, CNN, NBC, Fox ABC, CBS, just to name a few. Ben, we just had sushi last week, and here we are virtually across one another. It is good to see you, my man. It's good to see you, and that was good sushi we had. There was no doubt about it when I was in. That was good sushi, but similar to this podcast, we're both wearing white shirts, and we both made the comment that was stupid. And only one of us walked away with a ruined shirt, and it wasn't you. Well, to be fair, I found soy sauce on my shirt two days later. It wasn't as aggressive of a

spill as you had, but I didn't ruin the shirt, which maybe you did, but there was soy sauce on the shirt, I have to admit. But it was worth it to hang out with you and Caitlin. I'm happy to be here on the pod. It was great times. And literally, guys, I'm not kidding you, when we say, like, we talked about, okay, don't spill soy sauce. I'm that. guy, boom. First piece of sushi, it literally drops right in my soy all over. Everyone's chirping me. But you know what? It is what it is. Good memories. No more sure. But Ben, let's go back to your story. So if you guys don't know this, so Ben is an unbelievable professional speaker. And there's a lot of things within that whole industry that people have questions about,

just like, what is professional speaking? What does that mean? Can you even make money in it? We're going to get into all that because anyone that's listening right now, if you have a story and you have something of impact that you can bring to a larger group, you too can get into this industry. Ben is going to tell you all about it in his career track. But before that, Ben has been extremely successful in business and almost every project he touches turns to gold. The coolest thing is the documentary that he filmed with his three buddies called The Buried Life. And for anyone that doesn't know, they created a bucket list. And for everything you guys accomplished, what you would do is and tell me where we're off here, but you'd help the complete stranger.

complete an item on their bucket list and or you would complete items that you guys created on your bucket list. So, Ben, tell me a little bit about how that idea came to fruition and how that fruition of an idea actually became a freaking TV show. Yeah, well, I mean, I know you know a lot of the stories of people's paths to television, and I'm pretty sure this would be a unique one because it came in the beginning from a very dark place for me. And it was a real place of struggle where I was growing up in Victoria, British Columbia, which is on Vancouver Island, which, you know, Caitlin knows that well,

but other folks that's like off the coast of Vancouver, small town. And I was going into my first year at university. I was fired up because I was going to a university in my hometown where I had an academic scholarship. I was on the national U-19 rugby team, which is a big sport where I grew up. And I put a lot of pressure on myself. And so we were training for the World Cup, which was in Paris, France. And my position was like the field goal kicker and the quarterback. It's called the fly half. So that was what I played.

So there was a high pressure position and I put a lot of pressure myself. And I started worrying about my performance at the World Cup, specifically my kicks. And I had missed a kick in the final game of our high school season at the end of the game. It could have won us the game. And I did not want that to happen again. So I would think about it at night. And I would think about it in the dead of my.

night, where this anxiety would creep in. And I would think, oh, crap, I don't want to, what if I miss an easy field goal at the World Cup and blow this once-a-lifetime opportunity? And so this anxiety caused me to have trouble sleeping, this lack of sleep, coupled with this pressure that I put on myself and this, this anxiousness. It all contributed to me hitting my very first depression, where I felt like out of nowhere I was just, all of a sudden, my anxiety stopped me from going to school. It stopped me from going to rugby practice.

It stopped me from leaving the house. So I dropped out of school. I got dropped for the national rugby team. I became a shut-in in my parents' house. And it was debilitated. My parents would force me to go for a 15-minute walk every day. And so that was my only time out of the house. And, you know, we can dive into a lot of those feelings and what ultimately brought me out of that. But one of the things that was huge was my friends literally kind of pulled me out of the house and convinced me to come work with them in a new town for the summer. And I started talking about what I was going through to them. And I realized that I wasn't the only one that was experiencing some of these feelings or had experienced these feelings. I was forced to get a

job. So I felt a bit of confidence. I felt a bit of self-worth. And I also started meeting young people that were really, really inspiring. Like these kids that I never met before that all of a sudden I realized they were, they'd started their own businesses right out of high school. I never met kids like that. They had traveled around the world. I'd never met kids like that. And I realized that they gave me energy. And I started to understand that some people gave me energy and some people drew energy from me. At that time in my life, I needed to be around people that gave me energy. So I made this conscious decision that ultimately would change my life that was, I'm going to try and only surround myself of people that inspire me. I called this kid

that I didn't know too well, but he grew up in my neighborhood and he was a filmmaker. And he was one of my only friends that I thought was really inspiring. And secretly, I had always wanted to make a movie. And so I called him up. I said, Johnny, let's make a documentary, you know. And we called up two other buddies and the four of us got together. We started talking about this doc. That was the seed that started this. And ironically, the name the buried life came from a poem that Johnny was assigned to an English class at that time that talked about this feeling that we were feeling, which was that we had all of these things that we wanted to do, but we'd never tried to do any of them. They were all buried, you know, and we were inspired in moments.

to go after them, but life got in the way. The day-to-day buried them. And so we thought, whoa, this poem was written 150 years ago. And he, this poet's talking about the same feeling we're feeling. Let's borrow this name, the buried life. And our bucket list was all of our buried dreams. And so the bucket list came from unburying these deep dreams that we'd never tried to even try and go after. And we thought we just let's go after our list on a road trip. And let's also help other people accomplish their bucket list items. And this is back in 2006. And it was supposed to be a two-week road trip, but it ended up lasting, you know, over 10 years. It's such a great story. And I've heard it a couple times being friends with Ben and also getting to see him speak. And every time I hear

it, even though I've heard it a few times, I just think to myself, I'm like, it's so fucking awesome. Now, I want to get into the next steps about how you make the dream and reality. And I want to get into even the funding and sourcing about that. But one thing I cannot pass over is when you talked about the deep depression you were in and that you were stuck. And we have had so many people on the podcast come in and talk about their restart. And the tips that they provide our listeners are always different, which is really unique. But if you had to give one tip to someone right now that feels stuck like you felt, Ben, or maybe it's a different situation or different mental anxiety that they might be dealing with, but long story short, in their world, they are stuck

and they're looking to restart and they're looking to get on the path, the one you just told us you got on. What piece of advice would you give them to become unstuck and find that path? The biggest piece is ask for help. You know, sometimes we feel like we have to overcome these personal, emotional struggles on our own. It's just harder to do it on your own. You have a higher chance of success if you ask someone for help. When you think about when you hit a roadblock in your career or in your job, what do you do? You go to your leader. You ask for help. You go to a mentor. You ask for help. Hey, have you ever been through this? I hit this challenge. I'm not sure what to do. Have you done it before? What did you suggest? But with these personal struggles,

because there's shame around them, we feel like we can't talk about them because then we'll let other people know that we're messed up. The truth is, everyone has gone through some sort of struggle and they're all probably going through something that you can't see. When you share, when you ask for help, what you're also doing is you're opening the door for them to come back to you in their eventual time of need, which is very important and powerful. And so I think that the biggest thing you can do is go to someone that, that you know, cares about you, you know, a loved one or a friend, ideally a professional, a therapist, a coach, you know, there's a great stigma around therapy, which just, to me, doesn't make any sense.

It's like, why would you play basketball at the highest level without a basketball coach? I mean, a therapist is just a coach for you to navigate these difficult times and give you tools for your toolbox to implement later and to point out blind spots, right? So there's a barrier to therapy, there's price, it takes a while to find someone. I think a lot of times people get discouraged when they reach out and they talk with a therapist and it's just not right. And then like, I've tried therapy. It doesn't work.

Well, you know, it probably takes three or four or five different like swings to find someone that you like, that you respect, that actually knows what they're doing. You know, you've got to get a combination of a couple different things that's rare. So just keep at it. But once you find that person, you can have that person as your support system forever, right? My therapist, I don't talk with her every week, but when I do need to, I do. And I know that I can call on her, you know, whenever I need. And that's, that is comforting.

Feelings of anxiety and depression have risen, you know, almost three to 400 percent. So we're talking about, I believe this is the biggest thing that we need to focus on is our collective mental health. And it's going to be our, the biggest risk for. employers and also the big it's the biggest now cost and is the biggest disability is mental health this is just the way I look at it you got to take care of your physical health you got to take care of your mental health I have a mental health toolkit which are habits that really work for me we I'll send that to you so you can put it as the download it's also the

one link in my Instagram bio which is at Ben Nempton you can check out this toolkit and practice habits and figure out which habits work for you so you can use them whenever you need This is not something you want to hear when you're in the wheeze. It's like, oh, you know, you're really going to come out of this stronger. You just don't want to hear that. But that's the truth. You will grow from this. It's huge.

It's huge advice. I love all the things that you said there. Some of the big takeaways, guys, go check out the mental toolkit. But for me, I think one of the biggest takeaways that really resonated was the tip about speak to someone, speak to a professional. But most importantly, recognize that when you do have the courage to do something, so, it's probably going to be reciprocated. But if it's not, it's okay. It's not going to always work the first time with a therapist or the first individual you talk to. And just because

you strike a little bit with the first conversation doesn't mean you stop there. Just like you compared it to physical health. Think about different workouts that work for you. Think about how many different programs you started or you tried yoga, you tried running or you tried CrossFit and it doesn't work. You have to find what works for you. And don't stop because you finally built up the courage to have the conversation and the first one doesn't go right. I think that is a really good advice and people should check out your mental toolkit that is all over your Instagram.

So go check it out, Ben Nempton. But I want to get back into Buried Life. So you hit your restart, you do get your help, you seek someone that inspires you, and now you have this team in this group that has taken this concept from Johnny's high school paper, a nice brilliant quote, and you guys are going to check things off

your bucket list. So I want to go into the business aspect of this. One, what was the cost of doing something like this? And then two, how long did it actually take to get like a decent story together to pitch the story so people would listen to this wild idea you guys had? We didn't have any money first and foremost. And so we're like, okay, what's the plan? The plan is let's take a two-week road trip. Let's film it. Let's make a short doc. And we'll show it to our friends. It'll be fun. and that's that's all we had plan. So we needed to save up money. We needed to get an RV.

We need to get a camera. We needed to get gas money. This is 2006. This is pretty social, pretty much. I mean, Facebook's in universities and Twitter just started, but like, there's no influencer. So we're not like thinking about gaining a following and starting to do brand deals. We built a deck, a PDF of the idea, and we started to send it around to potential

sponsors. And I remember the one of the first. emails we got back was literally, I quote, I'm not funding your booze-fueled road trip. Boy, were they wrong. Yeah, yeah. We really kind of had some pushback. I was working as a as a Molson beer rep for the summer, which gave me the flexibility because I could hustle throughout the first half of the day I could visit all the accounts that I needed to and have the afternoons off where I would start cold calling companies and looking for sponsorship. First company that I called Caitlin will know this brand.

It's like the Odd Walla juices of Canada. It's called Happy Planet juices based out of Vancouver. And I called up the offices. I was so scared to make this phone call. Because I call up, I say, hello. My name is Ben. I run a production company. So we would pretend we had a production company during this cold call.

And I'm producing a documentary. And I'd like to talk to your CEO. I think this is a great opportunity for you. And she put me through to the CEO's desk. And now I'm thinking, oh, my hard. beating off. Oh, gosh, what are I going to say? This is the first call. And I get through and I kind of, I tell the quick, like, you know, I sort of butcher the elevator pitch, whatever that might be. We're making this documentary, about 100 things to do before you die.

We're helping other people incorporate your juice into the journey. And the first thing, this guy says, he's this ex-hipy that started this juice company. He goes, dude, a lot of people are going to tell you, you can't do this. But I'm telling you, you right now, you're sitting on a gold nugget. Wow, that gave me goosebumps. Isn't that cool? And I just, I, he said, listen, we'll help you up. And they paid for our gas. So they gave us, I think, $2,000 to $2,500. But they also gave us juice for the journey, which really fueled us, really. So they would send these, this is through the interior of BC. So they'd send these coolers of juice to stores that we would pick up along the way. Okay. And so that was a big piece.

We took out a loan, $2,000 loan from Dave's dad that we had to pay back. We, of course, worked throughout the summer so that we could save it money. We started throwing parties. This was a big, big one. We started doing parties, and this fueled the buried life until we got the show. This was one of the main drivers of our fundraising efforts. It was doing parties at University, in University of Victoria. And we negotiated with the owner of the bar.

You know, we get door until this time. and then we got a cut of sales of the bar. And we had great parties. It was a lot of fun. And that's how we said in mind. The community also really rallied to support. Yeah, I got to ask, though, how much you make making parties? Like if you're throwing a party, where you made a thousand bucks?

A thousand bucks, two thousand bucks. Maybe if we're lucky, maybe $2,500. Sure. A local skate shop gave us t-shirts and skateboards to give away. Red Bull gave us Red Bulls. A granola bar company gave us granola bars. So we lived off Red Bulls, these juices and granola bars. And we borrowed the, we pulled the RV out of this kind of like swampy field.

And we get it started. We take it to the mechanic because we need it to bring us back home because we don't have the money to tow it back. And we're going on this two week road trip around British Columbia. And so the mechanic says, don't expect this to make it back. And this is a big problem for us because we had this moment right before we left, the night before we were going to leave where we got this information back. We're sitting on the curb.

I remember outside the RV, and we're just like, is this just disaster waiting to happen? Like, we can't, we can't afford to tow this 100 miles. And we, and we were talking about not going. And I remember Dave, you know Dave, Lingwood, he said, of course, yeah. He said, guys, we've come this far. We've got to do it. So, oh, my God. So you almost didn't do it.

So at this point, you got a few sponsors. She had some juice and granola bars and you had the free RV. But how much in cash did you guys have? have to prepare for this venture. It was less than 10 grand. Yeah, I think it was $7,000 or $8,000, you know, between our savings, the money we borrowed, the money for the gas, which is like $5K and savings. And yeah, it was about $10,000. Okay, so guys, 10 grand, a dream with some friends, and they make this become a reality. Four people, by the way. Four people. So Ben, I'll talk a little bit about the power of creating a successful team. We'll talk about that in the recap,

because there's a lot about those four people and how they have individual skill sets. We'll get to that. But Ben, in the summer, though, you only film for two weeks. In this two weeks of you guys filming and taking this venture, how many things off the checklist of the Buried Life bucket list did you guys accomplish? We were checking them off left, right, and center. I think we did at least 20 or 25 in those two weeks and helped people as well. People really were wanting us to accomplish these things. And so the support was coming in. And that was the first time I felt any sense of purpose. And so after that, I was like, let's keep doing this. And so the next, we said, but next summer, let's go for two months instead of two weeks. And let's continue to film.

And let's get a professional crew to follow us. Because we were like, we can't film this and do this at the same time. Let's properly film it. So we're like, we're going to raise a lot of money. You know, we got to save up instead of 10 grand, you know, we got to find 100 grand, 200 grand. We started to throw more parties, but that obviously wasn't going to cut it. We worked jobs. That wasn't going to cut it. But then we started aiming big for sponsors. And there was all of this news that was created over this first tour.

And so we leveraged that to get bigger brand sponsors. Again, pre-social media. So this is not sponsors that are coming along for us to talk about it on social. These are sponsors that are coming along for us to put the logo on. the RV to talk about it in radio, in TV news. And we went to San Francisco, got a meeting with Levi's. We walked into Levi's. We put this whole presentation in a package together. Okay. We asked for 250K. And they said yes. So 250K from Levi, that's after the first summer, right? I want to get into more of the details of fundraising you do. But with the first summer clip that you

get of the two weeks. Did you guys do anything with that footage? Did that footage ever actually make the show or anything else? And I've asked this for anyone else out there that has a thought or has a dream or have an idea. Did you only do this as a test to say, will this work? Can we get the larger funding from the press will get? Or did you actually use some of that footage? So our thought was we're going to use this footage for the documentary, but the documentary's not done yet. And we realized very quickly that we had to film more to finish the documentary. We're we're going to make a film in two weeks. But we did use the footage to cut a trailer that we put on YouTube that made the front

page of YouTube, you know, so back in 2006. So that we also were able to leverage, that got us more press. And the other thing that I'll mention, which I think was important, is we decided to bring an adle into the room. And so we enlisted my godmother to become our manager. And quote unquote. And so my godmother became. she was the one that helped us get the meeting with Levi's.

And I think that was important. We couldn't walk in as 20, 21-year-olds. I mean, we could, but we were, I don't think we would have gotten that size of a check unless we had the quote-unquote out in the room at that point. So that gave us some legitimacy. And Levi's also gave us a ton of in-kind sponsor. They gave us, we made custom T-shirts.

And then we bought an old purple transit bus from the 60s, and we renovated the inside so that we could sleep in it, got a crew from L.A., a director, two videographers, and a sound guy. They had their own RV. They followed us for two months, and we continued to film, and we dumped all the money into the film, okay? And we didn't pay ourselves anything. How much was it around?

So you got the $2.50 at all this? If you had to project. It was about $350 total and then in kind. And so, you know, you're talking about a professional crew from L.A. for two months. That takes up most of the budget right there. Of course. Renting an RV, gas, insurance for the film, insurance for the vehicle. hotels for two months.

I mean, yeah, we really made that. We stretched it, but we definitely didn't pay ourselves, which we regret it. Because after that two months, we came back and we're like, okay, we're ready to make this film. And then we realized very quickly how expensive post-production was, and we didn't have any money left. By the way, we also had, we were offered a TV show in Canada

after that very first tour, and we turned it down because they wanted to own it. And we didn't want to give away creative control. So we had turned down a TV show. TV show. We'd spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, which that was more money than we'd ever dreamed of. Of course. And we hadn't paid ourselves anything. We now couldn't make the film. We had turned down the biggest opportunity of our life. What did the Canadian group? I know they wanted all creative control, but did it from a money standpoint, what did they offer? $2,000 an episode. I mean, something very Canadian. Okay. So minimal. Yeah, not even executive

producer fees or anything. And so now I had another rock bottom where I was like, oh, Jesus Christ, we blew it, man. This is our big shot. We turned down a freaking TV show. What do we, are we stupid? And we were just so young, dumb, and we're like, fuck it. We're just going to keep doing this ourselves. And so what happened was, you know, long story short, I meet someone that knows someone in L.A. They're kind enough to fly me down on a buddy pass because they watched the trailer that we made that was on YouTube. And she says, this is really cool. If you're thinking about doing a show in Canada, you should think about doing it in the U.S. I know a couple people. Well, of course, everyone in L.A. knows a couple of people.

So she introduced me to a friend who's a manager, a friend who works to the production company. She flies me down on a free flight. I'm about to go into business school. I take the first week off. I fly down. I meet people. Everyone's very enthusiastic about this idea. I find out later, everyone's always very enthusiastic in L.A.

about me about ideas. It doesn't mean anything. They're always enthusiastic at like one of 10,000 actually here. Exactly. But I come back and my guys, I think we have a shot here. I'm going to, I think we should, we shouldn't let this, this die. I start doing trips down to LA, understanding the entertainment business, understanding what it takes to sell a show, we're understanding, okay, we need agents, then we need to partner

with the production company, then we need to pitch networks and all these things that you know so well. But for me coming off out of Victoria, this was just all completely new. So for about 18 months, I would come down, I would stay in LA, boys would come down. 18 months after film, so this is after summer two, you've already had the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You're working 18 months after this to try and get the show sold. So what we do is we take the footage that we'd film for the 18, for the past two years, and we cut our own pilot. And this was the beauty was that Johnny was a really, is a really, really talented editor.

We had crashed the MTV Movie Awards in 2007 when Britney Spears came back. And it was in Vegas. And one of the things was on the list was to walk the red carpet. and we drove over our purple bus to the VIP interest. We faked an email from the CEO of MTV on our phones. We got fake passes. We got suits from a thrift store. And we pretended we were filming a secret pilot for MTV that only Judy McGrath knew about.

And we got in the awards. We filmed it. No one knew we were there. We took that footage and we cut a real pilot. And so when they screened the pilot for the buried life in front of all the executives, they saw these kids crash their awards. no idea that that had happened. And that is what ultimately got us the show was that stunt that we pulled because we faked a pilot that ended up being our real pilot that got

us the show. That is so badass. We're going to get into some of the things that they did. And guys, just that is the tip of the iceberg. So how long been after two summers? So 18 months you're pitching. Does it get picked up? What's the timeline until it airs? And from a compensation standpoint, how are you guys compensated on something like this? Yeah, so 2006 is the first tour. Summer of 2007 is the second tour. We sell the show officially 2009. It airs 2010, 2011.

You know, I think that's the timeline. So we go through the pilot process. And the great thing about MTV was the head of MTV, Tony DeSanto, really understood that the magic of the show was that we made it. So he gave us almost full creative control. We had to prove ourselves, really, and that's a whole other story. We had to pay editors out of our own pocket to re-edit locked cuts, send them to Tony. He approved them as we, and so we built this rapport.

As you know, like, we're shooting on the road and we're sending notes on edits and they're already getting locked and we're like, this is terrible. Like, we can't show these to our friends. So we would stay all night throughout the edit bays. We'd pay editors. We'd re-ed them. We negotiated the rights with artists for music because we wanted good music. We, you know, we were involved with every single.

aspect of that show from knowing nothing about television to the things that we were we were demanding which which which everyone sold us guys you can't do this we just didn't know that we couldn't do it for instance we crashed the playboy mansion because we wanted to sneak into the playboy mansion this was a long time ago and so they were like okay we'll call ahead and we'll clear the the venue like well what are you talking about they'll know we're coming we said we wanted to crash it. They're like, well, if you crash it, we can't use the footage. We need a release. And we'll say, well, we'll worry about that later. And so that was the premiere episode. MTV and the production, there was bets going, wagers, because no one believed that we would do it.

This was such a high stakes moment, one, because we wanted to see if we could get into the playboy mention for the episode. But also, if we didn't do this, we were not going to be able to make the show for the rest of the season like we wanted to, because we would have blown all the money on filming this and not being able to air it. So we got in the awards. We filmed it. We got out. They had no idea. And then we went to ask for clearance from Playboy PR. And they said, no way. And everyone said no. And we wrote a handwritten letter to Hugh Hefner. And he got back to us and says, guys, you can air the episode. Just know that I'm not very pleased with you boys. And that's... Unvolubley. Also, tell them, taking a detour, but tell them who you

pretended to be when you tried to get into the Playboy Mansion. Oh, yes. Well, the context of this is when I traveled Europe before, I would have people come up to me and ask if I was related to Cristiano Ronaldo. And so it gave me this idea to pretend to be Christiana Ronaldo to get into the Playboy Mansion and not have to pay. And so I got a spray tan. I got earrings. I made a, we made a fake PR website that sent letters to the promoter. And they were going to let us in, but the fire marshal closed down the party because there were so many people. So we didn't get in. But Johnny and Dave, the two other guys, they got in because they dressed up like umpalupas because it was a

Willy Waka theme party and hid in the giant prop cake that we made. And we delivered that prop at 5 p.m. to the mansion under the guys that this is a prop for the party. And they stayed in the bottom of that cake for six hours and then jumped out at midnight and got into the party. And that's how we got the footage on the inside. So anyways, the point is, this was, this is a very untraditional way for us to make a television show. But it was so important to us that it was real because that was the whole spirit of the project. It wasn't, hey, let's do all these things because a major network is making them happen. It's like, no, let's do these things because four regular guys are making them happen. And that was the whole point. And if we have avid and

loyal trading secrets listeners here, this will probably ring a bell this story because there's only two people that ever been on this podcast that have negotiated in such nature. Ironically enough, both were with MTV. Rob Deirdek told us all about his negotiation with MTV to the dollar, to the angle and the things he got. And I couldn't believe what he was able to negotiate. And I want people to listen right now. We'll talk about it more in the recap.

But what they negotiated as far as like getting creative rights and being an EP, just like Bennett alluded to with the fact that Jersey Shore had never even seen the episode before it aired, this is unprecedented, this is unheard of, and almost like I would make the argument that would maybe never exist at this rate. Like someone that's like in their 20s, 19 saying they're going to be an EP and have creative control. It is so cool what you guys did. The last question I got to ask though about the show, and that's probably not the last one, because I can talk to you about this for hours. But as far as negotiating like payment, do you guys, is it royalty? Do you get paid per episode? How did you work that angle? Yeah. So we got,

we got our talent fee, but we also negotiated an EP fee. And so. Gotcha. You know, and they weren't, you know, as a first season show, you know, it's, it's hard enough to get those titles, get those, you know, get those two line items. It's almost impossible. And what's almost impossible, and I would argue might even be impossible these days, is maintaining ownership of the IP. So the buried life, right? Impossible.

No one's maintaining. Exactly, because that's how you make your money. Ben, looking at, I think this is a really, really important lesson for anyone that listening, 2022 now, you look back at that, you look at the dollars and cents, would you say that the value of owning that IP was significantly greater than just having the show? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And so I think, guys, and I mean, you've heard these stories, of course, like if you haven't seen Founder with McDonald's, I mean, these stories come up over and over again.

It is brilliant that you guys negotiated that way and what you did. Before I move on from Buried Life, though, I want people to know, especially my Gen Zers, or maybe didn't listen, watch this show. The stuff they were doing, we're not talking like, yeah, I want to go to a Ferris wheel or, like, want to go to Paris. We're talking about some of the craziest stuff, like play basketball with Barack Obama while he's in office, having a beer with Prince Harry, reuniting in a father and a son who, after 17 years, I'll never forget because I was in tears when you did your speech, that you guys

had the young girl that you surprised with the bionic arm. I mean, guys, the things they were doing, go on Oprah. and like be on her show. We're in like literally impossible. So I'm going to ask you a couple rapid fires on of the items that you guys have crossed off, what comes to mind when I say the following. Are you ready? Okay.

Which do you think of all the things that you guys were able to accomplish the most impactful? I think that we did one episode of this was really important to me and and the rest of guys, but me especially because of my past, wanted to address mental health in an episode. And, you know, at this time, 2010, people weren't really talking about mental health on TV as much, right? So, so we found a girl who struggled with cutting. And cutting is something that really not many people talked about. And for those that are familiar with cutting, it's like, it's self-harm, right? So it's, it's, and it comes in many different forms, but this one girl, she cut her herself and she wanted to, she was getting better, but she wanted to talk about it.

And she wanted to create a forum or an event where she could talk. about it in her hometown. It's a small town. And so we partnered with a nonprofit called To Right Love on Her Arms. And we brought in a musician. And we created this evening where the musician played and Jamie, who started Two Right Love on Ars, spoke about his past and his mental struggles. And then this girl, Lexi, came and she talked about, hey, listen, I'm Lexi. I live in your community. And this is what I struggle with. And I just wanted to talk about it because I feel like I always have to hide it. But I think it's important that I don't feel like, and you don't feel like you have to hide anything. And so it was a really was impactful, meaningful for her. But then,

of course, it was broadcast, right? And so, and so that was scary, but it was also the, the reaction that we got was so massive that it sort of validated that, that risk that, that, that we took. So that was it. It's truly inspirational. I can't put this in context enough for our listeners. This is not 2022 when we're talking about this stuff and depression and therapy. This is times when it wasn't as widely discussed and as accepted. So more kudos to you guys. Want to stay with the rapid fire though real quick. Which was the biggest shock of all the items, which was the biggest shock? So one of the lists items was to ask out the girl your dreams. And we dressed up Duncan as a fake country music star so he could ask out Taylor Swift at the

CMTs. And we got a full chariot with a horse. And I dressed up like his publicist. And we got fake country music magazine covers and got fans to come down to chant his name. And we got almost into the wards, but we had fake mustaches, too, and because we thought people would recognize us. And we got denied, but then we snuck Duncan in the back door dressed as a PA in black and a walkie-talkie. And he went up to Taylor sitting in the audience, gave her a note that said, I did a lot to get this to you, and I'd love to take you on a date. And she responded and they went on a date. And that, I, that day, stop it. They went on a date? Yeah, two. No way. Yeah, two dates, yeah.

Oh my God. Guys, I'm hearing stories today. I told you guys early in this interview. I've talked to Ben four times and I love hearing it over and over. We're talking about things I've never heard. That's one of them. That's a wild one. All right.

I don't know how you even topped this. One of the rapid fire, I was going to say, like, for you, when you look back at that list, which was like the most, like, badass. Like, you look at you're like, that was the most badass. Like, I don't know how that happened. I mean, I think we did this one where we competed. in a crump competition. And for those of you don't know crump,

it was quite big in the 2020, 2010, 2011. It was crumping and clowning was sort of like this underground dance movement. And it's a very aggressive street dance. I can't dance. I'm terrified of dancing in public. And here we are. We're competing in Compton in a crump competition. And the stakes were so high because there was this guy tight eyes that started sort of

that was the godfather of crumping. There was this guy Tommy the clown who was the godfather of clowning. and they had this big riff, and they hadn't talked to each other for years. And here, tight-eyes was teaching us crumping. And then we were competing against Tommy the Clowns crew. And we were going into Compton to compete. And it was so heated. And I was so nervous.

But ultimately, it ended up just being such an amazing experience because it was not so much about how we did, but more that we just did it. And we went all in. And it was about just the love of dance. And everyone was so inviting. And it was, it was very, so that was surprising that I came out of that feeling like that was a good experience because I was so nervous going into. I was losing sleep. And another thing I was nervous about was trying to streak and get away because that was, Duncan was so nervous, he puked in the porta party before we did it.

And where did you guys? That was an MLS game in Kansas City. And did you get a, you got arrested, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Guys, you're listening to this. These stories are incredible. If you go look at Ben Nempton's YouTube, you could see a lot of stuff. snapshots of his speaking. And that's his main professional work right now, which he's, again, world renowned, one of the best speakers out there up in the ranks with Tony Robbins. And he

tells all these stories. He tells all the things that they did to get President Obama during his presidency to have these kids play basketball. And everyone should know listening to this. They didn't have an in. They weren't saying they're on a television show. It was four kids just trying to do it. I'm going to ask this of you. Guys, you don't know that listening, but we've had a couple technical difficulties. We've run a little bit low on time. And I just thought about this off the cuff. And I was thinking about telling you or not.

And now I'm like, I'm going to tell you, and I'm hopefully that you're going to accept this invite. But I told David. So David is one of my closest buddies. Grew up in the Vancouver area, played hockey where I went to college, hilarious guy. And he recaps every episode.

So he doesn't come on the main portion. But he'll come back on the recap. We do 15, 20 minute recap. And he'll like give his take on the guest. Sometimes he'll rip the guest apart. Sometimes he'll compliment him. Sometimes he'll ask questions because he's not the, he's a bright guy with finance and business.

It's not his forte. So I tell David I'm having Ben Nempton on. And I swear to God's reactions like, no way. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, I am the biggest Ben Nempton fan in the planet. And mind you, this is a guy that's like one of my best friends, David. I have no, I have, or Ben, I have no way. I said, are you serious?

And he's like, I'm obsessed with him. The buried life, everything he's doing. I was like, do you know like I'm friends with him? And he's like, I knew that you. guys like knew him. I was like, dude, I had sushi with him last week. He's like, you never told me that. And I realized that we didn't get our phones out and I didn't get to post at all. So here's my request. We didn't get to the professional speaking. And I want to get to the professional speaking. I would love it if there's a time we could schedule the

recap. I have David on. He has listened to the episode at this point. He's getting ready to recap with me. We scheduled a time that you are free and you come surprise him at the recap. And in the recap, we talk a little bit about professional speaking. Would that be all right? That's perfect. That's great. Invite is accepted. Then here's what you got to leave me with. I need two things. With all these things that you've been able to accomplish, outlandish, you guys have heard a bunch here. You'll hear more in the recap and you can find it on YouTube or anywhere. You could find Ben speaking stuff. But the theme is making the impossible possible. And so when someone hears the things you've done or the tenacity you've built and courage you've done to just do these things you never thought you would, what is like your biggest piece of advice for someone making the impossible possible because you've done it over and over and over. We think that it's more difficult than it is. That's that is what I have learned is that we are stopped by barriers that sometimes don't actually exist. And I put these all down. So my new book is the bucket list journal, which basically is your guide to achieving goals. Because I notice

there are patterns of things that I do again and again and again to achieve the, personal and professional goals, and they really break down into simple steps. So you write your list, you want to build the accountability, you want to share your goals with your family, with your friends, with your teams so that they can keep you accountable. You want to do whatever you can to start to remind yourself that these things are important to you and give yourself permission because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of other people. And what these personal passions and goals do is they fuel you and they fill you up. so that you're able to be the best version of yourself and you can create that work-life harmony

and you can just feel like you can be the full expression of who you are. And all this stuff I've realized comes back to, it just comes back to you being true to you. And a list and all these things are these things that are for you. There's for no one else. There's no rules. It's just that it's important to you. And in a world where everything pulls you away from that, social media, the distractions, we need to make sure that we're living our true course, because that's the way you're going to make an impact. That's the way you're going to be the happiest, and it's the hardest thing to do, but I believe it's the most important thing to do. And the big idea is that if more people do what they love, it's going to create this ripple effect, and the world is going

to be a better place. It's beautiful. Making the impossible possible from Ben Nempton, guys, the bucket list journal. We are going to buy a few copies. What you're going to do, go into the reviews. Tell us your favorite bucket list item that Ben copied off. Give us five stars. Put your Instagram handle. We're going to buy a few copies. We're going to give some away. And end the recap. We're going to get Ben's trading secret and where you can get the bucket list should you not be one of our winners. And also, we are going to tell David. He is not going to know. I'm going to tee him up. I heard you're a big Ben fan, David. And then right at that moment, we're going to bring Bren in to quickly talk a little bit about the professional speaking realm.

Ben, I'm going to see you in the recap, but thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much. And what we'll do is so if you use the code secrets on the bucket list journal.co, which is the website, that's the bucket list journal. com, use secrets for 15% off

because this is one of the first podcasts that we're talking about the journal. Hell, yes. We'll also have that code if you guys missed it in the description and we'll also be talking about it in the recap. So we'll see you guys in just a second. ding ding ding we are ringing in the closing bell with the one the only the curious canadian i just

had some coffee so i'm fired up today david i know you're a huge ben fan i actually didn't know until like a week ago that my good friend apparently is someone that is a huge huge fan you're a huge fan of them so i'm excited for one your takeaways to your take uh you're just your overall feedback of the episode and most importantly what the curious canadian is still cute curious about after this episode. So, David, what do you got with the Ben Nempton episode? What do you thinking? I mean, that intro of me matches my excitement for Ben. Obviously, a top three guests. And obviously, someone that you probably didn't know that I knew. I mean, he's pre-social in really when he made it big. But any Western Canadian, British Columbia boy that hustles his

way to an MTV show with his best friends doing genuine things. The show is incredible. I assume you've seen it if you haven't seen it. Have you seen it? Dude, it's so funny he said that I hadn't seen it. I mean, obviously I've heard so many I've seen him speak now like four or five times by the way his speaking is just incredible

but I've never actually seen the show was it tell me about it. Have you seen it? It's just the simply it's the best show ever created. Okay. Oh yeah, David. Here's what I'll say. That is a bold statement. Well, here's what I'll say. It's a show that every human being should watch. If every human being watched it, our society would be in a better place. That is basically the way that I'll underline it. It'll make you hype. It'll make you want to do things with your friends. And then it'll make you want to give back and do right by people. And at the end of the day, like, you know, you're friends with Ben. You said it. He's just a good human. Like he's a good, genuine human and all his buddies are. And I don't know, for me, it had that feel, like I said, a kid from from Vancouver. I was a kid from Vancouver. Island, where I'm from as well, who made it big and doing it with his buddies and doing it

the right way. The show is incredible. I'm going to make you watch it. I'm going to hold you to that and maybe we'll watch it together, but it's the best show. Done and done. We're going to watch it. This is also his bucket list journal that he just came out with. The link of that's going to be in the bio. And then I'm also, David, I'm going to buy you one of these just so you know. So just because you're such a big Ben-empton fan. I'm going to make sure I buy you one and send you one. I'm very appreciative of that. showed it when I watched the recap. He showed it or not, or the actual interview. And he showed it. And I was like, ooh, not only does that look good. It looks like a good product, but it's inspirational. And I know there's got to be something in there that's going to like pull up the

heartstrings and motivate you. And, you know, at the end of the day, just, just be the best version of yourself. And that's what he said at the end. He's like, just be true to you. And that's what he attributes thought of his success to. But just like all our guests, I didn't know, even though I'm a big fan and known him for over 10 years, known of him for over 10 years. I had no clue about his anxiety struggles. I had no clue about his path to get to he was, quotes that stick out to me, or like, I'm only going to surround myself with people who inspire me. Like, that's like run through a brick wall type stuff. And I think that's obviously what makes him a really good public speaker. And, you know, obviously, we'd love to talk more about

the public speaking aspect of it since you alluded to that in the episode. We could talk a little bit about it. I was interesting in getting into the public speaking realm. So I actually talked to him and he got me signed up with these guys, three ring circus. They do like a two day boot camp on how to get into it. And it's interesting to just hear how you get into it and the dollars behind it. There's a lot of money behind it. There's a travel. It's a tough lifestyle, though, right? Because you might do like, you know, you speak in Kentucky and then you got to go speak in Detroit, Michigan. And then for Detroit, Michigan, you go speak in Vegas. And it's sporadic times, but the good guys are paid really well. I mean, you know, I wish we could have got more into it with him, but I would

assume that he's making minimum, like, literally minimum 15, 20 a crack, right? But his is fucking good, dude. I've gone to his, and I'm, like, literally tearing up when he does. It's really, really good. Well, it's interesting about public speaking and, like, being a speaker is there's so many jobs out there that people wish they had. Oh, I wish I was a reality TV star. I wish I was an influencer.

I wish I was not a lot of people wish they were public speakers because it's, like, one of those taboo, like, most fearful things. So it's really interesting to see someone who's been so, successful who has a track record of all these experiences be so successful at it so but no surprise i mean if you watch the show and you've seen like this guy grinds like this guy hasn't been given anything and you know the long path to success and and finding yourself along the way and and just owning who you are it is really cool so yeah i'm a huge fan geeked up right now ben nempton what a beauty you're going to get his bucket list journal how about in the episode did the curious canadian have any moments where

you're thinking like hmm what are they talking about or i want to talk more about this other than love for Ben? Yeah. The first two things that I'll get to that you wanted me to bring up in the recap, so I have to do that. But the one, like, one-on-one thing that he brought up a lot was in-kind sponsorships. Obviously, it was kind of unique for him to talk about the journey, like, pre-social, pre-like brand deals, pre-following, pre, like, he's selling stickers on a bus and prints on a t-shirt. But he said a lot about in-kind sponsorship, so I just want to know what those are and are they still relevant? So in-kind sponsorships, the best example I could think, well, let's just say what it is. It's an exchange of something where dollars aren't actually placed, but goods

or services are traded. So that's like your book definition. But what the best example I could give is probably a year ago, I was just looking at photos, year ago for your bachelor party. You know how we had like the limo and the bottle service and we're partying with chain smokers and all the rooms were taken care of. That was 100% in-kind sponsorship. So I was giving them certain posts. And in return, they were just giving us the experience. I didn't get paid any dollars. So that's in-kind, if that makes sense. That does make sense. And talk about a flashback. This, this episode is airing one year to the date that we left Vegas. And we'll leave the airport Vegas story for another time, which, as you remember, the biggest panic attack in secondhand. Like,

Oh, the airport Vegas story. Guys, here's what we're going to do. Evan, our back producer there, hold us to it so we do not forget it. Next week, we are going to talk about Dave's crypto, and we're also going to talk about the airport experience for the next recap. So stay tuned because that is going to be a wild one. We also have the founders of Betches coming out next week. But that being said, right before we get into the rest of this recap,

what we're going to do is take a quick break, okay, David, because we do have an ad. to read, if that's okay. Okay. First, first ad read. And by ad read, I mean, we actually have a guest coming on, David. The guest is the one and only, the first time ever that our main segment guest is coming to the recap.

You're a big fan. He's here to meet you. We got him. Ben Nempton. Are you in the house? Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

The curious Canadian. David. That's, wow, I'm Starstruck right now. I'm like speechless. I got my heby-jeeves on. Oh my God, I've never seen David get this giddy over anyone. This is crazy. I'm fired up.

This might have to be a whole new episode, Jay, because I got questions. Now you're going to put him in the hot seat. Let me grill him. Let's go, baby. Now that you got him blocked it, I just told him we're gifted up one of your journals. He started talking about Barrett Life, the Vancouver connection you guys have. I mean, the guy's pumping your tires left and right. David, there he is in the flesh.

it's Ben Netton. I love it. Pleasure to meet you. Wow, this is a, this is surprised. Usually I come on here. I'm like in the zone. I got my things to like rattle off. Now I'm all thrown off. But it's good. I'm here. I'm in my, I'm in my comfort zone here talking another Western Canadian. So we're Yeah, there we go. It's good to meet you, man. I'm excited to chat and it's good to be back, Jason. It's good to be back. Thank you for having me back. I know we got a little rush there in the last podcast. So we were actually, too, David, going to recap a few things about the professional speaking Before we do, I mean, I got to ask you, you knew that I was friends with Ben. I didn't know that you looked up to Ben the way you did until like a week ago.

What was it about Ben or when did you first come across like what Ben was doing? Yeah, I actually, funny enough, Ben, what year were you born? That's how we do things to hockey players. Yeah, 84, 84. Okay, so I'm an 87 and I was supposed to go to UVick right after I graduated high school. ended up going to play junior hockey and a whim. But I actually had a lot of friends that went to University of Victoria who knew you. And so when the show came out, that's how it was kind of put on my radar.

And it was just, you know, the relatability from it was everything. And then it just kind of hit like a chord for me. Jay knows that I'm this like over the top dramatic reaction guy, but deep down like the biggest softie in the history of the world. I'll just say like without pumping your tires too much before you get into it. I just think that like at the end of the day, while I looked up. to him like he does he always did everything the right way no shortcuts no fluff like just a raw genuine person and i think that people pretend or think that they're like ben or they want to live

their lives or be genuine or give back or be sincere but they're not they're that's why they they don't make it or they're not successful or not relatable or they don't make people cry when they talk or when they do a favor for someone so i just like struck chords of like you know if i if I was ever in the situation, I want to be that person. And then you put yourself in the situation you are that person. So that's enough of the tire pumping for now. Let's get into the meat and potato. I got to respond to that.

That's amazing, man. I mean, just to hear that and to, you know, I, to see how genuine you are and to, I can definitely feel that. So that means a lot. So I really appreciate that. So it's, uh, it's, it's just an honor to be here. Yeah, Ben, he's the first. That's awesome.

Thanks for making time. He's the first one to tear someone apart when he thinks they're full of shit. And clearly it's really, it's really, it's really. rare that he like really sees the core of someone. And I think that's such an unbelievable compliment that anyone would want to receive. And then I'll tell you this too, Ben, if you listen to the episode or not, I know you're busy. Right at the recap, he says like, so we go on a recap, we do like our natural introduction, kick it over to him. He said, David, I don't want to screw this up, but you said that the buried life is the best show that's ever been recorded. Will those

your words? Word for word, I think I say it's the best show ever created. Wow, that's, that is Ben, one thing I wanted to ask you, though, because when he said it, I wanted to ask him, and I was like, I'll wait until Ben comes on. When someone hears that if they have not seen your show, but they've heard of you or whatever, is there anywhere to go see the episodes and rewatch at this point? Yeah, there are. So Paramount Plus, I think whatever Paramount Streamer service is out there, I think it's called Paramount Plus. So they have the series on right now for free, and that's because it's, so they licensed it. But you can also watch it on Amazon.

It's just not on Amazon Prime. You can also get it on iTunes. So it's out there. I actually, I hadn't watched the show for about 10 years because we got so sick of this show because we edited it. You know, we watched it a hundred times each episode because we were in the bays, you know, behind the editors or making the edits ourselves. And even when it aired, we didn't watch it because we were so sick of the show.

So we watched it on Twitter. We just wanted to see what people were reacting to if people were laughing at the jokes and that type of thing and seeing what moments hit. So long story short, Duncan and Dave and I came back and we watched them together. It's been like maybe a year ago. And it was so funny to watch this episodes again. And Dave showed someone that he was hanging out with the episodes recently. And yeah, so I think they still stand up, man.

They were wild. And we just tried to make it as genuine as possible. It's funny. just yesterday I spoke at a TV conference called Real Screen, which is the biggest unscripted TV conference. For years, I would go as a producer because we started a production company after the show and we made shows. And so I would always go and try and sell shows to networks and stuff like that. And so this time I came back five years later as the keynote speaker, which was a wild full circle moment. But as I was doing the keynote, I told some stories

that I usually don't tell, but just about how we made that show. Because it's a little inside baseball. I mean, you know, Jay, you would know this, but like most unscripted television is produced, right? So we had to really fight. And we got, we turned down a show in Canada because we weren't going to be executive producers. So we, that means we weren't going to have creative control over how the episodes ultimately were delivered. But when we did the deal with MTV in the US, we were EP's and we fought tooth and nail to keep it real. So when we streak, you know, went streaking, like, I met with our lawyer that was at real screen. And he was like, you guys almost gave me an aneurysm. We had lawyers on call. They thought we were going to get

arrested when we stuck in the Playboy Mansion, you know, and all this stuff was so real. And it just was totally different than how TV was made. And I think that that's ultimately what made it resonate with people is because they could see that there was, this was just the four of us trying to get this stuff done. And it, and we failed. Like, we tried to play basketball with Obama and we failed and we left it to be continued. MTV was so mad that we did that, that we actually didn't succeed. Right. I tried to ask Megan Fox.

I failed, right? Like, next year, Duncan asked out Taylor Swift. He did not fail. So all this stuff was completely legitimate, which just in the unscripted world doesn't happen because you can't sneak into a place because then you don't have it cleared and then you can't air it. So this was a big risk, but it, David, it's good to hear that it, that, that, it rang true and it, you know, resonated because our whole filter the entire time from day one for buried life was always, and this is how we made decisions. What would our friends think?

Would our friends think this is school, right? Because our whole goal was to inspire our friends in the beginning because we knew there were buddies that were going into medical school, but really they wanted to open a restaurant. They knew that they were doing this when they really didn't want to. So we're like, let's create this thing that looks like it's so much fun. And we're not going to tell them how to live their life, but we're just going to show them how fun it is. And it's like FOMO for a party. When you miss a party, you're like, damn, I should have gone. We want to make FOMO for life so that we were doing things that we thought our friends would be really, really into. And so that's why we needed to be in control of how the episodes were ultimately made,

that is so cool. David, what we're going to do is so I have to go up to New York and a couple weeks here. And David has a theater room. David, we are going to sit back, maybe rip down an edible, and we're going to watch. We are going to watch this show. And we're we're going to report back to that in our next recap. David, also we'll cover, because I know you wanted to actually in your breakdown of notes, you wanted to talk about the whole EP factor and what it meant. We'll cover that after Ben takes off. We only have Ben for so long. And I know that we already had some banter about the whole professional speaking realm. And we didn't get to it in the main episode. And so now you and I don't have to speculate

in banter. We got the one and only one of the world's best professional speakers in the world with us. So do you have any questions, David, off the cuff with a couple within the professional speaking realm. And if not, I can fire a few away. Yeah, I got, I got a couple. I figured you would. I figure. I'm going to fire off these ones really quick.

These are basic. But I want to know the biggest crowd and the biggest paycheck. That's a good one. Okay. So there you go. Fire it out. There we go. The biggest crowd is 22,000 people.

That was in Orlando. Is that a stadium? A engagement called Million Dollar Round 10. table, which are all financial advisors that make over a million a year or they do over a million sales or some sort of, it's some metric that you have to hit. And so it's a big group of advisors from around the world. And the biggest paycheck, I mean, I, so 50,000 for one day. Let's go. Betty Edton bringing in the freaking coin. All right, I got one for you. Because this is, again, this is also to be extremely informative for the listener. If someone, I think a lot of people here,

professional speaking. And it sounds like super sexy and cool and like, whoa, maybe I could do that. How would you recommend that someone could like start considering maybe the pursuit of this is either a side hustle or full-time career? I get, I'm getting this question more and more, almost daily. So this is, that's what I thought about it a little bit. And this is what I did that I think really worked. So the biggest thing when it comes to professional speaking is your speaker reel, which is your two to three minute video that is going to showcase you to clients and meeting planners and speaker bureaus so that they feel comfortable not knowing or seeing you speak, not knowing if having had their clients to you speak, that you can do a good job for them.

So what is a speaker reel? Well, typically a speaker rail is made up of three to five speaking engagements that you've done. One of them could be a TEDx talk, but three to five engagements that look and feel high production and look like there, there's a big audience there. So we can talk about how you get on those stages, but just for the purposes of what the reel is, that's what the speaker reel is. And you can go on YouTube and look at some. You can go to my website, Ben Dempton.com, and look at mine. What I try and do is I try and tell my story and give the, the main takeaways of what people are going to learn in that reel, as well as put in a couple logos of people that I've spoken

to put a couple testimonials from clients. And so when I was starting, what I looked at is like I was gathering assets. So I was gathering video. So anytime I did a talk on a decent stage, I would hire a videographer or I would ask the client who ultimately was filming my engagement as well for their attendees for a copy of that. So I was gathering footage. I was also gathering logos.

So that means that I'm gathering logos from clients that I'm speaking to that I'm I can put my website, I can put up on my, you know, a client list on my, a reel. I'm also gathering testimonials. So I'm basically trying to get as many of those assets as I can to build my reel and build my website, because the website is your second most important asset. And that's going to make, that's going to have your speaking topics. And you can just have one main speaking topic and then two others that are kind of derivative of that speaking topic.

The reality is most speakers do one talk, 99% of the time. Right. And so what I think is important is to be able to have, and they'll say they'll have different talks, but really they're doing one talk. So you want to actually have versions of, of your talk and some different talks. But in the beginning, you can just have one really good one. And that's your product. So even to get to the point where you can build that real, you need to get the tape and you need to have a good keynote or a good talk. And so, and that just takes to practice. That's really like, it really is a muscle that you build over time. And so that is getting in front of groups of people and just starting to try and practice.

And whether it's a 15 minute talk or a 30 minute talk and whether you do it for free or people pay you, you want to continue to do that as much as you can because that, I think there's two main things that make a speaker really, really good. One is the content and the impact they make with their message. but the second, which is equally as important, is who they are on stage and their delivery. And I think most speakers are inauthentic. I just don't think that I feel like you get a different person on stage than you do offstage. And the speakers that I really respect are the speakers that I see on stage and I'm like, that's the same dude off stage. That's the same girl

off stage. And because you want to build trust with the audience and the way that they trust you is the way that they feel like they're seeing you. And so, you want to, the more you practice, the more you feel comfortable being yourself on stage, and then you're able to deliver your ideas in a way that lands because people trust you, and they're more receptive to those. So that is kind of the roadmap that I took. One just quick follow up with that would be, so once you, like someone listens to this and they're just so motivated by you and they put in the work and they create a website and then they, let's say they create this real. What does the process look like? Do you have to get like an agent or do you go

to associations. Do you have to, then people see the reel and then they interview you? Like, what's that process? Once you have that stuff, to getting hired. Good call. Yeah. So that's the next step. So you have, you want to get these assets together before you approach speaker bureaus, which are agents. So in the speaker business, there's dozens and dozens of speaker bureaus, which are basically collections of speaker agents. And their clients are mainly meeting planners. And a meeting planner is someone that works at a organization. So let's say General Electric has probably, you know, dozens of meeting planners, and they're all responsible for planning maybe a dozen, two dozen meetings. And at each of those

meetings, they are bringing either their clients to their team to a location, whether it's a sales meeting or it's an all-hands meeting or it's a client meeting. And at that meeting, they're going to have maybe three external speakers. And out of those external speakers, they probably want, one speaker or two speakers that are industry specific, right, so that they're talking about what they're doing or sales or whatever. But they're usually going to have one slot for an aspirational motivational, motivational speaker. So you think about as an agent, meeting planners come in to you and say, hey, I want this speaker. The agent's going to say, here are my top three speakers, I think, are going to be good for this. So you want to get in that rotation that the agent

is talking about. So how do you do that? Well, you need to sell. them on who you are as a speaker and that your real is going to do that and your website's going to do that. So you don't really even want to go to agents or speaker bureaus until you have those set up. And then the way that you start to build relationship with bureaus, that's more of a nuanced conversation. There's a couple ways to do that. Cold outreach usually is difficult, you know, because they get so many people reaching out to them. But if you know someone that can make an intro, what I started to do is when I was speaking in a city, I would invite bureaus that had their offices, there's lots of different strategies. There's a great speaker training group that I can put people

in touch with that help me in the beginning. And if you just email me, it's be at benempton.com. It's my full name where we can put that in the notes. If you're really serious about speaking, there's a good speaker training based out of Detroit that it's best if I introduce you to the dude. So, but anyways, you can contact me. It's called Three Rings Circus is the speaker boot camp. And so there's like a full speaker training you can do where you learn the business is speaking. And that's more of a deep dive. But, you know, for the purposes of this, that's really what you do is you want to build relationships with bureaus.

David, any other questions for the one and only, Ben Nempton? Yeah, I got one before I let you go. So you did the buried life. You know, you've built this speaking career. Obviously, you're super successful at that. Speaking in front of 22,000 people. You know, your show came out pre-social. You got your following up to over 50,000 followers,

dipping your toe in the social game. What is next, though? Like, what is speaking kind of your sweet spot? Is that where you want to be? But I always just think that Ben's always got some bucket list buried life item that he wants to check off. So if it's not speaking, if it's not rewatching the buried life with your buddies, what is next? What's on the bucket list? I really want to go to space.

That's number 100 on the list. And I'm talking with a company called World View that sends these capsules into space. There are eight people can go. And it's a big helium balloon. It's three football fields in length or in diameter. And it goes up to the edge of space. So we're talking about going up hopefully on their first flight or one of their first flights in 2024.

And the reason I want to do that is a few reasons. One, I'd like to experience the overview effect is when you see Earth in space, it sort of changes your perspective on the on the oneness of Earth and your appreciation for Earth, is what astronauts talk about when they go up in space. And also, my big dream is to finish the buried life documentary. And we started buried life in 2006. It was the intent of it was to be a documentary. Make a TV show was one item on the list, number 53.

But make a movie is also on the list. And so I think go to space could be that final number 100 list item. And we crossed off 96 of 100. And so I'm pretty sure we can get to the 100 and finish the documentary. And the reason being is like I think that's the piece that I leave behind. you know, we leave behind as like the endless summer type of documentary that hopefully can stand the test of time and inspire people for, for a long time. So that's, that's, that's, that's, long term. And short term is the, I just today, I, to my newsletter, I launched the bucket list

journal, which is the, the book to track all your goals. So the journal is like, I've talked about this with, with Jason, but it's basically the tool you use to stay accountable to your goal. So I've been working on that for about two years. And while we got you said he bought me one. So yeah, I bought you one. The one's coming. While we got you, I want two last questions. What are the four, so go to space. What are the other four left on the list? Make a TV show. Tell a judge, you want the truth. You can't handle the truth because it's got to be, got to be real. And then the dozy, I mean, they're all dozies, but the big one is the big hurdle is cover of cover of the big hurdle is cover of a big hurdle is cover of a thousand, a thousand photos. And then we're in one of those. There you go.

And do you know, like, with the right publicists and stuff, you can buy the cover? I don't know if that's something that would still. The cover of Rolling Stone? Yeah, you can buy it. That would be, that sounds expensive. But yeah. Oh, it's not cheap. It's not cheap.

It's not cheap. Very expensive. But if you got to cut it off, get it off the list. Yeah, that's true. That's good to know. That's good. Yeah, I mean, you can buy anything, I guess. There you go.

I got a PR guy who could buy you that cover. All right. Great stuff. Ben Denton. where can people find the bucket list journal again now that it's out? You can go to benempton.com and click on the book tab or you can go to Amazon or you go to bucket list journal.co. Sweet. And we will have a link in the show notes for the one, the only, Ben Denton. David, I got to give it to you before we go. Anything else?

No, I just, what a surprise. What a way to brighten up my Monday. And, you know, it was just great having you on and getting to meet you. And I have to text all my buddies now from back. Yeah. That's so great, man. Yeah. It's a pleasure to meet you. And, yeah, I would definitely get in touch after this and get some hang time in. Yeah, that would be awesome. I could, knowing both you pretty well at this point, I could definitely say if your goal was to inspire friends of yours, I'm certain David would be fit into that category.

And you don't see him inspired often by people. You usually see him chirping people. It takes a lot. Congrats, that's awesome. It takes a lot. It takes a lot. You can choose who inspires him. And Ben, thank you so much for coming back on the two-part,

first time ever at Trading Secrets. we really appreciate you having back for the recap and the main part and congrats on the book thanks dude thanks boys talk to soon talk soon love it love it is bye all right david that's the surprise i mean did you live up to your expectations that was great it was just like talking an old pal david i just i just you know what it does um listening to the episode back and hearing him talk about a couple of the episodes and then just talking to them it just kind of brings me back to a place you know it aired in 2010 2011 but we were in college at the time.

It's just a really, I wish I could go back and watch those episodes in 2010, 2011, knowing what we know, and be able to appreciate them 3x and be able to act on them 10x in terms of your own life. Obviously, the journal that you made is going to help achieve that, but it's just cool.

I want to hang out with the guy. I want to talk more and find out stories and I can't wait to watch it back with you. That has to happen. Yeah, we're going to do that. I think one of the cool things that I've actually never heard him say is how he has more respect

for those speakers that are themselves. on stage and offstage. And he's identical, which is something I struggle with. Like, I feel like when I would get on the stage, you have to be a presenter. You have to use different tone, you know, injections and different pauses for jokes. And I think what he does really well is the way he talks right there is really the way he talks on stage. Now, he does make a couple cracks and talks with different inflection points, but it's almost identical. And you know, one of these days when he's in the right town that you're close by, we'll have to go check him out because it's amazing.

We'll touch real quick, the EP thing. I want to make sure we hit on. It's just, it's really impressed. Like, the fact that they were able to pull that off is really impressive. Like, that's, dude, that is so unprecedented. I'll just put in perspective for Bachelor viewers. Like, if you're a cast, your cast will have. So, like, that was what I was.

You have, like, a handler. And then the handler will report to, like, an assistant production. And then that person will, you know, go to, like, get an assistant production. Then you'll have a producer. then the producer report to like a senior producer, then the senior producer reports to the executive producer. There's literally like two executive producers, I think two or three,

and the whole Bachelor franchise with all those shows. So to take on the role as an executive producer when you've never had a show while being the talent, that's just, that's so unprecedented. That's insane. With a major network too, like MTV, which at the time, like, it was probably bigger than it is now. Yeah, absolutely.

crazy. So I wanted to address that. Do you have, I know, I have a couple questions for you before we wrap up, but do you have any other things from the Ben Nempton episode that like were burning or top of mind? No, I think we're good. Obviously, we took a lot of his time in the interview and in the recap. You know, I think you just kind of said it all. One thing I have to ask you, though, I'd be remiss because I don't think I've ever asked you something like this, but on the buried life theme, what's your number one bucketless item? I think I'm going to have to use his journal and identify that because it's a pretty damn shame that I don't have that. What was one of my bucket list items for like a really long time that was up there was to

play and make the final table of a world series of poker. That was always up there. Ironically enough, we have the number one most earning or number three most earning poker player of all time, Daniel Negranio, over $48 million earned in tournaments, over 50 million plus earned in cash games and he's played with some big wild celebrities he brings those stories too so we have him coming up but that would be on mine before we kind of wrap up david what would be yours i mean obviously thought about this before asking because i probably thought i was going to get asked to me but i always i always go back to like when you decide make the decision to like get engaged you get married and buy house like settle down a lot of your bucket list list items are probably

crossed off go to a sporting event or travel this country i think right now truly like coming off the Ben Netton vibes of like he does everything for fulfillment. A bucket list item of mine would be for my wife to meet my grandfather in Vancouver. I think that would be a fulfilling thing where he's 94 years old and we FaceTime and Zoom but they've never met and that would be my little one thing. Just my natural inclination. What are we waiting for? Yeah.

I mean, COVID happened in the borders and everything. So we're getting on the calendar. We're going to make a trip out to Vancouver and make it happen. Okay. Well, when you do, get some, get some. like Ben Nempton would, record it. Let's get it on video. Let's recap it. Let's talk about it. Let's show the people you hit in that bucket list item. Another item on your bucket list that you need to hit. And we're going to talk about next week. Did you get your, and I got, I sent you like five screenshots for some reason this week. People are curious. Did you get your cryptocurrency yet or no? well the short answer is no and the crypto's tanking so my desire to find it right away is low and jay i still haven't put my money back in the stock market since that day i thought i was

smart and pull it all out because everything was red so i'm i'm in about as big a purgatory with my extracurricular finances as you could get right now so here's okay then you're going to have i got a takeaway for you and you're going to implement this and you're going to bring it to next week too okay it's free what is you got ready this is what you're going to do This is a little Trading Secrets All Access Group hookup. It's three nickels. Okay? So there's an app.

Write this down. I'm making you do it. You're going to three nickels. There's a free version. I'm going to give you a month for free. Just you're going to use code trading, T-R-A-D-I-N-G. And you're giving it one month free. And it's an app that literally is designed to help with individuals who have that fear of controlling

your own finances for taking control. in this environment for getting all the financial literacy you need. Did you write that down? Yeah, I got it three nickels. What app you downloading? Three nickels. Okay. And what code are you using for one month free? The trading secrets code that you're going to put in the link in the bio. The trading secrets code. It's write it down. I'm watching you. T-R-A-D-I-N-G. That's the code. Gives you one free month. The thing which is really necessary for you, David, is you have until June 30th to do it. And then after that, it's only $14.99 a month. But, Get on it because if those are, these are the questions they'll help you with.

Like if you're thinking about like, how much can I afford for a car? How much do I need going into retirement? How long will it take for me to pay off my debt? Maybe where do I find my crypto? No, that's not it. But this is literally, it's the perfect app for you. And it's one that's been accessible for all the trading secrets, all access members. And now you get a free month.

So I don't want to hear excuses. I want you to jump on it. And I want you to tell me what you learn from downloading this app and being part of it for a month. I got an app idea for you real quick. Let's hear it. I need like a stoplight app where it's like trading stoplights and like I click on something and it's like green. If you say it's green, it means I have to invest in it. If it's red, it's stay away. And if it's yellow, it's like, let's just monitor this. Okay. I mean, that's, I think that's so you're saying like done by stoplights. I think their app is going to be,

they're going to have similar functions. Like I know they are backed by guided choice and guided choice to pioneer in the retirement planning space. So they will probably have all that. So check it out. And if not, maybe you're on to something. Maybe. Maybe I'm on something, but I need it because right now I'm just rubbing three nickels together, hoping that something happens. So I think I need, I'll go on the tech side here and just rely on the Three Nichols app with the Trading Secrets Code. Okay, so we got next week, we already talked to you had to recap. Where's your crypto? Three Nichols Trading app. There's one other thing we'll have to recap next episode. Oh, my Vegas story. Your Vegas story. We will tell the Vegas story, all those three things. You are going to have to get done. And with the Three Nichols app,

you have an expiration by June 30th. David, anything else, Ben Nempton, recap, life, anything? No, we, it's just great. Great, great for that surprise. Thank you very much for that. That was awesome. And what a great guy. And you got everyone out there, you got to watch the show.

If you've watched like a show like This Is Us, it gives you that, those feels where you're just like, oh, this is so great. Like, watch the Buried Life, go back, find it, Amazon, Paramount TV Plus, watch it, pretend you're doing it back in the day with your buddies. when you're young, early 20s. God, it's just the best. Go watch it. David and I are going to watch it.

We'll be together June 28th, June 29th. Another question I have for you guys is, a request is to give us five stars, but the question I'm going to ask is if you can write in the comments. I've been thinking long and hard about doing a mini-series, a trading secrets, a mini-series, really focused on health, like nutrition, sleeping, therapy, mental stuff, workout stuff, getting like the best of the best experts because we talk a lot about making money.

We talk a lot about career navigation. This can get tiring and it can get tiring because our health is not in the spot we need and was thinking about a very small like five episode mini series on Trading Secrets Health. Let me know in the comments after you give us five stars if this would be an interest. And if it is an interest, maybe a little subject you'd want us to see. That is another episode of Trading Secrets. Next week, we have the founders of Betches come on. They have created a whole lot of something from literally their dorm rooms at Cornell. So hopefully you felt that this was another episode, Trading Secrets, you couldn't afford to miss. David, I am glad we got you, surprise, my man, and we will see you, David. We will see the Betches founders. And hopefully

everybody next week for another episode of Trading Secrets. you can't afford to miss.