Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 35: Your Birthday, Your Reset: Reflect and Design Your Next Year of Life

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35: Your Birthday, Your Reset: Reflect and Design Your Next Year of Life · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: hey, superstars welcome back polly here, sam pruitt, what's up?
• 0:33
  Polly Mertens: we've got a cool topic.
• 0:35
  Polly Mertens: Miss uh pruitt, my special co-host here, has a birthday this week so and she and I wanted to just share with you some of the things that we find are important and maybe not everyone does in their life around their birthdays, and maybe we'll reflect on some of the past birthdays.
• 0:51
  Polly Mertens: We've had things that you've done, I've done, and just want to share those with you for inspiration, and then we're definitely going to leave you with a little assignment, right, my dear?
• 1:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and why birthdays are an amazing time to it's about you.
• 1:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It's your birthday, to be clear.
• 1:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So do some reflection, maybe take some inventory, take some time, take a pause, do some reflection.
• 1:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Where have you been?
• 1:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Where are you going to pivot and make some changes, set some different goals, explore different aspects of yourself, or set up some new habits, rituals and behaviors that are going to serve you over this next year and, hopefully, the rest of your life.
• 1:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:32
  Polly Mertens: You know, one of the things you and I've been noticing and paying so under the umbrella this year of our pivot year, right, just that's our general theme pivot programs.
• 1:40
  Polly Mertens: Our pivot year is, you know, looking at ways that maybe you're living a life that isn't serving you, or relationships that aren't serving you, or something is just like either a big or a little off in your life, right, even flat, maybe just flat.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, true, true.
• 1:57
  Polly Mertens: And you know we talked about how, you know, end of the year, beginning of the new year, type thing, it's a great time.
• 2:02
  Polly Mertens: You know, people do a lot of goal setting, a lot of like reflecting on oh, you know, time's passed or whatnot, but so is your birthday, right.
• 2:09
  Polly Mertens: And what I love about time is even better yeah, for sure, a whole new year, right.
• 2:15
  Samantha Pruitt: That's your technically new year, yeah.
• 2:17
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's technically your personal new year, yeah, okay.
• 2:20
  Samantha Pruitt: And there's no BS like buying presents for people, spending money you don't have, going to relatives' house you didn't even like anyway, whatever all the stress of like the end of the year.
• 2:30
  Samantha Pruitt: You know that kind of coming out of Christmas total zombie mode going into new years and, you know, starting it off kind of desperate for change.
• 2:39
  Samantha Pruitt: This is a completely different setup for success, I think.
• 2:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's self-directed.
• 2:44
  Polly Mertens: You know it's a self-reflection.
• 2:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's self-directed.
• 2:47
  Polly Mertens: It's like it's your special time of the year, right?
• 2:50
  Polly Mertens: So tell us, share with them.
• 2:52
  Polly Mertens: I can remember I've participated in at least one of these shenanigans with you.
• 2:56
  Polly Mertens: I forget if it was.
• 2:57
  Polly Mertens: I think it was your 50th year, but what do you do, or what do you?
• 3:01
  Polly Mertens: What have you gotten in the habit of?
• 3:02
  Polly Mertens: That makes your fifth, your new birthday year, special for you at that time of year.
• 3:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, so you know my story of coming ex couch potato.
• 3:13
  Samantha Pruitt: You know coming from a couch potato to Iron Woman and then Ultra Woman and all that kind of jazz, getting healthy mentally, physically, all that somewhere along that line, and I can't tell you what birthday it was.
• 3:25
  Samantha Pruitt: But when my physical and psychological, emotional state shifted into a healthier way of being in the world, I realized my birthdays belong to me.
• 3:37
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's funny because you and I were talking about this I can literally think of very few birthdays, definitely prior to being even like 35.
• 3:50
  Samantha Pruitt: This is a little bit alarming for me to actually think about and probably say out loud that I enjoyed or even felt like it was actually my birthday.
• 4:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that's weird, by the way.
• 4:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and it's because of many reasons.
• 4:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you know, I was in a family unit that was dysfunctional.
• 4:09
  Samantha Pruitt: I was living an unhealthy life.
• 4:11
  Samantha Pruitt: There's so many reasons that it wasn't feeling good and working the way I would like it to be, but it's almost like I was disconnected to that person.
• 4:20
  Samantha Pruitt: So when that number rolled around, it was either like not a big deal at all and almost just blown off, disregarded by others, or and or me, or there would be an attempt to have a birthday party that was so disgenuine to either how I felt, what I wanted, who I was in, the world, right.
• 4:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So somewhere that all changed, probably when I blew some shit up, lady change some stuff here and I love.
• 4:50
  Polly Mertens: You know, as you were saying that, I was like, damn, that's true.
• 4:52
  Polly Mertens: You know it's like our parents we as parents, whatever make a big deal out of you know the first birthday and the second, you know, and then it carries on.
• 5:00
  Polly Mertens: You know, sweet 16, maybe, maybe your 21st birthday, maybe your 30th.
• 5:06
  Polly Mertens: You know people like start to fear us, but I remember that, you know.
• 5:09
  Polly Mertens: Yet in your 20s you're like, oh my God, I'm over the hill, 30 kind of thing, right, and then it's almost too like society, especially as women age, you know it's not special anymore.
• 5:20
  Polly Mertens: You know, an aged woman in our culture, whatever that perspective is, and you and I are like embrace that shit.
• 5:27
  Polly Mertens: We're like the opposite of that.
• 5:29
  Polly Mertens: We're like no, take that on.
• 5:30
  Polly Mertens: You know how we are in fitness is way better than I was in my twenties and thirties, like forties, fifties, like look out, man.
• 5:37
  Polly Mertens: You know.
• 5:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, definitely.
• 5:39
  Polly Mertens: We're only getting better with age.
• 5:40
  Samantha Pruitt: We're definitely like fine wine, but that's a mindset shift also that's required not only by the individuals but by society.
• 5:49
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, ageism is real and also with the birthday shenanigan piece of it, why are people spending their birthday doing things they don't even want to do or things that are not truly a reflection of them?
• 6:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Why?
• 6:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Because it's going to make my family happy if I go do this thing, or it's going to make my friends happy if I host this party or whatever all this outside external stuff.
• 6:14
  Samantha Pruitt: And I think what we're really here to deliver today is an opportunity for the listeners to be like remember your birthday's about you and you can do whatever the hell you want, or you can do nothing at all If that's what you so choose.
• 6:29
  Samantha Pruitt: But we're encouraging really to take the moment and kind of reflect.
• 6:32
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's a long way of saying.
• 6:34
  Samantha Pruitt: At some point I decided to take my birthday back.
• 6:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey, this is mine, I'm going to grab it back.
• 6:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And I did get into fitness, health, all that kind of stuff you know, found, endurance, sports, et cetera.
• 6:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So I would do however many miles, my birthday was in an activity, in a physical activity.
• 6:55
  Samantha Pruitt: So, some of the things I've done a lot of you know running the miles, that's kind of a common thing, but for my 50th it was super fun.
• 7:02
  Samantha Pruitt: I did an adventure day you were part of that and so I started at my house and I rode my mountain bike to the gym.
• 7:10
  Samantha Pruitt: I was going to CrossFit at the time, which was in another town, so I rode my mountain bike all the way to another town, went to CrossFit, did the CrossFit workout.
• 7:20
  Samantha Pruitt: That included running, lifting weights, doing all these insane things, dragging sleds up and down the street, whatever insanity I totally loved.
• 7:27
  Samantha Pruitt: My son met me for that.
• 7:30
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I got back on the mountain bike, rode several towns away to meet somebody for a kayak adventure and we went kayaking a couple miles around the bay, that kind of stuff.
• 7:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And we went kayaking a couple miles around the bay, that kind of stuff, then got out of the kayak and then went trail running.
• 7:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So basically, this thing just kept taking on a new life as I moved around the county, literally, yeah, until the very end, which, of course, was always finished with fish tacos.
• 7:59
  Polly Mertens: Tacos.
• 7:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I was just going to say.
• 8:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's your birthday.
• 8:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, because it's your birthday.
• 8:05
  Samantha Pruitt: It literally was all the things that make me happy and I'm sure oh yeah, I actually started.
• 8:09
  Samantha Pruitt: This is so funny, I forgot about that.
• 8:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I was interviewed at a coffee shop on my way to that gym or some local news channel thing.
• 8:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I just had that flashback because, of course, I stopped for espresso and had a latte.
• 8:21
  Samantha Pruitt: So all the things that I so, so, so love that are huge reflections of who I am in the world and with people I absolutely adore.
• 8:30
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't need a hundred people at my birthday party.
• 8:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I needed some very particular people to be with me on this grand adventure and I've done things like that.
• 8:38
  Samantha Pruitt: And then this coming weekend I turned 55 this weekend and I'm doing a hundred K bike race and big bear and I'm currently training for my iron woman, so it just feels very Samantha.
• 8:53
  Polly Mertens: Yes, which last time?
• 8:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I checked.
• 8:55
  Polly Mertens: That's kind of what it's about people, yeah, yeah, and and it's, and you know it's important to do it, and so I'll contrast that with how I've made my, my birth.
• 9:03
  Polly Mertens: So I don't have quite, I definitely don't have, the do my mile, do my birthday in miles kind of game that you're up to, and I love that.
• 9:10
  Polly Mertens: I love participating in yours.
• 9:11
  Polly Mertens: That was super fun.
• 9:12
  Polly Mertens: Um well, one of the things I started when I was in my thirties, so for 30th, 40th and 50th I was traveling overseas, international, a nice trip.
• 9:25
  Polly Mertens: So when I was 30, I actually was in Venice in the morning and Florence in the evening, which was cool.
• 9:27
  Polly Mertens: I kind of trained.
• 9:28
  Polly Mertens: That was amazing.
• 9:29
  Polly Mertens: My 40th, I was in Bali for two weeks, and my 50th, I was on a cruise ship, a little small cruise ship in Croatia, just magical, you know.
• 9:37
  Polly Mertens: And so then, 60th, I don't know exactly where that's going to be, but it's going to be international, something you know.
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: It's just my theme and so I think it's just about.
• 9:47
  Polly Mertens: You know, like you said, I love those three words reflect, prioritize and pivot, right, so we don't have to wait till the end of the year.
• 9:54
  Polly Mertens: You know, you and I do this constantly.
• 9:56
  Polly Mertens: We had a session we did not too long ago about, like, clearing the house, clearing the decks, right.
• 10:01
  Polly Mertens: It's like take the time to make sure that what you're doing with your life and your time, your days, your minutes, your hours, is intentional for you, like, are you doing what you wanna be doing, right?
• 10:14
  Polly Mertens: So one of the things that I wanted to share that I sent to you this weekend is I sat my ass down and something I started last month was 10 new things.
• 10:24
  Polly Mertens: Right, cause I just I love variety.
• 10:26
  Polly Mertens: I love you know, it's just sparks my creativity.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: It just puts me in little challenges if I don't get them all done and I don't even know what they are.
• 10:31
  Polly Mertens: When I say that I'm like 10 new things, whatever.
• 10:34
  Polly Mertens: But this weekend I sat down and I said, well, what if I did a hundred, you know?
• 10:37
  Polly Mertens: And so, like, what if I had a list of a hundred that I could just start picking through?
• 10:40
  Polly Mertens: So I started putting.
• 10:42
  Polly Mertens: So what I did is I think I came up with about 70 or 80, just some.
• 10:46
  Polly Mertens: I was looking on the internet and I was like, oh, these are cool ideas and some I've wanted to do or some that I, just as I was thinking about it, got inspired.
• 10:53
  Polly Mertens: But I'm like you know what, I'm going to leave the last 20 or so open, because I'm sure I'm going to do new things that I don't even know yet.
• 10:59
  Polly Mertens: I don't need all 100.
• 11:00
  Polly Mertens: Leave space for the 20.
• 11:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, leave space for spontaneity and all that, but be open to new is what that looks like, right, and I have this little list and I can go to it.
• 11:11
  Polly Mertens: I'm just you know, that's how I am.
• 11:12
  Polly Mertens: I like to have things like this list, checklist, things to keep me on track and pay attention to.
• 11:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, it's interesting because you hear a lot of people do the whole bucket list thing, but you're not talking about a bucket list or even a bucket list.
• 11:23
  Samantha Pruitt: You're talking about like hey, I want to try new things.
• 11:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Not like sometime in my lifetime I must get to Bali or whatever the thing is.
• 11:32
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like on the daily or the weekly or the monthly I can be doing new things Now.
• 11:38
  Samantha Pruitt: They don't have to be huge, they don't have to be expensive, they don't have to shake the planet.
• 11:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So an example give me an example of a couple of things on this list.
• 11:52
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I should pull it up.
• 11:52
  Polly Mertens: You know, I didn't even think.
• 11:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, I don't have it in front of me, darn it.
• 11:54
  Polly Mertens: But oh, I do, hold on, I can get it.
• 11:55
  Polly Mertens: But it's small things, right.
• 11:57
  Polly Mertens: It's like so for me, I'm working in my garden, like this year, I'm reviving my garden and growing, growing new vegetable, right, butterflies.
• 12:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I throw new, I'm I'm planting flowers for butterflies, I'm growing vegetables, I'm growing fruit.
• 12:11
  Polly Mertens: I've never I've growing cantaloupe and watermelon, never done that before, you know.
• 12:15
  Polly Mertens: So it's like I'm counting that.
• 12:16
  Polly Mertens: I'm counting that.
• 12:17
  Polly Mertens: I had that inspiration earlier this year, you know, and I was really trying to do it low cost or low budget, so that I could challenge myself.
• 12:24
  Polly Mertens: Not everything has to cost money, and it's more creative when it's that way, and some of it is new hikes, new mountains, new places, and one of them was like because when I do go in my RV, I love playing tourist in a new town, and so I know I'm going to have an RV trip, I don't know when, but in the next 12 months I'm sure.
• 12:47
  Polly Mertens: And it was a visit, a tourist attraction, which I always like to do.
• 12:48
  Polly Mertens: And then I was like, okay, how about visit a wacky tourist attraction, because I love those too, you know, like the biggest ball of yarn or something like that.
• 12:54
  Polly Mertens: Oh, that's awesome.
• 12:56
  Polly Mertens: That's awesome, you know, because it gives our life energy.
• 12:59
  Polly Mertens: You know it's a rudder, right?
• 13:01
  Polly Mertens: I mean, life is about what you make it, or it's.
• 13:04
  Polly Mertens: They say, you're living by default or you're living deliberately.
• 13:08
  Polly Mertens: Which are you choosing, right?
• 13:10
  Polly Mertens: And I find that when I used to live out of my inbox which was whatever was coming in at me, if you will reactionary the world was telling me what to do and I stopped doing that and I started doing planning every week, every quarter, every year Birthday times are great for this To get about like, what does my bucket list have on it?
• 13:32
  Polly Mertens: Because one of the things you and I talk about, as we've had more and more friends and family members come down with illnesses and serious things are going on, you know, in people's lives.
• 13:40
  Polly Mertens: And it helps you remember how precious this life is.
• 13:42
  Polly Mertens: And I had a aha for myself, like, well, I'm fit and functional and vitality and I got all this energy and a great body, I'm like, if I don't put priority on the things that are, let's say, are on my bucket travel list sooner, and what if something?
• 13:58
  Polly Mertens: You know people get knee things and problem whatever.
• 14:02
  Polly Mertens: So like, okay, if I had 10 good summers, what would those 10 good summers, what would I be up to?
• 14:07
  Polly Mertens: And it could just be one big thing, let's say, per summer.
• 14:10
  Polly Mertens: But if you don't think about that, all of a sudden you live in a space of regret because you didn't get to do the things and when you say good, you mean like physically demanding activities where you have to be in peak shape people.
• 14:22
  Samantha Pruitt: To how many summers left do you have to be in peak shape people?
• 14:23
  Samantha Pruitt: To how many summers left do you have to be in peak shape to do some physical challenge or some big trip that requires you being physically fit?
• 14:34
  Polly Mertens: that's a great question to ask, slightly alarming to think about that, yeah, and prioritize the first because we never know we know, you know some people, if you're listening to this, you could be in your 20s, you could be in your 40s, you could be in your 70s, you never know.
• 14:48
  Polly Mertens: You might have 100.
• 14:50
  Polly Mertens: You know you might have 50 summers left, who knows?
• 14:52
  Polly Mertens: But you might only have five.
• 14:54
  Polly Mertens: And are you making the most?
• 14:56
  Polly Mertens: Because I realized earlier this summer that, um, I had kind of had a couple of plans but wasn't planning too much, and and then I went wait a minute, this is one of my 10 summers Like, wait a minute, what am I getting up to?
• 15:08
  Polly Mertens: Am I prioritizing for myself what's most important?
• 15:12
  Polly Mertens: And I don't want to just let it go by, right?
• 15:15
  Polly Mertens: You just sort of like you know, and one of the things that I have found for me, especially as one of my kitties passed away a few years ago, right, so I have two kitties left, and as she was towards the end of her life, I noticed well, you know, because she got started getting sick, right, and that's where you have the.
• 15:33
  Polly Mertens: You at least have a little warning, yeah.
• 15:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes.
• 15:35
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh, maybe we should take this more seriously.
• 15:37
  Polly Mertens: Well, why don't we do that all the time?
• 15:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, yes.
• 15:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, that leads to the reflection I've been doing in the question I posed you when you asked me, well, if you had only so many summers left, or how many summers do you have left to do amazing, challenging things?
• 15:52
  Samantha Pruitt: And we had a great talk about that and I was thinking well, on the flip side of that, a question equally important that I'm staring down frequently these days is if you only had so many conversations left with humans.
• 16:06
  Samantha Pruitt: You know I love a good coffee chat with anybody.
• 16:09
  Samantha Pruitt: I love to connect.
• 16:10
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, connection is just one of my highest value systems and I think sitting down and asking yourself that question as well, you know what, if I only had so many opportunities for these conversations to be had left, who would I be having these conversations with?
• 16:28
  Samantha Pruitt: How could I make this happen?
• 16:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Now, there's no guarantees and we just let so many opportunities go by days, weeks, years to connect with people that we care about deeply.
• 16:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, this week I've talked to like 10 people because this is so on my radar and I adore these people.
• 16:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not like I don't care about them and love them, I absolutely do, but I'm off going busy, busy, busy, busy.
• 16:55
  Samantha Pruitt: And then, all of a sudden I'm like holy crap, I haven't talked to that person in however long and I deeply value my relationship with them.
• 17:06
  Samantha Pruitt: I need to make that effort and reconnect and that's been really rewarding for me.
• 17:12
  Polly Mertens: You know, and I think sometimes we may get the mental, you know, distortion of oh, you know, I have too many people, I would be calling, or it will take too much time, or oh, you know, I've got, I have too many people I would be calling, or it will take too much time, or, oh, you know, I'll do it next week.
• 17:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Lucky you if you have too many people.
• 17:29
  Polly Mertens: I have too many people that I love.
• 17:31
  Polly Mertens: That's such a burden.
• 17:32
  Polly Mertens: I'm just thinking of the excuses that would show up.
• 17:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, excuses.
• 17:37
  Polly Mertens: If I call all the people that I love, oh, that would take forever.
• 17:39
  Polly Mertens: If I, you know what, if they wanted to talk for a long time, you know whatever.
• 17:43
  Polly Mertens: Or I've got this, you know, I don't have time, right the excuses, whatever they sound like, whatever they might get in your way, is again it's like what if that?
• 17:56
  Polly Mertens: You know how long has it been what?
• 17:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I've got a friend who passed away and I hadn't seen him, you know, and just poof, passed away, heart attack, like way, and I hadn't seen him in a way, you know, and just pass away, heart attack, like not that young, not that old, and it was like surprising, and I was like, guess, I won't be having that coffee chat, you know so exactly, exactly.
• 18:13
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, there's always time and sometimes it's true, these conversations, especially if you haven't connected with the person in a while, you know.
• 18:19
  Samantha Pruitt: So I've been having a little bit of reuniting with people old relationships and that is more complex and that takes a little more courage, bravery and then tenacity to make that thing happen.
• 18:33
  Samantha Pruitt: But there's plenty of people.
• 18:34
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just, it's a simple text.
• 18:36
  Samantha Pruitt: It's fun, Like share a photo, send a text, thinking about you, love you, whatever, doing this thing right now, remembering you, remember this thing we did together Isn't that hilarious?
• 18:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Blah, blah, blah.
• 18:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Whatever, it can be fun, it can be short, it can be simple.
• 18:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Send a little card.
• 18:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I have one dear friend of mine who's so good about cards Like randomly I'll just get cards in the mail from her, you know and it's like so beautiful and she makes these cards and I feel so incredibly special when they land in my you know, actual mailbox, not my inbox.
• 19:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, there's a real mailbox, by the way.
• 19:13
  Polly Mertens: We still use.
• 19:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, so sometimes and you can do that so simply, yeah, spend a couple of minutes, write a little note, send it out this way.
• 19:23
  Polly Mertens: One of the things that I shared with you, that I've done before, is I came up with this list this was a couple of years ago and I said you know what makes my life sweet?
• 19:32
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like what, just even having the awareness of what I enjoy, like I have a friend who has a I think it's a top five things and one of her things is eating and drinking with good people.
• 19:42
  Polly Mertens: Like that's her, you know, she just has that top five.
• 19:45
  Polly Mertens: Right, I don't have my top five, but I made this list, you know, and it's like what are the things that I value, what are the things that you value?
• 19:54
  Polly Mertens: You know, even connecting to them, because sometimes some of the things on this list are super easy, like it's not very hard to create those moments or engage with those people or do that thing that you enjoy them.
• 20:05
  Polly Mertens: Like I told you this week, it's a little silly, but one of the things that I recognized as long ago when I used to travel internationally was I love just walking the streets of a town with my backpack and a bottle of water and just like looking at sites and taking pictures and whatnot.
• 20:22
  Polly Mertens: And one of the things I found is like I know I'm on vacation when I'm sitting in an unknown park and I'm like kind of having a little mini picnic, like I'm sitting on the grass, I'm like at home.
• 20:31
  Polly Mertens: I never just go to my local park.
• 20:34
  Samantha Pruitt: No picnics.
• 20:35
  Polly Mertens: I never do picnics at all, I just for whatever reason.
• 20:38
  Polly Mertens: So this weekend I was like oh, I have that little tent thing, I have this little beach tent, if you will.
• 20:44
  Polly Mertens: And it was a beautiful day at my house and I was like, oh my God, you know a lot of people love going to the beach and I was like I don't love going to the beach, it's just for whatever reason.
• 20:53
  Polly Mertens: But I was like I would love to sit in my own damn front yard and have a little pop-up picnic.
• 20:58
  Polly Mertens: So I put my little tent in my front yard and I could look at my garden and my kitty cats were hanging around.
• 21:04
  Polly Mertens: It was like that's so good.
• 21:06
  Polly Mertens: Super bliss day I was like so good.
• 21:09
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 21:10
  Samantha Pruitt: So that could be a great birthday, literally just having a fricking camp out in your yard.
• 21:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I think a lot of the things, actually almost all the things we have said so far except for your big zero birthdays where you travel internationally are cheap or free.
• 21:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, and what they do is they remind you how precious life is, how fleeting, how incredibly valuable it is.
• 21:36
  Polly Mertens: It gives you such a deep sense of gratitude, yeah, Right, you know one of the things I think we've talked about it before when I have done years of gratitude morning practice, you know.
• 21:46
  Polly Mertens: So I sit and I do a couple minutes of gratitude, reflecting on times and events and people and all these things.
• 21:52
  Polly Mertens: And for years, and I just paused one time and I went, boy, you know what?
• 21:57
  Polly Mertens: I've never had a gratitude moment be, oh, that big trip to Croatia or Italy or whatnot.
• 22:04
  Polly Mertens: You know no, those were amazing moments or whatnot, but it's tiny micro moments of being with a person over, like you said, over coffee, or meeting them here, or a little family gathering or whatnot.
• 22:16
  Polly Mertens: You know what that's what's really special to the heart.
• 22:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, to me it definitely is that sense of connection to the self, that sense of belonging to the world, that sense of connection to others.
• 22:30
  Samantha Pruitt: You know that where that's where the riches are right it's knowing yourself and feeling, hey, I belong here on this planet in this moment, in this lifetime, which is kind of happenstance, people.
• 22:44
  Samantha Pruitt: If you haven't checked how babies are made, it's a little bit random.
• 22:48
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like here you and I are at the same time traveling through space on this giant planet and happen to have a shared life journey.
• 22:59
  Samantha Pruitt: It's miraculous, it's miraculous, it's miraculous, it's miraculous.
• 23:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So if you don't take the birthday moment to be like, oh, I probably should think about this a little bit deeper.
• 23:14
  Samantha Pruitt: My own existence, my connection to others, my connection to the world, the universe, the higher power if that's what you're into.
• 23:18
  Samantha Pruitt: If you don't take the time, then it's going to be very hard to, on a daily basis, on a regular basis, have that as a deep part of your sense of self.
• 23:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, as you're talking, you know, the thing I'm thinking is so let's say you, you know whether this is a birthday for you or not, or you're just getting inspiration from this about like taking more care of what matters most to you in life, right?
• 23:39
  Polly Mertens: So you know, I gave one example.
• 23:41
  Polly Mertens: I have a list of what makes my life sweet.
• 23:43
  Polly Mertens: What are my gratitude moments?
• 23:44
  Polly Mertens: Right, I have my bucket list.
• 23:46
  Polly Mertens: I have my hundred things to try.
• 23:48
  Polly Mertens: You know, you've got.
• 23:48
  Samantha Pruitt: you know things that you do have a lot of lists.
• 23:51
  Polly Mertens: I like to bounce around, I like variety, you know, and it's not all, and it's not about getting it all done, it's about being aware of it Right, and so it's about being aware of it and being opportunistic and being intentional about it, you know.
• 24:04
  Polly Mertens: So what I realized is, wow, to get 100 things done in a year, I kind of need to be doing two a week.
• 24:07
  Polly Mertens: So it just prompts me to be thinking about those things, right, because otherwise we'll just smear through life.
• 24:14
  Polly Mertens: You just go, oh, on to the next thing.
• 24:16
  Polly Mertens: Tomorrow looks like yesterday.
• 24:18
  Polly Mertens: Okay, great, that's a really nice life Done 100 years, but nice life done a hundred years.
• 24:23
  Samantha Pruitt: But check out, hell, no zombie mode.
• 24:23
  Samantha Pruitt: What I loved about your list and that's why I'm harassing you is I of course, looked at them and read them and then immediately it was like the places you want to go.
• 24:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like, well, so, make sure you share these lists with others.
• 24:34
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like, oh, she's going there.
• 24:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, I'm going to be going to that.
• 24:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, well, that one.
• 24:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that looks good, I'll go to that and I'll go.
• 24:41
  Samantha Pruitt: So I thought it was like a menu for me to just pick what I wanted to do and I was like do people share these lists?
• 24:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Because immediately, like I said, I'm having a lot of deep conversations with people right now you have this deeper sense of connection to the other.
• 24:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, my God, I want to go there too.
• 25:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, yeah, I'm interested in that too.
• 25:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, I love that too.
• 25:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Yesterday I saw somebody I haven't seen in a long time but I've been thinking about, at the gym.
• 25:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't ever go to the gym at that time of day ever and, even weirder, I barely ever go to that gym.
• 25:19
  Samantha Pruitt: I go to a completely different gym.
• 25:21
  Samantha Pruitt: So here I am at a strange gym at a strange time of day, that human's in there working out, and I was like, huh, what, you know, we both have our music on and we're doing our thing.
• 25:30
  Samantha Pruitt: So we reconnected.
• 25:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And then today, when I bought my business was in a different town, here's that human again walking with two lattes in his hands back to his car.
• 25:41
  Samantha Pruitt: I had just gotten a latte at my favorite coffee shop and I was like what in the hell is going on?
• 25:48
  Samantha Pruitt: How am I seeing you twice in 24 hours, or whatever the number is?
• 25:52
  Samantha Pruitt: And with this really amazing connection of we love the gym and we love coffee and we just laughed our asses off.
• 25:59
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, we thought this was fantastic because we didn't really know this about each other.
• 26:02
  Samantha Pruitt: We know each other in a different way and I said the universe is telling us we need to reconnect.
• 26:10
  Samantha Pruitt: We've got to be doing some stuff together.
• 26:11
  Samantha Pruitt: There must be something about this.
• 26:13
  Samantha Pruitt: So, of course, we immediately made a date to sit down and talk deeper about that, but it was like sometimes the universe goes hello, hello, pay attention.
• 26:26
  Polly Mertens: That's true, that's true.
• 26:28
  Polly Mertens: You know that was fun Thinking of these lists and these ideas, and it's like the way I started to think about it is like you know what these are gifts that we give ourselves, right?
• 26:38
  Samantha Pruitt: So you know, when we're young, like planning my own birthday party, exactly Like when we're young.
• 26:43
  Polly Mertens: it's like notes to Santa, right?
• 26:45
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh, I'd love to have these things.
• 26:46
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 26:46
  Polly Mertens: I don't know about you, but growing up, my parents would ask me what do you want for your birthday?
• 26:49
  Polly Mertens: You know, whatever.
• 26:50
  Polly Mertens: Like these are my wishlist, or whatever these are wishlist things for us, right?
• 26:55
  Polly Mertens: Like, yes, this is our gift wishlist.
• 26:58
  Polly Mertens: Like I want to be doing these things.
• 26:59
  Polly Mertens: Okay, thank you.
• 27:00
  Polly Mertens: Menu, I can order it from myself.
• 27:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my gosh.
• 27:03
  Samantha Pruitt: This is it.
• 27:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Instead of letter to Santa concept, it's letter to South.
• 27:08
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm writing this down because we're going to be doing this.
• 27:10
  Samantha Pruitt: This is definitely going to be a challenge for our audience and to do that, you know, we'll prompt them with some questions.
• 27:17
  Samantha Pruitt: At the end.
• 27:17
  Samantha Pruitt: You and I have kind of some ideas about maybe some assignments, but basically the big picture of that is letter to self hey, what have you been up to?
• 27:27
  Samantha Pruitt: What do you?
• 27:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey, sam, what have you been up to?
• 27:29
  Samantha Pruitt: What are you getting up to?
• 27:31
  Samantha Pruitt: What do you want to be up to?
• 27:39
  Polly Mertens: You know, one of the.
• 27:39
  Polly Mertens: When I looked at lists for to get inspiration and ideas for my hundred thing new things to do, there was this one.
• 27:43
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh damn.
• 27:44
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, oh damn.
• 27:45
  Polly Mertens: So I did this a little bit.
• 27:47
  Polly Mertens: So I've done workshops where you, you know, I go away for a week or something like that.
• 27:51
  Polly Mertens: It's intensive, whatever and you just get all lit up and they're like, okay, on this last day we're going to have you write a letter to yourself and we'll mail it to you in six months.
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: No way you haven't.
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: Oh yeah, oh yeah, it was so cool.
• 28:10
  Polly Mertens: What the hell?
• 28:11
  Polly Mertens: This is great.
• 28:11
  Polly Mertens: It was super fun.
• 28:11
  Polly Mertens: You'd write this letter to yourself Six months later, don't even know it.
• 28:15
  Polly Mertens: This letter arrives, well.
• 28:16
  Polly Mertens: So one of the hundred things was write a letter to your future self in 10 years.
• 28:21
  Polly Mertens: Oh dang.
• 28:23
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh my gosh, wow, what would you even say, right, or what would you?
• 28:28
  Polly Mertens: You know, and so you just hold onto it or you put you know, it's like a little memory box or something you know you can make it meaningful or whatever.
• 28:39
  Polly Mertens: But maybe you write a letter to yourself 12 months from now and you open it on next year's birthday and did you manifest, did you get up to, did you experience more of what was important to you at that birthday, through that year?
• 28:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, that's good.
• 28:49
  Samantha Pruitt: That's good.
• 28:50
  Samantha Pruitt: On one of my birthdays I wrote, like my, my mission, like my life's mission.
• 28:56
  Samantha Pruitt: It's a whole freaking page.
• 28:57
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, I didn't know at the time that you could get a little more succinct with these concepts and, you know, might want to dial it down a few notches.
• 29:04
  Samantha Pruitt: I still have it.
• 29:05
  Samantha Pruitt: It's posted on the wall inside of this closet behind me, because I came across it when I was moving into this house.
• 29:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like, check me out, yeah, and I read it and I was like I still am the same person, only better.
• 29:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Like I really was going through some shit at that time and it was so powerful for me to really spend the energy on myself in that moment, reconnecting with myself and getting clear about a lot of things.
• 29:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's cool.
• 29:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Now, I don't know 25 years or however many later, definitely it's over 25 years ago.
• 29:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, I'll look and see if the date's on it and be like what the heck that's so awesome these are cool little fun ideas we're throwing at the audience today.
• 29:47
  Polly Mertens: Wow, stopping some bombage and hey, if you're listening to this point, it's time to act, right?
• 29:56
  Polly Mertens: So, all the listening aside, what are you going to do with this, right?
• 29:59
  Polly Mertens: So what's your?
• 30:00
  Polly Mertens: You had a question that you wanted to inspire them with all the activities, actions, whatever lists.
• 30:05
  Polly Mertens: You know that we've been thrown out, but what's what's?
• 30:08
  Polly Mertens: One thing you want to pump them.
• 30:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah Well, two things now.
• 30:14
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, I want them to consider this as a question, or, I would say, an assignment that I have recently done and I just want to share.
• 30:25
  Samantha Pruitt: It's been incredibly rewarding to me.
• 30:27
  Samantha Pruitt: But basically, make a list of the people who matter.
• 30:30
  Samantha Pruitt: The people who matter matter, the people who matter.
• 30:40
  Samantha Pruitt: It is going to blow you away Because you think the people that matter are the ones that you maybe on the daily or weekly.
• 30:44
  Samantha Pruitt: They're in your sphere, you know they're touching you in some way, shape or form, they're somehow having an impact on you.
• 30:50
  Samantha Pruitt: You think that those are the ones that matter.
• 30:51
  Samantha Pruitt: That's rarely the case.
• 30:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not saying there isn't a few people in that bubble that matter, but outside of that, beyond that, in the bigger, broader sense of your life, your lifetime on this planet said human, there are so many people that matter that have had incredible impacts on you and you've lost connection with them.
• 31:13
  Samantha Pruitt: You've lost sight of them, you've lost touch.
• 31:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Or maybe it's family members, maybe it's old friends, maybe it's old mentors or old classmates.
• 31:22
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, I mean, I have some dear old friends from school.
• 31:26
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm sure you do too.
• 31:27
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like I want to know those little troublemakers.
• 31:30
  Samantha Pruitt: I've got to find out, and that's really a fun thing to do because it will remind you of pieces of yourself in your life that maybe you hadn't thought about lately, right.
• 31:43
  Samantha Pruitt: But it also helps you reconnect to your own values and why you shared this precious life with those people and how you would want to continue sharing this precious life with those people, and the last thing you'd want to do is get a phone call and find out they're not around anymore and you didn't get a chance to have that conversation.
• 32:02
  Samantha Pruitt: So you know, don't live with that regret.
• 32:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's a big assignment that I want to put out there right now.
• 32:07
  Polly Mertens: I love it so write a list.
• 32:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Make the list of who matters Slow by slow, start reaching out.
• 32:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, give yourself 12 months if you have to.
• 32:15
  Polly Mertens: You know Exactly.
• 32:16
  Polly Mertens: Okay, whatever, whatever it takes, just know what the list includes.
• 32:20
  Polly Mertens: And it would be helpful just to have that list around, right, like that's why I make these lists is so that I can look back at them.
• 32:25
  Polly Mertens: I have this book that I have special notes to myself and you know things that I like, enjoy just they.
• 32:31
  Polly Mertens: They light me up and when I have little moments I can go in and go just little giddy things, things, notes that I write to myself or lists that what makes it special, my life special, and stuff.
• 32:41
  Polly Mertens: And then you get inspired like, oh, because, if you don't know, you're just sort of, like I said, smearing through life, bumping along right now.
• 32:48
  Polly Mertens: And it's funny, you mentioned about getting back together with friends.
• 32:51
  Polly Mertens: So my college roommates, thank you Facebook.
• 32:54
  Polly Mertens: Many years ago, you know, we all reconnected and we started having a trip to a girlfriend's cabin that we would do.
• 33:00
  Polly Mertens: This was probably almost 10 years ago now, so almost on the every summer we would do that.
• 33:06
  Polly Mertens: And then we started doing an Airbnb and that's actually coming up in a couple weeks.
• 33:09
  Polly Mertens: So thank you for reminding me and it's a great yeah.
• 33:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, just there, you go get together with those friends you know and it doesn't have to be that you know what is your thing, right?
• 33:18
  Polly Mertens: some people it's animals.
• 33:19
  Polly Mertens: Some people it's art.
• 33:19
  Polly Mertens: Some people it's music.
• 33:21
  Polly Mertens: Some people it's epic adventures right, but knowing what lights you up, turns you on, and making sure that it's a part as a gift to yourself for the for the year ahead.
• 33:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, to me there's two buckets right.
• 33:32
  Samantha Pruitt: There's like the things you want to be getting up to, yeah, and there's the people you want to get in touch with.
• 33:40
  Samantha Pruitt: That matter.
• 33:41
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 33:41
  Samantha Pruitt: And so if you have these lists and once a week you do one thing on each of the lists, reach out this week to one person, do one fun little thing.
• 33:51
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean the radical improvement in your experience called living.
• 33:56
  Samantha Pruitt: It's quite tremendous by something so incredibly simple.
• 34:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I mean we'll make more appointments to clean our house or get our car clean or you know whatever like grocery, go to the movies, netflix, whatever like people that matter.
• 34:11
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, just this is is your reminder but here's the real assignment oh, plan your birthday party.
• 34:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, hello, plan your birthday party.
• 34:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So mine's friday, yours could be just passed and it wasn't great or whatever.
• 34:28
  Samantha Pruitt: No judgment.
• 34:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, so you have a year to plan.
• 34:32
  Samantha Pruitt: That's fine, yeah, but like that's also a cool thing to be thinking about is like how to use your birthday as a way to take back your life.
• 34:43
  Polly Mertens: Celebrate you.
• 34:44
  Polly Mertens: I had a friend when she turned 40.
• 34:46
  Polly Mertens: She did 40 days of 40, so for 40 days, it's fun every day she did I.
• 34:51
  Polly Mertens: You know it amounted to all whatever was up I up.
• 34:54
  Polly Mertens: I didn't even know what they all were, but she took 40.
• 34:57
  Polly Mertens: She's like I'm stretching this thing out.
• 34:58
  Polly Mertens: She's like this is important.
• 35:00
  Polly Mertens: I think she maybe started 20 days before and 20 days after, so it was 40 of 40.
• 35:05
  Polly Mertens: And it was just little micro celebrations of her, whatever was important, and it wasn't, you know, she quit her job and whatever it was like, she, just you know, she quit her job and whatever it was like, she, just you know, had a special lunch with her son, you know, or coffee with a friend, or she took herself out on a pretty date, you know whatever.
• 35:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, it's just an opportunity, right, it's an opportunity to make some considerations, to reflect, to make some small changes.
• 35:29
  Samantha Pruitt: I have one friend, it was her birthday and you know she cut off her hair.
• 35:34
  Samantha Pruitt: She went from long to short, like she did all these kind of radical things, but she was like reboot baby.
• 35:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And I was like damn, the girl is on fire.
• 35:43
  Samantha Pruitt: It was so fun to be part of that and kind of bear witness and I was like I like it.
• 35:50
  Polly Mertens: Maybe it's time for a big pivot, you know, maybe it's time for a big pivot.
• 35:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, maybe it's time for a big pivot and utilize it.
• 35:56
  Polly Mertens: You know you've got the go permission from us.
• 35:58
  Polly Mertens: Like, you don't need a permission slip, but you got it, just do it and have fun with it.
• 36:02
  Polly Mertens: Right, like and give yourself that permission because it's your life.
• 36:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Damn it, so own it All right Anything else, just pour love on it, baby, just pour love on it.
• 36:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, happy birthday to you, sister I'm so excited.
• 36:16
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, for you and mine's in about a month, so maybe we'll have some more things to talk about and reflect on birthday month, if you will, so okay let's do it what do you want to help them remember about themselves and about life and all things?
• 36:31
  Samantha Pruitt: telling all the beautiful humans Did you know I could sing?
• 36:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Not until now.
• 36:37
  Samantha Pruitt: How your life looks is not important but how your life feels is.
• 36:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 36:43
  Polly Mertens: And remember every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.