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Bridget Hilton: How Experiences Define Your Bold Life · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today we have Bridget Hilton.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She is a leading expert on the art, science and path to becoming rich in life experiences.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome, bridget.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Hi.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Good thanks.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I thought I'd let you introduce.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: You have an incredible backstory and I think the best person to describe it and to share it with us would be you.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be where we are right now, as we start off talking about being bold.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Well, it's been a long journey, but I'll start from the beginning, trying to go too deep into it, but I'll give you the full background.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Flint Michigan, which is a place that's famous for a water crisis and Michael Moore movies.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: It's not exactly famous for positive things, unfortunately, but when I was a kid, my dream was to actually be famous.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I basically did everything that I could and took a lot of very, very small steps to try to get out of where I came from and try to get into the music industry, which was like my biggest dream.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So I was doing things like picking up trash at concert venues and getting coffee for people at radio stations.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: You know, this is all when I'm like 14 years old.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Five years of that finally paid off quote, unquote.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I got a job at the biggest record label in the world, which is Universal Music Group, and when I was 19,.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: You know I wasn't killing it, I was making like 20 grand a year.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: But it was the first time that I felt I can actually like get something big accomplished if I take small steps towards a goal.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And so I did the music industry thing for about 10 years.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I'd moved to LA, I started off mailing boxes and stuff like that, obviously, but then I ended up getting this really incredible experience of working with all of these people that eventually became the biggest artists in the world, you know, like Taylor Swift and Drake and Rihanna and the Killers and Lady Gaga and the weekend and like you know, the list goes on.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: But I was lucky to like see all of these people the start of their career and just ascend to the highest highs in the world, which was amazing.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And this is like kind of a through line in my life.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I never ended up becoming financially successful, but I was having all these incredible experiences.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: One day at work I saw a video of a woman hearing for the first time and she was like the same age as me.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I was I think I was 26 at the time and it just gave me this light bulb moment of wow.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Music has meant everything in my life and it totally changed my trajectory.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I had made the choice to leave and follow my dreams and that got me to a much better place.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: So I was thinking about this person in this YouTube video and how like she had never even heard sound or music and how different my life would have been if I were her.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And it gave me an idea that I would start a company and I would basically take the proceeds from that company to give hearing to people around the world.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And it was very, I guess I would say, I don't know.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I just didn't know what I was doing, but at the same time it was like I just knew that I had to do it.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: So I sent this video to my friend, joe, who was helping build schools in Guatemala at the time.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: He was like the only person that I knew that was any way involved in charity, like I had not one other person in my life that had ever done charity.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And so we basically high fived.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: We jumped on a plane to China and we source products for this company called Listen.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: That would be like the first social enterprise in electronics Over the next 10 years.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: We were able to give over 50,000 people hearing for the first time from the proceeds of selling headphones and speakers and it was the most incredible experience.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: We never sold out to like Apple.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: We weren't beats, you know, we didn't sell for $3 billion, but the whole time we were having these crazy experiences all around the world we are doing stuff like obviously giving people hearing, but then also we were able to walk the great wall of China and go on safari and you know, see all these things that a lot of people brain is a samurai.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of you, that's one of your bio lines.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: That was one of my favorite things that I ever did.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It was so much fun Like, yeah, we got to do all these crazy weird things.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: You know, at this one point in the company I was lucky to get on these lists like Forbes 30 under 30 and Inc 30 under 30.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: And it was so funny because all these people started approaching me and being like, oh, it looks like you're killing it.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: I borrow some money and I would always just kind of like laugh and I'm like we're spending all of our money like traveling and giving it away to these you know, kids so they can have hearing.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: So I don't have any money, but I do feel like an experiential billionaire.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: That's kind of where, like the title of the book came.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: You know, long story short.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: We can get into this more, but me and my business partner ended up writing a book called experiential billionaire.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It's about, you know, life, death and everything in between, but also just mostly about how to invest in your life experiences over everything else, and it has a lot of stories from listen and our journey around the world in it.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of bold in there.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I think one of your original bold moves was leaving Flint.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but what is your definition of bold?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I would say being your authentic self and living for you, I think is bold.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: And I say that because you know the number one regret and people's lives is usually not living for themselves, like not living their true self.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: So that's 76% of people according to research from Cornell.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: If you're part of you know the one quarter of people that lives for themselves and their true, authentic self, then I think that that is bold and that's a great thing to be.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty cool.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't know it was that low.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I knew when I first started out doing kind of the things that I'm doing and what's interesting.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: For just as I never said hey, I'm bold, and I never entered a room and said I'm bold, and I wasn't wearing shirts that said bold, you know, till I started my own company, but it was interesting, just that kind of was what I did, unknowingly, really trying to be me for a long time, right, you know, and I think around 48, I was like I'm going to do it full time, be me, versus this part time gig I've had of being me for a while, and I reclaimed it, kind of put the stake in around him at 48.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: You said you were yourself part time.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to remember that like forever.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's such a line.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so would you say, leaving Flint was one of your first bold moves, or even before that.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Do you remember being bold?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: My first foray into entrepreneurship which is not a real job, but my first thing that I ever did was and I tell the story in the book is when I was 12, I started selling candy bars at Bowling Alley's in Flint and it was like I would just be there like all day selling candy bars and I got enough money, where I ended up going to the UK and I was really into like UK bands and stuff when I was a young kid.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So I think that that was probably like the most bold thing I maybe could have done at that age.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: You know like I basically started this quote unquote company that sold things to people who were bowling and they probably just felt bad for me.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So you had your own company in fifth grade.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Is that like fifth grade 12?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was like Fifth into sixth yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: And then what?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: band did you want to see in the UK?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Who were we going to see?
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, man I was like obsessed with.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Well, at the time it was like you know all the boy bands and like the Spice Girls and stuff like that was like Miller then was really into that.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I had like the side of me that was like starting to get into like the rock bands.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Classic Rocks.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I loved all like the classic UK bands like the who and Zeppelin and stuff like that and the Beatles, but obviously I wasn't watching them.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I was just like really into that.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: You know culture from what I saw on TV.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, music is a big part of my life and obviously it was a lead for you to the life that you're having now.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Right, the experiences you're having now, what is it?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Do you think about music?
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: So, for me, like it's being in the I guess, not the scene so much, but like just being around other people who love music, like last week we saw Iration.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: It could be a small group, it could be a large group, it could be any type of music.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Honestly, that's what it is.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: For me, it's like a connect, a journey, you know, or an experience.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: But what does music mean for you?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's changed over time, but, you know, at first, when I was a kid, I loved it because it was, like, you know, I didn't grow up in a place where I felt it was safe to like share my feelings and be vulnerable and like just be creative and stuff like that.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not really my family's fault, that's like just how they were also raised as well, you know.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: But I felt like it was just this safe space for me.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: And then, as I got older, I really, you know, I was never cool in school, like I wasn't like an athlete or anything like that.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I was like in high school, band and choir.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Nice what instrument did you play?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Oh man, a couple of different ones.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I had a drum kit when I was a kid, and that was fun Probably you know, was very hated by my neighbors.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there were moments.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad that I don't have any like neighbors that are drummers now.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: No paybacks.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Karma coming, it gets there.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I attempted to be good at guitar and I still have guitars and I love playing, but I wouldn't say like I'm good or anything.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really fun.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: But I think, as time went on, it was more of like a connection thing and, like you know, connecting on music is like such a deep thing and you can I can really tell a lot about someone by what they listen to.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Like you really tell someone's personality by like their playlist, right.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: But 100%, yeah, 100%.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Like we have different ones for like different emotions or road trips or things like that.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: You know, common Psych is the name of our long.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: When we're on a long trip we can't get too crazy, but still want to have some upbeat anyway, yeah, so I think it'd be interesting to just even see other people's playlist does kind of come out like who they are and also where they connect and who they connect with.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if I'm dating someone I want to know like who up they listened to before.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to share your Spotify playlist before I'll even go on a date.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: When I was growing up and then when I was in the music industry, you know for 10 years, I always kind of assumed that everyone was like that.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, everyone loves music.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: When I became an entrepreneur, I started meeting all these people.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: They didn't know literally anything about it and I was like, wait, that's not normal.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I've been over 350 concerts and that's a weird thing, apparently, and I saved the tickets.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: They used to be on paper, now they're not, now they're NFTs and stuff like that, which is just weird.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But but still enjoy that, definitely as part of like my mental health too, honestly, like it is a way for me to not escape but just to kind of be and kind of be in the moment, be present, right, and I think that's also.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of what you and your company and the book is about is kind of being present, enjoying the journey.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: You have statements, being like the student of life and being where you are now and understanding that you're rich by your experiences, not so much by your bank account.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And again, we're not saying quit your job and what we could, but I mean we're not saying that money isn't important to your lifestyle and to your family's lifestyle, but it is not the end.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I'll be all and so when you wrote this book, the experiential billionaire.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So you go from a kid in a bowling alley selling candy bars to 26, where you're launching a company that does good for others but also collaborates with big working organizations like Delta and Google to do the things that you're doing.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So what happens between 26 and the book?
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Sure, so it's really.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, there it was a roller coaster.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I don't want to make it sound like it was just a rocket ship or anything like that.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, still it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: You know, like the reality is, money comes and goes right.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Me and my business partner, joe, we're really trying to spend our time as wisely as we could and like take advantage, because we knew it wasn't going to last forever In 2020, obviously we didn't know that was going to happen.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but 2020, we, you know, had to stop working in the philanthropic part of the company because obviously we couldn't travel the world, which is what we had been doing for the previous, you know, 10 years.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: So we had to stop and kind of have a real heart to heart and be like okay, what are we going to do now?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Because that was our purpose.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: You know, like our purpose was traveling and helping kids, which was awesome, but we were like what are we going to do now?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: We have to do something else, for forced, you know this isn't something that we chose, but we started asking our friends and family what is our value to the world?
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: If you could have us do one thing, what would it be?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: And literally every single person we asked said you guys need to tell your stories Like you have the craziest stories, you need to get on stages, you need to write a book, you need to create content around this and help other people achieve their own goals, because so many people want to do a lot of these things, you know.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: We had so many people come up to us.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I wish that I could you know work with charities.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I wish that I could travel.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I wish that I could learn you know X and I would always say like you can, like I'm not special, yeah.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It's that bold step, right, it's that bold step.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So I run into that as well, in the sense of I wish, when I you know the when I insert here I wish I could you know if I was.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Well, you are you, you can.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: You have to make choices.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you have payoffs for those choices, right, and it limits people, it's a limiting belief that they can't.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I think it's a bold choice for someone to choose to be themselves, to really go out there, and it's I don't know about you.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Did you ever feel judged by others as you kind of making these choices and doing these things that some people think are crazy to do?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I quit my job that I had worked my butt off for, you know, years and years, literally, was sleeping in my car to get this job right, Like I was doing everything that I possibly could to make this dream come true.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And then I ended up quitting.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: It's like what are you doing?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I cashed out my 401k, which was literally $5,000, like not enough to do anything, especially when you're competing in this space that's.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: You know, the biggest companies on earth are in electronics and we were the only social good one and we were the only one that wasn't funded right.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: We were totally bootstrapped.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: We ended up doing a little bit of funding in, like, you know, 2014, almost 10 years ago, but it didn't.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like enough to ever compete with like the beats of the world.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I wouldn't change that at all, because I look back and I'm like, oh my God, I had the most incredible experiences that most people will never ever have, even like 1% of, and I'm so happy that I didn't just be like you know, I'm going to start a headphone company that is just selling you know plastic stuff and doesn't really contribute to the world.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That's not interesting.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did any of them ever come to you, like whether it be Bose or Beats or Apple, and say, hey, can we collaborate with you and what you're doing?
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Not really, but I mean there was times that we were up against them in certain situations and sometimes we lost and sometimes we won.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like we we beat up Bose for the biggest airline contract ever, which was for Delta Airlines, a couple of years ago, maybe five years ago, and they had been the onboard headphone for like the first class.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: And you know, this was like such a huge deal to us because we were against Bose and we were like we're never going to get it but we just like worked, worked, worked towards it and they really saw the value in our mission and we ended up filming this beautiful commercial in Peru and it was on all the screens on the planes, which was so cool, because I'm such a traveler and like I, would get to see it when I was on the plane.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this one is of two brothers who can't hear, and it's really well done.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I think what I noticed while I was watching that video is the way that you show the sounds that we take for granted.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was so fun too, Like that.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I'll never forget those moments, the part of like the pigeons flying.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: We were like clapping wood together and you make it fly.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It was like so much fun yeah the swish of the broom, the someone throwing water and the sound of it when it hits the ground.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: It made me think when I was watching it, like how much we take for granted.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: You woke up today.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: You could see, you could smell, you could hear, you can touch, you can taste, like.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Did you realize that?
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I just think sometimes we're all guilty of it, of like really not realizing how much we have from someone else.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Like in just hearing and seeing these two brothers who are signing to each other in Peru and kind of working towards being able to hear.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It was just really like one of those stories that kind of gets you, and obviously Delta being able to support that and put that on their screens for people to see was pretty cool and to beat out both.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that part, obviously, but I think that's also saying something about what the company does and how it operates.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was so special and it's funny.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It's like if you watch that commercial now you know you might think like oh, they're actors or something.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: But these were literally two kids that we met that day.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, really yeah, and we were like let's go on this journey and film.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: You can tell they were having fun.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like when Delta told us that they were going to try to do that, I was like, okay, we can try, but I don't know if we're actually going to meet kids that fit that criteria and fit you know that vibe and are they able to go.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Do they have school?
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was like a miracle, it just happened and it was so wonderful.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: We had a lot of big corporate collaborations because they could see the authenticity and like what we were doing and a lot of companies wouldn't get that.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: You know, like Google did this big commercial for us and it got like 50 million views.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: They had just seen a video of us like giving hearing and they picked us over thousands of other small businesses to be featured.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: That would have never happened if it wasn't real.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm really proud of them.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So being an entrepreneur is bold in itself and kind of being able to do what you do in a sense now, of helping people understand that they can experience their life as they want to.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: They just have to choose to.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So when you think about the experiences you've had, do you have one in mind that didn't go as planned and that you learned something about yourself through it?
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: So when we wrote the book, we also, joe and I co-authored this study.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: It was like the largest survey of life experiences ever done.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Super interesting it was 20,000 people and still growing.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: We still have it up on our website if anyone wants to contribute, but there's a lot of questions in it and one of the questions is what was the most valuable experience of your life?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: And one third of people answered that question with a negative experience.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: So to your question I think a lot of negative experiences are actually the most impactful in our lives, and people would respond and say my most valuable experience is when I had a near death experience, or when my mom had cancer and I realized how much I loved her, or when I got a divorce and then I realized that I could be on my own and I could do this, or things like that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: So a lot of the times, it is the negative experiences that really change and help us become who we are, and I think for me, I had a terrible, terrible 2020.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of things that happened, but the first thing that happened is I got separated, I ended up moving cities, I got super depressed because I was all alone for the first time and for years and years, and in that same timeframe COVID happened.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: So then I was really left.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: I couldn't see anyone.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And then this stuff with listen happened, where we couldn't travel, we couldn't fulfill our purpose, and then we ended up having to let go employees that were family to us, and all these dominoes were falling and at the time I just thought this is the end, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: But now I look back a couple of years later, I'm like that was the best thing that ever happened to me and it made me fulfill my purpose in a different way.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And also I'm so grateful now and, like you were saying, like you wake up and you're like, oh my God, I can see, I can hear, I think of that stuff every day now, every day that I'm happy, I'm like, oh my God, happiness is such a gift.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And like.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I'm on the other side of it where I've been really depressed and no, you don't want that.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Like happy, like that's the greatest thing on earth.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Right and I'm gonna laugh, and even if it's like something that didn't go well or something that went wrong, you're still rolling through it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You're in a better space than someone else today.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, so how like?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I bet there's people that can relate to something.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You said I had a bad year, or I had a bad month, and this happened, and this happened, and this happened Like how did you work through that with a mindset of you know?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: One of the things you talked about in the book is a beginner's mindset feeling like a beginner.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Did you feel like a beginner in 2020 as you came out of it, or what did you do?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so listen, as a company is still running, obviously, but we I've like largely stepped away from the day to day and I'm really focused on experiential billionaire and like writing the book.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: So I felt like a beginner because I mean, it's kind of like who might write a book and like do all these things that I've never done before, right, but you do it Right here, yeah, and you know, at the time I had done some speaking and stuff, but I wasn't a professional right, so I had to learn how to do that and that's scary, that's a really, really scary profession.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: But now I did it all the time and it's not scary anymore.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But you just got to push past like being a beginner.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So for me, like during that time, one of the things that really really helped me get out of this terrible depression was doing a bunch of new and novel experiences, whether it was like I learned how to do beekeeping and it was like the most random stuff ever, like I would learn how to like make charcuterie and learn how to I made my own wine and made my own beer and stuff like that.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: It's just like fun little things that like distracted you away from you know, the realness of the moment or whatever, and then you gain confidence to like do bigger things.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: That's probably a cool story, like beekeeping.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Hey, I love a great charcuterie board.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like having a cheering feet in my garage Making your own wine, making your own beer.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are also conversation starters.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: But you're getting out of your comfort zone, right, and like experiencing things.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: As silly as they might sound to someone else, they're like you, exploring things that might make you happy, right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and just build in like those routines that are good, along with the new stuff.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Like one of the things I did was I started waking up for sunrise every day and that was like a huge game changer, being like okay, it's another day, I can do this, like I can start over today fresh, even if yesterday was crappy.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Today I'm going to try to do a little bit better Every day.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: It's like I'll just try to, you know, get to the next day.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like when you're in space, like that's so important, and get your comfort zone for sure.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Like an example is surfing, because I lived in LA for probably like 14 years before I ever surfed, which was insane.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Why would I have done that?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Like I always thought it looked cool but I always was like I'm afraid to do it or like I'll never be good at that or I'll never, you know, fit in, or I'll just people will laugh at me.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: But like when you're in this state of give nothing to lose, you're like I'm screw it, I'm just gonna yeah, I'm gonna try it.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna try it and like that's where I was and like that's where I want to be when I think about doing anything new now, a lot of like.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: One of the questions we asked in our survey was like what's one thing that you want to learn in your lifetime?
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And the number one answer was a musical instrument.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Then we said so why aren't you doing this?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And people said, like I think that people will laugh at me, think that I'm not good, and it's like, so you're gonna push off your biggest dream just because you think someone's gonna laugh at you.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Like that's so sad and at the end of your life you're gonna regret not doing that because you were more afraid of what someone else might think of you than what you thought of you.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: So do you think that holds a lot of us back?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: You know, like I never even thought about being an entrepreneur.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And then I know when I something about when I resigned and kind of when I started actually being able to think creatively and do things and I did some stuff for us.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: This like I'm not gonna be good at that or I can't make a living off of that, but I could still do it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: But I mean just kind of thinking about what was possible.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: We sometimes limit ourselves based on what we think someone else will think and, and I don't know, I bet there's probably some factoid that says half the time we think someone's thinking about us.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: They're not, they're wrapped up in their own.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: It's like the spotlight effect.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: It's like every single person thinks that they're the center of attention, when the person actually just thinking about themselves.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really they're wrapped up in their own world.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're on their own spotlight, you know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I think you know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I think you make an important point.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I think it kind of connects to also taking a bold step.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: It can be quiet, it doesn't, no one has to know about it.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: You don't have to put it on social media like wake up at sunrise, you know, take that class, learn that language, try an instrument.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: When you go to lessons, no one's there.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I mean like I don't know, like that should limit people.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting just what we may think our limiters, when we really break them down, are not.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Would you agree?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: There is no reason to not try the things that you want to do, and in my keynote I kind of tell my life story and I think that that's the point.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I don't really care to like just talk about myself, but my experiences are the example of like literally anything is possible If I can do this.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: There's like endless possibilities for people.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard and yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, like, this is your only life and this is all you get, so you might as well do the things that you want to do.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: So, as we close out, I'm wondering you know some of the things that are even on your merch and stuff like that.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You know, on a living spree, make someday today, study yourself.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: What would you advise someone who's thinking about wow, there's a lot of things on my list.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I hate bucket list.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Honestly.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I like to say life list or experience list, but just like, if someone has these things that they've thought about for a very long time, that they want to do, but they're not doing them, what would you say for them to kind of start moving towards that?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: So I think they're.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: So we call ours the treasure map.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: So the advice that I would give for that is if you know so much, people don't actually know what they want, right.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: So that's what we found.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: We ask people like, what do you want to do?
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: And they say, like, travel the world.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Okay that's big.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: That's a big thing, but like gotta start because the world is huge.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been to like 40 countries and that's taken decades, right.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: So we try to be able to be specific, be like okay, what do you really want to do?
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's a hike that's in Alaska that you want to do and that's your thing, that you want to do whatever.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Just like pick one thing that you want to do and you have to just write down all of the small steps that go along that way.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I think a good example would be like, say, your goals, like going to Italy, which is a lot of people's goals in their life.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Their number one thing is like oh, I really want to go learn how to make pasta in Italy, for example.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: So what you would have to do is like look at your calendar, pick a day that's.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: You know it's not next week, but that's realistic for you and you know for some people it can be in six months.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: For some people would be like two years, depending on like financials and whatever.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: But I think the key is to we call it low to high ROI, so you're having like lower experiences on the way to like this big experience that you want, right?
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: So maybe, like the first thing you do is put it on your calendar and then the next thing you do is download Duolingo.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: So now you're like starting to learn Italian, which is really cool.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It's going to make your experience a year from now like much cooler while you're in Italy.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And then you start, you know, maybe you buy some flour and you start like making your own pizza dough or something you know, learning how to like cook Italian food.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: It could be like another step on the way.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: So you're doing all these cool things on the way to this bigger experience and it's making your final experience way more fulfilling than if you just, you know, jumped on a plane and didn't know what you're doing and like doing all the research.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I find that when I do travel, like the research is part of the fun, right, it's like part of the fulfilling thing.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh my God, we can like go here and we can have this experience and like, especially if you're going with someone else, it's like such a shared bonding thing.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Another thing that you can do is like get an accountability partner, like that's so huge.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: So I think if you say you have a friend that you were like, you know you're going to make me do this, right, you're going to like make me book this flight, and a lot of people do this at work, but I think it's really important to do in their personal life as well.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So your accountability partner will follow up with you and be like did you do this, did you do this?
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: And if you didn't do it, you're going to feel bad and you're going to want to act right First.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: If no one's asking you about it, you might not do it.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you could skate by in a way Like yeah, I always say like I'm better at being accountable to somebody else and to myself at times not always, but there are certain things and it's like you know, sure, this is on my treasure map in the sense that you know I'd love to go to the Malfi Coast.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I don't want to learn how to make pasta, I just want to eat pasta, yeah, but I love how you describe it, kind of the micro moments up to the macro experience, right, and those are all doable things, because sometimes I think people place well, a trip to Italy is very expensive and so therefore I have it as a dream, but I'm never going to get there.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: But you can learn how to make pasta, you can buy a cookbook.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: You know Barnes and Noble 999, you know that zone, you know you can learn the language, you know you can do things on YouTube free from a sense of that.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: You don't even have to buy it.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: So sometimes I think we kind of insert money, financial, as a reason not to experience certain things that we want to try or do.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: That's like the.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: You know, we asked people like what?
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Why didn't you do the things?
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: We asked a lot of elderly people.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Why didn't you do the things that you wanted to do?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: And they said.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: The number one reason was I just didn't get around to it.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I pushed it off till, like someday.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: The reason is that you always think there's going to be more time, there's going to be more money, like someday I'll do this.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: But the reality is that that's not true.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: You don't know how long you have and you don't know if you'll ever have more or less money or whatever, like you really don't know.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: So the things that you want to do now and like stop pushing them off until someday.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think people's life experience kind of forms that in their head of like how they think it's possible.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Like myself and I've talked about this on other podcasts like I've had lost early in my life.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Like my brother died when I was six and so I learned early on like in tomorrow's not promised, it's not about your age, he was 11.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: So it's like not about that.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And so for me it was like, yeah, like buy the car, wear the rings, wear all the jewelry.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Like you know, do whatever you want to do that makes you happy.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Like don't put it off for that special moment, that perfect time.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: The perfect time to live life is today.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Perfect time is now.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: A lot of people will do that with physical things, like, oh, I have this really nice bottle of wine and I'm like waiting until this special moment to have it.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: It's like why Tonight's the night, yeah, tonight's the night Like party, like you, just don't know when that is going to happen, and that's what happens to not everyone, but a lot of people.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: You know, they say like I'm going to do X, I'm going to travel, I'm going to learn guitar, I'm going to, you know, learn Spanish when I have more time, or like when I graduate, or when I, when the kids are older, or, you know, when I retire, it's like okay, maybe.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the things and I guess for me that kind of is an irritant when people say, well, I don't have time to do that, I don't have time, and I always say back to them, well, it's a choice how you're spending your time, it's a choice what you're choosing to do in your time and therefore, like, for me it's not an excuse to not do what you want to do or to get on that path to wellness or health or whatever it may be that your goal is.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Like that's just an excuse and everyone doesn't always like that answer.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: But you know, I just think it can be.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: People kind of make the excuses up for whatever reason.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I just hope people kind of least think about it through.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: You know your book, experiential billionaire, and everything about you, your company and what you're doing today is in the episode notes.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.