332: Build a life rich in experiences and die with no regrets - Bridget Hilton, Joe Huff

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, you're on air with Ella, and we're doing something fun today. I am joined by not one, but two very special guests. Welcome to the show, Bridget Hilton and Joe Huff.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for having us. We're happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is going to be fun. OK, you guys get to take turns, but if you could first share with us who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm Bridget Hilton. I live in Los Angeles, California, and I just co-wrote a book with Joe, who's also on the show, called Experiential Billionaire. We also have a company together called Listen, that's a social enterprise. And I'm just a girl trying to have a lot of experiences in life, trying to live a fulfilling life.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so what Bridget said, we wrote a book, Experiential Billionaire, Build a Life Rich in Experiences and Die with No Regrets. That really is who I think I am and we both are really, we've both been trying to fill our life with meaningful experiences for over a decade together. And that was how we started our company, Listen, which is actually a social enterprise audio company where every headphone and speaker that we sell, we help provide hearing aids to people around the world. And I live in Los Angeles with my wife and two small children, and that alone creates quite a lot of experiences for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Could one of you please tell us, what is an experiential billionaire?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, I'll jump in here. The thing about experiential billionaire is it really is the idea that we need to shift how we think about wealth. And we've all been taught our whole lives that wealth is amassing a lot of money and that that equals happiness. But when you ask people toward the end of their life, or even really through most stages of their life, the things that have brought them the most happiness, it's generally not money. It's generally an experience they have. And we actually know this because we ran a survey of over 20,000 people. our idea of what it means to become an experiential billionaire is to get to the point where you're living a life that's so rich in experiences that if something suddenly happens and you run out of time, you're not going to have massive end-of-life regrets because you're going to have known that you were living your life to the fullest. You were really trying to do things with your life and not putting off life for some future that might not exist or spending all of your time trying to make money and hoping that you'll get a chance to spend it doing things later. That's really the simple term.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's what I wanted to talk with you both about, because as you said, you wrote the book, Experiential Billionaire, and I was like, this is how I want to live my life. And I think, frankly, Bridget and Joe, a lot of people feel that way, and then they feel very practical constraints holding them back. So that's part of what we want to dive into today. But first, I got to know several things about you guys. So first of all, what are you to each other? Business partners.

SPEAKER_02:

Best friends.

SPEAKER_01:

I just think anyone who's written a book together, like you've been through war together, you're comrades.

SPEAKER_00:

Or arch enemies.

SPEAKER_02:

n working together. We met in: 2012

SPEAKER_01:

That is one of life's most delicious surprises, right? Is when you just land on somebody that you have instant chemistry with and you both uplift one another. You're better because you know each other. Yeah. One of my favorite things in the world. Okay. I would love a little bit of backstory Where I would love to go with this today, you guys, is I would really like to talk about how you have done this because I think it's super easy to talk about this wistfully and to say, well, what you've done, and you've traveled the world, and you've had adventures, and you've interacted with really interesting people, and you've created an enormous amount of social good. And what happens, I think, is when we see that in the ether, we feel like the other. So I want to invite everyone that's joining us in on this conversation, I want to invite them to the table and I want to break down that wall that separates the people who are doing from the people who feel wistful about wanting to do. And I want to talk about really practical stuff that gets in your way and how you all moved it out of your way. So to make this make a little bit of sense, can you, Joe, give me a little bit of your backstory that led you to this place where you and Bridget were able to create this together? Why are you all even talking about this?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, first of all, we're both super independently wealthy. I knew it. That is great to know. Huge trust funds. Huge trust funds.

SPEAKER_01:

I knew this was just a book by two trust fund babies who've been on a few trips together.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I haven't even read the book. I had someone write it. I don't know. So it's just a total. Yeah, it was just a fun project. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Quite the opposite. We both we both grew up, you know, really humble beginnings. We both grew up in the Midwest, blue collar families, that whole thing. we jokingly like to say the closest experience to a trust fund we ever had was trusting our parents would fund a trip to the ice cream truck. That was about as close as it got to a trust fund. In my particular case, I'll give you the condensed story, the quick story, but I had a really important moment when I was a teenager where my Father had a near death experience at a very young age at 48 years old, very suddenly out of nowhere. And he wound up needing a heart transplant and it was just really traumatic. And we thought we were going to lose him at that particular time. The story has a happy ending. He actually got the transplant, but that moment gave me this really great gift of urgency because watching this all happen, wondering, you know, all the things my dad still wanted to do, but hadn't and wondering, you know, thinking about all the other people that live life like that, putting off their future for some, you know, some day that might not exist. And that just lit this fire in me to try to do things. And I didn't have, to your point exactly, I was the other, you know, like I looked at people like everybody else and thought, you know, I can't do that. I don't have any way to do that, any means to do that. So suddenly I was just faced with this reality that all those excuses don't matter. I can say whatever I want about why I can't do whatever, but that's not going to get me any closer to doing anything at all. So instead, I just started trying to do the things that I wanted to do without any real idea of what would work or what I could do. And again, really the book and our whole way of life is based on this idea of taking responsibility and taking action for your life. So what I did is I wound up investing in all these experiences, things that didn't cost money, right? Because I didn't have any. So I tried doing stand-up comedy with a friend of mine that wanted to do comedy. And I wound up going and getting a motorcycle and a motorcycle license. just did a bunch of random little things that added a ton of value to my life. But those things led to me having more life experiences and those things, again, this is a very short condensation of a couple of big periods of my life. Those things led to me having experiences in life and building relationships with people through those experiences that led to opportunities to have more experiences. And some of those opportunities really important distinction or important point to make is that some of those opportunities actually are linked to the financial success as well that we can find in life, which is interesting because I had thought, you know, like I didn't really have a choice, it was one or the other. And I wound up getting an opportunity to start a company. And I'm just gonna say right now that that's a really gross exaggeration of what we started. It was a very small operation, a two-person graphic t-shirt company in a small garage. But the person that asked me to do that with them believed in me because they knew I could do things and I could figure out how to get things done. And I was willing to try and take action and it worked. We actually wound up turning that company, and that company morphed, by the way, into a different company, a shipping company. But we grew that company into a 100-person business. Along the way, I stopped doing all the things I loved. And this is, again, why this experiential billionaire concept becomes so important. I suddenly wound up feeling like my dad. I was actually working all the time, and I wasn't really doing anything but that. And I kind of caught myself because some other things that happened brought it to light that this was going on. So I actually decided to leave the company and I left that and started trying to figure out how to do things that matter to me again. And that led to me working with charities. I had no idea how to do this and I wasn't like independently wealthy. I thought I'll start a company again that uses the proceeds to help charities and that led to, I had a pretty good idea that was allowing me to travel and work in places like Haiti and Guatemala and do some things like give clean water and build schools and whatnot. But that led to Bridget calling me one day and Bridget and I were acquaintances, but we didn't really know each other that well. And she showed me this video of a person hearing for the first time. And that's what brought us together. You know, she showed me that video and told me her idea for this other company. And I thought, oh, my God, we've got to do this. But I think the really important story arc to keep in mind is that I didn't really have any means at all. And I found a way by just taking steps to get to somewhere. And it didn't even lead me where I thought I was going, but it led me somewhere. And that was something cool. And then Bridget, I think, can jump in and probably give you a condensed version on where that led us.

SPEAKER_02:

ed up moving to California in: 2007

SPEAKER_01:

I think that one of the things that's really important about both of your journeys is you had a focus on experiential wealth even when you didn't have a dollar to your name, even when you didn't know where the next dollar was coming from. Do you think that that is something that is inherent and or can it be taught? Like did you write your book Experiential Billionaire because you can teach people to see the world this way?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I think so. I think that the reason why we wrote it is to not just tell our stories, because our stories are just the vehicle to help other people do these things. And that's why we were so intentional about putting all of these tools in the book and putting the exercises and really trying to help, because It's cool when you tell a story, but it's much cooler if you like help someone through a process and like help them get to like what they want to do. That's like the real goal. So I think that anyone can think this way and can live this way. It's just that they're not ever taught.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, our personal stories are proof that anyone can do it, right? That's really why, you know, so many people have read the book and reached out and said, wow, you guys are so vulnerable about how terrible things were like, it's, it reads like a tragedy quite a few times in the book is, and, you know, people, it's funny, sometimes people will reach out and say, do you have any, like, you know, things you can share. I haven't read the book yet, but are there any negative moments? I think it's mostly negative, but you know, but that's because, you know, that's really important for people to see that, you know, the one thing about life is, you know, you can make more money, right? And no matter how much you make, you can lose it all. You can make more, you can lose it all. time, you can't make more of, right? It's just going away. And that's the thing that, you know, once you get that urgency for life, you can figure out how to make sure you're investing your time in something valuable, no matter where you are financially. And, and it's hard, you know, we understand, like, I mean, when I say we understand what it's like to be, you know, broken, not have any, you know, a dollar to our name. Like, we really understand we've gone through, since our friendship, we've gone through periods where it's been really, really challenging. And even in the process of getting the book written and getting the book out, it's been really, really difficult at times. But that's the sacrifice sometimes you make for the experience, right? The experience that you want to have. But at the end of like that kind of listen journey that, you know, of us traveling, which ended right around COVID because we couldn't do the missions. We truly looked at this and thought the most important thing we can do is show people how to do this, how to actually turn their goals and their dreams into realities so that they don't have these end of life regrets or these regrets about how they've spent their time. Because so many people were reaching out to us and saying, you know, that's really cool what you do, you know, I can't do that. Because X, it's like, yeah, you can, you know, like, I'm telling you, like, we, we started something with, you know, nothing and to give proof points to, you know, into to add a little context into our stories. You know, when I say like, we started a company like the t shirt company I started, it was with like $1,000. You know, like the when Bridget said, Let's do listen, like she cashed out a $5,000 401k. It wasn't like we went and got like, Let's raise a million dollars from a VC. That stuff wasn't even on our radar. We were like, we have to figure out how to just try something.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's funny because we look at money like it's not an infinite resource. And it is. In a relative sense, money is an infinite resource. And of course, figuring out how to tap into that is many people's life's work. I totally get that. I don't live in the dream world. I don't live off of vibes. I have a mortgage. At the same time, we treat time like we can reproduce it. We can add more of it. Time is the only expiring resource. Money can refill, it can ebb, it can flow. Time, it's just expiring inventory. Yeah, I think about that.

SPEAKER_02:

Trust me, like all day, every day. I mean, Joe and I have like literally like I used to like sleep in my car, but I've also slept on private jets. You know what I mean? Like I've been super poor and I've seen like the top 1% of the world, but my happiness didn't always like correlate with the ups and the downs. And also I can't like produce more time in the time that I'm making more money. Right. So yeah, you're totally right.

SPEAKER_00:

I guess a good thing to maybe start, if you want to give listeners actionables and some toolkits and stuff like that, the things that we really work on sharing with folks is how to find that urgency, how to visualize what you want. Because a lot of people like myself, when I was young, even though you have urgency, a lot of people haven't even taken the time to figure out what it is they want to do. you know, and that's, that's something we kind of push onto the back burner. And then once you figure out what you want to do, and you couple it with that urgency, what are the steps? How do you take action? How do you, you know, start to like put things into frameworks and how do you keep yourself accountable? And, you know, what are the ways that you can increase your odds and your probabilities? So, you know, those are really like what the entire book and message are about and what we try to deliver.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I love that you all put together a literal manual. And we'll jump into some of these very practical actions that people can take. But one thing I do want to get on the table is, I actually don't think it's morbid to talk about the fact that we have an expiration date. I mean, it's just a part of this game called life, right? It doesn't last forever. And I don't think it's morbid. I actually think it's incredibly helpful to memento mori, right? To remember we die. I suspect that almost every single person joining us in this conversation today has lost someone too soon. I mean, Joe, you talk about what an impression it made on you when you almost lost your dad too soon, right? Too soon for him, much less you, right? And I think that almost everyone joining us in this conversation has seen someone's life get cut short. That is very, very sad, but also should help cultivate in us a spirit of appreciation for the fact that we're still here. We will all eventually expire. What are we going to do with the time that we have left? I actually find it very motivating. Maybe I'm sick. I feel the same, trust me. Yeah, I get charged up by that. I'm like, wait a minute, what do I want people to say at my funeral? Because this ain't it. I'm not done. Does that resonate with you?

SPEAKER_02:

Did you do the exercise at the end of the book? Because if you are thinking about the funeral stuff, you definitely should, because that's the perfect exercise.

SPEAKER_01:

I literally scanned it in, you guys. I want to share, like, I want to do the exercises in your book with my community. I want to, like, do a little book club situation. I would love to.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's do it. I'll join.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, that stuff is so, so key, you know, and it's funny, because when we ask people, this is like, this is part of like, the irony of our whole message is, everybody knows this, like, we're not telling people stuff they don't know. But nobody acts like it. That's the problem, right? We all know it. And if you ask people, like, what matters most, and you know, they'll all say, oh, experiences, and all my relationships and the things that you know, you're going to expect on those lists. But then when you see how people spend their time, it's like if you told somebody, what's the best investment I can make? And they said, Oh, it's gold. And then you look, well, what are you spending all your money on? They're like, Oh, silver. It's like, why? Like, you know, like you just said, you know, it's cool, but that's this exactly what's going on. They're like going, they're putting all their time into something else and putting it off as though they'll have more time as low as there'll always be more time to figure that out later. And that's where people get in trouble. Right. So that's what, uh, That's what the death stuff I think is really about. And that's why when people get, you know, because a lot of people do say, Oh, my God, I find that, you know, scary or morbid. And we just turn around and go, isn't it scarier to think you're going to waste your life, maybe because you didn't think about it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's funny. We actually got like a lot of we did like a survey of a bunch of our friends and family and stuff when we were making the title for the book, like the subtitle has the word die in it. And there was a lot of people that were like, don't put that word that's so negative. And well, everyone does it.

SPEAKER_01:

We're all doing it. Hide it. Your book is Experiential Billionaire, build a life rich in experiences and die with no regrets. And one of the things that you say in the book, I don't remember which one of you said it, but you said your calendar holds your real wealth. And I just think that there's a lot to consider there and how we spend our time. I thought that that was very well stated. I want to talk now about, okay, so what are we going to do about it? And one of the questions that I have for you is when we talk about living a life of adventure, and by the way, adventure for you all, it involved everything from like the seven wonders of the world to studying with monks to speeding across glaciers. Like you've done so many things that people think of when they think of adventure. I just want to make room for the folks who adventure to them might be learning Spanish, like adventure to them might be learning how to play the guitar or taking a class or visiting the coast in the same country that they live in. So I want to remind everyone that success is whatever you define and adventure is whatever you feel called to do and may very well not be doing. So with that in mind, and as everyone listening holds space for a thing they really want to do and they have nothing but excuses and roadblocks as to why they're not able to do it, what role, as we think about adventures and having a more playful, adventurous life, what role does radical accountability play in moving toward the life that you want because that is a concept I talk about a lot and I've never seen it really applied in this way.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I can speak really directly to that. That was a big turning point in my life. You know, when I was younger, I actually, I got kicked out of high school. And this is before my dad's heart transplant or any of that. And I had been really good at making excuses about why everything wasn't my fault. And, you know, up until then, I just kind of was skating by. And that moment was the moment where I kind of finally was like, for the first time in my life caught holding the bag where I was like, Oh, wait, like, my excuses don't actually matter. Like my life is going down this path that I don't want it to go down. Because I'm letting I'm basically just kind of like, you know, letting the tides move me around. And I decided to try something different and take you know, radical responsibility and accountability for my life. And I decided to try to make up a whole year of high school and get back into high school in time to graduate in my senior year. And I did, I was able to do that. And that was really empowering, because it taught me that I am in control much, and I think we all are much, much more than we think, right? And I think that idea of accountability is something that it's just so much easier for us to say, we can't control her. It's too hard, or these are things that this isn't me, or all of the things that the excuses we heard in our study where I don't have time, I don't have money, I don't have the, I don't know how to start or whatnot. But once you just decide like this is what I want, and you give yourself like some boundaries and say like this is something I'm going to, I'm going to start doing things about it. You can make magic happen, you can actually You know, some tools that we use in the book, for instance, is we tell someone else like, hey, you know, this is a goal that I have, you know, I want you to check in with me, because getting an accountability partner will raise the chances of you achieving a goal or following through 65%. And if you have like specific follow up appointment, it raises it to 95%. I mean, those are crazy numbers, you know. If you had a 95% chance of winning the lottery, would you play? Yeah, you would play, of course, right? So by doing those types of things, and then taking it and saying, okay, like, you know, again, another example for me is like, when I wanted to go skydiving, I told three friends, we picked a date six weeks in the future, we saved up the money, and we went, but we put it on the calendar, right? There was accountability, there was a couple other people we committed to. And we did it. And I know tons and tons of people that throughout my life have said, I want to go skydiving that have never gone. But you just have to have that accountability because nobody else can really make you start that.

SPEAKER_01:

And nothing is as motivating as witnessing your own progress. So that's why I just always encourage people to just start with the smallest thing they can think of, because the internets would have you buy into the idea that it has to be absolutely radical action, burn the boats, jump off the building and knit the parachute in the air. And I'm like, what if? What if you just did the smallest thing and then the next day you did the next thing and then the next day you did the next thing? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

And we have an exercise in the book that's called low to high ROI. And it's exactly that. It's like breaking down, like say your goal in life is to like go to Italy, right? And like do a road trip around Italy. So it'd take you through an exercise that's like, what's the first step that you can take like today? It doesn't have to be like buy plane tickets, right? It's like figure out when you want to go and then like figure out a plan on like, you know, maybe you can like download Duolingo and like start learning a couple words of like, you know, Italian or maybe you figure out like what Italian wine you like or what, you know, region you want to go to or just like little things and like along the way to that big experience, you're learning things, you're gaining these small experiences on the way. Even if you never go to Italy, say something happens and you'd never go, you're going to have all these little things on the way that's making you a more interesting person, a more fulfilled person, and just a well-rounded human being in a way.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and what you actually nailed it on the head Ella, when you said that, you know, some people's adventure might be taking a class or learning a language or an instrument or playing a sport. That was the vast majority of the top answers in our, in our study, when we actually asked 20,000 people what they wanted most to do in life. Those were the things it wasn't climb Mount Everest. It wasn't stay in overwater bungalows in the Maldives. It was literally, I've always wanted to do something that was really attainable and it just needed some small steps. So.

SPEAKER_02:

A lot of people said music. I think the number one answer is, what do you want to learn? They said a musical instrument was number one, and then a language was number two. So you nailed it when you said Spanish or guitars. That's literally what 20,000 people said.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I don't know if this is a distinctly American tendency, but I'd be willing to bet that it largely is. In our defense, so to speak, we are programmed for accomplishment and achievement. You know, we are told that this is the linear path to success at all costs. Exactly. And I bought into that for years and years and years. And a few years ago, and I find this deeply ironic because you have an entire chapter on the power of play. And a few years ago, I sort of looked around and took stock. And I was like, I don't know when the last time I had fun was. And by the way, like, I'm a good time. So I was like, I don't recall the last time I just had like, just fun and held my sides from laughing, which I actually feel sad for that person. It was me, but I feel sad for past me because that's insane. I don't know how long I had been on that train where that statement was true. I don't know. It's not true anymore because I really committed to bringing more play and adventure into my life. Can we talk a little bit about the power of play, what you mean by that, and what it looks like in real life? Because I think every adult needs a reminder.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, I am like a big kid. Like I love this stuff. This was one of my, maybe my favorite chapter to write in the book because it was just like, I was like giggling the whole time. And when we were going through the process of writing this book, we were actually going through a lot of really terrible things in our lives and like our personal lives. So this gave it like levity and like made, made it really fun to write. But, um, Yeah, I like to think about how, like, one day in your past, you know, you had, like, the last sleepover with your childhood friends and you just, like, didn't realize it, right? And the last time you played hide-and-seek or, like, you played a prank on someone or had a snowball fight or whatever. And it's like, why? Like, why did you stop doing that, A? And, like, B, you didn't even realize that, like, that was the last time, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no one gives you a memo the last time you climb a tree. No.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's like, but why did you even stop? Right. Because people are like, you're afraid of being judged or whatever. It's like, so dumb. So in our survey, one of my favorite questions was, um, what's an experience you did as a child that you'd like to do again? And like, why did you stop? And can you still do it? And I think that a lot of, I liked a lot of those answers because it was like, It was just really easy stuff. Like none of it was like expensive. None of it was like, you know, hard to do. It was like, I miss staying up all night and telling ghost stories with my friends or like, you know, I miss like playing laser tag or playing like I spy on a road trip. It's like, okay, you can literally do that today. So one of our exercises in that chapter is like, find one thing you like to do as a kid and go do it like this week. And the through line on all of these answers is that they were all free or cheap, but they were so memorable that those people remembered them maybe 50 years later, right after they did them. So I thought that that was really fascinating. But I think it's really important. It's just it's memories, you know, like you do fun things like I do this thing with my friends every Christmas that like we go I've it's five of us and we go to the Burbank Mall and we sit on Santa's lap and we take a picture and we're like all in our late 30s. I mean, like it's ridiculous, but we've been doing it. This is our 14th year in a row of doing it with the same people and we do the same formation. So like I remember that like I look forward to it every year because it's like obviously we're the only ones in line that are adults, A. And B, it's like, now I have 14 pictures of my close friends over 14 years that I can see how we've changed. Obviously people have had families and career changes and whatever, but we're still like, we intentionally play every year together on that day. And I think that's really important to intentionally play.

SPEAKER_01:

Will you both humor me? I want us each to share a few ways we can play because I want to inspire people. I think that some people are so out of touch with this concept that nothing's even springing to mind. And of course, you have exercises to walk people through that. But if you'll humor me, let's just share a few. You just shared one. I'll share that I started rollerblading. I am terrible at it. I don't know how people do that well. I still don't. But it makes me feel like a little kid to do it. I want to have like a water gun fight. So I'm going to buy like I'm going to invest what like $20 in getting really.

SPEAKER_02:

I just did that. That's so funny. Like recently, over the summer, I like got an earful. Like, this is all accessible.

SPEAKER_01:

We can do this sort of thing. You know, I will not pass, if I'm going for a run, I will not pass like a jungle gym or anything like that without playing on it for just a second, because I can. Because I don't want that memo that's like, hey, Ella, this is your last day. Like, this is the last time you climbed a tree. I will still climb a tree. I want to have a party where everyone wears their, the bridesmaids dress or wedding dress they have in their closet. And at the end of the party, I want to jump in a pool.

SPEAKER_02:

I did this party where it was a baked potato party, and it was a black tie baked potato party so that everyone had to wear the nicest thing in their closet. And we had a baked potato bar, and it was so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01:

Jill, how have you played recently?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so I'm well, there's two things. First of all, I still skateboard, I still bike, I mountain bike, I do all kinds of that kind of stuff. But I also have kids. So I'm playing all day every day. Like, I'm always on the jungle gym, first of all, like I, I'm never not playing with my kids when, like when they I see other dads out with the kids. The other dads aren't in the tree. I'm in the tree. I'm the first one in the tree. I'm like, hey, kids, let's go in the tree. Everybody always laughs at me because I'm always playing with the kids. But I think that there's a lot of other ways, like you said, to do theme parties, do whatever you can think of that is a ridiculous way to, as an adult, that you would think might be funny to act. That's a green light that's telling you that that's what you should be doing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I love the story in the book about so I, I made over the pandemic my one of my many projects was making my own wine, and I love like natural wine so I was like that would be fun to do. But I didn't want to like just do that I wanted to like make it like into like this play thing so I once it was done and I wanted people to like come over for a tasting. I made everyone write a jingle for like this fake wine brand that I had, and like literally like It was one of the most fun nights of my life because everyone was just being silly and like, you know, we're in our 30s and 40s and like, they're just like up there singing and dancing about like this fake wine brand.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, but did you make them sign over the IP just in case?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I should have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I just was with some friends and they, they literally, we got a piece of construction paper and we created a customized Jeopardy game that was all about one of the friends whose birthday it was. And everyone got cowbells. That was their ringer to like, you know, guess the answers. And I mean, it took, you know, the guys that actually wrote out all the answers and stuff, probably like an hour, but it costs like $2 at a craft store to like do this. And it was so funny. Everyone was yelling and screaming. It was a huge competition. It's so easy to do that stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

It's so easy. Literally in the morning, sometimes if I'm out walking with my dog or whatever, I'll just collect rocks. Most adults do not do that. But it's just like fun to like be out in nature and like, you know, play and do things like that. Like you would do that when you were like, you know, five or whatever, like, but most people don't do that. But why, why not? It's fun. It's easy. It's free.

SPEAKER_00:

You can learn a lot from like, again, my four-year-old, like I'm learning every day. You can learn a lot from kids. Just follow, you know, watch kids, not creepily follow kids, but. Follow their lead. Yeah. If you have kids or other people's kids and you know, yes, then follow, you know, see what they're doing. But, uh, otherwise. Safety first.

SPEAKER_02:

We're not recommending following random children.

SPEAKER_00:

Not recommending solo adults in playgrounds. Not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I appreciate that because I think it's hard. I don't necessarily gravitate toward being as silly as I possibly can, but I definitely want to have fun. I don't want that part of me to die. And so for the people who feel maybe more introverted or maybe grow up Ella and Bridget and Joe, I would just encourage you to think of three ways you used to have fun or you think you could have fun and just try it. The stakes are pretty low.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's so funny. Never grow up. So I have like this photo behind me of when Joe and I were in London and we saw this thing that says never grow up and I took a picture and printed it out because I want to like remember that every single day.

SPEAKER_01:

The last thing that I really wanted to ask you about in terms of like, okay, but how to do this is you talk a lot about the role of, and there are several words we could use here, the role of your network, which to me is intimidating to some people because they're like, I haven't cultivated a network. But really, you talk about the role of community in building an intentional life, is what I would call it. And a word I'm trying to use now, instead of community even, is connection. Because at the end of the day, one thing that we are so lacking, and at the same time, benefit from just disproportionately, is connection. So your community can be three people, and it can be 30, and it can be 30,000. Could you share with me the role that you believe that community and connection plays in building the life that you want?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, man. It's the key, honestly, in so many ways to growth and, again, accountability. It really touches on everything. And it's interesting because all the things we talked about also, by the way, I just want to add in, there's science around how they actually have proven health benefits to increase your longevity, and that's having new and novel experiences, play, you know, laughter, you know, relationships though themselves, and this part here that we're talking about, connections, are so directly linked to our well-being and our longevity. But the funny thing is so much of the stuff that we talked about just now directly also relates because that's how we form connections, right? If you go have a water balloon fight with someone that you've never met before, you're probably gonna be closer friends with them than the person that you sat next to in a cubicle for a year. You're gonna be like, this is a person that I had a really like funny time with. And the same thing goes with like, you know, if you go and do a camping trip, or, you know, some kind of event where it's like, you know, some something where you're experiencing something new or hard or difficult. And the more that you do that, the more that you're able to find those people that inspire you, and that, you know, you and hopefully can, in return, inspire and you know, there's a there's a I know, we're, we're there's a platitude, I'll say, there's a saying that called, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And I really think that's powerful. I think that's something that, as you start to grow and experience things, you'll start to see, okay, like these are people I wanna be around because they're making me into this person, this version of myself that I wanna be. And I'm hopefully contributing to that as well. But it's actually the more that you, fulfill your dreams and goals around others, the more they feel empowered to fulfill their dreams and goals. And I think that that's something that just, you know, in the right community can just have endless potential.

SPEAKER_02:

It's so important to keep in touch with your community and your friends lifelong. If you look at the top regrets of the dying, one of the top three is not keeping in touch with your friends. That's something that everyone on this podcast could do today. They could think of one person that they had lost touch with and that they still think about. and just send a text, send a message on Instagram, you know, email, whatever it is, like it could take five minutes and it could honestly like reduce your regrets at the end of your life, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I think it's just really sorry. I think it's just very important to underscore the relationship between connection and building the life that you want, because a lot of people I think would find that if they reached out for connection and reached out for a community, that the consequences could very well be many more experiences, many more enriching experiences. And what's funny is the inverse is also true. I mean, you all write about this, but experiences create friendships. So if you're going out on a limb and you're joining a group and you don't really know these people, but you did some meetup or some other thing, or you came to one of my retreats, you would meet people there. But The experiences that you have create friendships and vice versa. So start with one, start with the other. But I think it's really, really helpful to point out that maybe you're sitting at home and life is feeling a little bit like it's on autopilot and you're feeling a little unplugged and you're hearing us tell you to go start a water fight with your neighbors. And I'm here to tell you that first of all, don't knock it. But secondly, just being vulnerable enough to reach out and try to form connections, that will generate experiences. Reaching out and connecting with experiences, that will generate connection. You two write about it so beautifully in this book. Where do you like people to find you? And of course, we'll make this book really easy for them to get.

SPEAKER_02:

Sure. The book is available on Amazon, of course, and experientialbillionaire.com. Joe and I also have personal sites because we do keynotes and workshops, and we have lots of good stuff, lots of content, lots of free exercises, joehuff.com and bridgethilton.com.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, guys.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.