About | Bridget Hilton

Bridget Hilton as a kid in her school photo

01.

The rock star wannabe

Flint, MichiganWhere it all began

I grew up in Flint, Michigan, dreaming of becoming a rich and famous rock star. Mansions, Ferraris, sold-out arenas. The whole MTV Cribs situation.

There was just one problem. I wasn’t particularly good at singing. Or playing guitar.

But music was everything to me. Growing up, it was my escape from bullying, loneliness, and the feeling that there had to be a bigger world out there somewhere.

I’d spend hours listening to records, staring at posters on my bedroom ceiling, and imagining a completely different life.

I even registered my first email address: rockstarwannabe@aol.com.

I had absolutely no idea how to make any of it happen.

But I started anyway.

Bridget Hilton holding The Weeknd Trilogy platinum plaque

02.

Backstage passes & big dreams

Detroit to Los AngelesThe music years

At 14, I started taking every music-related job I could find. I handed out flyers, fetched coffee at radio stations, sold band T-shirts, and cleaned up trash at concerts for $5 an hour.

By 16, I was working at major concert venues, watching some of the biggest musicians in the world perform. Being that close to something I loved made the possibilities for my own life feel bigger.

I saw what was possible in life for the first time.

Five years of hustling eventually landed me a job in a record label mailroom. A year later our office shut down, so I spent my last $100 on a one-way, two-stop, middle seat Spirit airline ticket to Los Angeles.

I worked as an assistant in the headquarters of the largest record label in the world. Suddenly, at 21 I was driving Taylor Swift to radio stations, going to happy hour with Rihanna, and attending the Grammys.

I’d made it into the music industry, and stayed there for years - getting to experience thousands of concerts, festivals, and meet and greets with my heroes.

And while there was plenty of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, there was considerably more Microsoft Excel and cubicles than I’d anticipated.

But the moments that stayed with me were the ones when fans told artists what their music had meant to them. A song had gotten them through a loss. An album had made them feel less alone.

For the first time, I felt like I had a purpose.
And that changed what my someday was.

Bridget fitting a hearing aid on a girl in Peru

Bridget and Joe at the LSTN Sound Co. booth

03.

The gift of hearing

LSTN Sound Co.One idea, 60,000 lives

One afternoon, I came across a viral video of a woman named Sloane hearing for the very first time.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

What would my life have been like without music? Without all those songs that had gotten me through the difficult years? Without the career and experiences that had changed everything?

I sent the video to my friend Joe with a crazy idea: What if we started a company that sold headphones and used the proceeds to help people hear?

Neither of us knew anything about electronics.

Two weeks later, we were on a plane to China with my $5,000 retirement savings and absolutely no idea what we were doing.

We called the company LSTN. Very literal.

Our first office was my apartment. Our packaging was handmade. Our furniture included a cardboard box masquerading as a desk.

But almost exactly one year after watching that video, we found ourselves in a school in Peru, helping a young girl named Maria hear for the first time.

I’ll never forget the look on her face.

That moment changed my life.

Over the next decade, our little company sold millions of products, partnered with brands like Delta and Google, and helped give the gift of hearing to more than 60,000 people around the world.

I never became a rock star. But over the next decade, one person and place at a time, I helped more than 60,000 people hear for the first time. Enough to fill an arena several times over. And that was better than anything I’d originally dreamed of.

Bridget Hilton at home holding Experiential Billionaire

Bridget Hilton and Joe Huff signing copies of Experiential Billionaire

Experiential Billionaire on a Times Square billboard

04.

A different kind of billionaire

Experiential BillionaireThe book that started with a question

For years, my cofounder Joe and I had a running joke that we were billionaires.

Not financial billionaires. We were usually putting every dollar we made right back into the company - or giving it away.

But we’d traveled to extraordinary places, met remarkable people, and experienced things we never could have imagined growing up.

We called ourselves experiential billionaires.

Then COVID happened. Our business slowed down. Our hearing missions stopped. And a series of personal challenges left me in one of the darkest periods of my life.

Then, one day, an email arrived. It was from Maria’s mother.

The young girl we’d helped hear in Peru years earlier had just graduated from high school and earned a scholarship to university. She was the first person in her family to go.

I sat there crying.

One decision we’d made years earlier had created a ripple we never could have predicted.

And it made me wonder: What if I could help more people experience the extraordinary things that can happen when they pursue what matters to them?

For years, Joe and I had been saying we wanted to write a book about what actually made our lives rich.

Someday.

Inspired by this ripple that had found its way back to us, we started. But instead of writing chapters, we started asking questions.

I asked my 89-year-old grandfather what had been most valuable in his lifetime. Without hesitation, he told me about a road trip he’d taken with my grandmother before she passed away.

Not a promotion. Not a possession. An experience with someone he loved.

We kept asking. Friends, family, strangers. Eventually, we surveyed 20,589 people around the world about their experiences, dreams, and regrets.

And one word kept appearing.

Someday.

People weren’t necessarily regretting the things they’d tried and failed at. They were regretting the things they’d never gotten around to doing.

Those conversations and discoveries became our book, Experiential Billionaire.

Bridget Hilton on stage in front of the Make Someday Today slide

Bridget Hilton laughing with Sir Richard Branson on a Virgin Atlantic panel

Bridget Hilton speaking on the red circle at TEDx Temecula

05.

Make Someday Today

The next chapterHelping other people get started

So why do so many of us keep postponing their dreams?

The research revealed something I couldn’t ignore. Most people were carrying dreams they’d had for years, sometimes decades, without taking meaningful action toward them.

They were stuck in the gap between dreaming and doing.

And I recognized that gap.

I’d experienced it myself. I’d also learned that you don’t need to have everything figured out to begin.

You just need to take the first step.

Today, I travel the world speaking to audiences about what I’ve learned from building businesses, helping people hear, and studying the dreams and regrets of more than 20,000 people.

My keynote, Make Someday Today, combines storytelling, humor, research, and a practical five-step framework to help people move from intention to action.

But my favorite part isn’t what happens onstage.

It’s what happens afterward.

When someone finally books the trip. Starts the business. Makes the call. Reconnects with someone they love. Takes a chance on something they’ve been putting off for years.

Because I’ve learned that the most extraordinary things in life rarely begin with extraordinary circumstances.

They begin with ordinary people deciding to start.

And sometimes, that one small decision creates a ripple that changes everything.