On a Living Spree

As pandemic restrictions started to loosen a little, I was overjoyed to find my pod of friends interested in doing all sorts of new activities—tie-dying clothes, teaching ourselves to roll sushi, hosting Connect Four tournaments, fermenting and labeling our own hot sauce and pickles, and sneaking out to Venice Beach at midnight to swim in the bioluminescent waves. As bad as the pandemic was in many ways, seeing others try new things with people they love was a bright spot, a small glimpse of what life should be like.

These experiences gave me natural bursts of serotonin and dopamine—feel-good hormones—that jolted me out of my depression temporarily. The novelty forced me to pay close attention to the task at hand, leaving little room to dwell on the past or worry about the future. And when I succeeded at something new, it helped build my confidence and courage.

My personal experience aligns perfectly with scientific research. The evidence states that simply being more present by doing something new stimulates and activates regions of our brain that improve our mood.

One day in your past, you had the last sleepover with your childhood friends, you just didn’t realize it. The last time you played hide and seek. The last time you pranked your parents. The last time you had a snowball fight. But why?

We asked 20,000 people, “What’s an experience you did as a child that you’d love to do again?”

Have the “best day ever” with your partner, close family member, or best friend. What would your best day ever look like? Write down and plan a list of as many fun activities you can fit into one day as possible. Document and share it to inspire others to do their own “best day ever.” For a decade, my business partner Joe's email signature ended with “Have the best day ever,” which always reminded me and our co-workers to have more days like this. 

When did you stop playing? And by playing, I mean doing something just for fun, with no goals or expectations about the outcome. Even if it’s a game with winners and losers, the result doesn’t matter, and your aim isn’t to get better over time. It’s just to enjoy. (Consuming entertainment doesn’t count—real play involves your active engagement, beyond just watching a screen or turning the page.)

As a kid, practically all you wanted to do was play. Every other activity (school, homework, chores, family dinner) was something you had to get through so you could go play. 

But little by little, other things became more important. It’s not just that you now spend more (or most) of your time making sure bills get paid, people get taken care of, chores get done, etc. There’s been a social and psychological shift in priorities, too. Society expects adults to be productive, responsible, and serious; play is a luxury reserved for children. So, you might feel like it’s immature to play, and other people would judge you for it. And the less you play, the less exercise your imagination gets, and the more focused you become on practical matters—perpetuating the downward spiral of playtime.

The Light Show Episode 177: Show Notes

Is the pursuit of monetary abundance leaving you unsatisfied? Are you worried about having regrets in life? In this episode, we embark on an incredible journey with Bridget Hilton and Joe Huff, the authors of the inspiring book, Experiential Billionaire. While they're not actual billionaires, their wealth lies in the extraordinary experiences they've pursued.

Join us as we uncover the profound impact of experiences on their lives and how these experiences have made them wealthy in more ways than one. Bridget and Joe are far from privileged individuals. Hailing from blue-collar backgrounds in Flint, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois, they initially followed conventional career paths.

Photos and small souvenirs allow us to powerfully relive moments, especially in times when you need to cultivate gratitude. This is our physical bank of memories. But often they get stuck in our phones, computers, or storage never to be seen again. Making the effort to organize these memories and display them where you live is worth doing. Save the memory, and one day, the memory may save you.

The secret to strong bonds lies in shared experiences, especially novel ones. With yourself, your romantic partner, kids, parents, roommates, your ride-or-die, buddies, classmates, colleagues. It doesn’t matter. People are people, and experiencing new things brings us together in a...

When you’re in fight-or-flight mode, everything you do or don’t do teaches the brain something about the perceived threat. When you avoid or flee the situation, your brain experiences a wave of relief. The amygdala learns that avoiding that situation is how you stay safe from that threat.

This is exactly how you want the brain to respond if the threat is a grizzly bear. But what if the perceived threat is something less biologically adaptive, like a worry about being judged or teased?

In this enlightening podcast episode, we dive into how what people thought was a social good company that made millions of dollars, it started the journey of writing the book, Experiential Billionaire, and sharing the profound wisdom of living life with a sense of urgency and living a life rich in experiences. Discover powerful insights on seizing opportunities, transforming dreams into reality, and navigating life's unexpected turns.

In life, most of us experience some sort of unexpected wake-up calls, such as personal challenges or crises. This can profoundly alter one's perspective and priorities. These unforeseen events have the potential to reshape life's trajectory, pushing individuals to seek more meaningful experiences. We go into things that most people talk about wishing they would have done with their life and the excuses they made so that you can live a life that has no regrets!

Joe Huff and Bridget Hilton’s transformational workshop takes attendees through a powerful and entertaining half day focused on all the ways companies, teams and leaders can unlock powerful results and untapped human potential by learning how to identify and prioritize investing in fulfilling experiences.

Told through engaging real life experiences and backed by science, their stories energize, inspire, and provide the tools and habits necessary for attendees to learn how to find peak inspiration, build deeper and more meaningful connections with their teams and co-workers, overcome burnout, optimize individual and team performance, and cultivate strong feelings of fulfillment, community, belonging and wellbeing.

Thanks Ethan for having me on! One of my favorite chats. 

Bridget Hilton is co-author of the "Experiential Billionaire" book, which was just released. Her backstory is fascinating, and jumps from helping launch the careers of artists like Rihanna, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift, to shifting into founding the first ever social good electronics company which helped more than 50,000 people receive the gift of hearing for the first time.

 

One of my favorite parts of travel is the level of optimism and gratitude I feel in the moment and more importantly afterward. I saw this clearly on a recent trip to India. After battling cows on Delhi freeways, waking up at 4 a.m. to be alone at the Taj Mahal, and meditating at Gandhi’s ashram, I headed to Mumbai to meet with local education and water filtration nonprofits. There I learned that the massive city was roughly 60 percent slums — millions of people living in makeshift houses of corrugated metal sheets, tarpaulin, and scrap materials. Despite the efforts of government agencies and NGOs, access to basic amenities like clean water and sanitation remained limited. Residents faced many challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, high rates of crime and drug abuse, and limited healthcare and education. The area was also prone to flooding during the monsoon season, which made life even harder.