Ben Nemtin

There are no deadlines for our personal goals so we put them off. The irony is we forget about the ultimate deadline... 🎥 by @mattdavella – at Los Angeles, CA

I met Brian after a keynote. He explained that he has 8 lessons he lives by and that whenever he feels like he’s having a bad day, he knows it means he’s strayed from them. I really like them so I wanted to share: 1. Have a positive attitude. Make sure you’re always smiling and looking for the good. 2. Be on time. If you’re not early, you’re late. 3. Be prepared. Know what your day requires and make sure you’re ready for it. 4. Work a full 8 hours, or as long as it takes to hit your goals. 5. Talk to everyone. Don’t prejudge anybody. You don’t know who they are or what they’re going through, so just be a positive impact on the person. 6. Protect your attitude. Protect number one. People will try to bring you down or cancel your goals. They’ll try to find negative things to look at. Don’t let them. 7. Know why you’re here and what you’re doing it for. Have a purpose, something bigger than money. 8. Take control of your life and your situation. One of the last things he told me was that when you have all 8 of those for 8 hours every day, you'll have success. And when you don't have success throughout your day, look at those 8 steps, find which ones you're skipping, and put them into practice. If you can’t tell from the photo, Brian had great energy. He’s such a positive and kind guy, and his lessons are a great example of how to stay anchored when life tries to pull you off course.

The first item I ever crossed off my bucket list was #44: Be a knight for the day. Twenty years ago, my friends and I set out to rent a suit of armor we’d found. Although we didn’t have the cash, I did manage to convince a friend who managed a restaurant to give me a gift card that we were able to trade for two hours with the armor. So with a full 50-pound suit of armor in hand, we drove to downtown Victoria. My friends helped me armor up in the RV, and practically the moment I clanked out onto the streets of Victoria, a six-year-old boy (plastic sword in hand, his mother beside him) caught sight of me and ran right over. He didn’t say a word. He just knelt down and lowered his head. So I did as any proper knight would do: I knighted him. After I did, he kept looking up at me, slightly in awe of what had just happened, with the same look he has in the newspaper photo below. The next day, we made the front page of the newspaper, and I crossed another item (#40) off my list: Make the front page of the newspaper. During a recent keynote for the Victoria Foundation in my hometown of Victoria, BC, I shared this story. Someone spoke up and told the room that the boy I’d knighted was there. I could hardly believe it. Diego, or rather Sir Diego, is now 26. We spoke after the keynote. And he told me that he had no idea who was underneath that armor or that I’d be speaking that day. He recounted how his mom had saved the newspaper clipping and would remind him that he’d been knighted. He shared how, growing up, he’d think back to his knighting when he was nervous or afraid. I’m still processing this moment of serendipity. I knew what that day had meant to me: It was the very first item we crossed off, and it kicked off the momentum that went on to carry us for the next decade on the greatest adventures of our lives. I was nervous to step out as a knight. People were looking at me. It was awkward. But I know now that’s where the magic happens: just outside of your comfort zone. And I had no idea that the same moment was one a boy with a plastic sword would draw courage from years later. You don’t always see the effects your actions have. Meeting Diego was a rare privilege and a reminder that a moment in your life might become a memory that someone else draws on for years to come.

18 keynotes in September made me realize one thing: sometimes you’re just in a busy season in life, so hang on! Last month was a lot of travel. A lot of last minute flights and uber rides. At one point, I had 4 in-person keynotes in 48 hours in 3 cities. I did my best to find some ways to stay centered, or at least as centered as possible. I facetimed with the family. (Violet just learned to recognize me on camera, and did a great job catching me up on her favorite toys.) I snuck in a run between flights and did push-ups in my hotel room. And I gave my first-ever keynote in my hometown of Victoria, BC. But the people I met during each of my stops also fueled me. There was Brian, who shared with me the 8 lessons he lives life by. A woman who told me she did a Bucket List Journal birthday, and her and her friends filled out their journals together. I got to learn about people's dreams as they wrote on a dream wall, and watch them light up as they tapped into the excitement and emotion that comes with taking that first step of making your dreams real: sharing it. Sometimes life really does move too fast, and there’s nothing you can really do about it. You just have to ride it out. If you can’t pause in the middle of a whirlwind, pause afterward and look back. You might be surprised by how many meaningful moments were tucked into the chaos.

Just left for a 10-day speaking trip. First stop: Boston. 30 minutes into the flight, we turned around due to maintenance. I jumped on another flight, landed at midnight, had a 2-hour drive to the venue, then was up at 6:45 am for an AV check. It wasn’t the fresh start I imagined, but I had the adrenaline that comes with 4 hours of sleep and my pre-show meditation to look forward to, which somehow, no matter how little sleep I get, always gets me ready to go. I signed some Bucket List Journals, found a quiet spot to meditate, reviewed some of the custom content we had created for the client, and then it was showtime. With minutes to go, I readied myself in the wings and reviewed my opening lines. The first minute is always important because it sets the tone for everything that follows. 30 seconds out, my mind always goes to gratitude for the rare opportunity to have the attention of a room full of people and maybe impact a few of their lives. It was an awesome hour. Everyone was present, and I could see a few tears. I’m trying to be more honest and more myself on stage. The more I do this, the more I realize that being yourself is what builds trust, and trust is what gives you a chance to actually move people. After the talk, I had a chance to connect with some folks, and then I was off to catch my next flight (and hopefully a bit more sleep). 18 keynotes in September means a lot of airports, late nights, early mornings and tired days. But I wouldn’t trade it. No matter how tired I am when I walk into a room, I pour everything I have into the audience. Somehow, they give it right back, and I walk off stage more energized than I walked on, reminded of what’s possible and grateful I get to do this for a living.

We all feel fear. But we watch the people we admire doing the things we want to do and we assume they don't feel the anxiety that stops us. We think they're different. And perhaps they are. But that difference may be that when their fear creeps in, they act in the face of it. They understand that fear doesn’t always mean they’re on the wrong path. Sometimes they're scared because they care about the outcome and it's impossible to know how it'll go. And they accept some discomfort as the tax they pay to go after their dreams.

18 keynotes this month. There are going to be plenty of moments when I miss a flight, I’m exhausted, I miss home, or I’m just not feeling it. But the second I get in a room with people thinking about what they really want from their lives, something changes. Watching someone get excited about a dream they’ve buried, or decide they’re finally going to take one small step toward it, fires me right back up. It’s hard to explain. It feels like magic.

Honestly The Buried Life didn’t start as anything. I was in a bad place and a friend sent this old poem called The Buried Life, about the life underneath the life you’re actually living, and it struck a chord. We didn’t sit down and plan a company or a show or any of that. We just started writing a list. A hundred things we wanted to do before we died. And we made one rule for ourselves: for every thing we crossed off our own list, we’d help a stranger cross something off theirs. We borrowed an RV, grabbed a camera none of us really knew how to use, and told ourselves it was going to be a two-week trip. It turned into summers. We had no money, slept an old RV, eventually got sponsors on board, upgraded to a 1966 purple transit bus and were fueled by people helping us. Somewhere in there a network offered us a deal to put it on TV and we said no, because the second we handed over control it stopped being ours, and the whole point was never to make something - it was just to feel alive again. People found us online before anyone official did. And eventually the MTV show happened, then a book, and it did better than we ever thought it would, but none of that was the plan. It was never the plan. The plan was just: follow the thing that’s pulling you even when it makes zero sense, even when everyone around you thinks you’re wasting your time. That mindset led us on an adventure of a lifetime, taught me my greatest lessons and led me to the life I’m living today. I still think about how all started because four broke friends followed a pull nobody could explain, before any of it made sense.

At a recent keynote, a client and I decided we'd encourage families to join. The turnout was incredible. I love it when families are in the room. Something shifts. Kids start to tell their parents what they actually want to do with their lives. Parents say out loud things they haven't said in years. And sometimes a whole family lands on something they want to do together. Most of us never stop long enough to have that conversation. The day to day just keeps moving. Work, school, practice, dinner, repeat. There's rarely a moment where someone says, okay, what do we actually want here? That’s what these conversations were: a chance to be intentional about how you’re spending your time, before more of it goes by. At the end of the event, we had a Dream Wall where everyone could write down one of their dreams. Avery here was so excited that she wrote down four: 1. Go to every continent 2. Bungee jump off a cliff 3. Live in another country 4. Run a marathon As you can tell from the photo, her energy was electric, the kind that shows up when you've tapped into dreams that really excite you. What I love about that wall is that writing something down makes it real and saying it out loud to someone makes it even more real. Those are two of the easiest steps you can take toward anything you want, and Avery took both in about thirty seconds. Now her family knows. Which means they can help. When a family hears each other's dreams out loud, separate wishes become something everyone can get behind. Avery, keep following your energy.

At 22, I dropped out of university because I was struggling with depression. I felt disconnected from myself and had no idea what I was supposed to do with my life. 3 of my friends were feeling lost too. One night, we asked each other a simple question: What do you want to do before you die? We wrote down 100 dreams. Then we borrowed an old RV, bought a camera on eBay, called ourselves The Buried Life and set out to cross off as many as we could. For every dream we accomplished, we promised to help a stranger accomplish one of theirs. Our goal: film a documentary to show our friends. We had Motorola Razrs in our pockets and social media wasn’t a thing. There was no business plan. No audience. No guarantee it would become anything. We were four friends with a list, a camera and a desire to feel alive again. We started with whatever we could do ourselves: We kicked a field goal at a stadium. We started a dance in a public place. We helped a guy get his first truck so he could start a business. Then the project took on a life of its own. People heard about our list and they’d email us offering help. They'd ask for help with their dreams too. So, we kept going, fueled by the response. Years later, the impossible things on our list began becoming real. “Make a TV show” became a series on MTV. “Sit down with Oprah” became a conversation with Oprah. “Write a bestselling book” became a #1 NYT bestseller. But the greatest thing that came from that list wasn’t crossing things off. It was that, at the lowest point in my life, a list of things I cared about gave me a reason to move forward. One dream led to one small action. That action created momentum. And that momentum changed the entire direction of my life. It taught me that the life you want is in your hands; you just have to be brave enough to go get it.

Life doesn’t change in big moments It changes quietly One less bedtime One less family dinner One less easy weekend Then suddenly that thing you thought would always be there, is different… or it’s gone. This part of your life won’t last, so don’t rush through it while it’s still here.

A Harvard study found that how often you eat with other people predicts happiness as much as income does. I absolutely love that. It’s so simple. It’s not a life hack.
It’s not a productivity system.
It’s not another thing to optimize. It’s just sitting down with people you care about and sharing a meal. But modern life makes that feel harder than it should. We work through lunch.
We eat alone.
We say we’re too busy. And slowly, life starts to feel a little thinner. I’m always texting friends last minute: “Are you free for a quick lunch?” And every time we make it happen, it changes my day. I leave energized and connected. So this week, ping a friend and chow down together.

Six years ago, I spoke at Fidelity. Last week, they brought me back. After my talk, Justin (the guy in the photo) told a story on stage. He shared how, six years ago, one of his most important clients approached him after the talk with tears in her eyes. She gave him a huge hug and thanked him for bringing me in. I watched from the side of the stage as Justin told the room how much the talk had meant to her. “That moment changed everything,” he said. “It created a level of trust and connection that went far beyond business. Six years later, they are still one of our greatest clients." The story made me smile. In business, we spend a lot of time on what we can measure: revenue, growth, earnings... This all matters. But none of it is why that client hugged Justin with tears in her eyes. When people feel heard, they open up. When they open up, they trust. And trust is what every business relationship is actually built on. You never know how far one honest moment will travel. For Justin, it’s six years and counting.

If you’re waiting to feel ready, you’ll be waiting a long time. This is something we all do. And as someone who used to do a whole lot of this, I’ll tell you the secret: Just take the leap. At the very least, you won’t have to wonder “What if?"

Keynote in Aruba! And of all places, I ran into some familiar faces. It was a family who saw me speak at an event a year ago. Everyone at that event got a Bucket List Journal where they wrote down their dreams, then shared them with their family. And this family got to work. They committed to taking a family trip every year. Last year they went to Italy. They lit up when they told me about their trip, of long, talkative meals at local trattorias and wandering walks home through hill towns at dusk. They built memories that will last a lifetime. This year they’re going to Argentina and they couldn’t be more excited. While I’m always grateful for the places speaking takes me, conversations like these are what truly stay with me. Meeting this family reminded me how talking about your list can lead to life-changing experiences, new traditions, and meaningful conversations with people who matter. And it all starts when you take time to write down what you want and share it with the people who mean the most.

Sometimes I get stuck in my own head and fall into the trap of overthinking. But the thing that always pulls me out: awe. This past weekend I had a keynote in Vail and brought the family. We went hiking in the mountains and my problems immediately felt small. Professor Keltner, the director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab, often talks about how awe and wonder can transform your life. The gist is that when you're stressed, your world shrinks. Your inbox feels like your whole life. Your entire future feels like it rides on one conversation. So, you try to think your way out. You plan and replay and analyze, again and again and again... But no matter how many times you repeat that cycle, you still find yourself stuck inside the same tiny world where every problem overwhelms you. Awe opens a window. A huge sky. The ocean. A mountain. Someone being unexpectedly kind. For a second, your brain remembers: You're not the whole story. And your problems shrink back to scale. The next time you're stuck in your head, look at the sky (but not the sun) for 60 seconds. Try anything that makes you feel small in the best way. It won't solve your problem, but the perspective can help it stop being the size of your whole life, because (even if it sometime feels like it) it never is.

There’s a strange thing that happens when we get close to something that matters. The conversation we need to have. The risk we need to take. The work we keep putting off. Fear shows up. And when it does, our instinct is often to move away from it. This is avoidance. The problem is that the breakthrough you want is, more often than not, buried in the task you're avoiding. This is because, as modern anxiety research teaches us, avoidance isn't necessarily a side effect of fear, rather it's an engine that keeps our fear running. As mentioned, when you feel threatened by something and avoid it, your distress drops. And while you might feel better in the moment, your brain registers this avoidance as a reward. The trap is that when you let the fear stop you from taking that action (that you probably know, deep down, you really should be doing), you've just taught yourself that you can't confront the situation. Worse still, you've made it harder to face this fear the next time. To put it more succinctly: The relief itself is the trap. The solution lies in teaching yourself that you can feel anxious, you can feel fear and doubt and anxiety and still do the thing. Each time you do this, you generate new evidence that tells you (and your body) that you can feel the fear and move past it. Because you can. You can create that evidence. But it can only be done by doing the thing you're afraid of.

The life you want is usually hiding behind the truth you keep avoiding.

I’m so excited to be a part of LEAD Conference Canada this year. I rarely get the opportunity to speak at public events, and the fact that this is back home in Canada makes it extra special. If you can make it, I’d love to see you there. corliss.ca/LEAD2026

You’re probably not burned out from big problems. You’re burned out from tiny ones you ignore. It’s not the breakup. It’s not losing the big client. It’s the traffic. The spam call. The small argument you never reset from. These “little hassles” don’t feel dangerous… but they quietly stack all day long. And your body keeps score. A Berkeley study found that these daily hassles predicted people’s physical health a year later better than major life events. Why? Because your stress system was built for short bursts. Threat → cortisol spike → action → reset. But small, constant stress never lets you reset. So it lingers… 20 small hassles a day = 7,000+ stress hits a year. That shows up as: Less patience. Worse sleep. Weaker immune system. And eventually… it spills onto the people you care about most. So here's what I've realized: You can’t control the big things in life. But you can control how you handle the small ones. What does that look like? Pause before you react. Don’t assume the worst in people. Let small things stay small. Ask: does this deserve my energy? Or just smile, and treat it all like a game. Because over time… It’s not the big moments that shape your life. It’s how you respond to the little ones.

The longest running study on happiness followed 3000 people since 1938, and they found two massive contributors to human happiness. It’s not more money. More status. More wins. Or more proof that their life is working. The biggest drivers of happiness were not fame or achievement. It came back to two things: Your health. And your relationships. If you take care of your physical health, your life gets better. Move your body. Eat food that loves you back. Sleep. Get checked before something’s wrong. Don’t treat your body like it is disposable. Even small efforts matter. Just 15 minutes of exercise a day has been linked to lower risk of death and a longer life. Physical activity also lowers the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. And then there’s connection. Good relationships do more than make life fun. They keep you steady. They hold you accountable. They help you through hard seasons. They make you healthier. They may even help you live longer. So much of what we chase is hidden in the basics. Take care of your body. And stay close to good people. That’s the formula.