What began as a spontaneous road trip for Ben Nemtin has evolved into a 20-year journey exploring meaning and fulfilment.
As he will tell conference delegates, his turning point came during college when he experienced depression for the first time. “I’d put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed in school and sport; but I dropped out of school, got dropped from the national rugby team, and shut myself in my parents’ house,” he recalls. He found that surrounding himself with people energized him and so, with a few friends, he decided to go on a journey that would change his life. Together, the group of friends “begged, borrowed and stole” to get their two-week roadtrip off the ground.
They also compiled a wishlist of things that seemed impossible – resolving that for each one they pulled off they had to help a stranger achieve a seemingly impossible dream.
The first challenge Nemtin undertook was to spend a day living as a knight in a full suit of armor, walking around Victoria, BC. It led the group to the second item on the list, which was to make the front page of the newspaper. They were spotted by a photographer and, sure enough, the next day they were on the front page.
Two decades on, he has achieved many things for himself and others as part of what would become The Buried Life movement, which he went on to found with his friends. As word-of mouth made their list more public, they had strangers getting in touch offering to help them achieve their list and sharing their own dreams.
“It was really a list of experiments to discover what things brought us back to ourselves, what made us feel alive. It was a list of all the things that would bring us a sense of purpose and we moved towards that potential,” he says.
The philosophy behind this, he says, and everything that has followed, is straightforward: growth comes from connecting to purpose.
Nemtin argues that purpose shapes wellbeing as well as performance, impacting longevity, resilience, and productivity. He points to research suggesting that those with a strong sense of purpose not only live longer but bounce back quicker from illness.
For him, happiness is, as Harvard lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar defines it, the feeling that comes from moving towards one’s potential. “As human beings we are not happy if we are stagnant or stuck. We are happy in motion and ultimately that happiness comes from moving towards our true self or our potential. When you move towards purpose you are moving towards a thing that energizes you to be your true self.”
The buried life
That doesn’t mean throwing everything out and changing your life completely, he adds: “I think we can all identify the things that are important to us that get buried by the day-to-day.” Citing a poem by Matthew Arnold called The Buried Life he explains how we need to give more time to our dreams. “We get these moments when we’re inspired, but then the day-to-day buries it and we forget about it and we continue to push them until it’s too late.”
So, what is the key to pulling off seemingly impossible feats? “You take small steps, you don’t try to achieve it all in one go,” he says. “Over time those actions start to deliver real momentum.”
Be accountable
One thing that’s essential is a relentless belief that you can reach your goal. “Sometimes you can’t imagine yourself achieving something – and you won’t until you get there.”
Step one is simply to write it down to make it real and step two is to share it. “You’re trying to build accountability around this,” he says. “A dream doesn’t have a deadline so if you don’t build accountability you may never do it.”
This is not about climbing Everest or jumping out of a helicopter, but following your true course. “It is not about the completion – if you think that, then it will be underwhelming; this is really about proving
to yourself that you can do these things.”
“You look at other people when they do impressive things and say, ‘They are better than me, smarter than me,’ when they are actually the same, they just acted in spite of the fear.”
At the Conference he will share tangible, actionable steps with delegates to help them achieve dreams and goals that feel impossible. “I want delegates to leave re-energized around the positive impact of the work they do. I want to ground them in their purpose and the ‘why’ of the work they do, but also help them create life-harmony that encourages them to be able to do their best work by taking the time to do things they love outside work.”
Ultimately, he believes, the real risk is not failure but inaction; the goal is to take action so you don’t regret. “You don’t want to get to the end of your life thinking that you did not live a life that you wanted – that you lived the life you thought you should,” he says. For Nemtin, the biggest regrets come not from what people do, but from what they never attempt.
Tina Nielsen
