221: Plot Twist: How a List of 100 Things Led to Unexpected Adventures and Fulfillment with Author Sebastian Terry

In this episode, Light Watkins brings you an inspiring and heartfelt Plot Twist featuring Seb Terry, an author and speaker known for his adventurous spirit and unique approach to life.

Seb's story begins with a devastating phone call informing him of a close friend's sudden death. This tragedy prompted him to reflect on his own life, leading to a pivotal moment where he realized he wasn't living fully. Seb was working tirelessly but had little to show for it. In a moment of clarity, he created a list of 100 experiences that he believed would bring him happiness and fulfillment.

Here’s what’s covered in Seb’s plot twist episode:

0:05 - Introduction

3:09 - Seb's dark night of the soul moment

4:45 - The list that changed Seb's life

6:03 - How to follow your passion AND pay the bills

9:48 - Why Seb's list is NOT a bucket list

11:48 - What's it like to visit death row

17:02 - How Seb's mission evolved as more people got involved

21:56 - Why the world conspires for you and not against you

Curious about the adventures Seb got into during his quest?? You can continue the story here.

Transcript

EPISODE 221

ST: “ No one supported me. Like no one. My mom cried when I told her. My dad's a bit of a renegade, and he was like, I get it. But still that might've been the most positive comment I got. Everyone else like that is. What about your girlfriend? What was her response? After I showed her my map on the wall of a hundred things, she looked at it and she said, are we doing this together? It wasn't like a to get away from her at all. I just knew I had the same kind of realization that I had earlier in Canada when I learned Chris passed away. And that was, I just dunno who I am. And I still did it two and a half years later, but that list that resurfaced as I saw it was my way to work it out. And that is a journey I knew I had to take by myself.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Hey friend, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins and I have conversations with ordinary folks just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. And today we have another bite size plot twist episode for you.

A plot twist is a shorter clip from a past episode where the guest shares the story of the pivotal moment in their life trajectory that led them to their path or their purpose. And the idea behind sharing these plot twists is to hopefully inspire you to lean into those plot twists whenever they happen in your life.

Because usually when you get turned around from what you thought was your path in life, what's actually happening is you're being detoured toward your actual path. And sometimes it looks like being betrayed, or getting fired or getting a divorce or in the case of author and speaker, Seb Terry's story, he gets a call one night letting him know that one of his very good friends died of an accident. And it made him start to question his own mortality and what he was doing with his life because he'd been working hours on end, but not really making a whole lot of money. He had no savings. He had no prospects of anything better coming down the pipeline.

And he got inspired to get out a piece of paper and just start writing out a list of experiences that he felt would make him happy in life. Things like visiting an inmate on death row or getting on a game show or marrying a stranger or delivering a baby. And one by one, he started to check these experiences off of his list.

And then local media found out what he was doing because he started to help other people achieve things on their list. And it all culminated into this book called 100 things. What's on your list. And the plot twist opens with Seb flat broke at the time, having his come to Jesus moment about his life and committing to doing what makes him happy. Let's listen in.

[02:50] ST: I've been working really hard for two and a half years, essentially by myself. Dave was funding the company but was working elsewhere.

I didn't have any money. I just had zero money. I guess, at that point I was 26, or 27. I just had $0. The company was paying me an amount that just got me by without – I mean, I had nothing. Dave asked me to go out for didonner one night with him for his work thing. He worked in hospitality. I went purely, because I couldn't afford to eat by myself. I ended up with this lavish dinner, really lovely. At this place, Circular Quay in Sydney, and it was Dave next to me and all his colleagues, or employees, actually. Everyone was silver service, and we're getting wine poured. It was all really lovely. It was great.

Then, I just remember looking around going, “What am I doing? I'm 27-years-old. I can't afford to buy myself a meal. Even if I could, I wouldn't be here. I'm [inaudible 00:35:55], because I need to eat.” I just got quite upset. I looked at Dave and I said, “Mate, I'm going to go.” I was getting a little emotional, but I held it together. I walked out. I went to the ferry, to get from Circular Quay to Manly, where I was living then. I missed the last ferry. Meaning, that I had to get a taxi home, which costs more.

I had to walk back into the restaurant and go, “By the way, Dave. I still am leaving, but I need money for a taxi.” He gave me money for a taxi. Then yeah, I left Circular Quay. I was going over that Sydney Harbour Bridge, and I just burst out crying. I didn't really know why, to be honest. I just burst out crying. I think, my girlfriend at the time was in the cab with me. It's funny, how you forget things. I think, my girlfriend was in there. She said, “What's wrong?” I was like, “I don't know.” We went home, had a very somber evening by myself.

The next day, I woke up. I just remembered this list that was hidden in a drawer in my room that I had forgotten about for two and a half years. I pulled my drawer open. I got my list out, my actual list of 100 things, which was there. I have never felt so motivated in my life. I went down to Humphrey’s news agency in Manly. I bought a map of the world, just a foldable map of the world. I put it on the wall, and I got 100 sticky notes and wrote every one of my goals on that and then stuck it all on the wall, on the map, to represent what I wanted to do in my life in that moment.

For the next, well that day certainly, I couldn't work. I was just looking at this thing, thinking about all these possibilities. I work really hard when something is put in front of me. I remember thinking, imagine if I just took the focus that I've got on my laptop right now, and I just moved it. I just went like that to a map on a wall that represented for me an opportunity to be happy. I thought, I would be happy. That was it. I rang up Dave. I said, “Mate, as soon as I pay the business of, I've got to leave.” He said, “Why?” I said, “I've got a list of 100 things. I've got to go and do them.” That was it.

[05:58] LW: You were broke. What was the plan then? How were you going to pay your bills? How were you going to take your girlfriend out to dinner? How are you going to get dental care?

[06:07] ST: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't think about dental care, I'll be honest. There was money in the business. Not a lot. I said to Dave, when we pay it off, as soon as we pay it, I'm happy to work for whatever I was working for at the time. It wasn't a lot. I think, he gave me a bit of a bolster each week, just so I could go and do one additional thing, perhaps. My thinking was, as soon we pay the business off, we'd have maybe a little bit extra. Susan painted. I'm not a business person, but we really paid it off in a bit more, we can take that. I think I took $8,000 from the company and we paid the business off. I think it was $8,000. It might have been $11,000. Do you know?

[06:41] LW: I don't. I just know that Dave pushed back a little bit when you told him about your plan.

[06:45] ST: Oh, yeah. He was like, “That’s stupid. You're in your late 20s. What do you mean, you're going to take off for a trip around the world? An endless trip, check off things like, skydive naked, or do an Olympic ski jump, or become an ordained wedding minister. That's ridiculous.” I tell you what, and I'm not saying this for effect. I knew. I just knew I had to do it. There was no convincing me otherwise. Because we all think we know what's good for other people. We might have some idea. If someone knows, they know. I knew. I knew. No one supported me. My mom cried when I told her. My sister –

[07:28] LW: They weren’t tears of joy.

[07:30] ST: No, they were not. They weren't for a long time. They weren't for a long time. My dad was like – he was the only one. My dad's a bit of a renegade. He was like, “Yeah, I get it.” Still, that might have been the most positive comment I got. Everyone else, that is –

[07:43] LW: What about your girlfriend? What was her response?

[07:46] ST: Well, after that night where I realized – She's great, by the way. She ended up marrying a friend of mine. She's fantastic. After I showed her my map on the wall of a 100 things, she looked at it and she said, “Are we doing this together?” I remember it wasn't to get away from her at all. I had the same realization that I had had earlier in Canada when I learned that Chris passed away. That was, I just don't know who I am. I still didn’t, two and a half years later. That list that resurfaced, as I saw, it was my way to work it out. That is a journey I knew I had to take on myself.

[08:19] LW: Talk about some of the next steps. Once you commit it to your mission, and you didn't believe in the word bucket list, because you thought that was too much associated with death, right? What were some of the first steps, such as googling pen pals in prison and things like that?

[08:37] ST: Oh, that's true. Yeah. Okay, so I committed my list. I told Dave, when we pay the company off, I've got to go. It was fine. He just as a friend was like, “That makes no sense, but sure.” Whilst in Sydney, I started thinking – I'm so action-based now. I never used to be. I was like, “What can I do? I can't leave the country yet. I got to pay the business off. What can I do for my list whilst I'm here?” I looked at my list, and I used it as a reference point from that moment on in my life.

I would go, “Right. Speed dating. I can do that in Sydney.” I went speed dating. Hilarious. I wanted to visit an inmate on death row. I just talked to someone that I would never speak to on any other occasion. I googled death row pen pals, and you can do it right now. In fact, I'm going to do it right now as I tell this story, because I keep telling people, it's this easy. I'm just going to make sure I'm not lying. I googled death row pen pals. I was met with a database. Look, globalpenfriends.com. No, actually, that's not it. That's something different.

You can talk with death row. You can Google it, and you're met with a database of thousands of people who are on death row, who are looking to connect. Yeah, first one, death row pen pals, right at prisoner.com, for anyone who’s interested. You get to read their profiles. They have a photo and they have their story. Some of them admit to what they've done. Some saying, “I'm here for the wrong reasons, but I've turned to God.” That was it. I wrote a letter. This guy had an address. I just wrote a handwritten letter to this guy called

James, or Jay Lock. He was in there for a crime he didn't commit. Sounds like the A-team, by the way.

He just, I don't know, for whatever reason, he, out of the many of the profiles that I read, I spoke to this one guy, I read his and I thought, “Yeah, I'll do that.” I wrote him a letter. Two weeks later, he wrote a response, and I got it delivered to my place in Manly. It was handwritten by this guy. There was a template that he had drawn on each page and a story just saying, “Hey, I'd love to connect. Da, da, da, da, da.” I just wrote back. 12 months later, he invited me to visit him. Maybe that was maybe the timeline of from the moment I told Dave, that as soon as the company paid off to when I left, maybe it was about 12 months.

That was my first thing from that moment moving forward. I didn't know where to go in the world. All I knew is I wanted to go somewhere related to the list. He invited me to Oklahoma, to a place called McAlester, to his penitentiary. I thought, “Well, that'll do.” I bought a ticket to LA and then LA to Oklahoma. Got a rental car, and drove for two hours to McAlester. I think it's about two hours, and then visit Jay Lock in death row.

It sounds so bizarre and outrageous, and almost unlikely. I've got to tell you, it's the simplest thing I've ever done. I just applied myself. I'm not here to be a motivational speaker. I'm not on stage now. I'm just telling you, it was easy. It was easy. Things are so easy when you are very clear about what's important to you. That's the question that's relative, right? What is important to you? At these points, it was that. Followed by what happened then? I mean, whatever it was, I just look at my map and go, “That's what's happening next.” I would go and do it.

[11:35] LW: When you're doing these first, say dozen or so items on your list, were you thinking to yourself, “This may potentially get picked up by the media, so let me record what happens.” Were you taking these notes?

[11:53] ST: None at all. This was completely just personal. I wasn't even recording half of it. It wasn't like in this day and age now, where you have content creators and influencers. No, I’m just doing it. With that said, and this goes back to what I mentioned before, I wanted to raise money for charities. I've never done it before. I chose Camp Quality, which is an Australian-based charity that they help with kids with cancer. It's more detailed than that. I wish, I could give a better explanation, but I can't think of it offhand. Their PR team said, “Well, hey. Why don't we put a press release out there?” Because I guess, as a business, which it is, they’re wanting exposure. They said, “Why don't we pitch this as a story, a guy with a bucket list is raising money for kids with cancer.”

Of course, as soon as I did that, we got a response from Channel 7, a big network in Australia to do their morning breakfast show. I was on their breakfast show. Before I’ve even left Australia, having only achieved maybe 10 things, probably, including speed dating and what have you, I was talking about this goal. What I noticed, a couple of things here, what I noticed is because I went on TV, I wanted to raise $10,000 for Camp Quality. I can't remember what the actual figure was that I got to at the end of that day. Because of the TV interview, we raised a lot of money for Camp Quality in one day, and I raised it after then to $100,000, which we went and did. That was interesting. No, there was never any plan with it.

The one lesson that, again, wanting to be really open about what we're chatting about before, when I got on the show, I thought that they’d be asking me just about my list. The way that they framed the whole thing was, affected by the death of his best mate, Chris, Sebastian has gone on to create a bucket list to try and find happiness. I wasn't expecting that at all. The truth was, at that point, Chris and I weren’t best mates. We had just been very close through school.

Going back to that point of resistance, there was some resistance everywhere, one of Chris’s sisters didn't like that. I completely understand why. Before knowing that, of course, I finished the interview, I called his mom, who's wonderful. I said, “Look, I did this interview, and they asked me about Chris. They have framed the whole thing.” I asked, “Are you okay if that happens again, if I mentioned Chris's name?” I wasn't sure what to do. She said, “No. Not at all. Go and do it. Is what we see is that your story is his legacy.” That was her words exactly.

For me, I felt good, but I don't know if that was felt all the way through the family, or certainly with one person. Hey, it's a tough, sensitive topic, so no, no judgment, but that's the truth of that part.

[14:29] LW: Their whole thing was, you're making it sound like you and Chris were best friends, and you guys just –

[14:35] ST: Media beat up a story. They would have probably thought it was a shame that we weren't married, or whatever makes – whatever draws more emotion, whatever that story is to make it more emotionally evocative, so that people really buy into that five-minute story. That kind of thing.

[14:51] LW: Was that the interview that Mark saw?

[14:54] ST: No, no, no. That was years on. That was a very first interview before I left the country. I left. What I found, going back to your question is that I never did any of it to be seen, or to try and build a business. Or some people might see that as me either not telling the truth, or being incredibly stupid. It's neither of those. If I had to pick, it would be closer to the stupid one. I just did it purely for myself.

I found that media likes to follow me, wherever I went, I suddenly would end up in a newspaper, because someone I would meet in that area would generally go, “Oh, I know someone. This would be a great story.” That's how it started at first. Of course, some of it was documented. I found that I loved writing, from backpacking earlier on in my life. Instead of sending emails, block emails to everyone in my address book, I created a little blogging site, where I just put down stories. When I visited Jay Lock on death row, first thing I did, I wrote this long story about the whole experience, and it helped me process and understand it.

Friends would read it and they would share it with friends. That was what I was doing. I hitchhiked across America shortly-ish afterwards. That was the first time I ever tried to video anything. I had a camera with me and I just video and I thought, “Well, this might be cool in between my writing about it.” That was awful footage. My intention was to be happy. There are other people and their intention is fine, too. It was to go out there and film everything and create a site that immediately inspires, so they can do this and that. It's absolutely fine. It's just different, my way of thinking, certainly back then.

[16:24] LW: Just for the listener, some of the items included things like, going on a game show, which you did, playing a song that you wrote on stage, being homeless for a week, delivering a baby, obviously, getting married to a stranger. Kissing a celebrity. Stand-up comedy. You started writing down little comedy bits. You started doing all these little things that you could do initially.

Was there a point where you started getting coverage? You started to think to yourself proactively that, “Oh, this is something that the media could potentially be interested in. This could make things easier when I want to jump up to play make it.” Were you calling the media and notifying them beforehand?

[17:12] ST: No. As I said, the media would follow. It was always good. They've got more people following me on Facebook. What I would find is that the more people that followed me, the more people would offer to help me with my list. I saw that my list was now being seen by many people. I've of course learned along the way through my experience that people are fantastic. We're here to connect with each other. If I had an opportunity to help someone, I would. The same goes for anyone else with me. That's what was happening. That was the benefit I saw.

Number 100 was to write a book on my list. I wanted to write a kid's book about the boats and everything in Sydney Harbor. It's going to be the kids’ book. Ultimately, I got reached out to by somebody who wanted to help. That person happened to work for Random House, or Random House Penguin as they are now, and they wanted me to write a book about my story. They read the death row story on my blog and liked it so much, that they asked me to put together memoirs of my journey. That's how it worked out. Everything's been pretty organic.

There was a moment or two where someone would say to me, you should put out a press release about something you're doing. I think, I did it on one or two occasions. I met this guy called Dave Cornthwaite, who's a professional adventurer. He also does speaking, keynote speaking. He was coming at it from a business point of view. Let me qualify that. He is a complete adventurous soul, and he's great. He also has an entrepreneurial ride. He was doing what many people are doing now ahead of the time, which is fusing business and passion and adventure to help other people. That's what he was doing. He was making documentary, mini-documentaries, self-producing of him doing his adventures.

His first one, by the way, was skateboarding the length of Australia, the width of Australia, from Perth to Sydney, and then beyond. Anyway, so he's a known guy. That was my first inkling of, oh, people could do this and actually try and generate money, or something. That's not the direction I ended up taking anyway, but I saw it for the first time. Him and I decided to stand up, paddle across Lake Geneva. We were the first people to do it, we think. It was on my list, number 85, go on an adventure. That's what this was.

With that, I saw him send out press releases. He created a little mini-documentary for us. That was the first time I saw how it might work as a business. I still haven't gone down that route, but I started to see it. ESPN approached me. They wanted to do a documentary. Discovery Channel approached me, wanted to do a documentary. I have a show. I have a 26-episode show here in the US, a reality show that went on this platform called Go 90, which was a Verizon product, which is going to be like a Netflix equivalent. Got dissolved.

I don't know how these things happen. I mean, I do know, but on every occasion, I just got approached. People would say, “Hey, we heard about you. Would you like to do a thing?” That's a funny story. My first talk I ever gave in LA, I was approached by a guy called Keith from Defy Media, here in LA. He said, “We want to do a TV show on you. What would it be about?” I at that point, had started helping other people. I said, “Well, I think it should be about me helping people achieve their goals.” He said, “Okay.” Then I just forgot about it. I mean, this is just such a good example of me. I forgot about it.

I went home for a year. I came back to speak at the same event the year after. Keith was there. He said, “Where'd you go?” I said, “I just went home to Australia.” He said, “We want to make a show.” I said, “Oh, okay.” We made a show. All that to say that, yeah, there was never an intention, or strategy around the business side of it.

[20:24] LW: How are you making money? How are you paying your bills prior to all of that?

[20:27] ST: I think, I left with $8,000 or $9,000, something like that, and whittled that down really quickly. Then, I started using my credit card aggressively. Again, no financial knowledge, or no education around finances. I did that. My mom, she would pay the interest on my credit card. She wouldn't pay off debt, but she would pay the interest, which was so good of her. I eventually paid it back.

At the time, it just meant that I wasn't going into any more debt. I remember thinking, well, what's the credit card for? My answer was, well, it's for doing things you want to do. I wanted to do all these things. I was very happy using it. I was flying to wherever, without thinking, or care. What happened was that I got offered to write a book. The money I got was an advance for that, covered all that debt. I was able to pay my mom back and thank her, because she's the greatest human on the planet. Then a little bit more.

I started doing other things on my list. Then, I go back to Australia, and my book, which was now in circulation in Australia, and then it actually went into China. I forgot that it was China. China and Taiwan. I was generating a little bit of money. A little bit, but enough. Suddenly, people were now reading it that I got asked to do a talk at one point. A company in Australia had said, “Would you do a talk for us? I'd like my staff to hear your story.” I thought, “That's interesting.” I did that.

I've actually done one more talk at that point earlier on. I can talk about that, too. Anyway, I got paid for this talk. I got paid 500 bucks. I thought, “You are kidding me. That is phenomenal.” I did that. They liked it so much, they said, “We've actually got something like, 30 branches or more around Australia. We'd like you to talk to all of them.” I was like, “You're kidding. What? No way.” That's how it funded itself.

The other point, this is just a funny one and I'm jumping around so much, so I apologize to you and anyone who's listening. Number 36 on my list was walk across the country. Now, I chose France. I was halfway across France with a guy called Maddie, who I'd met working in a bar in Geneva, where I was living to try and learn French, number 42 on my list. We were halfway across, and I have $40 to my name. $40. By the way, I've been part of another documentary at this point, which my plan was to get across France in 14 days, and they were going to fly me to England for the premiere of this documentary, so just to give a bit of a timeframe.

Halfway across France, I had $40, Australian dollars to my name, and I didn't care. I thought, “Well, I'll be fine.” I checked, we were in this tiny, tiny town, a village in France. We walked through and I checked my emails, and Dave said, “Call me.” Dave, Tank, my business partner, if you will, for the inflatable movie screen business in Sydney, after Thorpey tried to screw us over. He said, “Call me. Someone wants to buy the business.” I called him and I had forgotten. I just didn't think anyone would want the business.

It turned out, someone wanted to buy it. I think, it was for $119,000. I was like, “No way. Really?” We split it 60/40. Dave argued that because he had been staying and working on the job, he should get 60. I said, well, he's my best mate. I was like, “Yeah, but I worked on it for two and a half years without you.” I don’t like confrontations, so we stayed at 60/40. For the record, about 12 months ago, me and Dave have been catching up and he said, “I think you're right about that, by the way.” Anyway, after paying capital gains, taxes, or whatever the other taxes were, I got my 40% of that amount, ended up being something like $12,000, or something. It was ridiculous. I'm really bad with figures. It was nothing.

Whatever it was, I was like, “This is amazing, because I only had $40 at the beginning of the day.” It all just worked out in some bumbling way. I will say, and I'll save this for later on if it pops up, there is something to be said for pursuing something that you're passionate about. Because things pop up, you seek out opportunities that you don't see before and things will show up. The world conspires to help you out. It's not really my world, the way I speak in interviews, or anything like that. In a spiritually led way, I feel that there's something looking after us all, if we're able to connect with something. I do believe there's something going on there.

[END]

That was Seb Terry, author of 100 Things. And to see how the rest of his story plays out, you want to check out our original episode, which is Episode 91 in the archive. And I recommend following Seb on the socials. He's got a very fun Instagram @Seb100things, that's S E B, the number100, the word things.

If you know anyone who's making the world a better place and they had some incredible plot twists in their life, please email me all of your guests recommendations at light@lightwatkins.com. 

My other ask is that you take a few seconds to leave a rating or review for the show. You always hear podcast hosts like me asking listeners like you for ratings. And that's because a lot of these guests will determine whether they're going to come on to the podcast based on how many ratings it has, what reviews it has. So it does make a huge difference. It's absolutely free. It only takes 10 seconds. All you do is you look at your device, you click on the name of the show, you scroll down past those first few episodes, and you'll see a space with five blank stars. Just tap the star on the right and you've left us a five-star rating. And if you are feeling generous, you want to go the extra mile, feel free to leave a review about the show as well. 

And don't forget you can watch these plot twist episodes on my YouTube channel. If you prefer to see what Seb looks like as he's sharing his story. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube as well.

And otherwise I will see you on Wednesday with the next long form conversation about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things to leave the world a better place. Until then, keep trusting your intuition. Keep following your heart. Keep leaning into those plot twists in your life. And if no one's told you recently that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you and have a fantastic weekend.