A life unlimited | Ian Usher | TEDxVienna

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED conferences.
Armed with a list of 100 lifetime goals, and a self-imposed timeframe of 100 weeks, Ian embarked on what could truly be described as the journey of a lifetime -- a global adventure spanning six continents, two years, and almost every emotion.
Throughout his amazing journey, Ian has experienced the terrible lows of disappointment, loneliness, and despair but also the amazing highs of achievement, happiness, and love, which gives him a unique and inspirational outlook on life.

Ian Usher is a traveller, adventurer, writer and speaker currently based on a small island off the Caribbean coast of Panama. He was born in 1963 and spent his early years in Barnard Castle in the north east of England, before graduating with a teaching degree.

I believe I was once asked
the best question in the world.

It's a question that changed the way
I thought about my life at the time

and it's a question
that has continued to cause

changes and adjustments
in my life, even to this day.

I plan to ask that very same question
of all of you today.

I was invited here to talk
about living an unlimited lifestyle.

What do we mean by an unlimited lifestyle?

I guess for me, that just means
living a life without compromise,

a life where I choose what I want to do

and where day by day,
I pick how I want to live my life.

But to talk about an unlimited lifestyle,

I guess we need to look briefly
at the nature of limits,

and the limits that we all perceive
on the life that we want to live.

I believe those limits
come from three different areas:

first of all, ourself,

secondly, our peer group,

and thirdly from society itself.

How many times have you caught yourself
making excuses for not doing something

that you really want to do?

"I don't have enough time,"

"I don't have enough money,"

or "I have family commitments."

Our peer group can hold us back too.

Many of us feel the pressure of family

who, perhaps, want us
to follow in the family footsteps,

and be a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist,
or perhaps take over the family farm.

Or friends who don't want us
to leave to follow our dreams,

and will miss us if we leave home.

Society, too, places expectations upon us.

We're expected to go to school,
get good grades, follow on to university,

start a career, climb the career ladder,
get a mortgage, get married,

buy the car and the carpets,
and all the trappings that go with it.

We then have to start - if we have kids -
saving for their college fund, and so on.

Perhaps 40 or 45 years later,

you get to retire
and that's when you get to enjoy

the goals and the dreams
you've always held on to.

I don't know [if] for me,
happiness lies down that road.

How do you overcome those limits?

For me, as I said, I was once asked

what I believe the best question
in the world is,

and I'm going to ask
that question of you today.

I'm also going to give you
an extra bonus question

which has also changed
the way that I live my life.

But before I do that
- we will get to those questions -

I'd like to give you just a little bit
of background and a bit of an idea

of where those questions have taken me.

I was born in the north of England,
I had a fairly easy childhood,

I did OK at school, and I went to college
and got a teaching degree.

The subject I studied
was outdoor education,

and I loved the outdoor lifestyle.

I learned how to teach climbing,
canoeing, caving, and a bit of skiing,

and use those skills to teach other people
communication, teamwork, cooperation,

that type of thing.

In my 20s I managed to actually hold down
a job for just over two years,

which was a personal record
for quite a long time.

However, a taste for adventure
and a need for some excitement

led me to setting up my own business
on the north-east coast of England,

and along with a business partner
I set up a jet ski hire company.

Probably not the soundest
of business decisions,

the north east coast of England
isn't the warmest place,

and summer's pretty short there.

But we did have
five awesome summer seasons,

and it was a job that I really enjoyed,
or a business that I really enjoyed.

It was during that time
that I met my wife-to-be.

We married, and we eventually moved...

After five years of the jet ski business.

we sold the business
and my wife and I moved to Australia.

She had an Australian mother
and dual nationality,

which made it very easy for us
once we were married.

I loved Australia,
and in Australia I came across...

I found my new passion,
my new hobby, which was skydiving.

I've always been a bit
of an adrenaline junkie,

and enjoyed the adventure sports,
and adventure activities,

but skydiving for me
really upped the ante.

It really is, as one friend put it,
"the grandfather of all extreme sports,"

I think.

But in Australia,
life had different plans for me,

life wasn't to continue its happy course,

and I discovered that my wife
didn't see our marriage continuing,

as far as I was concerned,
its happy trajectory at the time.

And I also discovered
she'd actually implemented

a couple of changes of personnel
within the marriage.

(Laughter)

It wasn't the happiest time of my life.

It really was a dark period,
and it was a deep hole

that I had to dig myself out of.

I decided that some changes
were in order,

and what I did was
gave up the job I was doing,

and spurred on by that reckless move,
I did some truck driving lessons.

My goal was to get into the lucrative
mining industry in Australia.

I packed some clothes into my car,
and I drove out into the desert

to a little mining town called Kalgoorlie,

where within 48 hours,

I found a place to live
and a job driving this machine.

It's called a slag hauler,

and it takes waste molten metal
from a refining plant up to a tip head.

It wasn't exactly the job
I wanted, but it paid well,

and it gave me the credibility
and experience that I needed

to get the job that I really did want,

which was driving the big monster trucks
in the open-cut gold mines.

(Laughter)

This became my new office for a while.

What a machine that is!

But during that period, I still felt
I hadn't completed the moving on

from the separation
and the ultimate divorce.

I was still living in a house
that was a left-over asset

- I'd moved back to Perth,

and was living in a house
that was a left-over asset

from part of my life that had finished.

The furniture and all the belongings
in the house were also reminders

of that part of my life,

and I decided I needed
to get rid of it all.

Perhaps traveling was
what I wanted to do next,

so I needed to sell the house.

I also needed to get rid of the car,
and the motorbike, and the jet-ski,

and all the furniture that we'd accrued,

all of which were reminders
of that past life that was now gone.

Driving around in the mines

I had plenty of time
to consider what I would do,

and I decided perhaps I could sell
the house as a furnished package.

Perhaps I could include the car,

and the motorbike,
and all the other assets, too.

And it came to me

- it was almost like
a blinding flash of inspiration -

perhaps if I packaged
the whole thing together,

I could add in an introduction
to my circle of friends,

perhaps a trial period at the job, too,

and I could sell a complete life.

And that's exactly what I did.

With a talented friend, we put together
a website, "A life for sale,"

and another friend
wrote a press release.

He said: "Maybe if we're lucky, Ian,

we might get you
a little slot in the local paper,

and if we're really lucky,

we might get you
a piece on local radio too."

Well, we far exceeded his expectations.

I appeared on TV in Australia,
in America, in England.

I was on radio shows
in Canada, and Columbia,

Israel, and Iceland, New Zealand.

The world over.
It was an absolutely crazy time.

I appeared in newspaper articles
and magazines, too,

and I even had Hollywood producers
ringing me up, saying:

"We're interested in your story,
we're fascinated by what you're doing."

(Laughter)

I had one telephone call from a producer,
I believe they were at Universal Studios,

and she said: "Ian!
What you're doing is amazing.

We see this as a Tom Hanks
type of Rom-com."

(Laughter)

It just came straight out of my mouth,
without thinking; I said:

"No, no, no. I rather saw
George Clooney playing me."

(Laughter)

And without picking up
a hint of the humor

that I thought was
in my voice, she said:

"Yep. Maybe we could make that happen."

(Laughter)

And I thought: "I've waded
way out of my depth here now."

It was during the run up to the auction
that the bonus question stems from.

In interviews I was asked so often:

"Ian, what will you do
once you've sold your life?"

And I didn't really have an answer.

I had a vague idea of travel,

but it was something
I wanted to answer for myself.

And I started to think about

what I would like to do
after the sale had completed.

I started making lists
of things I wanted to do

and anything really
that excited me went on that list.

And that's the key to the bonus question.

I've been re-reading a book
by a guy called Tim Ferriss,

called "The four hour work week",

I don't know if any of you
are familiar with it?

Tim Ferriss is a guy who certainly knows

something about living
an unlimited lifestyle.

At one point in the book,
he asks a seemingly simple question:

"What is the opposite of happiness?"

Hands up anyone who has
the word 'sadness' in mind now.

Yeah, I see a few hands.

"No," says Tim. No, no.

Happiness and sadness
are just two sides of the same coin.

Much like love and hate
are two sides of the same coin, too.

The opposite of love, or of hate,

is complete indifference.

Much the same with happiness and sadness.

The opposite of either
is complete boredom.

And that's the key, for me,
to finding happiness.

I needed to find what excited me.

And that's what I've found
that makes me happy.

It doesn't have to be
the adrenaline sports,

the type of thing I do.

It doesn't have to be skydiving,
or running with bulls,

or swimming with whales.

It can be something
like learning a new language,

or raising money for charity,
or working with the homeless.

Whatever it is for you that excites you.

That, I believe, is
what's going to make you happy.

But the key is you have to do
something about that as well.

So I started creating a list
of all the things I wanted to do,

and as the list approached
100, I thought:

"That's exactly
what I'm going to do next."

I made a list of 100 goals, and I needed
a timeline in which to achieve those.

100 months? A bit too long, I think.
100 days? Far too short.

Ahh. 100 weeks. Just right.

And I set off, after the auction finished,

to try and do all of the things
I'd ever wanted to do.

I did skydive. I actually did it naked.

(Laughter)

I did run with the bulls in Pamplona.

It was the scariest thing
I've ever done in my life,

apart from perhaps today!

And I did dive with whales too.

I also learned a new language, I now know
how to speak a bit of Spanish.

I raised some money for charity,

and I worked in a soup kitchen
on Christmas Day too.

I went to the Carnival in Rio,
I trekked to Everest Base Camp,

and I walked on the Great Wall of China.

All big ticket items
on anybody's bucket list.

But some of the things
were more personal, too.

I learned to ride a unicycle,

I had a hawk land on my hand
and eat some meat,

and I met one of my personal
heroes, Richard Branson.

I don't tell you all of this,
that I did all of this, to brag.

I'm just a normal guy.
I used to be a truck driver.

But what I did was I set myself
some challenging goals,

a tight timeline, and I stepped
out of my comfort zone.

And I challenge you to do the same.

Find out what it is that excites you,
and take that first step.

That's the key to it.
The first step is the hardest one.

The second step is a little bit easier
than that, the third step easier again.

It's like skydiving.
The first jump is absolutely terrifying.

I have very little memory
of what happened on the first jump.

The second jump becomes easier,
and the third jump easier still.

I'm at almost 200 jumps now.

The thrill is still there,
but the terror has gone.

Almost. (Laughter)

The skydiving brings me back, I guess,
to "The best question in the world."

It was my skydiving instructor
in my early days of skydiving

that asked me that question.

His name was Mossy,

and we were at the bar on
one Saturday night at the skydive club,

where I believe more skydiving knowledge
is learned than in any classroom session.

Mossy said to me: "Ian,
I'm going to ask you a question,

and then I'm going to the toilet.

You've got two minutes, and I want
an answer when I get back."

"OK," I said. I was always intrigued
by what Mossy had to say.

He'd become a bit of a mentor to me,
and he always had some interesting stuff.

And this is what he asked me.

"Ian," he said. "What is
your life's mission statement?"

What is your life's mission statement?

I don't know if you're familiar with
the phrase "mission statement",

but it's used by companies
and businesses worldwide,

to distill down the company ethos,

the meaning of why
a company is in business

into one or two succinct sentences.

Mossy went off to the bathroom,
and he came back, and when he returned

he said: "Ian, do you know why
I asked you that question?"

And I said, "Of course I do. I know
why you asked me that.

My life is more important
to me than any business,

and if a business deserves
a mission statement,

surely my life deserves
a mission statement too."

It doesn't really matter
what my answer was,

but it came to me fairly quickly
and fairly easily.

And thinking about that
has changed the course of my life.

And I challenge you
to ask yourself the same question.

I won't walk away, give you two minutes,
come back, and ask for some answers,

but I would like to hear some later on.

Catch me later on, I'll be around
for the rest of the day,

or even email me a couple of answers;
I'd love to hear what you have to say.

The results of that question
have been quite startling.

At the end of two years of travel,
I'd achieved 93 of my 100 goals.

I actually achieved a 94th one,
by writing a book about what I did.

The movie rights were actually bought
by Walt Disney Pictures, and as yet,

I don't know whether it's going to be
George Clooney or Tom Hanks that plays me.

I'm still waiting to find out.

With Disney's money, what did I do?
I did the sensible thing.

I went an bought my own little private
Caribbean island, of course!

And the adventure has continued from then.

Just last week,

we had a UK documentary film crew
come and spend a week on the island

filming our lifestyle
and the off-grid life that we live there.

One of the things that they did was
assisted with building a helipad,

and now I have my own helipad
on my own private Caribbean island.

(Laughter)

I don't have the helicopter yet though.

(Laughter)

That's the next goal on the list.

But in the spirit
of "If you build it, they will come,"

on "The island of dreams"
a helicopter did turn up.

The film crew brought in a helicopter,
we got to film the island from the air,

and they took me up. I got five minutes,

and I got to see
my own place from the air.

That's my little piece of paradise

just off the coast of Panama
in the Caribbean.

And this adventure really, for me,

has just come from asking myself
those two questions,

and I challenge you to do the same.

Let's take a quick look at the questions.

The best question in the world:
What is your life's mission statement?

What is your life about?

What is it that you are
supposed to be doing?

And the free bonus question:
What is it that excites you?

What is your passion?

What's there, deep in your heart,
that you really want to do?

Take that first step. I challenge you.

Take that first step,
and once you do that,

the second step is easier.

The third step's easier again.

Life's supposed to be an adventure.

Life's supposed to be filled
with excitement and experience.

I hope that by answering
these two questions for yourself,

you figure out what your passion is,
what it is that you're meant to be doing.

And I hope by answering these questions,

you too can learn
how to live an unlimited life.

Thank you.

(Applause)