The 2007 movie “Bucket List,” starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson and written by Justin Zackham, popularized the term. In the movie, two terminally ill cancer patients race around to experience things they have always dreamed of doing and had never done.
The movie catalyzed a movement of sorts with people around the world choosing to take action now to follow dreams big and small. Bucketlist.org reports more than 5 million posted entries.
This mass fad response may be part of why I have resisted creating one. Plus, I’ve been too busy to sit around and dream about all the things I might love to do someday. And what if I don’t do the things on my bucket list? Wouldn’t I be even more disappointed than if I never made the list to begin with?
Mark Twain, the famous humorist, essayist and novelist once wrote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
So, the movie may have coined the term, but it didn’t invent the concept. Turns out, you don’t need to make a list to have a bucket list. The truth is, if you’re willing to tap into your heart’s desires, you have a bucket list inside of you waiting to be lived (more on why tapping into your heart’s desires is not frivolous in a future blog). A bucket list is more than just a good time waiting to happen. It’s a grand adventure - waiting for you to simply to choose it. It’s the willingness to risk making your heart’s deepest desires explicit, and to take action to live them. It about prioritizing, without judgement, your heart’s desires - big or small.
Visiting Alcatraz has been on my “bucket list” for 40 years.
My grandparents lived in Piedmont, California. You could see Alcatraz from their patio. As a kid, I’d gaze off the island and marvel at the mystery of it. What was on that island? What was life like for people on Alcatraz? Was it possible to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco?
I had heard the legends, of course. Nobody ever escaped Alcatraz. If the sharks didn’t get you, the cold water and strong currents would. The sheer mystique of it, veiled in fog and memorialized in the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie, “Escape from Alcatraz,” captivated my 9 year-old self.
Sadly, I had never visited “the Rock” though – until my colleagues Jan and Steve Bouch, founders of the Justice Coaching Center, send me a text “Wanna go to Alcatraz???”
“HECK YEAH!!!” was my gut’s instant response. We were planning an upcoming trip for training, and Alcatraz was on their bucket list too.
Choosing to actualize your bucket list – whether it’s skydiving or visiting Alcatraz – just may make you a better leader. It is a choice to become more intimate with you, which is linked with higher trust. Living your bucket list, however big or small, is an important part of creating a life that counts. Chasing even the smallest dreams, like our visit to Alcatraz, makes life – and you – more interesting and a lot more fun. Psychotherapist Phillipa Perry says at their best, bucket lists teach us “how to be open with our own vulnerabilities so that we can form connections with other human beings.”
Neuroscience is now proving what spiritual and wisdom traditions have known for millennia - when you take aligned action and “follow your heart” with your bucket list, that seemingly frivolous adventure just may change you, and make you happier. What possibilities could your bucket list create for you?
The timing of our “Escape to Alcatraz” proved fortuitous. In the days after our visit, Jan and I would become among the first certified practitioners in the U.S. of a ground-breaking, powerful coaching technique that helps leaders make wiser decisions and take more effective action by congruently harnessing head-, heart-, and gut- neurological powerhouses of insight. Now scientifically acknowledged as distinct, interacting “brains,” we were both blown away by the better, richer and more ease-filled decision-making that shows up when you take even a few moments to access and align these three ‘wisdom’ centers in the body. We can’t wait to introduce people to this simple yet powerful set of tools and we’ll share more on the science and techniques we have learned in a later post.
Our “Escape to Alcatraz” bucket-list-bonanza gave me first-hand exposure to vividly activating all of these “brain” centers. My heart pounded with excitement and anticipation as we boarded the Alcatraz ferry and taking our first steps on that spooky legendary island. Walking the cell blocks of Alcatraz, I felt a heavy sadness. I viscerally felt sensations of vulnerability, fear and isolation in my gut walking through the cells and past solitary confinement. My heart lightened seeing the ecological habitat that is burgeoning on the island, and the care with which the island is now maintained. My mind whirred creatively with questions about possibilities for different models of justice. Experiencing those three “brain centers” fully alive and congruent will likely be part of why I will remember Alcatraz as a highlight in my life.
I also discovered that when you take action from these three wisdom centers, a little magic may even show up:
On the day of our Alcatraz visit, we were graced with an encounter with living history. Now in his eighties, Bill Baker is one of the last living former inmates of Alcatraz. He was on “the Rock” signing books that day. Mr. Baker had always desired to write and his successful book chronicles his experiences at Alcatraz and in life.
We weren’t the only ones living a bucket list.
Wanna visit Alcatraz? Check out our vlog!
- Read the NPR feature story on Bill Baker and the poignant follow up interview with the journalist, Laura Sullivan
- Wondering if those three guys did escape Alcatraz?
- Bill Baker said most of the sharks in the Bay were friendly, except for last year’s Great White Shark in San Francisco Bay, off the coast of Alcatraz