APU Careers & Learning Online Learning Online Teaching Lounge Podcast

This Summer, Start Your 100 List to Lead a Rich and Thriving Life

Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. HansenFaculty Director, School of Arts and Humanities

What are some important things you want to accomplish that will help you lead a thriving and rich life? In this episode, Dr. Bethanie Hansen inspires online teachers to take some time this summer to start a “100 List.” Learn how to think about creating this list of inspiring experiences that will bring richness to your life, how to align these items with your values, and what items can help uplift others, too.

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Dr. Bethanie Hansen: This podcast is for educators, academics and parents who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun. Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen. And I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.

Welcome To the Online Teaching Lounge. In today’s episode, we’re going to brainstorm some fun summer plans for the online educator. Not all online educators have summer vacations. If you work for a K-12 school district, perhaps you do have a couple of months where you might have a break from teaching.

Perhaps you’re regrouping after a difficult school year, where there were a lot of stops and starts and interruptions. Whatever the case, summer is a time when many of us traditionally think of rejuvenation. Going on a trip, doing something to rekindle the flame.

The area we’d like to think about today is creating a longer list that is not just for this summer. At the time of this recording, we’re heading into the summer of 2021, but this recording could be valuable to you any time.

We’re going to talk about your list of 100. Earlier today, I was at a brief conference, where Dr. Taniguchi, a BYU professor, was teaching a concept that he began at age 16 in his young life. And that was called a 100 list.

What’s a 100 List?

This 100 list was basically created so that he could list all of the things that he’d like to do to have a thriving life. You might’ve heard of a bucket list. It’s the things you would like to do before you die. Well, this is the opposite. This is a list of 100 things he wanted to do to have a rich and thriving life. Think about that. If we explore all the different things that we would like to have as part of our life, to give us solid experiences, help us keep growing, learning, stretching the boundaries, there might be a whole different set of things that we put on that list. Not quite the same as a bucket list, but maybe there are some overlaps there.

In this situation, I want to introduce you to Dr. Taniguchi. And what I learned from him, you can also find widely on the internet. This man has been chased by Mussai warriors in Tanzania. He has slept in snow caves to survive, swum through New Zealand caves to see glowing worms, stopped a bear from dragging his friend away in his sleeping bag.

He was a professor of experience, design and management, and there are so many things shared about him. Some other accomplishments he has attained are that he’s climbed the front of Yosemite’s half dome. He has paddled the Nile River. He has climbed to the summit of six of the tallest mountains in the world, and coached cross country skiers that were in the last five Olympic Winter Games. He’s from Hawaii. And he has a really remarkable life.

So when this man was 16 years old, he saw a picture in Life magazine, and the picture was a man holding up a list of 100 things he wanted to do before he died. That photo was taken, apparently, because that man had just done the last thing on the list.

The idea was that he started his own list, and it took him a long time to complete writing the list, not to do all the things on the list, but just to decide which 100 things to include. And long since that time, he has in fact accomplished all 100 things on his list. And I have some links to these sources on the podcast notes today. So please check them out.

In another space, he does show the list. And he has some really fascinating things on there. For example, some of the items that he has done that were on his list were to climb to the tallest mountains. He wanted to dip his toe in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Pacific Ocean, and various other places in the world. He wanted to visit all 50 states, learn another language, and a lot of other things.

So if you were to think about creating your own list, there are some rules that Dr. Taniguchi has developed to help you create such a thing. And those rules will really help you get started in deciding what should go on that list.

The first thing he suggests is that it’s a choice to decide to thrive in our lives. And thriving means we’re not just hanging in there, we’re not just enduring, but we’re having a rich and rewarding life. And we have some peak moments that we can really draw on throughout our lives.

As online educators, we do a lot of similar and repetitive things throughout the year. And sometimes those things can be very draining for us. Sometimes they can also be refreshing. But when we create options to help ourselves thrive, then we actually have experiences that perforate that sameness and bring highlights to the year, and to the life as a whole.

So think about what it would take for you to thrive. What kind of experiences you want to have. And then you find opportunities to prioritize those experiences. For example, if you were driving through South Dakota, and you had on your list of 100 that you want to see Mount Rushmore, then you would make it a point to stop there. And if you don’t have that on your list, you might not even think about it or know that it’s located on your drive somewhere.

So by putting things on this list intentionally, you’re going to be more likely to actually do those things. And who knows? Perhaps this summer as an online educator, you’re going to fit a few of those things on your list of 100 into your life.

Choose Items that Bring You Closer to Living Your Values

The second thing besides just simply deciding or choosing to thrive is knowing the values that govern your life. So one of the things Taniguchi says is, don’t put things that you want to try on your list. Don’t just put everything on there that you’re interested in trying, but put things that will actually bring you closer to living your values. And don’t put anything on your list that conflicts with your values, whatever those might be.

So you have to choose carefully and choose wisely, what will make your list of 100. You might come up with 20 or 30 great ideas, and then find the spaces on your paper difficult to fill. I’m curious about how far you’ll get. I started my list of 100 earlier today, and I got to about 35. So now I’m going to have to think about it and come back to that list.

But definitely, when I come to a break between classes or a break in my teaching, and I find that I do have time to get off, and do a trip, or learn something new, or try something new, I would really love to have some great ideas. So building this list of 100 is going to give me some of those ideas I can just look at and make plans for those things.

I talked to someone earlier today that said they had been to Norway and saw the Northern Lights there. That’s something I would definitely want to put on my list. And I’m sure there are many other things that will come to mind when other people mention them, and that I probably wouldn’t think of on my own, but really do interest me. Think about, wisely, what will help you have a thriving life and align with your values, and put those things on your list.

Once It’s On the List, It Stays on the List

Once you put something on your list, Taniguchi has a rule that you cannot take anything off your list. He says, if it was important to you at one point, that meant something to you, and it needs to continue to be important to you.

So one of the stories that this man has told, is that he had a client that he led up Denali, which is, I guess, the highest peak in North America. And the man had been diagnosed with terminal cancer months before the trip. And he almost canceled the trip. And he didn’t say anything about the cancer before the trip, so Dr. Taniguchi did not know that was the situation.

But the experience of hiking up that mountain really changed the man’s life. He got re-engaged, he got married, he finished his last cases at work, and he continued living vibrantly. And before that, when he got his diagnosis of cancer, he felt like giving up completely and he was disengaging from his life. That experience meant the world to him. And he accomplished quite a bit, and had a lot of life left before the end came for him.

So your list of 100 can be inspiring things that give you a life worth living. And it will make your life fascinating to others as well, as you share some of those stories. And it will also help you inspire yourself to keep going.

Add Items that Help Better Yourself and Uplifts Others

Some other tips about creating your list of 100 is to better yourself and uplift others. Each time you accomplish something on your list, you could ask yourself, will this make me a better person? And will it help me to uplift and have a positive effect on others?

So every time you’re going to spend time enriching or bettering yourself, it’s going to make you a better educator and a happier person. And you’re, of course, going to be better at all that you do. And you’re going to be able to be more satisfied with your life, because you have variety, and intense and challenging experiences, and things that you’re really pleased about that you have accomplished.

Add Things that are Outside Your Comfort Zone

Now, some things on your list should be some risks, like a real stretch. I’m not a person who is interested in putting Mount Everest on my list of 100, but maybe you are. Maybe you want to try to do something new that really is far outside your comfort zone.

For me, if I were to write on my list that I want to run a marathon, that would definitely be one of those risks. And I don’t have a whole lot of experience running, but I do think that would be a super fun thing to do. And I would like to add it to my list. And if you’re a person who does routinely run marathons, you can appreciate the fact that for someone who’s never done that, it sounds daunting and challenging and really out of my comfort zone.

And maybe there’s something new that you’d like to do. When I was younger, I would have put learning to ski on that list. And, yes, you can put things that you’ve already achieved in the past that are inspiring to you, that you have already done, that you want to include on the list. That is one of the rules that you can do. So I would love to put that on my list. I did learn how to downhill ski at one point.

And interestingly enough, as I’m talking to a group of educators here on the podcast, I want to share that in my first professional teaching position, I worked in the Marsh Valley School District in eastern Idaho. And one of the things they did over there was, they took the entire junior high to the ski mountain several times during the year, and they taught the kids how to ski.

So I had an opportunity as a teacher to go up there and be a beginner, because I knew nothing about skiing. And I’m really glad I did, because I had some great experiences, and it developed into a lifelong joy of alpine skiing that I shared with my family. And my husband, when I married him, had been a ski patrol or ski instructor, I forget which, but he’s an excellent black diamond downhill skier. So it was kind of helpful that I had at least checked out skiing and had an interest. And then we were able to raise our boys as skiers as well.

So you never know how something you put on this list of 100 things you’d like to do to have a life of thriving is going to enrich your life in even more ways by connecting you to other people, or maybe even creating entire family hobbies that everyone can enjoy.

So this summer, as you’re thinking about what kinds of things might enrich you as an online educator or give you fulfillment or even professional and personal growth, I want to encourage you to get started on your list of 100. To create that list of things that you want to strive to do over the next year, or 20 or 30 years, to have a thriving life and really create peak moments that are worthwhile.

Thank you for being with me here today to consider developing ourselves as people and as educators, and creating rich and thriving lives. I wish you all the best in creating that list of 100, and in your online teaching this coming week.

This is Dr. Bethanie Hansen, your host for the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. To share comments and requests for future episodes, please visit bethaniehansen.com/request. Best wishes this coming week in your online teaching journey.

Dr. Bethanie Hansen is the Associate Dean (Interim) in the School of Arts, Humanities and Education. She holds a B.M. in Music Education from Brigham Young University, a M.S. in Arts & Letters from Southern Oregon University and a DMA in Music Education from Boston University. She is also an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC). She is a Professor, coach, and teaching excellence strategist with 25 years of experience helping others achieve their goals.

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