The impact of gratitude, serving others, embracing mortality, and living intentionally | Walter Green

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
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My guest this week is Walter Green. Walter is a philanthropist, mentor to many and teacher. He's the founder of the Say It Now movement and the author of This Is the Moment, How One Man's Yearlong Journey Captured the Power of Extraordinary Gratitude. Walter is the former chairman and CEO of Harrison Conference Services, where he created the country's leading network of executive conference centers. But that's not really what we're here to talk about today. I met Walter about two years ago at an event that was curated by a very close friend of mine, Ric Elias, who's been a previous guest on the podcast. And the things that Walter spoke about that evening really stood out to me. And I said to him a little while after that, that I really wanted to sit down with him and share his story with all of you. So in the conversation today, we talk about his background and his upbringing and how it shaped him. We discuss coming to grips with death, having peace at the end of life and the mindset of finishing strong. We cover the value of time, the importance of saying no, focusing on relationships over success and why it's so important to focus on others instead of ourselves.
Walter also speaks about his Say It Now movement and why he believes it's so important that we say things to people that matter to us long before the end of life. In particular, this is something that really struck me.
This is obviously not a podcast that deals with a scientific topic, but nevertheless, it is a very important part of the emotional health and mental health journey that is equally important to many of the typical things that we discuss on this podcast. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Walter Green.
Hey, Walter, thank you so much for making the trip out to Austin from San Diego. It's been two years, about a year and a half since we met. For folks listening, we met at the home slash party of a very close mutual friend to both of us, Ric Elias, who's also been a guest on this podcast. And Ric did something very special for that two day event, which was really not a celebration of anything. It wasn't a birthday or anything like that. It was simply Ric deciding he wanted to bring a handful of his closest friends together for no reason other than to let us meet each other, which I thought was a very beautiful expression of friendship. And I suppose exactly as he planned, I am still in very close touch with the number of the people I met there, which I think means it was mission accomplished. Did you have a similar experience?

**Walter Green** (3:40)
First, I thought that's perhaps one's greatest gift. If you can give the gift of a special relationship to people you care about, there is no more beautiful gift. And he structured that in an incredible way, providing entertainment, but mostly the opportunity where there was no introduction needed.
Everybody knew each other because we all knew Ric. I have heard about the impact of some of the words that I shared. Ric has also shared what's going on with others, so I have been in touch with a few. It's very special when you can, at this stage of my life, to connect with people that have been qualified, discriminated, selected, with very high standards, so it was a real treat.

**Peter Attia** (4:26)
It wasn't that we got to sit with everybody in an intimate setting, because we were only there for basically 30 hours, so I don't know how many meals that turned into, but clearly the most interesting discussions, or at least the closest discussions took place over meals.