The impact of gratitude, serving others, embracing mortality, and living intentionally | Walter Green (#288 rebroadcast)

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
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Welcome to a special episode of The Drive. For this week's episode, and in light of Thanksgiving approaching, I wanted to re-broadcast my conversation with Walter Green on the impact of gratitude serving others and living intentionally. Walter's a philanthropist, a mentor, and he's an author of This Is the Moment and founder of the Say It Now movement. In this episode, we discuss the unlikely path that shaped Walter's worldview, embracing mortality, and the mindset of finishing strong as a compass for how to live life now, the power of intentionality, thinking in reverse, setting outcomes first, and learning to say no to protect what matters, prioritizing relationships over achievements and the small habits that build deep, authentic friendships, the origin story of Say It Now and why expressing gratitude publicly can change both giver and receiver. Walter's years-long journey at 70, visiting the 44 people who shaped his life and what he learned about meaning, memory, and legacy, finding peace at the end of life through service, gratitude, and purpose beyond oneself, and practicing ways to start simple prompts, living tributes, and resources for bringing the Say It Now movement into families, classrooms, and communities. I'd like to also point out that the Gratitude Express, which is a series of stories inspired by the Say It Now movement, is going to be coming out shortly, a book by Walter Green. And finally, I'll add one very personal anecdote here, which is that I'm incredibly grateful to Walter for the impact he had on my life personally. It was directly as a result of my friendship with Walter that I was fortunate enough to pay tribute to my father before he passed away this year. I, as a direct result of everything I learned from Walter, wrote what would have been a eulogy to him, but was able to read it to him six months before he died. And I am incredibly grateful for that. It slightly eased the pain of his loss and made me realize that at least in the final months of his life, there was nothing I left unsaid about my gratitude towards him and all he had done for me. So without further delay, I'd like you to enjoy my conversation with Walter Green, which again, has been an important part of my own journey. 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. Rick 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 Rick 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. 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** (4:28)
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 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, and with very high standards, so it was a real treat.