You've heard the idea that you're the average of the fivepeople you spend the most time with. Berrick Abramson has thought about that framework a lot and has come to believe it misses something.

On this episode of Living All In, Berrick sits with aquestion he's been carrying: not just who is in your circle, but what kind of life is underneath the word "more" for each of them. Are they chasing the same thing you're chasing? Are they even chasing anything at all or have they already found it?

He opens on a spoil island off the coast of Florida, bonfire burning, the kind of people around it you wouldn't have predicted from the outside. Doctors. Lawyers. Mechanics. A circus performer. A firefighter. And one question that kept surfacing: when he was in a hospital bed near death,these were the people who called.

From there, Berrick walks through the people who've shapedhis answer: Josh, Peter, Mike, and Lisa, whose words stopped him cold: "You are so talented, and more importantly, a good human — that's why people trust you to do big things." He reflects on the traded-day question from an earlier reel: "I traded today for one day of my life. Was it worth it?" and what changes when you have the right people around you whenyou ask it.

Berrick also names the distinction that matters to him: thedifference between someone he's grown from and someone he's simply grown away from. And he closes with a line that came from Carrie: two people using the same word, more, with completely different lives underneath it.

"I sacrificed one day chasing riches, and came homewith the riches of people."

Berrick Abramson and his wife Carrie have been watching ashow called The Last Ship — a series produced before COVID about a virus thatdecimates the population and the long fight to rebuild a nation. Carrie watchesit analytically. Berrick's the one on the couch next to her, quietly crying.

Not because it's sad fiction. Because it keeps hitting tooclose to something real.

In Episode 11 of Living All In, Berrick talks aboutsomething he's been carrying for a while — not a framework, not a philosophy,but a question about what kind of people we are to each other.

He goes back to September 11th, 2001. To a nation thatstopped everything and stood together — Jews in mosques, Muslims denouncing theattack, neighbors of every stripe checking on neighbors. To the proof that wehave been capable of choosing each other. And then to what we've let ourselvesbecome since.

But this episode isn't about politics. It's about a grocerystore manager in suburban Denver who didn't hesitate, didn't make a speech, andsent a woman home with a full cart and four words: pay it forward when you can.

It's about the shirt on his back. A woman crying in anairport security line. Trash on a beach. Middle school. A question he's beenanswering for forty years: if not me, then who?

We have been that country. The question is whether you'llanswer it when it's your turn.

Living All In is a podcast about building a lifeby design — not by default. Newepisodes drop Mondays

Everybody talks about discipline like it's one thing. Showup early. Make the bed. Do the workout.

That's not it. Or, that's not all of it.

In Episode 10 of Living All In, Berrick Abramson goes deeperthan the highlight-reel version of discipline, into the harder side nobody putson a poster. The discipline not to. Not to work when you said you'd rest. Notto let "let's just see how the week plays out" quietly eat acommitment you already made.

And then further still, to the six weeks after a serioushealth crisis that the doctors said would take six months to recover from. Thetwo-and-a-half-pound weights. The home nurse who fired him on day seven. Thehalf-mile added to the treadmill every single day. The five-hundredth skydivein week six, ostomy bag held in place with a neoprene belt.

That kind of discipline doesn't come from willpower. Itcomes from somewhere else.

This episode is about where.

Living All In is a podcast about building a life bydesign, not by default. New episodes drop Mondays.

Most people navigate their lives by a set of principles theynever consciously chose.

Inherited from parents. Absorbed from culture. Accumulatedthrough a thousand reasonable decisions that nobody ever stopped to examine.

In Episode 9 of Living All In, Berrick Abramson shares theCode he built instead: six pillars earned across fifty years of specific, hard experience. Where each one came from. What it cost to hold. And the question every listener should sit with when it's over: is your Code actually yours?

You've spent decades building a life that looks likesuccess. But here's the question worth sitting with: who actually chose it?

In this episode, I get honest about the scoreboard most ofus inherit without realizing it — and what it actually takes to examine it,question it, and start building your own.

This is the conversation for anyone who's winning by everyobjective measure and quietly wondering if it's the right game.

Most people spend thirty years building a life and never stop to ask if it's the one they actually wanted. In this episode, Berrick shares the real story behind a move across the country, a bet on a different kind of life, and the proof that a person who is genuinely happy shows up differently in every room that matters. If you've built everything you said you wanted and something still feels off, this one is for you.

Americans have a choice. It’s not left or right, fascism or socialism, globalism or isolationism or any of the labels thrown around. It’s much simpler. It’s start healing or keep dividing. It’s finding common ground or inflaming disagreements. It’s building up by coming together or burning down by tearing part. It’s decency or hate. And the decisions we make will determine whether we rise or fall.

This episode is all about making a Plan of Action to build the life you want across four key domains of life:
• Your Career, Job or Source(s) of income;
• Your Relationships;
• Your Health;
• Your Personal Growth & Happiness.
On previous episodes, we talked about aligning life to what matters most, defining your “why” or purpose, painting a high-def picture of the life you want in 15 years & backwards mapping to what that means life needs to look like in 5 years and in 1-2 years.
It’s time for action. It’s time to make that life happen. Starting with this episode, we take that picture of the life we dream of and we start bringing it to life. Every single day, we take a step forward. The getting ready to get ready part is over.
Now it’s time for laying out the plan of action, creating an accountability system for progress and for living. Now is the time we end the game of endless excuses and we begin a phase where every day is about taking action.